ON NEW YEAR’S EVE – A MONDAY – KENNY HAD HIS TEA AT Janice’s and then with Janice and her mother went on the booze. It was very cold, the real chill of winter holding the town in an icy grip. They caught a bus to the town-centre and got off outside the General Post Office as the Town Hall clock was striking half past eight. Vera was full of revelry, perfumed, talcumed and all dolled up, expansive with the promise of the evening’s festivities to come. Janice was wearing make-up and under her coat had on a multicoloured blouse in silken material and a full-length black skirt; Kenny was wearing a suit. He linked arms with the woman and the girl and they turned the corner to Yates’s Wine Lodge. It seemed to Kenny that half the men in the room looked up and nodded to Vera as they came through the swing-doors: she was popular, all right, which might explain (he thought) why she was never short of money despite not having a job.
‘Hello Vera,’ a man said. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
‘I’m with me daughter tonight, Harry, and her boyfriend.’
‘Well?’ Harry said. ‘It’s New Year. What are you having?’
This was going to be a good night, Kenny decided.
‘I’ll have a tot,’ Vera said.
‘Oh aye,’ Harry said. ‘Living in hope, eh?’ Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
‘Brandy,’ Vera said, giving him the smile he expected. ‘What do you two want?’
Kenny had a pint and Janice a sweet sherry and the man brought the round to the table. A couple of old slags were sitting nearby, crouched over their schooners of Australian White Wine, like two crows concealing something unpleasant under their black folded wings. Kenny had only been in Yates’s once or twice before: it was the refuge of the aged and decrepit and of those who would rather spend money on a night’s drink instead of food for the next day; and of course it was the prime picking-up shop for those who weren’t young any more.
‘What do you do?’ Harry said to Kenny.
‘How do you mean?’
‘For a job.’
‘Fuck all,’ Kenny said.
‘Don’t you work?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
The man wasn’t too pleased with this answer. Lancashire folk don’t take kindly to loafers, parasites and shirkers. Vera threw back the brandy with a practised hand and banged the glass down.
‘My round,’ she said.
Kenny didn’t argue, but went to get them, standing in line behind the chest-high wooden barrier which formed the drinkers into a queue so that each customer would be dealt with strictly by rota; it was a bit like queueing for the dole. Yates’s ran a tight ship: drinking was a serious business.
He walked back with the tray across the bare boards, stepping round the groups of people who stood sipping their drinks. The place had an air of tired and somewhat desperate conviviality, as though all the people here were seeking shelter from the cold modern world outside by returning to the nineteenth century. They wouldn’t have been out of place in a sepia photograph.
‘A quiet lass,’ Harry observed of Janice.
‘Takes after me,’ Vera Singleton said, flashing him a brief vivid smile, her bracelets glinting and jangling as she rummaged in her handbag for cigarettes and lighter. Somebody came up and whispered in her ear and she gave a bellow of laughter.
There was a world of experience in her laugh that was completely alien to Kenny, although he had heard that laugh a hundred times from as many women in dozens of public houses. It reminded him – for a reason he couldn’t place immediately – of a cold and lonely time waiting for someone. It reminded him of sitting on a doorstep in short trousers, the dank misty gloom of a November night pressing against his face and bare legs, waiting on the step of number twenty-two Cayley Street, the door locked, for his mother to come click-clacking along the pavement in her stiletto heels, returning from a mysterious night out in the equally mysterious night-time town of Rochdale.
He remembered it clearly now: the old man had gone away, on business so his mother had said, and that one simple fact seemed to have altered the entire pattern of his life. For one thing there never seemed to be any food in the house. He went to the cupboard and looked behind the cups and saucers and plates for anything that was edible. He stood on a chair and looked in the bread-bin and then in the meat-safe at the top of the cellar steps, but all he could ever find were greasy margarine wrappers and bits of what looked like an old pork pie. Another memory stirred: of sitting up in bed, alone in the house, reading the Dandy Annual or Boys Amazing Stories, his eyelids tight and stinging for want of sleep but sticking it out till he heard the key in the lock and the front door scraping over those three lumps in the red and green linoleum.
And before she returned, the silence of the house – silent except for the creaking – silence extending beyond the bedroom door to the steep, dark stairs leading down to the kitchen which was forbidden and frightening territory. He would tiptoe to the bedroom window and look through the leaded panes at the street light shining on the stone setts, rubbing each foot alternately on the other to lessen the chill contact of the lino.
‘I bet Kenneth’s a randy beast,’ Vera Singleton said, a little the worse for the five brandies she had consumed.
