Speedy Bar­ron had been on the bins for don­key’s and he re­al­ly liked it. I mean, he re­al­ly liked it, it was his vo­ca­tion. He hard­ly ever talked about any­thing else. This was be­cause he hard­ly ever thought about any­thing else. If peo­ple were talk­ing about foot­ball, he’d al­ways steer the con­ver­sa­tion round to refuse col­lec­tion in and around sports sta­di­ums. Well, what he re­al­ly did was back into the con­ver­sa­tion, just like he re­versed his bin wagon into the al­ley­ways and cul-de-sacs that lit­tered his route. He wasn’t very sub­tle about it. You could al­most hear the warn­ing beep-beep-beep and see the flash­ing yel­low lights as his mouth revved up and his words start­ed grind­ing out. His friends, what few friends he had, didn’t mind. But they thought he was a bit of a joke. Speedy didn’t no­tice though, his brain was taken up with vi­sions of bins and bin bags, in­dus­tri­al sized rub­bish re­cep­ta­cles and, on a good day, vast land­fill sites that stretched as far as the eye could see. He loved the human con­tact that his bin round of­fered him, es­pe­cial­ly when peo­ple came to him with bin prob­lems, want­i­ng his ad­vice on how to foil scav­eng­ing cats or how to cram more waste into a bin bag. But what he re­al­ly loved was at the end of his round, when he went to of­fload the rub­bish at the tip. He breathed in the stench like other peo­ple fill their lungs with sea air on the first day of their hol­i­days. He puffed up with pride at the sight of all that waste, care­ful­ly cha­paralled into this mon­u­ment to not-want­ed­ness...

