Kiss the Bullet

by Catherine Deveney

  Angelo’s picture was used on the front page of every paper. Every child. No child. Cherubic smile, the pink apple blush of babyhood still on his cheeks, the curiosity of a world as yet unexplored embossed in mischievous eyes. Eighteen years ago, he was three. He would have been twenty-one this year. Back then, and in the years since, he has had so many days to remember the boy who never grew up. The child’s foreign name had emphasised to him that the fight had drifted too far from home. What did he have to do with any of it? Angelo Piacentini, the boy who has haunted his waking and his sleeping for eighteen years, the boy who never grew up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “How did you feel?” she asks, her head still back against the cushion and her eyes closed. “The day of the bombing?”

  Perhaps, she thinks, a little sliver of hope beginning to flicker again, he was only there with others, swept along with something he had no control over. Perhaps that was how it was.

  He takes so long to answer that she opens her eyes. He is sitting hunched forward, arms resting on his knees, hands clasped together.

  “I can’t answer that,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  He shakes his head impotently.

  “I don’t have the words.”

  “So you regret it then?”

  “I regret certain things that day. I don’t regret being part of the struggle. I don’t regret … but there are things that … Danni, all I can say is that words are an inadequacy. I won’t use them for excuses. There are no words that can tell you what I really feel. What do you want me to say … that I am sorry people died? What’s that but a ripple in a great big ocean?”

  She should applaud him, really, she thinks lethargically. Applaud his refusal to give her empty words. Wasn’t that what had made her so furious watching that reconciliation programme, those expressions of easy regret? How do you know they’re easy, a voice inside her head asks, and she turns in impatience from it.

  She notices suddenly how very thin he is.

  “The woman …” she says, “… the addict.”

  Like an ascetic monk living on berries, she thinks, living his life separately from the world around him. Living his own rules. His skin is grey white, taut over the bridge of his nose, almost transparent, except under his eyes which are smudged a purpley black. His body is a series of elegant angles. He is a triangle, she thinks, not a circle. No round soft edges, but sharp clean lines.

  “Roisin,” he says.

  “Tell me …”

  She wants to know. Why does she want to know? Why does it matter?

  “She was one of Pearson’s girls.”

  Shock winds her.

  “A prostitute?”

  “Eventually.”

  He gets up.

  “Do you mind if I turn that down?” he says, nodding at the fire.

  She shakes her head, watches the purple flame diminish to a peep.

  “Is that how you met? Through Pearson?”

  “God no.”

  He sits down again, not looking at her.

  “Were you in love with her?”

  His eyes flick to her instinctively, as if reading her face, as if he wonders why she asks the question. She wonders herself.

  “I don’t … maybe … not by the end. I’m not sure if I ever was. I was certainly in lust with her.”

  “What was she like?” she asks and the simple question seems to silence him completely, makes him look at her with eyes that see nothing but the past. He looks so intently that she sees herself reflected in his eyes, her image drowning in dark grey and bottomless mirrors.

  What was she like? Jesus, what was Roisin like? She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. Willowy but curvaceous, in heels not far off 6 feet. He sees her in her green dress the night it all went wrong, a green that simply illuminated her, switched her on like a string of lights. Chestnut curls tumbling to her shoulders, greeny grey eyes that glinted like a cat’s. She was capricious that night, flirtatious, wilful, the way Roisin could be. There was an inner restlessness about her that never quite disappeared. On the nights she was most beautiful, he noticed, she was also at her most self-destructive, like someone who knew this light that cascaded from her was temporary, that she needed to grab it, experience it, before it dimmed. Nothing was ever enough on those nights.

  He was almost scared of her when she was like that, at the crest of the roller coaster of her moods. But it was undeniable that he wanted her more too. No, maybe not more, just more jealously if he is really honest. Other people’s desire for her fed his, that was the truth. All eyes would be on her and he’d watch quietly, never moving to her, never placing a proprietorial hand on her back, or steering her from the centre of attention, to his quiet corner. He had too much pride for that. Sometimes he thought she would have liked it if he had, that it would have been a kind of triumph. Sometimes he thought she taunted him with her vivacity.

  That green dress. She wore it like a glove. She’d only worn it once before that night. He’d peeled it from her within seconds of arriving home, when they were still in the hall, and she’d laughed as she kissed him, the dress rustling to the floor. It made her feel powerful that he wanted her that much. It made him feel powerful that she was his.

  The second night she wore the dress was different. There was no beauty in it. Everything felt tarnished. Pearson had moved in on her, full of plans. Just because she was Johnny’s. Just to show he could. Roisin was easy prey. She was interested in life, in new things, in experiences, and Pearson with his pills to pop, and his constant stream of stuff to snort, offered all of that. But he never touched any of it himself.

  Johnny knew how it worked. The lines until you were hooked were free. After that, they came at a price. Roisin had no idea how high a price. Sometimes, when she was at her most vulnerable, when she hit the lowest curve of her moods, she was like a needy child. But tonight she was brittle, petulant … and eager for somewhere to invest her energy.

