Born Under Punches (2 page)

The punters lapped it all up. Black Levi's, DMs and quiffs for the students, second-hand antique suits and jackets for the local hipsters, Gitanes and black polo necks for the ultimate poseurs. One of the black polo necks was flinging his arms about, monopolizing his table, not letting anyone else speak. Tommy felt irrational anger well up inside. He wanted to go over there and grind his beer glass in the smug cunt's face, shut him up. But he controlled himself because he was here on business. He breathed deeply, holding it down, putting it in reserve. He took another sip of beer. Went back to waiting.

But not for long. The main door opened and in walked a man, quite tall, hair curly, greying and long, wearing a Hawaiian shirt over Levi's, buttons straining over an expanding gut. Over ten years older than the bar's average punter, he looked self-deluded enough to think he was still one of the kids. The man walked through the bar, straight into the gents.

Tommy nodded. From the far end of the room, Nev, Tommy's partner, detached himself from behind a corner table and followed the man in. Nev, one inch short of a behemoth, with a flat-top haircut, was dressed casually in shades of pastel shirt and slacks. He looked like a nightclub bouncer gone golfing.

Tommy straightened his tie, smoothed his hair and, with a careful, measured stride, followed.

Nev stood guard inside, blocking entrance or exit with his massive bulk. The toilet was small, cramped. A stained stainless-steel urinal trough ran the length of one wall. Two cubicles opposite. The walls were plastered with old posters for bands and concerts, scrawled over with graffiti. Two marker pens by the sink had been left by the management to encourage it. One of the cubicles was empty, the other Occupied. Tommy knocked on the door. A sniffing, coughing voice replied: ‘Someone in 'ere. Not be a minute.'

Tommy swallowed, breathed in fully, exhaled slowly.

‘Hello, Neil.' The words clipped, controlled.

The sniffing came to a sudden, tense stop behind the door. Tommy waited.

‘Who's that?' asked a shaky voice eventually.

Tommy sighed. ‘You know who this is, Neil. Don't play games. Come out. I want to talk to you.' The tone measured, the words sounding carefully chosen and rehearsed.

The bolt was pushed back slowly, the noise reverberating as if in a dungeon. Neil stepped out, nose twitching, swallowing hard. Tommy, gearing himself up, smiled.

‘Long time no see, Neil,' he said slowly. ‘Where you been hiding?'

Neil's face blanched white, showing up the redness in his nose. ‘Nowhere, honest. I've just been around, you know.'

Tommy waited, eyes boring into Neil's, breathing increasing.

‘Look …' began Neil, ‘I know what you're thinkin', but it's not like that, honestly.'

Tommy frowned. ‘What am I thinking, Neil?'

Neil sniffed, swallowed hard. ‘That I stiffed you. Fucked you over.'

Tommy allowed himself a small smile. Neil's white skin turned almost translucent. ‘Let's get this straight, Neil. You're only in business because I allow you to be. Because my bu-bu-boss allows you to be. That's the nuh-nuh-new deal.'

Neil flinched at Tommy's stutter. He knew it wasn't a good sign. He nodded, shrugged. Attempted a smile. ‘Aw, c'mon, Tommy, wassa matter, man? I'm playin' straight with yuh …'

Tommy, with razor-sharp speed, grabbed Neil's collar and twisted, pushing him back against the cubicle frame. Neil's eyes bugged out, almost on stalks. When Tommy spoke, he managed to keep his voice low and controlled.

‘Really, nuh-nuh-nuh-Neil? You've been heard shouting your mouth off all over town. Saying huh-huh-who do I think I am? About how you're going to ru-ru-rip me off, how I'm only a boy doing a man's job, how I'm there for the t-t-t-taking. Worthless cu-cu-cunt.' He twisted the collar tighter. ‘I'm in chuh-charge now, Neil. I'm your new boss. And just because I'm new doesn't give you the right to badm-m-m-outh me, does it?'

Neil shook his head vigorously.

Tommy took a deep breath. He could feel his face reddening as his control slipped. He exhaled. Kept it together. ‘Good. This is what's going to happen. I'm going to give you two days, and in those two days you're either going to come up with my money – all of it – or my product back. And it is my product. OK?'

