Borrowed Time

by David Mark

  A smell of satay sauce and egg rolls, ripe on a grey sky.

  Adam and Grace, sitting in a booth. It’s all ornate chairs and perfect white tablecloths. The classier kind of cheap lunch. Serves camel hump, but takes American Express. No knives and forks, but they serve London Pride. Authentic main course, followed by sticky toffee pudding and a deep-fried Creme Egg.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ she asks, for the thousandth time.

  ‘I don’t know what I am,’ replies Adam, and he’s telling the truth.

  It’s been a week since the hotel. A week in which Adam and Grace have barely been apart. A week of playing detectives. Talking in excited voices into mobile phones. Turning it into a game, somehow. They’ve got names and numbers, now. People to see, places to be. And by losing themselves in the hunt, they’ve managed to distance themselves from acknowledging the nature of the quarry.

  ‘He’ll come,’ says Adam. ‘Would you say no to Francis Jardine’s baby girl?’

  Ace, Alison said they called him. Charlie Howell. Quality striker, back in his day. Started at West Ham and would have made the first XI if it wasn’t for Martin Peters being better. Four seasons at Stoke City and sixty-four goals, then a year at Palace, chasing long balls, hitting brick-wall defenders, snagging a brace against United, then off to Sunderland and Bristol Rovers to become a folk hero. Champagne superstar. Eighty goals in four seasons, then a kick to the knee, and over the border to Hibernian.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m so hungry,’ says Grace, as she peers at the laminated menu in its leather wallet, and decides the mixed starter for two is not so much a title as a challenge. She sips at her mineral water, and looks across at Adam, who is staring at the door. ‘He’ll come,’ she says, gently.

  ‘I know he’ll come,’ says Adam. ‘I just don’t know what I should think when I look at him for the first time.’

  ‘There is no right and wrong. You’ll know when you see him. You’ll know if it was him.’

  ‘Will I?’ asks Adam, turning away from the door to stare at her intently. ‘Will I really know? Or do we all just assume that we’ll feel a connection? Does blood sense itself? Do genes sniff each other out? Or do we just rut and fuck, and then take care of the little sod that the nurse puts in our arms? Animals don’t always recognize their own children.’

  They sit in silence, watching the clock above the door, the gentle rain against the window, the big cars cruising by outside. Waiters come and go, bring more drinks and prawn crackers. Grace eats, Adam drinks. He fields a phone call from Zara. Tells her he is busy in a meeting.

  The doors open, and a plump man in a grey suit and golfing jumper, white hair and black eyebrows, opens both doors, and eases through the gap. Alison follows, pushing her hair from her eyes, sexy in black tights, knee-length black dress and open raincoat, flushed at the cheeks, damp at the cleavage.

  Adam feels a stab of recognition, a sudden jolt of familiarity, and for a second he wonders if his blood is speaking to him, if it is sensing the nearness of its own kin. But in an instant the face becomes black and white, pixilated, younger, and he realizes he knows this man as a football fan and nothing more.

  The waiter, in his fancy patterned pyjamas, approaches them as they enter and asks if they want a table for two. Ace looks set to answer, before Alison steps in and whispers something in his ear. He looks puzzled for a moment, then shrugs, and Alison leads him over to Adam’s table. Adam stands and extends a hand, which Ace pauses before shaking. Close to, he looks younger. A good ten years beneath his true sixty-six. He has a heavy drinker’s complexion, a waxiness to his cheeks and nose, but in poor light, it could be mistaken for the bloom of youth.

  ‘I didn’t realize we would be making up a foursome,’ says Ace, turning to look at Alison. He’d been surprised when she rang, but pleasantly so. Took him a second to reconcile the confident, womanly voice at the end of the line with the precocious, flirty little girl who used to be the fruit bowl of her daddy’s eye all those years ago.

  ‘This is Adam,’ says Alison, gently, placing a warm hand on Ace’s sleeve. ‘And his friend, Grace. I don’t want you to be cross with me, but they really wanted to meet you and I said we were old friends.’ Alison’s voice is flirty, naughty, as though she’s admitting that she ate an extra slice of chocolate cake. Ace produces a smile, then gives her a gentle slap on the wrist.

  ‘Naughty girl,’ says Ace, with a noise that sounds almost like a sigh of relief. ‘Just wait until I see your father.’

