The Samurai of Gosford Green

By Justin Hamlin

The life of a Samurai – serving your master, bringing honour to your estate and expelling the barbarians – has never been easy. Especially not when Social Services have placed you in Gosford Green, one of Britain’s bleakest council housing facilities.

But why should this warrior be daunted? After all, the Green is an estate in dire need of regaining its honour. Apprentices must be trained, battles must be fought and if the barbarians refuse to accept expulsion, they’ll have to be dealt with in other, more permanent ways...

The traditions of Yukio Mishima and British ‘kitchen sink’ drama meet explosively and unforgettably in Justin Hamlin’s debut novel
'The Samurai of Gosford Green'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Hamlin
• Release date: Jul 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943847297

Justin Hamlin

Justin Hamlin was born in 1971. He has lived in the Tunbridge Wells area since the age of seven months and has been writing since his early teens. His work is published as 'urban fantasy' but also incorporates elements of crime thriller and horror.Writing not being a reliable source of income, he works in private security. He has also been employed variously as an HMRC clerk, barman, model, supermarket cashier, rat breeder, warehouseman, bouncer, despatch rider and pantomime horse. In his spare time he enjoys photography and hill-walking, although writing is his true passion.He is unmarried and is overjoyed to have no children.

Book preview

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THE SAMURAI OF GOSFORD GREEN

by

JUSTIN HAMLIN

Text and Cover copyright © Justin Hamlin 2005-2013

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-943847-29-7

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment of the buyer only. It may not be re-sold, given away or lent to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CONTENTS

ONE TWO THREE

FOUR FIVE SIX

SEVEN EIGHT NINE

TEN ELEVEN TWELVE

THIRTEEN FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN SIXTEEN

THE LAST BIT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ALSO BY JUSTIN HAMLIN

True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs and finally destroys.

Yukio Mishima

"Beauty's where you find it

Not just where you hump and grind it..."

Madonna

ONE

The Samurai came to the top of a hill, and looked down upon Gosford Green.

He had paused to stand under an arch linking two small, narrow stone houses that marked the boundary of the estate. Before him the road's slope descended, walled on either side by grey terraces and slim margins of gardens. At the bottom could be seen the dilapidated slate roofs of the decaying street-maze locally known as Gosford Mansions; and beyond even that the Towers, four monoliths each eighteen stories high, three of them grey, one burned black. The Samurai lingered a few moments, as if searching for movement in those distant windows and on the balconies, before striding forwards again, a carrier bag containing something heavy and round swinging at his side.

There was no traffic about and at first glance the whole place would have seemed deserted. Yet it was not so. As the Samurai descended, a gentle bump... bump... bump... sound revealed itself as a small boy idly kicking a basketball against a wall. The boy stopped when he saw who it was, one foot holding the ball steady as he watched the Samurai go by on the other side of the road. The Samurai did not return the boy’s wide-eyed stare. The Samurai faced straight ahead as he walked as if he had not even noticed the boy. A door burst open and a girl of about fourteen stomped out onto the path, saying to someone still inside the house; "I don’t see why she should have to, when I never even get to..." She also broke off and stared as she saw the Samurai pass. Her mother, wider than she, appeared framed in the doorway for a moment. The Samurai already had his back to them but when the woman reached out and grabbed her daughter by the arm the girl turned and retreated back into the house without a word of protest, flashing a quick fearful glance over her shoulder as she did so. Where a scabby alley way led to a yard surrounded on three sides by garage doors four teenage boys standing in a circle, boys a few years younger than the Samurai, ceased their muttered conversation and looked up. Their blank expressions could have spelt either hostility or mere curiosity, but the Samurai would not have known, for he did not move his eyes or turn his head.

Where the hill levelled off, a small car-park formed a gap in the terraces. Here the Samurai turned in and crossed over, making a straight diagonal across the empty asphalt. At the back was a single stand-alone building, its front a brick oblong with a sign saying GENERAL STORE and a very large piece of chipboard tacked over where the display window ought to be. The Samurai pushed open the door, stepped through – something up above went ding! – and closed it behind himself, although it was on an air-hinge and would have shut by itself anyway.

