by Ray Banks
‘A bouncer at that club you used to work at.’
She smiles with the healthy side of her face. ‘Good.’
‘What was the fight about?’ I say.
‘What fight?’
‘The fight that landed you with that. The barney you had last night.’
“I didn’t fight last night.’
“I was outside, Alison.’
She takes a long drag on her cigarette, stares at me as she exhales through her teeth. ‘Then why didn’t you come up?
You might’ve been able to help me out a bit.’
“I thought about it.’
‘Thanks for that. A lot of fuckin’ good thoughts do me.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘About what?’
‘About Rob.’
‘What can I do? It depends on you, dunnit? I don’t have much of a say in the matter, do I? I’m fucked. So’s Rob. But I’m not going without a fight.’
‘Don’t push it, Alison.’
She leans across the light again, sits back with an ashtray shaped like a seashell and flicks ash. ‘What’d you say your name was?’
‘Callum Innes.’
She purses her lips, looks like a kid about to have a tantrum. ‘Well, Mr Innes, I’m not going back to Manchester.
You don’t know the half of what’s going on here.’
‘Then how about you wipe that fuckin’ pout off your face and tell me?’
Alison shakes her head. The pout’s gone, but she’s fallen silent.
‘Nah, look. When I walk out of here, I’m calling Mo. That’s a given, right? And I’m going to be watching this place to make sure you two don’t do a flit and make me look bad because Christ knows it’s been a hard slog getting to this point and I’ll be fucked if I let some brat tell me how to do my job. Now all I can do right now is listen to your side of things.
You want to keep your mouth shut, I can understand that. I’ll just walk out of here and call your brother.’
‘We shouldn’t have done it,’ she says.
“I know.’
“I can’t go back.’
‘You’re going to have to.’
‘Mo’s a fuckin’ bampot. I can’t go back to him.’
‘And Rob’s any better?’
‘You don’t know Mo, Mr Innes.’ She flicks more ash and sets the cigarette in one of the shell’s grooves. ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’
“I know exactly what he’s like. He’s a psycho. And I’m not saying going back to Manchester’s going to be easy, Alison, but it’s got to be better than staying here, isn’t it? How much of the cash has Rob done so far?’
‘It’s not that.’ A sigh breaks out of her. ‘Rob’s got his problems, yeah, but we’re working on them. And you know what Mo’s gonna do to him when he gets up here. He’s a jealous fucker.’
‘What’s he got to be jealous about?’ I say as I light up.
Alison blinks. ‘What’s he got to be jealous about? How about – I dunno – the mother of his kid rips off his dad and buggers off to Newcastle with some bloke she’s been fucking?’
‘What kid?’
But I know the answer. That’s where I’ve seen her before, that’s where that spark of recognition came from. The toddler with Uncle Morris. The sleeping kid in the pushchair.
The kid looked just like his mother.
‘Mo’s your brother,’ I say.
‘He’s my half-brother. My mam wasn’t his mam.’ She starts picking at something on her top lip. ‘Dad doesn’t know about it. Thought I got myself knocked up by some lad on the estate. But he went mental about it. And as much as I wanted to tell him the truth – y’know, see Mo get the same treatment – I couldn’t do it. I kept my mouth shut.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not a grass. And, fuck’s sake, why would I tell him? It’s not like it was rape.’
‘You’re sixteen,’ I say.
‘Seventeen next month,’ she says. ‘And Christ, it wasn’t as if Mo was the first.’
Find me a runaway…
I exhale smoke, shift in my seat. Something rages under my skin and I can’t get a grip on it, one of those internal itches.
‘So, what? You run out on the kid and ‘
‘Make a new life up here.’ Alison looks at me. Her right eye is half-closed. ‘I’m not proud, Mr Innes. But you’re right. I’m sixteen and I’m fucked if I go back to Manchester. You’ve got to understand, it was a mistake, me and Mo. It shouldn’t have happened, but I’m a big girl now.’
