by Dermot Healy
I approached him.
The others went quiet. I knew I was overdoing it, but I couldn’t stop myself.
That’s not what you said a moment ago, I said.
Is he a fucking echo chamber or what? said Scots Bob.
If you don’t take him away, said Silver John, I won’t be responsible for what will happen.
His crowd gathered. At any moment I knew he would turn on me.
Why can’t you tell me? I say.
You fuck off! shouted Scots Bob.
No, I say.
You want me to sort him out John?
You’re out of your depth, says one of his friends.
Never mind that, I say.
Silver John goes to walk away and I lay a hand on his shoulder. He freezes and turns round slowly. In the street light it looks like he is wearing a wig. His black mane of hair makes his eyebrows huge. He grabs my hand in his and begins to squeeze it. The huge rings gouge in. He looks into my eyes for the first spurt of pain. This woman who is there shouts, Stop, John!
Go away, Meg, he says.
Stop, she says. He’s only –
I want to know what happened my friend, I say.
He smiles at me.
Someone take this fucker away, he says, releasing my hand, before I kill him.
He stands there smiling with his hands in his coat pockets but I go closer to him. He looks one way then the other. Scots Bob brings his knee fast up into my stomach. I go down.
I told you, said Silver John. The other fellow is on top of me. And that’s how I know what blows feel like.
23
the door please
I woke in a small flat in Wood Green on a settee in a plumber’s kitchen. He was shaving in the mirror and his wife was blow-drying her hair. One of his eyes was closed.
I sat up.
Stay there, he said, go back to sleep.
Thank you for looking after me, I said.
It was nothing.
You took a bad hiding, said his wife.
Jesus, I said.
He’s dangerous, said the plumber. That man is a dangerous fucker.
The woman was hanging wet clothes on a wooden clothes hanger in front of a gas Superser. She hung shirts, knickers, socks.
Will you have a cup of tea? she asked me.
I will, I said.
Stay there and I’ll bring it to you.
I drank the tea and lay down.
Do us a favour, she said, and turn off the fire before you go.
Then I heard a door close, other bodies start moving overhead, a woman’s voice, then nothing. When I woke again it was late afternoon. I was terrified that some of the clothes might have burnt. I turned off the fire. On the table was a loaf of bread, teabags and an egg. I sat in the strange flat for an hour, maybe longer, feeling like staying there but knowing I had to go sometime. I didn’t want them to come back and find me there. So I stepped outside, but didn’t want to close the door. If I closed the door I might never get back in. So I went into the kitchen for maybe another hour then I wrote a note and left. This time I pulled the door to before I changed my mind.
I got directions for the tube and found myself again standing at the entrance to the underground outside the Lag. I looked in.
You still alive? asked the barman.
“Mrs McCloud’s Reel”
Next Monday morning I turned up at this yard I’d been told about. They were hiring all manner of people for casual work. A bus had broke down on me so I was late. I arrived at seven-thirty after leaving the house an hour before to find that nearly all the lorries and vans were full of men chatting quietly in different languages.
I walked over to one of the subcontractors sitting in the cab to explain my situation.
What happened you? he asked.
I got held up, I said.
I mean, what happened to your face?
Nothing, I said.
You’re some tulip.
Is there a chance of a start?
Sorry, boss, he said.
Please, I said.
No way. He shook his head. He mustn’t have liked you, whoever he was.
I went on to another lorry that was pulling out, held up my hand and stepped up on the running board.
Any chance, I asked, of a day’s work?
We have our quota.
I’m after coming all the way from Clapham.
And I’ve come from fucking Slough! shouted a fellow behind.
Tell us this, said the driver. Who did that to you?
A fucker called Silver John.
You what?
The driver looked at the subee and the subee kept his head facing forwards as if I wasn’t there and just lifted his finger and pointed ahead. The driver hit the ignition and the subcontractor wound the window up. Just before they accelerated off he stared at me through the glass and moved his lips saying something I couldn’t make out. The lorry began moving. I let go of the handle and dropped down. The men in the back of the lorry averted their eyes. They moved off onto the streets like survivors from some catastrophe. It was then that I heard in the back of my head “Mrs McCloud’s Reel”.
looking for the start
They put out a number on me. When I turned up in the yard for the start next morning and the morning after none of the gangers took me on. It was You! You! and You! but not me. No eye would light on mine. I was bad news. I’m maybe five foot nine, tall enough to be seen, but still I was left with the winos and the hardmen as the lorries drove off towards the airports and the diggings.
Every morning it was the same story. I was a man looking for work. I just came to the yard every day with my bag of tools. I had to leave the house at half-past six and take the tube to Kilburn, the Mirrors and the Suns out, the lamp-lit city, then get down, walk a little, take a bus, two stops, walk up Meadow Street and into the yard where crowds of men from Romania and Russia, Serbia and Ireland stood chatting in a cloud of smoke.
