House of Lads Read online

  “So no one knew where she went?”

  He sighed and reached inside his jacket. Got out his Bensons. Passed me one and lit it.

  “The pigs knew something,” he said. “They wouldn’t tell us.”

  “That mean they knew about my dad as well?”

  He sighed again and shook his head.

  “Do you know what happened to my dad?”

  He put his head in his hands. Patted his bald nut with his fingertips.

  “You ask me this all the time, lad. What do I always tell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So what do you want me to say?”

  “Don’t know. Thought you might have found something out.”

  Frank spotted the tray with the egg. He went and picked it up and tapped his fag in it. Brought it back to the bed with him. Sat back down and looked at me.

  “He call you a Paki?”

  I nodded.

  He turned towards us. Grabbed my head in both his hands, rubbing my cheeks, squishing them around like when I was a kid.

  “I tried to keep you on the straight and narrow,” he said. “I told you. Come any time and hit the bag. Hit the lads in the ring. Even hit me. Just don’t hit strangers.”

  I wanted to cry. I held it in.

  “I was looking for you, Frank,” I said. “I was feeling bad. I couldn’t find you.”

  “I was looking for you an’ all,” he said. “I called Leanne.”

  Frank didn’t have a real phone. All his calls he made from the chunky old landline on his desk at the ring. And he never called me on mine. I’d told him to but he just didn’t get it.

  “I told her to tell you I’d be at the fight,” he said. “Told her where you could meet us. Did she not say?”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Frank saw it on my face though.

  “Don’t be too harsh on her, lad. She’s got a lot on her plate too.”

  I sniffed my snot up and looked at the floor.

  “Does she know about this?”

  He sighed. “Don’t see why she would.”

  “Frank. I know I’ve let you down,” I told him. “But you’ve got to do something for me.”

  He held the dish in one palm and ground his Benson out with the other. His knotty old knuckles turned white. I stubbed mine out too.

  “You’ve got to go see Leanne,” I said. “We’re meant to be meeting with Ali’s teacher this afternoon. Tell her I can’t help it. Say someone jumped me and I’m being looking after.”

  “I can talk to her,” he said. “She trusts me.”

  “Thanks Frank.”

  He got his Bensons out again and stared at the packet in his hand.

  “But I’ll not lie for you,” he said. “You know that.”

  A bizzie opened the door.

  Frank stayed where he was.

  “On your way,” the bizzie said. “And there’s no smoking in here, thanks.”

  Frank got up.

  “You’ve got to look after Ali, Frank mate,” I said. My voice sounded all small to me.

  He put his cap on and zipped his jacket. Didn’t speak.

  “Can you drop by the pizza place?” I said. “They owe me two weeks’ pay.”

  He stared at me, his old Paddy blue eyes all watery and sad.

  The door clanged and he was gone.

  3

  I woke up again. The door had clanged open.

  I lifted my head and looked around, blinking. A bizzie came in with two chairs, scraping the legs on the floor. Another feller behind him. Tall. Suit and tie. Black briefcase.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My head throbbing and my belly all sicky. The bizzie went out, taking the tray. Another clang, and it was just me and the suit.

  I looked at him.

  Big clean-looking feller. He set the chairs up facing each other and pointed at one for me to sit.

  I got up, still blinking in the light. Took a look at him. Some kind of bizzie? Not a boy in blue. This dark suit and tie. Lean, tough-looking bastard. Welfare? Army? Long arms and legs. Black hair, greying at the sides, swept back. Big posh straight nose.

  He took the other chair, three feet away, and put his briefcase on the floor under it. He smiled at me. Big wide one. Like I’d said something funny.

  “Hangover?” he said. This posh sneer in his voice.

  “I wasn’t drinking,” I said.

  “Muslim?”

  “No.”

  “But you don’t drink.”

  “Not last night.”

  That smile again.

  “You fight though,” he said.

