Born Under Punches by Martyn Waites

cruel and cocky.
    He fastened himself up, got to his feet. He reached inside his jacket, brought out a plastic wrap, handed it to her. Tanya took it, wanting it there and then.
    â€˜This might be the last time I’m around here for a while,’ he said.
    â€˜Why?’ asked Tanya, a sudden, stabbing sound.
    Karl shrugged. ‘Getting too dangerous to come in here.’
    Tanya spoke as if her lover was leaving her. ‘But you can’t stop coming here. What’ll I do?’
    The baby stirred, moaned in her sleep. Karl ignored it. ‘Find someone else.’
    She rushed over to him, grabbed his jacket. ‘Please, Karl, you can’t stop comin’. Get someone else to do it if you don’t want to come here any more.’
    â€˜Who?’ he asked.
    Suddenly there came the sound of arguing from the front room. Davva and Skegs were apparently fighting over who was going to have the last of the baked beans.
    â€˜What about them?’ asked Tanya.
    Karl smiled.
    â€˜Come on, Karl, they’ll do it. They’re good lads.’
    Karl looked thoughtful, then walked back to the living room.
    Davva and Skegs stopped their tug of war when he entered.
    â€˜Hey, lads,’ Karl said, reaching into his jacket, ‘got a present in here for you. And if you like it, got a job for you too. What d’you say?’
    Tanya stood behind him, eagerness, relief and amusement all over her face.
    Suzy waited. The car was freezing, and he said he’d only be a minute. Over twenty of them had passed and she was still here, really pissed off. Suddenly she saw him emerge from the tower block and make his way over to the car. He got in, shut the door.
    â€˜You took your time,’ she said huffily.
    â€˜Business, pet. Took longer than I expected.’ He put the key in the ignition. ‘One more stop, then we can go and have some fun.’
    â€˜What kind of fun?’ Suzy asked, tongue teasing out between her smiling lips.
    He flashed his special smile, the one she could never stay mad with for too long. ‘Anything you like,’ he said.
    He started the car up and they drove off, garage blaring as they went.
    It was nearly one o’clock when Louise heard the noise. Like a hand grenade tossed up the quiet close, the car drummed ’n’ bassed its way up the street and stopped to disgorge its passenger in front of Louise’s house.
    She was awake. She had tried to sleep, but couldn’t.
    The front door opened and closed quietly, the footsteps light on the stairs. Suzanne wasn’t doing that out of consideration for the rest of the household, Louise knew from bitter experience; she was trying to avoid a fight.
    Louise heard the car pull away, the soft click of Suzanne’s bedroom door, then silence. She lay in the dark, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. Beside her, Keith was snoring lightly, his back to her.
    Something would have to be done, she thought. Things can’t go on like this.
    Louise sighed, kept staring at the ceiling. It was going to be another long night.

5. Then
    because, make no mistake, this is not just a labour dispute. What we are witnessing in the mining towns and villages around the country is the premeditated, systematic destruction of working-class communities and the deliberate silencing of the right to any legitimate voice of dissent or protest. This is being done by a cruel and oppressive government who only seek to plunder the country and line the pockets of themselves and their cronies, led by a dictatorial dominatrix who will use all the powers of government to destroy opposition, from changing or ignoring laws to removing rights and civil liberties as it suits her.
    The typewriter clacked, the argument grew: thoughts to fingers to keys to ribbon to letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. Larkin wrote speedily: fingers punching, mouth forming and following words, forehead creased, eyes slitted behind National Health