CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I went to see Noel at his flat. I had been putting it off for too long. It was the galling predictability of it that I hated; the endless conversations about AA, drinking, the pessimistic generalizations about life, his bloodshot eyes and paranoia.
He buzzed me in without a word and I took the lift up to his floor, wondering if it might have been better to send Daisy instead. Her methods of coping with Noel in this state were better than mine.
It also helped that Noel was tragically in love with her and would do almost anything she asked. He didn’t know it yet. But I knew how Noel got when he liked somebody.
He had left the front door open.
It smelt like a smoker’s flat again. It was the only way he could say ‘fuck you’ to Caroline now she had gone.
Noel was sitting in his living room, cigarette in hand, laptop open on the coffee table.
I didn’t offer a greeting and he didn’t look up. Instead I sat on the arm of the sofa and listened to the tinny music coming from the laptop speakers. I dropped my bag on the floor and took my coat off.
‘Well, here we are again,’ I said.
Before I had kept that sentiment to myself, but this time I wanted him to hear it. Every time I found it harder and harder to sympathize. I realized that probably made me a shit friend, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know why he couldn’t just… not do this.
‘The place hasn’t burned down without me,’ he replied, nonplussed, checking his fucking emails or something. I almost shut the laptop over his fingers.
He didn’t look as terrible as he had on other occasions. I thought – with some sadness – that it was probably because his body had acclimatized to being poisoned.
‘When are you going to go to a meeting?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want to go to a meeting.’
‘Well, you are.’
‘They don’t work.’
‘How would you even know if they work? You’ve never been to more than five in a row.’
‘I’m not like those people who go to things like that.’ He sat back and at least looked at me. ‘Why is everyone so desperate to have a problem?’
‘You do have a problem,’ I said.
‘Who is it a problem for?’
‘Everyone but you, you selfish fuck!’ I stood up. ‘You think Edie is just gonna let you wander back in once you’re done with this tantrum?’
‘No, I’ve never thought that.’
Nothing on his face even flickered.
‘Sometimes I think you only do this because we put up with it,’ I said, spreading my hands. ‘Do you want to tell us what to do this time? Or do we wait for you to snap out of it?’
He grimaced. ‘Honestly, I just want to be left alone.’
I decided to go for a different angle, sitting down again. ‘Look, I know you had feelings for her—’
‘Of course I had feelings for her, she’s my fucking wife.’
‘I’m not talking about Caroline and you know it.’ I gave him a stern look. ‘I know you think you could have done things differently, we all do, but it’s happened. It’s done.’
He didn’t say anything. He was glaring though, which was an improvement.
‘This. Isn’t. About. Her.’
I laughed at him. ‘You fucking liar.’
I’d wanted him to spring right out of the sofa and punch me in the face, really go for me, but he just stared with these big sad eyes and said, ‘It was personal. She left me a letter.’
This was news to me.
‘Well, a note,’ he elaborated, realizing that his rollie had gone out and relighting it.
‘Saying what?’
‘Sorry, mostly.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I think I’d actually care less if she’d done us over without the apology. I’d have some respect for her just being an ambitious fucking bitch. But it was the note that got me.’
I slipped off the arm of the sofa and sat next to him.
‘So, what, you’re just going to let her win?’
He shut his laptop, ceasing the electric whine of whatever band had been playing, and plunged us both into silence.
‘She’s already won,’ he said. ‘And I think I’m all right with that.’
‘Yeah, you seem all right.’
‘I’m so fucking tired of fighting it. It’s so hard. I keep thinking I’ll reach this point in life when things stop being hard, but it doesn’t fucking stop.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
I wished I could tell him something different. This wasn’t Disneyland. Santa Claus didn’t exist and the world wasn’t going to reward you for being a good person.
‘You can’t just hide from everything,’ I added.
‘Can’t you?’
‘Not unless you wanna go live underground somewhere.’
I laughed nervously.
Noel seemed to be giving the idea some consideration.
‘We can get Nic to find Seven,’ I suggested. ‘Or we can stick with Mark, if you’d prefer, even though he costs a fucking leg.’
‘Ron…’ He sighed.
‘OK, Mark then. He’s international, isn’t he?’
He raised a hand. ‘Ron, there’s something we need to talk about. Should’ve opened with this really, but me and Daisy weren’t sure… Well, we weren’t sure how to go forwards with it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Seven’s still in London, we’ve both seen her. We both saw her talking to a guy I recognized. Daisy recognized him too because he came to the club claiming to be looking for us. He’s called Sean and—’
‘OK, OK, get to the fucking point.’
‘He’s mates with Roman Katz.’
‘Katz, the Russian?’
‘Yeah, the Russian.’
‘The Russians who Mark Chester works for? Sean knows them?’
‘Yeah, that’s who she was working for. It was Katz.’
Conspiracy, spreading through my mind like a disease. ‘You don’t think Mark knew about this?’
‘I don’t think so. But who knows, I mean, Mark is… Mark.’
