Helen Martins - Fighting Woman.

Part two of three.



“ You’ve seen him, then? Well, saw him…. He took the secret with him as far as I’m concerned. The secret of what happened to him. I’m not sure if something happened to him or he happened to something. He changed in a flash, not even overnight, no, just like a light coming on. Or going off might be more apt, I suppose, if you prefer the metaphorical. I’m not interested in what he might have told you about it all. That’s no concern of mine because, whatever he went through, I can only tell you about me, about how his actions, behaviours, whatever you want to call it, affected me. I can’t read minds, not his at least, so his side of things don’t concern me. Well lets just start off by saying we wouldn’t be having this little chat if he hadn’t started ignoring me, would we? We’d been married for seven years. I was thirty four, he was thirty six. We lived in… well, you know all this, don’t you? Just before the day it started, May the 16th for all the significance that offers, we’d been away for a week. We didn’t have a happy marriage, I suppose, but it was okay most of the time. We didn’t argue often but that was probably more down to him than me. He used to say I goaded him. He always said that. Ever since the wedding. Well if I did it was to get some life in him. Not that I think I did goad him, to be fair to myself. More the other way around, now I come to think about it. His silence and his supposed deference were as loud as I could ever be. Anyway, that’s all that needs to be said about us. We’d had a nice week away, away at my aunt’s on the Isle of Sheppey and we’d only really had one argument that stood out, and even that I’m not sure I remember what it was about. Three days after we got back he’d been to work as usual and we were in the middle of dinner and I asked him if he’d cleared his shed out. Well he didn’t answer because he was staring out of the window like he’d seen an ghost or something. I asked him again, and again, and it carried on like that for ten minutes, because I thought no way are you getting away with this. I was furious. How dare he, when all he ever had to do was get in after work and eat his dinner, and watch the TV and go to bed in clean pyjamas and clean sheets. And who made all that possible? And he treats me like that? No. No he doesn’t. That’s what I thought. Seven bloody years and he finally grows a spine, only when it comes to using it he goes the same way he always has and attacks with his silence. I tried everything. I stood in his way, and he’d walk around me. I sat on his knee when he was watching tv, and he stared at my nose for two hours before standing up and letting me fall to the floor when he went to the loo. After a couple of days I got so angry that I ripped up the only photographs of his mother he had. She died when he was thirteen, you know. Nothing. Not a thing. He sat there like he was on a desert bloody island. What sort of a man would do that? His poor mother. By the third day I’d ran out of options, you see, so I punched him. Well, tried to but he ducked out of the way like a coward and I caught him on the side of the head. I tried a good few times after that as well, in the ribs, the stomach, the face, but he was always wriggling and twisting as if I was some big docker instead of a petite woman. ,Anyway, after that I rang my brothers and they came round to try to talk some sense into him. He completely ignored them as well. My brothers are policemen and they don’t take kindly to being ignored, especially by him. They’ve always said he was no good for me. Well Neville, the youngest, he slapped him a few times around the face, then hit him in the stomach with his fist. He didn’t like that, I reckon, but he didn’t say a word, just kept drying the dishes. Well that set George off, and him and Neville worked him pretty good for a few minutes until I stopped them. Well, he was my husband. I thought he’d wake up the next day and it would be back to how it was but no, he carried on as if nothing had happened the night before. That’s when I decided to leave him. There and then. I had a bath, got ready, got the girl and went. That was the best thing I did, leaving that man. Well, the second best. The best was when I kicked him as hard as I could in his you-know-what’s before walking to the taxi. I think Anne was upset to be leaving the house but what do children understand? Well, we went to stay with my aunt on Sheppey until I got back on my feet, and within a couple of weeks I’d met Ciaran. That was a drama, just on its own. We were coming back on the train from Victoria and the only seats were opposite these tinkers. I know people call them pikeys or gypsies but they’ll always be tinkers to me. I remember I was telling Anne to stop her fussing when the two women who were sat with this man, Ciaran, although I didn’t know that then, started laughing at me and saying things that I couldn’t understand, but you know when someone is laughing at you, no matter what the language. Well I’ve always had my mother’s temper, and it starts off in the soles of my feet like hot pins and needles and goes whoosh up my spine, and that’s when my mouth can turn sharp. I had words with the biggest woman and she got up, this is in front of the whole carriage, and she got up and stood there with her big ham arms crossed and she called me a word that I’ve never allowed to cross my lips but it begins with a ‘c’ and before I know what I’ve done I’ve punched her right in her fat face. Oh she dropped down like a sack of potatoes, fell across the table and slid onto the floor and I thought that’s me, they’ll all turn on me now. Well not if I can help it, so I leant over and grabbed the other woman’s fringe and pulled her face onto the edge of the table hard. Her nose broke, I heard that, and she just slumped over towards the window. I thought about the man and looked over, really expecting to feel a punch of my own at any minute, but he was just leaning back, arms crossed with a bottle in his hand, and a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He was a sight. Not handsome as such, not like Sean Connery. He had a rough, used face but what was underneath shone through like a searchlight. I was stood there, heart thumping, legs shaking from the suddenness of it all and he shone through and wrapped around me without moving once. He motioned me to sit back down and he came and sat with us, bringing his bottle of spirits with him. He asked my name, and gave me the bottle and that was us for the next half an hour, drinking