‘Fuck off. You’ve lost it. You’re psycho. I’m never working with you again.’ Geoff realizes that he is standing up now and that people are watching him. He feels as if the ground is tipping under his feet and he crashes towards the door.
‘Geoff, don’t be stupid. Come back!’
‘Fuck off!’ Geoff escapes into the cold darkness and doesn’t stop until he is well down the street. With a sudden rush of frustration he thinks he forgot his jacket, but then sees that he is wearing it and remembers that he didn’t take it off. He pats his pockets and realizes that what he did leave behind was his tobacco. ‘Shit.’ He needs a cigarette now.
There is a newsagent’s opposite him. Geoff still has several cartons of tobacco in his garage from last summer’s trip to France and normally would resent paying for cigarettes, but under his current circumstances, the light from the newsagent’s window shines like a beacon of hope in a dangerous world and he crosses the road.
Inside, there is one young woman behind the counter and a long queue of people. Geoff joins the end of the queue and stands uneasily between the chocolate and the magazines. He watches the woman behind the counter. She saunters between the lottery terminal and the till as if she was deliberately trying to tease him with her slowness. Geoff feels a hot anger with her and with the idiots who always leave it until the last moment on Saturday evening to buy their lottery tickets. All he wants is a packet of fags. She’s not even good-looking. He taps his foot and mutters, ‘Hurry the fuck up.’
The elderly lady in front of him turns and looks him in the eye. ‘That’s not going to help anyone, is it?’
Geoff tries to ignore her, but she continues to stare at him. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters. She nods primly and turns away.
Geoff shakes his head. All this shit is turning him into a miserable bastard like Barry or Jim. Well, maybe not Jim; at least Jim has a sense of humour and is a real friend. Still, he failed Geoff tonight, left him to deal with Barry alone and now look: everything is fucked.
Geoff’s mobile phone rings. He fumbles it from his pocket and checks the screen. Barry. ‘Fuck off,’ he hisses, and stabs at the button to deny the call. The ringing stops and the screen goes dark.
The old woman looks at him again.
‘Not you.’ Geoff holds up his phone. ‘This cunt.’
‘Men like you should be in prison.’
Geoff thinks about this for a moment: free food and no work doesn’t sound too bad. He shrugs. ‘Aye, you’re right. We should.’
The woman clucks and turns her back on Geoff again. She pulls up her shoulders and he can tell that she intends to ignore all further evidence of his existence. Geoff feels like an idiot, and as his mood plunges deeper, another nicotine craving rises. There are still four customers in front of him. He glares over their heads towards the cigarette display and is dismayed by how much the price has risen since he last bought fags legally. Then a different set of numbers catches his eye.
‘Fucking hell.’
13
‘I remember Mac.’
‘Aye, you would. He wasn’t the kind you’d forget about.’
Mr Green looks at me. His eyes have that elderly look, of not-firm-enough jelly. It’s clear to me that this will be his last panto. ‘No,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘No, I don’t believe he was.’ A pause as he fiddles with some wire. ‘So how did it go?’
‘All right – you know, as well as a funeral ever does.’
‘Well, you’ve seen a few.’
‘Aye’ – I bite on my annoyance – ‘I have.’
Mr Green manages to bend the wire as he wants it and places it amid the wood shavings on his workbench. ‘Well, what now, eh?’
‘Are you taking an interest in me, sir?’
‘No, you daft bugger. I’m talking about the bloody crowns and tiaras.’
‘Oh. They need spraying. I’ll do them once you’ve gone in; there’s no point gassing you. I’ll lock up the shed and post the keys through your door on my way out.’
‘Oh, you think I can’t handle a few chemicals, now?’
‘We don’t need to take any chances.’
‘Well, don’t forget to set the security light. It’s the third switch from the left.’
‘No danger of forgetting that; you need a bloody shotgun around here.’
‘Now, that’s not the spirit of community we’re trying to encourage, is it?’ His face is partially paralysed, so I can’t work out how serious this question is.
