Belfast Confidential

Belfast Confidential Page 23

by Bateman, Colin

  Surely not.

  May Li was beautiful, and smart, and rich in her own right. Wendy might have convinced some doddery old judge to hand Belfast Confidential over to her, but it was surely just the first skirmish in what might become an extended war. Wendy was strictly Belfast, May Li was international. She had run multi-million-pound businesses, published magazines, run satellite channels; she wasn't going to let a bitter frump like Wendy win the day. May Li would have something up her sleeve. And I was suddenly determined to look up it.

  As I opened the car door, there were footsteps behind me. I glanced back and saw Alec Large hurrying up.

  'I just wanted to say . . .' he started to say.

  I held up my hand to stop him. 'It's all right,' I said. 'I've been sacked before. It's actually for the best. I didn't particularly—'

  But then he stopped me. 'No, I just wanted to say what an arsehole you are, the way you treat your wife.'

  'What?'

  'A little bit of care and consideration would make all the difference.'

  'What?'

  'You treat her like dirt, you speak to her like she's a pain in the hole, and yet she's a fantastic woman and why she sticks by you I've no idea.'

  'I'm sorry?'

  'And so you should be. You behave like—'

  'No – I mean, I'm sorry, but what on earth gives you the right to talk to me like that?'

  'I don't need a right, I'm just stating what's plain for all to see. You treat me like shit, but that's what I'm paid for. But you shouldn't treat your wife like that.'

  I shook my head. I laughed. 'This is so not your business,' I said. I turned back to the car, but before I could climb in he put a strong hand on my shoulder, turned me back and thumped me once across the mouth.

  I staggered back, banging into the car, blood already pouring from my split lip. Alec Large reeled away as well, blood erupting from a long thin line across the top of his knuckles. It was a narrow thing as to who'd come off worst. I wouldn't be kissing anyone for a while, and he wouldn't be tossing any left hooks.

  My lip was swelling up. I found some tissues in the glove compartment and gingerly dabbed at it. Alec was trying to tie a handkerchief around his hand, but it was a difficult thing to do with one hand. I climbed out of the car again. He sat down on the kerb and renewed his efforts. I stood over him. He didn't seem frightened.

  'What the fuck brought that on?' I demanded, nevertheless.

  'You've been asking for it. Things just came to a head.'

  'You're telling me. Jesus Christ, man, I've just been sacked, I really don't need—'

  'So have I!'

  'You?'

  The hanky fell away from his hand. I picked it up and gave it back.

  'They said that technically speaking I was employed by the company, not by May Li. They said there was no longer any reason to protect you.'

  'That didn't mean you had to go out and fucking thump me.'

  'I know that. It was entirely of my own free will.'

  The hanky fell away again.

  'For Christ sake, give me that,' I said, and took it from him. I began to tie it over the impressive wound I'd inflicted on him by striking his knuckles with my teeth.

  He mumbled, 'Thanks.'

  I shook my head. 'You're not married, are you, Alec?'

  'No.'

  'And no girlfriend.'

  'Not at the moment. No.'

  'But when you have, you give them a hundred and fifty per cent, don't you?'

  'Of course. Why not?'

  'Because it's impossible to sustain. It's too much pressure. It drives them away. I find about sixty-five per cent works for me.'

  'Sixty-five?'

  'Sometimes less, sometimes more. And that's exactly what Trish gives to me. Alec, you can't judge other people by your values. Trish and I are just fine.'

  'No, you're not.'

  'Alec.'

  'I've talked to her. We've talked about—'

  'Alec?'

  'What?'

  'Mind your own fucking business. All right?' I finished his bandage and stood back. He glared at me. I glared back. 'All right?' I asked again.

  He gave me a vague kind of a shrug. I shook my head again, and turned back to the car. Alec got to his feet. I started the engine and wound the window down so that I could see to reverse properly. As I passed he said, 'Your tax is out of date.'

  'I know,' I said.

