High Dive

by Jonathan Lee

  The chemical tang thickened and he spat. The orange glow was thinning into specific tongues of fire. Only a hook of moon above. Ash falling softly on rooftops. Clouds like steel wool expanded in the sky. He was running—a burnout, a burnout.

  It might be number 12. It might be 42. Feet hitting concrete. Legs absorbing shock. Nothing in his mind was properly fused. The ground was harder than it had been before. He sprinted until the road was straight.

  Again the truth revealed itself in increments: the property on fire was number 17; number 17 was where he lived; he lived with his mother and his mother would be home.

  He stopped dead in the street. The night arranged around him was all motion now. He was seeing the neighbourhood as if for the first time. The small crowded houses, the patchwork gardens. The air of dilapidation and minimum love. His eyes winced in their sockets. A tropical warmth souped him. It was a warmth that told you this couldn’t be Ireland, and then you saw the embattled bystanders, the rich plumes of smoke rising up from burning property, and you heard the skid of a tyre, and the shouting of commandments, and the quiet prayers recited at the edges of the flames—all the things that told you it was.

  The right side of his house was melting away. The flames were leaning, extending. Enjoying themselves. Ten or twenty men were at work hurling water out of buckets. The roof. The fencing. As liquid sped from the buckets the men swivelled and grunted, ran to refill, sweating into their sleeves. The stooped figure of Ancient Jones was among the helpers, half killing himself with each bucket-thrust.

  Empty of strength Dan watched the collective effort: good Catholics and good Protestants trying to save his home. Among these mixed civilians he felt a crushing need to sleep. “He’s snattered,” someone said. People pointed. “Is that…?”

  The men urged their women to stay clear, but some of the women threw water nonetheless. Two or three he knew from the club, the ones with that special moxie, that defiant spark, the extraordinary refusal to relent that you find in people punished too long: the blacks, the Jews, kids sleeping in the street. What he felt in this moment was close to joy. Call it acceptance, acquiescence. It came even before he saw his mother sitting on the kerb unharmed. This thought: I’ve got what I deserve. It came even before he saw that his house wasn’t the only one burning. Twenty doors down there were a few slight flames from the home of the next Catholic family.

  I’ve got what I deserve. There is an order to events after all. The bomb has gone off. Revenge has begun. This is lads from Loyalist groups clutching their lists. This is the proper reciprocation of damage and it gets quicker every year. There were tears in his eyes. Ash in the air. Love in his heart. The anger had gone. He blinked and wiped his face. He looked for rumours of light in the sky. What a time to get sentimental, he thought, and cursed his wasted years.

  He watched the dark loop on the roof. A ten-foot TV aerial he’d helped to install aged fourteen, melting. First thing he ever did that worked. He saw it and thought of his CB radio. He used that radio to talk half the night with people across the Province. Catholic, Protestant. One of the girls on CB had a handle, a call sign, which had caught his attention straight out: “Perfect Shankill Kiss.” They spoke for a few nights. They met in person outside a pharmacy in town. It was where all the CB freaks leaned against lamp posts. If he had anything worth swapping, she said, she’d swap it for a kiss. There were bins on the pavement back then. He took from the top of one of these bins an almost-clean copy of Rushlight magazine. Gave it to her. Wad of Wrigley’s on the corner of the cover. They kissed. She complained he kissed too wetly. There were happy months in which they went to the pool. Ridiculous to cling to a romance like that. When his CB radio broke, he took it apart under his uncle’s supervision. They put it back together and it worked. He used it less and less. The fixing was more fun than the listening. Perfect Shankill Kiss began kissing someone else.

  His mother on the kerb was flanked by other women. They were smoking. He could not believe they were smoking. Through the soft haze of cigarette smoke mixed with the smoke of burnt belongings he saw up the skirt of one of these old women, glimpsing the beige mysteries of her underwear.

  11

  He had to pick himself up. No one helped him. Maybe there were too many people for any one person to feel responsible. Maybe they just didn’t see?

