by John Harvey
“Where he pulled you.”
She looked back at him. “Yes. If you like.”
“Who’s she then?”
Dawn picked up the photograph. The singer was standing with one hand on the mike stand, the other arm thrown out wide, palm open, fingers spread. Her hair was dark and curly in a style then fashionable, nose strong and sharp, mouth wide, dark make-up around the closed eyes. She was wearing a long dress in what looked like crushed velvet, arms and shoulders bare. Nick’s father’s eyes were focussed on her to the exclusion of all else.
“Charlene. Charlene Bell. Charlie, that’s what everyone called her.”
“And she was a singer?”
“So rumour had it.” There was no disguising the bite of sarcasm in Dawn’s voice.
“She sang with my dad?”
“Sometimes.”
“And?”
“What d’you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“You don’t like her.”
Dawn shook her head. “It was a long time ago.”
“You didn’t like her then.”
“Actually, that’s not true. I liked her quite a lot. She didn’t suffer fools gladly, Charlie, which was no bad thing. Those days especially. No, she was okay. She was good to me. We had a laugh together.”
“And my dad? What did he think of her?”
“She was a good singer. That kind of stuff, blues, you know.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ah, well,” Dawn said, “I dare say.” Dropping the photograph back on the bed, she got to her feet. “I think I fancy a cup of tea, how about you?”
Nick nodded okay. He waited until his mother was out of the room and looked at the photo again, at Charlie, Charlene, trying to see her with his father’s eyes.
“She’s still around, you know,” Dawn said, putting her head back round the door. “I’m sure I’ve seen her name from time to time.”
“Singing, you mean?”
“I imagine so. You want another biscuit with this or can you hold on till your Rogon Josh?”
“Where’ve you seen her?”
“Oh, I dunno. That pub down Kentish Town, near Nandos. Went Irish and changed it’s name. You know? They used to have an acoustic night, upstairs. I saw her name in the window a few times.”
“You never went in?”
She looked at him. “No point in getting it all stirred up again.”
“Then why tell me?”
Dawn gestured towards the opened box, the photos on the bed. “He obviously wanted you to have all this stuff. Know what it was he did, music and that. Charlie, she worked with him. I mean, I was around for some of it, towards the end. But Charlie, she knew him early on.”
“And you think I should talk to her? Try and see her?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
“How much you want to, I suppose. How much you want to know.”
“And you don’t mind?”
Dawn shook her head. “He was your dad.” She smiled, all but her eyes. “I’ll get the tea.”
***
The next day Christopher and Scott came to see him after school.
“Where’s the grapes, then?” Nick said.
Scott shook his head. “We got you ice cream instead. Ben and Jerry’s. Rocky Road.”
Nick’s favourite, as they knew. “So what’ve you done with it?” he asked. “Stuck it in the fridge?”
“No,” Scott said. “You kidding? We ate it on the way here.”
“You’re lying.”
“We’re not.”
“Bastards, then.”
“It was great, wasn’t it?” Scott said, turning to Christopher. “Just starting to melt. The best.”
Nick threw a pillow at him and gasped at the sudden pain, sharp in his side. He’d thought they might have bandaged his chest or something, but no, best apparently to let his ribs heal by themselves. Not too much time in bed, either, that’s what the nurse had said. No lounging around. He had painkillers for when it got too bad.
“Are you okay?” Christopher said, concerned.
“Do I look as if I’m okay?”
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Well, you do.”
“So what happened?” Christopher asked, sitting on the side of the bed.
Nick shook his head.
“We’re your mates,” Scott said. “You’ve got to tell us.”
“If you were my mates, you’d wouldn’t have scarfed the ice cream.”
“We were just having you on,” Christopher said. “It’s in the kitchen.”
“Straight up?”
“Straight up. Now tell us what happened.”
Nick told them as well as he could, what little he knew.
“They were waiting for you,” Scott said.
“Looks like.”
“And they didn’t take anything?”
Nick shook his head. “I had cash in my pockets, didn’t I? Quite a bit.”
“It was Rawlings, then. Has to be. After you made him look stupid in front of his mates.”
“He wouldn’t have the bottle,” Nick said.
“How much bottle does it take? Chucking a brick at someone when they’re not looking.”
“I still don’t reckon it was him. Not on his own, anyway.”
“This wasn’t anyone on their own,” Scott said. ‘We know that.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Nick said.
They looked at him. “You think it was Blevitt?” Christopher said.
Nick shrugged.
“Blevitt and Rawlings, they hang round together?”
“Sometimes.”
