Always the Sun

by Neil Cross

  When he had finished screaming, Dave Hooper lay at Terry’s­ feet.

  Phil chucked away the stub of his cigarette and, pointedly, looked at his wristwatch.

  Damien held up an acknowledging hand and pressed a foot down on Dave Hooper’s mouth. Hooper flexed and strained beneath him while Damien reached into his inner pocket and removed a telescopic baton, such as might be used by any European police force.

  Damien removed his foot, stepped back, and prodded Hooper in the jaw with his toe. He kicked and nudged and prodded Hooper into a better position. Then he and Damien spent a minute or two beating Hooper about the head and body. Sam could hear the crack of unprotected bone.

  Having worked up a sweat, they stepped back. They watched Hooper try to crawl away, wriggling through the mud like a lungfish. From his pocket, Terry produced a small lock-knife. With it, he cut Hooper’s hands free, then hoisted him to his feet by the collar. It took several attempts. Hooper’s feet kept collapsing from under him. Eventually he found his balance. Then he tried to run. They let him stumble a few metres before setting off in laughing pursuit. Terry swung the baton at the base of Hooper’s skull. There was a sound like a single, muffled handclap. Hooper ran on for a few steps before his legs gave way.

  Close to the picnic tables, he lay on his back, looking at the sky.

  Terry sat on the edge of the picnic table and lit a cigarette while Damien circled Hooper, prodding him now and again with the end of the baton.

  Sam approached Phil.

  Phil turned away and looked at the river.

  The sky was much lighter now. Sam could clearly see the picnic table. On its surface he could read many years of knife-carved graffiti, decades of Carolines for Tonys and Ians for Lisas. And he could see the Coke and Stella Artois cans that littered the surrounding mud and patches of grass.

  Damien was squatting next to Dave Hooper, the baton resting on his knees. He was speaking to him as he might to a bedridden relative.

  The wet grass had soaked Sam’s socks and trousers. He stood several feet away from the picnic area and crossed his arms.

  Terry glanced at him.

  He didn’t know what to say. He looked at the ground. His jeans were black with mud almost to the knees.

  Dave Hooper’s tongue was swollen and his teeth were gone and his lips were split, and his voice was hardly a voice at all.

  He said, ‘Jesus Christ, Sam, make them stop.’

  Sam was shocked. He had almost forgotten that Dave Hooper was a person. His teeth lay scattered like a broken necklace. His eyes were swollen labia.

  It would be so much easier, and so much better, Sam thought, simply to roll him down the riverbank and into the water, to let the current take care of him.

  Damien and Terry were watching him. He saw his own disgust mirrored on their faces.

  Dave Hooper reached out. He grabbed the hem of Sam’s jeans and tugged, once. He tried to force words past his ripped and bloated tongue. He spoke quietly and it was difficult to understand him.

  He said, ‘Jesus. Please.’

  Sam felt nothing but abhorrence. He wanted the remaining light wiped from Dave Hooper’s eyes.

  He looked at Terry.

  ‘What would happen if we just left him here?’

  The tugging at the hem of his trousers grew more urgent. Sam shook it off, irritated.

  Terry flicked away his cigarette. It went careening like a firefly towards the dewy, wet bushes. Sam could see the detritus collected at their roots: toilet tissue, cans, a rolled-up magazine, a collapsed KFC box, several used condoms.

  ‘He’s bleeding inside,’ said Terry.

  Damien grunted confirmation.

  ‘He’ll be dead by lunchtime, latest.’

  Hooper tugged at Sam’s ankle.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Sam, irritably, and kicked the importunate hand away.

  Hooper lay flat and stared with one swollen eye into the gathering dawn.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Sam.’

  Sam ignored him, as one might a persistent child.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  Terry prodded Hooper with the blood-spattered toe of his shoe. Then he produced the small lock-knife.

  ‘We’ve got rope in the van. Let’s string him up and cut him open.’

