Close (24 page)

'What do you want, Trevor? Anything you need you just tell me, OK?' The young man who was serving the drinks was a handsome and, suddenly seriously nervous, little fucker.

Trevor guessed, rightly, that he had only just sussed out the situation and was not happy about being witness to anything that might drag him into the world of violent retribution. He was eighteen, top whack, and he was so naive he probably thought Debbie Harry was a natural blonde. Collar
and
cuffs.

Trevor grinned and shook his head as if he was happy as a sandboy. The three gooners and the ponce all ordered large drinks and that in itself told Trevor that he was dealing with fucking amateurs. He wanted to scream out at the top of his voice, 'Have me over if you must, but don't fucking rub it in and make it so obvious. Have a bit of respect.'

Trevor was more gutted at the way they seemed to think he was such a cunt that they could just mug him off. He would have had more respect for them if they had just robbed him; an honest robbing would have been preferable to this barrage of insults and foolishness. They were making him feel like a prat. Any real card player worth their salt went off the drink once the real money was on the table for the simple reason you never knew what might be in it. Certain people got lairy when they were being wiped out. The Faces were the worst of them all; they honestly believed that you were scrumping their fucking wallets somehow.

Trevor had made a point of never playing Faces unless they had the proper in. He insisted on a guarantee that they were
real
players. Which meant, of course, that they were happy to lose their money. Most criminals, especially bank robbers, were
not
natural losers. It was the nature of that particular beast that they tended to
take
money,
not
give it away to some bloke with a smile and a better hand than they had. Some had even been known to come back later in the evening with a shotgun and a chip on their shoulder bigger than Mount fucking Rushmore demanding their money back, convinced they had been short-changed. You couldn't do a lot about that, you certainly didn't remind them that they had been in a
proper
game with serious gamblers, not playing poker in prison for fucking peanuts, nine times out of ten with people who had no intention of losing to them. Somehow, that conversation never seemed to come up.

No one accepted a drink. A real pro got up during a break and then watched the fucker being poured out. In his world the barman would have the fucking sense to open a
new
bottle in front of his face; it was accepted, expected and it stopped fights. He was being rolled by a herd of fucking imbeciles. Big imbeciles admittedly, but fucking drongos all the same. The real insult was that these fucking Keystone Cops thought he was buying into this fucking lunacy. Really believed that he had not cottoned on.

In all his years, Trevor had never, ever, been treated like this. Oh, he had seen the chancers and he had observed gooners in his time. When he had first come on the scene he had been offered fortunes to be one. He had refused; he wanted to win fair and square. Gooners were players who were ornaments until the final sting. There was never
a
gooner of course, in the singular, because a good card man would wipe them out in no time. Gooners worked together so that, like now, when he had knocked out the real players and the pot was a small fucking fortune, they would sit at the table and work together against him. He was expected to believe that they were better players than him, that his luck had gone on the trot faster than an ex-wife with a pools win and an ex-paratrooper for company. He was so insulted that he was determined to make these cunts work for the jackpot. Then he would congratulate them and leave with dignity and a fucking raging hard-on for all their arses. The bar boy winked at him and he wondered if, on top of everything else, they all thought he was a poofter.

'Not long till me party.' Pat Junior's voice was proud and filled with longing for the day to finally arrive.

Billy Boot, Pat's long-time friend and Lance's arch-enemy, was almost as excited as he was at the thought of the party. This was the party to end all parties as far as he was concerned and he was thrilled that Pat was going to be the lucky recipient of such a wondrous event. Everyone within earshot was straining to hear the conversation and all those invited had been bragging about it for ages, with the girls discussing their outfits at every opportunity. Lance kicked a football that had rolled near him back to the boys who were playing with it. He was good at sports and he kicked it with all his considerable strength, knowing that it would slam into one of the younger kids who were waiting patiently for its return.

He was spot on and the ball hit a seven-year-old lad on the side of his head. He was a hardy perennial though, who rubbed his ear furiously, forced away the tears that were filling his eyes and carried on with the game, even though his face was crumpling by the second with pain and cold.

'I bet that hurt him.' Lance was laughing at the boy's predicament.

'Course it hurt him. You meant it to. It's freezing today so that must have really stung.' Lance shrugged as if he had no idea what Billy was talking about before saying loudly, 'You're right, it is cold, ain't it? Hope my old coat is warm enough for you, Bootsie.'

The boys were in the school playground in their usual place by the school gates. The weather was icy cold, and their coats were buttoned up tightly against it. Patrick knew that they were better dressed than any of the others and he accepted that, appreciated it. He also understood why his mother passed their old clothes on to other kids in the school. It was her way of helping people out and it was accepted in their world.

Unlike Lance, he had never felt the urge to point that fact out. Now he could feel the heat of Billy's humiliation as if it was happening to himself.

Lance was sneering at Billy, taunting him as he always did and Billy Boot was not going to put up with much more of it. Lance had never understood when enough was enough; he always had to push everything and everyone to the extreme. He spent his whole life causing upset and hurting people without a thought for their feelings or their circumstances. They had both been to Billy's house and Pat knew that Lance had seen how hard up they were. Billy had six younger brothers and three older sisters and a father who was always in the pub. He battered Billy and his brothers regularly and, without a second's thought, Billy's sisters were also beaten, but generally only on a Friday or Saturday night when he came home from the pub looking for his wife. Even though he knew he wouldn't find his wife, and knowing exactly what she was up to, he would smack his daughters around instead.

