Thorne at Christmas

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne took it. Said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Not the best day to find your dad like that.’

  Thorne nodded, having revised his opinion somewhat. Yes, one day was pretty much as good as another to die. But December 25th was a shitty day to lose someone.

  Jack Fielding was now staying with Alan Fielding’s mother and father. Their claim on the child had been thought that little bit stronger than his maternal grandparents, being as it was the child’s mother that had killed their son. Thorne sat awkwardly on their sofa. Drinking tea and eating mince pies, while they did their best to act as if their world hadn’t fallen apart.

  ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ Jack’s grandmother asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ The old man slurped his tea, pulling a face as though he were drinking hemlock. Perhaps he wished he was.

  ‘She’s in Holloway,’ Thorne said. ‘Likely to be there a while, I should have thought. A big murder trial takes a while to put together and, you know … Christmas and everything.’

  ‘Wasn’t easy finding a funeral director either,’ the old man said. ‘Busy with all the suicides or some such.’

  Thorne nodded, thinking, well, at least business is booming for somebody.

  They said nothing for a while. Thorne stared at the cards on the mantelpiece. The snowmen and reindeer had been replaced by simple white cards with black borders. In deepest sympathy. He glanced at the large brown envelope on top of the TV.

  When Thorne saw the grandmother beam suddenly, he realised that the boy had come into the room. He turned and saw Jack Fielding hovering in the doorway. He smiled, but the boy looked away.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ the grandmother said. ‘Come and say hello.’

  The boy took a few steps into the room. A large plastic dinosaur hung from his fingers.

  ‘How are you?’ Thorne had probably asked stupider questions, but he could not remember when.

  ‘Where’s my mum?’ the boy asked.

  ‘She’s not very well.’

  The boy nodded, as though that made perfect sense. ‘Is that because of the dead man?’ he asked.

  Thorne said that it was.

  Jack took another step towards him and leaned against the arm of the sofa. He gently put the toy dinosaur into Thorne’s lap. ‘It wasn’t Father Christmas, was it?’

  ‘No,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Was it my daddy?’

  Thorne heard the old woman sniff, felt his throat constrict a little. But he kept his eyes fixed on the boy.

  ‘It wasn’t Father Christmas,’ he said.

  Thorne glanced across at the boy’s grandmother. Saw something around her eyes and in the small nod of her head. He thought it might mean ‘thank you’, but he could not be sure.

  STEPPING UP

  I was never cut out to be the centre of attention. I never asked for it. I never enjoyed it.

  Some people love all that though, don’t they? They need to be the ones having their heads swelled and their arses licked; pawed at and fawned over. Some people are idiots, to be fair, and don’t know what to do with themselves if they aren’t smack in the middle of the action.

  Of course, there were times when I did get the attention, whether I wanted it or not. When things were going well and I won a title or two. I got it from men and women then, and you won’t hear me say there was anything wrong with that. Blokes wanting to shake your hand and tarts queuing up to shake your other bits and pieces; well, nobody’s complaining about that kind of carry on, are they?

  But this, though …?

  The doctor had been banging on about exercise, especially as I was having such a hard time giving up the fags. It would help to get the old ticker pumping a bit, he said. Get your cholesterol down and shift some of that weight which isn’t exactly helping matters, let’s face it. You used to box a bit, didn’t you, he said, so you shouldn’t find it too difficult to get back in the swing of it. To shape up a little.

  Piece of piss, I told him, then corrected myself when he smiled and straightened his tie.

  ‘Cake, I meant. Sorry, Doc. Piece of cake.’

  I don’t know which one of us I was kidding more.

  I got Maggie’s husband, Phil, to give me a hand and fetch some of my old gear out of the loft. We scraped the muck off the skipping rope and hung the heavy bag up in the garage. I thought I would be able to ease myself back into it, you know? Stop when it hurt and build things up slowly. Trouble was it hurt all the time, and the more I tried, the more angry I got that I’d let myself go to shit so badly; that I’d smoked so many fags and eaten so much crap and put so much booze away down the years.