As the years trun­dled by, he broke all the coun­cil’s refuse col­lec­tion records, helped by the in­tro­duc­tion of the wheel­ie-bin. His al­ready ample back­side start­ed to get big­ger. The ar­se-end of his or­ange work over­alls start­ed to ease away from his body, look­ing like a pel­i­can’s beak, but back­wards. If you went near him, which fewer and fewer peo­ple did, you could hear a groan­ing sound, which blend­ed in with a whirring and clank­ing, a mash­ing sound, you could al­most say. Peo­ple who heard it as­sumed it was in­di­ges­tion, that some­thing was re­peat­ing on him, but there he was, puff­ing on his pipe and beam­ing away, no doubt lost in some refuse rever­ie. He never pulled a face or com­plained. I think his wife had had enough though, be­cause he start­ed puff­ing on his pipe at the bot­tom of the gar­den. That’s where the kids used to see him, when they were play­ing foot­ball. His gar­den came right down to the edge of the foot­ball field. All the games were pep­pered with a strong el­e­ment of act­ing the goat. Goals were cel­e­brat­ed with a lengthy swing from the goal­posts mak­ing mon­key nois­es. This was de rigeur for goal­keep­ers as well, when­ev­er the ac­tion strayed up­field. Speedy con­tem­plat­ed all this in si­lence, ac­knowl­edg­ing the kids with a wave if they shout­ed to him, which was a kind of dare rather than a gen­uine greet­ing, but oth­er­wise kept his self to his self. Most of the men­folk are like that in vil­lages, so it didn’t strike any­one as strange. Men who talked to kids, such as teach­ers and the vicar, were viewed with sus­pi­cion. Speedy wasn’t like that, but he did have his idio­syn­crasies. Every so often the ball would go over his fence, but he wouldn’t just chuck it back straight away. Some­one had to go right the way round to the front door and ask for it nice­ly. Char­ac­ter build­ing, he called it, much to the mys­ti­fi­ca­tion of the local boys. In­side the house, it al­ways smelt of din­ner and coal. No one ever want­ed to go, so they took it in turns. Tonight it was Tim’s turn. Re­luc­tant­ly, he trot­ted round. Past the tall wood­en fences that dou­bled as a climb­ing frame and the metal bars where chil­dren some­times used to sit and talk and swing and do clod-hop­ping gym­nas­tics. Until the bloke over the road smeared the bars with grease so he’d have more peace and quiet. It ob­vi­ous­ly wasn’t enough peace and quiet, be­cause he even­tu­al­ly ran off to Kuala Lumpur with a Malaysian lady, thus break­ing the vil­lage record for ex­ot­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, for­mer­ly held by a trip to France or­gan­ised by the Top Pub. Tim jogged along the gitty, through the gate and bound­ed down the front gar­den path, which was re­al­ly four or five long steps lead­ing to the frost­ed glass door, which was well below the level of the gitty. There wasn’t a street, the hous­es had been built be­tween streets, so they were a bit out of the way, cut off form what lit­tle move­ment there was in the Wens­ford­by. He knocked and wait­ed. No­body opened the door. Tim rang the bell and knocked the knock­er sev­er­al times in the gloom. Per­haps Speedy’s wife was out. Tim gave up after a few min­utes longer than would have been gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered wise and ran back up the path in quick leaps and round to the foot­ball pitch. The oth­ers looked scared. The twi­light was gath­er­ing like a growl in the throat of a guard dog. They still didn’t have the ball and all the brava­do had drained from their faces and their pos­ture told a story of de­feat. They told Tim that Speedy had just walked back­wards until he reached the row of car­rots where the ball had come to rest. He stood there, puff­ing on his pipe, smil­ing a gen­tle smile all the time. A clank­ing noise seemed to come from his belly, fol­lowed by a mash­ing of gears, a low rum­bling sound and a heavy metal­lic slam. Still smil­ing, Speedy walked for­wards and the ball was gone. He seemed sat­is­fied, had the look on his face that he usu­al­ly wore when he got home from work. The birds start­ed singing again, which made every­one vague­ly re­alise they had stopped. Now they re­sumed their ar­gu­men­ta­tive screech­ing and twit­ter­ing as Speedy shunt­ed off to the back door where Tim was sur­prised to learn Speedy’s wife had been wait­ing for him with a creased brow hov­er­ing over her fa­mil­iar flow­ery frock. It looked like the blooms on her bosom and belly were clos­ing for the night. The street­lamps flick­ered on, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the scene with a weak or­ange glow. At first Tim thought they must be jok­ing, but the ball was nowhere to be seen and their pal­pa­ble fear was con­ta­gious and ex­pan­sive. They knew their mums would clob­ber them for mak­ing up sto­ries, and there was no ques­tion of any­one ever con­fid­ing any­thing in their dad, so they re­solved to keep it a se­cret.

Speedy’s wife had first no­ticed some­thing wrong when her hus­band’s vis­its to the toi­let were ac­com­pa­nied by a vi­o­lent clank­ing, as if the plumb­ing was pos­sessed. Speedy came out of the lava­to­ry look­ing bash­ful and went to sit in the kitchen in­stead of watch­ing Mid­lands Today as he usu­al­ly did. Mrs Bar­ron had to watch it on her own. She thought it was point­less with no one to talk to, just a load of bor­ing news, none of which seemed im­por­tant, so she went and sat with him in the kitchen. He didn’t say any­thing, so she got up again and shuf­fled to the sink.

“Tea?” she asked.

“Yes please, love, that’d be grand,” he an­swered, still gaz­ing at the things on the win­dow sill. Wash­ing-up liq­uid, j-cloth, ce­ram­ic hedge­hog in pe­ri­od cos­tume. Be­hind them were the tops of trees, the dark­en­ing clouds. Mrs Bar­ron bus­ied her­self tidy­ing the al­ready tidy kitchen until the ket­tle boiled. She switched it off be­fore it clicked off au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. She had a the­o­ry that the man­u­fac­tur­ers were in league with the elec­tric­i­ty board, be­cause it al­ways took so long to switch off, it was a damn waste of elec­tric­i­ty. She made the tea in a pot, al­though Speedy nor­mal­ly did it straight in the cup.

