The story so far. Harry Oldham is an author whose last book bombed. He has been encouraged to return to Sheffield and write about his past. His agent finds him an apartment not realising that it takes Harry closer to his shocking past than she realises. Will his readers want to know the type of person he used to be? (Parts 1-5 are available to read in the menu)

Part 6

I had a shower this morning and came out smelling of pomegranate and passion fruit. I put on a fluffy white bath robe and sat in front of the window drinking Honeybush coffee that came from Kenya. It tasted of nutmeg, blackcurrant, and chocolate. I had no idea what pomegranate or passion fruit was supposed to smell like, and only the label told me that I was tasting nutmeg, blackcurrant, and chocolate.

I looked at a city bathed in winter sunshine, a city in which most people were younger than me, and one that had no idea who I was anymore. That might change when my novel was published. But I knew it was a moment of self-importance because people from Sheffield never read my books. Elsewhere, people did read them, but would they want to read about Sheffield?

I thought about the book, the one without a title, which had no plot, shape or form. It sat on my laptop and rambled along, the words appearing where reminiscences took me, and only the encouragement of Meghan, my agent, compelled me to go on.

The book would need a lot of editing. By me. And then by Julien, my thirty-something editor, who was French, and understood the English language better than me. I imagined him tut-tutting and drawing big red lines across its pages and saying that he didn’t understand what people in this northern city were supposed to be saying.

“Who are these strange people, Harry? They are floopy. I do not like them. People will not like them. This book will not end up on the shelves of Foyles on Charing Cross Road but will find its place at The Works.”

Julien called all my characters ‘floopy’ because I didn’t know what it meant. Neither did he, but he liked the word. I once slept with Julien in a moment of drunken foolishness, and he said that I was ‘floopy’ which I took to mean ‘floppy.’

My phone rang, and I could see that it was my brother Adam, who I’d not spoken to for months. I ignored the call because the smell of pomegranate and passion fruit, ‘floopy’ people, and books, had reminded me of something that took place one night, about forty years ago.

We never had a shower but had a bath. That was the luxury my parents found when they first moved to Park Hill in the sixties. It had once been white, like the toilet pedestal and sink, but years of grime and vigorous scrubbing with Vim had stained it grey.

The bathroom was my favourite place. It was where I could lock the door and lay in the bath and be safe. I was naked, vulnerable, but I didn’t have to look over my shoulder because that single bolt on that flimsy plywood door, which always stuck, kept the world outside.

But bath times had to be planned, once or twice a week, when the electric immersion heater was switched on an hour before filling it up with hot water and pouring too much of Adam’s Bubble Bath – Matey makes bath time fun – from a bottle that looked like a cheery sailor. I would stay in the bath reading nicked copies of Shoot! magazine until the pages got wet and damp, or Adam shouted through the door to say that he needed a shit.

But one night somebody got me out of there, and I realised that anybody could get me if they wanted to.

***

In 1981, the police came looking for us. That was nothing new, but we were kids, and normally they had no serious interest in us. This time it was different.

My mum banged on the door and told me to get out of the bath because a policeman wanted to speak to me. “Bollocks!” She told me to come straightaway.

I wrapped one of mum’s best Brentford Nylon towels around my waist and dripped water through the flat and into the lounge. I stood facing a policeman that I’d never seen before, and he had the advantage over me.

He was unconventional. He wore a leather jacket that smelled of petunia and was unshaven. He turned out to be detective sergeant Frank Smith, and he was a bastard.

“Harry Oldham. You’re taller than I expected.”

I shrugged and grabbed the towel to make sure it didn’t fall to the floor

“I’ve just visited your mates, and they told me some very interesting things.”

He was clever, and knew it was better to get each of us on our own, and he was also a liar.

“They both said that you participated in an arson attack at Manor Library. All I want is for you to admit to starting the fire.”

“It’s news to me. Why are you trying to pin it on us?”

“Not us. I’m talking about you. Let’s just say that your name cropped up in our enquiries.”

My Dad butted in. “Harry, tell the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth. I don’t know anything about it.”

Frank Smith stared. Mum wandered into the kitchen. Dad was angry.

“For God’s sake Harry. We’re sick and tired of this. You and those lads cause nothing but trouble.”

“We haven’t broken in and we haven’t started any fires.”

“I don’t believe you Harry,” said Smith. “And it makes me sad to think that young tearaways grow up to be criminals.”

He never took his eyes off me, and I thought I might be blushing. My towel was now in danger of falling to the floor. I looked at the carpet and noticed the colours in it for the first time.

“You see,” he continued. “There are three problems here. They’re called Andy, Jack, and Harry, and these three problems are becoming one big one. Now Andy and Jack are telling me that you tried to burn the library down.”

I didn’t say anything. Dad slumped into his armchair and glared.

They wanted to pin the arson attack on me. I hadn’t done it, neither had Andy or Jack, and if I had, they’d never have grassed.

We knew who’d started the fire, and Frank Smith knew that we knew, and was waiting for one of us to slip up. And then he played his trump card.

“It’s not only about three shitty kids trying to burn down a library. It’s also about violence and shoplifting, not to mention robbery.” He paused. “What do you know about a break in at the Link?”

He had me.

Let me tell you about that night at the Link, one of four pubs at Park Hill.

It was midweek and we’d been hanging around outside. We’d been drinking beer from the off-licence and were drunk. Andy was drunker than the rest of us and slurred his speech. Alcohol made him brave, and he suggested breaking in and stealing cigarettes.

We broke into one of the garages, found a crowbar, waited until the pub closed, and watched the last piss-head stragglers and staff go home.

In the early hours of the morning, we smashed the window and climbed inside. Jack wrenched the machine off the wall and carried it outside towards the station. We smashed the metal casing and were in luck. We stashed the fags in a carrier bag and Andy hid them under his bed because his mother never cleaned. We sold them over the next few weeks and made a lot of money.

I thought about this while I tried to think of an answer, but it turned out I didn’t need one.

“Mr Oldham. Would you join your wife in the kitchen while I have a quiet word with Harry on his own?”

Frank Smith waited until my wasted father had left.

“Harold. You’re a bad liar. I can see that.”

“I’m called Harry.”

“O, Harry, thou hast robbed thee of your youth! While you live, tell truth, and shame the devil! Their lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“I’m a literary man. A bit like you.”

Years later, I understood where the words came from but not in that order, and I realised that he had been clever to think of them the way he had.

“Fuck off!”

He came over and stood directly in front of me. We were the same height and he looked me straight in the eyes. His breath smelt of whisky.

“I shall leave you now. But we will talk again.”

“I doubt it.”

“Oh yes. We shall be in touch one way or another.”

He patted my damp hair and ran his finger down my chest and stomach. He stopped when his finger reached the towel and hooked it around as if ready to yank it away. I trembled, and thought of Andy and Jack, and wished they were there.

“I believe that I have the measure of you.”

“Can I get dressed?”

He stepped back and smiled.

“I have a use for you, and when you’re useful, anything bad that you’ve done tends to go away.”

“You have nothing on me,” I said.

“If I don’t, then I’ll make it my business to make sure that I do.”

***

It turned out that Frank Smith had never visited Jack or Andy. Nor did I see him for another year until I had turned sixteen. In the meantime, we robbed and fought and left school with nothing except a fierce reputation.

And then one night, we were covered in blood after fighting a posh boy in Crazy Daisy and were running towards Park Hill, not knowing that we’d become Geisha Boys.