  ‘It was Mum’s fault for spoiling you,’ Maggie said. ‘If she hadn’t laid on meat and two veg for you every day of her life, you might have learned to do a bit more than boil a bleeding egg. You wouldn’t have had to eat so many takeaways after she’d gone …’

  Once my eldest gets a bee in her bonnet, that’s it for everyone. It was her that had nagged me into going to the doctor’s in the first place, getting some exercise or what have you. So, even though the boxing training hadn’t worked out, the silly mare had no intention of letting the subject drop.

  One day, in the pub with Phil, I found out that I wasn’t the only one getting it in the neck.

  ‘Help me out, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘She won’t shut up about it, how she thinks you’re going to drop dead any bloody second. Just do something.’

  ‘Snooker?’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘Buggered if I know, Phil. There’s nothing I fancy.’

  I’d told Mags I wouldn’t go jogging and that was all there was to it. I’ve been there, so I know how that game works; shift a few pounds and bugger your knee joints at the same time. Tennis wasn’t for the likes of me and the same went double for golf, even though a couple of blokes in the pub had the odd game now and again. The truth is, I know you have to stick at these kind of things, and that’s never been my strong suit. I had a talent in the ring, so I didn’t mind putting the hours in, and besides, I had more … drive back then, you know? Day after day on a golf course or a sodding tennis court, just so I wouldn’t look like a twat every time I turned out, didn’t sound much fun.

  Plus, there weren’t that many people I could think of to play with, tell you the truth …

  ‘There’s a class,’ Phil said. ‘Down our local leisure centre. One night a week, that’s all.’

  ‘Class?’

  ‘Just general fitness, you know. Look it’s only an hour and there’s a bit of a drink afterwards. You’ll be doing me a favour.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ I swallowed what was left of a pint and rolled my eyes, and that was it. That’s how easily a misunderstanding happens and you get yourself shafted.

  I should have twigged a couple of weeks later when Maggie came by to pick me up. On the way there I asked her where Phil was, was he coming along later and all that, and she looked at me like I’d lost the plot. See, I thought it was his class, didn’t I? A few lads jumping about, maybe a quick game of five-a-side and then a couple of beers afterwards. When I walked out of that changing room in my baggy shorts and an old West Ham shirt, I felt like I’d been majorly stitched up. There was Maggie, beaming at me, and a dozen or so other women, and all of them limbering up in front of these little plastic steps.

  A fucking step class. Jesus H …

  And not just women, either, which didn’t help a great deal. There were a couple of men there to witness the humiliation, which always makes it worse, right? You know what I’m talking about. There were three other fellas standing about, looking like each of them had gone through what I was going through right then. An old boy, a few years on me, who looked like he’d have trouble carrying his step. A skinny young bloke in a tight top, who I figured was queer straightaway, and a fit-looking sort who I guessed was there to pull something a bit older and desperate.

  Looking around, trying my hardest to manage a smile, I could see that most of the women we
re definitely in that category. Buses, back-ends, you see what I’m getting at? I swear to God, you wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them.

  Except for Zoe.

  I’d met her forty-odd years back, when I was twenty-something and I’d won a few fights; one night when I was introduced to some people at a nightclub in Tottenham.

  Frank Sparks was doing pretty well himself at that time, and there were all sorts of faces hanging about. I wasn’t stupid. I knew full well what was paying for Frank’s Savile Row suit and what have you, and to tell you the truth, it never bothered me.

  There weren’t many saints knocking around anywhere back then.

  Frank was friendly enough, and for the five or ten minutes I sat at his table, it was like we were best friends. He was one of those blokes with a knack for that, you know? Told me he was following my career, how he’d won a few quid betting on me, that kind of thing. He said there were always jobs going with him. All sorts of bits and pieces, you know, if things didn’t work out or I jacked in the fight game or whatever.

