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Chapter 3 - Monday 

Chins wakes on the sofa, where he’d fallen asleep the night before. Wiping his eyes, he switches on the news, hears about a few murders, then steps into the shower. He’d wanted to speak to Lions last night, but he’d got there too late. He grins to himself. Absolute pisspot that Lions, good lad. There is something about Lion’s nature, his fuck you attitude that appeals to Chins; he reckons they are one and the same. They disagree on practically everything under the sun. Indeed, if Chins say the sun is shining, Lions would look for rain clouds. If Lions says today is Monday, Chins would look at the newspaper. But they are cut from the same cloth, influenced by their surroundings as youngsters, Chins was a child of the 60’s while not being a hippy, Lions was someone who thought 1977 lasted forever. 

He isn’t sure if he is a baby boomer or not, in fact he doesn’t know what one is, but living through the 60’s had spewed out a man not yet sold on the merits of globalisation and still thinks the little person should have a say. He’d protested against the Vietnam War but couldn’t give a fuck about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He’d rutted like an extra on Watership Down yet now worried about his daughter at school in Sydney. His ideals had been replaced by a mortgage and hefty education fees. Now just past his half century, he wants to recapture his youth. Pot bellied, a dozen hairs to his name, it won’t be easy but he just fancies going where the mood takes him. He hadn’t romped in the bushes and thrown rocks at mounted coppers just to spend his life doing 9 to 5 and borrowing from C just to pay off the interest on other loans from B. 

He’d met his missus on a ban the bomb march. Ha, how naïve they were back then. Some people said your teenage years were the best of your life, but Lions, and here for once Chins agrees with him, Lions feels they are the end of your life. What followed was 40 plus years with the hamster spinning inside the wheel. Racing up the rungs trying to reach ever-elusive goals, your first car, your first house, your first child, your first kid through uni, your first grandchildren. Regurgitated at the other end, dizzy, knackered and usually to fucked to do much of anything. Thrown on the scrap heap at 65, body aching and whining, you’d worked all your life for others, now is your time but what can you do? The lucky few have their health. The majority have shite pensions, dodgy knees and a number for the lottery that is state health care. 

What you think of as your ideals are just the desperate grasping for an innocence that you see slipping away. Hope I die before I get old screamed Daltrey. Well, it didn’t happen and now there are anniversary albums to pay the rent. Ain’t that the truth? Why protest against the war in Nam, yet let the Russkies pass without comment. Was one war right, the other wrong? Is it as simple as left against right? Chins had opposed the idea of sending young people to fight in a war thousands of miles away; he rebelled against the futility of it. And yet come 1979, he did nothing, felt nothing. Looking back on those times, he feels confusion. Was the first wrong because it was the west involved? Wasn’t the second just as futile just as wasteful. What had his protests achieved? Was it all a waste of time? People never learnt from history, certainly not politicians whose in built arrogance encourages them to believe they can mould, not be moulded, by history. Fact is, Chins had changed, he had brought a littl’un into the world, his priorities lay elsewhere. This is what scares him. His offshore bank accounts and yellow post it notes on the refrigerator were so at odds to a way of life where pot, piss n pussy provided the backdrop to how they were gonna change the world. He is respectable, the dreaded R word which he held in so much contempt and he shudders at the thought. But he doesn’t want that. Not now. He wants to cling on to the innocence he felt back then. Is he really any different then from that lot up the road, from the BHC and the rubber necking dinner party set? He is, he knows it, but he just wants to jump out of his wheel, to savour one last time the heady scent of being in thrall to no-one, the exhilaration of waking up in the morning and being able to go for it. Well, except his missus! And he wants to do it while he still has his health, while he can enjoy it. He’d played the game to benefit his kids, now they could stand on their own two feet it was time to rip that rule book up and get out the anarchy t-shirt. While politely waiting at the check in queue!  

Chins wants to drop out. A naff university term, certainly one he wouldn’t use near Lions, but he wants to stick a four by two in the spokes he is currently locked into. He wants to stick on some Dylan, have a joint and relax, not worry about ELT in Bangladesh. He wants to hit South East Asia, the fleshpots, the beaches, the culture, the history. What he wants from Lions is places to visit. He trusts his judgment on this and wants some serious input from him, something that would be acutely missing after he’d been drinking 6 hours. 

He looks out the window, and wonders just what he is going to do today. No way will he go to the University. His wife will probably play tennis. He checks his watch. Correction, she is probably already playing. His throbbing head decides his course of action and so, lifting his frame from the sofa, he stands up, stretches, and heads for the downstairs shower.  He stands under the spears of hot water, not moving, content just to let the water cascade down his body. He steps  out from the shower and grabs the Coca Cola t-towel his daughter had bought him, the killing joke she called it, the anarchist, tree hugging, anti globalization protester wiping down with Coca Cola, he goes for a lie down.   

A couple of miles away, Lions sits in an empty office and knocks back a chilled Gatorade. He catches up on a couple of football websites, gotta keep with current affairs. 

