Open-handed

by Chris Binchy

  Victor saw it happen. Gareth was halfway through a sentence, ‘There’s no way, lads…’ and there was a flash in the corner of his eye. Not long to react, less than a second maybe, but for Victor it was enough. The second punch would come and he would be ready by then, in the way, ready to grab the wrist of whoever had decided to hit his colleague. He would hold on like a pit-bull and, whatever else might happen, the evening for the owner of the fist that had thrown that punch would end unhappily. He would do no more than he had to. There was a certain pleasure in knowing he was in control. What to others was a chaotic, scary, violent mess was to him something clear, predictable, choreographed. When he saw the hand advancing for the second time, he grabbed it and spun out of the doorway, moving the arm at speed through an angle that meant a sudden end was coming. When the arm tightened and the guy screamed and bent at the same time, Victor pushed him to the ground and knelt on his back, knocking the wind out of him. He smacked him on the head once, hard enough to make him think, then looked up to check. He saw that the doormen from the club across the road had come over and everything was just about under control. The three were all on the ground.

  Gareth called over to him: ‘Get that fellow down the lane.’

  Victor lifted his man, the one who had thrown the first punch. He was cursing at him in a whining, crying voice that Victor couldn’t really understand. His face was a mess. Only fucking this and didn’t have to fucking that. ‘Okay,’ Victor said. ‘Good man. You just relax now.’ One of the bouncers from across the street came over to give him a hand and the two of them lifted the guy, feet dragging, away from the light and the main thoroughfare down a side lane of dirty puddles and wheelie-bins, fire-exit doors and smoking chefs, who stood up to watch as Victor and the other doorman pushed the guy against a wall and held him there. Gareth came down after them, his nose bloody and lip already fattening, still panting.

  ‘The little prick,’ he said to Victor.

  ‘Oh, no,’ the guy said.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Victor asked Gareth.

  ‘I’m fine. Thanks for that. This little bollocks, though. Out of nowhere. How are things?’ he said to the other bouncer, whose name, Victor thought, was Ben.

  ‘Not so bad. Hit you, did he?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Getting slow in your old age, what?’

  ‘A momentary lapse of concentration,’ Gareth said, and Victor and this Ben fellow laughed a little harder than they needed to.

  ‘And you, you piece of shit,’ Gareth said to the guy, ‘what do you say now? What now, big man?’

  ‘Please don’t fucking hit me again. Please. I’ve had enough. My head’s fucking busted.’

  Gareth punched him hard in the ribcage twice, then stood back and kicked him once between the legs. An ‘Ooh’ sound rose from the chefs at the kick. The guy dropped in a heap. Gareth and Ben walked back in the direction of the bar. The chefs dispersed. Victor crouched down and spoke close to the fellow’s face. He was holding himself, his face a mess of blood, and moaning quietly in pain, barely conscious.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Victor said. ‘In a few days you’ll be okay again. Just stay away from bouncers, yeah?’ The man curled up into a ball. ‘Good man,’ Victor said. He patted him on the shoulder and went back to the bar, to get a pint of Coke. Sugar. That’s what he always needed after these things.

  6

  His phone rang: six o’clock in the morning. He reached into the darkness and his hand closed around its pulsing body first time. He pushed a button and spoke. It could only be Sylvester. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Are you up?’

  ‘Almost. Yeah.’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You won’t be late?’

  Dessie yawned and stretched. ‘Are you trying to annoy me?’ he said.

  A familiar laugh. ‘I’ll see you in a while.’

  ‘Right so.’ He dropped the phone on the floor and waited. His body felt too heavy, sunk too far into the mattress. He couldn’t prise himself out. Too much to expect. A small man trapped in someone else’s bulk. If he could just sleep until he woke. If he could just sleep.

  ‘Are you getting up or what?’ she said, bringing him back with a jolt. He pushed away the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.

  ‘Every day,’ she said. ‘Would you not say something to him?’

  ‘You’re as bad,’ he said, as he stood and made his way, slow and rickety, into the bathroom.

