There had been a clown on the garage forecourt earlier, entertaining crowds. Now a thin-bearded singer was irritating them. Even Jeremy could tell he was no good. Kids who’d enjoyed the clown’s magic tricks were restless, harassing the singer with nasty comments. Jeremy had sat down quietly on an old tyre and was thinking. This was a good place to be, he decided. For the moment. Now it was getting dark, the lights strung around the garage made him feel safe. There were people all around. Daddy couldn’t get him here. Mr Steyning would usually have shut up shop hours ago, but was keeping open because of all the people. They weren’t buying petrol any more, but he was selling lots of sweets and drinks from the shop by his office. Steve Scovelle, who helped him with the pumps, was looking after it. Mr Steyning had gone indoors, but his wife was still outside, looking after Lisa, her younger daughter. Jeremy knew enough to stay away from Lisa, who always picked on him.
‘Hey, lost kid,’ someone said.
It was a man with a funny haircut, an X shaved into short black hair. He wore a shouting-face T-shirt and was drinking from a can.
‘Yes, you.’
Jeremy said hello. He wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but Daddy wasn’t supposed to try to hurt him either. All rules were broken. X sat down on the next tyre. He had a friend, a worried-looking man in an army jacket with the collar turned up, and he sat down too.
‘Want some Coke?’
X-head offered him his can and Jeremy said thank you.
He meant to take only a mouthful, but as soon as the fizz got to his tongue, he realized he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day. Only the drink wasn’t Coke. It tasted like armpits and Jeremy guessed it was beer.
‘Hold your horses, kid,’ X said. ‘You’ll choke.’
‘Ask him if he’s got a sister,’ X’s friend said.
Jeremy nodded at the worried young man.
‘And what’s her name,’ the man asked, ‘is she pretty?’
‘Her name’s Hannah, and she’s…’
Pretty wasn’t a word he’d have used for his sister, although he had grandparents who did. To them, everything was pretty. Jeremy was pretty.
‘Horrid.’
‘Older than you?’
Jeremy shook his head. ‘She’s only little.’
X laughed. ‘Just your type, Ingraham.’
‘Yahhh,’ said Ingraham, punching X’s bare shoulder. X had a blue tattoo on his arm, a cartoon skunk on fire.
‘Bastard,’ X said, thumping Ingraham.
‘Fucker,’ Ingraham spat, grabbing X’s wrist and twisting.
‘Dick-heaaaaad,’ they both said together, grabbing each other’s hair, laughing, catching Jeremy in the middle. They let go, and sat up again. He’d finished the beer. Once you got past the taste, it wasn’t so bad. It made him feel grown-up. He handed the can back to X, who sucked a drop out of it and licked the sharp hole.
‘Empty,’ he said, smashing the can against his skull, grinding it flat.
‘He’s mental, kid,’ Ingraham said. ‘Just out of borstal. You know what borstal is, kid?’
‘For bad boys.’
X laughed. ‘Yeah, bad, wicked.’
‘He was born to be bad,’ Ingraham explained.
‘Bad to the bone.’
‘What did you do?’ Jeremy asked.
‘Shoved a hippie’s head down a bog,’ X said, looking at the singer.
‘X hates hippies,’ Ingraham said. ‘He’s a real skunk.’
‘We came here to duff up hairheads,’ X said, laughing.
‘Only it looks like we’re outnumbered,’ Ingraham said. There were a lot of people with long hair in the crowd. One couple, a boy with a red mohican and a punky-looking girl, really stood out among all the muslin and beads. They were with the singer.
‘’Kin hippies don’t deserve to live,’ X said.
The singer still banged his guitar. A big woman with a purple skirt and a headband swayed in time, shoving her voice in with the man’s. She was trying to get the people who were still listening to clap along with the song.
‘’Kin hippie crap,’ X said, throwing the can.
X’s aim wasn’t very good. The can bounced on the floor near the singer’s sandals. The woman with the headband looked at them, frowning like a teacher when kids talked in class.
‘What’s your name, kid?’ Ingraham asked.
‘Jeremy.’
‘Jermy, huh? Jenny Jerm. How about that, X? We’ve got a Jerm here.’
‘Yo, Jerm,’ X-head said.
Jeremy didn’t like being called Jerm, but thought he shouldn’t let X and Ingraham know. He wasn’t sure he liked them, but being with them was better than being back home.
Mrs Steyning was standing nearby, disapproving. Jeremy had seen her sharing a cigarette with some people in the crowd earlier.
‘You all right, Jeremy?’ she asked. ‘These boys bothering you?’
Jeremy shook his head.
‘We’re baby-sitters, ma’am,’ X said, politely.
Ingraham looked at Lisa and licked his lips. She wrinkled her forehead.
‘Lisa,’ Mrs Steyning said, ‘time for bed.’
She tugged her daughter’s hand and pulled her away. Lisa turned, poking out her tongue at Jeremy.
‘Rude cow,’ X said, after she was gone.
‘Should teach her a lesson.’
‘Show her something.’
‘Give her a spanking.’
‘Goin’ for the little ’uns again, Ingraham?’
Ingraham made a fist and pumped his arm, laughing. ‘Nahh,’ he said, ‘that blonde bimbette’s more Jerm’s speed.’
Jeremy would have blushed, but things were strange this evening.
‘Want to give her one, Jerm?’ X asked.
Jeremy smiled and said yes, just to go along with them.
‘Randy little bastard,’ X said, with admiration.
