The Dead

by Howard Linskey

  It was the hurt that comes from rejection, from knowing that no matter how much you like a guy, he isn’t into you, even though you’ve given him your body and tried to give him your heart. That was what I heard in Michelle’s voice and it was why I went easy on her. I now finally realised I was hearing the exact same thing in my mother’s words all those years ago. Every time I told her I’d seen Jinky, or he’d given me a couple of quid to run an errand for him, she’d roll her eyes and say ‘Huh, Jinky Smith thinks he’s god’s gift he does,’ and she’d do him down some more. I never understood why at the time but I did now. It sounds daft but that’s all it took to finally solve the mystery; a feeling deep in my gut, nothing more. All of a sudden, I just knew. I was so sure I’d have been willing to bet thousands on it. Jinky Smith was my father. I just never knew it, and neither did he.

  Here I was, working with gangsters and spies all this time but it was my mother who came up with a cover story even I couldn’t crack for nearly forty years. All that bullshit about dad moving away, working down south, saving up so he could send for us. She invented it all. There were no letters. There were no phone calls and there could never have been a tearful reunion during that special week when Aunty Vi looked after Danny and I was conceived. God knows where she went but, if it really was London, it wasn’t to visit dad. He’d been dead for years and even she didn’t know it. She probably thought he’d just got tired of her and run off, leaving her with a bairn to bring up on her own. I wondered how many nights she’d lain awake wondering what happened to Alan Blake and where he ended up; the Merchant Navy, the Foreign Legion or just some bartending job in the smoke; not knowing he was buried under a supermarket car park just a couple of miles from where we lived.

  Of course there was one guy who knew all along what had happened to the man I have always called dad and I wasn’t thinking of Michael Crowe. Bobby Mahoney knew, because he had Alan Blake killed. The answer to the question why my law-abiding mother ended up working in Bobby Mahoney’s clubs all those years was finally answered. He employed her because he felt guilty for robbing the woman of her livelihood when he put her old man in the ground. The gangster in Bobby Mahoney reasoned he had no choice but to kill the bloke who’d stolen from him, the sentimental patriarch in him felt the only decent thing to do for his wife was to give her a job.

  When mum invented that bullshit story about going off to London to meet up with dad, Bobby must have wondered what the fuck she was playing at. When she started to show signs of being pregnant he would have worked it out right enough. I wondered if he tagged who the father was? Probably, knowing Bobby. I doubt if Jinky gave it a second thought. Bobby wouldn’t have broadcast the fact that he’d had Alan Blake killed, so if Tina Blake was getting back with her husband, that was none of Jinky’s business. He would have moved on to the next girl by then.

  ‘If it wasn’t for other men’s wives, I’d still be a virgin,’ he’d told me. He was probably only nice to me because he liked my mum, not because he suspected he was my real father.

  ‘I’ve managed to get you a place,’ I told Jinky, and he stared back at me uncomprehendingly. ‘I know some people from a housing association that specialises in ex-cons. It’s called the Second Chances centre. They provide jobs for the young ones and, in special cases, housing for the older ones.’

  ‘Special cases?’ he asked, presumably wondering how he could qualify for any form of special treatment after the life he had led.

  ‘Well you’re clearly not one, are you, Jinky?’ I agreed, ‘but it’s a system like any other and we both know that a system can be played.’ There was a glimmer of recognition there. ‘Wheels can be oiled, favours called in, so that’s what I did.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, eyes sparkling.

  ‘Anyhow, they’ve found you a flat and it’s way better than this one,’ Jinky looked a little surprised at that. He seemed to suddenly take in the squalor of his flat as if he was noticing it for the first time. ‘It’s in a good area too, with no druggies hanging around outside your front door. All you have to do is meet the guy who runs the scheme and make a reasonable impression.’ His face dropped at that and he looked down self-consciously at the clothes he was wearing. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I told him, ‘I’ll sort you out with some new threads and we’ll get you a haircut. As long as you turn up sober and looking smart, the apartment’s yours.’

