No one accepted a drink. A real pro got up during a break and then watched the fucker being poured out. In his world the barman would have the fucking sense to open a new bottle in front of his face; it was accepted, expected and it stopped fights. He was being rolled by a herd of fucking imbeciles. Big imbeciles admittedly, but fucking drongos all the same. The real insult was that these fucking Keystone Cops thought he was buying into this fucking lunacy. Really believed that he had not cottoned on.
In all his years, Trevor had never, ever, been treated like this. Oh, he had seen the chancers and he had observed gooners in his time. When he had first come on the scene he had been offered fortunes to be one. He had refused; he wanted to win fair and square. Gooners were players who were ornaments until the final sting. There was never a gooner of course, in the singular, because a good card man would wipe them out in no time. Gooners worked together so that, like now, when he had knocked out the real players and the pot was a small fucking fortune, they would sit at the table and work together against him. He was expected to believe that they were better players than him, that his luck had gone on the trot faster than an ex-wife with a pools win and an ex-paratrooper for company. He was so insulted that he was determined to make these cunts work for the jackpot. Then he would congratulate them and leave with dignity and a fucking raging hard-on for all their arses. The bar boy winked at him and he wondered if, on top of everything else, they all thought he was a poofter.
'Not long till me party.' Pat Junior's voice was proud and filled with longing for the day to finally arrive.
Billy Boot, Pat's long-time friend and Lance's arch-enemy, was almost as excited as he was at the thought of the party. This was the party to end all parties as far as he was concerned and he was thrilled that Pat was going to be the lucky recipient of such a wondrous event. Everyone within earshot was straining to hear the conversation and all those invited had been bragging about it for ages, with the girls discussing their outfits at every opportunity. Lance kicked a football that had rolled near him back to the boys who were playing with it. He was good at sports and he kicked it with all his considerable strength, knowing that it would slam into one of the younger kids who were waiting patiently for its return.
He was spot on and the ball hit a seven-year-old lad on the side of his head. He was a hardy perennial though, who rubbed his ear furiously, forced away the tears that were filling his eyes and carried on with the game, even though his face was crumpling by the second with pain and cold.
'I bet that hurt him.' Lance was laughing at the boy's predicament.
'Course it hurt him. You meant it to. It's freezing today so that must have really stung.' Lance shrugged as if he had no idea what Billy was talking about before saying loudly, 'You're right, it is cold, ain't it? Hope my old coat is warm enough for you, Bootsie.'
The boys were in the school playground in their usual place by the school gates. The weather was icy cold, and their coats were buttoned up tightly against it. Patrick knew that they were better dressed than any of the others and he accepted that, appreciated it. He also understood why his mother passed their old clothes on to other kids in the school. It was her way of helping people out and it was accepted in their world.
Unlike Lance, he had never felt the urge to point that fact out. Now he could feel the heat of Billy's humiliation as if it was happening to himself.
Lance was sneering at Billy, taunting him as he always did and Billy Boot was not going to put up with much more of it. Lance had never understood when enough was enough; he always had to push everything and everyone to the extreme. He spent his whole life causing upset and hurting people without a thought for their feelings or their circumstances. They had both been to Billy's house and Pat knew that Lance had seen how hard up they were. Billy had six younger brothers and three older sisters and a father who was always in the pub. He battered Billy and his brothers regularly and, without a second's thought, Billy's sisters were also beaten, but generally only on a Friday or Saturday night when he came home from the pub looking for his wife. Even though he knew he wouldn't find his wife, and knowing exactly what she was up to, he would smack his daughters around instead.
Everyone knew, including her husband, that Billy's mother moonlighted weekends around King's Cross. She had to, someone had to pay the bills. Billy's father would come home drunk, kick up a stink and then rob her of whatever money she had. She would put a few bob in her bag and when he had taken that she would have a bath and tell the girls that, as always, the bulk of her earnings were with Lil Diamond. Patrick had been married to Lil for about a year when he heard one of the neighbours, a hard old bird who had buried her husband and three of her children during the Blitz, telling one of her cronies, 'You know who that is don't you? Lil Diamond's husband.' He had been amused by the fact that in the Irish community women were always known by their maiden names.
It was Lil's reputation as a Brodie wife and a respectable woman that kept Billy's father from demanding all his wife's money from her.
Though Billy's mother and her extracurricular activities were never talked about openly, everyone knew about them; the teachers, the police who came when she was being battered and even the little kids around and about. But because she was also a great friend of Pat's and Lance's mother, no one said a word about it to her face. It was a strange set up. You could whore in the streets in front of your home, as long as you were doing it for your kids and, even more importantly, your kids had to look as if you were flogging your arse for their benefit. If the kids were still running round with their arses hanging out of their trousers, and you were seen to be doing all right yourself, then, and only then, were you treated like an outcast. So, if you had half a brain you sorted the kids out. Feeding and clothing your children was paramount to these women; all they were and all they did was for their families. It was the most important thing you could ever do.
Those who had a husband who provided were revered. If your old man had gone on the trot, or was a useless ponce, you did the best you could; robbed him while he slept off the drink on pay night or, like the abandoned women, you moonlighted. Some of the women who were alone for a while eventually acquired lodgers, and these lodgers were treated with respect and would act the part for years. It was all about how things looked to the neighbours, not about how they actually were.
If your kids were taken away, you were finished. Go on the bash by all means; no one thought the worse of you for that. As no one signed on, the bash was considered almost respectable, whereas going on the Social was considered outrageous. Once you went to the Social Security you invited the government into your whole life.
And if, God forbid, you let your kids go into care, which, since the sixties, had become everyone's biggest fear, you were out. You were dragged out of your home by your hair, battered, spat on and left with no option but to do a runner. Now there was a new breed arriving in the flats and houses: young women with babies and no husband in the frame at all. Girls who lived off the Social and had no shame, like it was their right. The dole was supposed to be an interim measure till you got another job but now it seemed, with the seventies, it was a fucking lifestyle! It shocked and annoyed the women who had never claimed a bean even when they were on their uppers. Now, by all accounts, girls were getting pregnant just to procure for themselves council flats and a few quid off the State. These young hussies were shameless about it, and the older women were starting to be nervous because more than a few of these so-called unmarried mothers were daughters and nieces of people they knew.