By John Barker.
Approaching the chippie, pavement went trampoline. Walter went with it, Popeye the Sailorman, with his spinach and his biceps, the way he walked. The sailorman. Mental.
“They’ll see I’m weird, they’ll see it in my face”. It was Jimmy, Jimmy close by, Jimmy’s mouth open and closed. Walter turned. His pal was tense. Tense face like there’d be no more balloons coming out of his mouth unless they was doom and disaster. A woman who was half an old dear, came out through the door. He could smell the warmth inside the wrapping in her hand; heard the bubble and sizzle through his cock and up his chest.
“I just can’t handle it.”
Jimmy was whispering like a foxy, foxy gangster.
Why was he doing this?
Ignore question! Ignore question!. Way too complicated.
“What do you want some, fish and chips or a couple of spring rolls”, Walter said instead. His voice sounded a long way off from his dry throat. Maybe he was shouting.
Jimmy was nodding like Noddy. Meaning?
“Cod and chips then”, Walter said, making the decision because anything else would only be grief, him standing around on the same patch of trampoline. Standing? On trampoline? Wrong tackle pal!
Whoosh…
In the doorway was bubble and squeak in the headphones, the promise of fry and crisp up the nose.
Jimmy nodded like someone had told him to nod. The director of nods and winks. Message received and understood partner. Too risky to speak out loud? Except the glass and brick wall of the chippie had no ears. Oh he was tripping OK, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Vinegar”, he asked.
Jimmy nodded.
Course he did.
Inside the woman was bent over a vat of the bubble-and-spit all gnome like, a gnomey, gnomey gnome. The feller, the Chinese, with the big smile, his wrinkles were smooth. Like the floor, shining at him, the rush streaming out of it, through the soles of his shoes, his socks, his feet up and up, a loose weave python of sparklers, up some more, then seamless on and on. Walter smiled back right through the colours of infinite pattern.
The woman was still a gnome even after she’d gone upright and showed herself Chinese too. Her smile had a gold tooth in the middle. It lit it up. Lit up her whole face and she wasn’t a gnome at all because he was feeling horny and it was lovely, the rush up from his feet without the light show and straight into his cock.
He smiled at her.
She went on smiling. He ought to be saying something. He said, “Cod and chips twice and four slices.”
He knew he’d said it because he could hear it. The woman with the lovely mouth turned her smile away and went. Fast Forward: inner wrapping laid out, the fish in grippers out of the keep-warm and on to the wrapping laid out; wire pan into the sizzle, in out in out you shake it all about…
“Six pounds twenty pence please.”
Chips into paper bag one. Chips into paper bag two. Walter went slow motion for the money in his back trouser pocket and felt some stiff crinkle. In his hand it was a purple twenty. Ying yang slap bang. She’d rolled the lot in a neat parcel and was saying funny words. Madness! The feller replied. Funny singsong. Maybe he’d been staring at her too much and the bod was saying, don’t you stare my wife or I cut your throat; or he was saying another nutter but he’s OK, he got money.
He shook his head: the paranoia dropped out; but the rush drained out of his cock and up through his head and beyond. Walter moved in close enough to him at the till to hand over cash money. It was warmer there close to the counter and she was smiling again. Beautiful.
The chinese bod took the other end of the twenty. Walter stopped the flow of colours to let go of his end. Had to, would be a christmas cracker job otherwise. Without the bang.
Not so difficult after all, money changing hands The feller had it and was started on the change business. She was close on the other side offering him the open package in the newspaper overcoat across the counter.
“Pukka”, he said smiling back. He wouldn’t have minded staying where he was but there was the salt and vinegar biz still to be done. That first then the change, one thing at a time.
The salt container was too light, had to be. But it was there in his hand, no question, light as you like; he could see it, white plastic. And the sprinkle coming out. The falling white sparkle set off a roller belt of greens, mauves and golds. Mental. Flowing. Sub-atomic He jerked the container back upright and looked down at the batter. Too much salt? An accusation ready to be made? Ready, Steady Go. The vinegar slapped him in the nose. Aroma. He doused the golden stuff, gave the wrapping a soak, and re-wrapped.
