by Jessie Keane
The barmaid placed his pint on the mat and took his money.
‘John the owner asked me to call in, said you had trouble.’
‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ she said quickly.
‘Worked here long?’
She shook her head. ‘Just a week.’
Looking at her expression, Josh was certain she wouldn’t be hanging around for much longer. No job was worth aggravation. Except his job, of course. In or out of a boxing ring, he was used to having to fight his corner. That was the Romany way. As soon as she’d rung up the sale on the cash register, she scuttled out the back, passing John who was just coming to the front of the bar.
‘Hello, Mr Flynn,’ he said. ‘Thought you were going to be in Ireland a while?’
‘I was. Now I’m back,’ said Josh. ‘That them, is it?’ He nodded to indicate the gang.
‘That’s them.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yeah, bastards. Frightening all the decent punters away. Picking on people having a quiet drink.’
‘You had words with them?’
He shrugged. ‘You bloody serious? Look at the fuckers. Old Bill’s been in once or twice. Done fuck-all, of course. Don’t look now, but they’re giving you the once-over.’
Josh turned slightly, leaning an elbow on the bar. Sure enough, a solid eighteen-stoner with grey hair pulled back in a ponytail was rising from his seat, leathers creaking, and coming over. It was the one with the intimidating SS flashes on the back of his jacket. His mates were grinning and nudging each other as they looked on. The biker made a show of running his eyes over Josh from head to toe, then said: ‘You don’t want to come in here, mate.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Josh, swallowing down the last of his pint.
‘Because we own this place, arsehole.’
To Josh, everything seemed to slow down then. His breathing steadied and he was aware of his heart, beating. Of the music, pounding in rhythm.
‘Do you?’ asked Josh.
‘Yeah, we do. So do yourself a favour and fuck off out of it.’
In a lightning-fast movement, Josh smashed the glass on the brass edge of the bar and then shoved it straight into the biker’s crotch. The jagged edge ripped through the leather as if it was cotton and went straight into the flesh beneath. A yodelling howl of agony shot out of the biker’s mouth. Then Josh’s left fist pistoned out. It connected with the biker’s nose and blood sprayed as the bone broke with a crunch and his nose split in two. The biker staggered and collapsed to the floor.
‘Hey! Hey!’
The others were coming at a run, but Josh had thought this out. Four of Linus Pole’s men now shot in through the front door and joined Josh in the fight. It didn’t take long. It certainly wasn’t Queensberry rules. Biker gangs were tough, but gypsy men were born fighting – from the time they were little kids, theirs was a world of challenges issued and accepted.
When the gang was all laid out groaning, Josh grabbed the leader’s leather jacket and, ignoring his screams of pain, hauled him over to the window. Josh showed him the line of motorbikes which were now burning merrily outside. As they watched, the petrol tanks started to blow, one after the other.
Whumph! Whumph! Whumph!
‘Almost pretty, ain’t it? Like firework night. Looks like you’ll be walking home, arsewipe,’ said Josh.
He shook the gang leader’s jacket and the man whimpered and clutched at his cut and bleeding crotch. Josh put his head very close to the biker’s shattered face and stared into his eyes. ‘You listening? Good. You don’t come anywhere near this place, ever again. You got that? Or next time I’ll chop your fucking legs off and then you won’t even be able to walk home, you understand? Answer me.’
‘Ugh,’ said the man past the blood and snot pouring out of his pulverized nose.
‘That’s a yes?’
The man nodded his head.
‘Good. Now. Fuck. Off,’ said Josh, and together he and Linus Pole’s men threw the bikers out the pub door and on to the pavement.
29
‘I’m pregnant,’ said Shauna as they ate in the restaurant of the four-star hotel they were now staying at, since Shauna had complained that three-star wasn’t good enough. Christmas was coming soon. The blast-furnace heat of the summer was long past, nothing but a memory.
Josh choked on his steak-and-kidney pudding. ‘You’re what?’
