Rule of Night (7 page)

‘It was Ellen Smith's.'

‘How do you know when …'

This conversation didn't slacken off and finally tail away until they were on the diesel rattling over the points to Manchester Victoria. It was early for a Saturday night and there weren't many in the long rocking compartment: just the odd bird dressed to kill who had a boy-friend to meet under the station clock, and the occasional middle-aged couple sitting huddled together in hats,
scarves and heavy clothes. Kenny took out the stick of indelible red marker and wrote his name on the back of the seat in scrawling capitals, adding, ‘ASHFIELD RULE OK'.

‘Give us it,' Crabby said, leaning across the aisle.

‘Piss off, lavatory face.' Kenny jabbed at him and left a red mark on Crabby's chin. The others rolled about shrieking.

Andy said quietly, ‘Wherever we go let's find some birds.'

‘Yeh, let's get some birds,' Skush said. His face was very pale and his watery eyes were staring out of his head. The pupils had shrunk to black dots, the proverbial pissholes in snow.

Fester, a short, very broad lad with a hanging gut from drinking too much ale, and enormous square hands like a robot's, took a metal spike out of his pocket (a pulley spindle specially sharpened at work) and pricked his name in the plastic covering; then for a full-stop pushed the spike clean through the seat where it struck Arthur in the back. It made a hole in his best jacket. There was a commotion, some fist-waving and threatening half-blows, but Arthur wasn't stupid enough to tangle seriously with Fester, who would have broken his spine in three places and wiped the floor, walls and ceiling with the remains.

Because he wasn't going to be outdone and because he liked the limelight Kenny stood on the seat and wrote all the dirty four-letter words he knew on the curved panels overhead, the rest of them shouting encouragement and trying to kick his legs from under him.

Andy, the coloured boy, sat with Skush, not taking any part in the general hilarity and merry-making but biding his time and saving his energy for the birds. He had already shafted three that week and badly needed another one tonight – not as badly as Skush, who had masturbated so much recently that he kept glancing fearfully at the palms of his hands as though expecting to see tufts of hair sprouting. Of course he no longer believed that it sent
you blind, but he couldn't overcome the feeling that it was unhealthy and not at all good for you; there was a rumour that it caused mental illness and even leukaemia. Now that the amphetamines had begun to take hold he was experiencing the curious sensation of being stimulated and depressed at one and the same time. His mouth was dry and his stomach felt hollow; he was alert and yet relaxed, calm and yet excited. He could handle a girl now, he knew he could, no doubt about it: just let him get to grips and he'd sweep her off her feet. He imagined a tall slim cool blonde with nicely-shaped knockers – like that one in Pan's People – who he could trust himself with and who wouldn't make fun of him. An understanding girl, that's what he needed, an understanding girl who was a good fuck. He looked down and realised that he had a respectable erection straining at the zip of his jeans.

Just then the ticket-collector came swaying towards them down the central aisle, steadying himself on the backs of seats with alternate hands, and the seven of them ceased their various activities to gawp at him, their faces gone stiff and sullen as if challenging him to check them or to make a remark. As he went by Kenny farted, a tight dry one and obviously difficult to produce. Crabby choked with laughter and finally managed to say in a strangulated voice:

‘The Phantom Arse strikes again.'

‘Jesus Ker-ist!' Fester said, who happened to be sitting next to Kenny, wafting the air with his robot's hands and hanging his chin over the edge of the seat in front and pretending to spew.

‘Good arse,' Kenny said with a satisfied smirk.

‘What've yad for your tea – black peas?'

‘Sprouts,' Kenny said, and became aware that he had strained so hard that a small amount of matter had been released with the wind: he had shit himself.

At Victoria they raced each other to the barrier and leapt shouting – like wild animals suddenly released – across the main
concourse and through the people to the A-G ticket office, which was the first one they came to. The man behind the double glass looked at them down his nose, and in reply to Kenny's question said, ‘Chorley.'

‘Who the fuck wants to go to fucking Chorley?' Crabby shouted.

‘Fucking Chorley cakes.'

‘Chorley, fuck me.'

‘Where's fucking Chorley?'