He turned and there they both were, the Chinks, smiling like they’d been before. The sprinkling felt like it had taken a while. Maybe it had, maybe it hadn’t. Maybe they were like that, the chin ks. Wasn’t his manor, wouldn’t know if they were or weren’t. Nice anyway, wasn’t everyone who smiled.
“Your change mister.”
Right. There was. Course there was, and this time it was the Chinese would have to hold out the money to him.
Walter tucked the parcel between left elbow and left side, felt the warmth. He moved to the correct distance away from the till and held his hand out. When the tenner and the heavy coins were in his palm he closed up the palm, and shoved the stuff in his back pocket.
“Pukka”, he said and smiled. They smiled back. Her gold tooth winked at him. Outside, instant goose pimples and Jimmy stood there like a dodgy gnome. On a billboard WATCH OUT MUGGERS ABOUT.
Walter had got the gear – Superman blotting paper – and the cod supper; Jimmy’s contribution was having his own place and to be fair, a working gas stove, tea bags, Long Life milk and sugar that had gone into crumbly chunks stained with tea drops off a teaspoon. All needed for the night out because the batter and fish, it took some chewing in a dry mouth what with the thrill rushing up non-stop to fill it. Had a ghetto-blaster too, Jimmy did, bless him. Walter turned it on to FM in the low 90’s. The bass slid into funky heart-monitor, and a non-stop band of colours he couldn’t touch stepped on the escalator. A piece of fish sat in his mouth to give off its own flavour in its own time.
Jimmy went out into the lounge leaving half his fish portion and a clutch of chips out in the plain paper inner wrapping. Walter went into the music with sips of tea that cleaned his throat of its tube crud. Crud stripper. Wicked!
Later, or it was not later, Jimmy’s half portion grabbed Walter’s attention. It was unwelcome. It was ugly. The batter had caved in and lay like a damp rag on the cold wet white stuff. A cold chip was a dead chip, he could see that and didn’t like it. He did not like it. Result? Goose-pimples. It took a while to put on his jacket the sleeves looking to give him a hard time and not being where his arms went.
Watch out, paranoia about! Time to go active, show who was boss around here. The half-portion was still there and he’d had enough of it. He covered it with a half-sheet of newspaper that showed some soldiers sitting in the desert with guns. On his feet he picked up the radio and took it into the lounge. Jimmy was flat on his back on a sofa that showed patches of its yellow foam innards. His eyes were closed and his arms up in the air were dancing.
Walter sat down with his back to an arm chair and got involved with the whirligig of the carpet weave until he felt coins digging into the flesh of his bum through the pocket cloth. He pulled the money out and laid it on the carpet in front of him, coins, a tenner, and his own door key, mum’s place. From the radio, a loop of Hammond organ. His torso went with it loping back and forth, his face closer to the floor with each forward sway. There was a splash of red on the tenner that lay on the whorls in the carpet, He stayed crouched for the close-up. The red went up the queen’s neck and over her chin. Otherwise she was clean cut like a statue out of white marble, only someone with the hump had thrown a can of red gloss, and it had dribbled down over the small letters and numbers printed there in black, like it had its own ID. It was not any old note. It was Tenner number HX7642 and some. Serial numbers said the cops on the telly, like a fingerprint, only the robbers were cunning fellows and always liked their notes used.
He got fed up with being crouched and picked up the note. The HX 76 etc was very sure of itself. It was in black, black print that jumped out at him all neat and proper and correct. Weird when the stretch of wavy lines next to the queen was very different stuff. It danced up and down and lifted off the paper. He followed it upwards and got a glimpse of Jimmy who was down to hand and finger dancing. He heard tenner HX going crack and crinkle in his hand. Put close to his ear it was loud. The pattern from the radio was bass line overlaid by single piano notes. He knew their rhythm. No mug he! He was the man in charge, could control crinkle, bunching up the tenner and letting it out again. So it went in and out with piano notes and continued while he caught a bunch of words. Hearing Things, a bird said. Hearing Things? What Things?, a feller said back like he hadn’t heard nothing.