  ‘That’ll learn him,’ said Damien.

  Dave Hooper tried to scream.

  Sam looked at Damien for help, but Damien didn’t seem interested. He lit a cigarette and perched on the edge of the picnic table, next to Terry.

  Hooper was chanting something. One word: a single, throttled syllable.

  Sam was distracted by it. He couldn’t think straight.

  He said, ‘What’s he saying?’

  Terry shrugged, indifferent. Sam looked to Damien. But Damien still wasn’t listening.

  Sam became aware by a small displacement of energy that Phil had joined them. He stood at Sam’s shoulder and looked down.

  ‘He’s asking for his mother,’ said Phil. He put his hands in his pockets. ‘They do that. Even the big boys.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Sam. He ran his fingers through his hair.

  He stooped, heel to haunch. He listened hard.

  Abruptly, he straightened.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’

  Damien, Terry and Phil looked at him.

  ‘That’s what?’ said Phil.

  ‘That’s enough.’

  Sam stood with his legs slightly apart, anticipating a challenge.

  Phil shrugged.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Terry put away the knife.

  ‘What?’ said Sam. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ said Phil.

  Sam wished he hadn’t said that.

  Phil hitched his trousers and squatted.

  He said, ‘Did you hear that, Mr Hooper?’

  Dave Hooper nodded. His hand slapped at the wet ground.

  ‘Mr Greene has told us to stop,’ said Phil. ‘So we’re stopping. Believe me when I say, the boys don’t want to. They’d like to cut your cock off and stuff it down your throat.’

  Dave Hooper made an urgent, animal noise.

  ‘And personally,’ said Phil, ‘I’m inclined to let them, after what you did to my fucking van. But orders are orders.’ He glanced at Sam, as if seeking approval. Sam half-nodded and Phil continued: ‘But listen to this,’ he said. ‘If you or your family so much as look at Mr Greene or any member of his family, I’ll hear about it. And I’ll be back. Do you hear me? Not because I have to. Because I want to.’

  He prodded Hooper’s sternum with a rigid index finger, the first and last time he ever touched him.

  ‘And next time,’ he said, ‘I’ll kill you. And I’ll kill your sons and I’ll kill your mother and father and I’ll kill your wife. I’ll kill your fucking dog and your fucking goldfish and I’ll burn your house down and when it’s stopped burning I’ll come and shit on the rubble. Do you understand that?’

  Phil took the mobile phone from his pocket and held it between finger and thumb, like a sheet of shit-smeared paper. He dropped it on the ground close to Hooper’s head.

  He said, ‘Here’s your phone. Wait five minutes, then call yourself an ambulance. If you’re lucky, it’ll get here in time.’

  Phil watched Hooper’s hand scuttle slowly to the phone like a spider. Then he said, ‘I don’t care what you tell the police, because I’m assuming you won’t mention me, or Damien or Terry. But most of all, you don’t mention Mr Greene. He’s taking a big risk, leaving you alive. He’s acting against every piece of advice I’ve ever given him. Do you understand that?’ He waited. ‘Do you understand the gravity of the commitment Mr Greene is making to you? If you reject that gift, then may God damn your eyes, Mr Hooper, because that’s all that’ll be
left of you when we’ve finished. Do you understand that?’

  Dave Hooper pronounced the word ‘yes’ with an exaggerated lisp that made Damien and Terry exchange a smile and dangle limp wrists in the air before them.

  ‘Good,’ said Phil.

  He straightened up.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Shall we?’

  They walked back to the damaged Renault Espace. Sam didn’t look over his shoulder. He could hear the wet rattle of Dave Hooper’s breathing.

  He belted himself in the passenger seat. In the back, Damien and Terry lit cigarettes.

  Phil started the engine and pulled away from the picnic area, down a dark lane the morning had yet to touch.

  After they’d been driving for a while, Terry said, ‘That was some spiel you gave him there, Phil.’

