The Year Of The Ladybird Part 4

Nikki saved me from having to think of a smart answer. 'He done brilliant.'

Tony smiled. 'Well, you must be good because Nikki hands out compliments like a Yorks.h.i.+reman parts with his money. But don't let it go to your head because she's impervious to all offers.' Nikki was about to object but Tony threw his arms wide and burst into song, some old music hall thing about waiting forever for the girl of your dreams. He got a ripple of applause for it.

Nikki looked like she'd heard it all before too many times. She drained her coffee and picked up her clipboard. 'Okay I'll see you lovely boys later this afternoon.'

Tony watched her go. 'Pretty girl isn't she, that Nikki?'

'I'll say.'

'You will say. If she could just relax and whiten up a bit she'd be the perfect woman.' I wasn't sure if he'd said 'whiten' or 'lighten'. Tony ordered a coffee and another for me from a pa.s.sing waitress. 'Mind you, I can't blame her.'

'Why do you say that?'

'You know something, David? The boys and girls here have taken to you.'

I felt my cheeks flame.

'They like your easy way with things,' he went on. He was over-focused on me, not breaking eye contact for a second and I felt uncomfortable. 'They like your style. You're also smart and they like that.'

'But Nikki is smart, and so are some of the others.'

'Some,' he said. He gave me a huge smile. I noticed again that an element of the near-orange suntan was actually residual stage make-up. 'You represent what the smart ones aspire to. College and all that. But there's no side on you. They expect you to be stuck up but you're not and they like that.'

Partly to deflect Tony's embarra.s.sing focus on me, I launched into a notion that I had about ordinary people who didn't get a chance to go to college. I said that I met lots of folk who should get the chance but never did; and that at college I had met a lot of posh types who didn't deserve the chance at all; and that the awful British cla.s.s system was at the root of a lot of injustice in our society. While I banged on Tony stared at me with s.h.i.+ning eyes, as if no one had ever said this before, even though he must have heard it a million times.

He waited until I finished and looked at me seriously. 'You see, David, the people in this country don't know what's coming. There's a recession deepening and things are going to get ugly. But they don't see it. They're like the drunk who doesn't want to leave a party. Well, it's time they sobered up and realised that we've had the party and it's time to pay the cabbie and go home.'

I didn't know which cabbie he meant, exactly, but I nodded anyway. 'What we want,' he continued, 'is more ordinary boys like you going to college. This is the future. Not a gang of toffs quaffing champagne from a lady's slipper while they formulate government policy.' He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. 'They're rearranging the deckchairs on the t.i.tanic, you understand that, don't you, son?'

I said I did.

'I knew you were a good 'un as soon as I clapped eyes on you. You can tell. Only you have to be careful who you're talking to. They don't want to talk politics, most of this lot. They'd rather suck on the t.i.tty and leave it all to others. I knew you were different.' He got to his feet and picked up our empty coffee cups, even though there was a waitress to collect them. 'I'll pay for these.' He went over to the counter and made a joke with the girl working the till. I didn't see any money change hands.

When he came back he said, 'You're not doing anything tomorrow, are you?'

The next day was Sat.u.r.day, changeover day. It was my day off and I had no one with whom to spend it. I shrugged.

'There's some interesting people we want you to meet.'

'We?'

'Midday, outside the main gates. We'll pick you up in the car.'

'To do what?'

'Midday. Tomorrow.' Then he turned and walked away from me, breaking into some old crooning song. There was a very old white-haired lady at a table near the door. He dropped into a crouch, grasped her hand and gazed soulfully into her eyes as he sang. Then he released her and was gone.

The Friday farewell show came and went. It was led expertly by Abdul-Shazam in his red fez. He was good. He had the audience feeding from his hand. He expertly set up his gags (jokes were called gags by s...o...b..z people) with terrific timing. He improvised around the names of the prize-winners and nothing fell flat. I got to help with some of his magic act, around which the prize-giving was structured. It was exciting to see the simple mechanisms at large, the false bottoms, the fake linings of the magic act. Rather than stealing away the enchantment, this insight only made it more fascinating. With light and shadow everything worked. Kids and adults alike were drawn up on stage and induced to stick their hand in a velvet bag or under a steel blade. Their trust was uncanny. They abdicated all responsibility. They let the authority of the stage take over them.

The power wielded under the arc lamps by Tony-Abdul-Shazam was a little bit disturbing. Only I and his other stage a.s.sistants were close enough to see the perspiration that went into his act. Everyone who came on stage was given a baton of candy rock they could carry away with them, a multi-coloured magic wand. Yes, when they got back to their seats it would be nothing more than a stick of sugar in a cellophane wrapper, but by then it was someone else's turn to be up on stage, blinking, dazzled by the limelight.

