GUEST BLOGGER: Royston Blake - "Blakey on tour Part 5"

(A serialised story. Part one here)

'Look, Blakey,' Alvin were saying, eyes looking every direction but Blakewards, 'I don't want you to take this the wrong way, right? I mean, I reckon it's a common mistake.'

The main problem with having a shunt on the Wall Road is that it is a busy road, and if it's daytime, like this were, you're in for a traffic jam. As in fifty-odd motors nosing the arse of your hearse, which has got a vampire in it.

'Fuck you on about?' I says, trying to stare out fifty irate drivers.

'I'm just sayin'... well, I reckon you got a slight gap in your, erm...'

'Alv, spit him out or you'll be feeling the back of my hand. Plus the front and sides of it. And the front of my head.'

'Alright, well, can I just ask you a simple question? Without you taking offense to it, I mean.'

'When have I ever took offense to summat? I'm a fuckin' head doorman, fuck sake. High-ranking security staff, it is vital that we look at things subjectively.'

'What, in your opinion, is an 'earse for?'

'Eh?'

'A hearse, Blakey. Type of vehicle you've crashed here, what is it used for? Bread vans is for carrying bread, post vans is for carrying letters and that... what's a hearse for?'

Fuck knows why he'd been fretting over me hitting him. I were more worried about him than lairy at him. I mean, were he going senile or summat?

'Alv,' I says, all gentle and like I were talking to a small youngun, one who can't tie his own laces yet and has got snot running out of both nostrils, the dirty fucking bastard, 'Alv, hearses are taxis. They're just posh taxis with a bit o' space in the back, for posh folks, like. There's no great mystery, my little friend.' I reached out to ruffle his hair. He tried to flinch away but I grabbed an ear and reeled him in, then did the ruffling. 'You dozy fuckin' twat,' I says all affectionate.

'Alright,' he says when I let him go, 'so, the place you got this hearse from, what do they do there, in your opinion?'

'Posh taxi firm, ennit?' I says, shrugging.

I were more interested in them backed-up motors, realising that they made things a bit difficult here. If it were dark it would be alright, but it were blazing fucking midday sun, give or take a couple of hours, and it were like I were under the spotlight and they was my audience. A fucking pissed-off audience, going by some of their faces. I stepped towards them, watching fifty drivers shrink back in horror. Fucking chickens, the lot.

'It's a funeral parlour, Blakey,' says Alvin, his voice getting fainter and somehow more distant. 'And hearses is like taxis in a way, but for deadfolk. For ferrying em to funerals and that.'

Taxis for deadfolk? Things was worse than I'd thought, regarding Alvin and his swede problems. If I'd had a moment to think on it I'd have said he'd been swigging petrol. I'd seen a few go down that route over the years and Alvin were exhibiting all the signs. It's a fucking mug's game, petrol is, and you'll end up penniless and in the gutter. Save your money and get some creosote instead - it's way fucking cheaper. But like I suggested, I had other matters going on. Like fifty motors turning into seventy.

'This ain't so good,' I says, rubbing me chin. 'I'll be honest with you, Alv, and tell you that I dunno what the fuck to do next. So if you got any suggestions, short of just pegging it, I'm all ears.'

I thought about that a moment. 'Actually, shall we just...? Alv? Alv, where the...?' I peered up the other way, clocking his white kebab man coat flapping around his legs as he hared round the bend up there into Clench Road.

Haring up and down Clench Road - another classic sign of petrol-induced dementia.

Right about then, as these advanced trains of thought was tearing around my swede like Orient Expresses bombing full tilt towards Orient (which is in Wales, I think) Jabba the Hutt were prizing himself out the crumpled rear of his van. Meaning Jock the burger man.

I went to catch him as he gained his footage and let go the van door. That's the former doorman in me coming into play, the highly refined reflexes that can spot a paralytic drunk at fifty yard and step in just before he keels over and slams skull on dancefloor, then drag him out and kick him into the gutter, angling him so he lands facewise and gets a bit of gravel rash to take the edge off his hangover. But Jock weren't like that. He like as not were drunk, stinking of Bells like he done, but when I grabbed his arm he seemed more steady even than the Igor Statue, which stands proud to one end of the High Street, representing all the values summed up by some local cunt from olden times named Igor. 'Get yis fuckin' paw oaf us,' he says.

For fuck sake, I thought. Is it gonna be like this now? Cos I didn't have an interpreter no more, did I?

'Look,' I says, 'I ain't got the first fucking bit of a clue what yer sayin', Jock.' Cos you cannot beat around the bush with these people. 'Can you talk more slower, like? And with more English words in it?'

In response he did summat with his arm, shaking it free of my grip and sending us backwards a bit. But not so far like it were pushing me. I mean, fucking come on - we're talking about Royston Blake here, versus a fat Scottish cunt who came about up to my armpit... and who were climbing into my hearse just then. I got up and went over, brushing the dust off my arse.

'I want you to understand summat, Jock,' I says, leaning in. He were in the driver seat, fucking around with my cruise control buttons. I think that's what they was anyhow. 'First off, I am the hardest pound for pound former doorman in Mangel, which means you do not fucking do summat with yer arm that makes us fall over. Not in front of eighty-odd folk, like we got here, and not even in front of no folk. Second off, stop fucking around with the controls and get out my fuckin'--'

'Thus is a fuckin' raight-oaf,' he says.

I thought about that, watching him toy with the key in the ignition. 'I gotta say, Jock, that is a fucking odd thing to say. The controls of my hearse are right oafs? Eh?'

'Ye wee fuckin'... I should leave youse to yis ain devices, is what ah shid dae. But ahm a compassionate man, Royston. Ah'll tell youse the truth here - when I look at youse, I dinnae see the typical breed o' cunt yis see aroond here. Yis is a cunt, true enough, but no through yis ain doing. Yis is a product of yis environment, is what yis is.'

'The fuck is this "yis" bollocks?' I says. Cos it seemed to be an important word in his language.

I started wondering if he weren't getting at summat deep, and that I'd be missing a trick here if I didn't start getting his drift. Lot of them foreigners can be quite spiritual, after all. Like Demis Roussos.

'Do you mean like ying and yang?' Cos I'd read about that once. It means where you get two things that look like sperms, one black and one white, one upside-down and the other the right way up. If that ain't deep, fuck knows what is. 'Are you trying to say yis and yang, Jock? Like a version of ying and yang but slightly different, with one of the sperms having a longer tail, perhaps?'

'Do youse even realise the problem yis have got here?' he says, totally ignoring what I'd just said. 'Hem in the coafin back there, do yis ken who that is?'

I were starting to understand him a bit better now. Yis meant "you", for example. It's amazing how good I were with languages. Put us in front of a fucking Chinaman and I'll have him worked out in half an hour. Mind you, it's much harder with your Scotchmen.

'Look,' I says, 'if yer gonna give us the spiel about funerals and shite, I've just heard it, mate. Here, have you and Alv been supping petrol in the back of that--?'

'Shut yer stupid face a minute, will yis?' he says, reaching into his anorak and rummaging amongst the folds of flesh he had in there. Couple of seconds and he pulls out some sort of stick. One end were sharpened and looked quite dangerous, actually. 'Him in that coafin, he's a fuckin' vampire.'


(Come back on Tuesday for the next bit...)