Freya said nothing but adopted an attitude of aloof disdain. She'd been practising and had it nailed. This lot, she thought, couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery (apart from Tariq, who could run a piss-up in Mecca). Tom recognized, with circular logic, that if they were all going then he had to go too since, apart from Mr and Mrs Khan, he was the only one with a car.
Ami grumbled that they could say what they liked but she wasn't going anywhere. She said that she still couldn't see any thrills in the proposed mission and she didn't say that Emma had pissed her off besides. This briefly led to further arguments (which had Freya tutting and sighing) until Emma pointed out that it didn't really matter since Ami was effectively implicated anyway as she'd already started work in the bank. ‘Whatever,’ Ami said but she wouldn't look up from the mini-display of her DVC.
Tariq, whose lager fuzz had now been largely cleared by the whisky, was becoming absurdly garrulous and enthusiastic. ‘It'll be brilliant,’ he babbled as he gave Kwesi a refill. ‘Buy some guns, rob some banks, brilliant! It's got to be better than predictive bloody technology, anyway. I'll tell you something, I bet my smart-arse computer didn't predict I was going to rob a bloody bank!’
Tariq thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever said (possibly even heard, trumping the depressed pigeons) and doubled up in hysterics. He then farted accidentally, belched violently and winced as though he'd just taken a mouthful of god-knows-what. He quickly poured himself another.
Kwesi immediately held out his glass again. Having abandoned any affectation of poise, he was eagerly playing catch-up. He was certainly well aware that the whole lot of them piling into two cars with a baby on board and driving to a Brixton car park to buy guns was a bad idea (and it didn't take his imagined experience with Ghanaian gangsters to tell him that). Nonetheless, he'd signed up for this madness and they'd all agreed that he was going so he felt a good deal happier to be one of six (six and a half, including Tommy) than of four.
It's arguable that if they'd taken the time to, variously, sober up and calm down, they might have come up with a different plan, even abandoned the scheme altogether. But they didn't take the time. Because it was about then that Murray finally turned up and, typically for Murray, he made quite an entrance (albeit a very untypical one).
Karen answered the door but the others all heard her exclamation – ‘Jesus Christ!’ – and, when Murray stumbled into the living-room, they each dropped similar and some fruitier curses. He looked terrible. In fact, more than that, he looked like someone else (no mean feat for someone who generally looked like anyone).
It's hard to know where to start. He was wearing a grey T-shirt with a blue hoodie knotted at the waist of his dark jeans. Just below his left shoulderblade, the thin marl was clinging to his flesh and a dark, wet patch of what could only be blood covered a large part of the material. His right hand was still knotted with the silk scarf Freya had given him in the shop but it too was now black and soiled. Worst of all, his face looked like a Picasso. His left eye was grotesquely swollen, gummed shut with yellow pus and seemingly balanced on the bulbous purple ledge where his cheekbone was supposed to be. It gave his whole aspect a bizarre, cartoonist lopsidedness that was both repellent and oddly sympathetic. Or was that worst of all?
Later, when Tom recalled Murray's appearance, what he remembered most was the colour of his skin. Or rather its lack. In certain lights at certain times Tom knew Murray could look black, white, Asian or any cocktail of any races you'd care to name. But now – was it just in this light, at this time? – he looked like… like he'd been drained. Tom couldn't express it any better than that. His skin tone was somehow dull and transparent all at once. This is not to say that you could see his veins or the definition of his musculature; rather the opposite. It was as though he were actually no more than a particularly dense fog; real and present but if you tried to touch him you'd be scared he'd dissolve in your fingers. Tom thought that was the worst.
Later, when Emma recalled his appearance, what she remembered most was the smell that seemed to flood the room when he entered. It was a smell she recognized at the same time as it was utterly unfamiliar, as if the overwhelming strength of it had transformed it into something of a completely different nature. The stench was so visceral it almost seemed to take shape and Emma imagined great hulking brutes that represented tag teams of armpits and arseholes, drains and dishwater, abattoirs and ashtrays, cocks and cunts slugging it out invisibly in the wrestling ring of the living-room. Emma thought that was the worst.