Emails are finished, mostly junk mail. How to enlarge your penis, lose weight guaranteed, how to get a credit card…ha!!! If only they knew. Head office still waiting for their monthly reports. What’s the point, he sends them, then they come back asking questions. They don’t read the bloody things. There’s an email from head office. Wanting action on the last survey. He’d sent them details about the hartal, about how there ain’t nothing moving for love nor money and their response? Get it done! Just that. Do it. Like I’m fucking Nike! He’d sent an open invite for someone to come over, to have a look see on a hartal but, no, they weren’t interested. Well, he’d told them nothing was going to happen. Not going to sit around worrying about it. Sod them. No one in the office today. He digs out a Boomtown Rats CD. Soon, the office echoes to Geldof crooning about not liking Mondays. Seriously dehydrated, though not hungover, he grabs a second Gatorade from the fridge, clears the rest of his mail, and enjoys the Rats singing about Lookin’ after Number 1. Too fucking right.  

He goes to his room and reads the local paper. Nothing to be gleaned from this but it wastes time. Not worth going to the club yet. Monday morning is a kind of limbo land here. Sunday is a working day but while the rest of the world is waking up with hangovers, what they picked up the night before, or the News of the World in Bangladesh you sit and pick your nose waiting for replies to requests you sent out on the Saturday. k. Never any correspondence on a Sunday, indeed Monday doesn’t pick up until Europe wakes up, about lunchtime. Geldof is now caught in a Rat Trap, as Lions goes through to the kitchen, picks up the phone and orders a pizza. Domino’s it ain’t. He decides to draw up a list of positive points for his successor, things he’ll enjoy about living in Bangladesh. He’s not handed his notice in yet, he may not bother with such formality, but his days are numbered. When it stops being fun it’s time to move on, that’s his mantra and he sees no reason to change it now he’s a thirty something with a kid somewhere. 

He rips off a piece of paper and divides it into 2 columns. At the top of the left hand side, he draws a large plus sign. Opposite he draws a large minus. Back to the + column, he writes number 1, the BAGHA. Now he’s stuck. He thinks about the restaurants here. Ninfa’s is a feeble Indian restaurant overlooking the roundabout in Gulshan. There’s so much oil at the bottom of the plate, you could put Castrol out of business. Even the food in the BAGHA is nothing to write home about. Peas that knock your teeth out, soup you need a knife and fork for – saying the food is dry is an understatement.  The food is good at the BHC, it’s the atmosphere at the club that’s dry. Half an hour later and the pizza is delivered. Jeez, that was bloody quick! Lions looks at the list, he’s got no further than BAGHA, crumples it into a ball and throws it at the bin. He misses. Story of my life, he thinks. Always bloody missing something. 

Digging into his pizza, literally, he flicks through the channels. BBC World is discussing at great length an Israeli who died yesterday, CNN discusses at even greater length. Ironically, Lions looks at the front of the local paper. 4 dead in Dhaka yesterday. On page 11, a story about a bus crash killing 13. On page 11!!! Meanwhile CNN and BBC are obsessed by the Middle East. Understandable really, the Israeli lobby in the US is one of the richest, best organized that carries a lot of votes. And let’s face it, who gives a flying fuck about an overpopulated, impoverished nation with no clout locally, let alone internationally. Plenty of Bollywood movies on. Crappy Hollywood, highlights of obscure cricket, the mating rituals of praying mantis…fuck it’s enough to drive a man to drink. He wants to meet Chins, pay him back for last night. Fucking tit he is sometimes. Yorkie’s off his fucking head, best keep an eye on him. There’d been more than a couple of times when he’d wished people had been watching out for him.  Revenge, like pizza, is best served cold. Mind you, this pizza is best served to a condemned man for his last meal. Anyway, the old cunt has something on his mind. Shoving the pizza in the fridge, he bellows for his driver. 

Driving past the Gulshan roundabout, he sees the shops are boarded up. From Gulshan they turn north, driving past the bushes that host the local ladies of the night, rather quaintly as the Talking Trees. A right turn and Lions can almost smell his first beer of the day. The home of the BAGHA. A few rickshaws around, but not much activity, people seem to be staying low. A few parasol parading policemen stand idly near the traffic circle, old Lee Enfields gathered together in a loose teepee. Disinterestedly, they wave on the few vehicles that have ventured out. On any normal day this roundabout would be chocka with cars, rickshaws, buses, baby taxis and not a flower pot helmeted copper to be seen, but today they vastly outnumber the traffic. The reactions to general strikes vary. Some are rigorously enforced, like today, while others are more lenient. Lions checks on Chins first. His driver pulls up outside his mate’s large house, and Lions wonders if this is the first time in three years he has been here in daylight. He’s certainly left here often enough at this time. The security guard wakes up and lets him in. Lions walks up the shingle driveway and knocks on the side door. 

“Hear about Yorkie?” He asks as Chins opens the door and lets him in. 

“No, what happened?” asks Chins suddenly concerned. 

“Got a phone call this morning, plod were called to remove him from Club 2000 where he was being a bit lairy.” They walk through to the kitchen. 

“You’re joking. My driver took him home.” Chins is shocked. 

“Yeah well your driver didn’t sleep with him did he? Must have got a second wind, hopped in a rickshaw for a jump.”  

“Fucking hell, what’s going to happen to him?” All concerned. 

“I’m pulling your bell end mate but you get my drift. Better off leaving him where we can keep an eye on him.” 

Getting out some beers from a well-stocked fridge, they settle down in front of the PC and load Encarta. 

“Don’t need those Lonely Planet mate,” Lions tells Chins. “Now the thing to do is start in Hong Kong, and travel by rail to Singapore. A neat little journey I’ve always fancied.” Lions etches out a route for Chins, two former colonial city-states acting as bookends. The only part he can’t do by rail is from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh But the rest is feasible. 

