Billy Rags

by Ted Lewis

  I took my sweater off and threw it at the spikes until they caught in the wool. I began to pull myself up. But the sweater started to tear. I couldn’t trust my weight on it. Tommy was leaning over the edge of the roof, looking down at me.

  “Tommy,” I said, “double the sweater.”

  Tommy didn’t move. He just kept looking down at me. Every time a whistle blew or a walkie-talkie crackled on Tommy’s head would flick in the direction of the sound.

  I thought: he’s going to leave me.

  “Double it, Tommy,” I said.

  Then he leant forward and took the sweater off the spikes and twisted it into a rope and lay down and hung the sweater over the edge. I grabbed hold and scrambled up until I could get a hold of the spikes. Tommy straightened up and began to move away. I couldn’t seem to lever myself over the spikes the way Tommy had done. I was too heavy. Tommy was out of sight now. In my desperation to get over the spikes one of them cut into my hand and sank into the flesh. Pain flashed up my arm. I almost let go.

  “Tommy,” I shouted.

  Tommy’s voice came from somewhere on the roof-top.

  “Come on, Billy.”

  “I’m fucked on the spikes.”

  There was a silence. Then Tommy appeared back at the edge. I laughed, as though everything was some big joke.

  “I’ve clobbered my hand,” I said.

  Tommy leant forward and grabbed my shoulder and pulled me over on to the roof.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he said. “Let’s move.”

  We took off on the edge of the roof, along a concrete drainage system that led straight to the section of wall without the barbed wire. Away to our left there was a complex of peaked tile roofing. We got to the wall. From where we’d approached it, the top was only eight feet above us. We scrambled up it like monkeys and looked down over the other side.

  We were overlooking a thirty-foot drop down on to the road that ran round the nick. Beyond the road was a patch of open common. But there were about twenty screws scattered about at the bottom of the wall.

  Even though we drew straight back one of the screws spotted us.

  “There’s one of them.”

  Tommy and I looked at each other.

  “What do you reckon?” I said.

  “Don’t know, Billy.”

  Everything was ashes in my mouth. The muscles in Tommy’s face were slack and his eyes were full of tears.

  “We can’t drop from here,” Tommy said.

  I looked back at the complex of tiled roofs.

  “I’m going that way, Tommy,” I said. “Coming?”

  Tommy didn’t move. Screws were rushing about outside the wall.

  “Tommy?”

  Nothing.

  I scrambled across the roofs, away from where the screws were shouting. I reached the edge. I was only twenty feet off the ground. The tiled roof I was overlooking finished up about ten feet above the ground.

  Ten feet. All I had to do was to slide down the tiled roof and I was out.

  Everything was very quiet. Light from curtained windows fell softly on the back gardens. The faraway sound of the city rustled in the night air. I stayed where I was for a while, taking stock.

  To my left, the cobbled street disappeared, cut out of sight by the buildings that supported the roof complex. But although I couldn’t see, I knew that that way the road must lead back towards the nick, to the main gate. To my right, where the last garden was, the road made a right-angled turn beside the garden and then disappeared out of sight beyond the last house.

  That was the way I had to go.

  I lay there for a little while longer, listening. The nick could have been a thousand miles away: behind me all was silence. I decided to move.

  I pulled myself up and straddled the roof. Then I froze. Footsteps. Coming from the direction of the nick, clattering up into the night air from the cobbled road. I looked down. Screws. About fifteen of them. All bunched up, running towards the end of the gardens where the road turned sharp left.

  I stayed where I was. A perfect silhouette against the night sky. But not one of them looked up. They rounded the corner and disappeared behind the end house. This was the time to make my descent, in the shadow of their noise, to cover any racket I might make. I swung my other leg over the roof, gripped the ridging and let my body pendulum down against the tiles. Then I let go. I slid the rest of the way down the roof. Then there was empty space. For a second, I was in free fall, touching nothing. Then the ground, soft earth jarring through my whole body. I toppled and rolled the fall and then I was still, my face sideways in the damp tickling grass. I moved my fingers and felt the earth and the wetness of the grass. I breathed in and the clean moist smell of outside filled my brain.

  Then I pressed my hands against the earth and stood up and walked to the edge of the cobbled road. The sound of the screws had gone now. I looked to my left, back towards the end of the nick. Nothing. I turned to my right and took the same route as the screws. When I got to the last house, I turned left, still going the same way as the screws had gone. But over on the right there was a T-junction. I turned into this, never looking to either side of me, just straight ahead.

  I was really hitting it now. The road was recent. Ahead of me, it ran over a hump back bridge. Beyond the bridge, a well-lit street, intersecting the road I was on.

  To my left, a blank wall.

  To my right, a police station.

  The illuminated sign jutted out from the wall, police. They were all in there, typing their reports. No idea that Billy Cracken was standing outside in the dark a few yards away. Now I knew I’d made it. I began to run towards the bridge.

