OOM: 20th Century Boy, Pt. II

[the_gene_genie]

 

When he thinks of Manchester, he’ll be the first to admit he tends to wax lyrical. What was it he said to Sam? I love this city. Its mess. Its noise. Prozzies. Drunks. Stray dogs, little old men. He knows every street, every back alley, every patch of wasteground and park. He knows where the gangs hang around, where you can get a quick knee-trembler for a quid or two, the places that’ll open their doors late for a tired copper in need of a hot meal. He could give you the first name of eighty per cent of the pub landlords in his division, and ninety-nine per cent of the bastards he’s banged up over the years. He’s been roaming these roads since he could walk, through the Depression years when he was too young to know any different, through the war, dodging the Luftwaffe bombs when he was out later than he should have been. Through the fifties, when everyone was just glad to be alive and recovering, through the sixties, when it was all about London and the North was left to run free. He’s barely left the place, and doesn’t feel worse off for it.                        

 

 (The orphans take whoever they can t’look after ‘em – that’s me.)

 

 This doesn’t feel like home. He leans against the wall next to the taxi rank, smoking a fag, and watches the cars pull up. They barely make a sound. Not like real motors at all. But it isn’t the cars that make it feel off. It takes a moment for him to put his finger on why, and when he does, his heart sinks a bit. Because if something that fundamental is wrong, then there won’t be a way of fixing it.

            It doesn’t smell right. He stands here and there’s just train station smell, and car exhaust smell, and rain on dirty pavements smell. There’s no chimney smoke, not from houses or from the mills. Time was, you could tell where you were on a dark night by turning the corner and have the stench in your nostrils turn from the distinct cotton factory smoke, to the homely one of coal and wood. You knew you’d turned away from the industry and were pointing towards home, when you noticed that. Here, the air just smells like air, tinged slightly with diesel.

            ‘You waitin’ for a cab, man?’

            His head pulls up off the brickwork. An Asian bloke is leaning across the seats, looking out the passenger window at him. ‘Dunno, mate. Where’s the new Man City stadium?’

            ‘About a mile away. On Eastlands.’

            ‘Eastlands? Where the hell’s that?’ Oh God, he doesn’t want to think about this being some stupid alternate universe, where all the names are different. The newspapers had called the stadium ‘Eastlands’, but he didn’t think it was supposed to refer to a place. There’s no place by that name where he comes from.

            The cabbie shrugs. ‘I can take you.’

            He’d been planning to walk, but this seems like a safer option. It’s a disquieting thought, the notion that he could get lost here. He’s never been lost in Manchester in his life. So he’s subdued as he gets in the back, ignoring the attempts at small talk coming from the driver. The streets pass in a haze of shop fronts and superstores – enormous stores, gigantic stores, some of them dedicated to only one thing. Who wants to go to a place the size of a church, just to buy music? It’s a waste of space, isn’t it?

            ‘Here, pull over a minute.’ He’s seen a little pub and been transported back twenty years; a pub where he first went with Stuart. ‘Oi, don’ pretend you don’ speak English. Pull over.’

            ‘I can’t, my man. No stopping here, see? Is one way street.’

            ‘Since when?’

            The bloke’s giving him a weird look in the mirror. He holds his gaze a second and then slumps back. The pub’s gone now anyway, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to find it again.

            ‘You sound like you come from here,’ the Asian bloke says, suddenly an expert. And Gene shakes his head.

            ‘No, mate. Not from here.’

* * *

 

‘Why’ve they called it ‘Eastlands’?’

            ‘You not a fan?’

            ‘’Course I’m a bloody fan, what d’you think I’m doin’ here?’

            ‘Then why don’ you know? You been abroad or something, man? On holiday for the last ten years? Banged up, maybe?’

            ‘No, I have bloody not been banged up. An’ stop callin’ me ‘man’, you’re not a bloody hippy.’

            ‘Whatever you say, my man. They call it Eastlands because that’s what it used to be called, I think. Before they built the stadium here. I don’t know for sure though, eh? I am not from ‘around here’, like you English people say.’

            He stares out of the car window, unwilling to get out. The City of Manchester Stadium sits at the end of a long walkway, rising up out of paved nothingness, white and gleaming and unreal, like a city in the clouds, like Camelot. There’s nothing, and then there’s this monstrosity, parked bang in the middle of his city.

            ‘This is where the Bradford Colliery was. I know a bloke who worked there. He got disabled in the sixties after an accident. He’s still in a wheelchair.’

            The cabbie shrugs. ‘You are very strange, yes?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘OK.’

 

 

            ‘...are you going to get out of the car, man? Or will we sit here all day? You do understand that the meter is still running, yes?’

