1983

Chapter 54

Hate week:

I press doorbell again -

Again clock strikes thirteen.

I knock upon door. I bang upon door -

Never answers her phone, never answers her door; that is her way.

I sit down on doorstep with my back to door. I reach inside my army greatcoat. I take out an orange. I start to peel it.

Door opens a crack.

I turn round. I hold out a piece of orange.

Little lad, he tiptoes out into gloom. He reaches for outstretched orange -

Tips of our fingers touch.

I take his hand. I hold him by his wrist. I place a piece of orange in his mouth. It breaks skin of his little lips. He can taste old orange and his own blood. He is unable to speak. He is unable to tell me his mum’s not here, that she is at shop -

But she’ll soon be back, I nod.

I swing him through door and back inside his house, which is our house now -

Our house in middle of our street.

I close door. I wait.

Television is on: Play your cards right; Give us a clue; Only when I laugh -

I have no idea, I am a shadow.

I turn out lights -

Only television lights now: Dynasty, Fall Guy, Kids from Fame -

I have no fucking idea.

I take other orange from inside my army greatcoat. I offer it to little lad.

He shakes his head.

I say: ‘Your name is Barry, is it not?’

Little boy, he nods.

‘My name was Barry too,’ I tell him.

Little boy looks at his feet.

‘Here,’ I say. ‘Would you like this badge?’

Little boy looks up at badge in my hand:

UK Decay.

He shakes his head.

I hear key turn in door once -

(We think of key, each in his prison) -

and turn once only.

She opens door and her mouth. She turns to go, but I am on my feet across room.

I pull her back inside our house -

This was where we used to sleep (to dream, to scream) -

I spin her across room on to settee. I slam door -

(We keep pain on inside round here) -

‘Dream on,’ I say.

She sits on settee. She looks up at me, chest rising and chest falling -

Little lad watching us both.

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Hello from one that got away.’

She just sits and stares.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

She sits. She stares. She says: ‘I thought you were dead?’

‘Oh no, not me,’ I say.

She starts to cry.

I sit down beside her. I put my arm around her.

Her hair smells of fat and smoke -

They are big tears that are falling on her old clothes.

‘Oh, don’t start with them waterworks, now will you?’ I smile.

She stops. She sniffs. She rubs her red nose. She dries her red eyes -

Little lad still watching us both.

‘Do you believe in ghosts, little Barry?’ I ask him.

He shakes his head.

‘Well, you bloody ought,’ I swear. ‘Didn’t he, mum?’

Then I hear them -

Hear them coming;

Coming to our house -

Our house in middle of our street (our house in middle of our hell).

Chapter 55

Sirens down the Doncaster and Barnsley Roads, into Wakefield:

Two cars, a van, and an ambulance -

No sirens on the ambulance.

Piggott cuffed and bagged on the floor of the van as we swept into Wood Street, taking him underground before the pack had either a hint or a whiff -

Just our lot all lined up and waiting for him, punching and kicking and spitting on him as we dragged him by his heels up and down the corridors -

Up and down the corridors.

Then we stripped him. We fingerprinted him. We photographed him -

Threw him in a cell.

‘Keep him sweet,’ I told Dick.

‘With the exception of the slight ligature marks on the ankles and wrists,’ Dr Alan Coutts was saying, ‘there are no wounds.’

I stopped writing. I said: ‘Cause of death then?’

‘Preliminary -’

‘What?’

‘Starvation and -’

‘What?’

‘Hunger and -’

‘What?’

‘Possibly vagal inhibition.’