The One Safe Place (19 page)

Dave shouted a laugh that suggested he'd thought of a prize joke, but he was anticipating. "Tell us one."

The song about standing faded into silence, taking all the conversations with it, and everyone's attention fastened on Darren. "That's right, go on," his mother said as if she thought he hadn't contributed enough to the occasion or was using him to contribute on her behalf. "Remind us."

The hole inside Darren's head was growing darker and deeper—it felt like the earth he hadn't been able to bite out from under his nails. He stared at the jukebox as it retrieved the disc to clear the way for another, but it was taking too long for him to keep quiet until it did. Unless he told one of Jim's jokes he would feel that his uncle had become the empty blackness in his head, and he couldn't think of a single one—and then he remembered a joke he'd heard at school. "This man goes in a chemist and he says have you got some extra large condoms—"

Dave spluttered and wiped his mouth. "I've heard it. It's dead mucky, that."

Sharon had picked up her glass in case she was overcome by memory, but now she put it down, missing the beer mat on which it had been standing. "That was never my Jim."

The weight of attention swung away from Darren to her as the jukebox began to sing about a four-legged friend. Was it telling Darren that unlike the animal, he'd let his uncle down? Sharon seemed to think so, and was leaning hard toward his mother. "He'd never have a paper in the house with tits in it, Jim. What's he trying to do, the little snot? Making out Jim told him some mucky joke."

Darren's mother planted her fists on the table and heaved herself forward with them. "You calling Dar a liar?"

"You saying I am or Jim was?"

One of Jim's jokes sidled into Darren's head, but he thought it was too late to tell it and besides, he didn't want to stop Sharon and his mother from coming to blows—he wanted to see who would win. The song on the jukebox counted four like a referee, and then, to Darren's blazing frustration, Bernard showed his palms to the two women. "Not today, lasses, please. Think of Jim," he said, adding hastily and in a lower voice, "I reckon it's a bad time for both of you, but the family will see you right. We've a few things on the go."

The women subsided against their chairs, looking as though they might otherwise have sprawled across the table, and Dave had to be persuaded not to discuss any of the plans Bernard had hinted at until the jukebox found itself another song. It was about some twat from Laramie who was friendly to everyone he met, which Sharon said was Jim as she blackened her handkerchief further. This was the signal for most of the men to plod at the pace of the music to the bar, where more than one of them ordered drinks in a cowboyish drawl which earned a withering stare from the barman. Darren gulped his latest Scotch in anticipation of one of the family's landing a fist in the middle of the stare, but nobody did. The jukebox raised the disc and lowered another, but had sung only a few lines when Dave lurched at it and began to jab the buttons. "How do you get this off? Shar doesn't want to hear about some cunt being forsaken on his wedding day."

"You let Shar have a good cry if she wants," Brenda shouted.

As Dave stooped to pull the plug he fell against the jukebox, causing the disc to jump. "A cow, a lying coward," it sang as the barman reached down behind the bar. Then Sharon cried, "Leave it, Dave. It was Jim's favourite."

He used the jukebox to haul himself upright before twisting to face her. "Never.
Wet Side Story
was."

"His favourite of these, Dave. He always sang along with it. I can hear him now." Sharon blew her nose, blackening the end of it, as several of the party raised their voices, straggling in pursuit of the lyrics. Dave glared effortfully about as if he suspected he was being made a fool of, then steered his resentment in the general direction of the bar. "I'm fucking famished, me. Where's the grub?"

The barman raised one hand above the bar to point at the sign above The Trough. "Shuts at two, reopens at six."

"Yeah, well, I'm hungry at—" Dave glowered at the clock near the door, apparently suspecting it of trying to confuse him. "Whatever it is past five, past four," he eventually said.

"Can't help you, pal. The girl doesn't come on until six."

The voices floundering after the song fell away one by one, and Ken wrenched his chair and himself around with a screech of wood to confront the barman. "Don't be asking us to wait that long. Why don't you be the girl and thank fuck we're only after grub."

