Safe
It’s a warm, still evening, the last of my leave. Tomorrow I rejoin my regiment, the Welsh Guards. I’m sitting under a horse chestnut tree in Spytty Park, a bottle of whisky in my hand, a baseball bat at my feet, waiting. From here I can keep an eye on the Carmarthen Street entrance, the playground, across to the pond, down to the bandstand. Nothing can get past me.
I’m a professional.
I joined up eighteen months ago. I probably should have thought more carefully about what I wanted to do when school ended. Or thought at all. I just hoped something would turn up. Nothing turned up but a YTS scheme, dragging tyres and shopping trolleys out of the canal.
After I’d been on the dole for four years, I began to lose it. One night I dreamt I was digging my own grave in the garden. When I’d finished, I lay down in the hole, and began covering myself with earth. Someone started calling my name, I ignored him, I just wanted to be left alone. But the bastard wouldn’t give up, he kept on shouting, until eventually I woke up. It took three mugs of sweet tea and half a packet of chocolate biscuits to get rid of the taste of dirt in my mouth. That’s when I decided something had to change.
I arrived at the Army Recruitment office too early, they hadn’t opened. There was a café just a few doors down, but I wouldn’t allow myself to go in.
There’s no rush, I’ll
go home and sleep on it, see how I feel tomorrow.
No. No. No.
I stayed where I was, looking at the photos in the front window.
Join The Professionals.
Nothing about Northern Ireland. Maybe it wasn’t compulsory, perhaps there was a box on the form – Please tick here if you do not wish to be sent to Northern Ireland.
I was still grinning at
the idea when the sergeant came to open up.
‘Something funny?’
I shook my head. He looked a right hard bastard, I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. I followed him inside, sat down.
‘So, why do you want to join the army?’
‘I want to do something useful with my life.’
‘Is that right?’
The hint of a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. For a moment I thought he was going to lean back in his chair and say ‘Who are you kidding sonny?’ He came from the same sort of place as me, somewhere at the end of a branch line where the trains didn’t stop anymore, somewhere uneconomic, where the weeds were sprouting and the junk was piling up.
Cwmhopeless
Llangrotty
Benefit Mountain
Girotown
Somewhere you didn’t say ‘I wamt to do something useful with my life’ if you knew what was good for you.
All the same, I nearly walked out. It was only three days to my next giro, a few quid in my pocket, a few beers inside me, I’d be alright again. But I dind’t, I stayed where I was, and signed on the dotted line.
I take another swig of whisky, light another fag. There’s a screech of tyres as a car takes the corner of Carmarthen Street, Queen blaring on the stereo, bass nearly taking the roof off, tattooed arm eating time on the door. A bottle flies through the air, smashes on the tarmac, glass tumbles down the path. From the car a drunken cry of ‘Fucking hell!’ as it roars away down the road to some other dead town. After a few beers they’ll be singing ‘Hello, hello, we are the Ponty boys’ at the top of their voices, till the locals steam in to defend their patch. Another Saturday night in the Valleys.
That’s all there is to do around here, drink and fight.
Sometimes you only have to walk into a pub in another town, or the wrong side of your own town, to get your head kicked in. My kid brother, Richie, had his nose broken in a chip shop in Mountain Ash. He’d dyed his hair green, worn a tee shirt with Oscar Wilde’s face on it, I Have Nothing To Declare But My Genius written underneath. I warned him not to go to Mountain Ash looking like that.
My mother never goes out at night anymore. There are four locks on our front door, she keeps all the windows shut tight even in the middle of summer, there’s a poker under the bed ready to beat off the robbers, rapists and lunatics.
You aren’t safe anywhere these days, terrible it is.
I couldn’t sleep again last night. Eventually I got up, I knew there was half a bottle of whisky in my jacket pocket downstairs in the hall. As I put my foot on the top step, there was a loud creak.
‘Is that you Richie?’
‘No Mam, it’s me, Mark.’
A long pause;the only sounds my dad’s heavy breathing next to her in the bed, the hum of the fridge downstairs;my heartbeat.
My heartbeat.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I can’t sleep, I’m going to get a drink.’
Another pause.
‘Put the light on, you could fall on those stairs in the dark.’
I heard her turn over in the bed. I thought I heard a stifled sob, but I might have imagined it. I went downstairs, sat drinking whisky at the kitchen table till the numbness returned.