and laughing, even when his then wife - that was the one I punched - came to and sat scowling with her sister, the other one. Not a word from either of them, though, and he never once looked at them for the rest of the journey. They knew what had just happened, you see, while I was blissfully unaware and feeling tipsy and wild and more excited than I had in years. This was living. This was life. They were getting off the train at Gillingham and I got off with them. Well, with him. Anne went to her aunt’s and from what I know she’s done well for herself. She was better off there, to be honest, because for once in my life I decided to concentrate on myself, not catering to the needs of others. That may sound callous to you but I think that people can get so wrapped up in looking out for others that they never get the most out of life, and that’s a very, very sad thing…. And not for me, not after seven long years of first him and then his child. Well, she never took after me, either in spirit or looks. So back to Gillingham. We went in the first pub we saw, with the other two trailing us, and even though I had never been a drinker the magic of the evening kept me lively through every drink he handed me. He told me he was a prize bare-knuckle fighter, and that the woman I’d laid out with a punch, his then wife, was known herself and that they’d fought after each other many a time. He said that when I’d connected with her jaw he’d felt a rush of love, and that rush had deepened when I’d tabled the sister. He had me in a whirl with his words and what with the drink and the way things had turned out I was easily led to bed with him. He had a caravan on a site a taxi ride away and even though his wife and her sister came with us, those three knew that once she been knocked out she was wanted no more. He couldn’t see her out in the dark, though, plus her sister was on holiday with them so they slept in the seated area of the van and of course must have heard us in bed, because he was a man who threw himself into everything, not just fighting and drinking, if you know what I mean. We must have kept them awake for sure because they didn’t look too sleepy when they jumped me when I went to find the toilet. Jesus no. In fact they looked wide awake and angry. Lillian, the wife, hit me in the face with an ornamental tea pot… see this scar, here, over my eyebrow? And they both kicked me when I went down, all over my back because I curled up like this. There’s a reason for doing that, kicking someone in the small of the back when they’re curled up. It hurts like hell, gets the kidneys, and eventually the person on the ground uncurls and you get to go at their front for a bit, maybe their face. How do I know that? Because I beat them both again. Beat them bloody and Ciaran went on to teach me bare-knuckle, with all its art and darkness. That night showed him that I had the spirit and the meanness for it, although god only knows where I’d hidden it for all those years, me who’d never swat a fly before… As they were kicking me, I found a bit of broken tea pot and dragged it over the back of Lillian’s calf. It opened up pretty deep, because even in the light of a couple of lamps you could see it bulge out. Well she yelled and fell into Maureen and they both went over and barefoot though I was I kicked and stamped on them until Ciaran, who’d been watching all along from the bedroom door, the bugger, pulled me off and threw them out into the rain. He didn’t speak a word, even though every van’s window and door had a face to it, and the two bitches were screeching and sobbing and cursing. He came back in and lifted me up and took me to the bed, where he fetched a bowl of water and sponged off my blood from my face and chest, and theirs from my feet. Half my toes were broken, and both ankles came up like marrows by the morning but we stayed in his caravan becoming man and wife for eleven days and when he finally brought me out and told whoever was around that I was his wife now, and the hardest bitch of a wife I was that he’d ever lain eyes on, that’s the golden moment that I experienced true bliss for the first time. For the only time, really, because when you think about it if a moment of true bliss is equalled, it loses its sparkle. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy the next eighteen years, though, because I did. Once Ciaran started to train me, and once I’d bloodied a few more of the van women, I was reborn. Everyone called me Hel’, and it suited me to a point. I’ve had twenty six proper fights and only lost two and that was against men. Aside from that I’ve fought with twenty more women who either slighted me or flirted with my man. I’ve been in hospital five times, and put others in there ten or more. I’ve fought in barns, fields, scrap yards and once in a Lord’s flat in Mayfair. I’ve drank like a navvy, and the more battered and ugly I became the more he loved me… How many women can say that, eh? I’m a gypsy queen, and they all know my name, and whether I’m here or there, or on the earth or under it I’ll always be more than I was when I was saddled to that bloody idiot and his weakness and his silences…. I’ve been in prison three times, that’s a total of six years and three months, none of it with parole. The second sentence started with a fight and ended with two. The woman who ran the wing knew who I was and on the afternoon association hour of the first day we got ourselves locked up in an empty cell. She stabbed me with a bic pen sharpened to a point, right here in the shoulder when I was on top of her and punching like mad. I got it and stuck it through her left cheek then stabbed her in the nose. We both got stitched up and put in segregation because we wouldn’t say what happened. There was no more trouble on the wing until my last day when two of her friends tried to push my head into a pan of boiling soup in the dinner queue. Well it was my last day so I didn’t want any trouble so I just wriggled away from them and they ended up in the seg. I played nice all day until I saw the bitch going into the sluice on her own and I went in after her and knocked her into next week. I forced some detergent down her throat for good measure, but she never grassed… she didn’t dare. Of course Ciaran was there to meet me the next morning, in a horse and trap and a big bottle of champagne. Oh you should have seen people stare, we were a sight. And he’ll be outside this place when I get out next week, with that twinkle in his eye and that searchlight grin, wrapping me up and making everything worthwhile….

