‘I want you to get a gun.’ I knew if I didn’t say it straight out I’d lose my nerve.
Luke laughed quietly and stared out at the aisles of shoppers.
‘There’s such a thing as foreplay,’ he said, ‘like “hello Luke” or “Happy New Year”.’
‘Don’t mock me,’ I said. ‘I’m serious. I need a gun.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s private.’
‘You don’t need a gun, Tracey,’ he said. ‘Guns settle nothing. Tell me who’s annoying you and I’ll have a word with them.’
‘I don’t want you to have a word.’ I wanted to scream that the strongest woman in my life was now dribbling shit into a plastic bag. I wanted him to see how shaken I was. I needed somebody strong to put their arms around me and a voice to drown out her moaning in my head. ‘I just want a gun, for fuck’s sake,’ I snapped. ‘I’ve never asked for anything before.’
‘Then ask for something now,’ Luke replied. ‘Ask for anything but this.’
The door opened and a girl entered carrying a sheaf of papers. She paused, trying to gauge the atmosphere. ‘It’s important,’ she announced apologetically.
Luke glanced at her and shook his head. She retreated reluctantly and closed the door. He sat on the desk beside me and I let him take my hand. It felt good just to talk to someone. Anybody glancing up could see us. He was taking the risk deliberately as a gesture. A round of deliveries was going out. Boxes were being loaded from an open bay at the back of the shop into a van. The driver came around to collect the paperwork. He had a large A – Z sticking out of his jacket. He never looked up. The bruises on his face had deepened so much in colour that it took me a moment to recognise Al.
‘I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,’ Luke said.
‘It’s finished between us, Luke.’ I took a deep breath and watched his reaction. I expected protests, but maybe my words hadn’t sunk in yet. ‘I want a gun from you and nothing else.’
‘If I gave you a gun, it wouldn’t be in exchange for anything else.’
‘I know that.’ I found the quietude of his voice was calming mine. ‘Thank you for the tape.’
‘I’ve a friend in the BBC,’ Luke said, refusing to make a fuss of it. He stroked the back of my hand.
‘Have I fingers that could play the fiddle?’ I asked.
‘If you’re a Mac Suibhne you must have,’ he replied. ‘All the family played. Mac Suibhne’s father was a hard task master. No one living can play like him. His sons divided Donegal between them, never gathering under the same roof after his funeral. You’d be the last of that family, because none of them married.’ He gently scraped the nail of my index finger. ‘These fingers weren’t made to pull a trigger.’
‘I won’t be the one pulling it,’ I replied. ‘Please, if you cared for me you’d help.’
‘Is it really over?’
‘Dublin finished us.’
‘Maybe Dublin changed us, brought things to a head.’ He paused but I didn’t reply. ‘Why do you need a gun?’
‘To help someone kill the person they love.’
The tone in my voice caused Luke to put his arm around my shoulder and draw me close. In Dublin I had genuinely believed I loved him. I began to cry as I told him about Gran, while he stroked my hair and let me talk.
‘Your grandfather doesn’t want to kill her,’ he said. ‘He just thinks he does.’
‘You haven’t seen her,’ I said. ‘If Gran was a dog they’d put her down. All his life he’s done what she’s told him to. Nobody would want to live like that. Find me a gun they can’t trace, Luke. I know you have the contacts. Grandad won’t know where it came from and he’d never give me away to the police.’
‘If he kills her, he’ll probably kill himself,’ Luke said. ‘Your family is all you have. Do you want to lose them both?’
I hadn’t thought about that. I had just seen their pain and reacted. Yet I couldn’t shake Gran’s agony from my mind or forget Grandad’s scorn. He didn’t expect me to get a gun or to even bother showing up again. If I did, it would be the first promise to them I had ever kept.
‘I have to see this through,’ I said.
I lifted my head from his arm and saw Al in the loading bay, staring up at us. He looked scared. He shook his head as if trying to convey something. Luke turned, taking in his presence and Al turned away to load the last boxes into his van.
‘Hiring a gun is like sleeping with a stranger,’ Luke said. ‘You don’t know who the trail leads back to if anything goes wrong. I can’t believe it’s finished between us, but if you want to walk away I won’t stop you. Finding a gun is dangerous, but, if that’s the last thing you want from me, I’ll do it because I love you.’
I sat in the pub down the road from Luke’s shop. A gang of grunge heads were in, tanking up for New Year’s Eve. They played the poker machines and shouted across the pool table in an alcove. I wanted to be left alone to figure out which had disturbed me most – the phone call Luke had made to arrange a gun for tomorrow or his repeated declaration of love.
When had anyone last said they loved me? My mother and I were unable to use that phrase when she was dying, and I had never heard my grandparents say it to each other. Even Luke had deliberately skirted the words, until the night he punched Al in my flat. He had made them sound dangerous and possessive then. But this evening he seemed so resigned to losing me that I believed him and found the belief disturbing. Why had he never spoken before, when it might have counted? There were many frightening sides to Luke and yet, perhaps he was the only person who did love me.
