Open-handed

by Chris Binchy

  She must have walked by him on the way in but he didn’t see her until the end. He was clearing the punters from downstairs. She was standing in a group, looking across the room, and for a moment their eyes met. She turned away immediately but he noticed her. She was tall. Dark hair. A face that was beautiful, yes, but that wasn’t it. She was apart from the others. They were all talking and laughing and she was there but she wasn’t. She wasn’t interested in anything that was going on around her or anything that was being said. He saw her and he felt he could understand this. The feeling that she was always being watched. The sense that this was where she had to be but that something else was going on. He thought he could see this in her. He thought he recognized it.

  He saw her when she was leaving with her crew and smiled as she passed him.

  ‘Good night?’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘No. I was asking you. Did you have a good night?’

  ‘It was all right.’

  ‘Just all right?’

  ‘It was fine.’ She kept walking for a second, then stopped when she saw him still watching her. She nodded at her friends, who walked on and lit cigarettes outside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked him.

  ‘Next time you come here I’ll take you to a place you’ll like.’

  ‘Next time?’ She laughed. ‘What makes you think there’ll be a next time?’

  ‘Because I’m inviting you now. If you come here again I’ll take you somewhere you’ll like afterwards. When I finish. I’m serious. Believe me.’

  ‘Why would I want to go anywhere with you?’

  He smiled at her, baby-faced and innocent. ‘Because I’m a great guy.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘You can ask anyone. Here. This man here.’ He stopped a customer who was leaving. ‘You know me, don’t you? Tell her.’

  ‘This guy is a gentleman in his heart,’ the man said, putting his arm around Victor. A messy hug, then he wobbled off.

  ‘You see?’ Victor said.

  She laughed. ‘That was just lucky.’

  ‘No. They all know me here. You’re safe with me.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m Italian,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not Italian. From where in Italy?’

  ‘From Torino.’ He smiled as he said it.

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Di Paolo.’

  ‘That’s your first name?’

  ‘Salvatore di Paolo.’

  ‘You don’t look like a Salvatore to me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re too blond.’

  ‘There are people with my hair colour in Italy.’

  ‘Not many,’ she said.

  ‘People call me Victor.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s my other name.’ He left the statement hanging. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Agnieszka.’

  He looked at her in silence. Cocked his head like a dog. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘What’s “yes”?’

  ‘That’s a good name for you.’

  ‘People here think it’s ugly.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. The word didn’t sound tired to her.

  ‘What’s your real name?’ she asked.

  ‘Victor,’ he said.

  ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘Italy,’ he said. Then, with a smile, ‘But my mother was Romanian. And I lived there before.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said.

  ‘Ah. Is that a problem?’

  ‘Why would it be a problem? I don’t care. I just wanted to know. Now I do.’

  ‘Next time you come here,’ he said, ‘I will show you a very nice place. You will like it.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll come back?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. He looked at her and she stared back. ‘Yes,’ he said then. ‘I think you will.’ There was no arrogance in it. Nothing she might have expected from a stocky bouncer in a black T-shirt. Just a calmness, a hope that she would understand what it was he was saying.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘I’d better go on.’ She nodded at the three guys who were still waiting for her.

  ‘Who are those men?’ Victor asked.

  ‘They look after me. Keep me out of trouble.’ She smiled at the expression on his face. ‘They’re friends. They do security for our bar.’

  ‘Where are they from?’

  ‘Albania.’

  ‘They told you that?’ he said.

  ‘Some people aren’t embarrassed about where they come from.’

  ‘Well, maybe they should be.’

  ‘They’re lovely people,’ she said.

  ‘If they’re friends of yours I’m sure they are.’

  ‘Goodnight, Victor. Or whatever.’

  ‘Goodnight, Agnieszka.’

  Gareth walked up to him as she left and watched her go. ‘Very nice,’ he said to Victor.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Victor said. ‘We’ll see. I don’t think she would be a girl to rush.’

  ‘Right,’ Gareth said. ‘Well, you know, good things come to those who wait.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s an expression.’

  Victor thought for a minute. ‘So is she the good thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gareth said, ‘and you’re the one who’s going to have to wait.’

  14

  They were stuck in traffic, heading home, when Sylvester’s phone rang. It was a private number. ‘Is that the councillor?’ a man’s voice asked.

  Sylvester knew who it was immediately. ‘Not any more, I’m afraid,’ he said, then laughed gently. ‘How are you, Mr O’Donnell?’

  ‘I’m in good form. How are things with young Mr Kelly?’

  ‘Things are excellent.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear that. Did Campbell get in touch with you?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And? Is that going to happen?’

  ‘Looks like he’s interested. I’ve met him twice now and it’s gone well. Marek’s going to send him some stuff over the next few days and hopefully then we’ll get him over there.’

  ‘Bratislava?’

  ‘Prague.’

  ‘There’s nothing left in Prague,’ O’Donnell said.