“There’s plenty to see close to the railway, but also heaps of good side trips. There’s a service from Kunming down to Hanoi, then the Reunification on to HCM. You gotta get a bus or taxi into Phnom Penh, but from there you can take the train to the Thai border at Poipet.  Stop off in Battambang, nice little town, till recently under KR control, catch a boat over to Angkor Wat. Trains there ain’t the quickest, this journey takes some 10 hours but you could probably walk it quicker.” 

They down another couple of beers, it’s thirsty, demanding work this armchair traveling.

“Right,” Lions continues, “cross the border at Poipet. Once upon a time you could catch a train from Bangkok straight through to Phnom Penh, but last time I was there, the track looked a bit overgrown. More chance of seeing David Attenborough with a couple of gorillas than Ivor the fucking Engine. You’re now in Aranyaprathet from where a couple of trains a day go to Bangkok. From Bangkok first take a side trip to Kanchanaburi.” 

“Why?” asks Chins. 

“You’ve seen the movie Bridge over the River Kwai?” 

Chins nods. 

“Well the story line is about as accurate as the BAGHA darts team in the final team game, but the bridge, or rather the little bit that’s left, is there. Nice little spot n’all. Beautiful scenery, river, mountains, good food and cheap piss. Can’t go wrong.” 

“Kay, next stop, Hua Hin, a nice beach resort…” He explains places to visit, what to see and do. After an hour or so, they have a lengthy list drawn up which should keep Chins busy for 6 months. Seeing them together, sober, there is an all too clear respect between them, something a first visitor to the bar would not recognize. Chins, the elder statesman, resplendent in t-shirt, shorts and thongs, permanent 4-day growth and sweat-lined brow. Lions, the cocky, gobby youngster, spikey top, 2-day growth, jeans, t-shirt and unbuttoned shirt. Chins and his liberal 60’s attitude, Lions and his faith in Thatcherite free market policies and belief in the punk ethos of DIY. 

“I’m impressed, truly. You should write a book, Lions old son.” Chins pats his mate on the back with his bear like hands. 

“You mean a guide book, think you’ll find there’s a couple on the market. And my name’s not Trudy.” 

“But surely you could do something with that knowledge stuck up there. A novel or something.” They walk down to the club. 

“Don’t call me Shirley.”  Chins playfully punches him on the upper arm. 

Chins sighs. He despairs of ever getting through to Lions sensitive side; the clock is running down on his departure. He is sure he has one, but every time he feels he is getting close, the portcullis would slam shut. 

The serious talk has worn them out, given them a strong thirst so they repair to the club. Yorkie is already there, half pissed. Sweaty is in the far corner, hunched over the Times Crossword. Muirman has just ordered a late lunch. He has it delivered to the bar. He peers at what looks like 3 golf balls and a pile of red inanimate worms. Lions and Chips look closely at it and wonder aloud what the hell that is supposed to be. Turns out the special today is Spicy Meat Balls and Tomato Vermicelli. Yorkie has a quick look and heads straight to the dunny. It looks and smells awful, give it to a starving child at the Gulshan Circle, and he’ll throw it back at you. Muirman digs in, brave man that he is.   

“Yorkie, how you feeling my dear chap?” 

“Good thanks. I understand you arranged my lift home,” Yorkie extends his right hand. 

Chins shakes it. “No problem. You remember anything from last night?” 

Yorkie laughs briefly. “Yeah, err well no but Sami told me. You got to laugh eh?” 

“When were you released from the cells?” Chins wants to know. 

“Huh?” Yorkie puts his beer down. 

“You don’t remember?” 

“Remember what?” 

Lions takes up the wind up. “You called me about 4 this morning from the cop shop. You’d been making a tit of yourself in the knocking shop. Apparently you’d been…” 

“What the …” Yorkie is incredulous. 

“Straight up. You’d been trying for a freebie, well putting it on the tab and when they said… “ Lions stares intently at him, as sincere as a candidate kissing babies on the hustings. 

“What’s all this about?”  Muirman looks up from his lunch, vermicelli being sucked noisily into his mouth. 

Yorkie believes it; he’s looking worried, shaking his head at the bar in disbelief. “What did you have to pay?” 

“I had to pay your knocking shop bill for starters…” 

2000 taka… 

“Four” says Lions. 

“Four. What you on about four.” 

“You ordered a club sandwich.” 

Yorkie’s shaking his head. “I don’t remember any of this.” He believes it which makes Chins wonder just what the Leeds fan does get up to after kicking out of the club. 

“What about the, the plods how much to…” 

Chins is wiping his eyes, “he’s having you on Yorkie.” But Yorkie is convinced that Lions is speaking the truth. 

“No no. hang on a minute.”  He motions for Chins to quiet down. “Was I charged with anything?” 

Muirman chokes on part of a meatball. “You were charged with being a prat in a built up area after lights out. Yorkie, he’s having you on. End of.” And with these pearls of wisdom, Muirman sprays his mates with meatball and tommy s. It takes Sami to finally convince Yorkie that the only trouble he’d got into was chucking up in the back of Chin’s Pajaro just after they’d stopped on the dual carriageway to pick up one of the talking trees. And the fact that he believes Sami so unquestioningly had the lads wondering just what the hell does he get up to that they don’t know about. 

“All been there mate, Lions want another?” Well, Lions hasn’t been there but he’ll sure take a drink.

