Authors: Niall Griffiths
Jesus, why does evrythin fall to bits like this? What goes wrong with it all? Yeh av all these plans an other people makem all fall to shite like an it’s as if there’s somethin
wrong
everywhere … as if under evrythin is this great big fuck-off giant
badness
, like … like a curse, aye, that’s wharrit is, a
curse
… anythin good yeh try an do an always somethin bad comes along and fucks it all up … always … mean I ad it all
werked
out in me ed, like, an now look, it’s all in fuckin bits, lar, bits … gorrer sort yerself out ere, Alastair … get this shite friggin sorted, like …
Ferst things ferst an that’s find them fuckin babyscals … trawl the city like til I fuckin find em … get the money … get that money
back
…
An then what?
Well, just tern up, I suppose … just stick it all in a bag an get the bus back out there an just tern up … say eeyar, am sorry … am dead, dead sorry … all I can fuckin do, innit? … just make it berrer, like …
Then get that fuckin Darren sorted. Make that bastard pay. Wish ad never seen im with that hammer … sick cunt … that poor ahl woman … God the way she fell … THUNK … one evil twat that Darren … has to fuckin
hert
people, dunny? Only way he’s ever happy, like, is when he’s causin someone pain … sick bastard …
But he’ll pay. He’s pure gunner fuckin pay, no lie.
Blood’s washed off an I don’t look too bad … bad bruise on me forehead, likes, but not
too
bad … least, a won’t stand out in
this
friggin bar … evryone ere’s gorrer shiner or a bent beak or somethin … I spy Kiwi’s black an shiny head at the bar … he’ll be good for a bevvy cos he’ll pay for the company, like, an I could really fuckin go a Guinness …
—Y’alright, Kiwi?
—Aye, Alastair, not bad, man, aye. What happened to the face? How’d yeh get that mark on yer ed?
—Gerruz a pint an al tell yeh.
—Brassic again?
—Yeh.
—What is it?
—Guinness. Ta.
He orders the bevvies an yeh should see the look the barman gives iz ed … we call im Kiwi not cos he’s from New Zealand but cos he’s baldy so he paints his head with black Kiwi shoe polish, all over, friggin sideys an evrythin … he’s off iz tree … when he gets hot it all runs down his face an yeh can see all the scabs on is ed where the chemicals av bernt the skin … he’s fuckin wacko, man, tellin yeh … an he don’t friggin stand out around ere, oh no … just blends in like with all thee other fuckin fruitcakes and mad’eds … oh aye …
—Eeyar, mate.
—Cheers, Key.
I take the pint an neck half straight. Key’s goin on in me ear burram not really lissnin cos am runnin through things in me ed:
Thievin bastard neds get found. Things are then made berrer. Darren fuckin Taylor gets
iz
.
Simple, lar, eh? Fuckin
piss
easy, man. Aye but this bleedin, this bleedin
badness
under it all … gorrer watch out for
that
, man … it’ll get yeh … no lie … it just waits n waits for the best time to fuck yiz up … all yer plans like … not werth two shits inny end …
Jesus me
ed
… this pain in me fuckin ed … always fuckin there, lar, always fuckin there irriz … bangin away …
This pint’s great, tho, sortin me brain
right
out. Kiwi asks me if I want another an I say yeh. Just one more,
tho
, just the one; I mean av got stuff to do, lar. Dead important stuff, like. Carn be angin round in the fuckin boozer all day, no way, man.
Oh me fuckin
ed
.
ROBBO & FREDDY: SOME WORDS AND PHRASES
EMRYS
Ah, Frank, my old friend. I knew you’d turn up. Knew as soon as you heard …
—I came as quick as I could, Emrys. I was right in-a middle of-a calving but I got Maureen to take over and came straightaway. Soon as I heard.
I take his hand. It feels so strange. This I think is the first time I’ve ever touched another man sober and by design in my life and it feels so alien, so utterly odd; I didn’t expect it to be so
rough
. It’s like sandpaper, or a cow’s tongue – hard and raspy and so, so dry. Is this what we’re like, to women? Do we feel like this to them, rough and unwelcoming? Like, like
stones
or something? Leathery like animals?
