by Neal Bircher
Paul Gascoigne was managing the England team. Nick was playing, or at least he was supposed to be, but had forgotten his trainers. The Wembley crowd didn’t find it amusing; they were all booing him. Gazza had to play in his place, even though he had plastic legs. Nick retired to the bar with Karen and his schoolmate, Rob. Nick and Rob drank whisky straight from a bottle. Rob was tired and looked pale. The Wembley crowd was getting louder and louder; the music fromPsychowas trying to compete with the noise. Rob fell asleep on the bar. Nick finished off the whisky and then he fell asleep too, drifting into a warm and cosy slumber. But then there was noise - a rushing sound in his ears. Somebody was shaking him by the shoulder. He began to wake.Shit! I might have missed my train. He blinked and tried to focus his eyes. Was it a train person waking him, or was it a policeman? But then his eyes did focus, and it wasn’t either of those two. No, it was something much more shocking than that: It was Gail waking him up!
Gail stood back and was unsure of what to say or do next. Nick first sat up and then stood slowly; he was as hesitant as Gail. Much as he was delighted to see her alive and well, he wasn’t sure whether to embrace her or shout at her. His pleasure at seeing her meant that he had to fight to contain a smile, but he did succeed in doing so. Gail looked nervous, and she shivered in the cold wind. She was the first to speak.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Nick could feel his eyes welling up, and he didn’t want Gail to see it. He stepped forward and put his arms around her. He held her awkwardly at first, his arms draped around her, rather than embracing her. But then he couldn’t help himself: He pulled her close and squeezed her body against his, as tightly as he could.
“There was a police car this morning; I was worried about you,” he managed to say, without betraying too much emotion.
The two of them continued to embrace for non-speaking minute before Gail wiped tears from her face to ask hesitantly, “Will you have me back?”
Nick paused long enough to let her suffer the uncertainty, before pulling back, looking Gail in the eye, and permitted himself a small smile whilst stating, apparently unemotionally, “Yes, of course I will.”
They embraced again for some time before Nick guided Gail away from the platform and back out of Dunloch station. They walked hand in hand to the Celica, where Gail had parked it alone in the station’s little car park. Nick resumed the driving, and chose to head back in the direction of Brayburn. The awkward silence returned for the first couple of miles, until it was broken again by Gail.
“Nick, I did a lot of thinking while I was away.”
Nick tensed; he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear what was coming next.
“Nick, I don’t want to ever be away from you again.”
Nick took Gail’s hand and squeezed it. It could have been time for a long speech; it could have been time to give Gail a piece of his mind. But there wasn’t anything to say that she didn’t know, and in any case there would be plenty more time for talking when the tension had subsided. He looked straight ahead and he spoke matter-of-factly but had a lump in his throat. “I don’t want you to go again either.”
He gave it another minute or so before deciding that it was time to lighten things up.
“How about we go back to the room and make up?”
Gail smiled. “That sounds like avery good idea!”
Nick then leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and placed his hand between her thighs.
“Keep your eyes on the road!”
And then they laughed together, albeit rather weakly, for the first time in quite a while.
Booking back into the Black Horse was embarrassing.
“Just the one night?” asked Mary.
“Yes, please,” said Nick.
Fortunately she had their false names in front of her, as Gail and Nick had forgotten what they were.
“OK, thank you, Mr Davidson. Would you like the same room again?”
“Yes, please, that’ll be fine.”
Mary continued making conversation.
“We had the police here this morning.”
Gail’s and Nick’s eyes widened and they each cast a glance at the other.
“Apparently some cattle were rustled last night from the farm down the hill. They think the thieves might have had a drink in our bar.”
It took Nick a few moments to compose his nonchalant reply, but he made a reasonable job of it: “Blimey! You never know who anyone is nowadays, do you?”
Gail shook her head at him, but her face was alight with big radiant grin.