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

  “I told them all this,” I said. “They taped it. I had a bad day. Went the pub. He come at us. I decked im. I decked his mate.”

  He didn’t look like he’d listened.

  “So I spoke to the medics,” he said. “That first lad. He’s a junkie. Weak heart. Weak blood. Weak lungs. He shouldn’t have been picking fights with health like his. Well, anyway. He’s dead.”

  I didn’t get it at first. I looked up at him.

  “Eh?”

  “The lad you threw the glass at. He died.”

  “Eh?”

  “Heart attack. On the spot there.”

  His voice was calm.

  “How?” I said.

  “You threw a glass at him, remember? Nasty heavy thing.”

  “But he can’t…”

  “He died, lad. You killed him.”

  I put my head down, elbows on knees, and hid my face. A teardrop broke on the concrete floor. Don’t know why. I didn’t feel like crying. Felt mad more than anything. I rubbed my head. Tiny bristles where Frank had clipped it a week before.

  All I could think of was Ali.

  I heard the scratch of a lighter. Saw his hand holding out a ciggie. Big strong fingers. Wedding ring.

  Mister good rozzer, eh. Only he didn’t look like any rozzer I’d ever seen. He looked like he knew what he was doing, for one thing. Like he was in charge. Must have been if he could get away with smoking in the cells.

  I looked at him. He smiled and held the fag closer.

  “Alright, lad,” he said. He put a little foil ashtray by my feet. “Alright.”

  “Fuck off,” I said. Tears in my voice, but soft, weary, like I didn’t really mean it. I took the ciggie and sucked on it.

  We sat there till I’d almost finished it and stopped crying.

  “So you’re Andrew Coke,” he said at last.

  I got my breath back. My lungs shuddered.

  “Azo.”

  “Hello, Azo. I’m Paterson.”

  I sniffed.

  “Where are you from, Azo?” he said.

  “Bootle.”

  “Where further?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “My dad was from somewhere.”

  “What was his name?”

  I ground the ciggie out in the little tray. Got up and had a wazz in the steel pisser. Acted like he’d not asked. Shook my knob off and put it back. Didn’t care when a last bit drained down my leg and made spots on my trackies.

  I sat down.

  “His name?” he asked again.

  “Don’t know. He left, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t you know where he went?”

  I was too tired for all this. I started crying again.

  He gave us another ciggie. I caught his eye as he lit it. Funny look in it. Almost friendly.

  Something was going on.

  “So where did your mum meet him?” he said.

  He wasn’t going away, this prick. I had to deal with him. I did like Frank taught us to do with bizzies. Big breath. Strength. Calm. Words.

  “She was a nurse,” I said. “In some war.”

  “And she brought him back here?”

  “Don’t know.”

  He stared at me, nodding. He reached down and picked up his briefcase. Laid it on his knees.

  “You’ll be l
ooking at four years,” he said. “You’re twenty-four now. You’ll not be the same after.”

  I put my head down again. Breathed deep and saw off the tears. I stared at the floor and mumbled back at him. “You walked in on me when I was having a wank just to tell me that?”

  “I came to tell you there’s another way.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “That may save you a few months, Azo. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what you can do for me.”

  “Get lost.”

  “Charming.”

  I sniffed and waited to see what he’d say next.

  “How’s Ali doing?”

  Pigs always know that stuff. They’d have had it on file since that summer when they had me in. That night when it all went off in town. Trashing them shops. Nicking them saucepans. Boss laugh it was. The bizzies ran away. They caught me on some cam though, didn’t they. Came for me at dawn.

  I gazed at the floor.

  “Poor little Ali,” he said. “Seen him lately?”

  “Fuck off. Who are you anyway? Where’s your badge?”

  His voice turned harder.

  “I’m not a copper, Azo. I’m not talking about shaving months off your jail time. I’m talking about scratching it altogether.”

  I looked up at him.

  “I could have your slate wiped clean,” he said. “You’d get to see your boy much more. That woman you have to deal with, telling tales on you. I could make her stop.”