Janice reddened and hid behind her glass of sherry; Kenny awoke from his stupor. ‘I know what it’s all about,’ he said in a slurred voice.
‘We’re not letting the New Year in here,’ Vera said.
‘They’ll be shutting before twelve,’ Harry said.
‘That’s what I said. Come on. Drink up.’
‘Where to?’ Harry said in-between swallows.
‘Marlborough Con Club.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Oldham,’ Vera said. ‘You’ve got a car, haven’t you? Well then.’
It was gone eleven when they arrived at the Marlborough Conservative Club on Abbey Hills Road and at first the man on the door wouldn’t let them in. Then he recognised Vera and the four of them sailed into the smoke and noise of a couple of hundred people, many of whom seemed to have brought their children with them. Because of the crush the billiard table had been draped with a brown dust sheet and families sat around it eating sandwiches and cakes off paper plates. Vera disappeared for ten minutes, and when Janice went to the toilet she came across her mother talking to a man outside the ladies’ lavatory.
‘Won’t be a minute, love,’ Vera said. ‘Tell Harry to get some drinks in.’
‘Who’s this?’ asked the man. He was fleshy and middle-aged and wore a ring with a stone that sparkled under the bland fluorescent lighting.
‘Our Janice,’ Vera said, smiling and cuddling Janice’s shoulder under her arm.
‘Well well.’
‘Eyes off, you,’ Vera said. ‘Randy bugger.’ She gently propelled Janice forward a few paces. ‘I won’t be a sec, love,’ she mouthed. ‘Get me a brandy, all right?’
‘What a dump,’ was the first thing Kenny said when she got back to the table.
‘What’s up with it?’ Janice said, edging up to him and leaning her elbow on the table so that their shoulders touched.
‘Look at them,’ Kenny said; he was flushed and slightly drunk. ‘Guzzling. That’s all they can do. Guzzle.’
‘So are you.’
‘That’s all they’re good for,’ Kenny said, ignoring her. ‘Useless, the lot of them. Neither use nor fucking ornament.’ His foot kicked out in a sudden fit of temper and a chair fell over. Several heads turned.
‘Kenny, not here.’
‘What?’ He narrowed his eyes and peered at her hazily as though through a cloud of smoke. There was a dribble of saliva on his chin.
‘It’s New Year’s Eve.’
‘So fucking what?’
‘Same again?’ Harry said, standing up, his tie hanging on his belly and his belly hanging over the table.
‘Aye,’ Kenny said. ‘Pint.’
‘Me mum wants another brandy,’ Janice said.
‘Where’s she got to?’ Harry wanted to know.
‘In the ladies’,’ Janice said with hardly a flicker of hesitation.
Midnight approached, the funny hats were put on, the coloured paper streamers stockpiled on each table ready for the fray. Kenny refused to join hands when Auld Lang Syne was played and sat staring sullenly at the rows of people swaying to and fro, their beer-glazed faces opening and shutting in what to him was a mindless, pointless exercise. The waste of it all appalled him: what did it mean, what was its purpose – this guzzling, shouting, screaming, endlessly consuming mob hysteria? They were like a pack of animals, with no other desires than to feed their appetites and indulge their bodily sensations. He was sickened. Janice watched him fearfully. It seemed that his only reaction nowadays was instant, savage emotion leading, sooner or later, to violence. She wondered why he couldn’t settle down a bit; she wanted him to. She slipped her hand into his but his own hand remained passive, disinterested; she stroked his palm with her fingertips but there was no response.
Vera and Harry were in the line, singing away. Then, the New Year safely in, the line transformed itself and changed direction, from linked hands to clasping the waist of the person in front, from Auld Lang Syne to the Conga.
Kenny watched them with a sneer on his face. This pathetic charging about was what amused people. This was what he had to look forward to when he got old and past it. It was obvious to him what they were: they were all dead thick.
• • •
Harry stopped the car outside the flat, and before he could get out Vera said, ‘Thanks Harry. All the best now. Goodnight.’ He sat puzzled behind the wheel for a moment and then drove off. ‘Silly sod,’ Vera said, pulling a bunch of keys out of her handbag.
‘Why do you bother with him?’ Janice asked.
‘He’s a good payer, that’s why,’ Vera said. She came between her daughter and Kenny and put her arms through theirs. ‘Come on, future son-in-law,’ she said. ‘Up the wooden hill.’
‘Have you any booze in?’ Kenny said. He stumbled over the doorstep and went sprawling into the small dark hallway at the foot of the stairs.
