Magnificent Joe

by James Wheatley

  ‘C’mon, pet. It’s home time.’

  ‘Let me stay,’ she moans.

  ‘Can’t sleep here,’ he says.

  He tries to pull her up, but she’s a dead weight and he’s way too drunk to do it. I give up on them and fall back to sleep.

  In the morning, they’re gone, and Mac stands over me shirtless and hairy-chested, with a mug of tea in each hand. ‘Wakey, wakey.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ My head hurts.

  He gives me his sunniest grin. ‘It was a bloody good night, son. A bloody good night.’

  ‌‌‌8

  July 2000

  ‘Is Geoff coming or what?’ Barry held a skewer topped with a charred sausage and squinted over it at Jim. ‘He’s missing all the scran. That’s not like him.’

  ‘You should have waited for the flames to die down before you put that lot on.’

  ‘Bollocks. They’ll be fine.’

  ‘It’s not even seven o’clock yet. He has to go and pick up his girlfriend.’

  A gust blew smoke into Barry’s face. He coughed and his eyes watered. ‘Fucking hell. I fucking hate barbecues.’

  ‘It’s your party.’

  ‘It was her idea.’ Barry gestured towards the back door. ‘Daft bint.’ Barry returned the sausage to the griddle and rubbed his face with the back of his hand. ‘Has he shagged her yet?’

  ‘Of course he’s shagged her; they’ve been going out for three fucking months.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Barry nodded and chugged at his beer. ‘How come we haven’t met her yet?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Ask him. He was probably scared you’d embarrass him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. I’m civilized, me.’

  ‘Are you fuck. I need another beer. Are you operating an open-fridge-door policy?’

  ‘Aye, go for it.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Jim hauled his body out of the orange deckchair and stood up. The warm breeze slipped over his face and arms, and he stood for a while and let himself sway in the summer air. It struck him that Barry’s garden was very neat, as if it had been edged and trimmed with the aid of a set square and rule. He could imagine Barry on his hands and knees with a pair of scissors to ensure that no single blade of grass encroached over the path or the brand-new patio.

  Jim’s perceptions were muffled by sun and warm beer, and he walked up the garden with a sense of not really being there. This ghostlike drift ended abruptly as he stepped into the kitchen, where the coolness and dim light induced a sudden pain at the back of his eyes. He squeezed them shut and heard a click in his skull as his eyelids slid over his corneas. When he opened them again, he saw the kitchen clearly. Rows of uncooked burgers, sausages, and chicken legs sat on trays on the countertops. Jim realized that Barry expected a lot of guests. This really was Carol’s idea; Barry could not possibly have wanted to spend so much money on others.

  Carol was making salad at the kitchen table.

  ‘That’s a canny spread, Carol.’

  ‘Spread? What?’

  ‘The food. There’s loads of it.’

  ‘Oh, aye, there’s a few people coming over, like.’

  ‘Looks it.’

  Carol leaned over her work. She halved and quartered tomatoes with short, swift movements. She didn’t look at Jim. He didn’t move, because Carol blocked his path to the fridge. He stood there until she spoke again.

  ‘I’ve been on at him to have some people round ever since he finished the patio. It’s nice to sit out on.’ She paused. ‘You know what he’s like, but I finally persuaded him.’

  She smiled and Jim could not tell if she was excited or nervous, so he said, ‘It’s a lovely patio.’

  ‘It is. He’s dead proud of it. Not that he’d tell you.’ She reached for a cucumber and began to slice it too quickly for Jim’s comfort. He winced as the blade swooped past her fingers, close and sharp.

  Jim did not know Carol very well; in fact, he barely ever saw her. The most time he had ever spent in her company were those few weeks sleeping on Barry’s sofa while he waited to be housed. That was over four years ago, when she was pregnant and they were still living in a rented house in the terraces. On those nights, the three of them would sit in silence and watch TV, until Barry would stand up and announce, ‘Let’s go to the pub.’ There was no need for him to add that he didn’t mean Carol.