  I stared at him. I coughed.

  He looked me in the eye. “By the way,” he said. “They showed me the tapes tonight. From the pub. I liked the way you decked the second one.”

  “What do you care?”

  He smiled. Winked. “You’re a damn sight tidier than most of the scum that comes through here,” he said. “Give me three months. I’ll turn you into a deadly weapon.”

  I screwed my face up. “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Don’t you want to serve your country?”

  “It’s done nothing for me.”

  “Then young Ali will have to do without a dad.”

  He got up and straightened his jacket. Picked up his case and headed for the door.

  “Have a good wank, Azo.”

  “Hang on.”

  He stopped as he was turning the handle. Looked back at me, raising his eyebrows.

  “What is all this?” I said. “Help my country? I thought I was nicked?”

  “A lot of my best chaps are.” He winked. He walked back over to me. “I like the way you fight,” he said. “I like the way you look. You do what I say, lad, and I’ll be signing papers.”

  “Then will I see Ali?”

  “Right.”

  “When?”

  “Never mind when, killer. The trick is that you’d get to see him at all.”

  He sat down again, put the briefcase on his knees and undid the clips.

  “I want to see a lawyer,” I said.

  He clenched his teeth and whistled through them.

  “I understand that, Azo,” he said. He pulled a grey file out of his case and a pen from his jacket. “You’re allowed one, too.” He clicked his pen closed and open again. “But I can’t let anyone see these papers. You want one, you can have one. But you’ll do your four years. And you’ll need more than a lawyer to see your boy again.”

  I sniffed in hard. A big greenie crackled up my nose and into my skull.

  “How can I trust you?” I said.

  “Who did you vote for last year?”

  “Eh? No one.”

  “So you just let those fools in London run things.” He pouted and made a joke of slapping his own wrist. “Mustn’t talk about my bosses like that.”

  I stared at him.

  He opened the file and passed it to me. “Read through as quick as you can,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to get through.”

  He handed me the pen.

  4

  I sat on the trolley with my top off and in came the doc. Bird in a white coat, open down the front. Tight wool sweater underneath. Reminded me of Ayisha Terni in fifth year. Clicking around in her sloppy twat on a bench behind the Glasshouse. I’d come a long way since then.

  Paterson came in. He sat in a chair in the corner and opened a laptop.

  They’d had me in at St. Anne’s Street that first night but they’d moved me around in a truck since. I wasn’t sure where I was now.

  The doc strapped this rubber pouch round my arm, pumped it up and read the dial. Then a load of other stuff. Hit my knobbly knees with a hammer. Listened to my chest and back through a stethie as I breathed. Stuck a needle in and squeezed my arm so blood squirted in a tube.

  “What’s all this?” I said.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Paterson told me. “It’s all in the papers you signed.”

  I never read them, did I.

  Paterson looked at his files and hmm’d to himself.

  “So it says here you like smoking cannabis.” Eyes on his laptop. Screen shining on his face. “We’ll flush all that out. Find out what other rubbish you’ve got floating around you. Work out what you’ll be eating and drinking. You’ll be a lot better once we get going.” He winked at me. “You’ll stop feeling bloody awful all the time.”

  They served me lunch in my room. Fish and mash and slimy spinach. I asked for ketchup but they’d not give it me. I felt knackered and sick. I only ate half the plate.

  After the grub had gone down they took me to meet Ralph.

  “Who?”

  Paterson pushed open a swing door. I followed him through. Found myself in a gym. Backie-ball hoops. Lino floor. Mats laid out at one end.

  He was standing there on the mats, stretching and moving his toes up and down. Ralph. Fifty-odd. Grey hair and beard. Square glasses. He looked like some sad old twat. Then he took his trackie top off. He was huge. Arms like rocks stuffed in a johnny.

  He shook my hand. Crushed it. Said hello. Chirpy ex-para from Fazakerley.

  Then he got to work.