Inside, the only light came from a single dim fluorescent. The wares were arranged on shelves around the walls and on two islands to create three aisles. The Samurai saw cans and chocolates and sweets and a row of newspapers and up at the opposite front corner someone arguing loudly with the till operator. "No, you didn’t tell me that, it was Phil who told me that. The man had his back to the Samurai, so the Samurai reckoned a glance would be acceptable. Bald-headed, stocky but still big enough to obscure the till operator with his bulk. You’ve got a problem with me, you deal with it. Anyway, the man’s voice continued, and this time its bark had an added whine underneath, it was fuckin’ ages ago that that happened. Under new management now, right? Right?"

The Samurai, meanwhile, had disappeared behind one of the islands to look for some seasoning. The elders of his clan would have disapproved of something as frivolous as seasoning – they practised austerity and therefore the others followed their advocacy – but this particular Samurai had gone beyond feeling any guilt at breaking one of the elders’ rules. He’d broken the cardinal one already. Any further aberrations, such as the cropping of his hair, the wearing of Western clothes such as the jeans and T-shirt he had on right now, or seasoning for his food, were nothing in comparison. Like a man floating in the ocean beyond any hope of rescue, anything that he might choose to do now would ultimately make no difference whatsoever.

Just then the bell dinged again and the door burst open hitting the back wall and in piled the four teenage boys, one after the other. The same four that the Samurai had seen lurking in the alley a few seconds before. As was his habit, the Samurai stood completely still and did not look up but maintained awareness none the less, using his peripheral vision. The boys affected a kind of slumped walk, as if the world was unworthy even of the effort expended in standing upright. Their zanshin – their sense of danger – was less developed than the Samurai’s own, so two of them had already slouched out of sight around the corner before the third in line spotted him and put his hands up to shoulder level and made a little wide-eyed sarcastic scream, AAAH! The others heard and suddenly there were four faces staring at him from six feet away.

One said, "I told you."

One said, It fuckin’ isn’t.

"It fuckin’ is. His eyes."

The Samurai selected some paprika off the shelf and moved down the aisle towards the counter.

Don’t look like much, said the boy who’d doubted his mate.

"I’m tellin’ you. That’s one of ‘em."

Can’t be. He’s not all there.

The bald customer at the counter had broken off his complaint upon hearing all this and was frowning over his shoulder as the Samurai approached. To the Samurai, he presented a strange apparition; he was probably middle-aged, of average adult height with a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks and the sides of his head, but his face was that of an infant and beneath his T-shirt, his chest and stomach jiggled with what appeared to be puppy fat. The man stared at the Samurai for a moment, his upper lip rising in a kind of amused sneer, before turning back to the shopkeeper. "Oh, what’s this, your protection? the man laughed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. A spreading tattoo on his meaty forearm read KING OF GOSFORD GREEN. You taking help from the Samurai now?"

The shopkeeper, a thin brown man with greasy curls and a moustache, took his eyes off the customer for a moment to give a nervous glance to the Samurai and the bald man took this opportunity to put up his hand and whack the shopkeeper on the side of his head, SMAP. "Oi. OI. Look at me when I’m talking to you. What’s more interesting than this conversation we’re having, eh? Eh? The bald man turned again and suddenly he and the Samurai were looking into one another’s eyes. The Samurai stood six feet, very tall indeed by Samurai standards, tall enough for the bald man to have to tilt his head back a little – but the bald man was still the much wider of the two. Oh, look who it is, the bald man said. From the four boys watching from the back of the shop the Samurai detected something – not an intake of breath as such, but a kind of thrill none the less. Whatchoo lookin’ at?" the bald man asked.

The Samurai thought that the answer to that question was obvious, but he answered anyway. You.