‘Stick her,’ Ingraham said.
‘Poke her.’
‘Pork her.’
‘Bang her.’
‘Bonk her.’
X and Ingraham fell around laughing, arms flailing. Jeremy ducked out of the way. They smelled beery, and weren’t responsible for where they hit.
The singer was doing a song about flowers.
‘I’ve had enough of this shit,’ X said, getting up. He was wobbly, and shook his head.
The singer’s girlfriend was going around with a leather hat, taking small change from the crowd. She wasn’t getting much, but a few coins chinked in the hat. She shook it in front of X.
‘Thank you kindly, ma’am,’ he said, scooping out money, rattling it in his fist. ‘Gold,’ he said, eyes wild, ‘goooold, gooold. Hah hah hah. I’m rich, rich, rich, d’you hear me, rich. Goooold, diamooonds, joooowels. Hah hah hah. Goooooooold.’
The woman’s eyes went angry. X stopped acting and smiled, all innocence.
‘Very generous,’ he said. ‘Every little helps. A penny saved is a penny earned. Look after the pennies…’
The woman held the hat out, waiting for the money back. The singer was strumming chords, looking the other way.
X opened his fist and looked at the coins.
‘Ingraham, remember I said I wouldn’t listen to hippie shit music if you paid me to?’
He put the money in his back pocket.
‘I admit it,’ he said, ‘I was wrong.’
The woman’s fist was tight on the hatbrim, knuckles white. ‘Give… it… back…’ she said, serious.
X laughed and snatched the hat. He perched it on his head.
‘Look, Ingraham, I’m a ’kin hippie.’
He flopped his arms and legs, and made an upside-down clown mouth.
‘Hey, oh wow, man, I’m so out of it,’ he said, ‘heavyyy… wowwww, maaan… lentils, peace, hair… don’t step on the drugs, man…’
X ripped off and tossed the hat like a frisbee. It whizzed past the singer’s head over the fence into the Steyning back garden, lost for ever.
‘Woww, I blew my mind,’ X said. ‘Tangerine apostrophes have stolen my Ultra-brite.’
‘Leave those skunks alone, Syreeta,’ the punky girl said to the big woman, ‘they’re just pathetic.’
X clutched his heart, and shouted, ‘Stabbed, stabbed, stabbed! Ingraham, old fruit, she said I was—gasp, gulp, the shame, the shame—pathetic!’
The girl looked frightened, and clung to her mohican boyfriend.
‘Heyyy, punks roooool,’ X said to the boy, making a fist and thumping the air. ‘Annn-arrrr-kayyy-yehh for the Yewww Kayyy! Gobble my snot and gob in my old aspidistra, why don’t you? I go pogo!’
The boy shrugged the girl off and walked away. The singer, still fingering his guitar, hadn’t noticed anything. Jeremy wondered if there’d be a fight. Whenever there was a fight in the playground, there was a moment when everyone knew it was going to happen. Kids would be arguing or making jokes or pushing, and it would go quiet for a second or two. Then there’d be a fight, and it would end with crying and a bloody nose. It was usually him bleeding.
‘Jerm,’ Ingraham said, ‘let this be a lesson to you. Don’t grow up to be a ’kin hippie. It’s that simple. Just say no.’
The woman, Syreeta, went to the singer and stood by him, expecting him to take on X and Ingraham. He didn’t. The moment passed, and Jeremy knew there’d be no fight. The singer went away, friends with him.
‘Enough for a can here,’ X said, patting his pocket. ‘I’m here for the beer, me.’
Jeremy had been told not to take sweets from strange men. But he was so hungry he wished these strange men would offer him some. It was so dark now that the other side of the road seemed far away, barely visible in the garage’s light overspill.
‘Look,’ Ingraham said, pointing, ‘the filth.’
Across the road, there were policemen outside Mr Keough’s cottage. They had Teddy Gilpin with them. ‘It’s a raiiiid,’ X shouted.
‘P’lice brutality,’ Ingraham shouted.
‘Bloody Old Bill.’
‘Pigs.’
‘Copper cunts.’
‘Gestapo jackboot bum bandits.’
X and Ingraham slapped hands, then made German salutes and started whistling the tune they played in war films when Hitler came on.
‘Piggies, piggies über Alles,’ they sang.
One of the policemen, a blond in a helmet, looked across the road, and X and Ingraham shut up. Jeremy wondered what Teddy had done. A constable, a black man, was holding his shoulder.
‘Cor,’ X said, screwing up his face, ‘get a whiff of that! Something’s ’kin died in there.’
A smell was seeping across the road, coming out of Mr Keough’s place. A fat man came out of the cottage and was sick in the gutter.
‘Yo,’ X shouted, ‘it’s the Incredible Puking Pig!’
‘Look at that Huey and Ralph,’ Ingraham said, ‘diced carrots and tomato omelette…’
The blond policeman strolled across the road.
‘’Ello, ’ello, ’ello,’ he said, ‘what’s all this then?’
He took hold of X and Ingraham by the ears, and cracked their skulls together like coconuts. He grinned at Jeremy and saluted.
‘Evenin’ all,’ he said, turning to walk back to the cottage.
Jeremy looked at Teddy Gilpin, and saw the boy was badly scared.
‘Fuuuck,’ X and Ingraham said, together.
The fat man got up and wiped his mouth. He made a fist in front of Teddy’s face but put it in his pocket. The police took Teddy away.