The Likes of Us (21 page)

The drums of the band were rolling for the National Anthem as they pushed a way through to the door. The dance was over
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Jackson, they guessed, would be leaving in about fifteen minutes, which gave them time to approach the common by a roundabout route. Midnight struck from the clock tower of the Town Hall as they left the steep streets and took to an unsurfaced track along which they walked for a few minutes before leaving it for a narrow path across the rough grassland. They were quiet, speaking only occasionally and then in subdued voices, though the chance of their being seen or overheard here so late at night was remote. They were high up now above the town. Before them the path led on over the common to the Calderford Road and behind the darkness of the valley was pricked in a thousand places by the sparkle and glitter of streetlights. They left the path, swinging back in an arch towards the small wood on the town side, and now, for some time, no one spoke at all as they went on, lifting their feet high on the tussocky grassland.

Vince realised a few moments later that they had lost one of their number. ‘Where the hell's Finch?' They stopped and turned, looking back the way they had come, as Finch came up after them at a run.

‘Where the hell you been?'

‘Stopped for a leak,' Finch said. ‘I couldn't wait.'

‘Thought you'd dropped down a rabbit hole,' Bob said, and Finch said, ‘Ha, ha!'

‘For Christ's sake, keep with us,' Vince told him. ‘We're nearly there.'

‘I've never been up here in the dark afore,' Finch said. ‘Glad I'm not by meself. It's a lovely spot for a murder.'

‘Quiet,' Vince said. ‘Don't talk 'less you have to.'

They reached the wood, which was no bigger than a large copse, and made a quick reconnaissance. They decided then to stick to Vince's original plan of lying in wait for Jackson just where the path entered the trees. Anyone using the path must surmount a small rise before dropping into the wood.

Vince said, ‘I'll go up here an' keep a lookout. What time is it?'

Sam consulted the luminous face of his watch and said it was nearly a quarter past twelve.

‘He shouldn't be long now.'

‘If he comes at all,' Bob said.

‘Course he'll come,' Vince said impatiently. ‘He allus comes this way. It's his quickest way home when he's walkin'.'

He went forward to the summit of the hillock and as he stretched himself out on the cool grass the Town Hall clock struck the quarter hour. The moon was rising, lightening the sky. He hoped Jackson would not be too long or it might be light enough for him to recognise them. And too long a wait might rob Finch and Bob of their taste for the job. He wasn't worried about Sam. He would stick. He was a good mate. Vince felt that he could trust Sam as much as possible in a world where, when it came right down to it, you could trust nobody; where you depended on nobody but yourself and you relied on people and used them just as much as you only had to, and no more. He, if he admitted the truth, was using the gang tonight for the purpose of wreaking his personal revenge on Jackson. They none of them liked Jackson, true; and each had his reasons for not being sorry to see Jackson beaten up. But in none of them did the pure hatred burn as fiercely as it did in Vince and none of them would ever have made an attempt on Jackson if he hadn't screwed them up to it tonight. It was a performance he knew he could not repeat. It was tonight or never. If Jackson chose this one night to change his routine and go home another way, revenge was lost. And if he didn't come in the next few minutes it might be too late because already Vince could sense impatience in the wood behind him as a voice murmured and he heard the scrape of a match and saw its glow as some fool lit a cigarette. He wanted to shout at them, but dared not. He could only lie there waiting, hoping that Jackson would come soon.

He looked out across the valley. The starless sky seemed to be lifting and growing paler. He could make out the shape of buildings, the looming bulk of mills and the clock tower of the Town Hall. A car's headlights swooped on Halifax Road. He heard the gear-change in the valley bottom and the labour of the engine as it pulled away up the hill. In the quiet that followed a man coughed in the street beyond the fence and Vince's heart jumped. He lay very still, his muscles tensed ready for flight to the wood. But there was no other sound, not even a footstep.

Finch came up beside him. ‘Isn't there any sign of him?'