Perhaps because he didn't know the origins of any of Murray's individual wounds or perhaps because he was so bladdered, it was Tariq who was first to frame his expletives into something like a question: ‘Fucking fuck! What the fuck happened to you?’
Murray attempted a smile but, with the state of his face, it was a freakish expression that matched nothing in Tom's database. And was it Tom's imagination or did he really spot black gaps in Murray's mouth where teeth used to be? Surely his single punch couldn't have caused damage like that. ‘This and that, china,’ Murray said. ‘You know how it goes.’
‘But what happened to your face?’ Tariq asked and he half-expected him to launch into some cock-and-bull story about bare-knuckle boxing in a Dartford dive, a bar fight with fifteen Frenchmen or a kicking from Combat 18. Consequently he was half disappointed when Murray said simply, ‘I slipped.’
‘You slipped!’
‘Yeah.’
‘What about your back?’ This was Ami.
Awkwardly Murray turned to her and his one good eye looked puzzled. ‘My back?’
‘What on earth happened? You look like you've been cut.’
He tried to shrug but the movement sent a shiver of pain through him. ‘Like I said, china. I slipped.’
‘And your hand?’
‘That?’ Murray's face curled into the same ghoulish smile. ‘That was a pigeon.’
‘For god's sake…’ Tariq began. But he was interrupted by his wife, who exclaimed a little louder than was necessary, ‘No. It was, Riq. Me and Ami were there, weren't we?’
There was a heartbeat's hush. Then another. ‘Whatever, Muz,’ Karen said softly. ‘We're going to have to take you to casualty.’
‘What?’
‘You need to see a doctor. You look awful.’
Murray shook his head. ‘For a few cuts and bruises, Kazza? You're joking. I'm fine and, besides, we've got work to do, haven't we? We should be going soon so who's coming?’
Freya said, ‘We all are.’
‘Except me,’ Ami added.
‘Right then,’ Murray nodded and suddenly seemed to regain some of his usual assurance. ‘Just give me something to eat and clean me up a bit and I'll be right as rain.’
Kwesi started to laugh but managed to cork it. ‘Yeah, man. I hate to say this Murray, man, but you really hum.’
Emma took control then. She led Murray upstairs by the hand, found him a fresh towel and left him to shower. She shouted down to her husband, ‘Riq! Can you find me the first-aid box.’
‘What first-aid box?’
‘It's in the cupboard to the left of the hob.’
Tariq rummaged, drunk and half-hearted, but couldn't find it so Emma had to look for herself. She took out the antiseptic, bandages and sticky plaster. Then she opened the fridge. She had in fact stocked up on all kinds of snacks for this evening, to give her friends something to chow on before they left. But she'd forgotten all about them what with all the fussing. She'd bought some boneless chicken breasts especially for Murray and she fetched them out and tipped them on to a plate. She realized that the shock of Murray's appearance and her consequent busyness had calmed her down no end.
Tariq was watching her blurrily. ‘You're such a housewife!’ It was a comment that, once upon a time, would have infuriated her but now she could take it on the chin. In fact, she almost agreed.
Next door, the others were sitting in near silence. Kwesi was helping himself to more booze
while Ami had returned to her camera. Tom was rocking his godson on his lap. Freya watched him curiously and Karen watched Freya and then said, ‘K. Can you pour a little one for me?’ At some point, Kwesi tried, ‘Is it just me or is this really weird? I mean, cool, cool, you know? But weird.’ The rest made vague noises of agreement but had their own reasons to find that they didn't feel like talking.
When she heard the shower pump click off, Emma headed back upstairs with her makeshift medical supplies and the plate of chicken. The bathroom door was open, billowing steam, and she realized Murray must be in their – her and Tariq's – bedroom. Her stomach tumbled as she knocked on the door.
Murray was sitting on the edge of the bed with a towel around his waist. He looked forlorn, pathetic, and Emma didn't reject the feelings of intimacy that rose in her because they were compassionate rather than sexual. She was sure that nobody else had ever seen Murray like this; a fleeting hopelessness and naivety in his eyes. Until recently, of course, she would have been right but Freya had already seen momentary flashes of the same as he sat on her counter; Karen, too, high above London in the Oxo Tower.
