With Love and Squalor Read online

  The city stretches out in front of you whichever way you look, like there’s nothing else in the world but people going about their business.

  Didn’t enjoy it in the usual way knowing the Wilson brothers would be turning over every stone out there to see if Jamie-Ray came out a crawling, ready to squash him dead under their heals. Not that I gave a shit about him. Problem was if they were going out looking for him, chances are Pinky was going to get hers, too.

  Could hardly see Jamie-Ray coming up the path, his black hair and black clothes camouflaging him against the darkness. Heard him well enough. Gene Vincent was leaking out of his headphones. ‘Race With The Devil’.

  Gave me one of his Aussie shakes and sat down.

  I took out my pen and pad. Asked how they were.

  “Tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”

  “Where’s Pinks?” I wrote.

  He lit his cigarette and ran his fingers through his hair. Must’ve been worried that the breeze had mussed it up. “She’s at Jenny’s. Jenny’s doing what she can, but she doesn’t know the first thing about gunshot wounds.”

  “Fuck man,” I scribbled. “Shouldn’t you be getting her to a hospital.” I don’t know if it was the cold or what, but my hands were shaking pretty bad. I lit up a cigarette of my own. Helped me to calm down.

  “Can’t risk it. Soon as they report it as a gunshot wound, Bart’s men’ll hear and it’ll be Bye Bye Miss American Pie.” He spat. Made a noise with his lips. Looked at me for some kind of appreciation like spitting was an art-form where he comes from.

  I dropped the pen.

  “We need you to go to the flat. We’ve got the cash, but no passports. Go to the flat, pick them up and pack a couple of bags and half the money’s yours.” He was a bastard. I was supposed to be getting a cut anyway just for doing the driving.

  He passed me my pen and waited for me to write something down.

  I didn’t do anything for a while. Didn’t agree to anything. Then I wrote that I’d see him tomorrow night. Same time, same place.

  He got up from the bench, flicked the ash off his jeans and lifted his leg. I watched him as he brought down his winkle pickers onto my feet as hard as he could manage. It was the way he said goodbye.

  “Get’s me every time.” Me too. “You and you’re sister are the luckiest mother’s around.”

  Setting up a meet with Wilson seemed to me like walking into the lion’s den all covered in gravy.

  If he knew about his brother, he was hardly going to be full of his usual peace and love.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he said as I was shown in to his office. I’d never seen the place in the daylight before. I was impressed.

  I pointed to the wires on my teeth that were holding my jaw in place and pointed over to his laptop.

  He wheeled over his computer chair. As soon as my buttocks hit the seat he pushed me towards the desk.

  I opened Word. Was faced by a big white glare from the new page. First thing I did was the first thing I always do, changed the background to tan.

  As I wrote I kept Bart within my field of vision. Watched him take something out of his inside pocket. It was either a cigarette or a gun.

  Bart doesn’t smoke. Things weren’t looking good.

  “Didn’t think I’d see you ever again,” he said, rubbing the barrel of his pistol across his forehead. “This is the plank I was telling you about, Gerry.”

  Gerry was the spitting image of Bart only he was half as tall and twice as wide. The only other difference as far as I could see was the piece missing from his ear. “Thought he didn’t have anything to give us.”

  “That’d be right. Gave him the works and he didn’t budge a bloomin’ inch.” He’d never talked like that before. It was as if he’d come over all Michael Caine.

  I set to type as quickly as possible, but that’s not very fast on account of all the breaks I’ve had in my fingers. “I didn’t say nothing because I didn’t feel nothing.”

  “You know Ger, this prick is really pissing me off.”

  “Can’t feel pain. Never could.”

  Before I could do anything, he grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the table. “Show me.”

  The blast was loud. I felt something touch my palm and felt it go away. I picked up my arm and looked down at the desk. A small, circular hole had appeared at the edge of its green leather top. It was singed at the edges and let out tiny curls of smoke.

  I lifted up my hand. There was a hole there too. Held it up to my face. Looked through the space like it was a Judas Peep-hole. Looked Bart straight in the eye and smiled.

  As if to prove a point, I made sure I used my left hand for the rest of my typing.

  Midnight Thursday and there wasn’t a star to be seen. A mist in the air brought the vision down to fifty metres. Couldn’t even see the Post Office tower. It was cold enough to keep most of our homo-sexual brethren indoors.

  Jamie Ray came up the hill whistling some Elvis. Sounded cheerful. Full of life. I guessed that meant Pinky was all right.

  I’d called her in the afternoon. Just listened. It was good to hear her voice. She’d see me at the airport, she said. Jamie-Ray would tell me about the arrangements.

