by Rob Sinclair
I carried on walking. My leg was still stiff and sore from the beating I’d taken the day before and there was a constant stabbing in my ribs, but I blocked the pain out as best I could. The beer I’d drunk at least dimmed the discomfort.
I hid myself in a snicket that ran between two side roads. I knew from the walk to the pub that the narrow alley was a shortcut for Dove to his house. With tall bushes and sporadic trees on both sides, it was unlit. Other than at the two entrances, where light was pushing in from the nearby streetlights, the snicket was virtually pitch black. I stopped behind a large tree trunk and waited.
The tingle of anticipation I felt grew when I heard voices approaching. Two voices. Both male. I stole a glance from behind the tree and saw two men enter the alleyway. In the darkness I couldn’t be certain, but neither looked like Dove.
I pulled myself as far around the trunk as I could, out of sight, and held my breath. My body was tense and unmoving as the two men sauntered past. Their intoxicated debate reverberated in my brain for a few seconds until they exited the alley and disappeared into the night.
Just a few seconds later, I heard more footsteps. No voices this time. Again I took a peek – quickly and discreetly. But the solitary man whose footsteps I had heard was much closer than I’d thought. Unlike the previous two men, who had been wrapped up in their heated discussion, this man was alert – probably for the very fact that he was alone.
In the briefest of moments that I’d looked around the tree I’d been sure of two things: it was Dove, and he’d spotted me.
‘I can see you hiding there,’ Dove slurred.
My heart jumped. But spotting me and recognising me were two very different things. Surely it was too dark for him to have made out who I was?
It didn’t matter. If I really was going to do this, now was the best opportunity I would get.
Pushing back any remaining doubts, I darted out from behind the tree. Dove was just three yards away from me and was turning back around to head to the other end of the alley. Whoever he thought I was, he was clearly spooked.
It was only at the last second that he sensed me behind him. His drunken body went to take flight. If he’d been sober, if he’d had the extra element of clarity in his thoughts and actions, he might have been able to react more quickly and make a mad dash to escape. As it was, he had no chance.
I bundled into him, throwing my body right through where he’d been, reminiscent of the clattering tackle that had sparked the fight all those years ago. We tumbled to the ground.
Dove let out a painful shout as my weight slammed down on top of him. The fall alone took the immediate fight from him. I wasted no time.
I threw a succession of blows into Dove’s sides as he turned over and tried to fight back. I wormed my way from lying on top to straddling him, pinning his arms. Dove was shouting, calling out, but the words weren’t registering in my head.
Once I was in position, it was time for payback. I threw a fist down onto his nose. A sharp pain shot up through my arm but I ignored it and threw another and then another fist down onto his face. Each shot was entirely unimpeded; Dove’s face took the full force of my strikes. After the fifth blow he was covered in blood.
At least three wounds had opened up on his face. His eyes were rolling. The fight was already over. A sucker punch – exactly what he’d dealt me.
I was about to deliver one final blow when I heard voices behind me. Shouting. I glanced over my shoulder and saw two men running toward me, the same two who had passed by just seconds before – alerted by Dove’s shouts, no doubt.
It was time to go. I jumped up off Dove and went to move into a sprint. But as I pushed away Dove somehow found the strength to grab hold of my ankle. His grip was too weak to stop me and I quickly broke free, but the unexpected obstacle knocked me completely off balance. I stumbled forward then fell toward the ground.
I managed to put out both my hands to help cushion the fall. As I hit the deck my body twisted to the side through its own momentum. I skidded forward, and my right arm and my side scraped across the solid pathway. I winced in pain, then spotted one of the men out of the corner of my eye. He was just a few yards away, bearing down on me. The other, I realised, had stopped to tend to Dove.
I couldn’t get caught. Not now. Not at the very first hurdle.
I hauled my aching body back up and limped the first few yards as I ironed out the bumps in my bruised legs. By the time I got to full speed, just as I reached the end of the alleyway, I could hear the rasping breath of the man who had taken chase after me.
I was still in full sprint as I rounded the corner onto the road, my arms and legs pumping. I risked a peek over my shoulder and saw that the man had fallen behind. I didn’t let up. I continued to run, my arms and legs moving in a steady, determined rhythm.
Only when I had used up every ounce of energy, when my heart felt like it would explode in my chest, when my lungs ached for air and when my legs felt like immovable lead weights, did I come to an abrupt stop.
I looked behind me once more and smiled. There was no sign of Dove or the other men or anyone else. I was in the clear.
CHAPTER 27
‘How did it make you feel,’ she asked, ‘to have got your revenge on Andrew Dove? To have beaten him so callously?’
‘Callously?’ I said.
‘It was an unprovoked attack.’
‘As it was when he beat the crap out of me at school.’
‘But you were only thirteen years old then,’ she said. ‘You were children.’
‘So it’s okay for kids to hit each other but not for grown men to do it?’
‘Well, what do you think? Do you think it’s okay for a grown man to punch another man in the face in an unprovoked attack?’
