“He was in a fucking coma, you cunt.”
“Ah, okay, sorry mate. So what were up with him, like? Car crash or something?”
“Some cunt twatted him on the way home a few weeks ago.”
Mike looked at Colin. Colin looked away.
“So, um,” Mike said, “has he said who it was that smacked him then?”
Trog shook his head slowly, maintaining eye contact with Mike. “No, not yet. He says he can’t remember anything, but the doctor says that’s just temporary and it’ll all come back to him over the next few weeks.”
“I’m just off to the bog,” Mike announced, and rose to his feet.
Trog watched him go, then turned to Colin. “So where’s that scruffy mate of yours, Stinky or whatever his name is?”
“Stiggy? Fuck knows. I haven’t seen him since the Cockney Upstarts gig. I went round to his flat the other week but he wasn’t there. The Rasta next door said he hadn’t seen him either.”
“He’s probably off his fucking head on glue somewhere,” Brian said. “You know what he’s like.”
Colin shrugged. “Yeah, probably. I just wish he’d get in touch though. I nearly shit meself when I heard about that bloke they found in Shefferham with his head stoved in. I were sure that was Stiggy until they showed a photo of him on the news. I thought them fucking skinheads must have caught up with him or something.” He looked at Trog. “No offence, like,” he added.
“None taken,” Trog said. “They weren’t skinheads anyway, they were fucking boneheads.”
“What’s the difference?” Twiglet asked.
Trog looked at the half-caste in silence for a few seconds before replying. “Boneheads are fucking Nazis.”
Twiglet snorted. “What, and skinheads aren’t?”
“Nah, are they fuck.”
Born to Run started playing on the pub’s jukebox as Mike returned from the toilet and went to the bar. Twiglet groaned and shook his head. “Oh, fuck off!”
“No, straight up,” Trog said. “Your proper skinheads don’t give a fuck about all that Hitler bollocks. We love our country too much for that. Anyway, I’m off.” He turned to Brian and patted him on the back. “Good to see you out and about again, anyway. If you want to come down to The Black Bull later I’ll introduce you to the rest of the lads.”
Brian nodded. “Yeah, I might do one day. Not tonight though, I’m meeting me bird in here in a bit, then we’re off down to The Juggler’s Rest to see a band.”
“Yeah?” Trog said, grinning. “Well give her one for me. And enjoy your fucking hippy music.”
Twiglet and Mike were singing as Trog left. They raised their beer glasses and clashed them together.
“Scum like us, maybe we don’t give a fu-uck!”
* * *
“Lager, Trog?”
“Yeah, cheers Mandy.” Trog looked over at a group of skinheads and raised his hand to them.
“Good news about Ian,” Mandy said as she pulled his lager.
“Yeah,” Trog said, smiling. “He’s gonna be fucking ugly for a while though, until they fix his face up. But the way them nurses are fussing over him he’s loving every fucking minute of it.”
Trog pulled out his wallet to pay for the drink. Mandy shook her head. “No, don’t worry about it. This one’s on me. So how did you get on in court the other day?”
“Fifty quid fine and thirty-six hours attendance centre.”
“Attendance centre? What’s that then?”
Trog shrugged. “Dunno, some new bollocks they’ve come up with. I have to go to this place in Shefferham every Saturday afternoon for the next ten weeks.”
“Oh,” Mandy said, looking down. “Do you have to go this weekend?”
“Yeah. They said if I miss any they’ll add an extra five hours on top of the ones I miss, as well as another fine.”
“That’s a shame. There’s a Ska festival on at Cleethorpes this weekend, I thought you might want to come with me? We could get a room in a bed and breakfast, my treat.” She leaned her elbows on the bar and smiled across at him, her chin cradled in her hands.
Trog closed his eyes and ran his hand over the stubble on the back of his head. “I should really go to this attendance centre thing,” he said, avoiding Mandy’s gaze.
