1977

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:

‘John, no! The baby! Mind Bobby!’

And suddenly I feel my back go, like I don’t have one anymore, and I’m down on my knees in his drive and I don’t want to drop Bobby and I don’t want to drop Bobby and I don’t want to drop Bobby and I don’t want to drop Bobby and I don’t want to drop Bobby.

‘No! You’ll kill him!’

And then I’m lying face down in his drive and Bobby’s gone, lying face down in his drive with them walking over me, running for the car, him clattering the cricket bat down on to the ground by my head, her saying:

‘We’re even, Bob. Even.’

And then they’re gone, everything white, then grey, and finally black.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Friday 17th June 1977

Chapter 23

I look at my watch, it’s 7.07.

I’m riding in an old elevator, watching the floors pass, going up.

I step out of the elevator and on to the landing.

A young boy in blue pyjamas is standing there, waiting.

He takes my hand and leads me down the corridor, down the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.

We come to a door and stop.

I put my fingers on the handle and turn.

It’s open.

Room 77.

I woke on the floor, a terrible black and heavy pain across my skull.

I put my hand to the side of my head, felt the dried, caked blood.

I lifted my head, the room bathed in bright light.

Morning light, a morning light from out on the Common, from out on the Common where the steam rose from the backs of the ponies and the backs of the horses.

I sat up in that morning light, sat up on the sea of ripped-up paper, the smashed-up furniture, putting the photographs and the notes back together.

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie - every fucking where.

But all the Queen’s horses, all the Queen’s men, we couldn’t put Eddie together again.

Couldn’t keep Jackie together again either.

I tried to stand, felt sick in my mouth, and pulled myself over to the sink and spat.

I stood and ran the tap, cupping the cold grey water over my face.

In the mirror, I saw him, me.

Limbs of straw and will of wicker, trampled under hooves, horses’ hooves, Chinese horses.

I looked at my watch.

It was gone seven.

7.07

I sat in my car in the Redbeck car park, squeezing the bridge of my nose, coughing.