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reekierevelator · 5 years ago

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The Summer of Eavesdropping

A short story by Brian Bourner

They crouched in the small seven by five foot airless and musty boxroom which adjoined the living-room in this one bedroom plus boxroom tenement flat. Some dim light percolated through from the living-room, via the only window, which was closed and located high up on the dividing wall. They couldn’t help making tiny rustling noises as they squirmed, cupping their ears to the wall, desperately trying to hear the muffled voices of conversation on the other side of the divide.

‘Did you hear that?’ Tony whispered incredulously. ‘They’re going to attack us.’

‘Shhh,’ muttered Gerry, his finger across his lips.

It wasn’t really eavesdropping; it was war and, as they say, all’s fair in love and war.

They could have been soldiers hidden in haylofts behind enemy lines. Or they might have been spies in a café cellar, their secret hiding place, tapping out Morse code messages to be deciphered by British Intelligence.

But that was last year’s game. Playing secret agents and re-enacting old wars was very out of fashion this summer, largely because up until the end of term even little seven year olds had been playing at soldiers, their armies fighting from one end of the playground to the other. And they were already taking tactics just the way we had: outflanking, surprise attacks from the rear, and so on.

It’s funny how some kids grow in spurts. In this last year of Primary School Gavin Jordan had gone from being slightly bigger than usual to being a veritable man mountain. Of course, he looked that way partly because he’d been held back and had to repeat two years. So, as well as being the biggest, he was also the oldest boy at Laverock Primary School. And since he’d always been loud and bullying by nature it wasn’t a surprise that he took full advantage of his stature, a veritable playground despot, forcing other kids to kowtow to him.

This was particularly annoying for Tony, since Gavin’s parents had developed some kind of grudge against his own parents. He couldn’t really understand what it was all about, something to do with whether you liked some bloke called Wilson or some woman called Thatcher. But this visceral antipathy had readily filtered down to Gavin. He classified Tony as amongst his deadliest of enemies.

During schooldays, obeisance to Gavin involved involuntary donations of chocolate, sweets, and freedom to ride your bicycle when he felt like it. Sophisticated veiled threats were not Gavin’s forte. It was more a case of waving a fist in your face. With this raw power Gavin decided that when the summer holidays finally arrived all the kids in his street would be playing with him and be part of his gang.

This really irritated Tony, not only because he had to work so hard to keep out of Gavin’s way, but also because he, and his pal Gerry, had always been the initiators of whatever new games and fads took root amongst the local kids. Tony and Gerry were the acknowledged leaders of most group activities that filled the empty days of the long school summer holidays. Bored kids usually joined whatever gang Tony and Gerry had organised and followed whatever ideas and notions they implanted, however bizarre.

There had been very wet days with the water-pistols gang, and painful days with the spud-gun gang. There was the penknife gang, when everyone had to have a little penknife and went around carving initials into trees and so on. There was the time they’d spent all summer in the woods making bows and arrows and firing lengths of cane at each other. There had even been the detectives’ gang when carrying a magnifying glass had been de rigueur.

And last summer Tony’s dad, an electrician and shop steward, had dumped left-over rolls of thin plastic coated wire, plastics of different colours, in the rubbish bin at home. Of course, intrigued, Tony had retrieved them. He’d seen enough sword-fighting in films featuring Romans, Pirates, and Zorro for it to trigger a connection with his mum’s sewing basket, with its scissors and big jar of pins.

It wasn’t long before he’d worked out how to remove the actual wire and cut short lengths of these cables. Then he either stuck pins through the hollow sheathing instead, or else he used the pins to pierce through pieces of the coloured cables.

He ended up with miniature swords. Some had standard hilts and some had curved cutlass type handles. All types of swords, colours of swords, crossed swords – they all became little gang badges whose meanings Gerry, who was always full of ideas, worked hard at inventing that summer. By the time school was due to start again every kid for miles around was wearing pin sword combinations on their clothes and proudly telling each other what they supposedly signified. Some even started doing swops. They were more popular than a sleeve full of Cub badges.

Indeed, as gang leader, Tony had ended up with the title Field Marshal Stevens, a row of ten crossed swords, very fancy and colourful, decorating his jacket lapel to prove it. It was all wonderful and exciting. At least that was until his little brother Dougie, only four at the time, started leaving sword pins all over the house. When his mum accidentally pricked her finger for the umpteenth time picking up Tony’s jacket from the floor she declared she’d had enough of it. Against Tony’s howls of protestation she made him pick up every last sword pin in the house and then dishonourably discharged him from his own army, removing every last sword pin from his jacket. Tony was devastated by his instant demobilization.

