Keenyside had no choice but to, reluctantly, comply.
That would have been bearable had not other players then become involved. Local gang lords demanding tributes in exchange for allowing him to operate. Demanding information on their rivals. Suddenly everyone wanted a cut. And Keenyside had to do it.
And he was stretched again. Desperately stretched. But determined not to give in. Despite the pressures.
He found ways of relieving those pressures. Other lines to cross.
His release: forcing transgression. Indulging the urge to subjugate.
A pleasurable diversion, but nothing that would allow his focus to diminish, his goal to be compromised.
He thought of his old housing estate. There was no way he was going back to something like that. No way. He would do whatever it took to keep moving forward.
Whatever it took.
Rain started to fall. Hard. He turned on the wipers, pushed the volume on the CD higher to drown out the sound. Shuffled the discs.
Van Morrison: Greatest Hits. ‘Bright Side of the Road’.
Turned it off. Last thing he wanted to hear.
Thought about his scheme. His big money scheme. Soon he would have more money than Palmer and his friend put together.
It had involved crossing several more lines. But he had done it. And would cross more, if needs be. The end result justified it.
Justified anything.
He banished Palmer to the back of his mind, focused on the task in hand.
Turned the CD back on.
The music didn’t seem so incongruous, after all.
Monday morning. Caroline woke.
Eyes wide, startled by the radio. Chris Moyles spilling out fat bile, begging through the ether for complicity in his self-loathing. With travel updates and news. The jarring noise emptied Caroline’s mind, gave her a blank, morning slate. But only for a second or two, until the rest of her consciousness caught up with her.
Then she remembered.
And closed her eyes, tried to will it all away. Will everything back to how it used to be.
But it didn’t happen.
She opened her eyes again. The room – everything – was as it had been the previous night. Sunday had been the hardest day to make it through. A dead day, made worse through the lack of news, of developments.
She lay still, contemplated staying in bed all day. Pulling the duvet up, pushing the world out. But she knew she wouldn’t. Because that would be giving in. And she had already told herself she wouldn’t give in.
She threw the duvet back, swung her legs to the floor, stood up, walked to the bathroom.
Everything was lead.
She heard the newspaper fall through the letterbox. She left the bathroom, grabbed it quickly, opened it on the dining table. Scrutinized it, page by page.
Nothing.
She knew there wouldn’t have been. Knew the police had said they would keep her informed, tell her first. She checked the phones. Landline: dial tone. Mobile: fully charged, ready to receive.
It had become her new routine, a thing born of quiet desperation, a way to keep order, to keep the screams internal.
The TV was next; waiting until suited inanities had stopped babbling, linked up to local news. Sometimes the TV got there first, turned events into stories before the police had a chance to inform the family. She had read that somewhere, heard stories.
But not this time. Not today.
She turned the TV off, knew the next half-hourly broadcast would be word for word.
She sighed, looked out of the window.
The car was absent.
It had been parked there, on and off, since her father disappeared. At first she had been worried, thinking she was being watched by some unmoving figure behind the wheel, but had mentally slapped herself around for being paranoid. It was probably a policeman watching the flat in case her father returned. Or a journalist wanting to be first on the scene. Or someone entirely unconnected with her. Anyway, it wasn’t there this morning.
She turned away from the window, looked around the flat. She loved this flat. Not only was it the only bit of the planet she could call her own, but it reminded Caroline of her father. He had helped her with the money, the removals, the decorating. But not in an overbearing way; he had known when to stand back, let her fly on her own.
Had. Past tense.
She shook her head. Wouldn’t allow herself to think that way.
She saw the photo by the TV. Mum. Dad. Her. Happier times. Seemed like another lifetime.
She sighed again, picked up the phone. Dialled a number she knew off by heart. A number she had used a lot lately.
She wouldn’t be in. No, no news. Yes, yes, it was. Then thanks. Replaced the receiver.
