by John Boyne
Straight back to the hotel then, where I hid the goods under the mattress before hitting the town for a slap-up meal and a few beers. Back in my room later, I tried to work on my Middlemarch essay but it was going nowhere. It had to be submitted in less than two weeks and I still had about three thousand words to get down but nothing was coming so I put it aside for now. The few drinks were slowing me down, that was the problem. I got into the bed – huge it was, and soft and deep – and rolled over and that was me for the evening. Goodnight Saigon.
The next morning there was a motorbike parked across the street from the hotel for me with the keys waiting under the hubcap of the front wheel. There were a few tears in the seat with the stuffing peeping out and I felt a bit insulted to be offered something like this – is there no respect any more? – but I took her for a spin around the block and she went like good-oh, so I didn’t worry. She’d do fine. I prefer not to complain if I don’t have to.
I had a bit of breakfast, a whole plate of those cold meats and cheeses that they leave out in European hotels like they’re having their tea first thing in the morning. There was a bottle of champagne in the centre of the buffet in an ice bucket and I wondered what kind of yahoo you’d have to be to start drinking Moët and Chandon at this time of the day. After that I buckled down to Dorothea Brooke for a couple more hours. By the time I finished I had four thousand words on the page. Clap, clap, Toastie. Nice one. Well done. Only another thousand to go and I’d be on the home straight.
There was great weather in Paris that morning and I went online again to check my route, even though I’d memorized it carefully over the previous days. I have a very good sense of direction, if I say so myself, and once I study a map for long enough I can be in a strange city and know that I’ll get along fine. Not that Paris is strange to me. I’ve been there often. The first time was when I was a young lad and I came over for a bit of dirt with a young one I was seeing at the time. And of course I’d had a few jobs there over the last five years, so I was a bit of an old hand with the place.
I’d planned on taking a slightly longer route though, so I could ride down the western end of the Champs-Élysées and take a spin around the Arc de Triomphe. The traffic in Paris can be a nightmare but I’m a careful driver and I’ve never had an accident in my life. And in the end I even pulled in for a few minutes to get a squizz at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier until one of the gendarmes told me to get back on the bike or he’d have it taken away.
Then back over to the financial district, keeping a close eye on the time. The job was scheduled to take place a few minutes after one o’clock. I parked at the end of the street and waited until I saw two men emerging from the bank, and then I put the old visor down, copped the big bald noggin on the fella I was after, drove down casual as you like, turning only to put one in his head and one in his heart, and the poor fucker sank to the ground while his companion just stared, not knowing what was after happening. Then I drove on, not pulling over for ten minutes, at which point I took the case from the carrier, put the gun back inside and threw the whole thing in the Seine before making my way back to the hotel where I had a bit of a snooze before dinner.
The next morning, I didn’t take any chances and sat in the back seat of the bus to Beauvais so no little brat could be kicking me. Although in fairness my body felt in great condition after the great sleeps I’d had in the hotel. I thought maybe I should take Gloria to Paris after all. Instead of Venice, like.
The young lad got into trouble for fighting at school and Gloria and I were called in to see his teacher. A tall, lanky streak of misery who goes by the name of Mr Chops, which in my book is the funniest name ever. He asked whether we were having any difficulties at home.
‘The washing machine’s been playing up,’ I told him. ‘You have to put the spin cycle on twice or the clothes come out soaking.’
‘And one of the smoke alarms keeps going off,’ said Gloria, nodding her head so furiously that her jewellery rattled.
‘Yeah, the smoke alarm,’ I agreed. ‘The one on the landing. Doesn’t matter how often I change the batteries. It’s just bip-bip-bip all the time. Does my head in.’
Mr Chops smiled and looked down at a piece of paper in front of him and examined it carefully for a bit. I don’t know why he was doing that. It was just a list of books with ‘Second Year Required Reading’ written across the top of it. Was he smirking? I think he was. He’d want to watch that, I thought. Gloria’s phone pinged and she took it out and read the message.