“You could go there next weekend instead, I’m sure they won’t mind. Go on, it’ll be fucking brilliant. I haven’t been to anything like that for years. We wouldn’t need to spend the whole weekend at the festival, there’s other stuff we could do. And it’ll be a right laugh, there’ll be skins from all over the country there. It’ll be just like the old days.”
Trog frowned, then nodded his head. “Yeah, fuck it. They’ll have to do without me this week. I’ll tell them I’m sick or something.”
Mandy jumped up and down, clapping her hands together, and squealed in excitement. She reached across the bar and grabbed Trog by the neck with both hands, pulled him close, and hugged him.
* * *
Colin, Brian, Becky and Kaz were in The Juggler’s Rest watching the band set up their equipment when Stiggy walked through the door with a short-haired girl in a baggy Discharge T-shirt.
“Stiggy!” Colin shouted. “Where the fuck have you been? And what’s with the fucking beard?”
Stiggy grinned and raised a hand. He went to the bar for drinks, then swaggered over to their table.
“All right, Col?” Stiggy said. “You remember Sally, right?”
Colin looked at the short-haired girl standing by Stiggy’s side.
“All right,” she said, nodding.
It took Colin a while to recognise her at first, because she had cut off her pink fringe and the rest of her hair was starting to grow out. It was the bottle of Babycham in her hand that clinched it.
“Er, yeah. All right, Sally.”
“I brung your record,” Stiggy said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a twelve inch album. “I thought it were shite at first, but it sort of grows on you after a while.”
Colin took the record and flipped it over to look at the front cover. With everything that had happened he had forgot all about lending it to Stiggy.
“Cheers, Stiggy. So how did you know we’d be in here?”
Stiggy shrugged. “Friday, innit? Where else would you be?”
“So where have you been then?”
“Here and there.”
Brian drained his glass and rose to his feet. “Anyone want anything from the bar?”
Kaz frowned. “Should you be drinking that much in your condition?”
Brian groaned. “Don’t you start as well. I’ve had me mam fussing round me ever since I got out of hospital. I’ve only had a few pints, it’s not like I’m going to get smashed out of my head and start a fight with a gang of skinheads.” He looked at Stiggy as he spoke. Stiggy’s face reddened.
“Yeah well,” Stiggy said. “That’s all sorted now. We—” Sally looked sharply at Stiggy and nudged him in the ribs. Stiggy looked away and took a sip from his cider. He sat down opposite Colin and cradled the glass in his hand. “Look, the thing is, we’re getting off in the morning. There’s some people after us, so we’re moving away.”
“What, for good?” Colin asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you going, like?” Brian asked.
Stiggy opened his mouth to speak, but Sally got in first. “Manchester.”
Colin frowned. “What the fuck’s in Manchester?”
Stiggy looked at Sally, then shrugged. “No idea, I’ve never been. But I reckon it’s a big city with loads of people, so it’ll be easy to lose ourselves there.”
“Blimey,” Brian said. “Fucking Manchester, eh? Well good luck with it, yeah?”
Stiggy nodded. “Cheers Brian. That means a lot.”
“You’ll keep in touch though?” Colin asked. “Send me your address when you get sorted so we can all come down and visit?”
“Yeah, of course I will,” Stiggy said, looking away.
“Piss off,” Stiggy said with a wide grin.
Skinhead Away
1
Trog felt the bed lurch to one side with a screech of rusty bedsprings, then bounce back up as Mandy climbed out. He moaned, still only half awake, and rolled over to occupy the space she had vacated. It was warm, and still carried her scent. Trog smiled and clutched the pillow, then drew it toward himself imagining it was Mandy as he breathed in the musky aroma. His eyes flickered open just in time to see Mandy bent over before him, picking up her bra and knickers from the floor. Trog grinned, suddenly wide awake.
“Fuck me, what a sight to wake up to.”
Mandy turned and smiled down at him as she clipped her bra on back to front around her waist.
“Go back to sleep, it’s still early.”