The lorries pulled in and the gangers stood out the back and said You! You! and You! like they were picking a football team.
Then they were gone and we that were left behind went and sat in a small park and ate our sandwiches and waited.
So they won’t take you on? this drinking man called Jack Mannion of Manchester asked me.
No.
So what did you do on them?
Nothing.
Are you a druggie or what?
It’s not like that, I said.
It never is, he said.
the chessplayers
I went morning after morning but got nowhere. At least my face healed. Then this client from Serbia suggested to Jack Mannion that a few of us might do a bit of washing up and general kitchen work at some hotels in the city.
He knew a chef on the job. So for a few days I found myself off Regent’s Park in a dungeon with white plaster walls and oak doors, dropping spuds into a peeler while people walked overhead on the pavement above. The chef introduced us to a seasonal job in Regent’s Park proper, in a type of cafeteria, outside which the chessplayers, mostly East European, sat on an open veranda playing chess throughout the day, sometimes into the early evenings. Beyond the wide windows they set clocks, studied their opponents, wandered off to watch games at other tables or else lined up on deck chairs and white iron seats to meet the champion, a small nimble-fingered Estonian in a blue-and-red woollen beret. If it rained they came indoors, but mostly they sat out under the trees, not speaking till a game would suddenly stop with a flurry, then each move was argued backwards, the new man sat in and the quiet began again.
I served them lemonade, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, and all manner of coffees.
It was a bright breezy place with kites rising into the air and in the distance people on horseback. Lads played soccer. Girls drank white wine with pink marshmallows. Bearded Jewish men sipped lemon tea. Wolves howled in the zoo. I was happy enough. I might even have forgotten my situation. They gave me a nice waiter’s uniform and Mannio
n walked round behind me with a sweeping brush. The job ended when the waiters who had been on holiday returned. Mannion and me found ourselves back in the yard at seven the following morning.
On the first truck that backed into the yard stood Silver John and Scots Bob.
Them’s the fuckers, I said to Jack.
Silver John got up to pick his gang. The Serbs went up onto their toes. He picked men to the right of me and men to the left till I was on my own. He even picked Jack Mannion. Then he jumped down off the lorry and came over and tapped me on the shoulder.
You! he said.
What?
You.
the chat
I was not sure I was doing the right thing as I climbed onto the lorry with the other men. Silver John got into the cab with the driver and took one long look around at me and smiled. We stopped off at a caff at eight for breakfast. Some men had steaks, some had beans. Silver John had chips and sausages and pulled up a chair opposite me.
I want to have a chat with this man, he said to Mannion. Mannion moved to another table.
So how are things? asked Silver John.
Things are fine.
I heard the gangers wouldn’t touch you.
That’s true.
So, you see what happens in this town when you start wrongly accusing a man. He forked a sausage. Did you find what happened to your mate?
No.
Well, I had nothing to do with it, he said.
I didn’t say you had. I was only asking what you knew.
How would I know anything?
Someone told me.
Someone? he said. he lowered his fork and studied his rings. Who?
A friend of mine.
Well, he should have keep his trap shut. He put more red sauce on the edge of his plate and wiped it with a slice of bread. He laid a hand flat on the table. Now listen.
I’m listening.
You annoyed me once, don’t annoy me again. He lit a cigarette. You’re putting out a story about me.
I’m not.
I heard, he whispered. The men told me. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. He stirred his tea and drummed a tune with his fingers on the table top. Do you want to keep this job?
I don’t mind.
Well, let’s forget about the other night. Right? I don’t want anyone thinking the wrong thing about me. Right?
Right, I said.
And your friend never worked for me. I had no job going in Hammersmith. OK?
OK, I said.
He got up.
Everyone got up and followed him to the till.
Heave!
We pulled in beside a drain along Ealing Broadway. Ahead, a JCB tore a path for us. The winch whined and Scots Bob strolled the pavement shouting Heave! Heave! I can still hear him. Behind me a man puked and said, Dear God. Heave! Dear God. Heave! Shut him up, someone. Heave! Dear God. Heave! A lane of angry traffic moved beside us. Heave! People watched from the tops of buses.
In front of me Mannion was hauling the cable when his trousers gave. He stood up and gingerly fingered the split on his backside. Jesus, he said. Heave! He bent down to pull and his balls appeared through the hole. Heave! As we came back on our heels his balls disappeared again. In and out, up and down they went all day like a yo-yo. By the time we had finished that evening I knew John Mannion’s balls very well.
Silver John handed me a fifty as I stepped down off the lorry.
There’s more where that came from, he said. He tapped his nose and winked. Mr Ewing, isn’t it?
That’s right, I said. Ollie.
Well, Ollie, and he shook my hand, I’ll see you in the morning.
Myself and Mannion strolled through Finsbury Park.
You’ll have to watch yourself from this out, partner, he said. Keep a cool head and a dry butt. He’s a wrong’un.