‘You might be right there, Mr Green.’ I would add that we could do with some spirit, but there’s only so much of that talk I can take before I want to crush my head in a vice. Mr Green picks up the wire frame of the tiara again and starts to fiddle. Either he didn’t take the hint or he’s just not inclined to move. I involuntarily scratch the bridge of my nose.
Mr Green glances at me from over his work. ‘I suppose this isn’t normally how you’d spend a Saturday night.’
‘Making tiaras? No, not usually. But it’s all right. I’m a bit sick of that lot, anyway.’
‘Your mates?’
‘Aye, with the funeral and that. It’s been a bit stressful.’
‘It’s no bloody fun, is it?’
‘You can say that again. Geoff took it badly, like. It proper knocked him off his perch. I think it’s made him, y’know, ask questions about life and what have you.’
‘Oh…life questions, eh? They’re trying to get me asking them in rehabilitation – physio-bloody-therapy and all. There’s no point. I was half dead before the stroke. Daft buggers. Still, for a younger man, it might be useful, mightn’t it? To ask a few questions of yourself after an event like that?’ He is looking at me. I avoid his eyes and try to find something to do with my hands, but he won’t give up. ‘You, for instance. Maybe this is the time to make something of yourself.’
I could almost laugh. ‘Like what?’
‘Well, you could finish your education for a start. I always thought you’d go all the way to university.’
‘That was the plan, but things changed, didn’t they? Instead of sitting my GCSEs, I was sitting on remand at Deerbolt Young Offenders Institution. And how can I afford to study now?’
Mr Green retired from school over fifteen years ago. Until tonight, he and I had barely exchanged a word since then. And now this. I don’t know whether I’m annoyed or flattered or just grimly amused.
‘Well, I can’t answer that,’ he says, ‘but I taught you and I know you’ve got potential. I still remember that project you did for me on the rainforest.’
Christ. I’d forgotten about that. I had to go to Newcastle to find the books. I sneaked into the university library and I was terrified that someone would notice me and throw me out. I photocopied what I could and scarpered.
‘All that was before,’ I say. ‘I came out of prison with absolutely nothing, and I need to provide for myself. No one else is going to do it.’
‘I understand that, but it strikes me that you’ve done your time, and there’s no need to keep paying for it.’
That’s easy for him to say, but I don’t want to argue with the old codger, so I just nod.
He grunts. ‘Well, I’ve said my piece, and I am very grateful for your help tonight.’
‘That’s all right. I suppose it’s something to do.’
‘Good lad. I’d suspected you might just tell our Joe to bugger off.’
I smile. When Joe turned up at my house the other day and told me my presence would be required on a Saturday evening, I almost did exactly that. ‘No. You can’t be that cruel to Joe; it just bounces off.’
‘Is he better yet?’
‘What? I haven’t seen him since then. Is he sick?’
‘Stomach bug. Nothing serious.’ Mr Green sniffs and puts the tiara aside. ‘Anyway, I’ll turn in, I think.’
‘Righto. Well, I’ll spray this stuff, then.’
Mr Green fumbles for his walking stick, but he can’t lean far enough to reach it; the tips
of his fingers just miss as he sweeps his arm through space. I get up and put it in his hands. He nods a curt ‘thank you’ and starts to haul himself to his feet. I reach out to help him, but he waves me off – ‘Not dead yet, son. Save your breath’ – and throws himself dangerously off his chair and into a half-crouch. I look away and soon hear him shuffling towards the shed door.
‘G’night, son.’
‘Aye, goodnight.’ I sit still, listening. The tap-tap of the cane on the garden path recedes, and I faintly hear the back door of Mr Green’s house open and close.
I’m tired. I toy with the idea of just going home, right now, but the smell of the sawdust is comforting. The paint cans are in a plastic bag, all new and unbroken from the hardware superstore. I reach out with my foot, hook one of the handles on the toe of my shoe, and drag the bag towards me, across the floor. It sweeps a path through the powdery blanket of sawdust and the smell of pine gets stronger. I grab the bag and rummage through the contents. There’s a receipt; someone cared enough to spend fifteen quid.
