Are you still working?' I asked her. Becca taught design at a further education college.
'No, I'm just filling in when someone's sick at the moment.'
'Supply teaching?'
'Yeah.'
'It's dat boy again!' cried Kieran, spotting six-year-old Eric on the stairs. He came down the stairs in thick, dayglo green socks and round, brown glasses, dark-haired like his mum. He walked over to his dad, staring at me the whole time like an owl, until Kieran bent at the waist with arms outstretched. Eric giggled and feinted a run-up once, twice into his father's arms then let himself be scooped up. Kieran wiped unsuccessfully at some felt-tip on the boy's mouth, then, pointing at me, said, 'Who's this strange man?'
Eric looked at me — saw Adult Doing Friendly Face — then turned back to his dad, pulling at Kieran's clip-on tie. I was in suspense myself — well, who? — and so when Kieran said, 'It's Daddy's partner at work,' I was awash with love and thanks.
'Hi Eric,' I said.
'Have you come for tea?' he asked.
'No, I've heard that there's a young hooligan here, a terrible troublemaker who's been so naughty I may have to arrest him and take him to prison.'
'Nooaww … ' said the kid, smiling like he's not sure. 'No you're not.' He jerked his head round at his dad like the catcher in a playground game of Frozen Statues.
'I am,' I repeated.
'Who is he?' he squirmed and chortled.
'Let me see — I've got his name written down here somewhere … ' I put my hand in my shirt pocket and took out a little book of first-class stamps. I underlined an invisible word with my finger as if reading: 'Eric.'
'NO!! It doesn't say that. Let me see!' I put the folded red card back in my shirt pocket.
'No, I'm afraid it's a police secret.'
'You haven't got a piece of paper!'
'That's not you,' Kieran told him, 'you're a good old boy, aren't you? Yeah, good old boy.' Eric slid down, rumpling his saggy trousers and went into his toys.
'Do you want some wine, John or a beer or orange juice?'
'What happened to his face, Daddy?'
'Yeah, wine please. Um, can I use your phone please?' I went over to the wall phone and dialled the number on the blue minicab card wedged behind it and ordered a cab for ten p.m.
'That's so you can drink and don't have to drive me home,' I said to Kieran when I hung up.
'Phone back and tell them half an hour,' he said.
Shannon came through the door and stopped suddenly seeing me, and then immediately did a little parody of stopping short. Shannon was more Kieran's colouring with long sandy hair, and wearing a brown school uniform with a pleated brown miniskirt.
'Hi Mum, hi Dad, hi whoever you are, I'll find out in a minute,' she said in a mock panic voice as if she had an international conference call waiting, and she boom-boom-boomed back up the stairs.
Kieran popped out to get his files from the car. Becca handed me the wine to open. On the fridge was a child's drawing of a policeman with a very, very tall helmet chasing after a burglar. I was heartened to see that the stripy-jumper, mask and swag-bag archetype was still in existence.
'Did this take Kieran long?' I asked.
'Days.'
Shannon came back down the wooden stairs over-casually with her hair brushed and shiny and wearing a denim miniskirt, white canvas shoes and a tight, white, long-sleeved top.
Becca shared a rueful face and said, 'Look out, she's got her eye on you.'
Shannon ignored us and went over to Eric who was playing a Casio keyboard with headphones on. He hadn't seen her. She crept down on all fours until her face was right next to him. She waited for him to notice and then the game was that she was trying to put a big, noisy, mauling kiss on his cheek and he was pissing himself and trying to fight her off.
Kieran came back in, took in the scene and said, 'Well, they see us, Becca, and ... '
Dinner was a five o'clock tea when Kieran was on an early so that he could eat with his family.
Becca made us a lovely stir-fry in a big wok. The baby slept with white stuff on his mouth.
Kieran finished first, and put his face over Eric's plate like a ravenous lion. Eric put up a protective arm and carried on eating with one eye on his dad.
'Do you live in London?' Shannon asked me.
'Yes.'
'Whereabouts?'
'Archway.'
'I've got a friend who lives in London,' she piped.
'Whereabouts?'
'Kilburn.'
