‘Are you coming in or what?’
But Stevie had repaired to the back of the van, and only now did he cross the threshold – edging his way, grunting a little, one arm over and one arm under his cumbersome prize, five feet long and four feet high including the stand. He lowered it down next to Karen’s coffee table.
‘Right, there you gan, girl.’
She was hewn from rock-maple, with enamel ears and a white-blonde mane, a saddle cloth of red suede and a bridle of soft tan leather. Such connoisseur touches had gone some way in persuading Stevie to part with six hundred notes.
‘She’s a palomino, they say. Donna can give her a name, like.’
But Karen’s shoulders were slumping. ‘Aw, for crying out loud, man. Where’s that gunna go? She’s not into horses anyhow, man, never has been, I told you just to get her that outfit for her dancing.’
Stevie took a breath. Donna was taking some pricey classes, one such this very morning, though he saw no obvious talent.
‘Divvint be awkward, Karen. It’ll gan up in your little room.’
‘Which one’s that, then?’
‘Get away, you’re canny for space.’
‘You get away, man. We’re on top of each other, me and her.’
‘Well then, you’re lucky it’s just you and her. I mean to say, Kazza – two netties, the garage, you’ve more than you know what to do with.’
‘Aw aye. And what if I had another bairn?’
‘Then you’d be off my bliddy hands, wouldn’t you?’
She beheld him scathingly. ‘Aw whatever, stick it up there then. Just mind the walls on the stairs, will you?’
He rubbed his chin slowly, stared at her askance.
‘What?’ she said coolly, wheeling away into her kitchen, to Stevie’s satisfaction, for he knew she knew she could not withstand a contest.
Once he had lugged the hardwood horse into the cramped utility room, he rejoined Karen in the kitchen, accepting a rattled mug of instant coffee while she smoked her Consulate. The kitchen was tired, units out of style, paintwork grubby and defaced by felt-tip scribbles. No handyman had stayed very long in the years since he had deposited the girls here – that much was signposted. He rifled his coat pocket and set down a plump stuffed Conqueror envelope on the worktop.
‘That’s you, then.’
‘Cheers,’ she said, cheerlessly.
‘Y’knaa you want a bulb in that light? In the spare room?’
‘It’s not the bulb, it’s the dimmer switch is knacked.’
‘Well, then you want to get it fixed.’
‘You said you would, Steve.’
‘I never did. I’m not a sparks, Karen, I canna go messing with wires. I’ll have a word with Dougie.’
‘Dougie, yeah, aw aye …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘What?’
‘You know what. He’ll come round, he’ll want the kettle on. He’ll be sat there on the sofa, farting and scratching hi’self for half an hour, then he’ll tell us it’s a bit trickier than he thought so he’ll be round again in the week.’
‘What do you want then? I’m busy, Karen.’
‘Oh, I know you’re busy, Steve. I’ve seen your name over the door at that Teflon.’
‘Aw right, you’ve been, have you? Bit lively for you these days, I’d have thought Kazza? Surprised my lads let you past.’
‘How do you manage still? All the years on you, they must have to wheel you into there some nights.’ She had fixed him over the trail of her cigarette, was chewing her nail as if she found something tasty there. ‘Oh, I know you’re busy. Saw your picture in the paper and all. Done your good deed for the year, have you? What a laff.’
‘Just givin’ a hand to a bloke.’
‘Aye, he’s on the radio and all. The vicar? Bullshitter he sounded. Mind, what did he ever do to deserve you? Does he know about you?’
‘Does he know what?’
‘What do you think? That you hurt people. For a living, like.’
‘He knows I’ve a business, Karen, that’s what –’
‘Howay, Steve, who do you think you’re talkin’ to, man?’
‘It’s not his business. I tell you this, but, Karen, he’s glad of the hand, that bloke. He’s not on his high horse about people. Not like you. Not biting the hand what’s putting food on your table.’
‘Bollocks, Steve, we get by, we do, so never you worry. Not my problem what you do for your conscience, you can do what you like.’
