lungs. It was a bright fairytale ending to a hopeless looking nightmare. The innocent crowd cheered back... if only they knew...
ing forward to speaking about all that, but mostly I look forward to talking about double backflips and the kind of story Benson told me.
As he climbed down off the podium the gangsters blocked his path like a wall of meat and well-hard brainless muscle. With a wry smile Chris handed the wad of prize money over to the chief gangster. He took the cash, stuffed it into his inside jacket pocket and flicked Mahoney a look that said, “you’ve got away with it this time, but only just. I don’t like you and really I wanted to beat you up, but you’ve pulled it off and we think you’re well all right now.” They shook hands and Chris did a double backflip to celebrate.
On the maps thing on the phone England all looks the same, there are roads and rivers and towns and villages, but they all look the same. If you believe the phone then you’d think the country is the same top to bottom, but the reality of making the journey looking out the car window, compared to looking at the screen on the phone, is a very different one.
It was a great story – the stuff of Hollywood movies – of that there is no doubt. But, unable to recall where he’d heard it, Benson couldn’t vouch for its authenticity. I wanted it to be true. I needed it to be true. I just had to find out... if true, it was a story that needed to be told. If false... it needed telling anyway. So I went to stay with Chris Mahoney. Chris lives with his girlfriend and their four young boys in a cosy semi-detached house in Wigan. I get his address in the maps thing on my phone and I follow the pulsing blue blip along the big blue roads from where I live on the south coast, to where Mahoney lives in the top middle towards the left. I’m excited to hang out with him again, I’ve heard stories of him working as a stunt man and opening a tattoo studio, I’m look-
I live on the edge of a forest by the sea, there’s space and it’s clean and the grass is clipped short – I’m a southern fairy. As I drive towards Wigan the grass grows longer, litter appears long the roadside, accents turn gritty and a general atmosphere of cynicism engulfs my car. Chris’s street is narrow, lined with houses and cars. I follow the house numbers up, I find number 10, 11 must be opposite. Number 10 has a poorly looking three-wheeled Corsa in the garden. I pull up outside the Mahoney residence and there’s a bunch of riders and kids in his front garden. I say hello and shake some hands. Some go to do fancy handshakes, but ‘traditional English’ is what I give them back. A striking woman with tattoos, large breasts and bright pink hair walks out of the house and starts rounding up the kids. I’m introduced to her, it’s Michelle, Chris’s girlfriend and mother of his young son, Coban. I try not to stare at her tits. They’re
Chris Mahoney
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