by Ray Banks
Gav squared his shoulders. "All right, what do you need me to do?"
"Nothing."
"No, come on. I'll prove it to you. Whatever you want."
Joe shook his head. "If I told you to go out there and beat fuck out of whoever's peddling outside that squat, you'd be doing it because I told you to do it."
"Then don't tell us to do it." Gav finished his pint, put it on the fruit machine, then nodded at the double doors. "You coming?"
Joe let the last spin go as Gav left the pub, and he followed the bloke out into the pouring rain. He dumped his tab; it hissed in the puddle at his feet. He watched Gav search for something around the side of the pub and then emerge with a brick in his hand. He walked past Joe and headed up towards Kielder. Joe continued on behind him. At the top of the road, he could see the lights on at the squat. Gav stood still for a moment, watching the house. There was another dealer out front, one of the skinny lads, whose feet looked too big for his body.
Gav was motionless, his shirt drenched. Then he broke into a quick walk, heading straight for the squat.
He wasn't going to do anything. He couldn't. Joe knew that Gavin Scott didn't have the bottle for a straight-up confrontation, even if he was pissed.
Gav moved into the shadows between the street lights. Joe crossed to the other side of the road and kept an eye on him as they walked up to the end of the cul-de-sac. He could hear Gav trying to be quiet as he approached, but his coordination was off and his attempts at being quiet only made him noisier. He swayed out into the light, a look of grim determination on his face, and then, somewhere between the sixth and seventh light on the right-hand side of the road, Gav disappeared.
Joe stopped. He moved back out of sight.
Then the shout came, loud enough to be anonymous. "How, you!"
The skinny dealer turned, but he didn't know where the shout had come from.
"Aye, you, you cunt. You not been telt, like?"
The dealer moved off the wall. He was chewing something.
"Telt you and your mates to get the fuck out of our street, didn't we?"
"Howeh." The dealer was facing the wrong direction, shuffling his feet as if he was getting ready to run off. "You fuckin' make us, then."
There was a scuffle, and Joe knew exactly where Gav was. He saw the street light catch Gav's face in an orange flash as he leaned back.
"Fuckin' howeh, then, you fuckin—"
The skinny dealer's head snapped to one side. The brick dropped onto the pavement in front of him. He stared at it. A second or two more, and then the blood arrived, spilling over the hand he'd clamped to his face. The dealer's right leg seemed to go boneless on him and he hopped a couple of feet. His mouth hung open. He hadn't said anything more. Couldn't seem to find the words. Then he put one hand out to grab a hold of the wall, missed, and hit the deck.
"That's your second fuckin' warning." Gav sounding more like Gav now as he took to his heels.
Joe moved from the shadows, walked swiftly in a long arc back up to the Long Ship. By the time he got there, Gav was red-faced, soaked through, and grinning. Joe strode past him into the pub. His pint still sat on top of the machine. He picked it up, took a drink, fished around in his jeans for change.
Gav came in behind him. Waited for three spins until he couldn't wait any more. "Well?"
"How do you feel?"
"Mint."
Joe found his Regals, took one out that didn't look too wet and lit it. "All right, then. Maybe we can do something."
17
When Brian was sixteen, he took a summer job at a cardboard factory. The first day, they made him clean the floor under the glue machine, which leaked constantly, a slow, syrupy drip that spattered the floor with warm epoxy. Brian told the foreman, suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to fix the leak before he went under there to clean it. The foreman, a florid fuck with piggy eyes and a distaste for any accent posher than his own, told Brian that he could get his arse under that machine, or he could take it home, it was no skin off his nose – either way, it was less of the fucking yap, all right? Brian opted for the former, and crawled under the massive glue pot. There was barely enough room to crouch under there, never mind stand, and so he hunched up, his back aching as he scraped the dried glue from the floor. And when he got home that night, his head ringing from the fumes, he complained loudly to anyone who'd listen – the work was rotten, the people were rotten, the hours were rotten.
His dad sat him down, made him a cup of tea, and gave it to him straight: "There isn't a job in the world that isn't rotten on the first day, Brian. You don't know where you're supposed to be, you don't know who you're supposed to talk to, nobody wants to be nice to you because they don't know you, and you don't know what you're supposed to do. And then when you do find out what you're supposed to do, chances are you'll cock it up in some way."
It didn't make Brian feel better.
"But here's the thing. Cock it up. Make your mistake. Get it over with. Because believe me, son, all jobs – even the rotten ones – get easier after a week or two."
Brian didn't believe him at the time, but his dad was right. The factory job did get easier, mostly because Brian was off his tits on glue and had somehow managed to disconnect the synapses that gave a shit.
There was no such distraction at the MetroCentre. That suit had done Brian wonders, and in hindsight he couldn't tell if wearing a suit to a cleaning job interview had been a masterstroke or madness brought about by long-term unemployment. In the end it didn't matter: the job was his. It might not have been much of a step, but it was one taken in the right direction, and for that he was grateful.
