From the Backfields
the first three chapters
CHAPTER ONE
Have you watched those wildlife programmes on the television and seen the images of big cats dealing with porcupines? That’s me and trouble, I sniff at it in a circumspect way, and then, when it shows any sign of life, I run like hell. That’s me usually, but that day the taunting just got to me.
The smirking face begged to be squashed into the muddy grass of the field. It was a wet early summer and I had recently come into that phase of life that marks your earliest memories; the few vivid incidents from early childhood that you remember when you eventually emerge into the heaviness of adulthood. The boy’s name was David; an innocent sounding name for what was a vile specimen of childhood – like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, he slithered and oozed his way around my consciousness – an evil, ugly, smelly little boy. I knew him as Snobby, a name that invoked gross images of dirty dried-up snot and filthy fingernails. Even now when I think of him I wince and shiver. If I come across an unpleasant character it’s his repulsive face I see. The lesson he taught me was worth a lot I suppose, his existence showed me that there is evil in the world, and dealing with him gave me my first practical lessons in coping with it. He was a year or so older than me and much bigger, a real bully.
Some people talk about their earliest memories with pleasure; the feeling of warmth and security, the excitement of a trip to the seaside, even the wonder of their first days at school. The memory of that encounter is pleasurable too, the elation of pride and triumph, the look of astonishment on Snobby’s face as I, the quiet helpless victim, fought back. I squashed his face hard into that mud, singing inside and juddering with fear at what the consequences might be. As it was, he yelped like a hurt puppy and loped off home to his equally hideous mother. I suppose he was only six years old himself.
They tell me that at that time travelling showmen presented real Punch and Judy shows on the field. I have a vague memory of dodging through a crowd of adult legs and tree trunks, and feeling a sense of occasion. Soon after, the council felled the remaining trees, and I played boisterous games there, on the rough grass of the field that passed for our village green; it must have been a couple of years after the incident with Snobby.
The Backfields Estate is split into three sections. I don’t know if the council intended it that way when they built it, but nature demanded it. The bottom site is the oldest part and as I remember it, the toughest. The top site is the newest part and apart from small gangs of fiercely territorial boys, was then relatively quiet and refined. I lived in the middle site, a motley collection of colourful families gathered from all over the town. These were the beginning of great times, the late fifties and then the sixties, when we thought we could change the world, as if we alone in all human existence had the opportunity to participate in major evolutionary and revolutionary changes.
Early in the history of the estate, before bitter memories and endless vendettas developed, we all came together on the field. I remember long summer days when dozens of children tumbled with primal joy on the damp grass and rushed home en masse for dinner – and a scolding for the green and brown stains on their knees and clothes. Small groups would converge from the top, middle, and bottom sites and join in friendly tests of strength. Piggy-back and shoulder-back fights, and games where everyone collapsed into a laughing sweating heap were the best. These exciting tribal games were punctuated by the occasional match of football, cricket or rugby – pretty tedious stuff. Those games were for the real competitors, who charged about the field, panting with determined looks, sweating to claim the glory of a goal or a try, or contorting in athletic ways catching and smacking hard leather-clad balls. We made French arrows by slitting the tops of small sticks of bamboo and forcing folded paper flights into the grooves; then we hurled them across the field with lengths of waxy twine twisted around our fingers, not aware of or not caring about the possible consequences.
The bottom site was separated from the middle by the main road, an un-crossable barrier for a young child alone, unless, like many of the parents then, yours didn’t care or were too stupid or naive or too exhausted by debt or poverty to keep the reins of caring tight. Even then that road was busy, the busiest in the county they said; the main road from our town to the next, full of trundling noisy motor vehicles. The barrier between the middle site and the top was more subtle yet just as effective. I lived on the edge of that barrier – a row of larger private houses that loomed and bragged about their affluence with deep bay windows and bleached lace curtains. The few children who lived there had piano lessons, took week-long holidays and got driven around by parents with cars. Our small comfortable council house faced the posher people across the road and the view from my bedroom window bequeathed me bothersome hang-ups about background and social status.
In one of the owner-occupied houses lived a lively, nosy old lady known to our small gang as Betty Fish. Her husband had been a fishmonger who drove around the estates in a small white van selling overpriced fresh fish; Friday was his best day. A couple of years earlier on a Friday night visit to the pub to drink some of his profit, he’d collapsed and died. Betty Fish lived alone in that big house – the van had been driven away a few months after his death, with her perched on the edge of the pavement waving good-bye to the new owner with a smile and a bundle of fivers in her fist. As a single woman Betty became nosier and happier, spending most of her time bustling to and from the few small shops on the estate and chatting in a patronising manner to the natives from the council houses. One late summer day in 1963 Betty Fish was murdered. I was nearly thirteen years old and I saw it happen.