No Warmth From A Cold Shoulder

Part One of Three


"How did it start? How and why did it start? I'm not a hundred percent, but I rather think it was a joke... No, not joke, more like a... a prank. Helen was serving dinner. We were sat around the table, and she asked me something to which I didn't answer for whatever reason... maybe we'd been a little tetchy that day - it wasn't exactly unusual by then - but anyway she asked me again and I... I ummm decided to ignore her. For the whole meal. I mean, she wasn't happy about it, no, no... but I seem to remember her saying that two could play at that game. Well, it turned out that that was far from true. There was only one player, one champion of this particular contest. Its rather sad I suppose... So, yes, so after the meal I don't know what occurred to me really it just seemed.... I just decided to see exactly how long I could ignore her for. Well ignore them, actually, because you see there was Annie as well. She must have been about three back then. All I'll say is that it was an unfortunate feature of the whole thing that Annie had to have her daddy's attention withdrawn but you see, I could't fully ignore Helen if I allowed Annie to become common ground for us. So if you don't mind I'll say no more about her... I find it quite upsetting, thank you. Where was I? Oh, the beginning... yes... so I remember having seen a bit of an episode of that awful cartoon Beavis and Butthead the week before and they had decided to see how long they could go without urinating... for absolutely no reason that I could fathom. I suppose that that's what I did, in a way. Just decided to see how long I could go without acknowledging her... You see, when I say ignore I mean ignore fully. I acted as if she wasn't there. When she spoke to me I wouldn't look at her, and if I needed to look in her direction, like when she would stand in front of the television for hours over the first few days, well I just looked at where the tv would be if she weren't.... It took three days before she first struck me and, I can tell you, she had quite a punch for such a small woman. That took a lot of determination and resolve to ignore. Luckily I remembered a bit about boxing from my days in the navy so I rolled with the blows, you see, and sort of rode them and then just carried on with whatever I was doing. I think what really surprised me was that she didn't think of really hurting me until the day she finally left. I'm very thankful, actually, because what she did was to kick me in the privates and then she turned on her heel and took off without a second glance. I mean, I'd challenge any man to take a powerful kick there without at the very least curling up a little. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Between day three and day eight, when they finally walked out, I developed patterns not of behaviour I don't think,more of adaption, and self-protection. I rose, ate and used the bathroom an hour later than usual allowing myself to live the day as though living alone. It became almost relaxing. I don't recall ever having been so, I'm not sure how to put this, meditative? Yes, the act of denying her my attention was meditative. I felt a different person. Marvellous. Part of me almost thinks it was like the calm before the storm. There have been a lot of storms since. A lot. So, a lot of attendent periods of calm also. And so life goes. She tried hitting me a few times after the initial attack but I always managed to duck or weave out of the way. That used to drive her into an almighty bait and I often wished I could take pleasure in that but one of the conditions, seemingly, of living with that beautiful calm was a curtailing of any extremes of mood. I didn't mind. The first storm that was sent for me to weather came when Helen's two brothers came to visit. How those two joined, then remained, in the force is a mystery to me. Neville, the shorter and younger, had been in the SPG briefly and was no more than a thug. I remember Helen telling me, years before, that he used to set fire to cat's tails when he was about eleven. A borderline psychopath, that one there. George was one of those men who looked like a C.I.D. sergent from the age of two. He was a big raw slab of a man, with unremarkable features and a pair of steady eyes that hid the fact that he was always on the take, always looking for an opportunity to sucker-punch someone. 