Everyone knew, including her husband, that Billy's mother moonlighted weekends around King's Cross. She had to, someone had to pay the bills. Billy's father would come home drunk, kick up a stink and then rob her of whatever money she had. She would put a few bob in her bag and when he had taken that she would have a bath and tell the girls that, as always, the bulk of her earnings were with Lil Diamond. Patrick had been married to Lil for about a year when he heard one of the neighbours, a hard old bird who had buried her husband and three of her children during the Blitz, telling one of her cronies, 'You know who that is don't you? Lil Diamond's husband.' He had been amused by the fact that in the Irish community women were always known by their maiden names.

It was Lil's reputation as a Brodie wife and a respectable woman that kept Billy's father from demanding all his wife's money from her.

Though Billy's mother and her extracurricular activities were never talked about openly, everyone knew about them; the teachers, the police who came when she was being battered and even the little kids around and about. But because she was also a great friend of Pat's and Lance's mother, no one said a word about it to her face. It was a strange set up. You could whore in the streets in front of your home, as long as you were doing it for your kids and, even more importantly, your kids had to look as if you were flogging your arse for their benefit. If the kids were still running round with their arses hanging out of their trousers, and you were seen to be doing all right yourself, then, and only then, were you treated like an outcast. So, if you had half a brain you sorted the kids out. Feeding and clothing your children was paramount to these women; all they were and all they did was for their families. It was the most important thing you could ever do.

Those who had a husband who provided were revered. If your old man had gone on the trot, or was a useless ponce, you did the best you could; robbed him while he slept off the drink on pay night or, like the abandoned women, you moonlighted. Some of the women who were alone for a while eventually acquired lodgers, and these lodgers were treated with respect and would act the part for years. It was all about how things
looked
to the neighbours, not about how they actually were.

If your kids were taken away, you were finished. Go on the bash by all means; no one thought the worse of you for that. As no one signed on, the bash was considered almost respectable, whereas going on the Social was considered outrageous. Once you went to the Social Security you invited the government into your whole life.

And if, God forbid, you let your kids go into care, which, since the sixties, had become everyone's biggest fear, you were out. You were dragged out of your home by your hair, battered, spat on and left with no option but to do a runner. Now there was a new breed arriving in the flats and houses: young women with babies and no husband in the frame at all. Girls who lived off the Social and had no shame, like it was their right. The dole was supposed to be an interim measure till you got another job but now it seemed, with the seventies, it was a fucking lifestyle! It shocked and annoyed the women who had never claimed a bean even when they were on their uppers. Now, by all accounts, girls were getting pregnant just to procure for themselves council flats and a few quid off the State. These young hussies were shameless about it, and the older women were starting to be nervous because more than a few of these so-called unmarried mothers were daughters and nieces of people they knew.

The sixties were over, the seventies were more than halfway through, and these women who were scandalised were only young, yet most looked older than their husbands. It was a new age for them and, as they ran one woman out, another one arrived with a child and no wedding ring. They saw these girls have a child without a thought for the fellow involved and, in their hearts, they admired them for their independence and their guts, even while they blasted them for living off the taxpayers' money. Still, as long as they looked after their children, they were tolerated. If they didn't, they were taken to task like any of the others.

Billy and his siblings were more than aware of what their mother had to do when she went out of a weekend. Billy could not remember when or how he had found out about it, but he had seemed to know all his life. He hated his father and he loved his mother, although he loathed what she had to do to keep them clean, fed and with a roof over their heads.

Billy knew that his mother was respected for the way she kept her family and that Lil was great mates with her. This was how Billy came by Lance's old winter coat and other bits of his wardrobe.

Billy was sick of having to wear other people's clothes and sick of having to live with a drunken father and a whoring mother. One of his sisters was pregnant so she was going to be another one of those unmarried mothers, and he knew that once that was common knowledge, Lance would slaughter him for it.

'You can stick the coat up your arse…'

Billy's voice was heavy with shame and embarrassment. He forced the words out between his teeth and he felt so fucking full of hatred for himself and the whole world that Lance could feel it coming off him in waves. He was frightened of Billy for the first time ever; he knew that he was capable of hurting him this time.

Billy was clenching his fists ready to have a fight. He wanted a fight, he wanted to crack Lance's head open for every slight he had endured from him and for every fucking man his mum had serviced. He wanted to draw blood for every time his dad had beaten him or his brothers because he had pissed up all his money.

'Come on then, Lance. Let's have a straightener, shall we?'

Billy could feel a great black hate that was finally bubbling up to the surface. He could kill a man now, let alone a boy.

Pat Junior, as always, stepped in and tried to keep the peace.

'Fuck off, Lance. That was out of order.' He pushed his brother out of harm's way.

Lance grinned. 'It was a joke, Pat, that's all. And he
is
wearing me coat. So what. I don't give a toss; he's welcome to it.'

Billy was still white-faced and stiff with anger. He knew that Lance had meant for his words to be heard by all the other kids standing nearby and he also knew that he had achieved his objective. They were being stared at by the majority of their classmates. Billy knew that most of them were in the same boat as him; money was tight in their households too, but it was the principle of it. He knew Lance had wanted to show him up and he had achieved that. Billy wanted to rip Lance apart and he knew he was more than capable of doing just that, but he didn't want to fall out with Patrick because they were best mates. Lance, as usual, took advantage of that and now Billy was feeling the full force of Lance's beaming smile and his convincing act of being contrite. The black hate was gone now.

'You are going to have to develop a sense of humour at some point, Bill.'

Lance was smiling again, that even-toothed, amiable smile that made him look like an innocent. Billy didn't answer him or even acknowledge the smile. Instead, he turned his back on him and spoke to Pat, but the words were for Lance's benefit and they all knew that.

'Your party is going to be the biggest event of the year for us lot, everyone is talking about it and you deserve it. The whole fucking thing is amazing. Is it true you've got a proper disco?'