* * * * *
Our gang had gone out quite early due to plans that we’d made the day before to pick blackberries. The most fruitful place was in a small overgrown field that buffered some of the private houses from the top site; that’s where we were.
“You’re useless.” I said to Pogo, clearing my throat and spitting at the bramble bushes to emphasise my lack of uselessness.
“It’s not my fault.” Replied Pogo, in a small hurt voice, adjusting his large black framed spectacles with his purple stained index finger; the top of his curly-haired head a good four inches below mine. “You pinched the best bush.”
“Shall we nick some apples from Betty Fish?” It was Trevor Thomas, Trev as we called him, a wise, calm person, tall and sinewy with ruddy complexion and tousled fair hair. Trev was not a know-all but he knew it all; he was immensely respected by us lesser mortals and was the natural leader of our group. The fourth member of our regular gang was, much to my chagrin, Snobby, yes, that Snobby. I didn’t like him, but Trev kept him under control; more than once Snobby had been given a quiet word and a black eye behind a hedge or in a dark alley. He’d become more subdued than he’d been before I viciously retaliated that day on the field. Maybe he’d learnt his lessons, life isn’t easy for anyone, and perhaps he couldn’t help his obnoxious personality? So being a level, tolerant person I put away my misgivings and put up with him.
Snobby, trying to impress Trev, was already hanging over the top of the mossy stone wall at the bottom of Betty Fish’s garden, before we had a chance to react to Trev’s suggestion.
We put down our blackberry gathering basins behind a bramble bush near the wall and followed Snobby’s example, intending to retrieve the basins later and carry on gathering the fruit; then we would plague the houses on the estate, our haul of berries tastefully displayed in wicker baskets decorated with fern leaves. We could get a shilling a pint for the soft black fruit (even maggot-ridden); and use the money to buy a pack or two of five woodbine cigarettes from Tight Bert, the newsagents on the main road.
As we approached the wall Snobby dropped down back towards us unexpectedly, and said in an uncharacteristically faltering way: “Let’s not bother boys, I’ve got a much better idea.”
Trev laughed: “Your ideas are never better.” Then he pushed Snobby aside and we scrambled up the wall.
I poked my head up and began a slow recce of the garden. At the foot of the wall inside the garden the bramble bushes from the field had spread their tentacles creating a wild unkempt area; beyond that were the mature apple trees laden with ripening fruit. Betty Fish wouldn’t miss a few apples; many were already rotting on the ground. Through the gaps in the trees my eyes swept over the lawn tended every week by Jacko’s father, the squint-eyed alcoholic from the top site, for the price of a bottle of sherry. Behind the trees, if we moved carefully, we would be hidden from the view of anyone but a determined observer from the house, and if we were spotted we could always make a run for it, at least Betty Fish didn’t have a dog. I saw no sign of any activity so I hauled myself over and dropped into the blackberry thorns. I heard the others following me and soon we were creeping around, stuffing the apples into our jumpers, adrenaline pumping, hearts beating hard with the excitement. I nearly dropped my haul when I heard a muffled cry from the direction of the house. I looked up; through the open curtains at the rear window I saw two darkened figures struggling. We froze in our positions, like that silly party game, and stared intently at the scene. The smallest figure fell away and the other disappeared into the depths of the house. I looked over at Trev, who shrugged, then at the bewildered baby face of Pogo; Snobby had disappeared.
Long slow motion seconds later the back door sprang open and a person, under cover of the rhododendron bushes that shielded the door, came out. The distance was too great to see clearly but there was something familiar about the shape and the gait. The person jerked its head quickly from right to left, composed itself and set off down the side of the semi-detached towards the street where I lived at the front.
Pogo whispered first: “Let’s go boys, I don’t like this at all.”
Trev, ever the boldest, moved slowly towards the house. I followed cautiously a few paces behind. We approached the rear window from its side and peeked in nervously. We pressed our faces right up against the glass. Lying sprawled on the red Persian carpet was a distinctly immobile Betty Fish.
“Fucking Hell!” Said Trev.
“Fucking Hell!” I echoed.
“Blooming Heck!” Came a small weak voice beside us.
I looked at Trev, his sun-bleached eyebrows lifted; we all turned and ran back to the shelter of the trees. Pogo’s little legs pumped unbelievably fast and by the time Trev and I reached the small orchard he was over the wall. We crouched, panting, gathering our thoughts.
“Let’s go and phone the cops,” I said, “we don’t have to say who we are.”