‘Fuck me,’ she said. ‘Sharon’s only gone and broken up with Tommy.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. Not because I thought they were a good couple – they weren’t: she was an alco and he liked jazz music – but because she’d be around ours later with four bottles of wine and the watery eyes and her and Gloria would be sitting around the kitchen island all night giving it the old boo-hoo-hoo.
‘Mr and Mrs Hughes,’ said Mr Chops.
‘It’s Toastie,’ I said, smiling. ‘Toastie and Gloria.’
‘Charles has been displaying some anti-social tendencies of late.’
‘Who’s Charles?’ I asked, giving him the full whiteners.
‘He means Charlie,’ said Gloria, hitting me a puck on the arm.
‘Ah right,’ said I. ‘Would you mind calling him Charlie, Mr Chops?’ I asked. ‘On account of that’s what his name is, like. Calling him Charles just makes it seem like you want to turn him into someone else. He’s not the Prince of Wales, you know.’
‘Oh, I love him,’ said Gloria, leaning forward in the seat and smiling. ‘He gets a terrible bad press sometimes but I think he seems a lot happier these days, don’t you? Since he married Camilla? I never thought that Diana one was right for him.’
‘Sure if she wasn’t throwing herself down the stairs at Sandringham she had her head stuck halfway down a toilet at Balmoral,’ I said.
‘That’s no way to live, is it?’ asked Gloria.
‘Charlie, then,’ said Mr Chops, interrupting us. ‘He was always a good boy in the past.’
‘Ah thanks,’ said Gloria, beaming at him. ‘We’ve always been proud of him.’
‘But lately,’ continued himself, ‘he has shown a tendency towards aggression. He started a fight with Louis Walsh in the playground and punched him in the face.’
‘Is there a man, woman or child in this country who doesn’t want to punch Louis Walsh in the face?’ I asked. ‘I’d offer a reward to anyone who knocked him out cold.’
‘Please, Mr Hughes,’ he said, sighing. ‘This isn’t a joke.’
‘Who’s joking?’
‘It’s a serious offence.’
‘Like I said, the name’s Toastie,’ I told him. ‘Would you ever do me a favour there and call me by my name?’
‘Toastie,’ he repeated quietly, as if the word didn’t sound right on his tongue.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re not the best at getting everyone’s name right, are you?’
‘To continue,’ said Mr Chops. ‘There was the incident with Louis Walsh. And Damien Rice claims that Charles – that Charlie has been extorting money from him.’
‘Is everyone in this fuckin’ school named after famous people?’ I asked. ‘Do you have Daniel O’Donnell in the fourth class, Bono in the fifth and Mary Robinson in the sixth?’
‘How much money?’ asked Gloria.
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Mr Chops.
‘You said he was extorting money from Damien Rice. How much?’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Why do I ask is it relevant?’
‘Yes.’
Mr Chops stared at her. I don’t think he knew what to think. ‘And finally,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘There was a fresh incident with Marian Keyes only two days ago.’
‘Ah tonight,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘What incident is this?’ asked Gloria.
‘He tried to kiss her.’
‘Get in!’ I said, making a triumphant fist in the air. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far, what?’
‘Stop it, Toastie,’ said Gloria, giving me another puck, but I could see that she was smiling too. There’d been a time a couple of years before when Charlie was mad about show tunes and musicals and he stuck a poster on his wall of Barbra Streisand singing at Carnegie Hall, and Gloria’s mam, who can be an awful oul bitch when she wants to be, asked did we think he might be a bit funny. A bit funny how, we asked and she made a face and did that downward sweep of the hand thing like it was the 1970s and we were all in the middle of an episode of Are You Being Served?
‘Are you saying he might be a bendy-boy?’ I asked, and Gloria’s mam said, ‘I’m not saying anything of the sort, William’ – she refuses to call me Toastie – ‘I’m just saying that he seems different, that’s all. It’s something you might like to keep an eye on.’
