Eleven New Ghost Stories (26 page)

Her body never washed up on the
beach. Like her mother, she’s forever lost amongst the waves. I’ve
never been visited by her ghost, but she’s haunted me my whole
life. A dream that’s too good to be true.

Actually, I lied – I do have one
thing to remember her by. I’ve still got the scars; they’re here,
just under my fringe. That’s why I have my hair like this. So I
don’t have to look at them too often.

ON THE SHOULDER

They told you to be careful
coming over to me didn’t they? Don’t creep up behind him and
whatever you do, don’t touch him on the shoulder…

Well, yeah, I got a story to
tell you; yeah record it if you want. I don’t give a fuck what they
think and I don’t care what you think either.

No offence.

I suppose you’ll want it from
the beginning? Started in a place like this, only worse. The Crown
& Anchor – that was boozer with character; you came off into
the street smelling of it. Stained carpets, stink of fags, last
year’s flies still in the window – the only air that got let in
there was when someone’s head got put through the window.

Sounds like a shithole, and it
was. But it was our shithole. The crew in there, we was close, real
close. You didn’t get strangers in there, at least not for very
long. Used to call it the turning point, the spot on the doormat
where, after getting a good look at the place, they’d turn around
and go back.

There was a good crowd in there,
mostly. There was a time when it were just us City fans. But then
the landlord, can’t remember his name, fucking gambler, fat
bastard; he had to sell up half the place for his debts and then
his brother in law takes over. He’s a fucking Vale fan, so suddenly
the place gets cleaned up and we get this other crowd in. I mean
they’re fine for a while, but you can’t talk about the game
anymore, ‘cos after nine o’clock when everyone’s had a few, it
kicks-off.

There were punch-ups and the old
bill started getting involved. The new landlord got a warning or
some shit. He started having to bar and report folk who got in
scraps. So we was all on our best behaviour for a while, but by
then some of the Vale lot had already got scared off, so that
helped.

But there was this one fucker.
Terry his name was, Terry Coles. Fucking mouth-on-legs. Everyone
knew Terry Coles, mostly ‘cos he could never shut the fuck up. You
didn’t want to know him, he just started going on at you. On and
on. And he used to like winding folk up too. Really funny guy, real
funny piss-taker. Worse than that, he was a fucking United fan
too.

He used to like needling me, cos
I got bit of a rough streak in me. Can’t help it, always been like
that. You’d think that’d make him leave well alone, but no, it
becomes like a bloody challenge. Can you wind Carl up tonight? Can
you make him see red? It was like he had a death wish.

So we used to get leery over the
matches and the like. It wasn’t just that though, he’d always have
something fucking funny to say about your clothes and shoes and
stuff. It was like he was trying to prove something. You’d come in
and he’d take the piss out of your jacket, you’d tell him to piss
off, and then he’d have a go because you weren’t over the moon that
he was taking the piss.

So this one time I just hit him.
Smacked him clean off his feet; he wasn’t expecting that. Yeah, I
could get lairy, but I didn’t normally just lash out like that.
Course, that put a chip on his shoulder because he couldn’t get
back at me. My mates and his, if you could call
them
mates -
they probably couldn’t fucking stand him either – they got in the
way and stopped him from taking a swing back at me.

But I was already in trouble
with new landlord over a fight a few weeks back. I didn’t get in
fights often, not like me to just lash out, like I said. But these
fucking students had decided to come in, probably just for a laugh
and those poncy fucks can rub a man the wrong way with their pants
hanging out their trousers and their “We’re the fucking bees-knees”
future of mankind bloody smugness. I’d had one too many and they’d
gotten too fucking noisy, so I told ‘em where to go and they got
mouthy with me so I lamp one of them. New landlord’s son – how was
I supposed to know?

So I was about to get barred,
when his brother, old landlord and still half-owner – what was his
name… He comes and stands up for me; bless him, he’s known me for
years. Sure I’ve got a temper, but mostly I keeps to myself, don’t
cause trouble. So I’m getting my last warning now, do it again and
you’re out…

I don’t want to find myself
another local; I don’t want to lose me mates. Not over a prick like
Terry Coles. He makes a big deal about shaking hands and “forgiving
me”, and biting my tongue I just goes along with it. But he still
knows I can’t stand his guts, so that’s not the end. Like everyone
else, I got to sing his tune and he has to have me licking his
boots and hanging on his every stupid word.

