by Alan Harris
Not here – maybe go down Vicci Park for a bit?
I’ll buy the ice creams.
You promise?
Girl Guide’s honour.
She didn’t look like the Girl Guide sort.
Me and Lisa takes the 61 towards Vicci Park.
As we pass Eastern Avenue I sense an awkward question coming:
Why were you at Oggy’s, Marc?
Do you think you’re the only one in Fairwater capable of being a sugar baby?
No, serious, why?
My old man borrowed six grand off Oggy and bought a Transit full of knock-off fidget spinners. Was going to make a killing. Trouble was, they didn’t spin.
Shit-storm.
I’m going to pay Oggy off for my old man, is no big deal.
The whole six grand? How are you going to…?
I have business interests of my own, Lis.
I knows you’re a drug dealer, Marc Chapps. Everyone knows.
Everyone knows you puts in tomato plants to make it look… it’s like dressing a display of shit with Mars bars, you’re not fooling no one.
Dealer is a bit harsh… we’re in a cooperative.
I feel this makes it sound a lot more ethical than it is – sort of like the actual Co-op. In fact I felt disappointed and betrayed when it turned out the Co-op was just a bunch of shitholes like every other bank. When their chairman or whatever was exposed as some fat, whore-fucking cokehead it was as if the name of the FCC – Fairwater Cannabis Cooperative – had also been tarnished.
Part Three
By the way, before I go on I got to say that thing about me and Rachel Patterson at the party isn’t true. I had sex with her and she enjoyed it very much. Right?
Any hint of sun and Vicci Park is a magnet for the new ones and the old ones.
Either in the splash pool or on a bench with an ice cream.
I settles on a bench – dedicated to Angela who, apparently, used to watch the world go by from here. Lisa comes back with the ‘ice creams’.
A fucking Mini Milk – that’s not an ice cream.
You want it or not?
The Mini Milk takes all of thirty seconds to eat.
You shops in New Look.
What you on about – ?
You still got the tag on your top. Sticking out the back.
I’m such a fucking idiot. Can you pull it off?
I leans into Lisa, so close I’m almost touching the little hairs on the back of her neck with my lips.
What you doing, Marc?
As my teeth close around the label I can’t help but breathe through my nose down the back of her top.
Is the best way to get these things off – with your teeth.
As I pull at the tag it won’t break and I’m starting to pull her hoodie against her neck and I’m thinking she must think I’m a right fucking maniac and then, thankfully, I feel the quick snap of the plastic tag – which I swallow.
Lisa is the type of girl who always looks good in any shit and also looks like the type of person who is always on the verge of telling you something.
She told me something: Marc, you know when we was in school…
Here we go.
Remember we went on that trip to Chessington World of Adventures? On the bus? We was like animals – all escaped for the day. We’d smuggled on all that cider and I was dying for a piss.
I can kinda remember but –
And I had to go and I was on the back seat and I was going to piss in a carrier bag and everyone was crowding round and they would have all watched but you made them turn around and you stood there, shielding me while I pissed in the bag.
You sure it was me?
When we got there I got off with David Swan.
–
I wish I’d gotten off with you. I was such a fucking idiot back then. Made some bad choices. Must admit I did have a bit of a crush on you.
I fucking knew it.
Took me ages to get over you.
Oh.
Then she hits me with the big whammy.
You ever been in love, Marc?
I waffles on for a few minutes – could have been an hour – about how I’m like an armadillo, all tough outside cos I don’t want the inside getting bruised. I might have actually said armadildo.
Lisa got the hint and we did what Angela would have wanted us to do on her bench – watch the world go by.
I breaks the ice.
If you had some cash – some real cash – what would you do with it?
She thinks for moment – Lisa, not Angela, as Angela is obviously dead:
Oh I dunno, something boring, something everyone wants to do – maybe go to Spain and work hard in a proper bar and not worry about all this shit.
Life’s no easier abroad, Lis – just cos the sun is shining don’t make it better.
My mum always wanted to live somewhere sunny. What about you?
Curly fries.
What?
I always wants them but they’re always more so I always goes for the normal ones – then regrets it. And a car. Not a shit one. An Audi. And a motorbike – Kawasaki. And a helicopter.
Any more forms of transport?
And a new house for my dad.
_
Is your mum still with us, Marc?
Yes. Unfortunately.
You don’t see her?
Not if I can help it.
It’s important. You only get one mum.
Thank fuck.
_
We get up and do some walking instead of talking.
Uh, this place should be famous. People should know about Victoria Park. He’s famous. Sort of. Not famous famous. Cardiff famous.
What is that?
That’s Billy the Seal. Captured forever in bronze.
A statue of a seal?
Lisa had been to Vicci Park many times with her mum – it’s the type of place you’d push a person with a weird wasting disease around in a wheelchair – but no one had pointed out the life-size statue of the seal before.
How the fuck can you miss Billy?
‘Billy the Seal, resident of Victoria Park lake from 1912 to 1939.’ Well, I never.
