The Burning Bed!

His Mother had come home to die. She knew there was no hope left so she requested to be among them all before she went. It didn’t last long, maybe a week or so. But Dave remembered one morning particularly, he was getting ready for school and she called him into her bedroom. She was sat up propped against the pillows.

“Darling come here,” he leaned over and kissed her on her cheek. “Just give me a cuddle” she was smiling, no sign of pain. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips and said, “All right my sweetheart you go off to school and have a lovely day, and remember I love you very much. Now I’ll be fine, fit as a fiddle.”
She died that afternoon.

When she died Dave's father burned the matrimonial bed. One evening when he came home from school it was on fire in the backyard. His dad was sat in an armchair surrounded by smoke holding his head in his hands and crying. Dave wanted to go to him and hold him but realised in that moment he never could. Through the spiralling black smoke of that late afternoon Dave's fate was sealed, and he knew for certain then he would never love him.

Dave thought he would welcome the love of a son to carry on his name. He cannot understand how it is possible to feel so little love for a child that you helped create. Are there any grounds for such rejection?

Dave had to find his love and protection with his sisters. Some days he lived with great apprehension hanging over him. Not wanting to be alone with his father because he could not trust his temper.

Nevertheless, Dave would have forgiven his father if he had just shown one sign of kindness. He would have wiped his memory clean and began from that moment. But in the end he stopped waiting. He realised he would never come to him, so he made his own life with out his direction or guidance. His father never recovered.

He had come from Madrid when he was young to escape the purges of Franco. He was tough. He had suffered great hardships. He fought in the Spanish Civil war on the side of the Republicans. “I felt honoured…to be among such men…to fight against el fascismo for la libertad…” He was drunk often.
“We fought because we were threatened…we wanted to do away with the abuses of the state la junta, the desigualdad. We wanted la libertad de palabra, la libertad de prensa … They could not bear for the people to rule them…that we the nation had voted to throw out of power… el monarquista, regimen autocratico, and so the Spanish army came from Africa under the command of the “big” man Franco, bolstered by his Italian ally Mussolini and Hitler’s Nazis, and with there help plunged our country into a terrible war! That turned hermano against hermano ”

He would tear bread off the loaf and dip it into his soup. It dripped from his chin. “And I tell you all, I fought like a leon,to save my country and it only led to desperation…we had dreams of liberalismo, of freedom from our toils but…ah! They crushed us. How can you fight planes and artillery with rusty rifles?”

“We killed the fascists, and they killed us, and some people talked much and killed little, but we few in the hills…we were different! When the snow came some died of the cold, we had so little…”
He would drink from the neck of the bottle of wine; his head tossed back, and then wipe his mouth on his sleeve. He was lost now and had been then. Now we are both lost…

Some days he played guitar and laughed. Those were peaceful days. Dave lived for those few hours, and for a spell he could see him as a handsome young man with jet-black hair and hazel eyes. It was little wonder his mother had loved him. Sometimes he played fast and furious like a whirling Dervish, a crazy flamenco from the south of Spain, stamping his feet and tapping the body of the instrument like a drum, lost in his country and music never to come back… and somewhere tonight he was out there in the wasteland, a sad, lonely, old man.

Dave's heart went out to him then. He thought of him as a human being who also had had a mother who had loved and held him. Where can he go? What is left of his world? Dave could not know when he was growing up what he had borne. He knew only he was his son and the he was despised for no reason he could understand.

Adrift. The people had gone. The music had stopped playing. The emptiness in Dave's life was replaced with heroin that was really just a whore that gave support for brief spells, and deserted him at the first opportunity, and like a whore still paraded around him taunting him for his inadequacies. He was hooked. He was in a stinking lousy situation, and somewhere in his head he knew he had to summon the energy, the will power to fight this monstrosity. But words are so easy when you’re full of heroin. When you’ve had a smoke, you feel everything is possible. It all falls into place like some rancid old logic that swirls around your head and you think it has real meaning. You think it is going to happen because it’s there inside your head when in actuality it is a dream, a useless desperate dream that disappears when the heroin starts to wear off. That is the cruelty of the drug. Those are the places it takes you when it is in control of your life. It won’t let you off that easy. It toys with you. Making you strong one moment and pulling you down the next…

Dave looked at the rooftops of the city and thought of the lives behind the doors. It does not matter whether it is raining. The moon pulls a silver skin over the streets and buildings. Everywhere looks deserted. The extinct, cratered moon shines over the extinct, cratered city and in his solitude he was haunted.

