The Boxer's Dreams of Love

by philip boyle

  Eddie knew how arrogant that appeared. But if it all wasn’t planned, it was too much of a coincidence. He didn’t understand any of it. He had done nothing wrong. Except. Raise his hand. But that’s all he knew. All that his life had trained him for. Raise his hands to protect himself, not to hurt. And that’s what he’d always done. Except that one time.

  He watched the news for the first time in days. The world moved on inexorably and he was in the past. He was beyond himself now. Maybe they had forgotten him. Him and all the others. Who had killed them all? Did anybody still care?

  Now that he was here, there was no hurry. The first drink seemed to last forever and the thought of a second stretched time infinitely ahead. The bar was old, fashionably worn and candle-lit. The windows had smoked glass to keep the outside away. There were plenty of corners in which to hide. Plenty of chatter and low music from somewhere but still you could hear yourself talk and think. Eddie knew this wasn’t the place to ask about Stephen Zinny. He could ask here and they would shake their heads. He knew the places where they would still shake their heads but their faces would betray recognition and cold fear. He wasn’t ready to go there yet. Maybe never. Because now that he was here, there was no hurry at all.

  It couldn’t last and it didn’t. An hour later and he could hardly move for the prodding elbows and the baying laughs, the constant apologies from the crowd that now moved in a constant flow. It wasn’t just the noise, it wasn’t the endless stream moving back and forth, behind and around. He had been alone when he came in and he was even more so now. And felt it. And sometimes behind the apologetic eyes he saw the hints of wonder, the sympathy and the curious contempt for the man who drank alone in a crowded bar.

  The opportunities to mingle and chat did arise but he was reluctant to take it. Fear of having to explain something that he himself didn’t understand. Damp feel of spilt beer on his elbow that somehow penetrated the fabric of his jacket. This time he wanted to say something to the manicured kid in the blue velvet jacket who pleaded ‘so sorry’ over and over again. He touched Eddie on the shoulder as if they were the oldest of friends and he knew his time here was up. He visited the freezing toilet that had high windows open, probably to dull the heavy aroma of waste.

  Late, too late. He was getting old. He wanted nothing more than the steaming shower of his hotel, a room service meal and mindless television. But the darkness and the wind and his guilty thoughts were driving him westward through the town, away from the pretty streets and the prettier people. He’d just have a look around down there, he didn’t have to go in anywhere, just look, stay outside the bars with barred windows if they had windows at all, stay back in the drift light of the night, in the lumbering shadows. Far away from the ocean and the tourists, from the blinding pier lights and the crashing coins of the slot-machines. Travelling inwards, downwards, stepping more carefully, looking behind as well as ahead, skipping past any strangers lingering.

  The Pier House was as far as you could get from the pier itself. Cigarette ends burned and beamed out tiny beacon lights to approaching pirates coming to pillage and rob. Four men stood in a line outside, no talk among them, line-up of misfits peering out into the street that was their whole world, actions repeated night after night. Eddie kept walking, head down, hands in pockets, trying to look casual as he glanced across. He carried on for another hundred yards or so and stopped. Stopped because the road was near it’s end, civilization was nearly at an end. Any further and you entered the Barrack estates, well-named, any further and he was closer to the Hacienda Club. Not tonight though, maybe not any night. Funny to think that once upon a time, the Hacienda was a haven, a heaven amidst the hell of his job and his training. There he could forget, drink, drown, fall down. There, where he met her. Eddie turned around and headed for home, for the salt spray of the sea, for the smell of chips and batter, for the laughs of the normal and the sane.

  She was frightened of collapsing. She was scared of not reacting properly to the terrible news. The nurse in the unforgiving uniform that plunged excess flesh from every crevice of her body tilted her head and spoke softly as she informed Edie that Verna had passed away during the night. Edie’s heart skipped a beat and waited for the tears to follow. And still there was no-one else here for the old woman. Surely there must have been somebody. Neighbours, old friends even just the man from the newsagents who brought Edie to her house, one at least must care enough to be here. But apparently not, Edie was the sole bearer of grief at the poignant hour. I’m free, Edie thought, free to run the moment the nurse leaves her be, free to stop pretending.

