Belfast Confidential

by Bateman, Colin

  Mouse just looked at her.

  'We're just having a chat,' I said. 'But if there's anything you want to say to me, you can say it in front of—'

  'Shut up, Dan.'

  'Trish, come on . . .'

  'Don't Trish me, you arse!'

  'Trish, not in front of—'

  'He's heard it all before!'

  I glanced at Mouse. He had heard it all before. It didn't mean he wanted to hear it again.

  'Maybe I should—' he started to say, and began to rise from his chair.

  'Just stay where you fucking are!' Trish yelled.

  He sat back down and she gave me her full attention. Patricia has never been one of those women who look more attractive when they're angry. Her eyes were wide and her nostrils flared, and when she began to shout, flecks of spit appeared in the corners of her mouth.

  'I am so fucking tired of this!' she began. 'Every time it's the fucking same! Every time I ask you to do something it's "Yes, yes, yes, in a minute" and for a brief moment I have this little hope that you're actually going to do it, but oh no, I turn my eye for one moment, and away you go! Moving house, Dan, it's a big fucking operation and it needs both of us to do it. I can't do everything by myself. I need you here, not waltzing all over the place getting pissed.'

  'I'm not pi—'

  'Shut the fuck up! I went to see the houses. I did all the negotiating. I transferred all the money and did all the paperwork. I packed up our house. I organised the removal. I changed the post. I switched the phone. All I asked you to promise was that you'd be here on moving day, that you'd help me through it, that you'd stand up to those fucking removal men if they smashed anything, and I should have known! As soon as you came through the door you opened your first beer and you said "This is for the house, this is for our lovely new home," and I should have known you just wanted another excuse to get pissed. And then Mouse turns up and I think, Great, he's going to help us out—'

  'Patricia, I was—' Mouse ventured.

  'Shut the fuck up, Mouse! Then I get stuck speaking to the fucking neighbours and youse two sneak off and get pissed. It's not fair, Dan, it's not fucking fair. I can't do everything.'

  She pulled a chair out and sat down heavily. She put her head in her hands. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the table. Her hair was all over the place, her face was covered in black smudges, her hands were red and raw and her fingernails encrusted with dirt. I reached across and gently moved her hands back from her face.

  'Love?' I said.

  She blinked tearfully at me. 'What?' she murmured.

  'Is there any chance of some pizza?'

  Mouse's chair scraped back across the linoleum, his face pale at the expectation of sudden violence.

  But Patricia just stared at me, and then the corners of her mouth softened and the furrows of her brow smoothed out and she let out a great guffaw of a laugh. 'Christ,' she said, 'what a day. I'm sorry, love.' She took my hand and kissed it. 'I always get fucking stressed out, moving house. Christ, I wish I could take a leaf out of your book.' She stood up and kissed the top of my head. 'I'm going to have a shower, then I'll order some pizza, yeah? Mouse, you'll stay, won't you?'

  Mouse just looked blankly at her. She took this for a yes and turned for the door. She ruffled my hair on the way past.

  'Trish?' She stopped. 'Pepperoni. Extra onions.'

  'Pepperoni, extra onions.'

  The shower was running upstairs. Mouse said, 'She's some woman.'

  I shrugged. 'She'll do.'

  'How long have you been together now?'

  'No idea.'

  'But you work, you two, you work.'

  'Suppose we do.'

  'Though you wind each other up something dreadful.'

  'Just the way we are.'

  'It's nice, though, isn't it. You know each other inside out. You have a back story. You both know what Opal Fruits were and who Joe Strummer was and how good the Liverpool team of the eighties really was. You've so much in common.' He was turning his can in his hands, staring at the table. 'You know what May Li and I have in common?' he asked sadly.

  I shook my head slowly.

  'Four orgasms a night.' He said it so quietly that for a moment I didn't pick up on it. And then I looked at him and saw that the down-at-heel glumness had vanished. Now he had a big, stupid grin.

  'You bastard,' I said.

  'Four. Every night. Whether I want it or not. I'm fucking near dead, but it's fantastic. Every position known to man, and a few others besides. She's incredible.'

  I cleared my throat. 'I'm very happy for you, Mouse. But why are you telling me this?'

  'I have to tell someone!'