Trev nodded breathlessly; we jumped over the wall together. At the top of the wall I glanced back and saw the trail of apples, strewn from the rear window of the house, over the lawn, and into the trees. There was nothing I could do about it so I dropped down and followed Trev.
We headed for a phone box that normally worked, on the far side of the top site – it would mean risking our lives by going through other gangs’ territories, but we were more afraid to go to our usual box in the middle site in case the police traced the call. My fears about the top site were realised when from a side alley a group of three boys and two vicious-looking dogs appeared and almost bumped into us. The boys were older and bigger than us, and looked mean, so I increased my pace to get away from them, all the time glancing sideways to make sure the dogs hadn’t picked up the smell of my fear. Trev touched my arm.
“Wait a minute. Don’t panic. You’ll be all right.”
One of the boys shouted “Oi!”
Trev stopped and turned to face them, I had no choice but to do the same.
“Trev, isn’t it?” Said the stranger, smiling paternally.
Trev smiled and nodded.
“You’re OK you are, what you doing?”
“Looking for my dog, Smokey, he’s like a sheepdog, lots of black and white you know. Have you seen him?”
“He’s a good rabbit catcher isn’t he? We’ll keep an eye out.”
Trev could handle every situation; he knew everyone, and everyone liked him. We carried on walking purposefully, pretending to look around for the dog, whistling and calling for Smokey. The other boys turned down another alley and I sighed with relief.
“You worry too much,” Trev said, “there’s the phone box.”
Luckily although the coin slot was jammed, the telephone still worked for 999 calls.
Trev did the talking; he was older and more composed.
“Police? I think there’s been a murder.”
“Yes, it’s Betty Fish.”
“Betty somebody, I don’t know…”
“It’s in the Backfields.”
“In the private houses.”
“Opposite the council houses.”
“In Meadow Road.”
“No, sorry.”
Click.
We carried on walking, talking excitedly.
“How do you know she’s dead?” I asked stupidly, because of course Trev knew these things for sure.
“Did you recognise who did it?” He asked.
“No, though there was something about …”
“Yes, I thought there was something.”
“Do you think Pogo will say anything?” I asked.
Trev laughed, shaking his fair hair in the sunlight. “Got any fags?” He asked.
“Here,” I said, “I’ve got a stump of a Players, I nicked it off the mantelpiece this morning, my old girl won’t miss it, there were another five or six there. Have you got a match?”
We reached the outer limits of the Backfields and crossed a busy road where a farm track led into the countryside and a place where we spent much of our time trying to catch rabbits and grass-snakes among the ivy covered ruins of a group of stone buildings. We leant against a hedge just out of sight of the road and Trev lit up. We shared the Players’ stump, taking great pride in smoking it down until it burnt our lips and fingers and became impossible to hold.
“Fuck me!” Trev said suddenly, spitting the dregs of tobacco from his lips, “We’ve left the fucking blackberry basins behind.”
Preferring to avoid the possibility of another confrontation with the top-siters we made our way back to the field behind Betty Fish’s house by skirting the outer boundary of the estate and walking quietly through a long privet-straddled alley. The basins still sat undisturbed under the brambles and we retrieved them with relief. I couldn’t resist a quick look over the wall.
At the back of the house two uniformed policemen plodded slowly examining the ground for clues. I tried to keep very still and quiet, breathing heavily with the effort of hanging on to the wall. One of the police turned in our direction and, following the trail of apples started walking up the lawn towards us. As he came closer I recognised him as Sergeant Conway, a slow determined giant, frightening but easy to avoid; he didn’t worry me. He looked up towards the apple trees and our eyes met through the gaps.
“Oi, stop you. Wait!” He commanded in a large voice.
We took our cue, grabbed the basins and ran. We hid in the doorway behind Good Stores for twenty minutes before edging out tentatively.
“Better go home,” Trev said.
I nodded, “I’ll give you a shout after dinner, see what’s going on then.”
I turned right up Meadow Road and Trev walked nonchalantly down School Lane towards his house.
A group of neighbours chattered with jabbing fingers on the pavement outside my house; Mrs Lee a small round woman with gypsy black hair talked incomprehensibly fast and pointed unselfconsciously at the police activity across the road. Mr Lee, her slow, thick-set husband puffed on a slipshod example of a rolled up cigarette and smiled with malign satisfaction at the prospect of someone other than himself being in trouble with the law. Snobby’s, thin, ferret-eyed father peered short-sightedly and tipsily with a puzzled expression, no doubt he’d walked into the drama on his way back from a lunchtime visit to the Carpenter’s Inn. My mother, a young and always tired thirty-five commanded her usual position at the centre of the group, and my older brother Ralph sat on the low brick wall behind them, gently patting his hair into shape. I tried to look surprised.