To avoid the utter humiliation of being reduced to the ranks Tony felt obliged to invent a story. He told the gang that a miniature Highland sword dancer had come in the night, danced a sword dance across all his crossed swords, and been so impressed with them that he’d insisted on taking them all away with him to admire at home. It’s possible one or two of the youngest members of the gang, still in P2 or P3, even believed him.

But on this latest school summer holiday, nine year old Tony’s antennae had picked up vague trends, winds of change in the world of pop music. It gave him the impetus to form a new gang. It would, of course, have the usual bizarre range of membership rules and initiation ceremonies. But this time it would be different because each member of the gang would be allocated a nom de guerre, a soubriquet formed after the fashion of members of punk rock bands.

‘Eh, right,’ Gerry had said, scratching his head, ‘mental, great idea,’ as Tony revealed his latest notion.

‘Yes, and I’ve thought of a name for myself,’ Tony hurried on enthusiastically. ‘My secret new name, to be known of course only to gang members, will be Stinky.’

Gerry grimaced. ‘It doesn’t really sound too powerful Tony, not really awe-inspiring.’ But Gerry’s big brother had started buying records and it was true that, as far as he could understand it, unfortunate self-denigrating names were part and parcel of the punk ethos.

‘Are we going to go around spitting on people?’ he asked.’

Tony hadn’t heard of that aspect of the culture. ‘What’s spitting got to do with it? My new name rhymes with my surname, see, Stinky Stevens.’ Tony grinned like he’d been offered free ice-cream. He loved ice-cream.

‘Right, Stinky Stevens it is then.’ Gerry, who generally had the best ideas, was then off and running. ‘Let’s call ourselves Stinky Stevens and the Sudden Smells.’

‘Perfect,’ agreed Tony immediately.

‘And my name will be Drain Brain.’

Tony had to think about that for a minute, working out the play on words, remembering his dad talking about some kind of brain drain, before eventually nodding acquiescence.

That long summer holiday other kids were, as usual, looking for something to occupy themselves. They were intrigued with this weird idea of a sort of band where no-one had to learn to play an instrument. Gradually, one by one, they were enlisted into the new gang.

Tony and Gerry took each new prospective member to their gang hut. It was actually the flat roof of a small single storey factory. It was reached by shinning up a drainpipe, walking along the top of a six foot high wall, and clambering up over an area of slated roof, tilted at an acute angle to the horizontal, which surrounded the actual flat roof.

Being brave enough to actually reach the gang hut was the first membership test. After that Ton and Gerry gave each potential recruit further tests - answering questions on the twelve times table, spelling big words like ‘pterodactyl’ (which they’d only recently learned themselves) and, for a geography test, having to describe the best route between school and home that was guaranteed to avoid bumping into Gavin. Then finally they had to put two fingers in their ear and repeat ‘Sudden Smells forever’ three times. Tony had decided this would be the new salute. Their short punk song, well war-cry really, would be ‘Smelly, smelly, sudden smelly’, repeated as often as required, for up to a maximum of two minutes.

After the initiation ceremony Gerry allocated a special secret gang names to each new member so that, in no time at all, the Sudden Smells expanded into a big punk band comprising Arty Farty (fat Arthur Smedley), King Pong (little Denis King), Pun Gent (Graham Gentleman), Mal O’Dorous (Malcolm Docherty), Sue Age (Mal’s sister Susan Docherty), Wattie Niff (Jimmy Watt), Hon King (Wattie’s sister Honey Watt), the chubby twins who were made to share a single joint name, Rot ‘n’ Egg (Reginald and Edward Edgeworth, sons of the corner grocer) and, lastly, Stellar Whiff (pretty Stella Griffin).

Needless to say, no-one actually failed the initiation tests, even if they got most of the answers wrong; not even wee Graham who couldn’t get one answer right and had never even heard the word ‘pungent’ before.

While the boys were keen to flaunt their new names the girls, always more grown-up and socially aware, were strangely much less enthusiastic. Still, they felt honoured enough at having been allowed to join the gang at all. So they didn’t complain too much, generally forgetting all about it and flouncing off to play amongst themselves. Tony was never quite sure what the girls did play at now they were apparently too mature to play at houses with their dolls.