Sweaty is waxing lyrical about the Highlands, where he calls home. 25 years of living and working overseas, and he still calls a home a croft a couple of miles from where he was born. He’s just sold his house for 200 grand and is well chuffed. Lions wonders what the hell costs that kind of money in Scotland. Can’t you buy the whole of Inverness for that kind of money? He wonders aloud. Sweaty tells him the house was bought by a southerner. “Come on Sweaty, Newcastle’s dahn sarf for you,” he cries, affecting a south London accent.  

Muirman, more scouse than the Mersey Tunnel, The Beatles and stolen hubcaps put together, jumps in. He worked for a couple of years in Hemel Hempstead and in his book; this makes him a candidate for driving a black cab. “Its fucking miserable down there,” he opines, “soft lager drinking wannabes.”  

Lions is getting wound up. “Listen Mickey fucking Mouse. What would you know you social drawing sponge; you were in fuckin Hemel, that’s up north. You seen London lately, have you? There’s no Londoners left in the West End. It’s all Arabs, Aussie backpackers, Seppo tourists in Rupert the Bear trousers, asylum seekers and daft northern gits knicking our jobs, living it up in subsidized housing. The hookers are Albanian, the mafia Chinese, the landlords Arab, the barmen Australian, the buskers Scottish, the bus drivers Jamaican, the deros Irish. London’s streets are paved with foreigners and nobody says a fucking word. Yet we buy a couple of houses in Wales, and the whole damned place goes up in flames. If anyone bombs Buck House again, the Queen Mum will be able to look at a row of caravans selling kebabs, the Tandoori Raj and Woo Fuk Yoo Chinese takeaway. A country fit for heroes, bollocks, it’s country fit for other nation’s arsewipes.” 

Muirman’s pissing himself laughing at this tirade. He’d nicked a Transit van with his mates once, near Stanley Park, and headed south. Just for a crack. They kept off the motorways, keeping to A and B roads, before the engine finally died just outside Hemel. Not a penny between them, no bankbooks, they went a thieving. Breaking into houses on the posh estates, getting away with electrical stuff, jewelry. Their squat above a boarded up shop had all the mod cons. Jumping a train to London going to see Liverpool at West Ham, they met a lad from Kirby who knew a couple of fences in Watford area who could their gear. And that’s what they did, thieving and fencing in Hertfordshire. One thing he never mentioned to the High Commissioner in their frequent chats. Turned out the HC had a cousin in Hemel with a high faluting double-barreled surname who’d been burgled a few years back. Muirman had squirmed in his seat, mumbled something about Delhi Belly and headed off into the night.  

“Fancy a few daisy cutters round the course tomorrow Muirman?” asks Lions. 

“Fancy a thrashing do ya son?” Muirman stands up and practices a couple of dummy swings. 

“I do actually but I can’t picture you in black stockings and sussies mate.” 

“Alright mate, early doors, eh? Be round about 8ish.” 

“No probs. Hey Buddha Belly, you should get on the links sometime mate, shed a few of those unnecessary pounds,” taunts Lions. Chins responds with the finger and another beer. 

“Line ‘em up Sami,” he says filling out the chit. 

Sioux comes into the bar, and sits by herself at the far end, next to the notice board. She nods in greeting to the guys in the corner, and asks if they’ve seen Squaddie or Granite. Nobody has seen them since Friday; alone cut off from her friends she keeps her own counsel. When she first arrived, the first guy she’d spoken to had been General, now working up country, and he’d introduced her to the rest of the corner mob. She had felt uncomfortable around these people, most more than double her age.  

Working on a medical aid project as a volunteer, this is her first time abroad, and she can’t relate to these fat old bastards, many of whom had worked overseas longer than she’d  been alive. On the previous Friday, she had come in early, just as the Friday Club were getting into their stride, and they’d made her feel more welcome. They were more her age, and she had more in common with these younger people. She sensed a division between the younger people, those who emerged only at the weekends, and those who regularly spent the equivalent of her monthly salary in a week behind the bar. Naively, she had assumed that everyone would get on with each other; she was surprised at the tension in the air. Tonight, it is there again. She doesn’t want to talk with them; they make no effort to invite her over.  

Lions glances over at here, looks away. He recalls the first time they had spoken. The General had first met her and got talking to her. Bloody General, talks to anyone. Lions had come in for some lunch and got talking to them both. Dressed in sari, sandals, ethnic handbag, he didn’t want to stick around talking to this treehugger for too long but when she bought a round, she filled in a chit, and Lions noticed the spelling of her name. 

“Bit of a Banshees fan, are you?” He tries. 

“Not me, my mother.” 

Oh right, not your cup of tea, eh? 

“Oh they’re ok, but my mother used to play them morning, noon and night. Probably still does, for all I know.”  She smiles at the memory. 

“Never was into them too much. More The Clash, The Damned, a bit of Sham. I could go on forever, it was a great time to be young. Better than all this manufactured shite around now.” 

“My mother came from near Bromley, she knew them fairly well. She used to go to all their early stuff.” 

“Where’s your mother now?” 

“Dunno, last I heard she was in a squat in Gloucestershire. Says Prince Charles is one of her neighbours.” 

“In a squat?” 

“Yeah, she ain’t changed, my mother. I until I was 18, we lived in squats in various areas of East London during the school year, then summer holidays, we’d do the festivals, selling t-shirts etc. Finished school, went to uni and squatted in Manchester for 3 years. Now I’m here, nearly 22, and never paid rent in my life.” 

