David Peace - 1983

In your dreams, you cry tears -

But all your tears in all your dreams -

Are islands lost in fears -

The room red, white, and blue (like you) .

He leads you down the corridor to the double doors and the courtyard.

A black van is waiting, its back doors open.

Moustache and Sandy are sitting inside.

‘You’re not coming?’ you ask.

He shakes his head. ‘I’ve been there before.’

There are tears in your eyes again. ‘We’ll meet again?’

‘Don’t know where, don’t know when,’ he says without a smile.

‘Some sunny place?’ you ask.

‘Where there is no darkness.

Here come sirens, here come blue lights -

I turn back from window. I say: ‘They’re here.’

She is kneeling before settee. She is sobbing. She is clutching her rosary.

I drag her to her feet, left arm round her neck, right arm on shotgun.

I manoeuvre us over to door.

I yank it open just as two uniforms come through garden gate up path.

‘Get back!’ I shout. ‘Get back or I’ll blow her fucking head off.’

She is screaming, legs half off ground.

Uniforms scramble off back down garden path and out gate, back behind their car.

I lower shotgun. I pull trigger -

BANG!

Through hedge into side of their car -

Lights out .

I drag her back up path into house. I slam front door shut.

I push her back into living room. I tie her hands and feet together.

I pull back curtain. I break glass. I let off another shot into night -

BANG!

I reload:

We’ve only just begun .

I head straight into kitchen. I tip dresser and fridge in front of back door.

I break milk bottles. I break all her best china. I scatter it across barricade.

I tear back through into front room. I start shifting stuff in front of window.

She is just lying in middle of it all, teeth chattering.

I put my boot through TV. I take petrol. I splash it all over -

All over kitchen, all over front room.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Time for bed.’

I drag her out front room upstairs into back bedroom.

I toss her on spare bed. I rush into front bedroom.

I tip bed and mattress on their ends. I put them over window, wardrobe behind them.

Downstairs I can hear phone ringing.

I take doors off bathroom and front bedroom. I put one over bathroom window and other across top of stairs.

I return to back bedroom. I move her off bed on to floor. I make sure she is secure. I upend bed. I put it low along bottom of window.

Downstairs telephone is still ringing.

I go back down stairs into hall, low as I go, no lights on:

Keep pain on inside .

I pick phone up. I say nothing -

Listen -

I say: ‘I want to talk to Maurice Jobson. Tell him I need a friend.’

I hang up.

I go halfway up stairs to wait.

It starts ringing again, phone.

I can see them moving about in garden.

I take off my shoe. I lob shoe at phone. I knock receiver off hook.

I hear them shout: ‘Go.’

I point shotgun at door. Just before it opens, I do -

BANG!

‘FUCK! FUCK! -’

Both barrels:

BANG!

‘FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!’

I go back upstairs. I put door across top again. I go into back bedroom.

She is lying on floor, skirt up around her ears as bloody usual -

Bawling, waterworks.

I can hear more sirens.

I look up -

There are posters on bedroom walls, Karen and Richard -

Yesterday Once More .

‘Where’s Barry?’ I yell at her. ‘What fuck you done with him?’

Darkness -

Pitch black fucking darkness:

Wednesday 8 June 1983.

Thunder, no lightning -

Never-fucking ending:

Cars across the night, the sirens and the blue lights.

Heart of a darkness, belly of a nightmare -

Fitz-fucking-william:

My darkness, my nightmare.

Two radios on -

Police and fucking local -

Stereo hell:

‘ A man is believed to be holding a woman hostage in Fitzwilliam following an incident in which shots were fired at police officers responding to reports of a break-in at an address in Newstead View .

‘Armed officers have been deployed but Mr Ronald Angus, the Chief Constable, issued a statement insisting that the police were anxious to end this incident without injury to anyone. This comes after mounting criticism in recent weeks over revelations that armed police are now deployed on routine patrols in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire .’

I cut that crap off with the heel of my fucking boot -

One, two, three -

Crack!

Ellis driving, eyes and foot down on wet streets: ‘Sir?’

Fourth, final kick -

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Plastic flying, radio dead.

Into the handheld, shouting: ‘Alderman? Prentice?’

Static: ‘No, sir.’

‘Where the fuck are they?’

‘Netherton.’

‘That was fucking hours ago.’

‘Sir -’

‘Fuck it,’ I screamed.

‘We have got a description -’

‘Give it!’

‘White male, mid to late twenties; shaved head with a deep indentation -’

‘Indentation?’

‘A hole, sir.’

‘Name?’

‘We’re working on it -’

‘Work fucking harder,’ I yelled, tearing the flex out -

The radio dead in my hand -

The rain and the night all over the windscreen -

Tears and blood all over my cheeks.

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ whispered Ellis -

I raised my right leg. I put my boot through that fucking windscreen -

Smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!

The rain and the night all over us now -

The tears and the blood, the tears and the blood -

Everywhere.

Parked at the end of the road among the other blue lights -

We waited. We watched.

A sergeant came crouching up the street. He leant in the window. ‘Sir?’

‘What is it, Sergeant?’

‘He’s asking for you, sir,’ he panted. ‘The man inside the house.’

‘By name?’ asked Ellis.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s he say?’

‘Says he needs a friend, sir.’

I opened the door. I got out of the car, my wrists and ankles all bloody.

‘He’ll kill you,’ said Ellis -

I nodded. I walked up the road through the blue lights -

The white floodlights -

The red rain.

I came to the house -

Ellis running up the street. Ellis shouting: ‘Kill you -’

I nodded again. I opened the gate, thinking -

Murder me .

They take off the handcuffs. They take off the blindfold. They open the back doors.

The van slows.

They throw you out on to the road. They drive away.

You lie in the road. You don’t know if it is dawn or dusk.

It is raining.

You get up off the ground. You stand up.

There is a green Viva parked outside the little white bungalow.

There are no lights on. The curtains aren’t drawn.

You go round the back. You climb over the stone wall into the field. You walk up the tractor path towards the row of sheds at the top of the hill.

It is pissing down now.

You are ankle deep in mud and animal shit.

You slip.

You fall.

You get up.

You look back down the hill at all the little bungalows tucked up together, sleeping soundly -

Day in, day out .

You wipe the mud off your hands. You start walking again.

You slip again.

You fall again.

You get up again.