Shauna stared at him. They’d been smashing the life out of each other for months now, using no protection at all, and yet he looked almost comically surprised at this turn of events. Men! It was what she’d longed for, of course. Planned for.
‘I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.’
Josh downed a gulp of best bitter and she could see him trying to take it in.
‘So this kind of alters things,’ she said with a triumphant smile.
As Shauna spoke, Josh felt a devastation so deep it was almost grief. This was something he should have shared with Claire, not Shauna. A kid on the scene would change everything. A baby would tie him ever more firmly to her, when he knew damned well he was still in love with Claire. No one had ever touched him as she had, no one ever would. But he’d accepted that she was gone from his life now. What else could he do?
It was still Claire he craved, but Shauna offered it on a plate night after night. Shauna had cast her spell over him and now . . . now he supposed he was fond of her. Well – if not fond, then he was certainly used to her. She was dynamite in bed. With Shauna, there were no holds barred. You could do whatever you liked. Anything. And that made him so hot for her. He knew he should have shown more sense, used condoms, but he’d been depressed and that had made him careless. He’d been thinking of splitting from her after Christmas, going back to his real life at the camp. Now what the fuck was he going to do?
Somehow his life with Shauna felt like a fitting punishment for his stupidity at mishandling things with Claire. Making her come to that bloody fight, bottling the big wedding, behaving like such a fucking idiot. With Claire gone, his life was nothing. He had fucked up, royally. And now? Being tied to Shauna was the price he had to pay for it.
Yes, her pregnancy would alter things. It would alter everything.
He put down his pint glass. Looked her in the eye.
‘We’d better get married then,’ he said.
His life had taken a wrong turn and now there would be no going back. Marrying Shauna was the decent thing to do. If you got a girl up the duff, you owned up to it and walked her down the aisle. He remembered his mate Chalky, telling the boys down the snooker hall when he’d knocked up his girlfriend and was in the glooms about it.
Well, that’s you finished then, they’d said, laughing.
Now, here he was, in the same situation – and it didn’t feel very funny.
Shauna stared at him, her cheeks reddening with emotion.
‘We’ve had a wild time together,’ she said.
‘We have,’ agreed Josh.
Wild, and certainly different. After the fight at Linus Pole’s fairground and that sorting-out he’d done with the biker gang at John’s place, Josh had found himself much in demand with all sorts of people: boxing promoters, club owners, they all wanted him, and the pay was out of this world. But after he’d failed to find Claire there was a sadness that he couldn’t shake off. The pain and the guilt because it was all his fault refused to leave him be. He’d sold the new trailer, given up on the dream of him and her together. This was going to be his life now, and he wished he felt happier about it.
Shauna was picking over her fish with a critical eye. She flicked a glance up at Josh’s face. He seemed miles away, and that irritated her. Was he still thinking about her? That thought soured her delight at her pregnancy. But Josh was going to marry her. He’d just said it! So he must love her a bit. Maybe. Ah, she was seeing shadows where there were none, imagining he was thinking of Claire when he was just a bit distracted.
‘Not too keen on this place,�
�� she said. ‘Look at the state of this!’ She prodded at the fish with her fork disdainfully.
This was a four-star establishment, but still she wasn’t impressed. Josh, keen to keep in shape, had told her all the gym equipment in the hotel basement was on its last legs and the steam room was out of order. In their room, ants crawled and the maid didn’t have a clue how to clean. Where Shauna came from, that was a cardinal sin. Gypsy women were great home-makers.
And they said there was a chef in the hotel kitchen? That ponce couldn’t fry a piece of fish without leaving it raw in the middle; the idiot couldn’t even boil an egg without letting it boil dry and scalding the shell. Gypsy women never gave people food poisoning, either, and she’d heard rumours about this place from the other guests. Next place they stayed in would be five-star. They could afford it. Or . . .
‘I’ve been thinking. We can’t keep flitting from hotel to hotel, not with a baby on the way,’ she said, watching his face. Christ, he was so handsome. What a fantastic man, and he was all hers! ‘It’s time we settled somewhere, don’t you think? You’re doing so well with the fights and stuff. We could buy a house.’
