Moon Country

by Peter Arnott

  Tommy turned his back on Jack to load the clip. Click. Click. Click.

  Jack shuffled and looked down. Click. Click. Click.

  “What about ma kids?” Tommy asked, not looking round. “What d’ye hear aboot them?” Click. Click. Click.

  “That kinda information’s no sae easy tae come by, Tommy.” Click. Click. Click.

  “Fourteen years,” said Tommy at last, a great wrath within him, not easily contained, so he repeated it. “Fourteen years.” Click. Click. Click.

  And then Jack did know what happened next. So he tried to run away.

  4.2.1.2.1

  Tommy had anticipated this, of course, and tripped him on the first step. Then Jack was down, sprawling, tarmac scraping the heels of his hands, pants immediately full of warm piss. And Tommy was over him, weapon ready, safety off. Fifteen rounds ready. One up the spout. In Jack’s face.

  “Get up, Jack,” he said, as though it were that simple.

  Scrambling, trying, Jack said: “Agnes, the old lady … she’s an alky, Tommy … nae way Frank could’ve gied her nothin fer the kids wioot it bein aw roon the toon … Frank said …”

  Tommy gave him his arm. Jack rose and stopped talking.

  “I know,” said Tommy, almost kindly. For to know all is to forgive all. Not that Jack knew anything about the things that Tommy knew.

  “In the car,” said Tommy. “Put the shells in the back.”

  Jack’s first thought was for the leather. You’d never get the honk of piss out of the leather.

  “You are a fuck face bastert,” he said. And got in.

  4.3

  When they had been driving for some minutes, Tommy smiling at the purr the engine made with every gear change, Jack said, “Tommy, c’maun tae fuck. What is the fuckin problem, Tommy?”

  Tommy glanced at him, still calm, still easy, and turned into a side street. Jack scented hope as well as his own wee wee, and risked being a touch more aggressive.

  “Tommy, c’maun … stop the fuckin motor, will ye. Stop the fuckin motor, Tommy.”

  And Tommy did as he was told, swung it into the kerb, parking smoothly, turning off the engine.

  They sat then for a bit, not looking at each other. Jack breathed through his teeth, trying to anticipate the next situation. The street was quiet. Nobody about. Cleaning a cream leather interior like this would be a nightmare if Tommy shot him here. He didn’t think he would. He wouldn’t. So he didn’t move. Didn’t look. Tommy waited, not looking at him either, the pistol cradled lightly in his hand.

  “I heard yer boy plays pool,” offered Jack, finally.

  “At the Keys?” Tommy asked him, half turning. Jack nodded, thinking he might live. Tommy looked at him, right at him, his face almost human all of a sudden. “He any good?” Jack felt his own tears now, in his stomach, surging upwards like puke, tightening his throat, filling his eyes.

  “He’s a chip off the old block. Yer lassie’s up North somewhere. S’all I know.,” he managed, before his shame and helplessness won an unequal contest with his dignity. He crumpled. He sobbed and hooted, heaving in his seat, stinking, his piss getting cold. Tommy let him cry. Then he offered him one of his new hankies, still stiff from the box. Jack looked at him, knowing he was safe now, perhaps. He took the hanky angrily and blubbered the worst accusation at Tommy that a man could think of under the circumstances.

  “You and me are meant tae be pals.”

  Tommy said nothing. But he looked like he almost remembered what that meant.

  “Aye. I know,” he said sadly, finally, “but I’ve got stuff tae do. Ye know?”

  Jack mopped his face cursing him inwardly, then held out the hanky.

  “Keep it,” Tommy said, promising Jack eternal life. Not a promise he could keep, as it happens. “Can I drop ye off somewhere?”

  “I’m fine here,” said Jack, and opened the door. Tommy’s hand was on his arm.

  “Jack … Nothin … okay? Nothin tae nobody.”

  That last remark was uncalled for in the circumstances. Jack was offended.

  “I’m a fuckin church mouse. I’m a fuckin professional, Tommy.”

  The grip tightened on his arm.

  “I’m not. Ye understand?”