Relief expelled itself from Neil's body in a huge sigh. He nodded.

‘OK. Thank you …'

‘But,' continued Tommy, ‘I cu-cu-can't let p-p-people take the p-p-p-piss, can I? I've go to remind you who's boss, don't I?' He pulled out a wooden-handled knife from his, jacket pocket. The blade glinted and sparkled in the toilet's weak yellow light.

Neil stared at the blade, legs buckling, head shaking. ‘Look!' he shouted. ‘It wasn't just me.'

Tommy smiled. ‘I knu-know that. Let's discuss it.'

Tommy pushed him back into the cubicle, following him in. He cut a strip off the front of Neil's shirt, stuffed it into the man's mouth and, with a smile, went to work.

Nev, standing guard, averted his gaze. Although he was hardened to what was coming next, something about the way Tommy worked disturbed him. Not the muffled screams or the blood. It was the fact that Tommy insisted on whistling, or sometimes singing, Dean Martin songs as he got down to business. With no trace of a stutter.

Now that, thought Nev, was really scary.

Ten minutes later, in the car, Tommy was sitting behind the wheel looking flushed but relaxed and happy. Almost postcoital, Nev would have thought, had the word been in his vocabulary.

‘Ah,' Tommy sighed, ‘that's amore.' His eyes glinted with malicious glee. He had got what he wanted.

Nev grunted in reply.

‘Right,' said Tommy, sprightly once more. ‘Fancy a trip to the seaside?'

Rio sat on the seafront at Whitley Bay, a pastel and neon-lit palace of exclusivity, supposedly owned by a member of Duran Duran. Brand-new and notoriously hard to gain admittance to, punters had to show they fulfilled the correct criteria of age, attitude and aspiration before they were allowed in, because it wasn't just a bar they were entering, but a lifestyle, a dream.

Tony Woodhouse had no trouble getting in. The management even bought him free drinks in recognition of his achievements that afternoon. Consequently, he loved everything about the place. The décor, the atmosphere, the music. The girls.

Poised and confident, stylish and sophisticated, they were there for more than just a Saturday-night pull. They were showing what they had, giving glimpses of where they were headed, expressing, but not flaunting, their upward mobility. The boys all loved this and responded accordingly, raising their game too.

Tony was dressed in a double-breasted suit, the dark weave of the material shot through with a silver check that caught the light when he moved the right way. With his sleeves rolled up and his shirt buttoned to the neck, he knew he looked the business. He was with his old school friends from Coldwell, the mining town along the Northumberland coast. They couldn't match Tony financially, being either down the pit, in office jobs or unemployed, but they could match him in their hopes and ambitions. That was why, dressed in their finest smart casual, they came back to Rio week after week. Because once inside it didn't matter what they were the rest of the time. Once inside, they willingly surrendered to their dreams and allowed themselves to be held – like Tony – in Rio's aspirational
Miami Vice
-like grip.

Post-match had been a blur for Tony. He had conducted a short interview for
Match of the Day
while still on a high. The only thing he could remember about it was telling the interviewer he still had a long way to go, a lot of things to prove. Then out of St James' Park and down the coast road to keep his weekly appointment with his old school mates. Although life seemed to be taking him in a different direction, that was no reason to stop seeing them. If the
Match of the Day
interviewer had asked him about that, he would have said that they were still his mates and they still had a laugh together. And that, Tony would have said, looking straight to camera, was the important thing.

If he had been asked what he intended to do with the night he would have answered: Have a few pints with the lads, a few laughs, do a few lines and if I'm lucky pull some skirt. Well, maybe not the bit about doing some lines. Jimmy Hill wouldn't be happy with that.

They had bar-hopped along the seafront, ending up in Rio where they' stood drinking beer, scoping the action, telling their stories, having a good time. The music was brilliant. Frankie's ‘Two Tribes' segueing into Jeffrey Osbourne's ‘Stay with Me Tonight', which in turn became ‘1984', the Eurythmics needlessly reminding everyone what year it was. Tony, high on the booze, the drugs and the goal, had barely stopped grinning all night. He couldn't have been happier. Time of me fuckin' life, he would have told
Match of the Day
if they had still been listening.