Open Your Eyes Are You Satisfied?, she said back to him, and started again Hearing Things like he’d stayed shtum.
“Yeah, a tenner”, Walter said out loud. Jimmy didn’t move.
Down in a corner where the red hadn’t reached there was another statue woman. She was much smaller and held a spear and shield. He stared at it and went off on one. Helmets and swords were flashing in the sun and there was a rumbling across the steaming grass. The English were rallying round in bare legs and arms, hairs growing out of their pale skins and goose pimples. The rumbling was louder. He could fucking hear it. The Grand nation al on the telly, gallop and thump. Bodies scattered as a horse-drawn chariot burst through with her on board. “For the sacred soil of England do or die”, she shouted. She swung her sword at soldiers that has helmets with purple plumes like they were the business, when really they was just squaddies. A head shot off in a spray of blood. Another face with whiskers was shit-scared in stereo, and round about was a din of shouts, screams, metal on metal.
The soldiers were left behind and from round a hill came a horse looming large and black, all muscle. Steam went frothy gasping from its mouth. It was galloping and falling. Its rider was off, a hunchback in armour with a plain gold crown on his head standing on green grass with small bushes that stretched on and on. His chest was heaving, his breathing desperate but he had his sword up. Horses whinnied in the background and the hunchback was fighting fifty armoured soldiers who’d come from nowhere. Two went down, three, four but the hunchback was coming away in slices. He was down. There was a crash of thunder and raindrops beat on the ground. His head came off and rolled. The crown came off the rolling head and rolled a fair bit faster. Into bushes. Unseen feet squelched in the mashed grass and watery mud. Men in khaki pulled a horse that pulled a cannon on wheels half sunk in the slimy grip of it, and was drowned out by a bumper de bump dum dum big brass drum.
With a musket fife and drum,” a voice said. It was a tubby old guy weighed down with medals and puffed up like a fart. He spoke with a down curled mouth and floppy jowls.
“With a musket, fife and drum”, he said again. For England and Saint George. He got smaller, a figure in red uniform standing on the up-down up-down top of a castle’s walls. Below were cheering soldiers on horseback waving red cross flags. Ahead, an open portcullis. Inside, a paved courtyard and in one corner, slippery, stone spiral stairs going downwards to an underground stone doorway. Its thick wooden door was open wide. Inside stood a Beefeater geezer with a white beard and twinkling blue eyes under his black velvet hat. Along the passage were carved cave like openings. There were shaped caves behind them, each one smaller than the one before. In the last one was a man thing crouched sideways-on like he was holding the roof up on his back. He wore a long beard that touched the floor to which his legs and arms were chained. A drop of water dripped. Paused. Dripped. Paused and went on pausing till it dripped and the man turned. One eye was an empty socket, his nose a sliver of chicken bone and his mouth…
Walter shook his head.
Mental.
Was this a bad trip? What they called a bad trip? Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
Jimmy was there and looked like he was asleep. No he was top-finger-joint dancing to a furry bass line that was pukka. And no it couldn’t be a bad trip because he wasn’t feeling bad except maybe for some wind trapped inside and going hard.
He burped. Did not feel bad because it was only a film, and it was him who’d cooled sister Debbie out watching The Fly when the geezer’d turned to slobbering steak and liver but was still half a human in his bontz. Yeah, even though Debbie was five years older and dead straight except for nights out with the girls on double vodkas. Calming her down, telling her it was only what some special effects bods had put together.
The tenner was still in his hand. Right, special effects, the red stuff was only some clumsy git spilling something on the note, teacher’s ballpoint with a leak. On the other side of the note was another clean-cut woman in a long dress. She looked a steady sort and held a lamp because it was Florence Nightingale like it said in smaller, quieter print. 18 to 19.
