Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

  ‘Not interested,’ Devlin said. The taste in his mouth cleared. He even thought about picking up his glass and drinking from it. ‘So if you think all this is going to get you another drink, you’re wasting your time.’ His head felt suddenly clear. Perhaps his drunkenness had passed. Perhaps he was on the other side of it. He’d heard of men drinking themselves sober. It made a sort of sense, but probably only to a drunken man.

  ‘I was only trying to be friendly,’ the man said.

  ‘Then you’re wasting your time.’ Testing himself with everything he said.

  ‘I can see that now. Besides, I heard about you. You taking up with the gyppos is the least of things. I know more about you than—’

  ‘Than what? More about me than what? I’ve never even seen you before.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ The man seemed genuinely surprised.

  ‘Just get lost,’ Devlin said. ‘The gyppos will be back soon. I doubt you’ll want to stick your nose into their business.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m going. Seen all I need to see. You don’t know the half of it, son.’

  Devlin laughed at him. The taste was back in his mouth.

  The man rose and picked up his empty glass, sucking at it as he went first to the bar and then to the door. As he left, he turned to Devlin and said, ‘Pass on your regards, shall I?’

  ‘Do whatever you like,’ Devlin told him. ‘Or you could try keeping your fucking nose out of other people’s fucking business.’ He finally picked up his glass and drank from it. He wondered how long the McGuires would be gone. They talked about hours and minutes, dates and appointments, but none of it meant anything.

  ‘He said you’d got a mouth on you,’ the man said, and then he left.

  Devlin sat breathing deeply for a while. This time when he rose to his feet the room stayed in place. He went to the toilet and returned. The brothers might leave him sitting there for hours. They might even forget he was with them. The man they were there to see wasn’t going to show. Three hours late? They might even meet him somewhere else now and then spend what was left of the day with him. He’d give it another hour, two at the most, and then he would leave and make his own way back to the trailer. He tried to remember if he’d heard the brothers’ van leaving the small car park when they’d gone out. Two hours. It would be dark by then and they were different men in the dark.

  As he considered all this, the door opened again and Devlin turned to look, expecting the McGuires to enter and to come and sit beside him.

  But instead of the brothers or the man they were there to meet, the same old man who knew his father came back into the room and stood in front of Devlin with a grin on his face. He was followed a moment later by a man Devlin’s age. He was tall and heavy. Perhaps he was the old man’s son.

  The old man came even closer to Devlin and then pointed directly at him.

  ‘Told you it was him,’ he said triumphantly to the man behind him. ‘Recognized him the instant I clapped eyes on him.’ He turned to the younger man and held out his hand.

  The younger man took out a wallet and gave him a single note.

  ‘Is that all?’ the man said.

  The younger man pushed him to one side and took his place directly in front of Devlin.

  ‘You Jimmy Devlin?’ he said.

  ‘What, just because he says I am?’

  ‘You’re him,’ the man said, grinning.

  Devlin smelled the drink on his breath. The man’s hands were dirty, as though he’d come to the bar from wherever he’d been working.

  ‘I don’t know what you think I’m supposed to have done,’ Devlin said, wondering if the words had come out right. It sounded much less of a threat than he’d intended.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ the man said. ‘My name’s Sewell. George Sewell. Ring any bells?’

  It didn’t.

  ‘Never heard of you,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Perhaps this will jog your memory,’ Sewell said, and before Devlin could prepare himself, the man formed a heavy fist and swung it hard into Devlin’s face, catching his nose and cheek and lip and forcing him back in his seat, banging his head against the wall and causing him to swing his own arm and knock over his glass and the two empty ones still beside it, all three of them falling to the stone floor where they smashed. He struggled to pull himself upright, and as he did this Sewell hit him again, on the other side of his head. This time Devlin shouted out in surprise and pain, and at the same time Sewell grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pushed him even harder back against the wall. Devlin tried to hold his hands in front of his face. Blood ran from his nose into his mouth and then from his mouth down his wet chin.