  It was all too hectic. A wedding reception times five. He begged Marina to get a grip on things, to use her feminine wiles, and she gave him a look that said he’d phrased that very badly. He went to the toilet to breathe deeply and be alone. The simple smells of soap and bleach. The dreamy tinkle of urine in the bowl. Took an aspirin. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Imagined conversations drip-dripped through his thoughts.

  Really, Margaret? Me?

  You.

  Me? The major national speech on leniency? Me?

  I need a man I can trust, Moose. I think you’re the man to deliver the speech.

  Not the Secretary of State for Education?

  No.

  Not the…not the prisons guy?

  No, I’m asking you—you—to be the man to deliver it.

  Even though I’m arguably lacking piZZaZZ?

  Nonsense, you genius. The way you made those beer ice cubes, that time, so you could keep your beer cool without diluting the beer?

  You saw that?

  I see everything.

  He woke with a jolt, a sense of being watched. Trousers around his ankles. His heart hurt.

  By the time he’d buckled up and straightened his tie and acknowledged to himself that sleeping on the toilet constituted a new low, the crowd in the bar area was of a manageable size. Good: he’d have proper time with the Prime Minister.

  He leaned onto tiptoes and looked around. Was that…? No, not her. Maybe behind…? No, no. The crackle of a throat being cleared. A man with a cane saying, “I took a bus once.” Whatever story followed could never live up to the audacity of that opening line.

  A tall, needle-faced young man was standing in front of him—the man who had helped call for order on the stairs when the Prime Minister was working her way through the lobby. Moose had seen him a few times these last few days without knowing exactly who he was. He had a pointed chin that preceded him into confrontations with people you suspected he hated.

  “Hi,” Moose said. “I don’t think we’ve—”

  “Edward Peterson,” the man said. “Logistics.”

  “Right. The Prime Minister’s team.”

  Peterson’s smile was pure hygiene, the expression of a guy about to floss. The teeth were big. The mouth couldn’t quite hold them. It was a miracle the lips didn’t bleed. There was saliva pooling on his gums and shining on his bottom lip and when he closed his mouth to swallow there was a faint, squeaky sucking sound, like a cloth being used to polish cutlery.

  “How can I help then, Mr. Peterson?”

  “The Lady,” he announced, “is now upstairs.”

  “Oh. Already?”

  “Amendments to her speech. End-of-day phone calls. It’s a busy time. Will there be coffee?”

  “Of course.”

  “Dark roast, or…”

  “Well, there’s a selection.”

  “French?”

  “I’ll show you some options, Mr. Peterson.”

  Edward Peterson looked a little crushed by this. One more decision to make.

  “Who showed her up to the room, Mr. Peterson?”

  “Your colleague,” Peterson said, pointing.

  John strolled towards them. “Yo,” he said.

  “Yo?” Moose said.

  “It’s a greeting,” John explained.

  Moose couldn’t let the disappointment swallow him. He tried to smile. He sighed. Tomorrow, he thought. I’ll speak to her tomorrow. “You, John? You showered her upstairs?”

  “That I definitely didn’t do.”

  “Showed, I mean. Showed.” His tongue was still asleep. “Is the PM OK up there, in the room?”

  �
��Yeah. Seemed happy.”

  “You showed her up there with who? With Freya?”

  John shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I think Freya had something else on, maybe. I took her up with the boss, along with her secretary person. Cynthia?”

  Edward Peterson nodded. The sharp drama of his chin. It swung down like a pygmy pickaxe, or something very similar that made sense. Moose once again rubbed his eyes to bring reality back.

  “All good fun,” John said.

  “Good fun?”

  “Yeah, she’s actually”—John hesitated, flicked a glance at Peterson—“she’s actually really chilled, Mr. Finch. I talked to her about wetsuits.”

  “Wetsuits.”

  John opened his mouth. Moose held up a hand to indicate that he had no interest in hearing about wetsuits, dry suits, any kind of suit. “And the boss is…” he said. “Our GM is here right now, John? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah. With this Baker bloke.”