  Since then, Barry seemed to utterly divorce his life at home from the rest of it. Carol did not come out with them, and on the rare occasions that Jim had cause to come over, she said little or nothing. He had no idea what went on under this roof. The idea of Barry having a home life at all was faintly fantastical to him. Does he play with the kids? He must do, as they kiss him on the cheek and call him ‘Dad’. Jim had seen it. Still…a party. At Barry’s house. Carol must have nagged carefully, but persistently, to make this happen, nibbling at the edges until she had carved out her little victory.

  ‘Who’s this new bird of Geoff’s, then?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know any more than you, Carol.’

  Jim didn’t tell her the truth, that three weeks ago, drunk but lucid, Geoff looked Jim in the eye and told him that he loved this woman, loved her with all his heart, and that she was going to change his life. Jim wasn’t sure he knew what that kind of love really meant, but he could see that it was powerful and that Geoff was happy. Happy and scared that something might take the happiness away.

  There were noises from within, someone entering through the front door of the house, then the sound of children getting excited. Carol raised her head and called out, ‘Pam? Is that you?’ Then she put down her knife and went through to the living room.

  Jim seized the opportunity to get to the fridge. He took a beer and looked out over the garden. Outside, Barry squirted lighter fluid into the barbecue. The flames licked up through the grill and engulfed the food. Barry smiled. Jim shook his head and wandered back out.

  ‘It’s not fucking cooking on the inside.’

  ‘I told you – the charcoal isn’t ready yet. You want radiant heat, not fucking flames.’

  ‘Radian teet? Is that one of your clever words?’

  ‘Fuck off, Barry.’ Jim sat down with his beer and tried to return to a state of relaxation. Barry’s daughter was playing in the grass, and his younger sister was down there with her, on hands and knees. Barry’s sister was wearing a summer skirt and Jim could see the line of her knickers. He tried not to look too much, but Barry caught him at it anyway and poked him in the arm with a spatula. Jim shrugged and picked at the ring-pull of his beer instead.

  More people arrived and in due course Barry presented various guests with carbonized lumps of meat on paper plates, handing them over with pride. They smiled weakly. Only Jim understood that Barry was so proud specifically because the food was inedible.

  ‘Lovely, Barry,’ said his next-door neighbour. ‘Very generous of you.’

  ‘Think nothing of it, Pete. It’s a value pack from Iceland. Dirt cheap. Probably made of tongues and testicles, like, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?’

  Carol did her best to ignore Barry and flitted between guests refilling their glasses from a jug full of a suspicious liquid in which floated lumps of cucumber.

  ‘What the fuck is that stuff?’

  Barry glowered and then pronounced, ‘Pimm’s,’ as if he were speaking the true name of Satan.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a cocktail. For benders. Stick to the beer, mate.’

  Jim tried the Pimm’s anyway and found it quite refreshing, though he filtered the cucumber between his teeth and spat it into the border. He became quite drunk and stumbled back into the kitchen to grab some bread. As he buttered a slice, someone entered the room and Jim turned to look. Geoff beamed at him from behind a pair of sunglasses.

  ‘Fucking hell, Geoff. Shades.’

  ‘Aye, they’re bonny, aren’t they?’

  ‘Very stylish.’

  ‘Jim, there’s someone I want you to mee
t.’ Geoff grinned and seemed to inflate to even greater dimensions. Jim couldn’t help but smile too.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I’m here,’ chimed a clear voice from the kitchen door, and a woman stepped in. ‘Laura.’

  Laura had sunglasses too, but hers were pushed off her face and sat in her ash-blonde hair. She was short, slim, and delicate. Jim shook her hand almost as a reflex.

  ‘Geoff’s told me a lot about you,’ she said.

  ‘Likewise,’ said Jim, and as they made eye contact, he had a sense they’d met before. ‘You seem familiar.’

  ‘Are you trying to chat her up?’

  Jim realized that he was being cued. ‘Well, she’s very glamorous.’

  ‘She is that. Right, let’s go and introduce you to Barry.’

  Laura allowed Geoff to lead her to the door, and as they left, Jim called after them, ‘Don’t accept any meat from him. It’s raw, in a crunchy coating.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ smiled Laura.

