David Peace - 1983

I look at my family beside me in the pew -

Paul eyes closed while Judith and Clare dab theirs as Mendelssohn strikes up.

Outside in the churchyard, the groups of coppers gather around their cigarettes again -

The girlfriends and wives off to the side, battling to keep their skirts down in the wind, bitching about the older folk, their kids tugging at their hems and their sleeves, their eager handfuls of confetti slipping through their tiny fingers -

The photographer desperately trying to corral us -

A black Austin Princess sat waiting to take the newlyweds away from all this.

‘He did invite the whole force, didn’t he?’ Judith laughs -

Laughs to herself.

I can see George -

George Oldman stood at the gates with his wife, his son and two daughters.

He sees me coming.

I shake his hand and nod to his wife. ‘George, Lillian.’

‘Maurice,’ he replies, his wife smiling then not.

‘Thought you weren’t going to make it?’

‘He nearly didn’t,’ says his wife with a squeeze on his arm.

‘Any luck?’

He shakes his head. He looks away. I leave it -

Leave them to it:

George, his wife, his son and two daughters.

‘Group shot, please,’ the photographer pleads as the sun comes out at long last, shining feebly through the trees and the gravestones.

I walk back over to pose with my wife, my son and daughter.

Clare asks: ‘Can we go home now?’

‘There’s the reception next, love,’ smiles her mum. ‘Be a lovely do, I bet.’

Paul whispers something to Clare. They both smile -

They are fifteen and thirteen and they pity their mother.

‘Family for the last time,’ shouts the photographer.

Judith looks from the kids to me, adjusting her hat with a shrug and smile -

We are forty-five and forty-two and we hate -

Just hate:

Married seventeen years ago this August at this church, so they say.

We drive in silence down into Dewsbury and up through Ravensthorpe to the outskirts of Mirfield, silence until Clare reminds us that Charlotte next door, her family have a car radio and her dad is only a teacher and, according to Paul, everyone at the Grammar School has a radio in their car and we must be the only family in the whole bloody world that doesn’t.

‘Don’t use that word, please, Paul,’ says his mother, turning round.

‘Which word?’

‘You know very well which word.’

‘Why not?’ asks Clare. ‘Dad says it all the time.’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Yes, he does,’ shouts Paul. ‘And worse.’

‘Well, your father is an adult,’ says Judith -

‘A policeman ,’ spits Clare.

‘We’re here,’ I say.

The Marmaville Club:

Posh mill brass house turned Country Club-cum-pub, favoured by the Masons -

Favoured by Bill Molloy.

I get Judith a white wine. I leave her with the kids and the other wives and theirs. I head back to the bar -

‘Don’t forget you’re driving,’ shouts Judith and I laugh -

Laugh like I wish she was dead.

At the bar, a whiskey in my hand, there’s a hand at my elbow -

‘Isn’t that a Mick drink?’

I turn round:

Jack -

Jack bloody Whitehead.

‘What?’ grins Jack. ‘Didn’t think the Chief Superintendent would stoop to inviting scum like me?’

‘No,’ I say, looking around the room. ‘Not at all.’

Mr and Mrs Robert Fraser stand in the doorway to the dining room, waiting to greet their guests:

‘Uncle Maurice, Auntie Jane,’ says the Bride.

‘Auntie Judith ,’ corrects the Groom.

‘Smart lad,’ I say, shaking his hand. ‘You should be a copper.’

We all laugh -

All but Paul and Clare.

Louise kisses Judith on the cheek. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘Not over yet,’ I say -

Not by a long chalk .

In the dining room we’re seated at the same table as Walter and Mrs Heywood, Ronald and Mrs Angus, the Oldmans and their son and two daughters -

The Brass .

We eat grapefruit, chicken, and some kind of trifle with a fair few glasses of wine and disapproving looks from the wives and kids to wash it all down.

Then come the speeches, with a fair few glasses more to help them go down.

There’s a hand on my shoulder. John Rudkin bends down to whisper: ‘Bill wants us all to have a drink upstairs. When dancing starts.’

I smile, hoping he’ll fuck off.

He glances at Walter Heywood and the West Riding boys. He says: ‘Be discreet.’

I smile again.

He fucks off.

An upstairs room, down the red and gold corridor past the toilets -

The curtains drawn, the lamps on, the cigars out -

The sound of music coming up through the carpet -

The beautiful carpet, all gold flowers on deep crimsons and red -

Like the whiskeys and our faces.

Sat in a circle in the big chairs, a couple of empty ones -

The gang’s all here:

Dick, Jim Prentice, John Rudkin, Bob Craven and -

‘Lads,’ says Bill. ‘Like you all to meet a good mate of mine from over other side of Pennines. This is John Murphy, Detective Inspector with Manchester.’

Similar age to me but with all his hair, Murphy is a good-looking bloke -

A younger Bill Molloy -

Another one.

John Murphy stands up -

‘Speech!’ shouts Dick Alderman.

‘I know some of you and the rest by reputation,’ smiles Murphy with a nod to me. ‘I also know that we’re all here because of one man -’

Nods and murmurs in Bill’s direction -

Bill all hands up, embarrassed and modest.

‘So let’s first raise our glasses,’ says Murphy. ‘To the Badger himself, on the marriage of his daughter.’

‘Cheers,’ we all say and stand up -

‘No,’ says Bill. ‘We all had enough of that bollocks downstairs -’

We laugh. He pauses. We stand there waiting -

Waiting for him to say -

‘Let’s drink to us,’ his voice and glass raised. ‘The bloody lot of us.’

‘The bloody lot of us,’ we reply and drain our whiskeys.

We sit back down.

Bill tells Rudkin to ring down for another round. He says: ‘We’ll have to keep this brief, as we don’t want too many questions, do we?’

‘They think we’re playing cards,’ laughs Jim Prentice.

‘Not talking about the wives, Jim,’ says Bill. ‘Thinking more about Old Walter and our country cousins.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Thanks for putting us on same bleeding table.’

Hands up again, Bill grins: ‘I just wanted you lads to meet John here, and -’

There’s a knock on the door. Bill stops talking.

A young waitress brings in another tray of whiskeys -

Doubles .

She picks up the empties and leaves.

‘And?’ I say.

‘And,’ nods Bill. ‘A couple of other things.’

We sip our whiskeys. We wait.

‘John here’s acquired ,’ smiles Bill. ‘Acquired some offices for us on Oldham Street in centre of Manchester. Got the printing and distribution end sewn up nicely.’

‘Got a few nice Vice connections too,’ adds Murphy. ‘Pete McCardell for one.’

Low whistles around the room.

Bill pats Murphy on the back. ‘This is just the beginning; what we planned, worked so hard for, it’s finally coming together -’

Nods.

‘Controlled vice,’ says Bill Molloy, quietly. ‘Off the streets and out the shop windows, under our wing and in our pocket.’

Smiles.

‘The whole of the North of England, from Liverpool to Hull, Nottingham up to Newcastle – it’s ours for the taking: the girls, the shops, the mags – the whole bloody lot.’

Grins.

‘It’s going to make us rich men,’ nods Bill. ‘Very bloody rich men.’