“Why is that important for you, Derek?” (Am I overusing his name?)
“It’s important for both of us,” he replies. “I need you to accept that, despite everything, the punch, everything, despite all that, there is still a bond of friendship between us that transcends all that, a friendship that dates back to that day you poured that cup of tea for me, when I was a supporting artist in that queue at the catering van, a friendship that was consolidated when I tried to save you in your moment of need. I need you to acknowledge that friendship, I need you to say, loud and clear, that the friendship between us is real.”
All through the acceleration of that outburst, his expression has grown more and more alarming and now he is fixing me with a beady intensity that makes him look like a different person. The only sensible course of action would be to appease him with a lie. But, for some reason, the lie won’t come. My lie-duct is blocked. So I look for something soft and conciliatory.
“Well…I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Ex-actly! Exactly, Kevin.” He bounces on his feet with excitement. “You having come here is living proof of our friendship. You couldn’t pass by on the other side. Our story has come full circle. I was there for you when you needed someone to rescue you from malignant forces and now you are here to rescue me. That’s proof, isn’t it?”
“Yes…yes, I suppose it is.”
“But I need you to say it out loud.”
I glance back at the police, huddled behind the flaring headlights. One more lie is all that is required of me. One more moment of expediency in a life that has been full of them. And if ever one would be justified it would be now. The man has a gun. But a bone-weariness is descending on me. Appeasement is pointless. Derek has moved to a new level now, he is building himself an even larger cathedral of fantasy. Well, I want out. I will be free of this man crouching in the gloom. So, very calmly, I say what needs to be said.
“It is true, Derek, that there was once, briefly, a bizarre connection between us, born of my desperation and your delusions of grandeur.”
He starts shaking his head, but I carry on, still composed and clear-headed.
“But that was not friendship. We are not friends. We never were.”
He considers for a moment, then laughs bitterly to himself.
“Well, how stupid of me. How stupid to raise the subject of friendship with a man who has no feelings.”
“You may have a point there, Derek. Perhaps I don’t experience enough feelings…but you binge on them…you manufacture them to feed your addiction.”
He is straightening up now, but the gun is still hanging at his side.
“Did they tell you to say this garbage? To rattle me? Hm?” He raises the gun and waggles it angrily in the direction of the police vehicles. “Is that their game?”
I take a deep, quiet breath and concentrate hard on keeping the relaxation in my voice.
“This was about power. Well, you’ve achieved what you wanted. You got them here, you got me here, but now it’s over. So, put down the gun. You’re not a killer, Derek.”
There is a tremble in his voice now. “I’m not, I’m really not.”
“I know, now put the gun on the ground.”
“I’m a victim of injustice.”
“You’re a victim of victimhood. Your grievances are manufactured as well.”
He steps forward, one pace, two, three. I went too far, always the smartarse.
“I am a victim of injustice,” he repeats. “And you are going to tell the press why I’m here, why I’ve got the gun, how those bastards have—”
“I sent the press away, Derek.”
It is an instinctive interruption, to try to calm his growing agitation, but suddenly the gun is being jabbed in my direction. And his voice has changed again, this time to a low growl.
“You had no right to do that, Kevin.” He drops his head for a moment and stares at the earth. I hear a scrabbling movement behind the police vehicles. “You’ve let me down. I reached out to you, a fellow human being in pain, who—”
Again, the interruption leaps out of my mouth.
“Derek, a few days ago I saw someone in more pain than you, or I, or anyone, could ever begin to imagine, and which, frankly, makes this whole…pantomime seem rather ludicrous.”
He takes another couple of steps forward, he’s just a few feet from me now and I can see that his sandy hair is plastered to his head with sweat.
“Pantomime?” he growls. “I’m a pantomime?”
The gun is pointing directly at my chest, but I look him straight in the eye.
“Derek…I am really sorry that you seem trapped in the person you are…but my presence here is achieving nothing…so I am going to leave now.”
“Don’t you dare!” he hisses, thrusting the gun forward.
I turn away from him, with a firm smoothness that surprises me in the circumstances.
“Don’t you dare leave me!”
I start to walk away, slowly but steadily. I know I’m taking a risk in turning my back on him, but in a life that has an impressive tally of poor choices, this feels like the best decision I have ever made. As I walk through the wet grass, back towards the lights of the police vehicles, my step feels light, my thoughts are lucid and I feel like the young man I once was, back when the world was mine, back before I so carelessly lost Sandra, before I fell out of love with my craft, before I started coasting, before the big shutdown. So, even though the trees are ringing to the rants and shouts of an enraged Derek, and even though the gun is probably being pointed at me, my fear is outbalanced by elation because I am unshackled. I have taken control. He can cast no shadow over me now, nor squat in some dingy corner of my mind. He is history and this is the beginning of – crack! crack! Something knocks my legs from under me. What the— what just happe— have I been shot? Has he sho—? Wha—? There’s some pain, an ache, in my— my God he has! The little fucker’s shot me! The pain is deepening now, jagged, like a knife being dragged backwards, through my stomach— hard to— crack!!