  A beautiful morning: the sun rising in front of him, low in the sky, the world orange in the rear-view mirror. He drove with the visor down, sunglasses on, through the trees and greenery of the riverbank before the city claimed it. The same traffic report at this time every day, the girl with her husky voice still drawling happily before the calls came in notifying, alerting, complaining. His body relaxed into the seat and he knew that, whatever the day might hold, for this trip he would have comfort. He would feel better than the others around him. Better car. Better suit. Better life.

  He pulled into a garage and bought cigarettes and tea. He stirred in five sugars on the counter beside the till as a new Indian boy watched him with an expression between wonder and distaste.

  ‘What?’ Dessie said to him, looking up.

  ‘You are very sweet.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m married,’ Dessie said, and went outside.

  He stood there, smoking and drinking, watching the traffic pass and feeling his body begin to right itself. ‘I need my drugs,’ he would say, too loud, to Sylvester first thing in the morning in hotel lobbies when they were away on a job, just to watch the flash of panic. ‘I can’t do a thing without my drugs.’

  ‘Some day somebody’s going to hear that,’ Sylvester would say, half warning, half joking, ‘and then…’

  ‘Sure nobody knows you here,’ Dessie would reply, for the luxury of hearing himself say it, the thorn not even hidden within the joke. ‘Nobody’s interested in you here.’

  He checked the time and got back into the car, waited too long for the traffic to break. Smoke from the cigarette in his mouth burned his eyes. He pulled out, checked for cops, then accelerated into the bus lane to make up time. He left the window open to clear the smell, but when he hit traffic on the quays the air disappeared and in the heat he felt a tickle of sweat on his collar. He sealed himself in, turned on the air-conditioning and the temperature fell as he rolled along at walking pace.

  Through town and out again on the far side, against the rush now. Past the sleekness of the money and the new city through the old collapsed grandeur, the streets clean and empty first thing in the morning, up and down over the river and canal to the curve of a park, past the village and on to a road by water. Flashes of it at first among the cranes and the containers. Then where the river became sea, the buildings thinned out, the city eventually let go and the sky took over. Blue above, sparkling water below, the grey-green steadiness of Howth in the background. He speeded up, the engine roared briefly, then kicked into the lower gear, past the stationary traffic heading inch by inch in the opposite direction towards town. The wheels made a comfortable high drone on the rippled concrete, the sound of his day going to plan.

  A mile on he stopped at lights and watched cyclists drifting along on the bike paths, safe and smooth and alive. If he wasn’t doing this, he might be there, on the other side of the street, slowly pedalling on the flat, smooth pathway that would take him out as far as the wooden bridge. Rumble across it, down to the end of the road, cycle on to the beach, then run into the water. To swim in the sun, the warm morning air, while the road here was clogged with people contained in their drudgery – that was something he might have done once.

  He turned when the light changed and the car purred up a slope, away from the water into the stillness of the suburb on an early-summer morning. Tree-lined on both sides. Enough space for two cars to pass, just, but around here the locals were too unc
ertain of other people’s driving even to try. As he turned into Sylvester’s road, Dessie tucked in beside a parked car and flashed his lights at an old fellow in a Micra coming the other way. No rush anyway. The two of them sat and looked at each other across twenty yards. Dessie beckoned him forward and flashed again. ‘Come on to fuck,’ he said, through smiling teeth, ‘like a good boy.’ The other car crawled towards him and passed, the driver waving vaguely in his direction. Dessie waved back, a picture of relaxed politeness. The car was too well known around here for him to do anything else.

  He pulled up in front of the house. When he saw a face in the living-room window he cut the engine and waited. The news at seven had just started when the door opened. The wife came out in a dressing-gown and wandered across the garden towards the car. Dessie rolled down the window.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t want him staying out half the night. I want him back here by nine at the latest. I’ve family coming over for dinner and it would be nice if they believed my husband still lives here.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Dessie said.

  ‘That’s not much, I suppose,’ she said. She stood watching the house.

  ‘Not a lot. You know yourself.’

  ‘I do. Here’s Sylvester now.’ She turned back to him. ‘Anne well?’

