Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace

Author:David Peace [Peace, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Unread
ISBN: 9780307455093
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2009-05-04T23:00:00+00:00

Part 3

God save the queen

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Wednesday 8th June 1977

Chapter 11

Leeds.

Wednesday 8 June 1977.

Its happening again:

When the two sevens clash

Shot through another hot dawn to another ancient stage with her littered dead, from Soldiers Field to here, its happening again.

Wednesday morning, doors wide open, the morning after the night before, the bunting tattered, the Union Jacks down.

Knuckles white and tight in prayer around the steering wheel, foot down.

The voices in my head, alive with death:

Wednesday morning a jacket over her, her boots placed on her thighs, a pair of white panties left on one leg, a pink bra pushed up, her stomach and breasts hollowed out with a screwdriver, her skull caved in with a hammer.

Cars and vans screaming in from every direction, wailing:

Proceeding to Chapeltown.

I park, I pray, I make my deal:

Please God, dear God, please let her be safe, please let it be someone else and if shes safe and someone else, Ill let her be and go back to Louise and try again. Amen.

Me ditching Erics Granada round the back, following the sirens down across Chapeltown.

Chapeltown our town for one year; the leafy street with its grand old house, the shabby little flat which we filled full of sex, hiding out from the rest of the world, the rest of my world.

And I turn the corner on to Reginald Street, the blue lights spinning silently, the waking dead on every doorstep with their bottles of milk and their open mouths, and I walk up past the Community Centre, past the uniforms, under the tape and through the gates, into the adventure playground, this the ancient stage where we the players move our wooden limbs and scratch our wooden heads with our wooden hands, and Ellis looks up and says, Christ. The fuck

And theyre all here:

Oldman, Noble, Prentice, Alderman, and Farley; Rudkin sprinting across the playground towards me.

And Im staring at the body on the floor under the jacket, cursing God and all his fucking angels, tasting blood and the end:

I can see black hair lying in the dirt.

Rudkin catches me, spins me round, and hes saying, The fuck you been, the fuck you been, the fuck you been, over and over, again and again.

And Im staring at the body on the floor under the jacket, still cursing God and all his fucking angels, thinking:

There is no hell but this one.

Cursing all those false hells stuffed full of pretenders: those generals and their witches.

I can see black hair.

And Rudkin is staring into my eyes, my eyes past him, and I get free and Im gone, away, across the playground, pushing Prentice and Alderman to the ground, dropping on to my knees, the jacket in my hands, the face between my Angers, the hair blood not black, the prayers answered, the deal made, and theyre pulling me off, shouting:

Get him fucking out of here.

And Rudkin picks me up and leads me away into the path of a man in his dressing gown and pyjamas clutching a bottle

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