Ever since I can remember, everybody round here has felt defeated. You can smell it in the air, see it in people’s faces, read it in the graffiti on the underpass.
SINCE I GAVE UP HOPE I FEEL MUCH BETTER
Or the scrawl over the poster for the Job Club.
DRUGS NOT JOBS
The carp houses, the crummy shops covered in wire mesh, the smashed up phoneboxes, the wrecked cars – after a while you start to think maybe we don’t deserve any better, it’s our fault, we’re no good.
I’m sick of feeling numb. I’m going to fight back.
The government has spent thousands of pounds transforming me from just another pleb into a lean, mean fighting machine.
Germany was great. I’d never been abroad before. I loved everything about it. The beautiful forests where we trained, the old town squares, the mad drivers on the autobahns, the bierkellers, the frankfurters and sauerkraut.
The fraueleins.
I loved the way they seemed to have everything under control, sorted out, in order. Every single German was confident, strong, intelligent. Every last one of them expected life to be good to them, and it was. The towns weren’t dirty or run down, people hadn’t given up. Yes, Germany was great.
Then they told us we were being sent to Northern Ireland. We spent three days preparing for the tour in Tin City, a ‘village’ in the middle of the English countryside. It looks just like any real village – houses with milk on the doorsteps, shops, pubs, a graveyard on the outskirts (a nice touch that). You go on patrol, stop a civilian, ask his name (the population, you can’t help noticing, is 95% male). When he says ‘Mr Patrick O’Sullivan, of 19 Monaghan Road’, you ignore his cockney accent, his squaddie haircut, the West Ham tattoo on his arm. You’re dying to say ‘Come off it mate, who do you think you’re kidding?’ or ‘This is stupid, do we really have to do this?’ But you daren’t, the cameras are recording everything, a special team of advisors are monitoring your every move. So, you radio for a computer check;they tell you the information’s correct. You thank Mr O’Sullivan, walk on, scanning the the windows, corners, doorways, for snipers. You are a professional.
We’d go out on patrol in Tin City the first couple of times, nothing would happen. Mr O’Sullivan, Mr Flaherty, or Mr Fitzpatrick would co-operate, no problem. Then, the third time, gun shots would come from one of the windows, a bomb would explode, petrol bombs flew through the air. They had you jumping out of your skin.
Then there were the riots. We must have had nine or ten in those three days. Blokes from the Royal Anglian hurling bricks, yelling ‘Up the IRA’ and ‘Go home you Brit bastards.’
At the end of it, we were convinced it was going to be like bloody Apocalypse Now.
The night before we left, they briefed us on all the different organisations – the IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF, though I don’t know how much good it did, given the average squaddie’s attention span.
Gerry Adams? Isn’t that the bloke who invented Thunderbirds?
Of course I had an advantage over the others, you see I’d already been briefed by Richie, before I left. Richie never had a job in his life, never been further than Bristol, but he had an unshakeable opinion on every subject under the sun.
‘It’s like this. Over there, the Protestants are the English, the Catholics are the Welsh, end of story.’
‘That’s just fucking stupid, that is.’
‘No man, I’ll tell you what’s stupid, you going over there to keep the Welsh in their place.’
Professor Richie Evans, Chair in International Relations, University of Ponty.
He always was a bolshie bastard, the amount of times I had to wade in to stop him getting his head kicked in. But he didn’t mean half the things he said, he was only trying to get a reaction, he’d say anything to try and keep the boredom at bay.
I pick up a handful of stones, begin chucking them at the swings where Richie and I used to play when we were kids. I can see us now, as if it were yesterday, talking about what we were going to do when we grew up.
‘Stunt man,’ I told him.
He pulled a face.
‘Too dangerous.’
We’d watched a documentary about stuntmen a few days before. One guy broke his neck when he didn’t fall the right way.
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to get a job in one of those booths at the end of the Severn Bridge, collecting money from people who want to visit Wales.’
‘You spaz, you don’t get to keep the money, you have to hand it over at the end of the day.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘Yes you do.’
Anything that wasn’t too much effort, that was Richie.
He was two years younger than me and we always hung around together. Gary, my older brother, was a bastard, but I always took care of Richie while I was here. If anyone touched him they had me to answer to.
‘Leave him alone.’
‘He called me a moron.’
‘He didn’t mean it.’
‘I did.’
‘He didn’t. Now fuck off.’
