The Devil Rides Out (41 page)

This display of domestic harmony had an effect on me and I suddenly felt the urge to get in touch with my own parent. I rang her from a stuffy phone box stinking of tobacco and pee at the station before catching the tube up to Camden Town to see 1980 in at the Black Cap.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, I’m just getting ready to go out. I’m going on a cruise on the
Royal Iris
up and down the Mersey with a fellah I met at mass,’ she replied casually.

‘Really?’

‘Don’t talk bloody soft, I’m just about to get into my nightie and watch
Murder on the Orient Express
on the telly. You know I can’t bear New Year’s Eve. I’ll be glad when it’s over.’

‘You shouldn’t be staying in on your own tonight,’ I said, suddenly saddened by the thought of her alone on New Year’s Eve. ‘Why don’t you go up to Aunty Anne and Chrissie’s or our Sheila’s?’

‘Oh, I can’t be bothered,’ she moaned. ‘Annie and Chrissie bugger off to bed by nine and I’m not hiking up to Sheila’s. No, I’m quite happy here, thank you.’

‘Talking of which,’ she said, completely changing the subject, ‘that Penelope Keith’s on the telly tonight in some rubbish called
Goodbye to the Seventies
. D’ya think she’s really that posh or is she just putting it on? She makes the Queen sound like she was dragged up in Back Exmouth Street.’

‘No, I think she talks like that all the time. Anyway, I haven’t rung up to talk about Penelope Keith, I’m ringing to wish you all the best before I go out.’

‘Oh, aye. And where are you off tomcatting it tonight, may I ask?’

‘Oh, just a pub with Alan and a couple of friends in Camden Town.’

‘Camden Town, eh? You’re certainly living the highlife down there. Well, enjoy yourself. Just make sure you keep out of trouble.’

‘I’m only going for a drink.’

‘Exactly. You could get into trouble in an empty house. It’s your middle name.’

‘Happy new year, Mam.’

‘Happy new year, son.’

Outside the Black Cap a fairly well-dressed man standing at the bus stop was berating the revellers as they queued to get in.

‘Good luck to you,’ a chirpy little Irish queen shouted back from the queue.

‘Look at them,’ he ranted. ‘Blind, every one of you, as blind as the poor fools on the
Titanic
, playing games, blissfully unaware that the ship is about to go down.’

‘Ah, shut your mouth and go home, you’re pissed,’ someone shouted out.

‘You’re all doomed, can’t you see? Doomed,’ he carried on, unabashed. ‘The storm clouds are looming, death is imminent.’

‘Now let me guess,’ a familiar voice said in my ear. ‘She’s either a) blind drunk or insane, probably both; b) a religious fanatic; or c) a journalist for the
Daily Mail
.’ It was Reg, dragging a suitcase and two binliners containing wigs and costumes behind him. ‘Make yourself useful, de-ah, and help me in with this lot instead of standing there listening to this maniac. Go home, de-ah,’ he shouted to the drunk, ‘you’re making a fool of yourself.’

‘No, it’s you who’s the fool,’ he muttered ominously, making a drunken sign of the cross. ‘You’re on a sinking ship.’

‘Where the fuck do you think you are, darling, Wapping?’ Reg shouted back to the amusement of the queue. He picked up a binliner, leaving the other heavier looking one and the suitcase for me to carry.

‘Shall we purchase our ticket then, my de-ar,’ he said grandly, turning to me as he swept into the pub, ‘for our passage aboard the Ship of Fools?’

At that moment something walked over my grave. Shivering in the cold night air I followed him in.