Sex had never been the sole lure for either of us. I had pushed the physical acts between us to their limit as a barrier to keep emotions at bay. I had moaned and cried out because I was afraid of what I might say in silence. Luke too, with his hands and cock, had tried to swamp any growing emotion. We had been right to do so, because once we started caring for each other we were doomed. Now even if he did care, I told myself it was impossible to sustain our relationship in the real world. Luke would have to get over me, just as I would eventually get over him. What I didn’t know yet was whether there might be new life growing inside me in exchange for an old life we were about to terminate.
I finished my second drink and tried not to think of Gran, blocking all feelings out, except horror at her predicament. I told myself that anyone would want to die, caged in such a crippled body. But I still couldn’t make killing her feel right. Initially, it had seemed the brave thing to do. Now I suspected it would require greater courage to simply sit with her, that it wasn’t grand gestures which were needed but a mundane everyday sharing in her suffering. If I could talk to Grandad then maybe I might make him see that, but I knew he would view it as me shirking out of another promise. He wouldn’t believe I had the will-power to visit her daily and I wasn’t sure if I had it either.
Tomorrow she would be dead and possibly Grandad as well. I realised I would inherit everything, unless they had changed their will. But I didn’t want their money or to be forced to confront their past in drawers and sealed documents. I needed someone strong to talk to, but it was Al whom I kept hoping might walk into the pub after work.
The grunge heads took turns chancing their luck, then grew sour at my lack of response. They wandered out, sneering about frigid bitches. I remained drinking until ten o’clock. I had no idea if Al ever drank there after parking the van, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going home.
It was half eleven and I was very drunk when I phoned Grandad Pete from a card phone off Soho Square.
‘I’ve kept my promise,’ I said, ‘if you still really want to go ahead.’
He was silent and I thought he was coming to his senses. Then I heard his breath being released and sensed the relief in his voice as he questioned me about practical arrangements. He was going through with it and I was hurt that he wasn’t shocked at my being able to procure a gun. What sort of person did he think I was now? The distance in
his voice made it impossible to argue with him. I agreed a time to meet and we were both silent. Then, as if sensing the hurt in my voice but mistaking it for self-interest, he added; ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep you well out of this.’
He didn’t use my name and there seemed no warmth in his words. I could imagine him repeating the same phrase to an anonymous criminal. Then, as if on cue but at least with some hesitancy, he asked if I was okay financially. ‘Yes,’ I replied. I couldn’t have borne it if he had asked how much he owed me. There was an awkward pause before we hung up. We both baulked at the absurdity of wishing the other a Happy New Year.
I put the phone down and stared at the cards from prostitutes on the kiosk walls. I remained there until someone came along to use the phone. I didn’t want to go home yet, but I had nowhere else to go. I followed the crowds towards Trafalgar Square where the fountains had been drained and boarded off. Policemen on horseback ignored the jeers aimed at them. The crowds shoved good-humouredly as they counted down the New Year. I felt safe there, another anonymous reveller with nothing to link me to plans for murder. At midnight the crowds surged forward and danced. I found my hand being taken by a Danish boy with a crew-cut. I allowed him to kiss me. I led him on and behaved like a total slut. Only a few months before I had coldly chosen men. Why should I feel bound to fidelity with someone who two-timed his wife and whom I had sworn never to sleep with again?
The Dane took my hand and guided it to his pocket. I misunderstood and pulled back, then realised that he was showing me the tabs of E he had there. He shouted the name of the hotel where he was staying near Charing Cross. I fancied his uncomplicated strength and the fact that he looked so dumb. I wanted to fuck him and just get stoned. Let Luke and Grandad both wait in vain for me tomorrow, I didn’t have to go through with being a courier for death. I wanted to go on a spree, unencumbered by responsibilities. But I couldn’t because whenever I closed my eyes I saw Gran stooped over that table. I could see the feeding tube in her nose and hear her moaning. I pushed my way with the Dane into the very heart of the crowd. It was dangerous there. I got elbowed in the face and almost slipped under the mass of stomping feet. It wasn’t fully over with Luke until I knew if I was carrying his child. One minute the Dane was there and the next I had managed to lose him. I pushed my way free and found a taxi even though I knew it would leave me short of money for the week. But somehow it seemed hard to imagine a future beyond half past four on the following afternoon.
NINETEEN
AT TEN PAST FOUR on New Year’s Day I met Luke who was sitting on a park bench near the hospital. Visiting time was over in twenty minutes. Grandad would have washed and shaved and worn his best suit before going into hospital early this morning. He would be there now, waiting. A patient was being moved into the other bed this evening, a woman who’d been allowed home into the care of her family for New Year. This was Grandad’s last chance of having the room to himself. I wondered if he had spent the morning talking at Gran, going over their life together or if they had passed these final hours in silence.
I stood over Luke, reluctant to sit down, and warned him that Grandad had said not to leave it too late as the nurses came in with the medication trolley just after half past. I asked if he had fixed a silencer on to the gun, like he had promised, and told him that I’d passed on instructions to Grandad about a pillow being wrapped around the barrel and positioned over her skull. I was talking too openly and too much but I couldn’t stop. I knew that if I gave myself time to think I’d never go through with this.
