Patrick Thompson - Execution Plan

We went for a walk through Dudley. The market was doing a roaring trade despite not selling anything you’d want to buy. The Merry Hill centre had opened a few miles away, a shiny mall with all of the shops you needed. Dudley had competed by curling up and dying. The strange thing was, Dudley was still crowded on Saturdays. What shops there were, were packed. People gathered around the market stalls, picking up tea towels and misprinted greetings cards.

‘What are they all after?’ Dermot asked. ‘What do they come here for? I mean, I came here to see you and that’s hardly the most important thing I could be doing with my day.’

‘How did you know where I lived?’

‘You told me, you piss-head. You were drunk at the time. I said I’d come round. Are there any real shops here?’

‘Not as such. They’re all closing.’

‘So what are this lot buying? Scotch fucking mist?’

I shrugged.

‘We’ve got two choices then. As I see it. We can walk around looking at this fucking market all afternoon, or we can go to the pub. They still have pubs here don’t they? Or, third choice, we can go in the amusements. I’d like to see what amuses these weird fuckers. Public executions? Badger baiting? So, pub or amusements?’

‘It’s a bit early for the pubs.’

‘Oh, let’s not wake the poor sleepy fuckers up, shall we? It’s only half past eleven and they’re still in bed. Shipleys it is then. How much money have you got? Well there’s a cashpoint over there look, get yourself another twenty. Call it thirty. Amusements don’t come cheap these days.’

There was a small queue at the cashpoint, headed by a woman who didn’t know which way up her card went. The machine kept rejecting it. She’d look at it, and put it in the wrong way up again.

Dermot had long since got bored and gone into the amusement arcade by the time I got some money. I found him by the video games, which were at the back. There was a booth containing a middle-aged woman, who looked to be the same one that had been in the booth in Borth thirteen years earlier. There was a machine that gave change in exchange for coins and notes, except for all bank notes and most coins. Those it rejected.

There were rows of fruit machines, now mostly in software. One or two still only cost five pence a play and paid out in pocket money. Most took twenty pence pieces and had alleged jackpots around the fifteen pound mark. A handful of young men walked around the machines, clocking the reels, shaking handfuls of loose change. There were small tinfoil ashtrays resting on every level surface.

The video games were much larger than they used to be. They had appendages: steering wheels, guns, skis, periscopes.

You didn’t have to go out to play video games any more. You could play them at home. Video games had to do more work to get any attention at all, like old pop stars. Hence the guns and steering wheels.

‘Check them out,’ said Dermot. ‘See why they’re called Space Invaders ? Because they’re taking up half the fucking space. Give it another six years and these fuckers will be playing each other .’

He picked on the machine with the largest gun.

‘Stick a couple of quid in then,’ he said. ‘Let’s mow down a few innocent bystanders .’

After that, I saw him about once or twice a week. He always came to see me. He lived in a small house on the outskirts of West Bromwich and said that I wouldn’t want to meet him there.

‘You think Dudley’s bad, you should see West Brom mate,’ he used to say.

After I’d known him for about a year, I invited him to meet Tina and Roger.

‘Roger?’ he said. ‘You mean that’s really a name? I thought it had been made up. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Roger. Where do these two live then?’

‘Bewdley.’

‘What, out in the sticks? Sheepshaggers are they? You used to knock about with this Tina then. What’s she like?’

‘She’s like married. That was all a long time ago.’

‘It’s about time you got someone else mate. You’re pulling in enough money. You want to get yourself a girlfriend before you do your eyesight some permanent damage. How are we getting there? Tractor? Coracle?’

‘I’m driving,’ I said.

‘Count me in. I’ve always wanted to spend a night with the yokels. Can I dress casual?’

‘Do you ever do anything else?’

‘Not for your sake mate. I just wouldn’t want to give poor old Roger too much of a shock.’

‘I think he can cope with you,’ I said.

‘You never know,’ said Dermot, with an evil little grin.

Bewdley is a fairly large town masquerading as a small village. The river Severn runs through it, and over it at some times of year. After crossing the Severn by way of the old narrow bridge I drove around the church. You have to, as the church was built in the middle of the road, with one lane on each side of it. For Bewdley, it’s not inconvenient enough to have a river running through the middle of the town. They also have to have a church in the middle of the main road.

Thanks to the river, which allowed goods to be transported from other towns, Bewdley was one of the major English towns until those new-fangled canals were invented. Compared to rivers, canals had the advantages of going to the right destination and not breaking their banks. As canals – and then railways – became the main mode of transporting goods, Bewdley dwindled and Birmingham grew like a tumour.

In response, Bewdley reinvented itself and became picturesque. Now every shop sells antiques, most of them good-quality new ones. The roads are narrow, as they were designed for traffic with hooves, and there are often long queues. When the river floods people come from Kidderminster and Kingswinford to stand and watch water misbehaving. The houses closest to the river are always up for sale.

I left the car on the Pay and Display car park, which was free in the evenings, and Dermot and I walked along the river to Tina and Roger’s house. Their house was Georgian and damp, as are most of the riverside houses. It had a step up to the front door, but not a high enough one to avoid the floods. Twice a year they’d have to move everything to the top floor and then spend a week going through the house with the scrubbing brushes and the detergent. Whenever the river Severn visited it brought a lot of things with it, and it left a lot of them when it went. There was a tidemark on the outside wall at about waist height. When it rained heavily in Wales, Tina and Roger would start hauling furniture upstairs.

It often rains heavily in Wales. I know that from my time in Borth. Sometimes there would be more water in the sky than in the estuary.

Dermot was unimpressed with Bewdley.

‘I thought it’d be more, you know, more countryside. It’s like Stourbridge .’

‘It’s Georgian.’

‘It’s like Stourbridge but older. And what’s with these fucking shops? They all sell antiques. Do they eat antiques round here? Or are they all off in the fucking fields hunting down potatoes ? Who lives out here?’

‘Tina and Roger.’

‘I notice you always put them in that order. Here,’ he said, alarmed. ‘There are ducks in the road.’

‘There’s a river there,’ I said, pointing to it.

‘I can see the fucking river. Why aren’t the ducks down there in the water?’

‘Maybe they fancied a change.’

‘I’m happy for them. Do they bite ?’