Brenda and Audrey ran the last hundred yards down Northgate and arrived at the Palmerston, flushed, wet, and out of breath. ‘I’ll have to go for a pee,’ said Audrey, hopping from leg to leg.
‘You’ve only just been.’
Its the rain, said Audrey, and ran.
‘What’ll you have?’ Brenda shouted after her.
‘Anything. Lager and lime.’
That wouldn’t help much when she was stood out in the rain again. Brenda went into the back room, waved to a group of women in the far corner and stood at the bar, waiting her turn to be served.
The Palmerston was crowded, as it always was by this time of night. Other pubs were livelier, with music and striptease shows; and more comfortable, too, for the Palmerston’s dingy lino and balding plush had been there as long as anybody could remember. But to the women who drank in the back room, the Palmerston was special. It was their pub in a way that the others were not, and what drew them back to it was the personality of its owner: Beattie Miller.
Last Christmas one of the girls had suggested holding a raffle with a bottle of gin for whoever came closest to guessing Beattie’s age. Too hard, everybody said, and it was, too. Her hair was red, incredibly red, and there was make-up on her face an inch thick, cracked and flaking into the lines around her eyes and mouth. She moved with great caution on her thin legs, as though venturing out onto icy ground. In spite of which Brenda wouldn’t’ve put her much past fifty.
‘You looked drowned, love,’ said Beattie, as she handed over the drinks. ‘Is it still as bad?’
‘Awful. And there’s a nasty wind getting up as well.’
The group in the corner parted to make room for her. Elaine was back.
‘How are you, cock?’ Brenda asked.
‘Oh, I’m smashing now, thanks.’
Elaine didn’t look it. There were deep shadows round her eyes. If they were shadows. Brenda bent forward to look more closely and intercepted a warning glance from Jean.
‘Hello!’ said Audrey, coming up behind Brenda. ‘I thought you were gunna pack it in?’
‘Oh, I decided I’d give it a bit longer.’ Elaine brought her upper lip down over her slightly prominent front teeth in a way that was both rabbit-like and touching. ‘Seems a pity to pack it in when I’m still feeling alright.’
The women looked at each other.
‘Wait till you start showing,’ Audrey said. ‘You’ll be raking it in.’
‘Will I?’
‘Why, aye,’ said Jean. ‘There’ll be no trade left for the rest of us.’
‘Oh, well, if I’m gunna be doing you all out of a job, I’d better buy the next round, hadn’t I?’ She smiled and stood up.
‘That’s right,’ said Jean. ‘I’ll have another gin.’
Audrey sat down. ‘Is that mine?’ she asked, picking up a pint glass and turning to Brenda. ‘I meant a half. Cheers, love.’ As she lowered the glass she noticed a pair of sunglasses on Elaine’s side of the table. She shook the raindrops from her sleeve and mimed amazement. ‘Costa del Sol, was it?’
‘No,’ said Jean, crisply. ‘Costa del thump-in-the-eye.’
Audrey stopped smiling. There was a long silence.
‘And there’s no use sitting there like a load of wet week-ends. Elaine’s just got to toughen up, that’s all.’
You couldn’t help wondering what experiences had toughened Jean up. There was a scar at the base of her throat, the worst scar Brenda had ever seen. Oh, she wrapped scarves round her neck to try and hide it, but she had a habit of throwing her head back when she’d finished speaking and then the scar showed. She couldn’t be more than twenty-two or three, but she’d made herself respected and with none of the effing and blinding that some of them went in for. With Jean it was the blow first.
‘You heard from Carol?’ Brenda asked.
‘Not a sausage,’ said Jean. ‘I just can’t understand it. I mean, I know she was getting frightened about this bloke and all, but she’d never’ve gone off without telling me.’
‘Didn’t she say anything?’
‘No. She was always on at me to go to London.’
‘No point,’ said Maureen, a dark, heavy-featured woman with the beginnings of a moustache. ‘If you’re gunna meet one,you’ll meet one anywhere.’
There was a general murmur of agreement.
‘Stick to your regulars,’ said Audrey. ‘That’s your best bet.’
‘That’s what I used to tell Carol,’ said Jean. ‘She said, “He is somebody’s regular.’”
Silence.
‘Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,’ said Brenda, ‘but I could do with that drink.’
‘I’ll see if Elaine needs a hand,’ said Audrey.
‘It’s OK,’ said Jean. ‘She’s got a tray.’
Elaine handed the drinks round and sat down to a chorus of ‘Cheers’ and ‘Thanks, love’.
There was another brief silence.