“Hello Ralph, what the heck’s going on?”
“Hi, little broth, it’s the cops, something’s happening in Mrs Johnson’s house.”
Who the hell is Mrs Johnson? I thought – of course it must be Betty Fish’s real name. My mother spotted me.
“Mick, come here, where have you been? Are those blackberries?”
I looked down at my hands, I was carrying two basins, mine and Pogo’s, one squashed on top of the other, both almost empty.
“Er, yes, we didn’t get much.”
“We, who’s we?”
“Trev, Trevor…”
I backed away instinctively, she had kind eyes my mother, but those hands, they carried a sting. “You know I don’t like you playing with that boy, where have you …?”
“Mick, look.” Ralph grabbed my arm, saving me from further interrogation. I was already starting to crack.
An ambulance pulled up outside the house opposite, a policeman looked protectively up and down the street as two uniformed ambulance men dismounted and went up the path carrying a folded stretcher. I took the opportunity of this distraction to slip down my own path and into the open front door. I dumped the basins on the table in the galley kitchen and rushed upstairs to my bedroom where I could watch the developments in comfort and security.
A noise behind me made my heart and my body leap.
“It’s only me Mick.”
“Oh, Ralph,” I sighed with relief.
Ralph looked good, his oily hairstyle not yet a relic, the black leather jacket a symbol of his maturity and independence. Although he still lived with us he was no longer subject to the same parent-imposed rules as I was. His nineteen years, his job as an apprentice fitter, and the three or four pounds that he contributed to the household expenses each week saw to that. A fatal accident at the site of the new steelworks, where my father was earning big money, working long tiring hours trying to beat construction deadlines, placed the sixteen year old Ralph as the oldest male member of the family three years earlier. He took the burden uncomplainingly at the time and had since matured, supporting my mother and myself with a calm paternal benevolence. I liked Ralph and often confided in him, I couldn’t decide whether or not to tell him what we had seen, after all we hadn’t done anything wrong, had we? Stealing apples was not a capital offence, yet I was reluctant to involve the adult world in the adventure until I had at least discussed it with Trev.
“What’s happening now?” I asked, hoping that Ralph hadn’t noticed the guilt.
“Old girl’s probably had a heart attack or something; I don’t know what all the fuss is about. All those police, you’d think they had nothing better to do.”
The ambulance pulled away sedately, confirming my supposition that Betty Fish was dead, no rush to the hospital for a corpse. Most of the uniformed police dispersed too, leaving a man standing by the front door and another walking along the path to the rear. I saw my mother detach herself from the group on the roadside and make her way to our front door.
Ralph looked me up and down. “Been picking blackberries Mick? Where did you go?”
“Just around…”
“MICK, RALPH.” My mother shouted up the stairs, “come and get your dinner, I’m warming it up.”
We sat in the living room with bowls of leek and potato soup balanced on our knees. I kept quiet while Ralph and my mother talked.
CHAPTER TWO
“There’s going to be a storm tonight. My Gran says so, she’s always right.”
“Bollocks, here, give me the gun Pogo.”
Trev took the gun, a long polished air-rifle, the sort that only someone with money in the family could afford, even if he did have to sneak it out under his trouser leg. Trev casually aimed the rifle at the street lamp and squeezed the trigger. The lead pellet hit dead centre, the light crackled and went out.
“Run.” He commanded.
We did, laughing and jostling down the lane behind the off-license in the darkness we had caused with our delinquency.
“So, when did the cops go then Mick?” Asked Trev, puffing for breath.
It took a few seconds to register; the splash caused by the death of Betty Fish had already ebbed into gentle ripples in my mind.
“Most of them went soon after I got home, there’s still one or two around, but they don’t seem to care very much, I can see them from my bedroom window, lounging around having a sly smoke. Ralph says that they’ll probably come around the houses tomorrow, to see if anyone saw anything. Do you think I should tell them what we saw?”
“Never tell the cops anything you don’t have to, my uncle reported a stolen car once, they had him in the cells for nearly two days, they’re bastards.”
We stopped before the end of the lane near the wooden gates at the rear of the off-license; the gate was open a few inches. I pushed it open wider and peered inside. A light from a back window allowed us to see a little of the contents of the yard. Stacks of crates containing the overspill stock of bottles lay against the walls, I walked slowly towards them. We didn’t need words, an opportunity had presented itself, and there was only one thing to do – take advantage of it, like a pack of hunting dogs, who will fall spontaneously silent when they come across a potential victim. We had that kind of rapport, me and Trev, but Pogo lived in his own small world of nervousness and fear.
