Bleeding London

by Geoff Nicholson

  ‘How did you know the gun was in the hotel room?’

  ‘If you’d had it with you, you’d have used it when you were attacked, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose I would. Thank you,’ he said. ‘I owe you a favour.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘How many do you want?’

  ‘One will do if it’s the right one,’ she said. ‘His name’s still Stuart London.’

  Mick laughed in disbelief.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he said weakly. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to do that stuff again.’

  He was ready for all sorts of reactions from her. The one he’d have liked best involved her saying that she completely understood his distaste for, his satiation with, violence and revenge. He was not surprised when it didn’t come. Instead she simply stopped the car, slapped his face as hard as she possibly could and said, ‘Get out. Get out of my car. Now.’

  He surveyed the empty, anonymous streets around them. He hadn’t the slightest idea where he was, but he wasn’t going to argue. He left the car as requested and stood motionless, watching as she drove away. He looked down at his suit and T-shirt, imagined the state of his face, and suddenly couldn’t help finding it all very funny. He sniggered to himself and then he starred walking again, tarnished and afraid, and with absolutely no idea where he was going.

  THE LAST FLASHBACK

  He looks bad, as though he has been in the wars, in a serious fight that he did not win. His face is roughed up, the integrity of the skin broken through, made ragged and livid; a cut lip, an eye bruised black, raw grazes on all the face’s hard, sharp, vulnerable edges. He’s wearing a petrol-blue suit that once must have looked immaculately sharp. Now it’s flayed out of shape, torn at the knees, streaked and clotted with ominous, sick substances. And under the suit there’s a white T-shirt, stained with dark islands and archipelagos of what can only be blood.

  Then he sees the muggers and the man in the cashmere overcoat. He watches. He approaches. There’s some discussion, he finds the gun in his hand, the muggers are running, except for the one he’s managed to catch, and then the victim is telling him to stop, and he’s stopped, and there’s a map in his hand, an A–Z with all the streets obliterated and he’s saying, ‘You’re going to tell me there’s a really simple explanation for this, aren’t you?’

  MOUTH

  Stuart could, of course, explain everything and he was eager to do so. Mick was the perfect person to tell. The perfect witness, the perfect stranger. But this didn’t seem like the place to do any storytelling. He feared the muggers might be back and that they might have friends who were a lot rougher and more dangerous than they were.

  ‘My car’s round the corner,’ he said. ‘I could give you a lift somewhere.’

  ‘That would be good,’ Mick agreed.

  They headed for the car and on the way there Mick did his best to describe where he wanted to go. The Dickens seemed to be his only option but, in the absence of a usable map, he didn’t know how to get there.

  ‘Well, I can get you to Hackney,’ Stuart said. ‘Once we’re there, maybe you’ll see something you recognize.’

  Mick thought that was very unlikely but it was as good a plan as any.

  ‘So what happened to you?’ Stuart asked.

  ‘I was in a fight.’

  ‘Did you win?’

  Mick looked down at himself again, at the mess and blood that was on his clothes.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I suppose I did.’

  They got into the car and Stuart started to drive faster than was either necessary or wise. He kept looking in his rearview mirror to see if they were being followed but Mick thought they were in more danger of being stopped by the police for reckless driving.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Stuart said as he accelerated through a red light. ‘I don’t know what might have happened to me if you hadn’t appeared.’

  ‘You’d have had your wallet taken,’ Mick said curtly.

  ‘Or worse.’

  ‘I doubt it. They weren’t going to kill you, were they?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Don’t sound so disappointed.’

  Stuart’s face tightened with an assortment of unmatching emotions. There was trepidation, elation, relief, a hint of hysteria.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ Mick asked.

  Stuart had to consider this before acknowledging that he had indeed been drinking. ‘Just a little,’ he said. ‘I’ve been celebrating.’

  ‘Yeah? What have you got to celebrate?’

  Stuart tapped the blacked-out A–Z which he had placed carefully on the tray between the driver and passenger seat.

  ‘I’ve done it,’ he said. ‘I’ve covered London. I’ve walked down every single street in London.’

  Mick took the A–Z and turned the pages, looking again at the firm, broad, black lines that had obliterated every street.

  ‘And you crossed ’em out as you went?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Stuart was clearly expecting Mick to be impressed.

  ‘Yeah, well I suppose it’s good to have a hobby,’ Mick said mordantly.

  ‘It was rather more than that,’ Stuart snapped.

  Mick thumbed through more of the obsessively marked pages and it appeared to be true. This did not look like the record of some easygoing pastime or distraction.

  ‘So why’d you do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I was looking for something, or rather someone.’

  ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘Yes. You.’

  Mick laughed scornfully. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Whoever you were looking for, it wasn’t me.’

  Stuart shrugged, perhaps a little sadly. For him it wasn’t a matter of argument or debate, but of instinctive knowledge.

  ‘Is this some sort of sexual pick-up?’ Mick asked. ‘I do hope not. I’ve already done that number.’

  ‘No, not sex,’ Stuart said.

  ‘Thank God.’

