Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new.(Parts 1 to 13 are available to read in the menu)
Part 14
July 2023
It was Thursday night, and my mobile rang. I didn’t recognise the number and considered ignoring it. But curiosity got the better of me and I answered.
“ It’s Tom,” said the voice. I’d given him my number, but I never expected to hear from him. “Can I come around?”
I’d met Tom, eighteen and anxious, outside Sheffield Station, and had been flattered that he knew about my writing, even though he hadn’t liked my books.
When the doorbell rang, I buzzed him upstairs, and when he didn’t appear, I presumed that he’d changed his mind and left. Fifteen minutes later, he apologised for losing his way. Tom didn’t seem the kind of person to apologise.
He was dressed once more in matching grey hoodie and sweatpants, smartly finished with flashy white Nike trainers. His blonde hair had been cut short and for the first time, I noticed the faint trace of a scar that ran down his right cheek. .
“Hello faggot,” he said.
“In view of the fact that you’ve not brought your girlfriend, I presume that I can call you a faggot too.” He blushed and sat on the sofa. His eyes wandered around the apartment, taking in the books and magazines, and the laptop that was open on the table.
“There are no pictures,” he observed. I couldn’t be bothered to explain that they weren’t allowed in the apartment. He looked through the large window that framed the city below. “You’ve got a nice view and must be loaded to live in an apartment like this.”
“I don’t know many writers who are rich,” I replied, “and the apartment’s not mine, it’s rented, and that’s about all I can afford.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?” He moved a copy of A Rabbit’s Foot on the coffee table and put his feet on the glass top. If I did mind, it was too late, because he’d already lit a cigarette and offered it to me. He lit another one and blew smoke into the air. He was the first visitor since I’d moved in, and he’d made himself comfortable. “Have you been writing?”
“Would you like to see it?”
“I’m not really bothered,” he replied, but I saw a flicker of interest.
“Why are you here?”
“I thought I might be able to find something to steal.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said, “but I might have to throw you off the balcony if you did. Where have you been tonight?”
“Out with my mates, but I got bored and remembered that you’d given me your number, and I thought that seeing as I was in the area, I’d look you up.”
My thoughts turned to Andy and Jack, and all the time, years ago, when I’d made similar comments. That was another lifetime.
“Would you like a glass of red wine?”
“I don’t drink wine,” he said.
“Then go without, because that’s all I have.”
He turned his nose up when I gave it to him, and then nursed it, not quite sure what to expect.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m writing that book I told you about.”
“The one with the Italian guy in it? The one you fell in love with. What did you call him?
“Paolo,” I replied. “But he’s only a part of it. Lots of things happened.”
“Care to tell me about them?”
I passed him the laptop and invited him to read it. I watched his facial expressions to determine whether he approved, or not, but he didn’t give anything away. He occasionally drank his wine, and each time he did so, he winced.
I made myself busy and left him reading, always keeping an eye out, because I didn’t trust him, and then I asked myself why I’d even let him read it in the first place. He was too young to understand the importance of it; the people, the places, and the stories, all from a different time. It wasn’t likely to interest somebody his age. Yet, I realised, I was still seeking his approval.
Tom kept reading, stopping only once to ask for more wine, until it was after midnight, and he shut the laptop. “It’s time for me to go.”
He was unaware that his lips and mouth were stained red, and I thought that only a short time ago, these would have been the lips of a small boy who had been drinking his Ribena.
“Well? What do you think about it?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. It’s about you and your mates, and how you were a complete nightmare, and should have been locked up, and then you start to get all faggoty with an Italian, who seems like a snowflake, and there are parts that I don’t understand at all.”
“Such as?”
“Like what you were doing in those people’s houses that seemed so bad.”
“It’s late,” I agreed. “You can sleep on the sofa if you want.”
He kicked off his Nike’s and I noticed that there was a hole in his white sock.
Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new.(Parts 1 to 12 are available to read in the menu)
Part 13
July 1982 The following day I met Paolo by the fishtank in the Hole-in-the-Road. He was dressed in jeans and white tee-shirt with a pair of dark sunglasses that made him look typically Italian. He smiled, and I thought he was going to give me a peck on the cheek. I was ready to punch him, but he refrained, and my blushes spared.
“Thank you for coming,” he said quietly.
I grabbed him by the arm and led him away from the area.
“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” I told him. I was mindful that Billy Mason might be loitering in these underground walkways and needed to get out in the open, away from the crowds.
I took him to the Mulberry Tavern but the barmaid refused to serve Paolo because he looked underage. I didn’t know how old he was, but suspected that the barmaid was probably right.
Instead, we chanced in the Brown Bear that was quieter and not the kind of place to find the Billy Mason’s of this world. I bought two pints of John Smiths and we sat in a quiet corner looking at black and white photographs of snooker players on the wall.
“What’s bugging you?”
“I’ve been thinking about everything that’s happened and needed to know something.”
“It’s a shit business we’re caught up in. It’s blackmail, that’s what it is.”
“It’s not just that,” he said. “I can cope with everything as long as I know that you’ll be around to protect me.”
“I already said that I’d be there for you, didn’t I?”
Paolo bit his lip and shuffled in his seat. A group of middle aged men walked in and clocked us in the corner. One of them pointed and said something that made them all laugh.
“If they’re taking the piss out of us, I’m going to smash their faces in,” I told Paolo.
“No, don’t!” he said. “Please don’t spoil things.”
“Spoil what?”
“I’m enjoying it here, and don’t want anything to go wrong.”
I took a sip from my pint. I looked at him bathed in the sunlight that flooded through the window.
“We’re talking that’s all. What can go wrong?”
Paolo looked nervous.
“I know that you’ll look after me. But I wanted to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“The night that Frank made us kiss felt right to me, and even though you hit me, you didn’t actually say that you didn’t like it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I hated those guys the other night. But I felt something good when I was with you, despite all those staring eyes.”
“Go fuck yourself!”
“And I think that you’re kidding yourself, because I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t think that you felt the same way.”
This kid was annoying me. I might have punched him, but I’d done that once before and regretted it. I looked at the guys at the bar and couldn’t help thinking that they thought I was queer.
“Do you like me?”
“I have a girlfriend,” I said, “and I’m going to the cinema tonight. Does that answer your question?”
“What do they call her?”
“Louise,” I told him. “She’s called Louise! And I shag her every night!”
Paolo looked hurt. “I’m sorry Harry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Don’t go around saying things like that. I’m not your boyfriend, and never will be. Get that in your head.”
I hadn’t meant to say it as loud as I did, and people were looking at us. “I need to go,”
“No Harry, please don’t go.” He held onto my arm begging me not to leave. “I’ve not known you long, but you’re my only friend.”
I felt sorry for him. There he sat, angelic looking, with his thick curly black hair and Mediterranean skin, looking helpless. I didn’t know it then, but he had a hold over me.
