New and Collected Stories (36 page)

Bert turned to Donnie: ‘I reckon we'd better sink 'em. They aren't any good to us. Too risky to keep, as well' – an opinion sending Dave into action before Donnie tried once more to swing the vote. The first gun sailed to the middle of the water. It sank. Another followed. Bert joined in, threw a gun and tailed it with a hollow magazine.

Donnie strolled casually over and picked out a gun, as if to help, then sorted through rusting magazines until he reached one that was loaded. He clipped it onto his gun, the sound hidden by resplendent waterspouts caused by the hard work of his brothers. ‘This is what they should a done in the war,' Dave said.

‘I thought that was what yo' did,' Bert laughed.

‘I mean everybody though.'

‘Maybe they will in the next one.'

‘There wain't be a next one, or time to do this if there is' – Dave spun the last weapon as high as it would go, the two of them drawing their heads back – seeing bordering rocks, treetops and a gulf of cloud – to follow the upward and downward flight. ‘A bull's-eye,' Bert shouted, blinking at its impact. ‘Chock in the middle.'

Dave gave in to a rare bout of self-praise. ‘I can't help it if I'm a crackshot!'

A savage, sharp explosion burst through the air, a needling crack of white fire directly connected with the chip that flew from the moss-covered rock a bare yard from Bert's foot. The shot itinerated every crevice-point of the hills, came back again and again, each time with diminishing vigour.

The sight of Donnie holding the machine-gun, as if he had been a professional guerilla all his life, sent a pain through Dave's feet that seemed to come from the soil he stood on, fastening him to earth and shrubs like a charge of electricity high enough to cause a rheumatic pain but not to sling him a dozen yards away. He was afraid to move, to try and rid himself of it in case it would increase – or for fear a bullet from Donnie's gun would strike him all unbeknowing – smack in the guts. He stared at the apparition of his brother, was startled by Bert calling: ‘Drop it, Donnie, you daft sod. Come on, knock it off. You'll do some damage if you aren't careful.'

‘That's right,' Dave said, and to Bert: ‘You should a kept your bloody eye on him.' The derogatory tone, stabbing through to Donnie's incensed brain, brought forth a further terrifying shot. Dave and Bert scampered towards different boulders beyond the pool. ‘Why don't you mind what you're saying?' Bert hissed across to Dave. Then in a commanding yet considerate tone: ‘Donnie, put that bleeding gun down. I'll get mad in a minute.'

Donnie's fallen cap lay at the edge of the pool, half in and half out of the water like a turtle emerging for a breath of air. His face was rigid, all lines and muscles clamped into place by the grip of his teeth. His hair blew in the wind. ‘You bastards' – a tearful implacable roar – ‘you rotten lousy bastards.'

‘What's bitin' you?' Bert shouted. ‘What 'ave we done to you?'

‘I'll kill you both,' he responded loudly, his brain shut hard against the wind, and all their talk. ‘You've 'ad it your own way too long. I'll show you whether I'm kidding or not. That's what Dora's allus telling me, that you put on me. Only I ain't believed her up to now.'

‘Pack your game up,' Dave said reasonably, ‘and let's get cracking. We've lost enough time as it is.'

‘Chuck that gun in the water,' Bert ordered. ‘Or I'll get mad, our Donnie.' The sun came out and, standing between them, gave Bert confidence to move nearer Donnie. He knelt at the kitbag to fold it: We'd better tek this with us and burn it. We don't want anybody to find it.'

‘I suppose not,' Dave winked.

‘You bastards,' Donnie said. ‘You think you're the bosses and can get away with everything.' His eyes were set on them, unmoving, as hard as the spout of the ever-pointing gun. ‘You should a kept them Stens and not thrown 'em away. You'll be sorry you wasted 'em like that one day.'

‘I told you it was dangerous,' Dave said. ‘Our Bert said so as well. You don't want to go to clink for ten years, do you? I don't, anyway, I know that much. What would Dora do if you got sent down? Eh?'

Donnie pressed a foot forward. ‘I don't give a fuck for owt now. I'll do you both in.'

‘Put it away,' Dave shouted. ‘You cranky sod.'

Bert eyed him coolly: ‘If you do owt daft, you'll swing.'

‘I don't care.'

‘You will. Wain't he, Dave?' – nonchalantly.

‘Not much he wain't. He'll get my fist as well when I catch hold of him.'