  ‘But what about the rent?’ he asked me. ‘I haven’t got a pot to piss in, man.’

  ‘It’s all taken care of. The Second Chances scheme is legacy funded,’ he frowned again, ‘it means everything’s paid for by rich people who die and leave some of their money to the centre.’

  ‘Nice of them,’ he observed disbelievingly.

  ‘You could say that,’ I said, ‘I reckon most of them are trying to buy their way into heaven.’ I didn’t want him to know that the real, sole benefactor of the Second Chances centre was me.

  I turned down his offer of a cup of tea because I didn’t want to die of botulism, then I ushered him out of the door and drove him into town. I took him to a Marks and Sparks and bought him some shirts, trousers, socks and underwear.

  ‘Are you sure this is alright like?’ he asked me.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘you’re one of Bobby’s old boys. We do this these days. We’re all minted and there’s plenty for everyone,’ he shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘There’ll be money too, later.’ I said. I meant I wasn’t going to trust the guy with cash yet, because I figured he’d be straight down the pub, then the bookies. ‘Haircut first though.’

  I made sure I gave a generous tip to the poor lass who had to wash Jinky’s hair before the hairdresser got to work. I watched as she snipped away at Jinky’s locks, removing several inches from the long straggly strands and using all of her skills to make the man look respectable. She was nearly done when Malcolm arrived. I introduced him.

  ‘Malcolm’s from Second Chances and he’s going to get you ready for your appointment later.’

  I meant that he was going to take him away and make sure he took a bath before he put the clean clothes on. I’d given instructions for the old clothes to be binned. The hairdresser was already sweeping up the strands of hair with a brush and pan. Jinky didn’t notice when she took a clump of his hair and put it into a little plastic packet with a zip top.

  I took out my wallet and paid the girl. The money I gave her was way more than the cost of the haircut. I took the remainder of the cash from my wallet and counted it. I was going to give some of it to Jinky. I looked up to see his expectant face staring at the money in my hand. In the end I handed the whole lot to Malcolm. ‘That’s for you Jinky,’ I told him, ‘after your meeting, not before.’ He nodded gratefully like he understood my reasons. ‘Just relax and answer the man’s questions, tell him the truth about your… ,’ I struggled to find the right word and finally settled on ‘… background. Don’t bullshit him and try not to fuck this up, eh?’

  ‘I won’t Davey,’ he assured me, ‘I’m real grateful to you like, honest I am.’

  ‘That’s okay man,’ I told him. I wanted him to think the interview with our Second Chances manager mattered. It didn’t. The flat was already sorted but I wanted Jinky to believe that he had to earn it. That way he might not go too far off the rails if he thought it could ever be taken away from him.

  ‘There’ll be more money on a regular basis, provided you keep your nose clean. Someone will tidy the flat and there’ll be groceries delivered every week.’

  He opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly stopped and seemed to be pursing his lips, like he was making an effort to say the words, then I realised that what he was really doing was trying to keep something in. I could see the tears forming in his eyes.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Just forget about it Jinky,’ I said, ‘it’s no bother like. It’s your share. You earned it man.’ Then I walked out of there as quickly as I could.

  I got the DNA test
back in record time. The sample they got from Jinky’s hair was clear enough and proved it beyond all doubt. He was definitely my father.

  44

  Be careful what you wish for. That’s what they say, isn’t it? My life is a fucking Greek tragedy. I wanted to find out all about my father, so I could tell my little girl something about him, but what was I going to tell her now? The man I thought was my dad didn’t really walk out on me when I was small. He died two years before I was born, killed by the man I later called boss, until I in turn killed him. If Alan Blake had been my true father there would at least have been some fucked-up sense of justice at play when I shot Bobby Mahoney but no, my real father was a washed-up gangster; a con man and hustler, a part-time armed robber who couldn’t even do that right, a jail bird who spent years inside and came out with a torn heart and lungs as black as tar. Now he’s old and broke and sitting in God’s waiting room but he’s all I’ve got left, apart from a half-brother who’s stuck in a wheelchair. At least I can take care of him.