‘Fuck!’ The exclamation exploded out of me with such velocity that Noel started. ‘He doesn’t know! He was in Chicago looking for Seven because of a Russian tip-off. Mark doesn’t know this. Like, he can’t fucking know.’
‘Fuck me, he is human after all.’ He blinked and picked gunk out of his eyes. ‘We need to do something about this, but it’s just… It’s fucked. I don’t want to get into a thing with that lot.’
‘No…’ I nodded. ‘But you need to come into work if we’re gonna deal with this, because we’re not gonna be able to keep on otherwise.’
‘I’m not gonna be much fucking use.’
‘You’ll be there. Put in some face-time for Edie, that’s what matters right now. I don’t even care if you’re drinking, turn up hammered for all I care. Just fucking turn up. We should call Nic as well.’
He looked around, at the walls surrounding us, and I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about escaping too. But, in the absence of a solution, he shrugged.
‘If it’ll make everyone leave me the fuck alone,’ he said, when no escape hatch swung open.
I took that as a small victory, and clapped him on the knee. ‘Good man. Right, let’s get some coffee down you. If we have to waste a bitch, we’re not gonna let Edie take our fucking place away, yeah?’
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Daisy
I stopped just outside the tube station to roll and light a cigarette, and as I did so I felt Eli brush past me. Even though I didn’t see him right away, something told me it was him. The air around him was corrosive.
The first thing he had said upon meeting me was, ‘Who is this little piece?’
Little piece.
Not even a person, just a piece of one. All the while looking at me like I was a rodent he’d found in the cellar, cute until he broke its neck with his foot. I’d never trusted men who addr
essed women like that, and I wasn’t about to start now just because he and Ronnie were bum-boys.
Forgetting my cigarette, I fell into step with him, lagging several feet behind until, apropos of nothing, he turned and met my eyes.
‘You should have said hi,’ he said.
‘Well…’
It was deeply uncomfortable walking beside him. I kept veering away like one leg was longer than the other. Maybe he was his own force, throwing compasses out of whack. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out Eli had been walking the earth since the dawn of time.
‘How are you finding it, being back?’ I asked.
‘You feel a lot bigger here.’
‘I’d have thought given the size of most Americans you’d feel smaller.’
‘I mean taller, in a way. Conquering the States takes size. Being back here makes you feel like a leviathan.’ He reached out a hand, squinting at it as we walked. ‘I feel like I could crush these buildings.’
‘So… good then?’
He smiled. ‘I could envision staying a while.’
‘Well, as long as Ronnie needs you.’
‘Maybe. What about you?’
‘What?’
‘You can’t be staying here for ever. Shouldn’t you be off to college? Sorry, uni? Or might you be looking at a more managerial role now?’
‘Now what?’
‘Now Ron’s going it alone.’
‘Noel’s coming back, you know.’ It was said with zero conviction, rolling a cigarette and pretending not to see the lighter he offered. ‘He’s just taking some time off for personal reasons.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’
I took a long, aggravated drag. ‘It’s personal. So you wouldn’t know.’
‘Sometimes immersion can stop you from seeing the bigger picture.’
‘There is no bigger picture, it’s just Noel’s private business.’
‘It stops being private when it starts affecting your work.’
‘Look, you know shit, new boy,’ I snapped.
I dropped my cigarette, which was the only thing I registered until I realized he’d taken me by the throat and walked me sideways into an alleyway. He pinned me against a wall and there were no beads of sweat on his face and no dilation of his pupils. He was that fucking close and that fucking calm.
I couldn’t breathe.
‘I know about you,’ he hissed. ‘And you should stay out of my fucking way.’
I tried to twist out of his grasp but it was like being pinioned by metal. There was no give. A whisper of oxygen reached my lungs but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything…
‘Or I will end you.’
He took his hand away from my throat but didn’t step back.
Coughing, I kept my back flat to the wall. Looking sideways towards the main road I could see an ocean of people choosing not to see.
‘Ron will kill you for this,’ I managed to say, with a weak rasping voice.
‘He doesn’t give a shit about you. You may have got the mistaken impression that you’ve accumulated some influence in his absence. But you’re nothing. I wouldn’t even remember doing away with you.’
I could have passed out, thrown up, started crying, but I held it all back, just about.
He took a step back, as suddenly as he’d attacked, and straightened my denim jacket for me.
We stood there looking at each other, and then he held out a hand, indicating for me to precede him out of the alleyway.
I refused to move.
He smoothed back his hair and left.
As soon as he was out of sight I exhaled, and a wave of tears came out with it.
‘Oh fuck… Fuck.’
I leant against the wall with my hands over my eyes, taking deep breaths. My entire self felt violated, as if he had tried to suck out my soul through his hands. I forgot sometimes that I wasn’t impervious. I’d been surrounded by men like this for so long, it had stopped occurring to me that any of them could do me harm.
Did Edie know what this guy was capable of? Did Ronnie, really?
