Another month, more or less, and it’ll be 12 years since my father died. I was living overseas then, and I’d seen him a couple of months earlier, before he had his final stroke and eventually succumbed to renal failure. When my mother called with the news I wasn’t surprised: earlier that day, when I came into my office, for the merest fraction of a second I saw him sitting in my chair, looking the way I’d remembered him, and I knew he was saying his farewell to me.

We can never really know or understand our parents, but the gulf between my generation and his was great than most. He was almost 40 when I was born in 1954. He’d been through the Depression and served in World War II. Some of the things he’d seen are still beyond my ken.

He was an intelligent, well-read man for all that he grew up in working-class Hunslet in Leeds and left Cockburn High School at 14, the way so many did. His own father, whom I only remember from regular visits there on a Saturday, was an irascible, somewhat feckless man, one who won a cotton mill in Dublin in a card game and moved his English family over to live there. In 1920. A man who’d go for weeks without giving his sons pocket money then lavish half a crown on each of them when he was flush. A man who seemingly made and lost money regularly but who could be surprisingly generous. When my mother was pregnant with me he had a new car and insisted my father swap it for his own wreck lest I be born on the seat during a trip.

My father was, by all accounts, a remarkably talented pianist. He had his own jazz group in Leeds in the 1930s. As a boy he relished the summers because they meant staying with a relative who ran the Victoria in Sheepscar – sadly no longer extant – with its huge garden and a piano where he could play as much as he wanted. During the war he even backed up Nat King Cole – no dud on the ivories himself – a couple of times. And once the hostilities were over he was offered a job with one of the BBC orchestras. He turned them down because he didn’t believe he was good enough.

As soon as he was able to, he grew a moustache to make himself look older and kept it all his life (adding a beard much later), even though he went bald at 26. I remember seeing a photo of him with hair and literally doing a double take; except for the ‘tache it was like seeing myself. Some men turn into their fathers, I didn’t even have to.

He was a cinema manager, a salesman with his own business that eventually went bust over a £60 tax bill and also a writer. In the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, two of his plays made it onto TV. He could have made a career from it. But he didn’t; once more, he didn’t seem to think he was good enough. But he encouraged my writing, my music, and was so proud when he held my first non-fiction book (sadly, he never lived to see the publication of my novels).

He was a dapper man, always well turned out, in a suit when younger, of cavalry twills and a cravat, taking pride in his appearance as that generation did. He never approved when I grew my hair or dressed in an old greatcoat, jeans and tee shirt. But he was willing to listen to the music I enjoyed and not dismiss it; if it was good musically, he liked it.

When I was seven he took me to the music shop that was then in Thornton’s Arcade in Leeds. The plan was to buy me a mouth organ. I did come out with that. But we also seemed to have bought a baby grand piano that sat in the front room for the next few years. But then, a year or two earlier he’d come home the owner of an expensive Wolseley car without telling my mother, and the year after I was born spent £55 on a watch – a ridiculous figure in those days.

I recall him once telling me he’d worked undercover, as a volunteer, with the Vice Squad, going into illegal drinking establishments, the shebeens as they were, and also buying marijuana back in the 1950s. It was a tale I took with a dose of salt, but it stuck with me. After he’d died I asked my mother about it. ‘No, it’s true,’ she said. ‘He really did. After you were born I made him stop, it was just too dangerous.’

But what I remember most, what’s probably had the deepest effect on me, happened when I was 14. He’d been a good salesman, one of the top at his company, but he was let go as he was considered too old at 54. Until he could sell his first play he took a job he hated (he never complained, but his silences and expression spoke volumes) to keep bread on the table. My admiration for him still knows no bounds for that. He did what he had to do.

Yes, he could be cantankerous, never willing to admit he was wrong even when facts contradicted him, and yes, we butted heads loudly and often when I was a teenager, but he helped shape me. And, I think, he still does. Except the cantankerous part, of course.