  Phil glanced in the rearview mirror. His dead face split into a sudden grin.

  He said, ‘It’s good, innit?’

  ‘Where’d you get it from?’

  ‘I nicked it,’ said Phil, ‘off another bloke, a bloke I used to work with. I heard him saying it and I thought, I’ll have some of that. So I wrote it down and memorized it.’

  ‘It’s good,’ said Damien.

  ‘It comes in handy,’ said Phil. ‘You know how it is. You can never think of the right thing to say.’

  They paused at the junction; turned back on to the main road into town.

  ‘Who was it, then?’ said Terry. ‘This bloke you got it from.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know him,’ said Phil, in a friendly manner that put an unambiguous end to the conversation.

  The traffic was growing heavier. They passed the gates of the slaughterhouse. A few minutes later, Phil pulled up in the lay-by.

  Sam sat as if hypnotized.

  ‘Right you are, then,’ said Phil.

  Sam detached himself from the seat belt and opened the door.

  He said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Well,’ said Phil. ‘That’s it. Go home and forget all about it.’

  Sam laughed, like a man admiring a car he can’t afford.

  He said, ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that.’

  Phil shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard the last of Mr Cooper.’

  He looked at Sam as if expecting him to say something.

  Then he said, ‘Right. We’d better be off.’

  Sam climbed out of the MPV. The gravel crunched beneath his feet.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry about your car.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phil. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s no skin off my nose.’

  ‘Right.’

  Sam scuffed at gravel with the toe of his shoe. He saw it was flecked here and there as if with dark paint.

  ‘See you, then,’ said Phil.

  Terry and Damien raised their hands in a casual goodbye. Sam was still trying to think of what to say when, with a final wheelspin, the MPV pulled away from the lay-by. He waved lamely as it passed over the low brow of the hill.

  Dazed, he stared at Dave Hooper’s car, its snub nose cracked and concertinaed by impact, Hooper’s blood on the crazed windscreen. It waited there like a sculpture to the missing.

  Sam felt in his pocket until he found his car keys. They felt strange, powerful, a talisman of home.

  He got behind the wheel of the Chrysler and reversed into the gathering traffic.

  On the way home, he stopped off at the garage and put the Chrysler through the car-wash. The brushes hammered vengefully at the windscreen and windows. He waited patiently, without expression. Then he drove to the McDonald’s drive-thru and ordered a Big Breakfast each for him and Jamie. When he got home, the coffee in its paper cups was still hot. Jamie was asleep in bed.

  Only then did Sam look at his watch. It was not yet nine o’clock in the morning.

  19

  The Easter holidays ended that week. On Monday, Jamie went back to school.

  When the morning arrived, they might have been preparing for a funeral. Jamie produced his uniform with military ceremony, holding it to his father’s eye as if for inspection. He put on the blazer and draped the tie round his neck like a scarf, then stood facing the mirror and practised making the knot. Before he had finished, he ran to the bathroom.

  Sam heard him vomiting. He pretended not to have heard. Instead, he offered Jamie a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich. Jamie told him no, he wasn’t hungry.

  Ten minutes later, Stuart knocked on the door. He greeted Sam with a big, pleased smile. Sam reciprocated, with some effort. Jamie squeezed past him.

  ‘All right, Jay?’ said Stuart.

  ‘All right, Stu?’ said Jamie.

  Sam smiled. He watched them saunter down the garden path. He could sense the emptiness in Jamie’s guts, just by looking at the angle at which he held his head.

  Jamie got home at four o’clock. His shirt was open to the third button and his tie loosened almost to the navel. His hair stuck up and out at all angles. A few sweaty spikes of fringe dangled over his brow and into his eyes. He dragged his bag on the floor behind him, as if exhausted. Sam had seen other kids walking exactly like that, dragging their bags behind them. He guessed it to be one of those mini-fads that can possess a school for a few months. Jamie’s shoes were scuffed and dusty and he kicked them off in the hallway. He dumped his bag and his blazer on the floor. His sweaty socks left damp patches on the wooden floor that evaporated in his wake.