“The plan is this right?” Winsdale was talking.
“We buy some sort of motor…lets say a mini…something like cheap, but not too cheap, cos we want ta give a reasonable impression. Then I drive ‘em ta the ‘ouse, take the money and go in. Reg here opens the door, cautious like cos we’ve got ta realise these geezers will be watching every step and we’ve got ta give the impression we’re being watched.”

“What if it comes on top though?”

“How can it Dave? I mean it’s pretty straightforward ain’t it?”

Dave looked at Reg who seemed to be thinking but then again he wasn’t sure.

“We then run through the ‘ouse and outta the back and into your car that will be waiting in the street round the back...”

“Well it does sound simple and pretty uncomplicated. But what if one of these geezers wants to come with you like?”

Reg looked at me. “Dave. There ain’t any chance that them geezers will get through the front door.” Then he knew what he meant.
“So I sit round the back…”

“Yeah, that’s right and then you drive us back to Reg’s and we go through the same thing we did before.”

Dave was inquisitive about what was going on since he’d packed the cab office in.

“By the way what happened with Eric like?”

“Nothing really. A couple of geezers visited his gaff and wanted to know ‘ow it could ‘ave ‘appened…but since they ‘ad ‘ad a couple of other instances ‘appen before, Eric played dumb, and he said I was a renegade who he ‘ardly knew, they sort of swallowed that.”

“But didn’t they want to know how you knew? I mean it was no coincidence we were there at that moment.”

“Dave you think too much…what’s ta say I hadn’t been following this bloke for a few weeks before? Nothing really. And that’s how they figured it I guess.”

“So won’t they have a description of you?”

“Well what they going to say man about me…A black geezer, this tall, this build, wearing this that and the other…I think I’d be more wary of what that geezers going to say about you, and your looks, than about mine.” Dave thought,'Fuck!' he had a point.

“Meanwhile back at the fucking ranch. What da yer fink about it so far?”

“How much dosh is involved like? Is it worth all this effort?” Winsdale looked at Dave as if I was some sort of fool.

“Dave all I can say at this particular moment is there will be enough dough for you to settle your bills for a few weeks.”

Reg spoke. “Look it’s gotta be ‘ouse right cos these people ain’t going ta swallow Winsdale disappearing into some ‘ousing estate with their dosh. They want ta see ‘im actually going into an ‘ouse so they know where he ‘is. I mean if it were that simple we would ‘ave done it before like…but in this case cos there’s several thousand grand involved they’ve got to feel that things are kosher, otherwise it may get nasty and they might pull shooters. So if there’re sat in a motor that belongs ta the geezer that’s gone ta sort out some gear for them, and they know which ‘ouse it is, there’re not going to be overly concerned to begin with are they Dave?”

“I see your point.”

“And that’s why we need ta know today whether you’re up for it.” Winsdale ordered teas all round…

The split in Dave's life between what was real and what he wanted at times was becoming unbearable. The pretend world of being neither a gangster nor being a father was becoming evident to him. He could not make a choice. How can you make a choice when there is none? What was he doing with Reg and Winsdale? What was he pretending for? He wasn’t Winsdale. He couldn’t live or bear the humiliations that sometimes he had to bear because of the colour of his skin. How can you be prepared for the spittle in your face, all the tireless inventiveness that goes into the spite and fear of small, unutterably miserable people, whose safety, is entirely dependent on the humiliation and anguish of others?

The driving forces behind Dave's addiction do not stem from such roots. Every living minute is not tinged with his colour, not here in this white dominated society. He can walk down most streets unafraid. What is his fear? How can he discover it when his brain is blitzed with smack? Maybe he lives in a dream of being able to recover what he has lost.

Reg is different. He was born in Plaistow down the East end and as always been a thug from what Dave understood. He went to school with the Kray twins. These partners in crime were not of Dave's making they were thrown together by circumstances. Why did he act so dumb when he was with them?

He was just convenient. A driver. But he'd never known so much gear about, so much risky opportunities and the promise of more. They are dependent on each other without really understanding why, and none of them will scratch the surface afraid maybe to uncover the twisted logic of it all.

Dave was now faced with a choice. To go along with it or to say 'I’ve had enough.'

“So whose house will you use anyway?”

“There’s these geezers I know who live in a squat over in Stamford Hill right, and if we slip these couple of crooks a few quid then we can use that for the afternoon.”

“Look I need to think about it for a day or two…it’s a big step man for me like and I need to consider the whys and wherefores of such a move.”

