A clank. Coming from the shop doorway. Another clank then a crash. Really fucking loud. Lecky stepped back against the wall, squinting across at the windows of the nightshift building. The faces looking! But there werent any. Nobody was there at all. Thank fuck for that.
And now silence. The two of them were inside. Lecky edged out from the corner, seeing both ways into the distance. If he did see a squad car he would fucking whistle. No he wouldnt that would be fucking mad, fucking mental, he would just stay still, he would wait, he would wait till it had passed. No he wouldnt he would whistle, he would have to, unless he just ran down, he would have to run down, he could run down quick before they came, he would have to tell them, otherwise they wouldnt fucking know, they wouldnt know they were fucking there. He had smoked the whole of Ray’s fag. He had nothing in his pockets. Even a bit of chewing gum! He walked a couple of paces away along the main road, turned back. No sign of the moon anywhere. It was funny how it disappeared. Clouds were so fucking thin but they could hide the moon. He got to the corner and looked round and there was the man in dungarees, the big skinny guy with the specs, he had seen Lecky; he was smoking and had taken the cigarette from his mouth while staring over; now he was staring into the shop doorway, now back to Lecky. And Lecky stood still. If the guy didnt actually see him but was just staring in the general direction. He wasnt, he was watching; you could tell, just by the way he was standing, he was obviously fucking watching, the fag sticking out his mouth. Lecky stepped back behind the corner. A moment later he peered round again: the man in the dungarees continued to stare at him. What to do. He walked a few paces away from the street, along the main road. What was he to do? He stopped and turned. What. Back to the corner. Fuck. Right round it and along to the shop doorway, that fucking bastard still standing there staring, fucking staring bastard, skinny big specky-eyed bastard standing there fucking staring as if he was a fucking sentry on guard duty, fucking Buckingham fucking Palace. Lecky stopped opposite him and he stared across, the big skinny guy staring back. He wanted a smoke, a smoke would fucking be good. And then the man about-turned and went in through a door and Lecky moved smartly into the shop and the interior, pitch-dark till his eyes got accustomed and there was another room; stairs down to the basement: John! John! Lecky yelled: John! Fuck sake!
Silence.
John! Quick! Right now! Move!
Then a loud banging sound and foosteps rushing and Ray was in view below. That big bastard, cried Lecky.
What?
He saw us, he’s away to fucking do us. Quick!
What? Who ye fucking talking about?
Him, the big skinny bastard — the one that reversed out the lorry.
Ray was gazing up at him.
Honest man I’m no kidding ye, he’s away to fucking grass us, yous better fucking come. .
But Ray was off before he finished talking and he felt like going right after him, gubbing him one on the fucking mouth, ignorant bastard, he was a fucking ignorant bastard — a good bit aulder than Lecky but so what: Lecky was bigger and he was fucking harder, he knew he was fucking harder, and he would knock fuck out him. So fucking ignorant. Lecky stared down into the basement, so gloomy and dark. Where the fuck was John? He glanced back at the doorway, walked towards it, then stopped. What was he to do. Another room to the side, also in darkness. He stepped a pace and his heel crunched glass, a lot of it. Sounds from the basment but quite vague and far away. Bloody smell of dampness too, like fungus or something — it was as if the place hadnt been used for years. So dark. He stood still. The very last thing was to close his eyes, no even for a moment.
Was that a thump! He crouched. It was like a thump. He stood very still then dashed to the top of the basement stairs and shouted, John! John! Fuck sake come on!
Nothing. They didnt answer.
There were no sounds at all. He needed a pish. Fucking desperate. He went a step while unzipping his fly, started peeing, there was steam, a steady ssssss, it was calming; ssssss. If there werent any sounds from below it meant they had stopped and were in through to the other place, they had made the breakthrough. He stepped back. A dribble of urine down his leg. He walked a few paces, again crunching glass. He bent to the floor and picked out a long sliver which would act as a weapon, a knife — and there was that good feeling when he held it tight; it was knowing it was dangerous just by that alone, by the way you held it tight in your hand without any gloves to cover it, its ragged edges, how they would cut into you. And what was that was that a thump? it sounded like a big fucking thump! Lecky had crouched and now he stood perfectly still and there were footsteps. It was a polis standing in from the front doorway wearing one of these big fucking black coats; funny how they always fucking wore them. Lecky flashed the sliver of glass in his right hand. Dont come fucking near, he said, or I’ll cut your face.
The polis watched him. Then disappeared. Away for handers. Them and their fucking handers they always had fucking handers, you never knew how many there were going to be, dirty bastards.
Another pish, it was desperate, he moved quickly, into the room he had last been, to the far side, doing the pee immediately. Then back to the top of the basement stairs, the sliver of glass back in his right hand. But he didnt want to go down the fucking stairs because he would be trapped. Where was fucking John? And that other cunt. Where the fuck.
Plus the voices, footsteps. Trying to be low; keeping things low — as if he was fucking stupid or deaf or something. Bastards. Fucking funny polis right enough. Lecky felt a dampness in his hand like blood or sweat or something, a stickiness. What would he do would he just fucking drop it and just let it go and get down into the basement man if there was a place to get out, a fucking hole maybe — where had they went? The glass, getting crunched, their big fucking feet now, there wasnt going to be time.
A woman and two men
Some folk would think it was her keeps them the gether, without her who knows what they would do, making sure they get their grub, whatever it is, the bowl of soup, the sausage and egg, whenever she gets round to making it. But it’s all an illusion, it just isnt true. It’s sentimentality. It isnt a true picture at all. People just like to think that because they dont want to think something else. You see her, she hardly talks at all. And she never walks in the middle. There is something but right enough, you dont quite know what it is about her. Plus the fact she never seems to hear what the other two are talking about. She has a set look on her face all the time. Probably she knows everything they have to say anyway, their conversation’s probably the same all the time. The older guy is about fifty years of age, the younger one about thirty-five, maybe even a nephew, because their relationship appears to be to do with family rather than friendship, but this is guesswork. It looks like the older one has been the longest with the woman, that the younger one just came along and decided he wanted in on the act. Unless it was a case of being invited in by the other two, or just the man, because this nephew, you dont feel he’s really up to doing things for himself and neither do you get the feeling about her, about the woman, that she ever gets a say in the matter either, unless maybe she doesnt want one; she has such an inferior way of going about you can hardly imagine her ever saying much at all. But this might no be true, maybe she does, maybe she just gives the impression she doesnt. Whenever they walk down the road people stare at them, and they’re open about it, because of the way they look, as if they’re full of their own lives, as if what they do concerns them to the exclusion of everything else. Not only does that make them interesting it means folk feel able to stare at them without them noticing which is just as well maybe because the older guy is quite aggressive; you get the feeling about that, there’s a nastiness about his face, he’s always got a girn. He’s definitely the chief. But then one time right enough she was on her own and she walked normal, she was swigging from a can of stout, so she might not be as docile as people think. Somebody looked at her and she looked back. The person had just came out the baker shop near the Botanic Gardens and maybe was having to step out her road — whatever, but the woman just gave her a ‘look’. Somebody told me, apropos of what I dont know, that she ‘liked the men’, meaning she liked to go with men. But that makes it seem she’s got choices. It makes it seem like she’s been able to make up her mind about things some of the time but maybe she doesnt, folk just like to think about other folk, especially women, they like to think they make up their minds about everything. But they dont, it’s a fallacy.