Wreckage (7 page)

It was once just a muddy pool a bit brackish from the estuary’s salt. Irish monks preached and prayed on the slimy banks which caught the attention of King John who granted a city charter in 1207 to this small fishing hamlet which for more than four centuries had only seven short streets and a population that fluctuated between 500 and 800 only. What sea trade there was was conducted between the mud-dwelling fishermen and similar types from Eire, Mannan, Cymru. Exchanges of fish and boat parts and some strange faith, this channelled chandlering storm-smacked and salty.

Then it was a port in the early seventeenth century, importing New World cotton goods and exporting textiles from the burgeoning mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Then inevitably it became a centre of shipbuilding and engineering and by 1750 it was the world’s first wet dock with a population of 20,000. By the mid nineteenth century it was home to more millionaires than London and home also to the worst poverty and mortality rates in Europe. By 1900 the population reached over 700,000 but then a global Depression appeared and containerisation of shipping destroyed jobs numbering in the tens of thousands. By the mid twentieth century with Britain’s membership of the EU, this once-just-a-muddy-puddle place was seen to
be
on the wrong side of the country away from the main European markets and since 1961 has lost 43 per cent of its jobs and 34 per cent of its population.

It has turned its back to the land. Turned away from the country it barely inhabits and which it is nominally part of and looked seawards to other lands. So if this city has a soul …

And from oozing pool standing stagnant to world city major mercantile metropolitan capital built on triangular trading of what commodity? Transformation affected by what wet goods? Raw materials of cotton and hardware sent to West Africa for a barterable product carried to the West Indies and Virginia and exchanged for sugar, rum, tobacco and other stuffs and people were the fulcrum for this triangular transaction. People the poor and perishable commodity measured against stimulants and cloth. And the traders in them honoured now by Elder status and statuary and street name, carved and noble profiles bespeckled with the shite of pigeon and gull.

So if the city
has
a soul …

And after abolition in 1807 came the occurrence of more people-moving, exodi converging from England Ireland Wales and Scotland and the Scandinavian countries and the Balkans and Jews from Russia and the Pale of Settlement, a movement nearly ten million strong in less than a century less than the numbered dead of four years of war, of mechanised slaughter. Travel to Australasia and the Americas was the aim but many of these pilgrims went no further than the Goree or the Pier Head as if arrested by the stink of greasy sea and engine oil and that locomotive lotion too that exudes from human
glands
. And from the western shores of a close country came those escaping that which could not at that time be seen, phytophthera infestans, and that which could, the bulging greed of landlord and corralled clergy and came those too from remote colonies in Asia or the Caribbean or Africa or the subcontinent this influx boosted by bases situated during war. After which with the heavy bombing this once muddy puddle that burned for years, like a microcosm of the wider country itself saw devastation and decline into a society divided deeply by unequal distribution of whatever wealth there was and the oppositional aims of Tory rulers and militant left-wing radicalism. And capitalist employers swollen with a hunger incomprehensible to the labour organisations they sought to exploit and if that could not be realised then destroy, smash. Which venture saw some success which led to decades of entrenched unemployment which led to parts of the city aflame in 1981 like the city’s buried memories of war, like a yearning to purge, the white-hot brewery of this once muddy puddle smouldering in the bitter pits of the footings that seared the feet of the leavers, the escapers, the anti-exodus of the endtimes. The trudge of the longing retracing the forefathers’ footsteps away from this, this place which has never neglected its genesis in sludge and which found itself the focus for the wrath of obsessed rulers. Which made itself the paw-thorn for a system built on and devoted to the maintenance of privilege and positional power. Which found itself the target for odder bombs, softer but still endowed with massacre.

So if it could be said that the city has a soul. Built on and sunk in sumps of blood if this city
has
a soul …

Then maybe the spirit of here roosts in its tunnels, the Williamson tunnels branching beneath the streets and buildings, vessels for wind and darkness as if they are the blood of this place. As if they power it, as if it is sustained by wailing air and shadow. The mystery of these tracts, these hidden capillaries built to the orders of Joseph Williamson, Mole of Edge Hill, work for the veterans of Napoleon’s wars and the simple philanthropy of that or something to do with an eschatological conviction, a hole to outwait Aramageddon? Or maybe the need of a man of power not just to explore but also to create some black and secret recess? To reflect his own central nervous system? To drill into the soil the trace of his own arteries or purely to provide cover when he visited mistresses? The death of his wife in 1822 drove him down into his tunnels for longer periods and down there, with the city arumble over his head, maybe he met the red genesis of his works among the talcum dead, his wealth made from the traffic of lives and darker skins. His money made from the harrowing of hearts on this earth turned tarmac which too sheathes his bones now under a car park on the outskirts of this once shallow puddle of bubbling mud.