Josh was taken aback. He was going to be married, he was going to become a father and he was going to buy a house. He looked at Shauna and felt apathy overtake him. But maybe the deal wasn’t all bad. She was beautiful. Iron-willed and mouthy as fuck, yes – but a real strong gypsy woman with smooth olive skin, long dark curling hair and conker-brown eyes. She’d make beautiful babies, he could see that.
Christ though – a house, a proper house, like a gorgi would live in?
‘We can afford it,’ said Shauna, a frown forming like a small thundercloud on her brow.
Maybe they could. Money was pouring in. He stared at her set, determined face.
‘We’ll go and look at some soon,’ he said. ‘And we’ll pop in the register office, set a date.’
30
There was a new estate going up, diggers and dumper trucks zooming about the place, concrete lorries backing up, bricks arriving by the ton, and at the edge of all the building activity was a show home, set up as a sales suite. Girls in fitted suits were in there, passing out brochures to prospective buyers, making pots of tea and doling out fancy biscuits.
Shauna and Josh looked around the show home, and Shauna felt like she was going to explode with happiness.
‘I want it,’ she said, dazzled by fitted Formica kitchen units, the posh avocado suite in the bathroom and décor that a professional had worked hard on, all burnt oranges and soft mossy greens. There were huge pot plants in corners, big rugs and mirrors everywhere. Outside, you had your own actual back garden, all fenced in so that no one else could intrude, with a freshly laid lawn in its centre and shrubs planted all around.
It was so beautiful and so different from what she knew – the muddy country clearing with its trailers, its grazing piebald and skewbald horses, the haphazardly strung washing lines, the scent of rabbit stew and the flickering camp fires at twilight – that she could have cried.
The sales girl beamed.
‘I want this one. The show house,’ said Shauna.
‘That could take some time . . .’ said the sales girl.
‘How long?’ asked Shauna.
‘Up to three months.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Shauna, who knew she wouldn’t be ready to drop the baby until well after that. Meanwhile, they could ditch the hotels – she was sick of them – and rent a place until everything came good.
‘Shall we go over to the office, put some figures together . . . ?’ asked the girl.
‘Yeah,’ said Shauna, grabbing Josh’s hand and pulling him along like a tug guiding an ocean liner into port.
‘Might have some more work going, if you’re interested, Josh,’ said John.
It was New Year, they were sitting in the bar of John Finlay’s pub, and everything was coming along nicely. No more trouble, since the biker gang had been sorted. There were punters in, decent people, spending plenty. The whole atmosphere of the place had changed. It was busy, everyone bustling around. There was laughter, music, and the cash registers were ringing like mad.
‘Friend of mine’s got clubs in London, he needs someone reliable to sort out the doors for him.’
‘Sounds OK,’ said Josh, thumbing through the newspaper. Agatha Christie the writer had died, and the SAS had gone to Northern Ireland. He folded the paper, put it back on the table.
‘This is where you reach him.’ John handed Josh a small rectangular purple card. ‘I said you might be in touch, but it’s up to you. Maybe you’re up to your arse in work, I dunno.’
Josh took the card. He had a lot of fights lined up, cash on the hip; this was all working out OK. Maybe he’d bother with this new contact, maybe not. He was going to need all the money he could lay hands on, because Shauna was never, ever going to be a cheap date; he did realize that. Her tastes were expensive. Show her a picture of ten sofas and she’d go for the dearest, every time. And now there were houses and even a baby to be considered, too. She was like a runaway train, unstoppable.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘It’s a pleasure. I owe you a lot.’
They chatted on into the evening and then at around eleven Josh drove back to the hotel.
He went into reception, trying not to think about how much all this lot was costing him. He and Shauna had already sorted out a place to rent, so they’d be fucking off from here soon, and just as well. Halfway across the floor on his way to the lifts, a bulky bald-headed man blundered up from a chair and grabbed the front of his coat.