“I’m going home.” Pogo didn’t wait for approval; he took the air rifle from Trev’s disinterested grasp and faded away.
While I examined the treasure with awe, Trev and Snobby had already grabbed two flagon bottles of cider each, I picked up two more and we ran softly out of the yard and back up to the dark side of the lane and through the estate looking for a safe place to consume our haul.
It was easy to pretend to drink both flagon bottles of the sickly sweet brew because the other two were so engrossed in their private cider-swigging competition. I suspect that Snobby let more run down the front of his jacket than his throat, but Trev took the drink like the man he was. I’d sneaked a whisky from Aunty Val’s bottle once and felt the warmth and disorientation of being slightly drunk but in the grounds of the school that night, I got very drunk for the first time in my life. I hated it, even though I suppose it was only the alcohol content of three quarters of one flagon that found its way into my swift adolescent blood. Within minutes there were six empty bottles lying on the stone steps of the dark school entrance, three of them smashed, the amber glass sparkling in the light from the surviving distant street lamps. Pogo and his air-rifle a distant memory, I staggered and burped my way home.
Afraid to go in and face the inevitable inquisition and the equally inevitable impact of my mother’s loving hands, I crept in through the back gate and slumped on the damp unkempt grass and stared at the rear window of the living room as it spun round in nauseating concentric circles. Half an hour later my body aching with the violent retching I had experienced, I opened the back door quietly and fell in. Ralph was alone in the living room, thank God for Bingo night.
“It’s a bit late for you Mick, what the hell…?”
“I’m all right Ralph, just been a bit sick…”
“You’ve been drinking, and you stink – better get washed up and off to bed while you’ve got the chance, it’s nearly ten o’clock, the bingo bus will be here soon, I’ll say you didn’t feel well. I hope the old girl has had a win.”
Good old Ralph, he had the answers, always cool and in control.
I lay on my bed, gripping the sides to stop falling off as it spun around the room, for the first time the words ‘never again’ whistling through my tortured mind. A soft tapping on the door of my bedroom alerted me, time to get control, look ill instead of drunk; it must be my mother home from the bingo.
“Mind if I come in?” Saved again, it was Ralph’s voice.
“OK.” I said, not at all sure that it was.
Ralph sat on the edge of the bed.
“What did you drink Mick, it must have been potent stuff?”
“Just some cider, not much, I think I really am ill. Oh no…” I sat upright gagging on the nausea.
“Take it easy. There, you all right? Did you find out any more about what happened at Betty Fish’s?”
“I had to really concentrate to understand what he was talking about. Betty Fish? I thought. What was the matter with her? What did he mean?
“Betty? Oh yes, that! Some bloke done her in. I didn’t see who it was.”
“What do you mean? You saw something?”
I’d put my foot in it, Ralph may have been an easy-going, if paternal, older brother but he was not stupid. I felt close to him, but because of his position as the only man in the house, he represented the grey serious world of adulthood.
“Well, yes, I mean…”
“Go on, you can tell me, what was it?”
“Nothing really, but Trev says we shouldn’t tell the cops, they’re bastards.” Miraculously I was sobering up. My head began to throb insistently, I cupped it with my hands and moaned.
“Slow down, it’s all right, I won’t say anything, if that’s what you want.”
‘What the Hell!’ I thought, and told Ralph everything about our little gang’s adventure in Betty Fish’s garden. It was easier than trying to resist his damnably enthusiastic and insistent questioning. When I finished I rolled on the bed making agonised groans. Ralph laughed.
“You hang on; I’ll get some aspirins, keep quiet, Mum’s home. I told her you had a bad head and stomach. She said serves you right for stuffing yourself down the chippy again. Anyway she’s too busy counting her winnings, she got the last house, two pounds and ten bob.”
Great, I thought somewhere beneath the agony, we’d have fresh fruit with our dinner the next day. I went sick again, in the bath, in the hand-basin, in the toilet bowl and all over the yellow linoleum covered floor. I swallowed the aspirins offered by a chuckling Ralph.
“No one’s going to care about a few sour apples,” he said, “you should tell the police what you told me.”
“But Trev…”
“Never mind Trev,” Ralph showed annoyance, “he doesn’t know everything. Now try and get to sleep, we’ll talk in the morning. Night, night.”
* * * * *
We were scared; this was the sort of scene we’d come to expect to see in a cowboy film at the Saturday morning cinema club at the Odeon. The top-siters had us pinned down behind the hedge. We could hear their delighted laughter; the same sound that Jacko made when he tore the hind-legs off living frogs to roast them in the heat of the brickwork furnaces and fed them to his imbecilic sidekick Jonno. God I was frightened. I heard the crack of the gun and the snapping whoosh as the lead pellet whizzed close by me through the hedge and the thump it made on the soft earth beside me. That could have been my leg, or my eye.