‘Yeah, a big girl getting the shit knocked out of her in a Newcastle council flat. That’s a big step up, Alison.’
‘You judging me?’
I shake my head. She has fire in that one good eye.
‘Who the fuck are you, eh? Hold on, let me guess, you’re an ex-con with a favour to pay back, am I right? That, or you’re one of Dad’s hatchet men, a fuckin’ monkey with itchy fists.’
‘That’s not true.’
She grinds out her cigarette. ‘Whatever you are, you’ve got a nerve playing the good guy.’
‘You’re going back, Alison. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘And what about Rob?’
‘What about him?’
‘What’U they do to him?’
‘Use your imagination.’
Alison looks away, stares at a faded stain on the curtain.
She bites her bottom lip. “I don’t want to go back.’
‘Like you said, it’s not up to you. That’s a nasty bruise, but next time it could be a lot nastier.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point. Look, you want to be an adult, you start acting like one. And I know it’s none of my business, but doing a runner isn’t the adult thing to do. It’s being a fuckin’ coward, and I know enough about that. You want to be a big girl, you stand up and face your responsibilities. Morris isn’t going to do anything to you. He’s your dad, for fuck’s sake.
He just wants you back safe.’
‘You know that, huh?’
‘Yeah, I know that.’
‘What about Mo?’
“I can pick you up and take you back myself. I can call Mo from the road. That way you don’t have to be around when he arrives, and you’ll be settled in Manchester before he gets back.’
She looks like she’s thinking about it. ‘What if Rob doesn’t stay put?’
‘If he does another bunk, I’ll find him. I’m not the brightest spark, but I got this far, didn’t I?’
‘Why would you take me back?’
‘Because I don’t want to be around when Mo arrives. I don’t know what he’s going to do, and I don’t want to know.
And what’s Rob going to think? That you grassed him up.’
Alison starts biting her fingernails again. ‘He’d be right an’ all.’
‘Not your fault. But I don’t think he’ll see it that way’
She takes a deep breath, lets it out as if it’s her last. When she reaches for another cigarette, I notice her eyes are red. She sniffs and wipes at her cheek as she lights up.
‘Well?’
‘Okay,’ she says.
‘Okay?’
‘Call it eight tonight. Ring the buzzer for thirty-five. I’ll be ready’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Couldn’t be doing with this anymore, man.
Yeah, doing his car over gave us summat to chew on.
Fuckin’ loved that, like. Rossie made with the tyres and me and Baz did the paint job. That were fun. Got a buzz out of that, but it didn’t sit still long enough. Grabbed at it, and the fuckin’ fun went poof, out the window. I couldn’t hang onto owt these days. Because none of it were bringing us closer to Alison. Felt like I were being fucked around is what it felt like.
Summat had to be done and done right. We was watching Innes ponce about, but it were like watching a film on Channel Five – I kept missing stuff ‘cause I couldn’t hear or I couldn’t se
e. And when the fuck came out the flats, he had this look on his boat like he’d sorted summat out.
‘Take it easy,’ said Rossie.
‘How the fuck can I take it easy? You think he’s in there?’
‘If he was in there, Innes would’ve called you.’
“I dunno, Rossie. I don’t fuckin’ know. I don’t trust that cunt.’
‘Hang tight, Mo.’
‘Fuck off.’ I tapped the seat. Wrap of billy long gone and me nerves were fuckin’ shot. ‘We got to do summat. I can’t be fuckin’ waiting around forever. Christ, as bad as him, innit?’
‘What d’you want to do?’ said Baz.
‘I want a word with him. Give us your butterfly, Rossie.’
‘Nah.’
I looked at him. ‘Give us your fuckin’ butterfly, ginger nuts.’
‘You talk with your mouth, not my blade. Use your own.’
‘He don’t have it,’ said Baz.
‘What happened?’
‘Give us your fuckin’ butterfly,’ I said.
‘He’s gone,’ said Baz.
‘You what?’ I looked out the window. ‘Fuck did he go?’
‘Dunno.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m telling you, Mo, I didn’t see.’