  I crossed the bridge. Behind me it was still dead. I slowed. In front of me were the bright lights of the intersection. A single-decker bus slowed down to cross the road I was on before it turned up towards a shopping centre that I could now see to my left. If I’d had any money I’d have hopped on it. But the bus crossed the road and picked up speed and ground its way up towards the shopping centre. A cold wind stirred the puddles and shredded the sound of the bus’s grinding gears. Then the intersection was quiet again.

  I ran across the intersection and made for the pavement and took off the way the bus had come. About twenty yards ahead of me was another road, turning off left, which would put me back on the same direction as the one I’d taken from the nick.

  But between me and this turning, a young man wearing a blazer was standing by the edge of the pavement. He’d been watching me since I’d crossed the intersection, as if he knew something was up. I kept running towards him. He moved to step in front of me. I thought for a moment that he was going to make a grab for me. I could have punched holes in him but that wasn’t the point: so far I’d got away sweet and I wanted it kept that way. I kept going, my eyes on his eyes all the way. When I reached him he stepped to one side, one foot in the gutter. I turned my head as I passed him so that I could still keep eyeball contact with him. Neither of us said anything. There was just the sound of my footsteps and the billowing of the night wind.

  Then I reached the side road and turned left. Now I was completely out of sight of the intersection.

  This new road climbed narrowly upwards, shop-fronted on both sides. And there were people in it. But I guessed from the gloom at the far end of the road that it was leading me away from the town centre. So I kept on running, past the betting shop and the Boots and the Co-op and the pub and past the staring faces of the people until there were no more people and no more lights, to where the shops fell away into the darkness. And to my right, even darker than the road, a common. I cut into its erasing shadow and slowed to a walk.

  I was on a dirt path that led diagonally across the common. Ahead the night-black silhouette of a church with a
sprawling graveyard. To my right, the beginning of a line of trees that joined the path further ahead of me. It was nice not to have to run, to feel secure. But best of all was the openness, the freeness, the limitless sky and the shuddering wind.

  I looked back to the road. A car was pulling up at the edge of the common. Coming from the direction I’d come from. The car stopped. Nothing happened. Then the doors opened. Men got out wearing dark blue uniforms. They stood by the car, looking into the darkness of the common.

  I ran. Straight for the sanctuary of the trees. The surging power of my run soothed away the alarm. This was what fitness was all about. Not competing for medals or prizes but for your life. As I ran I felt unbeatable. I flew along on the wind. Nobody was going to take me back now.

  I reached the trees. Their dark protection closed around me. I smiled to myself as I pushed forward in the blackness.

  Then, suddenly, I was treading air. Mug, I thought. You fucking mug. Then I hit ground again and I started to roll, over and over, flattening saplings and bushes until I crashed into a big tree and slithered to a stop.

  I lay there in the blackness, cursing.

  I didn’t feel any pain. I knew I’d injured my wrist from the way I’d fallen, but when you break something in the course of being shocked by something else, the pain sometimes waits a little while before coming. I moved my body slightly. Nothing. If there had been, the movement would have let in the pain. I moved my legs. Again, nothing. I sighed relief.

  Then I realised I’d lost a shoe. I began cursing again. I rolled over on to my knees and swept the ground all around me. It was useless. I couldn’t even see a hand in front of my face. Fuck it, fuck it. I’d rather have broken my wrist.

  I slowly became aware of the sound of water behind me. I stood up. Water lapping on mud. The river. I walked to the edge of the water and forced my eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness.

  The river was about twenty-five yards wide at this point. On the other side of the river the bank was dark and tree-lined, just like the side I was on, but beyond the trees were the lights of houses winking a hundred yards back from the bank. No sounds of search parties. But behind me, on my side, foliage shifted and branches crackled.

  I kicked off my other shoe and slowly walked into the water, making no sound. Then I chested forward and launched myself in a silent breast stroke. The middle of the river felt very open and exposed but I made the other bank without any scream going up. I crawled about ten yards up the bank and into the trees and sat and listened. Everything was quiet again.

  Now the whole balance had changed. Wet clothes and no shoes meant I had no chance of passing in the street. God alone knew when I’d be able to make the phone call. For the next few hours all I could do was keep out of the way.

  After a couple of minutes I heard the occasional shouts and barks and the flashing torches of the search party as it splashed about on the other side of the river. Now and then a duck would go up and that was all the luck they were going to get. I went up the rest of the bank and set about finding my hidey-hole.

  Beyond the trees was a complex of gardens crisscrossed with paths, like allotments, only neater, more floral, stretching up as far as the row of window-lit houses. The houses were all terraced, no gaps, so I found myself a nice bush to crawl under and lay there massaging my clothes with the palms of my hands to try and get rid of some of the damp.