The bald man did not visibly smile, but his face puffed a little, making his eyes amused and tiny. "An’ what’s so interesting about me, eh? The Samurai did not reply immediately, so the man continued You fancy me, or something?"

Or something, the Samurai repeated.

"Or something, or something so you do fancy me then, ya fuckin’ poof! So whatchoo sayin’, then? Whatchoo sayin’? That there’s something wrong with me, is there? The man took a step forward and the Samurai took a step back to give the man his space – but not quick enough to avoid catching a whiff of the man’s breath, which had a medicinal tang to it. Whatchoo sayin’, then? The man jabbed a finger at the Samurai’s face. What’s this?"

It’s my face.

"No, this, the man continued, and held up a hand and opened and closed its jaws to make it look like a talking mouth. Whatchoo giving me the mouth for, eh? I mean these people who talk and talk behind your back and don’t do anything, can’t back it up, I mean..." He tailed off and looked away as if in disgust. The Samurai wasn’t quite following.

How may I be of assistance to you? the Samurai asked.

'How may I be'... the man repeated, then stopped and rolled his eyes. "No, sod that. 'How may I be'… Like fuckin’ joking, daaaah. He shoved the Samurai in the chest. Pushed off-balance, the Samurai tottered a couple of steps back. Come on then."

Come on? the Samurai repeated, confused.

The enormous, hairy baby rolled his piggy eyes in his head. All right then, he said, sounding exasperated. "You and me – outside, now."

Now the Samurai understood. He was being challenged and the combat would take place outside in order to remove it from the business of the shop. All right, he said, and turned towards the door. This put his back to the man, so he never saw the King of Gosford Green bringing the meaty part of his fist down hard upon the base of his skull, BANG! The collision to the back of his head threw a blinding flash behind his eyes and drove his face down towards his chest, and his legs collapsed and toppled him forwards. Just in time, he managed to get his arms up to fend off the floor but his nose and chin still jabbed the tiles painfully. The cauliflower that had been in his carrier bag went rolling across the floor down the aisle, stopping just at the trainers of one of the four boys, whose faces stared down at him, rapt. What had gone wrong? This was not what he would have expected – and indeed, why should he have expected it? Was it not the King of Gosford Green who had challenged him? Half-propped up on his elbows, the Samurai blinked. Shock-water, not tears, stung his eyes. There was a whistling in his ears, and his neck hurt – it was a ripped-fibre pain to move his head even a millimetre. So for a few moments he held still and merely endured, for endurance was what Samurai did.

"Now we’ve got that straight, the man was saying to the shopkeeper, for he had already turned back, obviously believing the Samurai to have been finished, are you going to –"

The Samurai got up on his knees and scrambled a few steps across the floor in order to avoid the possibility of any kicks coming his way before standing up again. His head ached and he felt dizzy, but he forced himself up to his full height anyway. He did not intend to salvage his pride, for he had never had any pride to save. Nor did he care in the slightest about whatever the four teenage boys’ opinion of him might be. His only concern was for his enemy, who had acted unacceptably. Was, indeed, unacceptable full stop. He took a deep breath, let it out again – one had to be calm when preparing oneself for combat – took a step forward, reached up and tapped the bald man on the shoulder. Excuse me.

When the man span around this time his face was bright red. For –

That was the last word he would manage that day. The Samurai caught his wrist just as his fist came up and half-bent his arm and with his other hand rotated his opponent’s elbow upward right to the point that the joint was pointing at the ceiling and the hand down at the floor, whereupon the whole room heard the dull, squelchy KLUK of the tibia being levered from its socket. This time it was the King of Gosford Green who sucked in a breath, his face going from red to pale grey almost instantly and his eyes widening in shocked surprise. His weight sagged as he dropped to his knees. Still holding the man’s arm, the Samurai carefully laid him face up in the aisle so as not to disturb his host’s wares.

