East of Innocence

by David Thorne

  ‘We’ll start,’ says Halliday without any preamble, ‘with what you said to me last night.’ We are all still standing in front of my desk; I would like to invite him to sit down but feel the volatility in the air and worry that it might be the last thing I ever get to suggest. My office is not big and our combined presence, so close together, is oppressive; we are like four dogs in the back of a van that have not yet decided who will be the first to launch. Halliday meets my eyes and I am surprised by the amount of rage in his; he is barely in control of himself, his hands squeezed into fists at his sides. I wonder what is keeping him from attacking me, or giving the nod to have his men do it for him. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

  His choice of words is oddly paternal, as if he has caught me cheating at school. I need to choose my next words very carefully.

  ‘I was reacting to what I saw as a provocation,’ I say slowly. ‘My father might not be successful or come with a reputation, but I could not and cannot understand why you would call him a mug to my face.’ Halliday is watching me intently and so far he doesn’t react. I take a deep breath. ‘I should not have said what I said, and I am willing to apologise. But I still believe that I was provoked.’ There. I cannot be any more contrite; I have offered Halliday everything that my pride will allow. He stands still, as still as he can, but his entire body somehow betrays his thought processes, as if the violence of his internal deliberations is causing his body to minutely vibrate. He blinks, his eyes once again search my face.

  ‘Fuck me you’ve got a pair on you,’ he says, a flat statement that implies no warmth or admiration. ‘I dunno.’ He unbunches his fists, puts his hands together, wraps one with the other. There is silence, and I cannot help but wonder at the assurance this man carries with him; he is deciding my fate in front of me, in my own office, reaching his decision in his own sweet time. ‘I dunno,’ he says again.

  But like anybody there is a limit to my patience. I walk behind my desk, sit down and pull my papers towards me. ‘Don’t let me rush you,’ I say, looking down.

  I do not know if my actions prompt his decision but Halliday sits in the chair in front of my desk and pulls his suit jacket apart, crosses his legs, makes himself comfortable. Although he has not said anything, the feeling in my office lifts like sun emerging from behind a cloud. One of the men by the door takes out his mobile and checks for messages. Halliday looks about my office with less agitation than during his first appraisal, takes his time, then looks back at me.

  ‘Fucking horrible place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I like it too.’

  Halliday cannot help the suspicion of a smile appearing on his thin lips. ‘You’ve got more mouth than a cow’s got tits,’ he says. ‘You know that?’

  I do not reply, try to keep my expression neutral. I do not have the merest idea how this man thinks.

  ‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Halliday says. ‘I’m looking to buy some properties for rental purposes. You are going to deal with the purchase, tenancy, all that paperwork shit. Spare me the trouble. Be the man in charge. Right?’

  ‘How many properties?’ I ask. He has caught me off guard but I am attempting to roll with his punches, keep up with his relentless onslaught. I may, and I believe I do, appear calm, but it is an act. Though I am not a wealthy man and I am trying to grow my practice, Vincent Halliday would not be top of my list of prospective clients. Anything he is involved in is going to be toxic and I do not want to touch it.

  ‘One. A conversion. Old convent into flats. Apartments.’

  ‘All right, well, if you’d like to engage me as your solicitor I will need some details. I’ll need to see your passport.’

  ‘You what, son? Do me a favour. This ain’t your everyday fucking transaction. This’ll be done through a company I’m setting up, is all you need to know for now. And you –’ Halliday leans further forward ‘– you’ll be our representative. Any correspondence, it comes to you. I don’t want nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Not really my area,’ I say. ‘I can do the conveyancing…’

  He continues as if I have not spoken. ‘So if and when Revenue and Customs come sniffing about, this is where they come first. With me?’

  His energy is unstoppable; already for him this discussion is finished, the deal is struck and he is ready to leave, move on to his next piece of business. But I am not done. I believe I can see where this is heading and I want to know more.

  ‘You’ll expect me to vet any prospective tenants.’

