Graven Image

by Williams, Charlie

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Graven Image

  Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Also from Charlie Williams

  Copyright

  Graven Image

  A novella

  Charlie Williams

  1.

  I was in the abbey when I realised I’d have to burn for my sins. If you go round the cloisters and have a look at all the stained glass windows, you'll find one of a man being burned to death, and he looks a bit like me, if I was white and had a beard. And even if he didn't look like me, I straight away knew all about him. I didn't know who he was or what he'd done, but I knew he was paying for something he’d done, and that he’d had no choice but to do that thing. I could see myself going the same way. And soon.

  Saying that, I hoped I was wrong.

  Getting burned to death seemed a bit harsh.

  I turned, spotting someone come round the corner. I knew this was no abbey-going punter. No punter moves with that kind of purpose, eyes burning a hole in your skull from fifty yards. The cloisters are a big, square corridor surrounding a nice garden that you can look at through the windows but not go in, and I was stood halfway along one side. Behind me was the gift shop and the main part of the abbey. Habit had me making a mental note of that in case things turned serious and I needed a way out. But I knew I wouldn’t be needing that mental note. I had hope, didn’t I? Things could be sorted.

  Burnings could be avoided.

  ‘Where’s Graven?’ I said to the oncoming ned with his chin up, arms swinging a foot adrift of his hips, bigging himself up big-time. He was all of five foot five and built like a variety-sized box of cornflakes. Twenty yards shy and he reaches inside his hoodie. Not a good sign.

  Things weren’t just turning serious, they were starting out that way.

  House of God and all.

  He was five paces away now and I could make out his eyes, but they weren’t on me like those of a good blade boy should be. Or even a shit one, really. It was around then I came to wonder if I might be wrong, if this one here was nothing to do with Graven’s dirty workings. Could be he was Mr Average, headed for the gift shop, after a nice key-ring or an embossed prayer book. Especially with his hand still in his top and not producing the stainless. Mind you, does Mr Average keep his hood up inside the house of God? I don’t know, but I had mine up.

  I had good reason to.

  He pulled alongside, the hand coming out now. This is where it got a bit odd for me. Meaning unusual things started going on up there in my head. I mean, your first instinct is self-preservation, right? Someone’s about to flash a tool, you either show him your heels or toss him a pre-emptive set of knuckles. This had been my way for as long as I could remember.

  But I got a different thing occurring to me this time. It occurred to me - with the sun bursting out behind my head, flashing the colours of that burning man across the ned’s grey Diesel with a big black 50 across the front - that I could always just take it. I could let him do what he’d been sent to do.

  Why prolong the inevitable? I mean, what is life, really and truly?

  One long trail of shit stretching day to day.

  Until you die.

  That’s why I closed my eyes. Serious, that is the reason. Bring it on, I was thinking, send me to the big sleep from which no bastard awakes. And when I opened them again I saw an angel approaching, coming down a long tunnel. Or maybe it was a leery-eyed vicar walking down the cloisters in my direction, I realised after blinking a few times. I now had a letter under my arm. A sealed envelope, brown smudges all over one corner and some damp on another. I sniffed it.

  Soil.

  The ned was nowhere. Common sense said he was in the main abbey, hiking sharpish for the exit after doing his drop-off. Which meant he was actually in the gift shop, because I knew how his sort operated and it wasn’t via common sense. I went in there, stuffing the letter down my arse pocket where it belonged. He was browsing your more expensive class of gift down the far aisle, where the old dear at the counter couldn’t clock him. I yanked his hood down and swung him back, sending him crashing into a rotating postcard stand. Then I dragged him to the door, all eight stone of him. I was sorry about trashing the shop but there were more pressing matters just now. Before I could get him out he wriggled free of the Diesel and scuttled behind the counter.

  The old dear was backed up to the wall, hand on heart.

  I apologised to her and grabbed the ned by the ankle, intending to get him away and thereby give her heart a rest. She didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts there, looking at her, but that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about respecting boundaries. It’s about making sure your bad shit doesn’t hurt innocent people.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said to the ned. I was kneeling on his back. His hoodie was riding up and you could see part of a large koi carp tat on his ribs, outlined and long healed but never coloured in.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This!’ I was still trying to get the letter out of my pocket.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shut up a minute!’

  I finally got it out and shoved it in his face.

  ‘This!’

  ‘I dunno! I’m just—’

  ‘Don’t you swear in a lady’s presence, you little—’

  ‘You’re hurtin’ me!’

  I probably was, to be fair. I’m no goliath but I do like a pie. And I can handle myself. I got off him. None of this was turning out like I’d hoped. Straight away he bolted for the door. I didn’t bother going after him. I was knackered, inside and out.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you are!’ the ned was shouting from the glass doorway, spit flying. ‘You’re a fuckin’ spanner!’

  I shrugged at the old dear and started picking up the rotating postcard display.

  2.