Walter followed the light of her lamp into a cave where a man was lying on something with other men around him. Or it was a tent. Some of the men were bent over for a better look, doctors maybe or soldiers because he’d been hurt. With her and her lamp the corners got swept too, the place neat and tidy enough only the bloke had a wound, a hole of a wound…
A bit of cannonball was slap in the guts that were all thin sausages tumbling out because there was no skin to hold them in. The cannon that fired the cannonball that made the hole that let the insides outside, it was one of several set up in a line on the low green slopes of a hill. From the front they were a row of glaring black holes on metal wheels. Behind them stiff and neat little soldiers moved back and forth to light fuses. Puff! Puff! Puff went the cannon. Whistle and scream. On the other side puffballs exploded one, two, three times among redcoats with muskets, slow-motion, silent mushrooms of smoke and sand. Puff went a golf ball out of a bunker and on to a green in an arc. A tubby old geezer with a down-curled mouth and floppy jowls waved a golf club. “Good Shot,” he said. Little puffs came from the front of the muskets. Out on the plain a redcoat on a galloping horse, got hit. A red that was darker than the red cloth spread across the front of it. The rider went small and slumped. His hands were stiff and tight on the cracked leather of the reins. The foot of a leg in a shiny boot was taut in a shiny metal stirrup. The horse was crazy, zig-zagging flat out, its hooves up and down, its soft brown eyes fit to burst. The redcoat was slipping. He was off the saddle. His foot in the stirrup took all the weight of his body and his hands white and boney stayed gripped to the loosened reins. Bump went his shoulder in the ground. Bump went his head bump bump bump. The horse reared up and down to stamp the ground and he went tumbling after. The reins ripped out of his white pads round the bones of fingers. Rain fell instantly into puddles and the white face was splash freckled as it hurtled along lumpy turf and through sudden stiff, low bushes. The shiny foot was bent and slipping out of the stirrup, the red of the rider’s coat was ripping. Bam! He was flat and still, the horse was free. A plain gold crown rolled bump into his body. Hands on red-robed arms picked up the crown. Red robes was a tubby bod with a down-turned mouth and floppy jowls. He was holding the crown above the head of a younger man. An organ without the Hammond played solemn in a solemn cathedral. God save the King, red robes said. The younger man looked solemn and the crown came down to sit on his head. The congregation were modern people in suits and dresses. They were going to cheer but it was too solemn. The man with the crown on was smaller in the distance. He was on his feet with a sword in his hand. There was quiet clapping, Big Ben rang the hour and a tidy woman in a long skirt and a bonnet curtseyed and knelt in front of the man with the crown on. The sword came down lightly on her shoulder. Red Robes said, “Where once there was darkness now there is light. Florence Nightingale who with courage and valour has performed her sacred duty and lightened the darkness.”
Which she had and fair play to her. Walter could see it. She was leaving the men there to get on with it, just making sure they had the light to work in and keeping and eye on them. It was still and quiet in the cave place, none of the men gathered round were saying anything. What could they say, tough shit mate, or everything was going to be all right. No they were waiting for him to die, and for something to happen at that moment, like his soul going balloon under the steady lamp.
Walter shook his head.
He was in a rut, shellfire and mangled bods; mangled bods and shellfire. He didn’t want it. He’d had enough. Felt a surge through his feet. The patchwork quilt conveyor belt came up and into his head and faded away.
“The old battery wearing down”, Walter said out loud. If he found out the time he would know cos there was only so many hours of intense in a tab before the wind-down, and Supermans were no different. He saw his hands holding the tenner. It was a stupid picture and he dropped it on the carpet. He lit on the fifty pence coin and picked it up in one hand where it felt chunky. With the other he bent his thumb and pushed it nail first into his hooked forefinger. He placed the coin there and flicked it. The fifty pence slowly somersaulted up and then down again giving off flashes of black and orange spiral. On his wrist it showed heads, the Queen’s clean cut head. The king was in his counting house counting out his money.
The coin came down heads again. The king was a mingy scrooge. No he was an old king Cole, a jolly old soul in a Father Christmas get-up.
The coin came down tails. You gave him your fifty pence and chose the gift in his left hand. It was gnarled and knuckley and opened slowly. A pink plastic ring lay on the palm. Mental. Only he could smell a terrible smell. It seemed to be coming from his hands. He put them up close to his nose fingertip to fingertip. They stank. Not a fart, something colder and dirtier. Walter shuddered. His fingernails were dirty. Madness, they had been clean but there they were, worms of black stuff in the rind of each nail. They stank too.
