Beyond Black: A Novel

CAPSTICK: What, not see her? Who we going to mediumize, then?

BOB FOX: Morris? Morris, speak up. It’s you in charge of this fiasco.

MORRIS: You can’t get decent vinegar, neither. You go in for vinegar, there’s bloody shelves and shelves of the stuff. There’s only one sort of proper vinegar, and that’s brown.

CAPSTICK: Morris? We’re talking to you.

AITKENSIDE: It was you, Warren, according to my ledger, what requested to have that crustie hanged, that lived in her shed.

MORRIS: He was on my manor! Only just got a proper outbuilding, where I can put me feet up evenings, and some geezer with an ’at moves in.

AITKENSIDE: But what did you fail to see, my son? You failed to see he was her good deed.

WAGSTAFFE: A good deed in a naughty world.

AITKENSIDE: That you, Wagstaffe? Bugger off, we’re talking.

MORRIS: Besides, you was all agreeable. Oooh, Morris, you said, let’s have an ’anging, haven’t had a good ’anging in years, it’ll be a right laugh when the little bugger kicks his feet!

AITKENSIDE: You failed to see that little bugger was her good deed. And what’s the result? She’s looking to commit a few others. They get the habit … see? They get the habit. It’s sad. But they get the taste for it.

MORRIS: So she don’t want to know us no more?

AITKENSIDE: I very much doubt it, old son.

MORRIS: But we go back, me and the missus. (pause) I’ll miss her. Be on my own. Won’t be the same.

CAPSTICK: Oh, leave off, do! Bring on the bloody violins! You wouldn’t think so well of her if she’d had away your balls.

MACARTHUR: You wouldn’t think so well of her if you’d seen your eye on her spoon.

DEAN: You can get another place, Uncle Morris.

MORRIS: (sniffs) Won’t be the same, Dean lad.

AITKENSIDE: Not the bloody waterworks! Pull yourself together, Warren, or I’ll demote you. (Morris sobs.) Look … Morris, old son, don’t take on. Oh, blast it, ain’t nobody round here got a bleeding hankerchief?

WAGSTAFFE: Any handkerchief in particular?

AITKENSIDE: Wagstaffe? Put a sock in it. Listen, lads, I’ve an idea. Maybe she’ll come back if her dad asks for her.

(pause)

MACARTHUR: Who is her dad, then?

CAPSTICK: I always thought it was you, MacArthur. I thought that’s why she took your eye out.

MACARTHUR: I thought it were you, Keef. I thought that’s why she took your bollocks off.

AITKENSIDE: Don’t look at me! She’s not my daughter, I was in the forces.

MORRIS: She can’t be mine because I was still in the circus.

PIKEY PETE: She can’t be mine—

MORRIS: Oh, there you are, Pete! We thought you’d scarpered. Give a dog a bad name and hang him! We thought you had made off with the emoluments.

PIKEY PETE: I say, she can’t be mine, because I was in jail for painting horses.

CAPSTICK: Painting horses?

PIKEY PETE: You paint one racehorse to look like another, innit?

MORRIS: Don’t the paint run off, Pikey, when there’s a downpour?

PIKEY PETE: It’s an old Romany skill. Anyway, she ain’t mine.

CAPSTICK: She ain’t mine, because I was in the nick too.

MACARTHUR: And me. Serving five.

AITKENSIDE: So who’s left? Bob Fox?

BOB FOX: I never did nothing but tap on the window.

(pause)

MACARTHUR: Got to be that Derek bloke. Innit.

AITKENSIDE: Couldn’t have been. Bloody errand boy? He never had no money. Emmeline Cheetham, she didn’t do it for free.

MACARTHUR: True. You made sure of that.

CAPSTICK: Not like these girls you get these days, eh Dean?