‘Give me the gun,’ I said, ‘and let me go.’
‘Sit down,’ Luke replied.
‘We agreed everything. Now I haven’t got time.’ If I sat down I was frightened my legs wouldn’t be able to get up again.
‘He still wants to carry this out?’ Luke asked. I nodded. Luke kept silent until reluctantly I had to sit down. He took my hand.
‘He should never have asked you to arrange this.’
‘I offered.’
‘It’s all the one.’ There were children wrapped in coats and scarfs in the playground nearby. Luke watched them and shook his head. ‘This is madness,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Your Granny doesn’t want to die.’
‘She does.’
‘No one ever does,’ Luke said. ‘Not when it comes to the crunch. They struggle for every last second of breath.’
‘Just stop it, right.’
‘What kind of a grandfather would ask you this? If you were my …’
‘I’m not your anything, do you understand?’ Tension made me raise my voice so that heads turned in the playground. ‘You’re a bit late with this love stuff. When it came to the crunch I was your cheap English tart,’ I said, more quietly.
‘I was hassled. Maybe I was trying to deny my own feelings. I didn’t plan to fall in love.’
‘I’m sorry, Luke, I never needed no father figure before and I’m not looking for one now.’
‘You already have a father,’ Luke said, ‘if you bothered to find him.’
‘It’s a bit late now.’
‘It’s never too late. This business with your Gran will be messy, there’s no two ways about it. Afterwards you should leave London for a while. Go back to Ireland.’ He saw that I thought he was joking. ‘I’m serious. If you’re really Mac Suibhne’s daughter then find him. You’ve said you left it too late to patch things up with your mother. Your father’s an old man and you may never get the chance again.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to look or what to say to him.’
‘Neither will he. It doesn’t matter if you both just sit in silence. In an hour’s time he’s all you’re going to have.’
Luke opened his jacket to reveal a white plastic bag in his inside pocket. I knew by its shape that it contained a gun. I reached across and felt the warmth of his body through his shirt. I had my fingers around the bag when he caught my hand.
‘Years ago I came out of jail and swore I’d never touch a firearm again,’ he said. ‘I’m helping to kill one of your family. You mightn’t grieve now but you will in time. Make it easier for me, let me bring you to Donegal. I’ve the contacts to find him.’
‘I told you, it’s finished.’
‘Not like this,’ Luke said. ‘With a stupid row in a taxi and an old woman’s blood being spilt. I couldn’t bear if that was how you remembered me. I always knew I’d lose you. I’m asking for nothing else, except that at least you’ll remember me as the man who found your father.’
‘You’ve shops to run here,’ I said, ‘and the business with Christy …’
Luke squeezed my hand gently until my fingers let go of the gun. It slipped back into his pocket and I could feel sweat on his shirt and sense his heart-beat inches from my fingertips.
‘To hell with them all for once,’ Luke said. ‘If I dropped dead they’d have to cope without me, so they can cope for a while now. I want to do one last thing with you.’
‘I have to go,’ I pleaded. ‘My grandfather’s waiting.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I’ll see.’
It was a quarter past four. I’d have promised anything to have this day over. I reached for the gun, but Luke’s grip prevented me. I was suddenly afraid.
‘I’m not letting you walk in there with a gun,’ he said. ‘Give me the room number and I’ll deliver it to your grandfather myself. There’s no need for you to be involved.’
‘No,’ I said furiously. ‘You’re cheating.’
‘Guns are dangerous, especially with amateurs. I’ll not risk anything happening to you.’
For a moment it was tempting to think of getting on a tube and hearing about it on the six o’clock news. But I couldn’t run away, I had to be there. I argued furiously but I couldn’t get the gun off him. I had only twelve minutes left when I finally agreed to compromise. I would walk ahead and he would follow with the gun from a distance. I left the park and ran across the hospital car park to take the stairs hurriedly, k
nowing Luke was somewhere behind. Already this business was going wrong. My nerves were raw. I kept hoping the other patient might have arrived early and the room would be full of visitors.
Gran’s door was closed. I hesitated and saw Luke appear at the end of the deserted corridor. He had a hat that would block out his features on the security cameras. He had taken gloves from his pocket. I had planned to argue and plead with Grandad, now I knew there wouldn’t be time. I pushed the door open and entered. Grandad sat quietly beside Gran who was strapped into that same chair. He looked at me with a silent question. I’d never seen him in so much pain. The door opened behind me and Luke entered.
‘Who’s he?’ Grandad Pete asked suspiciously.
‘I’m with Tracey.’
Grandad took in Luke’s accent and his age. ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he said sourly.
Gran was silent, her face slumped inches from the bed table. There were old family photographs jumbled up in front of her eyes, snaps of Christmas mornings and summer evenings in the garden. I could see myself there as a child and my mother as a girl before me. I knelt to look up into her eyes, trying to convince myself again that this was what she wanted and that it was right. It was as horrifying to see her condition today as yesterday. If our roles were reversed I would wish to die. Luke closed the door and looked at Gran, shocked by her appearance.
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