I told her straight out that if my son was a poofter, it wouldn’t matter to me in the slightest, that he was my own flesh and blood and I would love him no matter how he turned out, even if that meant he was a shirt-lifter.
‘Very modern,’ said Gloria’s oul’ one, sniffing the air like I’d let one off, which I hadn’t. But I meant it too. None of that sex stuff matters to me in the slightest. But still, it had stayed with me, that conversation, and I hoped it wouldn’t be the case. Life’s hard enough, you know, without all that aggro. Anyway, it was a relief that he’d tried to stick one on Marian Keyes.
‘Can I ask you a question, Mr Chops?’ I said.
‘You can, Mr … Mr Toastie.’
‘Just Toastie is fine,’ I said.
‘You can, Toastie.’
‘This Marian Keyes one,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘Is she a good-looking piece or what?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m just asking, is she one of the good-looking girls or does she look a bit … you know, mannish?’
I leaned forward for an answer and Gloria did the same. You could have heard a pin drop.
‘She’s eleven years old, Toastie,’ he said, blushing a little. ‘She’s just a child.’
‘Ah but still,’ I said, winking at him. ‘You can always tell, can’t you?’
‘All I will say is that the boys do seem to compete for her attention,’ he said. ‘Although Charlie is the first to physically assault her.’
Gloria and I grinned at each other and for a moment I considered a high five but thought it might be inappropriate under the circumstances.
‘We’ll talk to Charlie,’ said Gloria, picking up her bag. I suppose she’d decided that she’d had enough and was ready to go home to hear the gossip from Sharon.
‘Mrs Hughes,’ said Mr Chops. ‘I have to tell you that if there are any further incidents involving Charlie, then the school will consider suspension. Which in turn could lead to expulsion. This is a very serious matter.’
‘We know it is,’ I said, standing up. ‘And you’re very good to bring it to our attention. We’ll have a word with Romeo Beckham as soon as he gets in tonight and I’ll tell him that if he lays another finger on that girl I’ll beat six shades of shite out of him.’
‘Toastie, no!’ cried Mr Chops, raising his voice, and it cracked now as if he was going through puberty all over again. He coughed and tried to pretend that hadn’t happened. But it had and we’d all heard it. ‘That’s not what we want at all! Physical violence is never the—’
‘He’s pulling your leg, Mr Chops,’ said Gloria, giving me one last puck for the road.
‘I’m pulling your leg,’ I agreed, smiling at him.
‘Oh,’ said Mr Chops. ‘Oh, right so.’
‘Right so,’ I repeated, winking at him as we left.
That evening, Charlie and I sat side by side doing our homework. The young lad was trying to make sense of quadratic equations – just as well as they’re so useful once you leave school – and I was working on an appreciation of Milton’s Comus and the masque culture of eighteenth-century England.
‘What’s this I hear about you fighting in school?’ I asked him.
‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. The standard reply.
‘And trying to snog the face off some young one?’
He blushed scarlet. God love him, he’s only eleven. He doesn’t know what he’s at yet, it’s probably just something he saw on the telly.
‘She’s a slut,’ he said.
‘Ah Jesus, Charlie,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be hearing words like that in this house, do you hear me? And not about some poor little girl.’
‘She’s a slut,’ he repeated, and I frowned and leaned in.
‘Is she?’ I asked. ‘Why, what did you hear?’
‘She’ll give anyone a blowie for a Toffee Crisp.’
‘Do they still sell them?’ I asked, amazed. ‘I used to love an ol’ Toffee Crisp.’ I hadn’t had one in a long time although, to be fair, it’d been an age since I’d had a blowie either.
He told me what else he’d heard and it fair shook me. Did that kind of thing go on in the schoolyard at eleven years of age? I wasn’t even pulling me own mickey when I was that young. But the kids, they grow up so quickly these days. I can’t be keeping up with them at all.
‘Why did you go back to school, Dad?’ he asked me after we’d got back to our work, heads bowed over the foolscap paper.
