Stories We Could Tell (12 page)

‘We’re not talking to you, hippy.’

‘Leave him out of this,’ Terry said.

‘What about this bit?’ said Junior.
‘You would need a very small penis to make or listen to this exy-exer-execrable – ’

‘That means shitty,’ said the fridge, not taking his eyes from Terry’s face.

‘- this execrable debut? Only that sad bunch of sub-Fonzie thugs who have blighted every Rats gig from the Red Cow to the Nashville. The likely lads who couldn’t tell oligarchy from Ozzie Osbourne.’
Junior closed
The Paper
. ‘Did he write that bit?’

Terry reluctantly nodded, conceding that Leon had probably written that bit.

‘Well, you tell him,’ Junior said, ‘that we are going to break his fucking neck.’ His gaunt face reddened, a vein in his temple began to throb. He began screwing up
The Paper
tighter and tighter, as if throttling it. ‘And then we are going to break his fingers.’
The Paper
began to disintegrate, and so did Terry’s bowels. ‘And then we are going to shove his typewriter so far up his anus he’ll be writing his next review with his electric toothbrush.’ He threw the shredded magazine in Terry’s face. ‘Can you remember all that?’

Terry nodded. ‘Think so.’

Junior pressed his sloping brow against Terry’s forehead. ‘Good.’

The three Dogs shoved them aside and headed downstairs. Terry watched scary-looking kids with metal pushed through their cheeks and steel-toe-capped boots on their feet flatten themselves against the wall to let the Dogs pass.

‘They’ll kill him,’ Terry said simply. ‘They’ll really do it. They’re not like everybody else down here. They mean it.’ He suddenly felt more sad than scared. ‘Let’s get those beers.’

‘I better get moving,’ Ray said. ‘I’d better start looking for Lennon. Can we get your tape recorder?’

Terry would be glad to get Ray out of here. Earlier he had entertained visions of Misty and Ray and Leon all happily hanging out with him and Dag Wood, talking about music, getting off their faces, sealing Terry and Dag’s friendship. But Terry could already see it wasn’t going to work out like that.

They stepped outside the club. It was raining harder than ever.
Terry looked up at the monsoon sky. There was something
wrong
with this weather. The middle of August and thunder rumbled, lightning flashed and cracked directly above their heads. The sodden queue pressed itself against the tiled wall of the Western World. They didn’t use umbrellas.

And then there was Leon, patrolling the pavement with a stack of fanzines under his arm, chanting like some old geezer selling the
Evening Standard
, water streaming from the brim of his trilby.

‘Nazis are back. Fight the Fascists with
Red Mist
. Only ten pence, five pence for the registered unemployed. Nazis are back. Fight the Fascists with
Red Mist
. Only – ’

Terry took his arm and quickly pulled him round the corner, away from the flickering neon to where there were no lights, just the rubble and ruins stretching off into the darkness.

‘They’re waiting for you in there,’ Terry said. ‘They’re going to get you.’

‘Because of your review,’ Ray said. ‘The
REBELS WITHOUT A COCK
one.’

Leon hefted the fanzines under his arm, tugged on the brim of his hat, thinking about it. And then he smiled like a naughty child.

‘The Sewer Rats are waiting for me?’ he asked. ‘Those middle-class tossers? That bunch of bloody students? What are they going to do? Debate me to death?’

Terry shook his head. ‘Not the band. The nutters that follow them. The Dagenham Dogs.’ He watched the colour drain from Leon’s face and he felt for his friend. Terry knew it was so much easier to be brave on the page than in real life.

‘The ones you said haven’t got any balls,’ Terry reminded him.

Leon bristled at that. ‘That’s a complete misreading of my review,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t say they have no balls. I said they have
small cocks.’

He wasn’t smiling now. He hugged his fanzines close to his chest, peering around the corner. ‘They’re waiting in there, are they?’
And then he saw something that changed everything. ‘Bloody hell! Leg it!’

The spike-haired gang outside the Western World had started to scatter in every direction. Fanned out across the ravaged street, a group of grown men were sauntering towards the club, and even in the gloom of Covent Garden, you couldn’t mistake their silhouettes for anything other than their tribe. Long drape coats, thick brothel creeper shoes, skinny strides and greasy hair swept back in what was more of a Hokusai wave than a quiff.

‘Teds!’ someone screamed.

Terry was aware of Ray taking off and running, surprisingly fast, he thought, and he was just about to do the same when he realised that Leon was on his hands and knees, pulling copies of his fanzine from a puddle.