The song dwindled into silence, and the inside of Darren's head began to tingle. He might have been watching one of those films where everything went quiet to make the violence more exciting, only this was better than a film. He drained his glass as the barman reached slowly under the bar and said, "Why don't you all—"

"Have a heart," Bernard interrupted. "The other feller said we'd be able to eat. It isn't a wake without nosh."

Darren was growing hot with the promise of violence. He heard a heavy object rumble against the wood of the bar, and the muscles of the barman's upper arms swelled his checked sleeves as he brought his hands into view. They were empty. "You can have anything you see that's cold, but I'm not cooking," he said. "And while we're on about what you're having, let's have less of the language in front of the lad."

Darren's hands and feet were gathering the suddenly unpleasant warmth of the room. Without warning it rushed up through him. All the talk of food had reminded him he'd eaten nothing since his egg and the last of last night's chips for breakfast, and it seemed that only his lack of awareness of his state had been keeping the Scotch down. The smell of Bernard's cigar turned stale in his nostrils, and he saw the yolk of his breakfast egg surrounded by uncooked white like his grandfather's eyes. He saw his grandfather lying in his unwashed bed that resembled one of the sacks the homeless slept in, the old man's eyes two raw eggs drooling down his cheeks, and then nausea jerked him to his feet and sent him staggering past The Trough to the corridor which led to the toilets and the car park.

A mingled smell of urine and disinfectant jabbed his nostrils as he blundered into the Gents, where he had to hang onto an askew condom dispenser before launching himself at the nearest cubicle. By the time the door rebounded from the tiled wall his head was almost in the stained ceramic pan, and his innards felt as if they were. Words were chanting in his head: "a coward, a lying coward in the grave." That was him, and the grave was his uncle's, and Darren felt as if he'd killed him by being a coward, by not... He couldn't think what he'd failed to do, but as soon as he was capable of falling against the cubicle door he bolted it so that nobody would see him. He was holding onto the low cracked cistern and hanging his head over the thoroughly spattered bowl when someone kicked open the door to the Gents. "Darren? You in here, lad?"

It was Ken, by comparison with whom Darren felt more of a coward than ever. He climbed on the bowl to make himself invisible, one foot slipping on the ceramic edge and almost plunging ankle-deep before he leaned on the cistern. He crouched over his mess, feeling like a dog as the jukebox began to croon about Old Shep, and heard Dave say "Must've gone to chuck up in the car park."

"His mam should have said if he can't hold his liquor. Wouldn't like to be her, stuck with Phil's da and a kid and Phil inside."

"Reckon she'll be all right while she can open her legs."

Darren heard two zippers being pulled down and his uncles sighing as their urine struck the porcelain. They thought he was as useless as his grandfather. "Most miserable funeral I've ever been to," Ken eventually said.

"Maybe he's gone to a better place."

"Couldn't be any fucking worse than this." Ken's anger was reviving. "You know, I'll bet Jim swerved so he wouldn't hit someone. I've seen him do it. Soft cunt," he said, his voice veering away as he zipped himself up. "Tell you what, though..."

Darren heard his uncles tramp away, and the outer door begin to close with a sound like an animal expiring in a trap, and then "Put your dick away, Dave. Christ, you're like a big kid."

Dave hooted with delighted laughter at himself and did as he was told, blocking the door meanwhile. "What I'm saying, though," Ken said, and the closing door seemed to squeeze his retreating voice smaller. "That Yank's the fucking cause of all this. We haven't finished with him."

Darren felt as if his entire body had stretched into the corridor to catch hold of the words. He rested his hands on the shifting cistern and lowered his feet to the floor as though he was doing gymnastics. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the tiles and leaned on the handle of the cistern. Ken's words had told him what to do so that nobody would call him a lying coward ever again. The rush of water into the toilet reminded him of being sick, but he wasn't going to be again, because he felt too strong, maybe even ready for another drink. Next time he wouldn't just scream down the phone, the way he had when a man had answered. When Darren got him on his own he'd do more than scare the kid who'd sent his father to prison and killed his Uncle Jim.

"It didn't have to be this way."

"You still don't get it, do you? Nobody killed your kid—not yet, anyway. I'd say he still had about half an hour."