I tries to avoid to him,
whenever he’s there. And he always gives me this look, like “here
comes trouble”, here comes a headache... I ain’t doing nothing,
just keeping to myself, enjoying a pint, chatting to me mates. But
no, he still has to have his pops and jokes and what else. Can’t
leave me be.

Well this one night, he went too
far. I just had this big fucking row with my lad and I’m in there
blowing off steam. I walk in with my face red and he gives me that
glance of his and I just shout “What? What’s your problem?” He
makes out all innocent like he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

My mates though, they know what
it’s about so they give me a wide berth. Keep the conversation
light. But this tosser Terry, he keeps trying to start with me.
Results are on the telly, he’s making cracks about City and he’s
looking at me while he makes them, I know he is.

Then somebody tells him. I don’t
know who, but somebody tells him my boy’s a queer. We’ve been
rowing all afternoon, that’s why I’m in a fucking mood. I don’t
like it and I’ve never fucking liked it; he’s supposed to be a man.
But now that he knows, he’s got to come over and say something.

So he walks right up to me,
while I’m sat at the bar. He slaps his hand on my shoulder and he
says to me “Mate, I just heard your son’s a poof. Fuck, I wouldn’t
have that in my family. If my lad turned out to be a batty boy I’d
fucking chuck that kid out on the street.”

I’ve had about eight pints and I
just fucking lose it. Whatever my son is, he’s still my lad and I
just couldn’t take anybody saying any of that shit about him.

So I pick up my pint and I glass
him, smash it right in his fucking face. He goes down and I give
him a good fucking kicking, as much as I can before they stop me.
He doesn’t get back up and the landlord tells me I’m barred so I
tell him to fuck off and storm out the place.

Then I goes home and fall asleep
in front of the telly. Then about two hours later I get a knock on
the door, a loud banging. I wake up and see out the window that
it’s the fucking filth. I open the door and they tell me that I
haven’t just glassed Terry Coles, that I’ve fucking killed him. A
shard of glass went straight under his eyelid and pierced his
brain.

I’m pissed off my head and I
say: “Well that wouldn’t do much, cos he ain’t got a fucking
brain.” I know I said that, cos they said it back to me at the
trial. I’m pissed out of my head, I didn’t know what I was saying,
but they still used it against me.

I mean, look, I didn’t like the
guy. I hated his guts. But I wouldn’t have killed him on-purpose.
I’m no murderer. But the police have got it in for me and I go down
for it, 18 months for manslaughter. Although they let me out after
12. Lucky, lucky me.

They say prison’s too soft these
days, like a fucking Butlin’s holiday camp. But I’m cooped up there
with these same tossers for 12 months, nowhere to go, nothing to
drink. Can’t even watch the game. I make the best of it, read a bit
– yeah, I do know how to read.

But Jesus Christ that place did
my head in. It was enough to drive me over, but I ain’t no coward.
No coward’s way out for me, even if I did think about it. Thought
about it real fucking hard.

So I lose me place and have to
move in with my sister and her husband, who’s a slimey prick, but I
takes it ’cos Lisa’s a good girl and she doesn’t have to take in an
old tosser like me. I gets back on my feet soon enough; if these
haulage companies turned their nose up at thugs and hooligans like
me they’d have no one bloody working for them. Not that they don’t
take advantage and cut your pay for it.

Getting me life back on track
wasn’t the big problem though. I mean, my lad, he ain’t talking to
me, but there was nowt unusual about that. No, the problem was
Terry fucking Coles.

Yeah, I know he’s dead. I
fucking killed him. But that ain’t stopped him from making my life
miserable. That ain’t stopped him from coming after me…

It happened first one night as
I’m coming back from the pub. I’ve had a couple, not too many, on
my best behaviour ‘cos I could still get sent back inside. The
street’s empty, totally quiet, you can’t even hear the wind or
sound of traffic from the A-road. You could hear a pin drop’s echo,
that’s how quiet it was.