  ‘He’d like that,’ says Alison. ‘He’s often asking after you.’

  ‘How is the old bugger?’ asks Ace. ‘I read about that court case he was at. Brought the house down, didn’t he? I had tears in my eyes when I read it, laughing so much I was. What were they thinking, summoning a man like Franco to court? Beats me.’

  The waiter comes over and Ace orders a bottle of red wine for himself and Alison. Amaretto and orange juice for Grace. Whisky for Adam. The drinks come fast, but nobody says cheers before they raise their glasses.

  ‘Man after my own heart,’ says Ace, smiling, gulping his wine. He starts to talk, trotting out choice anecdotes about names from the past – the sort that bring the house down when he gets a booking for an after-dinner speech.

  Grace sips her drink and watches Adam. He nods, now and again, out of politeness, but she can tell he isn’t listening. He’s staring a hole through the man in front of him because he doesn’t know what else to do. She looks across at Alison, and sees that she, too, is watching Adam. They catch each other’s eye, give the ghost of a smile, then return to their menus. Neither of them knows how to raise the subject that brought them here. Neither of them knows how to ask Ace the questions that have been without answers for almost thirty-five years.

  The waiter takes their orders and returns ten minutes later with the mixed starters. Grace and Ace get stuck in. Alison picks. Adam drinks.

  Then the main courses, piled high on the white tablecloths. Bowls of multi-coloured meat and veg. Tureens of boiled rice. Prawn crackers. Chopsticks for everybody. Even Ace is an old hand, and doesn’t need the knife and fork that the waiter offers him.

  ‘Been eating this stuff for years,’ he confides, quietly, to Adam. ‘You not hungry, son?’

  ‘Thirsty,’ replies Adam, and knocks back another double. Orders another.

  They eat. Scatter rice across the table. Munch on feathered king prawns and diced chicken, crunch bean sprouts and veiny strips of onion. Ace talks the most. Asks questions of Alison. Doesn’t wait for answers. Calls Grace ‘sweetheart’ and stares at her chest.

  ‘How do you know the lovely Alison here, then?’ asks Ace, using a prawn cracker to scoop up an errant piece of carrot in a purple sauce.

  ‘She was a friend of my mother’s,’ says Adam, and the two women pause, to look at him. The moment seems to stretch, like dough, before it tears and snaps, and Adam looks up from his glass and stares at the man across the table.

  ‘Oh yes?’ says Ace, slurping down the last of the second bottle of red wine and looking around for the next. ‘Can’t have been one of her school friends, though eh? You must be thirty-five if you’re a day.’

  ‘Near as dammit,’ says Adam, looking back down at the amber liquid in his tumbler, looking at his untouched plate through the distorted lens of the glass. ‘Pamela Garner. My mum. You might have known her.’

  ‘Doubt it, son,’ says Ace. ‘She mentioned me, has she? Football fan.’

  ‘Not sure, mate. Didn’t have the pleasure of getting to know her. Gave me away when I was a baby.’

  Ace looks at Adam, and his smile fades for the first time in an hour. He tries to make his face sympathetic, but doesn’t know what’s appropriate. Funny thing to tell a stranger, he says to himself. Hope he’s not going to get maudlin.

  ‘Sorry, lad. Or maybe not. Maybe she did you a favour. You could be living the dream. What do I know? Eh?’

  Grace gives a little laugh, out of politeness, while Alison opens her mo
uth to speak, but can’t think of anything to say. Ace looks from one face to another, then turns to Alison, smile fading, and says, ‘Am I missing something?’

  Alison steels herself with a sip from the new bottle of wine, then turns to face him. ‘This isn’t easy for me to say, Ace,’ she begins, falls away, sighs. ‘Look, do you remember the celebration party? After Dad got off. That place in the arse end of nowhere …’

  Here it comes, thinks Ace. Be sure your sins will find you out, old son.

  ‘What do you remember about that night?’

  Ace’s face crumples into a frown of puzzlement, and he looks across at Grace, seeking an ally. Thinking, quickly. Sweating. Images and memories tugging at him, like he’s running through line after line of damp laundry.

