Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [39]
- horror and dark, dark glee.
The singer was pressing that noisome mouth, from which so many maggots had spilled, against Sin’s, was snogging her violently, wantonly. Then he shoved her away, and was that something white and squirming falling from the Chinese girl’s lips? Sin was smiling, reeling as if drunk, and the music took them all.
The Amos Vale alkies were in the city centre now. They couldn’t remember what had made them come this far. They didn’t know why they had collected the sexton’s tools from the cemetery shed near the gates. And for once, their oblivion was nothing to do with alcohol, although, of course, they had consumed vast amounts of that.
Nose, Hedges, Moggy, Lionel and Cliff; differing ages, differing backgrounds.United by their dilapidation. They had staggered all the way from Totterdown, over the railway bridge, under the flyover, clutching bottles in one hand and rakes, hoes and shovels in the other. They didn’t argue for once; didn’t talk at all. They merely swayed and tottered on their meaningful way.
Oh yes, tonight they had method in their madness. But it was not their own.
* * *
96
Richard Thwaite, a commodity broker in his late twenties, was the first to guess that the stocks were about to plunge disastrously to an all-time low for him and his buddies. What convinced him of this was seeing the two don’t-mess-with-me-I’m-hard bouncers, who had supported the doorway outside like two burly, tuxedoed pillars, come tumbling in through the swing doors spraying blood.
Bad shit, he mouthed to himself, not comprehending exactly how bad the shit was going to get this evening. One of the bouncers had the head of a rake embedded in his neck. Then the doors opened further, and Richard saw what was on the other end of the tool.
A bum. Dribbling, filthy suit, purple face: the lot. A bum, in this exclusive haven.
That made him get off his seat. He had always loathed bums.
They were people who had lost control, who had turned their backs on their own humanity and dignity. Losers and failures.
And Richard despised losers most of all. Losers were the creatures you stepped over in subways, carefully avoiding the outstretched grimy claws begging for money. They were the refuse that the council always forgot to sweep off the streets.
The large-breasted young thing beside him was also getting up, almost in slow motion - certainly too slowly to avoid the wino who came lurching across the marbled floor at her like a wound-up toy, waving a shovel and gibbering nonsense. Richard didn’t have time to stop the swing of the shovel, even if he had the inclination. Which he certainly hadn’t - he was too busy saving his own finely soaped skin.
He watched anyway as the blade of the shovel connected with his companion’s lovely face, albeit from the apparent safety of the other side of the large round table. But he didn’t count on the bearded derelict who came through the glass doors at a run, his run turning into a leap as he spotted a victim - as he spotted Richard.
What almost offended Richard the most about his predicament 97
was the smell. His last thoughts were not of his wife waiting patiently at home, watching the clock and wondering at exactly what point in their brief marriage her perfect husband had begun going wrong. They were concentrated on the indignity of being butchered by a crazy wino with a scythe who stank like a sewer thing. And then the prices hit absolute rock bottom for Richard.
Screams echoed around the vaulted wine bar. The Amos Vale alkies waded into their adversaries, slashing with broken wine bottles, mutilating with hoes, ripping at smooth, well-fed faces with filthy fingers. Moggy pounced on a sleek brunette with a low-cut dress, dropping his meths in his excitement. The girl shrieked with revulsion and the terror inherent in the idea of two social opposites so inelegantly united, then her breasts