  She leaned on Pearson’s shoulder, because she was taller than him, and whispered something in his ear and laughed. And Pearson had said, away now and don’t listen to Johnny He has no idea how to have fun. He had put his hand out to pat her backside, and Johnny had wanted to pat him in the guts with his closed fist. What really got him was that Pearson wasn’t sexually interested in Roisin in the least, it was games, always games, with Pearson. Control. Time for me to go, Johnny had told Roisin, and she’d hesitated but stayed. She never came back in the same way.

  “What was she like?” he repeats, looking at Danni so intently that he sees an image of himself reflected back in her serious brown eyes.

  “She was … she was …” And for the life of him he cannot finish the sentence.

  He has put some music on, given her a glass of white wine. The warmth of the room is acting like a cocoon, wrapping her up, inuring her. She has kicked her shoes off, put her feet up on the edge of his table.

  “You said she died.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  He tops up her glass from the bottle. The fire on the wall hisses in the stillness.

  “She became a cocaine addict.”

  “But you said it wasn’t an overdose.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Did Pearson …?”

  “Yes and no.”

  He reaches for the bottle again.

  “Maybe I’ll have one after all.”

  She watches him pour, feeling her face glow pink in the heat from the fire.

  “Roisin ended up owing Pearson for her habit. She got deeper and deeper into his debt, which is the way he wanted it. He didn’t care about Roisin but it was his way of exercising control over my life, showing me he could pull my strings. She told me things were under control but they weren’t. Money went missing but she always denied she had anything to do with it. She’d fly into a rage if I questioned her but I couldn’t trust her. She sold jewellery then claimed she’d lost it. But then I discovered that she … sh
e had started working for him.”

  “She was on the streets?”

  He nods.

  “She fell apart when she realised that I knew.”

  Danni thinks back to Stella talking about her mother, how she said she couldn’t bear it if her mother knew the truth, and Johnny had looked like he couldn’t listen to any more.

  “Of course she denied it at first but then she was clinging to me, crying and begging me not to leave her,” he says flatly. He takes a sip of wine, grimaces.

  “Bitter,” he says. “Do you want something else?”

  “It’s fine.”

  What she wants is for him to continue, but he does not want to remember, she can see that.

  He sits in silence for a minute, sipping from his glass.

  “Did you leave her?” she asks eventually.

  “No.”

  He lapses into silence again and she asks no more. She takes her feet off the table and tucks them under her. The heat and the wine are making her sleepy and she lays her head back, content to leave him to his thoughts.

  “She was very beautiful,” she hears him say, and she lifts her head.

  “But not by the end. When I discovered how she was funding her habit, I told her I’d do everything I could to help her but I didn’t want a relationship with her any more until she cleaned herself up. She promised she’d do it but she couldn’t. Pearson made sure of that,” he says bitterly. “And the fact that I knew … she couldn’t deal with it. She couldn’t look at me properly. So I understand … in a way … why she did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “I was late home. Didn’t want to come back. I don’t know if she thought … Anyway … whatever … The house was in darkness. I was glad. I thought she was out. I opened the door and reached out for the light and then …”

  His voice is unsteady. Danni says nothing, waiting.

  “When I switched it on, I saw her feet hanging down from the stairwell.” He takes a sip from his glass then replaces it carefully on the table, seeking composure in the smallness, the neatness, of the action. He does not look at Danni. “She’d killed herself.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It is the early hours of the morning when he finally takes her back to the hotel. She tries to insist that she will go alone but he ignores her.

  When she sees Danni the receptionist smiles and looks back down at a sheaf of papers before suddenly starting in remembrance.

  “Oh Mrs Cameron!” she calls, reaching below the desk. “We have something for you.”

  Danni freezes. Johnny, a step ahead of her, turns.

  “For me?”

  The receptionist pulls out a paper carrier bag and smiles brightly.

  “A gentleman left it for you a few hours ago. A present. Is it your birthday?”

  “Oh … yes,” lies Danni lamely. She takes the bag, retreats to her room, her stomach a bubbling cauldron of nausea and nerves. Johnny says nothing.

  The box shaped parcel inside the carrier bag is gift wrapped in pink floral paper that says, “Especially For You” across it, between pink splodges of cabbage roses. A curled ribbon bow froths from the top, a confection of spiralling metallic pink. When she lifts the box, she can feel the corner of it is damp and sticky. Something is spilling out inside. A smashed bottle perhaps.

  “Do you want me to …?” Johnny asks.

  She shakes her head.

  The paper is well taped, layer upon layer stuck over the edges so that it cannot possibly fall accidentally open. Danni tugs at the edge with a fingernail, trying to find a start. Her fingers shake slightly. Impatiently she reaches out to her toilet bag on the dressing table, rummages for a pair of nail scissors.

  She cuts the flap above the tape, runs a finger under the rest, and the paper falls off revealing a shoe box beneath. The corner is stained dark and damp and she lifts the lid tentatively. Inside, a flash of darkness, a streak of red staining the white inner box, and then the series of impressions come together to make a whole picture.

