The Hook

by Raffaella Barker

  Without thinking she wrote ‘I love you’ on the sheet of cream paper the youth had given her to test it on. His forehead blotched scarlet and he coughed. Christy snatched the paper away, crumpling it, suddenly noticing the expensive quiet of the shop in which the twisting of a piece of paper cracked like a gun going off. Back at the flat she dragged all her bags into the bathroom and sat on the floor delving among soft folds for the box. The pen had cost almost as much as her boots. Her heart raced at the thought of such extravagance. Her savings had been bitten in half but it didn’t matter, it was a perfect present.

  The party was held in an old warehouse beyond any part of London Christy had ever been to before. She shivered in her thin dress waiting for Mick to lock the car, daunted by the vast darkness of the walls, the broken windows on the lower floors like punched-out eyes dangling shards of glass. On the top floor lights swung out in beams of pink and blue and yellow and the music was so loud Christy could feel it as much as hear it. They walked up a zigzag metal staircase on the outside of the building, Christy clutching Mick’s coat from behind, too terrified to look out and see East London twinkling around her. For a craven moment she wished she was at home with Frank, cooking supper to eat in front of the television while she told him about her time in London.

  The moment Mick walked in a man with a beard called out to him and he was swallowed by the relentless beat of the party. He moved away from Christy to talk and she lost him in the heaving shoal of people. Faces with unseeing eyes swam past her where she paused, ghostly in her grey dress, her hair a transparent shawl over her shoulders. No one seemed to be talking. In aimless drifts they crossed and recrossed the room, grouping for a moment at the bar then moving off to darker corners. On the dance floor a woman wrapped in red silk spun and twirled in front of two swaying men who stared over her head at nothing. Christy wondered which of the glass faces belonged to the host and hostess. Mick had said they were old friends and she had expected a recognisable uniform of jeans and dark jackets, floral dresses and cheap jewellery. Instead there were boiler suits and sweeps of floating silk, strong colour dappled like oil on water, and she searched in vain for a familiar expression, a set of features she could recognise.

  Mick touched her shoulder, and she turned.

  ‘This is Linda. She says you’ve met.’

  Pointed teeth laced a smile in Linda’s small mouth.

  ‘Hello, Christy. We met at that hen party, do you remember?’

  ‘You should have a massage from Linda some time, sweetheart; she can work wonders, let me tell you.’

  Why was Linda here? Out of place, wrong in her faded black skirt and tasselled Indian shirt, all that hennaed hair piled up and wispy. Mick must have told her to come. She didn’t belong any more than Christy did.

  Christy draped her arms around Mick, smiling at Linda.

  ‘Nice to see you. Are you enjoying the party?’

  Linda licked her lips, looking at Mick as she answered, not at Christy.

  ‘Well, I don’t know anyone, but Mick introduced me to a few of his friends, so it’s not too bad.’

  A blade of jealousy slid into Christy.

  ‘Let’s go, Mick, I want to go home.’

  ‘We’ve only been here for a minute, now come on, Chris, let your hair down.’ Mick reached across to Linda as he spoke and pulled the comb from her heaped hair.

  Christy’s nails flexed on his shirt and she stopped herself digging them in by clenching her fists.

  ‘I’m going to dance.’ She spoke in a brittle shiny voice; a matching smile stretched across her face.

  Mick followed her and they moved over to the dance floor where the loudspeakers hummed and there was no possibility of conversation. Christy loved dancing. When she stepped on to the platform with the other dancers they fell back around her and watched. She didn’t notice, she just danced. Hammering, pulsing music, one rhythm over and over, forcing thought away into a white throb somewhere, nowhere. No thought, just limbs flying loosened and feet burning, unable to stop. A skin of sweat under clothes, hot and tight, not bursting into drops, stretching hotter and tighter, thirst swelling inside until nothing remained of the flesh.

  Coming off the dance floor half an hour later, Christy shivered, her dress wrinkled and damp as if she had wrung it out and put it on. Her face shone beneath streaked hair and she moved to the bar and drank from a bottle of water in one determined movement. It could wait no longer. She had to talk to Mick; she was strong now and it was time to fill in the holes she had turned away from. Weightless, fearless expectation sharpened her senses.

