Soft

by Rupert Thomson

  She picked up the phone on the seventh ring. ‘Yes?’

  ‘How are you, Ma?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Her voice sounded gravelly and rough, as if she had been sleeping. Perhaps it was simply that she hadn’t talked to anyone all day.

  He asked her again. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not so good, son. Not so good.’

  It was the angina. She had chest pains and she was often short of breath. Sometimes the lift broke down and then she couldn’t get to the shops. None of the neighbours helped her, of course. They weren’t the type. Single mothers, petty thieves. Kids doing speed and glue. She had to live on what she’d put by in the kitchen cupboard: tins of Irish stew, cream crackers, Smash.

  ‘How’re Jim and Gary?’

  ‘Jim’s all right. Talked to him Wednesday. Gary’s not so good. That girl he was seeing, Janice. She left him.’ She paused and he could hear her lungs creak and whistle as she breathed in. ‘I don’t blame her,’ she went on. ‘He wasn’t nice to her.’

  Barker thought of Jill sitting on the floor of his old flat, her legs folded beneath her, her bra-strap showing through the rip in her blouse.

  ‘I got a job,’ he said. ‘I’m cutting hair.’

  ‘Just like your father,’ she said, but it was just a statement of fact, and there was no nostalgia in it.

  ‘I got a flat too.’

  ‘You eating, are you?’

  Barker didn’t answer.

  ‘I went to London once,’ she said. ‘We saw the soldiers parading up and down, those black hats on, all furry. What’s it called, when they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Anyway.’ She sighed and then said something he didn’t catch.

  ‘What’s that, Ma?’

  ‘You coming home for Easter?’

  A sudden burst of laughter startled him until he realised it must have been the television. He glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty-five. He should have known she’d be watching TV. The soap operas, the shows. Des O’Connor was her favourite. A lovely man. Bob Monkhouse, she liked him too.

  Not long afterwards his coins ran out. He told her he would call again soon, but he was cut off before he could say goodbye. He put the receiver back on its hook, then stepped out of the phone-box and stood on the pavement, watching cars hurtle through the orange gloom towards Jamaica Road.

  Thank You, Ray

  Across the bridge and down on to Tooley Street, bleak and gleaming in the rain. Barker walked quickly, eager to be home. Just before he reached the entrance to The London Dungeon he turned right, into a tunnel that burrowed under the railway. Clinging to the curving walls were vents and cages fouled with grime and oil and dust. A steel roll-door lifted to reveal a mechanic wearing loose blue overalls, a car with two flat tyres. Barker passed an air-filter whose high-pitched howling set his teeth on edge. Then emerged into the daylight once again. It was summer, and his eyelids stung. The weather was humid, the sky yellow and light-grey, too bright, somehow, the green of the trees too pale. By the time he had climbed the stairs to the front door of his flat he was breathing hard.

  He had been living there for almost five months and no trace of the squatters now remained. Thanks to Charlton’s aunt, who’d died recently, he now had proper furniture. ‘She didn’t have no diseases or nothing,’ Charlton said when Barker inspected her settee suspiciously. ‘She died of like, what’s it called, natural causes.’ He’d had a phone installed in the hallway. In the two main rooms he’d fitted pieces of red carpet, which had come from an office building that was being redecorated. On the walls in the lounge he had hung several pictures – shiny colours on a background of black velvet. He liked the subjects: chalets in the Swiss Alps, gypsy women, junks. He had also found one that had been made out of the wings of butterflies. A seascape, with islands. One day he would travel. Not like in the Merchant Navy, where you had to go where they told you to. Really travel.

  Closing the front door behind him, he walked into the lounge. His dull silver weights looked sweaty. Christ, mate, what you got in there? As he lifted one and drew it automatically towards his chin, the phone rang. It was Ray Peacock.

  ‘Barker,’ Ray said, ‘I’m calling long distance.’

  Behind Ray’s voice Barker could hear shrill laughter, the clink of glasses. Ray liked nothing better than to sit in some seedy south-coast cocktail bar and shout into his mobile. There would probably be a girl beside him. Short skirt, white high-heels. Someone he was trying to impress.

  ‘How did you get this number, Ray?’ Though, even as he asked, he knew.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Ray said, ‘after all I’ve done for you.’

  Barker had been hoping he could leave Ray behind, along with almost everybody else in Plymouth, but Ray nurtured his connections, Ray let nothing go. Grasp Sparrow By The Tail.