As soon as he read the letter confirming his employment, he called Lynne. True to form, she wasn't at home. Same as the next six tries over the course of the first week. When Brian finally managed to get hold of her, he could hear the ticker tape of excuses rattling through her head before she spoke: she'd tried to call back, she hadn't been in, she didn't get the message, there must be something wrong with the phone ... "Brian, sorry, I—"
"Doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. I've got you now."
"Yes, you do. So, how are you? How are things? Michael said you were working?"
So did she did get one of the messages, then. "That's right."
"At the MetroCentre?"
"Yep."
"See, I didn't know ..." She risked a half-hearted chuckle. "I didn't think he was being serious."
"No, he's being serious."
"You're a cleaner?"
"Yeah, it's a cleaning job."
"Wow. Okay."
"What?"
"It's just you never really struck me as a cleaner."
"Didn't strike myself as a cleaner." He leaned against the wall and looked at the floor. Toed some fluff on the carpet. "But that's the job."
"The only job?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
"I told you what it's like."
"No, I know—"
"So yeah, it's the only job. Besides, I needed to get myself sorted, didn't I?"
"There wasn't a deadline, Brian. I wasn't going to—"
"How's Danny?"
A pause before she answered. "She's fine."
"Is she there now?"
"No, she's out."
"It's dark."
"She's out with friends."
"That doesn't stop it being dark."
A little impatient now. "She'll be all right, Brian."
"You reckon?"
"Yes."
"You know where she is?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I told you."
"You told me out, is what you told me. Out is not a place."
"Brian, will you just ...?" A sigh, a struggle to maintain composure. "She's perfectly safe, all right?"
"Suppose I'll have to take your word for it." He sniffed. "When's she coming over?"
"I don't know." Another sigh, this one less patient and involuntar
y. Lynne tried to cover it up by clearing her throat. "I mean, you keeping asking about that ..."
"It's just, she didn't come over for Christmas."
"We agreed—"
"Or New Year."
"We agreed on that together."
"I know. So what are we going to do about it?"
"Well, maybe we could do something for her birthday?"
"That's not until August, Lynne."
"Well, you know, you wanted an occasion, didn't you?"
"No, I just wanted to see my daughter." On second thought, holding off until he was settled might not be such a bad idea. Rather than half-arse it, he could make an impression. "But if that's all you're offering—"
"I'll ask her what she wants to do."
"Will you?"
A pause that meant she would, but she'd colour the question. "Of course. But listen, I can't make her come over, you know. At the end of the day, it's still her decision."
It was her decision now. Before Christmas it had been Lynne's. But now Danielle was living with them, she'd had months of melodramas spun by her mother and Crosby, featuring drug cartels and piss-weak fathers, happy endings in Low Fell and tragic consequences on the Derwent Hall. The thought of it made Brian's chest tight, but there was nothing he could do about it but refute what he could and hope for the best. "Well, I'd still like to see her for her birthday, even if she doesn't want to visit."
"I don't know what she's got planned. I mean, she might want to do something with her friends. And she's at that age, you know; she doesn't want to spend her birthday with her parents." Lynne forced a laugh. "I mean, God, we're so uncool, aren't we?"
"Speak for yourself." She was the one hooked up with a copper, after all. "Look, she doesn't have to spend all day with me. She doesn't even have to come round if she doesn't want to. I can just pop across with the present."
"You're getting her something, are you?"
"Of course I am."
Another uncomfortable clearance of the throat – sounded like she was coming down with something. Brian hoped it was fatal. "Okay, great."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a maybe. I'll have to talk to her."
"Champion."
He'd meant it at the time, too. But now that his mind had taken to trudging back through the conversation, he wasn't so sure. Something wasn't right, and it had worried him all the way through the early shift, stopped him from taking his usual afternoon nap, and made him slower than usual as he drank his night away down the Long Ship. Saturday nights, he'd taken to tipping a couple down the pub. It made him feel more like part of the community, less anxious about his neighbours, and more inclined to smile even when he didn't feel like it. Being social was part of life. The more he shut himself away, the less he'd be able to connect with people, the more likely he'd go peculiar, and the less likely he'd ever see Danielle again, so he made the effort. Plus, Saturday night was Charva Don's night to come round the Long Ship with his duty-free brand-name booze and cheap tabs, and it was much easier to be normal when you knew you were well-stocked.
As soon as he got home, Brian cracked the seal on a bottle of Bell's and put on the electric fire. Now he sat in front of the glowing bars, absently chewing a hangnail from his thumb and replaying the conversation with Lynne. It wasn't just the booze that told him Danielle wouldn't come round, wouldn't want to see him. He knew Lynne would do everything in her power to make sure that was the case. But he had to persevere. The moment he didn't, that was the moment he gave up on everything else. Because he really didn't have anything other than Danielle. The realisation made him knock the bottle against his lips, glass bumping against his teeth. A good dent of whisky gone, and the booze in his mouth made his skin burn.
Outside, he heard the noise coming from the end of the cul-de-sac. Music. The usual shit. He got up and went to the window. Tugged at one of the dirty nets and craned to see up the road. The vibration stopped. It was like going deaf. Then he saw that it was dark in the squat. A power cut? No, the glow of his fire told him otherwise. So maybe they'd blown a fuse. But then he reckoned the whole house would've gone down at once, not in stages, and he remembered that the lights were already off when the music died.