  She picked Mick’s coat up from a chair by the door.

  ‘We’re going,’ she said.

  His eyes were too dark to see, but he didn’t go and say goodbye to Linda hovering nearby. He threw his coat over Christy’s shoulders, swathing her so only her head and her hair were lit, gliding down the fire escape and into the jet-stamped night.

  Afterwards Christy looked back on that episode and saw brief scenes pared down and sharp as glass. They had sat in the car somewhere on the edge of the Thames facing thick flowing water, side by side in wells of silence bridged by Christy’s questions and Mick’s slow answers. He said he bought and sold cars because his journalism made so little money. He was good at fixing cars, he said; that was why he always had cash. He had not published much work, not as much as he had led her to believe. He said he loved her and she was his only chance.

  Warm in his coat, Christy prodded each confession, tidying every loose end, securing it before she would let it go and move on to the next. She radiated crisp confidence, the end of her cigarette flaring red around her, a barrier protecting her from the heap of Mick slumped in shadow behind the steering wheel. He said he had invited Linda to the party. She was a good friend to him and he owed her a favour.

  ‘What favour?’ Christy snorted a plume of smoke from her nostrils, smudging yellow edges on to clouded darkness.

  ‘Oh, she stood by me in some trouble long ago.’

  ‘What trouble?’ Hauling slowly, she hooked out of him a sordid memory of embezzling a social-security cheque.

  Her feelings about Mick were altered irrevocably that night. She could not trust him again, and he could no longer make her safe. But he had given her so much by loving her. After he had told her the whole story, she heard a voice inside her: You don’t need him any more. He has given you the confidence to walk away.

  To change the sinking mood they drove for a while and crossed the river, joining a chain of lorries slowing and stopping at a series of floodlit warehouses. The fish market. They walked through the halls, their feet slapping echo into the roof as the traders arrived. Christy was diverted, marching ahead, breathing deep the salt-wet air, leaning over great plastic trays ice-studded and sliding with fish. Under glaring neon men bustled trolleys stacked high and dripping across the concrete expanse. Each trolley bore a tower of heaving crates from which tails and fins jutted, trembling and wet. Mick followed her hunched in his coat, stopping where she did, grunting when forced to respond. A crate of blue lobsters, their claws clamped shut with orange tape, overbalanced at Mick’s feet. He jumped away, looking at Christy to see what to do.

  ‘Oh, poor things.’ She was on her knees immediately, straightening the crate, gently reaching for the lobsters. Claws waved close to her face, long antennae twisting black against her skin as she picked them up and re-housed them in the crate. ‘Help me, Mick, they’re escaping.’ Scuttling on hobbled limbs, two of the lobsters headed off beneath a table.

  Christy looked round for Mick: he shook his head.

  ‘I can’t touch them, Chris, I’m sorry.’

  Forgetting her dress she crawled after them.

  A lorry driver whistled, ‘Lovely legs, darling,’ as she emerged pink-cheeked, a crustacean in each hand.

  Mick took a deep breath and tried a joke.

  ‘They’ll be the same colour as your face when they’re cooked, sweetheart.’

  Sh
e looked at him and smiled.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Dawn was breaking when they returned to Vaughan’s flat. As the sun breathed colour into the sky, the faces of buildings they passed grew stronger, neat rows of front doors drawing light back into paintwork turned monochrome in the night-lit streets.

  Mick parked and turned to Christy.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  She shook her head. It was six o’clock on an October Saturday morning and she thought she would never need sleep again.

  ‘I reckon we could be in Lynton for breakfast.’ Mick glanced at her, checking her response before she answered. He was hesitant and uncertain, daunted by Christy’s radiant confidence.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said. There was no point in being in London with him now. She needed time to think.

  On tiptoe they entered the flat and without speaking tidied the bedroom. Hotspur yawned when Mick called him and had to be carried to the car. Christy attached a note for Vaughan to the fridge, tucking it under a scrawled memo Vaughan had written to herself in violent black strokes, forgetting punctuation. ‘VODKA SHOT GLASSES GAS MAN’. Christy thought it would make a good headline for a tabloid. In the sleeping street they heaped their bags into the car on top of the dozing dog. Christy opened her door to get in.