Peace keeper, that’s me.
When I came back from Germany on leave, me and Richhie went to Newport for the day. We had a pint, then went to Art Gallery in John Frost Square, to see an exhibition by students from the art college. I knew that would get him going. Richie was brilliant at art. His teacher wanted him to apply to art college. But he wouldn’t listen, he was going through his Che Guevara phase at the time, planning to head for Nicaragua straight after school, and fight for the Sandinistas.
He was soon foaming at the mouth.
‘Christ, if that was mine, I’d have hidden it under the floorboards.’
‘Jesus! Rolf Harris could have done better.’
‘Thinks he’s Jackson Pollock, more like pretentious bollocks.’
And so on, till the attendant came rushing over.
‘Excuse me, can you keep your noise down.’
That was the cue for Richie to start waving his hands at the paintings, shouting at the top of his voice in a terrible French accent:’Zis is not art, zis is, ow you say? Doggies doo doos.’
‘Out! Now!’
We ran down the stairs, laughing, went for a drink in The Murenger.
‘You’re a better artist than any of those.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘So what’s stopping you?’
‘Eh?’
‘Why don’t you get off your arse, get a dossier together?’
He started laughing.
‘Portfolio.’
‘What?’
‘It’s called a portfolio you pleb, not a dossier.’
‘Whatever. Get one together, apply to the art college here in Newport.’
‘Yeah… I might do that.’
‘Might? Come on Richie, it’s time you did something with your life.’
‘What, like you?’
Though I didn’t need any, I got up and bought another packet of fags from the machine to stop myself from smacking him one.
Took my time unwrapping the cellophane and lighting up, letting him sit there, stewing. When I came back he was staring ath the floor, ripping a beermat to shreds. As I sat down he whispered something.
‘What was that?’
‘Sorry.’
‘So you fucking should be.’
He knocked back the rest of his pint in one.
‘Fancy another?’
I grabbed his arm.
‘No, we haven’t time. You’re going to take me to an art shop, and I’m going to buy you whatever you need – brushes, paints, paper, whatever.’
‘I don’t want your money.’
That was a laugh. I’d paid his fare, bought his fags and drinks;earlier in the week I’d given him a tenner so he could see a band in Pontypridd, a fiver to get a mate’s birthday present. At least that’s what he said.
‘You can pay me back later.’
He laughed.
‘How?’
I hated seeing that expression on his face – Come on, you know I’ll never have anything.
‘I’ll tell you how. By getting into art college. Unless you’re too afraid to try.’
I could see the hurt in his eyes. But I knew the kind of rut he was stuck in, knew how difficult it was to break out of. Get wrecked for a couple of days after his giro came, then go out of his mind with boredom for the next two weeks.
The first time I saw Belfast, I felt cheated. It was so fucking normal. Just like Cardiff, or Swansea. Sometimes you had to remind yourself you were in a war zone as you walked past W.H. Smiths and Spar, past women pulling shopping trolleys, past men coming out of the newsagents’ carrying The Sun or The Daly Mirror. The people look like us, speak the ame language, watch the same tv programmes, support the same football teams. Some of them are the enemy, most of them aren’t. It does your head in.
When we first arrived, the continuity NCO from the previous tour walked around the district with us, pointing out all the hoods. He had P cards for all of them, with their name, address, age, what they’d been arrested for, all kinds of personal details.
We were glad of that information the first time we patrolled the Divis Flats. What a dump, built in the fifities, but already falling apart. The rubbish chutes were always blocked, crap was piled up everywhere. Soldiers had broken all the lights in the passageways between floors to make it harder for snipers, so at night it was pitch dark. You’d hear the rats scrabbling along the corridors.
I’d heard so many stories about that place. I didn’t believe most of them, but I couldn’t forget them. Being hit by used nappies or tampaxes flung from the balconies;savaged by an Alsatian in one of the corridors while the locals cheered;opening the lift and finding a dead baby in a bag on the floor. The RUC never went there without the army to cover them. For two blokes from the RUC to patrol in bullet proof jackets you’d need twenty soldiers on the ground, another eight in land rovers, a helicopter, and the Quick Reaction Force on standby. All that, just so they can say Look, see the coppers on the beat? Everything’s normal.
The first time we walked into The Divis, I was terrified.
Suddenly I was certain all those stories were true.
