1983

Steve kicks it straight back in bloke’s face.

Bloke goes down on other side of door (like a sack of fucking spuds):

His hair in his face, his teeth all covered in blood -

Everybody step over him -

Steve giving him a kick (just to make sure he’s going to be a good boy).

‘What the -’

Granny coming down stairs -

Steve straight across room to give her a slap, hard.

He bungs a bag over her head, ties her arms behind her, pretends to suck her tit:

‘Please, please -’

Bound, gagged and bagged.

Steve back on his feet and through into Post Office, pointing Joe upstairs -

Joe saying: ‘Upstairs?’

Steve turning and nodding, finger to his mask.

BJ stand in back with old bloke still out for count, his wife crying in a pool of her own piss.

Steve is back with a bag of cash.

Joe coming down stairs, empty-handed and shrugging his shoulders.

BJ walk over to Steve. BJ peer into bag:

NOT ENOUGH -

Not a grand, nowhere near.

Nowhere near and BJ tell him so: ‘Someone’s fucked up here.’

‘Shut up, man,’ hisses Steve. ‘Deal with it later, not here.’

BJ shake BJ’s head.

BJ walk out back door.

They follow.

Everybody leave -

Leave them lying in their little pools on floor of their little Post Office:

He will need thirty-five stitches in his head and in six months she’ll be dead.

Everybody take their masks off.

Everybody get in Cortina.

Everybody drive back into Leeds, old sun already behind new clouds -

Steve laughing as he drives, shouting: ‘Payback!’

Joe chanting to himself: ‘War in the East, war in the West; War in the North…’

Old sun already behind new clouds, shadows across car -

BJ say: ‘We’ve fucked up.’

Joe counting cash: ‘Still be more than seven hundred here, man.’

‘We’ve fucked up,’ BJ say again. ‘It was a set-up.’

‘No set-up,’ Steve is saying, shaking his locks. ‘Just pure fucking payback.’

BJ nodding, knowing -

(The never-never, can’t go on forever) -

Knowing what’s coming -

(Close my eyes but he will not go away) -

COMING -

(But I have the will to survive) -

COMING -

(I will cheat and I will win) -

COMING -

(You think I’m a raving idiot, just off the boat) -

COMING -

(But I’ll be round the back of your house in the dead of the night) -

COMING -

(Watch you sleeping in your bed) -

COMING -

(When the bloody heavens clash) -

COMING DOWN -

(The Two Sevens).

Chapter 34

Saturday 25 March 1972 -

‘You wake up some morning as unhappy as you’ve ever been…’

I lie alone in our double bed, listening to the sound of things getting worse:

‘Protests mount over direct rule in Northern Ireland after the Government’s agreement yesterday that Ulster is to be ruled direct from Westminster for a year ran into opposition immediately with both wings of the IRA saying they would fight on and militant Protestants demanding widespread strike action despite calls from Mr Faulkner for calm.

‘Meanwhile Mr William Whitelaw, the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, yesterday described the task ahead of him as, “Terrifying, difficult, and awesome.”’

I lie alone in the double bed, listening to the sound of things getting worse as my family dress for a wedding -

‘Mr & Mrs William Molloy gratefully request the presence of Mr & Mrs Maurice Jobson & family at the marriage of their daughter Louise Ann to Mr Robert Fraser.’

A celebration.

‘Paul!’ the wife shouts up the stairs. ‘Paul, hurry up, love, will you? We’re all waiting.’

My wife, my daughter and I stood at the front door -

My wife looking up the stairs, my daughter in the mirror, me at my watch.

The Simon and Garfunkel abruptly stops and down he comes.

‘I’ll get the car out,’ I say and open the door.