Skinhead Read online

  “God help us all,” he said aloud as he went in.

  “Wotcher, mate,” a hefty labourer laughed as he entered. “Christ, you get talkin’ to yourself an’ they carts you orf!”

  Jack grinned, slapping the man on the shoulder. “Sorry, chum – I was thinking about me dad.”

  “S’alright me son,” the other cried, “’ave a beer on me.”

  “Ta,” Jack nodded, shoving through the normal door-jam crowd.

  “Beer fer me mate, Rosy,” The man shouted to the Irish barmaid.

  “Make that Teacher’s and soda... I’ll pay the difference,” Jack said hurriedly.

  The Irishwoman shrugged, causing her monstrous breasts to do a jig inside her sweater. She didn’t mind his eyes feasting on them. In fact, she repeated the gesture to give him a second eyeful before smiling her way to the bottles. Jack hid his amusement. It never paid to take the mickey out of an Irish barmaid. The regulars didn’t like it.

  “Ain’t you Jack Piper... Charlie Piper’s lad?”

  Jack turned slowly. The old man facing him presented a toothless smile and an outstretched hand. He nodded, accepting the friendly shake.

  “Cor, I remembers you when you was a nipper,” the man said. “An’ look at you now...” He studied Jack with an admiring gaze. As the barmaid deposited Jack’s drink the old man eyed it speculatively. “Lemme buy it, son,” he said without an effort to reach for his pocket.

  Jack grinned. “Have one on me, mister.” He handed Rosey ten bob.

  “Scotch?” the quavering voice asked.

  “Scotch for the gent, Rosy.”

  “Bless you, son. T’ain’t often we gets the chance...” He halted, conscious of his faux pas.

  “Forget it,” Jack smiled. His drink tasted perfect and he handed a cigarette to the old man.

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “In bed... where you should be!”

  The man laughed, bending to light his cigarette from Jack’s butane Ronson. “Son,” he explained, “I sleep till noon so’s can spend every night in ’ere.”

  “It can’t be much fun...”

  “No,” The old face grew serious. “These young yobbos make it hard on the likes of me. They don’t ’ave respect no more.”

  “Do you play darts?”

  “Me eyes ain’t wot they was, son...” and when he saw Jack’s sudden disinterest he quickly added, “but I could give you fifty up?”

  “We’ll start from scratch,” Jack said. “Come on... let’s have a game.”

  *

  For an old man, the friend of Charlie Piper certainly threw a mean dart. He wasn’t kidding when he offered Jack fifty-up. Playing for beers (and Jack was glad it wasn’t Scotch) cost him a few bob. He didn’t win a single game and when another couple of pensioners joined in for a foursome it still cost Jack his cash. After all, he reasoned, he was the worst player on the board and he didn’t expect his mistakes to come out of a paltry allowance.

  Walking home, he felt the evening had had its compensations. He had renewed his faith in a dying breed – the old soldiers of London.

  He didn’t have a chance. They came at him from every angle. With iron bars, broken bottles, steel-toed boots and chains. They swarmed over him, knocking him to the ground, kicking and gouging and slashing with all the ferocity of their ugly minds.

  He couldn’t recall much of what happened. He knew he’d been hit with something hard; something solid; something brutally unyielding. And, as blood spurted to blind him, he felt the waves of them pour over him...

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “His condition is extremely serious, Sergeant.”

  From where he stood, Sgt. Snow could see the bandages, the ugly bruises. He was used to violence and broken bodies, just as Dr. MacConaghy was accustomed to making running repairs to them.

  “Have you any idea who did this?”

  The sergeant shook his head angrily. “Not by name, doctor. We know it was a bunch of skinheads and that’s all.”

  “Skinheads! My God – can’t our society control even them?”

  Sgt. Snow stiffened. He didn’t want to listen to a tirade about the ineffectualness of the police; nor did he have the inclination to have his role in the investigation questioned.

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” the doctor smiled wistfully. “I’m not condemning you and the force...”