And, of course, though Tony and Gerry managed to steer well clear of Gavin, all the palaver about a rival new gang, which used idiotic names and involved Tony, his sworn enemy, didn’t pass him by. He immediately felt the need to establish his rival organisation on a similar footing in order to put the new punk gang in its place. He began to coerce a range of kids into joining with him rather than with Stinky Stevens and hit on the theme of cowboys. He didn’t know much about cowboys but he’d seen westerns and in one he’d been struck by a man called Red calling another man Yellow. He decided that the interesting thing about his gang would be that all the members would have the names of colours. And, of course, being cowboys there would definitely be no girls allowed. Only sissies played with girls and cowboys weren’t sissies.

For an initiation ceremony Gavin made each new recruit sign a piece of paper on which he had scrawled the words ‘On my honour I promise to God and the Queen that I will be loyal to my great leader, Red.’

His first member was Johnny Nisbet, known only for having a big head, his dad’s regular joke being that he’d love to see it full of beer. Johnny lived next door to Gavin, existing in constant fear of him. But venturing out one day Johnny was quickly enlisted and forced to sign the paper as Yellow Nisbet. Johnny breathed a sigh of relief when Gavin allowed red ink to be used instead of blood. Ginger-headed Billy Thompson was the next forced to join. He received a gratuitous thump on the head for suggesting that he, rather than Gavin, should maybe be called ‘Red’. In no uncertain terms Gavin impressed on him that he was going to be called Blue.

Of course, as an autocratic type, Gavin attracted a few of the usual power-worshipping sycophants, the weak characterless characters whose route to authority was only ever via the vicarious exercise of a despot’s power. Two of these monochrome fellow-travellers were Charlie Blackley and Gordon Whitehouse, tall gaunt-looking kids with narrow eyes. With a sudden flash of inspiration Gavin re-christened them Black and White.

And there were others, like Tommy Green, who actually seemed keen on joining. But Tommy tried to change his mind when Gavin told him to sign his new name as Green Green. Tommy’s teacher always referred to him as Green anyway and he felt that being in Gavin’s gang was only going to remind him of the classroom, where ‘Green!’ was usually followed by ‘Stand outside the door!’ At that point he suggested resigning, but Gavin rather forcefully reminded him that resignation wasn’t an option by whacking his head with a heavy hand. Then Gavin pointed out that he was writing the gang rules and that these rules were entirely about attacking Tony’s useless punk gang.

Next, Gavin set his merciless recruiter’s eyes on little Denis King, not realising that Denis had already been netted by Stinky Stevens and the Sudden Smells, having being re-named King Pong in the process. But Denis knew there was nothing he could do about it when Gavin kicked his shin, twisted his ear, put the red pen in his hand, and told him, as if he didn’t already know from the bruises, that henceforth he was to be Purple.

But the big question then confronting Gavin was exactly how to deploy his magnificent new gang so as to achieve its aim of destroying Tony’s punk gang. He had to organise something really nasty for them, some purpose his own gang could work towards. But what? Imagination and strategy weren’t Gavin’s strongest points. He decided his gang would have to come up with the ideas.

And so Gavin called a gang meeting and informed Denis that it would be held in his house the following afternoon when his mum was out working. Gavin knew Denis lived alone with his mum in their top floor flat and that his mum would be out working all day. In the school holidays that meant Denis looked after himself. His mum laid out a cold lunch for him and otherwise he was left to his own devices. Like the other kids he wore his house key on a string round his neck so he could come and go as he wanted and it made it unlikely that he would lock himself out.

‘Bring me a plan to destroy Tony’s gang,’ Gavin demanded, adding ‘and if you don’t I’ll batter you instead.’

When Denis sneaked out and turned up at Tony’s gang hut the following morning, looking white-faced and utterly miserable, he blurted out ‘Gavin’s made me join his gang. They’re all calling themselves colours like a rainbow, and unless Gavin gets to beat up Stinky and the Sudden Smells he’s going to beat me up instead.’

Tony could only sympathise, but when Gerry arrived, and King Pong re-told his tale of woe, the Drain Brain’s face immediately brightened.

‘Listen boys, here’s what we’ll do…’

And that was when Gerry convinced Denis to let them overhear what Gavin’s gang were planning.

Like many tenement flats, the main door of Denis’s led on to a lobby, a short corridor with each room lying to one side of it, living room at the front and bedroom at the back, and squeezed in between a small boxroom. Tony and Gerry arrived early and stealthily at Denis’s flat, and that was how they ended up hiding in the dusty boxroom behind a closed door. As he didn’t have any brothers or sisters the airless boxroom in Denis’s house was used as a storeroom. It was full of old cardboard boxes, newspapers, paint pots, paint brushes, an ironing board, a small child’s tricycle, and old tools. In the middle of all this stood an open set of step ladders. So Tony and Gerry settled down, huddling down cramped on the floor, pressing their ears against the dividing wall.

