I didn’t have a clue, mate. But I knew I’d have to do something. And something fucking drastic.
Help.
But I was about to find out.
Three magic words
It was something Miriam said when I was round at hers one night. Three words. Three short words. That’s where the idea came from.
Let’s run away.
Never had three words spoken to me so acutely before. They fizzed round my body like a really good pill.
Yes. Run away!
And before I could stop myself saying it, I said it.
Brilliant.
Her eyes lit up. And so began Project Mim. I got carried along with it at first. The two of us. Running away. Going abroad, and just sacking off our lives.
I couldn’t bear to be in the house since Bishop’s death. Everything I owned reminded me of him and what he’d done. I’d see him peering down at me in the refectory that day, and what might have been. I saw Sam clutching his bag of ‘evidence’ – God knows what he had in there. I’d started to look at the family as if through glass, like they were exhibitions at an art gallery and I couldn’t touch them or get through to them; as if they too were products of what had happened, of what I’d done. And here was a solution: get out. Stay out. Never come back. And all these emotions I was feeling would disappear. I hoped.
My life had become staid. A life I’d thought I’d wanted, but now I had it, it provided me with no solace or contentment. The longer I skimmed along in it, with its middle-class pretensions and its Lucys and Dylans and online grocery deliveries and farm shops and prize days in cathedrals, the more I hated it. Pile onto that the ugly poison of what I’d done for Bishop, and . . . I think the American phrase was ‘enough already’.
Yet here was a get-out clause. Here was a way of leaving everything behind and starting again. I missed the adrenalin rushes of the early days and wanted them back. The days when I looked over my shoulder. The days when I only had to think of number one. Yes, that’s selfish, but it’s honest.
But if I wasn’t benefiting from Bishop’s money – if it was just the kids and Natalie, who knew frig all about it – maybe that was a good thing, an altruistic thing, for me to let them live that life and for me to escape it.
I know it sounds mad, but that made such sense to me right then.
The kids. I bet they would say, ‘He wasn’t much cop as a dad.’ Natalie was the natural. I was the one doing things as if I was a dad. Not as a dad. I know most parents think they’re useless at parenting; I was different. I knew. I had instinct and nous – I just didn’t have the patriarch gene. I’d see the confusion in their eyes when they looked at me. When I mentioned it to Natalie she’d say I was imagining it, that I wasn’t used to intimacy, that I wasn’t used to love. But still, when I looked at them, they’d look back with the subtext . . . no, you’re doing this all wrong.
Basically, they’d be better off without me. Owen was sixteen now, Cally eleven. They’d manage just fine with their mum. Good Mum. Steady Mum. She was no Mim, that’s for sure.
Sixteen and eleven! How did they get that old? It seemed only yesterday I was watching Nat outside the club. How did I go from that to this?
And the worst bit of it was that I’d given them the world, but it was all based on two things. Drug dealing and child abuse. Yeah. Great dad I was.
We set a date for the 15th of June. Slap bang in the middle of the year. It was four months off, and felt like enough time to get everything in place. Mim was full of big ideas, and I let her chunder away with them. It was a train to France. Across France in a hire car. Then a gorgeous little village she knew in the south of France. From there I could ring Natalie and say I’d had enough. It all kind of made sense; but the longer she planned and pored over maps, the colder my feet got. But the instinct to run was still there.
You are going to leave her, aren’t you?
Of course.
You’re not going to let me down?
Of course not.
If I don’t think your heart’s in this . . .
It is.
Then I . . .
What?
I’ll phone her now and tell her what we’ve got planned.
My heart’s in it. Shut up and plan.
But the longer we went on, the stronger I felt.
I was going to do this one alone. And if I was going to do that there’d be no goodbyes and no ‘let’s keep in touch, yeah?’ In order for my family to get on with their lives they’d have to think that was it. The end. Finito. They’d have to think I was dead. They’d have to think Danny Bioletti was no more. They could mourn, heal, move on. Natalie could marry some snobby git from the village, and . . .
Hey, Mrs! Turned out nice again!
But how?
Benedict Bishop died falling off cliffs.
Bingo. So would I.
RIP Declan Wolfe
I read about Declan’s death online and told Natalie I thought I’d better go down South for the funeral, which was at Golder’s Green Crem. Truth be told, I wasn’t that cut up about it, although as you get older it does make you contemplate your own mortality when your peers or childhood friends start dropping off their perches. And as you know, I was very much into contemplating my own mortality at that point, even making preparations for it. So there was an ulterior motive to my decision to visit and pay my respects. At one point Natalie was all for coming too; she reckoned if it hadn’t been for Declan we might never have met. But I managed to convince her that she was better off staying put and keeping an eye on things at the ranch. I might even stay overnight . . .