‘Anyway,’ said Jean. ‘She was right, wasn’t she? You can go with somebody ten, twenty times, then some little thing’ll happen and he’ll flip.’
Elaine had gone very white.
Brenda said, ‘I don’t know what you’re all on about. There hasn’t been a squeak out of him for months. You don’t even know he’s still in this area. Or perhaps he’s just stopped.’
‘I wish I had a fiver for every time I’ve heard that,’ Maureen said.
The others looked at her.
‘I was in Bradford.’ She waited for it to sink in. ‘Oh, there was a lot of girls moved on, but there was a lot more stayed. And they were always on: “He’s given up, he’s topped himself.” (Like bloody hell!) And they were full of ideas. “Stop in the car. Get out of the car. Don’t turn your back. Don’t bend down. Don’t suck.” Load of bloody codswallop. I never did any of it. I did carry a knife for a bit and then I thought, Well, you dozy cow, you’re just handing him the weapon.’
‘I couldn’t ’ve stood it,’ said Audrey. ‘I’d ’ve had to get out.’
‘That’s easier said than done. I had a council flat and two bairns. Where the hell could I go?’
‘But you must’ve been beside yourself!’
‘No. Oh, I suppose once or twice. I remember one night I was stood on the corner and there was this little alley just behind me, and a bloke jumped out. And he says, “I’m the Ripper.” Only of course he didn’t say it like that.’ Maureen waggled her fingers on either side of her face and repeated slowly in a grave-yard voice:’ “I’m the Ripper.” I don’t know what he thought I was gunna do. I just looked at him and says, “Oh, aye?’”
‘What did he do?’
“What do you mean, “What did he do?” What they all do.’
‘You never went with him?’
‘Of course I did. You had to. If you listened to them, every stupid little sod with a few pints inside him was the Ripper.’ She paused. ‘They were the ones that used to get me. They can all say what they like. A bloke what’ll murder thirteen women he’s never clapped eyes on before in his life has gotta be mad. But them. They’d scare the shit out of you and then stand back and have a bloody good laugh.’
This was the longest speech Maureen had made since she had first showed up in the Palmerston a couple of months before. Usually she seemed a morose, rather phlegmatic girl. She didn’t seem to want to talk about anything much. Once she’d shown them a photograph of two little boys on a beach.
There was a long silence after she’d finished. Brenda cleared her throat and tried to think of a way of changing the subject.
Then Jean leaned towards her across the table. ‘You see that bloke sat over there? In the corner. No, don’t let him see you looking.’
Brenda directed a carefully casual glance across the room. ‘Him on his own? Yeah, I’ve got him.’
‘He’s the one. . . .’ Jean’s voice wobbled so much that she had to stop and try again. ‘He’s the one pays her…forty quid a week to piss on him.’
‘It isn’t a week,’ said Maureen. ‘It’s more like three.’
‘It’s the rent,’ said Brenda. ‘Bloody near.’ She turned to Audrey. ‘Where do they find these men?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Audrey. ‘It’s never been my luck.’
‘And look at her,’ said Jean. ‘She has the nerve to sit there supping gin.’
‘And what am I meant to sup?’
‘Beer. Beer! Give the poor sod a run for his money.’
‘She’s mebbe afraid of drowning him,’ said Brenda. ‘Forty quid a time? I know I would be.’
‘He’s a real gentleman,’ said Maureen. ‘He doesn’t say “piss”. He says “wee-wee”.’
Jean, who had just taken a mouthful of gin, released it in a fine spray all over the table.
Maureen looked at her in astonishment. ‘Now what have I said?’
The door opened and Kath Rogerson walked in. She stopped just inside the room, and looked round. There was a moment of complete silence, one of those inexplicable, simultaneous pauses in conversation that come over groups of people in a crowded room. You could hear the wind howling outside. Then a woman laughed and the noise rose up again, higher than before, as if some communal, unconscious decision had been taken to exclude whatever lay outside.
Brenda stood up. ‘I’m gunna go and buy Kath a drink.’
‘All right,’ said Audrey. ‘But go easy. She’s tanked up to the gills already.’
Brenda pushed and jostled her way to the bar.
‘Now then, Kath.’
Kath turned round, a drunk’s turn, moving from the hips to keep her head steady. When she saw Brenda, her face split open into a gummy smile. ‘Now then.’
‘What’ll you have?’
‘A pint of cider.’ She spoke in a hoarse whisper and the sentence ended in a burst of coughing.
‘That doesn’t sound too good.’
‘No. Me chest’s bad.’ Her eyes were on the bottle in Beattie’s hand. ‘You keeping all right? And the bairns?’