It was Mike and Lewis’ first tour as well. The corporal, Iestyn, had been there before, he knew how to keep his nerves hidden. He led the way, eyes taking in everything, like a hunter. The flats were full of snotty nosed, shrieking kids and their foul mouthed, chain smoking mothers.
‘Look at the wee boy with the great big gun.’
‘Couldn’t you get a proper job then sonny?’
‘Bet you wished you’d tried harder in school now, don’t you?’
‘Thatcher’s fucking tin soldiers.’
Iestyn smiled at them and said ‘I suppose a shag’s out of the question then, is it?’
That cheerd us up.
‘Fuck off, you dirty Brit bastard.’
Iestyn winked at them.
‘More! More! I love it when you talk dirty to me.’
We walked on, big grins on our faces.
Then he saw what he wanted – one of the hoods who’d been pointed out to us. A tall, scrawny, fair haired young guy. Leaning against the wall of the bookies, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, the other holding a fag. Head back, surveying his manor. He smirked when he saw us, took a long drag on his fag, and blew out a couple of perfect smoke rings. Iestyn smiled back, walked straight up to him.
‘Hello Christy, how’s it going?’
It was brilliant. The guy was gobsmacked, wondering how the hell this soldier he’d never seen before in his life knew his name. Iestyn stepped a little closer.
‘Don’t forget to send your brother Aidan a birthday card next week, will you? Stck in The Maze for the next twenty years. He must need cheering up.’
It was the lad’s worst nightmare come true – the Brits knew everything about him. He tried to look cool, but it was no good, he’d lost it, we could see it in his eyes. We were pissing ourselves.
Hello, hello, we are
the Ponty boys.
There’s a pub on the estate, that’s where we went next. It stank of stale cigarettes, beer, meat pies and sweat. A few old guys were playing cards in one corner. There was a gang of six or sven bucks sitting round a table to our right. The barman looked like a wrestler gone to seed, the kind of bloke who keeps a baseball bat under the counter. On the wall behind the bar, postcards from the States, a Dodgers pennant, a Celtic shirt, a poster of Bobby Sands smiling, an Irish tricolour. Everyone stopped talking, the only noise was the sound of The Men Behind the Wire on the jukebox. We made straight for the gang of lads. You could tell they’d been sitting there for hours. Their eyes were slow, bleary. The ashtray was overflowing with butts, the beermats were in shreds, peanuts mashed into the pools of stout. It must have been giro day. Iestyn picked out the biggest one, sitting right in the middle.
‘Hello there Kevin. Are these the ones you were telling us about?’
You could see Kevin wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. The whole pub was staring at him. I don’t know how long it took him to convince his mates he’d never seen us in his life before, or whether he got a kicking before they eventually believed him. But the main thing was, we planted a seed of doubt in their minds. We rattled the bastards. Showed them we weren’t going to be messed about.
We were on a high when we got back to the barracks that night. Lewis was telling anyone who’d listen ‘We did The Divis toady – piece of cake.’ Which was a real joke, because he’d have crapped himself without Iestyn to hold his hand. But I realised then what I liked about the army. It puts you right up against what you’re most frightened of, so that you have to confront it. In civvy street you’ve got the option of avoiding anything too scary, and you’re always going to take that option, let’s face it. But in the army.
That was Richie’s problem, for all his smart talk he was frightened, he just couldn’t face up to things as they really were;he lived in a dreamworld. The things that boy was going to do.
‘I’m going to hitch around South America.’
He bought a second hand Spanish phrase book, lost it after a week.
‘I’m going to start a band.’
He learnt two chords on the guitar, cut his finger, retired.
‘I’m going to join the PLO.’
(‘The West Bank is the Valleys of the Middle East.’)
He got as far as sticking a photo of Yasser Arafat on his wall.
‘I’m going to be a beach bum in the South of France.’
He couldn’t find any swimming trunks that suited him.
But Richie could always make me laugh. Once a tourist coach pulled up alongside us in the town centre. The driver wound down his window and shouted at Richie and me, ‘Can you tell me the way to the Black Mountains?’ The passengers were looking round anxiously, wondering what they were doing in this dump, where was all the beautiful scenery they’d been told about? Richie banged on the window, shouting ‘This is Ponty. The doors are locked, do not get off.’ The coach driver swore under his breath and pulled away.
Then there were the answers he wrote on that stupid form you have to fill in when you sign on.
What job are you
looking for?
Artist.
What other jobs would you consider?