It was a warm summer’s day but Denis was so nervous his teeth were chattering and, nearly terrified, he wondered how Gerry had ever managed to convince him this plan would work.

Half an hour later Denis was managing to appear no worse than his usual fearful self as the doorbell rang and he allowed Gavin the Red to march in, closely followed soon after by the rest of his crew. After Gavin had found and eaten the chocolate pudding Denis’s mum had left him as a treat for his lunch, he launched straight into the purpose of the meeting.

‘Right, you, Black, what’s your idea for attacking Tony’s punk mob?

‘Eh, well, we could all dress up like it was Halloween. They’d all be scared and run away like a lot of sissies.’

‘That’s crap; never work,’ shouted Gavin as he whacked Charlie’s head.

‘You, White, what’s your plan?’

‘Well, we could all get sticks and then sometime when they’re all together we could surround them and hit them till they all surrender and agree to join our gang.’

‘Hmm, better,’ said Gavin, ‘but we might have to wait a long time. How would we know when they’re all together? How would we know that Stevens is with them?

Gordon hung his head, but at least it escaped a blow.

Green! Blue! Yellow! Purple! – Come on, speak up let’s hear your suggestions.’

Tommy Green put his idea that ‘Maybe we could organise something ourselves that would draw them all to one place and then when they’re all there we could surround them like Apaches attacking the circled waggons.’ Tommy made an Apache whooping noise waving his hand over his mouth.’

Gavin scrunched up his face. ‘We’re the cowboys, you idiot!’

But as Gavin raised his hand Billy ‘Blue’ distracted him, adding ‘We could get them all together if we set up a stand offering free juice and ice-cream in the playpark.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Purple. ‘We could put secret notes through their doors about free ice-cream and they’d all be out like a flash looking for it.’

Gavin’s arm was back by his side as he tried to engage his brain. He spotted a flaw in the plan. ‘Where would we get all this ice-cream and juice from? It’s the holidays isn’t it? They’re impe… impec… impetunias [it was a word he’d heard his dad use many times].’ The gang looked at him with blank expressions. ‘You morons, they’re all too hard-up aren’t they? We can’t even grab any dinner money off them, the kind of money we’d need to to buy the stuff in the first place!’

Gavin’s narrowing eyes rested on the last member of his gang, Yellow. Johnny Nisbet was to be the final victim of his inquisition.

‘Come on Yellow, there must be some activity going on inside that giant stupid dome of yours!’

Being his closest neighbour, and therefore someone who generally tried to stay indoors, hermit-like, when he knew Gavin was at large, Johnny suddenly had an idea.

‘Tony’s supposed to look after his wee brother when Wee Dougie’s allowed out to play. We could grab Dougie and hide him. Tony would have to come looking for him. Then one of us could tell Tony where to find him.’

‘Tell him where to find him? What’s the use of that? – Idiot!’ Johnny ducked as Gavin retracted his arm ready to strike, but still managed to quickly gabble ‘See when Tony comes to try and find the wee man our gang grab him and beat him up.’

Gavin let his arm fall to his side again and nodded thoughtfully.

‘Yes, that’s it. We lure Tony into an ambush. Capture him. Beat him up. Give him a proper doing. Teach him who’s boss.’ Gavin was almost licking his lips at the prospect. ‘That would be good. That would work. Teach him a lesson. Show him who’s the real gang leader round here.’

A broad malicious grin spread all over Gavin’s face. ‘Yes, that’s my best idea yet.’

In the boxroom Tony and Gerry were listening so intently to the gang’s conversation that when Tony heard them plan to abduct his little brother his body jerked, his stiffened-up leg moved involuntarily and he fell over.

‘What was that?’ shouted Gavin, his eyes darting around the living-room.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

While Tony and Gerry’s heads jerked around desperately looking for an escape route from the boxroom, Denis was slowly stepping backwards towards the living-room door, terror etched on his small white face.

‘Where are you going? What’s the matter with you?’

Gavin’s voice was loud, harsh, and suspicious.

Without thinking, Denis, almost fainting with fear, blurted ‘Mice! We’ve got mice.’

Screwing up his face Gavin came towards Denis, slowly and purposefully. While Yellow, Blue and Green held back, Black and White grinned, expecting to see Gavin make an example of little Purple.

‘Nobody in our gang is scared of a wee mouse,’ Gavin insisted, as he prodded Denis’s chest with a rigid index finger. As Gavin bunched his fingers into a fist a quailing Denis flinched, but Gavin merely tapped the terrorised boy playfully on the chin.