‘Oh, I’m all right. Sharon’s not too. . . .’
Brenda stopped. Kath wasn’t ready to listen yet.
The drinks arrived. Kath drank deeply, only coming up for breath when the pint was more than half gone. She wiped the bubbles shakily from her upper lip. ‘Sorry, Brenda, what were you saying?’
‘I was just saying our Sharon isn’t so good.’
‘Aw dear. What’s wrong with her?’
‘Cystitis.’
‘Surely not. Why, how old is she? Eight?’
‘Eleven.’
Kath looked shaken by the passing of so much time. ‘It’s still no age. There was once over I had a real run of it. Couldn’t shift it and at the finish the doctor said that was what was doing me kidneys. It’d all spread up the tubes.’
‘Yeah. That’s what they’re frightened of with her. I had to take her up the hospital to get her X-rayed.’
‘You want to make sure she drinks plenty. That’ll clear it up quicker than anything.’ As if to demonstrate her faith in her own advice, Kath downed the second half of the pint.
‘Will you have another?’
The hesitation was only momentary. ‘Thanks, Brenda. I’d buy you one, only I’m a bit. . . .’
‘It’s all right.’
‘I think I’d better go and make room for it. Here, save me place.’
Beattie Miller, filling Kath’s glass again, raised her eyebrows expressively. She didn’t need to say anything. She and Brenda were probably the only two people in the room who could remember Kath as she had once been.
This time Brenda waited until Kath had taken the first few gulps. ‘How are your bairns, then?’
‘Oh, they seem to be getting on all right. The boys are in Whitley Bay now, you know. They send them up there when they get into their teens. David’s going on fine. They’re on about getting him a job looking after the golf course. I says to him, “Is that what you’d like, son?” He says, “Oh, yes, Mam.” You know what I mean, Brenda? I’ve no worries about them. But it’s our Julie. You know she’s in this foster home. Anyway, I got a bit upset once or twice when I went to see her and they said I hadn’t to go no more. Like, I could still see her, but it had to be in the office. Well, it was awful. You know you’re just sat on this bench together and you can’t talk and there’s this stuck-up cow wandering in and out with her ears flapping, and everybody looks at you as if you’re muck. Anyway, at the finish, I give ’em a right mouthful. I says, “What do all yous know about bringing up kids? You’ve never bloody had any!” And do you know when they come and tried to get her off me she clung on, she didn’t want to go.’
Kath lapsed into silence. Brenda continued to sit beside her, not even trying to speak. It was like sitting by the bedside of a very old woman, so old that memory and mental faculties have all decayed, and even the personality is gone, and yet you go on sitting there for the sake of what they once were, and what they meant to you. And yet Kath wasn’t old. What would she be? Thirty-three? Thirty-four?
‘Well, Kath, I’m afraid I’ll have to love and leave you. Here, buy yourself another.’ Brenda pushed a pound note into Kath’s hand.
Kath looked up and smiled and just for a second you could see the woman she’d once been. ‘Oh, are you going, love?’ she said. ‘Well, so long.’
‘So long, Kath. Take care of yourself.’
‘I don’t know what you want to buy her more for,’ said Audrey. ‘She’d had more than enough.’
‘She’s got nowt else.’
They were in the corridor between the bars, putting their coats on.
‘Jean was knocking it back a bit, wasn’t she?’ Andrey said.
‘She can afford to.’
‘Oh, I know, and doesn’t it make you sick? I’ve seen bigger tits on a fella.’
‘Ah, but she’s got what it takes.’
‘I know she’s got it, dear. I’m just trying to work out what it is.’
‘Well, don’t ask me. If I knew I’d be charging double.’ Brenda’d got her coat collar well turned up. ‘Do you know I’ve seen the time I’d ‘ve gone out in that with nothing on me chest? “Show ’em what they’re getting!”‘ She threw her arms wide. ‘It’s as much as I can do now to wash the Vick off.’
Audrey opened the door. The wind blew in, lifting a corner of the thin carpet and sending an empty cigarette box skittering across the floor. ‘You’ll wish you’d kept it on tonight. My God!’
It was a struggle to close the door after them, but they managed it at last, and then, heads held sideways to save their breath from the wind, they began to walk towards the viaduct.
Brenda had been standing in the doorway for about twenty minutes when the car drew up. She bent down expecting to see a strange face, but it was only George.
‘Got rid of your other car, then?’
‘No. It’s gone in for a service. The garage give us a lend of this’n.’ He was pulling on the gear stick. ‘I haven’t got the hang of it yet.’
