Little Rosalie’s playing in the yard, throwing her ball against the wall, clapping her hands and lifting her leg to throw the ball under, all that. When she stops she comes and sits on the step and I say, ‘I think that deserves a sweet, Rosalie,’ and give her a licorice allsort. Suddenly there’s a banging in the window and Yvonne bursts through the door and gets hold of the kiddy ‘I told you, madam,’ starts laying into her, and clawing the sweet out of her mouth. The dog’s barking, the kiddy’s crying, the old man has an accident and they’re all shouting. So anyway we came away.
Janet doesn’t say anything. Only when we’re at the bus stop she says ‘I don’t want to have to be flitting again. If you made a decision never to buy any more licorice allsorts it would be a step in the right direction.’
So anyway, I promised.
FADE.
The edge of a bandstand, some wrought iron, but scribbled over and defaced.
Anybody that wants to make a fortune should invent something that’ll erase the stuff they write up. There’s a plaque on the wall by the fountain:
This park was opened on July 17 1936 by the
Rt. Honourable the Earl of Harewood KG.TD.
‘So eat shit’ some bright spark has sprayed across it, with the result I’m down there all morning with the Brasso and a wire brush.
‘Think of it as a labour of love, Mr Paterson,’ Parlane said. ‘The present one’s the music-lover.’ ‘Who?’ ‘The Earl of Harewood. Father married the old Princess Royal.’ He hangs about for a bit then eventually says, Had I got a minute and he hoped I wouldn’t take it amiss but had I been in prison? I said, ‘No. What would I have been in prison for?’ He said, He’d no idea, it was just that when records go walkabout as mine plainly had that was often the case.
I said, Well, it’s not the case in this case, thank you very much and was my work unsatisfactory? He said, ‘Far from it, the place has never been so tidy. You, Mr Paterson are a textbook example of why we went performance related. But you’re also an example of somebody who has eluded all the fielders and ended up in the long grass, bureaucratically speaking. Well, don’t worry. Gordon Parlane is going to make it his personal emission to retrieve you.’
It started spitting this afternoon so I thought I’d keep out of the rain and sweep up the bandstand. Young woman there again, the kiddy; I’ve seen them once or twice now, poor-looking, eating chips out of a carton.
She says, ‘Are we all right sitting here?’ I said, ‘That’s what it’s for, visitors.’ She said, ‘We often come. The council’s put us in bed and breakfast only the hotel’s got proper people too and they don’t like us around during the day. Samantha hates it, don’t you Samantha?’ The kiddy comes over and offers me a chip. ‘You’re privileged,’ the mother says, ‘she’s frightened of men generally. Won’t go near her father. Mind you, neither will I.’
Bonny little thing, only her mother’s put her some earrings in, stud things. And one in her little nose and she can’t be more than seven. I wonder the law lets them do it, because that’s interference in my view, ornamenting your kiddies, hanging stuff on them as if they were Christmas trees.
I’m sweeping up the rubbish and pretend to sweep up the kiddy too so she starts screaming with laughter. ‘Oh,’ her mother says, ‘I think you’ve clicked. What is this place?’ I said, ‘What place?’ ‘This. This shelter thing.’ I said, ‘It’s a bandstand. The band used to play here once upon a time.’ She said, ‘What band? You mean like a group?’
The kiddy came and stood by my knee. ‘Yes,’ I said. She said, ‘Where did the fans go then? In the bushes?’ She laughed and the kiddy laughed and put her hand on my leg. I said, ‘It’s stopped raining, I’d better get on.’ She threw the chip carton down. She said, ‘We’ll see you. Wave to the man, Samantha. Wave.’
As I’m pushing the barrow back there’s a policeman hanging about the fountain. Said he was just showing the flag and he’d be obliged if I’d keep my eye open for any undesirable elements. I said, ‘Drugs, you mean?’
He said, ‘Drugs or whatever. Men sitting too long on the benches type thing. Parks make for crime. This beat’s a bugger.’ As he was going he said, ‘Pardon my asking but didn’t you use to work at the Derby Baths?’ I said, ‘No, why?’ He said, ‘Nothing, the face is familiar. My two both got their bronze medal there. Well, I won’t detain you, particularly since our Asian friend appears to be waiting.’