  'Okay, all right. You can stop smiling now.'

  'Okay, okay . . . but sometimes she just gets hold—'

  'Mouse! Too much information. Just . . . shut the fuck up.'

  'You don't want me to talk about all the sex?'

  'No, Mouse.'

  'And all the things she can do?'

  'No, Mouse, for fuck sake!'

  He laughed quietly to himself.

  I got up and fetched him another beer from the fridge. We popped together. I let him take his first drink. 'So, what else is this about, besides the sex?'

  'Does it have to be about anything?'

  'No. Doesn't have to be.'

  'Can't I call up an old mate without there being an ulterior motive?'

  'Course you can.'

  We drank our beers for another couple of minutes. Then he shook his head and said, 'All right. Fair enough. You always could read me like a book. I just wanted – well, a bit of advice. It's . . . well, it's nothing really.'

  'It's not nothing, Mouse, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here.'

  'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'Mouse. We're mates. We always will be. But you're moving in different circles now. I don't mind that, fair play to you, I'm sure I'd do exactly the same if I suddenly came into some money. It happens, you know, people go in different directions, different social circles, some people get left behind . . .'

  'We're not leaving you . . .'

  'You know what I mean. Come on, mate, you've been hanging around like a third nut all day. If you've something to say, say it. Don't beat around the bush any more, because it's as flat as a fucking pancake.'

  He looked a little bit relieved. 'We are mates,' he said, 'and we always will be. And what I said about youse not keeping in touch – well, that was as much us as you. May Li has . . . well, expensive tastes, and I didn't want you to feel . . .'

  'Like third-class citizens.'

  'No, I mean—'

  'Like boring working-class poorhouse rejects.'

  'No, Dan!'

  'Then get to the point!'

  'Okay! All right!' He clasped his hands together. Stared at the table. Took a deep breath. 'The thing is, Dan – I think someone is trying to kill me.'

  It sat in the air for several long moments. I could hear the hair-dryer going upstairs, and Patricia singing 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' over it. Mouse glanced up at me, and for the first time I noticed the bags hanging heavy beneath his eyes.

  'You're serious?' I asked. He nodded slowly. 'Why the fuck would anyone want to kill you?'

  'I'm an important man.'

  He was Mouse, and I thought of him as Mouse, but I had to concede that in recent months he had indeed, in at least some respects, become an important man.

  'So why are you telling me?'

  'Well – one, the police would laugh me out of the station if I told them, and two, because people are always trying to kill you, I thought you'd know what to do. Help me out. You know. Maybe you could get to the bottom of it.'

  The hair-dryer had stopped, and now I could hear Patricia coming down the stairs. I jabbed a finger at Mouse. 'Don't say a word,' I warned him, then smiled up as my wife came through the kitchen door.

  'Right!' she exclaimed happily. 'Pizza Hut or Domino's?'

  4
r />   I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned and Patricia barked at me to stay still. After a while I slipped a hand around her waist and snuggled up behind and nibbled at her ear and she purred for a few moments. Then she gave me a backwards headbutt.

  She swore it was an accident. She was only trying to stop me from pawing her and could I please not bleed on the sheets. She handed me two cotton buds, and I pressed one up each nostril.

  'Fucking great,' I moaned. 'Fucking great.'

  'Sorry,' she said. 'You took me by surprise.'

  'Next time I'll make a fucking appointment.'

  'I'm exhausted, Dan. I need to sleep.'

  'Right,' I said. 'Go ahead.'

  Instead she turned and squeezed my arm. 'It's your first night in a new house, you're bound to be a bit unsettled.'

  'Yeah.'

  Of course I was unsettled. But it had nothing to do with the new house. It had to do with seeing a dead cat every time I closed my eyes. And the fact that someone was trying to kill my best friend. I couldn't mention either problem to my wife. She simply would not understand at all about our behaviour towards the late Siamese, and while she would certainly be sympathetic towards Mouse, she would totally and absolutely ban me from getting involved, no matter how superficial that involvement was. We'd been down that road once too often.

  'Well, seeing as you can't sleep,' she suggested, 'why don't you do some more unpacking?'

  She'd worked tirelessly all day, but the house was still chockfull of taped-up cardboard boxes, over-stuffed bin bags and rolled-up carpets. You accumulate a lot of crap in life, and you're always reluctant to part with it. Because one day that beige lampshade with the bent connection might come in really useful.