Winsdale nodded his head. “All right Dave.” Reg sat there impassive.

Dave got up and left them and drove home to think. He needed money desperately. He couldn’t let them know how desperate he was, because they would simply apply more pressure. He thought such a day would never come. He was in danger of throwing his lot in with them. Could he throw his life away so easily? What of Max, the baby, Toni?He was thinking, maybe he could get a job at MacDonald’s or Spud-u-like? Do they take forty one year old smack heads?

It seemed a nightmare world was unfurling. He’d given most of the money he had got from the last blag to Toni. Now he was pretty much broke, with Carlos the 'bubble' pacing up and down outside his door wanting him out unless he could produce the cash. He had three days in which to do it. Three days to get at least £150 and no amount of touting on the streets was going to make that happen. He snorted a pinch of coke.

What if he robbed Mini? He was a small guy he could easily over power him. Give him a smack round the ear hole and scarper. Nobody knew where he lived. No he couldn’t…he couldn’t summon the venom to do it. He thought of the Inn on the Park at Chalk Farm, there was always lots of rich women coming and going out of there, snatch a handbag maybe, and run like the clappers, jump in the car and away. Simple. He was sinking pretty fast. Where was there easy money? Sub – post office, petrol station, fuck! Borrow the money? He couldn’t see the orang-utan’s helping him out, why would they? What was in it for them? Nothing. He was trapped. He had to do the job with them. So now he had to stall Carlos. Make him think for definite his money was coming and with it a damn sight more. He knocked on Nigel’s door.

“Hello whose there?”

“It’s me Nigel…Dave.” he could hear whispered voices, scuffling.

“What do ya want?”

“To use your phone if that’s all right.”

“What now?” he shouted.

“Yeah it’s an emergency and I‘ve got ta speak to Carlos.” He figured the mention of his name would do the trick.

“Okay then I’d better let you in…”

He came to the door and let him in. The room smelled of dope. “It’s all right man…every things cool. I just need to ring Carlos that’s all…you got his number?”

Under the bed cloths there lay a young man with a pretty face, almost like Shirley Temple with masses of curly hair. He was all made up with a bright cherry coloured lipstick, black mascara, and a pale blue eye shadow. He was smiling and so was Dave. Nigel became flustered.

“Calm down man everything’s all right.”

“But you said it was an emergency…” he pouted.

“Well it kind of is because I’m up shit creek without a paddle so to speak.”

Nigel smoothed his hair, tied his dressing gown around himself and seemed to relax. He went to his wardrobe and found the bit of paper with the number on.

“Carlos? It’s Dave…Listen about Monday right, I’ve sorted something out but the unfortunate thing is I cannot have any dosh until at least Friday or maybe Saturday… Cos I got a definite coming off and these people I’m working for cannot pay until then…I know Carlos I’m sorry for being a disappointment man…but I will not let you down, I promise, and Colin said he would stand by me on this one…I’m sure man I wouldn’t lie to you would I? What is the point? All ya gotta do is turf my stuff out if it doesn’t happen, and none of us want that do we? Yeah it’ll be all right…I really promise. On my children’s life right!”

“Sounds like you’re in a bit of twouble…” lisped Nigel.

“Yeah things are a bit sticky but it can be sorted eventually…the usual money thing that can and does affect us all from time to time.”

The young man sat up in bed his thin, white, hairless body showing above the sheets…Dave winked and laughed, gave a little wave and left the room, feeling rather curiously, slightly aroused.

'Hello young lovers your under arrest!'

He lit a cigarette and went downstairs and out of the front door. He needed some cold air. The problem with living there was that there were no parks nearby. Nowhere to exercise and think, unless he drove down to Finsbury and then there was nowhere to park. The streets seemed hideous and cold. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and walked towards Seven Sisters Road. On the street corner there stood a man with a billboard wrapped around him. 'Jesus Saves!'

He was handing out sheets of paper with the usual bullshit written on them about repenting and finding the Lord…and how we must ask for forgiveness for our sins.

'Hallelujah! Come out the wilderness brother! He wailed, how do you feel when you come out the wilderness, leaning on the Lord? Do thank God! Do sing His praises! Oh hallelujah blessed is His name!”

Dave felt at that moment a great sense of loss and impending disaster. It seemed to cover him like a sea mist, curling along the pavement; a steadily blackening despair that fell on his shoulders trying to ground him into the dirt.