'That's not a friend, that's your cousins,' said Becca.
'No, it's a friend of theirs — Monica — and mine. What's Dad like at work?'
'He's brilliant. Your dad's one of the best cops and I am very lucky to have him as my partner,' I said, my eyes smarting.
'Yeah Dad!' she said, looking at him. 'He wouldn't let me do my work experience there.'
'That's not till next year anyway. If then.'
'Well, I've got a new idea anyway.'
'Oh yeah?' said Kieran, picking at Eric's leftovers.
'A new idea for what I'm going to do for work experience,' she repeated.
'YE-EAH?' Kieran said in mock-impatience.
'YE-EAH?' Eric mimicked, delighted that shouting was in, but he couldn't do the mock-shouting and it was really loud. Becca put a hand on his arm while still looking at Shannon.
'Well,' she said, 'I thought I'd go to school for once.'
'Instead of hanging round the town-centre?' asked Becca.
'Taking drugs and shoplifting,' said Shannon like it was a refrain or catch-phrase.
'That's it, you're out of my will,' said Kieran. 'It's all yours Eric. I'm leaving it all to you.'
'Don't get your hopes up, son,' said Becca, 'Mummy will have spent it all.'
'John?' said Kieran, handing me the wine after filling Becca's glass and his own.
'Yes, please.'
'Look at that, kids: manners. Oh shit, sorry,' he said, after the unintentional pun.
'Ooh, Daddy swore,' said Becca.
'Why did you say "sorry"?' Shannon asked her dad.
'My surname's Manners,' I said.
'Oh right.'
'Come on then, we're waiting,' said Becca. We were: Shannon's brain was whirring audibly.
'Nothing.'
'That's a relief.'
'Well, I was gonna say you must be descended from the first people to use a knife and fork.'
Becca clapped sarcastically.
'That's very good, John, isn't it?' she said, still clapping. 'Very, very good.'
'Shut up,' Shannon said, clapping back at her and doing a mong face.
Kieran put a last bit of stir-fry in his mouth with his fingers, leant back and slowly raised two fists in the air as if he'd just scored a goal.
'That was fantastic,' he said. 'Right, we're writing a letter to Sainsbury's. Son, fetch me some paper.'
Shannon pushed Eric back in his seat.
'No, let him,' said Becca.
Eric got down from the table and picked up a pink felt pen and some sheets of drawing paper from the carpet floor by a toy garage. Kieran put his plate on top of Becca's. Eric went to hand it all to Kieran, but his Dad just indicated his place mat. The paper and pen before him, Kieran put his hands out and waggled his fingers, then clicked his knuckles but couldn't make them crack.
'Woah-kay,' he said, picking up the pen and saying each word as he wrote: '"Dear Mr Sainsbury, I'm writing to say how much my family and guest enjoyed the stir-fry which we purchased in your shop."'
'Thank you for selling it to us,' suggested Shannon.
'Yes, very good. "Thank you for selling it to us. We look forward to thanking you in person when next we visit your shop."'
'Are you the one in the white hat on the cold meats section?' I submitted.
'Very good, John, but a bit long.'
'"Yours sincerely, Kieran Carter" … ' He passed the paper around and Becca, Shannon, Eric and John were co-signat
ories.
An envelope was found. I took out my book of first-class stamps.
Shannon wrote Mr J. S. Sainsbury, do Sainsbury's Superstore.
'What street is it?' she asked.
'Town centre,' said Kieran.
'Town Centre, Hoddesdon,' wrote Shannon, before using a green pen to draw a wok with sizzle-lines coming off it on the envelope.
Shannon insisted on posting it right away and ran to the door.
'Don't slam it!' said Kieran.
I was very worried that she'd be abducted in her little miniskirt at dusk. As she got to the door I sprang up urgently, knocking over an empty glass, crying, 'Hold on! Don't go on your own!' I turned to the parents and said, 'I'll watch her go down the street, check she's all right. Can you see the post-box from the front door?'
Kieran just frowned and gave me a wincing look, Becca looked askance at me as if I was halfway through telling her some terrible news. I felt I'd spoiled everything by bringing the sick world into the happy home, like a hypodermic, AIDS-infected needle in the back of a family saloon.