  Barker waited a few seconds. Then he said, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I just thought I’d ring you up, see how you were –’

  ‘Bollocks.’ He’d spoken to Ray once before, in Charlton’s house on the Isle of Dogs, and he’d suspected even then that Ray was only phoning because he wanted to be punching buttons.

  ‘How long’s it been anyway? Six months?’

  All of a sudden Barker didn’t like the feeling of the receiver in his hand. He felt as if he’d just eaten some seafood that was bad and in three hours’ time his stomach would swell and then, an hour later, he’d throw up.

  ‘Listen, Barker,’ and Ray’s voice tightened, ‘I heard about a job …’ The background noise had dropped away. He must have left the room where he’d been sitting. Walked out into a corridor. A car-park. He’d be pacing up and down like a caged animal. Like something in a zoo. Five paces, turn. Five paces, turn again. That’s what people do when they’re using mobile phones. They can’t stand still.

  Barker closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, the scar tissue lumpy between his finger and thumb. Through the open window he could hear rain falling lightly on the trees. Beyond the rain, a siren.

  ‘This is big,’ Ray said in the same tight voice. ‘It could set you up.’

  Still Barker didn’t say anything.

  ‘I had a chat with Charlton the other day,’ Ray went on. ‘He said you were skint.’

  ‘What is it?’ Barker said at last. ‘What’s the job?’

  ‘They wouldn’t tell me. You’ve got to meet someone.’ Ray dragged on a cigarette. ‘Must be big, though. There’s six grand in it.’

  Six grand?

  ‘So why aren’t you doing it, Ray?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking myself. Why aren’t I doing it?’

  Barker laughed despite himself. He knew Ray wasn’t trying to be funny. It was just the way things came out. Ray used to have a girlfriend called Josie. A big girl – forearms the size of legs of lamb. One lunchtime Ray was sitting over his pint, scratching his head, when something fell out of his hair. Landed on the table, kind of bounced. Bright-red it was, shiny, slightly curved: a woman’s fingernail. Ray looked at it for a moment, then he looked up. Me and Josie. We had a fight this morning.

  ‘Seriously, though,’ Ray was saying, ‘you think I wouldn’t do it if I could? I mean, six grand. Jesus.’

  ‘So why can’t you?’

  ‘I’m out on bail. I can’t risk it.’

  ‘You’re a fucking menace, you are.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ray sounded resigned. ‘Listen, you’ve got to help me out on this one. I’m counting on you.’

  Barker stared at the blank wall above the phone. You shouldn’t ever let someone do you a favour. You shouldn’t get into that kind of debt.

  ‘Barker? You still there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘They’re going to phone you. Probably tonight.’

  Barker couldn’t believe it. ‘You gave them my number?’

  ‘Well, yeah. I thought you needed the money.’

  ‘That’s great, Ray. That’s fucking great.’

  �
��How else are they going to phone you, for Christ’s sake?’

  Barker stood in his narrow hallway with the receiver pressed against his ear. Tiny white-hot holes burned in front of his eyes. It wasn’t that Ray was stupid. No, he just saw things from a different angle, that was all. Barker could hear Ray’s voice raised in his own defence. I was only trying to help you, Barker. Thought I’d see you right. It’s not my fault. Ray was always only trying to help, and nothing was ever his fault.

  When the phone rang again two hours later, Barker could have ignored it. Equally, he could have answered the phone and said he was unavailable; there were any number of excuses for not getting involved. And yet he had the sense that something was beginning, something that he was part of whether he liked it or not, something that couldn’t take place without him. Afterwards, he would remember his right hand reaching for the receiver as the decisive moment, the point of no return.

  He listened carefully to the voice on the other end as it provided him with details of the meeting-place, a Lebanese restaurant near Marble Arch. No accent, no inflections; it might have been computer-generated to give nothing away. And the man’s face when he saw it, at one o’clock the next day, had the same lack of individuality. The man was sitting at a table in the corner with his back against a wall of shrubbery; lit by miniature green spotlights, the foliage looked rich and fleshy, almost supernatural. The man introduced himself as Lambert. It seemed an unlikely name. Barker took a seat. In the space between his knife and fork lay a pale-pink napkin arranged in the shape of a fan. He picked it up, unfolded it and spread it on his lap.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Lambert said.