The farewell show was eventually followed by the Friday Revue and I noticed that Luca's att.i.tude had changed. He breezed in before the show and he was polite, he greeted everyone; but he was professional and distant, flinty even. Then he shut himself in his changing room. As soon as the last dancer had high kicked the finale into touch and the show was done he bid a cheery buona notte and was out and off the premises sharpish. He showed no more interest in staying behind for a drink. I was disappointed. I was a young man looking to learn about the world and I wanted to hear more of his wisdom. He was an artist: not like Pica.s.so, but still a true artist, living by his talent. His path was different to that of other men, and I was disposed to learn something from him. Colin had put a stop to all of that with a single burst of hair-trigger violence and brutality.

When the curtain went down on the Revue I was scheduled to work the evening cash bingo session, and after that I was free. I had a couple of beers in the giant s...o...b..at Bar, so called for reasons I never did discover. I laughed and joked with a couple of the scary kitchen girls, but after my conversation with Nikki I had started watched the working staff, too. I saw one of the barmen under challenge from a holidaymaker who claimed to have been short-changed. I wondered how often that happened.

I'd completed my first week. I crashed into my bed and for the first time since I'd arrived I slept soundly.

5.

The way forward will require the dismantling of all state apparatus I'd been wearing whites and a candy-striped blazer for a week solid and it was good to get back into civilian gear, which in my case was a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans and a white T-s.h.i.+rt. I rose early to have a lardy breakfast in the canteen and as I crossed the camp all I could see were suitcases lined up outside the wooden chalets as cleaners tried to get in and campers and their families tried to get out. It was the ritual of the Sat.u.r.day changeover.

The only thing I could do to find a little breathing s.p.a.ce was to go for a walk on the beach. With everyone occupied in the changeover the beach was deserted. It was going to be another hot day. A tunnel gave access from the camp to the beach wall and when I got down to the water I took off my sandals and carried them between my fingers, feeling the warm sand and s.h.i.+ngle between my toes.

I still didn't like it. I'd heard all those people talk about how they loved to walk barefoot on the beach. The fact is it gave me the creeps; or even worse, it triggered a mysterious anxiety. I brushed the sand off my feet and put my sandals back on, and then I wiped my hands on my denims. I moved back up the beach so that I could walk on the rea.s.suring pebbles.

I started walking north, towards Ingoldmells. The sand settles out in banks at angles to the sh.o.r.e and when you get past the housing and developments there are impressive dunes. I'd read that the Vikings found natural harbours behind these now-dry dunes and I thought I might take a look. Way up the beach I saw two figures sitting, huddled together on a railway sleeper that had been deposited on the beach by a high tide. The sun at my left hand was a bright yellow blister over the water and the bright sunlight sparkled electric blue on one of the figures.

It was the man in the blue suit I'd seen on the day of the sandcastle compet.i.tion. He was hugging a child presumably the boy I'd seen. Maybe the blue suit was made of some synthetic material because its threads caught the sun's rays and darted light. He had a rope coiled over his shoulder.

But then the sun darkened and I felt dizzy. My breath came short. I head a groan from way off way out to sea and I felt an unaccountable panic, triggered by something very old s.h.i.+fting deep inside me. I looked up. The man and the boy had turned to look at me, perhaps because I was acting oddly. But their faces were in shadow. It made no sense. They were turned full on to the sun, but their faces were grey and flat and smooth like beach pebbles, almost in silhouette. Even though their faces were indistinct, they peered back at me with suspicion, as if I somehow meant to harm them. I felt a wave of revulsion. My teeth chattered.

The sun appeared to come out again, and I had to blink, because I wasn't looking at a man and a boy at all. All I could see was the railway sleeper they'd sat on. I'd somehow hallucinated them in the morning light. I recovered and paced up the beach to the sea-blasted railway sleeper. It was festooned with the usual debris of the beach: a bit of rope, a plastic bottle, some dried bladderwrack, an old coat hugging the sleeper. But of the man and the boy there was no sign.

I cast around, still looking for them. The empty beach was now a hostile, echoing place. A sudden stench came off the water and turned my guts. I told myself what I'd seen was all a trick of the light. But I didn't believe that. Not for one second.