Pushing his barrow back Mr Kumar’s all smiles because his wife has arrived. ‘They took all her clothes off at the airport but otherwise,’ he says, ‘it was all as easy as falling off a log. I am a very happy man.’
‘They’re sly,’ Janet said. ‘Probably wants your job.’ I said, ‘What for?’ ‘His brother, his uncle, his nephew. They’re all the same. Anyway I got my promotion. Same grade now as I was before. Keep this up a bit longer, Wilfred, and we might be able to run to a car again soon.’
FADE.
Planks again or municipal bricks. An outside wall, say.
Bit of excitement this morning. Body in the bushes. Little lad found it looking for his ball. Old man, one of the winos probably. Two police cars, an ambulance and more fuss made of him dead than there ever was alive. The child not worried at all, the mother hysterical. All over by half past ten and we were soon back in go mode, drizzle included.
I was heading for the tennis courts, trying to steer clear of the bandstand only Trickett shouts after me, ‘Paterson. I don’t want you skulking back there. The bandstand’s in a disgusting state.’
Somebody’d thrown up all over the seat and I’d just about got it cleared up when the girl’s calling out and the kiddy comes running in waving her little pink plastic handbag thing. ‘Samantha’s got you a present, haven’t you Samantha. Give it to Mr … what’s your name?’ The child was putting her arms out to be lifted up.
‘Hargreaves,’ I said. ‘My name’s Hargreaves.’ ‘Give it to him Samantha,’ and she takes out a daffodil from her little handbag and we put it in my buttonhole. ‘She picked it herself,’ the mother said. ‘My name’s Debbie.’
They sit watching while I go on cleaning up. She said, ‘You’re a bit too nice for this job aren’t you? You look as if you should be doing something more up-market, a traffic warden or something.’
I said I liked being outside. The kiddy was pretending to help me sweep up again. ‘It didn’t used to be like this,’ I said, ‘all scribbled over and stuff written up.’ ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I like the lived in look. Cans and litter and all that. You don’t want it too clinical. Anyway it’s all litter basically isn’t it …Leaves is litter. Soil. We like it, don’t we Samantha?’
I said, ‘Why did you put them earring things in?’ She said ‘Her studs? Well, I don’t see why she shouldn’t have all the advantages other kids have. She’s as good as anybody else. Don’t you like them?’ I said, ‘No, Debbie. I do like them.’
After a bit the mother says Did I like her. I said Why? She said, ‘Well we keep running into one another.’ I said, ‘You won’t have Samantha tattooed, will you?’ ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘not until she’s old enough to make her own decisions. It’s part of her life choices isn’t it? Did the fountain used to go?’ I said, ‘Yes. When I was a boy. The fountain went. The band played. People kept off the grass. It was lovely.’
Mr Kumar comes by and says I have to call in at the office when it’s convenient. He smiles at the girl but she doesn’t take on. ‘I don’t care for Asians,’ she said when he’s gone. ‘Neither one thing nor the other in my opinion.’
I went along to the office straightaway only it turns out to be nothing. Parlane has got some new idea about chasing me up on the computer. He said, ‘I’m going to fax all your details over to Thorpe Arch, tell them Wakefield has been playing silly buggers (which they’re always happy to hear) and get them as a personal favour to me to beam you up nationally. And if that doesn’t work even Gordon Parlane is going to have to admit defeat.’
Coming out I ran into Mr T
rickett. ‘Oh,’ he said spotting my buttonhole, ‘Picking flowers now, Paterson?’ I said somebody’d broken it off. He said, ‘I don’t know why we bother. They don’t want gardens, they want their hands chopping off. I’d decapitate them let alone the bloody daffodils.’ ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘Get rid of it. It sends the wrong message.’
They were still hanging about when I went back. ‘Mr Hargreaves has lost his buttonhole,’ Debbie said and the kiddy starts crying only when I pick her up she stops.
On the way home I called in at the sweetshop.
FADE.
Some sort of institutional background, half green, half cream. Wilfred is unshaven, with no tie on.