  36

  When I arrived at what had once been Mouse's house, there was a large removal van parked outside and big men in overalls were carrying out the furniture. 'Wendy, you vindictive bitch,' I said under my breath, and hurried up to the open door. There were more men inside. Everything that could be boxed, had been, and was on the move. I called May Li's name, but there was no response; one of the furniture removers barked a gruff, 'She's upstairs.'

  I went up. She was in her bedroom. It was empty. She was standing by the window, looking out. She was wearing a short denim skirt and jacket, with a black T-shirt. Her hair was in a pony tail. 'I saw you parking,' she said, without looking round. 'So you've heard.'

  'Aye. She's a fucking cow, throwing you out like this. Taking the fucking furniture.'

  'She's not taking it, Dan. I'm taking it.'

  'What do you mean? Have you come to some kind of agreement?'

  She turned to look at me, finally, and her eyes were thick; with tears, and her eyeliner looked like it had smudged and dried and smudged and dried. 'No, Dan. No agreement. I'm taking it before she gets the chance to. I have to sell it. It'll pay for my ticket back to Bangkok.'

  'Your what?' I managed a disbelieving laugh. 'What're you talking about?'

  'I'm going home, Dan. Because I can't stay here.'

  'Of course you can. You just have to—'

  'No, Dan, and it's not up to me. The court said my marriage wasn't legal, which means I'm here illegally. I either go now or they'll throw me out.'

  'But you can fight it, put a legal team together. You could be here for years before—'

  'Dan – I can't. I have no money.' She took a deep breath. 'There was never any money.'

  'But . . . you're a publisher . . . the TV stations . . .'

  She shook her head.

  'Then phone your dad. He'll support you.'

  'I can't phone him.'

  'Of course you can!'

  'Dan! He has no phone! He lives in a swamp!'

  Then she burst into tears and began to crumple down. I ran forward and grabbed her and she cried against my chest.

  From downstairs someone shouted, 'We're all done here, love.'

  I held her in my arms for five minutes while she cried, and I could have held her for an hour longer, even though I'd a thousand confusing and accusatory thoughts firing through my brain. Even when she gently pushed me away I did not press her to explain more; the van driver was pumping his horn. She insisted on getting out of the house right away. I did not stop her. In fact, I gave her a lift. We pulled away in the wake of the van, and just as it swept around the first corner I noted in my mirror a small fleet of vehicles swinging into the opposite end of the road. They came to a halt outside Mouse's house, and a moment later Wendy and her solicitors climbed out. May Li didn't look back. Then we were around the corner.

  There are places you can take vanloads of furniture to and they'll give you about a third of its value, no questions asked. But they're no mugs on Donegal Pass; they wanted to take a couple of hours to evaluate what May Li had sent before trying to rip her off. So we walked the extra few hundred yards into the centre of town. We found a bar and I took her in. Heads turned as she entered in exactly the same way that they didn't when I did. She'd fixed her eyes in the car and now sashayed through the bar as if she hadn't a care in the world; or, in fact, as if she owned that world. And if I hadn't known the truth, I might have believed that she did.

  I had a pint of Harp. It was purely medicinal, for the scab on my split lip and the stitches in my head and the confusion i
n my head. She had a glass of water. It sat on the table, as still as she was. She said quietly, 'I am sorry.'

  'What for?'

  'For . . . everything. I just wanted to be with Mouse.'

  'You could have had him without lying.'

  'I didn't lie to him. Well, at first I did, but then he found out, and it didn't matter to him. He loved me.'

  I took a sip of my drink, winced a little, then said, 'Start with the swamp.'

  She nodded. 'It used to be a swamp, then a rich man came and drained it, and in exchange for that, he took me away. My parents did not want me to go, but they had no choice. The rich man lived in the city and he owned a bar and he made me work there.'

  'As a barmaid. A waitress.'

  'No.'

  'Okay.'