  Snow smiled easily now.

  “I’d just like to know where it’s all going to end,” MacConaghy finished.

  Snow didn’t reply. One didn’t make an issue of problems when one wore a uniform; regulations formed a tight noose round a man’s tongue and political solutions were left to those chasing votes. Stricter controls over demonstrators, over students who forgot that the public paid for their right to education, over skinheads at football matches and on special trains were definitely required. Stiffer penalties would help too.

  The doctor made notations on Piper’s chart, swung away with distant eyes surveying the stained, grime-coated exterior of the hospital as seen from a small window. “Same outlook for a man trying to recover body and soul, eh, Sergeant?” he murmured.

  Snow studied the view. He found it repulsive, sickening, and was forced to agree with the doctor this was, indeed, the worst possible sight for a recuperative patient to watch. “Even a high-rise block would look better,” he said slowly.

  “There’s half the trouble,” the doctor remarked. “Environment! Can one blame people living in that for wanting something different in their dreary lives? The youngsters see it and remember it. They think of areas where other people live – Belgrave Square, Richmond, Surrey stockbroker belts where the grass grows green and a man can look around him and see just merrye olde England’s glorious land.”

  “You’re saying then that crime is directly linked to the slums?”

  “Sergeant, when it comes to crime I’m a rank amateur,” the doctor grinned. ”1 couldn’t steal a purse from a cripple.” He scowled. “That was bad taste! Seriously, though, I’d like to see what a dictator could do in this country. Slums wiped out, harsh measures to curb the grab-all boys, savage sentences for injury to persons, hanging for child rapists and cop killers, the birch for young offenders like these skinheads.”

  “Pretty effective penalties,” Snow laughed as they progressed down a dismal corridor.

  “Since when does molly-coddling criminals pay dividends?”

  Snow refused to be drawn. He accepted the doctor’s remark; could have enlarged on it. But again regulations stopped him.

  “Get yourself an iron bar, Sergeant,” MacConaghy suggested as they reached reception. “The next time one of those young thugs starts making noises, break his head. I’ll have the pleasure then of sewing him so it hurts.” He held out a hand. “I’m supposed to cure ailments and heal people but, just once, I’d like to slice away the evil parts some of these kids have in their heads.”

  Snow shook hands solemnly. He understood the doctor’s feelings. Patching up cracked skulls wasn’t funny. No more than seeing a damned good soldier stretched out flat because some of the kids he constantly defended against totalitarianism had decided to make mince-meat of him.

  “When you’ve had a go at the little bastards bring them here, Sergeant.”

  “I will, sir,” Snow smiled thinly.

  Both of them knew it would never happen. The British policeman was allowed the private thoughts of his fellow-countrymen only in the seclusion of his home. Outside those walls he was a machine – ordained into an order totally against counter-violence. And for that reason alone, he should have been protected against those he tried to apprehend...

  His Thursday showed a profit of £2-15-0. His body ached but that twenty five minutes with Mrs. Scalatti had softened the pain. There was something about Maltese women that made him feel the itch. At forty, the Scalatti woman was going to fat but he didn’t care. He enjoyed meat on them; and, as he told Billy that evening – “I bounced on her like an aircushion!”

  �
��The paper says that soldier is ’overing close to death,” Billy remarked, ignoring Joe’s daily tale of birds screwed on the job. Billy was worried. He didn’t mind the occasional punch-up, the aggro with other skinheads, the sadistic beatings they gave to hippies and the hard battles against the Hell’s Angels’ crowd. That was part and parcel of his life – why he wore skinhead gear and fashioned tools from the workshop at Ford’s. But he didn’t like kicking a soldier until he was nearly dead. He had a respect for soldiers – his dad had been one as were his brothers Tom and Eddie.

  “Serves ’im bleedin’ right! “Joe snarled viciously. He wished to hell the bastard had kicked the bucket. He’d never forget the indignity of landing on his arse.

  “Christ, Joe – if ’e dies...”