‘You’re a fuckin’ liar,’ I said. And the speed were scratching us up inside. ‘Fuck’s the matter with you lads, anyway? You bottling this?’
Rossie yawned. ‘We’re not bottling owt, Mo. You need to chill.’
‘Fuck off. You’re bottling it, the pair of ya. Fuckin’ bottling cunts. Simple as, know what I mean? You supposed to come up here with me and we scope the fucker out and find out where Stokes is and we get my fuckin’ sister back and that’s the end of the story, right?’
‘So why d’you want Innes?’ said Baz. He had his mouth hanging open.
‘Why do I want Innes?’ My eyes fuckin’ hurt, like they’d dried out. And I wanted a weapon, anything, wanted to slam the pair of cunts in the nose with it, whatever it was. A double whap and have ‘em screaming blood all over. Why did I want Innes? ‘Cause he’s a cunt, like the pair of youse. He thinks he can take care of this, he’s out of his fuckin’ league. He don’t know the first fuckin’ thing what’s going on here. And I want him out the picture, you hear me? I want him in the fuckin’ hospital and away from us. He cocks it up and we’re sorted.’
Rossie shook his head.
‘Nah, you don’t get it. Dad’s got shit planned for us. Planned. Big stuff, know what I mean? We’ll be working for the man. We’ll be fuckin’ untouchable.’
‘Mo, you was ready to kill him before.’
I leaned in close to Rossie and said, ‘Whatever it fuckin’ takes, Rossie. Whatever it fuckin’ takes. You lads, you can go through life just getting fucked up and nobody gives a shit, am I right? Me, I got plans, I got ambitions. And they don’t need to be fuckin’ scuppered by some jailbird. You know why Dad got him in on this? He did it to piss me off. Because he don’t think that a bunch of scallies like us can carry summat like this off. And we can. As long as you bastards don’t bottle it the first chance you get. Which is what you’re doing right now.’
‘What d’you want us to do, Mo?’ said Baz. He looked tired.
“I want more than just fucking up his car. I want him fucked up. I want a message sent out to him. You don’t step on Mo Tiernan’s toes.’
‘Then what you got planned?’
I clicked me teeth together, looked for some gum. ‘I’ll tell you what I got planned. And you bottle this, I’ll cut you both up.’
THIRTY-NINE
I walk away from Alison’s flat on aching legs. Feels like I’ve accomplished something and when I get to the garage, it looks like I’m not the only one. I fork out for the new tyres, turn down the offer of new paint, and call Donna.
I ask her if she wants to meet up before I head back to Manchester. She agrees because, according to her, there’s something we have to talk about. She tells me to meet her in the Egypt Cottage. Not her flat, and I get the feeling I’m about to be brushed off. It was bound to happen. A woman gets drunk, invites a bloke back to her place and she maybe thinks she said something she didn’t mean, and sometimes it’s easier to cut these things short before they get a chance to take root.
The quiet fear of the blackout drunk.
Just another loose end to tie up.
Donna’s already there by the time I step through the door.
She’s got a gin on the go and a cigarette in her mouth. When she sees me, she attempts a smile, but it doesn’t register in her eyes. Yeah, this is going to be a bad one.
I grab a pint, sit next to her. She shifts position.
“I thought you’d be back in Manchester by now,’ she says.
‘That’s what you said, right?’
Straight in with it. ‘I’m not going back until tonight.’
‘So it’s all finished, then.’
‘A couple of wee things to tie up. But, yeah, I’m pretty much done here.’
“Huh.’
We drink. I stare at the pictures on the wall. When I glance back at her, she looks like she’s about to say something.
Staring into her gin like the answer’s at the bottom of her glass. Her mouth is open. Then she says, “I was drunk the other night, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Setting myself up now, preparing for the kick into touch.
‘I don’t normally do that. I don’t normally bring people back to my flat, y’know? It’s not what I do. But I’d had a really bad morning, and sometimes you just want a drink. Sometimes that’s the only thing on your mind and fuck responsibility.