‘Right, aye, sure, that’s right, - not scared of mice, not in our gang,’ echoed Denis’s trembling voice.

In the boxroom Gerry had spotted a wooden hatch in the ceiling above the top step of the ladders. He was already silently climbing. On the top step he reached his hand up to the hatch and found it slid open easily to reveal access to the tenement loft space. Holding the edges of the ceiling entrance with both hands he hauled himself up, Tony following closely behind. The attic was cold and empty, smelling faintly damp and structured to the shape of the sloping roof. There was about four feet clearance in the central area but from there the roof sloped downwards until it met the walls at the eves. Once both Gerry and Tony were up and balancing on joists they slid the hatch cover back into place.

Grabbing Denis by the ear, Gavin opened the living-room door and pushed him out, round the lobby and, opening the door, shoved him into the boxroom.

Denis’s eyes boggled at seeing no-one there.

The other boys had followed Gavin, and stood behind him as he stared at the junk and listened carefully. But the only slight scratching noise he heard came from the ceiling overhead.

Then Tony’s foot slipped off the joist and there was a thump as it landed heavily on the ceiling plaster, though fortunately not quite heavily enough to actually tear a hole in it.

‘Big mice.’ Gavin sounded anxious.

‘Could be rats, big rats – or maybe bats,’ Denis improvised nervously.

The other members of the gang exchanged worried glances, decidedly uncomfortable. But Gavin noticed the roof hatch. ‘See that - You better get up there and investigate Denis.’

Seeing there was no alternative Denis cautiously ascended the ladder. At the top he stopped and looked down.

‘Go on then, what are you waiting for?’ Gavin snarled.

The other boys backed away.

Denis, stretched up an arm as far as possible. He was barely able to reach the hatch and slide it aside. There was a collective intake of breath from the other boys, fearing a big brown rat might jump down on top of them. But there was no rat, and even Gavin could see there was no chance of little Denis hauling himself up into the loft space. Denis quickly came back down the steps.

‘Get up there and see what’s happening,’ Gavin commanded, jerking his head towards the tall boys, Black and White. Charlie and Gordon nervously began the ascent. Both had a fear of heights, but their fear of having to confess their vertigo to Gavin and the rest of the gang proved even greater.

Tony and Gerry meantime moved as far away from the hatch as they could, crouching and crawling into the furthest away spaces. They found themselves underneath the small glass skylight giving easy access to the roof itself. As they heard Gavin commanding people up to the loft they decided there was no option. They pushed open the skylight and clambered onto the roof. It felt like climbing up to their gang-hut, at least until Tony found himself sitting, knees bent, looking around at the great glass cupola bulging upwards to one side of them, covering the central stairwell. The sky seemed suddenly vast and the chimney pots much bigger than he had ever imagined. Looking down he saw people moving around like tiny insects on the ground far below.

Gerry closed the skylight and they were left sitting together on the roof slates, open to the elements.

Like Tony, Gerry stared down, transfixed by the miniaturised street below. He shuffled his feet for a better look and the slate under his right shoe dislodged. And as it slid down the roof Gerry felt himself slowly follow it. Terror-struck, he stretched his arm backwards screaming ‘Tony!’

Tony reached an arm down just in time to wrap his hand around Gerry’s wrist. There was a muted crash as the slate slid down the shallow-pitched roof and lodged in the guttering, precariously balanced, a danger to the street below.

They lay there, Gerry lying prone against the slates, ashen-faced and quivering, Tony kept a tight grip on his wrist for what seemed an eternity. The sunlight on Gerry’s face gradually revived him until he finally found the courage to press the rubber soles of his shoes back against the slates again. Then, like a sclerotic crab, he moved himself slowly backwards, one limb at a time, up to the skylight beside Tony.

Black and White, creeping gingerly around the loft space, stopped when they thought they thought they heard something. It sounded like ‘Tony’, followed by a little bang. Speaking loudly to reassure themselves, Black said ‘Must be getting windy outside, making funny noises,’ and White likewise excused his unwillingness to contemplate opening the skylight on to the high roof by adding ‘Yes, could be the sounds like kids shouting down there in the street.’

At the skylight Gerry and Tony listened as the sound of Black and White’s muffled voices escaped through the tenement eves.

‘No, there’s nothing up here Gavin. Can’t see any mice…’

‘…or rats…’

‘…or bats.’

‘Just a lot of dust and dirt…’

‘…noises from the street…’

‘…and a funny smell.’

Stinky Stevens tensed. But the loud voices of Gavin’s men lessened as drew away from the skylight.

‘Oh, and here’s an old measuring tape and some lengths of wood for making stuff.’