And then he saw her. Standing with a group of friends but, to him, she stood out immediately. Quite tall but given extra height by her spike heels, she was dressed completely in black. Short, flared skirt over tanned legs, tight vest top, short jacket. Her hair was long and dark and her figure curved in all the places he considered important. Make-up used only as and when needed. Tony couldn't help staring. She stared back, their eyes locked and he was in lust.

He looked at his friends, pointed at their glasses. Despite none of them being empty, they all nodded. He pushed his rolled-up jacket sleeves even further up his arms, tossed his gelled-back floppy fringe from his forehead, and walked – like the camera was still on him, the crowd still watching – a circuitous route to the bar. She stared right at him, watching him, letting him approach.

‘Hi,' he said.

She smiled back. It seemed brighter than neon. ‘Hi.'

Tony, using his charm but playing it safe, offered to buy her a drink.

She thought for a moment. ‘You can, but I'm with friends. We're drinking in rounds.'

Tony stepped up a gear, gave his dazzling smile. If smiles could win games, he thought, this one would get me a hat-trick. ‘No problem.' He turned to the other girls. ‘What would you like, ladies?'

The girls all giggled, made comments about his generosity and accepted his offer. The girl he had singled out rolled her eyes at such an obvious and tacky gesture, but she smiled when she did it.

Brilliant, he thought. I'm in here.

Tony distributed the drinks, manoeuvring the girl away from her friends, separating her from the main herd as a predator would.

‘What's Love Got to Do with It?' Great. He loved that one.

‘So what's your name?'

‘Louise,' she replied. ‘You?'

Not wanting to appear too flash too soon, he gave her only his first name.

Then the question-and-answer session started. Louise was eighteen, down at the coast with her friends for the night. Living in Gateshead, doing business studies at the tech.

Tony told her he had his own flat and – he studied her face for her reaction; this was the bit he loved – he was a professional footballer.

Her first reaction was predictable. She didn't believe him.

‘Honestly.' He gave her the winning smile again. ‘I play for Newcastle. I played today against Arsenal.'

‘Oh yeah?' she said sceptically. ‘What was the score?'

‘Two-one to us. Beardo got the first.' His grin, if anything, widened. ‘I got the second. Then we got sloppy and they got one back. But it didn't matter.'

She screwed her eyes up, scrutinizing him closely. ‘Tony Woodsomething.'

‘Woodhouse. That's me.'

‘Me dad and me brother like football,' she said with polite indifference. ‘I'll tell them I met you.'

The smile began to fade from Tony's face. Even if girls weren't interested in football, they were always excited when they found out who he was.

‘What?' she asked in response to his hurt expression.

‘Nothin',' mumbled Tony.

‘Did you expect me to ask for your autograph or something? Fall to the floor and demand a bonk?'

Tony said nothing, just continued to look hurt.

Louise burst out laughing. ‘You did! You did, didn't you? You vain bastard!'

Even through the bar's darkness and neon, Tony could feel himself reddening. This wasn't the way it usually turned out.

‘You think because you scored a goal and bought me a drink I should be impressed?' Louise asked.

Tony shrugged. ‘Well, you know …'

She smiled. ‘I can be impressed.' Her eyes dropped. Something came into them that wasn't there before. ‘But you'll have to try harder than that.'

The look connected. Tony felt the stirrings of not only an erection but something else, something deeper flutter inside him. He looked back at her, taking her face in properly for the first time. Louise was beyond pretty. She was really beautiful.

‘OK,' he said. ‘Listen, why don't we go somewhere else?'

Louise shrugged, eyes not leaving his. ‘Where did you have in mind?'

He was about to ask her back to his place, but something stopped him. It didn't feel right. Not with her. He wanted to get to know her better first.

‘Nightclub?' he suggested ‘Casino? Indian? Whatever you like.'

While Louise made a show of deciding, Tony glanced through the crowd, catching the approving glances and crude gestures of his friends. He returned their smiles, but not the gestures, hoping Louise hadn't seen the action. As his eyes swept back towards her, he clocked someone and his heart made an immediate flip of sudden fear. Tommy Jobson had entered the bar.

Tony grabbed Louise's arm. ‘C'mon, we've got to leave right now.'

Louise turned angrily towards him, trying to shake off his sudden grip. ‘What you doing? Get off.'