He was far away from home and he couldn’t get back. He missed everything now, the laughter of his sisters, and all that charming and comforting love that they had given him over the years. He was so proud of them, so much in love with all of them. He missed the hilarity when dad wasn’t there to spoil the atmosphere by singling him out.

Fear and fury were constant companions in those days when he was drunk and feeling bullish towards him, and the love that he sought from him soon turned, has he got older, to loathing the very ground he walked on. He grew weaker as Dave grew stronger, and Dave found himself making allowances for him. He always had to let him win. Always let him know that he was tougher than him because he had so little else to cling to, other than this display of his manliness towards him. This posturing. This weakened matador strutting around the angry young bull was starting to lose his nerve, and as a consequence also his integrity.

Dave never turned against him. There was no point. What little he had left to lose Dave was not going to be responsible for taking it away. So he accepted his humiliation at his hands, which went on for much longer than it should have considering the power in his own body.

Dave woke up shaking. He was clammy and cold with sweat; under him the mattress was soaked. The sheet was grey and twisted, like a hangman’s rope…

He couldn’t move for a long while. He just lay on his back, spread-eagled, looking up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of people getting up in other parts of the house.

Alarm clocks ringing, water splashing, doors opening and shutting, feet on the stairs and that’s life bulging from all the windows…tears and fragments of quarrels, pregnancies and miscarriages, splashing used cars roaring by, morning televisions sets blaring, beef burger’s singing…

He had been dreaming. But he could not remember the dream, except in his dream he had been running. It had been about the distant past that’s all he knew. Something way out there.

For long periods he would have no dreams at all. Then they would come back, every night. He would go to sleep frightened and wake up frightened, and have another day to get through with the nightmare leaning on his shoulder.

The room looked different for a while. The flecked wallpaper looked like dried blood. He kept thinking it was a room to die in but not to live in.

His bed was in the corner. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling that gave brash light when switched on, and by the bathroom door, along with his unpacked suitcase full of books, was a pile of dirty clothing cramped into the corner between the wardrobe and the wall.

He could hear Carlos’s bubble voice downstairs that broken, Greek accented, English.

‘Yeah, well-a you-a listen ta me da sunshine if ya don’t like yer out…now da ya understand-a mate?’

Always that bullying manner with him that take it or leave it attitude that was starting to get on Dave’s goat no end, mister Big Man when he was throwing his weight around, purely and simply because he could. Who was strong enough to defend themselves?

Dave kept thinking if he paid his rent he couldn’t throw him out. But now he had no money with which to pay him. He sat up and lit a cigarette. ‘Dave, don’t let him scare you to death. You’re a man too.’

He looked in the mirror to make sure he was alive. It was cold, yet even on the coldest of mornings it was not possible to light a fire. His sweat was turning cold. He switched on the radio. He listened to the breakfast symphony. They were playing Beethoven. He watched the smoke rise to the dirty ceiling and listened to footsteps on the stairs getting nearer.

Carlos always banged the door, never knocked. Dave got up fully dressed as usual, and opened it.

‘Well then! What-a do we ’ave ’ere?’

Dave shuffled to one side and he walked in uninvited. He put his fat Greek hand on Dave’s shoulder; his fingers were covered with long, black, curly hair.

‘Dave there comes a time when-a all good things must end…’ ‘Surely not a philosopher as well as a toss- pot?’

‘And I’ve been thinking.” ‘Steady on you might have a brainstorm.’

'That it’s nearing the time when you should-a leave.’

Dave looked at him dozily. The words had not sunk in.

‘Ya see Dave its called-a business…and your not up ta it like, this business malarkey.’

Carlos sat down in the easy chair slowly rubbing his hands together.

‘Ya see-a I’ve got some cousins of mine coming over from my country who need-a place ta stay for a few weeks and guess what? I thought of ’ere like. Ya see they’ve lived in mud huts in Ios all of their lives…this place we both know is a shit hole right! But ta them well…’ he drifted off, lingering on every word.

‘There’s running water, whereas in their own-a country they have to walk-a miles to da stream. Within one square mile there is everything they only dream about. Electricity, sanitation, groceries… So Dave rather than you struggling to get da money together, I’m gonna do you a favour and let ya go mate.’

He smiled. Dave tried to clear his throat. He knew he’d taken enough of his crap, and him sitting there lording it over him, made him want to leap on the bastard and stick a knife in him. Only problem there was he didn’t have a knife but he had chopsticks. Dave felt dreadful at that moment.