  The nurse touched her on the hand in compassion as she left Edie standing in the doorway of a room that looked in on an empty made bed, preparations already being made for the next guest. Poor Verna, alone at the end with a vacant, passive stranger, with poor, wounded Edie. Away from the room, she struggled to walk and prayed desperately that she wouldn’t faint. What was it? Grief, hunger, the result of a long, restless night in a plastic chair and cups of tea to wash down insubstantial, unhealthy confectionery? She sat down in the nearest chair and put her head between her knees, waiting for it to pass. Staring at the slate grey floor she thought she could smell her own body, the filthy old clothes, the only clothes she possessed. She lifted her head and sense had returned, though little understanding of where she might go next. She was homeless again. The noise lifted her to her feet, down the corridor, around the corner, coming closer, momentarily, crazily thinking that it was her, that it was coming for her, that she was listening to the roar of her own approaching death.

  She leaned against the wall to let it pass, a scrum of nurses and doctors, broken, bleeding bodies on metal beds, being wheeled like chariots through the coliseum corridor. Screams of words that held no meaning for Edie, she was afraid of being caught up in it, as if the carnage and chaos was infectious and she would be swept along irretrievably. Once it had moved away from her, she headed quickly in the opposite direction, moving towards the quiet and the natural light. She heard indistinct stories of a car accident, of multiple injuries and she wanted to shut off her ears as well as her eyes. A little lost for a few minutes she eventually saw the exit doors ahead. This time she really did want to cry. Yards away now and something caught her eye. She stopped by the open door of a supply room and searched again for the source of the distraction. There, a slice of fluorescent light was reflected in the narrow blade of a scalpel. Temptation inflicted by God on the terminally weak. Before she knew it, she was outside and the blade was in her hand, her mind frantically thinking of a way to hide it.

  She had to shield her eyes against the sun. There were men approaching, at speed, intent in their eyes. But they pushed past her, one of them uttering an apology as they wheeled another injured inside.

  She was lost, she was at home, she had no idea where she was going and yet she knew exactly. Had been here before. The city by the sea, where the wind played unearthly tunes and unnatural melodies above the wondrous epic waves.

  ‘What?’ It was just a knock at the door. No need to whimper and cry like a child. This wasn’t his place, definitely not his territory anymore. Not that they took much notice of him, let alone pay him any kind of respect. The sideways looks from kids in black suits and black cars, they looked at him like he was the caretaker, the janitor, a relic from the past anyway. Of no use and therefore little threat. If only they knew, Zinny thought, snap their fucking necks in the snap of his fingers, he still had minions of his own, those who knew the true history, knew the myths, legends and facts were all one and the same.

  He sat in a red damp room at the back of the Hacienda. Lit by the lamp covered with a crimson veil and windows boarded blocking the world out. The furniture smelled of mildew and dust, of coal dust years, the traces of soot still there in minute particles in the fireplace that carried constant drafts. The chair rocked and creaked underneath him, he could sense the dead souls still haunting it, he knew it was their spectral skeletal hands that w
ere rocking this cheap chair that wasn’t supposed to rock. A bottle of Dewars on the table beside him, a cut-glass tumbler that was heavy with the weight of the tales it could tell. Where was the sweat on his face coming from? This room was freezing. He wiped his damp handkerchief over his forehead and feared it was his own fear. He checked to make sure that the suitcase was in its place by the door. Why was he still here? Why couldn’t he just leave this god-forsaken town, with its pasty pier and that sickly nostalgic glow still carried in the slot-machines and the carrion coaches carrying retired couples on their last voyages around the towns of their past. This town, this city, whatever they called it, was no longer bright, no longer on, it was darkening quickly, it was definitely being switched off. He couldn’t move, he had been checkmated on his own board. Every day the news carried warning and forecasts of approaching doom. They were looking for him, the police, the O’Rourkes, those fuckers, the Traynors from Newcastle threatening to kill him if he ever ventured up north. He couldn’t go back to Dublin, not since. Not since Frankie, and of course, since Sarah. ‘Sarah.’ There, he said it, he said her name out loud, he knew he could do it. And immediately whale tears erupted at the surface.