  They were the only people in the restaurant. Soothing music trickled from hidden speakers, instrumental versions of famous songs: ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’, ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’, ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’. Barker noticed that there were colours in all the titles and he wondered if that was deliberate, if it had some kind of significance. Then he recognised the old Rod Stewart favourite, ‘Sailing’, and his theory collapsed. A waiter appeared at his elbow.

  ‘Please order,’ Lambert said. ‘Anything you want.’

  Barker chose two dishes randomly and closed the menu. Lambert told the waiter he would have the same, then he opened the briefcase that was lying on the seat beside him. He took out a brown envelope and, moving a small silver vase to one side, placed the envelope on the tablecloth between them.

  ‘It contains everything you need to know,’ he said. ‘It also contains half the money in advance. Three thousand pounds.’

  Barker reached for the envelope, thinking he ought to check the contents, but Lambert rested one hand on his sleeve. ‘Not now. When you’re at home,’ and Lambert paused, ‘in Bermondsey.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me what the job involves?’

  ‘It’s nothing you can’t manage.’

  ‘And if I decide not to do it?’

  ‘You’ve already decided. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

  ‘But if I change my mind,’ Barker persisted.

  ‘Then you’ll be here tomorrow at the same time. With the envelope, of course.’ Lambert looked down at the pale-pink tablecloth and smiled almost wistfully. ‘But I don’t think you’ll be here tomorrow.’

  Barker stared at the envelope, the brown paper seeming to expand, to draw him in. When he looked up again, the food had arrived and Lambert was already eating.

  ‘This is good.’ Lambert pointed at his plate.

  ‘It’s not your first time, is it,’ Barker said.

  Lambert looked at him.

  ‘You often come here,’ Barker said. ‘To this restaurant.’

  Lambert was eating again. ‘You know, this really is very good.’ A few moments later he glanced at his watch, then touched his napkin to his mouth. ‘I must go.’

  He pushed his chair back. Barker half-rose from the table.

  ‘Please,’ Lambert said. ‘Finish your lunch.’

  Afterwards, Barker couldn’t recall his face at all. His eyes, his nose, his hair had vanished without trace. Lambert was the kind of man who had no habits. Who did not smell. Of anything. When you had lunch with him, time passed more quickly than it did with other people. Not because you were having fun. Not for any reason you could think of. It just did. Perhaps it was a technique Lambert had mastered – part of his job, his brief. Later, it felt as if you’d only imagined meeting him. It had never actually happened. You’d eaten lunch alone, in a restaurant somewhere just off Edgware Road. It was the shrubbery that you remembered. Those leaves. Too big and shiny. Too green.

  At home that evening Barker took a shower. As always, he noted the contrast between his legs, which seemed too thin, and his torso, which was almost as deep as it was wide, his ex-wife’s name tattooed in muddy grey-blue capitals across his chest. Mostly he chose to see the shape of his body as representing some kind of efficiency. The type of work he’d done in the past, legs didn’t matter. It was the other people who needed legs. To run for it. To scarper. He dried himself thoroughly, then put on a black T-shirt and a pair of faded black jeans, pulling a thick leather belt through the loops and fastening the Harley Davidson buckle. He smoothed his hair down with his hands till it lay flat against his skull. In the kitchen he opened a can of lager, which he carried into the lounge. He sat on the settee with the TV on. The red numbers on the video said 7:35.

  After his meeting with Lambert, Barker had returned to work. He had asked Higgs for a three-hour lunch-break that day. He hadn’t bothered to invent a reason, an excuse, and the old man had been too discreet to ask for one. Once, though, when the shop was empty, Higgs had looked across at him and asked him if everything was all right. Barker nodded, but didn’t speak. Outside, the sun was shining, which made the interior seem gloomier than usual. Bad news? Higgs said quietly. Barker didn’t answer. Later, he walked home under a bright-blue sky and lifted weights until his skin glistened.

  The brown envelope lay on the table by the wall, its surface blank, its contents still unknown. If he thought he still had a choice he was fooling himself. You’ve already decided. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. He had answered the phone and he had appeared at the restaurant. He had eaten a meal. Most ways you looked at it, he was already in. As he reached for the envelope he heard the man’s voice again, dispassionate and neutral. When you’re at home, and then a pause, in Bermondsey. The bastards. They even knew where he lived. He tore the envelope open lengthways, almost carelessly, and emptied it on to the cushion next to him.