African game warden, marine biologist, rock star, helping Bob Geldof feed the world, commander of ship to sink all whaling ships, playing the lead in the new James Bond film, carrying David Attenborough’s suitcase, astronaut, collecting the toll on the Severn bridge.
What do you plan to do next to find work?
Buy a magnifying glass with my first giro and look for it.
Could you start work
today?
No.
Why not?
Because half the day’s gone already.
They suspended his benefit.
He ended up on a YTS scheme, cleaning up the next stretch of the canal from the one I’d cleared a couple of years before.
It was Richie who answered the phone the first time I rang from Belfast.
‘Hi-ya Rich, how’s the portfolio going?’
‘OK.’
‘Have you applied to art col?’
There was a long pause before he muttered, ‘Not yet.’
‘You’d better get your act together. If you’re not careful you’ll be too late to get in next year, let alone this.’
‘Stop giving me such a hard time, will you?’
‘You think I’m giving you a hard time? Try doing my job. Try marching through the middle of Belfast in broad daylight, never knowing when a sniper might take a crack at you, or if the next car you pass will explode – hey!’
He dropped the phone.
‘Richie! Richie!’
I was shouting for quite a while before my mother picked it up.
‘Mark?’
‘Richie put the phone down on me. Tell him to come back here now, I want a word with him.’
‘He just went out.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Mark, he’s driving me mad. He’s been like this ever since he got that letter from the art college a few weeks ago.’
‘He actually applied?’
‘Yes, but they turned him down. They said he needed to work more on his – oh I don’t know, those words they use. But they suggested he try again next year, they obviously thought he’d get in.’
‘Shit, I thought he’d get in easy.’
‘He just mopes around the house all day now. I can’t get a word out of him. No wonder he’s got no energy, he doesn’t seem interested in food anymore. Well that’s no good, is it? If we all chucked in the towel like that after the first setback…’
‘Yes Mam.’
I had a feeling there was something else going on, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Anyhow didn’t I have enough problems of my own? What was I, a fucking social worker?
I’ve been sitting too long, I have to stretch my legs. I get up, walk over to the swings. I stand up on the swing, using my arms and legs to push it higher, till I’m horizontal at the top of the arc. The air roars in my eras, the trees blur into a green smudge at the edge of my vision. Action Man.
‘Yeee-ees!’
‘I’m a professional!’
Something’s moving to my right, between the bandstand and the pond. Fuck. I jump from the swing, land awkwardly, scrabbling on all fours. Then I’m up and running, reaching the tree in a couple of seconds, grabbing the bat, rolling over, lying flat in the grass. I’m ready for them.
It’s a dog. A scruffy black mongrel. He jumps over the fence and starts drinking form the pond. It’s a full minute before the owner appears, an old guy, painfully struggling up the hill, leaning heavily on his walking stick.
False alarm.
That was slack. I musn’t get sloppy, must keep my concentration. Come on Mark, wake up. Don’t blow it. My heart’s thumping like a jackhammer. I let go of the bat, return to my hiding place, take another slug of whisky.
When I was a kid, this place would have been full of people on a fine summer’s evening like this. Not now though. There are some pretty unsavoury characters hanging around the park these days. The police don’t seem to care.
I care.
I joined the professionals but I never did get to jump from a plane, or give the thumbs up from a tank. Everyone tells you Northern Ireland is the Big One, you’re no one in the army unless you’ve done at least one tour. Well we spent four solid months walking up and down the same streets in Belfast, day in, day out, and fuck all happened. No bombs, no riots, no shoot outs with the IRA or UDA. It was almost as boring as Ponty. When I was bored I wished I was terrified, when I was terrified I wished I was bored.
Being stuck with the same bunch of blokes for so long is no picnic, after a while little things about them drive you mad. The way Mike never stops sniffing;Iestyn’s cough;worst of all, Lewis’s moaning, the bastard never stopped.
‘This food’s blood rubbish.’
‘This beer’s bloody piss.’
‘My feet are blody killing me.’
‘I never get any bloody post.’
Right I thought, you want some post, do you? I started cutting out those Freepost adverts in the papers, filled in the coupons in his name. He got bullworkers on seven days’ free trial, incontinence pants, books on positive thinking, a Learn Chinese In Three Months cassette. On our last day there he received an apology – Dear Private Williams, we regret that because of the present troubles in Northern Ireland we are unable to send you a conservatory on seven days free trial.