Christopher nodded. “If it was him, Blevitt and his crew, what you gonna do about it?”
There was a knock on the door and Dawn came in holding a tray. “I’ve got ice cream and Coke, and Nick, you’ve got another visitor.”
Melanie was standing behind her, awkward in a denim skirt and loose blue top, a bunch of flowers in her hand. Tulips and daffodils.
“You can come in, Melanie,” Dawn said, setting the down the tray. “He won’t bite.”
Christopher and Scott exchanged glances and quickly looked away before they burst out laughing.
Slowly Melanie moved closer and stood beside the bed. “I’m sorry about what happened, Nick. Really sorry. I thought you might like these.”
She held out the flowers and, blushing furiously, Nick said, “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Here, Melanie,” Dawn said, stepping forward. “I’ll take them and put them in some water.”
“Thanks, Mrs Harman.”
“Stay and have some ice cream. There’s plenty to go round.”
“No, it’s all right,” Melanie said. “I’d better not.” Then, turning. “Nick, I hope you’re feeling better soon.”
“Thanks,” Nick muttered.
“Here, Melanie,” Dawn said. “I’ll see you to the door.”
They were only just out of the room before Christopher and Scott sniggered loudly.
“Shut it,” Nick said. “Don’t say a bloody word.”
“The state of it!” Scott said. “Stick a mast through it and Ellen McArthur’d sail it round the world!”
“What worried me,” Christopher said, “she’d said yes to Ben and Jerry’s, none of us’d ’ve got a look in.”
“At least it wasn’t her beat him up,” Scott said. “Be in a worse state than he is now.”
They hadn’t heard Dawn walking back into the room. “You know,” she said into the midst of their laughter, “I think it’s time you grew up, the lot of you.” And she shut the bedroom door behind her hard.
It was a whole minute, maybe two, before any of the boys touched their ice cream.
***
“I’m sorry,” Nick said.
Christopher and Scott were long gone and Nick had made his way, gingerl
y, to the toilet. His mother was in the living room watching some kind of quiz show while she applied varnish to her toes. Small puffs of cotton wool poked up from between each toe. The varnish was the colour of dark plums.
“No use saying you’re sorry to me,” Dawn said.
Nick shrugged and hobbled a step away.
“While you’re up,” Dawn said, “why don’t you try and have a proper wash? You must stink, laying round in that bed half the day.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“I know.” Carefully, she ran the brush along the little toe of her right foot. “Even so, you ought to do something. How about if I ran a bath? You could always sit on the edge.”
Nick shook his head. “It’s okay.”
“I could help with the bits you can’t reach.”
“I don’t think so.”
Dawn smiled. “What? You don’t think I haven’t seen you…”
“Mum, just leave it, okay? Don’t even go there.”
“All right. Suit yourself. Just offering to help.”
She went back to her toes and Nick shuffled slowly to the bathroom. perhaps with some warm water and a flannel and a clean pair of boxers he’d smell less ripe.
***
A cushion at his back, Nick was able to sit at the table to eat. Chicken Rogon Josh, Lamb Passanda, Sag Aloo, pillaw rice and half a dozen papadums. Neither he nor his mother said very much until most of the food had gone.
“Lovely!” Dawn declared, pushing away her plate and reaching for a cigarette. “But now I’m stuffed.”
“Do you have to?” Nick said, as Dawn’s lighter flicked to life.
“It’s just the one, Nick. Don’t worry, one won’t hurt.”
“It’s not just one though, is it? It’s one and one and…”
“Nick.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
“Here, have some of my beer.”
“Thanks.”
He drank and then released a low, slow burp.
“Charming!”
Nick broke off one of the last brittle edges of papadum and scraped up the residue of spicy sauce.
“Nick,” Dawn said abruptly. “Just listen to me a minute.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“Just no.”
“No, you’re not going to listen?”
“No, I’m not going to go to the police.”
They had been having this argument, back and forth, ever since Dawn had first spoken to him that morning.
“You ought to report what happened.”
“No.”
“It ought to be reported.”
“Why?”
“Why? A hundred reasons. Because it’s a crime. Because if whoever did it isn’t caught, the same thing could happen to somebody else. Because you could have lost an eye. Because you could have been killed.”
Nick looked at her evenly. “Well, I wasn’t, was I?”
“And that makes it all right? That makes it okay?”
“No, of course it doesn’t. Don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not being stupid. I want whoever did this to be put away.”
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t be, would they? Slap on the wrist, community service, nothing. The same lot’d be back out, no time at all, and they’d know who’d grassed them up, turned them in.”
“And that’s what you’re afraid of?”