Lions extends his arm round the bar, Sami goes to the bar to fill the order. “Oh and Sami, one for Sioux,” who he spies returning from the ladies. She smiles in acknowledgement. 

Sweaty encourages her to join them and she gratefully picks up her drink and sits down next to him and Chins. Sweaty introduces everyone. “I’ve already met Lions,” she says. 

“Kept that one quiet my little Gooner,” says Yorkie. 

“No no no,” She blushes. ”I was here a couple of weeks ago with General and Lions here turned up.”

“So,” Muirman preens his hair, “what’s with the sari n all?” 

“It’s easier for me to get around if I blend in as much as possible. It’s not good to stand out, to be conspicuous. It’s uncomfortable enough being a woman here at times without getting the gropes etc just because I’m dressed in western clothes.” 

“She’s got a point,” says Yorkie. 

“Why? You ever get groped wearing western clothes, Yorkie?” Muirman wants to know. 

“Might get more done in western clothes. Just imagine turning up to a meeting with the Perm Sec wearing a mini skirt.” 

Muirman choked on his ale. “Sweaty, that was uncalled for.”  

“What’s the matter?” 

“You in a mini skirt, that’s the matter.” 

“Och come on, I didn’t mean…” 

“Save it Sweaty, what you do in the privacy of your own home is your affair…” 

“I didn’t mean…” 

“Put a sock in it.” 

“Bastards the lot of you. Sami, one for me and one for Sioux here. And sod the rest of them.” 

Lions turns to Muirman. “Laura’s not called yet.” 

 The Scouser sagely shakes his head. “I fear not.” 

“Och you guys shut it…” 

Chins turns to Sioux. “Sweaty talks to his wife everyday on the phone, if she doesn’t phone at her appointed time, well you see what he’s like…” 

“Laura don’t…” 

The whole bar picks up on that. 

“Och Laura. Laura.” 

“Laura.” 

“Sweaty, do yourself a favour and shut it. Your digging a bloody great hole for yourself. Sami, a drink for the rest of us. On his tab!” 

“Evening gentlemen.” Scottish Andy fronts up to the bar dripping in sweat, wearing a t-shirt and shorts with a bandana round his head, signaling a boundary to Sami. 

“Hash night Andy?” asks Sweaty. 

“Sure is. You should come out and give it a go.” 

“Can you imagine Sweaty in a pair of shorts?” asks Yorkie. Muirman gags on his ale. 

“Do you mind, I’ve just got over thinking about him in a short skirt.” 

“I might just do that Andy, you see the level of conversation I have to put up with here,” Sweaty waves dismissively at his pals. 

Siouxsie’s ears have picked up. “Did he say hash?” she asks Muirman. 

“Not the baccy I’m afraid. It’s a running club.” 

“You mean they just go out jogging?” 

“No, it’s a bit more than that,” Muirman is struggling and is relieved when Andy jumps in to help him out. 

“It’s a running club with a drinking problem,” he explains. ”We go out on a run, build up a thirst then get pissed.” 

“Sounds fucking daft to me,” says Lions. “I get a thirst on just getting out of bed, don’t need to go running.” 

“Lions is a guest member,” Andy goes on, “we honour him in absentia.” 

“So you just go running then get pissed. Then why not just get pissed, cut out the running?” Siuoxsie is still struggling with the concept. She’s having trouble with more than concepts, her world is spinning and she thinks she’s surrounded by various fowl. She’d been sat at home knocking back the last of the duty free when she decided to check out the BAGHA. She’d been grateful there had been little traffic on the roads; her bladder just held out. Only just. She’d seen plenty of men pissing in the central reservations but it wasn’t an idea that held much attraction for her. 

“Makes sense to me.” 

“We have what’s called the hares. They go out and lay a trail on the ground, like organize the route ok? and we have a start and a finish point. The finish point may be the starting point, or we may have the finish point somewhere else.” 

Siouxsie nods. Her heads spinning but that’s more from the beer and her own baccy from earlier than Andy’s description of a run which is suddenly starting to kick in.

“Ok, the hares, then we have the hounds. They follow the trail. Sometimes the markers show a couple of directions the hounds can take so what they do is send a couple of runners down each trail and wait till they find another marker.” 

For a reason she is unable to comprehend, Siouxsie is imagining Andy dressed as a giant chicken with a proud crown standing erect on his forehead. 

“The waiting hounds call out ‘are you on’ and if they find another marker then they shout out ‘on on’.” 

“Are you on what?” She is bemused by this large chicken standing next to her at the bar with a bandana round its head but is too polite to embarrass it. What’s a chicken doing in a running club? Should be in the oven. 

“On the trail. Anyway, on the run one of the runners is making a note of people who are breaking the hash rules. Things like people taking a taxi, wearing new trainers, he’s called the Religious Advisor. At the end of the run, everyone forms a circle, drinking beer, while the RA calls people to account for their sins and they are made to apologise by drinking a beer.” 

“You get to drink a beer if you sin? Andy, you gotta meet my ex,” says Muirman. 

Siouxsie looks at this tall chicken in size 10 adidas trainers and wants to ask him if he has any feathers under his shorts but her vocal chords are unable to respond to the messages being sent from the brain, leaving her lips twitching like a silent movie. 

“I don’t like chicken.” With that she slumps on the bar, her knees start to give way and she starts sliding down to meet the welcoming floor which promises relief. 