“Look Paolo. I DO have a girlfriend, and I AM taking her to the pictures tonight.” I’d telephoned Louise first thing that morning and agreed to take her to the cinema. I didn’t tell him that it was a first date, and neither did I say that I wasn’t looking forward to it either.
“She’s a lucky girl.”
“I might be made to act like a faggot, but I’m nothing like one. Why are you interested in me?”
“You’re different Harry. You’re a rough boy, exciting, violent, and handsome. And yet, there is something mysterious about you, almost tender, that tells me that you’re hiding the truth about yourself. That ticks all the boxes for me.”
Not for the first time, and not the last, I was lost for words.
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life being the bad boy?”
“This is my life,” I explained, “I don’t know anything different.”
“You are much better than all this. Better than your friends. Better than the dead end life that you’ve created. I hope you realise it before it’s too late.”
“How do you expect me to change?”
“That’s down to you.”
Paolo had hit a nerve. For the first time in my life somebody was scratching at the surface, trying to reach down to the real me. I hadn’t realised it, but I did want something different to what had been dished up so far.
“For a young kid, you talk like someone much older.”
“I’m from an Italian family, and we speak too much,” he smiled. “But promise me something.”
“What’s that?” I asked, draining the rest of my pint.
“If you’re ever looking for a boyfriend, then please consider me.”
Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new.(Parts 1 to 11 are available to read in the menu)
Part 12
July 1982
Two days after we robbed the newsagent, the police arrested Andy and Jack. I saw them arrive while I was standing on the balcony. They came in numbers, and I waited for them to come to our door, but they didn’t. They found the stolen cigarettes under Andy’s bed and then they were bundling Andy and Jack into the back of police cars.
“With reputation comes recognition,” said Frank Smith. “No sooner had you done the place over, there were people queuing up to tell us who’d done it.”
Frank had collared me outside the flats a couple of hours after the lads had been carted off to West Bar nick.
“That poor woman,” he said. “She had ten stitches in the back of her head. I hope you’re all proud of that. But I can see that she fucked your pretty face up.” He pointed to the scar on my face.
“That wasn’t meant to happen, but she wouldn’t do as she was told.”
“And now, your mates have been locked up.”
Frank lit a cigarette and leaned against the lamppost. He was in a shirt and tie, and for once he looked like a copper. I stood with my hands in my pockets and felt like shit.
“The question you must ask yourself,” he continued, “is why you’ve not been locked up as well?”
“Fuck you! Is that why you’re here? Have you come to arrest me too?”
“No Harry. I’m here to tell you that you owe me one.”
I didn’t grasp what he was saying.
“How come?”
“You’re not going to be any use to me behind bars, are you? Let’s say that I had a word in someone’s ear and you’re off the hook.”
“And how will I explain that to Andy and Jack?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, but more importantly I want you to tell me what happened afterwards.” He looked serious. “I want every detail. I want names. I want to know what those perverts did to you.”
He flipped open a notebook and stood poised with his pen. I couldn’t tell him because I was too embarrassed to say.
“When you’re ready,” he said impatiently. “I’ve already seen your Italian friend and after putting on the waterworks he blabbed. Now unless you’re going to cry like a baby as well, I suggest you tell me. Oh, by the way, our little eyetie has a thing about you.”
I told Frank every terrible detail, each name that I remembered, every minute that had passed in that posh house, and I noticed that he didn’t flinch once.
“Keep up the good work,” he said after I’d spilled my guts. He winked. “Not nice, and it will get a lot worse.”
He got in his car and wound the window down. “Watch your back. I hear that Billy Mason’s pissed off that you hurt his girl. He’s not a nice man. He’ll chop your balls off, and let’s face it if anyone needs their balls, it’s you.”
“I hate you. Why are you making me do this?”
“I nearly forgot,” he said, and fumbled amongst the shit that was on the passenger seat. “Paolo wants you to ring him.” He passed me a slip of paper that had a telephone number scrawled on it.
Andy and Jack were released on bail that night. Pending further enquiries, the police had said, but they knew they had them bang to rights.
I nicked a bottle of White Horse from the off-licence and shared it with them in the precinct. I wasn’t afraid of being caught because for the time being I might escape anything.
“How the fuck have you got away with it?” Andy asked.
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “You didn’t grass me up, did you?”
“No mate,” confirmed Jack. “But we’re in big trouble.”
“They’ll know I was involved,” I lied.
“It looks like someone’s looking out for you, Harry. They said that they weren’t looking for anyone else. The woman said there were only two of us involved. You’re a lucky bastard.”
“I feel bad lads. What will happen to you both?”
“Fuck knows. They didn’t say.”
I thought about telling Frank that I wouldn’t play his little game unless he got the charges dropped against them. I knew this was futile because Frank would have to answer to somebody above him.
“My sister reckons that you promised to take her to the pictures,” said Jack. “Is that right? I can’t believe that you want to go out with her.”
Andy looked at me with suspicion. “Fuck Harry! What did I say? Never mess with a mate’s sister.”
I saw that look in his eyes and realised that he was jealous.
“I’ll ring her tomorrow,” I replied, happy that I’d got one over him, but also annoyed that I was stepping into something I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
Then I remembered that screwed up piece of paper in my pocket.
“I have to make a phone call.”
“Who are you ringing? Jack demanded. “You’d better not be two-timing Louise.”
“As if I would. I need to speak to a man about a dog.”
“We’re losing you Harry. You’re acting fucking weird.”
I went to the phone box on the corner and found that it had been trashed, so I walked down the hill to the next one. I dialled the number and dropped coins into it when it was answered at the other end.
“Can I speak to Paolo?”
“It is me.”
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk to you. I would like to see you… before…”
Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new. (Parts 1-10 are available to read in the menu)
Part 11
July 1982 It should have been the perfect summer evening. Large Victorian houses lined both sides of the street that stretched to the top of the hill where a spectacular sunset could be seen. The sun reflected from the leaves of large trees that cast shadows on the pavements, while birds chorused their final songs of the day. Yes, I told myself, it should be an idyllic end to the day. But I was miserable.
The streets of Nether Edge did not belong to me, nor were they willing to welcome me. For a boy from Park Hill, where life consisted of concrete and hardship, these streets were borrowed from another world. I was out of my depth here. I was also tired because robbing a newsagent had been stressful.
A few hours earlier we’d hidden our stolen cigarettes underneath Andy’s bed, not quite knowing how we were going to sell them without arousing suspicion. There was also the woman who’d been knocked unconscious by Andy, and we’d felt bad about that. We were used to dishing out violence to scrap-heap kids like ourselves, but hurting a grown woman was something that we weren’t used to.
I clutched the piece of paper and decided that number 68 was on the right hand side. I walked nervously towards it and felt the cuts on my left cheek where the woman had ripped at it with her fingernails. The bleeding had stopped but it was still tender to touch.
“My god, we’ve got scarface tonight,” said the smartly dressed man who opened the door of number 68. “Come inside, we all enjoy a rough boy.”