Sweet Music
Karen listened to Damien’s footsteps coming along the hall. She went over the first line of her speech in her head. She thought about what she would do with the flowers: just place them down on the table as she said her piece, or throw them disdainfully to the floor? She stood up. Damien fumbled with the door handle and then blundered into the room. He was pissed out of his face. There weren’t any flowers. Karen opened her mouth to begin her speech. But then she had a sudden change of plan. Grabbing Damien’s Gibson guitar by the headstock she swung it at him with all of her strength. Damien’s drink-affected senses were slow to react, and the guitar’s body smacked him squarely in the face. His head cracked back against the wall and he fell unconscious to his and Karen’s polished pinewood floor. Karen observed him for a moment. His nose was probably broken – there was a lot of blood running down his face – and he might well have lost some teeth. The guitar didn’t seem to be damaged. She crashed it axe-like onto the coffee table whose glass top shattered into thousands of pieces. That was a quick two grand down the drain. The guitar’s neck had become a bit loose, but it still looked otherwise OK. She placed it face first on the floor and then stamped on the back of it with her right foot. Her sexy boot’s thick rubber heel made short work of the carefully-crafted spruce woodwork, splintering through it with a satisfying crunch. Damien was right – it really did make a good sound.
Heart racing, Karen observed the scene. Damien was stirring. He looked towards her and tried to focus. She was pleased that he wasn’t dead; she didn’t want to have to spend time in prison. She had to pass him to get to the door. His broken glasses lay on the floor by his feet. The opening scene fromThe Italian Job flashed through Karen’s mind as that lethal right heel finished them off, delivering its second satisfying crunch in quick succession. She didn’t look at Damien. She closed the door softly behind her. She didn’t leave a note, and as it turned out there had been no need for her leaving speech after all. Her heart continued to race. She had never smashed a coffee table before, or a guitar. She had never assaulted anybody either. Nor had she ever left Damien before, and she never would again … because she was never going to go back to him.
She collected her large, wheeled suitcase from the front room and lugged it down the three shiny slate steps that led from her front door to the street outside. She extended the suitcase’s handle and walked away, without turning to look back at her house. She trundled the big suitcase behind her, with a spring in her step and a huge weight lifted from her shoulders.
Billy
Gail and Nick went down for dinner at six-thirty. Nick decided to postpone his booze ban as the night was one of celebration, and he ordered himself a cider for a change. Gail was less keen to join him, and started off with a sparkling mineral water. Nick figured that she had recognised the part that alcohol had played in their falling out, and so chose not to draw attention to her change of habit. They both did a lot of laughing during that meal. Everything was going to be OK. Nick felt good; he had a plan with purpose; he had a goal, and a goal shared by Gail.
“Will you marry me?” Nick thought to himself, and was almost tempted to say it out loud. But no, that could wait.
After dinner they retired to the bar. It was once again busy, and the clientele in good spirits and hearty singing voice. Gail and Nick took up a stool each once again. The two of them engaged one another in sporadic conversation, but mo
stly tried not to compete with the volume of music and hubbub, and contented themselves with just being content, topped up with a little people-watching. After a couple of beers Nick ordered a bottle of Cava again, which he was pleased to find that Gail was happy to share with him. After that they both went onto Baileys, Gail managing a couple of glasses, and Nick polishing off the best part of a bottle. Given the seemingly near-constant stream of thirsty customers, Billy had little time to speak to them, and during brief moments of respite when he did speak he seemed less inclined to do so than he had previously. In time though – sometime after eleven o’clock – the numbers began to dwindle as alcohol-hardened regulars drifted out into the cold, one by one, with a cheery, “Night, Billy” and accompanying wave. And then Billy did speak. He placed a pair of large Baileys’ on the bar, one in front of Gail, and one in front of Nick. Then he looked Nick in the eye.
“I know who you are, you know,” he whispered in a way that was louder than not whispering. It was a cold voice too; menacing, even. He glanced over to Gail to see that she was listening too. Then he turned back to Nick.
“That got your attention, didn’t it?”
It had.