He nearly escaped. Straight up. Was kept in this lake and there was this flood and he got out. He swam down Cowbridge Road and caught a tram towards the docks.
Good for you, Billy.
But.
There’s always a ‘but’.
He was this far from freedom – almost back in the sea… if he hadn’t stopped for fish and chips and a pint of Brains Dark he would have made it to the ocean.
What happened to him? To Billy?
Brought him back. Spent the rest of his days here and he died of a broken heart. Never saw the sea again. My dad told me the story. We’d use to come here – as a family – and I’d spend hours with Billy, pretending we was on a ocean adventure together.
–
Rub his nose.
What?
If you rubs Billy’s nose it brings you luck.
Fuck off.
Straight up, Lis.
Of course she had to do it.
She rubs it and I swear, the world goes a bit Matrix again – that ripple thing… ripples out around the park. Like a sonic boom, making everything liquid.
Rub-a-fucking-dub-dub.
Zoooooooooooooooop. Fucking weird.
Lisa is moving towards me and we’re leaning in to each other and she tilts her head this way and I tilt my head that way and our lips are about to touch when…
There’s a new character standing in line at the kiosk.
Oggy.
No minders, no Gary or Mo.
Just one of the crowd.
Wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt. Buying a 99.
He turns and seems like a nice, normal park-goer until he sees me and Lisa standing either side of Billy’s bronze nose.
And he changes – a physical transformation.
More hunched but taller. More mean, more cru
el.
But the problem is… He’s still holding a 99.
Difficult to look gangsta when you’re holding an ice cream.
With two Flakes in it.
Oggy saunters over, trying to hold the ice cream as if it was something only he could possess.
A nine-millimetre cone.
Looking at Lis, he says to me:
I hope you’re not chatting up my girl, Wendy.
In fact, I was about to rub Billy’s nose.
You getting lippy?
–
You know what, brah? I used to stare at this girl every day in reg class but she never gave me the time of day.
Well, fuck me, everyone was at it.
But now, I can buy her.
He gets in the space between Lisa and me and takes a lick of his Mr Whippy.
I am buying you, Lisa Short.
He takes a long, slow lick of his ice cream.
Sweet, yeah?
Impulse.
Again.
The air liquid, everything slow with the bass turned down real low…
The punch I deliver to the back of Oggy’s head isn’t that hard.
I remember thinking – like I was already spewing out my defence – it’s not the punch that killed him, your honour, but the impact of Richard’s frontal lobe with the metallic nose of the statue. It was Billy that killed him. I swears.
Oggy goes down like a sack of shit being dropped from a very great height.
Boompf.
Fuck.
Go, Marc.
Fuck.
Go, Marc.
My legs seemed to have stopped working.
There’s a little river of blood coming from under Oggy’s face and meandering to the bottom of Billy’s plinth. His ice cream’s still in his hand; he must have been really looking forward to that ice cream to get two Flakes.
Go, Marc.
I’m thinking – this is Lisa telling me to go but I looks up and sees it’s Billy who’s saying to me:
Go, Marc!
I look round and Gary and Mo are strolling through the park; they’d gone to park the car and it’s fucking typical of Oggy he never thought to buy them ice cream.
Billy jumps down from his plinth and is heading for the bottom gate. He turns and waves a flipper at me.
For fuck’s sake, Marc, run!
This time my legs obey Billy.
We run past the pool and the adventure bit and the flowerbeds and out the bottom gate and on to Cowbridge Road East and left and towards town and past the Clive and Tesco and over the crossroads and past the Jobcentre and the cheap fruit shop and the Co-op – the fucking Co-op – and Iceland and into Canton, avoiding shoppers and prams and past Cash Converters and only as we get to the Westgate do we catch our breath. Billy’s leaning a flipper against the door to the boarded-up pub.
Right.
Says Billy.
What are our options: catch a Stagecoach to the Brecon Beacons, train to Carmarthen, maybe Stannie can help you… Where you going, Marc?
I’m not like you, Billy.
I know that – I’m a fucking seal.
I’m a killer on the run – but if I’m going, I’m going for good.
The bus station is this way. Marc? I been on that plinth for a hundred years thinking about getting out of that fucking park and, trust me, this is not how you escape.
But you got caught. Why should I trust you?
If you can’t trust a talking seal, Marc, who can you trust?
Of all the ‘killer-on-the-run’ movies I’ve seen they all needs one thing to escape – cash.
–
Cyncoed.
Posh as fuck.
By the time we got to Hollybush Road I was knackered.
Opposite the bay-window-fronted, high-gated, four-bedroom semi, I sat on a low wall and checked my lungs were still in my chest.
I soaked the sweat into my T-shirt and tried to calm my shaking hands and legs.
I looks around for Billy but he’s nowhere in sight.
The doorbell plays some sort of classical music. The door – which seemed bigger than a normal door – opens.
She was dressed like she was going to a cocktail party: in lime-green with matching green shoes and what I think is called a fascinator in her hair.
I need to come in, Celia.