‘Listen Carlos in a couple of days I will have more money than sense…and you’ll get your arrears plus a few quid on top so I don’t really know why you’re acting like this…’

'It’s about-a trust Dave and da future, and I don’t see anyway forward-a for us. All I see is a kind of continuous dribble of me-a chasing you always for da rent. I do your brother Colin a big-a deal-a by letting you stay ’ere, and you treat me like-a Joe Muggings.'

He was nodding his head expressing his point with his hands; index fingers and thumbs touching in front of him like some fat Italian chef expressing the beauty of a dish full of food, 'Magnifico!'

'So you-a see Dave there is-a no-a place for you-a ’ere like.'

Dave felt empty. Of all the mornings to be coming round and telling him this it had to be today when he felt like shit, and his body was calling for drugs. Dave blew his nose and looked at him with watery eyes. He kept thinking ‘I hope the bastard doesn’t think I’m near to tears but then again who gives a fuck.’

Dave croaked, 'So Carlos what do you have in mind? Next week, next month, what?'

'I know yer brother-in-law Colin he understand-a my ways…so I give you-a till one week from Friday see. Then you out-a.'

He stood up rolling his shoulders and breathing his garlic sausage breath all over Dave’s face.

‘So Dave you-a got that yes?’ Dave nodded. ‘And no monkey business cos I bring my friend Maltese Joe just ta make-a sure you-a not-a ’ere much longer than what we say now.’

‘Yes I’ve got it Carlos. I understand fully.’ As he closed the door Dave gave him the Nazi salute. ‘Mein Carlos!’ And clicked his heels.

So the final barrier was now removed, and the street beckoned. His arm was pushed one more inch up his back. He had ten days to get out. Ten days in which to find another place, another rundown 'karzy,' no doubt somewhere in this corner of the woods. He saw the medals on his chest, the cap in his hand, one of Wellington’s hero’s, ‘Can you spare a copper for a cuppa tea Guv?’

Dave dug in a drawer and got some skag out and had a smoke. The world always seemed a better place when he was smacked up. Easier to handle, to come to terms with, things fell into their allocated slots a lot simpler. He was thinking, ‘to hell with Carlos man! He doesn’t scare me. I scare me.’

He put the pan on and found a tin of tomato soup. He was dirty. He stood there scratching his balls and looked in the mirror at his unshaven face. 'Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all! Not you cunt!'

The house was silent now. There was no dwindling down everything had stopped suddenly. All he could hear was his raspy breathing, coming from a long way down in his chest. It was like in a single instant nothing, apart from the noise of the soup boiling. He switched it off and sat on his bed dipping stale bread into the red muck.

He stared at the wall straining for sound, for some kind of information that would tell me at that moment he was not alone.

Somewhere far off in some other distant street he could hear a police siren wailing. There were thousands of people nearby and he couldn’t hear one solitary noise.

He ran the bath and had a shave and lowered myself into the hot water. He lay down, and let the warmth cover his scrawny body.

Sometimes, in the desert, he’d get so tired he’d forget where he was and sleep the way he hadn’t slept since he was a child. He knew a lot of people who never got up from such sleep. Never knew what hit them. Some called them lucky because they never knew. They could sleep through 105 shells firing; whizzing over their heads, a sonic boom that sucked the air from around them. Nothing could wake them… but a rustle in the bushes forty feet away, or a stopped generator, and they sat up alert, large eyes blinking, ready for some kind of action, looking around them like a child in darkness. Jolted back from dreams into a place they had forgotten about for a while. Mostly what they had was an agitated half sleep, they thought they were sleeping but mainly they were just waiting.

Night sweats, mosquitoes dive-bombing their ears, dust blowing for days on end, wipeouts. Stuck in deep canyons with dark prehistoric layers mapping the time where a river once had ran. Now it was just the heat of day and the cold of night, blowing down those long, silent, walls.

Sometimes he would be pinned to his canvas cot, peering out of some tent flap at the glimmering night sky of a combat zone. Watching star shells explode on some distant faraway horizon, competing with the heavens for a strange beauty.

He would doze and wake under a mosquito net in a mess of slick sweat, gagging for air that wasn’t 99% dirty with grit or sand, just wanting one clean breath to curb his anxiety and cleanse the smell of his own body. But all he got was more dust that corroded his appetite for living, and burned his eyes, and made his cigarettes taste like swollen scorpions smoked alive, 'crackling, poisoned shit.'

And sometimes the only reason he didn’t panic was that he didn’t have the energy.