  'Yeah, right, that's what I feel like doing in the middle of the night with blood pishing out of me.'

  'Oh, poor soul. I'll put Emergency Ward Ten on standby. Make me a cup of tea then.'

  It being the lesser of two evils, I tramped down-stairs. The kettle was already unpacked. It took me a while to track down a cup. Most of our cutlery was still in a box somewhere, so I stirred in the sugar with one of the cotton buds. The clean end, obviously. When I took it up she was sitting with the lamp on, looking serious. 'What did Mouse really want?'

  I laughed. 'Where did that come from?'

  'I was just thinking about it. How we haven't seen him in ages.'

  'That's why he turned up.'

  'Balls. Youse were talking about something. Is he having trouble with the mail-order bride?'

  'He's having four orgasms a night.'

  Patricia raised an eyebrow. 'Seriously?'

  'According to Mouse.'

  She stared into the distance for a few moments, then half-focused back on me. 'I remember when we . . .' she began wistfully, then stopped herself. 'Oh, wait a minute – we've never had four orgasms a night. Nor three. Nor . . .'

  'Very funny.' She smiled back, but then she went kind of quiet, and that got me thinking, and thinking led to worrying, so I felt it was important to remind her that we too had had our moments. 'Not that I'm keeping a record or anything, but remember FA Cup Day? You had two that day. Orgasms. The big O.'

  'FA Cup Day?' she asked vaguely. 'Who was playing?'

  'Liverpool and Man U.'

  'No, I don't.'

  'Yes, remember? One at half time, and one after extra time. You were wearing . . .' And then I stopped, because there was something not quite right about my memory of it. 'You were wearing . . .'

  Patricia raised an eyebrow. 'What was I wearing?'

  I sighed. 'A referee's outfit.'

  She smiled sympathetically, but when she spoke it was clearly and precisely as if she were addressing a child. 'That's what we call a fantasy.'

  I folded my arms. She set her tea down, then crawled across the bed towards me. She put her arms around me from behind. 'Don't worry, love, one orgasm is plenty.'

  'Do you mean that?'

  'Of course I do.'

  She kissed me, and we fell back in each other's arms. She kissed me again, and I responded. I was just removing her nightie when a cat meowed outside. I jumped up and raced across to the window.

  'Dan!'

  'Just a—' I ducked in behind one side of the curtain and peered out. Down below, turning circles on our freshly seeded lawn, its fine and shiny coat caked with soil and grass seeds, was a Siamese cat.

  'Dan, what is it?'

  'Nothing, nothing. Just a . . . cat.'

  It stopped rotating. It looked towards the house. It looked towards me. A shiver ran down my spine. I banged suddenly on the window, trying to break the connection. But it just kept on staring.

  I opened the window. 'Fuck away off!' I shouted.

  'Dan!' Trish came jumping off the bed. 'What is it?'

  'Yes, you! Fuck off!'

  She was beside me, looking down. 'Dan – Dan. It's only a bloody cat!'

  'I know.'

  Mouse had killed the cat, its brains were all over the fucking place. We'd buried it in a bin bag, two feet down. And yet there it was, large as life. I shuddered. Patricia put her arms around me from behind and gave me a squeeze. Maybe cats did have nine lives. Or perhaps it was Ghost Cat. The concept was as horrifying as it was hilarious. Christ, maybe I was just tired and a little bit drunk. How could it possibly be 'our' cat? It was just some neighbourhood moggy out for a dander; maybe it had smelled the body down there. Or maybe it was just taking a dump. Yes, that was it. As we watched, it seemed to tilt its head towards us, and in that movement, as ridiculous as it sounds, I could almost have sworn that it winked at me. Then it darted quickly across the topsoil and leaped onto the wooden fence. It balanced for just a moment on top, then dropped gracefully down and out of sight into the neighbours' garden.

  'Bastard,' I whispered.

  Patricia laughed. 'Never known you to get so protective about a garden before.' She turned back to the bed and lay down. 'There's hope for you yet.'

  I turned. 'Well, isn't it a good thing?' I asked.

  'Not when you're about to screw me.'