I couldn’t help but stare at the thing perched in her hair.
You practising for Ascot?
Are you okay, Marc?
She was in the middle of a phone conversation:
I’ll call you back, my son has just popped in.
‘Popped in’! We hadn’t seen each other in the best part of three years.
You alone? I make the question into an accusation.
Yes, I’m alone.
–
I been alone for the past couple of years.
I’ve nothing cutting or generous to say to that and I don’t want to ask but I do:
Where’s… ?
Simon?
I’d forgotten Bunce had a first name.
We split up a little while ago…
I’d often wondered whether Celia knew about Bunce’s men beating up the old man – had she even encouraged it or was it the reason they split up? I’d never asked, or was likely to ask, about it. I’d also never asked if the old man had stolen the doors cos he knew they were Bunce’s.
You want something to drink?
I had a lemonade which I instantly regretted – wishing I’d had something a bit more grown-up.
You in trouble, Marc?
I wants to say: well, yeah, I just killed a man and the police are looking for me, I’m part of a drugs cartel which every fucker seems to know about and my sidekick is a seal but apart from that everything’s tip-top. But it’s…
I needs cash and I needs it now.
What happened next was like a scene from one of those black-and-white movies.
Celia gets up, straightens her fascinator, walks to the side of the room and unhooks a French-looking painting of a girl picking flowers to reveal a safe.
I get up and look out the back window as I hear click that way, click, back again, click, and I considers telling Celia she’s got a seal in her swimming pool but think better of it. Billy waves at me. I don’t wave back.
I pick up a copy of this month’s issue of Global Event Management magazine which, if I had flicked through, featured my old girl in a small article with a head-and-shoulders piccy on page thirty-nine. Below, on the table, is a letter from Cardiff and Vale Health Board – oncology unit. I drop the magazine back down like a lead weight.
Click this way and clunk.
Celia sits and counts out the cash, laying it on the coffee table.
As the girl in the painting would have said: Voilà.
There’s six thousand pounds, Marc.
You’re kidding me – six grand?
To the penny. It’s all I’ve got.
Six grand – fucking weird… but no time to think about that now.
As I reached forward for the cash the merest hint of a look from Celia stops me from touching it.
At the end of the day, I’m your mother, Marc. You frustrate the hell out of me but I love you, you know that, don’t you? Take the cash – but there is a condition, Marc.
Of course there is.
This is a loan. If you fail to pay this back within a month then you have to come and live with me. Here. And leave all that… other stuff behind. My house means my rules. Understand?
So that’s what you wants?
Marc?
I shifts the magazine and holds the letter.
You wants me to be some kind of fucking nursemaid?
Don’t need one. I’m with BUPA. I only wants the best for my boy, is that too much to ask? You going to take the cash or not?
Part Four
Okay, so where we going? Rio? India?
Slow down, Billy, I got some time before…
Come on, Marc, you got to get out of C
ardiff now.
I can’t leave without saying goodbye…
Saying goodbye?! Don’t be like me, Marc – I was caught, we’ve got the cash, let’s go – you know it’s the right thing to do. What are you doing now? You checking train times?
Me and Billy get an Uber back to Fairwater. We sit in silence. As the car pulls into the car park, Billy flops a flipper on to my arm and looks up at me with those big stupid eyes of his:
You’re going to get caught, Marc.
The clock reads four-oh-seven as I enter the Ex. My old man is in his favourite corner with a pint of SA and a book. Half of him in Fairwater with the afternoon drinkers and half of him in Barbados with Bond.
Want a drink, son?
No, I, uh… I’ve come to say I’m going away for a bit. A holiday.
I puts two of the six grand on the table.
For you.
He lays James Bond face down, shielding 007 from this crime.
I don’t want to explain too much but…
He leans into me, the smell of Brains SA on his breath.
Give me some credit, son. I’m not saying I don’t need this money, not saying I don’t want it but, believe me, I can’t take it. Would you? I can handle Oggy.
This isn’t for Oggy, you don’t have to worry about him – this is for you.
Thanks but no thanks. You sure you don’t want a pint, son? My shout. Sue behind the bar said you was in here earlier – with a girl who was drinking fizzy wine. That who you’re going on holiday with?
Uh, no. I’m going with, well, it’s complicated.
Shame. Sue said you made a smashing couple. She said you seemed… at ease with each other.
Did she…?
–
Promise me, son, you’ll give that money back, wherever it came from. Yeah?
At that point all I want to do is have a pint with my old man in the comfortable and familiar surroundings of the Ex.
Sorry, Mark, got to go.
You promise?
I promise.
Happy days, son. Don’t worry about me. Fizzy wine!
The old man takes a sip of his SA and plunges back into 007’s battle to bring some justice to this crappy world.
Outside, Billy is balancing an empty can of Red Bull on his nose.
You all done now, Marc? Can you drive? Should we hire a car and go to France? Marc? Marc, where you going?
_
I sees her go up the front path and into the house.
It’s a shock for her as she tries to close the door – my hand is stopping it.