House of Lads Read online

  House of Lads

  ROLAND LLOYD PARRY

  Copyright © 2018 Roland Parry

  All rights reserved.

  First published in 2018 by Papalulo Press.

  ISBN: 9781791543877

  For Nancy and Eryl

  House of Lads

  1

  I got Ali every other weekend. When I turned up at theirs he’d be finishing his eggs. He’d put on that Minions cap I gave him and Leanne would fuss around getting him into his coat. She’d give me a look. She’d kiss him and wave him off.

  I’d take him on the train to Southport or somewhere for the day. He’d stay the night at my bedsit in the top bunk. I’d play a bit of Battlefield and little Ali would watch and sometimes press the buttons. Till my Xbox got broke. So we’d watch telly instead. Sunday morning we’d have beans, then play in North Park if it was nice or go to the beach at Crosby. I’d drop him back round Leanne’s at six. Not a minute later, unless I wanted a fight. Then back at work in the evening, zipping round on the bike with pizzas.

  Some mornings I couldn’t bear to crawl out of bed. But not them Saturdays when I had Ali.

  So we were on the train home one Sunday afternoon and it pulled into Seaforth. I stared out at the blue cranes of the docks. The grey chutes of the corn mill. This bunch of lads got on and sat down a few rows away. Ali was standing looking out the window, making train noises. They couldn’t see him. But me they caught looking. One of them yelled at me. Shaved-slaphead knob. All-white trackie.

  “Fuck off, Paki,” he said.

  I looked away. Down. Breathed. Swallowed it. Tried to stop my heart pounding. Forced myself to sit still.

  I started chattering to Ali. Tickled his stomach. Took his cap off and messed up his hair. That floppy black mop. I put his cap back on him. He chuckled. I tried to smile at him. Tried. He looked out the window.

  “Stayshin!” he said. We were moving again.

  “Yeah,” I said. Tugged the peak of his cap down. He chuckled and pulled it back up.

  I kept still. Kept my eyes down, like I hadn’t heard what the knobhead said.

  They’d called me that at school. My dad was from somewhere far away. Don’t know where. But they could tell. We all looked the same to them knobs in Bootle.

  They started skinning up spliffs, smoke rising as they warmed the resin. Screwing up the Rizlies and chucking them at each other.

  I didn’t look at them again. Kept still. Feeling the sting. Like at school when someone started on me. It never ended well.

  Once some lad had caught me on a bad day. Called me it in the playground. I went after him. Got him in a headlock. Reached down with my thumb and finger and snapped his nose.

  After that, they just called me Azo.

  I tried to let it go. Held my breath till the next stop. The train doors hissed open. I stood up and led Ali off.

  I sucked in my breath as the train pulled out with the bunch of lads on it.

  Ali kept chattering away.

  I stared across the track at the wet slate roofs of the terraces. I zipped my trackie top up as the rain started again. Ali was playing around. I chased him, held him still as he chugged and chuckled. Got his hood up and did his buttons.

  We were only a mile from mine, but Leanne’s house was all the way down the line so we had to wait for the next train. I sat there numbing my arse on the metal bench. Ali gurgling, pushing a make-believe car around on the seat next to me. I left him to it. Didn’t feel like talking. That dickhead had set me off thinking the old thoughts, round and round.

  They’d said my dad went away. Never told me where or why. When I was old enough to think about it, I guessed it was somewhere bad.

  I didn’t remember him much. Just a snapshot in my head. His black fringe and muzzy. We were leaning over a rail, flicking ice cream onto cars below. Southport pier, I think. I’d have been three or four. A single postie pic of him, trapped in my head forever.

  I’d see him in my dreams and all, turning and grinning at me with his muzzy and three-stripe top. Cackling and chattering to us in some language.

  I’d tried asking my mum about him. She never told me much. Looked at me with her soppy eyes and mumbled. This empty look on her face like she was soft in the head. Meeting me at the school gate. Spitting on her hankie to dab the gobstopper juice off my cheek. Chasing me and hitting me with her shoe.