Down below, Denis remembered how his mum had once had a man round who had talked like a machine, all about converting loft space into an extra room. He’d spent some time banging around in the boxroom. Of course, nothing had come of it. Something about not being able to help the cost of building materials.

‘That’s useless. Ok you two, come on down!’

Tony and Gerry heard Gavin’s yell quite clearly through the eaves, and listened to Black and White shouting to each other as they shuffled across the loft beams, making their way back to the hatch and quickly exiting. Then there was silence. The hatch had been closed over again.

Tony stretched over and tried to lift the skylight. But the skylight fitted flush and neat into framework and he couldn’t budge it. ‘Oh no, It must be designed only to be pushed open from underneath. We’re stuck, trapped here, hundreds of feet up and there’s no way down.’

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

But Drain Brain had recovered sufficiently from the shock of nearly falling off the roof that his mind was again in full working order.

‘Don’t panic Tony. Squirm about and you’ll end up sliding off the roof like I nearly did. Remember, people get out through the skylight so they surely have to be able to get back in again.’

Looking closely, Gerry identified marks left where a little handle had once been attached to the wooden frame surrounding the glass. The weather had rusted the screws and at some point it had broken off and disappeared. It certainly wasn’t there any more.

But Gerry had an impromptu solution. He reached his hand down into his pocket and pulled out a small penknife with a red plastic handle.

Tony was amazed. ‘Grief, you’ve still got it? The penknife gang was years ago.’

‘It still comes in useful sometimes.’

Gerry slipped the blade between the roof and the skylight’s wooden frame. He levered the skylight open just enough to get his fingertips on to the edge of the skylight’s frame and pull it open.

‘Well done, Gerry, that’s brilliant.’

Avoiding looking down at the street far below they manoeuvred themselves carefully and slipped back in through the skylight. In no time had made their way back down through the loft and back into the boxroom.

The boxroom door was open and the flat was silent.

‘They’ve gone to grab Dougie haven’t they?’ Stinky Stevie had tears in his eyes as he looked for hope in the Brain Drain’s frowning face. ‘How can we save him from these desperadoes?’

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

‘Where would Dougie be just now?’ was Gerry’s first question.

Tony wiped his sleeve across his eyes and said ‘He should be at the playground at the end of the street. He can go there without crossing the road. He knows he’s not allowed to cross the road by himself.’

‘And if the Rainbow gang got hold of him, where would they take him?’

‘Who knows? But remember, we heard them saying it’s me they’re really after. If I go looking for Dougie they’ll actually want me to find him. One of that will just tell me where to look.’

‘Ok, so you go to the playground first. If Dougie’s not there, you ask if anyone knows where he’s gone. Denis might know but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to get away from the Rainbow Gang. So you just start looking for Dougie and wait for one of that lot to point you in the direction of wherever they’re going to ambush you.’

Tony was dubious. ‘And meantime - you’ll get the Sudden Smells together, tell them what’s happening Gerry?’

‘That’s right. And if you can’t get a message to me to tell me about the ambush I’ll follow you discreetly at a distance.’

‘Like the detective gang?’

‘I’ve still got my magnifying glass.’

‘What if all their gang’s there waiting? It’ll be us against them. And Gavin’s twice our size.’

‘Let me worry about that Tony. I’ve got an idea.’

And with that they let themselves out of Denis’s flat, shutting the front door behind them. They took care not to be seen, leaving the tenement close separately. Tony walked quickly down the street, the way he did when his mum had sent him on an urgent errand, like when milk or bread had run out unexpectedly.

Gerry kept to the street’s shadows and eventually made his way up the drainpipe, along the wall, and up over the slates until he reached the Sudden Smells’ gang hut, where he knew he’d find at least a few of their members. A few minutes later he was off again.

At the playground Tony scanned the children. In the sunshine three little boys and two girls were rampaging around the swings, chutes, and roundabout while two mothers sat on the bare metal bench chatting together as they knitted.

‘Dougie!’ Tony called, though it was obvious he wasn’t there.

The children momentarily stopped playing to stare at him and resumed when one of the mothers said ‘Douglas was here earlier. He went off with some friends, older boys, big enough to keep an eye on him.’

So Tony followed the agreed protocol, turned back into the street, ostentatiously looking to his left and right, even screwing up his eyes and using his hand as a sunshade to stare purposefully up to the far end of the street. Charlie Blackley and Gordon Whitehouse seemed to emerge from nowhere to walk either side of him. Actually they’d been monitoring the playground, lying behind the low perimeter wall.

Charlie spoke first. ‘You’re that Tony Stevens aren’t you?’