            Oh, of course it is. He sighs, drags his eyes off the alien spaceship, and pulls his wallet out of his pocket. ‘What’s the damage?’

            ‘Nine pound ten.’

            They’ve come exactly a mile and a quarter, and the traffic wasn’t even that bad. This place beggars belief. He hands over a tenner and swings the suit bag over his shoulder. He should’ve just kept his own clothes on. Maybe then people would get that he doesn’t belong here, that he’s all wrong, and he wouldn’t have to feel like every conversation is going to leave him floundering for the right words.

The road up to the place isn’t really a road at all, because no cars are allowed on it. But he approves anyway, because they’ve named it Joe Mercer Way. A legend, is Joe Mercer. Put City back in the First Division seven years ago, led them to win the title two years after that. FA Cup 1969, League Cup and European Cup Winner’s Cup three years ago.

Three years ago? Not where he’s standing. Forty-one years ago.

His steps falter and he draws to a halt. He has to take a deep breath. Forty-one years ago. How old would he be now? Over eighty. Is he going to make it to eighty, to see all this?

Not a bloody chance.

For a moment, he thinks that he might well look how he thinks Sam looks sometimes. Like when one of them say something and the bloke stops and looks puzzled, and then goes a bit white. He imagines his face is doing a pretty good imitation of that right now, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t stop his heart hammering in his chest, telling him that this is a step too far. Too weird. Too far out of his depth. All he wanted to do was come and see where his team played now, in their shiny new home, but it’s like there’s a weight pressing on him from every side. His legs feel heavy, his head uneven, and there’s a buzzing in his ears, so faint he can almost, but not quite, pretend it’s not there. Shaking his head does nothing to dislodge it.

He retreats to one of the benches on the side of the path, and lights up a fag. There’s a crack in one of the metal boards placed over the railings – probably to stop some drunk idiot falling through after a match – and he can see over the road, to an area that’s not been developed yet. This used to be a mine. They once pulled twenty thousand tons of coal out of here in a single week. It set a record, which is how he knows about it. His dad was never a miner, never imparted knowledge about such things, but he still knows. He’s stood on this very spot before, lined up with several hundred plod, facing down hordes of furious miners. Commie bastards, most of ‘em. Still, he always quite enjoyed the picket lines. Their band of brothers against his. Pack loyalty all ‘round, and a damn good scrap at the end of it. If they’d have just got off their arses and got back to work – oh, and stopped spouting lefty shite at any given opportunity – he’d quite like them. Working men; he always gets on well with them in the pub. Probably because he is one.

‘Spare us a fag, mate?’

He normally tells beggars to sod off but Christ, after seeing the price of stuff around here, he’s not surprised there’re homeless folk about. He’s surprised the shoppers on the west end of King Street aren’t clambering over piles of them. ‘Aye, go on then.’

‘Ta.’ The old bloke sits next to him, which he wasn’t planning on, but he hasn’t got the energy to complain. He doesn’t smell though, so it’s not so bad. ‘Player’s No. 6? Haven’t seen them in years.’

He is completely unsurprised.

‘You’ve got the proper old packet an’ all. Where’d you get them?’

‘Back of the wardrobe. They’ve probably been knockin’ around since 1973.’

‘Ah well. Beggars can’ be choosers.’ Never was the saying more apt. Gene lights the fag for him, and watches the old fellow take a big lungful, leaning back with an air of contentment. Must be an easy life, being homeless. Mind you, he supposes he technically is, here. Nowhere to go, anyway. ‘I used t’work here, y’know.’

‘Yeah?’ He sounds disinterested. He hadn’t wanted conversation, really. But on the other hand, there was only one thing that used to be here, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to know what happened. ‘Centre-forward for the first team, I bet. You’ve got that look abou’ you, right enough.’

The guy laughs, and scratches crudely at his whiskers. He’s got layers and layers on, even though it’s warm, and one old bag that’s so full of stuff the zip has broken. It looks like it threatens to burst at any moment. ‘Nah. Used t’be a mine here.’

‘Is that right?’

They’re sitting right over one of the shafts, he knows. He can practically feel the space beneath them, the full mile of open air that hundreds of blokes used to disappear into every day for ten hours, six days a week. The house he grew up in is a fifteen minute walk away. When he made too much noise, his dad used to threaten to bring him here in the middle of the night, and throw him in. He never did. Just leathered him instead, until he shut up, which is strange when you look at it from the distance of thirty years. Getting a kicking usually makes you make more noise, doesn’t it? Not in the Hunt household.

‘Aye. Bradford Colliery. I was a manager ‘til it all went t’shit.’

‘Don’ tell me. You all thought it’d be a good idea to stay on strike indefinitely, an’ then one day, they paved it over.’