“Sum­mat’s up,” she said to him as she plonked his cup in front of him.

“What?” asked Speedy.

“You tell me.”

“How should I know? I’m not a bloody mind read­er.”

“Not with me, you fool. There’s some­thing wrong with you. Are your bow­els all right?” asked Mrs Bar­ron.

“Can’t com­plain,” said Speedy, “I’ve just been.”

“I know. The whole bloody street knows. The pipes were clang­ing fit to burst!”

“Whose pipes?”

“Our bloody pipes.”

“Oh.”

“But it wasn’t the pipes, was it? The ra­di­a­tors were all right, and if the pipes make a rack­et, the ra­di­a­tors play up as well. It must’ve been you, Speedy.”

“Don’t talk so bloody daft!”

“Tell me about it. I’m your wife. That’s what wives are for, for telling stuff to. A prob­lem shared, share and share alike.”

His face went gloomy. She switched the light on be­cause it was dark out now. It flick­ered for longer than it ought to, and she thought he looked like one of those Franken­stein films. One of the sad ones, with a sad mon­ster.

“Don’t get going mad if I tell you,” mur­mured Speedy to his teacup.

“I won’t get mad,” she said, smooth­ing out a non-ex­is­tent table­cloth.

“And don’t laugh ei­ther.”

“I won’t laugh. I won’t laugh. Promise.”

Speedy paused, like he was in his bin lorry, about to turn off a quiet lane onto a busy road. He looked left, he looked right. Then he looked straight at his wife.

“I think I’m turn­ing into a bin lorry.”

She laughed. She laughed loud and long. Through her tears, she saw Speedy was se­ri­ous. She wiped her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“I should bloody hope so. Fat lot of good your promis­es are,” he said, down­cast.

She re­cov­ered quick­ly when she saw she had hurt his feel­ings. She spoke gen­tly, say­ing, “I’ve said I’m sorry. Now tell me about this bin lorry busi­ness.”

Derek didn’t get up when Speedy came into his of­fice. There was no need for any palaver, stand­ing on cer­e­mo­ny. He’d known Speedy since he start­ed work­ing for the coun­cil, and that was more years ago than he’d care to re­mem­ber. Even then, Speedy was al­ready well-es­tab­lished on the bins. They’d had plen­ty of deal­ings with one an­oth­er, and there’d never been any un­pleas­ant­ness. All the same, Derek felt un­easy as Speedy clanked into the room. It sound­ed like he was wear­ing a suit of ar­mour.

“All right there, Speedy?” he asked, feign­ing non­cha­lance.

“Not so bad, Derek, not so bad.”

“What can I do you for?”

“Derek, I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve got a bit of a prob­lem. It’s no good beat­ing about the bush, so I’m just going to come out with it. No point wast­ing your time and mine with a big long pre­am­ble, is there? No, that’d be daft, I’ll just come straight out with what I’ve got to say and have done with it. I think that’s the best idea, don’t you?”

“I do, Speedy, yes, Brevi­ty, I’m all for it my­self,” said Derek.

“Well, you see...”

“Go on.”

“It’s about work. I’ve come to you be­cause I didn’t want to just barge in on the gaffer and just blurt it out just like that. I’m sure you can see my point of view.”

“I’m sure I can, but you’re going to have to tell me what the prob­lem is,” said Derek smooth­ing his tie and look­ing at his big belly.

“Right, I’ll just come straight out with it.”

“You do that, please. I’m a very busy man, as I’m sure you can ap­pre­ci­ate.”

“No you’re not.”

“Fair point. But all the same, tell me what it is, there’s a good chap.”

“I think I’m turn­ing into a bin lorry.”

“Ha ha, Speedy, good one.” He tried to punch him play­ful­ly on the shoul­der, but that would have in­volved get­ting up out of his swiv­el chair. “Now what’s the real prob­lem?”