  The knock on the door again and a faint head poking around it. ‘What?’ Zinny asked, more quietly this time. Not his place, nor his territory. Which one was this at the door? He looked about twelve, and he was probably about thirty. Thirty and never done anything no doubt. Know what I had done by the time I was thirty, Zinny wanted to whisper in the kid’s ear. He took a brimful of whiskey and it dribbled down his chin. Hope that it couldn’t be seen in the dim light.

  ‘Somebody was asking for you last night?’

  ‘Last night?’ he asked stupidly. It was difficult to tell the time in this twilight.

  ‘Not here,’ the kid continued. ‘In the Pig and Iron. Some guy was asking for you, nobody knew who he was, never seen him before. Just said he wasn’t police.’

  ‘Sure. No problem. Always somebody looking for you, remember that. Lot of people always want a piece of what you got. Where’s Dennis by the way?’

  ‘He’s gone to London, probably won’t be back until tomorrow.’

  247 ‘Okay.’ The door was closed and he was returned to himself. He thought of the friends he didn’t have, that he’d never had, of the possible ones that he’d carelessly discarded over the years, as much though cautiousness as any kind of contempt. That arrogant air of not needing anybody, just a mask, a costume, covering his own fear of himself and others.

  The suitcase like a sleeping cat by the door. Packed in a hurry as he scrambled to leave the house as soon as he could. Vague whispers that they were coming. No details as to who exactly they were, but they were coming and the house wasn’t safe anymore. And the others, the helpers, his crew, his fucking crew had just looked on in fear and confusion. They pleaded with him, pleaded for their own jobs, their own security. Their boss was turning, turning black and scared and they started to fear for themselves. He had left alone, run to his car and raced through an early morning under a salmon sky until he was on the Barrack estates and there was no road ahead. Fifteen minutes was all it took before the hooded eyes of a would-be career criminal, aged all of fourteen years, was knocking on his window, intent of proving his mettle to his mule-head mates around the corner. Zinny had just looked at him with studied apathy and waved him away. But he wouldn’t go away, then proceeded to take a penknife out of his Nike pocket and try to snarl at Zinny. He got out of the car and as he approached the boy he saw the youth and terror in his whole scrawny body. Zinny just plucked the knife from the boy’s hands like fruit from a tree and the boy was gone. Gone. He watched him go and sighed, for the downward road the boy was travelling on, for the cul-de-sac future that would bring him back here. Just like you, Stephen, just like you. Only he hadn’t come from a place like this, he had come from so much better and still ended up here.

  Here. Henritetta Terrace. He remembered something, walked to the corner and saw the Hacienda at the end of the next street. Dennis Hughes. Never much of a friend but never an enemy, or never made an enemy of and that was the important thing. Fugitive friends on the salty chipped desperate road. He’d help him.

  And Dennis was in London, doing his own business, but still, Zinny couldn’t stop thinking that somewhere along the way, Dennis would bring him up in conversation, inadvertently or not and further word would spread. And more of them would come. Someone already had. In the Pig and Iron, a place where even the rats had to think twice about entering.

  He threw his hair into the ocean and watched it swim on top of the swelling seas for a few moments before it disappeared under its own ridiculousness. Even the sea that was the refuge of so much refuse was embarrassed at the presence of such a silly thing. Tommy felt sure it would wash back in to the shore and it would be found. It would be a clue, a piece of evidence. He saw himself in the dock as the prosecution dragged out Exhibit A, his hairpiece, drawing howls of laughter from the attendant multitudes. Tommy laughed himself. Why didn’t they come? What were they waiting for? How much more did he have to do before they took him away and put him gratefully to sleep? Even now as he came to do that one final terrible thing, even as he plotted the one last attempt to forever wash away his tracks, he wished to God in heaven that they would come and wash him away.