'Slow to rile, slower to calm down', thats what his family used to say about him, like it made them proud. Well they'd have been proud of him the day he and little Nev came to visit. I know Helen was, she was almost applauding when they gave me a couple of punches. I didn't mind, though, because it was a sign that the end was near. I hadn't even thought that far forward, which is the strange thing. Can you imagine that? I hadn't bothered to think, or to see I should say, that there had to be a consequence to what I was doing. I was so focused on the actuality of each moment that I hadn't considered us splitting up right up until the time she got her brothers to beat me up. The one thing I'll never forgive Helen for is this - she allowed my Annie to watch all of it. The beating. Not like Annie wanted to, but you know how it is with children when they see something shocking or just new or they're scared and can't look away... She saw Annie watching through the hatch and did...... nothing. I hope she dies in misery and squalour and pain for that. My Annie... So. They left. I carried on as before but without the family. I didn't live any differently. I men, I didn't suddenly start going to night clubs or casino's, or let the place get messy, or go on blind dates. I just did what I always did, but did it alone. Did I miss them? I didn't think to. I suppose if I'd let myself think about it I'd get upset so I never thought of it, really. Well, after a while work started to get a bit awkward and I fell out with a few people i'd known for years. People change, don't they? Maybe they changed at the same time because of working there so long. Strange. But I found the process quite soothing, so obviously there was a pattern, but I didn't see that at the time, not until quite recently actually. Anyway, life marches on, and so I ended up leaving the company, quite a decent pay-off I got, but then I'd been there for absolutely ages so... Yes, so I decided to sell the house, and I put half of the money into an account for Annie, well I wouldn't give it to the witch, you see, because she walked out of the house of her own free will, whereas Annie was as much a victim in all of this as myself. Do you know, I felt a real shift in my life when that house was sold. It was freedom, you see, freedom and no responsibility, and no direction, and it was bliss. I moved around, made friends and lost friends, really saw life from the heights to the depths. Actually, this past couple of years more depths than anything else. But thats life, isn't it? Completely random. Purely coincidentally, I've actually been feeling rather low these past two years. I've almost felt alone, and it got to the point where I was really fed up with the damned bad luck I seem to have in choosing who to invest my friendship with. Virtually each and every person to who I've stretched out the hand of friendship has ended up proving to be less than deserving... Not one of them do I still speak to today, as I stand before you. Amazing. Awful luck. And you? Who can tell whether or not we'll remain friends, eh? So, where was I.... So I went into a church one day, as much for a change of scenery than anything else, because I am first and foremost an atheist. Anyway, I got chatting to this man, very quietly of course; it seemed the done thing. He was very interested in my life, and quite sad to hear of my emotional travails. It was he who recommended that I focus on animals because, you see, he said that mans relationship with animals is an altogether simpler thing and might therefore be a good place to start in building up my confidence once more, and help me to see things with fresh eyes. So here I am. I chose the bear because I used to be a keen astronomer as a child, and Ursa major was my favourite constellation. I've been coming down here every day for the past two weeks, and chatting to her whenever no-one is around... And so to today, and the business in hand... Now, if all goes well I should be back in half an hour so see you then