  'Am I about to screw you?'

  'I certainly hope so.'

  I smiled and crawled back up the bed beside her. We started to kiss. I finally removed her nightie and she dragged off my Liverpool top.

  'I love you,' she murmured in my ear.

  'Same here,' I murmured back.

  'And I want you to know,' she whispered, nibbling at my earlobe, 'that I'm not keeping count.'

  'Count?'

  'Of the orgasms.'

  'Trish . . .'

  'Two would be good. I don't want you to feel any pressure to go for three. Although I'm sure four's completely beyond you.'

  I jumped up. 'For fuck sake. Talk about putting someone off their stroke.'

  She laughed, then rolled over away from me and pulled the quilt up. When she spoke, it was with a triumphant smugness. 'Well, perhaps you'll learn from this, Dan my love. If you want to lay me, first you have to lay the carpet. And that means not pissing off to the bar with your mates. Nighty noodle.'

  She reached across and turned her bedside light off.

  I remained on the side of the bed, fuming. She was an evil, evil, evil woman. And 50 per cent of me was waiting for her to roll back and say she was only raking and please screw me now, big boy.

  Five minutes later I was still sitting in the darkness.

  'Right,' I snapped, 'I'm going downstairs for a wank.'

  Just as I reached the door Patricia said, 'Enjoy.'

  5

  Next morning, on the way to work, with the upstairs curtains still closed, I checked the ground where we'd buried the cat. There were faint paw prints, but the soil and the light coating of grass seeds was otherwise largely undisturbed. Satisfied, I turned towards our garage. Then I heard George, over the garden fence, going: 'Pssss-wsssss-wsssss. Pssss-wsssss-wsssss-wsssss . . .'

  A few moments later, where the fence dipped as it reached the top of the garden, his head popped up. 'I'm looking f
or Toodles,' he said.

  I nodded. 'Cats,' I said.

  He gave me a perplexed look. 'What about them?'

  'Never bloody home, are they?'

  'Toodles is. He's Siamese. Like they used to have on Blue Peter. He's a home bird.'

  'If I see him, I'll let you know.'

  'Thank you. You're very kind.'

  Sort of guy I am.

  When I got into the office I called Mouse and told him I'd booked a table for us in my favourite Italian restaurant. The previous evening Patricia had hung around for so long that he hadn't had the chance to tell me any more about his fears, but now that I was offering him another opportunity he seemed suddenly reluctant to address them again.

  'Look,' he said, 'maybe I'm just being paranoid. I've been under a lot of pressure lately. Maybe I'm just, you know, imagining things.'

  'Maybe you are. But come for lunch anyway.'

  We agreed on 1 p.m.

  It was another busy morning in the news business, and in keeping with my low standing in work, I didn't get to cover the story I was interested in. One of my alltime heroes, the legendary Terry Breene, Liverpool's greatest ever star, had put together enough cash to buy Belfast's leading football club, Linfield, and its ground, Windsor Park. This was remarkable enough, a star buying a tiny provincial club, but what was causing most interest locally was the fact that Terry was born and raised a Catholic, and Linfield had always been Protestant-owned and run. Although Catholics had played for it, they were still few and far between. But when news of Terry Breene's purchase leaked out it had been widely welcomed, which was seen as symptomatic of the sea-change that had taken place in Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles. In short, we all loved each other. I wasn't so sure. I wanted to be at Terry Breene's first press conference since taking over. I wanted to meet my hero, and gauge the lie of the land for myself.

  It wasn't to be.

  The thugs, who'd had difficulties with channelling their energies since the temporary suspension of paramilitary strife, had now decided to turn their attentions to the local Chinese community. It was the same old story, just with a different slant. Houses were burned out and businesses targeted for protection money. Kids were mugged and graffiti adorned dozens of gable walls. In one respect it was good to see that the hard men of Loyalism and the Republican freedom-fighters were at last sharing a common goal; wasn't great news for the Chinese, though. So I spent the morning getting reaction to the latest savage beating. There's a standard formula for reporting this kind of a story: you interview the victim, if possible, and if not, his family, then you get reaction from the local community and its representatives. The neighbours say what a lovely family they are. The councillors condemn the attack and say we all have to work together to resolve this problem. The police say they are pursuing a line of enquiry.