  My first lesson. He took a look at how I scrapped. Nodded when he saw all Frank had taught me. How to stand, how to breathe. We sparred a bit. He started weaving in all these fancy ducks and blocks. Wore me out. I lost my rag and tried to nut him. He dodged and swept my foot. Laid me on my back like a dickhead.

  He gripped my wrist as he pulled me up. Then he showed me how to nut someone properly. Whole body zap, fizzing up from the heels, through his spine, balanced by his shoulders. Flashing out with a snap of the neck. Boss.

  He freezed with his forehead an inch from mine.

  “Bang,” he said. “Your turn.”

  He kept me there two hours. Taught me four ways to kill someone with my bare hands.

  5

  They’d moved me again in the night. When I woke up I was in some big posh jail. A room to myself. Long white lino corridors. Playing field, gyms, TV room. Even a pool table. Paterson and Ralph showed up too.

  It went on for weeks.

  Four hours each day with Ralph. Hand-to-hand. Then sticks. Knives. Bottles.

  More. Outdoor cub-scout skills with a skinny old bloke called Jenks. First aid. Tracking. Map-reading. Where to point your compass, if you had one. Then street skills. How to break into stuff. Windows. Cars. I was all full of myself for having passed my driving test, but then they taught me to really drive. Taught me how to speed, how to spin. How to crash.

  Bombs. Chems and plackys. Which wires to rip. Crapped myself a bit on that one. Not sure I’d remember all that techie shit. Paterson told me not to worry. Just base training, he said. I’d not need most of it since I’d be staying round Liverpool.

  He got this Scottish bizzie called Kevin in to teach me about guns. Took a week. All kinds. More than I’d ever heard of. Baers and Brownings and Glocks and Grandpowers and Heckler and Kochs. Makarovs and Mannlichers and Mausers and Pauzas. Not to mention the shotguns and rifles. They made me learn the names. Sizes of slug. W
eight. Pros and cons. Damage.

  “You need to note this stuff when you see it,” Paterson told me. “You need to tell me.”

  Kevin showed me how to put them together and shoot them. On a range, with earmuffs on like someone’s gran. Boss laugh it was. Started with handguns. Ended with an AK.

  He set my hands and fingers on it, kicked my feet apart and squared my shoulders. I trained the sights at the paper figure and squeezed the trigger. Ding-dong. Kevo shouted well done, as I was blasting away.

  Paterson would pop in to watch me and make notes in his file. I had no clue where all this was leading, but I gave up asking.

  Truth was I was liking it an’ all. I was good at it. I frigged away at the trigger till my finger was sore, ripping them cardboard targets to bits. The pigs were well proud of me.

  I didn’t see much of the other lags, just passed them now and then. Skinheads, trackies, trainies. Footie shirts. Some looked like me. Some didn’t. I’d stare as I went by them in the yard. Murder in their eyes.

  Sometimes I spied the other lads through the gym doors, sparring alone against the staff. Ducking and kneeing and nutting. Cackling and loving it. Jogging up and down. Losing their rag and punching the walls. I’d look in for a couple of seconds before the bizzies hustled us on to another gym or the classroom.

  That’s right. It was back to school for Azo. They sat me down at a desk and had this spod called Lawrence in to talk to me. Young smartarse in a shirt and sleeveless sweater. He knew all about other countries. All these shitholes I’d never heard of. Full of scums who blew themselves up and kidnapped kids. All these gangs and networks and crappy little armies bumming each other in the desert. He made me learn all the names. Places. Leaders.

  The fight training was boss but Lawro’s lessons were a bunch of cack. He stood there slagging off all them dodgy countries. I wasn’t fooled. I could tell those poor twats were just like me. He ran through the names of all these places and gangs and crap as if he knew it all. You don’t live there, you bell-end, I thought. What do you know about it? And what do you care?

  I got fed up after the first couple of classes. Didn’t bother turning up for the next one. Found something better to do.