Fester's friend Pete (known as Shortarse because he was the smallest in the gang and who, for this reason, could always rely on Fester's protection) said, ‘We might as well go to Chorley as anywhere. Better than being stuck here all night.'

‘Yeh, let's go,' Andy said, groping for money.

They all bought tickets and trooped off to the platform to await the 8.17 to Chorley. It was a diesel, and nearly empty. On the journey they passed the time by telling dirty jokes, writing on the mirror in the lavatory, unscrewing the toilet seat and throwing it through the window, and calling obscenely to two young girls with a poodle who sat petrified at the far end of the coach. Kenny was all for approaching them (and would have done) had Andy not restrained him: there were several people on the train and they might have objected. In fact one of them did have words with the ticket-collector when he came round but by that time the train was pulling into Chorley station and the lads, shouting abuse, disembarked. The ticket-collector put his head through the window to say something and at least three of them spat at him.

Chorley was deader than a doornail. It was still raining and the colours of the traffic-lights were smeared on the wet tarmacadam. They steered clear of the posh-looking places – the ones with full car parks and table-lamps lighting net curtains in a rosy glow – and sought out the small corner pubs down backstreets with
Snug
etched on their opaque windows and tap-rooms thick with
pipesmoke and public bars in which cackling women with red lips and wrinkled stockings stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the men drinking cream stout in thirsty gulps. The lads crammed through swing doors with brass fingerplates into a long narrow bar with room enough for only a single line of wrought-iron tables stationed against the wall: between the tables and the drinkers standing at the bar on the worn strip of linoleum there was barely enough space to get by: it was one of the few pubs still remaining that had somehow resisted the encroachment of fitted carpets, Musak, and chicken-in-the-basket. And tonight, of all nights, it was a pub with no beer.

Kenny and the others couldn't believe it. They ordered seven pints of keg bitter and gazed at the landlord in bewilderment when he told them the bad news. It appeared that the brewery had missed a delivery and all he could offer them was pale ale, stout, and lager in bottles.

‘Jesus Christ,' Fester said. ‘A pub with no ale.'

They tanked up on Blue Bass and Newcastle Brown, loitering in an untidy group, obviously set apart from the regulars. At least there was a juke-box (a miniature one fastened to the wall) but it was mostly top thirty crap with not a single soul record and hardly any Tamla Motown.

‘Chaaawley,' Arthur said in a funeral voice.

‘A right dead hole.'

‘No deader than Rochdale,' Shortarse said.

‘Come off it.'

Skush said, ‘Let's get where there's some birds.' His voice was slurred and he couldn't focus his eyes properly. Kenny said:

‘Have you any left?'

Skush looked at him stupidly. ‘What?'

‘Bombers.'

‘What for?'

‘Why do you think what for? Give us some.'

‘I've only got two.'

‘Give us one then.'

Andy was feeling randy and suggested they move on to find a better place. Fester agreed; not for the sake of trapping off but because he wanted a pint of draught beer instead of the bottled muck they were drinking. On a good night he could shift ten pints and had been known to sink fourteen. Kenny prided himself that he could keep up with Fester – and he could – but he was usually sick afterwards, especially when they rounded the night off with beef pudding and peas and a double portion of chips, bread, butter and tea.

He secretly believed, too, that he could beat Fester in a fight. He had it all worked out: that flabby gut was a prime target for the boot followed by a knee under the chin as he came down gasping, then a double-fist on the back of the neck and a final boot in the cobblers to finish things off. He wouldn't go for Fester's little, piggy eyes; no – the gut, the neck, the groin.

‘Are we going or are we not?' Fester asked irritably.

‘Chaaawley,' Arthur said again, doing his best to establish it as a catchphrase.

‘Well?' Fester said, beginning to get on Kenny's wick.

‘Yeh, come on,' Shortarse said, backing up his mate.

Kenny wasn't going to be hurried by anybody, least of all by Fester. ‘Hang about,' he said, ‘let's have another,' wiping his mouth and taking out a pound note.

‘For fuck's sake—'

‘You go if you want to.'

‘We're all going,' Arthur said.

‘Come on then,' Crabby said.