‘Not yet. He'll come, though; there's still plenty of time.'

‘Happen he's gone another way.'

‘He allus comes this way.'

‘He might have got himself a woman to take home.'

‘He's wed. Got a couple o' kids, I believe.'

Finch grunted. He was crouching and Vince said, ‘Keep yoursen down, can't you?'

Finch crouched a little lower. ‘How much longer are we waitin'?'

‘We'll give him a bit longer. He might have had a bit o' clearin' up to do, or summat.'

‘Bob says he doesn't think he's comin' now.'

‘Who the bloody hell cares what Bob thinks?' Vince hissed. ‘Is that him smokin' that fag?'

‘Yeh, he lit up a minute or two sin'.'

‘Well get back to him an' tell him to bloody well put it out,' Vince said.

Finch disappeared and Vince lifted himself on his elbows. That Bob. He was more and more trouble every time they met. The time was coming fast when they would have to settle it once and for all. And one swift hard punch into Bob's face would do the trick. If Jackson didn't turn up it might be a way of relieving his feelings tonight, because Bob was sure to have something to say about their having spent all this time on the common for nothing.

‘Come on, Jackson,' he murmured. ‘Come on, you big, stupid bastard, and get what's comin' to you.'

He began to think about the girl and he wondered if he would ever see her again. He remembered holding her and kissing her under the wall of the Trocadero and a lingering memory of tenderness touched his heart. Surely she wouldn't hold it against him for ever? Surely when she had calmed down and got over the humiliation she would realise that he, Vince, had not been able to help it? He had to see her again to find out. The Trocadero would be out after tonight because there would always be the fear that Jackson had known them.

And Cressley was a big place. He could go for years and never run into her again. But perhaps she too would avoid the Trocadero now and go to the Gala Rooms, because she had said she liked dancing. She had also said she liked swimming, so he could always look for her at the baths. He would go to the baths every evening after work for a month if necessary, because he had to see her again, no matter what. He just had to.

His heart lifted then with sudden excitement as he became aware of somebody whistling down the hill. Jackson was coming, and whistling to keep himself company in the dark. He knew it was Jackson because he could recognise the whistle anywhere: light and musical and full of little runs and trills. He waited till Jackson's head and shoulders appeared at the stile, then slid down out of sight and ran back to join the others.

‘He's comin'. Can you hear him whistlin'? We'll give the bastard summat to whistle about!'

They crouched on both sides of the path, hearing the scuff of a shoe-sole on a stone, then seeing Jackson's figure silhouetted against the lightening sky as he topped the rise.

‘Remember,' Vince whispered. ‘Don't talk.'

They closed with him as he came off the open common and into the shadow of the trees. Vince had visualised the attack as being quick, concerted and silent. As it was, there was a moment's hesitation as they became visible to Jackson, as though no one knew who was to lead the assault.

Jackson stopped and stepped back. ‘Now then, what's this?'

‘You'll find out in a minute, Jackson!' Finch said, and Bob said quickly, but too late, ‘Shurrup, fool!'

Jackson came for them, his fists at the ready. His first blow swung little Finch off his feet and sent him crashing helplessly into the bushes. Vince yelped as the toe of Jackson's shoe cracked against his shin. Then Jackson went down with Sam and Bob hanging on to him and Vince held back, rubbing his calf and waiting to see where he could help to best effect. He watched as the three bodies rolled about on the ground and heard the grunts and curses that came from them. Then the sound of someone crashing through the dry bracken diverted his attention and the next moment he saw Finch break clear of the wood and scurry up the path over the hillock. He opened his mouth to shout for Finch, then checked himself, muttering under his breath, ‘The miserable little shit. The yellow little bleeder.'

Two of those struggling on the ground came to their feet, leaving the third bent almost double, holding his belly and moaning. Vince thought it was Sam. It wasn't going right. Jackson was too much even for the four of them. With Finch gone and Sam out of the fight it was time he looked to himself. But it was already too late. Jackson broke free of Bob's hug, felled him with a blow, and turned to Vince.