I recovered and moved on. I glanced back a few times to see if I could see anything until finally I had to challenge myself not to keep looking back over my shoulder. Now I didn't feel at all like going to explore the lonely dunes. Instead I walked on for about two miles. There was a very faint breeze coming off the water, and the bad odour went away. I'd been holding my breath against it. Instead, salt air and the mild electrical charge of the gentle waves was something I could inhale again. I walked on, starting to feel better, with the sun rising steadily over the water.

At midday I stood outside the main gates of the camp, waiting for Tony. I knew he drove a smart Wolseley saloon. Instead a two-tone Hillman Minx pulled up, with a cheerful pip on the horn that was clearly directed at me. I noticed two figures in the back but I couldn't see the driver. The pa.s.senger door opened.

I was astonished to see Colin behind the wheel. He was wearing a dark suit and a blue tie. I hesitated.

He leaned across the seat. He tilted his head sideways and closed one eye. 'Get in, son.'

I climbed into the pa.s.senger seat. Colin set off without a word and when I turned to check out the pa.s.sengers in the back I recognised a lad from the kitchen. I didn't know his name. He had buck-teeth shaping his mouth into a permanent sneer. The other pa.s.senger I didn't know at all. He had his head back on the seat upholstery and, with his eyes closed and his mouth open, appeared to be dozing.

Pretty soon we were heading away from the coast into the flat, open countryside of Lincolns.h.i.+re. I didn't want to stare at Colin, but he looked very different in a suit and tie. I wouldn't say he looked neat: he was one of those men for whom even a close shave can never quite get rid of a blue shadow. He caught me looking.

'Nice car,' I said, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.

'That's cos it's British,' the lad from the kitchen said.

'Where are we going anyway?' I said.

'Fifteen minutes, twenty at tops,' Colin said. 'Most traffic west will be goin' another route.' It wasn't an answer to my question but I gathered that it was the only answer I was going to get.

Colin had scrubbed up and I could smell something like carbolic soap on him. That and a metalwork smell. He switched on the car radio. A local news reporter was banging on about the unusual drought conditions. A hosepipe ban had been introduced and several gra.s.s fires and woodland fires had scorched areas of land in Southern England. Colin cursed the government, as if they had engineered the drought conditions to blight the country.

'It's the mad scientists,' said the boy in the back with bad teeth, 'puttin' ice seeds in the clouds.'

'Oh f.u.c.k off with that,' Colin said, and he snapped off the radio.

After he'd put another few miles on the clock, without taking his eyes off the road Colin said, 'Where from?'

It took me a couple of seconds to realise he was asking me a question. I hardly finished answering him before he asked me another question.

'What's yer Dad do?'

I told him about Ken's building business.

He sniffed noisily. 'Movver work?'

'No.'

He had an odd style of driving, tucking his chin into his chest and looking up from under his brow. It reminded me of a boxer's defensive stance. We drove through the Lincolns.h.i.+re countryside with all the windows of the Minx wound down. The land was dusty and parched and we occasionally pa.s.sed roadside signs: Danger You Are Entering A Drought Area Conserve Water. But somehow it didn't concern me and I had faith that every natural order would soon be restored.

Eventually we drew up at a pub with a thatched roof. It was called The Fighting c.o.c.ks and it had a lovely beer garden with a tall slide and a play area for children. Though there was no breath of wind to move the flag, a smart Union Jack hung from a freshly painted white pole. A number of cars were drawn up in the car park but Colin stopped at the entrance.

'Out,' said Colin. 'See you inside.' I made to open the door but Colin put his leathery hand on my arm. 'Not you.'

The other two lads got out as directed and hurried into the pub. I noticed that they were both wearing highly-polished Doc Marten lace-up boots. Even though it was ridiculous footwear in this heat it made me feel exposed in my open-toed sandals. My stomach fluttered. Colin eased into the car park at the back of the pub where a steward beckoned him into a reserved s.p.a.ce. Two tall and rather impressive men in dark suits were leaning next to a highly polished Bentley. They were exchanging a few words and both were smoking cigars.

We got out of the car and Colin walked over to the smoking men. I a.s.sumed I should follow. Colin shook hands with each of them in turn. If they noticed me loitering in the background they didn't show it.

One of the men, completely bald and with a very thick neck, said, 'Mills has cried off.'

'Oh the c.u.n.t,' Colin said.

'About two hours ago, what do you think of that?' said the second man. Unlike his colleague he had a thick head of black hair, swept back and fixed with Brylcreem.

'That's what happens,' the thick-necked man said, 'when you give people like that the opportunity.'

Colin rolled his neck as if to relieve some muscle stress. 'Tony here?'

'He's in the pub,' the second man said. 'But he says he don't want to do it.'