‘Ah, can I now? Can I really, Karen?’
‘Aye, you can. That’s all what this is, man, all it’s ever been. “Aw, my bairn’ll always be alreet.” Aw bollocks …’
He wanted badly now to hoist up the kitchen table and hoy it out the window. He had many exes, few to whom he believed he had been so honourable, none who hated him more. Sometimes – even this time – he could look at her and still see the girl who clutched at him, so fearful, throughout her contractions. That was life, the worm, working its way through your innards. When he thought on it for much more than a moment, the gall made him sick – made him want to retch out everything he’d ever eaten.
Bollocks to this, move yourself. Eyes on the prize, three o’clock, Strawberry by two.
He set down his unfinished coffee.
‘I tell you what else I read. All that about Mickey.’
He scowled, rubbed his neck. ‘Did you now? I was at the funeral. Where were you?’
‘Bet they were made up to see you.’
‘We’re all grown-ups.’
‘That poor little bastard.’
He could see them anew, the six of them on that impulse jaunt to Gran Canaria. Was it 1989? He and Karen, Mickey and Ally, Dougie on his tod. And Donna just a baby – docile, and she needed to be, with beery sunburned faces peering down into her travelling cot. Perhaps the last time he and Karen had sex, or spoke to one another with care. He shook his head. ‘There’s some proper ratbags come into town.’
‘You think you’re any better?’
‘I fucking do. I fucking know.’
A current of metal-edged pain coursed through the meat of his right calf, and he shuddered, cursed himself for having stood there slouching, continuing these worthless exchanges.
‘Is that a flinch you’ve got, Stevie?’
‘Not a fucking flinch, man. Sciatica.’
‘Poor you. Told you, see? It’s you what’s getting on. An old man with a bad back. Ready for the knackers soon, just watch.’
He revolved his head about his neck, tilted his brow at her and growled. She was doing a good job of seeming blithe. ‘And you needn’t give us that look neither, I’m past frightened of you.’
It was impressive, after a fashion, for she knew what he could do, she had seen it. She should have seen him only the week gone by, when he did it again, squiring her old friend Ally to a nice bar, she in a backless dress, until some mindless clart had offered her a load of old chat. She seemed so sure he would never lift a hand to her. And no, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. Sometimes, though, he was standing on the precipice, and the long way down, the vertigo, the crushing impact – they almost seemed worth it.
‘You wanna get on without us, Karen? Gan on then. Doing so fuckin’ well, are you? Does Donna think you’re brilliant? You sure? How brilliant would you be if she had to give up all her classes? Is some other daddy-man gunna come along –’
‘Fuck off out of it, Steve man.’
‘I don’t see him, Kazza. Nah, you’re maybe not the lass you were.’
‘Fuck off, you.’ She swiped the dregs of her coffee mug at him.
Stevie grinned, having bit and bit deep. ‘That’s right, flower, let it out.’
Now she darted at him like knives, poked at his chest. ‘Bastard.’
‘Aw, don’t hurt us, Kazza, please, don’t hurt us …’
Now she was hammering with both of her fists, panting, and Stevie was content but no longer tickled, and he seized both of her wrists with no smal
l force and held them hard, until she was pacified, incapable, and she broke under his stony gaze.
‘Steve man, don’t. Stop it. Stop it, you rotten bastard …’
Oh right – now the tears. What the fuck? Didn’t she know, by now, how it all ended, once she chose to get started? So why start? And now he was supposed to apologise? Poor Kazza. He released his grip and her knees seemed to buckle.
‘I’ll be back the day after the morra to see her, so have her ready.’
‘She’s sick of you, you fucker.’
He heard the last only as he closed the front door behind him. Out in the air he took a couple of breaths and screwed his equilibrium back into the sticking place. HALCYON HEIGHTS. Aye, right. This experience was hateful, and hated, and its true value really needed to be reassessed. But some other day than today. St James’s for three, the Strawberry for two.