‘Now you,' Jackson said. His voice was thick, as though he was swallowing blood. He was breathing heavily too and he was unsteady on his feet. He had taken a lot of punishment from Sam and Bob but he was far from finished.

Vince cursed Finch again as he backed away. He knew that once Jackson closed with him he was done for. Before he hardly knew it the knife was open in his hand.

‘Hold it, Jackson, or you'll get some o' this.' He flourished the weapon in an attempt at bravado and the blade glinted dully in the moonlight filtering down through the trees.

Jackson stopped for a second, then came on more slowly, his arms wide apart, his body poised ready to jump at the lunge of the knife. ‘Don't be a bloody fool. Put that thing away before you hurt somebody.'

There was no reason left in Vince, only a sobbing rage and hatred for Jackson, who would beat him unmercifully if he once got in close enough. It had all gone wrong and it was Jackson's fault. Hatred seemed to swim in a hot wave before his eyes. He felt then the trunk of a tree behind him and knew he could retreat no farther without partly turning his back on Jackson. A trickle of warm liquid ran down the inside of his leg and he thought with stupid anger that he should have stopped when Finch had. His voice raised itself, shrill with fear and the knowledge that he was afraid.

‘It'll be you 'at'll get hurt, Jackson. I'll carve the bloody tripes out of you, you dirty stinkin' bastard, if you come any nearer.'

Jackson came warily and steadily on, his eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

‘I've warned you. Keep back!'

There was a movement from behind Jackson. In the same second he sprang, Bob jumped him from the rear and Vince drove forward and upward with the knife, the force of the blow taking his fist hard against Jackson's belly. They all went down together in a heap.

Vince and Bob extricated themselves and got up together. They looked down at Jackson. There was blood on the fingers of Vince's right hand. He moved them and felt its sticky warmth. In a kind of daze he half lifted his hand to look.

‘That's settled him,' Bob was saying. ‘Now let's get out of here.' A second later he saw the knife. ‘Christ, what you doin' with that?'

‘I told him,' Vince said stupidly. ‘I warned him he'd get it.' He touched Jackson's leg with the toe of his shoe. ‘Jackson! Come on, now.'

‘You've finished him,' Bob said. There was raw panic in his voice. ‘Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ!'

Sam came up behind them, still rubbing his belly. ‘God, me guts... What we hangin' about here for?'

‘He's knifed him,' Bob said. ‘The bloody fool's finished him.'

‘Don't talk daft,' Vince said. ‘He's okay. He's just reckonin'. We only roughed him up a bit, didn't we? That's all we said we'd do, in't it? Nobody said owt about killing the stupid bastard, did they?'

‘Jesus,' Sam said. ‘Oh, Christ Jesus. I'm not in this.'

‘Me neither,' Bob said. ‘I didn't do it. They can't touch me for it.'

He turned and blundered to the path, breaking into a run over the rise.

‘Jackson!' Vince said. ‘Give over reckonin', you lousy sod.' He pushed at Jackson with his foot. ‘Jackson!'

He heard Sam say something from behind him but did not take in the words. He dropped the knife and went down on his knees beside Jackson.

‘Jackson. Come on. Jackson, wake up. I know you're actin'. You can't kid me. C'mon you lousy dog, c'mon. Stop reckonin'!'

His hand came in contact with the mess of blood on the front of Jackson's shirt and he recoiled and stood up, staring in horror at the dark smear across his palm and fingers. It was as though this finally released in him a tremendous force of uncontrollable fury and hatred. He began to kick Jackson's body in a frenzy, assaulting it with savage blows of his feet and swearing in a torrent of words. And when, at last, he stopped, exhausted, his body suddenly sagging from the hips, his arms hanging limp at his sides, he raised his head and looked round. The moon rose from behind a ragged edge of cloud and the pale light fell on his upturned face. It was quiet. He was alone.