She sat on the sofa, looked at her watch, waiting for the next news bulletin. She felt her hair. Long and greasy. Uncared for. Her teeth needed brushing, too. And she should eat something. She didn’t feel like doing anything about anything.
Caroline looked at the phone again. Maybe she should call the police. See if they had heard anything. But they had told her they would contact her if they had. She didn’t want to be a nuisance, one of those comical members of the public she had seen in cop shows, always pestering the detectives, getting them angry, causing them to make up private jokes about her.
She would have to wait.
Wait.
She sighed again, flicked on the TV. Flicked it off again.
She stood up. She had to do something. Anything. Try to take her mind off it.
She would go for a run. Down the dene, over the moor, maybe. Just do something. Take her mind off things.
Then come back, have a shower. Eat.
See if there was any news.
She went back to the bedroom to change. Find her running shoes. Change her routine; make this day different from the last few. Make this the day things happened on.
The day things changed for her.
Grey’s Monument, Newcastle city centre. The old Georgian heart of Graingertown. Donovan sat on the stone perimeter of the statue, waited.
Tried to make sense of the last few days.
Their Saturday-night kissing had intensified to the point where they had to race back to the hotel. In Donovan’s room they hurriedly undressed, fell on each other with real hunger. Their lovemaking was passionate, furious, yet also anonymous; barely making eye contact. When their eyes did accidentally glance off each other’s they quickly focused their gaze somewhere else.
Afterwards they lay side by side, spent. Not touching. Eventually Maria rolled over to Donovan, faced him. Smiled. ‘OK?’ she said, sensing he wasn’t.
Donovan sighed, eyes fluttering over hers, managed a smile. ‘Yeah.’
She stroked his chest. ‘Sure?’
Donovan sighed again, placed his hand over hers. ‘It’s … I don’t know. Took me by surprise. All those years … Wasn’t ready, I suppose.’
‘Are we ever?’
Donovan couldn’t explain. It wasn’t so much the memory of his estranged wife. He felt like his son had been watching him, judging his actions. He had tried to shake it off, give in to an animalistic lust, but now, post-coitally, it had returned. He felt like he had failed David in some way.
She looked at him, waiting for, but not demanding, answers. Donovan couldn’t meet her eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, removing her hand, ‘we don’t have to do it again. We’ll pretend it never happened.’
She began to get out of the bed.
‘Don’t go.’
She stopped. Turned at Donovan’s voice.
‘Don’t go.’
She sat down on the bed, looked at him.
He tried to return her gaze. ‘I have had sex since I split with Annie.’
‘You mentioned it earlier.’
‘But that was just release. I don’t … It’s …’ He sighed, looked away. ‘It’s hard to talk about this.’
Maria lay down next to hi
m again. ‘Then don’t.’
He looked at Maria, at her naked body, as if seeing her properly for the first time since they had entered the room. In that moment he felt something more than lust. Something that would diminish the guilt.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, looking at her face.
She smiled, stroked his cheek. ‘So are you.’
Their eyes met. Locked this time.
They kissed again. Entwined. Hesitant at first, building up slowly, tenderly.
Communicating: looks and smiles. No words.
Their nakedness became deeper than flesh. Donovan felt his guilt diminishing, being replaced by an intimacy at once beautiful and terrible.
His son’s eyes no longer on him.
He looked down, saw Maria; eyes closed, head back, small sighs of inexpressible joy escaping from her lips. Her eyes opened caught his. She smiled, whispered.
‘You’re crying.’
Donovan returned the smile, buried his face in her neck and hair.
And in that moment no longer felt alone. A warmth, both erotically and intimately charged, built within him. He sighed. Came.
Later they lay, bodies loosely entwined, fingers idly stroking each other, massaging still-tingling, post-coital skin.
In the dark, faces, bodies, indiscernible shades of grey. Talked nightspeak. Lovers’ talk.