I had a vague idea. It seemed stupid at first, but I took out my phone, angrily brushing the tears away, and composed a text to Mark. Before sending it, I hesitated, and then sent it to Nic as well.
Leaving the alleyway, I started rolling myself another cigarette and dropped tobacco all over the pavement.
Eli was long gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Ronnie
I could tell she was thinking about throwing a plate at my head, but she couldn’t with the kids in the house. It had been a while since someone had looked at me with that much venom. Only someone who really loved you was able to achieve that special brand of hate and disappointment.
‘If you’ve got something to say,’ I said, calmly. ‘Then right before the school run probably isn’t the best time.’
A beat, where she listened for the kids’ whereabouts, confirming they were upstairs. ‘You have the nerve to tell me, after weeks of nothing, that you don’t want to talk about something right now?’
‘There’s no need to be dramatic, I was just busy.’ I circled the table, away from her.
‘Ronnie, he’s still here.’
‘I know, that fact hasn’t escaped me. But where do you want him to go?’
‘Anywhere!’
‘Well, that’s just not practical.’
‘About as practical as getting off the plane with him, giving me no warning.’
‘To state the obvious, Rach, you’d have said no.’
‘That’s not an excuse! Can you even hear yourself?’
We both took a moment to glance at the ceiling, to check our voices weren’t carrying.
‘I couldn’t just abandon him.’
‘So you keep saying, but apparently abandoning us when it suits you is fine.’
She didn’t know it, but she landed that blow. It knocked the fucking wind out of me.
‘You weren’t abandoned—’
‘Tell that to them. I had to make so many excuses for you!’ She put both hands flat on the table, staring downwards for a long time.
Upstairs, Ryan was shouting something at his sister through the bathroom door.
‘Either he goes or we do,’ she said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I walked out of the kitchen.
‘No, I’m serious! The entire time we’ve been together it’s been me who’s had to change everything. You’ve never had to compromise—’
‘Because I’m the one out there fucking making it, trying to sort this shit out, putting myself on the fucking line, to keep you guys living your lives of fucking leisure. You had nothing to say about this when the money was coming in, Rach. Nothing. You? Having to make a compromise? You never spared a thought for where our money came from.’
‘I think about it all the time.’
‘But you don’t, do you?’ I sneered, sitting on the arm of our sofa with my arms folded and feeling like the lowest piece of shit. ‘You don’t care about where the money comes from until it inconveniences you, not until one person, aside from you, needs a fucking handout—’
She slapped me. I’d wondered when that was coming.
I didn’t even bother to unfold my arms.
Another pause, to hear Ryan move from hallway to bathroom and Chantal walk from bathroom to bedroom and shut the door.
There was something more vicious about the arguments where neither of you could raise your voices, where everything was spat out in whispers and hisses.
‘I’m leaving,’ she said.
I shrugged. ‘You were looking for an excuse anyway.’
‘No really, I’m leaving, if you think I’m such a charity case.’
I stood up and walked out, scrawling a smile across my face for the kids. ‘You’ll be back.’
*
When she was gone I went into the garden and sat cross-legged on the patio table, bathing in silence. I didn’t think I’d felt a real se
nse of space since I’d been back. There was nowhere to get lost in, within this network of boxes and people to which I’d tied myself. I wanted to take my life by its edges and stretch it beyond recognition, until I could fall into the emptiness between responsibilities.
At the end of the lawn I could see a squirrel hanging upside down trying to get into the array of bird feeders Rachel insisted on putting out. I’d wanted to teach Ryan how to shoot an airgun by practising on the squirrels, but she said it would be inhumane.
I had abandoned them. I’d abandoned everyone, and I’d stopped feeling bad about it.
Without that regret, there was no longer anyone I felt compelled to care about. It was a calming realization; the definition of fucking Zen. I no longer felt guilty for not caring about the Russians, my indifference to Noel’s endless problems, Daisy, the neglect of family, of work…
The clouds parted and the sun came out.
I lay on my back smoking.
Maybe it was because he hadn’t been home last night, but as soon as my phone started ringing, I knew it was about Eamonn. That’s why it took me so long to answer it.
‘Is this Mr O’Connell?’
‘Yep.’
‘This is Brixton police station: we’re going to need you to come and pick up your brother.’
‘You what?’
‘He was brought in last night with two charges of assault, drunk and disorderly and assaulting a police officer. He’s sobered up now but we didn’t want to put him out onto the street without a lift home, he’s…’
‘An arsehole?’
‘Well… difficult.’
‘I need to be at work but I can pick him up on the way. Do I have to pay any bail?’
‘No, there’s no need. You’ll need to make sure he attends his court hearing but that’s it. We don’t think the other guys involved will be keen on pressing charges.’
‘Well, great. I’ll be there soon.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
I hung up, knowing that I didn’t have the slightest intention of going to pick Eamonn up from a police station, finished my cigarette and fell asleep in the gentle sunlight for a spell.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Road Kill Page 27