The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 2
The Bookshop ...

Many years later it all ended in a riot. A real riot. One that made it into all the papers. It was big news. A big event. Thousands march on fascist bookshop. A bookshop that hid the headquarters of one of the more unpleasant far right organisations. A bookshop right at the heart of a south London community. Pedalling hate. Not nice. And people rightly decided they weren’t going to stand for it any longer.

So thousands congregated. All sorts. United in opposition. Marching and singing. Some people got carried away. The police got carried away. And next thing you know there’s a riot going on. Or so the papers said. We weren’t there. It wasn’t really our thing. Too obvious. Too many people with dogs on strings. Too many university professor types. Earnest souls with beards. We’d never really got along with that type.

We wanted something subtler. More stylish. Personalised if you like. A bit of a caper. So this is what happened. The idea sort of came to us when were round my place. Listening to some records. In the back room. Drinking tea and eating cake. Nancy and Lee on the stereo. Ma comes home, pokes her head in, and says hello. One of us gallantly gets up and offers to have a bit of a dance. They jig around a bit. Fooling around. Falling around. Tea goes flying, inevitably. A good mug gets broken in the process. Tsk, she says, you lot! Just like Syd Bishop. The demolition experts. Watch it all come down, that should be your lot’s motto. She had something there.

We looked at each other. And we each knew. This was it. The revenge we’d been looking for. For years. But this could be fun. We kicked the idea around for a while. For a laugh. And then we got serious. Yeah, the fascist bookshop. The far right HQ. We could do our demolition thing there. Why not? But how?

Well, funnily enough, one of our number, The Redhead, sort of had the connections we needed. His family were pretty Irish. Fiercely Fenian. Didn’t really like anyone. Not even one another. If you were searching for the spirit of Brendan Behan then his family was a pretty good place to start. Their family get-togethers were notorious. The police were nearly always called. And took a long while to leave. It did after all take some time to munch through a plate of homemade rock cakes and listen to a few tales from the old country. There was never anything more sinister than that.

Anyway they were a hard working family. Roadmending. Filling in pot holes. Replacing pipes. Renewing paving stones. All that sort of thing. They did very well out of it too. Councils’ subcontracting being what it was. Put in the lowest estimate and they didn’t really care what you got up to. And these guys were shrewd. They always left a bit of a mess. Gave you something to come back to. Things were going very well for them. They were always taking on casual labourers. What could be more natural? A holiday job? Want to earn a bit of money to put on one side? Not a problem.

The funny thing is we knew the family really was not very fond of the fascist thugs. The skinheads’ hatred of the republican movement was shall we say well known. And the family while it hated everybody and everything particularly did not like thick thugs in steel toe-capped boots. And this was partly because they had employed one or two on a casual basis. One had tried pinching supplies, so he was out on his ear. And the other had got into a bit of a scrape accepting an offer to do a bit of work on an old dear’s patio, taking the money up front, and doing the dirty. Not good for the family’s reputation, and most definitely not good for that lad’s health. I bet he’s still got a bit of a limp.

We happened to know that the family was shaken and stirred by a recent Sunday newspaper expose of the far right operation, and how the outwardly respectable bookshop was a cover for fascist thuggery, and violent punk gigs booked undercover which were really rallies for the psychotic and twisted. They were particularly disturbed that such heinous behaviour could be happening practically on their own doorstep, close to where kids were going to school and the local vets had saved their Alsatian. What was the world coming to? Indeed. So it wasn’t too much of a challenge to get them to buy into our idea. Quite tickled them it did.

We planned it a bit like a military operation. Or something out of a John Le Carre book. We were wont to say forget John Lee Hooker. Give us John Le Carre anyday. So to get our cover right, we signed off, really went to work on the roads. Learning our trade. Quite therapeutic it was too. If a little like hard work. At times. All that tea puts hairs on the chest. The money came in handy though. A bit of a novelty for us lot. The camaraderie was good. The anticipation was so much better.

Meticulously we put together our plan. Reconnoitre. Observation. All that stuff. All necessary. We knew what we needed to do. We’d each been over the plan so many times. We’d rehearsed ourselves silly. And couldn’t wait to get going. Eventually the family said the time was right. We would be working in the area for the next few weeks. That would give us the perfect opportunity to have some fun.

So there we were. Working on that particular stretch of road. Replacing paving stones. All perfectly vital and valid work. Really awful the way those old paving slabs were left cracked and uneven. A terrible risk for the elderly and less able. It was a good thing we were doing. Though it was tough work. How do you resist the temptation of taking a shovel to a skinhead? You’d see them going in and out of their little bookshop. Bookshop, my foot. There was about as much chance of those boneheads being genuine bookshop assistants as there was of me being an equerry to the Queen. Security. We know that was what those boys were there for. To protect the nefarious activities of the clowns that really ran the place. The greasy, seedy sorts with their briefcases bulging with hateful propaganda. The really evil ones. The ones exploiting ignorance and hatred.

So the drama started to unfurl. The family naturally took the lead and we let them direct proceedings. They loved it. There we were. One of those striped makeshift huts set up directly outside the bookshop. Perfect for loitering inside. The skinheads were even stupid enough to barrack us as we pottered about. Talk about asking for it. And they got it, and how. Not directly with a pick and a shovel, but indirectly, yes.

The family were fantastic. Boldly marching in. Boots trailing wet mud all over the place. Shoulders hunched. Hands plunged deep into donkey jackets. All apologies. But leaving no room for debate. If your workman comes in and says sorry but we’ve got to turn the water off, you take them on trust. I thought he was overplaying the blarney a bit, but no questions were asked. There were only a few grumbles from the office out the back when he went back in a few hours later, saying sorry and all that but we’d better be turning the power off lads as you won’t want to be taking chances now will you? Apparently that caused some complications for the seedy and greasy ones who had some photocopying to be done, but needs must.

Of course the masterstroke, and indeed an Oscar winning performance if I’ve ever seen one, was the family going back in a while later searching for the stopcock, and then before you know it, there’s a deal of banging and a bit of blaspheming, and water everywhere all of a sudden. I shall relish the sight of the family standing there suitably contrite as the evil literature was washed away in an almost biblical flood.

The skinheads are there trying to work it all out, and rescue their poisoned pamphlets, moonstomping through the waters. The seedy and greasy ones are going ballistic, yelling every insult under the sun at the family, thinking their special security boys would be backing them up. It all had a touch of farce about it, which was fantastic. I shall cherish forever the memory of one of the greasy and seedy ones dangling at the end of an arm, being lifted so his warped specs were a few millimetres away from a fierce red Irish face, and a set of gritted teeth through which some suggestions were being made about what should be done with far right runts.

Of course by that stage it was beginning to get a bit dark. A little bit late in the day to make good the damage, and restore power. So we had to leave them to it. Funnily enough we’d just about finished renewing the paving stones outside, and had packed away all our gear. So we were off, oblivious to the threats of being seen in court. Strangely we didn’t think it would come to that. Not when you stopped to think about the content of some of the literature we had picked up on the premises. We didn’t think they’d be wanting those tomes presented to the Police.

So, all in all, a good day’s work. It only needed a final touch, and a leaf out of their own book. A calling card through the post. The first of many we’d send out over the years. ‘Thank you for doing business with The Outside of Everything’.