Deadfolk by Charlie Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

tasted blood in my mouth. ‘Leave it, Baz,’ I says, searching inside for the old Blake who used to take shite off no one. I ran the tip of my tongue against me lower lip, feeling where I’d bit it.
    He went to take a swing at us, stopping his fist a few inches from my eye. But it were too late. I’d flinched. I’d flinched fairly out me skin. And I knew how that looked to the onlooking horde. He came up close and spoke low, so as only I could hear. ‘I heared things about you. Things you wouldn’t want these good folks to hear. Things you wouldn’t want coppers to hear neither, seein’ as these things I heared makes you a killer. Wife killer an’ all. Reckon to that, eh? Eh?’
    His breath smelt of fag butts and old sewerage pipes. But I’d rather smell that than hear what he were saying. I kept quiet and looked sideways.
    ‘I’m the last cunt you wants on yer back. Know why, Blakey Boy? I’ll tell you why. Because I hates you. I hates you and I’ll see to it that you goes down. An’ go down you will. Maybe tomorrer. Maybe in a few year. We’ll see.’
    He patted us on the cheek and moved off. I dunno if he went inside or not. I didn’t notice anyone go in or out after that. I couldn’t look at their eyes. I knew that they’d be looking back at us, see. And I knew what they’d be thinking. After a while I fucked off for a bit. If I can’t see who’s going in and out what’s the good in standing there? I walked round the back, smoking and kicking pebbles about. I knew I were out of order. I were a doorman. What kind of a doorman abandons his door? It weren’t right, but I couldn’t hack it back there. Maybe that were it.
    Maybe I weren’t up to being a doorman no more.

     
    When I went back inside I had no fags left and Rachel were just calling time. I stood by the door, watching em all pile out slowly and nodding only to them what nodded at us, which weren’t many. Rache had sent the other bar folk off early, so by midnight the place were empty save her and meself.
    I got meself a pint of lager and sat at the end of the bar, watching Rachel go about her business. I weren’t really watching her. Eyes was just riding on her well-stacked frame while my brain got on with other matters. She weren’t paying me much heed neither, getting her chores done quick so she could piss off home. Her eyes was avoiding mine for once. I might have found that odd on any normal night, sociable as she were by character. But I thought nothing of it at the time.
    Like I says, my brain were tied up elsewhere.
    ‘Ta-ra, Blake,’ she says at last.
    ‘All right, Rache. Er, Rache?’
    ‘What, love?’
    My gob were hanging open but nothing were coming out. I ought to have known better. You can’t go to birds with your problems. Never works, it don’t. You can’t put em across right to a bird, and even if you does they don’t hear em right. Nah, there’s only one kind of folk who can help out with shite of that sort. And them’s your mates.
    ‘What is it, Blake?’
    ‘Ah, never mind.’
    ‘You all right, love?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Here,’ she says, handing us an envelope. ‘That’ll cheer you up.’
    I opened it up and counted the five brownies. I’d been so up me own arse over the Muntons I’d forgot about it being wages day, which made us feel even more shite. Specially with all me subs took off it.
    ‘Ta-ra, Blakey.’
    ‘Aye, see you, Rache.’
    I pulled meself another pint.

     
    Took us half a minute to notice she weren’t starting. Wheezed and choked she did, but stayed put. Some nights your Ford Capri can be like that. Temperamental. And there’s no point in getting all het up over it neither. A Capri is like a beautiful woman and ought to be treated like one and all. If she don’t wanna play…well, that’s up to her, ennit?
    So I walked. I yomped the half mile or so to Cutler Road, keeping my eyes a yard or two ahead of me boots. ‘Cunts,’ I says every time my foot fell. ‘Cunts. Cunts.