  Halliday is halfway out of his seat; he sits back down. ‘Tenants.’ He looks at the two men he came in with; they smile, one of them laughs. Halliday looks back at me. ‘We’ll take care of all that. Less questions you ask the better.’

  ‘Right.’ I think I see.

  ‘With me?’ he says again.

  ‘I think so.’

  So there it is. I am going to be fronting a property scam for Vincent Halliday and I am being given no choice in the matter. My profession is often slandered by people and it is true that there are plenty of lawyers who will cut corners; but it is not easy to find a lawyer who will willingly act as an accessory to major-league money laundering, which I suspect is the case here. I look at Halliday. His suit is expensive, probably cost him close to a thousand pounds, he drives a Bentley, he lives in a twelve-bedroom mansion. For a criminal with few visible means of support, this is a perennial problem: how to explain away your manifest wealth when the tax office comes knocking. One answer is to buy a string of properties, fill them with fictitious tenants and use your own illegal profits as rent. Your bank account fills up with money that looks whiter than white, washed through your property; all you need is a lawyer to give it the appearance of legitimacy. For Halliday, I am a gift from heaven.

  Halliday stands up. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Hold on, I’ve got something to say.’

  Halliday raises his eyebrows patronisingly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing happens to Billy Morrison. You leave him alone. He’s not a bad kid, just, what was it? A bit of a mug.’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. I’d still like your assurance.’

  I meet his eye with a direct stare. Now I know that he needs something from me I feel less fear. Halliday stares back, eyes flickering over my face, then shakes his head, amused. ‘Christ, you’re like your mother, d’you know that?’

  ‘My mother? You knew my mother?’ I cannot stop my words; I have said it before I realise I am going to, a shameful display of weakness. But Halliday’s reaction is curious; he looks away from me, busies himself with his phone, turns to the door. His manner is suddenly as furtive as a guilty child distancing itself from a broken vase.

  ‘Not really, son, no. Can’t say I did.’ He nods to his men and, without waiting for them, abruptly leaves; they peel away from the wall and follow him, fighters in formation. After they have gone I stand behind my desk and wonder about what just happened. How did Halliday know my mother? And why did he all but run away when I asked him about her?

  Forgiveness comes at a price from men like Halliday; I accept that I have, compared to some other men who have crossed him, got off lightly. What he has asked me to do I will deal with; what he has asked me to do is not my first concern right now. I sit down, pick up a pen from my desk, click it open, closed. Events and revelations have occurred too quickly for the implications to coalesce and make sense in my mind and I need to take some time to work things through. I am thirty-seven years old. In all of my life I have never been able, though I have tried and cajoled and demanded, to persuade my father to discuss my mother; worse, to even acknowledge her as more than a bitter accusation. She went. She left us. She didn’t care. She was nobody. A bitch. Now a man I barely know has looked me in the eye and seen something in me that reminded him of her. For the first time, I sense my mother as more than simply an absence, an untraceable, foreign name on a
birth certificate; for the first time, she is a person who contributed some genetic substance to my existence, who, according to Halliday, I am ‘just like’. Just like a disbeliever who discovers faith in God, I suddenly see my mother as more than a mundane act of betrayal; she is a person and a part of me. I cannot let this go. I will find out the truth, though I know that delving into the secrets of the past rarely unearths answers that we like.

  12

  EVERY SATURDAY MORNING, I coach juniors in tennis, at the same club I was coached at myself nearly thirty years ago. My mind will not stop worrying at what Halliday said, and I know that to get to the truth I must visit my father, today. But Saturday mornings are untouchable, the one part of my week I will not allow to be tainted by the tawdry events of real life; so I finish my breakfast, pack my rackets and head for the courts. It is cooler this morning with a breeze that feels like a reassuring murmur on my skin, and in the summer light the events of the last days feel distant, unreal. As I step between the high hedges that surround the club, I get the feeling that I have always had walking on to the courts; that ordinary life is far away, and that nothing matters now except for the geometry of the game, the trajectory of the balls, positions of the players, angles of approach. It is a simple and fine feeling, and I would not exchange it for anything.