‘No. I guess under most circumstances, no, I don’t. But this wasn’t really unprovoked.’
‘Can you explain that?’
‘There might have been an intervening period between him smacking me on a rugby field and me getting my own back in a dark alley twenty years later, but the two events are still intrinsically linked. So to answer your specific question, no, it’s not okay for a grown man to attack and punch someone in an unprovoked attack, but then I never have.’
She didn’t respond to my explanation.
‘Coming back to my original question then,’ she said, ‘how did it make you feel?’
‘It’s hard to explain. I felt relief. I felt excitement. I felt like a small weight had been taken off my shoulders. It might sound silly to you, but that school-ground incident had played on my mind for the whole of my adult life. I’m not saying it was a defining moment or anything as dramatic as that, but it’s one of those big memories in my head that will always be there as a moment of regret. A moment where I wished I’d acted differently.’
‘And do you still feel that way now? Do you still have the same regret, or did that dull after you attacked Andrew Dove?’
‘It’ll never go away. It’s like a scar. It may only be a small scar, but that memory will always be with me, a permanent reminder. Taking revenge went a long way to making up for what happened, though it can’t change the past. At least some of those memories are less severe and painful now.’
She stared at me intently for a few seconds and I wondered whether she was already finished with her questions, even though there were still ten minutes left on the clock. When she finally broke eye contact, she looked down at the pad in front of her and started scribbling notes, as she did every session. It was strange to imagine my entire life story, all of the ups and the many, many downs of my life, recorded on those few small pieces of paper.
‘So what happened after Dove?’ she asked.
‘I had a plan. At least I thought I did. Maybe not a well-thought-out, fully formulated plan, but an intention at least – to get my own back on them all. But it didn’t quite go as smoothly as I’d hoped. Best laid plans and all that. It’s the story of my life really. Life has always had a habit of fucking up
my good intentions.’
‘You think you had good intentions?’
‘Yes. In a raw, animalistic sense my intentions were noble. This was retribution. It was justice. It’s the way the human race has dealt with indiscretions for thousands of years.’
‘Retribution? Is that how you see your actions? As retribution rather than revenge?’
‘I’m not sure I see a difference between the two.’
‘Well, strictly speaking retribution is a punishment inflicted as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act. It has an element of formality and justness. Revenge, on the other hand, can be very different. Its connotations are much more savage and punitive, and the measures are often more severe and unjust.’
‘I’m still not sure there’s that much difference. In my eyes, what I delivered – what I intended to deliver at least – was retribution. It was a just punishment that fitted the crime.’
‘Intended?’
‘Like I said, it didn’t quite go as planned.’
‘So what went wrong? What happened?’
‘It’s not what happened but who.’
‘Okay. So who happened then?’
‘Cara Donald happened.’
‘Who was Cara Donald?’
‘Cara Donald was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.’
CHAPTER 28
I've always believed there are some people with whom we were destined to click. Maybe it’s something in the DNA, a subconscious reaction to pheromones or something else primal like that. Some people would call it love at first sight. I wouldn't quite go that far, but I'd sympathise with the concept. That was the way it was when Alice and I first met. It was the same with Cara Donald. And I hadn’t expected that at all. It took me genuinely by surprise, and my attraction to her led to a cascade of events that I never could have anticipated.
I’d frequented a gym in Brindley Place in Birmingham since as far back as when Alice and I lived in the city. In my twenties I’d been a regular there, going up to six times a week. Even though I’d moved out of the city, I’d kept the membership going and I still enjoyed heading there when I could, usually before or after work, though having two young children had made finding the time harder. I certainly wasn’t as fit as I had been in years gone by; my workouts were less frequent and less intense, but I still did my best.
I’d always been a very solitary gym-goer. It wasn’t a social occasion for me. I went there alone and I didn’t stand around gassing to others while I was there. That said, over the years I’d become familiar with many of the other people I saw. I never spoke to these people, yet I felt I knew a lot about them – their gym customs at least.
It was a Friday morning when I saw Cara Donald. At first my brain registered no surprise. Her face was passingly familiar and I assumed that I’d seen her around the gym before. After a few seconds, though, I did the world’s longest double-take as my brain tried to place her. I stared over at her as she headed to a treadmill. She must only have been five foot five or six, but her slim body made her look tall. I could tell from the tight-fitting shorts and vest that clung to her tanned body that she was in perfect shape.
Eventually it clicked. I didn’t know her from the gym. Perhaps we’d simply never trained at the same time before, but more likely she was relatively new, which was why we’d only just crossed paths there. I did know her, though.
She’d worked for the same company as Alice, back when we’d first met. She was from the same crowd of people as Craig Fletcher, the man Alice had cheated with. I hadn’t seen Cara for something like ten years, but all of a sudden a rush of memories cascaded through my mind.
I’d always been fond of Cara, from a distance at least. She was friendly and kooky, always smiling and laughing. A free spirit. She was incredibly flirtatious too. At least she had been with me. I’d never been quite sure whether she was the same with every guy or she really had liked me. Either way, her flirting had made me feel special, and although nothing had ever come close to happening between us, I’d always been attracted to her. If I’d known her when I was single, I certainly would have tried my luck.
