Brothers in Blood (4 page)

I couldn’t wait to get to college on Monday morning to find out if there was any news regarding Old Mother Black and her missing pooch. I encountered Laurence in the common room before morning assembly, his face split with an enormous smile.

‘Have you heard the news?’ he said, barely able to contain his glee. ‘Old Mother Black will not be in today. Apparently she’s… sick.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Poor old thing. Wonder what can be the matter.’

‘Let’s hope it’s something serious.’

‘Let’s hope for that, certainly.’

Old Mother Black did not return to college. Ever. The distress she felt at the loss of her dog, its inexplicable disappearance, brought about a nervous breakdown and so the old dear retired due to ill health. We had, as Laurence had predicted, made our mark on the world.

We didn’t talk about the matter in any depth until some months later. Ensconced as usual in Alf’s one Friday afternoon, we came to it again. There is something about a large, quiet decrepit pub in those funereal post lunchtime hours with muted daylight just squeezing in through the grimy stained glass windows, and the place peopled with only a few punters, pensioners with dominoes and the odd out of work alkie, which gives it an air of the confessional. We had been discussing Old Mother Black’s replacement, a fit piece of stuff in her early thirties, and congratulating ourselves that it was through our efforts that we now had the pleasure of Miss Cornwall, with her tight jumpers, buttock hugging pencil skirts and flashing brown eyes, for our history studies.

Laurence leaned back in his seat apparently staring at the smoke-tarred ceiling with a beatific smile upon his face. ‘Poor Old Mother Black. We really did for her didn’t we?’

‘And that bloody dog of hers. We did for them both.’

We chuckled.

‘You are quite right,
mon ami
,’ continued Laurence. ‘We made the difference. We altered the course of history – only a teeny weeny bit, I grant you, but nevertheless… Through our little efforts we managed to change things. Surely that’s what we’re here for. That’s what makes life bearable, to shape things to our own ends… and in particular to affect the lives of others. We’re not like those dumbbells at college who just let life happen to them. We make it happen to us.’

I grinned and made a kind of roaring noise emulating the sound of an appreciative crowd. ‘
Sieg Heil
,
sieg Heil
,’ I added with a grin.

Laurence flashed me an angry glance. ‘I’m not bloody joking, Russ. What we did was the best thing we’ve ever done in our fucking miserable lives. There’s a dog out there rotting in its grave and a stupid, insipid old woman dribbling into her cocoa because of us – because of what we did. That’s power. It gives life a purpose.’

I stopped grinning. I hadn’t thought of what we had done in this way. I hadn’t really thought about it in any way. It had been a kind of exciting diversion from the dull routine – a bit of lark – but now I began to see what Laurence meant. It had allowed us to become the puppet masters. Through our actions we could control or at least affect destinies. We pulled the bloody strings for a change! As always Laurence was the perceptive one, the one who showed the way.

He bent low over the small table until his chin was on a level with the top of his glass, his face eager with enthusiasm. ‘You realise that what we did bonded us together – forever. On your bloody deathbed when you’re a gummy old bastard pissing on the mattress and farting uncontrollably, you’ll think back to what we did and grin a toothless grin in remembrance. We shed blood together. We are blood brothers now.’

He held out his hand to me, eyes shining brightly. I took it and shook it firmly.

‘Brothers,’ he said.

‘Brothers,’ I said.

We didn’t speak for some time. We just sat there enjoying our new established closeness. For this words were not necessary.

It was an unspoken understanding between us that we both knew that we would have to do something again before long. Something startling. Something forbidden. Something to make a difference once more. It was the start of the addiction. The satisfaction and adrenalin rush of the Old Mother Black episode had long gone, and dull, stultifying life was once more starting to overwhelm us. Similarly, we both knew – although we never discussed it – that we’d recognise the challenge, the fresh opportunity when it arose.

At the beginning of our second year at college, sex reared its seductive head and we both had a few flings with several nubile girls. Because of our aloofness and self sufficiency, we had become something of a challenge for a number of our fellow students. Some of the lads wanted entry to our exclusive two man club to find out what made us tick and some of the girls fancied us because we didn’t walk around all day ogling them, touching them up with our tongues hanging out as though we were gagging for it. We intrigued them. We had become a mystery duo.

