Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [6]
17
Chapter Three
There wasn’t much to see except the moor and the prison, but Nick felt like staring anyway. There wasn’t much else for him to do. Behind him, the muted babble of lunch-time drinkers inside the Devil’s Elbow lulled his senses. Sleep dragged at him. As the sun pressed down on his eyelids he wondered idly how long Sin would take with the drinks.
‘Lazy dole-scroungin’ scum!’
Nick’s eyes flew open, maybe expecting to see some excitement.
It was only Jimmy, wearing his ever-present American Civil War Confederate cap. The wild-eyed, leather-jacketed scourge of Princetown settled down comfortably on the bench next to his friend.
‘Said the kettle to the pot,’ Nick murmured sleepily.
‘Uh?’
‘Nothing, just an obscure cliche. Don’t know what it means exactly. Don’t make me think about it for any longer than I have to.’
‘Then don’t use it. It’s annoying.’
Nick accepted a cigarette off Jimmy and gazed over at the dour Victorian prison half a mile up the high street of the little town.
‘And to think we stay here by choice,’ he said ruminatively.
‘You telling me you don’t like it here?’ Jimmy quipped humourlessly. It was a very old and worn joke. ‘Where’s Psycho Sin?’
Nick jerked his thumb behind him, indicating the pub. As if on cue she appeared in the doorway, a small, pretty Chinese girl in her early twenties, her eyes maybe a little wary, her sensuous lips pursed and stubborn. Her eyes looked even more wary when she saw Jimmy perched next to Nick. She plonked two pints down on the wooden table and sat opposite the two men.
Jimmy looked up in mock dismay. ‘You didn’t buy me one.’
‘There’s a man in there who stands behind a bar waiting to 19
serve people. Why don’t you make his day?’ Sin Yen wasn’t in the mood for Jimmy.
‘The Beast? He doesn’t like me.’
‘He’s not alone then.’
Jimmy did his best Johnny Rotten sneer and sauntered off reluctantly into the pub.
‘What’s that bonehead doing here?’ Sin asked as soon as he was gone. Her skin was translucent in the sunlight. It really was a beautiful day, Nick thought as he pulled on his cigarette. And Sin had never looked more beautiful, with her shoulder-length black hair and mahogany eyes. Yet this dismayed him oddly, as if maybe that beauty was there just to torment him. Suddenly he knew they wouldn’t be together much longer. He shrugged away the fear the thought brought with it and concentrated on being his usual laid-back self.
‘Hmm? Oh, just biding his time. Just like the rest of us. Killing the days.’
‘Can’t you get shot of him? You know he gets on my nerves.’
‘We’ve got to stick together, Sin. It’s an uncaring world out there and we need all the friends we can get.’
‘He’s a waster.’ She sipped her pint moodily.
‘Ain’t we all? The only difference between us and Jimmy is he wastes his time on drugs and we waste our time brooding about being wasters. At least he’s happy.’
‘I just wish he’d be happy somewhere else.’ It came again, with no warning: gonna lose her. It was like a shotgun blast cutting his soul in half, and yet there was no foundation for the thought. He turned his face towards the sun, closing his eyes; maybe the brightness would chase it away, like the shadow it was.
Jimmy reappeared, brandishing a pint of Old Peculiar.
‘The Beast served you then?’ Nick asked unnecessarily.
Jimmy grinned happily. This was all he expected of life: to sit in the sun with some mates and a decent pint. Nick envied him. He swigged at his beer. It might be an old Princetown joke but he really did feel like one of the prisoners. He was going nowhere: a 20
reject in a society that only respected money. Where opportunity never knocked, only the bailiffs. Lighten up you old bastard, he scolded himself.
‘Hey, lighten up you old bastard,’ Jimmy scolded him. Nick realised he was looking even more po-faced than usual, and gave his friend two fingers and a reluctant grin.
Sin suddenly sat forward, squinting across the moor. ‘What’s that?’
They followed her gaze, screwing up their eyes against the blaze of the sun. To the north, the rugged folds