My parents lived long enough to see a number of my non-fiction books published, and they were inordinately proud of me, more so than I was of myself. To my father, who’d had a couple of plays on TV in the 1960s, it was a fulfilment of his dream for himself. To my mother…well, it gave her huge satisfaction to see me happy, making money from something I’d long wanted to do. But those books, unauthorised quickie bios of movie and music people (written under my own name and a pseudonym which, no, I won’t reveal) were satisfying only because they paid well and were done in a month. As an exercise in learning how to write they were invaluable, though, getting it down right the first time as the deadline didn’t allow for extensive revisions.

They weren’t great books but hopefully they did the job. They, along with my music journalism, paid the bills when I had a young son. They allowed me to work from home and handle much of the childcare, to be around and develop a close bond with my boy, perhaps the most valuable thing of all.

My parents were both dead by the time my first novel came out, and with each one that’s appeared I’ve wondered what they’d think of them. When there’s been good news, an accolade, I’ve wanted to share it with them. That came home to me once more last weekend, when the audiobook of my first novel was named one of the audiobooks of the year by The Independent. There was I, sandwiched between Ian Fleming (a great favourite of my dad’s) and J.K. Rowling, along with Kashuo Ishiguro, very august company. My partner was overjoyed for me, I was pretty speechless over the whole thing, but I couldn’t share it with the people who’d first encouraged my writing.

My father used to critique the teenage poems I wrote, and he’d treat my words honestly, as if they were adult. He was also an excellent pianist – in the 30s he had a jazz band – who was invited to join a BBC Orchestra and refused because he didn’t believe he was good enough. He lent me the money for my first bass guitar and amp, but only on the condition that I learnt to read music for it. On Sundays he’d do into the front room and work on his novel, never published and now long gone, set in Leeds, a tale based around one of his (and my) ancestors.

And now I have my own tales based in a Leeds long gone and largely forgotten. I have my own son, who’s read one of them, after much cajoling. He’s not a reader, but he enjoyed it, and cited it in a paper he had to write about poverty in literature, alongside Oliver Twist. It thrilled me more than I could say for him to do that. Next year he’ll be going on to university in American to study maths, a subject far beyond my comprehension, and I’m so proud of his college acceptances.

I miss my parents; I even miss the way my father had to be right even when he so obviously wasn’t. I miss the unwavering, gentle support of my mother. Each time, when I finish writing a book, I ask myself whether it honours them. All I can hope, with each one, is that it does.

1

He kicked the lad’s head, seeing it snap back hard. He heard the bone go in the nose and saw a dark arc of blood spurt before the skull crunched as it bounced off the wall. Then the lad landed, the breath pushing out of him. Something pooled under his scalp, forming a thin stream that rang along the pavement.

He prodded at the leg with his foot. Nothing. No reaction.

            For a moment he didn’t know what to do. He stared at the lad and the pool grew a little bigger. He started to run.

 

2

 

He fucking hated working Saturdays. Friday night was when Chelsea’s mam always took Kieran so they could go out. He had his pay then and she wanted to go out after being stuck in the flat all week with the baby; they could have some fun, a few drinks and sleep late in the morning. Last night they’d stayed at home, putting the boy to bed early. He’d bought a takeaway and they’d had some cans; better than no sleep and a hangover when he had to be up early. Chelz had moaned, the way she always did, and they’d ended up arguing again.

            He pulled himself out of bed and into his clothes, feeling shit. Chelsea grunted, her breath sour in his face. She’d said they should go out Saturday instead. She knew better than that. Saturday nights were for the lads. Back at the beginning, when he’d started seeing her, he’d told her that, and if she didn’t like it she could fuck right off.

            His mobile buzzed – Colin, checking he was ready, the way he did every morning. Just because he’d been late a few times. Outside, it was colder than he thought, the wind gusting hard and lifting the dead leaves from the ground. He heard a bright tinkle and watched an empty Red Bull can blow down the street. The start of November. There’d only be another week of work, a fortnight at most, giving lawns the last cut of the year and a final trim for the bushes. That was why he’d needed to work today, more money before he was laid off and back on benefits until March. Off in the distance he could hear the traffic on the ring road but round here it was quiet, just a dog barking somewhere. He lit a cigarette and tossed the empty pack on the pavement.