  Thank God for my little Emma. If it wasn’t for her I don’t know what I’d do. The whole fucked-up, shitty mess I’ve managed to get myself in wouldn’t be worth jack-all if it wasn’t for her. That night, I looked down on her while she was sleeping in her little bed and she looked so beautiful, sweet and peaceful that I wondered how anything so precious could ever have come from me.

  Obviously I confronted Our young’un.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ We’d been arguing about it for a while now and he didn’t want to go over the details again but I wanted him to admit it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked him for what felt like the umpteenth time and he finally gave in.

  He gave an exasperated sigh, ‘Because she didn’t want you to know, man. At the end, she made me swear not to tell you. What was I supposed to do? Break a promise I’d made to my dying ma?’ Then he turned from exasperation to anger, ‘I told you not to. I said that nowt good would come of it! Didn’t I?’

  We were alone in Cachet so nobody could hear us. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘you did!’ In some dark recess of my brain that was still logical, I could understand why he hadn’t told me but I was hurting and too angry for that. ‘You still could have told me. You owed me that. I always took care of you Danny, always!’

  ‘And a lot of good it did me!’ he roared at me. ‘You taking care of me put me in this chair!’ and he gripped the sides of his wheelchair in frustration and shook it.

  Somehow I managed to retain the sense not to push it any further because there was still a lot of unspoken shit between us about that and neither of us would profit from any of it coming out now. Danny had been a fuck-up for most of his adult life and I made it my job to save him. I was well intentioned but now he was paralysed because of his involvement with the firm and he thought that was my fault. If we said all that out loud there’d be no going back for either of us. Instead, I stormed out of that room.

  I drove around for so long I lost track of time. When I finally got home Sarah was cooking a late dinner in the kitchen. Emma was asleep upstairs. I walked up behind Sarah and wrapped my arms around her.

  ‘I’ve always solved our problems haven’t I?’ I asked her, ‘whatever’s been thrown at us, I’ve always tried to protect you?’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered, ‘but I don’t need as much taking care of as you think. I’m a bit tougher than that Davey,’ and she turned to look at me and gave me a humourless smile, ‘it must be genetic.’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry if you’ve felt trapped with me sometimes, it’s just that I promised your dad and…’

  ‘What is it?’ she looked concerned then and I realised that, for once, I had failed to mask my feelings. They must have been written all over my face. I knew the stress of dealing with so many problems all at the same time was beginning to get to me. Sarah put her arms around me then, ‘What is it, Davey?’ she repeated.

  I was reluctant to tell her, but knew I had to. ‘I think I have a problem that I can’t solve. I think there is something that’s beyond my control.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she urged, and there was a fire in her eyes that I found strangely comforting, ‘there’s nothing we can’t solve together. You always keep me on the outside, you don’t tell me things… I know why you do it, to protect me, but this time I want you to tell me. Do you think I don’t know when something is wrong? I can see it in your face every time you step out the door. I’m not stupid Davey. I love you. Let me help.’

  ‘I love you too,’ I told her, ‘you and Emma mean everything to me. I know there are times when I haven’t shown that and I’m sorry. I know you are strong Sarah but there’s no way you can help with this.’

  I told her everything then. How I was trapped between a powerful man who would kill me if I didn’t do his bidding and a vengeful superpower that would never tolerate me helping him.

  ‘There must be something we can do,’ she said.

  ‘There isn’t,’ I told her, ‘and you and Emma won’t ever be safe while I’m still breathing.’ And I drew her tightly to me then so she couldn’t see the look on my face.

  When I arrived at Cachet, Danny was talking to the DJ and a couple of our dancers. I hung back and let him see me but didn’t approach him. He seemed to take a bloody long while to say his piece to them, so I guessed he was keeping me waiting to punish me or he was stalling because he didn’t know what to say to me. Finally he was done and they walked away. He turned his chair towards me and came over. He was wearing his ‘What the fuck do you want?’ face.