“Nice one Andy.” Muirman steps over her and heads for the dunnie, leaving Sweaty and the rest to stare nonplussed at the girl sleeping peacefully on the floor. 

“Anyone know where she lives?” 

There is much shaking of heads and mumbled no’s as they stare uselessly at her. 

“Same again Sami,” says Chins. 

“But, Sami,” Andy wants to make something clear, “best not another one for her.” 

“Yes sir.”  Sami goes to the fridge. 

“Well, what are we going to do?” 

“Dunno. What about mouth to mouth?” offers Lions.

“It’d be like snogging a mannequin.” 

“Sweaty…” all eyes turn to him. 

“Och, you guys.” He shakes his head and lights up another cigarette.  

“I reckon the best thing to do would be to take her round Chins’ place,” suggests Lions. 

“No it won’t.” Chins is quick to disagree with Lions, an automatic gesture but he realizes in time. “Oh, sorry, yeah that’s the best thing.”  

Still they look at her lying on the stained, smelly bar floor, nobody makes a move to help her. 

“Got your phone?” Chins asks Lions who hands over his Nokia. Chins dials his missus. 

“Gin, you coming down?” 

“Ok. It might be an idea if you did. Got a bit of a problem.” 

“Ok see you then” He hands the phone back to Lions who turns it off again. 

“You’re not getting your missus to come and get her are you?” asks Andy in astonishment. 

“Yeah, why not?” 

“I’ll take her round your place myself,” he offers. 

“No need, she’ll be here in a minute. Lions, supplies are getting low.” 

Lions gets the round and they stand there and wait for Ginny to come and rescue the fallen women of the bar. 

“It’s a shame Cloggy’s wife isn’t here, she likes to aid the fallen.” 

“You men are fucking useless!” Ginny walks in with Trish after the short walk from round the corner. They spy Siouxsie lying on the floor, now snoring gently. In the corner next to a trophy cabinet Yorkie has assumed his normal position, head resting on his arms on the bar. “Looks like a war zone in here,” says Ginny looking at the drunks and the debris. “What the hell happened to her?” 

Lions snorts. “Couldn’t hold her liquor!”  

Andy gets it. “You’re sick mate.” 

“You boring everyone to tears Lions?” Trish wants to know. 

“A tough audience,” he says, “not like you.” He winks at her. She gives him the finger. “Just the one this time?” He enquires, “you used a couple last time.” 

“I wanted to touch the sides.” But people are more interested in the still volunteer on the floor and Trish and Lions’ banter goes over their heads. Still, in jest is many a truth told and Lions squirms at the memory. 

Ginny and Trish pick up the poor volunteer and carry her out the bar round to Chins and Ginny’s house where she can sleep off the effects of whatever she’s consumed on the safety of their sofa. 

“Don’t help us guys,” Trish calls out. 

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t need us.”  And as one they turn back to the bar.     

Monir lived in a slum by a railway crossing, just north of the airport. He worked for Lions, but that was just something he did to eat. He was involved in a gang, here in the slum, who extorted and beat anyone in their way. In turn, the local mastans would extort and beat him and his gang.  That there was always someone above him in the pecking order didn’t concern him too much, there were many more beneath him, always many more victims. Among his group he had a certain respect, a certain value. 

At 6am on the Monday morning, as Chins was feeling the chill having left the a/c on all night, Monir was woken by the sound of laithi against corrugated steel. The mastan were going round the whole slum, waking everyone. It was fairly cool in the early morning air, almost chilly. A slight mist hung over the corrugated steel community. Today, they were going to barricade the road heading north past the airport. The previous night, they had listened in silence as the mastan had told everyone what was to be expected from them. There was to be no dissension, any protest would guarantee a severe beating. Monir rounded up his gang. The people he extorted from, well, they would be on his side today. Today was about blocking the road. Screams rent the still morning, followed by the sound of a squat being demolished. Monir and his gang, friends is too emotive a word to be used to describe the relationship here. Like mussels clinging to a rock, this is out of necessity, a need to belong, loners were at the bottom, everyone shat on them. Monir and his gang go to the sound of the screams and drag the rattan and corrugated steel out to the main road wordlessly. 

 A family is screaming, bawling for help. No one sees how many, no one knows how many children are now homeless. Blood seeps from a man’s mouth, a limb is severely disjointed. His wife, decrepit and pathetic at best in her poverty is shoved to the floor, kicked and spat upon. No emotion, worse is seen daily here where if the mastans don’t beat you, someone else will, unwanted children are left for the crows and vultures. The victims’ rickshaw is dragged out to the road where it is thrown on top of the rest of his meager possessions and set alight, the orange flames dancing ethereally in the fading mist. Just another silent victim in a land that doesn’t care.  

