Absolute Beginners (17 page)

A car pulled up, ten feet away, and a voice inside it said, ‘Are you all right?’

‘No!’ I yelled back.

‘You hurt?’

‘Yes!’ I cried out.

There was a bang and a thump and some feet came along, but I couldn’t see the face above them in the glare, and the cat the feet belonged to asked me, ‘You been drinking?’

‘I never drink.’

‘Oh.’ The cat came nearer. ‘Then what’s the matter?’

At that, I let out a hysteric shout, and shrieked with laughter like a maniac. ‘You
have
been drinking,’ said the cat, disapprovingly.

‘Well, so have you,’ I said.

‘As a matter of fact, you’re right, I have.’

The cat lifted up my Vespa, shook it and said. ‘You’ve run out of juice, that’s what’s your trouble. No juice left in this toy.’

‘I’ve run out of juice all right.’

‘Well then, it’s simple. I’ll siphon you some out.’

‘You will?’ I said, getting interested at last.

‘I’ve said I will.’

He pushed my Vespa up by the car’s arse, and rummaged in the boot, and fished out a tube and handed it to me. ‘You’d better do it,’ the cat said. ‘I’ve swallowed enough strong liquor for this evening.’

So I sucked away, and spat out several mouthfuls, and the damn thing actually worked, exactly as advertised, and we listened to it gurgling into the Vespa.

‘Something’s just struck me,’ said the cat.

‘It has?’

‘I’ve only got a gallon or so left myself. We don’t want to have to siphon it all back again, do we.’

‘No,’ I said, making a swift bend in the tube.

‘I guess you’ve got enough to take you back to civilisation.’

‘Thanks. Where
is
civilisation?’ I asked.

‘You don’t know where you are?’

‘Not an idea.’

The cat made
tst-tst
noises. ‘You really should lay off the stuff,’ he said. ‘Just turn about, follow the catseyes half a mile, and then you’re on the main road into London. I suppose you want London?’

I handed back the tube. ‘I want the whole damn city,’ I said, ‘and everything contained there.’

‘You’re very welcome to it,’ said this benefactor. ‘I’m from Aylesbury, myself.’

So we shook hands, and patted each other’s backs, and I saw him off, then got on my Vespa and turned back. I reached a garage before long, and got a proper fill, and had a cuppa at a drivers’ all-night caff, and resumed my journey into the capital, like R. Whittington. And as I sped along, I said to myself, ‘Well – goodbye happy youth: from now on I’m going to be a tough, tough nut, and if she thinks she can hurt me, she’s bloody well mistaken, and as for the exhibition, I’ll go ahead with it just the same, and make some loot and catch her when she falls, as she will, you bet, and then we’ll see.’

I soon hit familiar sections, and found myself heading
down to Pimlico, because – I have to admit it – I wanted some miracle to happen and that squalid old Mum of mine to grasp what had happened to her second-born, and maybe suggest something, or even do something, or, at any rate,
say
something about it all. I reached the area, and went down the street in low, and sure enough, the lights were gleaming in her basement, so I parked the Vespa, and stepped carefully down, and took a glimpse through the window where, as you might have expected, I could see her drinking something or other with a lodger. Dad may have been right about the Cypriots, but it looked to be the same old beefo Malt to me, and honestly, though I wanted to chat Ma – I mean, in a way, I even felt I owed it to
her
to give her this opportunity – I just couldn’t face opening the whole theme up with the Malt there in attendance, even though, no doubt, she’d have got rid of him, so I went up the area steps again, and headed home to see if Big Jill was back now by any chance.

Big Jill was not – at least, there was no light on – but someone else was there: guess who! It was Edward the Ted, none other, carrying a parcel, and coming out of the front door (which, as I’ve said, is always open) just at the moment I came in. He backed away at first until he saw that it was me, then said, ‘I gotta see yer,’ so I invited the goon to come up into the attic and have a natter.

I turned on the subdued lighting, of which I’m rather proud (because a theatrical kid I know, who scene-shifts at the Lane, created it all for me for ten pounds, plus the costs), and I poured the brave, bad Ed a glass of
lager-and-lime, that I keep there for such visitors, and turned on C. Parker low, and took a look at him. He was wearing his summer uniform – i.e. slept-in jeans,
four-inch
prowlers, tiger vest and blue zip jacket (collar, of course, turned
up
– he must use whalebone), with
lawn-mower
hairdo and a built-in scowl. But something about Ed-Ted put me on my guard: he wasn’t as beat about as he used to be, the snarl was a bit more real, and the shoulders hunched with a bit more power in them.

