It’s Shaz who fills in the blanks for me when she arrives. “Bobby Tatlock, fucking hell you’ve lost a lot of weight haven’t you?”
The guy beams at Shaz and rises to his feet, gives her a hug. This startles Shaz, and she gives me a funny look over his shoulder. She breaks away, holds him at arm’s length, and looks him up and down. She grins. “You’re looking good there, Tatty.”
Fatty Tatty! No wonder I didn’t recognise the cunt, he’s about a third of the size he was when we were at school. He must have gained a lot of confidence too, there’s no way he would’ve been brave enough to do anything like that back then. He always just sat at the back of the class, never saying a word to anyone. He was probably the only lad in the entire fucking school who never got to finger Shaz in the nearby woods at some point or other too. In fact she probably would’ve fucking decked him if he ever so much as looked at her when we were at school. But here she is now, all over him like he’s a fucking stud or something.
“You getting the drinks in then, Tatty?” Shaz asks. She sits down and gives me a wink.
Tatty nods. “Um… yeah, sure. What do you want?”
“Double Pernod for me.”
Tatty looks at me and raises his head. I drain my glass and ask for another Guinness. He wanders off to the bar and I turn to Shaz.
“What’s with the fucking Pernod? You usually drink lager.”
She shrugs. “That’s just when I’m paying for it. I always go for Pernod when someone else is picking up the tab.”
Tatty comes back from the bar with our drinks and puts them down in the middle of the table.
“Cheers Tatty,” Shaz says. She picks up her double Pernod and downs it in one gulp. She puts the empty glass down and looks up at Tatty expectantly.
Like a daft cunt, he says, “You want another one of those?” Shaz nods, and off he goes again. I shake my head at Shaz. Shaz laughs.
“Fuck it, why not?” she says. “He did offer, it’s not like I had to twist his fucking arm.”
“Poor kid, he’s probably as skint as we are.”
I tell Shaz about the posh cunts in The Black Swan, and like I expected she wants to go down there and smack the fuck out of them.
I shake my head. “Nah, they’ll be long gone by now.”
“Who’s that then?” Tatty says, back with another Pernod for Shaz. She sips this one, so Tatty sits down next to her. His wallet gives a sigh of relief.
I shrug. “Nobody important. But that reminds me,” I say to Shaz, “I met a guy the other day.”
Shaz sits up and leans over the table. “Oh yeah? What’s he like?”
“He’s a skinhead, but he seems quite nice.”
“A fucking skinhead? Can’t see him having much money then.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s got a car, so he must be pretty well off, yeah? Petrol costs a fucking bomb.”
Shaz’s eyes widen. “A car? Fuck me, he must be loaded. So what does he do for a living?”
“Dunno, I didn’t ask. He’s taking me out on Saturday, to some fight or something.”
“What about The Meat Market?”
My eyes flick toward Tatty, but he doesn’t seem to have picked up on anything. I give Shaz a look that I hope says ‘watch what you fucking say while he’s here’ and take a sip of Guinness before I reply.
“We’ll have to skip it this week, yeah?”
Shaz folds her arms and glares at me.
* * *
It’s closing time and Shaz is pissed out of her fucking head, slumped over the table with her head resting on her arms. She got Tatty buying her drinks all night like a daft cunt, fuck knows what was going on in his head. He probably thought it was the start of some big fucking romance or something, but Shaz played him good and proper, using him as a source of free Pernod. She hardly even spoke to the guy, except when she was telling him she needed another drink. I hope he’s not on the dole, he must’ve spent at least twenty-five quid on her tonight. He fucked off at half-ten, said he needed to catch the last bus. Shaz didn’t even say goodbye.
I nudge Shaz’s arm with my elbow. She looks up at me as if she doesn’t know where the fuck she is. “Whu..?” she says. She sits up and rubs her eyes. She looks around for her drink, but the landlord’s already whisked it away along with all the empty glasses we’ve been accumulating through the night. “What the fuck time is it?”
I take out my phone and stare at the screen long enough to get it into focus. “Ten past twelve.”
