The Silence and The Noise

***References to violence, hints of sexual abuse of minors***

Reach a certain age, and who doesn’t wish for the quiet life? Peace and calm and tranquility, no bumps in the road, no dramatic spikes. You left all those behind you in your youth, glad as you were to step from that roller-coaster ride and take your place behind the wheel of your brand new family saloon which the kids think smells like balloons, and in which your wife (your second, much sweeter but less exciting wife) proudly sits, as you cruise along the straight and narrow, A to B to C, suited up and observing all limits, radio playing nice ‘n’ easy, until suddenly, out of nowhere, a great monster truck appears, headlights full-beam, raucous tune blaring out, one you recognise, and it hits you – you’ve not left the fairground at all, and that stomach-churning ride isn’t over – not by a long chalk… Scream if you want to go faster… Scream if you want it to stop… Let’s all make plenty of noise…

Bang, bang, you’re dead… Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I don’t wanna play cops and robbers, tell him, Daddy, tell him… Now Peter, that’s enough…. Peter, are you listening…? Owww… Mummy, Mummy, Daddy, Daddy, Peter bit me… But its my turn to get the toy out the cereal box and I want it… Oi, watch what you’re doing, you’re spilling the milk… Colin, take the Rice Krispies off them, will you, I’m trying to do the dishes here… Ow, Pamela hit me, Dad… Little witch, I’ll get you for that… Aghhhhh, let go of my hand, it’s my toy, it’s pink, boys don’t even like pink… Daddy, he’s twisting my wrist, he’s gonna break it… The orange juice… Watch the orange juice… SHUT UP… JUST. SHUT. THE. BLOODY. HELL. UP…

The fist slam. You think you might have cracked the table. You’ve certainly sloshed half your tea from your ‘Best Dad in the World’ 1974 England mug. How long until it curdles into the juice? Your wife has stopped clattering dishes around in the sink, but her arms remain steeped – up to the elbows - her head’s turned your way, her face is pale, and your children’s… freeze-frame… Mummy, Daddy swore… A whisper from your daughter, a split-second, hold-your-whisht, dig in the ribs from your son. They are one again, united, and you are the enemy now… You blow out your steam, throw your hands up and leave.

Work… A meeting with your superior. You know what’s coming. You have some top-notch recommendations for overseas investments, you’ve read more industry papers than he’s had three-courses champagne lunches at the company’s expense, and if it were up to you, you’d be getting in on mobile communications and computer technology like they are in The States, not opening yet another factory somewhere in the back of beyond churning out circuit boards for transistors. But he scoffs… Don’t know where you get your ideas from, Col. Been watching Star Trek again? Just get a shift on up to Selhope and check out those new units, there’s a good lad…

Selhope? Where the blazes is that…? Scotland? Seriously? He wants you to travel all the way up there from Leeds? Today? You were hoping to finish early, watch a bit of The Ashes… Ha, no chance of that, some vandals have dug up the pitch… Pressure cooker time. You can hear the hiss as it escapes your lips, making damp your every pore. He sees it. He thinks it’s funny. Him and his fat cigar and his swivel-me-round-one-more-time-if-you-will executive chair… A conspiracy that’s what it is. Sending you to Selhope – just south of Gillirig, he says, and that’s where that brazen, adulterous ex of yours, Netta, got caught up in all that trouble. Maybe your boss is shagging her. Wouldn’t put it past him… Or her… No, Col, stop clenching your fists, just stick to the jaw if you must. Do not utter a word. Not even when he tells you he's sure the locals won’t hold it against you that you used to be married to that la-de-dah floosy singer who gave Bloodbath Rose ‘the run of her hoose’ and her lover’s car that she used to kill her father - and no wonder the bare-faced hussy flopped when she showed so much flesh on ‘Opportunity Knocks’. Did she really think she could hold a candle to that brilliant young pianist...? Take your wife to Scotland? Wouldn’t think you’d want to Col, just think of all the tasty totty you could have fun with up there and never see again, not unless I make your move a permanent one, put you in as production-line manager. Besides the expense account won’t stretch to that…

Half an hour, and you’re back in the car, white-knuckled at the wheel. Got to go home to pack. Face the wife. Apologise for scaring the kids. You won’t find it easy. You want to go search out Netta instead. Tell her what you should have told her on Friday when she called you up and insisted you meet… For the first time in how long…? Pleas and tears on her part, crocodile or not, you should have blown her out then... Why the hell did you tell her you’d help? Rage. That’s why. Rage against that man. And it wasn’t anything like a red mist. Mists, regardless of colour, were gentle. This was a full-on storm, a madness, a complete disorientation of your senses, like that rollercoaster ride with you trapped in a cage come loose and off-track, spinning around upside down at the top, lightning flashing…

Bang, bang, you’re dead… Could you get a gun, a real one…? Or a knife, a machete… Butcher Dawson, beast that he is, must have one in his shop… Could chop his balls off… Only now, you’re not so sure. And you don’t want involved. You don’t want to know, except you do know and that makes you an accessory after the fact… Complicit in the crime of perjury and… If he ever, ever went near your daughter…

Clear your mind, Col, distract yourself. Turn the radio on...