An early morning double decker commuter  bus packed with office workers approaches the barricade, stones, bottles are thrown at it. Windows covered in steel mesh, the driver is fairly safe, but as the bus is forced to a complete halt in front of the obstruction, the mob attacks, bloodlust taking over. As ever the bus is overloaded, passengers congregate by the only open doorway at the rear, hanging on grimly. They are the lucky ones. Able to jump clear, escape as the mob moves in. The less fortunate are dragged from the narrow opening, taken to the side of the road and beaten senseless, senselessly, wood and feet connecting with stationary bodies whose only crime was to want to go to work. The rickshaw burns the crackling of the fire mixes with the screams and thuds. Ultimately the bus will be set alight and form part of the barricade. Monir and his gang drag the bus assistant from the bus, drag him along the road, and beat him, laithis ripping into his body. The assistant lies foetal, blood poring from his inert body. He is wearing a brown and white striped shirt and a longi, a ubiquitous Asian sarong, a pair of thongs. The guys beating him wear the same type of clothes, different coloured shirts but same style. This vicious assault is all but ignored, just one of many near the bus and now burning barricade. Monir reaches down, hands scrambling through pockets, grabs a skanky wad, and with a final whack to the head, turns and walks away. The gang follow, the hate that distorted their faces a minute ago vanished. A photosynthesis brought about by the retrieval of 147 taka and a battered and bleeding nobody. 

There are many such victims, lying on the road surface under a sun increasing in intensity. As soon as someone is beaten unconscious hands crawl over the body, seeking, searching any money, a final humiliation. A few people gamely fight back, but there is no coordination and they just don’t have the numbers, the pack is all over the place crawling like ants, selecting, picking off victims at will. A shriek as a woman is dragged off into a ditch, three men pulling her, grinning, slobbering maliciously at the thought of what awaits. 

From the apartments that look down on the road, families gather round the windows, stare numbly at the chaos being wrought on their front step, holding tightly to their children lest they make off for a second. Three, four generations in one room staring at a carnage that has forever dogged their lives, a vicious trait that can rise up at almost any time. From their bird’s eye vantage, they spy some police units standing, watching the fracas, unable or, more likely, unwilling to get involved just yet. An explosion shakes the buildings as the bus goes up in a mushroom cloud of gas and flame. People are running in all directions, slowly the police stand themselves upright, don protective headgear, move towards the thinning number of youths, approaching through the smoke. There will be some casualties from the wreckage of the bus, burning with a heat that can be felt in the apartments, but no one will bother counting.    

Monir will stay here all day, daring anyone to pass. A couple of skirmishes with Government supporters, a police charge and some phensyildine. All this and 50 taka, not bad for a days non-work, plus any bounty from people he can beat up. As he stands there under the hot sun, watching the burning bus, he thinks about how much he hates the Government. How they oppress poor people, how they pander to foreigners. His mind goes over what was said last night at the meeting. Of course the bus driver and his assistant, they are, sorry, were poor people, but tough, there are always casualties in any conflict and Monir feels no remorse for any new widows or orphans. Not his business, not his problem, he thinks of himself first and last. The others are incidentals, nits to be brushed aside, to be used and cast aside. Whether the opposition are any better than the government he doesn’t know. They, the people who make the decisions, are many times removed from what happens in Monir’s world. But, hey! they pay him to do what he would normally do for free, he and his gang are available to the highest bidder, so what if he is being used, he’s still got to eat. Ok, so 5 years ago the opposition were the Government, and he and his gang helped the current Government when they were in opposition, but that was in the past. Things have changed now. He was betrayed then. It won’t happen again. Now he has his gang. 

He’s not sure why he was betrayed; just that’s what people told him. He knows the current Government want to sell the country overseas. He doesn’t know what that means, but he knows it to be true. As he travels around the exclusive enclaves of Gulshan and Banani, he knows it’s wrong. He believes Banglas are a peaceful people, but ready to fight for what they believe in. He doesn’t think about what he believes in, he doesn’t know. All he wants to do, if he is honest with himself, is make sure he is not left on the bottom of the pile.   

As the police make their move towards the still smoldering skeleton that was once a bus, Monir and his cronies slink away through the many side streets. It’s been a good mornings’ work, they’ve made a few taka, now time for fun. Usually, people in the slum have no time for recreation or amusement, surviving in itself is a full time occupation leaving time only for food, if they’re lucky, and sleep. But having acquired the best part of two weeks salary Monir can afford to relax a bit. Not let his guard down, that would be fatal. Someone somewhere would have seen the fruits of their morning at the barricade and those further up the food chain would soon be circling for their cut. Let them come. 

They walked through a village, past a mosque and made their way down to the dual track railway line that connected the capital with the port down in the south. Away from the main road, the terrain was verdant, rice fields, a few buffalo tied to trees, their tails swishing lazily at the omnipresent flies. But the guys had no eyes for the rural setting, interested only in the parallel steel lines heading off into the shimmering horizon. They sat down patiently and waited, their exertions of the morning behind them. 

One went scampering over the rails, collecting stones and rocks as he went. He returned with a healthy number, which he set down before his cronies. Sitting out in the open, it was hot, the bright sun at its zenith, flies an occasional nuisance. They felt the terrain vibrate; they looked up and saw a large brown engine approach from the south. They moved back some ten, twelve yards to the tree line, a location that afforded a better view and, more crucially, a better shot. But this is just a freight train, a slow, plundering two dozen containers nestling snugly on wagons rattling slowly over the tracks, inching inexorably towards the freight depot at Kamalampur. Of no interest, no sport to be had. 

