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  “Vodka’s not the same without a slice of lemon.”

  “Why didn’t you ring the bell?” I ask her.

  “I did,” she said, dropping some ice into the glass. “You had the music on loud. You do remember the music?”

  She walks over to the fireplace and stands in front of the unlit logs that have been set in the grate.

  “I don’t believe you,” I tell her.

  “What, particularly?”

  “People don’t walk on the beach at night.”

  “Only first thing in the morning?”

  I look at her.

  “I’ve seen you. A couple of times. Once you sat on an old tank. Another time I saw you climb up on to one of those pillboxes and sit on top of that.”

  “I’ve never seen you.”

  She shrugs.

  “It’s a big beach.”

  I go over to the drinks and pour myself another.

  “One thing I have noticed about you,” she says.

  “What’s that?”

  “You drink every drink as though you need it.”

  “You notice a lot.”

  I go over to the TV, switch it off, then walk just beyond it to the panel of switches on the brick wall. As I pass the TV, I sway into it, almost knocking it off its stand. I get to the panel and as I’m trying to turn up the heating a few degrees to compensate for the entry of the night air I accidentally activate the movie screen. It begins to descend from the ceiling. I reverse its procedure and it slides back up again.

  “Every possible home comfort,” she says.

  I don’t answer her. Instead I put a cigarette in my mouth, light it, walk a little closer to her. She steps back slightly. I shake out the match, throw it into the grate.

  “Eddie says everybody round here thinks you’re in property or something.”

  “I am.”

  “Eddie doesn’t think so.”

  “Eddie knows nothing.”

  She takes a sip of her drink. I try my hardest to focus on her. In spite of myself I say, “I know you. I know you from somewhere.”

  “God,” she says, walking over to the piano. “Why use that line when you’re in your own house?”

  “Listen,” I say. “I don’t give a fuck about you.”

  “That’s good,” she says. “Because I didn’t come here to get laid.”

  There is a crackling behind me. I couldn’t have shaken the match out properly; flames are rolling up from the newspapers, licking round the logs. Lesley clocks the picture of Jean on the piano.

  “Your wife?” she says.

  “I’m not married.”

  She places her fingers on the keyboard, plays a single chord.

  “What do you do?” she says.

  My focusing is getting worse; there seems to be a triple image of her as she stands at the piano.

  “Property.”

  “Yours or other people’s?”

  The images of her turn to face me.

  “Do you mind if I have another drink?”

  THE SMOKE

  HALES WASN’T THE ONE either.

  But Jean had enjoyed herself. The video proved at least that.

  Watching it, afterwards, Jean had gone crazy. She made love as though she’d been touched for the first time. And after that we’d watched the tape again. And after that, again, love.

  The following day I talked to Mickey about Ray Warren.

  “He should have been back by now,” Mickey said. “The funeral was last Thursday. He didn’t have anything to hang around for.”

  “Have you phoned his lady?”

  “No,” Mickey said.

  “Why not give her a ring now?”

  “What, now?”

  “Why not? She might be worried too.”

  I pushed the phone towards Mickey. He took his little black book out and dialled Glenda Warren’s number. I flicked the amplifier so I could hear both sides of the conversation. Glenda came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Glenda. This is Mickey Brice. I’m phoning on Mr. Fowler’s behalf. Ray’s not there, is he?”

  “Ray? No, why?”

  “I mean, he’s not back from Bolton yet?”

  “No, he’s not. Why?”

  “Just business. Mr. Fowler’s got some ideas he wants to talk to Ray about.”

  “Well, he’s not back yet.”

  “When did he say he’d be back?”

  “He said either yesterday or today, depending.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then. When he gets back, ask him to give us a bell, will you?”

  “Sure, I’ll tell him.”

  “Thanks. Goodbye, Glenda.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Mickey put the phone down. We looked at each other. After a while I said, “Supposing Ray has retired to the sun?”

  Mickey shrugged.

  “If it’s him, he’ll have enough money stacked.”

  “He doesn’t know we’re looking at him.”

  “He could have decided it was time, independent of us.”

  “Well …”

  “There’s two alternatives. Glenda’ll either know or she won’t know.”

  “Ray wouldn’t trust a bird. Not with this.”

  “He might. Ray’s usually a seven-bird-a-week man. He’s been with Glenda eighteen months. Her name’s even on the lease.”

  “In that case she’d have flown with him.”

  “Not necessarily. As I say, there’s two alternatives; if he’s cleared off without her, she’d be mad enough to talk to us; if she knows what he’s been up to, how much money he’s been salting, she’ll be even madder. All we’ve got to do is to tell her he’s cleared off, then await further developments.”

  “And if he’s not cleared off?”

  “Same difference. We still tell her he’s cleared off.”

  Mickey had a few thoughts.

  “Of course, she could be about to join him, wherever he is. If he’s put her in this one.”

  “So we’d better go and talk to her straight away, hadn’t we?”

  “We?” Mickey said. “What’s the need for us both to go?”

  “No need, Mickey.”

  Mickey stood up.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go and get the motor out.”

  “Good lad.”