The door was shut behind me and I was ushered into a smartly decorated lounge where a video was playing on an expensive looking TV set. I could hear male voices in a room next door, and laughter, and I sat on a sofa that was twice as big as the one at home. I didn’t recognise the film, and it wasn’t long before I realised that it was an American porn movie.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“I’ll have a beer if you’ve got one.”
“Not here. It’s cheap and nasty. Let me give you a large Pernod because it will help you to relax.”
It tasted like aniseed balls, and when the glass was half empty, the man topped it up again.
“Where do you live?”
“Park Hill.”
“That says it all.” Raucous laughter erupted from the other room as though they’d been listening to the conversation.
There was a weak knock at the front door, and the man flounced away to answer it. I could hear muffled conversation, and Paolo appeared looking anxious. He relaxed when he saw me sitting on the sofa.
“I didn’t know that you’d be here,” Paolo whispered as he sat beside me. The man handed him a large Pernod and poured more into my glass. He looked at us, assessing what he had before him, and flashed a wicked smile. “Not long now boys.”
It was a traumatic experience, one that we’d never forget. Men did indescribable things to us, and a few hours later, we left the house in silence, feeling used and dirty, Paolo stayed close to me, and I saw a tear run down his cheek. We walked for ages, not knowing where we were going, until we found a bus that would take us back into the city.
“Are you okay?” I asked Paolo,
“Promise me something,” he said. “Tell me that you will never leave me on my own with them.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
Later that night, Andy phoned, and I told my parents to say that I wasn’t in. It was the same when Jack phoned afterwards, and when Louise rang at midnight, and my dad shouted to me through the bedroom door, I pretended to be asleep.
Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new. (Parts 1-9 are available to read in the menu)
Part 10
July 2023 Meghan, my agent, had said that I had to send each chapter as they were completed. That way she knew that I was writing and might still make the deadline for completion.
She was understandably nervous when she rang after reading the latest instalment.
“Is all this true, Harry?”
“Every word of it,” I told her.
“Are we going to have to run it by the lawyers before it’s published?”
“That’s up to you,” I said, “but I’m writing it because it’s what you asked for.”
“It’s good,” she said. “It’s bloody good, but I’m not sure I like where this is going?”
“That’s for you to find out.”
“And there’s a danger that they might not publish it.”
July 1982 Stupid woman. If she hadn’t been the obstinate type, things might have gone smoothly. But no, she had to be a brassy bitch, and things went tits up.
We looked conspicuous as we walked from Park Hill. It was a busy Thursday morning, and everyone looked at us as if to say, “they’re up to no good,” and they were right.
Andy had identified a newsagent near the market, and he reckoned that it would be an easy place to steal cigarettes.
“We wait until it’s empty, and then we go straight in. Jack, you stand at the door and don’t let anybody in. I’ll shout and scream to frighten her. Harry, you empty the fags into the bag. Quick as you can. As soon as I say, we leave and head back to mine. Got it?”
We nodded in agreement, but I had misgivings. We normally operated under cover of darkness when there was nobody around, but this was different because there were too many people who might recognise us.
“Trust you to pick the busiest shop,” Jack berated. “We’ll be waiting all day for it to be empty.”
“Shut up, Jack. We’ve got to be patient. There’s only one woman serving so that makes our job easier.”
We waited in the shelter of a doorway outside Castle Market and at last plucked up courage to go for it. We wrapped scarves around our faces until only our eyes could be seen. Then we dashed across the road and entered the shop.
A bell rang as the door opened, and the woman behind the counter looked up. She was our mothers’ age, a bit of a looker, with auburn hair, and dolled up with Avon make-up. I saw her eyes, hard, and uncaring, and they narrowed as we stormed in.
“Fuck me, we’re being robbed by the Boys Brigade! If you’ve come for your comics, they’re not here. Now get the fuck out,”
Jack jammed his foot behind the door to stop anybody coming in.
Andy screamed. “Shut the fuck up! Don’t do or say anything and you’ll not get hurt. Now come out from behind the counter.”
We expected her to burst into tears, or faint, or something like that, but she didn’t. She just stood there and didn’t seem at all frightened.
“Step any nearer and you’ll have Billy Mason after you.”
“Who the fuck’s Billy Mason?” Jack cried.
I knew who Billy Mason was. He was a tough guy from Gleadless Valley, and I’d heard stories about his method of handing out punishment. Billy Mason would ensure that we all had broken arms and legs.
I went behind the counter with the bag and pushed her out of the way. I didn’t expect her to pull the scarf away and neither did I expect her to gouge her long fingernails into my face. She looked into my eyes, daring me, and I knew that she would recognise me again. I felt blood trickling down my left cheek, and all I could think about was Billy Mason.
The next thing I knew, Andy had smashed a full bottle of R Whites lemonade across the back of her head, and she slumped to the floor. The bottle shattered, and its contents mixed with the blood from her cuts.
I opened the bag and scooped cigarette packets into it, most ending up on the floor, and I realised that the bag wasn’t big enough. I tried to zip it up, but it was too full, and had trouble holding the two handles together.
“Let’s go!” Andy cried. “Walk out as if nothing happened and then split up.”
And that’s what we did.
Andy and Jack walked in opposite directions while I headed down to Sheaf Roundabout with the open bag of fags that everybody could see. I tried sprinting but they spilled onto the pavement, and I had to stop to pick them up. All the time I looked nervously behind me, expecting to see somebody running, but there was no one.
The story so far.Harry Oldham is attempting to write about his distant past at Park Hill. With a deadline looming, he sets to work writing about his shady past. He recalls his dealings with a bent copper, his violent days with the Geisha Boys, and a friendship with Paolo, an Italian boy, who is caught up in Harry’s nightmare. (Parts 1-8 are available to readin the menu)
Part 9
I had to thank Tom for getting me back on track. That meeting near the station opened the floodgates, and I needed a bucket to catch everything in.
I told him about the night I’d met Paolo which was something I’d never told anyone before. Not even Andy and Jack, who had meant more to me than anything.
“It’s strange that you bottle everything up,” I’d told him.
We’d sat talking for nearly an hour, two strangers, years apart in age, and with nothing in common.
“You came looking for me?”
“Yeah, I followed you because I wanted to know what you were doing in Sheffield and find out about you.”
“I’m here to write the book that will make me popular again.”
“Do you think that people are really interested in your life story?”
“Probably not, but it’s not about me because it’s a work of fiction.”
“I need to go,” he’d said, “but…”
“But what?”
“I wondered whether I could see you again. Just for a chat like…”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
It had been a long time since someone so young had shown interest in me, and I was flattered. I gave him my number.
“Next time, bring your girlfriend with you.”
I went back to the apartment, opened the laptop, and started writing.
*****
We were on our own with only the city skyline showing that there was life in the city. Headlights darted below and sirens wailed in the dark. Paolo sat on the bench and said nothing. I paced up and down angrily.
“What the fuck was all that about?”