'It's only down the road,' Becca said and time started to flow again.
We were sat in silence when Shannon came back from posting the letter. Detecting the shift in atmosphere she went upstairs. Kieran made coffee, while Becca put Eric and the baby to bed.
*
They were on the sofa, I was on the comfy chair. Becca had her wine glass while me and Kieran had coffee. Kieran settled into Becca on the couch. Sitting in a chair opposite I felt like they were watching telly and I was the weirdo on Oprah. I was worried about the gap between my sock and my trousers but as much as I pulled it the sock wouldn't go any higher and the trouser leg wouldn't go any lower. I was just thinking how it would look were I to stand up, smooth my strideage down and sit down again, when Becca, with that keenness of engagement common to intelligent mothers who miss conversation, asked about the 'zero tolerance' initiative they'd been trying out in King's Cross.
'Well, I passed through King's Cross tonight, as it goes,' Kieran said, ''cos we'd all been at Marylebone, and we see all these squad cars flying around, sirens blaring, and we're like, "Oop, someone's dropped a crisp packet on Gray's Inn Road!" Turning to me he said, 'Do you think you'll stay in the job for ever now?'
'Well, yeah.'
'You've not thought about it?' asked Kieran. 'Since you're not gonna get promoted — at least not like you would've done?'
'What, 'cos of deleting the file?'
'Well, unless there's something else you'd like to tell me about … ' asked Kieran with a raised eyebrow.
'Er, er, er, no nothing!' I codded, all Ealing comedy like. 'Should I think about leaving? It hadn't crossed my mind … until just now.'
'You've not thought about not?' asked Kieran.
'Should I?'
Kieran looked towards his wife as if referring to some past agreement between them, some agreement about what to do in the event of just this conversation — even though that was impossible of course.
'Well, it's not for me to — it's your decision at the end of the day,' he said.
I felt my heart sink. Would he be happier if I did?
'What do you think, though?'
'Well, I think you should think about it.'
'About not staying?'
'Yeah.'
'What — in the division? Or the force?'
'Ah, not the force, the "service",' chimed in Becca, happy to be making a cop joke among cops.
'Well,' said Kieran, 'I'm not saying you should or you shouldn't, just that you should think about whether you still want to be in the police … ah, service, heh heh.'
'Well, you know I'm a good cop.'
'Well,' he looked at Becca again, as if they were crossing another previously agreed contingency marker, 'you are and you aren't.'
'What you on about?!'
'Yes, you're a natural thief-taker and all that, a talented cop, but on another level, temperamentally, you, you're-well, we've discussed it before, haven't we?'
'What, you mean getting too upset by what I see?'
'And everything you see knocks a whole load of chain reactions in your head about all sorts of other shit I don't know about.' Oooh, Daddy swore. I wish we were still at the light stage where that was said. This was a new and shocking region. 'I know what it is, it's like every time you catch a criminal it's like you go "phew I can eliminate myself from the inquiry!"' All the time I thought K. had thought one thing about me, he'd thought something else. I almost felt like crying.
'But you could say,' Becca intervened, 'that perhaps that's what makes, er, John such a capable police officer, because he can identify with things … ?'
I looked at Kieran who paused and said, 'Yeah, there's that too. I mean I'm just suggesting … ' I was so relieved he'd said that I regretted having looked at him beseechingly, 'cos now I didn't know whether he'd have said that unprompted. But then I started thinking that every identification with a crime scene is a recognition of some no-go area in myself. I wanted to get right into this thought, but worried that instead of pensive I just looked sad and defeated and so I interrupted myself to say, 'Well, yeah, you're right, I do need to think about it.'
'Yeah,' said Kieran.
'But the thing is the job isn't just what you do, it's what you are.'
'No, I think you'll find it's what you do,' said Kieran.
'But we're the good guys,' I said with a trill in my voice like I was being ironic even though I wasn't.
