The Boxer's Dreams of Love

by philip boyle

  There had been no screams, no need to stifle any last attempts at survival. Tommy had watched Andy die in cold clear dignity. The room seemed to ache with the loss. The blade was on the floor, he couldn’t remember dropping it. Blood had formed Picasso patterns all across the floor. Tommy’s heart was beating to a steam train rhythm. This was different to all the others. Why? Practice did not make perfect nor did repetition make the act seem less. Rather there was the accumulation of horror. Bodies piled up till they stacked up to the edge of the pit wall, visible to all.

  He pulled the body into the bathroom for no particular reason. He washed the handle of the blade and placed in the palm of Andy’s hand. Would they believe it? Surely not. But it might give him a little more time, a little more uncertainty would cloud their judgement. He was about to exit the room when he spied the blood splatters on the end of his trousers, on the surface of his shoes. He spied the corridor through the tiny hole in the door and thought that his fear would keep him rooted to the spot forever.

  And where now Tommy? The corridor looked the same in either direction. He looked back at the door of the room and felt sure that Andy would cry out. He looked up and down and found the camera he was looking for. Watching them watching him, stuck in the banal indecision on evil. Where downwards now when you’d already reached the bottom? The bell of the lift was a clarion call to action, any action. The elderly couple from the bar earlier, arms around each other like love struck teenagers. They nodded as they passed him and for a moment he thought of stopping them. Telling them, showing them, admitting, begging for forgiveness. It would all be over then. No one else would have to suffer and that fucking song would stop ringing in his head. They passed him with denture smiles and he must have shown no signs of guilt for he heard their door close behind him. Alone again, he was finally moving, forgetting his own room number and wondering if he shouldn’t leave the hotel right away, don’t pass go, don’t collect two-hundred. No, in that case he should call the police himself and flash the neon sign of guilt for all to see. He had the rest of the night, what little there was, only a few hours. He thought of something, in fact he thought of several somethings. He turned back to the locked door of Andy’s room. Banged his head softly against it. Life was always a case of what should have been. Two simple things, put the donot-disturb sign on the door and find the policeman’s phone. Two-three seven, he suddenly remembered his own number. He saw the old couple in his mind in scenes of senile depravity. Thought of what he could do to them should would do to them. No. No more.

  Tommy Pearson drained the water from the bottle and felt his stomach turn over. He ran to the bathroom and skidded slightly. Everything was too bright in here, it was metallic chrome heaven. Finally it all began to slow down. The lights around the mirror reminded him of the actor making up before the play, the artist rehearsing the illusion before the party, the singer searching for the soul of the opening song. All these things he had seen, all these people he had comforted with reassuring words and a touch on the shoulder. With Edie he had wanted more than words, more than a hand on the silk dress. There had been a ludicrous attempt at putting his lips on her dream face. He had been within an inch of the regal perfumed skin when she had held his gaze in the starlight mirror and reflected back her revulsion. He had withdrawn immediately and not a word was spoken about the matter.

  Tommy had orbited the stars, a black cold moon himself, always circling, never catching the rays of light or heat from the surface. Never landing.

  CHAPTER 34

  Manny has some news She had crash landed on the surface, a lost alien, a long, long way from home. Eddie cleaned and fed her, changed her clothes with modest ambition and waited for her to rise from her drowning pool. And then one morning Linda’s eyes washed reflected clear and winter bright, she appeared limpid and light, almost floating across the kitchen floor. She knew where she was, where she had to go. He heard her make muted sad calls in the hallway and he tried not to listen. A few more days and she would be ready to leave.

  Eddie was back working, clearing, cleaning tables in a fast food restaurant that sucked the life from him. Exactly what he needed. He took his morning breaks by the rubbish bins in the alley at the back. He felt the first flakes of sleet and gasped inwardly at the time that had passed. He lifted the apron and took the mobile from his jeans pocket. Hoping for a message that would never come, even from beyond her grave just to tell him that all was well in the after of everything. He finally received a message but not the one he was expecting. Days of simple relative solitude, Linda still lilting round, hovering on the outskirts of herself, preparing herself, constantly packing and unpacking. Still inhaling dream drugs that pushed her back, kept her resolve down, depending on Eddie still.

  He decided on a shortcut home that evening, tired, craving little else but his own bed. The narrow streets welded into one, his mind elsewhere, on the sweating kitchens and the blind customers who never saw him. On the kid who was his boss, who obviously had wanted to command a ship when he had left school and missed the boat somehow. He flinched at his pinched pale hands, still dripping water, never dry, although he rubbed and rubbed.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ He thought it was his own voice, somehow distorted. He looked up, looked into the bruised angled face of Manny Redmond.

  ‘Manny?’ Manny tried to smile and it clearly hurt. The cuts were several days old but still clearly hurting. The memory of what that was like came back to him in a flash. Manny held his right arm gingerly, close to his body. Eddie realized they were near the Train of Delights. Not much delight here. But there was a strange comfort in seeing a familiar face.

  ‘You should see the other guy,’ cackled Manny.