A king would not behave as you do, the Samurai said. The pot of paprika was lying against the bottom shelf where he had dropped it. He picked it up, stood up again and placed it on the counter. I am sorry about the disturbance.

Uh, no problem, the shopkeeper went, and looked at the man on the floor, who was gently rocking side to side on his back and going Ohhhhhhhh.

"What did he want?" The Samurai indicated the man on the floor with a small movement of his head, which hurt his neck again.

What? the shopkeeper went.

What did he want to buy?

Benson and Hedges...

Was that what your quarrel was about?

... No, no, it’s because he was banned from being served here.

The Samurai looked down again at the man on the floor, who had made no attempt to get up and appeared to be merely staring at the ceiling and moaning.

How much are Benson and Hedges?

Four eighty nine? The shopkeeper didn’t understand.

Then I’d also like to buy him a Benson and Hedges. Unless you object, of course.

The shopkeeper shrugged and accepted the money. The Samurai was poor and the ‘King of Gosford Green’ had been unworthy of any respect, but it was against the Samurai’s principles to leave a fallen enemy with nothing at all. He dropped the paprika pot in the carrier bag the shopkeeper had handed over and as he stepped over the ‘King’s’ body, bent down to lay the cigarette packet upon his panting chest. The man barely acknowledged this, indeed averted his eyes.

As the Samurai walked towards the exit the four boys parted for him, two of them on either side. Ordinarily the Samurai would have ignored them, but this time was different; one was holding out his arm, the cauliflower the Samurai had dropped in his hand. As the Samurai accepted the offering he saw that the boy’s lip was quivering slightly with fear but that his gaze did not falter. Without lowering his eyes, the boy dipped a brief nod. The Samurai recognised this gesture for what it was – the vestige of a bow – and looked at the boy and nodded in return.

Deep in the valley lay the oldest of Gosford Green’s neighbourhoods, Gosford Mansions, endless twists and turns of crumbling brickwork, peeling paint and the debris of forgotten neighbourhoods everywhere; abandoned stacks of rancid-smelling black rubbish-bags, heaps of rubble blocking the pavement, snapped-off planking and broken glass scattered in the road. Ground floor windows looked out directly onto the pavement, although most of these were either boarded up like that of the General Store or reinforced with sturdy fine-meshed grilles. A few cars here and there, either battered and smashed out of recognisable shape or black burned-out hulks sunken low on wheels whose tyres had simply boiled away into vapour. No people, though. No movement, no evidence of human life at all beyond the spray-painted tags on walls – and even those were scarcer than one might have expected, scarcer than they were around the rest of Gosford Green anyway. The Samurai knew the word ‘tag’ and what the purpose of tags was, and understood why few would want to tag this place as their own.

He had come to this place – Gosford Green, and Gosford Mansions – via the machinations of Social Services. When he’d been eighteen, he’d been taken out of the Home and put in what they’d called a ‘re-education programme’ where he’d been taught the facts of life; how to pay rent, how to collect money, how to go into a shop and buy things. All of the other young people in the programme had had great trouble grasping even the simplest of these. They’d been like oversized children, running around and laughing and crying. The Samurai knew this type; there had been a few born on the mountain where he’d spent the first fourteen years of his life. When a child on the mountain had failed to develop, as these had, they'd been taken to the lake and held under, as had also happened to the babies who’d been born out of the human template, with twisted backs or malformed limbs. The colony had had no use for those who could not be useful even to themselves. Unlike the overseers of the re-education programme, who’d thrown themselves into this hopeless cause with all their might. Tied up thus with their boisterous charges, they’d barely even noticed that the Samurai had been there at all. Now, at twenty, he had grown to what those who ran the system considered manhood, and this house in Gosford Mansions was his reward.