“Keep still, keep quiet, they’ll get fed up soon,” said Trev; he seemed to be laughing too. Snobby looked even more terrified than I was and little stout Pogo lay flat, face down in the brambles and the rabbit-shit.
“Let’s make a run for it,” I said, hoping Trev would deny me the chance of exposing my back to the guns. Our attackers had climbed to the top of the ruins, to a height that I’d never known anyone to attempt; I wanted them to fall to the stones thirty feet below.
“OK,” said Trev, “come on.”
We tried to run in a line from the ruins, keeping the hedge between us and the pellets. Trev’s dog ran beside us, barking excitedly, betraying our position to the cruel older boys from the top-site. Smokey yelped in surprise and tumbled down on to the damp mud of the stony path. He lay there whimpering and looking pointedly at his back left leg. We all stopped and stared. Trev ran to Smokey and knelt down to examine the dog’s leg.
“Dirty Fuckers!” He exclaimed and set off towards the ruins waving his fists in the air.
The shooting had stopped; even the birds were silent. I went to Smokey and looked at his leg. The back end of a lead pellet protruded out of his thigh muscle; he wasn’t seriously hurt but Trev loved that dog like a younger brother. I’d never heard that tone in his voice before. What would he do? Surely the other boys were much older and tougher than him. We’d better go and help him. I turned around to call the others to follow me to the ruins and try and save Trev from getting a hammering.
“Come on boys,” I said. “Hey! Hold on Pogo, where do you think you’re going.”
Pogo didn’t answer, just increased his pace and then disappeared around a bend in the path.
“I’m coming Mick,” said Snobby, displaying a painful expression. “It’s my ankle, I think I’ve twisted it, you carry on, and I’ll catch up.”
I looked at that cowardly face and the old hatreds flared up inside my breast. I’d squash his ugly face in to the mud of the path just as I had in to the muddy field all those years ago. Bugger it, I decided, he wasn’t worth it, I had to go and help Trev.
By the time I got to the foot of the ruined building Trev had caught the boys on their way down and had pushed one of them up against the walls. The boy looked scared, and the other wasn’t laughing as he implored Trev to stop.
“Sorry, OK, it was only a bit of fun, you know that we’d never hurt you or Smokey, we didn’t even know it was …”
I broke in. “Come on Trev, calm down, and what about Smokey? He’s over there on the path.”
That seemed to bring him to his senses and he let go of the boy’s throat, spat at him and ran back towards Smokey.
“Your mate’s got a hell of a bloody temper,” said the boy who hadn’t been choked. The other one was too white and shaken to say anything. I recognised them then; they were two brothers, Paul and Peter Kent. The older, choked one, must have been nearly sixteen, so, what was he doing behaving like a stupid child? He was old enough to sneak in the back door of the Blue Parrot and drink almost legally.
“So would you if your dog had been shot?” I asked directly, surprised at my own assertiveness.
“It wasn’t …” He broke off.
Trev was coming back followed closely by a limping Smokey and further behind a more heavily limping Snobby.
We paused and waited.
“Stupid bastards…”
“Sorry again, Trev, if we’d known it was you.”
“OK, forget it; you’ve only got peashooters anyway. Come on Mick, let’s go.”
“Wait a minute,” said Paul Kent, “you’re Mick aren’t you? Live in the same street as that old biddy who got bashed to death.”
“So?”
“My old man reckons they’ve arrested some bloke, lives nearby, he came home dinner-time and told us. He works with the murderer in the steelworks, a shifty little git, bloke called Robinson; they call him Snobbo or something?”
While we were talking Snobby had finally arrived and was hovering outside the main group looking for sympathy. When he heard the name he gasped loudly. We all turned around in response to the sound. He looked at each of us in turn his face a picture of horror; then he turned and ran towards the path that led back to the estate, not a sign of a limp.
CHAPTER THREE
“They didn’t believe her about the bracelet then?” I asked my mother.
“You really shouldn’t be gossiping like this Michael, you could get somebody, or yourself into trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble Mum.” I’d finally found the courage to break the news of what we had witnessed, to a true representative of the adult world. I’d nagged Trev so much that he’d finally given his tacit agreement. ‘OK, if you have to, tell the police, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he’d said; I think he was more interested in bathing Smokey’s wounded back leg with salt water at the time.
“You – dear boy – are always in some sort of trouble.”