Shaz frowns and shakes her head, like she’s trying to get her thoughts sorted into the right order. The landlord glares at us, it won’t be long before he comes over to turf us out. The old guys at the table by the door have got fresh drinks though, so it looks like they get preferential treatment. They’re arguing about some band or other I’ve never heard of, whether they were racist or not. It seems to be getting quite heated, with a lot of fists banging down on the table top.
“Fuck me,” Shaz says, “I feel rough as fuck.”
“Yeah well, it’s time to get fucked off home. You coming?”
Shaz nods, and pulls herself up to her feet with the help of the table. “I need a piss first, you coming?”
“Nah, don’t need one. I’ll wait here for you.”
Shaz staggers into the toilet and I load up Angry Robots while I wait. But I can’t get my fingers coordinated enough to play it properly, so I give up and put the phone back in my pocket.
“We off then?” I say when Shaz gets back. She nods, and we stagger to the door together.
“Night,” the landlord says from the bar. Shaz raises her hand and waves. I nod at him. One day I’ll tell him who my mum is, see if he remembers her. Not tonight though.
I look at the three old-timers sat by the door, envious as fuck as I watch them drink their lager. “Fuck off Don, you nazi bastard,” one shouts. His nose is bent out of shape and he’s got scars all over his face. He looks a right fucking cunt, someone even I wouldn’t want to mess with, but the guy he’s arguing with doesn’t back down. “Fucking commie,” I hear him reply as we walk through the door. The landlord locks and bolts it behind us.
Shaz bends over and pukes into the gutter. A couple of passers-by point and laugh when the liquid vomit bounces off the road and splatters up her legs. Shaz doesn’t seem to notice, which is just as well for the passers-by because if she did they wouldn’t be laughing for long when she smacked them in their mouths.
I wait for Shaz to finish spewing, and take out my phone to order a taxi. While I’m dialling the number Shaz announces she’s fucking starving and wants some chips. Now that she mentions it I wouldn’t mind some myself. There’s a chip shop just down the road, at the other side of the market, so we make our way there, arm in arm, leaning against each other for support.
There’s the usual long queue you always get at fast food joints when everyone gets turfed out of the pubs at the same time and has the exact same idea as everyone else. Someone points at one of the goldfish swimming around in a tank by the side of the till and says he wants that one in batter. The old woman in a white hat and overalls behind the counter smiles politely, as if she’s never heard that one before.
I buy a tray of chips, Shaz gets chips and gravy. She gets a free plastic spoon with little prongs on the end of it, I have to make do with a flimsy wooden fork. We’re walking out of the shop eating our chips when I hear a voice from the other side of the road.
“I say Tarquin, isn’t that your rough totty over there?”
“It certainly is, Nigel. And look, she even has a friend for you. What do you say we go over and give them a tug?”
I look over, it’s two of those posh cunts from The Black Swan. I ignore them and carry on walking, looking for a wall to sit on while I have my supper.
“Hey Brenda, wait up.”
I hear footsteps running behind me and I stop and spin toward them. Shaz must have heard them as well because she turns to face them too.
“Who’s this
pair of cunts then?” Shaz asks.
The two ponces slow their pace when they see we’re waiting for them.
“Two of them posh fuckers from The Black Swan,” I tell Shaz.
I look around to see how many cameras are covering the area around the chip shop. There’s a few private ones bolted to the walls of nearby shops and houses, but those are only interested in their own security so they won’t have the right angle to take in the whole street. There’s no police cameras, it’s too far away from the town centre for those and it’s a low-rent area of town anyway so they probably don’t care about any of the people who live or work here.
“Here, hold my chips for me,” I say, and hand Shaz my polystyrene chip tray. She balances it in the palm of her free hand and grins at me.
“Don’t take too long about it, my chips are going cold,” she says.
I nod and walk toward Tarquin.
“Hello Brenda, couldn’t keep away from us, could you?” Tarquin says, a smug grin on his face. He points at Shaz. “Who’s your cute friend over there?”