‘Leave them, Leon!’ Terry said, a disbelieving laugh rising from somewhere in the back of his throat. ‘You mad bastard!

‘It’s the new issue!’ Leon said, and Terry cursed and stooped and snatched up handfuls of
Red Mist
. He looked up and saw that the Teds had broken into a trot. And then he saw the thing that he had been dreading.

In the middle of them all there was a freakishly large man, a sumo wrestler of a Ted, a heavyweight in a drape coat that seemed to strain at the seams, huffing and puffing a bit, and sweating a lot, but with the kind of dopey, murderous look on his face that reminded Terry of the shark in
Jaws
. Terry knew that he was called Titch.

‘Leon – I mean it –
come on.’

And then they were off, breathless and gasping with fear and flight, Terry with a fistful of his friend’s leather jacket in his hand, dragging him on, making Leon keep up. Fanzines scattering all around them, and Leon was still babbling about the new issue, and Terry’s blood was pumping and he felt the wild, mad laughter well up inside him.

Titch! Fucking hell!

Terry had once seen five cops trying to arrest Titch for throwing some Johnny Rotten lookalike through a Dunn & Co. window down on the King’s Road, and the only way they could do it was by beating him unconscious. Terry could still see their truncheons bouncing off that enormous greasy head. If you saw Titch coming, then you ran. He looked as though he could snap you in half if he could ever catch you. Titch and the Teds were on their tails now – they had spotted them. Terry and Leon were running across rough ground, no sign of Ray, the darkness all around, the lights of the West End shining in the distance, Leon swearing and Terry almost choking with panic-stricken laughter, both of them running for their lives.

The Teds were their great tormentors. And it wasn’t like the Dogs – this was nothing personal and it made it all the more insane. They didn’t need an excuse to batter you.

The Teds seemed like old men. Not just the ones who had been there in the Fifties, tearing up seats to
Rock Around the Clock
. Even the younger ones, the second- and third-generation Teds, seemed prematurely middle-aged. They had sentimental tattoos on their arms and elaborate sideburns on their chops and blunt instruments inside their drapes. So the kids from the Western World fled, like a herd of terrified antelopes dispersing before a pride of lions, and Terry laughed like a lunatic because he knew it was all a game, a lark, and nothing personal, but he ran because he knew the game could put you in hospital.

They tore across rough ground, tripping and stumbling through the blackness, over the rubble, and Terry could feel his heart pounding as if it would burst, could taste the salt of his sweat on his lips, feel his breathing start to burn. He could hear screams in the distance, and it made him stop laughing and concentrate on running and then suddenly there was another scream right by his side as Leon went down a water-filled hole and clattered flat on his face.

Panting hard and muttering a quick prayer, Terry pulled Leon to his feet. The hat was gone. Even in nothing but pale moonlight, Leon’s hair gleamed metallic orange.

‘Fucking hell, Leon,’ Terry chuckled. ‘What happened to your hair? What is it – ginger?’

‘Autumn Gold.’ Leon shoved muddy copies of
Red Mist
into his shoulder bag. He was in a grumpy mood. ‘Where’s my hat?’

Terry scanned the ground and shoved Leon’s trilby back on his head. He shushed Leon, and they half-crouched, watching the shadows of Teddy Boys hunting across the wasteland, passing nearby but spreading out, losing the scent. Terry gulped hard, put an arm around Leon’s shoulders, pulled him close. The Teds looked like throwbacks, missing links, their feet enormous in brothel creepers, their torsos abnormally long in their Edwardian drapes, their shortened legs unnaturally skinny. And topping it all, that crowning glory of Elvis ‘56 hair, wilting now in the unseasonable weather.

‘Come on,’ Terry whispered.

They ducked inside a building with two of its walls gone. Terry guessed that it was once some sort of storehouse. Maybe they kept flowers here, back when it was a market. Now it looked like a bomb had hit it.

‘Titch is not with them, is he?’ Leon babbled. He was shaking. ‘I didn’t see Titch. I don’t think Titch is with them.’

‘Titch is with them,’ Terry said. He straightened Leon’s hat, patted him twice on the shoulder, trying to calm him down. ‘How could you miss the great ape? Come on.’

The ground floor was nothing but rubble, crushed bricks and splintered wood. They climbed a broken staircase to the first floor, and Terry was shocked to find the sky was still above them, the roof half gone, the rafters like a mouth full of broken black teeth.