  ‘We okay for tonight?’ I asked, meaning the club, something I never normally asked him about.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, but that was all he said.

  ‘And the gala dinner,’ I reminded him, ‘do you need anything?’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ and before I could say what was on my mind he started to back his chair away so he could turn it in an arc from me. ‘About yesterday,’ I said and he stopped, ‘I didn’t mean any of it. You of all people know that. I was upset so I took it out on you. I was a cunt.’ I was apologising in a manner that I thought Danny might understand.

  ‘It’s nae bother,’ he lied, ‘we were both upset and we were both talking shite man. Forget it.’ That last bit was an order. Danny meant he understood and accepted my apology and this was his way of saying sorry too. You just had to know Danny really well to understand that.

  ‘Got time for a pint?’ I asked.

  ‘Always,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I worked it out man,’ he told me when we were in a quiet corner with our drinks, ‘not at first like. I was still only a bairn when you came along. She told me she’d been away and seen me dad. He had a job down south but he couldn’t get back ’cos it was too far away but maybe one day he might come home for good. She said we’d have to be patient for a bit longer and see how things worked out. Then, later on, she told me I was going to have a little brother or sister. I was only young but I didn’t believe her about dad coming back, even then. I mean, it was shite, wasn’t it?’

  ‘When did you start to suspect?’

  ‘When I was a bit older. I can’t remember what was said but I overheard one of the nosey old bints in the street making some comment about me ma being “no better than she ought to be” or some such crap. I didn’t say anything about it but it got me thinking about why she might have said it.’

  ‘So you asked her about it?’

  ‘Not then, no. It was later,’ he admitted, ‘much later, when I got back.’ He meant from the Falklands. I guessed, after what he had seen there, it put our mother’s extra-marital affair into perspective. ‘Anyhow, it didn’t go well. She got very upset. I told her it didn’t matter to me but she was ashamed, I mean she was well embarrassed by it and she made me swear not to tell you. I think she thought you’d have been really upset.’

  ‘And she didn’t tell you who the father was?’

  ‘No b
ro, she didn’t. She wouldn’t let on to me, honest.’

  ‘And you had no idea?’

  ‘No, not really. I mean there were always men around but that was down to her job. She worked in Bobby Mahoney’s clubs and pubs, so I’d see her chatting away to the regulars and the guys in his crew but she never brought one home. Sometimes she’d get a lift off one of them but they wouldn’t come in.’

  ‘She got lifts off Jinky?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he said, but I guessed he was just being evasive, ‘maybe, yes, I reckon so, a couple of times, but like I said he never came in. Our ma wouldn’t allow that, you know what she was like, bit of an old prude really when it came down to it.’

  Our young’un laughed. ‘Guess she wasn’t quite as big a prude as we thought.’

  ‘You and me though,’ I reminded him, ‘we look alike. I mean obviously I’m the young, handsome one and you’re the old, clapped-out version but there is a resemblance.’

  He nodded, ‘We both look like ma though.’

  ‘I s’pose so.’

  ‘There is one way you take after Jinky though.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The lasses,’ he told me, ‘I don’t know if it’s what you say to them, or the way you say it, but you’ve always had more than your fair share, just like him.’

  ‘And look how he ended up,’ I reminded Our young’un.

  I hired a young lass to do the singing and she was ace; classically trained, with gold albums, the works. She’d sung for royalty, appeared at the Royal Albert Hall and belted out Abide with Me at the Cup Final to a crowd of ninety thousand. She had a voice like a bloody angel, plus she was as fit as fuck, so the mostly male audience loved her. I paid her well and asked her to sing some patriotic numbers because I knew the guys on these tables would lap it up and part with more of their cash for Help the Heroes, our chosen charity. She did Jerusalem and I Vow to Thee My Country and the applause was loud and warm. They were stuffing notes in envelopes and making credit card donations like they had money to burn.