“I thought you’d have guessed by now,” said Paolo in an unmistakable Italian accent, “and I’m sorry.” He sniffed as though he’d been crying.
“What are you sorry for?”
“For kissing you. For everything. It seems that I’ve dragged you into all this.”
“It’s that fucking Frank Smith. I’m not doing anything to help him. I’ll slit his throat.”
“Will you? Really? I don’t think so. Frank has us both in his grips. I’m a puff, and he’ll make out that you are too.”
“What do you mean?”
Paolo looked at me with sorrowful eyes.
“He’ll make you do anything he wants, and he’ll use that photograph to make sure that you do.”
I’d already forgotten about that sneaky photo, and the thought of it made me feel sick.
“What does he want us to do?”
“He’s going to use us. We’re the bait to get rid of people.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Think about it. We’re the fresh meat that will bring them down.”
“I’m not a fucking queer,” I said.
“That’s not the issue. It doesn’t matter whether you are or not. Frank Smith will make out that you are, and shit sticks.”
“What will I have to do?”
“That’s for you to find out, but I’ve got a good idea.”
I was nervous and out of my depth. That fight in town seemed a long time ago, and I really needed Andy and Jack at my side.
“What has he got on you, Paolo?”
“I’m a bender, that’s what. He caught me with a guy and said he’d make good use of what he saw. He made good that promise.”
“Tell him to fuck off.”
“He’s not a man to be reasoned with. If I don’t do what he says, then he’ll tell my parents and they’ll disown me.”
“But he’s a copper. He can’t do what he’s doing.”
“How are you going to stop him? He’s a nutter, and like he said, plays dirty.”
Paolo wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm. I thought about the walk home to Park Hill and hoped that the guys would be waiting for me.
“I’m sorry for kissing you,” Paolo said.
“Not like you had a choice.”
“Well, I’m sorry because I know you didn’t like it.”
“You don’t know what the fuck I like!” I snapped and immediately regretted it.
“Does that mean that you liked it?”
“Of course, it doesn’t. I just meant that you don’t know anything about me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you say sorry once more, I’m going to…”
“Kiss me?”
“No, I’ll smack you in the face.”
“I’m sorry.”
I punched him hard, and blood poured from his nose. He used his hands to stem the flow and tears welled in his eyes.
I was used to hitting people without having regrets, but this time I felt incredibly sorry for what I’d done. He had frightened but beautiful dark eyes that were locked on my face. I let him go, and he shivered in the cold.
I took my tee-shirt off and held it to his nose. He was scared and vulnerable and I’d made his situation worse. He held the shirt to his face, like he was trying to get the smell of it.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m angry, and I took it out on you.”
I could see that he was looking at my bare chest.
“You have a nice body, Harry.”
“Fuck, Paolo. Don’t you ever stop?”
“Tell me something. What did it feel like to kiss a boy?”
I laughed, not because the question was funny, but because I was nervous.
“To be honest, it felt strange. I’ve never done it before. I guess that if I had to, then I’m glad it had to be with you.”
“That’s kind of you.”
I sat beside him and could feel him trembling. Blood stained the front of his shirt, and his curly hair was dishevelled.
“I’ve only kissed girls,” I said, “and I suppose there’s not a lot of difference.”
“You have blood on your face too,” he said. “Have you been fighting?”
“Yeah, we have. The boys that is.”
“Who are the boys?”
“Andy and Jack. They’re my best friends.”
“Were they the boys that got chased away?”
“That’s right. Some help they turned out to be.”
“I don’t have any friends,” he said.
“Fuck, Paolo. How come you don’t have any friends?”
“Because they know I’m queer and think I fancy them, even when I don’t.”
“You’re cold. Where do you live?”
“Hillsborough.”
“How are you going to get home?”
“For a rough boy, you have a caring side.”
“Don’t think that I’m like this all the time.”
“Can I ask you a favour?”
“If you want money for a taxi, then you’re out of luck because I’m broke.”
“It’s not that. I was going to ask you to hold me.”
What the fuck? This wasn’t doing my reputation any good. But he was afraid, and I felt deeply sorry for hitting him. I put my arm across his shoulder, and he rested his head against it.
“I hope that nobody sees me,” I said.
“Things are going to get messy, and we’ll need to stick together. I hope that you’ll be my friend.”
“If you like,” I said. “But tell nobody!”
“I think that you have a feminine side, Harry.”
*****
The Clash / Rock the Casbah / 1982
Paolo had insisted that he walk home, and I watched his slender frame disappear down the hill, convinced that he had no idea where he was going.
I put my blood-stained shirt across my shoulders and walked towards Park Hill, the cold air hitting my bare chest, but I wanted to look hard and threatening. A dog walker stared. “What the fuck are you looking at?” He skulked into the shadows where there were rats, broken glass, and glue-impregnated carrier bags.
I hated myself.
I had hit a defenceless kid who hadn’t deserved it, but it was the thought of kissing a guy for the first time that alarmed me most. I had meant it when I told Paolo that I was glad it was him, and that was what concerned me most.
I should have told him that I was disgusted and would never do it again, but I didn’t want to upset him anymore than I already had. If I was honest, I didn’t trust myself not to kiss another guy, and if I was going to, which according to Frank Smith was inevitable, I hoped that it would be like kissing Paolo.
Andy and Jack were sitting on the steps when I turned the corner. They were tired and concerned, also covered in dry blood.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
“Thanks for nothing,” I said, “so much for mates helping one another out.”
“That guy was a bastard,” said Jack, “he’d have beaten the shit out of us.”
”Who were they?” Andy eyed me with suspicion, and flinched, holding his side where there was a tear in his dirty shirt.
I had to think quickly. “Somebody we’ve upset,” I lied, “they wanted to teach us a lesson, but it’s sorted now. I guess I was the unlucky one.”
“What did we do to them?”
“Remember those nicked fags? They’re pissed off because they sell cheap fags too, but I told them that they’d all gone.”
“They came on a bit heavy,” said Jack, throwing an empty beer bottle that smashed against the wall. “Shit! There were three of us and only two of them. We should have helped Harry.”
“Fuck! Don’t you think I don’t know that.”
Andy put his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry mate, we let you down, and if we see those bastards again, we’ll kick the shit out of them.” He held me tight, and I brushed my cheek against his unkempt hair.
“Stop acting like a queer,” I told him, and he laughed. He let go, put his arm around my waist, and squeezed. I liked the attention, and the fact that they believed I’d taken one for the team.
“That was a fucking good fight in town.”
“The coppers have been cruising the area,” said Jack, “we’ve been lying low.”
“That cunt won’t mess with us again,” I quipped.
“We look like shit, let’s go up to mine.”
Jack’s parents were away for the weekend, but it turned out that he’d lost his door key, probably on the floor of Crazy Daisy. He knocked loudly and the door was answered by his sister, Louise. “What shit have you been up to now?”
“You should’ve seen the other guy,” Andy joked.