Has he shot me again? Is he finishing me off?
I can hear screaming – a blood-curdling, long shriek, like an animal in a slaughterhouse. Then the scream shapes into words.
“You fucking bastards! My knee! My kneeee! You bastards!”
There’s shouting now and a thumping. Running feet, feet running towards me, faces, faces looking down at me, faces with mouths saying foggy words, calling my name, the knife is twisting inside me and the pain makes me feel sick, I’m going to throw up, please God no, I hate throwing up.
There’s panic on the faces, they’re scared, they’re looking at me and they’re scared, why are they scared?
Is this it then?
After all that.
You prick, Kevin. What a stupid way to go. In a field, shot by a nobody.
Really hard to breathe now. Want to sleep.
In a field, God knows where.
I’ve grown accustomed to her…
Need to sleep. In a cave. For nine months.
…like breathing out and breathing in.
Rea-lly sleepy.
Who’ll come to my funeral?
Got to sleep.
Sandra, Mac. Maybe Nina Patel.
Getting cold now. I’m in mid-air? Why am I in midair?
And the people all said sit down.
Now I’m floating.
Sit down, you’re rocking the boat.
Feeling so sleepy, flashing lights, white and shiny. Why is “ambulance” written backwards? Everything shiny-shiny.
Sandra, Mac. Who else?
Got to sleep.
Who else?
Go to sleep.
Who?
Sleepity-sleep.
…I should have done more.
22
The Date
I had been in hospital for a few days before I learnt the truth. Inevitably, my picture of events turned out to be completely wrong. Derek had not shot me. He had probably bee
n about to shoot me – or at least, that was the police interpretation – so a marksman had decided to down him. Unfortunately I had – again, according to the police – “strayed into the line of fire” and had taken a bullet at the top of my left thigh, just below the bullet-proof vest. A second marksman had then shot Derek, in the knee. Whether that was through incompetence or design was unclear. I learnt all this from Nina Patel, who was my first visitor. She was wearing black tights and every time she crossed her legs there was a soft, swishing whisper. It felt odd to have a libido again. I had almost forgotten my old friend.
“Stop staring at my legs,” she says.
“I’m not staring, they just happen to be in my eyeline.”
“Then close your eyes, I need you to pay attention.”
I lever myself up a little, but get my drip-lead tangled. She leans forward to help. She’s wearing perfume.
“Do I need all this rubbish sticking out of me?”
“Yes, you lost quite a lot of blood. Does it hurt much?”
“Bit sore, achey.”
“They’ve been giving you something for the pain.”
I find myself seized by an uncontrollable fit of the giggles, can’t stop myself, even though it causes me pain in several places.
Nina Patel looks puzzled.
“What? What is it?” She starts to giggle.
“Sorry, it’s just…I just got to thinking what a mental farce it all was…Derek in that field, with his gun, and his dead sheep…those useless policemen…that idiot of a negotiator…and me playing the Jimmy Stewart part…what a prick.” I wait for the giggles to die away. “Sorry, just got to me.”
“We could be talking quite a lot of compensation.”
“Eh?” I dab at my eyes with a corner of the sheet.
She hands me a tissue.
“It’s a national news story. The police are keeping it as vague as possible at the moment. You ‘were wounded’; they’re using the passive quite a lot. They’re launching an internal investigation. But they know there was incompetence, so you’ve got a good case if you want to pursue it.”
“Oh I dunno…I’m not sure I can be bothered…it’d just keep the whole story going, wouldn’t it?”
She has a lovely smile, it lights up the room.
“Well, I think you might be right. But don’t say I said that. A lawyer who advised against legal action, my colleagues would string me up.”
I laugh, till the pain stops me.
“So what’s happening to Derek?”
“Well there’s a rumour that he might be crippled.”
“Oh, he’ll love that.”
“I mean he’s looking at, well…five years’ jail minimum, I’d say…there’ll be a psychiatric assessment of some kind.”
“That’ll take decades.”
“Are the jokes to stop you getting angry?”
She has stopped me in my tracks. I pause to consider her question properly.
“No.” A wave of relaxation passes through me. “No…not at all…isn’t that weird? I was angry with him obviously, with all of it…but, I dunno…now it just all seems so…negligible. When I’m up on my feet…y’know…and a free man, do you fancy a trip to the theatre, or having dinner or something?”
She looks at me without blinking for several seconds.
“What’s the ‘or something’?”
“I mean if you don’t—”
“Yes, Kevin, dinner would be nice.”
“I mean don’t worry if—”
“I just said yes.”
“Oh right, great…thanks.”
There is a flicker of embarrassment between us. What is wrong with me? Why does she make me feel so gauche? She rises out of her chair and kisses me softly on the forehead. Did I let out a tiny yearning groan then? Oh God. She pretends not to notice.
“They said not to wear you out.” She pauses by the door, “If you change your mind about suing the arse off them, let me know.”
“OK.”
Then she gives a surprisingly girlish wave and she is gone.
I lie there, still and small, listening to the laughter of nurses in the corridor, and wondering if I will be allowed to eat proper food today.