“No, it’s true. I am turn­ing into a bin lorry. Strange but true. I back into things and they dis­ap­pear. There’s a big grind­ing noise that comes from my rear end. It fright­ens the kids. I had their ball the other day. I mean, I’ve kept it overnight a few times, just to teach them a les­son, but my arse has never eaten it.”

“Just start at the be­gin­ning, Speedy.”

“That is the bloody be­gin­ning!”

“So you just backed up and the ball dis­ap­peared, is that it?”

“Yes, the mis­sus was watch­ing, but the ball was in amongst the veg­eta­bles and she didn’t re­al­ly see what hap­pened.”

“This is very strange, Speedy, very strange.”

“It’s a good job I didn’t go to the gaffer, isn’t it?”

“You’re right there.”

“He’d have gone spare.”

“He’d have you off the yard like a shot.”

“Yes, he’s not one for tak­ing things in his stride, is the gaffer.”

“When you came in, you were clank­ing rather a lot. Is that nor­mal?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“It’s very no­tice­able,” said Derek.

Speedy looked at the car­pet. He had to lean side­ways to do so, oth­er­wise his belly would have got in the way.

“I can feel my joints going rusty as well,” he said sheep­ish­ly.

“Well, you are get­ting on a bit, Speedy.” Derek bit his lip and frowned. “How long till you re­tire?”

“Ooooh, at least ten years, Derek. Be­sides, that’s not what I mean. I mean re­al­ly rusty. Dif­fi­cult to move. On the point of seiz­ing up. In need of lu­bri­ca­tion. I’m not play­ing word games here.”

“Right. En­croach­ing mech­a­ni­sa­tion.”

“Turn­ing into a bin lorry.”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to have to put our think­ing caps on, Speedy.”

“Yes, we are Derek. You’re not wrong there.”

It took Speedy and his wife a long time to come round to Derek’s idea. They didn’t like the idea of leav­ing Wens­ford­by. No­body ever did. No­body liked liv­ing in the vil­lage, but no­body liked leav­ing it ei­ther. It was that kind of place.

In Lon­don the streets throbbed, and so did Mrs Bar­ron’s feet. Peo­ple bumped into her when she went shop­ping, and when she got home she could hear the neigh­bours scream­ing at each other through the wall. In Wens­ford­by peo­ple hissed at each other, so that ar­gu­ments sound­ed more like the hy­draulics on Speedy’s bin wagon than all-in ver­bal wrestling match­es. She didn’t like how they did it in Lon­don, but she didn’t like it in Wens­ford­by ei­ther. Why couldn’t peo­ple just get along? Lord knows, she and Speedy had had their dif­fer­ences, but here they were, still to­geth­er, still over­com­ing dif­fi­cul­ties with each other’s help. Mind you, this dif­fi­cul­ty, this turn­ing-in­to-a-bin-lor­ry busi­ness, was big­ger than all their pre­vi­ous dif­fi­cul­ties put to­geth­er. Derek had had a think about it and gone round to their house one evening, not long after his meet­ing with Speedy. She’d turned down the sound on Mid­lands Today and made a pot of tea and got the bis­cuits out. Derek didn’t dil­ly-dal­ly. He point­ed out to them what they al­ready knew, that they couldn’t stay around Wens­ford­by, peo­ple would no­tice. Peo­ple would talk, chil­dren would laugh. He wouldn’t be able to work once peo­ple got the idea there was some­thing wrong with him. They would be fright­ened, and if a bin­man was al­ready some­thing of an out­cast, a bit of a pari­ah, Speedy would be even more of an out­cast. He would be on the scrapheap, in the land­fill. Up to his neck in knack­ered plag­gy bags. No work means no money, and be­sides, it wouldn’t be long be­fore he was en­ti­tled to early re­tire­ment, with a de­cent pen­sion. Noth­ing spec­tac­u­lar, but enough to live on with­out too many wor­ries. They both nod­ded at this. Speedy rubbed his chin and his wife ad­just­ed her hair. Speedy slid the bis­cuit tin back to­wards Derek, who held up his hand.