“I – we – saw the man who murdered Betty Fish. We were in the…”
“What do you mean? You saw Mr Robinson doing it?”
“Not really, we couldn’t see him clearly, we just saw them struggling through the window. I thought I recognised him but he didn’t remind me of Snobby’s father at the time.”
“Well that’s who they’ve arrested, she was showing the bracelet off in the Carpenter’s Arms last night apparently, silly cow! Now tell me what you saw and then you’ll have to tell the police, I never did like the look of that man, him and his horrible little boy, the one who calls for you sometimes.”
“Remember I told you we were picking blackberries, well we were, but we decided to nick some apples as..”
“What have I told you about that, you’ll only end up with a bad stomach, probably poison yourself.”
“Ouch!” She gave me a clip to remind me who was in control.
* * * * *
While I was waiting for my mother to get ready to accompany me to the police station I wandered out the front to sit on the wall and watch the world go by. I looked up and down the street and I saw Ralph coming towards me, he was talking to Snobby. Snobby grinned at me as he walked past but he didn’t stop.
“Hello Mick.” said Ralph, I’ve just been talking to your mate there, you want to be careful with that one, he’s a right little snake in the grass.”
“He’s no mate, I only put up with him because he behaves himself. What’s he been saying?”
“Nothing much, I told him that I knew about you lot in Betty Fish’s garden and I asked him about his father. He doesn’t seem too worried, reckons they’ll have to let him go soon, they’ve got no evidence.”
“What about the bracelet?”
“His mother only said that his father had given it to her. She found it on the pavement near their house. It seems he’s got an alibi for the time of the murder, he was out drinking with his brother.”
I can remember feeling very disappointed, I wanted the murderer to be someone like Snobby’s father, if I hadn’t been with him, I’d like to believe it was Snobby himself.
“Did you tell her?” He asked.
I nodded.
My mother came out of the house and walked purposefully down the concrete path; where did she think we were going? She had obviously scoured her meagre wardrobe and spent some time in front of the dressing-table mirror with her cheap powders, paints and perfumes. The overall effect didn’t cheapen her but it embarrassed me. Mothers weren’t supposed to look like that, they should be grey and nondescript, like Mrs Rees-Jones from across the road, whose daughter Katie played the cello and always asked me for help with her maths homework.
* * * * *
“No time, Mick, there’s no time – why bother with all that rubbish – school, and work, and doing things the right way. Come on I’m going in.”
Trev worried me sometimes, I really admired him, he was so strong and so certain, but he had a tendency to be reckless. Another unofficial day off school and what would we do? We got fed up of wandering around the estates crouching behind privet hedges whenever it looked like we would be spotted, or following the course of the polluted streams that flowed through the industrially-scarred mixture of old factories and half-used farms. We knew there’d be no one in, Lionel was a posh git, both his parents worked, and he went to school conscientiously every day. His house, still a council house – though with added features, like a clean tarmacked drive bordered with neat shrubs, would be empty.
Trev put his elbow casually through the glass panel in the back door, reached inside and turned the key.
“Easy pops,” he said grinning, “come on, before anyone sees us.”
We crept around the house at first, my heart beating very fast. In a wardrobe upstairs we found a coat which had a few pounds in the pocket. Great.
“Let’s get out now, someone might come” I suggested hopefully.
“Don’t be soft Mick, you go and make a cuppa, I want a shit.”
I obeyed; at least it was just me and him, no Snobby and no Pogo to hold us up.
I relaxed over the coffee, a rare treat for me. We turned the transistor radio on and closed our eyes, pretending for a moment that this was our own home – fitted carpets and comfortable armchairs, a clean cosy place; somewhere to feel safe in. Trev found the drinks cupboard and filled the empty coffee cups with a mixture of sherry and beer.
“Strong stuff this,” I said laughing, completely relaxed, warm and drunk.
“Did the cops give you a hard time?” Trev asked, swallowing the last of the bitter-sweet concoction.
“Nah, it was a doddle. That bloody detective, Inspector Tudor, s’all he was interested in was my mother’s legs. It really pissed me off in a way…”
“You’re mother’s a bit of all right,” Trev said grinning. You can’t blame the man. But that bastard copper, he wasn’t so nice to me.”
“How do you mean?” I asked in a slur.
“Almost tried to pin the murder on me ….. Fuck – What’s that?”
We both jumped up quickly from the couch, knocking over the coffee table, glasses, bottles and cups. Someone was coming in through the front door. Trev, quick thinking as ever, grabbed two crocheted doilies from the back of the sofa.
“Sling this over your face, quick.”