  “So wot? They don’t know we did it!”

  “I don’t like it,” Billy voiced, hands deep in pockets, kicking a tin-can into the gutter with a savagery that belied his concern.

  “Fuck the soldier,” Joe snarled. “I’m thirsty. Let’s ’ave a beer, mate.”

  The pub was almost empty. The pensioners had already taken their pitiful allotment home after a beer and chat. The dockers and their wives wouldn’t be here for another hour yet and those layabouts who drew Social Security to keep their booze intake at a steady level were probably at the dogtrack.

  As Joe and Billy entered, the landlord hurriedly sent Mary in search of unwanted spirits. He didn’t want his pub mentioned in the News of the World as the location of a scandalous affair.

  “Two pints,” Joe ordered, watching Mary vanish down-stairs. He still liked the idea of them all ganging her. When they got her he’d have first go... and last too.

  “There’s a dance in Ilford tonight,” Billy said, equally enamoured with Mary’s swinging cheeks as she disappeared from sight.

  “So wot?”

  “So there’s birds an’ Pakistanis galore...”

  Joe tensed. Pakistanis! “Where?”

  “Hymie knows...”

  “An’ where’s Hymie?”

  “Right here, Joe. Make that three pints, guv...” came a sudden voice.

  Joe didn’t turn. He forked out the extra, then asked, “You always creep up on a friend?”

  Hymie laughed. “I was here before you came in.”

  “An’ where’s the dance?”

  “Are we going to be there?”

  “Bloody right!”

  “Abraham – move over. Hymie is coming to fuck a little hot bitch of a Jewish bird!”

  Joe grinned. He liked this Jew-boy. All the stories he had heard about Jews and their continual search for money and Gentile birds meant nothing when it came to Hymie.

  “You know, Joe,” Hymie declared enthusiastically, “I’ve been trying to get this cow to drop her knickers for months. Her old man is a friend of mine and she won’t say yes in case I put a bun in her oven. Moses, how stupid can she be! I always carry five French-letters!”

  He quickly opened his wallet, displaying the Durex. “Anyway the way she rabbits around with that bloody Catholic Mike Kallinan she should be pregnant!”

  “The soldier is nearly dead,” Billy said, still wrapped up in his private worry.

  Hymie chuckled delightedly. “So what?”

  “So the fuzz will be lookin’ for us.”

  “Mate, we weren’t there,” Hymie said. “I’ve got friends in Notting Hill will swear we were attending a party there.”

  “Notting Hill?” Billy cried. “Christ – that’s miles away.”

  “Exactly,” Hymie smiled knowingly. “Relax, Billy – that bastard won’t kick the bucket.”

  “I bleedin’ well hope not!” Billy said seriously.

  Eric Wilson often wondered what made him turn a successful gambling hall into a teenage dance hall. He knew one reason was the way the heavies had moved in and installed their croupiers and gaming machines; he remembered the day that a certain known boxer had calmly walked through the door and announced he and his mate were now partners in the club. Wilson had been unable to combat the mob and reluctantly agreed to sign papers to that effect. His choice had been simple – sign or have the club wrecked.

  Until the new gaming laws had come into force he had been forced to sit back – a manager in name only – and watch the steady downfall of what had begun as an elite establishment. He had seen characters he hated become regulars; seen the standard of play vanish into a crooked table catering to an eighty percent profit for the house; seen old customers tail off until they no longer felt it wise to buck the odds.

  And then, when the new laws were passed, he had been thrown on the scrap-heap of unprofitability. The boxer had moved into fresh ventures not subject to strict control, and he was left with a shambles of a club – unsupported by the locals, avoided by the criminal element, shunned by those who would drink in a friendly atmosphere.

  It was at that stage he decided to interest the teenage element and started the dances. He hired local groups hoping to play enough reggae to appease the aggro boys.