“I was think­ing that per­haps you could go to Lon­don. Every­body clanks or makes some funny noise or an­oth­er in Lon­don, no­body would even no­tice you, Speedy. What’s more, they have a lot of rub­bish down there. Refuse col­lec­tion is a big headache for the au­thor­i­ties. They have mi­ni-bin wag­ons on the go all day, oth­er­wise the tourists com­plain about the filth of the place when they get back home. That’s what the au­thor­i­ties don’t want, for peo­ple to go home with some­thing to moan about. It’s a good place for a bin­man, never short of work. I’ve had a word with my con­tacts down there, be­cause I’ve got a few con­tacts, even in Lon­don would you be­lieve it, and they said they’d see what they could do. And then this bloke, who’s a good mate of mine, a big cheese in met­ro­pol­i­tan bins, Refuse Rex they call him, be­cause his name’s Rex and he’s the King of Ef­fec­tive and Eco­nom­i­cal Refuse Col­lec­tion...”

Mrs Bar­ron looked flum­moxed. Speedy held her hand, but she still looked puz­zled. He shrugged and Derek scowled a scowl that meant “never mind, it doesn’t mat­ter” as Speedy well knew, but Mrs Bar­ron didn’t. Derek didn’t beat about the bush, and he didn’t like being in­ter­rupt­ed. Oth­er­wise he might lose his thread and start beat­ing about the bush.

“Where was I?”

“Refuse Rex,” said Speedy, sneak­ing a quick slurp of tea.

“Oh yes, Refuse Rex. Done very well out of pri­vati­sa­tion, has Rex. Well any­way, Rexy gave me a bell and said they’d had a chat and come up with a fool­proof idea. You’ll have no­ticed that all this is with­out the gaffer’s knowl­edge. You, Speedy, get to keep work­ing. You keep going for a few more years until you can re­tire, if you want to. But I don’t know if you’ll want to re­tire, be­cause this is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty. It turns your prob­lem into a bless­ing, not just for you, but for the whole com­mu­ni­ty.”

“I’m all ears,” said Speedy, “I’ve got ears like bin lids.” He chuck­led half-heart­ed­ly at his own joke.

“Don’t be so sar­cas­tic. Wait till you hear their idea. It’s a one in a mil­lion.”

Derek picked up his tea and took a long swal­low be­fore plac­ing it back on the cof­fee table.

Speedy’s job was to get rid of all the refuse that would oth­er­wise flap about all day trapped in the drains, or clog up the gut­ters, or sit in heaps on the pave­ment wait­ing for some­one to tread in it or trip up over it and go fly­ing. There was too much rub­bish in Lon­don, and too many peo­ple who weren’t sup­posed to see it. Peo­ple from other coun­tries, other places. Speedy could see how peo­ple might want to see a clean place. He was from some­where else him­self, and when he went to places, he liked them to be clean. So he had what Refuse Rex called “mo­ti­va­tion”, which was very im­por­tant to Refuse Rex. Not that Speedy took much no­tice of Refuse Rex, he was just happy to have a job he could get on with. Refuse Rex mat­tered about as much as the gaffer used to mat­ter. Keep on the right side of him and you were laugh­ing. But he missed Derek.