Bert was nearer now, pushing the spacious kitbag over his boots in a kneeling-down position and easing his feet forward while he talked: ‘I know a bloke in the army had his arm shot off, only by accident, but the bloke who done it got ten years. I reckon he deserved it though: an arm's an arm, and a pension's no good to anybody. I don't like guns being pointed at me or Donnie, so you'd better drop it; it brings my cough back, and I feel bad for days then. I get laid-up and earn no dough, so stop it.'

‘You never listen to what I say,' Donnie complained, crashing in on Bert's monologue. ‘You think I'm daft. Two on to one. That's how it is all the time. I've only got to say: “Let's do this,” and you two rotten bastards allus vote it down. But my share in this lorry's the same as yourn, you know. You forget that, you do an' all.'

‘I never say it ain't,' Bert reassured him. ‘You know I don't' – forward again, still closer. Dave, watching, wondered how it was going to end – ‘I'm allus on your side, but you forget that as soon as I see fit to vote with Dave once in a while. Don't he, Dave?'

‘That's what I tell him.'

‘You remember that time you wanted to tek Dora and the kids on an outing to Gunthorpe, and Dave said we couldn't afford the time, and that we should collect some stuff from Derby instead? I voted with you then. So you won, and all your tribe had a smashing day by the Trent.'

Dave backed him up: ‘Course they did. He's a madhead though, wain't listen to anybody.'

He was deeply hurt, accused of disloyalty. ‘Yes I do,' was all he could think of.

‘No you don't. If you do, put that gun down and prove it. You've already made enough noise to bring all the coppers of Derby onto us, and I don't want to see yo' nor any on us copped. Come on, I'm clambed to death. Aren't yo', Bert?'

Dave imagined a reasonable tone would now creep into their discussion, then: ‘I'm going to count to seven,' Donnie said slowly, ‘and when I've counted seven I'm going to empty this magazine into the pair of you. Then we'll see who's got a vote and who ain't. One, two, three' – loud like bullets already flying, a supercharged tone of voice he had often heard ordering him about, but had never been able to use himself.

Bert broke in. ‘Donnie, you rat' – and moved closer, covered by his ruse of the kitbag. Dave stood, graven.

‘Four, five' – slow and definite, each echo overriding Bert's plea, moving the gunspout now in a circular pointing motion that, though not making for accuracy, gave fate a chance to operate and seemed more menacing. ‘Donnie, chuck it,' Dave yelled. ‘You can have the bleeding lorry, but drop that gun.' Bert had stopped moving, was fastened by Donnie's eyes.

‘Six, Seven!'

Nothing happened. ‘Who are you kidding?' Bert said, standing up.

Donnie grinned. ‘You thought I meant it, didn't you? Well I do. But if you think I'm going to do it when you expect it though, you're both bleddy-well wrong.' Bert's senses were fixed hard between guile and humour, and he said with a smile: ‘Drop that rod, and I'll strip stark naked and swim in to get them guns out, one at a time – then we'll flog 'em to the IRA. Eh? What do you think o' that, then?'

It made no impression against Donnie's maniacal stare. Without warning, his arms lifted for the aim.

Bert fell to the ground, flattened like a spread-out frog. Dave followed, keeling over like a post, low-current electricity of fear moving like a threat through his limbs. Donnie's arms spun like propellers working in competition, and after several illogical movements both gun and magazine somehow parted and leapt free of his swinging arms, falling into the water. On lifting their heads – a broad margin of some seconds after the splash – they saw Donnie widely grinning.

‘Oh you should a seen yer! Christ, you should a seen yer! Frightened to death, the pair of you. What a treat! Never in all my born days …'

They ran at him, wild for vengeance, and before they reached him Donnie knew it was no use making out it had been a joke. Gaiety withered on his face.

‘You swine,' Dave screamed, gripping his waist and dragging him down. He had wanted to smash Donnie's life out, had promised himself the marvellous vicious treat of it while petrified by the Sten in such crazy hands – but a relatively harmless grip was all he could give now that the time had come. Bert found Donnie's head from out of the scuffle, and thumped him between the eyes in a business-like way, hard. ‘You cranky bastard, doing a thing like that.'