  Sam poured orange juice into a pint glass. He topped this up with a handful of ice cubes. Jamie took the sweating glass and drank off half of it. He wiped dilute orange beads from his downy moustache and set the glass down on the worktop, next to the sink.

  Then he said, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everyone’s scared of me.’

  ‘Scared of you? That can’t be right.’

  Jamie pushed hair from his eyes.

  ‘Liam was waiting for me at the gates this morning. He told me he didn’t want any trouble.’

  ‘I expect he’s just grown out of it.’

  ‘Dad, he cried.’

  Sam turned away. He opened the fridge and took out a low fat blackcurrant yoghurt.

  ‘Liam’s dad’s in hospital,’ said Jamie.

  Sam raised his eyebrows and took a spoonful of yoghurt.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘He’s in intensive care.’

  Sam examined the spoon. It was stained dark with years of stirring strong tea. His inverted reflection was dark; like a fading photograph in an antique shop.

  He said, ‘I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.’

  Jamie drained the orange juice. He didn’t take his eyes from Sam.

  ‘It’s not an exaggeration.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Because it was Liam who told me about it.’

  Sam dug the spoon into the yoghurt pot’s base and muttered something noncommittal.

  ‘He might die,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Sam. ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Dad—what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Do you want more orange?’

  There was a long moment.

  Jamie said, ‘I’m going to my room.’

  Sam asked him to put his dirty clothes in the washing basket, and to move his bag and his blazer and his shoes from the hallway.

  But he didn’t.

  Earlier that day, Mel had left a message on his answer machine. She seemed hysterical about something and the long message veered several times between incoherent fury and quieter moments of disbelief when she simply repeated the words I can’t believe it.

  Sam could imagine her, running a hand through her fr
izzy, curly hair. He didn’t need to see her to know what her expression was, her stance. He could even judge those moments when she wielded the cigarette as a jabbing, rhetorical tool. He smiled sadly and erased the message.

  First there was the school term to get through. He imagined it would be easier now. Then the long summer lay ahead. The thought filled him with a sense of peace and the serenity of accomplishment.

  He saw Mel once, in the street. But she turned her head and pretended not to see him. He learnt from Jamie that she was spending a lot of time with Dave Hooper. Apparently she was helping him through his physiotherapy. Stuart had seen her in the streets by the Dolphin Centre, pushing Dave Hooper in a wheelchair.

  During the summer term Jamie fell in love with a girl called Michelle. But this trauma was something Sam could do little about. When summer term ended and the weeks stretched out, Michelle-less before him, Sam could only seek to reassure Jamie that there was no pain worse than the pain he was currently enduring. And there was no time worse than the first time.

  Jamie seemed to accept the wisdom of this. It added an heroic undercurrent to his sense of romantic martyrdom.

  Sam indulged him. He encouraged him to enjoy every moment of his final summer as a boy, because next year, he would be something else.

  Jamie looked at him strangely, but said nothing.

  At the end of June, Sam got fired. He accepted it with equanimity and felt sorry for Barbara, who was clearly so nervous when she summoned him to her office. He didn’t mind. He was done with nursing. He had some money in the bank. He was sure he could do some labouring for Unka Frank, which would tide him over until he made up his mind about the future. He was still a young man. He would requalify—perhaps even as a teacher.

  He was single, with one child. He thought they could live on a teacher’s salary, since there was no mortgage to pay. He considered phoning Ashford to discuss it. In the end he decided not to. He was sure there were better people to talk to.

  He saw Ashford once, one afternoon near the end of the summer term. Sam had gone to pick Jamie up from swimming.

  Clutching his briefcase, Ashford was struggling to open the door of his Citroën. He saw Sam but didn’t look away. He looked at Sam the way some visitors looked at certain patients on the ward.