  QUITS. That’s what it said on a piece of paper inside that soil-stained envelope, in big block capitals. I’m no expert but I thought it might have been written by a female. There was a careful curve to the letters that you saw in Kelly’s handwriting, although Kelly wrote with a bit more confidence than seen here. That’s all you can give a kid, if you ask me. Confidence. And a surname.

  And a big hug every day.

  ‘Quits?’ I said.

  I was walking through town, keeping to back streets. I’d long since read the letter, such as it was, but it was still messing with my head and making no sense. How could we be quits? I’d been waiting for a blade in the guts, back there at the abbey - that’s how far in Graven’s debt I was. And we’re not talking loans here. I’m on about the currency of grievance, where eyes and teeth are exchanged in violent transactions.

  See, I’d fucked up. About a week ago, this was, during which time I’d been hiding out in the sticks. I’d still be there now if I hadn’t got that text from Graven. Let’s get this sorted, he’d suggested. Life’s too short for grudges and contracts on the heads of former friends and loyal compadres, so let’s meet up, shout at each other a bit and then have a little hug.

  If he thought I was hugging him he could kiss my black arse. And if I thought he wanted to make up, my black arse deserved the kicking it had coming.

  So why had I come back? Homesickness? Had exile got me down... all that country air making me hanker for the polluted streets I knew? Bollocks had it.

  I missed my daughter.

  And that is the only reason.

  What it was, just so you know, is that I’d gone overboard with my duties and someone had got hurt. Very hurt, if blood and exposed bone is anything to go by. Which wouldn’t be a problem on any normal day - people were always getting a bit hurt where my job was concerned, sometimes in life-changing ways.
But they’re not normally Graven’s VIP guest.

  Even if he did have it coming.

  So you can see why I was expecting some sort of violent retribution, that being Graven’s preferred method of disciplinary procedure. And you can see why I was scratching my head over this “QUITS” business.

  How had the score been evened? The inconvenience of having to go to the abbey at 4pm, standing Kelly up and missing one of our precious rendez-vous? The indignity of having to joust with that ned in the gift shop? Was it all about that dirty envelope? What does anthrax look like? Maybe I was a goner already, just by touching the paper. What was that film where they did that?

  I got my phone out and rang Darren. I needed him in the game with me. Graven and his crew were the only ones who knew I was back in town and I didn’t like it that way. You need an ally in your corner, someone to notice when you go missing. Plus I wanted to run this “QUITS” bollocks past him. Darren could always see the angles where I had a blind-spot.

  But he wasn’t answering just now.

  I went to pocket the phone but it went off in my hand. I answered, thinking it was Darren on the ring-back. I should have looked who the caller was. I could have prepared myself.

  ‘Darren?’ I said, trying to light a fag with my spare hand. ‘Look, I got a bit of a situ—’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘What? Who’s—?’

  ‘Who d’you think it is? It’s Jane, OK? Where is she?’

  Jane being my ex, of course. I dropped my unlit fag.

  ‘Where’s Kelly?’ she shouted.

  ‘I dunno! How should I know? Injunction says I can’t come within fifty metres of her, remember?’

  ‘Oh shut up! I know you see her! You think I’m stupid? You think I dunno you meet in that nasty pub on Wednesdays after school?’

  ‘Thursdays.’

  ‘What? Oh yeah, that’s what I meant.’

  ‘And it’s not a nasty pub, that’s the whole point.’

  ‘What are you doing going there, then?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to—?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Look, I never met her today. I had to—’

  ‘You know where she is or not?’

  ‘No! I swear I—’

  ‘Don’t bother swearing. If you want to help, just go and look for Kerry.’

  ‘Alright, but she’s... It’s Kelly, by the way.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Was it? Oh... Look, she’s probably gone to her friend’s house or something.’

  ‘Whatever. And you owe me some mon—’

  I hung up. I’d heard all I needed to hear.

  I remembered that film now:

  The Name of the Rose.

  3.

  I expect you’ll be wondering who the hell I am. Leon was what they knew me as at school. My mum hated my dad so she wouldn’t let me use his surname. She hated her dad as well so I couldn’t use hers either. So I ended up just having LEON on all my name tags, written in marker because she couldn’t sew. And she must have put that down on the forms and stuff when I started going there, because all the teachers called me Leon as well, even the ones who called you by your last name. You’d think a parent wouldn’t get away with that. But then you didn’t know my mum.

  I used to hate having only one name. It made me the odd one out, even more than my colour did. It put me at a disadvantage compared to everyone else, with their surnames and middle names. I missed the middle name most. A middle name is like a secret identity you can use whenever you want. Or you can ditch the first name if you don’t like it and just use the middle one. That’s what my ex did, the mother of my only daughter. But she was advertising a weakness there, showing the world how they could get under her skin and hurt her.

  Took me a long time but eventually I got used to having just one name. I felt like Pelé, or Eusébio. Except I wasn’t as good as them at footy. I looked a bit like them as well, especially Eusébio. Maybe that was why people didn’t make such a fuss about me having one name. They’d never have tolerated it if I was a white kid, but a little black boy... that’s alright. ‘It’s part of their culture,’ they’d say. ‘They do things different over there.’