The novelty of sex was pleasing at first, although I can’t say that in the end it was that much better than a good wank. The dreaded routine one had to go through before you reaped your reward soon put me off. The chatting up, the boring, empty conversations in pubs and discos, the pre-coital perambulations seemed too much like hard work for just a few moments of pleasure. Laurence was luckier than I. He never really had to exert himself in getting a girl. A flash of his smile and the allure of his eyes soon had the birds eating out of his flies. We’d be at a party and he’d start chatting up some leggy creature and the next minute, he’d be in one of the toilets giving her what for. But he got bored, too. ‘When you’ve been in the sweetshop a while all that sugar palls,’ he observed. ‘What we need is another endeavour. Something stimulating to stop our brains rotting.’

He was right. What we didn’t realise at the time was that we had taken the first step on the ladder with the Old Mother Black affair and now we would never be content until we made our way to the next rung. However, we knew that it couldn’t be rushed and it had to have the same conditions established by our first ‘experiment’: we must act anonymously so that our involvement would never be suspected. That was part of the fun.

Fate provided us with an ideal opportunity.

FIVE

JOURNAL OF RUSSELL BLAKE 1968-1970

It was the Christmas season of our second year at college. Ho fucking ho ho and all that. And our last Christmas before university. With some cunning, a little hard work and a certain amount of luck Laurence and I had both been offered good places. If we got the grades – and there seemed little doubt of that – he was going to York to study English and Drama and I was off to Durham to do languages. We hadn’t wanted to go the same university; we both felt that it was important to spread our wings and we were sensible and objective enough to realise that our close friendship might interfere with our studies. Getting through A levels was a doddle but degree work, we suspected, might be a little harder to cope with. However we vowed to stay in touch and remain close. After all we were blood brothers now. Neither of us knew what we wanted to do after that. We just planned for that flash of lightning to inform us.

Taking the next step on our special ladder came about one Saturday night a few weeks before Christmas Day when Alex came into our lives. We’d been to see some crap film at the ABC and after leaving the cinema had decided to go for a drink to compensate for the two hours of boredom.

We favoured rough old pubs like Alf’s establishment rather than the tarted up bars, designed to attract the untamed youth of Huddersfield on a Saturday night, where they would cram themselves in, sardine style, drink themselves more stupid than they already were and then try to cop off with some sweaty inebriate of the opposite sex. ‘The vomit and ripped knicker places’ we called them, because that was all that was left when the dump closed down in the early hours.

Laurence said that he’d heard of a pub called the Dog and Gun down by the canal, about half a mile from the town centre, which was almost like a museum. ‘Lots of doddery fellers in flat caps and real old fashioned prostitutes – you know, rouged faces, fish net tights and a pension book.’

‘Worth a look,’ I agreed. And so we strolled down there in the frosty night air, our breath escaping in pearly wisps as we chatted.

The Dog and Gun didn’t quite live up to Laurence’s description. There certainly were no obvious prostitutes in there and no flat caps either. However, it was quiet with just a few gloomy middle aged couples sitting around like waxworks: women with peroxide perms and men with hangdog expressions, married so long they had run out of anything to say to each other so they stared into space while slowly revolving their drinks. There was a group of young rugby types having a go on the one armed bandit, cave men in jeans and jumpers, and a lad about our age sitting on his own reading
Private Eye
. Most of them were regulars, no doubt, for when we entered, all eyes focused on us with suspicion. It was as though we had just landed in our alien space ship outside and invaded their private domain. You could cut the atmosphere with a rusty bread knife and Laurence always overreacted to such mean-spirited parochial attitudes.

‘I say, landlord,’ he announced in a posh effeminate voice that could be heard above the din of the one-armed bandit, ‘two pints of your very best foaming ale.’

The cavemen turned to look at us with scowls of disdain and muttered to each other.

‘Steady boy,’ I whispered to Laurence.

‘Steady yourself,’ he snapped back.

The wizened barman plonked two pints on the counter without a word.