The flat was warm and smelt of fish and chips, the remains of which were on the kitchen table.
“We’re going to get cleaned up,” said Jack.
Louise looked at me. “Look at you. Showing all your body off!” I offered the bloody tee-shirt as way of an explanation. Jack took Andy to the bathroom, but she held me by the arm. “Let me sort you out.”
She ran a hand towel under hot water and rubbed me down. “Cat got your tongue?” I didn’t know what to say as she wiped my face like my mother used to.
“We had a fight in town.”
“If you ask me, you all want locking up.”
Jack shouted from the bathroom. “Are you coming?”
Everybody fancied Louise. She wasn’t bad looking and was one of the few people that I felt awkward around.
“Thank you,” I said. “I think I’m wanted.”
“Before you go. Aren’t you going to ask me out?”
“What?”
“You’re a div Harry.”
“Are you asking me to go out with you?”
“If I waited for you to ask, then we wouldn’t get anywhere.”
“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose. Where do you want to go?”
“You’re too young for the pub, so you can take me to the pictures instead.”
“What do you want to see?”
“I want to see An Officer and a Gentleman.”
“Fuck me,” I said, “Isn’t that a girlie film?”
“Are you bailing on me already?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not telling Jack and Andy because they’ll take the piss.”
“Get in touch with your feminine side Harry Oldham, you might find that you like it.”
I froze. It was the second time that this had been said to me tonight. It felt like Louise knew about my kiss with Paolo and that two separate worlds were about to crash into each other.
I started to leave but Louise pulled me back again.
“Are you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“A kiss maybe? For making you look handsome again.”
I stuck my tongue in her mouth, and we kissed for a few minutes. It was sloppy and tasted of vinegar. I thought I’d better put my arms around her, and she wrapped her own arms around my naked back. I could feel her sharp fingernails making circles against my flesh.
I tried to compare it to the kiss I’d had with Paolo, and hoped that it would be better, but I was mindful that this had also been forced upon me. I imagined what people would say when they discovered that I was going out with her. The lads on Park Hill would be envious, and that gave me satisfaction, but at the same time I felt uneasy.
The boys were sitting on Jack’s bed when I entered the bedroom. It wasn’t a place I’d seen very often, and I was intrigued.
It looked like any other teenage boys’ room, with posters of Kevin Keegan, Steve Coppell, and Trevor Francis, posted alongside one of Michelle Pfeiffer, and a topless blonde with big tits, who’d been torn out of The Sun.
It was untidy, with Jack’s clothes strewn across the floor, and his bed was still unmade from the previous night. Football trophies sat on top of a cheap dressing table, and I noticed his dirty football kit piled on a chair in the corner.
They were listening to Radio Hallam and were singing along to Rock the Casbah that had become a favourite. They looked almost presentable, whereas I was still stripped to the waist and feeling conspicuous. Jack didn’t object when I grabbed one of his soiled Adidas tops and put it on. It was far too small, and smelt of him, but I didn’t care.
Andy reached under the bed and pulled out several cans of Long Life beer that Jack kept stashed. We opened them believing that warm beer was the best thing in the world.
“I got that guy in the head,” Andy boasted. “He’ll be feeling that punch for a while.”
“We need to lie low,” Jack chipped in, “the coppers know it was us.”
“They can’t get us here,” I said.
“You said those guys sold cigarettes?” Andy had returned to the subject of my eventful night.
“Yeah, they were pissed off, but like I said, I told them that they’d all gone.”
“I know where we can get some more,” Andy continued.
“Where?”
“There’s a shop near the market that sells loads of ciggies, and I reckon we could rob some from there.”
“I told them that we wouldn’t be selling any more.”
Jack slurped from his can. “How do you suggest we get them?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Andy contemplated, “and I reckon that if three of us went in there when it was quiet, then we could take them.”
“But they’re going to see us.”
“Of course they’re going to see us,” said Andy, “but there’s only a woman working behind the counter, and she isn’t going to stop three lads, is she?”
You’re talking about holding it up?”
“Why not? All we need to do is cover our faces so that nobody recognises us, steal the fags, and disappear into the market where it’s crowded.”
“Fuck me!” I cried. “This is a whole new ball game.”
“I’m not sure,” said Jack. “What happens if we get caught?”
“We’re only sixteen and will get away with it,” Andy reassured us, “but who says we’re going to get caught?”
“I don’t know. Stealing a cigarette machine is one thing, but holding up a woman in a shop is something else.”
“Are you getting chicken, Harry?”
“No,” I said defiantly, “but what if she gets hurt?”
“Nobody’s going to get hurt. We’ll walk in, tell her not to be stupid, and steal the fags.”
“Like they do in films?” asked Jack.
“If you like, but with loads of fags to sell, we’re going to make lots of money, and Harry’s weird friends can get fucked.”
I looked at Jack but didn’t say anything else.
“That’s agreed then,” said Andy. “Leave everything to me and we’ll sort something for next week.”
“Make sure it’s not Wednesday,” Jack said, “because I have football in the afternoon.”
When the beer had gone, Jack nicked a bottle of sherry from the sideboard, and passed the bottle around. It had been an eventful night, and we were brave and pleasantly drunk by the time we were ready to leave.
On the way out, Louise appeared from her bedroom and gave me a scheming look. I said goodnight to her, but Andy had noticed something, and outside issued a word of warning.
“Never mess with a mate’s sister.”
*****
On Wednesday I went to the newsagents in the precinct to buy a can of Coke and nicked a Mars Bar at the same time. On the way out, I was stopped by a man who I thought worked in the shop. I clenched my fist ready to hit him, but he held up an apologetic arm anticipating what I was going to do.
“Harry Oldham?” he asked.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’d like a little chat.”
The man didn’t live around here because he was too well-dressed for Park Hill. He took me by the arm and led me to a wall near the flower beds.
“I understand that you’re working for us.”
“What?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Harry.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“Of course, you do.”
He sat me down and held out two envelopes, one in each hand.
“Envelope number one,” and he held it up for me to see. “This contains the details of your first job. Tomorrow as it happens. The address is in there, and you’ll need to be there for nine.”
“Fuck off!”
“Envelope number two,” and he put it inside his coat pocket. “This contains a photograph that will interest a lot of people around here. Do you want to know what the photograph is?”
I already knew what it was.
“If you don’t turn up tomorrow night, then this will be seen by everyone that knows you, and they’ll know that you’re a fucking faggot.”
The man gave me the first envelope and began to walk away. I stared at it not wanting to know what might be inside.
“Oh, by the way,” he said stopping, “there’s also fifty quid in there, money up front as they say.”
“Fifty quid?”
“And don’t even think about pocketing it and not turning up because that photo will still appear, and you’ll also end up at the bottom of the canal. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
I thought about the next day when I was going to rob a newsagent with Andy and Jack whilst also joining a world that looked dark and sinister. I wanted to talk to the boys, and ask for their help, but I knew that I couldn’t, and would never be able to. I didn’t sleep at all that night.