‘Smartarse.’

‘I ain’ the one cadgin’ fags off strangers, mate.’

The man tilts his head, like fair point, and noisily sucks in some smoke. ‘Thatcher’s got a lot t’answer for.’

Thatcher? The Education Secretary? All pearls and nasally voice. He can’t think what she’s got to do with miners. They can’t have put her in charge of industry, surely? ‘Yeah?’

The man gives him a strange, sideways look, and Gene sighs. ‘I’ve been...away. Alright?’

‘Where, bloody Mars?’

‘...lost me memory.’ Jesus, what does he sound like? Bloody retarded, is what.

‘Yeah, that happens t’me all the time.’ There’s a cackled laugh. He doesn’t seem unduly bothered by this information but then, he is living on the streets. That automatically makes him stupid, right? It occurs to Gene that he should’ve said he’s been in the Foreign Legion. At least then he’d be a hard bastard, and not just weird. ‘Well, she closed all the pits. We all got drunk to drown our sorrows, an’ I freely admit, I ‘aven’t stopped yet.’ He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the stadium. Gene avoids looking at it. ‘They were diggin’ over there to build a casino an’ found the old pit heads and some of the buildin’s. They’re all still down there.’

‘...still down there?’

He closes his eyes, as the words sink in. He feels sick at the thought of it. He can see it though, clear as if it were yesterday (it was yesterday); page four of the Manchester Gazette, informing the city that the old colliery was finally getting demolished after sitting quiet since 1968. And earlier, running out of school and into the playground of his town, climbing trees so they could see the lifts of miners being pulled up at the end of the day. They were so black, the only white bits were their eyes, and even they were only grey. And later, parking up with birds on a Saturday night after it had closed for a day of rest; and earlier, coming here on a bet from Stu, daring to walk to the edge of the abyss and look down. He’d been convinced his dad would appear and give him a shove. And now it’s all under his feet, not dead but not alive. He’s walking over the tomb of his own present. His life, under his feet, right now.

He stands so fast it’s like there’s a spring under his arse. ‘I have to go. Here.’ He blindly chucks a note towards the old man, and sees him pick it up from the corner of his eye as he strides away.

‘Mental case!’ is yelled after him, and he can’t disagree.

 

~ ~ ~

He doesn’t know the name of the landlord in this pub, and doesn’t bother asking. For a start, there doesn’t seem to be one, just students or people of that age anyway, all wearing identical shirts. Most of them seem to be Australian. All he knows is that they charge three quid a pint, but the shots are cheaper if you buy doubles.

‘Mate, we’re not supposed t’serve you if you get too drunk, alright?’

‘Shut up, an’ get me another. Me money’s as good as anyone else’s.’

‘One more, and then you’re out of here, ol’ geezer. It’s two in the afternoon mate, an’ we don’t serve people who swear at us.’

‘Wanker.’

The glass is put down with an air of finality. He gives the kid the evil eye, and isn’t too drunk to see that he doesn’t look even a little bit intimidated. He’s always suspected that he’s less scary when he’s this drunk, but really couldn’t give a toss just now.

He’d practically run from the stadium and headed into town. Surely the city centre would be the same? Cities never change that much – they might get bits paved over, and the traffic flow alters, and old shops move for bigger ones apparently – but the layout itself, that hardly ever moves. Look at London. Still as deranged as it was five hundred years ago. He knows Manchester’ll be the same. It’s his city

 

(no one gives a thrupenny bit abou’ this town)

and some things never change.

            He got lost. Not badly lost – well, not really lost at all. It’s just that he walked to the Old Wellington Inn, a pub that’s been standing in its spot for more than four hundred years. Not his favourite place to drink, if he’s honest, but it’s central, and close by and...well honestly, he doesn’t want to go looking for the Railway Arms, or the police station. He doesn’t know what he’d do if they weren’t there. Only the Welly isn’t there either. They can’t have got rid of it, it’s been a listed building forever. So he stands helplessly, and looks around, because all of a sudden he’s doubting himself. He couldn’t have got it wrong, could he? Surely not. The Welly’s always been on this spot, sharing space with Sinclair’s Oyster Bar. They used to come here with drunk mates sometimes, and force them to eat shellfish on top of ten pints of lager so they could bet on how long it’d take them to puke (never more than five minutes). He even did that with a pissed-up blagger once. It had sobered him up pretty quick, and also went into his personal Top Ten Ways to Torture a Bastard What Deserves It. Has he ever tried an oyster himself? Has he hell.

It wasn’t losing the pubs that made him start drinking. It was walking down the road, and finding them. Both of them, bold as brass, three hundred yards from where he thought they were.

 

[contd: here]