  Tommy didn’t care. That’s what that meant. This wasn’t professional. Whatever this was, it was a calling, a vocational thing. Tommy didn’t care what happened to him in its service. That’s what he meant. He could do anything at all in its name, untempered by consideration of his own, or anyone else’s, safety. That’s what Tommy was telling him, and the fear was back in Jack’s tummy. Fear for his friend, as much as for himself. Tommy blinked at him, and a shared understanding of shared fatality whispered itself between them. And here was that funny light about Tommy again, playing round his face through the windscreen … that light he’d last seen …

  “All right, Tommy,” Jack told him, suppressing the memory, telling Tommy he understood, though he could have scarcely said what “it” was. Tommy was going on holiday. And that was that. That was the world which was the case. Tommy reached into his jacket for a white envelope.

  “This is for your trouble,” he said. “Count it if ye want.” Jack didn’t want to count it. It didn’t matter if it was right or not. It wasn’t going to be enough for his trouble, anybody’s trouble. Nothing Tommy offered anyone would ever be enough for anyone he offered it to.

  And besides, Jack knew now, this service he’d performed, that he’d been asked and he’d accomplished, had been a tribute, not a transaction. Whatever he did for Tommy was what he had had to do. It was what had been his portion, ordained since time began. And he found he was obscurely grateful that he’d had the time to do it.

  Jack forgave Tommy. And forgave himself, too, all at once.

  He got out of the car and slammed the door. Even that sounded good. Solid. Ker-chunk. He leaned in at the window. Tommy slid it down for a last benediction. Jack squinted at him wisely, succumbing to a generous impulse despite himself.

  “Tommy,” he warned him with real concern, “you should get yersel a new line ae patter. Naebiddy does this demented fucking shite any more.”

  Tommy almost laughed. Jack almost laughed as well. The window slid up, and Jack could only see his own reflection in the glass.

  4.3.1

  He could have sworn, later, if anybody’d asked him, that as he drove away, Jack’s very last sight of Tommy Hunter was of a man with a song in his heart, and a smile on his puss. Hunter turned the machine beautifully at the top of the road and he was gone.

  Jack shook his trouser leg, four and a half K in profit. This was gonnae sting. Maybe he’d get a taxi on the High.

  4.3.1.1

  £26,111.04

  4.4

  Tommy must’ve drove around for a couple of hours, just getting used to the feel of the car. He put sixty miles on the clock before he stopped, so he must have been enjoying himself.

  4.4.1

  The brakes maybe weren’t all they could have been, admittedly. The cigarette lighter was buggered. There was a spidery crack in the passenger mirror. But the gears grunted and the engine growled and the stereo was terrific. Things had moved on a lot since the early nineties in terms of in-car entertainment. Hunter played Sailin’ Shoes and Cut the Cake right through from top to bottom. First tunes he’d heard in a while, so it was probably more an endurance than a pleasure. An acculturation in 4:4 time. He wasn’t used to the idea of sequence and duration yet, but he knew he’d surely get there, given time.

  4.5

  He’d had the passenger seat valeted somewhere by the evening. Still smelled a bit, but only when the heated seats were on. I’m assuming Jack gave him a full tank of petrol.

  4.5.1

  £26,091.04

  4.5.2

  He parked early in the evening in a vacant lot opposite the Keys around six and sat there to wait. He just sat and watched them going into the old pub. A lot of kids, like in the old days, like you’d expect. He can’t have r
eally supposed he would recognise his son when he saw him. Then perhaps he thought he’d know Ronnie by his attitude. Tommy’d grown up that way himself, shunted about, care home to foster parent, pillar to post, into the army, into the jile. He’d always thought it had left a mark on him, I remember, a readiness for insult, an anxiety to respond and reassert a doubtful dignity. Maybe Ronnie would have the same mark, exhibit the tell-tale twitches of the lost. So Tommy must have waited, scanning every angular, acned face. Besides that, he wouldn’t have wanted to show himself too soon. Somebody might’ve recognised him. And he’d have known that by now the word would have been out that he was back. That the word of him would be spreading like bacteria by now. He was likely puzzled for a moment by the gaggle of smokers outside the door. Were they waiting for something? Then he observed that they’d go in when their fags were finished, to be replaced by other sets of tar-hungry lungs on legs. Did Tommy even know that you’re not allowed to smoke in pubs any more, I sometimes wonder, dizzily. Did he have even the most rudimentary sense of history, that time had passed?