Dave flicked the hot water tap with his toe and poured more warmth in. It seemed now he would have to do it. Risking something he didn’t even know about. All he had to do was sit there and drive and keep his mouth shut. What was the big deal? So some guys got ripped off whom given half the chance would rip them off. It sounded straight forward enough. What the hell! Cigarettes and coffee that’s what he needed.

He picked Winsdale and Reg up outside Chalk Farm tube station on the Friday morning and they drove up to Stamford Hill, to get in to position.

Winsdale and Reg got out of the car on Leabourne Road, off Castlewood Road, and went into a fairly shabby looking house that had the remains of a broken down motorbike in the garden. The windows were dirty and the orange coloured curtains had seen better days. It was in a row of terraced houses and in the main didn’t look too different from all of the other houses in the street.

There was no glaring graffiti to give the game away. No ‘fuck the pigs’ or ‘anarchy rules ok’ painted on the walls. Only the Queen ruled round there. The door needed a coat of paint and the windowsills were peeling but so was every house in the street.

Winsdale came back after about ten minutes having made sure his mates had left and Reg was in place. ‘Yeah everything’s cool. Right man what we’ll do now is go round the back and see the other street.’

Dave drove down and turned left up Castlewood and then went down Moundfield Road. Both streets were open ended. They stopped outside number 22.

‘Right Dave this is the back of the house. Reg and me will be coming down those steps over there at a rate of knots. Make sure your facing this way cos they’ll be in a car the other side facing Castlewood. You then drive up the road away from the scene, straight up Moundfield and into Elm Park Avenue. Ya got that Dave?’

‘So straight up there really.’ He pointed in front.

‘When we get ta the top of that we swing left down Crowland and into the High Road behind South Tottenham station, and then swing right and join Seven Sisters and then back ta Reg’s.’ Dave nodded.

Dave then drove Winsdale to pick up the other motor from a mate of his. They had decided against buying one, which was the original plan, and instead they were now going to use one that had been ringed. It had been used as a getaway car from some post office job a while back, and was now past its sell by date and in order to keep suspicion down, Winsdale’s mate had changed the number plate. It was a metallic blue BMW with grey upholstery and a fancy wooden dashboard, the ideal car for the job because it looked decent and the thinking was that nobody in their right mind would leave it behind.

Dave left Winsdale at a back street garage in Lordship Lane and drove steadily back to Moundfield Road to wait. He bought a newspaper and cigarettes and prepared himself for sitting outside the house. Winsdale told him he was meeting these geezers in a boozer down Forest Road, no doubt to discuss the finer points of how much money was involved, but even in his own head what with the use and abandonment of the BMW, which would mean weighing Winsdale’s mates off as well, it must be a fair size wedge to go to all this trouble.

Dave mentioned that time was of the essence. It was important not to linger too long, purely because of him sitting outside a house in what was a dodgy area. It was not a time for getting his collar felt by the Old Bill, after all he was the way out, the salvation, and if he got lifted then they’d all be up shit creek without a paddle.

When he got back to his position at the back of the house there was no parking space left outside the back door. On the other side of the road it was a single yellow line, limited parking time stared him in the face.

Dave sat in the car across the road and tried to read the paper, looking as casual as possible, like he was a geezer taking a break before going back to work. None of them had any real idea how long this was going to take. He figured somewhere in the region of maybe an hour, but then again it might not happen that way, particularly if they cut rough and wanted to cover every aspect of the deal themselves and insisted that Winsdale take them to the guys that had the gear instead of him getting it. That was a possibility, that they may try and come through the door to take the lot, thinking there was money and drugs in there, with guns blazing.

Dave looked across at the house and saw Reg at the back window. He gave him the thumbs up.

He felt nervous all of a sudden and wondered for a brief moment whether he was up to it. He felt terribly unfit and not well, his stomach was growling with emptiness and apprehension, and he wished he had bought some chocolate and water to try to settle it.

He dug out a wrap of Charlie from his jeans pocket and dipped his finger in, gently massaging some onto his gums. His mouth went numb, and for a short while he was on the point of throwing up as he gagged with the potency of it.

The radio entered his head. It was some pirate station broadcasting from a back street. ‘High in the seventies. Some slight chance of thunder tomorrow. It’s seventy-two degrees at Heathrow Airport, and in here, red-hot country music from Head Radio 95 FM…Merle Haggard was singing… ‘Rolling with the flow, going where the lonely go…Any where the lights are low…Sleep won’t hardly come…where there’s loneliness all around. But I’ve got to keep on going…travelling down this lonesome road.’

