by Shaun Baines
Mrs Guptal blushed when Daniel caught her watching him. His back had been turned, but it was if he had sensed her curiosity. He gave her a brief nod before she ducked behind the curtains to spare her reddening cheeks.
Her husband had not always been so inattentive. As newly-weds, it was all she could do to get away from his wandering hands. She was blessed to feel so loved. They spent days in bed, not just lovemaking, but talking. They were close; two bodies with one soul her husband often said.
As the years went by and drink stole her husband away, she fantasised about an alternative world populated with what-ifs? What if she had married someone else? What if her husband had not become such a lush? What if another man offered himself to her? Just once, she thought dismally. Just one more time.
“I’m finished, Mrs Guptal.” Daniel stood in the door frame, blocking light from a weak Scottish sun. His hands were clasped behind his back as he waited patiently for payment.
It was three fifteen.
“Why don’t you come in, Daniel?” Mrs Guptal asked. “You’ll need a cuppa after all that hard work.”
***
Daniel perched on the edge of Mrs Guptal’s brown leather sofa and looked about the room. The walls were beige. The carpet was beige too, though slightly darker in shade. There was a bookcase filled with books whose spines were unbroken. A television sat in the corner and a sideboard stood underneath a window obscured by freshly laundered net curtains.
Nothing here told him anything about the woman making tea in the kitchen.
“Are you all right, Daniel?” Mrs Guptal appeared in the doorway, her slender figure barely masked by a thin, yellow sari. He accepted the proffered tea with a small smile of thanks and balanced the china cup and saucer in his clumsy hands. The smell of the tea was unfamiliar and Daniel looked to Mrs Guptal for guidance.
“It’s green tea,” she said. “You’ll like it.”
Returning his gaze to the moss coloured liquid, Daniel wasn’t so sure.
“You haven’t been in Hounswood long, have you?” Mrs Guptal asked.
He sipped from his cup, taking care not to embarrass himself by spilling any. The tea was bitter, but not unpleasant and he was thankful he wouldn’t have to mask his distaste.
Daniel wasn’t good at hiding his emotions.
“Nine months,” he answered.
Mrs Guptal slid in next to him on the sofa, leaning back into the headrest. Daniel was a solitary man who didn’t partake in village gossip, but it was a small place and even he had heard what they said about the woman wasting her life on the village drunk.
Taking in the soft contours of her face, her eyes were as dark as twilight, but typically he saw much more. Her pupils were dilated and the rise and fall of her breasts had quickened as her breathing gained pace. Her left eyebrow was raised two millimetres higher than her right and her lips were parted.
“There’s not much to do for a young man like you in a village like this. Surely, you should be living it up in a big city somewhere.”
“I came from a city, but it didn’t agree with me.”
She seemed lonely, he thought. Some wives, at least those from his hometown, relished the freedom of a dysfunctional marriage. They didn’t necessarily seek comfort elsewhere, but they sought their independence and it made them stronger. Here was a woman who withered without attention and Daniel felt sorry for her.
Opening his mouth to speak, Mrs Guptal placed a finger on his lips. She let it linger, her fingertip exploring the soft flesh of his mouth. Daniel’s heart hammered in his chest and he longed to kiss her.
He gently placed his cup and saucer on the carpet.
“Don’t do that,” Mrs Guptal said, leaping to her feet. She scooped the cup and saucer from the floor and found a coaster on the sideboard. She gave it a quick polish with her sari before setting the cup and saucer out of harm’s way.
Daniel’s quizzical look stopped her in the middle of a panic.
“My husband...” she said. “He doesn’t like anything on the carpet in case it’s knocked over.”
He rubbed his hands. “I better be going.”
“Oh, no. Don’t. Please.”
Ignoring her, Daniel stood, casting a shadow over a woman who was suddenly so small in his eyes. Her veneer of confidence was brittle and as light weight as the layer of dust on her furniture.
Daniel didn’t know much, but he knew people and he saw a fear in Mrs Guptal he didn’t want to be around. There was enough of that in his past.
“I was just being silly,” she said. “Stay a little while longer.”