Murray said, ‘I figured I could borrow one of Riq's T-shirts.’
‘Sure,’ Emma said. ‘Of course.’
Then neither of them spoke at all as she tenderly swabbed and dressed his back and hand. She cleaned his palm and covered it with gauze and a pad of cotton wool before wrapping it tightly. But, even as she did so, a new stain began to spread across the material. This close to him, she began to notice the same stench again; only now it sickeningly mingled with the artificial, sweet perfume of soap.
When she turned to his shoulder, she discovered her original bandage, wet from the shower, hanging limp and filthy. She gingerly pulled it away and the wound she revealed somersaulted her already fragile guts. Though she wasn't squeamish, she'd never seen something like this before. It looked somehow fresh and fetid at once. The lips still held a vague pinkish tinge but they were attached to strips of grey, dead skin that, steeling herself, she snipped away with scissors. Murray couldn't feel it and he didn't flinch. The heart of the cut was still wet and bloody – which was odd because its colour was dark, the colour of clotting. She mopped and patched it as best she could.
She knelt in front of him and he was as docile as a trusting child as she rubbed a little antiseptic into the welt on his cheek and carefully around the eye socket. She said, ‘I can't really do much about this. Unless I give you an eye patch.’ She tried to inject a lightness to her voice but, in spite of herself, it crackled with doubt. ‘This one will heal on its own,’ she tried.
‘Sure, china,’ he said. ‘That's fine.’
Emma sat back on her haunches and contemplated Murray's battered face. The pitiful expression had vanished and left no shadows. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Apart from the pain? Yeah. Good.’
‘No. But, I mean, the… on your shoulder. It hasn't healed at all. Are you sick?’
‘Me?’ Murray did his lopsided smile. ‘I'm ticketyboo. I thought you were the one who was sick. How are you doing?’
‘I'm better.’
‘And how's Tariq?’
She shrugged. ‘Drunk.’
‘And you and Tariq?’
She stared at him for a moment, trying to read his expression. Then she frowned and shook her head. ‘I brought you something to eat,’ she said. ‘I'll leave you to get dressed.’
When she was gone, Murray discarded the towel and examined his reflection in the wardrobe's full-length mirror. He shut his good eye and stood like that for a moment. Then he tilted his head contemplatively. He wasn't thinking but at some instinctive level there was some overwhelming realization growing inside him; something so basic and so inevitable that it required no more processing than, say, hunger. He blinked at himself and his eyes pricked with a feeling that wasn't pain.
He found a can of Tariq's deodorant. It was lying on the floor, fallen from the chest of drawers. He picked it up and sprayed himself all over, holding the nozzle down for a full minute until he began to wheeze, shrouded in a mist called Cool Blue, and his whole body was covered in a fine white powder. He dressed as quickly as he could. The clean T-shirt took the longest since his left arm was almost immobile. He slipped on the hoodie and zipped it right to the neck.
He sat on the edge of the bed, rested the plate on his lap and began to tuck in to the white meat with mechanical haste, each of the four breasts requiring no more than two giant mouthfuls. He couldn't remember the last time he ate. It must have been a packet of Sankar the sadhu's chicken roll. He sat for a moment with his right hand resting on his stomach and his eyes darted towards the door. He hadn't time to reach the main bathroom so he made for the en suite instead. He knelt over the pan, shut his eyes and regurgitated the food in four mighty retches. He flushed the toilet and stood up. He felt a little better. He pressed the heel of his gored, bandaged palm into the bruise of his left eye. He opened his eyes and checked his reflection again, this time in the mirror over the basin. He looked a little better, too; a little less grotesque. He strode out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
Tom was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. ‘You all right, Muz?’
Murray sat down on the top step and rested his elbows on his knees. He peered down at Tom, narrowed his good eye as though staring from a great distance and stretched a strange smile. This one had no number; with the freakery of Murray's face, classification was impossible.