Within a week, I was home, with daily visits from the District Nurse to check on my dressing. The remaining time on my sentence, I was informed, was under review, but Nina said she was totally confident that I would not be going back to prison, although I would probably have to do some form of community service. So effectively Derek’s little nocturnal melodrama had freed me.
We made an agreement with the police that I would only talk to their internal investigators and not the press. In return, they agreed to make a donation – the size to be negotiated – to the charity of my choice. I chose the Prisoners’ Education Trust.
I asked Nina if she could make enquiries about what had happened to Paul, sometimes known as Albie. She did her best, but it appeared that the new regime at the prison was not very forthcoming. I told her the full story of Albie’s shattering secret and she offered to keep looking for him, but I decided to drop the matter. What difference would it make if I found out what happened to Albie? He was probably in some special isolation block somewhere, along with all the narks, nonces and anyone else who would be at risk in an understaffed prison. Or perhaps they’d moved him to the other end of the country, where his secret would have less chance of following him. I felt sad when I thought about Albie, but I had been just one catalyst among many that had triggered the latest explosion in his life. If Malcolm had not insisted that I start the drama group; if Dougie had not grown so fond of him; if his childhood sweetheart had not died. There were so many factors. I was only one of them, anyone could see that.
As for Dougie, well, I knew what had happened to him because it was in the newspapers. He had been so violent in the riot, assaulting several prison officers, that his sentence had been extended by five years. It was hard to imagine him as a threat any more. The others, I presumed, were carrying on as before, counting down their time, their lives describing the same small circles.
One morning, as the nurse is applying some stinging stuff to my bullet wound I hear a long, insistent, familiar ring of the doorbell. She answers the door and heavy feet come charging up the hall.
“There he is! Fuck me, look at that hole, that’s an impressive wound, yer old bastard.”
Mac leans forward to embrace me, but the nurse tells him he’ll have to make do with a handshake.
“OK, nurse knows best.”
“This is Malgosia. She’s Polish. She’s cleaning this up for me.”
“Good, ’cos it looks revolting.”
“It’s better than it was.”
“So fill me in, I’ve been in Romania touring with a modern opera about Ceaucescu.”
“Oh right. When’s that coming to the West End?”
“Am I allowed to punch him?”
“Not for two fortnights,” replies Malgosia sternly.
“What the h-ell were you thinking of? Is it true the tosser had a shotgun?”
“No, it was a revolver.”
“He actually shot you with a revolver?”
“Well no, he…” I wonder if I should give Mac all the details. He would enjoy the farcical aspects and I trust him like a brother – an indiscreet, mouthy brother.
“It’s…I sort of got caught in the crossfire…it’s all a little unclear…the police are launching an enquiry.”
“Aye, well they’ll probably conclude you shot yourself.”
He grasps my hand and squeezes it affectionately.
“Well, I’m impressed, I’m also bewildered and furious. You could have got yourself killed…” He studies my face intently. “Or is that what you were after? Was that it? You were hoping he’d take you out?”
It upsets me to hear the crack of emotion in his voice, but Malgosia is packing away her things, so I shrug and switch the topic to football. We have a brief conversation about how any player
who prays before kick-off should be immediately red-carded, and then put up against a wall and shot. There’s a call of “cheeribye” from Malgosia. Mac calls “cheeribye” back, before he comes at me again.
“So, were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I…I honestly don’t know.”
“You stupid bast—”
“At that moment, I dunno, nothing seemed to matter much any more.” I tell him a shortened version of the final rehearsal. By the time I have finished, he is staring into the distance, slowly shaking his head.
“Jesus H. Christ. How could anyone throw a baby out of a window?Je-sus…”
“He was beside himself…desperate…”
“Moment of madness.”
“Yeh.”
Mac stretches back in his chair and blows hard.
“Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
The banality of this rips a laugh out of me, a painful laugh.
“Yes…yes it is.”
We fall into silence for a while. He looks older, his face more care-worn.
“How’s the love-life?” I ask.
“Oh, y’know…mixed…I met a lovely wee girl in Bucharest but her boyfriend turned out to be a gangster so…well let’s just say I can’t go back to Bucharest again…and you?”
“Not sure…looking up, I think…possibly, very early days.”
“So the trouser department’s firing up again, then?” And he’s off. Chuckling and cackling at the idea of his friend getting an erection.
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen and a half,” he replies triumphantly. “That’s the secret of my charm.”
We settle into discussions around the usual topics for ten minutes or so and then, out of the blue, he asks me,
“Have you heard from Sandra?”
“Yeh…yeh, I have.” I pause for a tiny moment to swallow. “Yeh, yeh, she sent me a lovely letter a couple of days ago…really lovely letter, saying she hoped I was OK and that she was sorry about my getting shot and –” Mac snorts with laughter. “– I’m paraphrasing here, obviously. And she said she can’t visit me quite yet, y’know, on account of her just having had the baby.”
“I’ve got a photo of little Eleanor on my phone.” He gets out his mobile and swears at it for a few moments as he tries to locate the picture.
The Star Witness Page 28