‘Someone needed a drink,’ she said.
There was a burst of high-pitched laughter from Ruth and Anthony, and when I looked across, I could see that Maggie had gone from a smartarse smile to something that looked like concern.
I went up to get the two of us refills, and exchanged nods with Craig who was deep in conversation with the woman behind the bar. He was smoking, which made me deeply bloody envious. If Maggie hadn’t been sitting by the door, I might well have ponced one.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he said.
When the barmaid went to fetch the drinks, Craig spun slowly round and leaned back against the bar. He looked across at Zoe for a minute, more maybe, then turned to me. His face said I know, I couldn’t agree more, mate. But look at me and look at you.
Or he might just have been asking me to pass the ashtray.
Oh Christ, who knows?
Her old man had a place in Battersea, on the edge of the park. There was a night I was driving her back from one of Frank’s casinos, down through Chelsea towards Albert Bridge, when she started asking me all manner of funny questions.
‘Do you actually like any of them, though? Are any of them really your mates if you think about it?’
The gin had slowed her up a little. Thickened her voice, you know?
‘Any of who?’ I said.
She jerked a thumb back towards where we’d come from. ‘That lot. The boys. They’re just people you work with, aren’t they? Just blokes you knock around with, right, and I don’t suppose any of them give a toss about you, either. Wouldn’t you say?’
I shrugged and watched the road. It wasn’t like I’d never heard her talking bollocks before. Next time she spoke, her voice had more breath in it, and she kept saying my name, but that’s something else people do when they’ve had a couple, isn’t it?
‘It’s just London, right?’ she said. ‘Frank doesn’t own stuff anywhere else, does he?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t think so either.’
‘He’s been up north on business, definitely. Manchester …’
‘It was only a few times,’ she said. ‘Just to meet people.’
‘Birmingham as well. I drove him to the station.’
‘He was just looking though, that’s what I heard. Nothing came of it. It’s all here really, don’t you reckon?’ She said my name again, slow with a question in it. Wanting me to agree with her. ‘Everyone’s here, aren’t they?’
I heard a song I knew she liked come on the radio and I turned it up for her. That girl who did Eurovision without any shoes on. I was waiting for her to start singing along, but when I looked in the rear-view I could see that her eyes were closed.
Her head was tipped back and her mascara was starting to run.
Things really started to go pear-shaped the time Zoe turned up looking like she did and Craig didn’t turn up at all.
I hadn’t admitted it to myself, not really, that the two of them were seeing each other outside the class, but I had to stop being stupid and face facts when I saw her walk in like that. It was like I suddenly knew all sorts of things at once. I knew that they’d got together, that everyone else had probably sussed it a damn sight faster than me, and I knew exactly what had happened to her face.
In class, I stepped that bit faster than usual. I stamped on and off that bastard thing, and it was automatic, like I could do it all day and I wasn’t even thinking. Ruth said how well I was doing and when Zoe smiled at me, encouraging, I had to look away.
Afterwards, she didn’t turn towards the pub with the rest of us, and when I saw that she was heading for the car park, I moved to go after her. Maggie took hold of my arm and said something about getting a table. I told her I’d be there in a minute, to get one in for me, but she didn’t look very happy.
I tried to get a laugh out of Zoe when I caught her up; made out like I was knackered, you know, from chasing after her, but she didn’t seem to really go for it. ‘Do you not fancy it tonight, then?’ I said. ‘Not even a swift half?’
She was fetching her car keys from her bag. Digging around for them and keeping her head down. ‘I’ve got an early start in the morning,’ she said. ‘New boss, you know?’
I nodded, told her that one wasn’t going to hurt.
She caught me looking, not that I was trying particularly hard not to. It was like a plum that someone had stepped on around her cheek, and the ragged edges of it were the colour of a tea-stain. There was a half-moon of blood in her eye.
‘I didn’t know there was a cupboard open and I turned round into it,’ she said. ‘Clumsy cow …’
‘Shush …’
‘I actually knocked myself out for a few seconds.’
‘Listen, it’s all right,’ I said.
‘What is?’
‘Come and have one quick drink,’ I said. ‘Who am I going to share my salt and vinegar crisps with if you don’t?’
It was as though she suddenly noticed that my hand was on her wrist, and she looked down and took half a step back. ‘I’ll see you next week.’
‘Look after yourself.’ It came out as a whisper. I didn’t really know what else to say.
She pressed the button on her car keys and when the lights flashed and the alarm squawked, I saw her jump slightly.
In the pub, I couldn’t blame Maggie for being off with me. I sat there with a face like a smacked arse, and I couldn’t have said more than three words to anyone. After half an hour I’d had enough, and I asked her to call Phil, get him to fetch us early. That didn’t go down too well either because she was having a laugh with Anthony, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it.
As we were leaving, Ruth raised her glass and said something about me being her star pupil.
Zoe didn’t turn up at all the following week.
We were driving, same as always. Seemed like, when it came to being close or what have you, that was the only time we ever really saw each other. Me in the front, her in the back.
‘Go slowly, will you?’ she’d said when she got in.