  “Jesus!” She half throws the box onto the table instinctively, looks down at the hand that held the corner of the box, sees the sticky pink hue on her fingers. She drags her hand across the table, desperate to clean it, then rushes to the sink of the en suite. She turns the tap frantically, watches a tint of pink appear in the water running onto the white porcelain. Johnny understands. You have to wash blood off quickly or the memory of it stains you forever.

  He is standing over the open box when she returns. The lid is up, the body of a dead bird visible inside. Its head is tilted back at right angles, its neck almost dislocated from its body. One eye is open, black, dull and glassy. The body has stiffened now but the blood that seeped from it when its throat was cut is still moist and sticky in the box.

  Johnny closes the lid.

  “I’ll deal with it,” he says quietly.

  Danni stands at the doorway of the ensuite still. She feels cold all of a sudden, nauseous, stifles a shiver that threatens to run through her.

  “What does it say on the lid of that box?”

  Johnny shakes his head.

  “No more singing …”

  She runs her hand up her arm. Everything is surreal. Out of control.

  “He knows we spoke to Stella?”

  “I told you there wouldn’t be much doubt about it, Danni.”

  He lifts the box carefully.

  “Have you got a plastic bag?”

  She moves finally, reluctantly, and rummages in the bottom of the wardrobe for a bag. The wardrobe door squeaks closed. He puts the box flat on the bottom, ties the handles carefully, and places the package back into the paper carrier bag. Danni watches, clamping her jaw to stop her teeth chattering. Johnny glances up at her, but says nothing. He puts the bag over at the door and sits on the edge of the bed.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come and sit down.”

  Danni moves mechanically, sits on the bed leaving a substantial space between them, her shoulders hunched and hands clasped between her knees. Outside in the corridor a door bangs closed, voices ring in the corridor. Someone laughs. Normal sounds out there behind a closed door, normal lives. Her own life has moved so far from normality so quickly. What is this room? Who is this man? She turns sideways to look at Johnny, finds him watching her already.

  “It’ll be okay,” he says quietly. He reaches out unexpectedly and takes hold of her clasped hands. She doesn’t move but sits stiffly, rigid as a rock, looking down at his hand covering hers, like she’s looking at an alien creature in a glass exhibit case.

  She lies in bed after he goes, open-eyed in the darkness. She is frightened, cold frightened. It is not the bloodied bird that haunts her still; it is the sight of Johnny’s hand on hers, the surge she stifled inside herself. That terrible mixture of searing anger and instinctive, unwanted chemistry that his tenderness prompted. For one awful moment she had wanted to grasp his hand back. There is nothing familiar here, nothing she understands.

  There was, in that touch, something that released a tightly coiled spring inside her. As if all the years of suppressed physical longing simply pushed their way through the barriers she had created and let her know she wasn’t finished with life yet, not by a long way. Not that her longing was directed at him, she thinks. Not really. And if it was, she has even more reason to hate him. Marco, she thinks. She wants Marco. She has always wanted Marco.

  Her body tenses suddenly. She listens intently then lifts her head slightly from the pillow.

  “Marco,” she whispers into the darkness. “Marco?” He seems so close here in Ireland, as if he has followed her silently, simply watching so that she is never completely alone. And here, lying in bed in the darkness, the sense is so strong that momentarily, irrationally, she is deceived and lifts her head from the pillow.

  When only the silence answers her, she lays her head back down into the pillow. How stupid she is! What did she expect? It is a long time since she lo
oked for him in that way. After he died, she found at first that her instincts to talk to him were greater than ever. In the greatest ordeal of her life there was only one person she naturally turned to and of course he had gone. Faced with so many practical ordeals after his death, she was in the ridiculous position of wanting to ask Marco how she should organise his funeral.

  And now, the same instinct. There is a reason why she feels him so close again here. There must be. Perhaps he is here to give her courage, to help her pull the trigger, to ensure she avenges his death. What do you want me to do, she whispers. “Marco?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  He walks into the darkness, glad of its cover. A sprinkling of stars pepper an inky sky. The night offers him an anonymity that always makes him more comfortable. Nightfall makes him feel like a shadow; he likes the distance it gives him from the world. Or gave him. She is under his skin. Under his skin and nothing feels the same. It’s like he has become reacquainted with his nerve endings. Part of him feels exhilarated and alive for the first time in years but there is a sense too of foreboding, of resentment, even.

  He does not understand her. Neither does he understand the effect of her. He only knows that she has invaded him insidiously, dangerously, put down a root system that is spreading inside him in every direction. A taxi trundles by, vacancy light blazing, but he does not hail it. He likes to walk. Sometimes, when he cannot sleep, he walks for hours, past sleeping houses that seem to breathe silently in the darkness, past padlocked garages and warehouses, past high-rise blocks with occasional windows lit like stranded planets in a galaxy of darkness. He often wonders who inhabits those lit windows, who embraces the night as he does, what lives they live to make them keep the same strange hours.