David Peace - 1983

I twist knife:

‘This is for all things you made me do, for all things you had me see, for every cock I’ve ever sucked and every night I’ve never slept, for voices in my head and silence of night, for hole in my head and scars on my back, words on my chest, for boy I was and them boys that saw, Michael Myshkin and Jimmy Ash, fat Johnny Piggott and his brother Pete, Leonard Marsh and his dad George, for every little lad you ever fucked and all their dads who liked to watch, with their cameras in their hands and their cocks in my arse, your tongue in my mouth and your lies in my ear, loving you loving me, his nails in my hands and yours in my head, for that knife in my heart and this one in you -’

‘Goodbye Dragon,’ I spit -

I pull knife back out again and -

With one last kiss -

I let him fall -

Backwards -

Down -

Stairs.

Bare-chested and soaked in blood -

I turn. I see myself in bathroom mirror:

Hole in my head -

Stumps in my back -

Seven letters on my chest:

One Love .

‘Barry!’ she is screaming. ‘Barry!’

I follow him downstairs to front door -

I open it.

Maurice is coming up garden path.

I strike a match.

He stops. He stares.

I let it fall -

Our house starts to burn.

I step over dead body of Martin Laws -

Into red rain, white floodlights and police lights blue.

My shoes gone, I walk barefoot into garden.

Head bobbed and wreathed, I drop knife and raise shotgun.

There were no sirens, only silence -

No lights, only darkness.

We parked under Millgarth. I did not go upstairs -

Angus would be waiting:

More crimes and more lies, more lies and more crimes.

I walked through the market. I walked through the dawn -

Thursday 9 June 1983.

I cut through the backstreets. I ran up the Headrow.

I turned on to Cookridge Street.

I opened the door into the Church of Saint Anne.

I staggered down the side aisle.

I fell before the Pietа.

I took off my terrible glasses. I closed my tired eyes.

I prayed:

‘Lord, I do not understand my own actions .

I know that nothing good dwells within me, in my flesh .

I do not do what I want, but I do the very things that I hate .

I can will what is right but I cannot do it .

I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do .

When I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand .

Wretched and damned man that I am!

Will you rescue me from this body of death?’

I opened my eyes. I looked up at Christ -

The wounded, dead Christ.

I was crying as I stood -

I was crying as I turned to go -

I was crying when I saw him.

He was sat among the Stations. His head shaved -

He was dressed in white, bleeding from his hands and his feet.

There were children sat around him -

Little girls and little boys.

‘Jack?’

He smiled at me.

‘Jack?’

He stared through me.

‘What?’ I cried. ‘What can you see?’

He was smiling. He was staring at the Pietа-

‘How can you still fucking believe?’ I shouted. ‘After all the things you’ve seen?’

‘It’s the things I’ve not seen,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘During an eclipse there is no sun,’ he smiled. ‘Only darkness.’

‘I don’t -’

‘The sun is still there,’ he said. ‘You just can’t see it.’

‘I -’

‘But in your heart you know the sun will shine again, don’t you?’

I nodded.

‘Faith,’ he whispered -

‘The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’

I turned again to the Pietа. I turned back to the wounded Christ -

No other name .

There was a hand squeezing mine -

A ten-year-old girl with blue eyes and long straight fair hair, wearing an orange waterproof kagool, a dark blue turtleneck sweater, pale blue denim trousers with a distinctive eagle motif on the back left pocket and red Wellington boots, holding a plastic Co-op carrier bag in her other hand.

I looked down at my hand in hers -

There were no bruises on the backs of my hands.

‘He was not abandoned,’ smiled Clare. ‘He is loved.’

Thursday 9 June 1983-

D-Day:

Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

Heart lost .

You can’t go to sleep; you can’t go to sleep; you can’t go to sleep -

The branches still tapping against the pane -

Everybody knows;

You are lying on your back in your underpants and wings -

The branches tapping against the pane -

Everybody knows;

You are lying on your back in your underpants and wings, black with his blood, black with all their blood -

The branches banging against the pane -

Everybody knows;

You are lying on your back in your underpants and wings, black with his blood, black with all their blood, that terrible tune and her words in your head -

Everybody knows; everybody knows, everybody knows and -

The branches cracking the pane.

You look at your watch. You see it is time:

2.25 a.m.

You get out of bed. You walk across the floor upon your knees.

You switch on the radio. The TV too -

The Hate:

‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony -

The Hate:

‘Where there is error, may we bring truth -

The Hate:

‘Where there is doubt, may we bring faith -

The Hate:

‘Where there is despair, may we bring hope.’

Radio off. The TV too -

The branches have smashed the pane.

The rain pouring in -

No hope for Britain .

You open the bathroom door. You step inside. You turn on the bath taps. You put a circle of salt around the bath. You take out a pair of scissors. You cut your hair. You cut your nails. You take out a razor. You shave your head. You place the hair and the nails in an envelope. You put the envelope in the sink. You light a match. You burn the envelope. You look up into the mirror.

In blood, it states:

Nobody cares .

You get in the bath. You lie in the bath in your wings -

The water is warm.

You see the scenes; see the scenes as you could not at the time -

The shadows in your heart, the fear and the hate -

The hate and the fear .

You put all your fear and all your hate together and get:

Yorkshire, England, 1983 .

You pick up the razor blade from the side of the bath:

My county, my country, right or wrong .

Four tears trickle down the sides of your nose.

But it’s all right, everything is all right, the struggle is finished -

The water red.

You write three last words on a piece of damp paper.

I would like to thank the following people for their support during the writing of the Quartet :

James Anderson, Marcel Berlins and the Times , the staff of Books Etc Covent Garden, Borders Leeds, Jenny Boyce, George and Gill Chambers, Hiroyuki Chida, Julian Cleator, Crime Time , Jim Driver, Simon and Chiaki Evans, Judith and Reg Eyles, Max Farrar, Anne and Dave Francis, Robert and Astrid Fraser and family, Gregory Gannon, Leland and Carolyn Gaskins, Shigeko and Daisuke Goto, Franзois Guйrif, Alan Hadden and family, Richard and Alison Hall, Tamako Hamaguchi, Paula Hammerton, Seishu Hase, Nick Hasted, Hiroshi Hayakawa and all the staff of Hayakawa Publishing , Michael Hayden and Sam Dwyer, Jon Haynes, Shizuyo Ide, Jonathan Kelly, Darren Kemplay, Mrs Lambert, Paul Landymore, Pete and Persis Lunt, Maxim and all the staff at Murder One , Hamish Macaskill, Takashi Matsuki, Yumiko Mikado, the Nash family, Chris Nelson and the Big Issue in the North , Yasuko Nomura, Joseph O’Neill, Basil and Felicity Peace, Jonathan Peace, George P. Pelecanos, Ruth Petrie, Justin Quirk, Jon Riley, Junzo Sawa, Yukako Higuchi and all the staff at the English Agency Japan, the staff of Serpent’s Tail, Stephen Shoebridge, Mario Tauchi, Stuart Turnbull, Cathi Unsworth, Nicola Upson at the New Statesman , Anna Vallois, Marco Vicentini, Andrew Vine and the Yorkshire Post , Tomohiro Yoshida, the staff of Waterstone’s Leeds and Manchester, Sarn and Tara Warbis, Daina and Keri Warbis, Paul Westlake, Lynda Wigelsworth and family, Bob and Celia Wilkinson and family, Gareth and Sophia Williams, Mark and Susan Williams, Michael Williams, and last but most of all Izumi, George and Emi Peace. Thank you.