by Nigel Bird
“Do I know you?”
“You do business with my gymnasts.”
“And?”
“And I was hoping we could meet.”
“Tell me more.”
“They deserve the best they can get. I’m sure you can understand that. With the right kind of investment maybe we could up the ante. Reach for the stars.”
“Where and when?”
“10 o’clock at the gym. Knock three times on the door round the back, the one that says Jess loves Mick.”
“Will you be doing business?”
“Cash.”
“Look forward to seeing you, Mr Fish.”
“It’ll be my pleasure.” The way I planned it, I certainly hoped it would.
*
I don’t go to pubs very often. They’re not much fun when you don’t drink.
I picked one that I knew would be busy on a Friday afternoon. The Penny Black near the sorting office was a safe bet. Posties knock off at all times of day and lugging mail is thirsty work. So is saving the world – if the postmen didn’t fancy a pint, the folk from the Amnesty headquarters round the corner might.
As luck would have it, both groups were represented.
I spent a good while wandering the streets carrying my laptop bag, making sure the CCTV got a good look. Then, walking through the doors of ‘the Black’, I made sure I banged into a few people.
“Oi. Watch yourself mate,” attracted attention and I apologised like I meant it.
At the bar I ordered a half of lager-shandy without the lager. The bartender wasn’t amused.
I took the lemonade over to the window and sipped it. When I was confident nobody could be bothered to watch, I emptied the newspapers from the bag and threw them onto the sill. I folded the bag up small and stuffed it into my coat sleeve.
I sat in the cubicle of the gents for a good five minutes, scrunched up a few tissues and pulled the flush.
When I got back to my drink, everyone was as I’d left them.
“Excuse me, mate, you didn’t move my laptop did you?”
The bartender was even less amused this time round when I told him the story. Having the police in a friendly establishment is never good news.
They turned up, took my statement, said they’d do what they could and left. I made sure they got a list of missing items: laptop, memory stick, pens, book and the keys to the Leisure Centre.
*
4:15 and the boys had done exactly as I’d told them. The police were on their way.
The smells of sweat and trainers were more welcome than usual. We sat on the benches and waited.
For a couple of hours it was mayhem. There were photographers and paramedics and plain-clothed coppers all over the show. We just had to wait, none of us in the mood to say much.
The police took us for a chat one at a time. When had we seen him last? Did we know about his allergies? Who administered the epi-pen?
We had it sewn up. Said we trained with him that morning, but when we were done he told everyone not to wait because he needed to work on a dismount. We’d all seen his routine and agreed it was probably a good idea. He must have bought himself the cake for when he finished. Something in it didn’t agree with him – maybe the Leisure Centre was using a new supplier for the vending machines. Anyway, that was the last they saw of him till they turned up for the afternoon slot.
By the time the forensics wrapped up, it was almost 7. We’d achieved our first objective of avoiding the 6 o’clock news and they still hadn’t been able to contact the parents on account of me giving them tickets to a West End show.
I agreed to speak at a press conference the following day, watched everyone leave and hung around to lock up. The knock on the door came at ten o’clock on the button.
I let Billy in and he parked himself on the bench I’d sat on earlier.
“Nice to meet you at last,” he said.
I offered my hand and he took it. His breath smelled like cat food and his stubble was smudged with grease. Made me wonder why he bothered dressing in a suit.
“You brought the stuff?” I nodded over to his travelling bag.
“Sure. It’s all in the case.” He hooked his foot over it and dragged it over. “What we have here,” he said as he opened the bag, “is the best that money can buy.” He picked up a vial of blue liquid. “Here we have the bronze medal range. The stuff that’s turning your boys into supermen.”
“I know about that. What else have you got?”
He pulled out two more vials, one pink, and one green.
“This,” he said, holding out the pink stuff, “is the silver medal merchandise. It’ll take you almost all the way. They don’t have anything like this anywhere else.”
“Tell me how it works.”
“Do I look like a scientist?”
He didn’t, so I moved on. “Tell me about the gold instead.”
“Now you’re talking. It lets you build muscle, burn calories, train harder and recover from injury faster. It’ll even wash the dishes and put them away.”
It was no wonder they all fell for it, the way he spoke. If he’d been around when I was a contender, I’d probably have gone for it myself. “How about dope tests?” I asked.
“Negative, negative, negative.” A grin spread across his face. I guessed that this was where he usually clinched the deal.
“And the price?”
“For anybody else, £2,500 a week, but I’m a patriot. For the British team, half price.”
That was steep. I wondered what he was charging the lads for the bronze medal stuff, but didn’t want to think about how they might be getting hold of that kind of money.
Things were dragging. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could look him in the eye. I needed to make a move before he sussed me out.
Just as I thought I’d have to go for him face to face, Billy turned his back to repack the samples.
I grabbed his neck with a grip that would have opened any pickle jar then remembered I had to be careful. I didn’t want to wipe him out without making him suffer.
He swung his arms like a wind-up toy. His shoulders were too broad to let him get to me with any power.