I close the gap between us in two strides, my fists clenched and ready. He doesn’t see it coming. One second he’s standing there grinning at me, the next he’s lying on the floor clutching his mouth and looking up at me in shock. His mate stares at me wide-eyed as if he can’t believe what’s just happened. You’d think smarmy bastards like these two would be used to people punching their fucking faces in by now.
I straddle Tarquin and drop down onto his stomach with my knees. His head jerks up and his face goes purple as he struggles for breath. I lean forward and smack him in the mouth again a couple of times. His head jerks to one side and blood flies out of his mouth. There’s no loose teeth in the blood though, which is a shame. I clasp my hands together and give him a hammer-blow in the ear and he cries out with this fucking pathetic-sounding wail like a kicked puppy.
I feel something wet on my ankles and stand up to see what it is. The dirty fucking bastard has only gone and fucking pissed on me hasn’t he. Well that does it, yeah? I’d just about vented my fucking rage on the cunt, now it’s boiling up inside me again. I lift my boot and stamp down on his leg. He cries out again and rolls himself into a ball. I kick him up the arse a few times and his body jerks forward each time. Shaz joins me, a tray of chips held in each hand, and kicks out at the hands covering the bastard’s face. She grins at me while she kicks away at him, and I stand back to watch.
I remember his mate, and spin around to face him. He’s trembling by the side of the road, like it’s the middle of fucking winter or something. His eyes are wide and staring, and when I walk toward him he backs away. I lunge forward and he screams like a fucking girl in a 1970s horror movie. I grab him round the waist, bend my head down, and push him over. He falls flat on his arse, I land on top of him, and his head cracks back onto the pavement with a dull thud. I raise my fists to pummel his face, but he’s already unconscious. I give him a smack in the mouth anyway, something for him to remember me by, and head back to Shaz to get my chips. All this exercise has made me fucking starving.
I seem to have drawn a bit of a crowd. People are staring, open-mouthed like strangled goldfish. One of them seems to be enjoying the spectacle though, and he gives me a round of applause. I smile, and bow in his direction. My tray of chips is perched on the kerb, next to Shaz’s chips and gravy. I walk over and pick them up, stuff a handful in my mouth. I’m too hungry to bother with the little wooden fork.
Shaz rolls Tarquin onto his back and checks his pockets. She pulls out a wallet and hands it to me. I flip it open with one hand, it’s stuffed full of money and credit cards. I put it in my pocket and get another handful of chips. Shaz walks over to Nigel, pulls out his wallet and waves it at me, grinning like she’s just won the jackpot.
“We’d best get fucked off,” I say, “one of those cunts will have probably called the coppers by now.”
Shaz looks at the small crowd of wide-eyed gawpers outside the chip shop. She shrugs. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
We cut through an alleyway round the back of the chip shop to get off the main road, and take a few turns at random until we end up in a run-down residential area. I pull out my phone and order a taxi, giving the name of the road. The bored-sounding Asian guy on the other end of the phone says it’ll be here in fifteen minutes.
We sit on a wall and share out the money while we wait. The credit cards are no use to us, they’re too easy to trace if you use them, so we drop them down the drain along with the wallets.
I can hear sirens in the distance. I feel sorry for anyone who’s daft enough to wait around to give a statement to the police. Their reward for being a good citizen will be a night in the cells while they sober up, followed by relentless grilling in the early hours of the morning when their hangover is at its worst. If they’ve got any sense they will have scarpered soon after me and Shaz did.
A car pulls up and a young Asian guy looks out at us. “You order mini-cab?” he asks.
I nod, and we jump down off the wall and pile into the back seat, laughing. We’ve both got lots of extra cash in our pockets when all we were expecting was a good piss up. So it’s been a pretty good night out, all things considered.