  They walked out into the garden and Jim continued to butter his bread. He sat alone in the kitchen and opened another beer, glad to be out of all the chit-chat for a while.

  It struck him as he finished the first slice. ‘Shit.’ He was scared to look, but he had to, and when he peeked through the open door and saw her again, he was sure. Jim didn’t want to be sure, so he muttered to himself, ‘It’s been years, man. Your memory plays tricks.’ He stared at the kitchen wall and laughed to himself, but it wouldn’t make the idea go away.

  Jim sank the rest of his beer, opened another one, and went outside. He leaned against the wall and watched. Against his advice, Geoff and Laura were eating from the barbecue. Barry helped them to chicken legs. Jim blinked hard, but it was no use; the resemblance was uncanny. As he watched the three of them together, Jim had another horrible thought: What if Barry knows too?

  Barry was stabbing roughly at sausages and burgers, and Jim saw nothing different about him. Jim tried to remember exactly what Barry had said that day, but he couldn’t. For one moment of fleeting relief, Jim thought it was possible that Barry had never even met Laura before, but the feeling crashed away almost immediately.

  ‘Of course he has. That’s why he chose her.’

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  Jim shuddered back to awareness of the space around him and saw that Barry’s next-door neighbour had caught him talking to himself. ‘Oh. Um, nothing, Pete.’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Jim weaved to one side and steadied himself on the drainpipe.

  ‘You’ve had too much to drink, mate.’ Pete put his arm around Jim. ‘Come and have a burger.’

  ‘Get the fuck off me.’

  Pete leaped back as if Jim had pulled a gun on him. ‘All right, all right. Just take it easy.’

  Jim ignored him, because now Laura was talking to Carol, who gave her directions to the toilet. Laura went into the house. Jim waited for a few seconds and then followed her inside.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Jim heard her footsteps on the landing and stopped. He waited until the bathroom door opened and closed, and then gave it another few seconds to make sure no one was coming down. Then he climbed the stairs, leaning on the rail and concentrating on being quiet. It took him longer than he expected, so when he reached the top, he only had time to belch loudly and mutter, ‘Fuck, I’m drunk,’ before the taps were running. Jim stood as straight as he could and waited for her to come out. When the door opened, she almost walked into him.

  ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘Yes, we were introduced about twenty minutes ago. You’re pissed.’

  ‘No. I know who you really are.’

  ‘What?’

  Jim scooped her into the bathroom and locked the door behind them.

  Silence. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘I remember you and I don’t want to remember you, but I remember you.’

  ‘Oh my God. Are you mentally ill? Geoff! Geoff!’

  ‘Shh! Shut up! I need to know if it’s true.’

  ‘If what’s true? Jim, this isn’t making any sense to me.’

  ‘Just stay where you are, OK? Don’t move until we’ve sorted this out.’

  ‘OK. OK.’ She sat on the edge of the bath and spread out her hands in front of her. ‘Let’s get this sorted out, whatever it is.’

  Jim sank onto the toilet seat. He’d expected her to see immediately what he meant; he’d thought she might remember him. Now he would have to say it out loud.

  ‘Have…have you…?’ Suddenly, Jim’s mouth felt as heavy and difficult to move as his legs did in the slow-walking dreams from which he would wake with tears of frustration still wet on his face. ‘I need to…’

  ‘You’re hammered.’

  ‘No! I’m not. Well, I am, but not that bad. It’s just hard to explain.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Oh God. Look, have you ever lived in Middlesbrough?’

  ‘Yes. I went to college there.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What? Yes, really. I have an HND in computer science.’

  Jim tried hard to focus on her face, but he couldn’t decode it; she was too tough and he was too drunk. She just looked right back at him. Jim realized that he wasn’t in control, and it made him angry. ‘I’ve fucked you.’

  Laura’s body jerked. She put her hand on her forehead. ‘What?’

  ‘As a customer. Barry was too, I think.’

  ‘Christ. When?’

  ‘Four or five years ago.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if Barry cottons on, there’ll be a right fucking scene. He’s not sensible about this kind of thing.’