The story so far.Harry Oldham is an author who has been encouraged to return to Sheffield and write about his past. A chance meeting with a stranger called Tom brings back memories of Paolo, ‘one of the most beautiful boys I’ve ever known.’ The other Geisha Boys, Andy and Jack, take a backseat as Harry recalls the first time he met him. (Parts 1-7 are available to readin the menu)
Part 8
It was the night we became Geisha Boys. The night we ran through the streets of Sheffield, laughing, covered in someone else’s blood.
We ran towards our block and didn’t see the two guys getting out of the car. Andy and Jack ran ahead, while I was spitting blood, and out of breath.
I was grabbed from behind. I shouted to the lads, and they stopped dead in their tracks. They were my brothers, and they would help me. Except that they couldn’t. One of the guys waved a stick at them, a thick one, and warned them off.
“Keep on running you little turds. Because if you don’t, I’ll break your fucking heads.”
The boys hesitated but were powerless to help. They edged away, watching me, and disappeared up the stairs.
“Fuck! Don’t fucking leave me!”
The other guy held me tight. There was the faint aroma of Brut and petunia on him. The man with the cosh waited until Andy and Jack had disappeared and turned to me.
“Let’s get in the car.”
I was bundled into the back of a dark Vauxhall Chevette where there was somebody else. I tried the door handle to escape but it was locked and so thumped the back of the driver’s seat in frustration.
The two guys got in front. The guy with the cosh was driving. The other one, who smelt of Brut and petunia, wore a flat cap and donkey jacket and looked straight ahead.
“Good evening, Harry,” he said. “The luck we’re having tonight. Who’d have thought it? A brawl in a bar. The aggressors running towards Park Hill. We thought, it couldn’t be?”
The car moved off and the guy beside me was quiet. I caught glimpses of his black curly hair as we passed under streetlights, the orange aura highlighting his dark features.
“Harry, meet Paolo. He’s a fucking eyetie.”
We drove a short distance and pulled up on a road that looked over the city centre.
Frank Smith got out and opened the rear passenger door. “Out you get.” The lad called Paolo slid out and stretched. “You too Harry.”
He led us through a gap in a stone wall and sat us on a bench while he remained standing and looking like a council workman. The other one leant on the wall and lit a cigarette.
“Look at that view,” said Frank. “A big city with lots of people. Good ones and bad ones. We’re the good guys, but there are more bad guys than we’d like. Which side are you two on?”
Neither of us answered.
“A long time ago this city was run by bad guys. Did you know they called it Little Chicago? It was full of gangsters who thought nothing about kicking the shit out of each other. Then there were the knives and the guns. These were gang wars, the Mooneys and the Garvins, and the police couldn’t control them.
“But somebody sorted it out. Percy Sillitoe was his name. If he’d failed, then life for every respectable citizen would have been hell, but he succeeded and ended up running MI5. Clever bloke. Did you know that I read history boys?”
It was a school lesson forced upon us. We looked at each other in bewilderment and didn’t know what to say.
“Oh yes, I like history. Did you know that it gets twisted? Sanitised. Let’s look at Percy Sillitoe. Hard, focused and determined. That’s what we read today, but he was a scheming bastard, who fought fire with fire.
“I like to think I’m a bit like him. If you did everything by the book, then we’d get nowhere. In years to come, everything will be touchy feely, and I hope I’m not around because justice will side with the villains. Fucking chaos.
“Some people think I’m a bent copper. That hurts. All I want to do is suss out the shit, and the only way is to play dirty. I always get what I want.”
Frank turned to us.
“It’s a bit like the gang wars. The only way to deal with today’s bad guys is to eliminate them. One by one. Are you with me?”
“What are you on about?” Paolo had spoken for the first time. His English was excellent but there was an unmistakable accent.
“I need your help. Both of you. Paolo, fucking eyetie, with your boyish looks. Harry, the bad boy with a big flaw running right through him. Do you know what that flaw is, Harry?”
“No,” I replied.
“It’s going to slap you in the face soon.”
Paolo looked at me, a fellow victim in this charade and his eyes showed fear. I didn’t know what to do. If he had looked closely, he would have seen that I was more terrified than he was.
“Kiss each other.”
What the fuck did Frank just say?
”Fucking kiss each other!” He stormed over and grabbed the backs of our heads. He forced them together until our noses almost touched, but we resisted, and Frank used his strength. Our faces brushed one another. Paolo’s skin was smooth with no sign of facial hair.
“Kiss goddammit!” Frank shouted. “Paolo, bender! You’ll enjoy it. Kiss the scabby shit.”
And Paolo did. A quick peck on the lips before forcing his tongue into my mouth. I couldn’t back away. He wrapped his tongue around mine and I had no choice but to do the same.
There was a flash of bright light, and I realised that the other copper had taken a photograph.
Frank released his grip. “That’s enough,” he laughed. “I knew you’d both enjoy it. Didn’t I say so Brian? He looked over to his colleague who acted as if nothing had happened . “You see Harry, your eyetie friend likes snogging lads, and I dare say that he finds you attractive. Isn’t that right Paolo?”
The Italian boy was mortified.
“A match made in heaven. Now that you’re better acquainted, I’m sure you’ll both help me.”
“I don’t understand,” said Paolo.
“Percy Sillitoe succeeded because he played both gangs against one another. A word in one ear, a word in the other. He didn’t do a thing. It was a set up. And when one gang thought they’d won. he went after them next and destroyed them too.
“These are the eighties, and there are perverts in this city, but as always, there is more than one player. Player One is getting pissed off with Player Two, and so Player One says to me, ‘get rid of these bastards!’ I say that it will cost them, but we work together, and Player Two disappears. Then I come down heavy on Player One, and he disappears too. Get it?”
I was angry. “What the fuck has it got to do with us? We aren’t doing anything for you?”
Frank stared me out.
“I think you’ll both help me.”
“Get fucked!”
“Do you really want your parents to see a photo that shows you going at it with another guy? Better still, what happens if it gets into the hands of your low-life friends? You won’t be able to show your face on Park Hill again.”
The guy called Brian laughed.
“And what will your eyetie parents think when they see that their beloved Catholic boy is really a depraved bender?”
I exchanged nervous glances with Paolo.
“I won’t offer you a lift home because you’ve both got a lot to talk about. Somebody will be in touch.”
The two coppers walked back to the car, but Frank shouted something before driving off. It sounded like, “If they’d have let me, I’d have caught the Yorkshire Ripper years ago.”
It’s been a long time. Almost ten months, but the story resumes. 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 1-6 are available to read in the menu)
Part 7
It had been months, and I hadn’t added any new chapters to the book. Meghan was horrified. She didn’t understand that the creative process could be painful. I’d opened my notes several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any further. Instead, I wrote anonymous blog posts that nobody read.