  Stuart’s driving was now very relaxed and very bad. Mick wasn’t particularly afraid they were going to crash into another car, but he did think they might hit something solid and stationary, like a phone box or a street lamp or a parked police car.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘was that a real gun you were waving around back there?’

  ‘Was I waving it? I was trying to keep my hand very steady.’

  ‘But was it real?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a real gun before.’

  ‘You haven’t missed anything.’

  ‘Why do you carry a gun?’

  ‘It’s an old habit,’ Mick said dismissively. ‘But I think I’ve kicked it.’

  ‘You were in a fight. You said you won. Did you shoot somebody?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘You’re right. I probably don’t. Can I look at the gun?’

  Mick laughed. He couldn’t believe this guy. Still, if he would go around rescuing mugging victims and accepting lifts from them, what could he expect?

  ‘Not while you’re driving,’ Mick said.

  Immediately Stuart turned the car into a side street and stopped. Mick thought it was kind of pathetic, but he saw no reason not to let him have a look at the gun. He took it out of his pocket and placed it on top of the dashboard.

  ‘Can I touch it?’ Stuart asked with childlike politeness.

  ‘If you have to. But don’t wave it around. And don’t touch the safety catch.’

  ‘Which is that?’

  Mick pointed it out to him and Stuart picked up the gun as though lifting something as fragile as a bird’s egg.

  The street they were in was short and narrow and seemed to lead only to a row of railway arches. Cars were parked on both sides of the road and some were half on the pavement to leave room for other cars to pass. There was a short row of houses with front gardens behind high makeshift fences, and opposite t
hem was a huge, dismal industrial building, some sort of factory for the rag trade. The lights were on inside and through a ground floor window Mick saw an Asian man, desperately thin and exhausted-looking, who was examining a short-sleeved shirt printed with parrots and bamboo designs.

  ‘London is a glorious city,’ Stuart said. ‘It brings you what you need.’

  ‘It brings you a lot of stuff you could do without, too,’ Mick said.

  ‘Do you believe in fate?’ Stuart asked.

  It was a weird question but Mick replied, ‘What do you mean by fate?’

  ‘Your wife, for instance, or girlfriend, or whatever you have, do you think you were destined to meet her? Did fate bring you together?’

  ‘Something brought us together, sure.’

  ‘Did fate bring you to London?’

  ‘That’s one word for it.’

  ‘And when I got up this morning was I destined to go out, get mugged, get rescued by a man with a gun? Was that preordained? Did fate arrange things so that you and I would be sitting here like this and I’d have this gun in my hand and …?’

  For a grim moment Mick thought he was going to be shot. Stuart grasped the gun firmly in his hand and looked as though he planned to use it. He fiddled with the safety catch, released it, but instead of pointing it at Mick he opened his mouth wide, as though being helpful to some invisible dentist. Then he laid the snout of the gun along his tongue, and without hesitation he started pulling on the trigger. He was inexpert but fully determined.

  He was also badly disappointed. The trigger clicked repeatedly, the firing mechanism slid in and out of place, but no bullet found its way into the gun, into Stuart’s mouth and then into the complex configuration of bone and brain. The gun’s cargo had been discharged into the fabric of the tube train carriage and then into the tyres of the Mercedes.

  A second later Mick belted Stuart on the side of the head. The gun fell out of his mouth, out of his hand, and Mick caught it.

  ‘What is wrong with you, man?’ Mick yelled.

  ‘It’s all over,’ Stuart said. ‘I want it to be all over. I’m tired. I’ve had enough of London, of life, of the whole damn thing. I want to end it all.’

  ‘With my gun?’ Mick protested. ‘Get your own gun.’

  He knew it sounded stupid, yet there was something profoundly objectionable about this man, this complete stranger, wanting to use the gun for his own shabby purposes.

  ‘I should have ditched it ages ago,’ he said.

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ Stuart insisted. ‘That’s fate too. It was meant to happen. London has always brought me what I needed: a career, a wife, a mistress. Why not a means of death? The day I walked my last London street was the day I knew London would bring me a means of ending it all. And it did. It brought me you. A man with a gun. It has to be. Don’t you have any more bullets?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Mick said. ‘That’s a bit of a miscalculation on fate’s part wouldn’t you say? But then maybe fate’s been pissing you about all along.’

  Mick was angry now. He’d always known that London was full of nutters but why did he have to meet such a prize one at a time like this?

  ‘I’ve thought of a way you can thank me,’ Mick said. ‘Give me your wallet.’

  Timidly, obediently, Stuart handed it over. Mick opened it, took out a few twenty pound notes, and was about to hand it back when he saw the name on the credit cards and then on the driving licence. He looked closely at Stuart’s face. It seemed weak, fleshy, boyish. He slapped him on the cheek, just soft enough to appear playful, just hard enough to sting.

  ‘Stuart London, that’s a funny name,’ he said.

  ‘I know, all my life …’

  He was about to explain but it suddenly seemed like far too much effort. He was aware that Mick was staring at him with an unwarranted curiosity, as though he were a zoological specimen.

  ‘It’s strange,’ Mick said. ‘You don’t look like much of a heartbreaker to me.’

  ‘What?’ Stuart asked.