—I’ve, I’ve had a word with the doctor. He’s told me what there is to know. It’s not looking good, is it?
The tears just burst out. Just gush out. Frank takes his hand away from mine and I think he’s embarrassed and uncomfortable but then he has his arms around me and my face is at his shoulder. I can feel the prickles of his shirt against my skin and I can smell sweat and silage and cigarette smoke and earth and the deep stink of large animals and this is exactly what I need. These smells, the warmth of my oldest-known friend against me, this is exactly what I need. Is this what men are
like
to women? Do we smell good to them, do they need our arms around them? Are our shoulders strong enough for them?
Frank lets me rest there till the tears dry and I can’t cry any more, by which time his shoulder is soaked. He pats my back and moves away from me, over towards the drinks machine. I’ve been sitting here in this waiting area for the past hour; the surgeon wanted another look at my beautiful wife, another check-up he said, so he banished me here. But she’s
my
wife. I should be back by her side.
—Coffee, Emrys.
Frank hands me a steaming styrofoam cup of hot, black coffee. I look into it and its blackness.
—When was the last time you ate?
I shrug. Honestly can’t remember.
—Shall I get you something? Sandwich or something?
I shake my head.
—You should eat, Emrys. You staying here tonight?
I nod. —Yes. They said they’ll make me up a cot in the room.
Frank nods. —If you should need anything.
—Yes.
—I mean
anything
, Emrys.
—Yes.
Ah Frank, my old, good friend. So good to have you here.
—And you’re accepting it this time, my friend.
I look up at him, at his face; see the grey beard with the chaffs caught in it, the yellowing of nicotine at the corners of the mouth. Such a
worked
face, that;
a
face made by forty years in the fields and on the hills. Is mine like that? Do I too have lines deep enough to wedge a coin in on my face?
—You
have
to, Emrys, don’t you? You
need
a gun in the house, now. Don’t you agree?
I nod.
—Please tell me that this time you’ll take it. I’m not saying that you wouldn’t be here if you had’ve accepted the shotgun in the first place, but …
But that’s
exactly
what he’s saying. And I fear that he may be right; I mean, you don’t even have to pull the trigger, all you have to do is
show
it … Just before last Christmas or was it the Christmas before, there was an attempted break-in at the shop and Frank tried to persuade me to get a gun, even went so far as to offer me one of his own, an old but reliable double-barrelled. I was toying with the idea of taking it but then the Tony Martin thing happened and I imagined myself in that position, not only in jail but also with the death of a sixteen-year-old boy on my conscience and that was it for me, no thanks I said, I’ll take my chances. But
now
, though … well, Christ, things are different, now. Things have changed.
How they change. My beautiful woman, the way she looked astride that horse. All that promise and youngness in her. And the way she looks,
is
, now, here in this hospital.
Those bastards. Those two evil bastards. It was old Mr James who saw them; out walking his dog and he saw the two of them running away from the shop with a bulging rucksack. A baseball hat, he said, one of them was wearing a baseball hat, and they were
both
yelling at each other in Liverpool accents. Didn’t see what car they drove away in because it was too dark but I reckon he was hiding from them, that’s my suspicion. He didn’t want to get involved. Like everybody, that’s what they always say, isn’t it? ‘I didn’t want to get involved.’
Cowards. I am surrounded by bloody cowards. This world is made up of craven bloody cowards. There are one or two exceptions. But
only
one or two.
—I’ll take it, Frank. Gladly.
He smiles and pats me on the shoulder. —Good man. You’ll feel safer with it in the house.
I’ll
feel better, too. Will you be home tomorrow evening? Shall I bring it round?
I nod. —I’ll nip home between six and seven, barring any changes in … you know …
—Yes. I can show you how to use it.
—No need. I was born on a farm, Frank, I’ve lived and worked on one all my life. I know how to use a shotgun.
He smiles. —Of course.