  I never thought the smoking ban would stick; I thought there’d be some pubs in some places where it would have been a reckless landlord indeed who asked you to put that out. But it does stick. Seems to. People actually obey the interdiction. Gratefully, even. Shows what I know. Perhaps it means something about where our culture has come to, that we’ve accepted this policing of our own good so readily. Who knows?

  4.5.2

  It got dark around nine anyway. And Tommy headed then into the warm roar of the Keys, all familiar, down to the paintwork, bar to the left, pool hall straight up the stairs, like long ago. He’d not clocked his boy going in as it happens. So he’d have to ask someone.

  5.0

  INT. BAR – THAT NIGHT

  Maybe eight pool tables, mobbed with kids, old guys. Air rank with old spilled booze. Loud music. HUNTER is at the bar drinking an orange juice, watching his son RONNIE playing pool.

  5.0.1

  £26,089.54

  5.0.1.1

  Kind of cocky and grim at the same time, Ronnie is smacking the cue ball about the table like he means it. A BOUNCER comes up to the crowd of boys, and Hunter watches with interest as pills and money change hands. He turns and speaks to the BARMAN.

  HUNTER

  That him? Ye sure? That’s Ronnie Hunter?

  BARMAN

  Aye. Right wee pain in the arse.

  HUNTER

  Thanks.

  He moves off from the bar to get a closer look.

  5.0.1.1.1

  Hunter approaches the table to watch his son admiringly as Ronnie gets everything but the eight ball away, but leaves his cue ball snug on the top cushion. Ronnie squints down at the shot. Then just as he’s about to take it, a bundle of notes hits the baize. Ronnie turns. His unknown progenitor, Hunter, is magically at his shoulder.

  HUNTER

  Hundred says ye miss it.

  5.1

  Ronnie looks at his father. There’s a glint of recognition. Not of the face, but of the genre.

  RONNIE

  Dae ah know you fae somewhere?

  HUNTER

  Balk left pocket, son. Hundred quid.

  FAT BOY

  (adoring)

  Gaun, Ronnie!

  Ronnie grins, and takes the shot. Lots of top. The eight ball clatters in bottom left to the cheers of Ronnie’s mates. But Ronnie waits … the cue ball is spinning dizzily towards the centre right … but seems to die almost on the lip. Ronnie picks up the money, grinning at Hunter. Hunter takes a ball from the top left pocket and puts it where the eight ball was. Silence falls as he replaces the cue ball. And counts more money on to the table.

  HUNTER

  Two hundred says ye cannae dae it again.

  RONNIE

  (in a manner to remind you vaguely of Audie Murphy)

  Ah kin play that shot aw night.

  Hunter looks at him. Every bugger in the room seems to be looking at him now. Everything goes quiet like in a film. Drunks look up from their sorrows, arguments freeze midinsult. Had there been a player piano, that too would have been silenced.

  5.1.1

  As it was, the medley of awful eighties hits relentlessly kept going and Kajagoogoo were now uncomfortably audible. This is when I looked up from my drink, too … when everything went quiet, but I was at the wrong angle and didn’t see what had happened.

  5.1.2

  Hunter watches Ronnie for signs of pressure, but either Ronnie is too stupid to care, or he has some nerve. Serious but steady, Ronnie gets ready for the shot, but before he can take it, the bouncer comes up, to be played in the movie, possibly, by Slim Pickens.

  BOUNCER

  There is no gambling permitted on these premises. That’s you and your mates barred.

  Ronnie and the others protest, a whining chorus from which Hunter’s basso profundo rumble emerges.

  HUNTER

  All he did was take the shot.

  BOUNCER

  Whit?

  HUNTER

  It was me that put the bet on.

  Hunter swivels slightly on his left hip, Jack Palance-like, head on a slight tilt.

  Bar me, why don’t ye?

  The bouncer looks away, preparatory to attack. It’s a very old trick. So that by the time he swings at Hunter, Hunter is well placed to punch the chap in the kidneys, very hard, and grab his hand, twisting it up at the wrist, bringing the arm round the back to smack the bouncer on to the table, right cheek down.

  HUNTER

  Now, you say yer sorry.

  BOUNCER

  Ay ya.