  ‘She is. She’s fine. Same complaints as yourself but however. What can we do?’

  ‘What indeed? It’s when she stops complaining you should worry. Good luck, Dessie.’

  ‘Good luck,’ he said. Then called after her, ‘I’ll do my best for you.’ She smiled back at him.

  ‘What was that about?’ Sylvester said, as he got into the back.

  ‘She wants you back by nine.’

  ‘Well now, Madam. I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

  Dessie started the car and pulled off. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Do you not have your schedule?’ Sylvester asked.

  ‘Don’t annoy me. I have it here somewhere. The airport hotel, right?’

  ‘I’m meeting that guy Campbell at the Hilton at eight.’

  ‘See? I did know that.’

  ‘You’re a real pro.’ He sniffed the air, a short act of theatre. ‘Have you been smoking in here?’

  ‘No,’ Dessie said.

  ‘I could get done for it, you know. People watch me. This car counts as a place of work. Some clown makes a call to the papers…’

  ‘The papers. Jesus, what are you like? Nobody cares. Nobody’s watching.’

  ‘Still, it’s my car.’

  ‘I didn’t even have one in it. I got in after.’

  ‘After, my arse. I wish you’d quit.’

  ‘I’m touched that my health is of concern to you.’

  ‘Your health? What health is that? You should have gone years ago. You’re on borrowed time. It’s my reputation I’m worried about.’

  ‘And what reputation is that?’ Sylvester fixed him in the mirror for a moment. Maybe a step too far. He let it go.

  ‘Enough,’ Sylvester said. ‘No smoking in the car.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Here, I want to get breakfast before meeting this fellow.’

  ‘Did you not eat before you left?’

  ‘I had something she made. I walked it off on the way to the car. Long day ahead.’

  ‘Isn’t it always?’

  They were at lights now, about to turn back on to the main road.

  ‘Are you all right for tomorrow night?’ Sylvester said, down at his paper.

  ‘Tomorrow night?’

  ‘My visit.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Dessie said. ‘I’m about.’

  ‘Then don’t be long coming around.’

  Dessie flashed a glance at him in the mirror. He sat with his eyes down, reading. Tidy haircut, good skin, white shirt, steady blue tie. A respectable man. No sign of anything else. There never was, but still, from time to time, Dessie looked.

  7

  It would be better if he wasn’t so tired. This traffic, the endless roadworks, the shabby greyness that was too familiar – all of it wouldn’t be getting to him so much if he had slept at some point on the trip. He rested his head on the window, the glass cold on the side of his face, and watched commuters standing in loose groups at a stop. Unfamiliar tired, angry faces with red puffy eyes that surely mirrored his own. I don’t know who you are, he thought, but I don’t think I like you. He caught himself and pulled back. Too tired. Issued a general apology to the world and then, without thinking, said out loud, ‘This is taking too long.’ The girl sitting in the seat across the aisle from him looked over and, not understanding what he’d said or why he was speaking, kept looking to the point where he felt he should say something else. If he’d slept it might have been different.

  On the plane he’d missed the explanation, if that was what it was, for the delay in take-off because the crew spoke too quickly and didn’t translate it for the benefit of the Polish passengers. The plane was full of people like him, all doing the same thing. None of them seemed excited or interested or even happy about it, they just sat in silence with fixed expressions that he felt must be affected. He had nothing to eat or drink, nothing to read, and what was available to buy he didn’t want to pay for. He sat wedged into a seat that was too narrow and too upright to allow even the thought of sleep.

  The first person he spoke to at Dublin airport, a security official, yawned in his face when he held out his passport before waving him on wordlessly. He walked past partition walls, following temporary signs through the sound of hammering, as if the set for the film of his arrival wasn’t quite ready. He went out through sliding doors into the public area, keeping an eye out for Artur. Maybe he would have felt that his arrival was a significant enough event to come out. They could go to a bar and have one to celebrate, then a taxi back to Artur’s and spend the day drinking before collapsing into twenty-four hours of sleep. That would be a good introduction. He was outside before he understood that no one was there for him.