  He stood there for a moment. Then he said, “Funny. I never knew Ray was shacked up.”

  “Nobody did,” I said. “Except me.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “Didn’t want to spoil his image, did he?”

  Mickey shook his head.

  “Men,” he said. “I’ll never understand them, not if I live to be a hundred.”

  THE SEA

  IN THE DREAM, THE shotgun that’s being pointed at my face is growing larger, so that the ends of the barrels grow so large that whoever is levelling them at me is totally obscured by the size of the black tunnels. And when the triggers are pulled, there is not an immediate boom; the shells seem to originate from miles away, down in the depths of the shotgun, beginning with a high-pitched scream, rushing forward up the barrel, expanding into a shattering explosion as pellets the size of bowling balls spread outwards from the barrels’ rims. And not just twice. The double process is repeated again and again. Again, and then I wake up.

  But the screaming and exploding of the shells doesn’t stop.

  I’m not in bed. I’m laid out on the settee that’s set at right angles to the brickwork and its fireplace.

  The first thing I notice is that the TV’s still on, the snowstorm on the screen giving out like an audible rash.

  I get up and make it to the set and switch it off. I just manage to do that.

  That accomplished, I drag myself across the face of the shelving to where the drinks are. I manage to get some scotch into a glass. And then I manage to get some of it into myself.

  The screaming and the exploding still go on.

  I make it over to the window and part
the curtains slightly.

  A couple of jets screech low, almost on a line with the sea’s horizon, loose their rockets at a piece of the charred hardware on the beach.

  I look at my watch. It’s quarter past seven. Christ.

  I take another drink and go over to the wall panel and activate the central heating. Normally it’s programmed to come on at eight, but I’m cold, frozen from passing out and spending the night where I’ve spent it.

  Then I go over to the fireplace and sink down in front of it and light the rolled paper that peeps out from between the logs. I stay where I am for ten minutes, until the fire’s properly going, absorbing its warmth, my mind concentrating vice-like in an attempt to keep out the noise of the manoeuvres outside.

  Then, when I feel slightly more fit, I raise myself and make it back over to the drinks.

  While the second one’s going down, the image of the girl comes into my mind.

  But I’m still not fit to think in any kind of shape or sequence.

  The girl. She came in. She had a drink. She came in, she had a drink. Through the window. She had a drink. And the next thing those bastards outside are bombing my dreams. Or had she been in my dreams, while I’d been bombed out?

  The gun.

  I look at the piano. It’s where I always keep it, next to the picture of Jean.

  She’d seen the gun; Jean’s picture, a different one, had been in the papers, months ago. The girl had seen Jean’s picture, here. If she was here.

  I walk over to the piano and slam Jean’s picture face down.

  “Fuck it,” I say out loud. “Fuck it.”

  I sit down on the piano stool.

  Just think, I say to myself. Think things through.

  If she’d come.

  If she’s where she could be from, I’d be dead. I wouldn’t have risen off that settee. I wouldn’t be sitting here thinking about it.

  That aspect was out. And Jean’s photograph. Nothing like the one that’d been in the press. No real resemblance at all.

  No, I wouldn’t be sitting here, drinking, staring at the flames—

  The fire. Hadn’t I thrown a match in it, last night? Had I? Or hadn’t I?

  I began to wonder whether she came at all. I couldn’t remember her going, I was that pissed. Why should I remember her coming? Except maybe in a dream. The kind of dreams I’ve been having these days. And the nagging of her familiarity. That could have caused a dream. Christ knew. After what I’ve seen, I’m capable of seeing anything. After Jean. Working my imagination in reverse. But later I’d know. There was the Dunes tonight. It was tonight, wasn’t it?

  Stop thinking. Stop thinking until I’m together. Later, when I’m human again, when I’m back to appearing as I appear to the world outside.

  And in the world outside, the jets keep zapping the charred hardware out on the beach, and making direct hits on the inside of my head.

  Tonight, I’ll find out what happened. Until then, Christ alone knows, and I doubt very much whether he cares, one way or the other.

  THE SMOKE

  IT TOOK US AN hour to go through Ray’s flat, but there was nothing. Oh, there were plenty of clothes in the cupboards and in the drawers she hadn’t bothered to close. She hadn’t had time to pack much. She hadn’t taken any of her cosmetics; even the toothbrush was still in the bathroom. But. There were none of Ray’s clothes, and there were no suitcases. Not even a small cheque stub.

  I sat down on the double bed.

  “His mother in Bolton,” I said. “No wonder he said it was terminal.”

  Mickey opened an empty box file, closed it. It made a noise like a door being shut.

  “Cunt,” Mickey said. “That’s the word to describe him.”

  Ray had certainly gone prepared. There’d been nothing for Glenda to do except close the door behind her.

  “Stupid,” I said. “Why the Christ did I phone?”

  “Like you said,” said Mickey. “He’d no reason to suspect we were on to him. Must have been coincidence. Like you said. They were all set to go.”

  “Like I said.”

  “I notice she left the safe open. Two fingers and all that.”

  “We could have beat her to the door if we hadn’t phoned.”