Obviously I was going to do what she wanted, right, and it was raining like a bastard anyway, so it wasn’t like I could have put my foot down. Still, I wanted to get back to her place as quickly as I could. Don’t get me wrong, I hated it when she got out of the car, hated it, but lately I’d taken to stopping somewhere after I’d dropped her off; soon as I’d got round the corner sometimes.
I’d pull over in the dark and sit quiet for a minute. Reach for a handkerchief. Throw one off the wrist, while I could still smell her in the car.
Sounds disgusting, I know, but it didn’t feel like it back then.
I drove, slow like she wanted, along the Brompton Road and down Sydney Street. Staring at the jaguar leaping from the end of the bonnet; the road slick, sucked up beneath it.
When I turned up the radio to drown out the squeak of the wipers, she leaned forward and asked me to switch it off.
Pissing down now. Clattering on the roof like tacks.
‘There’s people been talking to me,’ she said.
‘What people?’
‘They’ve been going over my options, you know?’
‘What options?’
‘The choices I’ve got.’
I looked in the mirror. Watched her take a deep breath when she saw that I didn’t understand.
‘Billy’s messed up,’ she said. ‘Silly bugger’s really gone and dropped himself in it.’
Her brother. My ex-sparring partner. Always had been a bit of a tearaway.
‘What’s he done?’ I asked. Prickles on my neck.
‘He went for some flash Maltese bloke with a knife …’
‘Jesus.’
‘Didn’t really do him too much harm, but they’ll happily bump it up to attempted murder. Put him away for a few years unless I decide to help.’
I knew who she was talking about now. Coppers were the same as anyone else at the end of the day. There were plenty of stupid ones, but e
nough of them with brains to make life interesting.
‘There’s only Billy and me,’ she said. ‘The bastards know how close we are.’
She started to cry just a little bit then. I went inside my jacket for the handkerchief I’d be using later on, but she’d already pulled one out from her handbag. I’d heard the pills rattling as she rummaged for it.
I was taking us over the bridge by now. Gliding across it. The lights swung like a necklace up ahead and the rain was churning up the water on either side of me.
‘It’s not like I know a fat lot.’
‘Fat lot about what?’ I said, but it was obvious what she was banging on about.
‘Frank. Frank’s business. All that.’
All that.
‘Obviously they think I know something.’ She raised her hands, let them drop down with a slap on to the leather seat. ‘Maybe I know enough.’
Course she did; she wasn’t stupid, was she? Enough to get her little brother out of the shit and herself slap bang in it.
I wanted to slam on the anchors and stop the car right there on the bridge. To reach into the back and shake her until her fillings came loose. I wanted to tell her that her brother was a pissy little waster, and that she shouldn’t be such a daft bitch, and to say absolutely fuck all to anyone about fuck all.
I was the one that kept my mouth shut though, wasn’t I? The one who just gripped the wheel that little bit tighter and manoeuvred the car like I was on my driving test. Checking the wing mirrors, hands at ten to two, watching my speed.
‘I need to go away,’ she said.
Ten to two. Both eyes on the road …
‘Somewhere abroad might be best. Somewhere hot, near the sea if I get a choice, but it might not have to be that far. Maybe Scotland or somewhere. I’ve tucked a bit away and I’m sure I can make a few bob later on. I can type for a kick-off.’
Slowing for lights. No more than a mile away from the flat on the edge of the park. Checking the mirror and feathering the brake; moving down through the gears.
‘I just don’t feel like I can do it on my own, you know? That’s the only bit I’m scared of, if I’m honest. It’s pathetic, I know, relying on someone like that, but the thought of nobody being there with me makes me feel sick, like I’m looking over the edge of something. I don’t mean sex or whatever, but that’s not out of the question either. It’s mostly about having someone around who gives a toss, do you know what I mean?’
Waiting for the amber, willing that light to change.
‘Someone who worries …’
She said my name, and it felt like I had something thick and bitter in my gullet.
Neither of us said anything else after that, but we were only five minutes away from the flat by then. The silence was horrible, make no mistake about that, but it just lay there until it sort of flattened out into something we were both willing to live with. Until she asked me to turn the radio back up.
When we pulled up, I got out to open her door, then climbed back in again quick without saying much of anything. When I looked up she was standing there by my door. She had an umbrella, but she never even bothered getting it out; just stood there getting pissed on, with the rain bringing her hair down, until thick strands of it were dead and dark against her face.
She was saying something. I couldn’t hear, but I was looking at her mouth, same as always.
I thought she said: ‘It doesn’t matter, Jimmy.’
Then she put the tips of two fingers to her lips and pressed them against my window. They went white where she pressed, and I could still see the mark for a few minutes after I drove away.
I didn’t stop the car where I normally did. Just kept going for a bit, trying to swallow and think straight. I drove up through Nine Elms and pulled in a mile or so past the power station.
Sat there and stared out across the shitty black river until it started to get light.
Craig looked confused as much as anything when I walked round the corner.