  When the bus arrived at the terminus he collected his bag and walked into a dirty grim station of sick greens and yellows and unhappy-looking people. He turned on his phone and dialled Artur’s number. It went straight to message. He checked the time. It was almost nine. Artur had said he would have his phone on from eight but it would be like him to forget, to have stayed out last night and be asleep on a floor or in a park somewhere, his phone left in the back of a taxi. He carried his bags downstairs and put them in Left Luggage. On the street outside he walked towards where looked busiest. In a café he ordered toast and coffee and took out his cigarettes. The woman shook her head at him and pointed at a sign – not for the first time, he felt. The food helped; the coffee lifted the muggy bleakness that had been sitting on him.

  He ordered another coffee to take away and walked out on to the street. He had a map in his bag but he didn’t bother going back for it. Just wanted to get a feel for the place. He wandered along a pedestrianized street of grubby shops and badly dressed people in the direction of what looked like something happening. Every couple of steps he heard Polish being spoken. He saw the faces of people he felt he should know. A rough crowd. Hard language. He walked up one side of the main street, a wide boulevard of takeaways and sports shops, then at the river turned back in the direction he’d come and found the bus station again. He rang the number but Artur’s phone was still off. He had his address, forty-five minutes from the centre. He could take a taxi out and sit in a café or bar until Artur got in touch. But he needed to sleep now. The bench he was on was too narrow and he worried about being robbed or moved on. He stood up and retraced his steps, turning this time into a road of high, terraced houses facing each other with grim determination, signs on the steps outside to lure the undiscerning and the desperate. He wandered along until he found one that seemed better maintained than the rest and went inside. The girl behind the counter looked at him with suspicion.

  ‘Do you have a room now?’ he asked.

/>   ‘What? For tonight?’ She spoke in English but he knew just to look at her.

  ‘Are you from Poland?’ he said then.

  ‘Is it for tonight?’ She answered him in Polish, but that was her only acknowledgement of his question.

  ‘It’s for now. But I’ll stay tonight.’

  ‘We have a room.’

  ‘How much?’

  She gave a price that seemed too high.

  ‘That’s the best price?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ He waited for a moment, looking at her to see if she was holding out. Whether she might suddenly melt into friendliness and reveal that this harshness was just a game she was playing.

  She half smiled at him. ‘Do you want it or not?’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ he said, without hesitation.

  ‘We need a deposit. Or credit card.’

  He took out the card and in silence dropped it in front of her outstretched hand. She picked it up and disappeared into a back office.

  He thought of sleep and how he could be in darkness and bed within fifteen minutes. She came back, gave him a form to fill in and returned his card. He took the key and climbed a thinly carpeted creaking stairway to a room at the top of the building, what must have been servants’ quarters when the house was built. The room was small and low-ceilinged, with a mean window that barely let in light and the lingering sense of a thousand compromised nights. But it was clean and it had a bed. He went back to the bus station and got his stuff, dragged it past Reception, past the girl, up the stairs and dumped it all on the floor. Took off his shoes and got into bed. I should pull the curtain, he thought, and closed his eyes.

  8

  In the middle of the morning the gym was quiet. Victor spent five minutes warming up, then got going, working his arms and neck and back. There was a tightness there from the night before. The burst of adrenalin and the brief exertion of getting that guy on the ground had left a reminder in his muscles. He would work it out now in the routine. Count his way through the repetitions, move from the weights to the machines and back again, over and over like a religious rite. Clearing his mind. Fixing his body. Improving his spirit. Finish with a run, a nice cardio burn. It calmed him to be here. People got gyms wrong, he thought. There should be no judgement of others or any vanity. No talking or staring or flirting. To come here was to explore your relationship with yourself, turning your gaze inward, seeing who you wanted to be and then working until the external matched the internal and you achieved a state of equilibrium. Your own straining face in the mirror, like an icon, would bring you what you prayed for. He was close to his ideal but wasn’t worried enough to make the kind of sacrifices that would get him there. When he finished he would sit outside the Turkish café down the street and have cappuccino and cake.