  ‘Not bloody much,’ he says, and there’s a tremble there. ‘It was a good turnout, I remember that. Lot of faces, lot of friends. Your dad was on form. Had the place booked for days before the end of the trial, didn’t he? Knew they couldn’t get him. That’s because he was bloody innocent, I said. Told my manager that, too, when he said I shouldn’t go to the party. I said he’s innocent, mate. And he’s my friend. My biggest fan. I’m going to toast his health, and toast it I did. Toasted it until I couldn’t see straight.’

  ‘So you were pissed and saw fuck all,’ says Adam, suddenly finding something specific to be angry about. He latches on to a feeling of having wasted his time, and focuses himself on that. ‘You going to say you fell asleep in a corner somewhere and missed all the fun and games at the end, too, are you?’

  ‘Fun and games?’ begins Ace, and he looks again, from one face to another, trying to work it out. ‘Look, son, I don’t …’

  ‘Don’t call me that. Don’t ever use that word around me.’

  ‘What? Sorry, sorry. Look, I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t? You don’t remember Alison’s friend? The girl in the white dress. Went outside for some fresh air and not all of her came back. You don’t remember somebody slipping away from the party, throwing her in a van and raping the fuck out of her?’

  The other handful of diners look around as Adam raises his voice. Ace seems to get smaller in his chair. His vision is spinning, like he’s going the wrong way down a plughole. He’s falling backwards more than thirty years …

  THIRTY-TWO

  1971

  A parquet dance floor. Balloons and party hats, poppers and streamers, chicken legs and champagne.

  Him, in a white suit and pink tie, curly hair and moustache.

  Ace.

  It’s not long after midnight, and he’s had more than too much to drink. He’s chatting up a tasty thing and her sister, sitting on a crushed velvet bar stool, one elbow in a puddle of bitter, a cigarette in his mouth. Feeling fuzzy, but he’s used to that. He’s looking around, lazily, head lolling, considering his options. He’d prefer a redhead, given the chance. He’s no doubt it can be arranged. He wonders where Jardine’s got to. He hasn’t seen him in a while. Not since that bloke in the leather jacket whispered something in his ear and they all fucked off out of the dance hall.

  Where’s that other dirty bastard? Councillor Whatshisname. Riley. Can’t relax, that one. Kept asking, Are you sure there’s no snappers here, no photographers, no journos. Great friend of mine, Mr Jardine is, but I have a reputation. An image. Can’t be seen … All that bollocks. Silly bastard.

  Ace sits, drinks, smokes, chats. He’s nodding in time with Cliff Bloody Richard, trying to say something witty, but he can barely hear his own voice over the sound of the amplifiers, so when the permed brunette in the flares and boob tube laughs at his jokes, he knows she’s lying, but eager to please. He doesn’t mind the combination.

  He looks around for familiar faces. Those two coppers have buggered off long since. The politicians too. Riley’s probably shot his bolt and clambered back into the council Roller. Mostly family and close friends now, still tipping the good champagne down their necks and picking at sausage rolls. He wonders if he’s being anti-social. Wonders if all the A-list are having a separate little party somewhere else, and he’s managed to lose it. He doesn’t want to upset anybody. Place like this, men like these, it could be fucking lethal.

  He promises the brunette he’ll see her later, and slides off the bar stool and onto the carpeted area around the bar, which is spongy with spilled ale. The disco lights and the smoke and the pounding bass are making his head hurt, and he has to make a conscious effort not to stagger as he walks to the door from the dance floor. Beery faces belch hellos and best regards as he fumbles at the door, and escapes into the long, cool corridor. The lights are low here. Comforting. The carpet clean, the off-white walls and timber beams seem wonderfully English, and he feels a sudden burst of patriotism, a love of his country and a passing regret that he hasn’t yet been called up to play for them, and never will. Not even Franco can do that, he thinks. Not with the file they’ve got on you at the FA.

  He totters off down the corridor, looking up at the oil paintings on the wall, the stern men in fancy dress, the English roses with warm cleavages and ringlets. Then into reception, a nod to the girl on the front desk, and out the double doors onto the steps. The cold hits him with a sobering punch and he feels for an instant as though he might be sick. He screws up his eyes, balls his fists, bumbles down the steps and onto the shingle of the car park. Leans his hand on the low wall. Plenty money here tonight, he thinks, looking at the flash cars, the moonlight bouncing off gleaming metal, greased with fine rain. Stick with these lads, Ace. Bit shifty, but decent people. They love you. They’ll see you right. Then the sickness comes again, and he half runs, half scurries, into the trees that line the car park. He vomits, narrowly missing his shoes. Throws up a vile rainbow of wine, champagne, peanuts and chicken legs. Chunders until he’s empty and the world spins, and the bark of the tree trunk that he’s leaning against cuts into his palm. Wipes his mouth. Feels better. Turns away.