‘There you are, you bastard,’ the man said, alcohol pouring in waves from his breath.
It was Pally, Claire Milo’s dad.
31
‘You fucker! You got her here with you then, my little girl? What did you do to her, you sod? What really happened?’
Pally Milo was pushing against Josh like a bull against the side of a pen, but Josh was thinking that there was no way he was going to flatten Claire’s father. The best he could do was pull him in close to restrain him as boxers often did, and shout in his face: ‘What you on about, Pally? Claire’s not with me.’
‘You liar, you filthy good-for-nothing . . .’ panted Pally.
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Liar!’
‘God’s honour, Pally. On the Sacred Heart, I swear. I’ve told you. I ain’t seen Claire since the night I had my fight with Matty. Get your hands off me, you silly old bugger.’
All the receptionists were squawking in alarm, and Josh could see the doorman turning, hearing the commotion and about to come in and sort it. If he started a brawl in here, Shauna would do her nut.
‘My poor Eva’s still in bits! Why’d you have to do it eh? Why’d you just have to run off the two of you, and cheat everyone like that?’ demanded Pally, twisting uselessly, his hot whisky-soaked breath puffing in Josh’s face as Josh restrained him.
‘I told you, Pally.’ Josh put steel into his voice now. ‘Listen to me, will you? We didn’t run off. That’s rubbish. Claire ain’t with me. We parted company on the night I fought Matty O’Connor. I haven’t seen her since. That’s the truth. I looked for her in Moyross, you know I did. And I came back to the site. But she never showed up.’
‘You’re a miserable coward and a liar,’ shouted Pally, but his movements were getting weaker. He was very drunk, and against Josh’s youth and superior strength he was wearing himself out.
Josh watched the man weaken with pity in his eyes. So Claire still hadn’t come back. Pally was getting himself drunk and no doubt Eva was still clutching Claire’s bridal gown and wailing for him to do something. But there was nothing he or anyone else could do; Claire had obviously made her decision and left them all behind – him included. It hurt, but what could he do about it?
‘I don’t lie, Pally,’ said Josh as Pally’s movements slowed to nothing and they just stood there, two big men locked together. ‘If Claire�
��s still missing, it’s because she’s gone off on her own steam somewhere. It’s nothing to do with me. I’ve told you all this before. She told me she hated the fight game and she blew me out, that’s the truth. I accepted that, and went my own way.’
Still, Josh knew in his heart that if he ever saw her again he would want to plead with her to give him a second chance. He loved her. He’d love her until they boxed him up and dumped him in his grave. But now Shauna was carrying his baby. He had new responsibilities. All that love he’d shared with Claire must be forgotten.
Pally’s myopic eyes were blinking at Josh’s face from inches away. Slowly, sensing the man’s changing mood, Josh pushed Pally away so that he stood straight. The doorman came in. Josh turned his head, shook it. The doorman didn’t withdraw. Josh was just glad Shauna hadn’t been down here to see Pally lowering the tone, showing them up among the gorgis.
But then, as if some vengeful god had read his mind, there she was, coming out of the ground-floor lounge, walking a couple of steps and then freezing in surprise as she saw the two men there.
‘I can’t help you, Pally. Now go home. Go on,’ said Josh, but it was too late.
Pally had seen Shauna standing there.
He pulled back from Josh and stared at her like she’d arrived in a puff of smoke. For a moment his face was blank; then Josh could see that he was adding things up, working things out. Pally’s eyes swept over Shauna, took in the slight bulge of her pregnancy; then they returned to Josh’s face and his lips trembled with contempt.
‘So that’s the way of it,’ said Pally. ‘This is why Claire cleared out then. You and her. We all wondered where she’d got to, and now we know.’
‘No. That’s not what happened, Pally. Not at all.’
‘You fucking cheat!’ yelled Pally in Josh’s face. ‘God rot you. I hope your bollocks fester, you arsehole. And as for you . . .’
Pally lurched toward Shauna and Josh quickly put himself in between the two of them.