"You bastard, tell me where he is or I'll—"

"Go ahead. You can't do anything to me the world hasn't already done."

"Don't harm him. I'm begging you. I'm on my knees. Whatever you think you have to pay back, take it out on me."

"Say, don't you remember? I guess ten years ain't so very much if you're not in jail. The kid won't be inside that long. Half an hour max."

"You want to kill me, kill me. Just let me see him first so I know he's all right."

"Sure you can see him if you get to him. I'm giving you more of a chance than you gave me. Still haven't figured out where he is? Check out the safe."

"I don't believe you. You're trying to make me waste time. Even you wouldn't—Oh Christ, you did it, didn't you? He's dead, you murdering swine. I can't hear him."

"Can't hear much through three inches of steel. He was alive when I put him in, and there was plenty of air. If I were you I wouldn't still be talking, I'd be trying to find the combination. You can make a lot of numbers out of five digits. Don't come any closer or this gun might just go off."

By now Don had grasped all this was intended as some kind of parody—surely no Mancunian would utter such dialogue unless they'd seen far too many movies—but there were reasons why he didn't laugh, one of which was that he was beginning to suspect that any joke might be on him. Teresa Handley had told him to take a book as identification, but he needn't have brought the book she'd signed to Susanne and himself. Indeed, he had barely stepped into the Hangman when he'd begun wishing he had carried anything except a book.

Deciding to call the writer's number had been difficult enough, and she'd proved blunter and less forthcoming now that she was sober. "Don which again?"

"Travis. You came to our party and later we, you and I, spoke on the phone."

"I've got you now. That kind of Don. Sorry, you sounded just like a character I'm writing."

"Thanks very much for the book. Marshall's, you met our son, he's reading it right now."

"Probably more his level than yours. I only sent it because you did ask."

"No, it looks very, it looks great. I saw the reviews of your earlier books on the back."

"Best place to stop."

"We were all delighted, really. We wouldn't have expected it." The prospect of needing to contradict yet more auctorial self-deprecation had made him blurt, "I've been thinking about, I expect you know. What else you said when you called."

"When I'd been making up for having to celebrate alone."

"Sure. I hope you had reason. I mean, I hope the book is doing well."

"Better than some I wish I'd written."

"I guess a lot of writers feel that way. I don't know if you heard how the case came out."

"What case was that? I'm with you, your intruder. I believe he's been treated to a holiday in concrete."

"Eighteen months, he's meant to have gone in for."

"Have to hope he doesn't know the meaning of good behaviour. Sighs of relief all round, I bet."

"Yes, except one of his family was killed in a police chase, and I wouldn't like to think it's left them in a mood for more violence."

"So don't."

"Suppose I'm right? I'm beginning to think I might feel happier, well, I won't say happier, safer if I took you up on your suggestion."

"Which was that?"

"Isn't this a good time? Can't you talk?"

"I'm not slurring, am I?"

"No, I mean is there anyone..."

"Who?"

"Mr. Handley?"

"Oh, him. How's he going to stop me?"

"I only meant in case you'd rather—in case you didn't want—"

"He wouldn't be that kind of problem if he was here, which he's not. He's off spending some of my money on not spending so much of my money. So what were you thinking I could do for you?"

"The suggestion you made, I was wondering if it was still, still extant."

"There's a bookseller. I take it we're talking about what I think we are."

"Arms availability."

He'd heard her shift her grip on the plastic, and had been about to add "Only for defence" or something equally redundant when she'd said, "I don't know if the offer stands. I'll see what I can find out and call you back."

He should have asked her to call him only at the shop, except that the answering machine was awaiting repair. For most of a week he'd pounced on calls before anyone else could reach them, hence had spoken to four of Marshall's friends, and three women who'd called him by name in order to pitch sales to him, and two of Susanne's colleagues offering advice on how to respond to any prosecution after the police raid. Then last night Teresa Handley had found him almost inarticulate with a mouthful of dinner. "Be in the Hangman between noon and one tomorrow and take a book with you and, don't blame me, best I could find, a few hundred," she'd said, and the address.