Blakey on Tour - Part 27

(An ongoing story. Part one here. Bear in mind it starts as a blog post and doesn't seem like a story. It quickly turns into one...)


'I see,' says Nathan, clocking us with a raised eyebrow. 'Bit of a burgundy theme, is it?'

I looked down at meself: leather suit and tie, slip-on shoes, white socks. I'd only worn this get-up on two other occasions, them being a wedding and a funeral. Of my wife. Both times. 'Fuck you on about?' I says. 'These slip-ons is grey.'

'Aye, but not much else is. I've not seen so much red leather since I had to go in that abattoir the one time. Them places don't agree with me. I can't abide to see beasts suffering, Blakey. And your suit puts us in mind of it.' He got a bag of pork scratchings off the rack and popped a handful, shaking his head.

'That ain't my fuckin' problem,' I says. 'You wanted us here, I'm here. I'm wearing me pillaring suit.'

'I can see that.'

'Eh? Don't you wanna know what pillaring is?'

'I knows what pillaring is.'

'But... oh, aye.' Took us by surprise nigh on every time it did, Nathan's ability to look in a person's mind and see what they're thinking. I pictured a scene whereby Nathan's getting buggered by a billy goat, just to fuck him off.

'Well, I did think I knew what pillaring were,' he says after a few strokes. 'You sayin' it means summat different, now?'

'Erm, no... I were just, erm...'

'And that's what your burgundy suit's for, is it? Creeping up on billy goats and inducing the poor things to mount you?'

'No, I'm just... fuck sake, Nathe, I'm just havin' a laugh.'

'The name's Nathan – that's two syllables, not one. How'd you like it if I called you Royst?'

I felt me hackles rising at that, but I did me best to smooth em down again. He had a point. And besides, it had got his mind off the billy goat thing. Folks like Nathan, it ain't good to fuck em off for too long. He had power, see. And that's why I were here.

'In actual fact, you're here cos I summoned you,' he says, putting a pint before us on the bar-top.

'Aye, there's that, but I also needed a little word. See, there's this friend o' mine who is in jail right now, and... well, she's more a lover than a friend, really. I mean, I ain't shagged her yet, but she's definitely—'

'Friend of his, he says! You're on about that flamin' McCrae dolly bird, ain't you? If you've not had relations with her yet, I'd strongly advise keeping it that way. It don't do to dip yer spoon in strange tea.'

'Fuck you on about?'

'That's your eternal problem, Blake, ennit? Wilful ignorance.'

'I fuckin' swear it ain't wilful, Nathan. Erm... eh?'

'That surgical procedure I just saved you from, back at that doss-house you calls home - reckon that were easy, does you?'

'Course I don't. But if there's one feller who could do it, its—'

'Muggins, aye. And how do you reckon muggins gets things o' that nature done, eh? Reckon I got a magic wand? I ain't, Blake. What I got is knowledge. "There is no precious metal in the world worth more than knowledge" – know who said that, does you?'

'Aye. You.'

'How the hell did you know that?'

'I just heard yer.'

'No, I meant—'

'Look, Nathan, I know there's ins and outs and what have yous, but I don't give a toss about none of that. All I knows is that Kirsty is in a fuckin' tight spot, and it were me put her there. A babby were involved, see, and—'

'Aye, and that infant is alright now. Back with her mam, no flamin' thanks to you. Little Josie, her name is.'

'Nah, this one were called Vectra... and I accidentally, erm...'

I stopped there cos I became aware of the silence that had befell the place, despite there being twenty or so other punters filtered in since I'd arrived. So far as I knowed, this were a record headcount for the Paul Pry. It ain't a popular place, and Nathan ain't ever been inclined to make it so by way of pricing or music or not being such a miserable cunt, stood behind the bar with his massive moustache and his hairy arms, so this turn-out here came as a surprise. Not as much as the silence, though. And what went with it.

I'm on about the staring.

I felt my face getting warm. You would and all if you had forty-seven eyes burning a hole in your face just then, counting the two extras who'd just come in, and Frank Percival who only had one eye at that time. And Old Mr Fillery, who were completely blind. Couldn't see Alvin, mind. For some reason I thought he'd be amongst this lot, and he weren't. 'Fuck you cunts lookin' at?' I says to em.

'Don't offend em, Blake,' says Nathan behind my back. 'This here band of honest citizens don't deserve your abuse. They're your supporters, these are. They've come here tonight on account of you.'

I couldn't face em no more. I'm all for having supporters but I didn't like the looks in their eyes. Even the one or two birds who was there. And one of em were Margaret Hurge anyhow, whose face you could make a decent pair of heavy duty boots out of. I turned around and picked me pint up. 'That's fuckin' rosy and that,' I says to Nathan, taking a big gulp, 'but... pleurgh... fuck's that?'

'It's cola. And try not to spit it out over my bar.'

