The Boxer's Dreams of Love

by philip boyle

  ‘I wake up and she’s just there. She tells me she knows me, mentions some clubs, bars, I don’t know. I don’t remember any of those places. I don’t want to. And then she starts talking about you. How could that be I think? Who is she really? Is she with them and this is all a game? Why don’t they just come and take me, I’m not going anywhere anymore. She tells me she came here to find you, that she lost you somewhere. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand why I’m here.’

  Eddie was tired of listening to this self-pitying confession, he was tired of his own cowardice.

  ‘Your daughter, Mr. Zinny. That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘My daughter—’ he began, and stopped as before.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’ That word, kill, sounded so strange in this innocent limpid light. The man across the table wasn’t listening, he had drifted back to some rose memory of his little child.

  ‘I didn’t—’ This time Eddie stopped, unable to continue. He couldn’t stop seeing it, his arm raised over and over again, pounding down in the rain, pummelling his daughter’s face. But that’s not what happened, not who she was. He continued, recounting that fateful night and as he spoke, as he told his tale to the girl’s father, he realized how much greater pain had accrued because of that singular, mistaken moment.

  ‘I hit her once,’ Eddie repeated over and over, convinced the man across the table hadn’t heard or didn’t want to hear. ‘She—’

  ‘She what?’ asked Zinny, alert again, brimming with renewed ferocious energy that sent shivers through Eddie.

  ‘She wasn’t what you think she was,’ Eddie said, knowing the words were wrong in some way.

  ‘And what do I think my own daughter was?’

  ‘She was—’

  Eddie searched for the truth, for the honest words that could only seem cruel and unkind when uttered out loud. ‘She was – troubled.’ He waited for Zinny to launch himself across the table but he sat stock still, trying not to hear. ‘She was – taking God knows what. And drink on top of all that. I only met her a couple of times.’ He tasted his cold coffee and it shook his senses awake. ‘I only hit her once. I didn’t kill her.’

  The old man that was once Stephen Zinny shook with hurt and remorse, almost rocking the ground beneath his feet.

  ‘She was my daughter, Mr. Brogan. My daughter. That’s all I know.’

  Linda came back to their table and took her place beside Zinny. They both stood and prepared to leave, clearly no more was going to be said.

  ‘What about Edie?’ Eddie almost cried.

  ‘What?’ Zinny said and for a moment he looked as if he really didn’t know what Eddie had meant.

  ‘I took your daughter and you took Edie from me, isn’t that it? Isn’t that what happened? I told you what happened, what I did.’

  Linda said she’d wait outside. She needed air and Eddie hoped she would leave and never come back.

  ‘Is that her name? I didn’t know. Funny how similar your names are. Just one letter away. I hardly ever saw her, she was just—’

  ‘Just what?’ Eddie pleaded.

  ‘ A favour.’

  ‘A favour? What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘I never knew she existed. I only thought about hurting you, I wanted to. I wanted to take something from you, your life mostly. That would have been the easiest thing to do. But then he told me you had a girlfriend. That I could hurt you more by hurting her. By taking her from you.’ He shrugged as if it was nothing. Now it was Eddie who wanted to hurl himself across the table and rip the truth from this apathetic fucker.

  ‘Who told you? I don’t understand’

  ‘Tommy. Tommy Pearson, if that means anything to you.’

  Eddie was too stunned to make any sense of it, to ask the next right question. Zinny started to leave once more.

  ‘Where are you going? You just do this favour, you take her, you kill her and that’s it?’

  Zinny wrapped a thin scarf around his neck, buttoned his coat and frowned at Eddie.

  ‘Kill her? But you’re here with her, you found her didn’t you?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  Stephen Zinny smiled, younger suddenly, calmer. In the last few minutes of his life.

  ‘But she’s here, Eddie. In Brighton. I’ve seen her.’