He moved toward her and embraced her in his thick arms. The top of her head barely reached his chest, but when they connected, she shuddered and he knew she was crying. Daniel let her tears soak his T-shirt.
“I’m such a bloody fool. I don’t know why I put up with him, but he’s in my head. I act like a crazy woman and know it’s him making me be this way.” Mrs Guptal gripped Daniel tighter and his heart raced. This was the first time he had touched a woman in over nine months. True, he was no longer attracted to her, but like Mrs Guptal, he craved the intimacy of human contact. He was pleased he had been brave enough to reach out. It was not his usual reaction, but his instinct had told him it was what Mrs Guptal wanted most and Daniel always trusted his instincts.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Mr Guptal staggered into the room. He was short, but with the drunken attitude of a bigger man. He’d been handsome once, but years of drinking had taken their toll. His face was gaunt while his stomach was round, rolling over a belt that struggled under the strain.
“Well, woman? What have you been doing?”
Mrs Guptal looked terrified and pushed from of Daniel’s grasp. “You’re back early, darling. Do you want a cup of tea?”
“No, I don’t want a cup of tea. I want to know why you’ve made a cuckold of me.”
Daniel breathed slowly through his nostrils, attempting to control his rising anxiety. Had things worked out differently, Mr Guptal might have walked in on something he did have a right to be angry about. As it stood, Daniel was lending comfort to someone who needed it and he saw no reason for the idiot’s agitation.
“I’m sorry, Mr Guptal. Your wife was upset. I was trying to make her feel better.”
Mr Guptal jigged from one foot to another, snorting beery fumes like a bull. He stepped up to Daniel, his fists clenched and his jaw set in stone.
“You shut up. You come to stick your dick in my wife. Make her feel better, eh?”
“No, darling, no,” Mrs Guptal said. “He’s just a gardener.”
Her words cut Daniel keenly. Just a gardener? His T-shirt was still damp from her tears and she’d dismissed him as if he were nothing. She was placating a drunken husband, but the sudden switch of attitude riled Daniel.
And her stupid husband had no right to be angry, either. Daniel tried to relax, but he knew this mounting tension too well. If it wasn’t for Mr Guptal and The Kingston Hotel, seethed Daniel, his wife wouldn’t have been in such a state. He wouldn’t be the innocent party forced into the middle of a fucked-up situation.
“Listen, I’m going to go,” Daniel said, his hands bunched into fists. “You better work this out between the two of you.”
He moved toward the door, but Mr Guptal blocked his exit. “You’re not going yet. You insult me and take advantage of my wife. I’m going to teach you a lesson.”
Before Daniel could reason with him, Mr Guptal swung a punch. He was too drunk and too short to land accurately. It glanced off Daniel’s brawny shoulder with the lightest touch, but it was too late. Daniel’s anger flared like the beginnings of a volcano. He slapped Mr Guptal across the face, spinning him a hundred and eighty degrees. Grabbing him by the back of his head, he rammed his face into the wall. The blood from Mr Guptal’s nose sprayed over the beige walls. The room finally had a splash of colour, thought Daniel.
“Get out, you animal,” Mrs Guptal shouted. “Leave him alone.�
��
She ran between the fighting men, folding her bleeding husband in her arms. He stood over them, his chest rising and falling, an all too familiar anger coursing through his body. They cowered from him, holding each other tightly, neither one of them daring to look into his eyes. Blood rolled down the wall. He could smell it. He could smell their dread. His instinct to maim, the one he tried so hard to bury, had burst free from a faulty dam.
He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
***
As he shoved the last of his clothing into a rucksack, Daniel thought of the harm he had visited upon the Guptals. It made him ill. He had been minutes from sleeping with Mrs Guptal and had then beaten her husband to a bloody pulp.
Whether they informed the police or not, his life here was over. It was a small village and word would spread. People would avoid him on the street, but he’d feel their eyes upon him, even with his back turned. Work would dry up. He would be ostracised and the place he hoped to call home one day would be gone.