There was no point in just sitting there and accepting it. He got up. His legs felt empty but he got to the bathroom. That was dirty too, and small.
It took a while but he worked out that the hot water did not come out of the hot water tap. Which was a pain in the fucking arse cos it had to be hot water. Coin grime, cash grime, nothing else would do. OK, so he wasn’t a brain box like Jimmy, but rocket science it was not: boil the kettle, and score the bonus: two cups of tea with what was left.
For a while time stood still till the kettle did the rumble. Shake rattle and roll. Steam in puffs. The sink was mucky enough for Debbie to have done her nut but it ran to a plug and a sliver of soap. Steam rose. The warmth was a direct hit that spread faster than a vodka. Colours did the escalator show. Underwater the slip of a soap was sexy slidey. He pulled his hands out and played his palms in the lather, mingled his fingers and plunged them back into the water. There was no nail brush in sight. OK. So? OK. Instead he made a transparent screen out of the lather between thumbs and forefingers.
Mental.
Oil-on-water colours ran about on the flat bubble. He gently blew it spherical and let it gently back again. Mini-bubbles formed around the edges of the screen.
Madness.
After a while he put his hands in and out of the lukewarm water to rinse them. Then they smelled good.
He took the warm mugs of tea from the kitchen into the lounge.
“A cup of tea bruv?”
Jimmy lifted his head a little. he had a big smile.
“You been somewhere good”, Walter asked.
“Fucking hell. Yeah. Where’ve I been, the stars, inside me.”
“What, And soap bubbles?”, Walter said and edged up the radio volume. The bass line was motoring, electric soft.
“What what? Soap bubbles, you been on them all night?
“No, just lately. Before that it was visuals out my head. Sort of history. England. And all that, like this bod fighting with a crown on. Then it went grim. Lot of killing.”
“The brothers.”
“What?”
“The brothers Grimm.”
Walter frowned.
“Who were they? What before the twins? The Krays?”
“You playing the comedian you cunt,” Jimmy said laughing: “I’m talking Hansel And Kettle. Lucky The Sun don’t know about you.”
“What?”
“Security Guard is mad acid freak. Shock horror. It’s an issue isn’t it. You k now what I mean, issues, where would we be without them. Cowboy security firms and no vetting of employees.”
“My lot’s not cowboys. Anyway it’s only the Thames Barrier.”
“Only! The man says only. Terrorists. Imminent danger. All those nutters out there plotting to blow it up, flood London, panic and mayhem, and what’s the oppo? One acid head artist on four seventy an hour who says Only.”
“Five quid,” Walter said.
“You coming down?”
“Yeah”, said Walter and picked up the ten pound note. It was just a tenner that he saw clearly and without feeling. “A little rush now and then but mostly I feel cleaned out, peaceful, you know what I mean.”
Jimmy nodded and sat down on the sofa with his hands round the tea mug. The radio was playing a chirpy interchange, drum machine and synth.
“She was a nurse wasn’t she, Florence Nightingale.” Walter said.
“Crimean War by all accounts, a right shambles till she got it sorted.”
“The Crimean War?”
“You know. Into the valley rode the six hundred Five four three two one. Charge of the Light Brigade. Shot to pieces. The only time we fought the Russians thank Christ.”
Walter held on to the note and picked up red felt tip off of the floor.
The music had stopped. A radio bloke said there was an event in Rainham, Essex, DJs by the dozen, strictly no trainers. And remember if you ain’t got a ticket, you don’t get in. Entrance is a mere twelve pounds. A woman who sounded bright and spoke dead posh took over to describe another in Edmonton, north of the river. It sounded alright.
“Remember”, she said, “this is a private function. If you haven’t got a ticket, you don’t get in. Entrance is a mere eight pounds….”
“That’s stronging it.”, Jimmy said.
“Twelve quid.”
“A mere twelve quid.”