Iestyn told us how it used to be.
‘I was here in ’69, we didn’t have a bloody clue what was going on.’
We were sitting in the barracks one night havng a drink;we were allowed two pints of beer a day over there.
‘The first time we faced a riot, the captain shouted “This is an illegal gathering. Go home now, or we’ll open fire.” A complete waste of time, he couldn’t make himself heard. So he orders a couple of us to unfurl the banner with the official warning written on it. The rioters took one look at it and fell about laughing. It was written in Arabic, we’d been in Aden the week before.’
I don’t know what the hell we were doing there really. A bunch of blokes from Wales, patrolling the streets of Belfast when everything was falling apart back home. I started to dread ringing our house. Then one day my mother burst into tears when I asked her about Richie.
‘Oh Mark, we had to ask him to leave.’
‘Why?’
‘He was stealing all the time. He stole from my purse, he stole my jewellery – he couldn’t have got much for that, God knows. He stole your dad’s rugby trophies, your bike – he was selling anything he could get his hands on.’
‘How long’s this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t want you worrying.’
‘How do you think I feel now?’
‘Don’t take it out on me. I’ve tried everything to get through to him. It’s no use. I couldn’t cope anymore. We’ve had all the neighbours banging on the door, accusing him of stealing from them.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘A squat on the other side of town, over in Rhyderin.’
‘Couldn’t have Dad have tried to sort him out?’
‘Don’t make me laugh.’
He spent every night down the working men’s club where no one has a job, getting pissed, reliving the glory days of Welsh rugby.
I saw the English players literally trembling when they came out of that tunnel and onto the pitch at the Arms Park.
Big deal.
‘You two were always close, maybe he’ll listen to you when you get home.’
I couldn’t understand how it got so bad so quickly.
Yes I could.
The last few jobs disappearing, cheap smack flooding the streets. After a few weeks in Belfast, I was suspicious of every kid I saw on crutches. The IRA kneecapped drug pushers, they knew that once that stuff got into the kids’ systems they were good for nothing. Too numb to hate the Brits.
This is Ponty. The doors are locked, do not get off.
Captain Phillipson knew why we were there, he didn’t have any doubts.
‘It’s up to the politicians to come up with a political solution. Our job is to protect the RUC.’
We tramped around the Shankill, watched them hanging union jacks over the streets, taping photos of the Queen to their windows. Phillipson said ‘Sad, isn’t it? You’d never see this kind of pride in being British back home.’
Sometimes you’d turn down a street, see the mountains at the end of it, and for a moment you couldn’t believe you weren’t back home. At least they’ve got the murals over there to provide a bit of colour. Some of them are brilliant. Green hills sweeping down to a bright blue sea;Celtic heroes riding into a blazing sunset;portraits of Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley. Some turn your stomach;a phoenix rising from the ashes, provos coming out of the flames, firing guns and mortars;a dying hunger striker, looking like Jesus Christ;a stick of dynamite, the fue burning, under Britain.
If Richie had got into art college, you never know, he might have got somewhere, it could have been the first step on a glittering international career.
A painting by the outspoken young Welsh artist Richie Evans today sold at Sothebys for a million pounds.
Another phone call, just a week before we finished our tour of duty. My mother’s voice trembling as she spoke.
‘A gang of blokes wearing balaclavas broke into Richie’s squat, smashed the place up, and beat up him and the other boys. They warned them to leave town or they’d be back.’
She blew her nose, tried to pull herself together.
‘They painted Kill All Junkies on the front door.’
‘Has he got anywhere else to go?’
‘He’s heard about another squat … I’ll bet it’s a pigsty.’
‘I’ll be home soon. We’ll get him help.’
‘Mark, he looks terrible. Where’s it going to end? I don’t want to lose another son.’
Gary had disappeared before a court appearance and had never been seen again. I had a third brother, John, he chased a ball into the road and was run over by a van when he was six.
You aren’t safe anywhere these days.
‘You be careful out there, Mark.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Mam, I know how to take care of myself.’
Iestyn told me that the number of casualties the army pick up in Northern Ireland in twelve months are about the same as the number of soldiers killed each year in road accidents. The army had taken good care of me;I was well trained;had the best equipment;back up was only minutes away. Who took care of Richie?