He slung it over his shoulder and had one last look around the room. The walls were the same green they were when he moved in. The laminate flooring was still chipped. The sofa and bed he was leaving behind had been chosen by the previous tenant. There was nothing to say Daniel had even been here.
The doorbell rang and his chest tightened in panic. The Guptals had reported him to the police after all. He’d hoped Mrs Guptal might have forgiven him, but the small measure of comfort he’d offered clearly meant nothing. Perhaps the sins of his past overrode any kindness he showed in his present.
The doorbell rang again. It was insistent and echoed around his now empty home.
He dropped his rucksack and groaned. He’d got nine months of freedom and was surprised it had lasted that long. All he’d wanted when he arrived in Hounswood was to be forgotten. It was a stupid idea, really. Men like him were never faceless for long. Soon he’d be taken down to the station, identified as Daniel Dayton and his nightmare would start afresh.
With a deep breath, he answered the door.
Outside was a man he had not seen in a very long time.
Chapter Three
“Evening, ladies. Make sure you behave tonight.”
Scalper Brown was head doorman at Newcastle’s Glitterball nightclub, a job he had held for eight years. The club was the biggest in the city, safely holding up to five hundred sweaty punters, though they routinely admitted more. It made his job impossible and Scalper often wondered if he was there for security or window dressing.
Most of the guys he’d started out with had gone on to better things. It was long tedious hours of vigilance interspersed with brief bouts of fire-fighting, like a sentry posted on a deserted border. It didn’t suit everyone, but Scalper liked the hours and, considering the alternative was jail, he was happy to remain on duty.
Three young women tottered by him, heading down to the cloakroom. God knows what they were checking in, he thought. If he took their clothes and stitched them together, he’d be lucky to end up with a handkerchief.
Scalper was in his forties and average height, but his hard, round muscles made him look taller. If he wasn’t working, he was working out. He shaved his head twice a day, not because he was going bald, but because he liked the feel of it. Years ago, someone had said he’d been scalped by Red Indians and the nickname stuck.
“Hey, Scalper, you ever seen anything like these?” Balancing on her five inch heels, a regular called Jackie exposed her large breasts.
Scalper laughed. “Put ’em away, love. My mother warned me about girls like you.”
Fairbanks, the new starter, watched Jackie disappear into the steam of the nightclub. “Does that happen often?” he asked.
It was his first night. He was twenty, but looked younger. Skinny and pale, he seemed as threatening as a lollipop. Health and Safety prohibited doormen from wearing jewellery, but when Fairbanks refused to remove his diamond stud earring, Scalper hired him immediately. They were short staffed and if he was prepared to have that thing torn from his ear in a fight, then maybe he was tougher than he looked.
“Happens all the time, mate,” Scalper said, “You might see a few more before the night is out.”
Fairbanks grinned and scanned the queue for potential trouble makers.
When Scalper was his age, he was already running with Ed Dayton and his crew. Ed was older than Scalper and a natural leader. He charmed the birds and the branches they sat on. Scalper, a young, bare knuckle fighter at the time, fell under his spell so when breaking windows and stealing chocolate bars escalated into extortion and robbery, Scalper barely noticed. It wasn’t until his beloved mother abandoned him that Scalper saw what he’d become. He was a thug; a petty criminal that disgusted and frightened her in equal measure. He knew he’d have to change.
But it wasn’t the kind of job he could resign from. He knew too much. Standing in front of Ed, looking into his steel grey eyes, Scalper’s stomach churned as he told him of his decision. Scalper was no fool. He made money for Ed and Ed had expensive tastes. Trying to hide the quiver in his voice, he expected the worst.
What he didn’t expect was the hug. Ed wrapped his arms around Scalper’s broad shoulders. He gave him the faintest Judas kiss on the cheek and offered him another job.
“Something more respectable,” he’d said. “Family is the most important thing in the world. We need something to heal the wounds between mother and son.”
Eight years later and Scalper was exactly where Ed Dayton wanted him. By the time he realised that, it was too late.