  “Baker? There’s a baker here?”

  “Surname,” John said, grinning. “Yeah, he’s the one who’s taking over, right?”

  Moose shook his head.

  “The GM position,” John said simply. “Richard Baker.”

  Silence.

  “Yeah,” John said, a new uncertainty in his voice. “You’ve met him before, right? Or he’s met you, anyway. He came in the other day too. He’s the one taking over as overall manager here, is what he said. Came in with Mr. Price from Head Office. They announce it before Christmas, right?” After delivering these lines, John began to look increasingly unsettled by the silence around him. “Your new boss!” he added cheerfully, then frowned again when this latest effort failed. “You knew the GM was stepping down, right?”

  “Now,” Peterson said, “about the dinner tomorrow night. I have to tell you that it’ll be the Lady’s birthday—did you know?—so there is a change of plan, alas, and she will not in all likelihood be attending.”

  “Not…” Moose swallowed to steady his voice. Baker? Price? “Not attending, did you say?”

  “There’s actually something else planned now, at the Metropole. There’s a preference for the dining room there.”

  Behind Edward Peterson, champagne was being poured. It surged right up to the rim of each flute, full of cocksure fizz, only to subside back down into a single meagre gulpful.

  Someone was holding his hand, he realised. Freya was next to him now and holding his hand. Warm. He wasn’t feeling well.

  “The dinner?” Freya said to Peterson. “You’re saying she can’t make the big birthday dinner in her honour?”

  Peterson made a clicking noise with his tongue, sucked in some more saliva. “If by she you mean the Lady, then yes. Who’s in charge here, actually?”

  “You’re saying the Prime Minister can’t make it,” Freya said.

  “I’ve said it now at length, yes. People here seem to have a talent for repetition.”

  “Just like that. Can’t come.”

  “Excuse me?” Peterson said. He looked around as if to ask if this latest outrage was being recorded. The answer was yes. A security camera had its boxy gaze fixed upon them.

  “Do you know how much work goes into these things?” Freya said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “This has been planned for weeks,” Freya said. “People’s work. All this food, basically. This changes a lot of things, so it would have been good—polite—to have known sooner.”

  “Sadly,” Peterson said, “there are pressing national and international issues. Things going on beyond your plans.” He touched the tip of his chin.

  “You’re not even sorry.”

  “Extraordinary,” Edward Peterson said, laughing. “Perhaps I should be speaking to the new manager.”

  “The who?”

  “Mr. Baker. The new—”

  “You could have told us in a different way,” Freya said.

  “I don’t think I know who you are.” He blinked. “Now, Mr. Finch, second issue. We could do with that human with the tattoos from Kalle Infotec back here, to set up three further fax machines in the temporary office, and my own recommendation would be, let’s see, that we start by—”

  On and on Edward Peterson went. Moose, if not quite having an out-of-body experience, was definitely having an out-of-joint one. The GM job had gone to someone else. Could it be true? He knew it was. It was over.

  There was a fold-out table he’d positioned against the wall several hours ago. A dozen laminated name badges remained. They were arranged in three rows and the spaces between the rows were exactly right.

  “Mr. Peterson,” he said, squeezing his daughter’s hand, “we’ll sort everything out. You needn’t worry.”

  “Good,” Peterson said. “I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding. I look forward to seeing the coffees you have to offer.”

  Before turning away from this exchange, Moose took a final look at Edward Peterson. There was something about his sly expression. Something about his reiterated request for caffeination. Something about the damp, satisfied pout that cost its owner so little effort. Something about Peterson’s pleased brown eyes moving from him to Freya, from Freya back to him, as if deciding which of them he was most inclined to deride. There was something about all of this that caused a guy rope in Moose’s professionalism to begin to creak and twist, and murderous thoughts to begin to blossom.