CANNONS TO THE LEFT OF THEM, CANNONS TO THE RIGHT.

*these are a couple of characters from a book I've started so any feedback on this page would be appreciated*



Parting her with his now slippery nose he slid his face upwards, moving it from side to side by an inch, breathing in her scent while trailing his flattened tongue over her silky flesh. She tensed as her hot button of a clitoris felt his lips seal around it, then he gently began to suck as, at the same time, he slid two fingers into her. She grunted from under the pillow that she held tight against her face, and her pelvis twitched upwards in response to his rhythm.

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER….”

Dave’s hand left her buttock and, like a blinded snake, moved through the pile of their clothes next to the futon. As they both desperately tried to stay locked into the moment, his search became more frantic.

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE!”

“For fuck’s sake what the fucking fuck is that?” Jess shouted from under the pillow.
“Nathan Barley. Cunt. Fuckin’ Vaughn.” Dave gave up the moment, and rolled into a sitting position on the mattress. He began picking up items of clothing and shaking them. The phone abruptly stopped ringing.

“Thank god for that. Back in the saddle, you sexy Geordie bastard, before I completely dry up.” She stretched out lusciously on the rumpled sheet, pillow still clenched over her head. Dave found the mobile and flipped it open. “I can’t, pet. It’s the batphone and anyway, he’ll just keep ringing.”
“What….” She rose up, pillow yanked down as she pivoted from the waist “…the fuck do you mean you can’t and what the fuck is the batphone?”
“Vaughn’s got two mobiles; one for work and one for home. If it’s a work day and he rings me with his home phone, that’s the batphone. If it’s a home day and…”

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER….”

Shrugging in apology and pointing dramatically at the mobile, Dave turned away.
“Aye mate, what’s up?”

The line was silent, then Dave heard a tinny cheer. “Aw Vaughn man, you’re fuckin’ joking…”
“The Raj. You have thirty minutes. Bring your helmet. I have gin.” Vaughn’s voice was slurring slightly. In the background Dave could hear Jess getting dressed loudly.
“Aye, thirty minutes” He hung up. “Twat.”

“Jess…” The door of his studio flat slammed shut. “Aw fuck….”




It was just gone 8am as he walked up the five steps to the red, peeling front door. Looking up and down the road, he pulled the pith helmet out of his back-pack and balanced it on his dreads. Strains of martial music came from Vaughn’s open window and he decided to wait for a break in the CD before banging on the door. He didn’t want to draw undue attention to himself. Vaughn’s neighbours were doubtless extremely pissed off by now. Dave did the maths. 7.30a.m plus slur plus the Raj equalled a six o’clock start at the latest. Abruptly the music stopped, and Dave banged on the door three times.

“You tell that fucking racist to keep fucking noise down.”

Dave swore silently and peered over the low wall into the basement’s stairwell.

“Will do Mr Ahmat. Sorry, like…”

Ahmat’s dark eyes fixed on the pith helmet. “You encourage him. You maybe racist as well?”