Janet’s just been down, apparently. Left a clean vest and stuff at the desk. They said she wasn’t allowed to speak to me at this stage; she said she didn’t want to anyway.
It was the rain that did it because I’d given the bandstand a wide berth all week only Trickett comes into the yard this morning saying it was all flooded and wasn’t that typical, one drop of rain and the place grinds to a halt. Tells me to get some rods and try and locate the problem. So I trundle over there and it’s one of the grates that’s stopped up. And I’m just getting my arm down to feel what the stoppage was when Samantha comes running along by the railings and puts her little face through the bars.
I said, ‘Hello. Are you in prison?’ She said, ‘No. I’ve got an umbrella.’ And she shows me her baby umbrella.
Her mother’s all cross, pulls her away from the puddle and says, ‘Are you going to be here long? I’ve got to go and see my social worker woman. Can I leave her with you for half an hour? She likes you. She won’t be any bother.’ I said, ‘Why can’t she go with you?’ She said, ‘Because her dad’ll be there and if he sees her he’ll want to keep her. Go on.’
I was going to say no, only I didn’t have to because just then Mr Parlane appears and wants a word so they clear off, leaving me with my arm still down the drain. I suddenly feel the culprit and it’s two or three condoms all mixed up with leaves plugging up the pipe so I pull the lot out and all the dammed up water just empties away.
‘Success,’ I say to Mr Parlane and show him the bundle, ‘Problem solved.’ He said, ‘No, not entirely. Would you step along to the office for a minute or two. And bring your barrow.’
It was Trickett who gave me my cards, with one week’s pay in lieu, said I’d made several false statements so I’d better not have any silly ideas about wrongful dismissal and had I thought about bringing the Parks Department into disrepute let alone anything else.
Parlane hung about outside and when I came out said what about working in an old people’s home or even a mortuary, somewhere out of harm’s way, where I couldn’t do any damage. ‘Because you’re a good worker, Wilfred, you really are.’
I went out the playground way, empty with it being wet, just a woman and a baby. I think she’s a child minder. Only suddenly Samantha comes running out from behind the see-saw and gets hold of my hand. I said, ‘Where’s her mother?‘The woman said, ‘Gone over to the social. She said she’d be back by now. I’ve got to go, can I leave her with you?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Debbie said I could. She’ll be back any minute. Let her go on the slide. She likes the slide.’
She wouldn’t go on the slide because it was all wet, so we went and sat in the shelter. I put my hand on my knee and she put hers on top of it, then I put mine on and she topped it off with her hand. And we played that game for a bit. Sandwiches she called it.
Then I pretended to go to sleep, only she got on the seat and tried to open my eyes with her little fingers. She kept wanting to hold my hand but I wouldn’t. Her little hand kept pecking at my hand, like a little bird trying to get in. Only my hand was a fist, honestly. Tight, she couldn’t get in.
‘There’s nothing in there for you,’ I said, ‘I don’t have anything for little girls. My shop’s closed.’ ‘No it’s not,’ she says and slips her little finger in between my fingers and wiggles it about and looks at me and laughs.
She laughs again. She knew what she was doing. She must have known what she was doing.
So I took her in the bushes.
FADE.
White tiles. Wilfred is in prison clothes; eye swollen; bandage on his hand.
I said, ‘She wanted to show me her dance.’ Her mother said, ‘What dance? She doesn’t have a dance.’ Somebody shouts out, ‘You’ll dance.’
They fetched me in and out the back way under a blanket. Women there shouting. Something hit me on the head. Said in the van it was a packet of cornflakes. Coins as well. Aught they have in their shopping bags.
They have to ravel it all out in words. ‘Then what did you do? Then what?’ As if there was a plan. As if I meant to go from A to B. ‘Well,’ says the counsel, ‘you bought the sweets, didn’t you? You gave the wrong name.’ I said to the young policewoman, ‘It’s what I thought she wanted.’ ‘That’s what men always say,’ she said, ‘choose how old you are.’
Perhaps it would be easier, said the judge, if Samantha came up here. So she went and stood by his knee and held his hand. I thought, ‘Well, that’s what I’m here for.’