Poor old George, his car was his God – and he was a lousy driver. ‘God knows what it’ll cost this time.’
He sounded really down. Brenda sighed: down meant down in every sense.
‘Walker’s yard, all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Long as you don’t mind dropping me back.’
He didn’t answer. He seemed to be in a funny mood tonight. Normally he was quite chatty. Perhaps he was worrying about the bill for his car. Anyway, all he ever talked about was the coloured people in his street and how much noise they made and how, if it hadn’t’ve been for them, his wife’d still be alive.
She could feel him looking at her. She turned and smiled a quick, stiff little smile, but he only looked away.
Oh well, sod him. She peered out of the window, trying to work out where they were. Normally they just went and parked in one of the boarded-up streets near the river. Perhaps he wanted to go to Walker’s yard because he wanted to get out of the car. In this weather. Take her all her time to find it.
The silence was starting to get on her nerves.
‘Had a bad week?’
‘Yes.’
She turned to look at him, but there was only the faint, orange glow from the street lights.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They were having a party till three o’clock. They wouldn’t have the energy for owt like that if they had to get up and go to work, but they don’t, of course. It’s only mugs like me work.’
It was on the tip of Brenda’s tongue to point out that anybody with a job was lucky, but she didn’t. She didn’t know what his job was. And, anyway, it paid to agree with them.
They slowed down to turn the corner into Walker’s yard, but hit the kerb anyway. At least his driving hadn’t changed.
‘I’d forgotten it gets like this,’ he said.
‘It’s dry over there, if you want to get out.’
‘No, it’s OK. We’ll stop in the car.’
He did want to get out, she could feel it, but she was blowed if she was going to argue with him this weather. She was only just starting to thaw out.
She opened her bag and waited. He took the hint at once and handed over, without a word having to be said. There was never any trouble that way. Only trouble was bringing the bugger off. . . .
‘I’m afraid he’s not quite ready,’ he said, tensing his thighs.
An understatement. Brenda got to work on his cock, but it was no use. After a while she looked up.
‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked.
‘No. No.’ He pushed her head down again. ‘Don’t stop.’
She tried everything she knew: stroked, rolled, pulled, licked, nibbled, nuzzled, guzzled, flicked, swirled, kissed, sucked, hoovered it in, popped it out. . . .
Finally he had the beginnings of an erection.
Then, just as she thought they were really getting somewhere, the tension in his thigh and stomach muscles relaxed. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I can’t come with me knees bent.’
Brenda stifled a sigh.
‘I think we’d be better in the back of the car,’ he said. ‘There’s a bit more room.’
He’d never suggested that before. Brenda turned to look. There was more room. There were also child-proof locks on the doors.
‘There’s not a lot more room,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t we be better getting out of the car?’
Where at least I can run.
He took his time getting out, and even then stood for a while looking all round the yard and up at the windows on the right-hand side. Factory windows. Blank.
‘You seem a little bit jumpy tonight,’ she said, keeping her voice steady.
‘Do I?’
They picked their way between the puddles to a patch of dry ground by the far wall.
‘Look, it’s dry here,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid he’s not quite ready,’ said George.
His voice and his hands were shaking.
Brenda knelt, though the skin at the back of her neck crawled. Don’t be so bloody stupid, she told herself. It’s George. She unzipped his trousers and got another cloud of talcum powder up her nose. Waste of a rubber putting one on George: you’d more like get silicosis than VD.
All he ever really wanted was mouth. She knew – though he’d never say – that he actively disliked cunt. But then he wasn’t alone in that. It was surprising how many of them did.
Progress? Could be. She went on sucking – but then his hands came down, gripping the top of her head and forcing her mouth down over his cock until she gagged. She fought to get her head free.
‘I’m sorry I’m taking so long. ‘And it was only George, blinking down at her.
‘I think we’re making progress,’ said Brenda, and got back on the job quick, before any of it could be lost.
A few minutes later, he came, a weak trickle that hardly seemed to justify the groans coming from his open mouth.
Brenda stood up, brushing bits of gravel from her knees, and thinking, Christ, there’ve gotta be easier ways of earning a living than this.
He was still breathless. She waited for him and they walked back to the car together.
He was quite chatty on the way back. Grateful. He didn’t mention the moment when he’d rammed his cock down her throat and half-choked her, but then she didn’t expect him to. Men were funny.
‘Back to the viaduct?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Back to the viaduct. That’ll do fine.’
This is an extract from Pat Barker’s second novel, Blow Your House Down.
Image © George Oates