  ‘What happened?’ Eddie asked. Manny shook his head violently, no intention of giving details. Were those tears forming in his eyes? Eddie could have gone home the normal way and never seen or heard any of this.

  ‘All fucked up, Eddie. Dominos falling all in a row.’

  ‘What?’ Again the shake of the head, this time Manny was crying, crying for something other than the screaming pain of his body.

  ‘All in a row,’ repeated Manny, looking behind him. ‘What happened?’ He laughed and doubled up in pain. Eddie went to him but Manny pushed him away. ‘We should have known, should have left you alone, Eddie. I told ’em, I did, I fucking told ’em. Jesus, who knew you better than me. How many times I put you down, how many? And you never stopped coming even when the blood was already drying on the floor.’ He looked behind him again, as if he had an urgent appointment. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Wait, what are you talking about?’

  ‘You really don’t know? You’re telling me you don’t know? How the fuck are you even here, walking the streets, how the hell are you alive, tell me?’ He spat blood from his mouth, venom breeding venom.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t watch the news, you don’t read anymore? I don’t blame you. How the fuck are you still here? What are you doin’ here Eddie?’

  The world in front of Eddie split into several pieces, spilt screens of memory, he thought he was going to faint. He was tired, tired of waiting for someone to explain it all to him.

  ‘The cop,’ Manny said, inches from his face, whispering the words.

  ‘What cop?’

  ‘The one in Dublin. Glasgow fucker. Can’t think of his name. You telling me you don’t know? How could you not know?’

  ‘Fairweather?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. Something like that.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘What about him?’ repeated Manny, painful smile across the bloated face. ‘What fucking world do you live in? He’s so fucking dead, they bled him like a stuck pig.’

  ‘In Dublin?’

  Manny nodded and headed away, to the corner, trailing a limp and staring out into the murky night. He was scared, or medicated, both. Looked back at Eddie and seemed unsure of which way to go. ~

  Linda was nervous and hungry,
pleading with her eyes, afraid of asking him straight out. He should cut the leash now, leave her here. He threw the newspaper down on the armchair. He reached for the remote control and switched on the TV.

  Behind the rain-soaked reporter the blurred residents and siren lights gathered outside the hotel he tried hard to recognize. Postcard picture of a younger, leaner Andy Fairweather in the upper left corner. His body blew past under polythene wrapping and was whisked away to some clean mirrored room where he would suffer the indignity of further invasions of his body. Hadn’t he suffered enough? The reports were full and vague all at the same time, details were everywhere but reasons had still to be found. They weren’t even being hinted at. Ongoing investigations. There was a little more in the paper. A picture of Harding and even Frankie Noon. A snapshot of Eddie’s recent life. He was the beginning and the end of the circle. More details and yet still no cause, no motive. The most depressing kind of story. People can absorb any kind of story as long as there’s an explanation. But there were no patterns, just hints of long lost feuds, nothing tangible. And no mention of Edie. He was relieved and disappointed.

  What now? Call, run, hide, even admit to something he hadn’t done. Outside of his own story he would call himself the only suspect. Known to all. Always there, the common element to everything. He could even begin to believe that he had committed those acts himself. Outside of himself. Trace trickles of rain on the living room window. Linda licked the last of her spoon, put the empty yogurt container precariously on the end of the seat. He waited for it to fall.

  ‘I had a call today.’ He thought that’s what she said but her voice was so low and her eyes were pointed at the ceiling so he couldn’t be sure. Uppers, downers and God knows what else she was taking. Why weren’t there inbetweeners?

  ‘Sorry?’

  She came back to him for a second, as if her eyes couldn’t quite lock onto his.

  ‘A phone call.’

  Eddie had little time for pulling teeth from her. ‘Linda, just tell me. Please.’ He went over to her and he saw terror in her eyes as he stood momentarily over her. Me or just my kind he wondered. ‘I just wanted you to sit up, that’s all. Sit up and tell me. Who phoned you?’

  ‘Well, I phoned actually. There was no answer initially and I had to leave a message.’

  ‘And they phoned you back? Who, Linda? How difficult can it be?’

  Upset, defensive she smoothed the permanently creased folds of her purple skirt and looked at him with dull daggers.

  ‘My mother.’ The words were still falling from her moist mouth when the tears began. Started and threatened never to stop. She moved as if to leave the room but lack of strength or will forced her back down. The waterfall ended and a false hard curtain was drawn across her face. she seemed to consider the whole phone conversation in her mind and then decide to give Eddie only the edited highlights. He should have been grateful.

  ‘They’re gone.’ Stern closed mouth, closed eyes.

  ‘Who’s gone?’ He asked but he knew and he knew she didn’t want to say, didn’t want to mention their names. He let her compose herself for a couple of minutes. He folded and unfolded the newspaper. Looked up at her and decided she was ready to talk.

  ‘Social Services?’ Eddie asked gently. She nodded. He wanted to ask her what else she could have expected, that it was the best thing for the children, they would be looked after, her mother should not have to struggle with them at her time of life. But he said none of that. Instead he moved over beside her, letting her settle into him.