  ‘Marek thinks there is.’

  ‘How is old Marek? My Czech mate.’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Sylvester said. ‘He’s himself.’

  ‘Tell him I was asking for him.’

  ‘I will. And thanks again for putting Campbell my way.’

  ‘Glad to help. I hope it all works out.’

  ‘I hope so too. But, you know, I really appreciate it. It makes a big difference.’

  Dessie made eye contact with Sylvester in the mirror. ‘What?’ he mouthed at him. Sylvester shrugged.

  ‘Listen,’ O’Donnell said. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Just the thing for a well-connected ex-councillor. Put your legendary charm to work.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about “legendary”,’ Sylvester said. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘The story is you won’t even have to get in your car for this one.’

  For the next ten minutes, Dessie watched as Sylvester listened and nodded pointlessly while O’Donnell spoke.

  15

  Where was the city? Everything was too small, like the back-streets of a country town struggling to cope. Narrow lanes where the map showed thoroughfares. The mad push and rush of the people, like spawning fish. The traffic that crawled along streets that couldn’t take it, as if God had shrunk the city and left the people and the cars and the buses and the lorries the same size. Watch this, he told the angels. They won’t see the joke. Everything and everybody on top of each other. Paths and shops and bars and cafés and supermarkets, all too small. No room to breathe. Too many people.

  That morning Marc
in stepped off the bus into the pedestrian flow and let himself go with it until he was carried to a place he recognized from the night he’d arrived. The pavement beneath his feet was sticky and diseased, the air like that of a sick person’s room. The river smelled like a drain, slow and murky and green. There were tourists moving slowly, oblivious as the crowd parted around them, around him as he checked his map. And then, as he walked through a door into the college, the world opened up into green and architecture and cobblestones, but even here there were too many people. He walked by playing-fields, saw a tractor cutting grass, and he remembered the last time he had smelled that smell, the same way in warm air before he had ever been here. He came out the other side. There was money around. He could feel it now. The cars parked outside offices in old creeper-covered buildings with luxurious colours and doors and couriers. A better class of air. There was business going on in these houses, and the steps up to the door let you know where you stood in relation to it. Low-pressure jobs too, it seemed, for the girls who stood outside smoking on breaks, the middle-aged men in suits.

  The day was his. He could sit outside one of the cafés he had passed and read the guidebook. Try to find a way to spend a day in this new city while Artur slept at home. He was off tonight and they would drink, maybe go out, maybe do something. Artur had said his housemates were going to a party somewhere. Marcin saw it already – meatheads, vodka, war stories, techno. All fired up and on edge, just fucking waiting for him to say the wrong thing. The thought sent him in the wrong direction.

  Later on, back at the house, Marcin sat on the doorstep with a can in his hand. Artur was lying spread across the grass in underwear that had seen better days.

  ‘You’d want to get started. They’ll make you work a back week so it could be close to a month before you get paid.’

  ‘Just give me a while. I want to see what’s out there.’

  ‘Come and work with me. You won’t get better than this. I’m telling you. I get paid to sleep. The quiet nights, I go in, do a bit of hoovering, have a meal and go to bed for a couple of hours. Come home. Back to bed. Cheque every two weeks, and the money’s good enough to live well. I’m going to get in on the tips soon and then it’ll be really good. I’ll be living like this and saving money.’ Marcin said nothing. Artur sat up and leaned on an elbow to look at him. ‘I know what I’m talking about. There’s loads of work and most of it is just shit. Get serious here. You’re going to need to start earning soon. You can’t be hanging around waiting for the right thing to come along. You’ll be on the street by then.’

  ‘You wouldn’t put me on the street.’

  ‘Maybe not. But these guys would. Gladly. Come on. We’d be working together. It’d be fun. I can ask them.’

  ‘I have a CV.’

  ‘Give it to me now and I’ll put it in my work jacket.’

  Marcin went inside and took the piece of paper out of a folder in his bag. He brought it out to Artur and handed it to him. ‘Why are you so sure they’ll give me the job?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they’re desperate. And you’re not a criminal. You speak English. You’re educated. You have some experience.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘You have some experience,’ Artur said again. ‘And you’ll tell them what they want to hear.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That you won’t get drunk and that you won’t steal. You like people. You like working. You hate sleeping and drinking and drugs. They won’t care. They just need someone. If it’s not you it’ll be someone else.’ Marcin looked at him. ‘It’s very simple. They won’t hang around. You’ll be fine. Just don’t mess about and they’ll hire you. If you turn up on time and don’t get caught doing anything stupid they’ll never fire you. That’s it. You can quit when you’ve had enough.’

  ‘And when will you have had enough?’

  ‘Another three months. I’m not doing this through the winter. No light? I’d disappear. I feel like I’m hung-over all the time as it is.’

  ‘That’s because you drink all the time.’