‘Who wants another?' Kenny offered, moving to the bar. He was the tallest of them all, and the broadest next to Fester, who was broad but fat with it.

‘Me,' Andy said, who really wanted to move on but in the event of conflict always sided with Kenny. They stuck close together these two, an unlikely alliance considering that Kenny hated foreigners, and in particular Spades, Pakis and nig-nogs. One reason why he disliked them so much was the horrible stink of their cooking which seeped out of Number 468, two doors away from where he lived, and whose heavy sickly odour stuck in his nostrils every time he passed by. If they'd eat that stuff they'd eat shit.

‘I'll have a Newcastle,' Skush said, rapidly losing his sense of time and space. He felt peaceful and at one with the world, despite the shrill buzzing in his ears, and was content to drift along in a muffled cocoon of blithe indifference. He knew there was a girl waiting for him somewhere … somewhere there was a girl waiting for him … somewhere …

Fester capitulated with bad grace. Kenny bought another round and they stood drinking in temporary silence, Fester throwing it back in three swallows. There was an exodus to the lavatory where they stood in line at the stones, having to relieve themselves in two shifts. On the contraceptive dispenser it said:

Approved to British Standard BS 3704

And underneath in felt-tip someone had written:

SO WAS THE TITANIC

It took Crabby several moments to get the point; when he did he laughed hoarsely, splashing urine over his shoes. The others laughed too, and it dissipated the ugly spite that had begun to erode the evening.

Chorley appeared to consist of nothing but a main road – the A6 – with several dark streets leading off it at right-angles. There
was a cinema, a couple of Chinese restaurants, a coffee bar (closed), some shops and department stores at the junction where the traffic-lights flashed, and, so it seemed, more than its share of illuminated signs giving directions to Manchester, Bolton, Preston, Southport and the M6.

Kenny thought it a real dumb-hick town. Anybody who lived here must be dead thick. For some reason it annoyed him to think of people actually being stupid enough to stay here, work here, breed here, die here. Probably they saw nothing wrong with it; probably the kids who lived here reckoned it was an OK place. They wouldn't know any better. He came from a big town where everybody knew the score – but here, Chorley! – for Christ's sake, it didn't even have a league football team. They probably thought of themselves as smooth townies and yet they were nothing, washouts, zeroes. He became restless with the need to show them just how pathetic they really were, how this hole in the middle of nowhere didn't rate when compared with a Big Town.

‘What a dump,' Crabby moaned.

‘Chaawley,' Arthur had to say.

They cruised around looking for signs of life and had to admit, eventually, that they'd been lumbered. Or rather they'd lumbered themselves. By this time, however, they were well on the way to becoming kalied and so it didn't really matter where they were. There were pubs, and pubs sold beer, and beer got you slatted, and getting slatted was what Saturday night was all about.

In the fourth or fifth pub things started to get nasty. Of course they were always on the lookout for trouble – at the back of their minds seeking it, ferreting it out – but this came out of the blue: when a bloke with long greasy hair and a leather jacket with studs passed a remark about Andy. Andy confronted the lad who had made the remark but Kenny stepped between them. He had only been waiting for the opportunity, and now his patience was rewarded.

There was the usual terse dialogue spoken in an undertone consisting of ‘what did you say?' and ‘I was talking to him,' and ‘what's it to you?' and ‘if you want to pick a fight pick it with me', and ‘don't come it', and ‘none of your business', and ‘don't get smart with me', and ‘say that one more time', and ‘I wasn't talking to you', and ‘when you insult him you insult me', and ‘keep your nose out of it', and ‘let's see if you're as tough as your talk' and ‘who do you think you're pushing?' and ‘let's have you outside', and ‘you and whose army?', and in no time at all a space has cleared around them and they are alone in a circle and the rest of the pub has gone quiet and the barmaid has run through to the tap-room to fetch the landlord.

Kenny and the lad with the greasy hair stare at each other, their eyes inches apart, pushing the other in the chest, at first gently and then with increasing force. On the fringe of the clearing the others stand shoulder to shoulder facing their opposite numbers across the worn carpet, several of them slipping their hands casually into their pockets. It has the makings of a right old barney.