And Gordon asked ‘You the leader of this new gang then?’

‘That’s it,’ agreed Tony, puffing his chest out.

‘Stinky Stevens, isn’t it?’

Tony was a little aggrieved that his secret name was clearly public knowledge, but happily conceded ‘Yes, we’re Stinky Stevens and the Sudden Smells.’

Charlie and Gordon burst out laughing, hopping around and holding their fingers to their noses.

‘Sudden Smells eh? The way you’re searching around it looks like you’ve lost something. Has something run away from all the stink?’

‘I’m looking after my wee brother Dougie, but I can’t find him.’

‘Dougie, eh? Would that be wee boy wearing red dungarees…’

‘…and a green pullover?’

‘Exactly. That’s him. Have you seen him?’

Charlie pointed across the road. Tony followed his finger to a battered pair of tall wooden entrance gates, supposedly barring the entrance to an access tunnel that passed through the bottom of the street’s tenements. It was common to find such access portals to small-scale workshops and factories lying behind tenements. In this particular case Tony knew it led to a dusty area at the back where there was a shabby old house, there even before the tenements were built, and having a small group of outbuildings in front, a hut, a shed and a lock-up. The two halves of the six foot high gates were held together by a loosely fixed chain leaving a small gap in the middle. The old bearded man who lived in the old house was seldom seen except when he or his stick-thin mournful-looking wife emerged to castigate children found trespassing on their territory. The boys knew them as ‘The Deadly Dunsires’. Tony’s mum had specifically forbidden him from ever going there.

‘He went that way Stinky.’ There was a sly grin on Charlie’s face.

Tony sighed and turned to cross the cobbled road while Charlie and Gordon ran off into a nearby close, smirking like they’d pulled off a fantastic practical joke.

From a tenement close further up the street Gerry was in position and watched as Tony trudged off across the road, like a condemned going to the scaffold. Tony stopped in front of the gates of The Deadly Dunsires place.

Standing close beside Gerry in the close, Sue Age pointed out ‘That makes sense. You know those old Dunsires are Gavin’s grandparents, his mum’s mum and dad.’ How did girls know these things? Gerry was constantly amazed at girls’ knowledge of peoples’ relationships.

The loose chain joining the two halves of the battered wooden gates left enough of a gap for a child to squeeze through. Tony paused only briefly before doing so. Once inside he stuck close to the tunnel’s wall to avoid being seen. Reaching the end of the short tunnel he ducked to the ground and surveyed the courtyard situation.

The ramshackle old house, its paint silently peeling, stood grim and eerie. Walls either side separated the courtyard from tenement backgreens. A big padlock ensured the lock-up, which was nearest the house, could not be entered. The shed, which was closest to Tony, was in a sad state of disrepair, its roof having collapsed and one side leant dangerously inwards. If Dougie was going to be here, Tony concluded he had to be in the small hut standing on a bare patch of dusty ground between the lock-up and the shed. He listened intently and thought he could hear the muffled sounds of voices. Suddenly there was a louder movement coming from the entrance gates behind him.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

For a moment he envisaged the Deadly Dunsires returning from a shopping expedition and attacking him with full cans of soup, beating him up with a bag of potatoes. But the gates weren’t opening. Squinting back down the entrance tunnel he saw the gleaming eyes and maniacal faces of Charlie and Gordon, who had climbed through the gap and were coming towards him with sticks in their hands.

‘Gotcha now, Smelly Tony’, roared the deadly duo.

This clearly provided some kind of clarion call because as he turned to run away the hut door in front of Tony was thrown open and the near giant that was Gavin charged out, his eyes bulging, arms flailing like a demented boxer, and wailing ‘Now men - attack, attack - pulverise him!’ And then came the rest of the Rainbow gang, trooping behind him, spilling out of the hut a little more sheepishly.

Wee Dougie was there too. He was smiling. He wasn’t hurt. He had no idea what was going on except that he had been lucky enough for some of the bigger boys to want to include him in their game. Tony was surrounded. Things didn’t look good.

A high-pitched voice rang out across the courtyard.

‘Come on Dougie, time to go home!’

Everyone stopped and stood stock still. They could only watch as three girls, Susan, Honey, and Stella, jumped through the gap in the front gates and ran forward to make a fuss of Wee Dougie, totally ignoring all the other boys. They took the little chap by the hand as they led him away, and out through the gap at the entrance gates. The last to disappear, Stella, winked at Tony as she left.

But as soon as Sue Age, Hon King, and Stellar Whiff were gone Gavin yelled ‘We’ve got him now!’ and the Rainbow Gang was quickly closing in again on Tony.

