Magnificent Joe (2 page)

I get back to our table and sit. The pub hums with Friday-night bitching and belching.

‘They're taking over, the black cunts.'

‘Aye, Barry, they're taking over.' Geoff nods with bland sympathy and rubs the back of his head as if he were polishing it. Immigration is one of Barry's favourite topics and I hear exactly this crap from him several times a week. His fleshy lips are shiny with spit and beer, and his face is red with alcohol and argument. Geoff, with his shaved head and impressive beer belly, looks like a lucky Buddha in jeans and T-shirt. At any rate, he is the centre of contentment around which Barry's fury can flow without meeting much resistance. Barry likes it that
way.

‘We should drop a fucking nuclear bomb on the lot of them.'

‘A bit extreme that, Baz,' Geoff says amiably.

‘Aye, it is, but they're extreme themselves, aren't they? It's what they understand.' Barry takes a big gulp of his beer, as if he's wetting his whistle, the better to continue a debate.

Geoff takes advantage of the pause to light another cigarette and then turns to me. ‘Y'all right?'

‘Aye, not bad, mate – just knackered.'

‘Get that beer down you, then. You've catching up to
do.'

‘The point is, Geoff, they're all over there, chopping each other to pieces and fucking up their own countries, and then they want to come here and get a fucking hand-out. In the meantime, us three are working for a living, and what do we get for it?' Barry floats the question over the table as though he expects something profound in response.

‘Fuck all, mate,' sighs Geoff.

‘Exactly! Fuck.
All.'

‘Well,' I join in, ‘it pays for the beer, like.'

Geoff snorts, but Barry looks at me as if I'm an idiot. ‘Look, it's all right for you,' he huffs. ‘You're free and single, but I've got a family to raise and this country is going to shit.'

I fail to see what raising a family has got to do with it – apart from the fact that Barry always wants to act as if he's older and wiser – but I just shrug and take a drink of beer. There is no point in stirring him up. Besides, I've got nothing to prove to Barry.

Geoff nudges me in the ribs. ‘Here comes trouble.'

I glance over and groan. Sinister Steve – the local one-stop shop for anything knocked off or bootlegged – has slipped through the door. He looks at us. The pub is crowded, but Steve moves through the throng like smoke and arrives directly behind Barry. He taps him on the shoulder.

‘Fucking hell!' Barry twists in his chair.

‘All right, mate?'

‘You fucking sneaky bastard. I almost dropped me pint.'

‘Yeah, good evening to you too.' Steve nods at me and Geoff, then pulls over a stool and sits down next to Barry, too close. Barry stiffens slightly, but he stays still and lets Steve talk into the side of his face. I can't hear their conversation, but it doesn't last long before the pair of them get up and leave together. ‘Back in a minute,' says Barry.

‘What's that all about?' I ask Geoff.

‘He's banned from selling fags in the pub, so he does it in the car park instead.'

‘Right. Are you ready for another?'

‘Aye.'

‘Go on, then.'

‘Fuck off, it's not even my round. Anyway, you both owe me for the lottery, and you're the worst – you're two fucking weeks behind. If we win, I'll keep it for myself.'

‘All right, all right, calm down. It was worth a
try.'

I go to the bar and buy another round. When I return to our table, Barry is back with two large cartons of cigarettes wrapped in a plastic
bag.

‘Got what you wanted, then.'

‘No, I was hoping he'd have some frilly knickers in stock.'

‘Well, we had our suspicions.' I lean over to put the drinks down, and as I do so, I get a whiff of something coming from Barry's direction. ‘Have you stood in dog shit?'

‘You what?'

‘Something smells.'

Barry leans to one side and checks his feet. ‘Fuck.'

‘Is
it?'

‘Bollocks. I was only in the fucking car park.'

‘Well, you'd better go back there.'

Barry shakes his head like a man who has become accustomed to having every noble principle crushed. ‘Modern Britain, eh?' He lets it hang there, as if we all know exactly what is wrong with the world.

