{"id":5877,"date":"2019-06-17T21:43:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5877"},"modified":"2019-06-17T21:56:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:56:08","slug":"the-thuggery-affair-part-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/the-thuggery-affair-part-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019, Part Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Thirteen: The Flyaway<\/strong><\/p>\n

Patrick and Jukie race off in the stolen car, heading for Ireland where the Boss Man has a hideout. Patrick feels a \u201cmounting exhilaration at the sheer speed\u201d and is amused by Jukie\u2019s attempts to blackmail Patrick into helping him. Jukie wants Patrick to tell the police that Kinky\u2019s death was an accident. Supposedly Patrick will go along with this to stop his father\u2019s reputation being damaged by his son\u2019s involvement in drugs and knifings.<\/p>\n

Poor Jukie. He hasn\u2019t realised Mr Merrick is a \u201cstrictly amateur\u201d politician who has no interest in being Prime Minister:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean he doesn\u2019t need it. He\u2019s got it all already.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Patrick is gracious enough to admit that\u2019s true and Jukie says Patrick reminds him of Jukie\u2019s grandparents, who \u201cdig the integrity rave\u201d. Jukie then reveals his sad story \u2013 the illegitimate child of a teenage mother, his father abandoning them, then his mother getting killed when he was a baby, brought up by his grandparents who physically abused him and didn\u2019t give him much money. Patrick claims to understand about the lack of money:<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause there are plenty of people at school with a sight more pocket money than my pa would dream of handing me. It can be very crushing sometimes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jukie, understandably, is furious:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got cars \u2019n hosses \u2019n butlers \u2019n a rafty great house \u2019n loot stacked in the vaults [\u2026] \u2019n I\u2019m starting fr\u2019m scratch.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Patrick is \u201cconvinced he really did know how it could be\u201d. Honestly, are we meant to feel sorry<\/em> for Patrick only having \u201ca middle-aged Rolls\u201d for transport?<\/p>\n

They pull up at a garage for petrol, where Patrick goes to the toilet, after promising not to escape. (Why does Jukie care whether he escapes or not? He could just drive off.) Patrick doesn\u2019t alert the garage attendant or phone the police, but he does write a message on the dusty glass window. Make up your mind, Patrick! Are you helping Jukie or not?! Meanwhile Jukie has used his \u201cbest Culver\u201d voice to convince the attendant they\u2019re just a couple of posh boys who\u2019ve borrowed their uncle\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

So the boys drive off and we hear more of the Jukie Clark autobiography. He stole his grandparents\u2019 money to buy clothes, his grandfather beat him up and burnt the clothes, so Jukie embarked on a life of petty crime. He was caught by the police due to his grandfather\u2019s tipoff, then his grandfather refused to take him back and Jukie was sent off to an Approved School. It was a \u201chighly civilized cage\u201d and Jukie was a model pupil for a month, except the Top Brass required not just shallow obedience to rules but true repentance. And Jukie did not want to humble himself before God and repent, so he escaped and thereby damned himself. The sermon is not quite<\/em> that explicit, but it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

While this is going on, Patrick is reaching into Jukie\u2019s pocket for cigarettes and lighting them and sticking them between Jukie\u2019s lips and staring into Jukie\u2019s eyes. I take back what I said earlier about there being no Patrick\/Jukie sexual tension.<\/p>\n

Anyway, by an AMAZING COINCIDENCE, after Jukie fled the school, he ended up outside the Culver place just as Maudie had put an ad in the paper for a pigeon helper, and as he was so eager and cheap, Maudie organised for more troubled boys to work for her (\u201ctop-class social do-good \u2019n likewise practically free labour\u201d). Then Espresso\u2019s Da arranged for Jukie to meet the Boss Man and the drug smuggling started.<\/p>\n

At this point, Marlene Dietrich comes on the radio singing Where Have All The Flowers Gone?<\/em><\/a> and Jukie is panic-stricken when he realises Kinky is actually dead<\/em>. There\u2019s a lot of \u201cmutual, exasperated incomprehension\u201d between the two boys as Patrick gives a confusing explanation of the Catholic rituals of death and whether the absence of a priest and holy oil means Kinky is destined for eternal hellfire. Patrick is feeling a bit guilty about being responsible for the knife being at the scene, which made me sympathise with Jukie\u2019s exasperation, because honestly, how could Kinky\u2019s death possibly be Patrick\u2019s moral responsibility? There\u2019s also a bit of theological discussion about how to live their lives if they\u2019re all going to get blown up by the H bomb any moment now.<\/p>\n

