1983

Are big black raven things -

Fuck knows who said there are always a load of good-looking lasses in Evergreens, all you can see are a gang of Siouxsie fucking Siouxs giving you daggers until Wilf the punk dwarf who you represented when he was done for pissing against Balne Lane library after he lost one of his brothel creepers and he couldn’t hop and hold it all the way home to Flanshaw, until Wilf the punk dwarf says Streethouse have been nicked at top of Westgate after a fight with some lads from Stanley, and he used to call you Petrocelli and ended up with a fifty quid fine while you and his old man got done for contempt.

The room blue.

Kelly was in Friars and says same about Streethouse when you meet him and Dickie and Ange with one of her mates back in Graziers for last, Daz and Foz still in Elephant talking to two lasses from the hen party, which is bloody fucking typical, but now it’s you and Sarn talking ten to dozen, feeling top of the world, and Mark says Gareth’s puking in bogs but that’s only because that wasn’t really a Glenfiddich in Evergreens, thinks he’ll be all right for Raffles or Dolly Grays or wherever you’re off but he wishes you’d make up your fucking minds, Hally suddenly silent, his eyes red.

You have dreams -

Outside Kel and them are going back to theirs or Norm’s and you ought to do too he says because Raffles is going to be shit and full of fucking freaks and he’s a ton of fucking draw back at his, but you always go back to his or Norm’s every Friday and Saturday and it’s Gareth’s fucking birthday so why don’t they all come up to Raffles too, but Ange is working tomorrow on an early shift so that isn’t going to happen, so you tell Kel you’ll see him in Billy Walton’s tomorrow about two and you walk up the hill to Westgate, pissing behind back of somewhere, a light going on and then off again.

And in your dreams -

Top of Westgate’s heaving, everyone stumbling around trying to get out of the pubs and into the clubs, taxis and last buses swerving and braking to miss people fighting and falling in the road with their kebabs and swamp burgers, pizzas and Indians, dropping them or puking them up, the police just sitting about in their vans with their dogs on their leads until some bloke in a crash helmet sticks his head through a window and some silly slag pushes a shopping trolley out into the road, the 127 braking and did-you-see-that, what-did-you-say, yeah-fucking-hell-you- fucking-bet-you-fucking-saw-that.

In your dreams, you cry tears -

Two quid and up the stairs into Raffles, bouncer a bloke you know giving you a slap on the back but no fucking discount because the cow on the door’s screwing the boss, but it’s nice to know Graham still works here because you never know what’s going to happen, which is exactly what you’re saying to this lass at the bar and she’s all right she is and you have a bit of a dance to David Bowie and a smooch to Bonnie Tyler and you remember Gareth passing out and Sarn calling you Doctor Love and you thinking thank-fucking-Christ you didn’t have any more speed.

But all your tears in all your dreams -

Her parents and brother are at the caravan for the weekend so you are queuing among the chicken bones for a taxi on Cheapside, having a bit of a snog every now and again, her legs nice and brown, fine fair hairs a little bit sweaty, and you touch her cunt in the back of the taxi, the smell of pine, puke and perspiration, and you get out in the centre of Ossett and buy a curry to take back to hers, though she’ll have to open all the fucking windows because they’ll be back Sunday lunchtime and he hates that bloody Paki smell in the house does her dad.

Are islands lost in fears -

But after the curry she’s sober and off the idea of a shag and you knew you should have done it before you had the curry or even back behind Raffles, but she’s getting a bit funny and telling you to get off her, it’s her time of the month, and you’re thinking there’s always trap two, but that’s not going to happen, not now, and the curtains are beginning to spin, the patterns in the carpet, the gold in the rug, but you can have her brother’s room if you promise not to puke or shit in his sheets, that’s if you’re not going to go home which you’re not, not now.

The room red, white and blue (just like you).

You wake afraid about five under a poster of Kenny Dalglish and you go into her room and into her bed and take off her knickers and have a good squeeze of her tits while she pretends to still be asleep as you lick her out and shag her, she never opens her eyes so you put a finger up her arse and have a last shag, meat and bone, fat and muscle, blood and come, then you go downstairs and steal their paper and an umbrella and let yourself out, standing in their drive under their umbrella, staring at that photo on the front of their paper when you realise this is Towngate -

Towngate, Ossett, where Michael Williams murdered his wife with a hammer and a twelve-inch nail back in 1974 or 75, the Exorcist killing -

About the same time they must have nicked Michael Myshkin -

About the same time Hazel Atkins was having her first birthday -

And you stand in their drive under their umbrella and you stare at her photo on the front of their paper and wish you were not you -

For there is no retreat, no escape -

Not now.

Chapter 9

On back seat again -

Another empty coach:

Tuesday 24 December 1974 -

Longest Christmas Eve.

Clare slumped against window, dirty blonde hair against dirty grey glass, her best friend and her sister dead, a small suitcase in rack above her head.

BJ look across aisle and out other window at rain and moors, bleak weather and land it makes, no suitcase above BJ’s head -

Just a pocket full of blood ‘n’ cum money, two stolen watches and some rings.

BJ look at rings on BJ’s fingers -

BJ look at ring Bill put on BJ’s finger -

Bill:

William Shaw.

BJ pull yesterday’s newspaper out of Clare’s carrier bag and look at photo -

Look at photo of his face and read that front page again:

COUNCILLOR RESIGNS

William Shaw, the Labour leader and Chairman of the new Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, resigned on Sunday in a move that shocked the city.

In a brief statement, Shaw, 58, cited increasing ill-health as the reason behind his decision.

Shaw, the older brother of the Home Office Minister of State Robert Shaw, entered Labour politics through the Transport and General Workers’ Union. He rose to be a regional organiser and represented the T.G.W.U. on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.

A former Alderman and active for many years in West Riding politics, Shaw was, however, a leading advocate of Local Government reform and had been a member of the Redcliffe-Maud Committee.