I was in one of those moods.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say. “I think I know where this is going.’
When she looks at me, her eyes are glassy. Gin’ll do that to the best. It’s industrial-strength mascara-thinner. ‘Let me finish, Cal. This isn’t easy.’
‘Okay.’
‘So when you don’t call me the next day, and all I’ve got is like a few snapshots of the night, I get to wondering, like, how far did I go? And I remember you leaving, but I don’t remember why you left. And I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of slag, y’know?’
“I know.’
‘Because I’m not, Cal. I’m really fucking not.’
‘I never thought you were.’
‘So… did we?’
‘No, we didn’t. I had to leave.’
Donna laughs to herself, but she catches the sound in the back of her throat. She dabs at one eye, smudging her makeup.
‘I do have some pride left, you know.’
‘It’s me, Donna. Don’t worry about it.’
‘So what do you want to do?’ she says.
I drink my pint, swallow and sit back in my seat. ‘What do you want to do?’
“I like you, Cal. I just think we got off on the wrong foot.
Bad first impressions and that.’
‘Maybe.’
“I don’t know how it can work.’
‘You don’t know how what can work?’
‘Us,’ she says.
‘You want to chalk it up.’
‘Pretty much.’
You can prepare yourself all you want, be as hard as you want.
But at the end of the day, rejection is still a kick in the neck.
This is absolutely fine, I tell myself. This is just spot on.
Tickety-fuckin’-boo. I don’t hang around much after that first pint, make my excuses and leave, because I can’t rationalise being dumped before a relationship begins.
Behind the wheel of the Micra, I stick in a tape and let it play out. I want to scream ‘bitch’, I want to call her and yell ^spiteful things down the phone, but that won’t make much of a difference.
Chalk it up.
And if I’d slept with her? Maybe that would have been different. Or maybe she would have felt worse and not answered the phone. Depending on what she remembered.
Christ, she gets drunk and I pay the price because I’m too much of a gentleman.
Like anything could have come from it. The age difference, the distance between Manchester and Newcastle, a million different reasons why it wouldn’t work. Like the sex issue.
Fuck’s sake, it always comes down to that. The sex is the thing, another Marie Claire myth. It doesn’t matter that the guys who handed a scalding to James Figgis thought they’d teach me a lesson too. It doesn’t matter that they bitched me.
That kind of truth isn’t first-date material, but then neither’s sex. At least it wasn’t when I was growing up. I feel like I’ve been out of the game so long, they changed the rules on me.
I stop by a chippy and sit with my dinner wrapped in newspaper. I stop by an off-licence, grab a half-bottle of cheap vodka and stick it in the glove compartment. It’s a tic, an unconscious action. Something I do when I don’t know what to do. The world just pissed on you? Buy booze. A nice little defence mechanism. I can’t touch it, though. Not when I’m supposed to be driving Alison back to Manchester tonight.
Give it three and a bit hours on the motorway, though, and I’ll be gagging for a decent drink.
And a hot shower, my own bed. Some decent music on the CD player. Then back to my old life, for what it’s worth.
I eat most of the chips; sling the rest out of the window. By the time I reach Alison’s flat again, it’s quarter to eight and I’m early enough to sit for a while and stare through the windscreen. Trying to be calm. Knowing that it’s just a matter of time before I’m back home and all of this is memory.
Johnny Cash sings ‘Solitary Man’ as rain spots the glass. I click him off. I don’t need to be reminded.
And I can’t wait any longer. I get out of the Micra, hunch my shoulders to the rain, and trot across the road towards the block of flats. The place is dead, the way it should be. When I get to the front door, I press the buzzer for thirty-five.
I wait.
Nothing.
I buzz again, lean hard this time in case something’s not connected. Then wait. And again, nothing. Check my watch and it’s eight on the dot now. I take a step back and look up at her window. It’s dark. Which means something’s fucked here. Rob found out and beat her to death. Or she changed her mind. I check my mobile for messages. Nothing.