  But now, he operated a veritable powder-keg of teenage violence. Every night, as he opened the doors, he wondered what had been so marvellous about his original idea and why he risked neck and limb for the few pence he made each week. Damages alone cost him a fortune; even his huge Alsatian refused to act as Gestapo regulator after having his beautiful hide burned by cigarettes. A dog is a dog and after being savaged by thirty or forty raging teenage lunatics the Alsatian had decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

  Thursday night was generally quiet. Most of the yobbos got paid on Friday. Most of the skinhead element came to gawk on Saturday. Most of the problems and the police visits were confined to Sunday when nobody else catered for a growing menace.

  Seated at the bar with Bill Thompson, a reporter, Eric felt reasonably secure. A girl in a slash-fronted dress played a fruit-machine; a man with a permanent leer trying to date her sat nursing a large Scotch and offered suggestions as the female levered the machine’s handle.

  “You were a damned fool ever allowing the mob in,” Thompson said.

  Wilson recalled the fateful night when his club was invaded, taken over, and sent in a tailspin plunge to hell.

  “And you’re a worse fool letting these layabouts hold their tribal dances here.”

  Wilson shrugged. “Bill, you’re so smart you tell me how I’m supposed to get my money back from the investment if I don’t cater to the money crowd.”

  “Teenagers?”

  “Yeah, teenagers. They’ve got the dough today.”

  “And what about Mr. and Mrs. wanting a night out? Don’t they rate?”

  “Shit!” Eric exploded vehemently. “They spend a few quid and expect Savoy service. This is Ilford, mate – not Mayfair!”

  The two men sat silent, watching the girl on the fruit-machine go through the antics of a gambling maniac. She wasn’t in the least bit interested in the leering spectator. She had one thought – the urge to hit the jackpot. That it was, legally, limited to pay-out didn’t stop her insatiable desire for a win. It was the gamble that attracted.

  “One of these days...” Thompson said softly.

  “She’s terrible,” Wilson confided. ‘I’ve had it – all pull a handle and no push a coin in her slot.”

  A group of boys suddenly burst through the front door. From his stool, Eric Wilson surveyed their gear and moaned. “Skinheads!”

  Thompson tensed. Even the girl on the fruit-machine hesitated as she sank another sixpence in the slot and held the handle with grim determination.

  “Telephone the police,” Thompson suggested.

  “Why? They haven’t done anything yet...”

  Thompson shrugged. “Not yet.”

  “Bill...”

  “Thank you and goodnight,” the reporter said finishing his drink. Waving to the girl on the machine, waving to the lecherous man seated by her side, waving to Eric, his friend, he left hurriedly.

  At the front door he paused, glanci
ng into the dance hall. He could see the first signs of trouble – skinheads pushing to get the birds they desired onto the dancefloor. He felt sorry for Eric Wilson.

  “Where’s the Jewish bird?” Joe asked, conscious of a mounting desire to find something that somebody else wanted. From what he could see in the club, he didn’t much fancy getting his trousers down.

  Hymie said, “At the fruit-machine, Joe.”

  Let’s have it off, then...”

  Eric Wilson watched as he saw the trouble develop. He knew, instinctively, that Joe and Hymie were only interested in Ruth. And, also, he knew she was only interested in the machine.

  “Hiya, doll,” Hymie said in his best Brooklynese-American. He liked affecting the accent, especially around Jewish birds.

  Ruth ignored him, dropping another tanner into the machine.

  “Look, chick...”

  She jacked the handle then glared at him. “Get lost, you creep!” she snarled.

  “Skip the machine,” he told her warningly. “We’re going to dance.”

  She fixed him with a hot eye. “Like hell we are!”

  The machine clicked through its series, and spat out five coins. Her hand reached for them, but halted as Hymie grabbed her wrist. “Baby doll, we’re dancing and then...” he leered.

  “I don’t enjoy it when they’ve been circumcised,” she said hurtfully.

  “This one you will,” Hymie threatened.

  “I’m not circumcised,” Joe said.

  Ruth glanced at him. “So, wank...”

  Joe lashed out, catching her across the face with an open palm.