“No it isn’t. I was specially selected to come here. I can feel it.”
Spiderman smiled patiently, shaking his head.
“Everyone thinks that. I stand on the front row at the right-hand end. That means 90% of the gang who were alive when I got here are now dead. That’s hard fact. Keep your trap shut and work hard. With a bit of luck, you’ll make more friends than enemies.”
*
A few minutes later, Lawrence followed Spiderman into Dormitory 16. What an aeon seemed to have passed since last night, when Tricky Fingers showed him his bunk. Now the dormitory smelled of sweaty feet and stale grease, the latter he would come to know as the odour of the soap produced in the Factory from human fat. The narrow aisles were clogged with legs and boots and heaps of overalls. Lawrence picked his way to his bunk. The jolly fat face and bird’s wing eyebrows of Buttons chuckled up at him. Next, he saw giggling little Pig Tit. Burly Mirror-Face lay out on his bunk, cramming it with his frame, his morose face staring up blankly at the bunk above. Lawrence’s bunk was next along, on the lowest row about a foot off the floor boards. Well, Mirror-Face seemed OK. At least he was not a groper. Spiderman leaped up onto the top bunk with a spasm of his arms.
“I see we’re neighbours,” he said. “I hope you don’t snore, or make too much noise wanking.”
Wanking was the last thing Lawrence planned. A gorgeous relaxation came over him. At long last, peace behind his own eyelids. Away he faded into the back of his skull and the blissful oblivion of sleep. Colours flashed. Turmeric. Paprika. Sapphire blue sea. Emerald green oak, a livid canopy of spring. Sarah Kelly and he lying naked in the heather, clothes flung all around them, her skirt dangling from a branch. She laughed and rolled close against him, whispering in his ear, wrapping her hand around his cock, squeezing it…
“You’ve a queer streak in you after all,” whispered someone by his ear. His eyes shot wide open. A hand gripped his cock, rigid from the dream. Foul breath washed his face. The hand worked up and down, gripping tighter.
Like a plank bent to splintering point and released, Lawrence sprang clear of the mattress and threw himself from the bunk amid shouting and swearing. Someone kicked his leg. Someone else—it sounded like Spiderman—moaned.
“Can’t you butt-fuckers shut it for once?”
“You fucker Big Stak.”
That was Tricky Fingers. Hands grabbed the flaps of Lawrence’s overalls and lifted his chest off the floor. He swiped into darkness with his open palm and got a cracker like an oar smacking water. The impact drew laughter and cheering from all around, followed by furious cursing—Tricky Fingers again. By this time Lawrence was recovering his wits enough to curse himself for blowing up again. He shoved Tricky Finger backwards, rolled under his bunk and writhed through bags and boots to emerge in the next aisle, where he stood up, breathing hard. The tag in his ear must have caught something in the rush, as he could feel blood dripping onto his shoulder.
“Where is that prick?” Tricky Fingers was blowing like an angry bear on the far side of the bunks. Another man pressed against Lawrence.
“Well hell-oh, who have we here?” cooed a voice. A hand patted Lawrence’s chest.
“Excuse me,” he said, not really knowing why he was being polite. He backed away, tripped over a pair of boots and fell with a loud thump.
“Is that you, my perfect princess?” came the voice of Tricky Fingers. “I’m having you, my pretty little thing. You’re mine.”
Lawrence blundered about from bunk to bunk, hopelessly lost in the dark, until the faint rectangles of the starlit windows gave him a bearing. The realities of this idiotic blowing up were now large in his mind—a gang leader made a bad enemy. Passive evasion must be the healthiest tactic, at least until he had more allies like Spiderman. His hands touched bare skin. This darkness was alive with naked blokes. He ploughed into a table that rumbled like an earthquake.
“What are you running from Big Stak?” Tricky Fingers was closing in from the left. “I can make your queer streak flourish like Kew Gardens. There is no use running from yourself. Pretty boys like you are always queer.”
Spiderman called out they would have Ratty up to drag them out for a night parade if they didn’t shut up. Lawrence had reached the doorway by this time, where he paused, shaking his head. It was just like being back at public school, with a sook monitor whining at them. The Value System reduced grown men to this.
He skimmed down the steps to the door out to the Yard. It was not locked. Out on the cobbles, the chill reached through his open overalls. He fastened up the bone toggles. There was no point in returning to the dormitory for a while, the situation had to be left to cool. To shelter from the worst of the wind, he edged into the nearest archway and then on impulse marched straight out onto the track that led to the Tidal Basin. Why did he do it? Any guard would have shot him dead for certain. The truth was that he just did not care.
In fact, there was no guard. He was free! Out of the shelter of the Square, the wind stabbed through every crevice, up his sleeves, down his neck, it numbed his ears. He kept walking into the night. Behind him, the Square disappeared within a few paces due to its blackout. It was the obvious pointlessness of the excursion that brought him to a halt. He had no plans, no route, no boots even. It was