What was I talking about? I was single. Gemma had thrown me out, and despite my efforts she’d barely spoken to me since. A week: more than half the time O’Brady had given me to get him two hundred thousand pounds had already passed. Gemma had extricated herself from that problem now. It was clear that neither she nor her father was prepared to help bail me out anymore.
I’d picked the kids up from school twice in the last week, spending some much-needed quality time with them before Gemma came home from work. Each time she’d quickly shooed me out the door on her return, making it clear I wasn’t welcome in the house.
It was Gemma’s choice to put our marriage on the line like that. I hadn’t asked for it. She had. Now I had every right to do whatever I wanted.
I kept an eye on Cara as she pounded on a treadmill for half an hour, keeping myself busy in the weights area. At the end of her run she was red-faced and dripping with sweat, but she looked fantastic still, with her wavy dyed-blond hair and cute face.
She began to walk over from the bank of treadmills to a matted area where medicine balls of various sizes were shelved. I noticed a few other people – both male and female – following her every move. She was just that type of person who caught attention. I got up from the machine I was on and quickly walked over to try to meet her head on.
We reached the mats at the same time and proceeded to do the confused shimmy that happens when two people walk unexpectedly toward each other. I shifted to the left then right, and she mirrored my clumsy attempts to get out of the way.
‘Sorry,’ I said, laughing, before moving very deliberately back to my left to let her past.
She smiled and looked at me quizzically, as though trying to place my face, but in the end she said nothing of it.
‘Did you want one of the balls?’ she said through heavy breaths.
Her voice was velvety smooth and she had a Southern Irish twang. Not a strong accent, but enough to make it clear where she was from. For some reason I hadn’t remembered that she was from Ireland, but her voice was nonetheless as familiar as it was sweet.
I looked over at the shelf next to us and realised there was just one ball left.
‘No, no. You go for it,’ I said. ‘I’ll do some stretching and wait.’
‘Thanks,’ she said and stepped away to fetch the ball.
I was slightly disappointed that she hadn’t recognised me immediately. But then if she was anything like I usually was, she was in the zone and just wanted to concentrate on her workout, not chat and flirt with some guy she may or may not have liked ten years ago.
I hovered for just a couple of minutes until someone else finished, then I took his ball and positioned myself adjacent to Cara. She was doing some sort of balance pose with the ball, the tips of her toes of one foot on the floor, one hand on the ball, and her other hand and foot in the air. I clumsily started to make up some not-so-elegant poses, which drew questioning glances from the other punters.
‘Bloody hell,’ I said out loud. ‘I really have no clue what I’m supposed to be doing with this thing.’
I noticed a couple of others shake their heads at me, but Cara snickered.
‘You’re not supposed to laugh at those less fortunate than you,’ I said.
‘It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?’
‘It certainly looks a lot easier for you than it feels for me.’
‘Maybe you should stick to the weights machines,’ she said, and I was quietly impressed that perhaps she’d noticed me earlier after all.
‘Yeah. You’re probably right,’ I said.
I slid off the ball and landed on the floor with a bump, which elicited another laugh from Cara. I got to my feet and put the ball back on the shelf, then walked away from her and the mats without another word.
Whether or not she recognised me, I could tell from the intensity on her face when she was
working out that if I tried to start up any other chat with her there, in the gym in the middle of her routine, she would probably cut me off outright. That would be the end of it. The fact I’d managed to make her smile a couple of times, even if she was only being polite, was a good sign.
As I walked away from Cara I tried to think of how I could approach her next. It was childish. Calculated too. Even in my mid-thirties an attractive woman apparently still had the power to make me act like a nervous and irrational boy. But one way or another, I was determined to speak to her again.
I messed around on the weights machines for another five minutes. When I saw Cara finish off and head back toward the changing rooms, I did the same. I guessed she would take longer to get ready than I would, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get showered and dressed and outside before her.
When I was done, I walked out and stood by the gym entrance, looking over toward the elaborate fountain that dominated the main square in Brindley Place. I’d always loved the revamped area by the canals. Even though it was in the middle of a fast-paced city, Brindley Place felt so calm.
Alice and I had regularly strolled through the squares and up and down the canals when we’d lived nearby, frequenting the many bars and restaurants. I still enjoyed taking the kids every now and then, particularly when it was warm, letting them run around by the fountain and seeing them squeal in delight every time a splash of water got them.
I took my phone out of my pocket and held it to my ear and waited. When I spotted Cara coming out of the gym a few minutes later, heading toward me, I began to fake a conversation on the phone, which I promptly ended when she was just a couple of yards away. As I pushed the mobile back into my pocket she made eye contact with me, and before she looked away again I smiled casually at her and nodded. She gave a half-frown and I wondered whether my infantile plan had failed, but then, just as she looked away, she cracked a radiant smile as she sauntered past.
‘Good workout?’ I asked.