Much to his consternation he saw that he had left the van doors yawning open. You are going soft, son. Slamming them shut, he observed a motorcycle, bearing rider and pillion passenger, puttering through the gates of the close and up the driveway. A dirt-bike, really – Yamaha? Bloody rowdy old exhaust. Boy racers, haring about where there could be small bairns playing. Who did they reckon they were trying to impress? Stevie was half-inclined to go over and knock them off their perch with one push. At ease, big man, he soothed himself, digging for the van keys in his tight denim pocket.
The bike made a showy swerve to a running stop five yards in front of him, and two inscrutable black visors turned to face his way. Messengers? The passenger was clutching something close to his leather chest.
And then Stevie heard a clinking, snagging sound. The passenger shook his hand as if stung, threw out his arm, at the end of which, clear as day, was the tube of a barrel. Ice-coldness flushed from the crown of Stevie’s head, straight through his bowels to his feet. He flinched, threw his hands in the air, then wildly over his face. No, never, couldn’t be. Again that mad snagging clink, and between his fingers he saw the passenger shaking the gun furiously like a spent bottle, muffled curses coming from behind the black visor. Then a thump on the driver’s back, the engine revved, the exhaust snorted, and the bike tore off back from whence it had come.
His mind cringing still, Stevie felt his feet move bravely beneath him. He was jogging, then running, down toward the gateway. But when he reached the road the bike was already a quarter-mile hence. He pressed his palms to his temples. What had he seen? What the fuck was it? Had anyone seen it? He whirled about him, looking for the twitch of curtains, for concerned faces at windows. But the double-glazed windows of Halcyon Heights were blind. The gun, he told himself – heard himself telling Roy, telling Shack, reporting back – The gun, it jammed. I’m fine, aye, but only cos it fucking jammed, man …
He tasted bland sizing in his mouth, swallowed, then smartly crouched and bent, and the sky rolled over him as he vomited forth his breakfast, once, twice, onto somebody’s discreet paved driveway. He held the crouch for one or two minutes, until he was sure he was voided, then straightened, spat, and strode unsteadily back to Karen’s door.
Chapter IV
AMONG THE YOUNG MEN
Sunday, 20 October 1996
No time for faint hearts, Gore told himself, no fannies in a fit. True, he had expected a cakewalk today, money for old rope. But he was tense and out of sorts, even as he grasped the trusty lectern, texts arrayed before him in good order. Stakes were higher second time out of the traps.
Last week’s turnout had been matched, possibly surpassed – media, word of mouth, what Lockhart had been wont to call the ‘Songs of Praise factor’. A pair of showy flower baskets had come from some anonymous well-wisher. But rain too had come early and relentless this morning, congregants had shuffled indoors looking damp and harassed, and a rank air of discomfort lifted from the seats. A pair of fluorescent light-poles had packed up, settling deeper gloom upon the hall. Worse, a few volunteers from Sunday past had absented themselves. Though Steve Coulson’s associates Simms and Robbie had pitched up in the transit with the pool table, they also carried a mumbled apology for the absence of the boss.
Gore might have written off these minor impediments as the devil’s share, were it not for the presence of the small crew from local television, now loitering intently behind the last row of chairs, their director whispering urgently to his lighting cameraman, making frames in the air with his hands. Gore at first suspected an escalation in his sister’s campaign of unsolicited PR. But the director claimed only a sincere interest in what he had lately seen in the papers.
He was as ready as he could be in the circumstances when came the unheralded entry of Susannah Gore herself, swishing in just one minute before ten in navy woollen coat and scarf, sitting herself serenely near the back, a handful of seats down from where puffa-jacketed Lindy Clark was trying to settle her Jake. Two more taxing eyes upon him, then.
And the remainder of the audience? Some dutiful couples and their kids, then a bloc that could have been an over-sixties outing, bussed in and bribed with tea, struggling nobly with digestive disorders, waiting for the preacher if a preacher was booked – as opposed, say, to a jolly seaside stand-up. Lest I get carried away … thought Gore, minded anew of a stock sermonising gag – the one about the woman who called on her priest to confess to the sin of vanity, the hours she wasted before the mirror in thrall to her beauty, only to be told, ‘You’re not sinful, child, you’re mistaken.’