I draped the doily over my head and face, thank God for house-proud housewives, and we made a bolt for the door. In the hall a startled woman saw two crotchet covered boys charging towards her, and with a look of horror flattened herself against the wall. As we ran past I looked into her eyes through the holes in the crotchet and felt a deep sense of shame and fear. What had I done? I felt dirty and scared. We burst out of the still-open front door and ran down the street, diving into the first alley we saw.
Five minutes later we reached the block of garages where we’d hidden our satchels, climbed onto the roof of a rather rickety tin-sheet affair and laughed maniacally until the tension had gone. Then the headaches and nausea started, I wasn’t used to the drink and the shock of being the bad guy.
“Jennifer fancies you, did you know that?” Trev asked, still a little drunk.
“How do you mean?” I asked. I was shocked. Jennifer Jones, the sexiest girl on the estate, a year older than me and lumps in all the right places. I’d heard she was a bit of a tart, but me?
Later, I still felt a bit rough after the drink – but the train of thoughts started by Trev’s mention of Jennifer gave me enough sexual energy to hit the streets again, I went on the prowl hoping to bump into sexy Jenny. Unfortunately the first person I bumped into was the cowardly Snobby. I didn’t want to face the little bastard but he persisted in his obnoxious way to trail along with me. We sat on a wall near Jenny’s house, I didn’t explain to him why I chose to sit there, and I waited, pumped up with adolescent hormones for the chance of something that I had no experience of but wanted with a desperate urgency.
We squirmed on the brick wall, my arse getting sorer, spitting at the pavement and talking crap for over half an hour.
A girl walked too slowly and hesitantly towards us and with a nervous glance passed quickly. She was small and pretty with honey-blonde wind-blown hair. I could see that she felt threatened by the two boys shuffling on the wall and cobbing at the pavement. She could have crossed the street to avoid us yet she toughed it out, despite her fear. I was captivated by her appearance and her attitude, my eyes followed her, I stopped shuffling, talking and spitting. Snobby ignored her.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Who .. ? Dunno – oh yeah, she’s just moved into a house in Rosehill Crescent, bit of a snob if you ask me.”
“Do you know her name?” I asked.
Then Jenny and her cousin Mags, a squat ugly girl with pale red hair and redder spot-covered complexion – just right for Snobby I thought, came out. Jenny stopped at her gate and looked coy and sexy while Mags came over to talk to us.
“Will you go out with my cousin?” She asked me, no preamble. She stood, hands on hips waiting for my answer, chewing noisily.
My mind raced as fast as my hormones. “Only if you go with Snobby,” I said, as if trying to set up a friend. I glanced quickly at Snobby who had developed a look of panic, too startled to say anything.
“All right then, come on, Jenny’s parents are out tonight, down the bingo, we’ve got the house to ourselves.”
We followed in silence, me surprised at my good luck, Snobby still too shocked to do anything else, both of us swept along by a force over which we had no control.
Inside, Snobby and Mags disappeared upstairs and I sat in the front room with Jenny, it was getting dark. Jenny was a very beautiful girl. She had very dark and shiny shoulder-length hair, deep brown eyes. She was small and very slim with pointed breasts and full lips. She wore a short white blouse, through which I could see a black bra, and skin tight white slacks covered in big black spots.
Jenny spoke for the first time, I hadn’t realised just how stupid or coarse she sounded. I tried not to think of her voice:
“I wouldn’t do this with anyone you know, I think you’re the best of your gang and I only do this with the best.”
She leant towards me and kissed me firmly on the lips, it was the first time I’d been kissed like that. With horror I felt her tongue push its way into my mouth and tried not to pull away, she took my hand and placed it between her legs, I rubbed dutifully and clumsily. “Ooh,” she said releasing my hand and putting hers on my groin. I responded involuntarily and my penis grew larger and stiffer at her touch.
Her trousers peeled off easily and stayed tangled around her ankles with her bikini style knickers, I crawled inside the oval made by her wide-open legs as she pulled my trousers and pants down. She was very sweet and moist and wrapped her legs around me while I pushed into her. It didn’t last long but it was very thrilling and afterwards we both lay exhausted and spent on the fake sheepskin rug in front of the sofa.
I heard a disturbance outside the front window and looked up; I could just make out the silhouette of a couple of younger girls flashing a torch through the net curtains. Jenny jumped up quickly pulling her knickers and slacks up to their proper position and I did the same.
“You little cow, Sandra, piss off,” she screamed. I hadn’t realised it but Jenny’s job for the evening was to baby-sit for her little sister Sandra.
“I’d better go,” I said meekly.
“You better bloody have.” Jenny said sharply. “Solong.”
I left the house quickly without bothering to look for Snobby and ran most of the way home. What a day!