My phone rings. I push the receipt back into the bag and look at the caller ID. It’s Barry. This is the first time either of them has tried to contact me since the funeral yesterday. Geoff said he wanted a day or two to think about it; seeing me lose my temper seemed to deflate his own anger, at least temporarily. As for Barry, well…it looks like I’m about to find out. I answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Barry.’
‘I know. How are you?’
‘I’ve just seen Geoff. He’s being a fucking idiot.’
‘He’s not a happy man.’
‘None of us are happy. He’s talking about breaking up the gang – pissing off and not working with us anymore.’
‘No, not working with you.’
‘You’ve put him up to it.’
‘We’re fed up.’
‘Fuck off. Get him back.’
I stare at the wall. There’s a large bow saw mounted on two nails. My dad hung his tools in the same way, in the lean-to he constructed against the back wall of the yard. Between that, the coalbunker, and the bins there was barely room for my bicycle. Once my mother was gone, it was in there that he finally did it – maybe so he didn’t piss on the carpet, or maybe just to die in the only space that was ever entirely his own. He must have thought he had lost everything, abandoned all over again, just as he was at the beginning of his life.
Mr Green’s saw has a thin band of orange rust along the top of the blade, but the teeth are clean and sharp. ‘I don’t think I can do that, Barry.’
‘Fuck’s sake. Grow a fucking brain. He’s going to ruin everything.’
‘What’s he going to ruin? It’s time to move on.’
‘No fucking way. This gang is not breaking up; we work together.’
‘Why do you care so much?’
‘I built this!’
‘And you’re in charge? And you like it? And you know you could never have this power over any fucker else?’
‘Don’t fuck me about. I’ve got enough dirt on the pair of you to ruin your lives for ever.’
‘Barry, the time for that’s passed. They’re married, they’re settled. Even you…’
‘I would. I will.’
‘Barry, if you do it, you’ll lose anyway.’
‘Right now, I’ve got fuck all to lose. But you aren’t going to take that chance, are you? Call me when you’ve fixed it.’ He hangs up.
I sit and stare at my phone. The light behind the LCD screen goes out. I slip it into my jacket pocket, and then without thinking I reach to the floor and scoop up a handful of sawdust. It feels very soft and dry in my palm. I open my fingers slightly and it pours out in three streams, each one like the sand in an egg-timer. At the end, it’s all gone except for a thin layer stuck to my skin that makes the lines in my palm stand out. It looks like one of those kiddie’s handprints that parents sometimes tape to their fridge door.
I still don’t know what to do about Geoff, and I still have to spray-paint these tiaras. I decide that most of them should be silver; I never liked gold jewellery, even when it was fashionable. If Barry calls again, I can just say, ‘Sorry, I’ve been a bit busy making Cinderella’s headwear.’ What does it matter now? We’re all in the shit anyway.
I pick up a spray can and shake it. The little ball clacks around inside. I can feel it bounce off the walls of the cylinder. Then there’s a banging at the shed door and I drop the can in shock.
‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me.’ Joe’s voice. ‘Let me in.’
‘It’s not locked.’
‘Oh.’ He fumbles and the door swings open. Even in the sixty-watt light of the shed he looks ill – pale face and ringed eyes.
‘You look like shit, man. You should be in bed.’
‘I’m bored! Bored of television!’ He shakes his head vigorously and his jowls slap against his teeth in a wet rattle.
‘All right, don’t get agitated. How did you find me?’
‘I knew you were here. I was the messenger, remember?’
‘Aye, right. What do you want?’
‘Can I help?’
‘No. Go home and chew some Rennies. You look ready to vomit all over me.’
‘Please.’
‘Joe, are you really going to help, or are you just going to fuck it up?’
‘I’m going to help, really.’ Despite his pallor, he looks relatively certain of the fact.
‘All right.’
‘Magnificent!’
‘But then you’ve got to go home: I’ve a phone call to make.’
