We would no doubt have laughed again, but Chico chose instead to hit me. As he helped me back to my feet he whispered, ‘Just for the benefit of the new guys, no offence meant.’
‘None taken, I assure you.
And then there was a bit of a crash as someone flew out through the front sitter window.
‘Neat,’ said Chico. ‘Where’s the booze?’
I gaped in horror at all the blood and broken glass.
My parents wouldn’t be happy about this.
The Doveston appeared in the front doorway. He came over and handed me another beer. ‘Don’t worry about the damage,’ he said.
‘But—’
‘Here,’ said the Doveston. ‘Have this too.’
He handed me a large fat cigarette. It was all twisted up at one end.
‘What is that?’ I asked.
‘It’s a joint.’
My first joint. I will never forget that. It tasted... W O N D E R -FUL
I drifted back towards the house and was met by two girls dressed as pixies who were patting at a big and soppy Labrador.
‘Is this your dog?’ one of them asked. I nodded dreamily.
‘What’s its name?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘When I got it I thought it was a boy dog and so I named it Dr Evil.’
‘Oh,’ said one of the pixies.
‘But it turned out to be a girl dog, so my mum said I had to call it something else.’
‘So what’s its name?’
‘Biscuit,’ I said.
The pixies laughed. Rather prettily, I thought. And I was aware of the pale pink auras that surrounded them and so I smiled some more and swigged upon my beer and sucked again at my joint. ‘Try some of this,’ I said.
I suppose things really got into full swing around eleven o’clock. Up until then only one person had been thrown out through the front window and he had got off lightly, with nothing more than minor scarring for life. The bloke who’d climbed up onto the roof wasn’t quite so lucky.
I didn’t actually see him as he plunged past my parents’ bedroom window onto the spiked railings beneath. I was in the double bed with one of the pixies.
We were having a go at puberty together.
My first sex. Now I really do wish I could remember that!
I do have a vague recollection of a lot of people piling into the bedroom and saying that I had to come downstairs because there had been an accident. And I think I recall stumbling down the stairs naked and wondering why the walls had been spray-painted so many different colours. I don’t remember slipping over in the pool of vomit on the hall carpet, although apparently this got quite a laugh. As did the look on my face when I saw that the front sitter was on fire.
I have absolutely no idea who took the fridge and the cooker, and, as I told the magistrate, if I had known that there was a gang bang going on in my back parlour and being filmed by students from the art school, I would have done something about it.
What I do recall clearly, and this will be forever tattooed on my memory cells, is Biscuit.
Biscuit, coming up to me as I stood in the open front doorway, staring out at the police cars and fire appliances. Biscuit, licking my hand and gazing up at me with her big brown eyes.
And me, looking down at Biscuit and wondering what that strange firework fizzing was, coming from under her tail.
9
Snout: British prison slang for tobacco.
I awoke naked and covered in Biscuit.
Now, you know that panicky feeling you get when you wake up after a really heavy night of drink and drugs and know, just know, that you’ve done something that you shouldn’t have?
Well, I felt like that.
I did a lot of blinking and gagging and groping about and I wondered how come my bedroom ceiling was suddenly all tiled over.
Now, you know that panicky feeling you get when you wake up after a really heavy night of drink and drugs and find yourself naked in a police cell?
No?
Well, it really sucks, I can tell you.
I screamed. Screamed really loud. And I wiped at myself with my fingers and I gaped at the guts and the dark clotted blood.
‘Biscuit,’ I screamed. ‘Biscuit.’
A little metal hatch in the large metal door snapped open. ‘You won’t get a biscuit here, you bastard,’ called a voice.
‘Help,’ I called back. ‘Let me out. Let me out.’
But they didn’t let me out. They kept me locked away in there all day, with only a plate of cornflakes and a cup of tea to keep me going. And at about three o’clock in the afternoon the door swung open and Brother Michael from St Argent’s sauntered in.