On the last day of Jim's almost-life, summer filled the village with a warmth that made men and women want to loll like cats. Old couples dragged dining chairs into their front yards and read the Sunday papers. They turned the pages with languor and exchanged soft commentary on the stories of the day, sometimes shuffling back inside to make tea, fetch a packet of biscuits, or spend a penny. Kids zipped past on bicycles and played football in the streets, and when they swore, the old folk glanced up and clucked. The kids played on. Jim walked past them all, head down, hoping not to be noticed.

At the end of the terrace, Jim turned left and tramped up the main road that led out of the village. He felt more free there, away from the houses, with no busybodies who might call out after him, ‘How, Jim lad! What's in the bag?' Jim especially didn't want to run into his father. Jim's father thought that Jim was indoors, revising for the exams he desperately wanted Jim to pass because he never got the chance to take them himself. Jim was the only chance, because Jim was an only child.

He walked faster, and with each step his rucksack jogged and made a dull clunk. His T-shirt darkened at the armpits. The rucksack chafed his shoulders. Jim stuffed his thumbs under the straps to take off some of the weight, then leaned forward for a moment of relief. The rucksack slid up and smacked him in the back of the head.

‘Fucking hell,' Jim hissed, and shook his head. ‘The bastards had better be grateful for this.' He put his hands on his knees and stayed still, just breathing. Then a movement in the hedgerow entered his periphery and he turned his head to look.

There was a crane fly caught in a fragment of cobweb. Its legs were trapped, pulled together like those of a roped animal. Its wings were free, though, and they beat hard. The insect strained so much that Jim wondered if its legs would tear off. No spider came. The web must be old, Jim thought.

Jim looked between his legs, back down the road, to check that no one was watching him like this: bent double, staring into the hedge. The upside-down street was empty, except for some younger kids on roller skates trying to play street hockey with bamboo canes and an empty can. They weren't looking at him. Jim raised his head again to watch the crane fly; it struggled on. It would probably keep going until it dropped dead and twisted there in the breeze. Jim briefly considered freeing it, but why should he?

The hedgerow teemed with life: flies of different shapes and sizes, the odd bumblebee, caterpillars, butterflies, and wasps. There were a lot of wasps; perhaps there was a nest nearby. Jim hated wasps, hated the noise they made, their colour, their shape, and their bad-tempered sharpness. To be so close to them made his spine tingle. He chose to stay, though. He felt none of the blind panic that made his world blur and his body burst ahead of his thoughts when one buzzed him at head height or landed on his arm. Jim thought of a B-feature he saw at the pictures in which people dived with sharks. He felt like that.

One of the wasps floated closer to the crane fly and hovered there as if it too was a spectator. Suddenly, the wasp darted at the crane fly and mounted its back. The crane fly kept beating its wings and pulling against the web back and forth and side to side, so that the wasp seemed to be riding it in a desperate rodeo. Then the wasp arched its body into a crescent shape and jabbed its stinger into the crane fly over and over again. Jim held his breath. The crane fly was still fighting, but the wasp curled itself tighter, brought its hard black mandibles over the crane fly's head and chewed. The crane fly dropped, and for a moment both it and the wasp dangled on the end of the broken web. Then the wasp flew away.

‘Predation,' Jim whispered to himself. ‘Predation is the word.' He stood up. A car rattled past. Jim shuddered and walked on.

—

Geoff stood at the edge of the beck, where the water ran slow and green, and formed a long pool bedded with silt and rocks and clotted with pondweed. He turned a flat stone in the fingers of his right hand and looked across the water. Jim said that this pool was manmade, the header of an old millrace. Geoff didn't know what a millrace was, but he liked the sound of the word and the way the little fact nestled in his brain. He felt good under the sun, and as he wound back his arm, he knew that this would be a great throw.

‘Are you watching?' he called out.

‘Gerron with it, you fucking pansy,' Barry answered from behind him.