            The old van pulled up and he climbed in, equipment rattling in the back as Colin took off again. The boss was a big man, with broad shoulders and tattooed arms, always in the same old fucking tee shirt with the holes in it and combat pants, both of them stained green from all the grass. He’d wash them on the weekend and by the next Friday they’d be filthy again. And the fucker didn’t use deodorant. It was a nightmare; end of the day he’d be stinking as they drove home. About the only thing he did was keep his hair cropped close and that was just because he’d been a skin once when he was young.

            “We got four jobs and I got to be finished by noon,” he said, “so you’d better pull your weight for once. You got that?”

            “Yeah.” He smiled. Cheeky cunt. He was the one who used the mower and trimmed the bushes. All Colin managed was the strimming and flirting with the housewives, blagging cups of coffee through the day. Couldn’t blame him for trying, though, some of them were well fit. That one in West Bridgford had given him the eye a couple of times.

            “I mean it. I’m picking my lad up from the ex’s to take him to the Forest match. We’re not done in time you’ll be taking the bus home. I’m fucking serious, right?”

            “OK.” He litook a cigarette from the packet on the dashboard as Colin drove out along Mansfield Road and took the turning into Mapperly.

 

He was home by half-twelve, surprised by the silence when he unlocked the door. Usually Kieran would be banging away at something and Chelsea would have her music playing to drown him out. Maybe she’d taken him to the park or off to the shops. He took a can of Stella from the fridge, loving the way the first gulp took the edge off his thirst. Then he saw the note on the table – Daz, we gone to mum’s. Staying over.

            He tossed it in the bin along with the empty can. At least he could get a nap in peace without the kid bawling. He loved the lad but it did his head in sometimes, the way he could go on and fucking on. And all Chelz did was ignore it or just say ‘That’s enough, now,’ when Kieran needed a good slap to shut him up.

By eight he was showered and smelling right, wearing the shirt he’d bought the week before, the G-Star jeans and the Bench hoodie, a ready meal curry and three more cans of Stella in his belly.

The taxi was booked for half past. He was meeting the lads at the new bar across the square from the Council House. They’d start with a few drinks there and go on somewhere else. By the time he got home he’d remember fuck all about it and tomorrow  his head would be banging but that was what a good night was all about. His phone beeped, a text from Chelsea – miss u bbe.

The bar was Saturday night busy, loud talk, people dressed up, the music banging, everyone drinking and looking around hopefully.

“Pint of Stella, mate,” he said, spotting the others at a table in the corner. “All right?” he shouted as he walked up, slapping Matt so hard on the back he spilt his lager. Terry and Rhys were already roaring, empty shot glasses on the table. He grinned. Yeah, it was going to be good.

“You all right, Dazzer?” Rhys asked. He was still on Jobseekers’, living with his mum up in Sneinton and doing some labouring cash in hand a couple of days a week. They’d been mates all through school, suspended together a few times before Rhys ended up excluded for setting fire to the toilets.

Matt was wiping beer off his shirt.

“Cunt,” he said, but he was laughing. He’d been a year ahead of them all, the leader, the mad fucker who got stuck into every fight. But he was smart, too, went on to college and came out an electrician earning good money. He’d been married for three years, the names of his kids tattooed on his neck. Not that being wed stopped him on a Saturday night if he was in the mood and the girl was willing.

Terry was the one he didn’t know well, some mate of Matt’s who’d come out with them someone when City were away. He seemed to like a laugh, but he was quiet, he didn’t have the history with them. He wasn’t sure he trusted the lad.

Matt stood and raised his glass. The others followed him. It was the way they started every night out.

“To Alan, the stupid twat. Just a few months to go.”

They drank in silence for a moment, then Matt finished, the way he always did, “Silly cunt, getting caught.”

Alan had been part of the mob lobbing stones at Canning Circus police station during the riots the year before, getting his face caught on CCTV. The cops had come for him at six a.m., pulling him from his bed in his boxers, never mind that his mam was yelling he was innocent, and he’d gone down for two years. Out soon if he kept his nose clean.

He’d been texting the night it happened, telling them to get their arses down there. Daz had fancied a bit of thieving, maybe come home with a wide screen, some other stuff, good trainers. But Chelz told him straight that she’d walk out with Kieran if he did it and her face said she wasn’t pissing about.