So the city’s soul rises on vast and tattered wings from the flat rust-coloured sea. It rises and soars and hovers and casts shadow over street and square and gargoyle and cupola and a million different bloods. It pays witness to despair and design, purpose and futility and the shore warehouses now peopled only by pigeon or preened for the pampered. All the living skins quick in all their common squalor and it pilots the trains into Lime Street where junkies beg and whores prop
and
others of their species will embark or alight and the heat of their commerce will rise and stifle the pub in the station concourse where one soul lost in this city on this earth Darren is beginning to melt into his seat and a type of excitement is beginning to flutter within another soul adrift Alastair on wings he has never until now seen or even thought could exist.

—See these fuckers, Alastair? None of em fuckin know, lar, thee ant gorrer fuckin clue … could buy n sell
aaaallll
these cunts, me …

—Is right, Da. You
know
it, my man.

—Course I fuckin do … all these fuckin no-mark blerts …

—Want another bevvy, mate? Yer runnin low.

Darren drains the dregs. Whacks the glass down on the table top where the many empties there shudder. —Same again, lar.

—Alright.

Alastair goes to the bar, orders a strong lager for Darren and a bitter shandy for himself. Their ninth drink. He orders also a double vodka and with the drinks hidden by him from Darren’s liquiding eyes and with hands slightly atremor he pours the Vladivar into the lager, a mixture which Darren has been drinking unwittingly for the last four rounds. He pays the barmaid, who has bright orange skin, and takes the drinks back to the table. Darren glugs half straight off.

—Yer might be buyin the bevvies an all that, Ally, but yer still ain’t gettin moren a sixty-forty split.

—That’s alright, Da.

—Pure woulden av fuckin
anythin
if it weren’t for me.

—I’m sound with it, mate.

—Just so’s yeh fuckin know.

—I do, lar, I do. Av got no problems with it, man.

—Sound, well. Darren takes another long swig and stands unsteadily up. —Am goin for a slash. An I’m fuckin takin
this
with me n all.

He hoists the rucksack on to his shoulder and takes it with him to the toilet. Alastair watches him go, his swaying back on wobbly legs and then lets his eyes drift to the TV above the bar where a stern young woman announces that police are searching for two men with Liverpool accents and then an image of a post office he has seen before. A post office whitewashed in a small village with a mountain rising behind it and he has seen that prospect before.

There are two young neds playing pool. Evidently under eighteen because they are drinking Cokes out of the can. Alastair gulps at his shandy and wishes it was a stronger drink and gets up and approaches the pool table.

—Yiz alright, lads?

They stare. Both of them still holding the cues beneath their chins, the blue-chalked tips reflecting greyly on skin like hypothermic buttercups. Let’s see if you like slate. They stare.

—I need a favour from youse.

—Oh for fuck’s sake. One of them looks to the other. —Another fuckin hom.

—Eh?

—Another fuckin queg wants to wank us off here, Robbo.

Robbo snorts. Alastair waves his hands frantic in front of his chest, palms out.

—Nah fuck
that
, man, am no fuckin hom. All am asking is a small friggin favour, like.

—Yeh, what? Not-Robbo tilts his head back and to the side, assessing, working out. —That’s what all the puffs say. What d’yer want us to do?

—Well, owjer fancy earnin a bit of cash?

—Thought yeh said yer norra puff?

—Aw Jesus Christ, am fuckin well
not
, man, will yiz just fuckin
listen
to me. Alastair looks over his shoulder, sees a still Darrenless bar. —Yiz see the lad am with?

They look behind him, over each of his shoulders, then face him and shake their heads.

—No.

—Yer on yer own. He’s on his own, Freddy, inny?

Freddy nods. —Looks that way to me, like.

—Yeh, he’s just gone the bog. He’ll be back soon n all so av gorrer be quick.

—What does he look like?

—Who?

—This musher yer supposed to be with.

—Yer’ll see im when he gets back from the bog. Big cunt with curly hair. Wearin an antwacky ahl shelly.

Robbo and Freddy smirking look Alastair up and down, from his seamsplit Le Coq Sportifs to his trackie bottoms tucked into white sports socks. They glance once down at their own feet and grin back up at his face. They’re wearing Rockport and Stone Island and Firetrap and Burberry.

—Wharrabout im, well?

Alastair rubs his hands over his face. —He’s a cunt.

—I bet he is, but what’s that gorrer do with us, well?

Alastair sighs, glances back over his shoulders again.
Fatigue
has sallowed his skin and made murky his eyes. His lips, cracked, have adopted the inverted smile of remorse and regret. —He’s carryin a bag. A ruckie, like. It’s fuller fuckin swag and am tellin yiz fuckin
full
of it. An youse can av some of it if yeh like.

—Ow much.

—Ton each.

—Ton fifty.

—Alright.

—Two hundred.

—Fuck off. Ton fifty.

—For doin what?

—Jackin the bastard. We’re gunner be leavin in about half n hour, follow us round to Ma Egerton’s, welly the twat round thee ed an al take the sack an box yiz off. Dead simple, like.

Robbo and Freddy, they look at each other. One rapid glance that shares something. —An that’s it?