  Sewell finally let go of him, his fist still clenched, his arm drawn back.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ Devlin shouted at him, causing himself more pain and seeing his hands flecked with red spittle. ‘I never knew any Sewell. I’m telling you, whoever you are, you’ve got this wrong.’ He struggled to make sense of what was happening to him. Perhaps the man had been sent by Duggan. Or perhaps he was working for Harrap now that the court and Skelton had failed him?

  George Sewell stood panting for a moment. He lowered his arm and uncurled his fingers. ‘You know Barbara Collet?’ he said, and in that instant everything began to make sense to Devlin. Painful sense.

  ‘Whatever she’s saying—’ he began to say, then stopped and considered his words more carefully. ‘No, not her – that old bitch of a mother of hers. Whatever she’s saying, it’s not true.’

  ‘You calling her a liar, then? You calling the pair of them liars?’

  Devlin touched a finger to his lips. ‘I’m bleeding,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘Good. Because this is only half of what you deserve. Plenty more where that came from.’

  ‘What’s she been saying?’ He remembered Skelton’s wife on the morning of his eviction. ‘Because whatever you’ve heard, it’s not—’

  ‘So you keep saying. What I’ve heard,’ George Sewell said slowly, ‘is that you’re playing the big man and going round telling everybody that it’s your kid.’

  Devlin wondered why the landlord hadn’t come to see what was happening, or at least come to demand payment for the smashed glasses. He looked down at the new drops of blood appearing on the wet table. He held the edge again, but all that achieved was to betray the shaking of his hands.

  ‘Me and Barbara, we’re engaged to be wed,’ George Sewell said.

  ‘So what?’ Everything became clear to Devlin. As clear as it would ever be.

  Sewell smiled at the words. ‘And the last thing either of us wants now is some pathetic little toe-rag like you going round shooting his mouth off about the kid.’

  ‘I never said anything,’ Devlin said. He watched the viscous blood pooling in his palm.

  ‘Not what I heard,’ Sewell said.

  Was that a note of uncertainty in his voice?

  Devlin seized his advantage. ‘I had a bit of a run-in with Skelton, that’s all, got the better of him. His fat, blousy tart of a wife has obviously decided to get even on his behalf. She’s the one going round shooting her mouth off about me and the kid, not me.’ It was mostly the truth. Truth plus a bit of guesswork, but who was counting? Sewell was beginning to swallow it. ‘I used to see Barbara Collet,’ Devlin said. ‘It’s common knowledge, I won’t lie to you. But the kid’s nothing to do with me.’

  George Sewell looked as though he was going to sit down. Perhaps it was all starting to make better sense to him than whatever he might have heard from either Barbara Collet’s mother or Skelton’s wife. All he wanted to be told now, Devlin guessed, was that the child was his, Sewell’s, and that nothing to the contrary was being put about by the only other person who might have had something to say on the matter. That only other person being him, Devlin, Jimmy Devlin.

  ‘We’re going to be wed,’ Sewell said again.

  ‘So you keep telli
ng me.’

  ‘In Lowestoft, and then we’ll live there. I’ve got a half-decent job there, and once we’re married we’ll set up home there and as far as everybody’s concerned the kid is mine.’

  ‘The kid is yours,’ Devlin said. ‘There was no need for any of this. By rights, I should have the law on you for assault.’ It sounded like a legitimate threat.

  Lowestoft. The arsehole of beyond. The pair of them were welcome to it; them and the kid.

  ‘Nice place, Lowestoft,’ he said.

  ‘Who cares? The point is, it’s not here. Am I making myself clear?’

  ‘Crystal,’ Devlin said. He held up his bloody hand. ‘I’m bleeding,’ he said again. Red strings fell to the table.

  ‘What, and you want an apology?’

  ‘I can see why you might be put out,’ Devlin said, causing Sewell to bang both his heavy fists on the table. There might even have been some of Devlin’s blood on one of them.

  ‘The kid’s mine, and that’s all there is to it,’ Sewell said. Melodrama.