Now, as you don’t know the panicky feeling you get from waking up naked in a police cell, you probably won’t know the really panicky feeling you get when you find yourself naked in a police cell and locked in with a pederastic monk.
It’s a real bummer and I kid you not.
Brother Michael shook his tonsured head and then sat down beside me on the nasty little cot. I shifted up a bit and crossed my legs. Brother Michael placed a hand upon my knee. ‘This is a very bad business,’ he said.
I began to snivel. ‘Somebody blew up my Biscuit,’ I blubbered.
‘Blew up your biscuit, eh?’ The monk smiled warmly. ‘That’s not so bad. I remember the first time someone blew up my biscuit. I was just a choirboy at St Damien of Hirst’s and—’
‘Stop right there,’ I told him. ‘I am talking about my dog, Biscuit.’
‘Somebody blew up your dog biscuit?’
I turned a bitter eye upon the monk. ‘My dog’s name was Biscuit. Someone blew her up.’
‘I am becoming confused,’ said Brother Michael, giving my knee a little squeeze. ‘But I think we should turn our attention to the matter of your defence. Due to the large quantity of Class A drugs seized on your premises, you will have to put your hands up to the dealing charges. But I feel we can get you off with manslaughter if—’
‘What?’ I went. ‘What what what?’
‘Was the chap you pushed to his death another drug-dealer? Is this a Mafia thing? I wouldn’t want to get directly involved without the permission of the mob. I mean I am a Roman Catholic monk, so obviously I am in the Mafia, but I know which side my communion wafer is buttered. If you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do.’
‘What?’ I went. ‘WHAT?’
‘The other charges are no big deal. Soliciting minors, running an unruly house. Don’t you just love that phrase?’
‘WHAT?’ I went once again.
‘You’re looking at ten years,’ said Brother Michael, squeezing a bit more at my knee. ‘But you’ll only end up serving eight with good behaviour. You’ll still be a young man when you come out, with your whole life ahead of you. Of course, with the stigma of a prison sentence attached to you, you’ll probably end up swabbing toilets for a living. But that’s not so bad. You meet all kinds of interesting people in toilets.’
‘Wah,’ I wept. ‘Wah and boo hoo hoo.’
‘It’s such a pity that you’re not a monk.’
‘Wah,’ I went and, ‘What?’
‘Well, if you were a monk, you wouldn’t have to worry. We monks have theological immunity, we do not have to answer to Common Law.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Of course we don’t. We answer only to a higher power.
‘God?’
‘God. And the Pope. And the Mafia, of course. If you were a monk, you could walk right out of here.’
‘How could I do that?’
‘Because if you were a monk, you could hardly be guilty of a crime, could you? Whoever heard of a bad monk?’
‘There was Rasputin,’ I said.
‘Precisely.’
‘Eh?’
‘Well, anyway. If you were a monk, you’d get off scot-free.’
‘Is that Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811 to 1878), the English architect so prominent in the Gothic revival, who restored many churches and cathedrals and designed the Albert Memorial?’
‘No,’ said Brother Michael. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason.’ I sighed deeply. ‘I wish I was a monk,’ I said.
Brother Michael made a thoughtfull face. ‘There is a way,’ he said. ‘But, no.’
‘No what? What do you mean?’
‘Well, I could make you a monk and then you would walk free of all the charges and not have to go to prison.’
‘Then do it,’ I said. ‘Do it.’
‘It’s not strictly orthodox. It should really be done in a vestry.’
‘Do it,’ I begged. ‘Do it now. Do it here.’
‘Oh all right. You’ve talked me into it. The actual initiation won’t take too long, but you might find it a bit uncomfortable. You’d better drink this.’ He produced a bottle of colourless liquid. ‘Drink it down and find yourself something to bite on.
And it was that close.
If the cell door hadn’t opened at that very minute and a policeman come in to tell me that I could go straight home, because no-one was pressing any charges, what with me still being a minor and everything and nobody being badly hurt.
It was that close.
I almost became a monk.