Turning him round, I let go of his throat and stuck one in his ribs. His gut was soft. I felt it give. Disgusting the way some people let themselves go. I hit his head, hit his head again and then threw him to the floor.
It looked like I’d knocked him out, but I wasn’t going to take chances. Into his mouth I stuffed a cloth and ran tape across his lips and round his head it till it was secure. I’ve never stuffed anything into anyone’s mouth before, nothing that wasn’t attached to me anyway, and wasn’t exactly sure what it was for. Still, that’s what they do in the movies.
He remained quiet and still as I worked.
When his hands and feet were tied, I slung him over my shoulder and took him into the gym. It was already set up as I needed, the vaulting horse under the rings.
It wasn’t easy getting us both up, but I managed.
Taking him on my shoulders again, I hoisted him up, slipped one foot through each ring and let his weight fall. He must have felt it. His body twitched and I looked down to give him a little wave.
“You stink, Cheese. I’m going to get rid of your smell forever.”
In my back pocket I was carrying two pairs of police handcuffs, untraceable as it happened. My brother, as well as being a hell of a hunch-better, is also on the force. He’s a good man to know, my Charlie. I used them to fix his legs into place. He wasn’t going to be going anywhere in a hurry. In fact, he wasn’t going to be going anywhere ever again, unless you counted the bottom of the canal. When the sun came up I’d take him out in my barge, dump him half way through the Islington tunnel. Half a mile long it is. Nobody would he finding him in a hurry.
Returning to the changing rooms, I filled the syringe that James had used with a cocktail from the vials in his bag and carried it out to Billy, making sure he saw what I was holding.
He
was crying like a newborn. Pleading for all he was worth. It came out as a lot of mumble. I suppose that’s what the rags are all about.
When I stuck the needle in, it made him worse. Didn’t he know about the staying quiet thing?
“James Foster was the best I’ve seen on the rings. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t have managed. I’d have backed him for a medal without any of your shit. He died today. You poisoned him.”
Billy’s body twitched. It didn’t look like he was having a very good time of it. I punched him hard in the stomach just to make myself feel better.
“We used to wonder, James and I, how long it would take for someone to die if they were hanging upside down. Reckon this is as good a way to find out as any.”
I looked at him one more time. He was bright red, his eyes bulging the way James’ had done that morning and he was swinging backwards and forwards trying to get his hands to the rings. He was miles off.
It took nine more syringes to empty his sample bag. By the time I got to number six, he was looking pretty groggy. By number nine, he’d stopped moving altogether.
I went to clear up the mess. My hands were shaking and I felt sick. It was way past my bedtime and my body was crying out for cocoa.
As I went to switch my office lights off, I noticed something about my left eye. Most of what I could see from it was dark, but in the middle, like someone had poked a hole through a piece of paper, there was a ring of light.
Covering my right eye, I looked out of the hole for a while and saw the photo on the wall, with James holding his medal to the camera. UK Junior Champion 1992. Felt like he was holding it out to me. I almost reached to take it.
I winked at him and hit the switch.
“Good night James Foster,” I said into the darkness and rested my head on my desk.
Digging
“If you dig far enough,” I tell him, “you’ll reach the other side of the world.”
It’s what my dad told me when I was digging here. Isn’t it what all fathers are supposed to say to their children in such circumstances?
“Really?”
“Really, really.”
Wee Donald is standing in the middle of his hole in the sand. I can see all of his five-year-old body from the knees up, the rest of him being hidden under the ground. He’s got the big, red spade today, the one he uses when there’s serious digging to be done. His blond hair pokes out from bottom of his faded baseball cap and there are white marks on his fair skin where I didn’t manage to rub the cream in properly.
“So what’s at the other side of the world?” It’s a good question.
I play my part with well rehearsed lines. “Australia. You get to Australia.”
He stops digging for a moment and straightens his glasses so that they sit properly on his button nose.
“What’s in Australia, Dad?”
“Well, it’s night time there when it’s daytime here and everything’s upside down. They’ve got kangaroos and koalas and didgeridoos. And everything they eat comes from the barbecue.”
Donald thinks about it and gets back to his digging. “I don’t think I want to go there, Dad.” It’s like he’s reading from the wrong script. “I’m looking for treasure.”
Ah, it’s the treasure he’s after. So it’s not the wrong script, it’s just a different one.
“Treasure? Who do you think might have left treasure here?”
He looks at me like I’m completely stupid. “Pirates of course.”
“Why would pirates have put their treasure in the ground?”
It’s obviously another stupid question. “So they can hide it from the baddies, silly.”
I know my place and pretend to settle back to reading my book.
As soon as he’s completely involved in his work again, I pull over my bag and discretely fumble about in my purse. I feel for coins, making sure I don’t get anything more valuable than a 20p and take them out.
I put my book down and go over to inspect the hole.
I must say, it’s impressive. He’s got a good work-rate and he seems to have mastered the art of keeping the dry sand at the top from filling in his new space.
“It’s good,” I say.