‘Well,’ said Donovan, ‘that was a long time in coming.’
‘Everyone always thought we were shagging back in the old days. Said we were too close to be just friends.’ Maria smiled. ‘We’ll have to tell them they were right.’
Donovan smiled. ‘We flirted like mad, didn’t we?’
‘I remember it as being the only way we ever communicated.’
It had been their way of bonding. Great things had been expected of them at the Herald. They had become friends at the outset. And remained friends until Donovan had cut himself off.
Maria held him harder. ‘Did you ever want to sleep with me?’
‘Yeah. But I wasn’t about to do it. Because I thought that if we did sleep together we would never be friends again.’
‘I know. Fancied you something rotten. But it wouldn’t have been right. For one thing, you were so happy with Annie.’
Donovan didn’t reply. Maria felt his body stiffen beneath her hand.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s all right.’
They lay in silence for a while.
‘Do you ever see her?’ asked Maria eventually.
Donovan looked around before answering, checking for ghosts. He could see none. Hiding, he thought. Hiding in the shadows.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not for ages.’
‘Maybe you should.’ Maria spoke quietly.
Donovan sighed. ‘It would be difficult. I remember after … after it happened … I couldn’t … She used to try and get me to open up. Talk. Pull me towards her, trying … I … sometimes I would find myself staring at her. And find her looking at me in return. It was like we wanted to come together, but something always … stopped us. Came between us. And in the end I had to … get away. For both of us.’
Maria was staring straight ahead, knowing what it was costing him to speak, not looking at him in case it broke the spell. ‘What about Abigail?’
‘Nearly a teenager now.’ He sighed. ‘She hates me.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Oh she does. Thinks I care more for him than for her. Because …’ He shook his head. ‘But I couldn’t give it up, that hope … I couldn’t make her understand. She said it was like there were still four of us in that house. And one was a ghost, haunting us. So I had to go. Exorcism.’
He sighed.
‘Two years. You can fall a long way in two years.’
Silence again.
‘We’re a right pair, aren’t we?’ said Maria.
Donovan smiled, held her tighter. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘We’re a right pair.’
They made love again. Lay still, content. Waiting for morning.
‘They never …’ Maria began, enfolded in Donovan’s arms, ‘they never found him, then? Any trace?’
‘None.’ Donovan’s eyes were on the ceiling.
‘Oh that must be …’ Maria couldn’t finish.
‘When I was a kid,’ said Donovan, ‘I used to read comics. Loved comics, superhero ones, had a huge collection. Well, there was one series I used to really love. The Doom Patrol, they were called. They were these misfits, outsiders. The lead guy was Robotman.’
He felt a shaking against his chest.
‘Don’t laugh. Robotman. He used to be human but now he was a robot with a human brain and human emotions. Superstrong and superhard on the outside, superemotional on the inside.’
Maria stopped laughing, said nothing. Listened.
‘Well, of course, they had these enemies whom they fought. And one of them, I forget his name, had all the superpowers you couldn’t think of. So as soon as you thought of one it disappeared, stopped being real. That’s how you defeated him.’
Donovan kept staring at the ceiling. Movies unspooling, running, movies only he could see.
‘And that’s how I think about David,’ he said, voice beginning to tremble. ‘Tried to imagine everything that … that could have happened to him. The darkest, most … most evil … depraved thing I could imagine.’
He stopped talking, swallowing hard, taking hard, steady breaths. Waited until he was calm again before speaking.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Because if I could think of something, it stopped … stopped being real. And if, if it stopped being real … that meant it couldn’t … it hadn’t … it could only …’
Maria held him in her arms.
Morning still felt a long way off.
Later they talked again until sleep took them. Talked carefully; avoided making promises that would fade with the dawn. But hoping to carry something more than memories with them into the day.
Sunday morning came.
For Donovan, no Annie, no Abigail, no David in the room now. Only himself and Maria.
The ghosts resting.