'He'll do it,' Colin said. 'He'll warm 'em up til Carter gets here. No worries.'

At last the bald man acknowledged my dithering presence. 'Who's this then?'

'This is David,' Colin said, 'Student. Just here to take a look at us.'

The man held out his hand and gave me a warm handshake. 'Good to have you here, David. I'm Norman Prosser and you are very welcome amongst us. Student, are you? Well, good for you, lad. We need more students. You see, we need to get amongst the students and explain properly what we are about.' He took a step back and looked me up and down. 'If Colin spotted you, you must be all right. You look smart, handsome and you look the part.'

What part I was supposed to look in my T-s.h.i.+rt and sandals I had no idea. But then the second man with the oiled hair stepped forward and gave me a very firm handshake too hard and told me his name. 'John Talbot.' Though he didn't say any more, he looked hard into my eyes as if to prove some kind of a point.

We went into the pub and, as I blinked into the darkness of the bar after the brilliant light outside, I felt Norman Prosser's hand in the small of my back gently steering me. 'Now let's buy you a drink, young man. What will it be? A fine single malt or a pint of ale?' He spoke like he'd already adopted me. 'And you just remember the name Norman Prosser and you come to me for anything, you understand? Any problem, however big or small, come to me. Because once you're in our circle we look after each other.'

Colin, crowding me on the other side, winked at me. I had no idea what the wink meant. It did nothing to put me at ease.

'Can I be honest with you, David, can I? Do you want a cigar by the way?'

'Thanks, I don't smoke.'

I was given a pint of bitter and a gla.s.s of malt whisky, even though I hadn't asked for the latter.

'The truth is we don't get as many students as we'd like. This is because we get a very bad press. Those newspaper people, they hate the working cla.s.ses and they want to keep them down. So they misrepresent us over and over. But we do want to get amongst the students, so I'd like to get your views. But not now because I'm going through.' Prosser nodded to his left and gathered up his own beer and whisky. His cigar he left smoking in the ashtray on the bar.

I glanced around. The pub wasn't busy. A few elderly couples were enjoying a lunchtime drink and chicken-in-wicker-basket type meals; a pair of young lovers holding hands and flirting, oblivious to the world. I couldn't see anything distinctive about the place.

'Bring those,' Colin said, 'we're in the pavilion at the back.'

I picked up my drinks and he led me through an echoing corridor that ran behind the bar. We pa.s.sed into a large concert-type room illuminated by harsh electric strip lighting and there it was immediately apparent as to where I'd been brought. Though I think I'd already guessed; I just hadn't wanted to be right. Because Tony had been the source of the original invitation, part of me still clung to some preposterous idea that I'd been brought to an exclusive entertainment-business elite; perhaps a meeting of the Magic Circle; or even an afternoon strip-club.

Well, there were no strippers on show. The entire room was decked in the flags of the British union: the same flag that looked so cheerful and harmless and rea.s.suring hanging from a painted pole outside the pub. Every inch of wall s.p.a.ce was draped with the red, white and blue. At one end of the room was a platform with tables and a microphone at the ready. These tables were draped instead with the white background and red cross of the flag of St George. The wall immediately behind the platform was also decorated with the flag of St George.

About sixty or seventy plastic chairs were drawn up in neat rows before the platform and most of these were already occupied, mainly by middle-aged males, many of whom wore a collar and tie on this hottest of days, but there was a fair scattering of women there too. In some of the seats but also patrolling the room were a number of young skinheads in bomber jackets and high-laced Doc Marten boots. They had a paramilitary swagger. It was obvious that they regarded themselves as foot-soldiers, or as some kind of unofficial security force.

Some years earlier, when I was thirteen, I walked home from a youth club happy at having got my first kiss from a girl. I had to pa.s.s by a chip shop and a group of skinheads in Docs and braces were laughing and joking outside. For no apparent reason they attacked me maybe I made the mistake of making eye contact with one. There were five of them. Kicked to the ground, I cradled my head in my arms as I felt the boots going in all over my body. I was rescued by an elderly lady who told them they should be ashamed. I got to my feet and limped home. I managed to hide my bruises from my parents, but from that day I always treated any skinhead in the same way you would regard a rabid dog.

One of these skinheads immediately approached me, peddling some publication pitched between a magazine and a newspaper. It was called Spearhead. I became aware of a lot of eyes on me. My clothes were all wrong. The long hair, the open-toed sandals. Whatever the 'other side' might be I was pretty sure I resembled it. Some self-preservation instinct kicked in and I found myself digging in my pocket for a few coins. The skinhead became friendly and let me know that someone was going around with a great pamphlet about how we should support Welsh nationalists' campaign of burning holiday homes. I said I'd look out for it and he gave me a wink. Colin had disappeared and something was about to start so I quickly took a seat.