  Mick pulled her back, hugging her, whispering, ‘I need you, sweetheart, I need you.’

  She did not answer.

  Danny gave evidence, so did Dad, but not me. They said my evidence was not worth having because I was not an impartial witness. I didn’t want Mick to ask Dad to give evidence. It was wrong to embroil him in this mess.

  But Dad surprised me.

  ‘Mick needs support. I will happily stand up in court and tell the jury what I know of his character. Where’s the harm in it?’ We didn’t discuss whether or not Mick was guilty, not even right after the arrest. ‘It’s not for us to pass judgement,’ Dad insisted.

  Danny was a strange sight in a suit. An Adam’s apple jutted above the knot of his tie and his neck was like a flower stem, long and thin, bound by his shirt collar. The suit was grey, a few shades darker than his face before he went into the courtroom. He knew about the armed guards because I had told him, but he flinched when they searched him, sticking his arms out straight as a scarecrow’s in the big folds of grey flannel. He had cut his hair for his court appearance and slicked it back with water, emphasising the small neatness of his head. Facing the jury across the yellow-lit courtroom the innocence of youth shone all over Danny; Tobin with his jowls, his five o’clock shadow and his red-veined nose was as coarse as a pantomime dame in contrast. Everyone knew Danny was my brother, and the public gallery was packed with ghouls who had come to see how entwined the Naylors were with the case. Even though the press could not release Mick’s name and we hadn’t talked about it to anyone, the whole of Lynton seemed to know.

  Danny had to talk about the time he found the parking ticket on Mick’s car. It was as if he were walking blindfolded along a cliff. Tobin pushed him, encouraging him towards the edge, trying to make him say something which would swoop him into betraying Mick.

  ‘You gave a statement to the police in which you stated that you found a parking ticket on Mr Fleet’s car dated June the 25th. Can you tell the jury about this incident, Mr Naylor?’

  I shook my hair over my face so no one would see my shock. This was the date of Mrs Jackson’s ordeal in the bank. A giant jigsaw was nearing completion and none of us had known we were working on it. Danny didn’t know about Mrs Jackson, he hadn’t been in court.

  He was filling in the pieces for Tobin who rocked on his heels with triumph flickering across his lips.

  ‘I found the parking ticket on the car at about nine o’clock,’ said Danny. ‘I gave it to Mick – to Mr Fleet, I mean, and he put it in his pocket.’

  ‘Mr Naylor, what is it about this incident that made it stay in your mind for nearly a year?’

  Danny hesitated before answering, and his voice was sharp with surprise.

  ‘Well, the police asked me about it when I gave my statement. I don’t know if it would have stayed in my mind otherwise.’

  Tobin glowered: Danny was proving an irritating witness. He was clearly telling the truth, and his answers were calm and bland. The jury liked the look of Danny; even the old lady whose fingers twitched for her knitting had creases of benevolence around her mouth. By now I knew enough about court not to be surprised that Tobin was gentle with Danny. The barristers were always nice to the witnesses the jury favoured; they didn’t want to risk becoming disliked.

  The cross examination from Mr Sindall was brief and by lunchtime Danny had finished. It was so unsensational I was almost disappointed. As we filed out of court for the lunch break I realised I had not looked across at Mick all morning.

  Dad didn’t give evidence until later in the trial. He was a character witness for Mick along with Linda. Dad hadn’t been to the prison so hadn’t seen Mick for months. They smiled at one another before Dad took his oath and tears stung my eyes when I saw them. I had let Dad down by meeting Mick and falling in love. It was wrong of me to have been party to their friendship because now Dad was paying the price in the witness box. I had cheated on his dignity. I should never have let it go this far. His responses to the questions put to him rang out louder and louder until he was one decibel below shouting. I smiled, guessing what was going through his head: The louder I am the more truthful I am. He believed it and so, by the look of them, did the jury, all twelve alert and cheerful for once.

  ‘Mick Fleet was and still is my daughter’s boyfriend. I have known him for a little more than a year and I have found him reliable and honest to deal with. I know nothing of the events that have caused this case to be brought and can say without reservation that Mick Fleet as I know him is an honourable man.’ Dad paused. I was sure he was going to cry.