There is a burning sensation on my hand and I realise I have involuntarily squeezed the styrofoam coffee cup and some of the liquid has spilled over on to my skin. It will blister there, later. I should run it under some cold water but I am too tired to move. I am exhausted. Remembering how she looked, on that magnificent horse … it has sapped my energy. Every last shred.
I will accept the gun.
DARREN, HIS GRANDFATHER: SAPPER LEON TAYLOR OF THE LANCASHIRE FUSILIERS
As soon as the three-inch mortars struck the ground he dropped his rifle and ran. No; the moaning minnies were still airborne, crackling in over the treetops and his Lee Enfield and attached bayonet were lying in the mulch before the shells landed and he hears shouting and bellowing and sees faces in his vision splintered as he passes them and the earth heaves and then there is the unmistakable thump and concussion of a six-pounder anti-tank shell and the ground shrugs and tosses him, he is for a moment aware of being upside down and then the wind yelps out of him as he lands on his back in something soft, mud. Thick mud. His face is in it. He is inhaling mud. He flops and writhes like a landed fish on to his back and blinks mud from his eyes. Hears his own breathing stentorian as loud in his head as the bursting shells and the screaming and are they projectiles and body parts pouncing across the skyslice above the irrigation ditch or are they merely impurities, blots of dirt, in his demented vision?
Whatever they are he must flee from them. He must get away. He twists his arms backwards around himself to remove his pack and retrieve his entrenching tool but it is split and scorched by shrapnel and things spill; an enamelled dark brown mug, a cutlery bundle, a water bottle useless with rotten cork and torn felt covering and the Housewife holdall it too ripped and spilling in its turn as if in imitation of the bigger pack,
balls
of grey darning wool and fawn thread and black thimble and brass buttons and needles wrapped in tissue, these things artefacting the mud and sunk in that by Sapper Taylor’s knees as he rips his mess tin from his burst pack and begins whimpering to dig with that. The sky whines and shrieks above him. Chaos on the earth. His panting and pleading louder in his ears than the screeching flame and hurled metal deathbent and hysterical spitting heat and pinpricks on his head knocked helmetless.
Dig, dig. He has been airborne. The shellburst threw him as a man would fling a stone, carelessly and without effort. He can smell shit. Something also metallic like blood and thick, syrupy in his nostrils. Just muck in his eyes that he scoops and removes and scrabbles at just hide me hide me hide me.
—Oh please God fuckin get me out of this I will be good I will be good I will never again I promise to do Your bidding promise I will never –
Two immense swords clashing in the darkening sky above his back, above the ditch that shelters him. Strike and spurt sparks zipping in streams across that dusk and the rending of their metal is like a horde of screaming men.
Shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t fucking be here. Here men will be instantly stripped of courage and aggression and will become as children sitting in their own shite pleading for mother for God for sanctuary for – cowardice
—No fuck off no fuck off it’s too much this is I didn’t
know
I didn’t –
cowardice
And not even time to kill a man. Not even time to destroy a Nazi shoot the bastard see him crumple bayonet-charge them feel their bastard bodies give, plunge and twist like the corporal showed after grinning he stroked his bayonet lovingly held at his crotch like a dick back at the training camp back in Sussex back where he was
safe
A scream and the earth heaves. Another scream.
—Oh Jesus Christ oh Jesus Christ help me hide me I –
He vomits.
—Don’t let me die I want to live don’t let me die don’t let me pleasepleasepleaseplease –
This groove he’s made in the soft dark earth exposing two cones of rust, bullets from some earlier war, he curls himself into, hands cupped to his chin. His thin whimperings. Only a few feet above him he sees tracer bullets slash the sky in complete contravention of all he’d been told that such armaments were against the rules of warfare and will not be used but what he hadn’t been told and what gushes over him now as he lies in the ditch cowering and crying awash in his own fluids fevery hot and fear-drawn is the utter helplessness in the face of these demons who have put so much thought and practice have
applied
so very very much of their concrete collective will into the destruction of other peoples. These demons
love
war. They
are
war. Two decades ago they were crushed and in that short time they have built themselves back up again into this; this planet-wide wall of flame. What in God’s name can you do against this? What the fuck am I doing here?