  Not once had he said ‘daughter’, let alone whatever name they had given her.

  Devlin considered asking, but didn’t.

  ‘Who was the old man?’ he said.

  ‘Just somebody I knew who said he knew you and would let me know when he spotted you.’

  ‘He knows my father,’ Devlin said. ‘Not me.’

  ‘I doubt there’s much to choose between the pair of you from what I hear,’ Sewell said. It was another blow to Devlin, but again he said nothing. ‘So have I made myself clear enough for you?’

  ‘Crystal,’ Devlin said. ‘I already said.’

  ‘Just don’t give me cause to come looking for you again, that’s all I’m saying.’

  George Sewell turned and went to the door.

  As he left, the landlord finally appeared at the bar and shouted in to ask who was going to clear up all the mess and then pay for everything that had been broken.

  Devlin wondered how much money was still in his pocket. He cursed the McGuire brothers. He wondered if it was already dark outside, or if the light of a dull day had yet to die. He felt sick again. He held a hand to his chest and when he looked he saw a vague red print there. The taste was stronger in his mouth. He tried to remember when any of his clothes had last been washed.

  20

  HE OPENED AN eye and watched Maria where she slept fully clothed on the bench opposite him. A solitary shaft of weak light crossed the caravan from back to front. Blankets hung at the windows. The same stale smell filled the air.

  He pushed himself upright and struck his arm against the metal edge of the flimsy table, crying out at the sudden pain. One more to add to all his others.

  ‘What time is it?’ Maria said, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Eleven, half past?’ Devlin said, rubbing his arm.

  He remembered Maria coming to him an hour after Patrick and Colm had brought him to the caravan the previous night.

  He remembered the brothers telling her everything that had happened in the Oak, and he remembered them laughing at everything they said. Maria had washed his face and bleeding mouth. She told him there was no real damage, just cuts and bruises. Devlin had practised opening and closing his mouth, sucking air through his nose. The brothers had said he just had to give the word and they’d go in search of Sewell. Devlin told them not to, that it was an ending of sorts, a tie finally severed.

  The empty caravan stood a hundred yards from the brothers’ own. They’d told Devlin he could have it for the winter. The rent was negotiable, they said, and laughed again.

  ‘This the best you got?’ he’d asked them.

  ‘Who said you were getting best?’ Patrick had answered him.

  And, just as at Duggan’s, Devlin had understood immediately and precisely where he stood.

  His mother used to say that some men lived their lives like leaves in the wind.

  ‘You pay us, one way or another, at the end of every week,’ Patrick had said. ‘Yes or no?’

  Yes.

  His mother used to say that some men never knew what choices they had until not a single one of those choices remained.

  When Patrick and Colm had gone, and he was alone with Maria, she had warned him about paying her brothers on time. There had been others, she’d said, her warning clear.

  Rising now from where she’d slept on the opposite bench, she showed him how to light the paraffin heater at the centre of the caravan. There was a can of fuel under the doorstep. The burning wick added its own sudden sharp aroma to the room.

  ‘It stinks,’ Devlin said.

  ‘It’s paraffin. What did you expect? I can sell you a lucky lavender bag if you like.’

  Devlin started to laugh. It hurt him to open his mouth more than a slit.

  Maria went to the sink. A foot pump did nothing to bring water to the tap, just a dry rasping sound.

  ‘Something else you’ve not got,’ she said. ‘Beggars and choosers and all that.’

  If he was begging, he’d hardly be paying rent, would he? But he kept the thought to himself.

  Maria left him after that and returned an hour later to say that her brothers had gone. She brought the cold remains of a meal with her – even after testing it, Devlin was none the wiser – and a bottle of clear spirit, which she poured into cups.

  Gone where?

  Usually better not to ask.

  Like that, was it? Stupid question. It was always like that.

  They shared a bitter toast to his new home. She showed him where small tables appeared and how seating was turned into beds. She told him not to get any funny ideas. ‘Such as?’ Devlin wanted to say, but didn’t. Their breath clouded the cold air.