The or­di­nary bin­men had just about fin­ished by the time Speedy was out on the streets. He missed hav­ing mates on the job, of course he did. But that wasn’t his job any longer. His job was to be like one of those mi­ni-bin wag­ons and a mi­ni-street sweep­er com­bined. Al­though they were small, those ve­hi­cles forced peo­ple to get out of the way. They drew at­ten­tion to them­selves with or­ange flash­ing lights. Some­times they had what Refuse Rex re­ferred to as “acoustic sig­nals” which ap­par­ent­ly “get on every­one’s tits”. Speedy, on the other hand, could just sidle up to any rub­bish or mess and back into it, light and nim­ble, like an over­weight bal­let dancer. He could get rid of it no prob­lem. He had to Pac-Man his way around the crowd­ed streets and Tetris up all the lit­ter. Small bits of rub­bish he hoovered up his trouser leg, big bits of rub­bish re­quired the use of his me­chan­i­cal back­side. For this rea­son, he had been equipped with trousers with a dis­creet flap at the back, like wild west un­der­wear worn by fron­tiers­men and gold prospec­tors. Prac­tice had made him quick as a flash. If some­one was watch­ing him from up above, let’s say with the well-oiled eye of a bored store de­tec­tive tak­ing a break in Deben­ham’s win­dow, it might look as if some­one, maybe a home­less per­son, a beg­gar or some­one of that sort, had dis­ap­peared after Speedy si­dled up to them, but that was just be­cause peo­ple were mov­ing so quick­ly and in so many di­rec­tions, this way and that. From street level, all any­one would no­tice is a tubby gen­tle­man with a rural as­pect stand­ing around whistling and look­ing be­atif­ic. If there was some kind of spe­cial event or pa­rade, he would wan­der around the out­skirts of its area of in­flu­ence and pounce on any of­fend­ing lit­ter. If any­one looked his way and no­ticed he was loi­ter­ing about with a watch­ful de­meanour, they’d prob­a­bly just think he was a plain clothes po­lice­man. Well, that was the the­o­ry, as out­lined by Derek and Refuse Rex on two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions.

At the Queen’s Gold­en Ju­bilee, this the­o­ry proved it­self less than wa­ter­tight. A big fuck­er of a fa­ther came over and cor­ner him.

“What the fuck­ing hell do you think you’re doing?” he spat, tow­er­ing over Speedy.

“I’m on lit­ter duty. I’ve got a me­chan­i­cal back­side. I’m half-man, half-bin lorry.” That’s what Speedy would have liked to say, but he couldn’t. His arse was top se­cret.

“Noth­ing,” said Speedy. The man looked ready to bel­ly-flop him, Giant Haystacks-style.

“You were look­ing at my kids,” he snarled, and point­ed back to­wards a group of lit­tle’uns.

“Yes, they’re smash­ers,” said Speedy. “You must be very proud.”

“I’ll give you proud, you cunt!” He’d raised his voice now, and his fist was fol­low­ing it in an up­wards arc.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Speedy began to trem­ble. He didn’t see how the man had rum­bled him. His lit­ter col­lec­tion had been es­pe­cial­ly sub­tle, in ho­n­our of Her Majesty. It was a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion, and this was a mat­ter of pride to Speedy. He’d been day­dream­ing ear­li­er in the week of the Queen con­grat­u­lat­ing him, even though in his heart, he knew that so­cial recog­ni­tion was im­pos­si­ble.

His nuts and bolts began to rat­tle. He could hear them in­side his head.

“I know about your sort and your filthy fuck­ing we­brings,” said the man, going pur­ple with rage.

Speedy held out his hands. “Look, I haven’t got any rings apart from my wed­ding ring...” His voice tailed off as his wife came into his head.

“Are you tak­ing the piss?”

“No, I’m not.”

“So you’re mar­ried are you?”

“Yes, I am. Have been for don­key’s.”

“Fuck­ing typ­i­cal. Al­ways putting up a front. Does your wife know what you are?” His shad­ow had now com­plete­ly swal­lowed Speedy. Sweat was drip­ping off him.

“Er, yes, she does.”

“Fuck­ing hell, they’re both at it.” He looked around, mum­bling some­thing vi­cious to him­self. He was re­al­ly worked up.

Speedy de­cid­ed to try a dif­fer­ent tack.

“I don’t see what it’s got to do with you. Why don’t you p-push off and leave me to get on with it?”

The guy went even more pur­ple. He was now Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Film pur­ple. Speedy was ter­ri­fied he would be able to hear his nuts and bolts now. His hy­draulic sys­tem start­ed to make lit­tle hiss­ing nois­es.