  I can still remember how shiny his hair was that night. And his teeth, and the stink of Aramis on him.

  She was the sister of this bloke I used to spar with, and I’d seen her waiting for him at the back of the gym a few times, but it wasn’t until that night in Tottenham that I started to pay attention. She was all dressed up, with different hair, and I thought she was an actress or a stripper. Then we got talking by the bar and she laughed and told me she was just Billy’s sister. I said she was better looking than any of the actresses or strippers that were there guzzling Frank’s champagne, and she went redder than the frock she was wearing, but I knew she liked it.

  I saw her quite a bit after that in various places. She started going out with one of Frank Sparks’ boys and wearing a lot of fancy dresses. I remember once, I’d just knocked this black lad over in the fourth round at Harringay. I glanced down, sweating like a pig, and she was sitting a few rows back smiling up at me, and the referee’s count seemed to take forever.

  You just get on the thing, then off again; up and down, up and down, one foot or both of them, in time to the music. Simple as that. You can get back down the same way you went up, or sometimes you turn and come down on the other side, and now and again there’s a bit of dancing around the thing, but basically … you climb on and off a plastic step.

  I swear to God, that’s it.

  Maybe, that first time, I should have just turned and gone straight back in that changing room. Caught a bus home. Maggie had that look on her face though, and I thought walking out would be even more embarrassing than staying.

  So, I decided to do it just the once, for Mags, and actually, it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I expected. It was a laugh, as it goes, and at least I could do it without feeling like it was going to kill me. It was a damn sight harder than it looked, mind you, make no mistake about that. I was knackered after ten minutes, but what with there being so many women in the class, I didn’t feel like I had to compete with anyone, you know what I mean?

  Ruth, the woman in charge, seemed genuinely pleased to see me when I showed up again the second week and the week after that. She teased me a bit, and I took the piss because she had one of those microphone things on her ear like that singer with the pointy tits. They were all quite nice, to be honest. A pretty decent bunch. I’d pretend to flirt a bit with one or two of the women, and I’d have a laugh with Anthony, who didn’t bang on about being gay like a lot of them do, you know?

  Even Craig seemed all right, to begin with.

  The pair of us ended up next to each other more often than not, on the end of the line behind Zoe. Him barely out of breath after half an hour; me, puffing and blowing like I was about to keel over. The pair of us looking one way and one way only, while she moved, easy and sweet, in front of us.

  One time, he took his eyes off her arse and glanced across at me. I did likewise, and while Ruth was shouting encouragement to one of the older ladies, the cheeky sod winked, and I felt the blood rising to my neck.

  I remember an evening in the pub with Maggie and Phil, a few weeks in, and me telling Maggie not to be late picking me up for the class. To take the traffic into account. She plastered on a smartarse smile, like she thought she’d cottoned on to something, but just said she was pleased I was enjoying myself.

  It only took one lucky punch from a jammy Spaniard for everything to go tits up as far as the fighting was concerned. I had a few more bouts, but once the jaw’s been broken, you’re never quite as fearless. Never quite as stupid as you need to be.

  Stupid as I had been, spending every penny I’d ever made, quick as I’d earned it.

  With the place I was renting in Archway, the payments on a brand new Cortina, and sweet FA put by, it wasn’t like I had a lot of choice when it came to doing door work for Frank Sparks. Besides, it was easy money, as it went. A damn sight less stressful than the ring anyway, and I certainly didn’t miss the training. Your average Friday-night drunk goes down a lot easier than a journeyman light-heavyweight, but the fact is, I couldn’t have thrown more than half a dozen punches in nearly a year of it. I was there to look as if I was useful, see, and that was fine. Like I said before, I was happier in the background and I think Frank was pretty pleased with the way I was handling things, because he asked me if I fancied doing a spot of driving.

  And that’s when I started seeing a lot more of her.