‘Everybody always wants to kick our heads in,’ Leon whispered,
and there was something about his plaintive voice that made Terry smile.

‘Everybody always wants to kick
your
head in,’ he hissed. ‘Especially me. Next time, leave your rotten fanzine – ’

Suddenly they froze. Something was stirring in the darkness. They were not alone. They pressed themselves against the angle of gaping walls. A stone skittered across the bare floorboards. Terry and Leon looked at each other, and Terry picked up a heavy piece of wood, thinking of Bruce Lee in
Enter the Dragon
, Bruce walking into the room full of mirrors, confronting his destiny. Then Ray stepped out of the darkness, his blond hair soaked and matted and plastered to his filthy face.

‘This floor safe?’ he said. ‘Feels a bit wobbly.’

‘Jesus Christ, Ray,’ Terry sighed, dropping the piece of wood. They stared at each other and laughed nervously, woozy with relief. The Teds still hadn’t caught them. They huddled under a piece of the remaining roof and slumped against a wall with bare bricks showing. Terry saw they were all exhausted. And it was still early. It was time to jump-start the night.

‘Titch is with them,’ Ray said. ‘I saw Titch.’

‘We saw him too,’ Terry said, reaching inside his jacket pocket. He took out a small cellophane bag and, shielding it from the rain with his free hand, he held it out to Ray. But Ray shook his head, no, and gave Terry a disapproving look. Terry felt a flicker of annoyance. Ray would never let him forget getting messed up on his first day.

Leon was peering out of a shattered window frame. ‘They’re still down there,’ he said. ‘Those fucking dinosaurs.’

Terry laughed. ‘If anybody’s going to be extinct tonight, it’s you.’

He unwrapped the bag and dipped in the car key. When he pulled it out, the tip was covered in white powder. Terry placed an index finger on one side of his nose and the snowy key-tip under his open nostril. Then he sniffed hard, throwing back his
head, tasting the chemical numbing the back of his throat. He blinked at Ray, his eyes filling up, and gave a satisfied cough.

‘You keep taking that bathtub sulphate and you’ll be extinct before anyone,’ Ray said, and Terry knew that what he meant was –
the first time I met you, you never wanted to see another drug for the rest of your life
.

Terry did the same to his other nostril. ‘It helps me work.’
Makes me strong
, he thought.
Makes me fearless
. ‘Keeps me awake,’ he said. ‘Makes the music sound better.’

‘The music shouldn’t need anything to make it sound better,’ Ray said. ‘Or there’s something wrong with the music.’

‘Oh please,’ Terry said. ‘As if the bloody Beatles weren’t out of their Scouse boxes from one end of the Sixties to the other.’

‘That’s different,’ Ray said, though he didn’t quite know how it was different. He started pulling wet strands of hair from his face.

Terry smiled at him in the darkness. ‘Getting an early night tonight, are you?’

Ray shrugged. ‘Probably not tonight.’

‘You better give me some of that,’ Leon said. ‘I’ve got a long night myself. Got to sell the fanzine and then review Leni and the sodding Riefenstahls at the Red Cow.’ He crouched before Terry and then hesitated. ‘Not coke, is it?’

Terry laughed. ‘Sixty quid a gram? I can’t afford coke. And wouldn’t want it if I could. I might turn into a Fleetwood Mac fan.’ He dipped his key into the bag. ‘This is the good stuff. Amphetamine sulphate from Fat Andy.’

Leon nodded approvingly. ‘It’s a proletarian drug. Soldiers took it in the war. To stay awake and fly bombers and fight Fascism.’

‘Twelve quid a gram,’ Terry said. ‘It doesn’t get much more proletarian than that.’

Leon noisily snorted the speed, a rhino at the watering hole. Terry and Ray both laughed and shook their heads, and told him
to keep the noise down. ‘What?’ Leon said. Then Terry once more held out the tiny bag to Ray.

‘Come on,’ he said, his voice gentle now. ‘It’ll help you to stay awake. While you’re looking for John Lennon.’

‘You interviewing Lennon?’ Leon said, sounding more impressed than he would have liked.

Ray nodded, seeming to say yes to everything. Terry watched him almost delicately sniff the speed, and he was once again aware that Ray had been doing this for longer than all of them. They smiled at each other in the darkness.

Terry crept to the empty window. Through the pouring rain he could see the neon sign of the Western World flickering in that ocean of blackness. He thought of Misty and wondered if she would wait for him to come back. And then he quickly stepped back when he saw the misshapen shadows moving around in the wasteland, still hunting their prey.