  'One night another rich man came in, and he liked me, and he gave me good things. He was a businessman who flew all over the world. He owned magazines and television stations and he wanted me to travel with him. Not just me – many girls. He paid for all of us – to learn English, how to behave in Western society. It was a different world for us and we loved it, and it was worth it, what we had to do. He was good to us. Then he brought me with him to England. To Oxford. A publishing convention. There I met Mouse and for the first time I fell in love, but I had to go home at the end of four days. But Mouse had fallen in love as well, and he could not live without me, so he came to my country and found me and he met the rich man and convinced him to let me leave. We stayed together for two weeks, and at the end of two weeks we were married. Then we came here, and we knew it would be difficult for us if my background became known. So we made a history. I had learned much of publishing in my time with the rich man, so it was not hard to pass myself off. But then my Mouse was murdered, and my life destroyed.'

  She had tears in her eyes again.

  I took a sip of my beer.

  'How did you get into the country if the marriage wasn't legal?'

  'I came on a tourist visa. We were to be married again here. We loved each other. But we were so busy . . . and we thought we had all our lives.' She put her hand on mine. She said, 'You do believe me, Dan?'

  'Of course,' I said. Then after a moment's reflection I added: 'Although a more cynical person might look at it another way – that you suckered Mouse into getting married, but once he found out you were a penniless hooker he tried to dump you but you had him knocked off first, thinking you'd inherit all his money. Only thing is, it turns out you aren't married at all and you inherit fuck all squared in a box. Which I suppose is fair enough, because if you'd died first, all he would have gotten was some shares in a mud hut.'

  She stared at me. 'Is this what you believe?'

  I sat back. I took a deep breath. Another drink. Men at the bar were looking at us. No – it was still May Li they were looking at. She was astonishingly beautiful, and she had ended up with Mouse, who even in his reshaped form was no oil painting. And yet, why not? If I had learned anything in the past few days, especially after examining Concrete Corcoran's paintings, it was that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. If she had fallen for Mouse's qualities as a man as I had once as a friend, then why wouldn't she choose to be with him, in love, rather than spend her best years as the paid concubine of a rich man?

  I set my drink down. 'May Li – I want to believe you. I have to believe you, because it would absolutely kill me to find out that you were somehow involved. Do you know why? Because I know for a fact that Mouse was in love with you, that you totally transformed his life, that I had never seen him so happy. And because of that, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.'

  I had half-expected her tears of sadness to be transformed into tears of gratitude. All through this her hand had remained on mine, soft, warm, a subtle but impossible-to-ignore pressure, skin against skin. Now the pressure grew a little. Then her nails, exquisitely manicured, razor sharp, sliced into me. She jumped to her feet, swept up her glass and threw the contents in my face. My lip was sore already, and now my hand was bleeding and I was soaked.

  'May—' I began.

  But she cut it off with a scream of incandescent rage: 'You give me the benefit of the doubt? Who do you think you are!'

  'May—'

  'I will tell you! You are wanker!'

  She cracked the glass down on the table and stormed out of the bar.

  I sat where I was for a while. I blew air out of my cheeks. I became aware of the guys at the bar looking at me. I shrugged at them. 'Women,' I said.

  37

  I phoned Patricia at work, but they told me she wasn't at her desk. I tried her mobile. When she answered I said, 'Guess what?'

  'What?'

  'May Li was a hooker.'

  'Really?'

  'Yup. And she's just sold all of Mouse's furniture and made a run for the airport.'

  'Really? Why would she do that?'

  'Because it turns out her marriage wasn't legal, and Mouse never got divorced, so Wendy now owns Belfast Confidential. In fact, she called into the office to tell me personally, and then gave me five minutes to clear my things.'

  'Christ, Dan.'

  'She lied though. She only really gave me about three. But it was plenty of time.'

  'Oh Dan. I'm sorry.'

  'I'm not.'

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yes. Kind of.'

  'Well – everything wall be all right.'

  'I know.'