He had very few possessions and nothing at all to which he felt an attachment, but the house (although largely empty of anything but dust) still had a few meagre cooking utensils and a stove left behind by the previous occupant. The Samurai used these to cook himself a meal of half of the cauliflower and a pork chop he’d had salted away. By the time he had finished eating it was dark. He went up to the bedroom, stripped to his underpants and climbed inside his sleeping bag, for there was no bed. He didn’t like living this way, but then neither did he dislike it, for at this stage in his life all he could do was accept. He had even accepted the challenge of the ‘King of Gosford Green’ – for had he not done what the man had asked, practically demanded of him?

Under the cool light of the moon that shone in through the window’s naked glass, the Samurai slept and dreamed.

It’s the distant krack of a gunshot that wakes him. He’s a boy on the mountain again, a boy named Yoshi – not yet more than an apprentice Samurai. Instinctively he jerks up into a sitting position on his sleeping mat. There’s another burst of gunfire and this time the shots come all at once in a hard fast rattle. He’s never heard an automatic weapon before, but he knows immediately that he’s hearing one now and also that the person firing it is an enemy. True, Yamagata had magnanimously allowed the elders to keep a few guns in reserve – but those were simple bolt-action pieces which went BOOM, not ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-krack. He looks out at the narrow view the doorless doorway affords him down the mountainside, but he can’t see anything yet. He never can see anything just yet. Just the slope downhill and the clean fresh mountain air, although this time the air feels... the air feels heavy?

Soichiro, leader of the apprentices, is up and giving the last speech he would ever give. The day we’ve all been anticipating has finally come. The final decay is nigh. Though the rising sun shines brightly upon us, we will not be able to win. For our enemy assaults us with the coward’s weapons. But though we leave this earth our memory shall live forever. Those here who do not wish to fight today know what to do. As if to emphasise this, there is the BOOM of one of the elder’s weapons from close nearby, followed by another rattle of automatic fire and the agonised, cut-off sound of a man’s death-scream. Soichiro is bending down, standing up again and handing out the swords to the other apprentices – first Kato, the fanatic who was always first in line, then Taki, Akira and Hiromi. It’s Yoshi’s turn last. The others suddenly stop and stare at him, as they always do in the dream. That wasn’t what really happened, but while he is asleep the Samurai never knows any different.

– Yoshi. Why will you not take up arms? Soichiro asks.

– I will take up arms, Yoshi protests, but is unable to hold his hand out.

– You know our way! Taki suddenly shrieks. You’re betraying us! Grab the long and the short swords and die! That’s what our way is!

– Give me a sword, then! Yoshi shouts in reply, but he can’t step forwards and take one of those that Soichiro offers. For though he tries to move his limbs with all his might, he may as well be a concrete statue riveted to the floor. His body simply refuses to obey what his brain tells it.

– Traitor! Kato says, and then they’re all doing it, they’re all shouting at him. Taunts and insults and jeers all merging into one incomprehensible jabber, but underneath it all he can hear Akira, Akira who he would never see again, Akira who would be the first of the group to die on the mountainside, saying please, please do this Yoshi, for us, for the Group, for Yamagata, please don’t let us down, we needed you, we relied on you, you’re one of us, please, why don’t you MOVE...

And it’s stuffier still. Blowing in clouds and full of grey dust. No, full of little bits. The Samurai coughs. And coughs again. And heaves as he hauls for oxygen, trying desperately to salvage some from the air. And it’s suddenly very warm. Very, very warm indeed.

He did not rise as fast in reality as he had in his dream. His awareness that he was awake was not accompanied by any movement; instead, he merely held still for a few seconds, his body on its side and curled into the shape of a question mark, and took an experimental breath. When he was absolutely sure that yes, there really was something wrong with the air, he opened his uppermost eye. There was the full moon as before, except that now it appeared as if through a drifting grey veil – a veil between him and the window, acrid to his nostrils and stinging his open eye. Smoke. The place was on fire.

The Samurai moved quite noiselessly, for the fire could have been set deliberately and if that was the case then he would much rather not have his enemies know he was awake. Momentarily he was standing on the floor in his bare feet. The thin carpet was hot to his soles, but not uncomfortably so. He pulled on his clothes in a matter of seconds. Sat down to tie his shoes feeling the warmth from below through the seat of his trousers. Jumped to his feet again, stepped to the bedroom door and turning the doorknob flung it wide open to confront what lay beyond.