  “One of those things,” Mickey said. “Couldn’t be helped.”

  “Stick the philosophy,” I told him. “I helped it. I got you to call her.”

  Mickey went out of the room and came back with a couple of glassfuls of scotch. I stared at him.

  “We may as well,” Mickey said. “Seeing as how, and all that.”

  I took one of the drinks from him. We drank.

  “Absent friends,” Mickey said.

  “They won’t be absent for long.”

  “It’s a big world,” Mickey said.

  “Not the one we live in,” I said. “He’s not going to Angola or Cambodia or Iceland, is he? A friend of ours’ll see him, somewhere, some time.”

  “Well,” Mickey said, “let’s drink to that.”

  THE SEA

  ON SATURDAYS, PEOPLE DRIVE into Mablethorpe to do their weekend shopping. It makes it look as though people actually live there.

  I have a couple in the South but there’s no sign of her, and for the brief time in there, Eddie doesn’t make his usual Command Performance, so I drink up and make my way to the Dunes via the arcade on the corner. This is full of kids spending their hard-earned pocket money, but she isn’t there either. However, I wait a while, passing the time with a pound’s worth on my favourite machine.

  The ritual of the machine and the fresh morning air and the sauna I’d managed back at the bungalow have all combined to straighten out my mind. I must have been pissed last night. Christ, I’d almost been out of my mind when I’d got back to the bungalow. If I’d had much more I’d have imagined Farlow coming down the chimney dressed like Father Christmas. They say things like that happen to you alone at sea, or in the desert, and this was certainly the desert, with the sea thrown in as well. In any case, real, imagined, or dreamt, I want to know which. If she’d been real, it still gave me things to think about; if she hadn’t been, if I’m going crazy, I want to go crazy in full possession of my faculties. That or change the brand of booze I drink.

  Besides, there’s still the nagging, the near recognition. That, if nothing else, I am going to lay to rest.

  So, she doesn’t appear in the arcade. So I walk out and up the ramp and walk along the mini-promenade towards the Dunes. Kids scamper up and down the mean grass of the mound, creating even bigger bald spots with their heels. On the broad flatness of the beach, people singly or in pairs stride up and down under the clear sky like figures from a Lowry painting.

  Inside, the Dunes looks less gloomy than usual, the plate glass glowing in the morning light. Howard must have cleaned the windows. He’s even got his toupee on straight. I buy us both one and we get on to the subject of the evening’s impending entertainment, and thus, Lesley.

  “My God, though,” he said. “She was good though, my God she was good.”

  “Praise indeed, Howard,” I say to him.

  “Oh, I’ve had me moments,” he says. “And I’ve seen the best. But last night. I couldn’t believe her.”

  “Any idea where she lives?”

  “Hello,” Howard says.

  “No, I don’t mean that,” I lied. “Is she a local girl?”

  “No idea. Eddie’s talked about her, but I never seen her before last night.”

  I take a sip of my drink.

  “I can give you the addresses of a couple of fellows if you’re interested,” Howard says.

  “Howard, would I try and cut in on you?” I said. “I mean, out here. I’d hate to queer your pitch.”

  “Funny. You should be on tonight.”

  “You never know. I might win.”

  “You could easily,” he says. “Dead and alive lot, I can tell you that now.”

  THE SMOKE

  “ALL RIGHT,” JEAN SAID, “
assuming Ray’s collectors, or some of them, were involved—”

  “No assumption. A couple at least had to be. Ray would have told us. If I hadn’t have fucked things up.”

  “Assuming that, the natural course of events is to talk to them. Is that it?”

  “Of course that’s it.”

  “The whole business all over again.”

  I looked at her.

  “Don’t tell me you’re getting tired of it.”

  “Look. At the moment, I’m talking business.”

  “All right; talk business.”

  “Right. There’s five collectors, right. All in the Birmingham area. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And we’ve got arrangements among the Birmingham Law. But it’s not like it is down here, is it? Anything goes wrong up there, our Law can only sweep up so much. Beyond that, the Regional will be down on them like a ton of bricks. They like things like that.”

  “Nothing will go wrong.”

  “Nothing’ll go wrong? Look, we go through the lot of them, trying to find out what we’re trying to find out. They’re not all like the fellows down here, stoical and all that, they could start rabbiting before they’ve got their plasters on.”

  “They know what would happen if they did. They’ve got relatives.”

  Jean sat down.

  “In any case …” she said.

  “In any case, what?”

  “At the moment we only have to hire one replacement. The way this thing is going we’ll have to start advertising in Exchange and Mart.”

  “So you’d rather let it rest and have some second division Foxy Fred sitting in his office knowing he’s screwing us and getting away with it?”

  “Do you think whoever it is is going to carry on with Ray gone? He was their protection; they’ll be scared shitless now.”

  “It’s not only that. We may get some information on Ray.”

  “You think he’s going to scatter travel brochures all over the place?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Why don’t we let it rest? Wait until we get home thoughts from abroad.”

  “If we do,” I said.

  “Well, if we don’t, what else can we do?” Jean said. “Look. It’s over. It’s stopped. Let’s let it lay.”