In spite of smoke-stacks and colliery headstocks the distant landscape was clear: sun out to stay and clouds lingering only to the cold watery north. Bert manoeuvred the lorry like a madman, light hearted now that their incriminating load had been cast off. The lorry, it seemed, was a sort of zip mechanism causing the road to fasten-off the hills behind them as they descended. Dave sang snatches of songs they had beaten out together in last Saturday's pub, the map crushed and stained under his muddy boots. Donnie sat between them, smiling, his face dirty, hand at last taken from the swollen eye sustained in the final settlement at the pool. Dave put an arm around his shoulders, pulled him close, hugged him: ‘Old barmy sod. Old madhead' – yet with a certain deference that Donnie was too happy, and Bert too careful at the corner before Tipley, and Dave too close to it, to notice.

Donnie pulled away. ‘Less of the barmy,' he threatened, as if still holding the Sten.

‘Hark at him,' Dave sang back. ‘Scarface. Al Capone. It's a good job we got rid o' them guns, or he'd a bin down at Barclays tomorrow asking for a loan.'

‘Bogger off,' Donnie retaliated, though laughing with them at such a Robin Hood picture and grateful that it saved him feeling foolish for having stuck them up. ‘I wouldn't do owt as daft as to rob a bank.' Here was a story they could talk and laugh about for ever among themselves, without being able to tell it to another and so mock Donnie with.

‘Well, I don't know about that,' Dave said. ‘In a way maybe we should a kept one o' them guns. If there's a war and they come to call us up we could take to the hills with it. Mow down a few Civil Defence bastards on the way. All three on us, wi' the lorry. We'd never get caught.'

Donnie was indignant. ‘Now hark at who's talking. Christ! That's what I was trying to tell you back there. It's too bleddy late now.'

Dave's imagination drew back, having touched on some too open wound. He was the calm and thoughtful leader once more. ‘Forget it. I'm only kidding.'

‘Perhaps we should 'ave though,' Bert said, feeling for the crumpled kitbag between his legs, aiming punches that swerved the lorry from one side of the house-lined street to the other. ‘We could a kept two or three. Donnie was right.'

‘No he worn't,' Dave said, but quietly. ‘And I'm telling the pair of you – that you don't know owt about no guns – that you've never seen any. Forget 'em, see?'

‘They'll never find 'em,' Bert said.

‘What a bloody time we 'ad though,' Dave laughed, nudging Donnie.

‘I wonder if Dora's had her kid yet?' Bert asked, spitting out of the window. ‘I can see owd Donnie ending up better off than any of us. He'll be sitting back like a sheik while his twenty kids bring their wage packets back from the factory every week.'

‘It's not due for a day or two,' was all Donnie said. Drab windswept houses funnelled them up the hill, and dinner could be detected journeying from gas-ovens to tables of waiting children home from school. ‘It's only one o'clock,' Bert said, stopping at the marketplace, ‘but I feel as if a week's gone by since this morning.'

‘Shall we eat here, or in Heanor?' Dave wanted to know. Smells from a snackbar drifted over the cobbles as a bus conductor opened the door and stood fastening his silver-buttoned coat over a just-fed belly.

‘Here,' Bert opted, ‘I'm clambed.'

‘I reckon we should go to Heanor,' Donnie said. ‘It ain't far off.' Bert said they could eat just as well where they were, so Donnie turned to Dave: ‘What about yo'? At that place in Heanor you can get a big plate o' stuff for a couple o' bob.'

Bert pulled the door shut. ‘Let's make our bleddy minds up.' Cigarettes were lit to relieve the strained atmosphere of voting. Fingers drummed hard on the drumsounding door. Dave's long face made up its mind, yet no sign was showed of a decision: ‘Heanor.'

Even on the second syllable Bert had given in and pulled out the choke, and they were rolling down the hills again towards Eastwood. Once a majority vote was reached it became a unanimous decision. A hard wind drove tension clear of the cab. ‘I forgot to tell you,' Donnie said. ‘It was a scream.' He laughed until Dave told him to get on with it then. ‘Well, I went to this house at Eastwood, before I found the guns, and a collier comes to the door, a great big bastard still in his helmet and pit-muck, his trousers patched and his vest in tatters. “What do
yo
' want?” he bawls out at me. I thought he was going to smash me with the pick he's got in his hand. So I says: “Got any old rags, mate?” and he looks at me for half a minute, then says, “Ar,
TEK ME
!” and slams the door in my face.'