“I’m no fool you see. I didn’t tell you that I was a police officer down in London now, did I?”
Nick shook his head.
Billy continued, “That car of yours has the wrong tax disc. You won’t get far with that, for a start, will you?”
Then he shook his head like a headmaster rebuking two children who had not only been stupid enough to commit a misdemeanour, but had been even more stupid enough to get themselves caught. He was about to open his mouth again, but a customer blundered up to the bar wanting serving. Billy nodded at both Gail and Nick in a way that was condescending but not clear in meaning, and then turned and launched into cheery conversation with the other customer.
Gail and Nick exchanged glances, but not words. Nick downed his Baileys and stared straight ahead across the bar. Billy was still chatting to his customer. He wasn’t giving the impression of intending to finish the dialogue that he had started with Nick. But Nick needed him to. What was Billy going to do next?
“Well, what are you going to do about it then, you patronising twat? Are you going to report us, or just enjoy watching us stew? And of course I know that the tax disc doesn’t match, you idiot! We seem to have managed OK for the last two months though, don’t we? Fucking idiot!” was pretty much what Nick was thinking, but what he elected to say was nothing, which was probably a good move. Gail gave him an “I’m ready to go” look, he nodded, and the two of them quietly walked out through the back door of the bar, neither casting even a glance in Billy’s direction.
Back in the room Gail flopped onto the bed and then curled up ready to sleep, using the sheet to wipe two streams of tears from her face. Nick briefly toyed with the thought of them getting into the car and driving away, but even the ceiling of the stationary bedroom was spinning; driving just wasn’t an option. He undressed and lay down with his arm around Gail. Neither spoke, but in time each fell into an uneasy sleep.
When Nick awoke he felt even more terrible than he had any of the previous recent mornings. It took his eyes a long time to focus enough on his watch to see that the time was nearly six-thirty. He climbed quickly out of bed and, head throbbing, stumbled over to the window. He opened the floral-patterned curtain. It was still dark out, it was raining gently, and a biting coldness helped bring him unpleasantly closer to his senses. He was pleased to see that there was nobody about, and that the cars in the Black Horse’s car park were the same ones that had been there the previous evening, including the Celica, just as he had left it. He pulled the curtain to, smiled at the sight of a still-fully-clothed Gail, curled up and gently snoring on the bed, and made his way into the shower.
The shower ran ice-cold for a minute before instantly switching to scaldingly hot. Nick adjusted it back down a little, and then stepped in. A couple of minutes later, a naked Gail joined him. They washed one another and kissed, but refrained from anything more. The room back outside the shower was horribly cold in comparison, and both dressed and packed quickly, and in near silence.
Nick left the room key on his bedside cabinet, along with more than enough money to cover the room, their meals, and the night’s bar bill. Then he did something that he hadn’t dared do for a long time: he counted the remainder of the money in his wallet. Three-hundred-and-forty quid; that wasn’t going to last long! His heart sank … as if that mattered in the whole scheme of things. Gail asked him what the matter was.
“Nothing,” he whispered, and he squeezed her hand.
They quietly put their bags into the boot of the Celica, both keeping wary eyes out for movement in any of the Black Horse’s windows. There was ice in the rain and a biting wind blew over from the direction of the loch below. They both jumped gratefully into the sanctuary of their car, and locked their respective doors. Nick started the engine and put the demister on full blast. The screen was misted up inside and had a thin sheen of ice on its lower half outside. He switched on the wipers, and, not wanting to stay at the Black Horse any second longer than necessary, wiped away some mist from the screen with the sleeve of his jacket. It wasn’t ideal, but with the headlights on he could make out enough to slowly pull away. He turned left onto the road outside. Good-bye Black Horse. Good-bye Brayburn. Good-bye how much else was open to question. It was something that the two of them would have to face up to before the day was much older.
