Billy Rags (8 page)

“Do you reckon they're off to the bushes?” Clapson says, loud enough for them to hear.

“Naw,” says Arnatt. “You don't do things like that when it's True Love. That'd spoil it.”

“Or when your dad's a copper,” I say. “That'd never do.”

Anita Dent's face is crimson.

“Here, Arnatt, how many villains did your dad catch last night?” calls Jarrow. “Twenty-six or was it twenty-seven?”

“Forty-nine,” says Clapson. “That's where he gets his name from. PC Forty-nine.”

“Forty-eight and a Half,” I say.

Arnatt stops and turns to face us.

“All right, clever sods. Now pack it in,” he says.

“I thought that's what you were going to do in the bushes,” I say.

The others burst out laughing.

Arnatt takes a few steps towards us.

“I'm telling you,” he says.

“What?” I say.

“Shut up or I'll shut you up.”

“What he means is he'll tell his Dad,” says Clapson.

“No point,” I said. “His dad's even a bigger ponce than he is.”

Arnatt lunges forward and tries to pull me up off the grass but I grab his blazer and pull him to the ground, next to me.

“So that's what you want, is it boy?” I say.

“Go on, Billy,” says Clapson. “Murder him.”

Arnatt and I stand up. Clapson and the others move away to give us room.

“Come on then,” I say to Arnatt. “You first. Put one on me.”

Arnatt lashes out with his right and tries to land it on the side of my head but I parry the blow with my forearm and punch him hard in the chest. I am well set on my feet and there is a lot of weight behind my punch but it doesn't have the effect I expect it to have. It rocks him all right, but it doesn't seem to hurt him very much, and while I am considering this he has given me a left and a right to the head. Stars burst and he hurls himself at me, toppling me. I try and roll out of the way but I'm not quick enough and he jumps astride me, punching as he lands. I stretch up my arms to pull him off me but his blows scythe down my arms and I take punch after punch on my head. I thrash about and try to arch my body but I can't dislodge him. He has a furious strength I didn't expect. I know I'm tougher than he is, I know I can beat him. Yet he is winning and I'm unable to do anything about it. All my mates are watching, and a crowd is growing. I hear someone shout from across the pitch, “Billy Cracken is getting a beating.”

Tears of frustration well up in my eyes and I am weakened by the fear of losing.

“Do you give in?” breathes Arnatt, pinning my arms to the ground. I shake my head and more blows clang down on me. The tears roll down my cheeks and the watchers think it's because I'm hurt but they don't know the real reason. Suddenly Arnatt jumps off me. I don't move straight away because his action has surprised me. I raise my head. Arnatt is walking away, proving to the crowd that he has finished with me. Anger and frustration rush through me and I get up and rush after him. Voices cry out and Arnatt spins round and grabs hold of me before I can throw any punches and hurls me to the ground. This time I don't get up. The humiliation has left me too weak to carry on. The rest of the crowd begins to drift away.

Except for Potter and Jarrow and Clapson.

They know better than to try and help me up.

The office was eighteen feet by twelve. Most of the twenty-two were inside it. The noise was deafening. Everybody was talking at once. The radio had been turned on full blast. Records and files and papers and smashed furniture were scattered all over the floor and most of the cons were down on their hands and knees sorting through the mess trying to find their own records. Those who'd already found them were systematically tearing them up and throwing the shreds of their lives up into the air, creating their own little blizzards.

When Ray Crompton saw me come into the office he waved a thick file above his head.

“Here, Billy,” he said. “I've got yours here.”

I took the file off him and put it on the window sill. Out of the way.

“There's Hopper's as well,” Ray said.

I picked up that one and did the same as I'd done with my own.

Over by the window, Walter was talking on the phone.

“It's Walter Colman,” he said. There was a pause. He looked at me and grinned. “Honest,” he said down the phone, “it's right. Listen, if you don't believe me, I'll tell you about the last time we met. Right? Fine. It was the Turk's Head, am I right? Middle of last March. You'd got a message from the Filth that they were out for me so you come along and give me the information in return for me giving you the exclusives if they ever sort it, right? Also you want me to phone you every week from wherever I am so you can let me know what the Filth's up to. And you put a few misleading paras in your rag so's the Filth's legging it all over Manchester. In return for a deposit of two grand and fifty a week till I'm nicked. Right? So who else could it be?”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“All right, I'll give you the number and you can phone back. But make it quick before they tumble, otherwise you'll miss all the juice.”

Walter put the phone down.

“That cunt's about as trusting as my lawyer.”

“When he rings back tell him Billy Cracken sends his best,” I said.

The pandemonium was getting worse. Some of them were so excited that I thought maybe they were going to start rolling about the floor in ecstasy. Every so often there'd be a scream from the passageway and a load of cons would rush out to repel boarders but it would always be a false alarm and they'd shuffle back in and take it out on what was left of the furniture.

Then Moffatt came on the scene.

Everybody except Walter, who was talking to his reporter, crammed outside to the barricades and began to volley him off.

“You cunt, Moffatt, you heap of shit, you fucking egg, you wanking mother-fucker.”

It was like the Anfield Kop. Everybody screaming all at once, all the animal hatred and frustration focused on Moffatt who was standing out there like a referee putting down the names in his little notebook. But the roar of abuse didn't stop and even Moffatt couldn't take it for very long. He had as much chance of negotiating a settlement as the public hangman. So he stopped trying to promote his stock and retired. Some of the cons stayed at the barricade after Moffatt had gone. I led the others back into the office. Walter was still on the phone.

“For Christ's sake,” he screamed at us as we all bundled back in. There was quiet for a moment or two but the hysteria was too great for the racket to be kept down for very long. Walter gave up and I took over the phone and gave the reporter a few facts and then Walter had a word with him. We soon got bored with this so we swallowed the reporter and Walter phoned up his bird, Chloe Raines, the pop singer.