  He thought of the Captain talking to Sir Keith, and he thought of his daughter having to put up with this young man’s rudeness. He thought of the hopeless promotion he’d put so much energy into, and of the possibility that his promised advancement had been nothing but a dangled incentive, a way to keep things ticking over while the current GM eased into a notice period. He thought about these things and the cancelled dinner tomorrow and about whether he’d been pushed out because of his health, or had simply never ever stood a chance at becoming GM, and felt he needed to say something, to convert some of his thinking into words, not just for himself but for his view of the world—a view which had no room, he realised now, for careless people like Edward Peterson. After a dozen long seconds in which a variety of semi-clever insults were considered and dismissed he said, “Mr. Peterson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Second thoughts, go fuck yourself.”

  He came close to following this up with a punch but was worried he might hurt his hand.

  12

  Freya was in the ladies’ loo, crying and applying make-up, staring into the mirror. The door opened. Marina.

  “What are you doing, darling?”

  “I’m crying and applying make-up,” she said.

  Marina stood in the doorway, absorbing this remark. Then she blinked and said, “It is best to divide this into a two-stage process. Otherwise you look like a melted panda.”

  Freya sighed. The slab of grey stone in which the basins sat had a theatrical shine tonight. She put the eyeliner down. Earlier in the week someone with over-plucked eyebrows had complained that the lavatory lighting was insufficient for the proper plucking of eyebrows. Bulbs of greater wattage had been installed above the mirrors. Every natural pattern in the stonework showed, skylines and trees and thin and thick clouds.

  “We can talk,” Marina said.

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

  “The quality of nothing has not such need to hide itself.”

  With a pink tissue Freya blew her nose.

  “I’ve been seeing a Shakespearean,” Marina said. “It’s finished now. His toenails scratched me in bed. He’s very successful at everything, but there were the toenails—scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch. It’s very boring, also, to be around someone so pleased with themselves.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. “Your love life, Freya. Is that what’s making you so sad and messy?” She placed her handbag by a basin. She took a hairbrush out. “Shall I?” she said.

  There was an awkward moment—it seemed a strange offer—but Freya didn’t ha
ve the energy refusal might require. There was a single chair against the wall. The toilet attendant they used for events had already left for the night. “Here,” Marina said. She turned the chair to face the mirror. Freya sat down and Marina moved behind her.

  “I know you saw me,” Freya said. “Coming out of the room the other day.”

  Marina began to run the brush through Freya’s hair in long and even strokes. She separated sections. She eased the brush through knots. The brush made a scuffing electrical sound that came straight out of childhood.

  “I’m such a cliché.”

  Marina looked up.

  “A big fat cliché. He’s with Sasha now.”

  Marina laughed. “John?”

  “I think so, maybe.”

  “If anything, darling, I think you are…Yes, under-clichéd. It is Sasha who is the cliché. It is John.”

  Freya stared at her own reflection, and at the face of Marina floating above it, and for a moment thought she could smell the too-strong perfume of Wendy Hoyt, hairdresser ordinaire.

  “You could do with being a bit more whingeing,” Marina said. She rested the palm of her hand on Freya’s head. “I mean, you look a bit pathetic now, yes. But generally, a bit more emotional—it would be good. You are more like what a man should be, but isn’t.”

  Freya opened her mouth and closed it.

  “It’s OK to be sad sometimes, Freya. You almost lost your father, yes? You already lost your mother. Your friends have gone to colleges. You thought you would be all alone.”

  Something about the simplicity of this summary caught Freya off guard. A barefooted lady in a silky dress came in, humming a tune, heels dangling from her left hand. Freya said, “Use the ones in the restaurant.”

  The humming stopped. The door closed. Easy.

  “That’s the spirit,” Marina said. She put the brush down, rested her hands on Freya’s shoulders. “It gets you thinking, no?”

  “What does?”

  “Your father being ill. It makes you think about your mother.”

  “A bit.”

  “It makes you think about what it would be like if you never saw her again, and it stayed like this. If news came tomorrow that she was dead, that it was her who’d had a heart attack. Or that she’d actually been dead for weeks and you’d missed the funeral. Months, maybe. Longer.”