1983

You see yourself and Leonard among the feathers -

Among the wings;

Your feathers and your wings -

Both stuck with his blood.

His mouth opens and closes again -

You put the hammer down.

‘No-one even looked,’ he whispers.

‘I know,’ you nod.

‘No-one.’

You wipe the tears from his cheek. You kiss his head. You say: ‘I know.’

He closes his eyes.

You put your wings over his mouth -

‘The children of sinners are abominable children -

Your wings, huge and rotting things -

‘And they frequent the haunts of the ungodly.

Big black raven things -

‘Children will blame an ungodly father -

Heavy and burnt, over his mouth.

‘For they suffer disgrace because of him.

He tries to raise his hand -

‘But whatever comes from the earth returns to the earth -

Tries to stop you -

‘So the ungodly go from curse to destruction.’

Stop you -

D-1 .

Chapter 60

He walks up path. He knocks on door.

‘It’s not locked,’ I shout downstairs.

He opens door. He steps inside.

‘Up here.’

He turns. He starts to walk upstairs. He reaches top of stairs. He stops.

Door is on its side, blocking his path.

He can see my mother lying on floor of back bedroom.

He climbs over door -

I turn -

Turn from out of front bedroom -

I thrust knife though his coat -

Through his coat, deep into his belly:

‘Hello,’ I say.

I pull knife out. I push it back in -

Back in, up and under his ribs.

‘Hello from back seat hard on last bus home, one that got away and lived to tell tale, from Barry Gannon and Eddie Dunford, Derek Box and his mate Paul, from my mate Clare and her sister Grace, Billy Bell and his spilt pint, from John Dawson and his brother Richard, Donald Foster and Johnny Kelly, from Pat they fucked and left behind, Jeanette Garland and her mum Paula, from Susan Ridyard and Clare Kemplay, Hazel Atkins and every missing child in this whole fucking world, from Graham Goldthorpe and his murdered Mary, Janice Ryan and Bad Bobby Fraser, from Eric Hall and his wife Libby, Peter Hunter and Evil Ken Drury, from Steve Barton and his brother Clive, Keith Lee and Kenny D, from Two Sevens and Joseph Rose, Ronnie Angus and George Oldman, from lovely Bill Shaw and Blind Old Walter, poor Jack Whitehead and Ka Su Peng, from Strafford Public House and Griffin hotel, Millgarth and Wood Street nicks, from Gaiety and both St Marys, motorways and car parks, from parks and toilets, idle rich and unemployed, from Maggie Thatcher and Michael Foot, from SWP and National Front, IRA and UDA, from M &S and C &A, Tesco and Co-op and every shopping centre in this wounded, wounded land, from shit they sell and shit we buy, my old mum and Queen sodding Mum, from kids with no mum and mums with no kid, Black Panther and Yorkshire Ripper, from Liddle Towers and Blair Peach, black bodies in Calder and ones in Aire, from all dead meat and my dead friends, pubs and clubs, from gutters and stars, local tips and old slag heaps, from ladies of night and boys in bogs, headlights and brake-lights, high life and low, from mucky mags and dirty vids, silent pits and page three tits, from Nazis and Witches, West Yorkshire coppers and their bent mates, from all little shits and things we get to see, dead bodies piled up in first-floor bars, stink of shotguns mixed with beer, sirens that howl for ten long years bloodstained with fear, from one that got away, un-lucky one, from Dachau to Belsen, Auschwitz to Preston, from Wakefield to Leeds, Stanley Royd and fucking North, from West bloody Riding and Red Riding Hood, final solution and wrath of God, from Church of Abandoned Christ and her twenty-two disciples, Michael Williams and Jack’s wife Carol, from pictures and tapes, murders and rapes, from whispers and rumours, cancers and tumours, from badgers and owls, wolves and swans -’

I twist knife:

‘This is for all things you made me do, for all things you had me see, for every cock I’ve ever sucked and every night I’ve never slept, for voices in my head and silence of night, for hole in my head and scars on my back, words on my chest, for boy I was and them boys that saw, Michael Myshkin and Jimmy Ash, fat Johnny Piggott and his brother Pete, Leonard Marsh and his dad George, for every little lad you ever fucked and all their dads who liked to watch, with their cameras in their hands and their cocks in my arse, your tongue in my mouth and your lies in my ear, loving you loving me, his nails in my hands and yours in my head, for that knife in my heart and this one in you -’

‘Goodbye Dragon,’ I spit -

I pull knife back out again and -

With one last kiss -

I let him fall -

Backwards -

Down -

Stairs.

Bare-chested and soaked in blood -

I turn. I see myself in bathroom mirror:

Hole in my head -

Stumps in my back -

Seven letters on my chest:

One Love.

‘Barry!’ she is screaming. ‘Barry!’

I follow him downstairs to front door -

I open it.

Maurice is coming up garden path.

I strike a match.

He stops. He stares.

I let it fall -