  At the court, the juniors are dutifully lined up against the fence outside the courts, waiting to be invited in. They are dressed mostly in white, their parents gathered around the picnic tables outside the clubhouse, raised eyebrows nodding encouragement to their skinny children who, they hope, will be Britain’s next great hope for an Open victory. I enjoy these mornings, coaching young people who believe anything is possible, who have not yet been corrupted by the real world outside the false lines and rules of a tennis court.

  ‘Morning, young man,’ says George. He takes the youngest group, his legs being, he claims, ‘absolutely buggered’. He has an instant rapport with the kids, which I do not; they love him, they are a little scared of me. Not that I am a tyrant, but I give praise sparingly and am critical when I see a child playing a lazy stroke I know he or she can hit sweetly. Perhaps I take it too seriously. But when I do praise a child’s shot their face will light up like they’re blowing out their birthday candles, so I guess I am not doing anything too wrong.

  I am helped every week by Maria, a tall, dark lady who is a teacher at the local primary school and who represented Essex until university took her away to the North East for five years. She is lively, irreverent, and she always lingers in my mind for some time after the end of the lessons. She is far, far too good for me.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, looking at me with concern and dropping her racket bag. She is a knockout in a white skirt. ‘Did Daniel climb out of the wrong side of bed this morning?’ I shake my head, trying not to smile, failing. ‘Seven,’ she says, her head cocked as she scrutinises me. ‘Out of ten. Your hangover. Am I right?’

  ‘No hangover,’ I say.

  ‘Just not quite your normal sunny self.’ She nods. ‘Uhhuh. Just do what I do. Take it out on the kids.’ She steps in close, whispers. ‘They’re more resilient than they look.’

  We split the kids into two groups, one group per court, and each play a revolving rally; two lines of children queue on each side of the net and after each kid hits a shot they scoot round the other side, join the other queue, wait for their turn again. If they miss a shot they leave the rally. It is amazing how peer pressure and the fear of humiliation can improve a seven-year-old’s ground strokes. We move on to drills, volleys, and finish, as always, by warming up their serves. No match play; my tennis club does not believe in forcing competition at too young an age. My instincts tell me that this is wrong but every other country does the same and their tennis players win Grand Slams, so I am happy to keep my opinion to myself. By the end, the children are tired but happy; I invite them into a huddle and tell them that they have done well and that they should remember that it’s not how hard you can hit the ball, it’s where you can hit it and how consistently. They look at me with big eyes, nod seriously as if I’m the keeper of some mystical truth. How can some people take that kind of trust and abuse it?

  After the kids leave, their parents full of praise for the shots they have witnessed, the effort their child put in, I sit on my own in the sun drinking a Coke. They are lucky, these children; many others could never have dreamed of such affection, of such interest being taken in their lives as they grew up.

  Maria sits down opposite me, flushed from her work; she smiles at me happily. I wonder what it would be like to hold her and lay my forehead in the perspiration which films the tan skin of her neck. She has long, black wavy hair, which she has let out of the ponytail she wore during the lesson and she is stunning. I look down at my big blunt hands.

  ‘Penny for them,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say. ‘Just my usual existential crisis.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she says. ‘Take two Aspirin. If that doesn’t work there’s always suicide.’

  I laugh, which feels good.

  ‘I heard about Sophie,’ she says. ‘Gabe told me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Didn’t work out,’ I say. ‘No big tragedy.’

  ‘She was too good for you anyway.’ It is Maria’s attempt at a joke and I know I shouldn’t but I cannot help but take it the wrong way. She sees that her attempt at levity has missed the mark and she instinctively reaches out and places her hand on mine. ‘I’m sorry. Stupid. Take it back.’