‘I'm losing faith, china,’ Murray said. ‘You know what that's like, right?’
‘Losing faith in what?’
‘I don't know. In my friends. I mean… you know what that's like.’
‘Yeah,’ Tom said and momentarily his tone hissed with acid. ‘Yeah. I do.’
‘You're not going to let me down are you, china?’
‘Murray!’ Tom exclaimed. ‘In the robbery? I never let you down. Not when it comes to Murray-fun.’
‘I'm not talking about that. I just mean in… I don't know… in life. Because I only wanted to look out for you, you know? Like I said I would. Ten years ago. That's what I said. But I feel like I've come to a realization. I feel like this is my moment of truth.’
‘Moment of truth?’ Tom almost choked to hear Tejananda's psychobabble thrown back at him. ‘What's your Moment of Truth?’
Murray suddenly appeared puzzled and his voice came out at a whisper that Tom couldn't decipher. ‘It's something I read,’ he muttered. ‘I think I'm dead, you know?’ And then he tried it louder. ‘Dead.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I said I think I'm dead.’
Tom gazed up at him and tutted; then tried an expression of mild concern. ‘What are you talking about? You all right, Muz?’
Murray snorted, an odd spasmodic sound somewhere between a gurgle and a laugh. ‘Yeah, china. I'm good. I guess it's about time we got going.’
21
Sainsbury's car park
They went in convoy, Tom leading the way in the old Mazda his dad had given him and the Volvo following behind. Karen automatically made for the Mazda's passenger seat and Murray slid in the back and lifted the hood of his top and pulled the drawstrings tight so that he looked like a boxer after a hard fight. With these two for passengers, Tom thought it might be an opportunity to address a ten-year-old secret. The timing could have been a lot better, of course, but he had a vague sensation of urgency; like he might not get another chance. But then Emma, who had her drunken husband next to her and Kwesi amusing the baby in the back, suggested Tom took Freya too. Tom said ‘no problem’ but obviously the extra passenger (especially considering who it was) ruled out that particular plan.
Ami waved them off from the door.
It was only a ten-minute drive and the roads were quiet, which was reassuring; alongside Clapham Common, into the High Street with its shuttered pubs, and a shimmy right and left to Acre Lane with its ghost-town atmosphere of boarded takea
ways and litter blowing like tumbleweeds. Nobody spoke. Tom wondered if the others were nervous. He wasn't. He was thinking about the webs of secrecy. He knew that she knew about them while she didn't know that she knew and she didn't know that he knew. As for him? He knew everything. That kind of thing.
He pulled into the supermarket car park and it was, thank god, deserted apart from Kush's BMW parked right in the middle of the space. The man himself was leaning on the bonnet. He was wearing a black leather coat, smoking a cigarette between his forefinger and thumb, looking every inch the gangster.
‘He's on his own,’ Karen said. ‘That's good.’ She suddenly realized they were actually going to go through with it and there was no backing out now.
Tom parked facing the Beamer's nose and Emma pulled in alongside. Karen got out first with Tom next to her and Freya just behind. Kwesi and Tariq were side by side, the former now every bit as drunk as the latter. Emma had planned to leave Tommy in the car but he was grizzling. She took a moment to slip him into his harness and he quietened a little with his head next to her heartbeat. Murray was skulking at the back.
At the sight of this motley group, Kush started laughing. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he said and flicked his butt. ‘What are you doing to me, Kaz? Who the fuck are this bunch of motherfuckers?’
Karen said, ‘Let's get on with it. Have you got them?’
‘Got them? Got what exactly?’
‘Come on, Kush. The guns.’
‘The guns?’ He widened his eyes in ham amazement. ‘I've no idea what you're talking about, love.’ He looked directly at Kwesi, who seemed to shrink beneath the weight of it. ‘You know what she's talking about? No? What about you?’ He turned his attention to Tariq and his expression suddenly fixed with recognition. ‘Well! Look who it is! If it's not the Paki hard man. How's the nose? Fucking hell, Kaz. All these years and you're still hanging out with the same lot of losers? I have to say I'm disappointed.’
The London Pigeon Wars Page 29