‘How much do I owe you, landlord?’ Laurence continued his mincing charade.

‘Four and six,’ came the gruff reply.

Laurence shelled out a series of coins and dropped them casually on the counter in a pool of spilled beer.

‘Keep the change, my good man,’ he said grandly, and gave a wave of his hand to emphasise his benevolent gesture.

The barman glared at him, picked up the coins, counted them and replaced a sixpence on the counter in the same pool of beer.

I dragged Laurence over to a corner table. All eyes still remained on us as though we were the unexpected cabaret. The cave men were obviously discussing us in less than positive terms.

‘You’ll have us lynched before we can get out of here,’ I whispered to Laurence.

‘Well, that might be more interesting than that film we saw tonight. Whose idea was it to see that?’

At least he had resorted to his normal voice.

‘Just drink your beer,’ I said, trying to hide my smile.

After a few moments one of the cave men came over. He was big, beefy and blonde with eyes like two small currants in a large white loaf.

‘One of you gentlemen got a light?’ he asked with sarcastic politeness.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I chimed in quickly, before Laurence had chance to start his performance again. ‘We don’t smoke.’

Our caveman grinned and turned back to his mates. ‘They don’t smoke,’ he said, as though announcing the death of a friend.

The other three men guffawed at the news.

‘Too manly for you is it, smoking?’

This time I was not quick enough, Laurence came in with a sibilant retort: ‘It gives you cancer, old boy. And it makes you impotent… if you know what that means. But by the look of you that’s already happened…’

The smile faded from the caveman’s face and without warning his hand snaked out and grabbed Laurence’s coat by the lapels. ‘Why, you fucking queer,’ he snarled, his face so contorted with anger that his currant eyes had all but disappeared into the folds of his flesh.

Laurence was not fazed at all. ‘Now, now, temper, temper. Thumping me won’t bring back your manhood.’

But thumping Laurence was what he intended to do. Uttering a Neanderthal growl he drew back his fist.

‘Craig! That’ll do,’ came a voice to the rescue. It was the barmaid who seemed to have materialised out of thin air. ‘We don’t want any trouble… again,’ she added more firmly. ‘Just get back to your mates.’

‘Aye c’mon Craig. Leave the poofters alone. They’re not worth it,’ cried one of his burly companions in support of the barmaid.

Reluctantly Craig released his grip on Laurence’s jacket, but he leaned forward until his brutish mug was only inches away from my friend’s face. ‘I’ve not finished with you yet,’ he grunted in a harsh whisper before returning to his cronies.

‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Not only have you got us labelled as queers, but I doubt if we’ll get out of this pub alive.’

Laurence turned to me and smiled. ‘Relax. You take things too seriously. At least that little encounter was more exciting than the movie tonight.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘That was entertainment. This is real life.’

‘And so much better.’

I lingered over my drink, hoping the rugby lads would depart but I hoped in vain. They replenished their glasses and stayed. From time to time they broke off from their conversation to turn and stare at us. Like poachers eyeing up their prey.

‘You realise that we’re going to get bollocked as soon as we leave this pub, don’t you? Genghis Khan over there is just waiting for us to walk through the door and then he and his mini-horde’ll be after us like a shot,’ I murmured.

‘Yes. It’s a nice little problem. What are we going to do about it? You got your running shoes with you?’

I knew Laurence well enough by now to know that he was enjoying himself. He thrived on such danger and discomfort. The fact that he would probably get his head kicked in for his efforts didn’t seem to matter to him. I had to admire his nerve.

‘Look,’ I said, trying to be practical, ‘some of them are bound to go to the loo sooner of later. I suggest when at least one of them goes, we make a quick exit, belt it to the end of the street and then spilt up and make our own way home. You go left and I’ll go right.’

‘And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye. All right, Einstein. You are in charge of Operation Scarper. I’ll abide by your decision.’

‘That’ll be a first.’

We waited and waited but our bruising trio seemed to have infinitely expandable bladders. I was getting really worried as closing time neared and then eventually two of the lads went off ‘to the bog for a slash’ as one of them announced loudly. That left just one of the bruisers still standing by the one armed bandit.