 

By eleven they’d been on to a couple of different places and end up in a bar by the canal, gathered around an outdoor heater on the patio. Matt had tried it on with a hen party and they’d told him to fuck off, snotty cows. But if they were still here in a couple of hours…he drained the glass and felt the phone buzz in his pocket. Chelsea. She always did it on a Saturday night, couldn’t give him any peace.

            Amber cm rnd n told me bout u n her 2 wks ago.

            Fuck. His fingers moved fast.

            Wot I do?

            U no.

            She lying cow.

            No she not.

            Bbe I luv u u no tht.

            fuck u.

            He was sweating now, all the good buzz drained away. Shit. He didn’t think she’d ever find out about Amber. Why did the silly cunt have to start feeling guilty? She’d liked it well enough when he was fucking her.

            I do honest.

            will get things tmrw. Staying at mams w Kieran.

            Someone put a glass in front of him and he drank. Fuck. He looked up as he heard his name.

            “What?”

            “I was saying you never got in a fight at school,” Rhys said.

            “Yeah, I did,” he objected. “You know I fucking did.” He felt the anger coursing in him. He’d have to talk her round.

            “Who?”

            “Davy Arms.”

            “Davy Arms?” Rhys asked, his voice rising in disbelief. “You lying bastard. You’d run a mile rather than fight.” He looked at the others. “He makes butter look hard, does Daz.”

            They all started laughing. Laughing at him.

            “You think I wouldn’t hit someone? You reckon that, do you?”

            “I think you’d shit yourself, mate,” Matt told him. “Never seen you near when there’s a ruck on.”

            “Fuck you,” he shouted, the rage boiling, and a few heads turned before looking away quickly. He knew his face was red, but he didn’t care. “I tell you what, right? We’ll go out on the street right now and I’ll take on the first bloke we see.” He stood up, pushing the chair back so hard it fell over. “Yeah?”

            Matt glanced at the others.

            “Go on, then,” Terry said with a grin. “I want to see this.” He drained his pint. “Come on.”

            He went out ahead of them, pulling up his hoodie as they left. The phone buzzed in his pocket again but he ignored it. They started to walk away from town, the lights of the castle up blazing away on the hill. His fists were bunched, his mouth set hard. Fuck them. Fuck them all. He felt the fury churning inside. Yeah, so, he’d never been in a fight? Didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. Didn’t mean he didn’t have any bottle. Fuck Chelsea, too, whining cow. He’d only gone with Amber ‘cos she’d had a strop on and he’d gone out pissed off. It wasn’t anything.

            He saw the lad coming, on his own, hands in his pockets, head down. Long hair, looking like a fucking student in his skinny jeans and Converse. He waited until he was ten feet away and said, “You.”

            When the lad glanced up, he continued, “Yeah, you. Got a light, mate?”

            “I don’t smoke.” The lad started to turn away, looking for an escape, ready to cross the road, to take off and run. He could sense the fear and moved closer.

            “Cunt.”

He pushed the kid hard, watching him bounce off the wall then went in and punched him, once, twice in the gut, the way he’d seen the boxers do it on telly. He could feel the fire inside. The shouts of the others seemed to come from miles away, like a quiet roar.

            He saw the lad fall down and start puking, the vomit all over the pavement – he danced back so it wouldn’t go on his shoes. Very carefully, he picked a spot, drew back his leg like he was going for goal. He kicked the lad’s head, seeing it snap back hard. He heard the bone go in the nose and saw a dark arc of blood spurt before the skull cnuched as it bounced off the wall. Then the lad landed, the breath pushing out of him. Something pooled under his scalp, forming a thin stream that rang along the pavement.

He prodded at the leg with his foot. Nothing. No reaction

            For a moment he didn’t know what to do. He stared at the lad and the pool grew a little bigger. He started to run.