  She wasn’t married yet, but I’d heard it was on the cards. Her boyfriend had moved up through the ranks smartish, and was in charge of a lot of Frank’s gambling clubs. Classy places in Knightsbridge and Victoria with cigarette girls and what have you. She used to go along and just sit in the corner drinking and looking tasty, but some of these sessions went on all night, and she’d always leave before her old man did.

  So, I started to drive her.

  I started to ask to drive her; volunteering quietly, you know? There were a couple of motors on call and we took it in turns at first. Then, after a few weeks, she asked for me, and it sort of became an arrangement.

  In the image I still have of her, she’s standing on a pavement, putting on a scarf as I indicate and drift across towards the kerb. She’s clutching a handbag. She waves as I pull up, then all but falls into the back of the Jag; tired, but happy as Larry to be on the way home.

  In reality of course she was thinner, and drunker. Her eyes got flatter and the bleach made her hair brittle, and she was always popping some pill or other. That crocodile handbag rattled with them. The smile was still there though; lighting up what was left of her. The same as it was when I looked down through the ropes that time and saw her clapping.

  When I felt as though I was the one who’d had the breath punched out of me.

  How bloody old am I?

  It’s a fair question, but I don’t suppose it really matters. Too old, that’s the point, isn’t it? Too old to smoke and not worry about it; to put on a pair of socks without sitting down; to think about running for a bus.

  Too old to feel immortal …

  Like you’d expect, it was mostly Diet Coke and fizzy water in the pub afterwards. I had orange juice and lemonade myself, for the first week anyway, but Zoe drank beer from the off.

  Ruth didn’t give a monkey’s what anyone did once the class was over, but there was one woman who didn’t approve; who clearly enjoyed having another reason to dislike Zoe. She was glaring across at her from an adjoining table, one night a few weeks in, and I was giving it back to the old cow with bells on.

  ‘Maybe she’s jealous because she secretly fancies you,’ Zoe whispered.

  I pulled a face. ‘Christ, don’t put me off me pint!’

  She really enjoyed that one. Her laugh was low and dirty, and it still amazes me really, to think of it coming out of a mouth like hers. A face like that.

  ‘She’s just dried-up and bitter,’ I said. ‘Hates it that she’s doing this to try and change how she looks, or what have you, while others don�
�t really have to.’

  Zoe smiled, leaned a shoulder against mine. ‘Some people just don’t know how to have fun, you know? Think their bodies are temples and all that.’

  ‘My body’s more of a slaughterhouse these days,’ I said.

  She enjoyed that one too. It felt fantastic to make her laugh. We shared a big packet of crisps, which really wound up the old bag on the next table. She left early, while Zoe and me and a few of the others stayed until they rang the bell, same as always. Ruth and Anthony were giggling by the jukebox, and Maggie kept an eye on me from a table near the door, where she sat clutching her mobile phone, waiting for Phil to come and pick the pair of us up.

  ‘Why do you come?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not like you need to lose weight or anything. You seem pretty fit …’

  She leaned a shoulder into mine. ‘You’re sweet.’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  She took another swig from her bottle. ‘I’m lazy,’ she said. ‘I need to make myself do things, get out and do something a bit off the wall, you know? Anyway, it’s a laugh, don’t you reckon?’

  I did reckon, and I told her.

  ‘I work in a stupid office,’ she said. ‘The people there are all right, I suppose, but I don’t want to see them after work or whatever. I think it’s good to meet people who aren’t anything like you are. People with different lives, you know? I tried a French class, but it was too hard, and the teacher was a bit stuck-up. This is much better. Much.’

  She had a voice it was easy to listen to. She certainly wasn’t posh, but there wasn’t really an accent either. Just soft and simple, you know?

  ‘What about you?’ she asked.

  I said I was basically there to keep Maggie happy, and to try and get at least some of the old fitness back. I mentioned that I used to box a bit and she said that she could see it. That it was in the way I carried myself.

  I had to hide my face in my glass, and I’d all but downed the rest of the pint by the time the blush had gone away.