  ‘I really love Geoff.’

  Jim picked up a toilet roll and turned it over in his hands.

  ‘It’s true, I do.’ She touched him on the wrist.

  ‘I believe you. Why else would you be here?’ Jim threw the toilet roll at the wall opposite him. ‘Shit.’

  ‘I don’t remember you at all.’

  ‘Probably a good job; it wasn’t what you’d call an uplifting experience.’

  ‘It usually wasn’t. Look, I need to know you’re not going to screw it up for me and Geoff. It was a long time ago, and everything’s changed now.’

  Jim squinted at her, tried to make sense of her. Her face was the same, but otherwise there was nothing about this woman that reminded him of that girl. She’s sorted, he thought. She’s been to college, for fuck’s sake. It struck him that he quite liked her. He pushed his hands through his hair and forced himself into resolve. ‘Geoff loves you. I won’t tell him.’

  ‘What about Barry?’

  ‘Don’t do anything – I’ll deal with him. It’ll be like a fresh start.’

  ‘Oh, please. I don’t need a husband to get a fresh start. I clawed my way out of the shit on my own. This isn’t about fresh starts; it’s about my life. And Geoff’s.’

  ‘Husband? Christ.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’

  They watched each other for a few moments, until the sound of footsteps on the staircase shook Laura into action and she slipped out of the bathroom without another word.

  Jim stayed where he was. He heard her walk along the landing and say hello to someone as she passed them at the top of the stairs. ‘Bollocks,’ he muttered to himself, and decided that since he was in the bathroom anyway he may as well have a piss.

  Back downstairs, Jim sat in the kitchen again. He didn’t want to go outside and mingle with people, but he watched them through the doorway. Even though he kept a close eye on Barry, he didn’t see the precise moment when Barry realized who Laura was. It must have been a gradual dawning, rather than the sudden floodlight that Jim himself had experienced. Still, when Barry strode up the garden, straight towards the kitchen door, Jim knew why he was coming.

  ‘Were yo
u just going to sit here all night and not say anything?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I saw you follow her indoors. I thought, “That looks a bit funny,” and it got me thinking. Then I worked out where I’d seen her before.’

  Barry stood over Jim and waited for him to respond, but Jim didn’t say anything.

  ‘So what are we going to do about it?’

  Jim gazed up at Barry. He wanted to pretend nothing was happening, that he didn’t know what Barry was talking about, but he knew there was no point. He just shrugged and said, ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Fucking dirty bitch.’

  ‘She doesn’t do it anymore, Baz.’

  ‘How do we know that?’

  ‘Because Geoff said she works for the NHS.’

  ‘She’s probably lying.’

  ‘She’s not lying. He’s been to her fucking office; he picked her up for lunch. He told me all about it last week.’

  ‘She’s still a slag.’

  ‘They love each other.’

  ‘Are you defending her?’ Barry was full of genuine disbelief.

  Jim paused and flicked a stray piece of lettuce across the tabletop. ‘Everyone’s done something they regret. And he’s happy.’

  ‘He’s not going to be happy when he finds out she’s a fucking whore.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know that.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m going to tell him.’

  ‘Barry, don’t.’ Jim stood. ‘Look at her – she’s good for him.’

  ‘Fuck off! Half of fucking Teesside’s been through that cunt.’

  ‘Aye, including you. So how can you judge her now?’

  ‘What? Are you fucking stupid or something? She’s been a fucking prossy.’

  ‘Why should that matter now?’

  ‘Of course it fucking matters. Look, you’ve got to be cruel to be kind.’

  ‘Barry, they’re going to get married.’ Jim stepped towards him. ‘Don’t fuck it up.’

  ‘Married?’ Barry stood, stunned. ‘Fucking hell. Well, that settles it: no friend of mine’s marrying a hooker.’ He turned to leave, but as he reached the doorway, Jim grabbed him by the shoulder.

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  ‘Get off me.’ Barry tried to shrug Jim off, but Jim gripped him harder and bodily turned him. Barry shoved Jim in the chest. ‘Fuck off. I’m telling him.’