  I never did find out where “over there” was, but I found out I had a surname. All you have to do is look at your birth certificate. Sounds easy now, but it took until I was eighteen and mum was dead before I realised I even had such a thing. She’d kept it stashed under her bed, in a flat box with other bits and bobs. It’s strange, the little objects a woman cares about.

  Finally I had a surname, even if I didn’t really want it any more. But I’d be getting married within a couple of years and my wife wanted to get rid of hers, so at least I had one to give her. And to Kelly, the daughter who’d be coming along after that.

  Anyway, so Leon is who I am name-wise.

  Job-wise, I wasn’t so proud. Not everyone can be proud of how they earn a crust but we’ve all got to earn one somehow. And who says you’ve got to be proud of your job anyway? Being proud of your job is nothing to be proud of, if you ask me. So yeah, I was a brothel bouncer. I lent a certain presence to the foyer of Destiny Gentlemen’s Club, up on the Makin Estate. Punters saw me when I came in and knew what they’d have to tangle with, should they choose to get lairy. And it worked, most times.

  Punters come for sex, not aggro.

  They want aggro, they can get it in any pub or club. They can’t get sex there, though. Not the kind of punter you got in Destiny on a normal night. We are talking the calibre of man that prostitution was invented for. If they don’t pay for it they don’t get none of it at all. Or you get rapists. So, in a way, I was performing a public service.

  Maybe I should be proud of my job after all.

  When you looked at it, it really was a proper profession. You had specific skills learned from arduous training and on-the-job experience, and you were responsible for the welfare of others. So, yeah, I was a brothel bouncer. AKA Discreet Services Security Provider.

  You

  ’re smirking, I see.

  Think of it this way: who’s there to keep order when a pub-load of pissed-up knob-ends walks up? Who steps in when there’s a dispute over services rendered against monies due? Who’s there with the arm-lock when a punter turns slap-happy?

  I’ll tell you something, a working girl cannot do it. Men are just stronger than women, end of. Especially when they’re ten pints of wife-beater to the bad. Five women all pile on a strident punter, they’re still not going to stop him doing what he wants.

  See what I mean about responsibilities?

  You can understand how you start seeing the girls as your family after a while, and punters as threats to your own flesh and blood. And when they hurt your family - really hurt her - there’s only one kind of response.

  I’ll be telling you more about that.

  Mind you, some women have ways of getting around a berserker. Some women can talk a person round just by looking at them in a certain way. Male or female, they’re all butter to her hot knife. I’m talking about Carla.

  We’ll get to her as well.

  4.

  The Rose and Crown had a swinging sign out front that resembled neither rose nor crown. What it looked like was a big monster running towards you, listing to one side slightly like someone had speared it a while back and it had tried to carry on as normal, but blood loss was catching up and it was about to keel over. None of the other regulars could see it, even though I’d pointed it out to them. This was yet another area where I seemed to be out of step with the herd. What they saw was a very old and peeling painting of a crown with a rose in front of it. But I still got along alright with most of them. We had an understanding. They knew what I was about and didn’t seem to judge me for it. Which is why I didn’t hang about, going straight up to Jim, the landlord, and saying: ‘Kelly been in here?’

  He glanced up from his paper and gave me a startled look. That’s how intense
I must have been coming across. ‘Kelly who?’

  ‘Kelly, my... you know, the girl I bring in here Thursdays.’

  ‘Don’t know her.’

  ‘What do you...? Look, Jim, we sit on that table over—’

  ‘Leon, you don’t have to shout at me. I don’t want any kind of trouble or disturbance in here. Get me?’

  ‘Are you listening? All I’m asking is—’

  ‘And all I’m asking is for you to keep your trouble away from this pub. We’ve welcomed you here, while other places perhaps wouldn’t. Me and Madge don’t like to judge, and we expect some respect in return. Get me?’

  ‘Alright,’ I said, containing myself. ‘What happened?’

  ‘This ain’t that sort of pub, Leon. I’m sorry but I’d be happy if you stopped drinking here for a while.’

  ‘I’m just looking for my daughter, Jim! Have you seen her or not? About so high, slim, long curly hair, skin a bit lighter than mine...’

  ‘I’ve seen nothing.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Jim!’

  Jim’s son Jonathan stepped up to the bar beside me. He was hardly ever here and I knew something must have happened. He was a big lad, but soft, not having the upbringing like I’d had.

  ‘You gotta leave our dad alone,’ he said, a tremor in his voice.

  ‘Or else?’

  ‘Or else whatever you want.’ Not so much of a tremor now. When something don’t hurt them straight away, people get cocky fast. ‘You ain’t getting any kind of answer here though, right? You got problems, mate, and you need to get ’em sorted. That’s what I say.’

  I stepped away and sat for a moment at a table, getting my thoughts together. I knew I was being dicked around here but the question was why? From what I could see it was either:

  1. Because they’d heard I was in the shit with Graven