‘Fuss ov all,’ said Ted, ‘abaht vese platters.’

‘What platters?’

‘Vese there.’

He pointed at the parcel. The soil in his nails must have been inlaid.

‘What are they?’

‘I wanter flog thm.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Much to my surprise, they were an exceedingly hip collection.

‘I didn’t know you had such taste,’ I said to Edward. ‘In fact, I didn’t know you had any taste at all.’

‘Eh?’ he said.

‘They’re knocked off, I suppose.’

A crafty grin cracked over the monster’s countenance. ‘Nachly,’ he said.

‘And what are you asking?’

‘You name a figger.’

‘I said, “What are you asking?”’

‘Ten.’

‘S.P. too high. I’ll give you four.’

‘Errrr!’

‘Keep them then, sonny.’

‘Ten, I sed.’

I shook my head. ‘Well, that was fuss ov all,’ I reminded him. ‘What was second?’

Now Ed looked very sure of himself indeed, and said, ‘Flikker sent me.’

‘Did he. Who’s Flikker?’

‘You dunno?’

‘That’s why I asked you.’

Edward looked very contemptuous. ‘If yer liv up ear,’ he said, ‘and don no oo Flikker is, yer don no nuffin.’

‘Yeah. Who is he?’

‘E eads me mob.’

‘I thought you’d done with mobs. And they’d done with you. How did you work your passage back?’

‘I don work.’

‘How’d you join the mob?’

‘They arst me.’

‘On bended knee, did they? I wonder why?’

Ed stretched, then took from his zip jacket a small chopper, such as the butcher trims the cutlets with, unwrapped a bit of rag from off its blade, rubbed it, and said, ‘I did a job.’

‘You’ll do a stretch, as well.’

‘Not me. Ver push give me cuvver.’

I got up, went over, held out my hand, and looked at Ed. He slapped the chopper down, blade sideways, quite hard, on my palm. When he saw I was taking it, he tried to snatch it back.

‘I’ll just put it there,’ I said, laying it on the floor. ‘I don’t like to talk during meal times.’

Ed kept some eyes on the weapon, some on me. ‘Well, vis is it,’ he said. ‘Flikker wonts ter see yer.’

‘Tell him to call round.’

‘Yer don
tell
Flikker.’

‘
You
don’t, I’m sure. Listen, Ed-Ted. If anyone wants to see me, I’m available. But I’m not being summoned by anyone except the magistrate.’

Edward arose, picked up his chopper, dangled it, returned it to his grease-gleaming jacket, and said to me, ‘Orl rite. Okay. Ill tell im. An this stuff ear?’

‘I’ll give you four.’

‘Ten’s wot I sed.’

‘And I sed four.’

As a matter of fact, I was getting anxious about this visit and also, I don’t mind telling you, a bit scared. Because you can be as brave as a lion, which I don’t pretend to be, but if fourteen of these hyenas set on you, at night, in an empty street (as they always do, and that’s always about the number), believe me, there’s absolutely nothing you can do, except book a bed in the general hospital. So best is, keep out of their way if you possibly can, which is fairly easy, provided you don’t provoke them (or they pick on you), because if there
is
an incident, I can tell you from experience – I mean, I’ve seen it often enough –
no
one will help you, not even the law, unless they’re quite a number too, which generally, in an area such as this, they aren’t, except for traffic duty.

‘I’ll give you five,’ I said, which was my big mistake.

‘Ten.’

‘Forget it, then.’

‘I won’t …’ said Ed. ‘Yer’ll be earing from me agen, an ver lads, and Flikker … An so wul vat feller e wonts aht ov it …’

‘Who wants who out?’

‘Flikker wants Cool aht ov ear.’

‘Why?’

‘E don av ter say why. E jus wonts im aht ov ear, an aht ov ver ole sexter. An
you’ve
got ter tell im, tell Cool, an see e blows.’

I stared at this English product. ‘Ed,’ I said, ‘you can go and piss up your leg.’

Strangely enough, he smiled, if you can call that thing a smile. ‘Orl rite,’ he said, ‘I’ll take five.’

And now I made my second big mistake, which was to go over to the cabin trunk where I keep a few odd valuables, and unlock the thing, and get out a bit of loot I had there, and next thing Ed’s hands were there inside it, and when I grabbed at them he pulled back and hit me on the neck, twice, quick, with his hand held on the side.