Chapter Fourteen: The Homing Instinct<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jukie is having second thoughts about going to Ireland, because maybe the Boss Man will either lose him in a bog or hand him over to the police. There\u2019s no way Jukie wants to spend twelve years in prison, but he can\u2019t go to his grandparents. Patrick comes up with the idea of Jukie leaving on the drug-smuggling boat. It means they have to send a signal by six o\u2019clock, then Jukie will hide out in the Merrick\u2019s priest room. Patrick will have to pretend Jukie dropped him off and then drove on to Liverpool, but although Patrick is willing to help a murderer evade the law, he refuses to tell an outright lie to the police. Jukie is justifiably baffled. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut for why<\/em>? Like man, it\u2019s not logical<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jukie has some baffling notions of his own. Although he\u2019s an atheist, he thinks the afterlife could consist of whatever an individual believed in life. He pulls up at a phone booth and tells Patrick to ring a priest and find out exactly how to save Kinky\u2019s Catholic soul. Patrick usually laughs at \u201cdo-it-yourself theology\u201d like this (Patrick, stop being so smug, ALL theology is made up by humans), but he agrees to try. But then Jukie, remembering Patrick left a message at the garage and is not entirely<\/em> on Jukie\u2019s side, stops him.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I never trust no one. Mind Herbert, I don\u2019t expect no one to be so simple as to trust me neither.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think they both need some sleep. Which they are forced to have, because Jukie is getting a migraine and can\u2019t drive. Then they oversleep, argue about whether it\u2019s Patrick\u2019s fault, speed off into the sunrise and reach a roadblock at Culverstone Bridge, with Tom Catchpole blocking their way. Jukie puts his foot down, Patrick tries to reason with him, realises Jukie won\u2019t stop and grabs the wheel. There is a very dramatic car crash. Jukie dies in flames. Patrick is thrown clear of the car and is unharmed. Oh, what a surprise.<\/p>\n

Poor Mr Merrick. As if it wasn\u2019t bad enough for him when Patrick fell off that cliff and nearly died. Patrick blatantly takes advantage of the situation to tell his father that Regina is back, then he gives the Inspector a mostly true account of events. He has no moral problem with lying that Jukie was going to turn himself in and swerved the car to avoid Tom. This is supposedly for the sake of Jukie’s grandparents. Then Patrick and Peter catch up with events. Espresso has spilled the beans (the coffee beans, get it?) and it turns out the Boss Man was actually Espresso\u2019s Da and that Maudie was in on the whole thing, but Jukie didn\u2019t know about any of this. Poor Jukie, betrayed even by his Thugs. Also, the remaining Thugs got into a vicious fight before they\u2019d even left Culverstone, although I\u2019m not sure if they\u2019re dead or just badly wounded. Also, Mrs Marlow called the priest when she saw Kinky\u2019s rosary beads so Kinky\u2019s soul is saved. Mrs Marlow was \u201crather moved\u201d by the ritual. She\u2019s not going to convert to Catholicism, is she?<\/p>\n

Oh, and Patrick remembers the drugs he\u2019d hidden from the Thugs and shows Peter:<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the police weren\u2019t likely to want it now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WHAT?! It’s evidence! So, the boys keep the drugs? After all the trouble they went to bring down the evil drug dealers? What are they going to do with it, throw a coke-fuelled party? <\/p>\n

I suppose if they sell it to their school mates, they can buy Ann a new bike.<\/p>\n

THE END.<\/p>\n

Well, that was a lot better than I expected. I mean, the plot was absolutely ludicrous, but the story rocketed along and there were some genuinely interesting bits, especially the relationship between Patrick and Jukie at the end. I enjoyed Lawrie and Peter\u2019s chapters and if this had been the first Marlow book I\u2019d read, I’d probably conclude that Patrick was a fascinating and sympathetic character. I didn\u2019t even miss Nicola \u2013 I can see that it wouldn\u2019t have worked to have a brave, sensible character like her in this story. Mind you, I\u2019d have quite happily read a book about Nicola and Miranda wandering around London having deep and meaningful conversations\u2026<\/p>\n

I’d hoped the next book would be a school book, but it’s The Ready Made Family<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You might also be interested in reading:<\/p>\n

The Thuggery Affair, Part One<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Two<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Three<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Four<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Five<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Six<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Thirteen: The Flyaway Patrick and Jukie race off in the stolen car, heading for Ireland where the Boss Man has a hideout. Patrick feels a \u201cmounting exhilaration at the sheer speed\u201d and is amused by Jukie\u2019s attempts to blackmail Patrick into helping him. Jukie wants Patrick to tell the police that Kinky\u2019s death was … Continue reading \u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019, Part Seven<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,11],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1950s-and-1960s","category-books","category-young-adult","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5877"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5883,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions\/5883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}