Going back to London put my head in a spin. The funeral wasn’t till the afternoon, so I spent a happy hour or two walking the streets of my youth. So much had changed, so much had stayed the same. The Meat Rack I’d once seen as something of a spiritual home now felt like an old flame who’d put on a bit of weight but had some better clothes on. The whiff of vice had gone and in its place, consumerism of another kind. More than ever before it felt like the anodyne central fountain in a shopping mall. Sell, sell, fucking sell. Not a rent boy in sight, unless my skills were deserting me. It was like the ex was looking good, doing all right for herself, but had lost all of her personality with the makeover. You couldn’t see the steps up to the statue of Eros for the Eastern European tourists and their cameras and their shopping bags. On every bag a designer label. Or maybe they weren’t tourists; maybe they were living here now. I’d heard stories of Polish kids coming here to work and doing the shittiest of jobs for about 2p an hour, the sort our own kids wouldn’t do: maybe this was them, having a well-earned day out.
I walked up to the Dominion Theatre, checked out my old bedroom. Someone from the council was round with a power hose, drenching the place with H2O. How would I have survived that? I shuddered to think. I even traipsed down to the South Bank, where I’d had my fateful meeting about Sam. Headed through to Cardboard City. All gone. In its place a sanitized bullring of white-tiled walkways; it was like walking through a massive urinal. Where had all the homeless people gone? Their fires, their ramshackle houses, their spirit? It saddened me that it was no longer here, part of the swarming fabric of life under the bridges and roundabouts. But hey, I guess that was progress.
I took the tube up to Golders Green. It felt less familiar than the rest of the city, but that would be down to the fact I’d always walked or cycled anywhere when I was working. And then, when I’d made some money in the China Crisis days, it was cabs all the way for me.
The crem was fit to bursting. I recognized many faces from back in the day, but they didn’t recognize me. I kept my sunglasses on the whole way through, and I slipped away quietly at the end. There were plenty I didn’t recognize, mind. But then it’d be hard to place everyone from a youth where the kids in clubs caked themselves in make-up, the more extravagant the better, everyone their own little work of art. And now: grey, decaying bodies that hadn’t seen enough daylight to flourish. Declan had
died from a problem with his heart. Yeah, we had problems with that, mate. Nobody said it, but my guess was his health finally caught up with him after years of caning it.
On leaving the crem we were encouraged to say our goodbyes and touch the coffin, which looked like a picnic basket, on our way out. As we left, some Sinatra played. I listened to the lyrics. It was an uplifting tune. And listening to it, I knew where I was going to run to.
South of the border. Down Mexico way.
I came out into the bright sunlight and headed into town to meet an old friend for dinner. But first, I had to see a man about a dog.
Woof, woof
I met my ex-bouncer, the one who used to be a copper and liked to think he knew a thing or two back in the day, outside Liberty’s. His choice, not mine. I wasn’t that keen; when I saw the place, I clocked a cottage nearby. The whole place must’ve been swarming with plain clothes. We walked down towards Soho and fair play to him, this time he’d come up trumps. Down a back alley near Dean Street I handed him an envelope stuffed with twenties and he handed me a slim envelope, which I stuck in my inside pocket.
‘Don’t you wanna check it, Boss?’
I shook my head. ‘I trust you. Don’t you wanna check mine?’
He shook his head. ‘Snap.’
I left him on Old Compton Street. Neither of us said goodbye. Just drifted apart like we’d never been together. Nothing bad had happened. I found the little side street where Framboise used to ply her trade. There was a new girl’s name on her doorbell. It made me glad. Not all of London had become gentrified.
It was here I chose to look in the envelope. I ripped it open with my fingernail, being careful not to give myself a paper cut.
Inside was a smart new passport. A flick to the back, and there was my ugly mug staring back at me. Quick check of the name. Excellent.
Martin Swann.
Nefarious goings-on underground
I learned a word once, and I really liked it. Nefarious. It reminded me of my childhood favourite, Nefertiti. And maybe that’s why I liked Nefertiti back then, coz it sounded like it could be a bit nefarious.
Nefarious: wicked, criminal.
And there were some nefarious goings-on that night, I can tell you.
Gretchen looked incredible. The age of her, mind, but she’d had her tits done. Either that or she’d been hiding her light under a bushel these past twenty years. Her lips looked bigger too, and I had this overwhelming urge to touch them. It was so bizarre. This woman who was old enough to be my mother, who I’d known for so long, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I fancy her? I realized I was staring at her tits. I looked back at my menu.
She’d booked this amazing underground place on Berwick Street market. Posh dim sum, she called it, not that I really knew what dim sum were. I let her order. We drank this odd hot sweet wine, and eventually I got round to picking her brains.
‘Last time I saw you, you said if I ever needed your help, to ask.’
She nodded. No flies on her.
‘If you wanted to disappear, Gretchen, what would you do?’
She took a bite of her king crab dumpling, and as she chewed I could practically hear the cogs turning in her brain. The restaurant was dark. The seats were low. The lighting seemed to flicker like candles. It was a good job she’d had everything made bigger on her face. It made her easier to see. I liked that she was taking me seriously.
After a bit she said, ‘Get on a boat. Sail away. Land on a desert island.’
‘I can’t sail.’
‘You wouldn’t necessarily need to.’
‘I don’t know the first thing about boats.’
‘You wouldn’t have to. Boats are good because they’re . . . more private.’
‘Could you sail to, say, Mexico?’
‘Bit of an epic journey. But I don’t see why not.’
