But it’s what they said Martin John, it’s what they’ve said, and when it’s what they’ve said Martin John, said mam, there’s no way you can change it. There isn’t a way it can be changed. It’s all over when they’ve said it. They’ve said it you see. Now it’s said.
And he remembered now how she negotiated his exit, when he preferred for it to go to trial. Put me up there and I’ll tell what happened. But no she said. She said no, no, no Martin John. We’ll atone with God, not the law. We’ll atone with the man who knows you best.
Because mam said he hadn’t done it, right? That’s what he heard. Because mam said she knew the kind of girl she was. That’s what he heard. Mam knew him too. And that was the reason he hadn’t done it. Because mam knows him and tells him what he’s done, right? She told him long and wide and repeatedly and never did she say, you did it Martin John. You’re a dirty bastard and you did it. She hasn’t said it. Did you hear her say it?
The Baldy Conscience drives him out of his own house. The house where he is in charge. He is no longer in charge. Baldy Conscience is in charge.
Every time that skanky-headed lute Baldy Conscience uses the cunt word Martin John must immediately walk and let him know he’s walking. How he cracked that fucking door closed. Let that signal reach up to them with their amps and pedals penetrating the foundations of his, well, Ralph’s tiny brick house and them ensconced in his cheap-room-rent with no carpet nor wallpaper and now he’ll have that fuckwit in the kitchen in an hour frying sausages for the other fuckwits and it is all too much. Much too much and he was having none of it and yet it is having all of him. It is consuming him.
And Jesus fucking Christ, tonight, tomorrow and the week after as well, the sneering outta that fella would crumble a statue. He had a disgusting way of conducting himself. The way he spoke, the way he thought, the way he looked, there was even something sinister about his breathing. He was possessed. Even beyond the guitar strings, Baldy Conscience was a sight.
As he walked down that road, beneath and between and beside the concrete overpass and down to the Elephant & Castle and past the flats, those endless flats, with their identical boxy window, ditto door and traipsing family of three to five to seven, all their extras weighing down the buggy and the arms and the hair of the women struggling — at every window he cursed. He cursed all who lived behind those windows or any window, for where there were people, he would have problems and he put his two hands over his ears to indicate it should all go away and on he walked ’til he reached the silly pink shopping centre, where food and sofas on tick are to be got and watery tea upstairs and he’ll go to the woman by the Tube station entrance in her doorway with her papers and he’ll buy two of the same paper and he’ll do that crossword sat on a wall, opposite the gospel church, or if it’s raining he’ll slip inside and kneel and sit back and complete his clues until the pastor comes or the black women clean their church and add a flower to the sagging bunch.
Once he was sat there when the church was hoovered and it was a mighty sound, whoooming around the Lord like that, sucking up the dust like a chorus, in a way that was so out of place it said the Lord had failed, that his house should never get dusty or need a hoover. You’ve failed! he called out to Him and the cleaning woman came with the polish and cloth in her hand and told him get out, waving the can of polish like she might spray him in the mouth for his disrespect.
Sometimes, when things got very indescribably bad, he fled as far as Euston Station. Euston is his ultimate destination. It is the only site of paradise in the pigeon-shite- soaked, clogged-up drain of a city. The time of the day is what decides it. If Baldy Conscience uses the c-word in the morning, that’s shite. As a precaution Martin John wears earplugs inside his own house. This means he never hears the doorbell or the kettle whistle and twice it boils dry and twice Baldy Conscience screamed that he left the kettle boiling, you’ve left the kettle boiling! except Martin John couldn’t hear a word, only the lips on the face are moving in his doorway and his arm is pointing to the kettle, a step down from the hall in the kitchen. Martin John was wearing industrial strength earplugs. He nodded. Baldy Conscience walked back up the narrow narrow staircase.
While he considered ways to evict Baldy Conscience, he suppressed the urge to do him damage by avoiding standing in the same spot as him. If Baldy Conscience moved to the kitchen Martin John remained in his room. He took out the earplugs only to decipher the movements of the man. He has his routine down. Baldy Conscience rises late, normally at 10 am, takes a piss, makes a cup of tea and then makes for the telephone. The most dangerous time for Martin John is around 10:45 am. When he works days, he’s gone.
On days after the nightshift he puts the earplugs in and does not leave his room ’til 2 pm by which time Baldy Conscience has left to his cleaning job at the market.
Sometimes this means he cannot obtain his 2 newspapers.
Mam wants him to hurt Baldy Conscience. He can hear her, even with the earplugs in. He can hear her telling him what to do about him. If it’s you or him, Martin John, then for God’s sake let it be him, let it be him, take the brush to him, take a stick to him. He longs to beat Baldy Conscience, to crack him in the brain, perhaps with a cricket bat or an old tennis racket with the square press around it like he’s seen at the car boot sales, to drive him out of this house. But he must not and he cannot. Instead he must leave his own house, he must leave his house wearing earplugs.
You’d be amazed how many Kit Kats get eaten at the market. And Jelly Tots are popular too. It’s crazed how many people think that everyone smokes B&H. And yet when you clean up, it’s Silk Cut Blue all the way to the black-bin-liner.
I found half a pie today. Apple. Someone ate only the top off the pastry. I ate the rest.
These are the kinds of snips Baldy Conscience shared.
Baldy Conscience was his worst mistake, but there were others. Martin John knows that. Things have become very bad since Baldy Conscience.
I’ve a few good years, he said. I’ve had a few good years alright. Oh but they’re over now. It’s finished. My best years were in Beirut. Things were the best for me in Beirut. This is what Martin John told them when they lifted him at Euston.
Once mam was more direct with Martin John.
I am glad it is finished, she wrote.