  ‘Colder in here than outside,’ she said. ‘No, seriously.’

  Devlin finally managed to get the heater burning, strewing the floor with spent matches. Fumes rippled to the tin ceiling, where they left a faint sheen. The place was a death trap, but no one had ever spent a night in a caravan without that particular understanding. He sat with his palms held close to the top of the heater.

  Maria pulled a blanket over her shoulders and came to sit beside him, her hands close to his.

  ‘You should have got out while you had the chance,’ she said to him.

  The remark surprised him. ‘I’m hardly—’ he began to say.

  ‘Everything catches up with you one way or another in this place.’

  Devlin touched his lip. ‘It already did.’ He wanted to laugh again.

  ‘Trouble is, this place, you can usually see that trouble coming from a long way off. Or if it isn’t coming directly at you, then it’s still out there, going round and round in circles and waiting its chance.’

  He wanted to tell her she was wrong. His tongue felt swollen in his mouth. He began to wonder if one of his teeth had come loose.

  ‘Does it still hurt?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘You keep telling yourself that.’ She looked around her. ‘They’ll sell off some of the other vans when money gets tight. They gave you this one because it would fetch next to nothing, even for scrap.’ Every farm for twenty miles in every direction had either a wheel-less railway carriage or a sagging caravan sitting at the corner of one of its fields. In some parts, they were all that broke the never-ending watery flatness of the place.

  ‘When do they start the maintenance work, repairing the rides and machinery?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not for months yet. No point doing anything too early. There’s a lot of winter to come.’ It was the middle of November.

  Devlin was about to suggest going in search of more food when Patrick returned, pulling open the door without knocking and coming straight in to them. He was surprised to see that his sister had spent the night there and did nothing to disguise this.

  Devlin wondered what to say to him.

  Patrick laughed at his discomfort. ‘You’re a fast worker,’ he said. He looked from Devlin to Maria
to the bottle on the table.

  ‘When did you get back?’ Maria asked him.

  ‘Just this minute.’

  ‘From?’

  Patrick looked back to Devlin and smiled. ‘From where I went,’ he said.

  Then he went to Devlin at the heater, held him by his shoulders and laughed in his face. ‘I’m joking with you, boy. You and her. Bit of a laugh, that’s all. You should see your face. She’s her own woman.’

  Patrick went to the sink. ‘You got any water running yet?’ He stamped on the pump, making the same rasping noise. He reached for the door and pulled it shut. It made no difference to the temperature. Then he went to the table, sat down and finally drank from the bottle.

  ‘Busy night?’ Devlin asked him, bracing himself against Patrick’s answer.

  ‘That lip’s bleeding again,’ Patrick said. ‘So-so. Scrap, mostly, already sold on. He must have hit you harder than you’re letting on. Didn’t you even get one shot back at him?’

  ‘A bit of one, in the gut.’

  ‘Gut’s no good. You need to get straight to the face every time. Eyes first, mouth, then nose. Let the bastard know you’re there. We saw Duggan earlier. Hit a man in the gut and all you do is give him time to work out what’s coming next. A bit of blood in his eyes or down his shirt lets him know exactly what’s happening. Gut? Jesus.’

  Devlin felt suddenly warm. ‘Duggan?’ he said.

  ‘He’d been at the scrap yard over Gosberton way. Don’t worry, we didn’t let on that we’d seen you. And it surely wouldn’t be in our interest to let him know that we’re keeping you here in the lap of luxury. Your name came up, but only because he mentioned it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You never said anything to us about robbing him blind when he kicked you out.’ He looked from Devlin to Maria and smiled as he said it.

  ‘That’s because I didn’t,’ Devlin said, his mouth dry.

  ‘Not according to him. According to him, you waited until he’d gone out and then, like the coward that you are, you crept back when only his defenceless wife and poor old father were in the house and helped yourself to whatever you could find.’

  ‘A bit of food,’ Devlin said. ‘That’s all.’ It wasn’t even stealing.