‘Righto.’
‘I’m spraying. Here, put this mask on.’
He slips the elastic over his head and positions the white mask over his nose and mouth. At least if he pukes, it’ll catch the mess. It occurs to me that I feel pretty sick myself.
14
At the moment when Geoff’s mind rejoins the flow of time, the world and all its night air rushes past his head like a breaking wave. He also registers the fact that his arse is extremely cold. That numbness is his only marker of time, the marker of how long he’s been sat here, for how long he hasn’t moved, and for how long he’s heard nothing but the creak of this swing and the blink and buzz of that broken streetlight. The marker says, ‘Too fucking long.’ Geoff can see the dark shadows of his feet and decides to test if he can still move his body. The sole of his right shoe scuffs across the pad of safety material under the swing. He can’t tell if he is surprised or if he doesn’t care.
This isn’t how he imagined it, and then his phone rings. It rings and rings, then it stops. Then it rings again. Laura would never call twice, so it must be Jim.
‘Hello?’
‘All right, mate.’
‘Hello.’ Geoff repeats it for the lack of anything else to say.
‘I’ve just had Barry on the phone. I’d assumed we were going to do it together.’
‘I couldn’t reach you. He cornered me.’
‘Shit. Sorry. I’ve been out and about, like.’
‘Well, it’s settled, isn’t it?’
There is a long pause.
‘What?’
‘Geoff, I think we’ve made a mistake.’
Geoff looks up and stares across the dark playground to the road beyond. Silent headlights flitter through the climbing frame. The corner of his mouth twitches in a stillborn smile.
‘Geoff?’
‘He got to you.’
‘No.’
‘Aye, you always give in to him in the end.’
‘It’s not like that—’
‘Shut up. I don’t care.’ Geoff spits the words almost as a reflex, but when they explode from his lips, he realizes how true they are. ‘I don’t have to care.’
‘Geoff, what’s going on?’
‘Nothing I want to share with you.’
‘Geoff, look—’
Geoff’s ears disengage. The words become sounds that mean nothing at all. Inside
himself he can feel everything fall away. It’s as if he suddenly remembered a long-lost girlfriend only to realize that none of it matters anymore. It has all passed and he is new again. He cuts Jim off, ‘No, no, no. No. I’ve done enough of listening to you. I’m going to do you a favour right now, Jim lad, and you’d better hear it. You might be cleverer than me, but I’ve been watching you for thirty fucking years and that makes me an expert. I’ve got a fucking PhD in Jim studies, and my thesis says you’re a cunt. You’re spineless. Ever since you got out of prison you’ve acted as if that was the be all and end all of your whole fucking life. You’re just using prison as an excuse for having done fuck all of any worth, and it’s ’cos you’re shit-scared. You’re too scared to do anything. All you ever do is read your fucking books and spend your time looking after that nutter Joe, pretending it makes up for things, pretending you’re doing something noble. Well, it fucking isn’t. It’s time to stand up for yourself. You don’t have to crawl back to Barry this time. He just keeps you for a pet murderer because it makes him feel tough. But we can do without him. This is your last chance. Tell me you’re on my side. Tell me now.’
‘Geoff, there’s something else…’
Geoff takes the phone away from his ear and holds it at arm’s length in front of his face. All he can hear is a tinny little gabble. ‘G’bye, Jim,’ he says loudly, then turns off the phone.
All of the joy that Geoff knew should have been his from the very first moment floods through his body. Every other alternative is sealed, and now there is just one bright path to follow. His fingertips ring with anticipation, and he stands upright. Barry is not going to get any of this money. As for Jim, he’ll see about getting a handout to him later. All Geoff needs to do now is claim his prize and then he and Laura can disappear. He slips the phone back into his jacket and grins as he brushes against the reassuring bulge of his wallet. In there, just behind his driving licence, is his ticket to freedom. Nothing I want to share with you, he thinks, then giggles. The giggles get harder and harder until he bends double and feels as if he is going to laugh his lungs right out of his mouth.
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