They spent the day together. In bed for most of it. Relaxed.
Taking time to touch and explore each other, kiss and lick, caress and impress. Show each other what they enjoyed, find out what the other liked done.
Rediscovering who they had been. Finding out who they were now. Near to happy. Donovan not daring to acknowledge the word hope, knowing it was too closely allied to the word despair. But feeling it inside him anyway.
Then the call from Jamal. Ready to deal. Monday. Grey’s Monument.
‘Oi!’
The boy turned, saw him. Came towards him.
‘What you smilin’ for, man?’ Jamal asked, getting level.
‘Just pleased to see you, Jamal.’
Jamal shook his head, laughed. ‘You’re weird, man. Come out with some weird shit.’
Donovan nodded, dropped the smile. Business. ‘So,’ he said, ‘We ready to deal?’
Jamal’s smile flicked off, his eyes became haunted. He shrugged: a monosyllabic response.
‘OK.’ Donovan remembered the strategy he and Maria had agreed in handling Jamal. Befriend him. Court him. Win his trust. Listen to him. No matter what he had done, what he was involved with, he was just a boy.
‘Listen,’ said Donovan, his voice calm, reasonable. ‘We can’t talk here.’ He looked around. ‘Why don’t we go to lunch? I’ll buy.’
Jamal nodded. ‘McDonald’s?’
Donovan smiled. ‘There’s more to life than McDonald’s, Jamal. And I don’t mean KFC either. Come on.’
Pani’s was a small, relaxed Italian restaurant down High Bridge, a narrow, cobbled backstreet between the Georgian splendour of Grey Street and the mostly boarded-up Pilgrim Street. With blond-wood floors, faux Umbrian décor and model-grade waiting staff, it hardly ever seemed to be empty.
The lunchtime rush was just beginning. They found a table, studied the m
enu.
‘What is this shit? Don’t they do proper food? Burgers an’ fries?’
Donovan agreed to order for both of them. He asked the black-clad waitress for two Italian sausage sandwiches in ciabatta, a coke, a cappuccino and extra chips for Jamal. She repeated the order back in Italian-accented Geordie then sashayed away, treating the diners to a view of her languidly swinging, perfectly rounded backside.
Donovan studied Jamal. The boy was looking around, taking in his unfamiliar surroundings, trying to front up the situation even though behind the mask he was scared. Donovan wondered about the boy’s life, what had led him to the place he was at now. What kind of future he would have.
‘You’re doin’ that look again, man.’
Donovan, startled, looked up. ‘What?’
Jamal smiled, shook his head. ‘Well fucked up …’
The waitress arrived with the drinks. Jamal tried hard to pretend he wasn’t looking down her blouse.
‘Fit bird,’ he said as she moved off.
Donovan smiled. ‘No chance.’
‘Why not? I’m a player.’
‘You’re a teenager.’
Jamal’s face reddened. ‘Yeah? Well, at least I’m not some old Grizzly Adams-lookin’ dude.’
‘Just drink your drink, sonny.’
Jamal put his head down to his drink, tried to hide his smile. Time to move on, thought Donovan reluctantly.
‘Right,’ Donovan said. ‘We’d better talk business.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jamal. He looked up, reluctantly, from his drink. Like a death-row inmate who had momentarily forgotten their fate.
‘Here’s the proposal,’ said Donovan, leaning forward and steepling his fingers. ‘It seems to me that there are two things happening here. There’s what you know. And what’s on the disc.’
Jamal listened. Donovan continued, his voice calm, reasonable.
‘I’ve spoken to Maria—’
‘The lady from the newspaper.’
‘Right. And she says that if you can tell us everything, let us tape you, everything you know, and it all checks out, then we’ll pay you.’
‘How much?’
‘A grand.’
‘A grand? You were gonna pay me five.’
‘For the disc. Which you don’t have. This is just for the sweet sound of your own voice.’
The Mercy Seat Page 14