  I felt the urge to go along. Give her a hug. Let her know I was helping her in my own way, only I had to sit on it in case Bart was having me followed. Didn’t want to blow the whole thing by being impatient.

  “You boy,” Jamie-Ray said as he came over and gave me a hug. “You are a fucking genius.”

  He was definitely right about that one.

  “Pinky sends her love. Told me to give you this.” He leant over and kissed me on the cheek. I caught a whiff of booze and fags from his mouth. Gestured to him to give me a smoke. He got out one for both of us.

  That was good. I didn’t want him going out without a cigarette to hold.

  We both took long drags. Watched the clouds mix in with the mist, then he pointed to the bag.

  “You got everything I asked for?”

  I reached down, picked it up and opened the zip. That and a little bit more, I thought.

  I gave him his passport. He flicked right to the back and took an admiring look at his photograph. “Haven’t lost it, eh sport?”

  When he looked up again, it was into the barrel of the gun. I didn’t smile. Didn’t feel a thing. Pulled the trigger like they’d shown me and set off down the hill.

  When I thought about it later, I gave him some lines to glam it up a little. “Not the quiff, buddy. Anywhere but the quiff.”

  Once I felt safe, I took out the mobile and sent the text to Bart.

  I’d bought myself a life, kept my sister safe and earned myself a few thousand quid into the bargain. It felt good.

  Back on the street I hailed a cab. Headed over to Jenny’s. She’d give me a bollocking, but she’d get over it.

  The cab driver moaned about working through the night. Told me how much more he earned if he took the late shift. “Pays the mortgage and then some,” he told me. “You know what they say, mate. No pain, no gain.”

  I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

  Breakfast TV

  It was hot under the studio lights.

  Even in a tee-shirt and shorts Mitchell was sweating.

  They’d told him what to wear a week before filming. Explained they were going with the beach barbecue theme.

  No way on Earth he’d ever seen himself being painted as the villain in the piece, but that’s what they’d done.

  He’d persuaded Ellen to have the kid. Said he’d be there whatever happened. They could move into his mother’s place until the council offered them somewhere of their own. Nothing would have got in the way on account of the way he felt about her.

  But they were twisting it all around.

  The audience booed when he tried to defend himself.

  Maybe he should have seen through it from the start. Realised when the Daniel Dean story broke he wasn’t going to get a
look in. Way the papers told it, Daniel and Ellen had got drunk at a barbecue on the beach and had got carried away. Didn’t mean much by itself, only it made Daniel the youngest recorded father in Britain.

  The little shit didn’t look old enough to cross the road by himself, let alone shave. Hadn’t let go of her hand since the ‘LIVE’ sign lit up. Smug bastard.

  They must have been coining it in with all the attention they were getting. Front page most days. It just wasn’t fair.

  Mitchell might not have minded if the host had given him a fair shot. She was supposed to see it from all angles. Keep it on a knife edge to the end.

  Only thing on a knife edge were his nuts.

  “You forced her to have the baby and then left her as soon as you heard about Daniel. What kind of a man are you?” Agony Agnes, host and star of the show, seemed to have it in for him as much as everyone else.

  “It wasn’t like that…” He might as well have been pissing into the ocean. The audience shouted and jeered so loud he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

  Daniel and Ellen lapped it up, circling their arms at the crowd and urging them to call louder.

  How the baby slept through it all, Mitchell had no idea. Wouldn’t have surprised him if they’d doped him up for the show.

  “So who is the father of baby Nathan?” Agnes said directly into the camera. “We’ll find out after the break.”

  One of the chefs served out food as the director counted down to the adverts.

  It was the part no one at home got to see.

  Daniel took a big bite from a burger and spat it in Mitchell’s direction.

  Mitchell knew he shouldn’t let it get to him, but he was raging.

  Kept his cool though. Took a bite of his kebab and chewed. When the result of the paternity test arrived he’d be laughing loudest of all.

  When the ads were over Agnes reminded everyone of the story in case they’d missed it the first four times, then she clicked her fingers.

  From behind a partition wall a lady appeared. In her hand was a silver platter and on the platter the golden envelope.

  “And the father is…” Agnes theatrically slid out a slip of paper, read it and held it into the air like a trophy. “…Daniel.”

  Something in Mitchell snapped.

  He leapt over to the other side of the room and stuck his kebab skewer all the way through Daniel’s chest. Cut the bugger’s celebrations short, that was for sure.

  As the bouncers dragged him back Mitchell just stared at the boy.

  The boy stared back.

  “That the best you can do?” he goaded, his face pale and tight.

  “That the best you can do?” he asked as they pressed at his chest with their hands.