5
The closer it gets to Saturday the more excited I get. I’ve never really been out on a proper date with a bloke before, at least not with one I’ve never even fucked. Yeah, I’ve had guys coming back for second helpings, taking me to the cinema to live out their fantasy of shagging someone on the back row; or getting naked on top of a multi-story car park or whatever. I’ve also had guys take me to the pub to show off their latest conquest to their mates. But never anything as romantic as an underground fight in a barn on the outskirts of Homefirth. Yeah, I found out where it is the other night, it took me about ten fucking minutes of looking through Google Maps on my phone. So much for top secret locations, yeah?
Shaz phoned me last night, and tried to talk me out of going to the fight. She made me feel really fucking guilty about not going to The Meat Market with her. Said she needed me to be there, and she couldn’t do it by herself. I told her with all the money we’ve made this week it wouldn’t really matter if we skipped it just this once, and promised I’d go with her next week. Then Shaz asked if she could come to the fight with me and Dave instead. I told her it was invite only and that I’d see if I could get her an invite for the next one. I don’t know if Dave would mind a plus-one or not, the truth is I just don’t want Shaz to be there. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to fucking bits, but she’s not the best of company when you’re out with a guy. She tends to show off and command all their attention, while I just get sidelined into the background.
Saturday morning I wake up early to birds twittering somewhere. I can hear dad snoring away when I walk past his room to the toilet, so I bang down the wooden seat as loud as I can just to pay him back for all the times he’s woke me up in the past. I go downstairs in my bunny slippers and nightie trying to make as much noise as possible, and switch on the TV. It’s tuned to some boring twaddle, so I change it to one of the music channels and turn up the volume so I can hear it from the kitchen while I have my breakfast.
I had to do a shop the other day, dad couldn’t be bothered as usual, so I’ve stocked the fridge with all the things I like. I take out a peach yoghurt and rip the lid off, lick it clean while I get a spoon from the drawer.
I smile to myself when I hear dad thumping around upstairs. I expect him to be in a mood when he comes down, and I prepare myself for a blazing row, but he seems more miserable than anything else. He turns down the volume on the TV, but doesn’t change the channel.
In the absence of an argument I make him a mug of tea and take it in to him. He grunts when I hand it to him, his gaze riveted on the TV. There’s some new boy-band prancing around half-naked on the screen, miming along to the words of the song. Dad’s cheeks are wet, and I watch a tear roll down one. I get him an antihistamine tablet from the kitch
en and he pops it in his mouth without looking at it.
“Are you okay, dad?”
He looks up at me, cradling the mug in both hands. “It’s been nearly a week now and we’ve still not heard nothing.”
“I’m sure she’s okay. The police would’ve told us by now if anything had happened to her.”
“Yeah but she’s not here is she? And you’re out at work all day, and then out all hours at night. I’m just stuck here by myself.”
“Maybe she just needs a bit of time by herself?”
“What for?”
“Dunno. Don’t we all, sometimes?”
I must admit, I’m starting to get a bit worried about mum too. I can understand her being fed up with dad, he’s not exactly easy to live with, but she could’ve at least let me know she was okay. The police weren’t interested when I reported her missing. No real surprise there. They said they would be in touch if anything turned up, which I took to mean if they found any dead bodies matching her description. But since mum was an adult there wasn’t much else they could do, they said. In other words, they couldn’t be fucking bothered.
I make dad a few sandwiches for later, wrap them in cling-film for him so they’ll stay fresh for when he wants them, then go upstairs to get dressed. I take out all my best outfits and lay them down on the bed, trying to decide which one to wear for tonight. What’s the dress code for an underground fight in a barn? Nothing too fancy, I’d guess, but I don’t want to look like a complete skank. I settle on a short denim skirt and a black top, and put all the other clothes back in the wardrobe. I hang the skirt and top I’ve chosen on the outside of the wardrobe door so I can change into them later, and put on my tracksuit and trainers.
“Abby, can you make me something to eat?” dad says when he hears me coming down the stairs. There’s some gardening programme on the TV, so he must’ve got bored with the music. Fuck knows why he chose gardening though, all we’ve got is a concrete yard full of junk. You couldn’t even grow weeds out there.
Punk and Skinhead Novels Box Set Page 21