  Nothing but the rain accompanied their random desperate pleasures over the next few hours. Nothing could explain their actions except the comforts offered when all hope had gone, when expectation of hope had gone. Nothing intended, neither lust nor heartless desire. A little warmth in a freezing cold house in an arctic world. He touched her lips to quell her tears. He took her hand in his own to stop the shivering. He put his mouth to hers, tasted her salty breath. He held her eyes with no guilt or promise of remorse. He saw through her the world of crumbling back end streets and the fading chalk lines of children’s games no longer played. He saw the landscape of his own youth where the rumbling truck on the nearby main road was the last exotic train that carried its lucky cargo to all ends of the world. Broken sticks were guns and stolen kisses were lessons of something not yet understood. They moved to his bedroom and whatever else happened was simply the by-product of the need for a little bit of rest from all of it. Linda came back to herself, and in the creeping cold dawn she stole all the blankets from his sleeping body and struggled to find a piece of her own. Day drew ever closer and Linda finally slept, the last image in her mind being her two boys floating away through the stained window.

  Eddie sat at the kitchen table and heard her soft steps on the bare stairs. In a dressing gown of dragon delirium she held the top closed in a show of morning after modesty. She drew a smile across her chapped lips and checked the kettle for water.

  ‘There’s tea in the pot. Still fresh.’ She ignored him and searched for a mug and the jar of coffee. She kept away from him, as much was possible in such a cramped space. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out but frozen air.

  ‘No food?’ she asked, stealing hard glances in the fridge and answering her own question.

  ‘No,’ said Eddie, running a hand through unfixable hair. He should say something, he should start the conversation, shouldn’t he? In the futile atmosphere of his life, why, why did last night’s event cause such distress? An ounce of guilt on top of a mountain of hard cold misery and it had somehow toppled over. ‘We should get out of here,’ he threw out casually. This grabbed her attention and broke all tension down.

  ‘What?’ she gasped. He enjoyed how she appeared suddenly at his shoulder. He looked up at the face of the woman he had come to feel was now a part of him whether he liked it or not.

  ‘I meant for breakfast. We’ll go somewhere for breakfast, that’s all I meant.’ Her fingers dug deep into the soft flesh of his neck, massaging, her mouth tilting into a smile and her gown loosened and revealed, allowing him access once more, allowing him the luxury of the memory of the night before. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head, then the tip of his nose and finally his mouth. This was softer, less urgent than previously, less desperate somehow.

  ‘What are we doing?’ said Eddie, to himself, to her, to whatever Gods of reason were listening. A man says one thing, thinks he believes it and does another entirely. The history of the world, of man, in one quiet sentence. She leaned into him and wouldn’t let go, she rocked gently back and forth and hummed a tune that had echoes of a children’s rhyme.

  ‘Come on,’ said Eddie. ‘We have to go.’

  She took his hand on the crowded street, a gesture of safety rather than romantic yearning. He liked it, warm and moist there. In the Has-bean café, two wilting flowers settled in the corner, in the window, straining for the sunlight struggling through. Slowly, their will, their strength returned, the gaps in the pits of her eyes were filled with the vivid hues and cries of the frantic place around them. She prickled at the slightest sound, a crashing spoon, the creak of the door and Eddie’s own careful words.

  About last night. He almost said it, several times. It was the name of a movie, wasn’t it? They were fifteen again, awkward, embarrassed. Only when Eddie had been fifteen no such assignations had ever taken place. Whatever physical contact had happened between him and any girl took place in the binge drunk haze of a dirty damp room where a succession of brainless boys visited the one or two girls, prostitutes in all but name, that came to their club on a Friday or Saturday night. They never came to see Eddie, or any of them in particular. No girl ever waited with nervous excitement down by the Alhambra cinema for frightened Eddie Brogan to come by. He himself had waited there several times in the certain hope that a joke had been played on him and that Sylvia or Joanna couldn’t possibly have agreed to meet him. And yes indeed his certainty had been confirmed
on every occasion. The young boy dreams of love and those that never dreamed, those boys of perfect height and proportion, of Mitchum muscularity, had an endless supply of loveless encounters.

  ‘I don’t regret it. I’m too old for things like that.’ That was his opening and closing statement on the matter. She ran her fingers like a spider across the black table and touched him tenderly.

  ‘I enjoyed it very much,’ Linda said. She took up her coffee too quickly, drank too much, almost choked and laughed loudly as she finally composed herself.

  Eddie told her everything. And in the telling the tale had assumed an absurdity that made him doubt his own sanity. Because it couldn’t possibly be true. He wasn’t sure how much she was taking in, how far away she may have been.

  ‘I know him,’ she said, several minutes after he had finished. ‘Who?’

  Shyness, fear, the sudden remembrance of things best forgotten. And

  Eddie was back on the street outside the hotel, moving towards the car with the two policemen. But they are looking somewhere else, at someone else. At her. At the woman now sitting across from him. How had that coincidence been erased from his mind?