He stared at the house a moment longer, then stepped away from the window. It didn't matter. Whatever it was, it had resulted in a bit of peace and quiet for once, and if a bloke couldn't enjoy the small mercies, what could he do?
Brian poured himself a drink this time, a four-finger measure into a half-pint glass he'd nicked from the Long Ship a couple of years ago. He put the bottle down, picked up the glass. Felt like a proper toff. He put the glass to his lips and swallowed some. Tasted better out of a glass. Less backwash, he supposed.
A bang at the front door.
He flinched, spilled whisky. Sucked it from his hand as he turned and stared at the door to the hall.
The door stood slightly open, a chilly draught snaking into the front room.
He didn't move.
"Brian."
That voice again. Outside. Familiar. Terrifying. Bringing back memories, filling in the blanks.
Brian blinked.
His name again. Then: "I'm not pissing about, all right? You need to open up, Brian. Come on."
Brian frowned. At first he'd thought the soldier was shouting. He must have been to be so clear in the front room. But then he realised the soldier was down by the letter box at the front of the house, his mouth pressed to the opening. There was something in the man's voice that hadn't been there the last time they'd talked, and that something rooted Brian to the spot.
"I know you're there, mate. I can see the fire."
Brian glanced behind him. The glow spread out into the hall. He closed his eyes, felt himself sway as he breathed through his nose. Always when he'd been drinking. Always then. Never sober. He shook his head. He didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be a part of this anymore. He'd done what he needed to do. The soldier told him that nobody else needed to know, and now what? Now what did he want with him? This was wrong. It was—
"We don't have time for this, Bri."
When Brian spoke, his words came out in a whimper: "What is it?"
"Got a man hurt. We need to come in."
"Take him to a hospital."
"I can't drive." Still serious, still low, still controlled, but now with an edge that made it sound as if he was one more refusal away from kicking the door off its hinges. "Howeh, Brian. Don't leave us out here, man. Got nowhere else to go."
Brian stepped out into the hall and as he did, he heard another sound coming from outside, like someone was trying to huff away their pain. It reminded him of Lynne when she was in labour with Danielle, all white knuckles, contorted features and flushed face as he stood by with his hand crushed in hers. But this one wasn't pregnant, and he wasn't giving birth. He didn't need to hear the other voice to know who it was. The cab driver, the one who'd driven him home that time, the one who liked the classical music. Their mutual friend. He'd seen him and the soldier in the Long Ship that night, planted in a corner of the pub and looking shifty as fuck.
"Brian."
The door juddered in the frame when he pulled it open, the security chain taut. A whiff of something like thawed meat hit him on the cold breeze. At his door stood the soldier. The cab driver was hanging off the soldier with his head down. A white hand was clamped against the soldier's dark jacket. The hand was blood streaked. Somewhere at his feet, Brian heard the wet tap of blood against concrete.
"Let us in."
Brian shook his head.
The soldier's eyes glittered. "I'm not kidding."
Brian swallowed. "Fuck off."
The cab driver became loud, swung his head at the ground. "You fuckin' what?"
"It's all right, Gav. He's just scared."
"I'm not scared."
"We won't be long, Brian. Just need to call an ambulance."
"Go to your place."
"Can't do that."
"Just across the road, isn't it?"
"I've got a bairn. He's got family. Can't do it."
Brian opened his mouth, then closed it again. He held onto the doorway, felt something ball in his chest, up into his throat where it pulsed painfully and couldn't be swallowed away. The soldier started to speak but Brian leaned the door shut. They weren't coming in. That was final. But they wouldn't go away. He could tell them that he was going to call an ambulance. That would be the end of it then. They could hide somewhere else in the meantime. That would be the sensible thing to do. He couldn't let them in.
He knocked his forehead against the closed door.
Fuck's sake. Fuck's sake.
Brian straightened up, yanked the chain from the door and opened up. He stood to one side as the soldier bundled the cab driver into the house. "Just don't get blood on the carpet, will you?"
18
Joe went straight for the kitchen, his shoulders burning with the effort of dragging Gav behind him. The guy was heavy, a dead weight despite the fact that he was still very much breathing. Gav had given up, that was it. In pain, yes – in considerable pain – but rather than stand up and be a man about it, Gav had buckled and curled, become a burden to shift. For a second there, he thought he'd have to get physical with Brian Turner, too – fucker looked like he was all ready to lock them out in the cold.
So aye, turning into a shitty night all round.
He felt for the light switch and slapped it. Heard the click-buzz of the strips kicking in, saw stuttered illumination before the whole room went white. He blinked, manoeuvred Gav towards the nearest chair and sat him down. Gav swayed. Joe kept him upright, one hand on his chest, the other tugging at the arm of his sweater, which was ripped and tacky with blood. Joe pushed Gav back against the chair, tore up the arm to reveal the wound, already crusted around the edges, but glistening inside.