“It’s great.” I wonder where he gets the energy from and where that energy will go when he’s older. If all the builders in the world were under 10, I think, I reckon all building jobs would come in ahead of schedule.
While he’s so focussed, I take the coins from my hand and drop them one by one into the sand behind his feet, careful to keep them apart so that they don’t make any noise.
I go back to the rug when the inspection’s over and pick up my book.
I don’t read a word. Instead I wait for him to discover the pirate’s haul.
It doesn’t take long.
5 minutes later, he bends down and looks closely at something.
A huge smile spreads across his face and the sunshine fades in comparison. The beams of his happiness make my insides glow.
“Daddy. Daddy. Look what I’ve found. The treasure.”
Once again, I play my part. I go over and investigate and tell him that he’s right and wonder if there’s any more.
Within moments there’s a pile of 5 sandy coins by the side of the hole.
He seems satisfied, gets out from his hole and picks up his red bucket.
Off he runs to the sea, returning with a bucketful of water into which he drops the coins and washes them.
The money takes centre stage on our rug.
He comes over and sits by them and keeps a close eye, watching them all through our lunch of sandwiches and crisps.
When we finish eating, he leans in to me and keeps staring at the Doubloons as if he’s expecting someone to swoop down and steal them back.
Gradually, his eyes turn sleepy from all their effort and eventually shut altogether.
I take over on watch and carefully adjust my position so that I shade his face from the sun.
I look down at my boy, my wee treasure, and scan the horizon for Jolly Rogers.
An Arm And A Leg
Cold air poured in when they opened the doors. It would soon be over. All Carlo had to do was accept his punishment and they could wake up in the morning and start over.
The ride had been at high speed and in a straight line, so they’d either gone south down the A1 or round the Edinburgh bypass. It wasn’t easy to tell in the dark, but he figured south was the more likely when he factored in the roundabouts.
Rolling round inside the back of the van, he’d been reminded of driving his wife and first-born home from the maternity ward at Little France in the restaurant’s Berlingo. Maria had been bumped around as sleeping-policemen and pot-holes took turns to attack the suspension; even with her newly stitched episiotomy, she didn’t utter a noise the whole way. Nor had Chris, the poor child, head bobbing in the seat they’d spent an age working out how to secure.
That was ten years earlier. Since then Maria had given birth to a second child and, when her patience finally wore through, filed for divorce and sent him packing from the family home and business.
If he’d kept away from the booze, he might still have been in line for taking over one of the most successful eateries in the city. He could have been sitting back counting cash and sipping orange juice while his shoulders were rubbed and he watched the Hoops put one past the Jambos or the ‘Gers. Instead he was in some God-forsaken place wondering how they were going to take their revenge.
It wasn’t long before they dropped him to the ground, his head hitting something hard and sharp.
The icy wind from the Forth cut through his jacket and the smell of the salt filled his nostrils. He guessed they were at the cement works - that’s where he’d be doing it if the steel toe caps were on the other foot.
The men standing over him took a moment to spark up cigarettes. Carlo rested his cheek upon the smooth metal rail, so chilled that his tongue might have stuck to it if he’d given it a li
ck. His fingers identified wooden sleepers with pebbles scattered in between and his legs found the parallel rail exactly where he knew it would be. The bleating of a goat was the last piece he needed to complete his picture. They weren’t at the cement works but the East Lothian Family Park, built to entertain the kiddies.
Sure, what he’d done wouldn’t be winning him an M.B.E., but using trains as weapons should have died out with silent movies.
These guys were animals. Perhaps the farm was the best place for this to end after all.
*
Tranent needed another chip shop like it needed another teenage pregnancy. When Carlo Salvino impregnated Kylie on the same night that he opened ‘the Golden Fry’, he really managed to hit the bull’s eye.
Belters they were called, the people from the town. Some said it was on account of the tanneries in the area way back when. Others had it that it was because of the way the miners had worn their lamps. As far as Carlo could make out it made more sense that it was because they were likely to settle a disagreement with punches rather than words and that they could hit as hard as anyone he’d ever come across.
If he’d had the money he’d have set up in the city, moved over to Glasgow even, but at least this way he was within ten miles of his kids, the rates on the High Street were cheap as his chips and with four pubs on the doorstep success seemed a sure thing.
‘The Golden Fry’ opened on Valentine’s Day. Carlo fixed up ribbons and fairy lights, ordered in cases of cheap sparkling wine and sprinkled heart-shaped chocolates along the window seat for the kids.
At six the place was buzzing. By half past, the Cava and chocolates gone, the only person left was a girl who’d been giving him the eye since walking in.
They chatted about something, the weather or football or the price of fish. Whatever it was, Carlo couldn’t remember. Nor could he fully recall sharing a quick one against the wall in the Wynd when he walked her home. He had a vague recollection of some fumblings, but they weren’t enough for him to even daydream about while he stood around waiting for customers.
Kylie came in the next day for a poke of onion rings wearing her school sweat shirt. She may have looked at least 18 and he knew nothing illegal had taken place, but if he could have run a mile without needing to stop for a rest, he might well have done.