‘I’m not back at school,’ I told him. ‘I’ve told you that before. I’m at college. Adult education.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I want to better myself,’ I said. ‘And because I’ve always had a deep appreciation of literature.’
‘Is that why there’s so many books in the house?’
‘It is, son,’ I told him.
And then Gloria called us in for our tea and she read him the riot act and told him that if she ever got a call from that school again, that she’d hang him out the upstairs window by his toenails and give all his computer games to the poor unfortunate lad in the wheelchair down the road. She didn’t hold back, she was in one of her furies, but in fairness to her it seemed to do the trick because I could see that he was taking it all in and he even had the good grace to apologize to us for the trouble he’d caused.
Fair fucks to him, I thought. My little straight son.
I received an enquiry regarding the dispatch of a politician from one of those Russian satellite states with a -stan at the end of it. I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t sure about it at first, as I’m not political. I prefer finance, white-collar-type jobs. It’s not that I don’t do politics, I’ve probably done half a dozen over the course of my career, but there’s just a lot of hassle involved and it’s far more dangerous. I knew I couldn’t say yes without further details though, so I met up with my agent, Mary-Lou, at The Mongrel’s Bone. She wasn’t always my agent, of course. I originally worked for her father, the Master-At-Arms, but he died of a heart attack three years ago and she took over the business from him, ousting her older brother in a spectacular coup that yours truly stayed right out of.
‘How are you, Toastie?’ she asked, sitting down opposite me and ordering a West Coast Cooler. I had a mineral water. I wanted to keep a clear head. She’s only young, Mary-Lou, no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She looks after about a dozen of us throughout Ireland, the UK and the Channel Islands (excluding Guernsey) and no one has a bad word to say about her. She always remembers Charlie’s birthday and sends him an Eason’s voucher. Gestures like that can go a long way in my line of work.
‘I’m well, Mary-Lou,’ I told her. ‘But I have to tell you, I’m not sure about this job.’
‘Tell me your concerns,’ she said, opening a Filofax and taking out a beautiful Montblanc pen, one of them fancy ones with the little snowflake things in glass at the tip. I’ve always wanted one of them myself. I dropped a fair few hints to Gloria last Christmas but she ended up getting me a
Parker, like I was making my confirmation or something. ‘Let me see whether I can alleviate them. If you feel you have to say no at the end of it, sure you know me, Toastie, there’s no pressure either way and we’ll find you something else soon.’
‘I don’t like politics,’ I explained. ‘It’s not really up my street.’
‘I don’t much care for it myself,’ she said. ‘I have to turn the telly off whenever it comes on. But it pays good money.’
‘Who is this fella anyway?’
‘It’s not a fella,’ she said. ‘It’s a woman.’
‘Ah tonight,’ I said, shaking my head. Again, not my type of thing, although I’ve done it in the past.
‘I can’t pronounce her name,’ she said. ‘Too many letters. All those vs and ks. Here, take a look.’ She whipped one of those tablet things out of her bag and I saw a copy of the new John Banville novel in there.
‘Is that any good, is it?’ I asked her.
‘This?’ she said, handing it across to me. ‘I only started it at the weekend but I can’t put it down.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘A young lad riding an oul’ one.’
I nodded. I liked the sound of that. I’d read a few of oul’ Banville’s in the past but I had to take them slow as there were a lot of carefully placed words in there. But the man was on to something, there was no two ways about that. I hadn’t tried the crime ones though. I have no interest in any of that malarkey.
‘Here, this is her,’ said Mary-Lou, putting the book back in her bag and turning her screen to face me. ‘She’s the leader of the opposition. They’re having free elections in a few months’ time and it looks like she’s going to win. Our client wants a different outcome.’
‘Don’t you love the way they always specify free elections in these places?’ I said, scrolling down the page and reading a little bit about her. She was a sour-faced trout, that was for sure. Her husband had been killed by government forces a few years before and two of her young lads were in jail. A third was working as a dancer in Wicked on Broadway. ‘As if someone would say we’re now having unfree elections. Everyone to the polls, please.’