  “That the best you can do?” he said, his lips turning blue as they moved.

  “The best you can to?” he challenged, his pallor turning grey.

  “The best you can do?”

  Suture

  Pony cleared the dust and looked at his reflection. It was none too pretty.

  The smaller cuts might heal on their own, leaving only the biggest to deal with.

  The mere idea of touching it made him feel faint. He consoled himself by reducing the number of sutures he’d insert.

  A doctor, he decided, might use six to do a neat job, but even a doctor might miss a few if working alone.

  Omitting alternate stitches meant he could get away with three, maybe two if things didn’t go so well.

  Before starting, he needed to clean up, get rid of the blood, make sure he gave himself a chance of avoiding infection.

  Having learned his first aid from Westerns, for him the first rule was that the patient needed a good slug of whisky.

  All he managed to find were cases of wine.

  He returned to the room upstairs.

  Beside the bed was a trunk that looked like it hadn’t been opened for a while. It was the only place he hadn’t tried.

  The latch was busted and the hinges were gone. He lifted the lid straight off. A moth fluttered into his face. Pony flinched. Took a swing at the insect. Missed.

  The pain was sharp, like a knife cut.

  If a thing that size could cause him so much hurt, he figured he’d have to take another tour of the house. Start his search over. Unless he could find a little something in the box.

  Top of the pile was a photograph of a neat and clean-shaven Lars with his arm around a woman. There were other snaps too, all of the woman and a kid in various stages of development, from babe to High School.

  Underneath them were dresses, skirts and more dresses. Pony considered the man downstairs. Maybe Vikings weren’t the only things he liked to get himself up as. You never knew with people.

  His face was really heating up. Without booze, all he could think of was freezing it.

  In the kitchen he opened the icebox.

  His jaw dropped when he saw it, reopening the biggest of his cuts.

  “Voila,” he yelled quietly. “Man can not live on wine alone.”

  The bottle was so cold that his fingers hurt as he picked it up.

  “Jagermeister. The fuck?”

  Unscrewing the lid, he took a sip. Practically medicine as far as his buds could make out. His stomach went into spasm as the liquid dropped. Perfect.

  Replacing the lid, he wrapped his booty in a towel before returning to the mirror.

  Not even the handicap of monocular-vision hampered his threading. He looked up into the glassy eyes of the moose head on the wall above the bed.

  “Rich man on a camel could pass through that.”

  The moose didn’t respond, which made it the right kind of company.

  Religion had never gone down well with Pony, but before he did anything he crossed himself and prayed.

  “Moose. Help me out, I promise I’ll be good. A-men.”

  Gulping from the bottle, he fought the urge to wretch and poured as much as he could on the wounds and the thread. An almighty sting spread across his cheek, turning into a wild burning sensation that made his knees bend and his hands grab the blanket on the bed. Gritting his teeth, he thought about returning to the icebox to stick his head where the bottle had been.

  The heat cooled to a gentle glow.

  He stood up and picked up the needle.

  Imagining he was fixing old material, he pinched out a flap of skin and rested the point against it.

  He pushed the metal through. The idea of the piece of material quickly faded.

  Still, the pain didn’t turn into real agony until he pulled and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the tickle of the

  cotton on the inside of the new hole teased his nerves and sent them into overdrive. He butted the wall hoping a new pain might take his mind off things. It only made them worse. He let out a yell louder, even, than Edward Munch could have imagined.

  If the experience hadn’t been bad enough, it was even harder to work the other side. Instead of pushing into a neat stretch of skin, he was working the needle into the wound , like a chef preparing a cheap cut of meat.

  When his screams were finally done, he sat down on the bed. Looking up at the moose he finally spoke. “I guess we get what we deserve in the end, huh.”

  That was how he’d to come to terms with what he was doing. He’d killed the love of his life, snuffed her out with his useless driving, left her on the beach for that policeman to smash off her foot like she were a mannequin.

  His memory of the night before was coming back like an unwelcome visitor. He tried to shut it out, but it was way too strong.

  An enormous sorrow overwhelmed him, left all his physical pain to dwindle into insignificance. A roar left his throat and filled the house from top to bottom. He looked into his reflection and threw his fist at the glass.

  He found himself looking at six faces all staring back at him with the same tortured expression. He was getting what he deserved all right, and a little bit more for good measure.

  Pony took a deep breat
h and gathered his senses. The needle was dangling down by his chin. He picked up the cotton from both ends, tied a simple knot, doubled it to be safe and added another to make certain.

  It took a while to realise what was missing.

  He turned to the moose again hoping for some direction. It was not forthcoming.