  He was frozen. His fear ran in a stream down the legs of his trousers, dribbled onto his untied sneakers and stained the sand around them. He was afraid to turn his eyes away from the fingers pointing out of the sand. He thought they’d move if he looked away but he desperately wanted to see where his mother was. Why was it taking her so long to reach him?

  Ronnie Piper didn’t want to call this particular tune. He thought of all the things he shouldn’t have done in his nine short years on earth. He now knew why she had told him not to so many times. Because this would happen. He would always be stuck here, cemented to the sand with fear.

  He didn’t hear her coming in the end but he felt her hand on the back of his head. The surprise made him scream out. He fell to his knees and cowered from her, from that thing in the sand, from the world.

  ‘How many times, Ronnie? Well, how many—’ Her eyes had strayed to what her child was staring at. She was about to throw more accusations his way. ‘What?’ she asked herself, moving towards it, seeing more, understanding. She peered down and uttered a low moan. She staggered back to her son, picked him up roughly and moved away to a safer distance as if the discovery was about to spring to life. She hugged him tight and looked in every direction, for help from anywhere. Finally she remembered her phone and plundered it from her bag.

  They walked liked a seasoned couple in the autumn of their time. ‘Let’s get out of this wind,’ Zinny said in a voice so low that Linda

  had to lean in close to hear him. They turned into a narrow cobbled lane

  where she almost stumbled on the first step. She must stop wearing these

  unsuitable shoes. He stopped for a second and leaned against the wall,

  catching his breath. She didn’t really understand what was wrong with

  him. She thought it was all inside his head. She looked up and there was a

  figure moving towards them, a man, swaggering like a cowboy, his head

  covered in a boxer’s cowl, hands buried deep in the pockets. Zinny was

  okay again and they continued. The man was almost upon them now,

  pushing his hood down as he came alongside, his bald head catching

  reflections from the clouds overhead.

  ‘Hello, Stephen,’ he said in a mock cheerful voice. Zinny noticed him

  for the first time but before he had time to understand any of it, the man’s

  right hand was shooting toward his stomach with a sliver of a silver blade

  that cut red into the morning grey. Zinny clutched at his torn guts and fell

  to the ground. Linda watched him fall with wide-eyed disbelief. She

  looked around and the man was already gone.

  Stephen Zinny lay curled and dying in agony on his blood carpet.

  Linda stood shaking above him, moving away rather than moving closer to

  help him. They were alone, the rain had started to fall and she lifted her

  eyes to the heavens. She waited until the last groans escaped from him

  before she walked quickly away. And never looked back.

  The last flickering fading images of his troubled life were the dull

  graffiti words that almost spelled out the place in which his life was now about to end. Bright— Almost but not quite finished. A drop of rain fell across his eye and he closed it for the last time.

  Sirens sang in Eddie’s ears like the wailing soundtrack of his life. They came from every direction and he could only catch fleeting glimpses of police cars and ambulances as they flashed past out of the corner of his eye. She’s here, Eddie. His last trick on poor malleable Eddie, that what it was? Make him chase her dead spir
it through this town forever? Would he always be here?

  He noticed a small crowd gathering nearby, lifting him from his slumber. They were leaning, straining against the rail, looking at something down near the water. More sirens and this time a police car moved past him and stopped near where people had congregated. Eddie stood and walked slowly towards them. The two policemen held their hats as they rushed down the steps to the stony beach. He was almost upon them now and before he saw what they looking at, he heard snippets of conversation. A body… buried… kid and his mother… He looked where they were all looking and he saw another small crowd in a circle on a stretch of clear sand down near a life guard’s empty hut. Police stood and stared while three ambulance men proceeded to lift something heavy in a blue plastic cover. It’s a woman… woman’s body… buried. Off to the side, standing alone, he saw a woman and her boy, his head clutched tightly to her ample body.