Now, I hate fighting. I mean, I’m not a coward – honestly, I don’t think so – but I just hate that silly mess which, apart from the risk of getting hurt yourself, may mean you damage someone else you don’t care a fuck about, and land up in the nick for wounding. So I avoid it, if I can. But on the other hand, if I’m in it, I believe quite firmly in fighting dirty – no Gentleman Jim for me
– because the only object I can see in fighting, if you’ve got to, is to win as quickly as you can, then change the subject.

So though in great pain, my first act, while Ed was still jabbing at my neck, was to grab his jacket by both hands so that he couldn’t get his paws back on the chopper, and my next was to struggle up, while he was still bashing at my face, and jump on his feet with all my nine-stone-something, and then kick him hard as I could on both his shins, just as I felt some teeth rattling and blood flowing in my eyes. He bent down, he had to, and I let go his jacket, and grabbed the lime bottle, and cracked it on Edward’s skull as heavy as I knew how, and he wobbled and melted and fell over, where I kicked him in the stomach, just to make perfectly sure.

‘You wasted mess of a treacherous bastard!’ I exclaimed.

Ed lay there moaning. I got out his chopper, staggered over to the window, and flung it into the Napoli night, then turned up C. Parker, on account of the neighbours hearing what they shouldn’t and wiped some of the blood off with a sheet, and the door opened, and there was Mr Cool.

‘Hi,’ Cool said. ‘I heard some turmoil.’

I pointed at Ed-Ted. ‘That’s it,’ I said.

Cool walked across and looked at him. ‘Oh, that one,’ he said. ‘Excuse me not arriving earlier.’

‘Better late than never,’ I said. ‘You can help me dispose of the body.’

Cool looked me over. ‘You’d better go in the bathroom,’
he said. ‘I’ll see him off.’ And he took hold of the neck of Edward’s jacket with two long, lean, very solid hands, and started dragging him across the floor, and out the door, and I could hear them bumping down the stairway like the removal men shifting the grand piano for you.

In the bathroom, I put myself together, and found all was well, except that I felt terrible, and I went back to my room, and took the top record from Ed’s packet out of its sleeve, and put it on, and it was the MJQ playing
Concorde
, very smooth and comforting.

Cool reappeared, nodded at the music, said, ‘Nice,’ and asked if he could wash, and I went with him in the bathroom. ‘Where’d you stow Ed?’ I asked.

‘In the area. Next door. Behind the dustbins.’

‘I do hope he’s not dead, or dying.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Cool, drying his long hands. ‘He’ll
die
another day,’ and he gave me a not very pleasant smile. As we went back in the room, I told him what Ed had been on about during his kindly visit.

‘Wilf told me the same,’ he said, ‘—my brother.’

‘He’s with that lot?’

‘He’d like to be, but they won’t have him, on account of me.’

‘And this Flikker,’ I asked Cool. ‘You know him?’

‘I know his appearance …’

‘Tough number, is he?’

‘Well, there’s four hundred teenagers, they say, up here, who he can beckon.’

‘
Four hundred
? Don’t kid me, Cool.’

‘Believe me. Four hundred or so.’

‘And
teenagers
?’

‘Well, Teds, semi-Teds … you know … local hooligans …’

I wish you could hear the spite Cool put into that last word! ‘Well, what you think about all this?’ I asked him.

Cool lit a fag. ‘Something’s happening,’ he said.

‘You mean now?’

‘Something’s cooking … Excuse me, but you wouldn’t notice, son, not being coloured …’

‘Well, tell me: what?’ Because shit! I didn’t want to believe this whole thing at all.

‘For instance: they’ve taken to running us down with cars. And motorbikes.’

‘Accidents. Drunks. You
sure
?’

‘It’s happened so often. It’s deliberate. You have to skip fast when you see them coming.’

‘What else, Cool?’

‘Well, there’s this one. They stop you and ask you for cigarettes. If you offer them, they take the whole pack, and grin. If you don’t, they take a smack at you, and run.’

‘“They.” How many “they”?’

‘Little groups …’

‘This thing has happened to you?’

‘Yes. Also this. Few days ago, down by the tube station, they stopped me and said, “Which side you want your hair parted?”’

‘And you said what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You were alone?’

‘Two of us. Eight or nine of them.’

‘What then?’

‘They said, “We hate you”.’

‘You answered?’

‘No. Then they said, “Get back to your own country”.’

‘But this
is
your country, Cool.’

‘You think so?’