By midnight, there still hadn’t been any trouble. Scalper stretched and yawned lazily. Everyone was happy to get in from the cold. It should be a good thing, but Fairbanks looked nervous. His eyes darted left and right, never settling on anyone for long. Scalper sighed. New bouncers liked to prove their metal. They started fights to show they could finish one. Scalper was capable of violence, but abhorred it when it wasn’t needed.
As the queue died down, he pulled Fairbanks to one side. “You alright, mate?”
Fairbanks looked surprised. And embarrassed. “Kosher, mate.”
“Listen, this job is about smiling, hand shaking and letting people have a good time. We never get into a ruck unless we can help it. If you’re here for trouble, you’ll get it from me first. Understand?”
Fairbanks swallowed, his protruding Adam’s apple bobbing with the effort. “I’m not looking for a fight,” he said.
“What did you say?” Scalper asked. Years of working in clubland had left him partially deaf.
“I’m not looking for a fight,” Fairbanks said, raising his voice. “Ever since I saw those tits, I’ve had a hard on the size of the Tyne Bridge.”
Scalper wasn’t that deaf, but he couldn’t help asking again. “What?” he repeated, cupping a hand to his ear.
Fairbanks took a deep breath as Scalper counted down the last few beats of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. It couldn’t have been timed better. The DJ was useless and always left a gap between songs and in that brief moment of silence, Fairbanks shouted, “I want to see more tits.”
The queuing punters erupted into laughter. Fairbanks went red from the tips of his ears to the base of his neck. He looked like the rubber at the end of a pencil.
Scalper grabbed him in a bear hug. “That was classic.”
“Fuck you,” Fairbanks said, pulling himself out of Scalper’s massive arms. The crowd applauded and Scalper gave a bow and waited. This would be the moment, he thought. This was when he’d know if he could trust Fairbanks with his life. Scalper watched as Fairbanks studied the crowd, trying to determine what to do. At last, the penny dropped and Fairbanks gave them a curtsy. They cheered and Scalper cheered with them. He had his answer and finally felt safe in Fairbanks’ presence.
Scalper’s earpiece crackled into life. It was Grievson, part of the in-house security team. “We’ve got a problem in the third stairway. A girl OD-ing. No-one’s called 999 yet.”
He turned to Fairbanks. “Can you handle the queue?”
Scalper got a worried smile in response. Doormen were never left to handle a queue on their own, especially not a newbie like Fairbanks. The hardest of bouncers could be overrun by a drunken mob.
“I’ll be as quick as I can, okay?”
Fairbanks nodded and Scalper ran through heavy doors into the club. The air was humid as revellers danced and sweated en masse. Heavy bass thudded inside his chest. Lights flashed and strobed as he fought his way to the stairwell.
He was almost there when he saw Mosely from the corner of his eye and his brow furrowed. Joseph Mosely was younger than Scalper, but prematurely greying. The hair at his temples was almost white while the rest of his curly, dark hair was peppered with grey. His expensive suits were tailored to a thin frame and housed a number of secret pockets where he hid pharmaceuticals.
He was leaning against the bar, shouting into the ears of two young women who appeared to be falling for his lies. If his charm failed, Scalper knew he’d spike their drinks. He’d often turned a blind eye to Mosely throwing a semi-comatose woman into the back of his BMW.
Scalper pulled him to a quieter corner of the club. “How many people have you dealt to tonight?”
Mosely smiled, his perfect white teeth shining blue under florescent lighting. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a pink pill, placing it delicately on his tongue. He swallowed and looked back at the girls waiting for him.
“Has it been cut with anything?” persisted Scalper.
Mosely rolled his eyes. “Why do we have to keep going through this? You look after the people outside. I look after them inside.”
Scalper jabbed a finger toward the stairway. “There’s a girl dying over there. You’re the only dealer allowed in here. Are you saying you had nothing to do with it?”
“She could have brought it in with her.” Mosley smoothed down the front of his suit. “Drug dealing is a nasty business, Scalper and the market is flooded with dealers. I do what I can to gain an edge. Honestly, I don’t know what’s in these pills. Could be talcum powder, could be lawn fertiliser.”