  Mick didn’t reply. He got out of the car and walked away. As he left Stuart and the car behind he heard a grinding of gears and a wild revving of the engine. It occurred to him that Stuart might be drunk enough to kill himself on the way home. If that was what fate wanted it was fine by him. He walked for a few minutes before admitting to himself what he’d known all along, that he was as lost as ever. He would have asked for directions but there was nobody on the street. Then, as he looked round, a black cab appeared out of nowhere. Mick heard himself shouting, ‘Taxi’ and he ran after the cab as it stopped twenty yards up ahead of him. He heaved the door open and threw himself into the back.

  ‘I want Park Lane,’ he said, and he was about to launch into an explanation about which of the many Park Lanes of London he wanted. But the driver said, ‘Is that Park Lane, Hackney?’ and Mick gratefully said it was.

  ‘Yeah,’ the driver said as they moved off. ‘I didn’t think you looked the type for the Park Lane.’

  BACKERS

  Stuart drove home, no longer feeling either drunk or celebratory or, for that matter, suicidal. The day’s expedition had been lurid, almost hallucinatory, and already some of the events were starting to slip away from him, their texture becoming more muted and mundane. If pressed he could not have proved that any of it had really happened. It was all behind him. The mugging, the stranger, the gun, the botched suicide attempt; they were all gone and had left no trace.

  The traffic wasn’t heavy. In fact Stuart thought that London traffic was never quite as terrible as people liked to pretend. By asserting that driving in London was a sort of hell people were allowed to feel that their own driving was brave and heroic. Stuart did not feel even remotely heroic. He felt like a buffoon and a bungler. The attempt at suicide had been laughable as well as futile. Fate had indeed let him down. But why had he needed fate at all? Why this desire to be passive? Why couldn’t he have found a high place and taken the matter into his own hands? It no longer seemed to be simply a matter of cowardice. Indeed, if he was keen enough or brave enough he could still do the deed right now, but he knew he wouldn’t.

  Another problem then occurred to him. Was he going to record the day’s events, the day’s walk, in his diary? If he did, he would completely destroy his plan to leave a great unfinished work. He had imagined a printed text that would end abruptly and there would need to be some editorial insertion, a scholarly note about the exact circumstances of his death. Now he was in a position to write the final page himself, a page that was much more trashy, much less monumental than he’d wanted. But having survived the rough, confused, shambling events, he felt totally unequipped for transforming them into a diary entry.

  He drove on and was home sooner than he wanted to be. As he parked the car he looked up at the house and saw that some of the lights were on. That was strange. Anita should have been at work, and he was pretty sure he’d turned everything off when he’d gone out. Still, a little wasted electricity didn’t seem worth worrying about.

  He entered the house and shouted hello in case Anita was in. He thought his voice sounded perfectly normal and steady. He thought there was nothing in his demeanour that betrayed what he’d been through that day. The house was silent and nobody returned his greeting, but he wandered through the ground floor, and saw Anita’s coat and bag cast aside in the kitchen. He saw signs of coffee having been made, but he still heard nothing and he had to go up to the spare bedroom, the one they used as a home office, before he found her. She was sitting in the swivel chair, but she had it turned away from the desk and was reading a sheaf of loose pages. The computer screen was illuminated and the printer had recently been used.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me come in?’ he asked.

  ‘I was engrossed,’ she said.

  ‘Did you decide to work at home?’

  ‘Yes. Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  On any normal day he would have left it like that, gone downstairs and
found himself something to do. But he wasn’t feeling back to normal yet. In fact he was feeling unexpectedly warm towards Anita. He knew that she had been spared. If there had been a bullet in that gun, then instead of dealing with paperwork in the spare bedroom she would now be dealing with the news that her husband had blown his brains out. He couldn’t quite conjure up a scene of Dickensian woe and grief but he still felt glad not to be putting her through such an ordeal. She may have been Boadicea to the staff but she could still be a soft, vulnerable thing in his eyes. He wanted to be with her, to stay in the room with her for a while and talk.

  ‘What are you reading?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m reading your diary,’ she replied nonchalantly.

  It took a moment for him to understand what she’d said, but then he looked at the screen and recognized his own words there. Anita had found his disk, and the sheaf of papers she was holding was the print-out. Well, yes, that was all part of the plan. The disk was meant to be found, but not yet. It was intended to be a posthumous discovery. He felt as though he had been punched in the stomach, as though he was falling down a mine shaft.

  ‘It’s not really a diary,’ he said hastily and awkwardly. ‘It’s just sort of research I was doing for the business.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Anita. ‘What possible use could the business make of knowing that a woman in Archway asked you to define the seven-year itch?’

  Stuart launched into a number of rapidly abandoned explanations before falling into a judicious silence. He wondered how long Anita had been there, how much she’d read, how many of his secrets she knew.

  ‘I can explain,’ he said, and he tried to, he really did. He tried to tell her about his desire for knowledge, for completion and ultimately for obliteration, and Anita listened politely though not with great interest. When he could think of no more to say he picked up one or two of the printed pages, looked at her imploringly and said, ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘There should be more of it,’ she replied.