And then she went on to tell me about mates of hers on the south coast who lived in this big posh house. And how the back of their house had a jetty into this river. And their idea of going on holiday was walking to the bottom of their garden, getting in their boat and just sailing and sailing and ending up in Greece. They didn’t even have to fork out on a hotel.
‘Are you serious about disappearing?’
I nodded.
‘I’ll make some enquiries.’
I went back to my hotel.
She phoned me the next week. ‘You’re in luck.’
‘I am?’
‘Friends of friends. Sailing round the world. Happy to take you to Mexico.’
My heart danced.
‘When?’
‘They’re leaving May the twentieth.’
‘How much do they want?’
‘Five grand. No questions asked. Cash.’
‘I’ll take it.’
Standing. Alone. On the platform
I wanted to ask Mim if we could bring the date forward from June to May. I liked the idea of me zooming off in a boat down South somewhere and Mim being stood there, alone, on the platform at the railway station, completely stood up.
Where is he? He said he’d be here.
She could go and phone Natalie then.
Then Natalie would think I’d topped myself. The guilt of the affair.
Ah, if only it was that straightforward.
Actually, this was good, keeping it from Miriam. Having our secret, and then my secret. And with any luck she’d get in touch with Natalie anyway and expose the affair, and bingo. Natalie buys the story.
The people I’d be sailing with were an actual lord and lady. Danny Bioletti certainly had come up in the world. As far as they were concerned, they’d be doing their mate Gretchen’s mate Martin Swann a favour, and they had five grand to put towards the upkeep of the boat and fuel, etc. They’d be setting off mid-morning on the arranged day. I’d go and put my clothes at Beachy Head, leave my car there, and Gretchen would then drive me along the coast to a place called Hamble, where the lord and lady, Rick and Caroline, lived. Walk down the bottom of their garden. Get in the boat. Off we pop.
The final push
Some days I thought the plan was lousy and I’d never go through with it. Other times I wanted nothing more, and felt it a genius idea. If I’d been in two minds at all, the final nail in the coffin was when I got a phone call from Sam. He was up in Manchester visiting family. Could he see me? I said he could.
I got a hell of a shock when I saw him. We met at Piccadilly station and went for a stroll round town. Ended up in some pub near St Anne’s Square where they do a good roast, and I made sure I fed him up.
He looked like he’d not eaten for a week. A month. His cheeks were sallow and he was a bag of bones. He clutched his holdall to him all the time, only resting it in his lap when we sat in the pub.
At a guess, I’d say he’d been doing smack. But his speech was quite slow, and his eyes lifeless. His reactions were kind of on mute as well. Had an appetite though, I’ll give him that. He told me he was about to be made homeless and needed me to look after his bag. It contained his evidence, and one day he was still convinced he would bring down the government with it. It was the only time he seemed to come alive. Benedict Bishop might be dead, but he wasn’t the only one to have got his mucky paws on our Sam, and he would prove it. One day. But he couldn’t risk losing his evidence, and that’s where I came in. I took the bag and told him I’d guard it with my life. And for good measure I added,
‘And if anything ever happens to me. Like I die or something. It’ll be in the loft in my house. OK?’
He nodded, slowly. And then started to cry.
‘They fucked me up, Danny. You’re so lucky. They fucked me up.’
I took a swig of my pint. Never very good around emotion, me. He wiped the tears with an unkempt sleeve.
‘Come on, Sam. Try and eat your meal.’
That bag. That bloody bag. D’you know? I never even looked in it. For all I knew it was bloody empty. Such was the madness in Sam’s eyes. But if that’s what
it took to keep him off my back, help him through this rough patch, fine. I’d take his empty bag full of paranoia and blank conspiracies and hold it safe for him. Play along. Keep him sweet.
I’ve got something to tell you
Such a knob. Such a knob. The night before I went, I remember I almost told Natalie what was going on. It overwhelmed me, the enormity of what I was about to do. She was peeling spuds in the kitchen, must’ve been getting the tea on. The ordinariness of it got to me. I was about to do something major, and she was just peeling potatoes.
‘Nat?’
‘Mm?’
‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
She swung round. Potato in one hand, peeler in the other. Panic in her eyes. My voice caught in my throat. I didn’t want that to be my last memory of her. I had to make this moment right.
‘Ha! Got you!’ I laughed and she looked so relieved, shaking her head.
Scratch. Scratch. Scrape. Back to the spuds. Back to me.
That night I got up in the middle of the night and went and looked in on Owen, then Cally, as they were sleeping. I sat on Owen’s bed and whispered, ‘Look after them for me. Won’t you, lad? Look after them.’
The next day I waited till Nat was having a bath, and I made out I was nipping out for milk.
She didn’t even reply, didn’t even say goodbye.
I drove down to Eastbourne. Stayed in a B & B.
The next morning – Danny Bioletti’s last on earth – I got up early.
My final piece of theatre was to throw my necklace into the sea.
Owen, 2014
I should never have said that to Mum. Now she’ll be asking for explanations. And I know full well I will never tell her what I know, what I saw. Ever. I’ve never told anyone. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
The Secrets We Keep Page 33