The Boxer's Dreams of Love

by philip boyle

  Edie could hardly open the door of the restaurant, the wind was now so strong. Through the window she could see a woman with a walking frame coming to a complete halt. She saw a child carried high on the shoulders of a stupid man and she was sure the child would crash to the ground at any moment.

  She felt bloated and tired and craved her bed, however unpleasant the thought of returning to her ramshackle room seemed right now. The sun was low and blinding and dust mixed with sand found unsavoury sanctuary in her eyes. She thought it absurdly funny that the wind was almost stopping her from moving forward. She reached the corner and came to a standstill. She had thought of walking along the seafront but changed her mind. She would head into the calmer waters of the town centre. Around her people moved like figures in a Lowry painting, bent low and meek against the elements. Turning to walk back towards the centre, her eyes cast downward, she felt hands on her arm as she bumped into a man. They looked at each other and Edie said sorry. Stephen Zinny was about to reply in the same vein when his eyes held her for another moment. In that instant he seemed struck down with the greatest sadness. His hands still clasped her arms and she struggled to escape them. He finally realized he was still holding her and released her immediately. He hurried away, but kept looking back at her with haunted eyes until she turned away from his unwelcome gaze.

  He waited for the lights to turn green. He looked back once more but she was gone. Surely a ghost from the past. She was dead, she had to be. He couldn’t quite recall her name. It was her, wasn’t it? Yes, he had known her immediately, no matter how mixed-up his mind right now. They’d found her in time somehow. They’d brought her here. To what? Identify her kidnapper. Yeah, that was it. He stopped in the middle of the road, looked behind, crazy eyes scanning the landscape. Where were they, where the fuck were they? He remembered the grey sullen faces of those two Estonian brothers who’d been given the simple fucking task of losing her somewhere. He had wanted shut of them as much as her. They did nothing but argue with each other, yet were bound together like Siamese twins. And her. Her. His disbelief returned. He saw nothing across the wide road, nothing but cars, people, lights. Zinny turned back to himself as car horns blared. A driver was even out of his car and approaching him with fake angry intentions in his middle-aged eyes. He was about to say something, to utter some obscenity but this close to Zinny and something inside the man took fright and ran him back to his car. Zinny made it to the path. He didn’t want to look behind now. She was gone, not dead but gone… gone. The last time he’d seen her, she was wrapped in dirty blankets on a motheaten bed and her wide eyes had stared at the ceiling while the black marks in her arm pulsed with hunger for more. He had little contact with her, little desire to do the favour he had promised for that fucker Tommy. It had seemed such an insanely beautiful idea at the time and he himself had been wrapped in the cloak of grief for Sarah. And no idea was insane enough then, no revenge bad enough. And taking the girl seemed so. So easy, so just. Hurt the man who had hurt his daughter, who had killed his daughter. Hurt without physical hurt, take what was most precious to him. His own initial desire had been simple and primeval, an eye for an eye. And who was this man anyway, a broken down Irish boxer who scraped a living wherever he could. The man had no intrinsic value, he owned nothing, contributed nothing, few friends if any. He wouldn’t be missed. It would have been so simple, so easy. But then Tommy, bald kinky Tommy with his secret games that he thought nobody knew anything about. He had suggested something else, something that would satisfy both. Take the little girl, the only decent thing in the Irishman’s life. She was gone, she must be.

  He realized he was on the pier heading for nowhere in particular. There was only the end of it. And then the ocean. He stood on the rails and looked down. He knew he would never be able to find it, it would have drifted by now. Hopefully miles down the coastline. And if it did wash up it would be on some jagged rocks on a remote beach that wouldn’t be visited for months if not years. The deed was done anyway, the sin committed, could never be undone. He heard clanking rustling sounds and laughter. He saw the funhouse, the flashing lights of slot machines inside, the addicts at the console feeding money in that would never come back. He had never been in there before, had never had any desire. It was for kids and stupid people, entertainment for the mediocre masses who didn’t want to think. But he had nowhere else to go. There was nothing beyond it but the end of the pier and then the ocean. He was suddenly cold, his whole body shuddered, all the dead spirits walking over it. He noticed an elderly couple sitting close in a seat in the shelter that hardly provided it. They were dressed for an Arctic winter and didn’t communicate in the two or three minutes that he watched them. Where was the love of a lifetime together? Zinny had dreamed of love once but that’s all it was. Near the couple in a small circular booth was a man selling tawdry trinkets and sweets. Zinny wondered if they still sold sticks of rock. Brighton Rock he thought to himself. The man in the booth looked bored beyond measure. His hair was shiny black and plastered to his head, his jacket a kind of pinky brown. Zinny felt he might catch something from these people if he stayed here any longer so he headed for the warmth and fake comforts of the mass entertainments inside.