  My skin tingled pink and electric. I thought this must be how people feel on their wedding day, when the person they love is represented in a glow of good cheer; I began to giggle insanely. Danny nudged me, but I couldn’t stop. He pulled me to my feet and out of the courtroom before Dad had finished. Outside I spluttered laughter and tried to light a cigarette. Everyone lit cigarettes the second they came out of court into the waiting area; it was as natural to me now as shutting my eyes to sneeze.

  ‘I’m sorry, Danny, I’m really sorry. I just had the most ridiculous thoughts in there. I think the strain of all this is getting to me now.’

  Maisie appeared from the main stairs. She had lost interest in the case, having yawned her way through three days in court, and only came now to check when it was going to end.

  She marched up to us glaring.

  ‘Has Dad finished yet? They must have got enough by now.’

  The date of her wedding loomed two weeks away and she was afraid the case might still be going on. Dad still hoped she might change her mind and pretended it wasn’t happening.

  ‘Have you sent Mick an invitation?’ Danny couldn’t help teasing her, and she swallowed any bait he cast.

  ‘Of course I bloody haven’t. He’s in prison.’

  ‘He might be out by then. He might be found innocent.’

  ‘He’s guilty as hell. He’ll get twenty years.’ Her mouth stretched back in a snarl.

  I pushed her.

  ‘Shut up, Maisie, everyone can hear you.’

  The guards outside the courtroom were motionless with their guns, but I knew they were listening. Maisie dragged me away to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Look, you’ve got to find out how much longer this is all going to take. I need to know.’

  ‘You’re not the only one, Maisie.’ Her selfishness was reassuring, a thread of consistency running through bolts of woven confusion.

  ‘Look, Christy, I know this is difficult for you, but a joke is a joke. You can’t stand by him. He’s dangerous and he has lied to you. Even if he does get off, how can you trust him? He might be checking Dad’s
house out to raid.’

  Her mouth gaped and closed, gaped and closed as she harangued me. I was half listening, but my concentration on her words dwindled to nothing. She was being Mum, I realised. Talking sense or talking self. Whichever it was, she was saying what my mother would have said. I wished I could tell her that I knew she was right.

  A door beside us opened and Mick’s barrister emerged. I smiled and he moved nearer to me.

  ‘Could I have a word with you, Christy?’

  Maisie snorted and swung away muttering, ‘This whole thing is like a bad television programme and bloody Christy thinks she’s the star.’

  Mr Sindall’s eyebrows curled in astonishment but otherwise he pretended not to hear.

  ‘Your father was very good. A solid character witness speaks volumes to a jury.’

  I twisted one leg round the other and nodded. Whenever Sindall spoke to me I felt as though I was in the headmistress’s office at school. His lips were red and curved around square yellow teeth, and out of the courtroom in his gown with the greasy periwig perched on top of greying hair, he was difficult to take seriously. In court he was fine. I loved watching him pull the veins of Tobin’s arguments until they snapped and clotted to dry uselessness in the minds of the jurors. He never needed to blink and his still approach was very different from Tobin’s bluster. He was sinister where Tobin was bullying, he was a shark where Tobin was a bullfrog.

  ‘We’re nearly there now, Christy. Mick is not giving evidence, as you know, and tomorrow Mr Tobin and I will present our speeches, the Judge will sum up on Wednesday and by the end of the week we should have a verdict.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said, and wondered if it was.

  The surface of the feeding pen boiled, hungry mouths gaping, sinking, tails spilling circles in pursuit of a pellet of food beneath cross-hatched netting. The jetty planks trembled under Christy’s feet, reverberations setting the next pen swarming. She moved on, buckets thumping her calves, bruising through her trousers on to a patch of skin always tender when she was on a week of feeding duty. The third pen was still. Christy flung a handful of feed in and waited. No fish rose to snap the surface tension; the water gleamed black, frilled white with the reflection of passing cloud. At one corner of the pen something bobbed beneath the waterline then another form and another. She peered across, leaning to see into the corner, trying to make sense of the clogged shapes emerging, her heart drumming apprehension. The fish were dead. She knew this before she saw maimed carcasses drift to the netting at the edge, broken as if vast hands had picked them up and torn through scales and skin, flesh and gossamer bone.