  A woman’s body… she’s here, Eddie… she’s… What changed Tommy’s mind was nothing more than the tiniest breeze of thought that blew through his head as he approached her outside her hotel. She stood searching frantically in her handbag. She never noticed, him nor anything else it seemed. She was distracted, on the edge of being distraught. Whatever she was looking for would never be found. She looked behind her as if the object of her desperate search might be lying in the gutter nearby. She started walking down the street, the bag resting on her shoulder, open. Tommy followed slowly, curiously, getting ever closer, knowing she would never notice. As they waited on the corner for the traffic light to change, he had to resist the urge to touch the straying strands of hair that floated over the collar of her blue coat. The lights changed and she started across the road. He let her go, he felt his throat catch, felt his heart sink. Watched Edie disappear into a bookstore.

  Linda wiped the condensation from the window at the back of the bus. Saw the trails of exhaust fumes as the engine had finally started. She had to remind herself once more that Portsmouth was her destination, for now at least.

  ~ They were all finally ready to leave. The preliminary examinations having been made, they allowed the body to be removed from the beach. It looked like a ton weight in their hands as they proceeded through the crowd.

  Eddie followed a short distance behind the policemen as they made their way back to the street. He tried to catch snippets of their conversation but could gleam nothing substantial. He had no option. He touched one on the elbow, saying ‘sorry’ as he did so. The young policeman said nothing on turning, just waited for Eddie to explain further.

  ‘Sorry. Do you know who she is?’ He nodded towards the ambulance whose doors were now closing. He gave Eddie a hard, untrusting look and spoke with great reluctance.

  ‘Too early to say.’ He was about to leave but Eddie held him by his jacket much to the young man’s dislike. ‘Is there something else? Do you have some idea who it might be?’ This time it was Eddie who felt reluctant to continue. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe? You either do or—’ He was interrupted by his phone. He answered, listened and uttered an obscenity under his breath. He thought of saying something more to Eddie but his colleague dragged him away.

  Eddie walked over to the spot where the body was found, yellow tape blocking the area off and a policewoman posted on duty to keep treasure seekers away. There was nothing to see but wet sand and seaweed remains. There was no indication of what may have occurred, what terrible events may have brought her to this sorry end. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of someone watching him. He turned his head slightly to observe a plump woman with unkempt hair and a nurse’s uniform beneath her raincoat. She looked like she had been crying. She continued to look at him, making him uncomfortable. He started to leave when she spoke.

  ‘Eddie? Eddie Brogan?’

  He tried to remember, and as she came closer, he smelled her antiseptic fragrance. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ she said.

  Tommy wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. They were sure to come there again, especially now, and he would be certain to be found this time. He was tired of moving, following, chasing, killing. This was the end, there was only the ocean. As he had those first days, he watched the house from across the road and admired it as if it had never belonged to him. He knew he would be seen but no matter. He only hoped that he had enough time to do what had literally popped into his head on the way down here. It was amazing how reckless he had become after years of weighing, calculating everything. What he might have had. The clubs, the clients, the residents, this house in particular, what had they brought him in the end?

  He slipped inside and inhaled the mustiness of neglect. A house, a room, died quickly without the pulse of life. Like leaving the fridge door open. He could feel it rotting as he wandered through it. He drank bottled water and took small bites from stale biscuits. He was hungry but could taste nothing in this atmosphere. He cast aside the food and started undressing as he walked. He remembered the kitchen from the first time he viewed it. It still glowed with summer light today, the long oak table throwing out warm romantic images of fictional family breakfasts. Tommy threw aside these idle thoughts of regret. Even in here he could hear the sirens and the wails, perhaps Zinny still clung to a semblance of life with stubborn hate for him.

  He sat naked on the cold chair for maybe an hour. What he might have had. Now, near the thankful end of it all, he still shuddered at how life changed in the taking of a different road, in being too late or too early, in the random meetings, all the luck , the coincidence, the injustice of it all. As the afternoon light began to fade he found enough energy to make it to the oven. He assumed the power had not been cut off yet and he was right, a little bit of kindness thrown his way at the death. At the death. Maybe now, maybe later, still some thinking to do, resolving. He wanted them to come.