  HUNTER

  Naw. “Sorry …”

  BOUNCER

  … sorry …

  HUNTER

  Not tae me … arse face. Tae them.

  He brings the bouncer up to face the boys.

  BOUNCER

  Sorry …

  Hunter releases the bouncer. Hunter is shaking with adrenalin, with the potential for mayhem. The whole bar is standing up to see now.

  5.1.2.1

  And that’s when I saw him. That’s when I knew him. Tommy Hunter. I almost called out his name but something froze my tongue.

  5.2

  Ronnie takes the shot. It goes in, the cue ball not even close to dropping this time. Cool Hand Ron. A young and plooky Paul Newman throws the cue down on the table.

  RONNIE

  (to the bouncer)

  We were gaun anyway. Yer bevvy’s shite.

  Ronnie and his pals move off. Hunter watches their backs for official or free-spirited intervention. All Quiet in the West of Scotland. Hunter makes for the door, following the gaggle of yobbos. Out of shot, I struggle to get past people so I can talk to him, so I can see him again. Meantime, the barman intercepts him with menace.

  BARMAN

  Ur you his DADDY ur somethin?

  HUNTER

  That’s right, pal.

  Tommy decks the barman with one jabbed punch to the throat, and turns to face the bouncer who is coming at him with a chair, but Hunter kicks the bouncer in the crotch and he goes down vertically, the chair landing on his own head with cinematic justice.

  HUNTER

  (admonishing the miscreants with the official moral of the scene)

  Those drugs are slowin you down.

  He heads for the door, bold as Jesus, cool as Alan Ladd. And everybody is asking all at once, Who was that unmasked man?

  5.2.1

  £25,789.54

  5.2.1.1

  I knew him, I knew who he was. I struggled through the uproar he’d left in his wake, as the upstairs bar at the Keys, violence having been released in all of us, now went the full John Wayne, opportunistic punches being thrown everywhere you looked. Guys hitting the deck, hitting each other, a sudden flash of blood across my vision as somebody got glassed.

  I called after him, “Tommy! It’s me!” but he can’t have heard me or he didn’t turn if he did.

  By the time I
reached the stairwell he must have already been outside, because by the time I got outside, he was gone. Disappeared. I haven’t seen him since.

  CUT TO:

  5.3

  Identification of his boy accomplished, logic tells me and imagination confirms that, Hunter could now follow Ronnie home from the car park either on foot or in his vehicle, depending on what seemed operationally appropriate. He chose to proceed on foot and became one with the shadows on the street.

  5.3.1

  Ronnie’s cohorts were meanwhile cavorting, dissecting the improbable events of the evening, looking back apprehensively at the pub. Ronnie himself, not having the logic or imagination that would have allowed him to essay an interpretation of the evening’s events, had done what we would all do in such circumstances: he had pocketed the cash and forgotten everything as best he could. He was surrounded for the moment by an electrified crowd of self-regarding youth, buzzing on the adrenalin of their expulsion, not yet consciously aware that their evening was already over, that their solidarity was a thing of moments. But gradually, Hunter knew from memory, Ronnie would become detached from these deprivation tourists that currently surrounded him. Sooner or later he’d get him alone. He knew that. The likes of him, the likes of Ronnie, are always left alone in the end.

  When Ronnie moved off finally with around sixty per cent of his entourage intact, it would only be a matter of time. Hunter followed, keeping to the darkness, keeping his distance.

  5.3.2

  And gradually, right enough, the rest of them peeled away from him, in descending order of cool, till Ronnie was left with the fat kid. That’s the way it always was. The fat kid had nowhere he wanted to go, though he clearly, unlike Ronnie, had a home he could go to, but Ronnie’s tolerance, however temporary, was the nearest he could come to affirmation, just at the moment.

  The two outcast boys walked together, the outcast man their accompanying ghost, as the houses around them got bleaker and darker, the street lighting more sporadic, the sudden noises of domestic strife more startling as a soft rain began falling.

  Hunter peered as the two boys talked and walked, or rather, as the fat boy talked and Ronnie looked down at the pavement, face cowled in the dark, dangling a half-empty bottle, while his companion danced a slow-motion rondo of obeisance around him, chattering without response. Till they stopped.