Geoff narrowed his eyes, breathed in, and whipped his arm forward. The stone flew out, oblique to the surface of the water, and then hit it in a dash of spray, burst up, came down, skipped again, and again, and again until it died out in a series of tiny bounces too rapid to count. Ripples spread over the pool.

‘Five good ones,' announced Mac.

Geoff turned round and smiled at them.

Barry shook his head. ‘You're a lucky bastard, you.'

‘Nah, that was pure skill, that,' Geoff laughed. He felt the glow of an action performed smoothly and correctly. Barry opened his mouth to retort, but Mac broke in.

‘Jim's here.'

Barry and Geoff turned to look down the path and there was Jim trudging towards them with a cloud of midges around his head. He glowered at them and swatted irritably at the insects with the back of his hand.

‘Y'all right, Professor? You look a bit sweaty,' Barry said.

‘Get fucked, Baz. Take this pack off us.' Jim wriggled out of his rucksack and let it thud to the ground, then he walked straight past them and sat under a tree.

‘Temper, temper,' chided Barry, but he went over and picked up the rucksack anyway. ‘Fucking hell, this is a bit heavy. How many's in here?'

‘Twenty-four.' Jim gave a short snort of laughter. ‘Joe had them all in plastic bags. He reckoned his arms were going to fall off.'

‘He'd be a proper flid, then. Fucking loony.' Barry walked over to the tree with the rucksack.

‘Leave it out – he's sound.'

‘Oh, aye, sound as a pound,' said Barry, as he squatted next to Jim and fiddled with the straps of the rucksack. ‘Can't fucking open it,' he grumbled.

‘They'll be pulled tight from the weight. Give it here.' Mac took over and quickly got the rucksack open. He stuck his hand inside and with a look of religious contemplation withdrew a four-pack of lager, which he held above his head. ‘All hail!'

Geoff giggled. Barry shook his head and chucked a stick at him. ‘Shut up, you big div.'

Geoff caught the stick and dropped it. ‘You're a proper cunt, you.'

Mac ignored them, twisted out the first can, and handed it to Jim. ‘Nice work, Jim.'

‘Thanks, Mac. There's fags in there too.' Jim smiled and opened the beer. He grimaced as he drank. ‘It's a bit warm. We should put the rest in the water.'

‘Good idea.' Mac grabbed the rucksack and slung it over one shoulder. Before he walked away, he nudged Barry in the side with his toe and said, ‘Drink your beer and stop being a bastard.'

‘Who elected you fucking president?'

Mac ignored him and took the rucksack to the pool, where he removed each of the five remaining four-packs one by one and carefully lowered them into the water. Barry glared at Mac's back for a little while and mouthed the word ‘dickhead', but then did as he was told.

Geoff sat opposite Jim and opened his beer. ‘So. GCSEs next week, Jim. Are you nervous?'

Barry grunted and said, ‘I bet he's shitting himself, aren't you, Professor von Einstein?'

Jim turned to face Geoff so that he had his back to Barry. ‘I'm prepared.' He paused and added, ‘I think.'

‘Aye, that's the best way.'

‘Yeah.' Jim didn't really want to talk about it. Barry and Geoff were supposed to be in the same year as him, but they'd already given up on school and had no intention of turning up for their exams. It made him feel out of place. Still, it was better to have this conversation again than listen to Barry whinge, so Jim asked Geoff, ‘What about you?'

‘Still haven't found a fucking job yet. Mac reckons he knows a bloke, though. Building.' Geoff squeezed his can so that the sides crumpled in.

‘That's not bad.'

‘Aye. Mebbes.'

Jim drank his first beer quickly and retrieved another from the beck. The water hadn't made it any colder, but at least it wasn't any hotter. He opened it and sucked up the foam before it ran down the sides.

‘Bring some over for us, mate,' said Mac.

‘Yes, my lord.' Jim made a stiff little bow like a costume-drama butler, but Mac didn't even notice; he'd turned back to the others. Jim realized that he didn't have a clue what the three of them were talking about, because he'd spent the whole time thinking about his revision.