And I’m just walking down the
road, on my way home, minding my own business, when I feel it –
this great big hand slapping down on my shoulder, just like it were
some mate of mine.

I almost jump out of my shoes. I
spin around, expecting to see some geezer behind me. But there’s no
one there. No one there.

The street’s empty, but in my
head, there’s one face I can see; it’s Terry Coles, he’s just put
his hand on my shoulder to express his deep fucking sympathy about
my son being a poof. There’s no one there, but I can’t get that
image of him out of my mind. His stupid big eyes and phony,
friendly grin.

I run home, I’m that scared
shitless.

Next day, I just put it down to
the drink. You have a few and you can get strange ideas. I try not
to think about it cos it freaks me out. But that next day I
promised to take Lisa’s eldest Candice up to Hanley for some
clothes shopping. That’s if you can call ‘em clothes. There weren’t
enough fabric on ’em to blow your nose on.

So I’m walking around with her
on a wet Saturday as she goes in and out these shops, none of which
I’ve ever heard of, and then we’re heading back to the bus station,
and I’m walking down the end of the high street.

It happens again. Great big hand
slaps down on my shoulder. I go ice cold and I spin around and I
look at all the people and none of them are looking at me. No one’s
right behind me, they’re just walking past me, wondering “What the
fuck’s wrong with this guy. He’s mental.”

And I’m going mental, I’m
looking at all these people and I start shouting: “Who touched me,
who was it? Which one of you put your hand on my shoulder?”

Candice is dying of
embarrassment; she don’t want me there in the first place. She asks
me what I’m doing and I point right at her and shout “Was it you?”
She says “Fuck no,” – foul mouth she’s got – “What the fuck’s wrong
with you?”

So I’m stood there looking like
a bloody lunatic because I know,
I know
, that Terry Coles is
there and that he’s watching me. Laughing at me.

It was hard that first year. Any
place, any time. Terry hasn’t changed much; he knows just how to
get under your skin…

Like when you’re at the
checkout, just as you’re about to hand over your money. The woman
behind the till will say to you, “That’s nine-sixty dear”, and the
hand’ll slap down on your shoulder… It’s like getting ice-water
down your back. It totally knocks the wind out of you. I used to
drop me money, spill it all over the floor. He’d do it just then to
make me look like an idiot. He likes to make me look stupid.

His other favourite is to do it
when I’m playing a game and winning. Whether it was pool or darts
or cards, that slap on the shoulder and I’d lose it. The game would
be over, I’d be fucked. Couldn’t hit a ball, couldn’t hit the
board, couldn’t make a bet…

Bit by bit he started to ruin my
life. Can’t go for a pint without a slap on the shoulder, and then
my pints all over the floor or I’m losing it in front of strangers
and kicking off. I couldn’t work because you can’t drive when some
fuck decides to pay you a visit from beyond the grave. I’d be
driving and then he’d slap his hand down on me and I’d lose
control.

There was this crash, I went off
the road. I only took out some hedges, but the cops saw me. Then a
few weeks later I stop on the motorway, couldn’t help it – he put
his hand down on my shoulder and I slam on the brakes. Car goes
straight into the back of me, some guy gets whiplash and
concussion. Probably lucky there wasn’t a pile up. But I lose my
license and I lose me job.

It got so fucking bad I couldn’t
leave the house for a while. Council put me in this dingy flat once
Lisa and Nev-ille turfed me out. But I stopped going out, you see
this hair, this hair was brown like wood before I went to prison –
now look at it: I got fucking old man’s hair.

It’s the dread of it happening
that’s the worst. You don’t know when it’ll happen, you don’t know
when he’s gonna put his hand on your shoulder. He picks his times,
he knows exactly when to time it. This one time he even did it when
I was taking a piss. Knocks me cock out of my hand and has me piss
all over my trousers right before a game.

Big fucking laugh, eh? Sometimes
I think I can hear him laughing. Splitting his fucking sides cos
he’s so funny!

I ended up on benefits; council
thought I was agro-phobic – is that what they call it when you
can’t go outside? Had to go to see a psychiatrist, what a fucking
joke…