David Peace - 1977

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’ve seen them,’

‘Where?’

‘With John Rudkin.’

‘Rudkin?’

‘Yeah, I think they’re with him.’

He stood up, looking down at me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘They’re dead,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘All dead,’ he said and picked up a table leg.

I tried to stand upright, but I wasn’t quick enough.

I was too slow.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Friday 17th June 1977

Kill them all .

Driving.

Radio on:

‘The charred remains of an unidentified black man were discovered yesterday on Hunslet Can .

‘A post-mortem revealed that the man had died from stab wounds, before being doused in petrol and set alight .

‘A police spokesman said that a definite attempt had been made to disguise the identity of the victim, leading police to believe the man may have had a police record .

‘The man is described as being in his late twenties, about six foot tall, with a big build .

‘Police appealed for members of the public with any information as to the identity of either the victim or his killers to contact their nearest police station as a matter of urgency. Police stressed that all information will be treated in the strictest confidence.’ .

Radio off.

Driving, scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreaming:

Kill them all .

It’s dawn.

I stop at the bottom of Durkar Lane.

There’s a car in his drive, milk on his doorstep, my family inside.

And I sit there at the bottom of his drive, wishing I had a gun, crying.

I stop.

Dawn, 1977.

I press the doorbell and wait.

Nothing.

I press it again and don’t stop.

I see a pink shape behind the glass, hear voices inside, the door opens and there’s his wife, and she’s saying, ‘Bob? It’s Bob. Just a minute.’

But I can hear Bobby and I push past her, up the stairs, kicking open doors until I find them in the back bedroom, her sat up in bed holding my son, Rudkin pulling on his jacket, coming towards me.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’re going.’

‘No-one’s going anywhere, Bob,’ says Rudkin, putting a hand on me, starting the fight, me bringing the chair leg up into the side of his head, him holding his ear, swinging out, missing, me grabbing his hair and pulling his fucking face down into my knee, again and again, until I can hear shouting and screaming and crying, Rudkin’s wife pulling me off him, scratching my cheeks, Rudkin still swinging out until he finally connects and I fall back through the door, turning and slapping his wife away, Rudkin punching me hard in the side of my face, my teeth into my tongue, blood everywhere, though fuck knows whose, her shielding Bobby, almost standing on the far end of the double bed, arms tight about him.

And then there’s a pause, a lull, just the sobbing and the crying, the throbbing and the aching.

‘Stop it, Bob,’ she’s crying. ‘Stop it, will you!’

And all I can say is, ‘We’re going.’

Then Rudkin brings his fist down into my face and it all starts up again, me bringing my head straight into his, stars fucking everywhere, him reeling back, me following through, chasing exploding stars and meteorites across the room with my fists, across John bloody Rudkin’s face, kicking and punching him into a big black fucking hole, reaching the bed and grabbing Bobby and trying to pull him free until Rudkin takes me round the neck and starts choking the living fuck out of me.

‘Stop it,’ she’s crying. ‘Stop it, will you!’

But he doesn’t.

‘Stop it, John,’ she’s crying. ‘You’ll kill him.’

Rudkin drops me to my knees and I fall forward into the bed, my face in the mattress.

He steps back and there’s another pause, another lull, still the sobbing and the crying, the throbbing and the aching, and the longer it goes on, the pause, the lull, the longer I lie here, the sooner they’ll relax.

So I lie there, eating bed, waiting until Louise, Rudkin, his wife, until one of them lets me get a look in, lets me get what’s mine:

Bobby .

And I lie there, limp, still waiting until Rudkin says:

‘Come on, Bob. Let’s all go downstairs.’

And I can feel him weaken as he bends down to pull me back up, feel him weaken as I reach down for the chair leg, as I bring it up and round and into the side of his face, as he falls howling into the bedroom window, cracking the glass, her watching him go, so I can reach up and take Bobby from her and I’m on my feet and out the door and through the wife who’s tumbling back down the stairs as fast as I’m following her, Louise on my heels, shouting and screaming and crying, until I trip on Rudkin’s wife at the foot of the stairs and Louise topples over me, Rudkin stumbling into the pile-up, blood running down his face, into his eyes, blinding the cunt, me shouting, bellowing, howling:

‘He’s my fucking son and all!’

Her shouting, screaming, crying:

‘No, no, no!’

Bobby pale with shock and shaking in my arms on top of Rudkin’s wife, under the other two, me trying to pull us out from under them until Rudkin gets a punch, a kick, a fuck-knows-what into my ear and I fall back, Bobby gone, her pulling them free, Rudkin pinning me down, me doing the shouting, the screaming, the crying:

‘You can’t do this. He’s my fucking son.’

And she’s backing into their living room, her hand on his head, his head in her hair, until she says:

‘No he’s not.’

Silence.

Just this silence, that silence, just that long, long, fucking silence, until she says again:

‘He’s not.’

I try to stand, to push Rudkin’s foot off me, like if I stand I’ll be able to understand the shit she’s saying, and at the same time Rudkin’s wife is repeating over and over:

‘What? What do you mean?’

And there’s him, head to toe in blood, palms up, saying:

‘Leave it. For christssakes, leave it.’

‘But he needs to fucking know.’

‘Not now he fucking doesn’t.’

‘But he was fucking a whore, a dead fucking whore, a dead fucking pregnant whore.’

‘Louise…’

‘Just because she’s dead doesn’t make it any fucking different. It was still his kid she was carrying.’

I get to my knees, arms out towards them, towards Bobby, my Bobby.

‘Get away!’

Rudkin screaming, ‘Louise…’

And then his wife walks over and slaps him across the face and stands there just looking at him, just looking at him before she spits in his face and walks out the front door.

‘Anthea,’ he shouts. ‘You can’t go outside like that.’

I stand but he’s still got me, shouting at his wife:

‘Anthea!’

And my hands are out to Bobby, the back of his head, my Bobby.

‘Get away,’ she says. ‘John, get him away from us!’

But he’s torn is John Rudkin, torn between letting his wife go and letting me loose, and it’s making him weak and making me strong, me seeing Bobby just a couple of feet across the room and then I’m away and over there, a punch into the side of her lying fucking head and another until she lets me take what’s mine, let’s me have him, let’s me have my Bobby, Rudkin walking straight into my fucking elbow, me with one hand on Bobby, the other holding on to Rudkin’s hair, spinning him into his marble mantelpiece and on into Louise, him sending her flying so me and Bobby are out the room, into the hall, out through the door, and down the drive, Bobby crying and calling for his Mummy, me telling him it’s all right, everything’s going to be all right, telling him to stop crying, Mummy and Daddy are just joking, and all the time I can hear them behind me, hear their feet, hear her saying: