actions, of course, speak louder than words. With the delivery of the morning papers, the so-called fans would be shown, in stark allegory, just exactly how a nation really feels. They would be instantaneously cured of their collective condition, sharply jolted out of their docility, rudely awakened from their hyperbolic hypnosis, and, lacking not only the courage of their conviction but the actual conviction itself, would automatically assimilate themselves into this new world order and as if by magic all but disappear. He could see it all now. He would be hoisted high on jubilant shoulders and triumphantly paraded through the town. Fanatical crowds would ecstatically line the streets, waving flags and cheering loudly, fervently proclaiming him their champion. They would erect a monument in his honour, a plinth as tall and proud as nelson’s column, towering high over the townscape and visible for miles around, with his image, this image, this precise moment captured forever, in burnished bronze at its peak. A modern day George And The Dragon, depicting the glorious victory of truth over falsehood, profundity over pretence, integrity over improbity, artlessness over machination, gut feeling over face value, self-respect over self-obsession, individual passion over popular opinion, absolute heartfelt sincerity over mere vainglory.
Billy, staggered, staggered backwards, absently lowering the camera. He had not for a minute thought that Tony would actually go through with it.
‘DEBASER!’ screamed the CD player. ‘DE-BASER!’ it screamed again.
Tony thrust forward violently, and forward violently, and forward again more violently still.
’WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN JUST STANDIN THERE?’ he shouted. ‘START TAKIN THE FUCKIN PICTURES, MAN! AND MAKE SURE YOU GET HIS WHOLE FUCKIN FACE IN! I WANT EVERY CUNT TO BE ABLE TO SEE WHO HE IS! DON’T BE CUTTIN OFF HIS FUCKIN HEAD OR ANYTHIN!’
He reached over Ryan’s back and pulled his head roughly upwards and backwards by the hair.
‘Don’t what?’ said Billy distantly, still in shock at the spectacle.
‘CUT OFF HIS FUCKIN HEAD!’
‘WHAT?’
‘CUT OFF HIS FUCKIN HEAD!’
But, by now, Billy was staunchly shaking his own head, and was still shaking it when he threw down the camera in disgust.
‘No way, man!’ he was muttering. ‘No way! I don’t want anythin to do with this! This is sick! I’m takin nothin to do with this!’
He made for the door beside him as though about to leave the room, then turned and made for the front door, as though about to leave the flat altogether, before turning back again all of a fluster, not really knowing anymore what he was about.
‘No way, man!’ he was still saying. ‘This is sick! You’re sick! I don’t want anythin to do with this! No way, man! No way!’
After watching him for a bit – to the squalling melodic guitars and a battery of rapid drum beats, playing out the remainder of the song – Tony suddenly burst out laughing, a forced, mocking laugh.
‘AH HA HA! CHECK YOU FUCKIN OUT, MAN!’ he shouted. ‘FLAPPIN UP AND DOWN THE PLACE LIKE A FUCKIN HEADLESS CHICKEN! CALM THE FUCK DOWN, WILL YOU? I’M NOT ACTUALLY DOIN ANYTHIN. LOOK...’
He drew back his hips just far enough to let Billy see the (blunt) truth for himself.
‘...SEE, THERE’S NOT ACTUALLY ANY PENETRATION GOIN ON. BUT I’VE GOT TO TRY AND MAKE IT LOOK CONVINCIN, EH? NOW, DO US A FUCKIN FAVOUR, WILL YOU? PICK UP THE CAMERA AND TAKE THE FUCKIN PICTURES. I’M NOT EXACTLY ENJOYIN THIS, YOU KNOW! AND HIT THE REPEAT BUTTON ON THE HI-FI FOR ME AS WELL. I NEED THAT FUCKIN SONG ON AGAIN TO GET MYSELF BACK IN THE MOOD.
25
Some half-a-dozen photographs, quickly and begrudgingly taken, lay scattered around on the floor, and Tony was stood over Ryan buttoning up his jeans.
‘SO NOW WHAT?’ shouted Billy, before testily lowering the volume of the music, at least until he could hear himself think.
‘So now what?’ he said again.
‘Now we get rid of him.’ said Tony.
‘What do you mean, get rid of him?’
‘I mean, get rid of him.’
‘What? You mean, like, kill him?’
‘Eh? I mean get fuckin rid of him! Put him in a taxi or whatever and send him back up to the club. They'll be lookin for him there. If we leave him here he’ll wake up and see all this shite!’
‘Right,’ said Billy, relieved. ‘Of course, aye.’
‘Come on, give us a hand to make him decent. We’ll carry him up to the taxi rank and dump him fuckin there.’
(Unst)ably supporting him, one on either side, they carried him out onto the landing, but they had got no further than the top of the stairs when it occurred to Billy that the music, which had rushed out ahead of them to fill the stairwell as soon as the door was opened, had maintained a constant volume, instead of, as should have happened, becoming gradually quieter as the door swung closed again behind them. He quickly glanced back and, sure enough, Dooly’s big head was snaking eagerly round the jamb.
‘HOLD HIM!’ he shouted, ‘While I...’
He lunged at the dog, and in the nick of time they blocked his escape, seizing him round the neck and pushing and pulling him back inside the... Wait...! ‘They’ blocked his escape...? 'They...?' ‘THEY?’
Billy looked despairingly at Tony.
‘What?’ shrugged the latter. ‘You told me to fuckin hold him!’
‘Not him,’ said Billy through clenched teeth. ‘Him!’
And he pointed back to Ryan, who was no longer there.
He had collapsed straight down like a puppet with its strings cut and rolled head first onto the stairs. His feet, soles upwards, sailed archwise over his head, and his legs came down hard upon the nosing of three steps at once.
The impact roused him and his eyes shot open, but he bump-bumped down two steps more before, three from the bottom, he suddenly sprang to his feet. With an embarrassed air he hastily sought to compose himself – a reflex action only, for he was clearly still insensible. He knew not what had happened or how he had come to be here or even, come to that, where here was. Nevertheless, he seemed none the worse for his fall and Billy, at least, heaved an audible sigh of relief. But Ryan’s revival was to be short lived.
He was holding onto the banister beside him but it soon became apparent, from the increasing sweep of his vacillations, that he was lapsing back into unconsciousness. It remained only to be seen which way he would fall. Just then, his jeans, which were still undone, slipped, with untimely haplessness, down his thighs to his knees, and he unquestioningly bent to pull them back up. For the briefest of moments he resembled a theatre performer who, on taking his curtain call, bows so low as to reveal the nape of his neck to his audience while his arms dangle loosely in front of him so that he is almost touching his toes (the audience in this case was the graffiti strewn wall of the stairwell, where the spray-painted "biscuits is a wanker" took pride of place among the other sundry scribblings. Billy and Tony had the view from backstage). And forward he went. His head hit the landing with a stomach-churning crack and a puddle of wine-dark blood bloomed steadily out from beneath it.
Billy grew sober in an instant.
‘SHUT THAT DOG THROUGH THE BACK! He shouted. ‘THEN GET DOWN HERE AND GIVE ME A HAND!’
But he intuitively knew already that Ryan was already dead.
26
The fireman's words had rung airily through the stairwell, its acoustics and the metallic resonance from the banisters lending both bass and volume to their utterance. But despite this enhancement they played faintly in the ears of the officer like some dim and distant bell. For he, perplexed, and not a little dispirited, was still trying to ascertain what, exactly, just happened.
‘I mean, one minute I was... And then...’
The rug had been pulled out from under him. That same fireman was down there now, grabbing the headlines, his headlines, and his heart sank at the thought of it. But maybe, just maybe, he could upstage him yet, by providing a thorough, more detailed account of the crime scene, and dominating at least the inside
pages of the very same tabloid newspapers.
OFFICER ENTERS A