  The detective rued his bad luck at being given this crazy fucking woman to look after just when Brighton had decided to go crazy. A body found on the beach, a man found stabbed not a mile away from where he now stood, the station, the streets alive, throbbing, fearful, bloodied, bruising, resources thin on the ground as they were and he was given this wild-eyed girl to take care of. Was that all they thought of him? Surely this was a woman’s job and he could hear his wife’s jabbing protests if he told her that.

  Edie felt sick from the three or four vodkas earlier on, taken to lessen the fear of doing this, coming here, telling them. And now that she was here, it was all jumbled again. It was an asylum out there, the world was on speed or maybe it was just her. She couldn’t sit still, she felt the detective’s angry eyes burning at her as he stood near the door. She knew he wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She tried the coffee again and she nearly gagged on it.

  ‘Well?’ She looked up and he was sitting across the table from her. She hadn’t noticed him sitting down. He had a friendly face close up and she relaxed.

  ‘I saw him,’ she began, thinking he must surely know what she was talking about.

  ‘Who?’ he sighed, making sure she saw it. ‘Who did you see, Edie? Do you know what’s going out there? I haven’t got time to waste on this. If you’ve nothing to say.’

  ‘I saw him on the TV. I thought I was dreaming, thought it was a dream with—’

  ‘Please, Edie, who are talking about?’

  ‘The man you found. Zinny, is that his name?’

  The detective sat forward in his seat, suddenly very interested in the strange woman opposite who didn’t seem entirely there.

  ‘What about him?’

  He tried to remain calm, she could be just one of those unfortunates who crawled out of the woodwork in their hundreds when anything terrible happened, looking for attention, whatever the cost. Edie took an age to start talking, the thoughts crashing to the front of her mind like loose boulders.

  ‘I saw him a few days ago, wasn’t sure at first although I’m sure he recognized me. And then I started to remember. Where I’d been all that t
ime.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Edie, I still don’t understand.’

  She smiled, thankful at last for not only remembering but having the chance to tell someone.

  ‘He was the man who kidnapped me. From a Glasgow hotel, after a gig, took me away. Just took me away. Took me away.’

  A haemophiliac memory, a small cut and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Eddie was afraid he would start to cry but he managed to control himself. He wanted something stronger than the caffeine that burned his tongue. She kept staring at him, a constant little smile of compassion on her face, the result of her job he supposed.

  ‘Death can be an angel to the afflicted and the sad,’ she whispered into his ear. He wondered if she meant for him that death was such a comfort. He didn’t doubt it right at that moment. No punishment that he had ever received in the ring could kneel at the feet of the hurt that was being inflicted on him right now. Her clammy hands were entwined with his. There was a trace of liquorice on her breath. ‘It’s time, Eddie,’ the nurse said, the same nurse that had looked after him on his last hospital visit, the occasion of an after-session scrum in a pool-hall. She had moved to the nursing home six months ago, she told him. Less money but less blood, less trouble but more depressing work, looking after people far worse than Maggie had ever been. And she never forgot a face.

  ‘It’s time, come on. I’ll be right beside you,’ said Angela Long, angel of the south, who gave out unconditional love to the lost and lonely with only a broken marriage of her own to show for it. He let her guide him, through the double doors, past the endless stream of hospital staff, unsteady, sickly patients and their patient relatives. The mortuary was ice cold and the metal surfaces dull and unreflective. He stood beside the body and the dark-skinned aide waited for him to nod that he was ready for the sheet to be lowered. She’s here, she’s… but she’s not Edie. It could not be but it was. What was one more insane image after all the rest that proceeded it? Thus strange begins and crazy remains behind. His mother, his – mother lay before him, cleansed, all trace of the beach, of the salt water, of her confusion removed and what he saw now was pale and eternally peaceful. His contempt for her fell from his body in heaving heavy tears. He nodded and the sheet covered her face once more.