A SEASON WITH EROS

A Season with Eros

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruffo had waited a long time, kept at bay through his two-year courtship of that girl whose body turned men's heads in the street by the discipline imposed by her cold-eyed watchful mother. A certain amount of boy-girl contact was expected, even approved of: holding hands while watching television in her front room; kisses and tight straining cuddles when the parents were absent; but any attempt to get closer to Maureen than the clutching of her resilient flesh through her clothes was met with an automatic and persistent response: ‘No, I can't.' ‘Why not?' ‘Me mam says I've to wait till I get married.' Beyond this Ruffo found it impossible to go. At best she was stupid, childlike in her reiteration of ‘Me mam says…'; at worst Ruffo wondered whether in her he had found that most sexually maddening of combinations – a girl whose body yelled promise but whose mind and emotions had no real interest in the subject at all. Exasperated, he drew away from her until his continual casual excuses for not seeing her made his neglect obvious and she, ingenuous in her directness, faced him with it.

‘I don't see much point.'

‘Oh…What's made you change your mind?'

‘Your mother. She runs your life for you.'

‘She's only trying to do her best for me. Anyway, if that's all you want me for...'

‘If that's all I want you for I've been seeing you a long time for bugger-all, haven't I?' Ruffo said. ‘If you want the truth, I can't stand it any more.'

‘I've told you, I don't think it's right when you're not married.'

‘You mean your mam doesn't.'

‘Well, I've always taken notice of what she says.'

‘I'm not talking about going the whole hog,' Ruffo said.

‘But one thing leads to another, doesn't it?'

Ruffo might have looked at the mother and discerned, more than the person who was keeping him from what he wanted, the woman the daughter could become. But he saw only, behind the canteen buildings where they had met, the creature of his long-repressed desire, the pout of her lips, the rise and fall of her breasts under the thin nylon overall, and he knew that he must have her.

‘We'd better get married, then.'

‘Oh!' She took it with apparent surprise as though she'd been prepared to go on as they were indefinitely. ‘Well, we'd better get engaged first.'

‘I don't want any long engagements dragging on. We've been seeing each other for two years now.'

‘But we've nowhere to live. And no stuff collected.'

‘I'll find somewhere.'

‘I suppose me mam 'ud let us live at our house for a while.'

‘No,' Ruffo said. ‘We want to be on our own. I'll find somewhere.'

He began scanning the property columns of the evening newspaper and asking round among the men in the engineering shop. In the meantime, Maureen broke the news to her mother, who said that Ruffo ought to make his intentions public by buying her a ring. The thirty pounds that this cost Ruffo he parted with grudgingly, feeling that it was money he could ill-afford. Houses were expensive and whatever they found they would need all the cash they could scrape together to put in it even the necessary minimum of furniture. He worked all the overtime offered him, cut out his weekly drinking night with his mates, and stopped taking Maureen anywhere it cost money. He didn't smoke, so there was no saving to be made there. Thinking that he should have a clear idea of their combined resources, he asked Maureen about her savings, only to find to his dismay that was she still giving her wages to her mother, who returned her a weekly sum of pocket money which she spent on make-up and small luxuries.

‘Me mam always said I could start paying me own way when I was twenty-one,' Maureen said. ‘And, of course, that's still a couple of months off.'

‘So you're coming to me empty handed.'

‘I've a few sheets an' pillow-cases 'at me mam's giving me.'

‘That's bloody generous of her.'

‘An' of course they'll be paying for the wedding.' Ruffo thought with some regret of the passing of the dowry system. ‘What we need is brass,' he said. ‘Hard cash, to pay the deposit on a house and furnish it.'

‘They're building some lovely ones up Lime Lane,' she said.

‘You must be out of your mind. They're a four-and-a-half thousand quid touch. That means at least five hundred deposit.'