Grinned at him. It was halfway through the morning, and him and a couple of older women in blouses and grey skirts had come out the back entrance of the bank for a crafty smoke.
‘All right, mate?’
‘Ticking along,’ I said. ‘You?’
It must have been there in my face or the way I spoke, because I saw the women stubbing out pretty long fag-ends, making themselves scarce. Neither of them so much as looked at him before they buggered off.
Craig watched his colleagues go, seemed to find something about it quite funny. He turned back to me, taking a drag. Shook his head.
‘Sorry, mate. It’s just a bit strange you turning up here, that’s all. How d’you know where I worked?’
‘Zoe must have said, last time she came to the class, you know?’
Something in his face that I couldn’t read, but I didn’t much care.
‘How’s she doing, anyway?’ I said.
‘Er, she’s good, yeah.’
‘It was a shame she stopped coming, really. We were all saying how she made the rest of us work a bit harder, trying to keep up.’
‘She just lost interest, I think. Me an’ all, to be honest.’ Then a look that seemed to say they were getting their exercise in other ways, and one back from me that tried and failed to wipe it off his face.
It was warm and he was in shirt-sleeves. I was sweating underneath my jacket so I slipped it off, threw it across my arm.
‘Are you feeling OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘You’ve gone a bit red.’
I nodded, looked at the sweat patches under his arm and the pattern on his poxy tie.
He flicked his fag-end away. ‘Listen, I’ve got to get back to work …’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll say hello to Zoe, shall I?’
‘How’s her face?’
That took the smile away quick enough. Put that confused look back again, like he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.
‘It’s fine now,’ he said. ‘She’s all gorgeous again.’
‘Nasty, that was. Not seen many shiners worse than that one. Door, wasn’t it?’
‘Cupboard door.’
‘Yeah, that’s what’s she said.’
‘She forgot it was open and turned round fast, you know? Listen—’
I was just looking at him by now.
‘What?’
I knew I still had that. You never lose the look.
‘What’s your problem?’
Breathing heavily, a wheeze in it. For real some of it, like the red face, but I’d bunged a bit extra on top, you know. Laid it on thick just to get his guard down.
‘I think maybe you ought to piss off now,’ he said.
I bent over, suddenly; dropped the jacket like I might be in some trouble. He stepped across to pick it up, like I wanted him to, which was when I swung a good hard right at his fat, flappy mouth.
I never had her in the car again after that night. Only saw her a couple of times, as it goes, and even then, when she looked over, I always found something fascinating in the pattern on the carpet or counted the bits of chewing gum squashed onto the pavement.
Spineless, I was.
She went away some time after. I suppose I should say I was told she went away. It’s an important distinction, right? Told like there was actually nothing to tell, but also like there wasn’t much point me asking about it again or wasting any money on postcards.
A few years ago we were having a meal, me and one of the lads I used to knock about with back then. You have a curry and a few pints and you talk about the old days, don’t you? You have a laugh.
Until her name came up.
He was talking about what he thought had happened and why. Wanted to know what I thought had gone on; fancied getting my take on it. You used to know her pretty well, didn’t you, he said. That’s what I heard, anyway. You used to be quite close to her is what somebody told me.
I had a mouthful of ulcers at
that time. It was when my old girl was suffering, you know, and the doctor reckoned it was the stress of her illness that was causing it. Ulcers and boils, I had.
When he mentioned her name the first time, I started to chew on a couple of those ulcers. Gnawing into those bastards so hard it was making my eyes water, though my mate probably thought it was the vindaloo.
You used to be quite close to her, he said.
I bit the bastards clean out then, two or three of them. I remember the noise I made, people in the restaurant turning round. I bent down over the table, coughing, and I spat them out into a serviette.
That more or less put the tin lid on our conversation, which was all right by me. My mate didn’t say too much of anything after that. Well, we’d been talking about what was happening with me and my old lady before, and when he saw the blood in the napkin, maybe he was confused, you know, thought I was the one with the lung cancer.
It wasn’t the best punch I ever threw, but it made contact and I concentrated on the blood that was running down his shirt-front as he swung me round and pushed me against the wall.
‘What’s your game, you silly old bastard?’
I tried to nut him and he leaned back, his arms out straight, holding me hard against the bricks.
‘Take it easy.’
I thought I felt something crack in his shin when I kicked out at him. I tried to bring my leg up fast towards his bollocks, but the pain in his leg must have fired him right up and his fists were flying at me.
It was no more than a few seconds. Just flailing really like kids, but Christ, I’d forgotten how much it hurts.
Every blow rang and tore and made the sick rise up. I felt something catch me and rip behind the ear; a ring maybe. Stung like hell.
I swore, and kept kicking. I shut my eyes.
My fists were up, but it was all I could do to protect my face, so I can’t have been doing him a lot of damage.
But I was trying.
When the gaps between the punches got a bit longer, I tried to get a dig or two in, just to keep my end up, you know? That was when the background went blurry, and his face started to swim in front of me, but as far as I’m concerned that was down to the pain in my arm. It had bugger all to do with any punishment I might have taken.
Thorne at Christmas Page 3