“Ten….. HUT!” Dave turned to see Vaughn, standing to attention so hard he appeared to be quivering, dressed in a red Victorian battledress complete with white webbing, a pith helmet with a small Union Jack on a cocktail stick sticking out of the crown, and a gleaming monocle screwed firmly into his left eye socket. Camouflage shorts and dirty work boots completed the outfit. Sighing, he turned to say something to Mr Ahmat, but he was gone. He followed Vaughn into the house.





“So is Tina away for weekend then?”
They sat on the balcony on pale blue loungers, looking out over the drop of roof-tops and the rich green of the field covering the reservoir. The sea sparkled in the distance. The raw cries of the seagulls could be heard above the music and, further in the background, the TV. A Man Who Would Be King was nearing its conclusion and the drum and bass playing in the kitchen was underscoring the clamour of battle.
“She’s bloody deserted. Can you believe it? A man of her rank? Fucking disgrace.”
Dave swilled the ice around in his glass. Not enough quinine in there to drown a gnat. “Ehm, can you pass us the tonic Vaughn? It’s a little gin-heavy for this time of day.” Vaughn screwed the monocle into his eye again and leant towards Dave. “Of course, old chap. No worries about supplies. I got the sepoy fella on Lewes Road to parcel up some vittals and send them via tuk-tuk. At four thirty! They never sleep, d’you know that? Amazed we beat them, bearing that in mind… Kettle Chip?”

“What about Lexy and Connor? Have they all gone to their nana’s?”

“They saw fit to accompany the General on her flight from the front line. Well, I expect she pulled rank, the bitch.” Lexy was eight months and Connor, two and a half.
“What did you do this time, you fuckin’ idiot?” Dave squinted. The sun had climbed high enough to start to heat up the balcony for the next five hours. “Can we go indoors, mate?” Vaughn sprang up. “Never fear old boy, I have recently acquisitioned some of the new fangled camouflage netting. You get the door and I’ll start work on strengthening our position.” Dave hadn’t heard the door. He looked baffled.
“The door, man, the door… I sent to headquarters for more medical supplies. I was hoping the greasy Greek quartermaster would send a lackey but judging by the flabby nature of the knock I’ll warrant the cunt has brought it in person. Avanti, you slack swine…”




Dave opened the front door. “Arkle.”

“Dave.” He held out a cigarette packet.

“You coming in?”

“You fucking joking? I’m off to the marina for breakfast, then I might drive up to Ashdown forest and take Gabriel for a walk. Got the money?”

“Eh? Nope, have you not sorted it with Vaughn?”

“He said you’d… ah fuck it, seventy five each on Monday.”

“Arkle, can I come with you and the dog? Please mate?”

“Hahahahaha, you mug. Batphone? Pith helmet? You shit in the bed, Dave, so you get to cuddle up to the turd. Laters.”





9 a.m. They sat, skin dappled with small shadows, under a large and new-smelling camouflage net that Vaughn had secured with a scattering of masonry nails. He sat back in his lounger, brow beaded with sweat, rime of white powder around one nostril and a look of contentment on the rest of his face. Dave mixed them both a large drink, then sat back and put his feet up on the rail. He’d turned the TV off, and changed the music to The Blue Album after Arkle had left. “It’s that or I fuck off back home. I’m serious, man, This Raj thing isn’t funny any more. I’m an ethnic minority; where would I have fit in with your fantasy, mate?” Vaughn had giggled, dribbling slightly. “Sorry mate. Thanks for coming. Seriously. I was going to let you be white in my fantasy, honest.” He'd ducked and Dave’s hand slapped his helmet off. “Joke, mate, JOKE!”



They drank, and chatted, and dipped into Arkle’s delivery, and drank some more. Occasionally Ahmat appeared in the concrete yard below to direct hard stares at them, but that stopped when Vaughn shouted “Ahmat, mate, have a lager!” and lobbed an unopened Heineken over the railing. Dave found himself chuckling, and not caring at that.