Pip…pip…pip… The date is Tuesday August 19^th 1975, the time is eleven o’ clock, and this is the news brought to you by the BBC… Campaigners calling for the release of robber, George Davis from prison have vandalised the pitch at Hedingley ground in Leeds*…

God damn it, what was it with people destroying stuff? Spoiling folk’s pleasure. And everywhere you look it’s all about keeping nutters and felons locked up, else having them walk around scot-free. Either that or men treating women and girls in much the same way as butchers treat their meat. You remember that piece in the paper this morning, the one you were trying to read when the kids interrupted you? Sexism in the workplace… It riles you. You wanted to deck your wife’s former boss at the pub, did you not, when he told her she needed to tart herself up, show a bit more bosom and leg?

Turn a blind eye, could you do that, Col? Could you risk that man, who, if your ex is to be believed, is a hundred-thousand times worse than any lecherous landlord, coming down here to Leeds, thinking he’s got her over a barrel because, lo-and-behold he’s her brother, and she covered for him once, kept his sordid secrets out of fear of what he’d say about her if not? She doesn’t want him here any more than you do, doesn’t want any more to do with him, bully and creep that he is, and she certainly doesn’t want to be reminded of the day that her cleaner, Rosie Patterson committed the crime she got sent down for – but not in cold blood as Dawson had forced her to claim, but rather because she’d been on the most hellish ride of her own, raging less at her father for accidently killing her dog than at what that butcher had made her do – and what had recently been discovered he’d done to his very own teenage niece. Not that he’d ever admit that what the girl had told her parents was true… But you’ll make him admit it, Col, won’t you? Or better still, you could stop him for good. After all, you’ve done it before…

You wonder, does Netta ever think about that man you beat to within an inch of his life back in the sixties? The man she claimed to love, her adopted sister’s husband? You do, and you despise yourself – your younger self – but that hot-headed, jealous dude is still right there inside of you simmering away, and even simmering waters reach boiling point eventually, never mind a substance that’s been proven to ignite. You feel it rising now, can’t keep it down, and Netta knew this would happen. No getting away from the fact that she knows you better than you know yourself. Better than her replacement ever will. And thank God for that… Got to keep it that way… Got to start up the car and drive… Think of your wife, think of your children. Don’t go exceeding those limits…

Home. She isn’t there. Must have taken the kids out… Pack, be on your way. Phone later… Gillirig… Got to go to Gillirig. That’s where your hotel is… Could the bastard not have picked somewhere else…? But, before you leave, check out that pistol of Pete’s, it looks so realistic at a distance, doesn’t it…? Take it, Col. Take it… You want to get that beast in your car, out to the middle of nowhere… Just give him a fright… Would it stop at that, though? Would it…?

You can’t face the drive, want to take the train, but there isn’t one. No station where you’re heading – Baron Beeching saw to that, the pompous fool. What you wouldn’t give to take an axe to him too. Do you even have an axe? Yes, sure you do… Might come in handy… No, Col, no, don’t unlock the shed. Just get in the car and drive… Road all straight and narrow for so many miles… Relax. Grab a coffee and lunch at two. No juggernauts in your way till past the border… Move it you dickhead. Let me bloody well overtake.... A blast of the horn...Whoa... Nice ‘n’ easy… My, my, my Delilah… Why, why, why…

Gillirig… Jesus. The centre’s all closed off. Can’t reach your hotel. A tailback, a diversion. Fire engine, ambulance, police… A cordon… And the press… Like you really need this… Roll down the window, get some air, call that guy who looks like he's nought better to do across, ask him what’s happening… No, don’t sound so wild and impatient… Open the glovebox, put that stupid toy pistol away… Er, not exactly sure, pal. But word is someone’s petrol-bombed the butcher’s… Got a brick through the window on Friday… Animal rights folk they reckon… Can’t see it being anyone else… Good bloke, the fella who runs it, too. Local councillor, salt of the earth… What with Hedingley and now this, don’t know what this country’s coming to, do you?

*Author's note: News story taken from BBC Archives.