Winter turned to spring, and Sheffield seemed cleaner and brighter. By the time June came, I was also alarmed. I had until the end of the year to submit the first draft and I’d barely scratched the surface.
But something happened.
I had walked into the city centre and called at WH Smith. I remembered it as being a vibrant place, but on that sunny morning there was barely a soul inside. I didn’t get what the shop was supposed to be. There were only so many pens you could buy, the choice of magazines had diminished, and it was a place that didn’t sell my books. You also had to serve yourself, and if I’d been a young lad, I wouldn’t have paid for anything.
On the way home, I cut through the station that was empty because the train drivers were on strike again, and I bought the latest copy of Granta at the news stand because WH Smith didn’t stock it. I decided it might give me the inspiration to write, because everything in it was better than mine.
I walked over the footbridge and saw a young guy walking towards me. He seemed vaguely familiar and made eye contact. As we passed, I smiled, and he blushed. I looked around and realised that he’d done the same and quickly turned away.
I climbed the steps and sat on the grass in South Park. From here, I could look at the skyline with its cranes and emerging tower blocks. I lit a cigarette and thumbed through the magazine. Then I found a vape in my pocket and puffed on it. I was alternating between smoking the cigarette and the vape, but the sweetness of grape edged out the harshness of the tobacco.
I saw the guy walking up the steps from the station. He wore a grey hoodie and sweatpants and looked about eighteen or nineteen. Grey sweatpants are always an attraction. I sensed that he’d sat on the grass behind, and I resisted the urge to turn around. I began reading a story, it was written in strong Glaswegian about a young kid caught up with gangs that I found hard to understand. Londoners had once struggled to understand me too.
The young lad had moved and was sitting to my right. I looked across and he held my gaze. Those anonymous blog posts are about moments like these, the brief encounters that I embellish with happy endings, when they rarely are.
“I know who you are,” he called. “You’re Harry Oldham.”
I’m never recognised and the fact that he knew me was disconcerting because I’m more comfortable as a name and not a face.
“Have we met?”
“Yeah, we have, and you owe me a cigarette.”
He shifted to my side, and I gave him the cigarette he wanted. He had short blonde hair, blue eyes, and peachy stubble.
“What’s your name?”
”Tom.”
“Does Tom have a surname?”
“Everybody just calls me Tom.”
“Are you always shy?” He coloured up, his crimson cheeks glowing on a pale complexion.
“I’m only shy in front of people I’ve just met.”
“But you know who I am. Have you read my books?”
“‘I’ve read all of them. I suppose I know a lot about you. I’m not scared. Just curious.”
“I’m curious about you too. Tell me about yourself.”
“There’s nothing to say. I’m me.”
He looked down like he’d done once before, and I remembered that he’d once given me a cigarette.
”There are times when you have to tell somebody something.”
“I think you’re approachable, but you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”
“It’s not often I get to meet my biggest fan.”
“I didn’t say that I liked the books. I’ve just read them, that’s all.”
“Why read all three then?” He didn’t answer.
“I thought you and your two mates were going to mug me.”
“That wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have let it.”
“When I was your age, me and my mates would have sat outside the flats and been up to no good.”
He didn’t reply straightaway and seemed ill at ease. He blinked in the sunshine and concentrated on a passing tram. “We’re not all bad. No threat to you. Park Hill’s not a bad place.”
“Do you live there?”
His answer was decisive. “No!”
“Where do you live?”
“Hillsborough. I caught the tram.”
“Cool,” I said, and felt like a dork for saying it. “I once knew someone who lived there.”
“I won’t know them.”
“No, you won’t, because he’s been dead a long time.”
Tom looked inquisitive.
“He was called Paolo and one of the most beautiful boys I’ve ever known.”
“Old people die all the time.”
“I’m not that old, but yes, they do. In my mind, Paolo isn’t old. He never was. He still looks the same. Like James Dean… ”
“Like Heath Ledger?”
“Yes, like Heath Ledger. They’re frozen in time, but we get older, and they don’t, and we remember them from movies and photographs, except with Paolo there are no photos. He lives in my head, but I’m afraid that each time I think about him, the memory is more fragile.”
“Are you a faggot?”
“Yes, I am, but it takes another faggot to recognise one.”
“Not me, I have a girlfriend.”
“And what’s this girlfriend called?”
He hesitated. “She’s not important, and I want to hear more about Paolo.”
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.
Bathtub Boy/Pinterest
***
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.
Park Hill/Kennedy Drake Art Studio/The Rise and Fall of Public Space/Instagram/2022
A few years ago, I watched Yann Demange’s ’71,’ set on the streets of Belfast during the height of the troubles. I would have been five years old, and recall watching TV news about bombs and soldiers. The stories were gloomy but Northern Ireland had been a world away and nothing to do with me. They left their mark, and even now Belfast is the last place I’d consider visiting.
There is a scene in a pub at the Divis Flats, a republican stronghold at the bottom of Falls Road. It reminded me of The Parkway on Long Henry Row. I found out afterwards that it was filmed at Park Hill, used as a double for the demolished block.
It came back to me when I walked into the convenience store.
There were two murals to the left of the entrance. The first depicted a red crown on a grey background. The second reminded me of those yellow bollards that you find at the end of an alleyway. I hadn’t seen them before, but I knew this had been The Parkway with its dreary concrete frontage. It looked completely different, the small windows replaced with shiny metal and gleaming glass, and the interior showed no evidence that this had once been a rough pub. There was trendy alcohol on sale, a dessert bar, American sweets, Costa, as well as general groceries. I speculated what Terry Watson might have thought had he still been around.
I bought skimmed milk, a sourdough bloomer with kalamon olives, and balsamic vinegar.
“I told you to buy milk, normal milk in a bottle, and only a Fletcher’s thick loaf will do. Your dad likes it for his packing up. And only Sarson’s vinegar for his chips.”
That would have been my mum screaming at me.
At least I’d bought them on a credit card, or an app on my phone, because once upon a time I would have nicked them and pocketed the money she’d given me.
I walked back to the apartment and thought of Terry Watson.
In my mind’s eye, he was still hiding around the corner, waiting for me to turn towards the lift. He’d jump out, grab me by the throat, and pin me against the wall, his eyes raging, and his breath stinking of beer.
Terry was in his thirties, and I was sixteen.
“I’ll kill you,” he threatened. “I want my fifty quid back, and if I don’t, the three of you will end up at the bottom of the canal in little pieces.” He’d waited for a reaction. I was shitting myself. “And I mean reyt little pieces.”
He’d meant it. Terry Watson would have killed every one of the Geisha Boys, including his own son.
Andy’s dad was a villain and never worked. He plied his trade in The Parkway, along with his cronies, and earned a living buying and selling knocked off gear, supplementing it with dole money, and spending most of it across the bar.
It was a bad idea, but fifty quid in the kitchen cupboard was too much of a temptation. We needed new clothes, and Colvin’s was difficult to nick from. Andy pocketed the cash, we skipped the last days of school, and spent it on new jeans and tee-shirts.