  She could feel that strange man’s arms still on her. They were locked in an eternal dance. She was a creature of bad habits and found herself back at the karaoke bar. It was here or the staleness of her bedroom. She chose the bar, open even this early in the day. No other customers, the lights were cold, the room was freezing, and he was behind the bar. She had almost forgotten about him. It was too late now anyway. He smiled as he saw her approach the bar, he was certain she had come here just for him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. Too late to leave and where was there to go anyway?

  ‘Hello. Thought I wouldn’t see you again.’

  ‘I’m like a bad penny. Can I have something? A vodka, straight.’

  ‘Sure. Glad you came by. Had a call from that guy we met in the Hacienda. He wants to see you again. Has a proposal for you.’

  Linda felt the cold draught of air as the door was opened. It broke her concentration. It put a temporary dam in the stream of pound coins she had been feeding into the machines. Burning money for a tiny moment of hope. And it never came, it never would, you got two and you expected three would be next. Had to be. Just one more and then I’ll quit. She looked at the obese lady next to her, saw the sweat on her face, saw the arm rifling coins into the slot with hardly a thought. And Linda pitied her, thinking she was different to her, fooling herself that she could stop anytime she wanted. Only she didn’t. The machine was turning tricks in the minds of the passers-by, trapping them like flies in the ointment. The door was closed and normal comfort was resumed. She fished in her pockets for more money and was pleasantly surprised at the number she found. She decided to reduce the coins to fifty pence pieces, fooling herself a second time. The sound of a winner in some far flung corner of the room gave encouragement to the rest.

  Such was the highlight of Linda’s days now. Reduced to the plight of a tourist with time and money running out. Turning tricks in her mind that led to sticky uncomfortable afternoon tricks in semi-dark hotels. Shadowy faces that mumbled regretted pleasures and payment dropped on the bed like discarded pieces of guilt. There was nothing here in this town except the breeze that kept everything moving. She’d try to ring her mother, and the kids of course, tomorrow or the day after. Look in shop windows for possible jobs, in the morning for sure. Buy a few new clothes, tidy herself up, get a CV together. Told herself she’d do anything. And Eddie wasn’t here. She would blame him as she washed herself afterwards and slipped from strange rooms and cars, his fault for not looking for her, for not seeing how weak she was. And every day she ended up here. She kept meaning to go further but she still hadn’t seen the end of the pier yet.

  Zinny felt waves of heat wash uncomfortably over him. This place was anything but an amusement palace. It was too bright, too many faces, too much nois
e. His tongue felt too dry and he needed a drink, he wanted a shot of whiskey, anything to catapult him back to himself. He whirled in indecision, he searched his pockets for loose change even though the thought of playing those infernal machines seemed so childish to him. God, it was so hot. His eyes tilted back in his head, he heard the room turning. Then something, someone was touching him, turning him around. His first instinct was to pull away. They had found him. He looked up into the black face and insanely white teeth of a security guard who was saying something that Zinny couldn’t make out.

  ‘Take your hands off me.’ He tried to pull away but the man wouldn’t budge. Why couldn’t he talk English? ‘Let go, you fucking nigger.’ He knew, he knew as he said it, he wanted to say it, only way to make the man let go. Just a word after all.

  Linda turned at the sound of the commotion. She was just in time to see two security guards bundle a man out of the arcade. The door opened a crack and then was blown back by the wind. The man was struggling mightily even though they towered over him. And the cold once again moved unpleasantly past her, through her. She shivered. She had had enough. She wrapped her scarf around her, closed the buttons on her coat and saw the obese woman still working feverishly away at her machine.

  Outside the row was still going on. The man had his back against the railing and his eyes blazed with indignation as the two guards tried to calm him down. Linda was going to turn away, it was too cold to stand and watch this. But as the man uttered another obscenity, something in his voice stopped her still. Not what he said but how he said it. English but not. What was that inflection in his voice? She couldn’t take her eyes off him. The guards suddenly moved back from him, let the situation calm down, knew it could only escalate beyond what it was worth. The man was a danger only to himself and his racist comments were batted away by the black security man, who’d heard it all before. They walked away and the man was left complaining to the air, his voice lowering to inaudible words, uttered in a stream. He noticed Linda and the words dried up. He tidied his clothes, his hair, as if she was his date. His body still shook with the trauma of whatever rage was running through his head.

  Linda realized in a moment who this man was. She noticed his shoes, knew they were expensive, as was the jacket, the cream shirt underneath. No matter how unshaven the cheeks, how sunken and sad the eyes. The eyes which now tore through her. She knew who it was. Knew that Manny had been right. She was about to utter his name, hesitated, wondered what the fuck she was doing, no good could come of it. If he was who she imagined then there was nothing but danger in making herself known to him. The arms that had hung heavily by his side now started to lift slowly, palms open in gesture of welcome of invitation. There was something on his lips, struggling to the surface. He took a step closer to her, she took a corresponding one away from him. A satin reflection in his eyes that became gloss. He was crying. He was crying and moving towards her, hands open, pleading, begging.