Mandy spun the bra around and lifted the cups over her breasts, then shuffled her arms through the shoulder straps. Trog yawned and stretched out his arms, enjoying the view.
“Why, what time is it?” he asked.
“Just gone six.”
“What? Well what are you doing up then? Get back in here.”
Trog pulled back a corner of the bedcovers and looked up at Mandy expectantly. When she didn’t respond he patted the mattress next to him, sending up a small cloud of dust.
Mandy sat down at the bottom of the bed, setting the springs off creaking again, and manoeuvred her feet into her knickers. She stood up and bent down slowly, giving Trog another quick flash before she pulled them up and snapped them into place around her waist.
“I can’t sleep, I’m too excited,” she said.
“Yeah well, you’re not the only one after that performance. Anyway, who said anything about sleeping?”
Mandy turned to face him. Her eyes lingered on Trog’s erection poking up through the bed covers and she smiled.
“Didn’t you get enough of that last night?”
“Does it look like it?”
“Yeah well, you’ll have to wait. I want to try on some clothes for Cleethorpes. I haven’t worn my skinhead gear for years now, and I need to check it still fits.”
Trog ran his hands across the short stubble over his crown and clasped them together behind his head. He propped himself up on a pillow to get a better view of Mandy posing before the full-length mirror on her wardrobe door. She was brushing out her feather-cut, the only part of the skinhead look she still kept from her youth.
“What made you give it up?” Trog asked.
Mandy glanced quizzically at Trog’s reflection in the mirror while she continued brushing. “Give what up?”
“Your skinhead gear.”
“You don’t think I’m too old?”
“Nah, don’t be daft. You’re only, what, twenny-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Yeah well, same difference. Anyway, you know what they say, you’re only as old as the man you feel.”
Mandy laughed. She put the hair brush down on a nearby dressing table and picked up a small cordless battery operated shaver. She flicked it on, and it buzzed in her hand like an angry wasp.
“So how old does that make me then?”
Trog’s face reddened. He had assumed Mandy knew how old he was, and hoped his answer wouldn’t put her off him. It had started out as a bit of a laugh when Mandy had first come onto him in the Black Bull, following a bust up with his girlfriend. Trog had been egged on by his mates, who taunted him that he would never be able to pull a fit old bird like Mandy. But over the few weeks they had been together he had grown quite fond of her, and didn’t want it to end just yet.
“Nineteen,” he said. He looked down at his toes and wiggled them under the bedcovers, then looked back up at Mandy to check her reaction.
Mandy’s eyes widened as she stared at him through the mirror. After a short pause, she shrugged and looked away.
“Put some music on, yeah? But not too loud, these walls are paper-thin and I don’t want the old couple in the next flat complaining to the landlord again. We probably kept them awake half the night as it is.”
Trog smiled to himself as the memories flooded into his mind. Mandy was certainly an energetic lover, and it was a toss up between which made the most noise, the rusty bed springs or Mandy’s yells and squeals.
It had been the first night Trog had slept over at Mandy’s bedsit, and it had been her idea for him to stay the night. It would mean they could make an early start for the trip to Cleethorpes, she had said. Not that Trog needed any convincing. He still couldn’t believe his luck that Mandy had chosen him out of all the other skinheads who frequented The Black Bull. It wasn’t as if he was anything special to look at.
He peeled back the bed covers and sat up, feeling self-conscious about his naked body in the cold light of day. He was a bit overweight, he knew that, with the beginnings of a beer belly threatening to take over his physique. But what he was embarrassed about the most was his lack of height. At just over five foot tall, he was shorter than everyone he knew – including Mandy, though she herself was only a few inches taller.
But Trog would never let his insecurity over his height show in public. To everyone else who knew him, and certainly to those who didn’t, he was a cock-sure skinhead who took no shit from anyone, and was always the first into battle when any trouble kicked off.
