David Peace - 1977

‘That and he’d battered me a couple of times and police had had to come down.’

‘Was he ever charged?’

‘No, he always talked me round, didn’t he. Smooth he is, Clive.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Clive? Armley, last I heard. GBH.’

‘GBH?’

‘Hit some bloke down International. Police hate him, always have. Daft bastard played straight into their hands.’

‘When’s he due out?’

‘Twelfth of bloody never as far as I’m concerned. You sure you don’t want that cup of tea?’

‘Go on then. Twist my arm.’

She laughed and went off into the kitchen.

In the corner the TV was on with the sound off, lunchtime news with pictures from Ulster, changing to Wedgwood-Benn.

‘Sugar?’ Anita Bird handed me a cup of tea.

‘Please.’

She brought a bag of sugar from the kitchen. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

We sat and sipped our teas, watching silent cricket from Old Trafford.

The Second Test.

I said, ‘Do you mind telling me what happened again?’

She put down her cup and saucer. ‘No.’

‘It was August ’74?’

‘Yeah, the fifth. I’d gone down Bibby’s to look for Clive but…’

‘Bibby’s?’

‘It was a club. Shut down. And Clive wasn’t there. Typical. So I’d had a drink, well more than one actually and then I’d had to go because one of his mates, Joe, he was drunk and trying to get me to go home with him and I knew if Clive had come in there’d have been trouble so I just thought I’d go back to Cumberland Avenue and wait for him there. So I came back and sat there and felt a bit of a lemon like and decided to go back down Bibby’s again and that’s when it happened.’

The room was dark, the sun gone.

‘Did you see him?’

‘Well, they reckon I did. Couple of minutes before it happened, some bloke passed me and said something like, “Weather’s letting us down,” and just kept going. Police reckoned it could have been him because he never came forward like.’

‘Did you say anything back?’

‘No, just kept going.’

‘But you saw his face?’

‘Yeah, I saw his face.’

She had her eyes closed, her hands locked together between her knees.

I sat there in her front room, another wicket down, like he was there on the sofa next to me, a big smile, a hand on my knee, a last laugh amongst the furniture.

She opened her eyes wide, staring past me.

‘You OK?’

‘He was well-dressed and smelt of soap. Had a neat beard and moustache. Looked Italian or Greek you know, like one of them good-looking waiters.’

He was stroking his beard, grinning .

‘He have an accent?’

‘Local.’

‘Tall?’

‘Nowt special. Could have been wearing boots and all, them Cuban type.’

He was shaking his head .

‘And so he walked past you and…’

She closed her eyes again and said slowly, ‘And then couple of minutes later he hit me and that was that.’

He winked once and was gone again .

She leant forward and pulled her blonde hair flat across the top of her head.

‘Go on, feel it,’ she said.

I reached across another room to touch the top of another head, through another set of damaged black roots, another huge and hollow crater.

I traced around the edges of the indentation, the smoothness beneath the hair.

‘You want to see my scars?’

‘OK.’

She stood up and pulled up her thin sweater, revealing broad red strokes across a flabby pale stomach.

They looked like giant medieval leeches, bleeding her.

‘You can touch them if you want,’ she said, stepping closer and taking my hand.

She ran my finger across the deepest scar, my throat dry and cock hard.

She held my finger in the deepest point.

After a minute she said, ‘We can go upstairs if you want.’

I coughed and moved back. ‘I don’t think…’

‘Married?’

‘No. Not…’

She pulled down her sweater. ‘You just don’t fancy me, right?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Don’t worry, love. There’s not many that do these days. Attacked by that fucking maniac and known all over cos of her black fellers, that’s me. Only fucks I get are from darkies and weirdos.’

‘That why you asked me?’

‘No,’ she smiled. ‘I like you, don’t I.’

Collapsed in my car, picking through the fish and the chips, the ones that got away .

I looked at my watch.

It was time to go.

Underneath the arches, those dark, dark arches: Swinegate.

We’d said we’d meet at five, five while the light was still with us.

I parked down the bottom end but I could already see him, at the other end, up by the Scarborough Hotel, still wearing that hat and coat, despite the weather, to spite the weather, still carrying that case, just like the last time:

Sunday 26 January 1975 .

‘Reverend Laws,’ I said, my hand in my pocket.

‘Jack,’ he smiled. ‘It’s been too long,’

‘Not long enough.’

‘Jack, Jack. Always the same, always so sad.’

I was thinking, not here, not in the street .

I said, ‘Can we go somewhere. Somewhere quiet?’

He nodded at the big black building looming over the Scarborough, ‘The Griffin?’

‘Why not.’

The Reverend Martin Laws led the way, walking ahead in his stoop, a giant too big for this world or the next, his grey hair protruding from under his hat, licking the collar of his coat. He turned to hurry me along, through the passers-by, past the shops, between the cars, under the scaffolding and into the dim lobby of the Griffin.

He waved at some seats in the far corner, two high-backed chairs under an unlit lamp, and I nodded.

We sat down and he took off his hat, placing it on his lap, his case at his calves.

He smiled at me again, through his long grey stubble and his dirty yellow skin, an old newspaper, just like mine.

He smelt of fish.

A Turkish waiter approached.

‘Mehmet,’ said Reverend Laws. ‘How are you?’

‘Father, so good to have you back. We are fine, all of us. Thank you.’

‘And the school? The little one settled in?’

‘Yes, Father. Thank you. It was just as you said.’

‘Well, if there’s ever anything more I can do, please…’

‘You’ve been too kind, really.’

‘It was nothing. My pleasure.’

I coughed, fidgeting in my jacket.

‘Are you ready to order, Father?’

Reverend Laws smiled at me. ‘Yes, I believe we are. Jack?’

‘Brandy, please. And a pot of coffee.’

‘Very good, sir. Father?’

‘A pot of tea.’

‘Your usual?’

‘Thank you, Mehmet.’

He bowed quickly and was gone.

‘Lovely, lovely man. Not been here that long, just since the trouble.’

‘Good English.’

‘Yes, exceptional. You should tell him, be your friend for life.’

‘I wouldn’t wish it on him.’

Reverend Laws smiled again, that same quizzical smile of faint disbelief that either melted or froze you. ‘Come on now,’ he said. ‘You’re being too hard on yourself. I enjoy being your friend.’

‘It’s hardly mutual.’

‘Sticks and stones, Jack. Sticks and stones.’

I said, ‘She’s back.’

He looked down at the hat in his hands. ‘I know.’

‘How could you?’

‘Your call the other night. I could feel…’

‘Feel what? Feel my pain? Bollocks.’

‘Is that why you wanted to meet me? To abuse me? It’s OK, Jack.’

‘Look at you, you hypocritical cunt, sat there all pompous and papal in your dirty old raincoat with your hat on your cock and your little bag of secrets, your cross and your prayers, your hammer and your nails, blessing the fucking wogs, turning the tea into wine. It’s me Martin, it’s Jack, not some lonely little old woman who hasn’t had a fuck in fifty years. I was there, remember? The night you fucked up.’