  She left me to myself a lot. Said she was looking for my dad. She never took me along. After a while I gave up asking. She stopped showing up at the school gate. Then one day I got home and her wardrobe was empty.

  I shivered inside my trackie top. Rain and wind getting up. Lovely Liverpool summer.

  Should’ve called Leanne and warned her we were late, but I had no minutes on my Nokia, did I. Nice one, Azo lad. Late for a meeting with Godzilla.

  I got up and paced around to keep warm. Chased Ali up and down for a laugh. The train took half an hour to come, because it was Sunday. It sat stuck there for another half hour since the signals were messed up.

  “Stayshin!”

  When I got him back to hers it was quarter to eight.

  I bent down and kissed him in the hall. Watched him vanish as Leanne sent him in the back. She had a right cob on. She rolled up the sleeves of her rugby shirt like she was going to hit me. Glanced at her watch. Gave me a look. Them burning blue eyes. Twitched her nose at me and folded her arms. Red freckles all down them. I’d liked that at first, when I’d met her that first summer. The older woman. That red hair. Not any more, eh. It was a danger sign now.

  “His tea’s well cold,” she said.

  “Put it in your Smeg cooker and heat it up then.”

  Let myself go for a sec there. Silly. I reined it in. Wished I’d hit that knobhead on the train now. Would have broken Frank’s rule, but it would have made me feel better. I could have had him easy, the little scrote. Let some of the steam and noise out of my head. I couldn’t let it out now. Had to be good with Leanne. She had strings she could pull.

  Keep a tin lid on, I told myself. Breathe.

  I said sorry. Didn’t tell her about the train though. Didn’t want to sound like I was wriggling. She’d not believe me anyway. So I didn’t speak, did I. Should have. I bottled it up like always.

  I waited for her to say something. I heard Ali in the living room, clattering the cases of his DVDs.

  “If you’re late with him again,” she said, “I’ll have to tell the woman.”

  It was the second time she’d said that.

  Should have said something, shouldn’t I. But talking never ended well. I couldn’t keep my head and speak my mind at the same time. She’d talk the arse off me. She was smarter than I was.

  I stood there in the hall, shuffling my feet and shrugging like a soft lad. She glanced at the wall next to me. Dent in the plaster where I’d punched it a couple of months back. I’d said sorry. I’d even said I’d grout it. She’d said no.

  So now I was scaring her, eh. Frigging Hulk, me. Not like the cuddly little scally she’d hooked up with that summer at Frank’s gym. On her settee after the Krazy House.

  “There’s that thing tomorrow at Saint Rock’s,” she said.

  “I’ll be there.”

  I stomped out the front door. Tried to slam it but it was one of them double-glazed ones with a rubber seal. It thudded and bounced back open. I grabbed the handle again and closed it slowly. I crunched over the stones down the garden path and whanged the metal gate shut behind me with a clatter. Crossed the road and headed for the train.

  This old feller there, sitting at the bus stop across from her house. Short-arse. Skullcap on his head and one of them long white shirts coming down under his anorak. Grey beard.

  He held my gaze as I went by
. Smiling like he knew me.

  Seen him before, I had. Couldn’t remember where. He must have run one of the shops round ours. I wanted to ask him what he was looking at. Slowed my step and tried to stare him out. He kept smiling. I took my hand out of my pocket to give him the finger, but I stopped myself. Thought of what Frank would say.

  I turned away. Put my hand back in my pocket and gripped my keys, my fist twitching. I wanted to punch something. Lamp post, car. Breathed deep and fought the feeling. Smothered it and stuffed it down inside me. I turned the corner by the Chinese chippy. Heard the old feller back at the bus stop blowing his nose.

  The sting hadn’t gone away, and it was worse now. It stayed with me all evening as I was taking people their pizzas. I ragged up and down on the bike at sixty, past the red-bricks on Linacre Lane. The gutted warehouses on Hawthorne Road. I took the Seaforth roundabout at forty, wobbling in the wake of the lorries as they pounded down to the docks.

  I finished at midnight since it was quiet. Didn’t want to go straight home on my own though. All that shit from the train and Leanne still boiling in my head.