'No, we're not,' Kieran replied, 'we're no better or worse than anybody else: we murder, commit suicide, take drugs, get in fights, drink-drive. We're embezzlers, shoplifters, wife-beaters, rapists 'But on a good day, John,' said Becca, touching a tender hand on Kieran's face, 'he can be the nicest man in the world!'
'I know,' I said, eyes stinging with an inappropriate sincerity 'And I've been much better lately, haven't I, darling?' asked Kieran. 'And I'll tell you something else — people who do have a fixed idea of, you know, "I am this" or "I'm not that" are the ones who do more harm than they know … "I'm not a racist therefore me calling him a nigger doesn't mean anything," or, you know, "I'm not a violent bloke therefore me hitting this bloke round the head with a pick-axe handle means he must have deserved it," you know?'
'Yeah, but if you don't have an idea of who you are you just get slooshed around with the tides of good and evil.'
'Yeah, well, what I do is what I am.'
'Yes. But,' I said, speaking slowly, 'that can easily become what I am is what I do.'
Kieran nodded wisely for a second or two, but then said, 'That's the same thing!'
'How's work?' I asked.
'Just come off a course. Been on loads of courses since promotion. Still I managed to avoid them for years so I can't really complain I suppose.'
'You were on a course a few weeks ago … the night that, um … '
'No, I wasn't, John. I just changed shifts.'
'Why didn't you tell me?'
'I needed a — you were doing my head in. I had to keep one eye on you, I felt you were headed for something, spontaneous combustion or something, and I needed a break from you.'
They both looked at me. I didn't want there to be an ugly tension in their house. I grinned and said, 'You're lucky: I never get a break from me!'
They laughed, relieved. Becca excused herself and went to bed.
Left on our own we had to fend off an Attack of the Giant Killer-Pauses and so fell to talking shop, discussing the dealers working out of the fruit and veg. stall, naming names of who we knew so far was in the chain.
There came another Giant Pause, but Kieran looked pretty much at home in this one and said, 'Going back to our earlier conversation … Your problem is you never had to rebel against a Catholic upbringing. There's no natural sense of right and wrong, any more than you're born with a sense of how to hold a knife and fork properly. It's just taught you.'
'There's just manners?'
'There's j
ust manners. You're on your own, my old mate.'
'What about choices — we all make a choice.'
'Some people don't know there's a choice. Then what?'
'There is an innate sense of good and evil in the human soul.'
'WHERE? You find it for me and I'll believe you.'
'Well, I'm on a case at the moment … double-time and all, can't miss out on that, you know?'
'Well, soon as you're through.'
'Soon as I'm through.'
The taxi came early. Kieran showed me to the door.
'Nice to see you,' he said.
'Yeah,' I said, standing out in the misty cold, while he put one sock foot on the other leaning against the jamb. I nodded 'just-a-minute' to the minicab driver. 'You've got a lovely home and a brilliant family.'
'Thanks.'
'Ta-ra mate.'
'Chin up, John.'
'Yeah, see you.'
We shook hands.
'See you,' he said.
I took a couple of steps down the path, then stopped and turned. 'Shit. You're only a couple of years older than me. What was I doing while you were having a family?'
'Wanking into a toilet roll,' said Kieran, and closed the door.
*
The fridge shudders down from its high-pitched hum to a lower whirr. But my head is still a high-pitched whine with the spin of Kieran saying, 'And I'll tell you something else-people who do have a fixed idea of, you know, "I am this" or "I'm not that" are the ones who do more harm than they know … "I'm not a violent bloke therefore me hitting this bloke round the head with a pick-axe handle means he must have deserved it," you know?' Last night's events have driven a wedge between who I think I am and who I am.
Stuck on the fridge is a picture of the 10,000-year-old Iceman they found in a glacier. Oetzi they called him because he was found in the Oetzaler Alps, or 'Tyrolean Man'. A lost Neanderthal wanderer. Thinner than he was but with skin, hair, clothes, tattoos and overnight bag still intact — and blue eyes just like mine. When I cut it out of the magazine I guess I was thinking of my dad face-down in the snowdrift. It's the nearest I've got to a photo of him. The skin around the eye-socket has eroded away so that the blue eyes look furious or horrified.
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