Which Ruffo hadn't got. And as he went on looking and making enquiries he came to see the nature of the trap he had laid for himself. Marriage to Maureen had seemed an obvious way of getting what he wanted; but marriage was not, it seemed, a state easily achieved. And now he was worse off than before: still deprived, but robbed by that engagement ring of the freedom to come and go which he had held in reserve and thought of as a bargaining counter.

Then he struck lucky, hearing from a workmate about a house occupied by an old lady who had just been taken into hospital with what looked like a fatal illness.

‘You want to get round there. Put your word in afore anybody else does.'

‘I'll bet there's five hundred after it already.'

‘You never know. You'll lose nowt by trying.'

And gain nothing if I don't, Ruffo thought.

He went straight to the owner, a wholesale grocer who received him in the hall of his grand new bungalow.

‘A house? I don't know that there's one coming vacant.'

Ruffo saw the delicacy of the situation and chose his words accordingly. ‘An old lady lived there. I heard she'd died in hospital.'

‘It's news to me if she's dead.' The man eyed him shrewdly. ‘You mean you want to be first in line if she does pop off? By God, you're quick off the mark, some of you. You don't let the breath leave the corpse.'

‘I expect there's plenty before me, anyway,' Ruffo said. ‘You don't stand much chance of dropping across a house to rent nowadays.'

‘Why don't you buy one?'

‘Because I haven't got the money. If I could find a place in the meantime it'd give me a chance to save up. Everybody's got to start somewhere.'

‘Otherwise it's in-laws, is that it?'

Ruffo shook his head. ‘I'm not having that.'

‘No, happen you're wise there. What did you say your name was?'

‘Billy Roughsedge.'

‘Did they call your father Walter?'

‘Aye, that's right.'

‘I knew him. Played bowls with him many a time in days gone by. Dead now, though, isn't he?'

‘Aye, me mother as well. I live with me married sister.'

‘Well, like I say, I don't know that there's anything coming vacant, but I'll keep you in mind. Give us your address.'

Ruffo thought little more of it; but a fortnight later he got a note through the post to say that the house was now empty and if he still wanted it would he go to see the agents.

It stood in a terrace on a back street; two rooms down, two up; no hot water, and a lavatory – shared with another family – in the long communal yard. Everything in that area was probably due for demolition during the next few years, Ruffo thought. But programmes like that had a way of being put back and before then he and Maureen would have got out; or if they hadn't the Corporation would be compelled to offer them alternative accommodation, along with everyone else. It was a start, a place to live, on their own; nothing to shout about but no worse than either of them had known before at some time in their lives. And it could be made cosy enough.

They fixed a date for the wedding and Ruffo went through the house stripping paint and wallpaper and redecorating from top to bottom. Before that, with the help of a friend, he pulled out the black old range and replaced it with a tiled fireplace. He also fitted over the corner sink an electric water-heater which he'd bought second-hand through the small ads in the evening paper. For their furniture they went to sale rooms. Maureen would have liked more new pieces, but Ruffo showed her the balance in his Post Office Bank book and made it clear that he did not intend to start out with a load of hire-purchase debts.

 

Marriage suited Ruffo. He had lived for too long in someone else's house; and though the people involved were his sister and his brother-in-law there had been occasional small points of friction. Their children were growing up, needing more space, and he'd had for some time the feeling that he was beginning to get in the way. Now he had his own place and a wife: a home where he could do as he liked, and as much sex as he wanted with the girl he'd always wanted it with. Any lingering fears that she might not find pleasure in it were quickly dispelled. With the wedding over, and a ring on her finger, she became willing and compliant, following wherever he led with no more protest than an occasional indulgent ‘Ruffo! Whatever will you think of next?'