They sit down again to wait, ignoring the call to dzuhur prayer that emanates from the nearby mosque. They squat on their haunches, occasionally inhaling deeply on their cigarettes, occasionally talking. Once in a while an overburdened rickshaw trundles past, the rider straining with the effort on the coarse dirt track. The sun is at it’s highest point in the heavens but they are reluctant to move from their optimum position. Experience has taught them that from here they have the best shot at their target. They sit, they sweat, they swat at the flies. It’ll be a fair while till the next train comes past; the dual tack is not designed for volume. They sit patiently waiting, biding their time. Finally, they hear the familiar thundering, see the tracks buckle and vibrate. The large engine looms into view, wheels pounding over the rails beating out the well known ta ta ta tat, ta ta ta tat so beloved of schoolboys in another generation. But these lads have no interest in being a train driver. Their eyes jointly scanned the carriage tops, sure they wouldn’t be disappointed. They weren’t. Running along the carriages, small near naked boys, leaping from one bogie to another as sure footed as mountain goats. No one knew where they boarded the train or whether there were several gangs or just one or two, but nearly every train approaching Dhaka carried it’s share of cargo on the roof. Paying passengers were also a common sight but these kids were ubiquitous, as sure as the sun rose in the east these little hoodlums would act out a lethal ballet at 50 mph. 

They had a small window of opportunity when the silhouettes on the roofs would be at their most vulnerable. Just a few seconds as the twelve carriages were lined up before them, their targets engaged in their act. Monir and his acolytes unleashed a barrage of stones and rocks; the dancers fell as one to hug the roof. All but one, tardy in spotting the danger, took a spinning pointed stone on his forehead as he was in mid leap, lost his footing, slipped and disappeared off the far side of the rolling stock. Before they could source a new target the moment had gone, the final carriage rocked and rolled it’s way into the coming gloom. On the other side of the tracks they see a dark bundle stirring on the levee. Disinterested, there’d be no bounty on him, they head slowly back to their slum.   

They find someone already moving into the wreckage of the slum destroyed earlier. A couple of men, thick unruly brown hair, sweaty, stained shirts are trying to affix a corrugated roof on top of the patched up rattan walls. A couple of women squat on their haunches, brewing up on a primitive fire while five kids run near naked around their new playground. 

Monir goes up to the bigger of the two men working on the building and pushes him harshly to the ground. He rests on his elbows, ready to spring back up but he sees Monir is not alone. His friend is being pushed and slapped around by the others; their wives sit and watch, lazily stirring the pot, calling out abuse at the toughs but being ignored. This is Monir’s patch, these guys need to be told that they are the shit on the sole of the shoe and as such will be so treated. It’s a dangerous community and if Monir don’t get them then as sure as daisies close their petals as the sunsets someone else will. They know the score, they take a few slaps and kicks, pretty half hearted because Monir and his boys are pretty tired, it’s been a long and productive day, they cannot protest, who to? so after a few verbals an agreement is made. And later the newcomers will become part of the gang and become part of an informal social security network where the group is the thing and security is only assured in numbers. And the extra strength brought to the gang increases their status in the slum and relegates a few more numbers between them and the basement as they rise up the food chain. 

The slum of course is not unique to Bangladesh or Dhaka. People are still drawn to Charles Dickens’ vision of inner city London where rural migrants were attracted by the higher wages of an industrializing city. As the migrants came in greater and greater numbers, local services were unable to handle the influx and the newcomers were left on their own. To scrimmage, to scrounge, to survive.  

As with the industrial revolution in the west, so now with the countries of the developing world.  The parallels are legion, the lessons nothing new, cities expand at an enormous rate, more and more people being absorbed into the underbelly of society like a school of cleaner fish piggy backing their way to a better quality of life.  

Numbers lack the power of a photograph, or a Hogarth etching, but they can tell a tale. In 1961, as Kennedy was promising to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and Tottenham Hotspur celebrated their last Championship, the population of what was then known as Dacca was 557,000. By 2001, at the last census, there were some 9,912,908 people. By the year 2025, some people estimate there will be about 25 million! They all want somewhere to live, wash, defecate, work, procreate…

In 1996, it was estimated there were 3,007 slum/squatter sites in the Dhaka city. Before1971, it’s believed there were 315! Each location averages 212 hectares. Each hectare has about 2,605 people. About 44% are children, about 41% are unable to read or write.  Forget meeting a man going to St Ives. London can’t cope with it’s own modest growth, and that with the resources, if not always the political will, of a G7 country. What chance Bangladesh?  

There may not be many boom areas in Bangladesh, but cities obviously are. As are the slums. As the city cannot cope, likewise the slum. If it is on private land, then they run the risk of eviction. No access to water. Lack of, or primitive, footpaths, drains, sewers, street lights, dustbins is the lot of the average slum dweller. Where it exists, there is not enough water for drinking, bathing or cooking. A communal toilet can be shared by up to 100 families. For a fee! Water and sewerage are available. To people who own the title to the land. Of course, your average slum dweller lacks this. But water is available, for a premium rate. This of course brings related problems of health, diseases like diarrhoea and scabies are not uncommon, and security caused by thugs and mastans like Monir. And when it rains…water logging, overflowing drains, bring those Dickensian images vividly to life. Throw in a deficient diet and you have a pretty unappetizing cocktail. 

The nature of the economy means there is little hope of escape. Chins may bemoan his lot as he reclines on his sofa shivering under the air conditioning but he has his passport. He, and the rest, have their escape clause. In the slum, no one has that luxury. Escape is back to the privations of the village from which they originally fled. Most wish to return, in better station than they left, to be able to take care of their family, but most realize this is unlikely. Or impossible. More than half have little more than day jobs, rickshaw riders, day labourers, where one’s income is down to the vagaries of weather or hartal. Still, they earn enough to get by. And little else.