 

He ran over the bridge and along the canal, dodging in and out of the pools of light. The echo of his footsteps slapped back in his ears. He didn’t know where the others had gone, he just needed to get away from there. He took the pathclose to the Magistrates’ Court and came out across from the railway station, panting, bent over, hands on his knees, his heart pounding as if he’d just done a Mo Farah. Sweat was running down his back, and there was a deep roar inside that wanted to explode. Traffic was moving, the sound of engines, a line of taxis, like he’d suddenly come out from nowhere and discovered life. He forced himself to stop, holding on to each side of his head and tried to calm himself down then dragging his hands away in case anyone noticed. He didn’t want to be remembered.

            The lad couldn’t be dead. He hadn’t even given him much of a seeing-to. Someone would come along and find him then he’d be off to A&E and he’d be out in a day or two. That had to be right. Fucking had to be. 

John Lawton. It’s a name most people don’t know, but he’s one of the best, and certainly one of the most underrated, mystery/thriller writers. His series featuring Frederick Troy of the Yard, which stands at seven books, is his great achievement (there’s also another standalone book, set in the US in 1968). It covers ground from the 1930s to 1963, making it not only monumental but also quite audacious in its scope, especially as the books weave in plenty of real-life characters, including Kruschev drinking in a London pub, into the narrative, making for a blend of fact and fiction so expertly concocted that it can be hard to see where the first ends and the second begins.

Over the course of the books, Troy rises from being a policeman in the East end of London to Commander of the Murder Squad at Scotland Yard, a large career arc. He’s also injured countless times and manages to kill more people than any other policeman in England – although it’s not exactly a gunman score. He’s the younger son of a publishing magnate who escaped Russia early in the 20^th century carrying a dubiously obtained fortune. So he’s a child of privilege, with an older brother who becomes a Labour MP (and eventual member of the Shadow Cabinet), so he’s also connected politically and socially. But that Russian heritage is an important part of him. It leaves him an outsider to the society of which he’s part, an observer who has no compunction about using his contacts or position but has little regard for the established order of class. He’s a saboteur of sorts, demolishing the structure from within.

The books are also – and this might be why he’s not the huge name he should be – acute observations on the state of England. Lawton is an excellent historian, superb at creating the feel of a time and place (the place being London, although his depiction of Vienna in the late 1930s is also wonderful). He transports the reader there, as any good writer should, but Troy has no time for those who talk of ‘a good war’ and whose only lives exist in the shadow of World War II. The final book in the series, at least chronologically, Little White Death, is set in 1963, just as England is starting to undergo a huge spasm of change in music, fashion and society. And he’s happy to tear it apart, to demolish to old order. At times it’s gleefully cynical, especially as, for much of the book, Troy is very much on the sidelines.

It’s not only Troy himself who’s so well drawn, but also the smaller characters who recur from book to book – his twin sisters, Masha and Sasha, his brother Rob, assistant Jack Wildeve and more. They’re flesh and blood, as are his lovers. Troy isn’t perfect – there’s that very Russian strain of pessimism in him and much self-reflection – but as a character he might be one of the most rounded in fiction. If you haven’t read any in the series, do. You won’t regret the time. I go through them all every couple of years and come away each time amazed at the achievement.

Mônica da Silva
Brasilissima
Socialite Fiasco Music

Mônica da Silva’s second outing (which actually dates from 2010 but is still well worth covering) showcases not only her Brazilian roots and MPB sensibilities, but also her life in America. She’s a luscious, sensual singer, whether in English of Portuguese, but much of the credit here goes to partner Chad Alger, who shares in the compositions, and whose guitar is the underpinning to much of the music. Yes, there’s bossa and samba here, with some wonderful warmth (witness “Canta Coração”), and the mood can also become soft and languid. Made by the duo with just a smattering of guests, there’s some excellent rhythm programming. It’s a disc that connects the north and south of the Americas; Alger has a feel for Brazil, but there’s also a mildly indie sensibility lurking in there, while da Silva herself is close to her roots but still influenced by modern – and classic – pop. “Somewhere,” for instance, could easily have wandered off a vintage Stevie Wonder album, with its driving clavinet, and much of the production reflects. As a singer she’s more Maria Bethânia than Daniela Mercury, but still capable of a wild edge. All together, it makes for a very satisfying disc, with the hope that there’ll be more soon.

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