For Ruffo, in possession of her at last, had thrown himself from the cliff of frustrated deprivation into a protracted sexual binge. Impossible for him to have too much of her, he liked her to go without pants and bra in the house so that at any moment he could catch at her, one hand into her blouse to knead at a breast, the other under her skirt where, to her coy whinnies of delight, his probing fingers would draw the juices of her instant response. His fondling of her like this in the early evening, sometimes by the sink as she washed-up after their meal, would often lead to his taking her there and then, she standing, back arched, legs apart and braced, panting to the electric contact of his flesh. On other evenings, with the fire built high and the television picture flickering silently in the corner, she would dress for him in items of exotic underwear and lingerie which he bought through the post to accentuate or semi-conceal the objects of his never-ending desire: briefs whose flimsy transparency held like a dark stain the tufty triangle of her crotch; brassieres cut low to lift those already splendidly jutting breasts and thrust them up and out, rampant-nippled, like great pale tropical fruits. Nor did any of this tire them for later when, in bed together, his earlier spending gave him a restraint which could carry them through an hour of intertwined limbs, bringing her time after time until it seemed to her that each night was one long moan of love.

He was confident, in command his ego strutted and he carried himself with an assurance which bordered on the insolent. It was not lost on other women: Ruffo felt their awareness. One who served behind the counter of the canteen watched him as he stood in line for his meal. When he got to the head of the queue she put a double portion of cabbage on his plate.

‘There y'are. That'll put some lead in your pencil.'

‘I've got plenty, thanks.'

‘You could run short, the way you're going on.'

Ruffo's head came up. ‘What d'you mean by that?'

‘Nay, lad, I'm only kidding you. If you've any to spare you can bring it round to my house. My old man's forgotten what it's all about.'

Ruffo grinned. ‘Sorry. It's all spoken for.'

‘Aye, well,' the woman said with mock regret, ‘you can but try.'

Ruffo challenged Maureen that evening.

‘What have you been saying to them women in the canteen?'

‘Oh, you know how they kid about things like that, Ruffo. They got on at me and somehow or other it came out that we do it every day. Sometimes more. They're only jealous.'

‘Aye,' Ruffo said, his hands on her. ‘I look after you well, don't I?'

‘Mmm, you do. It's lovely.'

‘It's better than that,' Ruffo said. ‘It's bloody perfect.'

He was happy. He worked hard, saving all the money he could; but beyond this he did not worry about the future. Today was what mattered. Yesterday was gone; tomorrow would come when it came. They were both young; there was plenty of time for everything. He lived for the present; for each evening when, secure and warm in their own home, they could indulge in their sexual games. Maureen was his now; he moulded her to his desire, was masterful in the way he took her. She seemed to want it that way, content in being the focus of most of his waking thoughts. A knowing little half-smile would often appear momentarily in her eyes when he touched her, as though she knew very well the power her compliance gave her over him.

One evening they were lying together on the hearthrug when Maureen's mother came unexpectedly to the door. Ruffo grabbed his clothes and went upstairs while Maureen put on her dressing-gown and let her in.

‘I was just getting washed and changed,' Maureen explained.

Her mother glanced round the room, her nostrils dilating, as though she could smell their passion in the air. Ruffo, coming down the stairs a few moments later, heard a part of their conversation.

‘He's not, er, asking too much of you, is he?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, some men, you know, they're greedy. They never leave a woman alone.'

‘Oh, I see! No, it's not like that at all.'

‘As long as you're all right. There are other things in life, you know.'

Tell her you love it, Ruffo thought. Tell her to mind her own business. He opened the door and walked into the room.

It was a few evenings later that Maureen said, ‘Ruffo, I think we ought to save it till we're in bed.'

‘Eh?'

‘Well, you know the other night, when me mam came; I didn't know where to put meself for a minute or two. Suppose we'd forgotten to slip the latch and she'd walked straight in?'

‘Oh, now…'

‘I mean, she knew what we were doing, Ruffo. I know she knew.'

‘Well, what about it? Come o-on…'

He got his way, but for the first time he felt in her submission an unspoken reproach. There was little response: she was acquiescent, no more, and he was alone, with her as the passive instrument of his pleasure.