  As he watched his hair disappear, he felt the burgeoning baby stubble on the top of his head. He rubbed his smooth shaven chin and was glad to be so clean, like he had been born anew. He walked along the seafront and the ocean was a pleasant hum in his ears. The pier was a shimmering mirage in the haze ahead. It seemed miles away. But he wasn’t going that far.

  The first glimpse of the house brought such a shockwave of nostalgia that it nearly knocked him over. He had never taken such pleasure in the mere sight of it. He had bought it sight unseen, let someone else take of the details. The cost had been unimportant, it was available that had been main thing. Elegant Victorian fashionably faded, looking out imperiously across to the forever seas, its white columns a hint of a bygone better era. And now that he was in front of it again, the promise of it, the quiet serenity it offered showed the grand folly of his terrible deeds. And all of that was gone. He still owned it but he could never live there. He didn’t deserve to. Tommy had turned away from it for maybe two minutes. His back was to it, overwhelming sorrow for what he had done, what he had thrown away.

  When he turned back, there was a police car outside. God playing tricks on his tripped-up mind? Two uniforms approaching the front door, one knocking while the other looked casually around, his eyes resting on Tommy but taking no special interest in him. Tommy watched with slow compulsion, wondering if they were going to take his chance away, take Zinny before he could. The door was finally opened by a slip of a girl in slovenly dress. She looked puzzled, frowned, reluctant to open the door fully. They towered above her, everyone did, and she was unable to prevent them from coming in. Tommy stared in confusion for several minutes, knowing he could easily be noticed, not caring, scared, his plan running off the tracks. He could wait no longer and was walking away when he heard a noise behind him. The tiny girl walked between them to their car, she slipped in the back with a mournful air.

  Maybe fear brought hunger, maybe doubt brought thirst. Whatever the reason, Tommy went in search of food and maybe a glass or two of decent wine. He heard a Scottish tune in his head and it found its way to his mouth. He hummed his new melody and smiled as he started to remember the words.

  Edie looked through the tiny gap in the curtains. The girl was busy with another customer. She let the curtain fall closed and turned to the sight of her own semi-naked body in the unflattering mirror. Stick thin and mottled skin. And those terrible marks on her arms. The dress was too much, too extravagant, flamboyant. It was heavy and lush, destined for a ball or some such function. For the stage maybe? But not for her. She had already decided to keep it on. Her jacket was inadequate cover but it would have to do. She left her
old dress crumpled up on the floor. She couldn’t bear to touch it anymore, wanted to get as far away from it as possible. Through the gap again and no sign of the assistant. The shop was busy now, a late surge of Christmas shoppers. Edie moved quickly, gliding unseen through the bright store, her nothing frame barely causing a flutter in the air through which it passed. She reached the street, exhilarated and perhaps it was fear that brought on her sudden hunger.

  She knocked the spoon from the table, annoyed at her own clumsiness. It could have been worse and she managed to stop the plate from falling. She had eaten too quickly. Too much coffee on top of the adrenalin fuelled by her success in stealing the clothes in which she now sat uncomfortably. The world was watching surely, the police would be waiting downstairs for her. Her head was spinning, her temper on edge, the screaming kids a few table away weren’t helping any. And lifting her hand to her head, her wrist brushed the spoon that clattered on the floor. She bent to pick it up and she almost butted heads with a woman who had the same intention of recovering the spoon. She smelled faint traces of sweat and perfume. The woman was dressed in copious layers of opulent brocaded clothes, hippie colours that belonged to a younger person. There was a loose white thread in her dark hair. She smiled good teeth at Edie and handed the spoon over to her.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Edie and took the conversation no further. She needed to get out of there as soon as possible, she needed air, she thought of the intense sobering winds that waited for her on the seafront. She had to find somewhere to stay, the day had passed in seconds and she thought that if she didn’t secure a room before darkness that, well, something terrible would happen. Something would come out of the dark. Stupid, irrational thoughts, her stomach now feeling a little sick, and she reasoned that the smell of sweat may have been coming from her.