WHOOOOMPH!

There was no rush of fire, but the wave of heat made him take a step back and throw his arms up to protect his face. The hallway and the stairs were no longer dark but flooded with a pulsating, flickering orange light from below that somehow spelt an unimaginable power. The little particles he’d felt floating in the air in his dream had not been a product of his imagination – they were very real indeed, and he got a big lungful as he took his first breath and almost immediately exploded it back out – KKGHM! The air scorched his throat and tickled the inside of his chest with a million dancing motes. Fluffy shreds of stuff streamed past his head like a swarm of black flies. Coughing and hacking, he dropped to his knees and crawled across the hot floor towards the window. He wouldn’t be able to save anything from downstairs. Not that he’d ever had anything down there, of course. Only the stove and that hadn’t even been his.

Without getting to his feet, he reached out a hand to grab hold of the wallet that contained his money and proof of identity – all that he needed to get along in this world – and shoved it in his pocket. He picked up his sleeping bag by its far corner and with his right arm spooled it round and round his left so that the limb was massively padded like a short bolster. There wasn’t anything else. He didn’t have a weapon. Not even one of those notched and jagged practice blades that had done Soichiro, Taki, Kato, Akira and Hiromi absolutely no good at all.

I have no weapon, the Samurai rasped to himself as he knelt below the window in the thickening smoke and the probing, stabbing firelight, "I am the weapon," and he pushed off the floor with the full strength of his legs and thighs and pitched himself forward at the window-pane, his padded arm in front of his head, and crack-smashed through.

Cold outdoor air. His feet were sailing through it. Opened his eyes. There was the road, coming up at him. He blasted the last of the polluted air from his lungs to pre-empt the shock as he fell and hit the ground at an angle one foot before the other and rolled over sideways on the tarmac to lie on his padded arm, grimacing. A shower of bits of broken glass, shards and triangles and diamonds tinkled down around him and over his body as if a whole hailstorm had fallen in the space of just a single second. The house behind him sucked in a giant breath and the Samurai opened his eyes just in time to catch the broken window explode a great billowing cloud of fire up into the night above his head. He screwed his face up again as a fresh shower of debris pattered down.

Is he DEAD? a woman shouted some distance away. Someone’s footsteps were approaching. The Samurai opened his eyes and propped himself up on his padded elbow. A man was leaning over him, a fattish fellow of about sixty in tracksuit bottoms and a vest. His greasy grey hair was either tied or slicked back, his face in shadow.

Fuckin’ ell, you all right mate? the man asked, and somewhere in the background the same woman shouted Christ, be CAREFUL!

I’m fine, thank you, the Samurai answered. I think I’ve twisted an ankle, though. He started to get up and the man took him by the arm and together they half-hobbled, half-ran towards the end of the street where suddenly, it seemed, this neighbourhood had finally developed a population. There was the woman who’d shouted and her two kids, a toddler-girl clinging to her leg and a boy of about five or so jumping and skipping around with excitement, and a teenage girl holding a baby, and an old woman and two teenage boys, all of whom must have been standing there watching the blaze from a safe distance. The Samurai looked over his shoulder and saw that the entire row was now aflame. The fire lit up the street and the Samurai and the people watching in shades of dancing bright orange and the purest of pure blacks.

It’s that geezer, said one of the teenage boys as the old man and the Samurai joined the crowd. Here the Samurai indicated that it was all right for the old man to let go and stood unaided, most of his weight on his right foot.

"What geezer?" the woman demanded of the boy.

Samurai, said the boy. It was the same lad who'd handed the Samurai back his cauliflower in the General Store. He regarded the Samurai nervously. ...Wotcher.

Wotcher, the Samurai replied.

"Well, a fat lot