I know.
24
let the hare sit
The following Friday was pay-day. The lorry stopped outside The Lag. I was dreading this – that I’d be seen in the company of the men that clocked me. This was bad news. Silver John came round from the cab. Bob was on duty. We followed the subee through the swing doors.
Evenin’, says Bob to me. No hard feelings, huh?
He offered his hand.
And I took it.
I did.
I took it.
The place was full of labouring men and the same underground workers. Lester Piggot looked worse than ever and now there were bad versions of Irish songs coming over the jukebox.
I hung back and let Mannion go to the bar. Silver John sat down at the table I’d seen him at before. The wad of money came over the bar, was counted, went back again. Silver John took out a cheque book, looked up at the first man and wrote out a figure. The man handed the cheque to Scots Bob. Scots Bob entered the amount in a ledger. Then the landlord paid the cash over the bar. I presented myself because I wanted to get out of there fast.
Hi you, the barman shouted.
Yeh? I said.
I don’t want any trouble, he said.
Leave him be, said Silver John. He’s a friend of mine.
You’re joking.
He’s one of us now.
The barman looked at me very uncertainly.
If you say so, John, he said.
He’s my mate now, too, said Scots Bob.
Oh?
What are you having, Ollie? Silver John asked as he wrote out my name.
I’m all right. I’m leaving.
What’s your hurry? he said grinning. Go on, have something.
A pint. I’ll have a pint.
A pint for the lad and one for Mr Mannion. He handed me the cheque.
I was turning away when I saw the plumber who had befriended me in the fight. He must have come in the door just in time to hear all that had been said. He looked at me in consternation.
What sort of a bollacks are you? he said quietly.
He glanced at Silver John.
What the fuck is going on?
I’ll explain, I mumbled.
Then Silver John rose from his table.
And give my friend a pint too, he called.
I’ll buy my own, thank you, said the plumber.
Makes no odds to me, said the subcontractor and he went back to his cheques. Makes no odds to me, son.
Mannion put a hand on my knee.
Let the hare sit, he said.
hold it there
I waited till I saw the plumber going to the toilet and followed him down the steps into the basement.
He stopped and turned outside the ladies.
Keep well away from me, he said.
Just give me a minute.
What the fuck do you want?
I want to talk to you.
I think, he said very slowly, that you mean trouble.
He stepped into the gents and I went with him.
Look, I said, I know what you’re thinking.
He stepped straight into a cubicle and pulled to the door.
I know what I’m doing, I called.
Are you still here? he said.
I took the job because I had to.
Do you know what you can do?
What?
Keep it for a year and a day.
I’m serious.
You want to watch it, big fella.
I will.
Look, he said, can a man not have a shit in privacy?
All right.
Do you hear me?
I do.
Then hold it there, just hold it there.
In came Scots Bob.
Anything wrong here?
No.
Good, he said.
Some other men came in, so I went back to the bar. For the rest of the night the plumber kept his back to me and we didn’t speak no more. I had lost a decent man.
a clout
On the Monday I was dropped off near the airport with another bloke. Planes flew low over our heads and the traffic poured
alongside us. We were heeling kerb stones all morning together.
You with John long? I asked him.
A while.
So you know him well?
What are you getting at?
Nothing.
The best thing you could do, he said, is mind your business. John is John.
All right.
All right, fuck. He has a lot of things going, has John. I wouldn’t like to cross him.
No.
He straightened up.
I was there the night he did ya, you know.
I don’t remember.
If I was to hit you a clout you’d remember, he said, and laughed.
is this a Free House?
One evening the gang came back to the yard and we climbed down from the lorry. Silver John, as he did each evening, sat in a Ford Sierra with his two minders. He beckoned me over.
Ollie, he said, you’re south London?
That’s right.
Well, we’re going that way.
OK, I said.
I got into the back beside him. He clapped a hand on my knee.
So where are we for?
Clapham North.
Good enough.
I saw Mannion eyeing me as the car turned into the traffic.
This is Ollie, said Silver John. And this is Phil.
How are ya doing?
Fine, said the driver.
And that fellow there is Bert.
All right? said Bert, without turning.
We came by Finsbury, Islington and Victoria. The car smelled of sweat, eau de Cologne and a strong whiff of aftershave from Bert whose chin was smooth, almost silky. Every so often Phil shrugged his shoulders and sighed. It was a long journey. I was in the back all right with Silver John. I seemed to be all alone in the world with him and I smelt something else – fear. He asked for Willie Nelson. The tape played as we swung through the traffic like there was no such thing as gravity or home or rings around Saturn. I had jumped ahead in time to where we might land up. A fellow at a set of traffic lights washed our windscreen. I could see his smiling face swirl round in the suds. For a few seconds the city disappeared and we were in this car with the windscreen blinded. Then Phil hit the wipers and the lad stepped back.