  ‘Sarah?’ he croaked. ‘Sarah.’ Eddie looked through the spy hole and saw the cleaner in the room across the corridor. He hoped she noticed the do-not-disturb sign this time. His room had been cleaned, there was surely nothing left to do. Why did they always have to come back?

  He sat naked on the end of the bed. Saw half of his face in the mirror over the flimsy dressing table. Saw the reflected imitation Monet on the wall behind, the small tear in the wallpaper beside it. His clothes were in a pile near the bathroom. He had felt dirty in them earlier and had torn them off. He had spent twenty minutes in the shower and then shivered when he walked back into the bedroom. He was cold still but it felt good, healthy. How often had those jeans, that shirt, been washed and re-washed until they had faded and carried worn frays at the collars and cuffs? The money was on the bed beside him. Two-thousand three hundred and forty three Euros, to be precise. And a few hundred in Sterling. Some coins in various pockets. He shifted his body a little and saw the rest of his face. Clean shaven for the first time in God knows how many years. Saw the room from a slightly different angle.

  And he saw much more.

  He saw.

  The sloping wall of his parents’ kitchen. His father trundling noisily

  through the house somewhere, ignoring him and his mother who stood at the cooker with her back to Eddie. Always had her back to him, and her eyes and ears.

  Saw his own feet circling the ring, sweat pumping, his heart roaring with life, the veins in his temple throbbing, watching Christy Dolan desperately trying to keep up with him. The promise that was there. He saw his older self across the ring, his face a mixture of shame and aching fatigue. His life rushes on and the promise is buried under numerous stolen fights, thrown fights, bad luck.

  Saw for a moment a hospital room. No, not a hospital but something similar. A refuge. He feels that same thing now, that inability to do it alone. To do anything. He wanted the feel of the cold to spur him awake, make him do something. He saw her. She was there and then gone in the same instant, it was just a sense of her rather than a picture.

  There was a knock at the door. What the point of hanging the notice outside if they didn’t read it? ‘Please come back later.’ How did they get work if they couldn’t speak English? He looked around for the discarded towel. Wrapping it around his waist, he moved quickly to the door, sure they would come in before he got there. Another knock when he was two yards from the door. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed. Can’t you see the sign?’ He hung his head in frustration and waited for the apology uttered in broken English.

  ‘Eddie?’ A man’s voice. Curious, frowning, angry, Eddie put his eye to the hole again. For a moment there was nobody there and then a figure appeared in front of the door, distorted distended body, glistening bald head. Whoever was out there kept looking anywhere but at the door, he was keeping guard, watching the corridor. Eddie pulled back from the door, trying not to breathe, not wanting to be heard even though he had already spoken. No more sound. He looked again and there was nobody there. Had he imagined it? He looked at the room behind him and that’s all it was now. The towel had started to loosen around his waist. He tightened it at first and then dropped it altogether. He reached for his clothes on the floor, discomforted by their feel and imagined smell. Imagined. The word of the day. He had dreamt about his mother the night before, in fact through the night and on into the lighter shades of early morning. He hadn’t thought about her like that in so long. The exact details had disappeared like trickling grains of sand as soon as he awoke. But he knew she had been close. She was close.

  He was closing the belt of torn leather on his jeans when the knock came again. Was it inside his fucking head? Had he simply slipped from the dream of his mother to this? He put his head to the door but didn’t look out.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Eddie?’ The sound of his own name stopped his heart for a second. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed. Can’t you see the sign?’

  He thought he sounded calm. And that voice. He tried to sneak up on the hole in the door. The figure was there, staring at the door this time. Somewhere deep inside he knew that face but the name wouldn’t come. Because the context was all wrong, something was out of place. Like mountains floating in the sky. Two things that on their own were entirely normal but in that combination they crushed the world inside your head. He knew this man but he couldn’t be outside his hotel room.

  ‘Tommy?’

  Eddie said it low as if afraid for the truth to be revealed too soon. He had to get used to the crazy idea himself before he could go any further. Another knock, the man’s hand just inches from his own, separated only by a thin veneer of wood. ‘Tommy, is that you? What? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Can I come in, Eddie? We can’t talk like this.’ Eddie had his fingers on the handle even as Tommy spoke. But the man’s voice was wrong. He looked through the hole again and Tommy was running a hand over his clean shiny head. That wasn’t how Eddie remembered him at all. There was something wrong, with the man’s body, his
voice, his crawling hands, his rhythmic knocks on the door.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Let me in, can’t you? Come on.’

  Tommy? Tommy Pearson? He wasn’t part of this, this game, this dream. He trawled through his memory for everything he knew or remembered about this man but there was too much there, there was too little time.

  ‘He’s here, Eddie,’ whispered Tommy. ‘The man you came to find, he’s here. Ten minutes away, living in a box flat above an antiques shop. He’s a scared old man.’