  I headed for The Grace to see if Frank was there. He’d spend his Sunday mornings at the ring training the lads, have a sleep in the afternoon then go down the pub in the evening. Bag of nuts. Pint of Cain’s. His only vice, eh. That and his Bensons. It was where he’d always drunk after knocking off work at the docks, he told us. Before he got laid off and took over the gym. Before I was born.

  I was passing the bus stop across from the pub when a 94 stopped at it. The doors opened and a feller got off.

  The old beardy head from before.

  Eh?

  It was like he’d followed me. He saw me and gave me that smile again. Almost kind.

  I stared back at him.

  “What are you looking at, grandad?” I said.

  He nodded and walked away. I let him walk. Frank would be inside. He’d talk me down.

  I crossed over to The Grace. Its crumbling red bricks. Frosted windows. Peeling black paint on the door frame.

  Frank wasn’t there.

  Hardly anyone was. A couple of scalls at a table in the corner. Trackies. Stoned. Laughing and pissing around. Gibbsy was always threatening to call the filth about lads like that. He bloody should have done. He should have done it before I showed up.

  Gasping for a pint, I was. Worried about what Leanne said though. I needed to sort myself out. I’ll not drink this week, I told myself. Swore it. Big try now. I sat on a stool at the bar, the far corner where Gibbsy had his old beer-towels all framed up on the wall. I asked him for a lemon squash.

  “Where’s Frank?” I said.

  Gibbsy poured the squash in a pint glass. He looked at me over his shoulder. His red cheeks and thick square specs.

  “One of his lads has got a fight on,” he said.

  Frank didn’t have any kids. His lads were the ones at the ring. Big strip-lit gym in this cakey old brown-brick church off Stanley Road. I’d started going there when I was ten. Boss laugh it was. Twatting the bags and the balls. Stepping up and laying the other lads against the ropes. Frank taught us how to stand, breath, punch with all my weight. All my anger pumped into one blow. He tried to make sure I did it in the ring, not the playground. Tried. But the ring wasn’t were I’d get shit about my dad. That was when the real twatting happened, eh. On the playground flagstones. Up against the glass of the bus stop. The grass and tarmac in the park.

  Frank.

  Most of the time he was at the ring. Two days after my mum left, when the beans and Pot Noodles ran out, that’s where I went. I was eleven. He took me to his. Made me fish fingers. I watched Pop Idol and slept on his couch.

  After they put me in the home I’d still go to Frank’s. The welfare spods had him on a list of good guys. I think he was the only one on it. He charmed the arse off my soshey worker. He was there for me all the way. Made sure I got through school. Taught me to drive in his old Cortina. Nagged me into passing my test. He was right. It’s well paid for itself since.

  All through my teens I’d drop by Frank’s and hit the heavy bag. He’d spar with me, or hold the pads while I twatted them. He had this way of keeping your blood up while you were training.

  “Come ’ead,” he’d say, as you were punching the pads. “Your mum hits better than that.” You’d slam them harder. “Talking of your ma,” he’d say then. “Tell her to pick her slippers up from mine.” And so on, till you were bashing the pads like a sledgehammer to make Frank shut up.

  I didn’t take it to heart. I wasn’t soft about my mum. For the kids at school it was more fun to skit me about my dad, whoever he was. They’d said it was the Iranian ice cream man who parked outside the school gate.

  “Mr Whippy’s yer dad,” they’d sung. “Wanking in a Whippy wonderland.” We’re a poetic bunch of twats in Bootle.

  When you were bamming the pads at full strength, Frank’d give up the smartarsing and just grunt along with every punch: “Your ma… y’ma… y’ma…”

  Gibbsy put my lemon squash down on the towel. I picked it up and got off the stool. I needed a bit to myself. A comfy chair. I turned and headed for a table by the telly.

  One of the scalls passed us on the way, going towards the bar. Black bags under his eyes. He wasn’t even shaving yet. Yellowy skin and freckles.

  He saw me staring. Growled at me as he passed.

  “What yew looking at?” he said. “Yer Paki knobhead.”

  A spark in my head like a wet leccy plug. Fizz and a pop. Bang.