The opening hymn – ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ – was no disgrace. Susan Carrow, having insisted, read clearly if flatly from the Gospel of St Matthew, damning the scribes and Pharisees, ‘for they say and do not.’ Gore gave out some scant announcements, asking that any drivers with a spare seat, or any ladies able to devote some hours to a crèche, might dally and consult with him afterwards. He was consoled when, at last, he reached his sermon, sure that a strong performance would marshal his spirits.
‘In Joshua we read of how, after the death of Moses, the Lord restated to Joshua the selfsame promise he had made to the lawgiver. Namely, that all lands lying across the Jordan, down to the Euphrates – wheresoever Joshua set foot – were promised to the children of Israel.
‘And so Joshua sent forth two messengers to venture ahead, prepare the way, spread the word. They came first to the great walled city of Jericho, and the king there was alerted to their presence, and wished them harm. But it was a woman called Rahab – a harlot, a common prostitute – who offered Joshua’s men a refuge within her own home, safe from the king’s soldiers. She resisted the king’s orders, and enabled the Israelites to escape, at no small risk of peril to herself. But mark you the aftermath. For when Jericho fell, it was Rahab and her kin alone who were spared the sword.
‘Now, the Apostle James tells us, “By works is faith made perfect. Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works? When she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so is faith without works.” And that is a message I consider endlessly, undyingly relevant.
‘Let’s be clear. Any one of us, whatever our station in life, whatever our past indiscretions or failings – any one of us is capable still of the very best and finest actions in this world, if and when the right moment comes. It’s not just a case of who’s been most pious for longest – we can’t store up moral treasure on this earth that way. No, sometimes … I think it’s only when the circumstances fall into place that we really find in ourselves the grounds of a burning faith, one that drives us to action. How easily we can come to think ourselves lost, our efforts doomed or pointless. Cometh the hour, though – cometh the hour – and the soul will rise.’
*
After a modest Eucharist, the hall fast emptied save for a thirsty two dozen or so, a good few so immobile as to need their tea fetched to them where they sat. Gore stood supping his brew with Jack Ridley in contemplative silence, trying unsuccessfully to locate his sister amid the bodies, when Monica Bruce
weaved up to them.
‘Sorry about them lights, John, they’ll be right for next week. I’ve got to shoot off, but you’s can see to the lock-up, can’t you? Now how are you’s fixed for your supper the night? I’d like to have you both round to ours.’
Gore could muster no immediate excuse, for his diary was bare.
‘How about you and your missus, Jack?’
‘What are you making?’
‘Shepherd’s pie.’
Ridley licked his lips. ‘Champion.’
To the TV crew Gore granted a short, upbeat, anodyne interview. As he glanced at the small tight circle of congregants drawn in to witness, he saw at last his sister, smiling crookedly, coolly amused. When he stepped aside from the lens she took his arm, kissed his cheek, commandeered him. ‘Well, hello there, Reverend. Is it nice to be a local celebrity?’
‘It’s got its problems, I have to say.’
‘You seem to cope. I must say, though, this room could do with a lick and a promise. Nice little service you give, but. Very thoughtful lesson. Good of you to tell us what we can all learn off of the common whore.’
‘My pleasure. Take it away and use it.’
‘I will. You read that Bible like you wrote it, mind.’
‘Is this the best you can do? I thought you were in the praising business.’
‘That’s you, kidder. I speak as I find, me.’
Gore could see Lindy Clark, hovering behind Susannah, desirous of a moment, her coat zipped, her son tugging her towards the outdoors. He saw his sister’s dissatisfaction, too, in not enjoying one hundred per cent of the available attention.
‘Hello, Lindy, hi there, Jake. This is my sister Susannah.’
‘Hiya.’
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