Of course I was furious with myself for being so naive. If someone suggests you follow them your initial question should be: where to? You don't just go along with the first person who charms you into following them. Or do you? I think that's what I'd done pretty much all my life. I still think that it's what most people do, whether we are talking about social activities, or about politics, or about falling in love.

After a short delay in proceedings, the two men whose hands I had just shaken in the car park took their places on the platform. I noticed one chair remained empty. Then a familiar figure leapt onto the stage.

It was Tony from the holiday camp. Just like Colin, he'd found a suit and tie for the event. He blew into a microphone to check it was working and then launched into a relaxed welcoming speech, saying how good it was to see so many old friends and so many new faces, too. He came down from the stage and strolled about the place, smiling, winking and shaking hands with one or two people on the front row without breaking his patter. Then he effortlessly segued into a few Paki jokes.

They were new jokes and he was very funny. He easily drew laughs from the audience and I found it impossible not to laugh with them. A very edgy joke about the Jews followed and that went down very well, too. At some point a third man arrived and without fuss took his place on the platform. I a.s.sumed this to be the man they'd referred to as Carter.

Tony threw in another Paki gag about an Indian family eating dog-food and while the audience were howling he handed the microphone back to Norman Prosser. Prosser got to his feet and thanked Tony not only for his 'wonderful humour' but also for his lifelong commitment and dedication to the serious business for which we were all a.s.sembled. And, he pointed out, while we can all laugh, and that it's good to laugh, the things that were happening to the country were no laughing matter. The Reds and the Jews and the Immigrants were hand in glove and on this phrase he paused and looked searchingly round the audience hand in glove, presiding over the demise of a once great nation and the government were like the Emperor Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. Well that's all coming to an end, he said, the party was growing and change was coming. There was evidence of all sorts of new people coming forward, workers, school teachers, people from industry and students. In this latter category I knew with absolute certainty that I was his evidence. I even felt a few eyes flicker in my direction. Prosser went on to say that we were fortunate today in being able to welcome Harold Carter to the meeting who will outline for us the Way Forward.

Prosser handed Carter the microphone and Carter got to his feet, taking some early applause from the floor. He was a tall, slightly stooped man with thinning sandy-coloured hair. In a cut-gla.s.s accent he told us that the people of the country were awakening. Evidence of this was to be seen in the numbers of votes the party had received in the last election and the number of deposits that were not lost in that election. Furthermore, he told us, members.h.i.+ps of the party had increased by several thousand in the last two years alone. Awakening, he said ominously. The people are awakening and beginning to arise.

This last bit of rhetoric not only got enormous applause but it got a standing ovation. It also pulled me to my feet. Not because I thought that what he was saying was either brilliant or even convincing but my sense of self-preservation was working overtime. Perhaps I'm a coward. It's possible. But I'm not stupid. This wasn't a rational position to be in. To have resisted the mob in this context would have been like standing in front a herd of stampeding cattle. As I joined in the hand-clapping, as lightly as I could, I noticed the way that Carter, lapping up the applause, darted his tongue rapidly between his lips, or shoved his tongue into his cheek to bubble out the side of his face. It was a tic I observed in him every time he paused in his oratory to take the applause from the floor.

The Way Forward was very clear. Immigrants who were stealing our jobs would be repatriated. They would be deported. Incentives would be found to encourage them to leave the country and if that was not acceptable then secure methods would be found to make the deportation happen. When that was done legislation would be pa.s.sed to disengage the Jewish monopoly of the financial inst.i.tutions. After that the Reds would be systematically exposed and their stranglehold on all public national and local apparatus of the state would be broken.

I give you only a summary of the Way Forward, but this speech went on for an hour, punctuated by regular outbreaks of wild applause. The audience got to its feet on numerous occasions, and I of course with it, even though nothing I heard made any kind of sense to me. Maybe I was too fixated on the man's darting tongue.

The speeches concluded and the platform group rose to disperse. As the audience stood up the skinhead foot-soldiers went around with plastic buckets encouraging donations. Norman Prosser and some others at the front made a show of putting large denomination notes into the buckets but I noticed most people dropped in a bit of loose change and when the bucket came my way I clattered in a few pennies.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. 'Couple o' minutes an' we're out of here.' It was Colin. He shoved a fiver into my hand. 'Get another drink and a whisky for me.'