There was a tapping on the car window. He looked up to see a traffic warden. Dave wound down the window trying to control what was a growing dislike for this arm of the establishment. Of all the bleeding jobs a man can get, thought Dave.

‘Yes? I know I’m parked in a restricted street…but I’m waiting for a friend who shouldn’t be long.’

‘Well it seems he’s taking his time ‘cos I sussed ya, let me see, twenty minutes ago.’ He stood there this baby faced kid, with apple cheeks and fat arse; book in hand, rocking on the soles of his feet.

‘How much longer da ya fink ya gonna be?’ he asked.

'Well, what it is his mum’s ill see, and he’s just saying hello to her, just dropping in like so he should be back shortly. I mean ya know what mum’s are when they don’t see ya for a while?’

The warder nodded his head, the radio in a pouch on his belt crackled with static. He took it out and turned away, speaking into the mouthpiece, ‘Yeah that’s right…a blue cavalier CDI, registration… yeah I see, right.’ He turned back. ‘Yeah, I just checked your registration and it seems ya got about 37 unpaid parking tickets outstanding.’

Dave looked him straight in the eye. ‘Well that’s news ta me mate because I only bought the car last week, and how would I know something like that had happened?’

The warden pushed his hat back on his head and started sucking the end of his pen. He then walked round the car. “Well its got dirty very quickly considering it was only last week, and also there’s a bald tyre…and ya gotta dent in the back fender and the tax as expired.”

‘What can I say about this car that you don’t already know? Maybe I wasn’t feeling very well that day? You know what it can be like…Anyway,’ said Dave, ‘are you going to give me a few minutes longer or what? And with regard to the tax disc I’ve sent off for it to Swansea a few days ago.’

‘That’s what they all say mate…there must be more tax discs in the bleeding post than soft Mick.’

Dave was trying to control his anger now. He could feel the pressure. This clown was getting dangerous, overstepping the mark. He knew he couldn’t get out of the car and flatten him that would be an added complication. He also had a radio to the outside world which was unnerving to say the least, and in the event of violence, the police if needs be would not be too far away.

‘So are you going to give me a ticket or what?’

‘I’m just gonna go for a walk round the corner and I’ll be back in a minute right? And if ya still ‘ere I’m gonna book ya. Ok?’

Dave looked at the fat bastard walking away, and wondered if that was the real reason he was going round the corner. He was stuck and didn’t really know what to do. Obviously the ticket didn’t bother him but the 'rozzers' did. If the 'filth' turned up now and started giving him a hard time, and searched him then they would all be 'cream crackered.'

Dave started sweating. He realised that the traffic warden was the problem. He was the one making him jumpy. He kept thinking ‘come on guys! Be quick.’

One time when he was living in the world he was sat with Toni watching telly. A geezer came on who had just been paroled after more than twenty years inside. He was talking for some reason about cars, and how they had become silent, and how if you didn’t take notice, you could quite easily walk out in front of a on coming one.

‘Like in the olden days,’ he was saying, ‘They always made a noise like…gears crashing, suspension squeaking, the drone of the engine but mainly backfiring cos the mixture wasn’t always right...’

Then almost on cue a car did backfire, twice and not too faraway. Dave looked down the street, and the traffic warder was walking up with a large copper by his side. They were about fifty yards away.

To his left he spotted Winsdale and Reg running towards him like the clappers. Reg had his gun in his hand and was waving it about, and Winsdale had a leather holdall under his arm. Dave started the car. They jumped in. ‘Fuck go! Quick!’ he accelerated down the road.

The old bill stepped out and held up his hand shouting, ‘Stop!’ Dave carried on towards him screaming through the window, ‘Get out the fucking way!’ Dave hit him with the right hand wing of the car, there was a horrible thud and he was thrown like a fat rag doll, falling in the roadside clutching his walkie-talkie, no doubt giving a running commentary about what was happening. At the same moment the warden jumped on the bonnet of the car, his stupid face pressed against the windscreen. Reg raised his gun. ‘I’m gonna blow your fucking head off!’
‘Don’t fire Reg!’ yelled Dave. He braked hard instead and the warden flew off, hitting the road in front of the car. Dave swerved. Winsdale was shouting ‘Fucking mug! Fucking mug!’

Reg pointed his shooter at the warden for a second time. ‘Don’t shoot him man for fucks sake!’ Reg pulled the trigger anyway, the bullet hitting the road by his head and ricocheting against a wall.