  'Although it's a pity you burned your bridges at the Belfast Telegraph. I did warn you.'

  'I know that. You were right. Once again. So what are we going to do?'

  'Well, we have my wage. And we don't have to eat every day, do we?'

  A car pumped its horn from her end. I said, 'Where are you?'

  'Just – driving around.'

  'What do you mean, driving around?'

  'What I say, driving around. Just driving.'

  'But why?'

  'Just – felt like it.'

  'Trish? What's wrong?'

  'Nothing's wrong. Can't a girl go for a drive if she feels like it?'

  'Well, you're a civil servant, so you probably can. But I'd say it's not like you, and that something's troubling you.'

  'Well, there's not. I just fancied a drive.'

  'Trish.'

  'Honestly.'

  'Is it me again?'

  'No.'

  'Or a delayed reaction to Liam Miller?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Trish – talk to me.'

  She took a deep breath. 'Dan – Mouse is dead. He was our Mend. And our boy is dead, and I know he wasn't really yours, and I desperately want to have another baby, with you this time, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. And you got beaten up by the police and then Liam got killed in our hall and sometimes I think that this is going to go on for ever – you know, this cycle of brief periods of being very, very happy and then there's violence and people die and I spend every waking minute worrying about you or checking under my car in case there's a bomb, or I'm scared to go upstairs at night in case there's someone waiting for me. I don't want to keep living like this, Dan, and I know we used to joke that you were like a shit-magnet, but I think you really are and as much as I love you it worries me that there's always going to be this edge to our life. Some people might like living on the edge, Dan, but I'm getting too old for it and I don't know for how much longer I can do it.'

  'Trish – I said talk to me, not bore the arse off me.' Before she could respond in a suitable fashion I said, 'Trish, I love you. I know it's been hectic and dangerous, but I'm out of it now.'

  'You might be out of Belfast Confidential. But you're still going to find out about Mouse.'

  'Well yes, of course. You asked me to, remember?'

  'I know I did. But I forgot what it was like, and I don't like it.'

  'It won't last for ever.'

  'I know – but what if we don't last for ever? What if one of us dies? And the chances are it will be me, because you always
seem to pull through.'

  I sighed. 'Trish. It's just the way things are. And they were quiet for a long time. And we were happy, weren't we? Mouse died, it wasn't our fault, but we owe it to him to find out what happened, don't we?'

  'Yes, I suppose.'

  'Well, then.'

  'I know, but – I just don't ever see it ending. Alec doesn't think you'll ever—'

  'Alec?'

  'He doesn't think you'll ever change.'

  'Oh great. Well, it's important what he thinks. When the fuck were you talking to him?'

  'About twenty minutes ago.'

  'Twenty? But you're . . . you mean he came to your office?'

  'Yes. Don't be angry, Dan.'

  'Why the fuck did he come to your office?'

  'He asked me to move in with him.'

  'WHATTT?!'

  'He asked me to move in with him. He says he's fallen in love with me.'

  'Jesus Christ All Mighty!'

  'Yes, I know.'

  'I hope you told him to fuck off!'

  'Well – not exactly.'

  'Trish! For fuck sake. You're not . . . you haven't been . . . Trish?'

  She was silent for maybe ten seconds. Then she laughed gently. 'No, Dan. But got you worried, didn't I?'

  I breathed out a long sigh of relief. 'Don't do that to me.'

  'If you'd heard him go on about all your obvious problems. And he just about nailed every single one.'

  'Christ All Mighty.'

  'He brought me flowers to work.'

  'Christ All Mighty.'

  'And we went for coffee.'

  'Christ All Mighty.'

  'And he listed all your faults . . . and sympathised with my suffering.'

  'Jesus H Christ on a stick.'

  'And then he said he'd fallen absolutely and totally in love with me and wanted me to come away with him, right then right now.'

  'Trish?'

  'Oh yes, and he said how happy he would make me, and also that he could protect me, and treasure me, and that he had an exceptionally large penis.'

 

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