He spun his legs out of bed and pushed down on his penis with the palm of his hand, but his raging hard-on refused to go away. Watching the rear view of Mandy in her underwear as the shaver buzzed over the side of her head didn’t help. With a sigh, he pulled on his underpants, stretching the fabric out at the front to fit his manhood inside. He located his bleached jeans on the floor and struggled into them, then reached down for the attached pair of red braces and pulled them up over his naked chest.
“After you with that shaver, yeah?” Trog said. He walked toward a battered old turntable in the centre of the dressing table and thumbed through Mandy’s collection of singles, all old 45s by bands he had never heard of before.
“Haven’t you got any Cockney Upstarts?” he asked with a frown.
“You know I only like the old stuff,” Mandy said without looking away from the mirror.
“So what do you want me to put on then?”
“I don’t mind, really. You decide.”
Trog looked through the singles again. There was nothing of interest among the plain brown cardboard sleeves, so he turned his attention to a small collection of albums propped up against one of the legs of the dressing table. One with a photo of a group of skinheads posing by a brick wall caught his eye, and he slipped it out of its dog-eared sleeve. He put the record on the turntable and slid across the starting switch with his thumb, then sat back down on the bed while the record player clicked and whirred into action. The record popped and crackled like frying bacon as it began to play.
“Watta-watta-watta,” someone sang, and a slow ska beat started up.
Mandy squealed with delight. Her hips swayed in time to the music as she shaved herself. Trog folded his arms and watched, smiling. It was worth putting up with the awful music if this was the effect it had on her.
Mandy switched off the shaver and spun around gracefully like a ballet dancer. She held the shaver like a microphone and sang along to the record as she made her way slowly toward Trog. She ran her hand over his head, coming to rest on the back of his neck, and held it there. She thumbed on the shaver and smiled. Trog gazed up at her and smiled back. Mandy put the shaver to Trog’s scalp and started to shave him, moving the implement in straight lines over the surface of his head.
Trog’s spine tingled under the vibrations of the shaver and he let out an involuntary shiver. He felt an immense urge to reach out and grab Mandy, to draw her toward him and pull her onto the bed for a quick shag. He reached out, slipped an arm around her waist, and ran his fingers up her back. Mandy shud
dered and bit her lip, but continued shaving him. When Trog’s fingers strayed down and slipped inside her knickers, caressing the apex of her buttocks, she sidestepped him and turned her attention to the back of his head.
When she finished, Mandy switched off the shaver and slid off its plastic guard. She blew short hairs from the blades, then put the shaver down on the floor by her feet. Trog reached out for her again, but Mandy was quicker. She placed a hand on his forehead and pushed him to a prone position on the bed, then climbed on top of him, setting off a new symphony of creaking bedsprings.
* * *
Trog handed a suitcase to the taxi driver and watched him toss it into the boot of the car. Without a word, the driver climbed into the cab and drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. He looked out at Trog and Mandy standing on the pavement, and made a point of looking at his watch. Trog opened the back door of the taxi and gestured for Mandy to get in first, then slid himself in beside her.
After almost an hour of trying on different clothes and then discarding them, Mandy had settled on a black and white Ben Sherman plaid shirt and a short denim mini-skirt to show off the black fishnet stockings she wore beneath it. Her red braces hung down, their loops extending a few inches below the hem of her skirt, and from a strap around her wrist hung an old Praktika compact camera.
After finally choosing what to wear for the journey, Mandy had then spent another forty-five minutes deciding what else to take with her, and filled a suitcase to bursting point despite Trog’s protestations that they were only going for two days. Trog, meanwhile, only had the clothes he was wearing and a change of underpants and an extra shirt. Anything else he might need, he had said, he would be able to buy while he was there.
“Where to, guv?” the taxi driver asked. He pulled out without indicating.
“Train station, mate,” Trog said.
“Going anywhere nice?”
“Cleethorpes,” Mandy said. “There’s a ska festival on, we’re going to that.”
“Oh yeah? I quite like that Madness meself, driving in me car and all that. Well you’ve picked a good day for it, judging by the weather.”
Punk and Skinhead Novels Box Set Page 10