“She’s getting very boring, mate. She hasn’t had a new accusation in years. And she’s developed this face… it’s like this facial development is what it is. Unbidden by the anthropological community, she’s married several looks into one. It’s the sort of face fuckin’ Betterware’d put on the front of their catalogue. ‘Need seven looks? Only got one face? Try new Tina’s Face’. It a mix of pity, despair, boredom, sneer, shock, revulsion and, I don’t know, fuckin’ purpose. It’s replaced the period of time between clocking that she’s miffed, and kicking off. She goes from A to D like that,” he snapped his fingers, “and B and C don’t get a look in. We’ve lost some time, there.” He squinted “Is that shortening or lengthening my life?”
“I failed maths CSE mate. What’s the accusation? That you’ve not grown up? You’re irresponsible and immature? Selfish, unreliable, drink too much, do too many drugs, look at other women, look at porn, fart, fiddle your tax, never do the housework and still bleach your hair?” Vaughn frowned around his monocle “You’ve been speaking to her?” Then, smiling sadly “Yeah, same old same old. Never mentions that I’m fucking great with the kids, or that she’s never eaten so well….” Dave took a long swig from his glass, lit a cigarette, and turned to Vaughn. “Yeah, but it is fair to say that you’ve not exactly grown into your new roles as husband and father, though, isn’t it?”
“Fuck off. Christ, you sound like her, and you’re meant to be here for me you cunt… Fuckin’ hell, I am what and who I am and what and who I always was, and if that’s who she fell in love with then what’s the fucking problem? This is me – I don’t change, I’ve done my growing up and that’s that. She’s the one who’s changed, mate, she’s not the one I fell for, the funny one, the fit one…”

“The rebound one…” Dave muttered under his breathe.

“Wha’ was that? Anyway, I’m a constant and she’s, fuckin’….”

“Evolving?” Dave was feeling agitated now, Vaughn’s bolshie tone and finger-wagging swagger was digging into his gut. “Mate, being a raver back in the day doesn’t equip you for the rest of your fuckin’ life, just the bit where pills and trainers and Dj’s count for everything. Life grows, man. You have to grow with it. It doesn’t mean changing your fuckin’ self completely – you adapt. You advance. All she wants i…”
“You live in a fucking bedsit, you twat!” Vaughn’s face moulded into exaggerated disbelief. His voice raised an octave. “You’re still in the fuckin’ primordial soup of bedsit-land, and you’re telling me about getting on in life?”
“What, and a mortgage means you’re a rounded fuckin’ individual like?” Dave flicked his hand at Vaughn. “You understand less than a man with your brains should, mate. You’re a fuckin’ bottler, man, not sure of your worth, scared of fuckin’ up and getting laughed at so you take the easy option and aim low…”
“RIGHT. I’m going for a shit, and when I get back you’d better either be gone, or have a couple of fatties racked up, you uppity fuck.” Vaughn stood up unsteadily and, accompanied by the sounds of bottles and cans being knocked over, stalked into the kitchen.







It had finally got dark. The cloudless evening, still and fragrant, seemed full of promise. Brighton sometimes seemed to have been built for summer nights.



“Tell your friend to wait for you outside and I’ll serve you.” The assistant was clearly agitated, even stood behind the floor-to-ceiling security glass in the Off Licence at the top of Vaughn’s street. Dave sighed and turned around. “Vaughn, man…..” Vaughn was leaning back against the glass by the door, pointing at the three people queued up behind Dave in turn and repeating “A homo-boy, a hippy and a fucky dread.” Laughing uproariously after each intonation, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the three were stiffly and nervously ignoring him. “A homo-boy, a…”

“VAUGHN, MAN!”

Vaughn’s head lolled around, chin scraping the collar of the stained and reeking red jacket which was now open to reveal his pale belly. “Yes David?”

“Wait outside.”

“Ok mate. Should’ve just said…”

Dave bent right down towards the hole where money and goods were passed, by the counter. The pith helmet tapped the Perspex. “So, like I was saying, forty Marlboro Lights, a litre of your cheapest vodka, two litres of orange juice, and a bag of ice….”