'Fuckin' coke? You gone barmy or summat?'

'I've a very good reason for it, Blake. It's on account of your work in this town not being done. These lot here knows it and I knows it. Everyone knows it but you. And I'm about to tell you it.'

'Giz summat proper to drink and I'll hark.'

'Not until—'

'Fuck sake,' I yells, nearly smashing the pint of coke on the counter. Actually I did smash it. But I felt I could push things just now. It were a feeling I'd known before, and it were to do with holding all the cards. Wished I knowed what them cards was, mind you.

'King of Spades,' says Nathan, plonking a half pint before us this time. 'That's the service you done for this town, and for which these here good citizens have come down here to thank you.'

I looked over me shoulder. 'I don't see none of em thankin' us.'

'Oh, they are. In their hearts they are. It's because of the King of Spades.'

'The fuck is this King o' Spades bollocks?'

'I'm on about the outsider, Blake. I'm talking about the one who brings chaos to our town. He cometh not from our shores, this one don't. From a faraway soil he did spring forth, and in that land he should have stayed. But him and his ilk looked across the water and did see the land o' milk and honey we got here, and that they did covet. Actually there ain't much honey since Des Mallett's bees all went tail-up. And Clayton Dairy ain't seen a swollen udder since—'

'Yer digressin', Nathan,' shouts Margaret Hurge.

'I'll digress all I likes!' he says.

'Just saying. Time is a factor, here.'

Nathan shook his head and went on. 'Then they came, the outsiders did. On boats they journey'd, on horses and carts and even by foot, bare and stinking and dyed with the hue of that field from whence they did spring. 'Cross sea, over border and through, erm...'

'Cat flap,' I says.

'What?'

'Through the cat flap, ennit? People don't reckon a person can get through em, but I seen it done, I swear. Me and Fin, we robbed loads of—'

'I don't give a polecat's arse gland about you and your tales of thievin'! I'm on about the invaders, Blake. I speak of him who came first, opening the floodgates to every shiftless turk, ay-rab and infidel to follow in his flamin' wake. But it weren't who we thought it were, Blake. We thought it were one, but it were another. You showed us the true fountainhead, the King o' Spades.'

I finished off my half pint. I were quite impressed with how long I'd dragged that one out. 'Nathan,' I says, examining the empty, 'there's two matters I still ain't sure about here. One is why the fuck you just made me drink a half-pint. Two is the fact I quite liked it, drinking lager in a thing that size. Seemed a nice size of container, I gotta say, and I'm surprised at that in a good way. Three is what the fuck is you on about?'

'He's talkin' about immigrants,' shouts Hurge. 'You daft prick.'

I spun and gave her a look. If she weren't a bird, I'd have staved her fuckin' cheekbones in at that moment. Maybe I could do that anyway, I recall thinking. I mean, you ain't meant to touch a bird in anger and that, but how cast-iron can a rule be? Plus I'd be doing women in general a favour, raising their average attractiveness by knocking a bad one out. I started getting off me stool.

Mirroring us exactly, so did a feller towards the back, positioned between Terrence Blandish and John Fairway from the twenty-four-hour garage up the top of Clench Road. I stood and gave him my professional once-over, sizing him up for:

1. drunkenness
2. potential weapons
3. asking for it and
4. previous.

But I couldn't manage that last one, which involved trying to recognise him. A doorman must never forget a face, else he won't know when he's rubbing up against some cunt he banned only a couple of weeks prior, thereby failing to dole out the fixed penalty for trying to skirt around that which is getting knocked out and dumped over the wall behind the car park. I could see them around him as clear as you like, and some of em much clearer than that (Hurge), but not this one. He were like a shadow, though the wall-mounted lights tinged his shaggy hair orange round the edges like he were on fire.

'Shite,' I says.

But quiet, and hardly moving me lips. Maybe not saying it aloud at all.

Cos I knowed it were him, didn't I? Back there at Hurk Wood last night, after I'd gulleyed Jock and found that bonfire that had been put out by piss.

'Blake...' he'd hollered, distant and echoing and yet not to be mistaken. 'I saw what you did, Blake...'

Shite, I says again, defo just in me swede this time. I found that I'd sat back on the stool, and that cunty over there had done same, perching on a high bar stool like I had, judging by the way his head stayed higher than them sat around. Or perhaps he were parked on a table. You weren't allowed to do that.

'Hoy,' I says over me shoulder to Nathan, sliding the half-pint glass to him at the same time, 'him over yonder, the fucker who's like a shadow, he's sat on the fuckin'—'

'That "fucker", as you calls him, is none of the sort,' he says.

'Who the fuck is he, then?'

'He ain't a he, as such.'

'What, he's a she?'

'No, a golem.'

'Oh,' I says, looking at the golem. 'Eh?'


(Come back tomorrow for more...)