Suddenly, the war cry “Smelly, smelly, sudden smelly” rent the air and other Sudden Smells - Arty Farty, Pun Gent, and Rot and Egg – were pouring through the entrance gates carrying water pistols and other weapons. In an instant they had grabbed Charlie and Gordon, disarmed them, and stuffed something down their shirts. The smell was instantly overpowering – stink bombs.

Gavin’s advance was repulsed too, stopped dead in its tracks as a stream of water hit him squarely in the back of the head. The water pistol gang lived again. Drain Brain had gained access to the backgreen next door, attached to the close which included the home of the Watt family. And, along with Wattie Niff and Mal O’Dorous, Drain Brain had scaled the dividing wall between it and the courtyard. It was the old attack from the rear tactic of their soldiering years.

And Tony could see it wasn’t just plain water the gang was firing, it was coloured stuff. Drain Brain had found a use for the blocks of colour from the watercolour set he’d been given for his birthday and never used. And he had clearly worked out who to direct the gang’s super-soaker firepower at. As the pistols squirted, Gavin found himself attacked from behind as well as in front and was soon drenched in watery red paint. As he stopped to examine the damage a couple of accurately delivered ripe red tomatoes burst on his forehead. Reg and Eddie - Rot and Egg – jumped for joy at finally being able to make proper use of stuff from their dad’s shop. But Gavin himself was near to tears. The red skins of squashed tomatoes slid in their juice down his face. He stared in despair at his clothes, wringing wet in red paint.

‘Well, you wanted to be Red and you really are Red now,’ jeered Gerry.

As Rot and Egg raised hands re-filled with tomatoes and rotten eggs Tommy Green, Johnny ‘Yellow’ Nisbet, and Billy ‘Blue Thompson instantly reached for the sky, holding up both hands in surrender, the way they’d learned to do the year of the wartime commandos gang. And, though the Sudden Smells complained heartily, Tony ordered them not to loose off their water-paint pistols and other weapons at the surrendering enemy. After they’d agreed to join the Sudden Smells Gerry allowed the three vanquished enemies to run away down the tunnel and quickly out through the gap in the entrance gates.

Charlie and Gordon struggled out after them, discharging an atrocious stink seemingly indicative of serious toileting mishaps.

The Sudden Smells even permitted Gavin to scramble out behind the malodourous duo, soaked in red dripping paint, and utterly humiliated. Tony called after him ‘You better leave us alone in future Gavin. We outnumber you. You can’t beat us when we’re all together. Pick on any one of us and it will be all of us that come to get you!’

Having taken Wee Dougie home the girls re-joined the victors, and Tony and Gerry led all the Sudden Smells in joyful shouts of ‘Sudden Smells forever’, making a noise which echoed loudly in the tunnel. In celebration they fired their water pistols in the air, staining the tunnel roof red.

Only then did a final small figure emerge, cautious and forlorn, from the hut. It was Purple, Denis.

Stinky Stevens rummaged in the top pocket of his jacket and found the best of his pin sword creations, with lots of coloured bits, the only one which he’d managed to secrete and retain following the debacle of his military discharge and ritual stripping off of his badges. He presented it to Denis, commending him to the gathering as ‘the great King Pong, surely the most expert double agent the spies gang ever produced’. Denis nodded in acknowledgment of the Sudden Smells’ rousing applause and quietly muttered ‘Hmm, nifty’.

It was only as the whoops and clapping died away that Drain Brain spotted that the door of the ramshackle house had opened and saw the Deadly Dunsires charging towards them armed with belts and brooms.

Not wishing their parents to know they had trespassed into forbidden Deadly Dunsires territory the Sudden Smells instinctively and unanimously decided that before they were recognised by the Dunsires discretion would undoubtedly be the better part of valour. They scampered as fast as possible towards the gates and their route back out to the street. As a rear guard action Drain Brain released one last stink bomb, the shock of which held the elderly couple at bay, coughing and spluttering, until all the children had managed to escape.

As they jogged homeward together, Gerry shouted ‘The Sudden Smells were epic today Tony, but next summer, how about we try some of the girls’ ideas?’

‘What ideas?’

‘Well Sue’s keen on a scrap-swapping book club gang. Honey thinks we could have a painting and making things gang. We could all work together sewing patches of material together and so on. And Stella wants the gang-hut to be a hospital instead of a spaceship. She wants the gang to play doctors and nurses.’

‘How does that work?’ asked Tony, nonplussed.

#Reekie Revelator #edinburgh #1970s #children #scotland #short story

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