I asked for a number of other offences to be taken into consideration, some of them in Huddersfield where I’ve never even been. The police said it didn’t matter as it meant they could close the book on lots of cases and it would go in my favour. It didn’t. They just said my record proved that I was a hopeless case.
The judge said I would be given treatment. I haven’t been given any treatment. They’ve put me by myself to stop the others giving me the treatment. The getting scalded in the kitchen treatment. The piss in your porridge treatment.
The doctor said, ‘Did anyone touch you when you were little?’ I said I didn’t want any of that staff. ‘No, they didn’t. And if they did, it’s done. Anyway, they tell you to touch people now. They run courses in it.’ ‘Not like that,’ he said.
Janet’s been. Usual tack. Blames the mothers, says if they can’t look after them they don’t deserve kiddies in the first place. All her daffodils have been rooted up, plant pots broken. Next stop Newcastle, probably.
Mr Kumar. Says, I miss you Mr Paterson. I miss our walks with our barrows and brushes. You are the untouchable now. And he pats my hand. Says he’s gone up one rung on the ladder now, is an attendant at the Art Gallery. ‘No condoms to speak of,’ he says. ‘No sick on the floor. And on the walls the beautiful ladies and landscapes of Leeds. I tell you, Mr Paterson, it is a cushy number.’
When they put me away last time I used to think when I got out I’d go somewhere right away, a shed in the middle of a moor. And I’d fence it round with railway sleepers and get myself a bad dog and be a recluse.
Only kids would come. They’d know.
The prison must be near the station. I hear the trains on a night. And a school somewhere. There’s a playtime at a quarter to eleven. And they come out at four. It’s the one bit of my life that feels right and it’s that bit that’s wrong.
Men groan and cry out. Shout and scream in the night. It’s like a tropical forest. Wild beasts.
I didn’t foist them off like grown-ups do. I looked at them. I listened to them.
Sometimes there’s a plane crosses the top left hand corner of my window. I think of the ‘No Smoking’ sign going on, the seats put back in the upright position, the pilot beginning his descent to Leeds and Bradford airport.
I used to go hiking when I was a boy. Over Nidderdale Moors. A reservoir. That would be the place. Nobody there at all.
FADE, and in the black a long drawn-out howl.
The Outside Dog
Marjory: Julie Walters
PRODUCED BY MARK SHIVAS
DESIGNED BY STUART WALKER
DIRECTED BY GAVIN MILLAR
MUSIC BY GEORGE FENTON
AFTERNOON. THE KITCHEN. AGAINST A BLANK, WALLPAPERED WALL. ONE CHAIR. POSSIBLY SOME ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS. SIMILAR SETTINGS THROUGHOUT.
I’d be the same
if it was a cat. Because they make as much mess as dogs. Only cats you can be allergic to, so people make allowances. And flowers, of course, some people. Only we don’t have flowers. Well, we do but they’re all washable. I just think it spies on me, that tongue lolling out.
He took the van over to Rawdon last night. Said it was Rawdon anyway. Doing something or other, fly-tipping probably. Takes Tina which was a relief from the woof-woofing plus it gave me a chance to swill.
I’d had Mrs Catchpole opposite banging on the door in the afternoon saying she was going to the council because it wanted putting down. I said, ‘I agree.’ She said, ‘I’m getting a petition up.’ I said, ‘Well, when you do, fetch it across because I’ll be the first signatory.’ I hate the flaming dog. Of course she doesn’t do it with him. Never makes a muff when he’s around.
He comes in after midnight, puts his clothes in the washer. I said to him last week, ‘Why don’t you do your washing at a cultivated hour?’ He said, ‘You’re lucky I do it at all.’ Still, at least the washer’s in the shed. I shouted down, ‘That dog’s not inside is she?’ He said, ‘No. Get to sleep.’ Which I was doing only when he comes up he has nothing on. He leaves it a bit then slides over to my side and starts carrying on.
Found a dog hair or two on the carpet this morning so that meant another shampooing job. I only did it last week. This shampoo’s got airfreshener in, plus a disinfectant apparently.