  And sees him.

  On the grass, arms and legs splayed, like a starfish. A handle sticking out of the oil-black mess at his throat, like a cigar from a grin.

  Irons.

  Ace stumbles back and sits in the puddle of sick. He retches, but there’s nothing left.

  And then there are voices. Coming closer. Angry shouts, and hissed curses. Get out of here, Ace, he tells himself. It’s fuck all to do with you. He’s on his feet, cursing the white suit, wishing he could just blend into the darkness, melt away, disappear. He scampers from tree to tree, flattening himself against the trunks, heading away from the house, the voices, dimming, now, as they get further away. He breaks into a sprint that takes him suddenly into a clearing, and a low stone wall. Runs to it, thinking, simply: hide. Looks over the wall, places his foot on a loose brick.

  Looks up.

  Sees a face. A plump, round face, shiny with sweat. A face he knows. A face that turns, looks down, at the thing in its arms. A lifeless, pure-white mannequin, carried like a sack of bones, head back, throat exposed, breasts like fairy cakes, skin, dark in places, too dark, oily dark, slick at the face, the thighs. The face looks up again, and Ace, with footballer’s instincts, ducks down. Thinks. Dismisses. Decides.

  Turns, and runs.

  Through the trees and past the voices, a white streak against the darkness. Finds his keys, fumbles with the door of his rented MG. Climbs inside. He fancies he can hear Irons’s name. In his mirror, he sees the shape of big men, dressed in darkness, emerging from the treeline. Into reverse, a spray of gravel, then gone. Sitting in sick, empty and pissed.

  None of your business, Ace, he’s thinking, rubbing the sweat from his face. You’re a footballer. Fuck this. You were drunk. Lose the memory. You were seeing things. Stick to football, keep your head down, say nowt …

  He’s never really been the same man since.

  Here, in the warmth of the restaurant, sweat glinting on his pink skin, he sits silently trying to order his thoughts. His hands are shaking. He tries to feel angry at bei
ng ambushed, but can’t. They have a right to ask these questions. Christ, if the police had investigated back in the day, they wouldn’t have to. Jardine dealt with it his way, and here, today, it still isn’t settled.

  Best tell them, Ace, he thinks. You don’t owe anybody anything. Least of all him.

  ‘I saw him carrying her,’ he says, quietly. ‘I saw him holding her in his arms.’

  ‘Who?’ asks Alison. ‘Who did you see?’

  ‘Riley,’ he says, staring into his lap. ‘Alderman Leo Riley. Freeman of the City.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Sewardstone Road, Bethnal Green, London

  November 4th, 3.05 p.m.

  The man sitting in the chair is fiftyish, and the strands of hair that garland his bald head are swept back into a greasy ponytail. He’s wearing a loud shirt beneath a cream suit jacket, open to the nipples, revealing a tuft of curly grey hair. He’s smoking a roll-up as though it were a Cuban cigar. The office is bare. One cheap metal filing cabinet stands against the far wall, and a rack of metal shelves, containing empty ring-binders and manila files, blocks the light from the lone, high window. The walls are painted cream, but there is a yellow patch, like damp, above the man’s chair. A new cloud of nicotine spirals upwards and adds its own mottling to the pattern as the man breathes out to expose large, unnaturally white false teeth.

  He stands, while Grace makes herself comfortable: his gut a great capital D.

  The man extends a hand. It’s the one holding the dog-end, but he doesn’t seem to think this is impolite. Grace shakes it, and is surprised to find the palm is dry rather than sweaty. He gives her another grin and sinks back behind his desk. His chair is hard-backed and made of cheap wood. It looks like it’s been nabbed from a chain pub. The desk doesn’t match. It has the air of a charity shop purchase about it.

  Grace begins to speak, but the man holds up a hand. ‘Pleasantries first,’ he says. ‘Bacardi, Coke, or Bacardi and Coke?’