“No.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of, whoever did this, they’d come after you again?”
“I’m not afraid, don’t keep saying I’m afraid.”
“Then why…”
With a sweep of his arm, Nick sent empty food containers, glasses, plates and cutlery crashing to the floor.
“I am not afraid!” he shouted, and hobbled, as quickly as he was able, from the room.
His dad, Nick thought later, impossible to sleep. His father too frightened to step up on stage; the same person who years before had impressed his mum with his self-assurance, his lack of fear. How had that happened? Why had he changed?
Nick tugged at the quilt and rolled onto his side.
Not me, he thought, that’s not going to be me.
twelve
The next few days passed more slowly than most. By the time he’d finally dragged himself out of bed his mother had been at work for hours and generally he saw no one until either Christopher or Scott or the pair of them came round after school. Lunch he fixed for himself in the microwave, heating up some frozen this or that. When he opened his art folder everything inside seemed pointless and boring. Whenever he tried settling down to read his book, he found concentration difficult. Five pages were sometimes all he could manage before his mind started wandering off and he’d realise that the last few sentences had meant nothing at all. And if he did get taken up by the story, rattling towards California with the Joad family in their ’25 Dodge, either his stitches would start itching or a flash of pain, sharp and sudden, would shoot through him and break the thread.
Sometimes, when that happened, the pain, he closed his eyes and waited until it passed; sometimes, when it was especially severe, he went back to his room and lay on the bed. Dozing, drifting in and out of sleep, he would emerge again from the darkness of the tunnel and again the half-brick would hurtle through the light.
“What you gonna do about it?” Christopher had asked.
The same question he asked himself.
Confront Rawlings? Blevitt?
Do as his mum wanted, and hand it over to the police?
Have everyone know he’d had the crap beaten out of him and done nothing about it? Just forget about it?
As if he could.
He slid his dad’s tape into the stereo.
The mike so close he could hear the squeak of guitar strings as his father’s fingers moved across the frets, pressing down. The moment before he sings.
How long, how long has that evening train been gone?
How long? How long? Baby, how long?
From the box Nick took a ticket, torn and creased, for the Coliseum in St. Martin’s Lane, a Benefit Concert for Big Bill Broonzy, Sunday March 9th. £1. No mention of the year. Alongside that, folded once and once again, was a flier from the Hope & Anchor in Upper Street, the paper bleached white along the crease: Thurs., 11th, Jo Ann Kelly; Mon., 15th, Les Harman; Tues., 16th, Dr. Feelgood. And on a page from an old Melody Maker, in faint and faded print, there was an ad for the 100 Club in Oxford Street: Sunday, American Blues Legends, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and beneath, in smaller print, Les Harman and Charlie Bell.
The whistle blows, I can’t see no train,
Deep down in my heart there’s an aching pain.
How long, oh how long? Baby, how long?
Nick looked again at the pictures of his father and thought about the words he sang. Were they just words, songs he’d learned and liked to perform — they were, as far as Nick knew, other people’s words after all — or were they more?
Feel so disgusted, empty too,
Don’t know in this world, babe, what more I can do.
How long? How long? How long?
Nick thought he knew the answer. For his father the words had been true. Disgusted with himself and empty too. He had lived with it for so long and no longer. Until the moment he had first set foot on the ironwork of the bridge and begun to climb. The road below him, busy with cars. The wind, the words, cold and sharp in his ears. Don’t know in this world what more I can do. How long, Nick wondered, had he hesitated before he jumped? How long the fall?
Reaching out, Nick switched off the tape and realised someone was knocking at the front door.
***
It was Melanie, anxious and uncertain. Melanie, wearing a dress that hung shapelessly around her, some kind of cardigan around her shoulders, not quite covering her fleshy arms.
“I was wondering…” she began.
Nick looked at her and then looked at the floor.
“It’s all right,” Melanie
said, turning away. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have come.”
Nick shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Go on, what were you going to say?”
“I was wondering how you were, you know, feeling? How you were getting on?”
Nick shrugged. “Okay. Not so bad, I suppose.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to look her in the face.
Melanie stood there, wanting to say something more but unsure what.
“Look,” Nick said. “The other day, when Chris and Scott were here, I’m sorry…”
“Oh, no. It’s okay.”
“I never really said thank you properly.”
“There’s no need.”
“The flowers…”
“It was nothing.”
“No, no. They were really nice. It was a nice thing to do.”
For a moment, Melanie’s face relaxed into a smile.
“D’you want to come in or something?” Nick said.
“No, it’s all right. I’ve got to…” She faltered, trying to think of something.