Colm Brady

English Steve

Peter hit English Steve on the side of the head with a chair leg. English Steve was going out with one of our friends, a teacher from Galway. This gained him entry into the club of expats living it up in nineties London. Maslow said there was a hierarchy of needs that people make progress on. It started out with basic needs such as food and shelter and worked its way up in steps to self actualisation. I don’t know if we would have termed that party lifestyle as fulfilling our dreams but it was close enough. Peter drank in the Beresford Arms in Clapham North. It was a dirty hovel with green velour seats that stank of cheap lager and Lambert and Butler cigarettes.
He lived in a council house nearby with a middle-aged man called John. John never spoke, he just smoked joints all day. When he wasn’t smoking he was rolling up his next joint. His fingers worked quickly and efficiently to create cones that were achingly beautiful to the amateur eye. Peter was a successful cocaine dealer who specialised in the debutante market in the wealthy west London suburbs of Kensington and Chelsea. He had an emaciated wiry frame and the most horrific cast in his right eye. It was so staggeringly obvious that we were drawn to stare at it despite all efforts not to. Peter had a sheen on his pale skin like the grease on the cobblestones outside the Chinese restaurants in Soho.
After he introduced himself we were invited to Peter’s house. He was a gracious host with beers in the fridge and a supply of discounted drugs. The house was neat and home to an elaborate Hifi system that pumped out techno music at deafening volumes all day and night. I don’t know how Peter’s neighbours tolerated it but he was not a man you would want to have an argument with. He did his business with a steady stream of visitors, getting John to act as his receptionist.

We started to visit Peter at the weekends before hitting the underground clubs down South. On a Friday night Peter supplied a lump of black hash each and a couple of pills for the night out. He never joined us at the clubs. He was banned from most places and weekends were his busiest times. In classic dealer form Peter offered us other consumer choices; wraps of speed and ketamine but never coke.
“I won’t sell you coke cos I like yer...Irish like me. Me dad was Irish, he fucked off in the seventies. Left us in Shadwell ‘e did.”
Peter was a Millwall fan and spent his Saturdays fighting West Ham and Chelsea fans on the terraces of Upton Park and Stamford Bridge. He went to the games alone and drifted towards the opposing fans looking for trouble. He usually found it.
One night Peter told me a story. A guy in Streatham was supposed to be selling coke for him in a club. The guy took the coke but didn’t return with the money.
“I decides to pay him a visit so I walks up and knocks on the door. The guy opens the door bollock fackin naked, lookin at me like a rabbit in the headlights.” I opened a can and nodded to encourage Peter in his narration.
“So what did you do?”
“I twatted the cant, gave him a few kicks to soften him up. His bird is screaming from the bedroom and then I see it…”
“See what?”
“He is only getting a huge hard on while I am kicking him around! I started getting frustrated so I gave him a right going over.”
“Maybe he was a masochist or something.”
“I dunno but I gave him a week to pay. He paid.”
Peter shifted so much product that he should have been wealthy. The problem was that he consumed a lot of his own stuff. He laid out the fat lines on a glass table and hoovered them up between deals. He had the paranoia of all coke-heads and was convinced (correctly) that he was being watched by the police. He had the exclusive use of a Jamaican minicab to carry on his business in the West End, supplying the endless rounds of coming-out parties and balls. The Vauxhall Omega was often parked in Cadogan Square with techno music pouring from the speakers while smoke emerged from the door seals. He had a collection of mobile phones. They were all the same model but in different colours and Peter was very selective about who he gave the numbers out to.
The Friday night buying session soon progressed until there was a weekly party back at the council house. He didn’t encourage any extra guests, just people he recognised. English Steve came along on a couple of nights with the Galway teacher. Peter’s eyes narrowed as they were introduced, Steve was purely English and didn’t fit into the celtic clique Peter had built there at the house. One night Peter attempted to enhance the music by installing a strobe light and leaving it on for three hours. One of the revellers, ‘Junkie James’, collapsed and had an ecstasy-induced epileptic fit on the sitting room floor. Peter didn’t want an ambulance but he was overruled. A jaded medic came in and asked what James had taken. There was a general shuffling of feet and guilty coughing.
“What did he take, speed?”
“Two wraps.”
“Anything else?”
“A pill… and a half.”
The medics put James on a stretcher and took him away in an ambulance. The crowd settled and the music came back on. Peter was talking to a girl in the kitchen when he glanced up and saw English Steve was standing in the front door facing outwards. He was having a leisurely piss out onto the footpath. Peter dived from the kitchen with a Holsten bottle clutched in his hand. Two lads stopped him using the bottle but Peter was ranting with spit falling from the corners of his mouth.
“He is taking liberties in my ‘ouse.”
“Relax Peter, he didn’t mean it.”
“The cops are watching this place an this cant pisses out my front door. He is a fackin’ dead man.” English Steve looked scared and turned his wide eyes to the group. He knew if the Irish crowd stayed with him he was safe; they did. Eventually Peter calmed down and he and English Steve shook hands. Over the months people started to drop out of the group, either to travel or return to Ireland. The parties became sporadic and Peter’s deals less generous.
One Saturday he and English Steve went to a Millwall Vs Crystal Palace game. Before the game they went to a pub near the ground. English Steve started singing a Crystal Palace chant. He liked to sing when he had a beer but he picked the wrong day.
“Oh South London, Oh South London…”
Peter hadn’t slept in two days and he was in foul humour.
“Shut the fack up you palace fack.”
English Steve was emboldened by his audience and continued the song.
“Oh South London is wonderful,
It’s full of tits, fanny and palace,
Oh South London is wonderful.”
The crowd in the pub cheered and English Steve took a bow. Peter reached into his jacket and started to pull a long object from inside. The crowd gasped and collectively took a step back. There was a sigh as Peter produced a metal chair leg and advanced on English Steve with his good eye focussed on his target. He was muttering as he advanced and the soccer fans got out of his way rapidly. The first blow landed above English Steve’s ear. Fortunately he got the rounded end of the metal bar; the jagged edge where it had been ripped from the chair was facing away from him. The next blow was to the ribs and the sharp edge tore Steve’s shirt. He stood wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open waiting for the next blow to land. Sirens sounded outside and Peter stopped with his arm in mid-air, the last thing he needed was more attention from the police. English Steve got off with a concussion, which was not for want of enthusiasm on Peter’s part.
The remaining members of the Irish group never went back to the house in Clapham North. Over the years Peter’s name came up in conversation, people laughed at what they used to get up to. Their lives became more respectable and the spell in London was revealed for what it was, a dalliance with the underworld. The stories from the old days made people laugh but nobody laughed at Peter – nobody ever laughed at Peter.

posted by Colm Brady @ 9:21 PM