  Artur smiled. The day was beginning to get hot. He looked at Marcin and saw into his future. ‘When I’m in charge, you’ll do what you’re told. I’ll have you cleaning shitty toilets by the end of the week.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Marcin said.

  In the end it wasn’t exactly as he’d pictured it. The party was in the garden of some friend of somebody. There were about twenty people, some girls from home, bottles of beer, two guys cooking at a barbecue. It felt comfortable. The music was loud and most of the guys, though they came from shit parts of shit cities that Marcin had passed through, were fine. They weren’t interested enough in him to start a fight, preferring to stand three guys to a girl and see who could shout the loudest. The sun was going down and the conversation flowed around him as Artur and one of the guys from the house slagged each other about whose job was harder. Who was the real man.

  He looked up at the house they were standing outside, its rough pebbledash back painted yellow, and the plastic gutter that was starting to sag although the house could only have been a couple of years old. A movement caught his eye from an upstairs window of the house next door. A girl of maybe ten was peering down at them from underneath a net curtain, just her head visible. Long brown hair. Sharp little features. When she saw Marcin looking back at her she held his gaze, expression set, not hostile or scared but not friendly either. For five seconds they stared at each other. Who did she think he was? He raised a hand and gave one slow wave. Half smiled. Nothing too showy. The guy talking to Artur turned around and looked up at the window.

  ‘Bit young,’ he said. ‘Still, I’d say you’re in. You’ve more of a chance with her than with any of these.’ He laughed and Artur threw back his head as if this was the wittiest thing he’d ever heard.

  ‘Right,’ Marcin said, staring at Artur, waiting to let him know with a look that he understood what was going on, but he just kept on laughing away with his new-found best friend. For a moment he thought they might high-five each other. When he glanced back up at the window the girl was gone.

  16

  They came out along the strand road. A mile beyond the turn-off for Sylvester’s house Dessie pulled into the car-park of a hotel. It was a Victorian seaside place, one of a type that cropped up all around the bay. They were remnants of a time when days spent in the near suburbs beside the Irish Sea counted as a holiday, when the stony beaches and freezing water and unreliable weather were good enough for anyone. There were a few of these places left, good venues for lunch with an elderly relative – half grapefruits, small glasses of orange juice, egg mayonnaise, followed by roast meat, wet vegetables, four styles of potato. A bar with wood panelling and ship’s paraphernalia, where there were delicate bottles of beers and ciders branded for women. A place that young couples living locally would try once out of interest, or a sense of irony, but never come back to.

  This place had been shut for three years. The caretaker was waiting for them at the front. Sylvester walked up to him, hand outstretched.

  ‘Sorry we’re late.’

  ‘You’re not. I was early.’

  ‘This is my associate, Dessie.’ Dessie smiled.

  ‘Jim.’

  He shook their hands.

  ‘Will we get started so?’

  ‘Lead on.’

  The caretaker unlocked the front door and they walked into the settled damp smell of it, old-fashioned but not yet unpleasant. As he guided them through, he told them about the need for fire escapes and safety doors, how the whole place would have to be rewired, the kitchen taken out and put in again. They went up one set of stairs and along the corridors, Jim opening occasional doors to different bedrooms, singles and doubles and suites. A bit stale but nothing to worry about. They came down another set of stairs and walked through the bar. Sylvester stopped and stood at the counter. He turned and looked out of the window, across the main road and on out to the sea and the bay beyond. ‘Oh, y
eah,’ he said, into the room. ‘It was some place.’

  ‘You were here before?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Often. When I was a kid. Confirmations and christenings and that.’

  ‘Used to get them, all right. Not that long ago. Twenty years back it was still thriving.’

  ‘It’s no time,’ Sylvester said, shaking his head at the thought.

  ‘Still. It’s long enough,’ said Dessie.

  Outside, they stood while Sylvester asked a couple of questions. The tarmac of the car-park was breaking up and weeds were beginning to rise to a height. There was graffiti on the gable wall, loops and whirls and the names of couples written in black marker, and in the middle ‘Tammy Byrne is a fat bitch’ was sprayed in green paint. Dessie lit a cigarette and walked around a bit further towards the back. There were still a few empty kegs piled at the rear entrance of the bar, a couple of crates of empty bottles.

  ‘What do you think?’ Sylvester asked, as he walked towards him.

  ‘Lovely,’ Dessie said. ‘Just needs a bulldozer to sort it out.’

  ‘It could be done, you know. There’s enough space.’

  ‘They’ll never let it happen.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘I can’t see it.’

  ‘But I can,’ Sylvester said. ‘I can see it very clearly.’

  17

  In a room in a prefab building in the staff car-park at the back of the hotel, the night manager, the front-of-house manager and Ray sat together in a row. It was nine o’clock in the morning and the two night workers were anxious to go. That meant nothing to the front-of-house guy, who was happy to sit and discuss the candidate they’d just interviewed. Better than being on the desk at check-out time, arguing about breaks with the four girls.

  ‘What did you think?’ he asked Ray.