They accelerated up Elm Park Avenue and swung left following the plan. Winsdale’s eyes were rolling in his head.
‘The fuckers came after me man! They were trying the door, like shouldering it…’

‘Calm down Winsdale” said Dave whilst looking at Reg in the rear-view mirror. He was putting three shells into the chamber of his gun. He was cool, almost psychotically cool, ‘Yeah so I shot ‘em’ said Reg, ‘Bang! Bang! Through the door I heard ‘em scream ‘fuck I’ve been shot!’ Like the surprise in their voices man.’ He was smiling.

Dave slowed down as they headed towards Camden. Police sirens were shrieking on Tottenham High Road. The traffic wasn’t too heavy and they were making reasonable time away from the scene. There were numerous imponderables. Thoughts whizzed round Dave’s head. They knew everything about him. No doubt the warden would give the police his description and the make of car, the registration number and then there was all those parking tickets that would pinpoint the street where he parked the car most. He was trying to not let panic creep into his voice.

‘Listen we’re going to have to dump the car, its no use to me anyway they know all about it! And there's fingerprints in the event of them finding it? I know the car’s full of scores of other peoples dabs, but nevertheless we must get rid of it somehow and straightaway if you two are not to be associated with this motor.’

Winsdale said, ‘We can dump this down the back of Marylebone Station, there’s some waste ground there where we could fire it, and nobody will be the wiser. We could then go into the station and get da underground back.’

Reg was nodding at the suggestion.

‘Yeah, that way we’ll be off the street sharpish and nobody would fink of looking down there.’
There was a petrol station on Marylebone Road. Dave pulled in and filled a plastic container that he first bought from the shop. Some dopey geezer served him with two gallons of juice, and they drove out without looking back.

They turned up Lisson Grove and then into Harewood Avenue, finding the waste ground among a number of office blocks, some of which were still under construction. Dave looked at Winsdale and told him he’d fire it because it was his car and that it was more fitting if he did it having been together for so long. Dave knew he had to start a new life anyway.

He took everything out of the glove compartment, photos of Toni and Max, a book of poetry by Wordsworth that used to keep him company on those lonely nights sitting in the High Street in Camden. Wordsworth who he read, above all, to his mother in those final weeks of her life…
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass
By
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and
Temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless
Air…

‘Okay we’ll wait over there by the side entrance to the station Dave…see you in a bit.’

He watched them walk off with the money. Momentarily seeing them do that he thought about honour amongst thieves, and wondered if there was such a thing. He looked at the car and realised there was no turning back now. It had to be done otherwise they would all get it in the neck, particularly Reg and Winsdale who had both done bird before. It was essential that if the cops found anything, it would be a burned out wreck that offered no clues as to the accomplices.
He stood outside with the door open, and poured the petrol over the seats, and down into all the crevices. He threw the container onto the back seat. The fumes were virtually overpowering in the confined space. He stood outside and lit the rolled up paper, and then opened the door once more and threw it in. There was an almighty flashback of ignited petrol, and flames leaped out. He turned his face away and fell to the ground; the side of his hair and face struck by ignited fumes that burned his eyebrows down one side, and took off most of his quiff in one foul swoop. His face was black.

He got to his feet and started running towards the station like a madman, coughing furiously. He couldn’t see Reg or Winsdale anywhere. He looked round the ticket hall glancing from corner to corner. No sign of them…he thought ‘fuck me! They’ve scarpered, the bastards.’

Then he saw Winsdale over by the barrier waving furiously, ‘Come on Dave over here!’ They ran down the escalator and onto the platform of the Bakerloo line, and piled into the nearest carriage that roared from the tunnel.

It was half full with tourists who looked up startled. They had probably been to Madam Tussade’s earlier, or the Planetarium, or maybe a leisurely stroll in the park taking in the air. And they were now gaping at three desperate, unfit, puffing geezers. One black man clutching a holdall, one crazed looking gangster with a thick neck, and one singed, virtually hairless Latino covered in soot.

It was one stop to Regent’s Park. Two minutes of rattling madness and the thought that Reg still had the gun, and Dave praying that nobody said anything in those few moments that would have made him draw it. They ran up the escalator, jumped the barrier, and went out onto the road before the collector had time to stop them.

They started to relax a little as they strolled to Reg’s gaff off Albany Street. It was a gloriously sunny day, and looking in a shop window Dave saw a singed version of Al Johnson looking back smiling, though what he was smiling about, he had absolutely no idea.