I wasted four months in Northern Ireland, when I could have been back here, doing something useful, like keeping my brother out of trouble. But I learnt something over there in Belfast, I learnt something from the Irish. It’s not defeat you smell over there in the streets, it’s fighting spirit.
It was Iestyn who gave me the idea.
‘The police are bloody useless. They should send us in, we’d soon sort them out. Don’t tell me local people don’t know who the dealers are. One platoon would take care of them.’
It was Captain Phillipson who told me. It was our last day in Northern Ireland. WE were getting ready to go out on the piss, congratulating ourselves on getting through it without so much as a scratch when Iestyn walked in, said Phillipson wanted to see me. His face, his voice, told me something was up.
I finished buttoning up my shirt, followed him downthe corridor. Iestyn knocked on Phillipson’s door.
‘Come in.’
That plummy voice of his. All the officers are English.
‘Yes corporal.’
‘Private Evans to see you sir.’
‘Ah…’
A pause, papers being shuffled, a drawer being hastily closed.
‘Show him in corporal.’
Phillipson sat behind his desk in his white shirt, black bow tie, still untied, dangling from his collar. A pair of gold cufflinks on the desk in front of him. A cigar started, then hurriedly stubbed out in the ashtray, strong, spicy smell still lingering. Behind him on the wall, a photo of the Queen.
I knew before he said anything. It was obvious from his expression that this was something he’d been dreading having to do since he’d become an officer.
‘I’m afraid I’ve some bad news, Evans.’
I found myself staring at his Adams apple rising and falling as he spoke, I’d never noticed how enormous it was before, suddenly I couldn’t take my eyes off it. He made a steeple with his fingers, looked down at his desk, frowning.
‘There’s no easy way to put this.’
He pursed his lips, raised his eyes again, trying to look like the kind of officer the men respected – tough but fair. I stared at the Queen, her eyes as blank and cold as a fish on a slab.
‘Your brother, Richard, is dead.’
Even though I knew what was coming, when I actually heard him say it, for a moment I thought my legs were going to give way. I gritted my teeth. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. Phillipson was staring at me anxiously when I opened them again. I realised he was worried I’d lose it, and he’d have to deal with it.
‘I’m dreadfully sorry, it must be a terrible blow.’
‘Sir.’
It had to happen. It was only a matter of time. If he’d got that place in art college in Newport, he would have been alright. They’re all speed freaks in Newport, smack’s never really taken hold there like it has in the Valleys, where kids have fuck all to do. Now I realise he was already on it that day we went there. The money I gave him earlier in the week, there was no band, there was no friend’s birthday, I paid for his fix.
I wonder if Phillipson knew how he died?
I hear he was a drug addict. What a tragic waste of young life. Something needs to be done about that kind of thing. It’s up to the politicians to come up with a political solution.
He ran his hand through his hair.
‘I know how you must feel. I’ve a younger brother myself. I’d be mortified if anything happened to him.’
But nothing will. They don’t have a drug problem in Cheltenham.
‘Normally we would grant emotional leave for a matter like this, but as we’re all going home tomorrow anyhow…’
‘Yes sir.’
Richie was dead, and no one would pay, no arrests would be made, no one would be blamed but himself. The cops don’t care, why should they be bothered about a nobody like him?
I envy the Irish, they know who to hate. The Brits are to blame for everything.
Richie would have been safer in Belfast. The Provos would have kneecapped him when they found out he was a smackhead. Better to end up on crutches than lying dead on the floor in a dirty squat.
Somebody’s coming.
It’s him. At last! Strolling slowly towards the crumbling bandstand. He sits down, starts rolling a fag. I pick up the bat, skirt slowly round the back way. By the time I’m behind the bandstand, two nervous looking kids are walking towards him, anxious for their fix. He looks up, they exchange nods.
I’m in place, almost close enough to reach out and touch the back of his head with the bat from here. The two smackheads can go, I’m not interested in them. It’s him I want. Him, and all the others like him who poisoned Richie and got off scot free. Now he’s going to pay. I take the balaclava from my pocket, pull it over my head.
Gary’s gone. John’s dead. Richie’s been murdered.
I’m the last of the Evanses.
The numbness has gone. I feel alive. I’m angry. I don’t care what happens to me, the important thing is that someone is finally fighting back.
With one hand I tighten my grip on the baseball bat, I lay the other on the edge of the bandstand, ready to push myself up.
I’m a lean, mean, fighting machine.
Here I come.