‘You’re pissed,’ Vera told him.
‘I was fucking tripped,’ Kenny mumbled.
‘Language,’ Vera said. With Janice’s help she hoisted him to his feet and somehow or other they got him to the top of the stairs. He was a dead, floundering weight, crashing into the door jamb and rebounding into the living-room, carried forward by his own momentum. They manoeuvred him into an armchair and dumped him, his head lolling about and his arms hanging down on either side.
‘It’s freezing in here, mam,’ Janice said.
‘I should have left a bar on. Do you want owt to eat? Kenny, are you hungry?’
‘Aye,’ Kenny said, hardly able to form the word. His lips felt numb, as though they were made of rubber. He put his hand up and touched his face and it was like a stranger’s hand touching a mask. ‘I’ll have a chicken butty.’
‘It’s turkey,’ Vera said. ‘Janice, go and put the blanket on in my bed.’ She picked up her handbag to get cigarettes and all the contents fell out. ‘Shit,’ she said softly, and got down unsteadily on to her knees to shovel them back in.
Kenny started snoring, his head on one side, his mouth hanging open. It was a shallow, dreamless sleep and he came instantly awake when Janice gently nudged his foot. She was standing in front of him with two rounds of sandwiches on a plate and a beaker of coffee.
‘Would you like a leg?’ Vera called from the kitchen.
‘I would that,’ Kenny said.
‘I mean a leg of turkey. Randy bugger.’
‘This’ll do me.’
Vera came into the living-room and sat on the carpet in front of the electric fire. ‘I haven’t been warm all night. Did you put that blanket on?’ she said to Janice.
‘You know a lot of folk in Rochdale,’ Kenny said.
‘I know a lot of folk all over. I’ve known Harry for donkey’s years. Divorced. Used to be a smart fella at one time but he’s gone to pot. Boozes too much. Janice, get me fags, love.’ She tossed one to Kenny and lit one herself. ‘I suppose you’re still traipsing down to the police station every month.’
‘Waste of bloody time,’ Kenny said. ‘I have to see this bird, Miss T______. I don’t know what for. She parrots on for half an hour and then I piss off home. Useless.’
‘You said she keeps asking if you’re working,’ Janice said.
‘They’ve nowt better to do, some of them,’ Vera said. ‘All this crime about, cars being pinched, and they have to pick on ordinary folk. We nearly had a break-in here, did Janice tell you?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Nobody saw him but the lock on number two had been damaged. Somebody trying to get in obviously.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘And have them clod-hopping through the place? Did I buggery. Less I see of them the better. Anyway there’s nowt worth pinching in the other flats at the moment, they’re empty. There’s a tenant moving in next week.’
Kenny looked at Janice and winked. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. Janice bent down quickly to hide her face and started picking up plates. Vera said, ‘I bet it’s freezing out.’
‘We’ll all have to sleep in your bed,’ Kenny said.
‘You might as well; that small bedroom will be like Siberia.’ Kenny didn’t know whether or not to take her seriously. She noticed his expression and said, ‘You’re part of the family, aren’t you? Well, almost.’
‘Mum,’ Janice said, frowning.
‘Oh don’t be so mard. You young ones today, I don’t know. When I was a kid there were five of us in one bed.’
‘Brothers and sisters.’
‘Not always,’ Vera said, getting up and putting a cup and saucer on the coffee table. ‘Me uncle Arthur used to sleep with us sometimes. Christ, did he snore. And he used to take up half the bed.’
Kenny waited in the living-room while Janice and her mother got into bed, then went into the bedroom, stripped down to his underpants and climbed in beside them. It was lovely and warm and he was so tired he nearly went straight to sleep, but the presence of Janice, soft and vulnerable and pressed so close against his body immediately aroused him. He put his hand under her nightdress and she went rigid and stopped breathing. She put her mouth to his ear and said, ‘Wait,’ in the lightest of breaths. They lay with their eyes shut and their arms intertwined, listening to the alarm clock’s relentless hollow tick and the mother’s breathing getting slower and slower. Kenny was struggling with a massive erection and could feel the sweat gathering on his neck: he took Janice’s hand and moulded her fingers around the aching stiffness: she held on to him as they waited in an agony of impatience.
‘She must be asleep by now,’ Kenny whispered.
‘Wait.’
‘Fuckinell, Jan.’
‘Sssshhh!’