  It was the photograph he noticed first. A standard colour print, one corner bent. He’d been expecting a photograph, given the amount of money involved, given the secrecy, but he hadn’t thought about the face, what it might look like. Usually it didn’t matter. You treated it as a guideline. They gave you a name, some kind of visual reference. Parts of the body were mentioned too. Do the right hand, do the knees. Somehow this felt different, though. As he’d known it would. He was holding a picture of a girl who was in her early twenties. She had hazel eyes, the look in them direct but, at the same time, vague. Her bright-blonde hair fell below her shoulders, out of frame. One of her ears stuck out slightly. She didn’t look like anyone he had ever known. He could imagine meeting her on a street-corner. She would be lost. She would ask him for directions. When he had helped her, she would thank him, then turn away. And that would be the last he saw of her. He couldn’t imagine meeting a girl this pretty under any other circumstances. Certainly he would never have imagined circumstances like these. He put the photo down and picked up the money, a stack of twenties and fifties held compactly with a rubber band. He ran his thumb across the notes, but didn’t count them. Three thousand pounds. He turned to the two typed sheets of paper, which had been stapled together for his convenience. He skimmed neat rows of words, looking for a name. He found it halfway down the first page. GLADE SPENCER.

  For the next two hours Barker watched TV, only getti
ng up to fetch more beer. From time to time he thought of the barber’s shop – the red leather chairs, the mirrors with their bevelled edges. Propped in the window were pictures of men’s hairstyles from the seventies, at least fifteen years out of date. Above them, a faded notice that said Come In Please – We’re Open. He saw Harold Higgs sweeping the lino floor at closing-time, his shirtsleeves rolled, the skin on the points of his elbows thin and papery. Always gritting his teeth a little on account of the arthritis in his shoulder and his hip. Forty years in the business. Forty years. And still struggling to break even. But wasn’t he the same as Higgs when it came down to it? That afternoon he had seen himself through Lambert’s eyes. The man had recognised him – not personally, but as a type. Someone who’d do what was required. Who wouldn’t shrink from it. That was all he remembered about Lambert now, that moment of recognition. When he would rather have seen doubt. Was that the reason he had agreed to the meeting, even though all his instincts had advised against it? Had he secretly been hoping that he might look unlikely, that he would not be trusted with the job? In that version of events Lambert would never have parted with the envelope. Instead, he would simply have stood up and walked out, leaving Barker in the empty restaurant, humiliated, alone – yet, at the same time, redefined somehow, confirmed in his new identity. It hadn’t happened, though; Lambert hadn’t even hesitated. Barker remembered the strangely wistful smile that Lambert had directed at the tablecloth. Lambert had been waiting for him to realise the truth about himself. Barker’s fists clenched in his lap. Of course he could still say no. He could hand the envelope back. But then, at some point in the future, somebody would come for him with a broken beer glass or a Stanley knife or whatever they were using now, and afterwards, when he was discovered on the floor of a public toilet, or on the pavement outside a pub, or in an alleyway, passers-by would peer down at him, they’d see his face all cut, blood running into his eyes, his teeth in splinters, and they wouldn’t be surprised, no, it wouldn’t surprise them at all, because that was what happened to people like him, that was how they ended up – which meant, of course, that they deserved it. He remembered the night when he got hit across the bridge of the nose with a lemonade bottle. He had been in the chip shop with Leslie. They were waiting at the counter, watching George pour the vinegar, sprinkle on the salt. Leslie would probably have been talking. She used to do a lot of that. Talked her way on to his chest, didn’t she, in letters two inches tall. Talked herself under his skin. At some point the door opened and cold air flooded against his back. He didn’t look round, though. Perhaps he thought it was the wind. That chip-shop door was always opening by itself, the catch no longer worked, and George had never got around to fixing it, the lazy sod. In any case, he didn’t look. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, his head split into sudden areas of brilliance and gloom, and somebody above him screaming, screaming. They hadn’t even said his name. They just came up behind him, swung the bottle. To this day he didn’t know what it had been about, whether it was something to do with Leslie and another man, or whether it was someone’s way of getting back at Jim, his brother – Jim was always pissing people off. Not that reasons mattered, really. Violence seemed to follow him around regardless; he could feel it snapping at his heels like a dog. The scar above his nose, the puzzled look it gave him, that was a reminder. That was proof.