They sat on a bench at the top of Queen’s Park, arms around each others shoulders, and legs outstretched. Vaughn took a pinch of powder from the open wrap on his thigh, careful not to upset it, then, almost delicately, brought it round under Dave’s nose. Dave snorted, loudly and wetly, then snuffled three or four times. He gave himself a pinch, then clumsily folded the wrap up with one hand, and shoved it into his breast pocket, white granules tipping down his front. “Cheers mate.” They clunked the tankards that Vaughn had insisted on bringing out.



“Cheers old boy. Here’s to the eventual return of the General Staff.” He took a deep draft from the tankard, ice rattling deeply against the pewter. “You’ve seen the Bad Lieutenant?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You know that bit near the end where he’s naked, with whores dressed like nuns, and he’s fucked off his head, and walking towards an alter with his arms held out, saying ‘I’m weak! I’m weak!’?”

“Aye”

Ten seconds of silence passed. Dave turned to look at his friend. Vaughn’s eyes were wet and he was staring off into the distance. He gave a rather sad smile, then looked at Dave. “I’d fuckin’ love to shag a nun….”

Sammy and Sausages.

Our Sammy used to love sausages.... LOVED them, more than anything else in his world. Notice I used the past tense. Unfortunately Sammy had to be put to sleep last week. He was a high, grey wooly lurcher and even when he was a stupid giddy puppy he had a lurchers look of absolute knowing. Knowing how to get sausages, mainly. You could put a roast chicken in front of him, and a chipolata in a puddle under a bush three miles away, with a series of cunningly hidden IED's dotted around it not to mention a moat and a dog-eating ogre and the chicken wouldn't get a second glance. Well, it'd barely get a first but thats dogs' noses for you. Sausages, everytime.

He was only eight, when the vet came a-calling, but in those eight years we've paid out a lot of good money to every butchers, greasy spoon, trendy pub and scout hut in a ten mile radius. He stole, pilfered, happened across, found, wolfed, guzzled slooped and slurped pounds of the things, from chubby rings of cumberlands to dinky cocktail sausagettes from Iceland. You could have put shit in a sausage skin and he would corner you and howl and howl until he got his teeth round it.

As crafty as he was for nicking them, me and the wife were just as crafty when it came to cooking them up and eating them because, lets face facts, bangers and mash is the finest meal known to man. Our kitchen was Sammy-proof, and had been for some time, although it took trial and error over the years to stop the thieving little gorgeous begger. So, the other week Maggy was on patrol, planting the rubber sausages in places he might just stumble on them, tipping a bit of cold Oxo behind the shed where he couldn't squeeze through but might sit, pining, for long enough for us to eat in peace... the usual. I'd just popped the pink and pudgy row of pork and leek bangers into the oven, shut the padlock on the oven door, swiped the lino with aniseed, turned on the high-pitch distractor - amazing what you can buy on the internet - and checked the windows were tightly shut before double-locking the kitchen door. I almost bumped into Maggy in the hall. She said she couldn't find Sammy anywhere, not in his basket or the garage or either of the gardens, nothing. 'He'll be thieving I reckon' Thats what I said, and even though it'd no doubt turn into a packet of trouble with someone who'd recognise him as ours, this being a small village, the silver lining of that particular cloud was we'd get to eat in peace for sure.

Maggy had a funny look in her eye when I pointed all this out and asked how long the sausages'd be. Twenty minutes or so, I told her. She took my hand and said well how about I get a bit of your sausage while the coast is clear... Well that doesn't happen everyday so up we went to our room, and stripped off quick... Maggy knelt down as I firmed up... Go on, I said, open your mouth for my sausage of love.... and thats when Sammy jumped.

The doctor says its because I was engorged with blood that I lost so much of it, nearly died apparently. I know the whole room needed redecorating, even the ceiling. He says I wouldn't have lost so much if it hadn't been so hard. Doctor, I told him, if it had been soft I wouldn't be here. Sammy loves sausages, not walnuts.