‘Fucking hell. I need to get drunk,' he said to nobody in particular, and downed the whole can in seven big gulps. He tossed the empty into the bushes and helped himself to a new four-pack.

Jim handed the cans round and sat down again, poking at the earth with one end of a stick. Mac gave him a shove in the back. ‘Jesus Christ, Jim lad. Relax.'

‘I told you,' said Barry. ‘He's fucking bricking it. I don't know why you bother, Jim. All this just to go to college and hang out with a bunch of fucking benders.'

Jim gave him a wink. ‘You're right. I could stay here and hang out with benders, couldn't I, Baz?'

Geoff and Mac laughed. ‘He's got you there!'

‘Yer fucker,' said Barry, but he was laughing a little bit too, and it was good to see the bugger smile for a change.

Jim fell on his back, spread his arms, and let the sunlight pour over his face. ‘It's all fucking mental, lads.'

‘You're fucking mental.'

Another beer later and Jim felt drunk in the heat. They were talking about their dream motorcycles. Geoff wanted a Harley Davidson. Mac wanted some Jap superbike. Jim suggested Barry should stick to mopeds. Mac said, ‘A moped? Are you mad? It's a pushbike he wants. You can't trust him with something motorized.'

‘He needs stabilizers and all,' said Geoff.

‘You're all cunts,' said Barry, and stumbled off for a piss.

They were listening to him splatter a tree trunk when a deep voice called from up the path, ‘How, Baz! Is that you down there?'

Jim looked, but he couldn't make out who it was. ‘Who's that?'

Barry reappeared, fiddling with his belt. ‘Settle down – it's me brother.'

‘Oh fucking hell.' Jim stuffed the beer can into the space between the small of his back and the trunk of the tree. Geoff took a huge gulp from his and then lobbed it away. The dregs spun out of the can and glittered in the sun.

Mac ran a few metres up the path for a better look and then scuttled back muttering fucks like a park-bench wino. ‘Aye, it's Martin all right, and he's got that dickhead Gary Scruton with him.'

‘He's all right,' said Barry.

‘He fucking isn't. Hide your beer – they'll nick the lot if they cotton on.'

Barry just shrugged. Mac glared, ripped Barry's can from his hands, and tossed it into the undergrowth. Barry shook his head and then looked up as his brother drew close. Martin loomed over him and rapped him on the head with his knuckles, as if he were knocking on a door. Barry blinked twice and then stared into the ground.

‘All right, shit for brains,' Martin said. ‘Are you lot having a party or something?'

Jim looked up. It was difficult to see Martin's face because the afternoon sun was right behind him, but his size was evident. Martin was a big lad – as tall as Jim, but broader and stronger
–
and had a reputation as a scrapper. His hands rested, open and still, by his thighs. Jim could see black dirt engrained in the lines on his knuckles. The nail of his left ring finger was badly discoloured. There was a thin blue scar just above his wrist.

‘Nah. We're just sitting around,' Mac spoke out.

‘That's funny – there's a can of lager right there.' Mac's beer, unopened, lay in plain sight. Jim felt a hard knot of fear in his guts.

‘We had some earlier. That one's left over.'

‘You're too young to be drinking, you lot.' Martin squatted down and reached for the can. ‘There's four of you. How come there was one left?'

‘It's mine,' said Mac. ‘I wasn't thirsty. You can have it if you want.'

Martin was already opening the beer. Mac looked down.

Now that Martin was squatting, Jim could see over his head. Gary skulked in the background with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and occasionally kicked out at the undergrowth. Jim wondered if he was looking for something.

‘What's in the bag?' asked Martin quickly, and without waiting for an answer, he grabbed one of the rucksack's straps and dragged it over. He pulled the top open and looked in. Jim's leg twitched. ‘Fags. Brilliant. I've run out. Do you mind?' Martin took a cigarette, produced a lighter from his pocket, and lit up. He exhaled through his nose and tipped his head back. ‘Thanks, lads.'