It turned out that Terry owed somebody else that fifty quid, and those threats had been filtered down to us.
He got his fifty quid back. I gave it him, but at this moment I won’t say how I got it.
***
There was a misconception that Andy was stupid because school had told him so. His parents had given him nothing, but he made up for this genetic deficiency, and was quite clever. He was far cleverer than Jack and me, and if you got him in the right mood, he was academically brilliant. But those occasions were rare.
I remember watching Sale of the Century and Andy would come up with all the correct answers. He was lazy, that’s all there was to it.
That snotty nosed little boy taught me how to distract shopkeepers so that he could nick sweets. And then it was record sleeves, because shops used to keep vinyl behind the counter, and we would stick them on our bedroom walls for decoration. Then it was clothes, and people wondered where we got our money from.
My mum and dad worried about him, an only child, physically abused by his father, but initially they didn’t like him. As we got older, their opinion changed, charmed by his friendly politeness at the kitchen table where he spent most teatimes at ours.
“You always make fantastic meals Mrs Oldham.”
When she turned thirty, Andy presented her with a marvellous bouquet of flowers stolen from City Road Cemetery.
And when dad hurt his hand on a grinder, and spent weeks off work, Andy nicked a copy of The Sun from the rack outside the newsagents and took it to him every day.
But there was another side to Andy, and I recall seeing it when dad paid for everyone to see Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Gaumont cinema.
We sat in the front seats, and halfway through Andy went to the toilet. He never came back, but when the lights came up, we found him sitting a few rows behind with his arm draped across Donna Wainwright’s shoulder. She was four years older and seemed incredibly old to us. He had a smirk on his face and the biggest love bite. We took the piss out of Donna, not him, telling her that she was the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
“There are children here somewhere. I can smell them. Come along, kiddie-winkies! Here we are children, get your lollipops, lollipops, come along my little ones.”
Andy grew more handsome, able to chat up any girl, and the older they were, the more it pleased him.
From the age of twelve or thirteen, girls claimed him. He spent dark nights pressed against cold concrete as they kissed and explored him. He was a magnet to every slutty teenage girl across Park Hill, and if they couldn’t have him, then they turned to Jack and me, and we’d find our own dark corner.
Andy was never serious about girls. They all thought he loved them, but the next evening it would be a different one in another part of the complex. And then they’d become jealous, and the girls would fight each other, scream, pull hair, and scratch eyes out.
There were times when boyfriends and big brothers came looking for him.
“You’ve been shagging my bird.”
“You’ve been shagging my little sister.”
“I’ll fucking have you!”
It added to the fun because three against one was easy competition and they’d end up covered in blood in a damp walkway.
And it was never about sex. It was about collecting trophies and trying to look good to each other. We were young boys and didn’t understand the other sex. Everything we did to them we’d seen on TV. Except that Andy was better at it.
And I know when he lost his virginity. He was fourteen.
Mandy Brown lived with her bloke on the top floor of our block. She was in her thirties with peroxide blonde hair, mini skirt, and low cut top that showed off big tits. We joked as she tottered along to The Link in high heels and leopard skin fur.
Late one night, we were dossing on the steps when she returned home. She’d been entertaining married men at the pub and was drunk.
“Get out of my fucking way.” None of us moved.
“Go fuck yourself slag.”
Instead of pushing past, she slumped between us and lit a cigarette. She offered the pack and Jack took three out and pocketed the rest.
“Life’s a fucking bore,” she said. “Old blokes with beer bellies. Old blokes with shrivelled up willies. Old blokes who want to fuck me in exchange for a Babycham.”
“I thought you had a bloke already.”
She ran a hand through her hair and revealed black roots. “He’s a cunt. Sleeps all day. Works all night.”
“Get a new fella,” I told her.
She screwed her eyes up and stared at me. “Fucking clever bastard. Grow up and you’ll be God’s gift to fuck all.” I blushed and she relented. “If there are three bad boys, then you’re probably the best of the bad.”
Andy stretched his foot out and touched Mandy on the ankle. It was meant to be discreet, but I noticed.
She spoke again. “I think you want to be loved by your bad boy mates, but your conscience gets in the way.” She looked to the foggy sky and blew a cloud of smoke. “Get rid of that and anything’s possible.”
“If you wanted to shag any of us, who’d you choose?” It was a question that Jack always asked.
“You’re boys. Fucking schoolboys.”
Mandy rubbed her skinny ankle against Andy’s outstretched leg and stole a sideways glance. He looked at me and said nothing.
“But if we were older, who’d be the one you’d shag?”
“If I were to fuck any of you then I’d go to prison. But if I had to choose.”
She looked long and hard at each of us.
She stared at Jack. “Too pretty. Too small. Massive cock. No fucking idea how to use it.”
Then it was me. “Dark horse. Weird looking. Big cock. Not sure where he wants to put it.”
Andy was last. She slapped him on the leg. “Dangerous. Good-looking. Nice cock.”
That was it.
“And so, if I had to choose, I’d say go and wank each other off until you’re older.” She laughed. Jack and I looked at each other and pretended not to be disappointed.
Mandy looped one arm through Andy’s, the other through mine, and we climbed upstairs.
“These steps will kill me by the time I’m thirty,” she joked.
“In your dreams love,” said Andy.
Jack walked ahead of us and when he reached his landing turned and smiled before disappearing. “Fucking loves himself,” she murmured.
It was my landing next, and I left Andy to walk her to the next floor. “Fucking strange,” she muttered.
I stopped and listened as they scrambled upstairs. They were talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The conversation faded and I pictured Andy giving her a peck on the cheek, as he was prone to do, before heading home and turning on the TV.
I decided to follow them. I crept upstairs, peering around each turn, until I reached the next level. I looked along Andy’s landing, but he was nowhere to be seen.
I repeated the process, ticking off each floor until I could go no further. Mandy’s flat was at the far end, and I could see her fumbling for keys in her handbag. Andy was behind, steadying her by the hips, like a boy might help his mum. She found them, turned towards Andy, and giggled. And then she kissed him on the forehead. Once they’d gone inside, I waited for him to come back out. But he never did.
I was jealous, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was jealous about. The green-eyed monster was something I became familiar with. When I got jealous, it manifested itself into anger, and when I got angry, I was inconsolable.
I sat on the floor and stared at the empty sidewalk. I thought of Mandy’s parting words. “Fucking strange.” And I thought how wrong it all was.
Despite every terrible thing the three of us had ever done – fighting, stealing – this was much worse. I swore that I would tell somebody, and Mandy would be in trouble, and Andy would be sorry. But I realised that if I did that, I would lose both Andy and Jack.
Then I thought that things like this shouldn’t matter, and I’d do something equally as bad.
Each hour I sat there was consumed with inner fury, and when I realised that I couldn’t do anything about it, I punched the wall and broke my hand.
Perfectly Hard and Glamorous 