Walter supposed so. On to the lamplit scene on the tenner he wrote in small neat capitals, THE SIX HUNDRED MET MAD MAX. Then he put the notes, the coins and his door key into a trouser pocket and got up to stretch. A thrill rushed up his body and fell away in sparks.
The music came back on in computer game mode and opened up into Blackpool organ sound. Walter went over to the window and pulled back some curtain. Outside it was dark blue-grey. The moon was still visible, it looked good.
“You got the time?”
“The time bruv. What’s time between friends. Coming up to six. .”
“Shit. I’ve got to go.”
“You’re not working are you?”
“Fucking right. Half seven sharp.”
“How you going to stay awake? More to the point, how can I feel secure when the Arabs are plotted up and determined and there’s you. Asleep.”
“Me, I drink coffee all day. You, you got to sleep you lazy tosser.”
“Our reporters checking on security at strategic points in the city found guard Walter Hanson fast asleep.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
Out on the street Walter got the goose pimples, then he felt good. The few stars he could see were faint but steady. Fucking hell. His heart jumped up into his mouth, the dog snarling like it was ready to let rip with the mad teeth if it could just get its snout through the wire of the fence. It was trying hard enough. Hated everything that moved. Just when he felt pure and reborn, and raw with it, mad fucking fangs like they had it in for him personally, scaring the shit out of him. What, for some poxy scrap metal?!
Up on the hoarding WATCH OUT MUGGERS ABOUT.
It took a while, his breathing back to where he wanted it, took him right up to the tube station. Bethnal Green, steep escalator or what. Like the granddad said, first choice when the bombs were falling cos you knew you was deep. Framed posters eased by, some real lookers with long legs. And, as if you didn’t know, report any suspicious bags. The platform and its stretch of tunnel were walled in yellow tile. One early bird had a paper. He walked to one end of the platform and back again. Slapped up across the shiny rails there was stuff to read, like how you never knew just what was round the corner. SAFEPLAN. CCTV was also in operation. He heard the rattle from inside the arched black hole of tunnel, then went flashback with the twang of the shiny rails. Vibrations up and down the bod, till the shock of the heavy train and its speed turned it to tremble.
In the carriage he stayed on his feet, swayed on his feet. Popeye man, he knew the drill. The bloke with the paper was sat down. TERRORIST THREAT REAL AND IMMANENT, on his front page. At first stop Mile End he could change lines for one more stop to be that closer to home, but didn’t fancy the wait. Second wind. He was buzzing. Outside daylight had kicked off and the pace quickened. On the billboard too, things had developed, Muggers had nowhere to hide; underneath, a face behind bars. He walked fast down to the short cut The gates were locked. He bent and curved himself through where the railings were bent. He took the foot worn path diagonal towards the trees. In the dip, leafy mud rubbed against the cracked gravestone that he knew had been a beloved husband that had been a clerk in the Pool of London and died 1907. A cheeky grey squirrel ran up a tree. Birds rabbited away. Peaceful, it was peaceful like a cemetery should be when you got a stone to mark your spot, and didn’t wind up dead like you was a rolling pin on the battlefield. Or bits of you rolled about.
Out through the gap at the other side, he turned the first corner under the iron bridge. He smelled it first, burning rubber and wood then saw the raggedy bods sat around the smoke. No eye-to-eye contact, not on his part. Law of the land weren’t it. Only he couldn’t help but see the fellow nearest the bird with the greasy puffa, couldn’t help but see his shiner, black, purple and green around the eye-socket. Or the scar on the other face with the jumbo White lightening in his hand.
By the flats he said All Right to Billy Michaels. Indoors Debbie was in the kitchen, radio on.
I’m sure all hard-working, right-minded people will agree…
“Look what the cat’s brought in,” Debbie said.
We have to strike a balance but we cannot ignore the threat…
“Debs, I’ve got fifteen minutes to make myself coffee and breakfast, so no lip.”
“Oooh. Excuse me for opening my gob. I thought it was a free country.”
“Well you was wrong.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Barker was born in North London where he still lives. He was imprisoned in the 70s as an Angry Brigade ‘conspirator’ and served a further sentence in the early 90s for hash smuggling.