Then everybody began to queue up for the phone so that they could ring up their birds or their old ladies or anybody else they could think of. I felt a bit out of it because I couldn't ring Sheila as her Mum wasn't on the phone then and I couldn't remember anybody else's number. Then “Don't Stop the Carnival” came on over the radio and somebody turned the volume up full blast and everybody began to dance and laugh and shriek and join in with the song. Walter stood by the telephone, clapping his hands in time to the music and jigging up and down, his eyes flicking from con to con, looking like a benevolent gargoyle watching the antics of a group of animated garden gnomes. One of the cons was screaming down the telephone.

“Well fucking well go and find her,” he shouted. “And don't come back without her.”

The scene depressed me. There they all were, dancing like cakewalkers, as if they were pissed, as if they were free, as if they'd really done something great. And it was nothing: they wouldn't even be doing this if it hadn't been for me. And there was Walter on the other side of the room, clapping them along, the benevolent dictator, joining in like the boss at the firm's office party, determined to prove he was one of the boys. I watched him through the swirling bodies. He made me sick. He thought he was number one. But to be number one you had to stand alone. And that was something Walter could never do. He couldn't be content with being top of the pyramid. The rest of the pyramid had to be made up of Walter-lovers. And he couldn't see how they were only Walter-lovers because he wanted them to be. If he'd wanted them to be the other way, they'd have been the other way. It wasn't as if they were all frightened to death of him. Some were, but they were frightened of their mothers' shadows as well. The others were kissing Walter's arse for what they could get out of him, inside and out. They knew Walter liked appearing large, so if they stuck their tongues right up his crevice then they could rely on him to keep them and their families in the jam. The cons who couldn't give two fucks for Walter could be picked up one handed. But my advantage was that I was the only con in the nick with the strength to pick them up. And the other greasers were more frightened of me than they were of Walter: I had nothing to give them but my clenched fist, and in the short run, that was more persuasive than Walter's stocks and shares. So when the time came for me and the handful to go over the wall, the only con in the nick without a clue would be Walter. Moffatt would know before he did. Poor old fucker. But it was his own fault. It was evident that Walter's plans only included Walter. The benevolence stopped at the wall. The only pity as far as I was concerned was that I wouldn't be around to see the expression on Walter's face.

But that was in the future. This little diversion had to run its course before I could get on to that one.

Walter caught me looking at him. He stopped clapping and gave me a look that said both you know and I know that really they're all behaving like a bunch of cunts but what can you do, people like us, we've got to go along with the rubbish, makes them feel important when people like us get stuck in with them.

I smiled. Walter was even using his technique on me. He wanted me on his team. That would give him even more credibility with the rest of them. As well as it being easier for him to keep an eye on me. But that was the difference between Walter and me. I didn't need a team. I didn't need to be on a team. There was no reason. I could get along on my own.

Walter began to move across the room. Then the lights went out and the radio went off and the room went dead quiet except for the con who'd been using the phone. His aggrieved voice cut through the blackness.

“I've been cut off,” he said. “The sods have cut me off.”

Frobisher House. A youth club in Canning Town. Inter-club boxing, ours against Mill Road Club. Both clubs are well supported and the rivalry is sharp and rowdy. The full sound carries through into the dressing-room and pumps the adrenalin round my body. I know I'm going to win my bout. There's no way I can lose. I feel too good. As I walk down the aisle all my mates give me the big cheer. This is what it's all about. Knowing you're going to fulfil what everybody expects of you. Expressing publicly what you're capable of doing.

I'm down against a good boy called Barry Croft. He's a slow mover but slow to anger as well, composed, unwilling to let my aggravations draw him into danger. So I have to wait for my moment, filling in the first round by snapping in as many lefts as I can get through his guard.

The bell goes and I sit down in my corner and give the wink to my mates in the front row. Then a stillness in one of the characters in the crowd catches my eye. I have to look twice to make sure. I can't believe it. My father. His eyes are shining in a way I've never seen before. Full of pride and admiration. I just can't believe it. How did he even know I was boxing?

The bell goes again and I throw myself into the fight. I've never boxed so well before, relaxed, even more convinced of the final outcome. I try and get the decision inside the time but that doesn't work out. Croft just closes up and walks away from the rest of the fight. But the decision is mine and after the fight I look for my father but he is no longer in the crowd. Perhaps he's gone to the dressing-room to wait, so we can walk home together and talk about the fight. But there is no sign of him. Outside. That's where he'll be. He'd rather wait outside in the rain than have to hang about talking to people.

I hurry to get changed but as I'm changing a mate of mine sticks his head round the door and says: “Your old man told me to tell you he's had to go on somewhere and you're to go on home with your mates.”

I sit down on the bench. Why couldn't he have waited? Why couldn't he have let me walk with him, even just as far as the pub?

When I get home I wait up for him. He comes in stiff and goes straight to bed. He doesn't even nod at me as he comes through the door. Just straight through into the bedroom without saying a word.

Later, as I lie in bed, I can hear the dry sound of his snoring from their bedroom. The sound goes on and on and I want to get out of bed and smash my fists into his stupid open mouth again and again so that the rattling sound might stop for good.

The candles flickered.

I was sitting on the floor with my back to the wall, my file open on my legs in front of me. Most of the other cons were sitting the same way, leafing through their files, calling out the choice bits.

The screws seemed to have packed it up for the night, but we'd worked a rotation to keep the barricades covered. The reason the lights had gone out was because the slag of a reporter had phoned through to the Governor after he'd got what he wanted out of us and told Moffatt about the phone calls. That way his paper got two stories.