It was torture; it was worse than torture. The lower part of his abdomen felt as if it contained a lump of concrete with an iron rod embedded in it. They began to kiss and touch each other and soon it didn’t matter whether Janice’s mother was awake or not. Kenny eased himself astride her and slowly the rhythm built up – both of them making sounds that neither were fully aware of. Kenny was dog-weary and kept falling into a dreamlike doze, the movement and the feeling going on separately, as it were, while he himself slept.
‘Oh Kenny …’ Janice said as she felt him coming inside her. ‘I love you… I love you.’
The realisation of the actual physical moment, of the girl beneath him, brought him to his senses and he went on and on, harder, his stomach quivering and the insides of his legs jerking as he finally expended himself.
‘Do you love me?’ Janice asked softly.
‘Yeh,’ Kenny said, extricating himself. He lay on his back in the hollow of the bed, the beer and the warmth and the tiredness pressing down on his limbs. He could have slept forever.
‘Kenny,’ Janice said. ‘Say you love me.’
‘Mm,’ Kenny mumbled.
‘Go on, Kenny, say it. Please.’
‘I love …’ Kenny said, and was asleep.
It was as though he hadn’t slept ten minutes (he was sure it hadn’t been an instant longer) when he felt something moving on his stomach. It felt like somebody’s fingers.
‘Are you awake?’ a voice said. He didn’t answer, but his body had tensed.
‘Randy beast,’ Vera murmured, her hand slipping between his legs and cradling his balls.
Rochdale Observer, 8 December 1973
ATTACK ON PAKISTANIS WHO
WANTED TO HELP GIRLS
JUDGE SENTENCES EIGHT
‘BRUTAL COWARDS’
THINKING that a group of girls were being subjected to unwelcome attention from some youths, three Pakistani men stopped their car to speak to the girls.
They were then stoned by the youths and one had his skull fractured, Manchester Crown Court heard on Wednesday.
Sentencing eight youths for offences of affray and wounding Judge Desmond Bailey said: ‘You behaved in a wanton, cowardly and brutal fashion.
‘You set upon three completely defenceless men and attacked them by throwing stones. The sole offence these men had committed, or so it seemed in their minds, was their colour and race.
‘This sort of anti-racial behaviour does England no good at all, and I am sure you will be greatly ashamed of what you did for as long as you live.’
B______ R______ , aged 17, of New Barn Lane, Rochdale, was jailed for three years after being convicted by a jury of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Afzal Bux.
Six other youths admitted causing an affray.
M______ F______, aged 17, of St Martin’s Street, Castleton; M______ H______, aged 17, of Kirkway, Kirkholt; S______ M______, aged 19, of Datchett Terrace, Kirkholt, and P______ S______, aged 17, of Castleway, Castleton, were each given a six-month sentence suspended for two years and were each fined £50.
L______ R______, aged 16, of Worcester Street, Rochdale, was fined £50 and S______J______, aged 15, of Shirley Street, Castleton, was given a conditional discharge for two years.
A______ R______, aged 17, also of Worcester Street, Rochdale, was convicted by a jury of causing an affray and was given a six-month sentence suspended for two years.
F______, H______, M______, S______ and L______ R______ were each ordered to pay £50 compensation.
Mr Geoffrey Voss, prosecuting, said that on 13 July Mr Bux, of Exford, Ashfield Valley, was driving along the Ashfield Valley service road with two friends when he saw a group of girls and the defendants.
‘He thought the girls were being subjected to attentions which were unwelcome and stopped the car to ask the girls if they were all right,’ Counsel said.
One girl told him to go away, and stones were thrown by the defendants towards Mr Bux and his car.
Mr Bux and his passengers got out of the car and the defendants ran to a canal bridge where there was a pile of bricks.
Bricks were then thrown at the three men, who turned and ran back to where the trouble had first started.
Mr Bux got into his car and drove towards the defendants. R______ then picked up a piece of pipe and threw it through the windscreen of the car, hitting Mr Bux on the head and fracturing his skull.
‘Mr Bux lost consciousness and the car continued across a pavement and crashed into two garages,’ Mr Voss said.
Judge Bailey ordered that £100 of the compensation should be paid to Mr Bux for the damage to his car and £150 to Rochdale Corporation for damage to the garages.
Rochdale Observer, 9 March 1974
BOROUGH MAGISTRATES
WEDNESDAY
LICENSEE ACCUSED – Licensee of the Ship Inn, Milnrow Road, Rochdale, J______ P______ G______ was accused of selling alcohol to a fifteen-year-old girl and the case was adjourned until 20 March.