—Aye, yeh. But yer’ve gorrer make sure that yiz give im a good hard belt, like. A mean a
real
leatherin. Gorrer knock the cunt sparko.

—Sound, Robbo says. —No worries there, likes. This im now?

Alastair whirls, sees Darren back in his seat scowling at him, the rucksack clutched to his chest, the overhead lighting shadowing his eyes and bouncing in twin beams off his brow as if double subcutaneous growths there stretch the skin. He raises his eyebrows and nods sudden once: The fucker
you
up to?

Alastair moves back to the table, thanking the two lads loudly. Darren doesn’t need to speak, his expression alone is a question.

—Just avin a lend of their moby, Alastair says. —Battery’s dead on mine. Tryna score us some beak.

—Yeh?

Nod. —Peter’s wasn’t switched on so I gave that Stega a bell instead. Says to meet im round at Ma Egerton’s in thirty.

—Thirty?

Nod. —Time for another coupla bevvies first, like.

—Why didn’t yer use mine?

—Your what?

—My fuckin moby. Why didn’t yer use it? Why borrow them neds’?

—Just safer, like, innit. Scorin some charlie, like, just safer to do it on some other cunt’s phone, innit?

Darren’s thinking.

—Can’t trace it back to yours, then, can thee? Never know
who’s
lissenin in, do yeh?

Darren thinks. Then seems to slip momentarily into a trance for a few seconds then snaps abruptly out of it with a vigorous shake of his jowly head. Alastair smiles, but not with his face.

—Don’t fuckin like that bastard, me.

—Who?

—That fuckin Stega one, Darren says. —Who d’yeh think? That fuckin Stephenson. Never liked that bastard, me.

—Aye, yer one evil cunt yerrah, Darren.

—What?

—I said he’s one evil cunt that Stega. But he’s the man with the beak, tho, inny? Doan avter drink with im, like, do we? Just score the coke an do one.

Darren thinks again. Even when he blinks it is
plodding
, ponderous; alcohol and sleeplessness have turned him into cement unset.

—Aye, alright. Goan get the drinks in well, yeh tight-arsed get.

Alastair goes to the bar and will do so twice more in the following thirty minutes before they leave, surreptitiously observed by Robbo and Freddy who play several more games of pool and sip at their Cokes until they are flat and warm, the temperature and consistency of spittle. In this half-hour all four of them will talk about nothing but money, how they will spend it, what wondrous times they will have. They will talk about the horrors of being poor and about the humming power of having money. About the unique and indescribable buzz of walking around a city when your pockets bulge with cash. About how the heart thuds and the pulse races, how you relax and settle into yourself when hitherto proscribed parts of the city suddenly become accessible. About advertisements and what they offer suddenly including you in their orbit, suddenly being directed at you, suddenly welcoming you into the once arcane arena filled with creativity and profound social significance and welcomed you will be into that shining realm. They talk about the pain of unsatisfied cravings and the contempt of the moneyed for the moneyless. They talk about buying presents for their mothers and Alastair alone thinks about hospital treatment for his grandmother, going private as if that could arrest ageing although he does not voice this thought. Darren recalls a recent Sunday dinner when he made his mother cry and remarks to himself that she seems to weep quite often these days, in fact she’s become a right fucking
whinger
but he still loves her. Robbo and Freddy discuss sprees on the skank for their good clothes and how they’ll soon be able to buy those Diesel anoraks they’ve been wanting for ages from that boss shop down Bold Street. They picture themselves wearing them, each to his own, each looking cool, each having a better chance with Madeleine O’Shea when dressed in Diesel. There is talk of the best uncut cocaine and fridges full of Baileys and holidays in Ibiza or Rhodes. There are thoughts of whores. There are thoughts of sticking the head on Tommy Maguire. There are thoughts of clearing outstanding fines, of strutting into the Clerk to the Justice’s office and paying in cash and telling the stuck-up twat there where to stick his fucking penalties. There are thoughts of drinking and eating in Modo, the Blue Bar, the Living Room, 60 Hope Street. Of taking taxis, no, fuck it,
limos
to parties catered for by themselves; of lording it over tables bent with food and booze and big bowls of powder. Of impressing people. Of creating affection and admiration in them. Of the executive boxes at Anfield and, regarding Freddy, at Goodison. Of replica shirts signed by entire teams. Of buying cars, of learning to drive, even. Of how bouncers will stand aside to permit them entry and more of being ushered straight to the front of the queue. VIP lounges with footballers and musicians. Buying a kilo of pure-as cocaine and setting themselves up in business and building on it and building on it until unimaginable wealth accrues. Paying off the bizzies. Huge houses with gardens and swimming pools. Private jets. Loft apartments in London, Los Angeles. Paying some crackhead to bump Tommy Maguire or maybe merely break his bones. Never having
a
boss again. Answering to no one ever again. Buying property. Buying land. Investment. Speculation. Freedom and ways to live, so many different and brilliant ways to live. Then back again to merely scoring some ching and getting fucking wasted.