Murky
It was September, it was cold, it was late at night, and it was a muddy canal bank, sandwiched between a dark eerie industrial unit and the filthy Grand Union Canal, across whose fetid surface trees cast sinister shimmering murky reflections. But Gail could not have been anywhere better. She leant back against the tree that was supporting her, and looked up to the stars. Nick was just below her on the bank; just the right height. He nibbled her neck and squeezed her body tight in his arms as he made love to her.
“Yes, yes, Nick! Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!” Gail didn’t care in the least that anyone …anyone, might be able to hear her.
Money
The dark of the night had given way to a dull grey of early morning, the temperature had crawled just above freezing, and gentle sleet had given way to torrential rain. What mattered to Gail and Nick though was that Brayburn was an hour in the past, and something like forty miles behind them. A petrol station loomed into view, an incongruous blaze of brightness and colour amidst the greyness. Nick pulled onto its forecourt. He filled up with petrol and then stocked up with sandwiches, crisps, sweets, and cans of drink from the station’s little shop. The bill came to just under sixty pounds. He thought about the money situation, and used his credit card to pay for it – the first time on the trip that he’d used anything other than cash for a payment.
The petrol station was on the left-hand side of the road as Gail and Nick had approached it, on the outside of a gentle right-hand bend. It was the first indication of “civilisation” that they had come across for some miles. Rising up behind it was a bracken-covered hillside that was shrouded in a light mist, through which peered a scattering of stone cottages, some emitting sweet-smelling wood smoke that merged into the mist, and a few with an orange glow of electric light flickering from their windows, signalling that their occupants were getting up and readying themselves for the day ahead. A vehicle went past travelling in the same direction that Gail and Nick had been, it was a petrol-engined Ford Transit milk float that laboured as it negotiated the meandering incline that the road beyond followed. Across the road was a small loch, over which the mist hovered in thin white layers, and beyond the loch, maybe a mile away, a forest rose and vanished into dark grey clouds from which heavy rain continued to fall. Nick stopped for a full minute to take in the scene before he got back into the car. It was the kind of setting that he loved: bleak and cold, but somehow so invigorating, exciting even. He shook his head and got into the car. Across the
road was a sight-seeing car park, with room for about ten cars, on the edge of the loch. It was empty but for a Volkswagen campervan that looked as if it had been there for the night. Nick drove over and parked facing out across the water. He unpacked the selection of food items that he had just purchased, and offered Gail first choice. She declined, not wanting anything to eat, and so Nick took a cheese and pickle sandwich. Both sat in silence as he ate it, then opened a can of Coke, and took two large swigs to wash down his unconventional breakfast. Then both sat for a further half minute or so, before Gail broke the silence.
“I suppose this is it then,” she whispered.
Nick leaned over, and they hugged. Then Nick kissed the top of Gail’s head.
“I won’t be a minute,” he said, and he got back out of the car.
He went around to the rear hatch, opened it, and retrieved his Phillips screwdriver and the Celica’s two original number plates. He quickly unscrewed the rear false number plate, and put the original back on. Then he went around to the front and knelt in front of the car’s bumper. The rain had eased a little, but it was still uncomfortable as it found its way into the gap between his jacket and his jeans. He took off the false number plate, and then looked up to the low grey clouded sky and let the rain stream down over his face. He was thinking back to when he’d swapped the plates the other way around, and to the choking exhaust fumes under that old Transit Luton van in East London. That time he had laughed out loud at the joy of being alive when those fumes had given way to the cleaner air of the London night; this time he laughed out loud at how much better was the joy of feeling clean Scottish rain cascading over his face in the mountains.
If Gail could have seen Nick, she might have wondered what he was doing looking up to the sky and laughing to himself, but she couldn’t really see much through the rain-blurred windscreen, especially without her glasses. And in any case, she wasn’t looking; she was gazing into nowhere and thinking. She was thinking about being back in her own home; of hugging her daughter; of kissing her grandson; of being with her family at Christmas. These were all good things, and all good reasons for going back. But Gail had another reason to bring the adventure to an end, something that Nick didn’t know yet: she was pregnant.