“Push off? You telling me to push off? I’m going to fuck­ing panel you, pal, I’ve had enough.” He grabbed hold of Speedy’s col­lar.

“Ger­roff! Help!” shout­ed Speedy. Peo­ple start­ed to gath­er round. They thought Speedy was some­one plan­ning to shoot the Queen. It had hap­pened be­fore and it could hap­pen again.

“Lynch him!”

“Bat­ter the cunt!”

“Don’t let him get away!”

“String him up!”

“It’s a dis­grace!”

There was a big cir­cle around Speedy and the man, who was now shak­ing Speedy like a dog shakes a balled-up sock. It looked like a scrap in a school yard. Even above the sav­age noise of the crowd, Speedy’s nuts and bolts and me­chan­i­cal mal­func­tions were clear­ly au­di­ble, the whine of his hy­draulics be­com­ing more and more high-pitched as the shak­ing in­creased in fe­roc­i­ty. The pur­ple-faced ei­ther didn’t no­tice or didn’t care.

“Per­vert! Per­vert!” he yelled in Speedy’s face. Turn­ing to the crowd and spin­ning Speedy round the cir­cle, he bel­lowed, “Look at him! Fuck­ing child mo­les­ter! Bleed­ing pae­dophile! He’s been prowl­ing round my kids!”

“Shame on you!” shout­ed a woman. She belt­ed the spin­ning Speedy with her hand­bag. It was re­al­ly hard and it hurt. Speedy’s en­gine cried and whined. It sound­ed like he was going along the mo­tor­way in sec­ond gear. Some of the other women de­cid­ed the hand­bag treat­ment was a good idea, and they start­ed belt­ing him as well. The man con­tin­ued spin­ning him round, hold­ing him by the scruff of his neck, first one way and then the other, so that every­one would have a chance to clob­ber him. Mean­while, he boxed his ears as well. A chant of “PAE-DO! PAE-DO! PAE-DO!” had got under way. Speedy tried to de­fend him­self as he was spin­ning through the air, his arms and legs flail­ing flim­si­ly as the blows ham­mered in on him. He felt like a lolly stick strik­ing against the spokes of a push­bike. Speedy’s clank­ing, whin­ing and grind­ing was re­al­ly loud by now.

“Make way, make way!” came a cry.

Then an­oth­er. “Out the way, stand back!”

Two po­lice­men were strug­gling to break through the crowd, but it now had a mind of its own, or was it sev­er­al minds? It was hard to say. It was like one of those mon­sters thrash­ing about with sev­er­al heads on sev­er­al necks, all breath­ing fire and all seem­ing­ly at odds with each other, yet all dead set on the same ob­jec­tive. The po­lice­men would get near the front, and Speedy’s hopes would lift as caught a glimpse of them as he spun round. Then next time he came round, the po­lice­men would ap­pear to be right back where they start­ed from, and the blows were still rain­ing down. This made Speedy even more fright­ened, and as his cogs and bear­ings and hy­draulic hoses and God knows what else had grown in­side him over the last few months made a noise like the whole of Lon­don was being bull­dozed, his fear reached break­ing point and his cries of pain merged into the tears brought on by the panic of a cor­nered, ut­ter­ly de­feat­ed man. The pur­ple-faced fa­ther fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed to hurl Speedy down on the ground. The crum­pled Speedy made a rack­et like a junk­yard crush­er. The po­lice­men fi­nal­ly broke through the cor­don of rage. A guards­man’s bark and the clat­ter of hors­es’ hooves on tar­mac made the peo­ple crowd­ing round scur­ry back to their van­tage points for the pa­rade. They van­ished in a sec­ond. The two young con­sta­bles right­ed their hel­mets in the in­creased elbow room and were con­front­ed by the sight of a con­fused con­queror gaz­ing down in dis­gust as a day’s worth of rub­bish and filth oozed out from the bot­tom of Speedy’s trouser legs.

“I want to go back to Wens­ford­by,” said Speedy.