  Rain began to fall again, heavy and determined, slapping down the leaves of the bush I was under. At irregular intervals I could hear groups of young people arriving at the houses, singing, shouting, slamming doors, switching lights on and off and generally creating a racket. I lay there for a good hour, listening to the goings on, hating all the noise-makers for being what they were, free and young and full of future. But gradually the noise died as the arrivals got fewer and fewer and soon I was able to hear different sounds, the sounds of searchers going through the gardens. I crawled from under the bush and made for the houses. Most of the lights were out now. I picked a back yard with less illumination than the rest and slipped through the back yard gate and closed it behind me. The yard was small, about fifteen feet long by twenty feet wide. I got into a corner and pressed myself against the wall so that the outhouse guttering would give me some protection from the rain. Upstairs in the house some students were moving about getting ready for bed. The light from their upstairs window fell in a bright square in the yard, but where I was my dark clothes sank into the shadows. Another hour must have gone by. Then the downstairs light came on and the back door opened. An old boy came out and went over to a dustbin which was only six foot away from me. He lifted the lid and slid some rubbish into the bin. If I’d moved there’d have been no chance. He was facing directly towards me. And of course the shivers were never more eager to dance through my muscles than at that particular moment. The old boy put the lid back but it slipped down between the dustbin and the fencing. The old boy bent forward and fumbled about down the side of the bin. Finally he got a proper grip on the lid and fished it up and clanged it down on top of the bin. Then he went back inside the house and closed the door. I decided to move. All I needed was the alarm to go up and all the search parties would be concentrated together round the river bank and I’d have no chance. So I went through the yard gate and back into the gardens and found another bush and lay down again until by my reckoning it was about eleven o’clock, near the graveyard hour.

  It had stopped raining. Now the moon was up.

  I picked my way back down to the river and walked along the bank in the direction I’d been following before I’d had my swim. On both sides of the river was beautiful landscape with trees casting long shadows over the rolling lawns. I must have gone for almost a mile when the scenery abruptly changed. Ahead of me was a riverside industrial estate, all wire netting and sodium lighting. One way round it was to move inland and make it back into the streets. Which in my present state was suicide. I stood at the river’s edge and looked at the water. The current was running the way I wanted to go. Depending on my fitness, there was a chance I could swim most of the way out. And there’s nothing like testing the limits of your fitness, I told myself.

  I waded back into the water. This time the cold was much worse. It hit me like the coldness of a swift-running tap. I went farther in and lunged forward into a swim. My skin felt as though I was sliding over iced razor blades. I kept telling myself that soon I’d get used to it, but my body wasn’t listening.

  I swam past a half-submerged pipe. A long tailed rat was sitting on the end, its fur spiked by the wet. The rat watched me as I swam by, curious but unafraid.

  The cold got worse. It was blanketing my strength. No use. I had to give it up. Any farther and I’d be good for sod all. I veered right and crawled out of the water.

  I’d got out by a piece of derelict ground, the remains of a demolished warehouse. The chasms of former cellars pitted the wasteland. This wasteland was bounded on three sides by the backs of Victorian warehouses. The fourth boundary was the water. There was no way out except back the way I’d come.

  I sat down on the ground and stripped off my clothes and wrung them out. Then I picked up handfuls of dirt and rubbed the dirt all over my body, trying to soak up the damp and the cold. Across the river I could see the red neon of a cinema clock rising above the skyline. It was a quarter to twelve.

  I walked up and down at the water’s edge, trying to warm my body so that my brain would un-freeze. One thing was for sure. I wasn’t going back in the river again. And I wasn’t going trotting around the town at this time of night either. When the streets were empty the law had eyes the bigger to see you with. And in any case I had to have some daylight to see if there was any way out of the wasteland.

  I put my clothes on and clambered down into one of the cellars. I found a brick alcove and sat down, my back to the wall. The only thing I could do was to wait for the morni
ng.

  The night was endless. Sleep was out because of the cold. To pass the time I counted out every quarter of an hour in seconds and then when I thought a quarter of an hour had passed I’d get up at the cellar’s edge and look across at the cinema clock to see how far out I was. This kept me going for a couple of hours. For the rest of the time I roamed about in the cellar pit, trying to walk off the aches that the cold had put in my muscles.

  Then the first deep blue of daylight began to colour the sky. When the blue had turned to grey I got out of my hole and did a reccy round the backs of the warehouses to see if there was a way out.

  At one point there was a fifteen foot break between the warehouses: a fifteen-foot wall, no more than ten feet high. I swung myself up and found myself looking into a cluttered builders yard. There was a small office and inside the office there must have been a telephone. It would have been simple to break in and use it. But I couldn’t start moving again till the next evening so that would have been madness. And the office was new, not a rotten old shed. You never could tell what would be wired and what wouldn’t these days.

  But beyond the office there was a double iron gate that opened on to the road. That was all I needed to know.

  I dropped down again and went back to my foxhole and watched the dawn break. Sounds of the city’s awakening drifted across the river. In the road beyond the builders yard traffic began to pass by more frequently. Milk carts whirred and buses rattled. At seven o’clock the gates to the yard clanged open. Then after a while bright sunlight penetrated the haze and began to warm the earth and colour the city. A light breeze sidled off the river. I settled down to wait for the night to come again.

  Seven o’clock. Evening. I straddled the wall and checked the yard. Nothing—I dropped down and walked to the side gate, soundless in my stockinged feet. I listened for any sounds in the street outside and then when I was certain everything was fine I climbed over the gate and landed on the cobble-stones beyond.