  ‘Kids enjoyed it today,’ I say, changing the subject to help her forget her embarrassment, her touch making me unsure of my voice. ‘You’re good with them.’

  ‘I get enough practice,’ she says. ‘Some adult company wouldn’t hurt now and then.’

  I do not answer, hope this conversation isn’t going in the direction I fear. Maria smiles at me. ‘We could always, if you thought it might help… We could maybe go out.’

  I look at Maria. She is a good person, genuinely good, which may sound mawkish but is a rare enough quality that I find it remarkable. But I have just invited trouble into my life and do not want her anywhere near it. This is the wrong time, and I am the wrong man for her.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say abruptly. It sounds rude, ungracious, and I can see that I have hurt her. She notices she still has her hand on mine and she takes it back awkwardly.

  ‘Okay, no big deal,’ she says.

  ‘I’m not your type,’ I say, trying to make up for my reaction. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Maybe I could decide that.’

  ‘No.’ This is getting worse. ‘Really, just…’ What? ‘Please, forget it,’ I say tersely.

  Maria’s face closes up and I know that one door has shut, one opportunity gone for ever. It makes me feel desperately sad and I wish I could reach out, could go back and handle this conversation better. But really how else could it have ended? I will not ask this woman into my life, however much I would like to. It is better this way. Maria gets up, turns away. ‘See you next week,’ she says formally and goes. I crush my can of Coke in my hand and a sharp piece of metal cuts the inside joint of my index finger, makes it bleed.

  As I leave, George stops me. Does he live here? ‘Did you hear about that girl?’ he asks me. ‘They found her, poor kid.’ I nod, nothing to say. ‘Who would do something like that? How could they?’ George seems genuinely distressed and I wonder with a grudging admiration how somebody can live over seventy years and still retain their belief in the essential goodness of people; how he can be so surprised that they often act in hideous ways. He clasps his hands together as if in prayer, pauses a second as if he is about to deliver bad news.

  ‘Listen, Daniel, look out for that friend of yours, could you?’

  ‘Gabe?’

  ‘He behaved rather badly here a few nights ago. One too many light ales I’m sure and, really, who hasn’t made an arse of himself once or twice?’ I’m willing to bet George hasn’t. ‘But perhaps you could have a word
? See how he is. Losing a leg, it’s never going to be plain sailing, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘He’s going through a rough patch,’ I say. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’ I do not tell him about last night, about Gabe’s recent brush with the law. George is a close friend to both of us but a tennis club is, in many ways, no more discreet than a sewing circle. Gabe does not need his problems publicised.

  ‘All that post-traumatic what-have-you. He’s a fine young man. We all think so.’

  I nod, tell George that I’ll handle it, exude a confidence in dealing with him that I do not feel. I have now not one but three men, all dangerous men in their own ways, to worry about. Gabe, Baldwin, Halliday. I try to think of them as cases and wonder which, if any, I will be able to resolve happily. Or if not happily, at least without anyone getting hurt. If I am to be honest with myself, I have no idea.

  I leave the club and head to my car, past a group of builders standing outside a half-constructed mock-Tudor house that must have at least eight bedrooms. I need to visit my father; I know that I am putting it off, delaying the moment I have to confront him about my mother. I can predict how it will go, the silence, the resentment, the sudden switch to rage; it is a cycle I have been experiencing since I was a child. One of the builders has his thumb in a mug, looks like he is in pain. Another builder offers him a plaster, but the builder with his thumb dipped in the mug says no, he needs gauze, there’s too much blood. Seeing them makes me think, perhaps because of his wound, of Gabe; I have a feeling of guilt, made worse by what George has just told me. I have not spoken to Gabe since he went upstairs in his house, leaving me holding our trophy from so many years ago. He has not answered his phone since and I cannot help but worry, while telling myself that I am being melodramatic, that it may already be too late to help him. Before I get to my father, I need to know how Gabe is, and see whether there is anything in our friendship that I can offer him.