  I lobbed my pint glass.

  Just meant to make him turn round, like. But it was one of those chunky ones with a handle. It didn’t break. Brought him down with a big gash in his head. His trackie drenched in squash.

  I waited for him to get up. He didn’t. His mate had stood up though. I grabbed the empty mug and lashed it across the room at him. It broke that time. It smashed the mirror behind him with the Liver Bird painted on. The lad came at me anyway. He jumped over the table and ran in with his fists up.

  I twatted him in the soft middle of his lips, the way Frank taught me. Felt my knuckle split on his front teeth. Then two quick jabs and I’d broken his nose. He went down.

  I turned round to say sorry to Gibbsy, reaching for my wallet. Didn’t get that far. A flash of yellow, and black, and I was face down on the floor. Handcuffs clicking in on my wrists behind. Blinding sting in the back of my head. Big hands gripped me under the pits, hoisted me up, turned me round.

  A blur of black hats and neon yellow jackets. Pink mouths yelling in my face. A smell of leather gloves and truncheons.

  2

  The cell stank of piss and cleaner. Grey-painted brick and a stainless steel bog on the wall. But the worst was the aching. I was all sore from being shoved around by the bizzies. My wrists raw from the cuffs, back bruised from being kneeled on. My cheek grazed by the floor of The Grace. You can act as tough as you like, but it’s bloody awful, pain. It takes you over.

  The light went off. I lay there on the mattress. Closed my eyes.

  I slept. Then I heard the door clang.

  I lifted my head. Someone had plonked a tray on the floor.

  Breakfast. Muesli. Yuk. Runny fried egg on a plate with a placky spoon to eat it. Juice. At least that slipped down easy.

  I sat there on the bed and drank it. Couldn’t eat. Felt sick. I was lying on my side staring at the wall and thinking about Ali when a bizzie came in and told us someone had come.

  He stepped into the cell and took his hat off. His old yellow BMX cap with the puffy square top.

  Frank.

  He sat down on the bed next to me. The strip lights turned his bald nut porridgy white. He didn’t speak. Looked around him, his pale blue eyes glaring.

  I tried to smile. Couldn’t. Frank put his hand to the sides of his head and smoothed down the grey tufts. Hardly anything to smooth. He still didn’t say nothing.

  I’d let him down alright.

  He wait
ed. His old trick. Like a boxer, counting on me to throw the first punch.

  “Did Gibbsy tell you what… ”

  He nodded. “Have they charged you?” he said.

  “Dunno.”

  “You don’t know if they’ve charged you?”

  “They caught me with my cock out, didn’t they.”

  “Have they let you see someone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Solicitor?”

  “Yeah.”

  They’d grilled me as soon as they brought me in, after they went through my pockets.

  “The rozzer wouldn’t tell us nothing” Frank said. “Just that the lad’s in a bad way with his head split open. You should be seeing a judge this morning. Have they not said?”

  I shrugged. There’d been all kinds of dickheads around the last night but it had been me doing the talking. I’d told them all what happened and they’d taped it. Not like I could hide anything.

  I thought of Ali.

  “How come they’ve let me see you in your cell?” he said. “They never do that.”

  I looked at him. He knew how things worked, Frank. I just let things happen. I’d thought he’d be giving me an earful. But he was quieter. He was looking well suss.

  “What have they told you?” he said.

  “Nothing. They asked me a load of stuff.”

  “What about?”

  “All sorts. About my dad.”

  Frank rubbed his eyes with a finger and thumb. His lean old fingers. The tight pink skin on his knuckles.

  “Ten years ago, I was in this same building,” he said. “Got to know all the bizzies here.”

  “How come?” I said. “Were you in trouble?”

  “No, soft lad. I come here cos of you. When your mum left.”

  “Oh.”

  I got this sicky feeling in my belly whenever someone talked about my folks.

  “They was trying to find out what happened to her,” Frank said. “Me too. I helped them all I could. Then they just clammed up like they’re doing now. Other bizzies, same shitty service. Perhaps if they’d helped you out then, you wouldn’t be here now.”