Born Under Punches (30 page)

Tommy looked him in the eyes.

‘Son.'

The officer nodded, let him through the first door.

He joined the queue, was patted down, had a metal detector run over him, had his mobile taken, a receipt issued, was smelled by a sniffer dog.

Then another door, this one not opening until the previous one was firmly closed.

And finally through. Up a corridor, round the corner, a wait while the officer unlocked the door, locked it behind them. Into a room of Formica-topped tables and orange plastic chairs, men sitting at them wearing matching orange bibs.

Durham prison. Visits.

Tommy scoped the room. The men were physically different, racially mixed, various ages, but they all shared something in common. It wasn't something they, had, rather something they lacked; an absence rather than a presence. A wilful deadening to outside stimuli, the reconfiguring of shrunken horizons and expectations, the recalibration of time.

The look of the lifer.

Clive Fairbairn sat at his table, hands together, back straight, a desk-bound CEO awaiting an underling's report or a headmaster awaiting a pupil's excuses.

The boss was fronting it, performing the illusion of empire, but he was looking old, tired. Prison, although Mr Fairbairn wouldn't admit it, Tommy thought, was being tough on him.

Tommy sat down.

‘Hello, Tommy.' It was an old man's voice. Still shot through with steel, but corroded.

‘Huh-hello, Mr Fairbairn.'

Tommy swallowed hard. In moments of stress his voice still gave him away. It was a reminder of where he had come from, of what he still was underneath the expensive cars and fine suits. He willed himself to relax, mentally speed-ran the exercises the speech therapist had given him.

‘How are you doing?'

That was better. Back in control.

Fairbairn looked around, gestured. ‘I'm in prison. How d'you think I'm doing?'

Tommy nodded. ‘They treating you all right?'

Fairbairn sighed, softened his attitude slightly. ‘It's not too bad, I suppose. You get used to it. You ride it.'

Tommy nodded. ‘Thanks for sorting the invite.'

Fairbairn nodded.

‘Son.' Tommy smiled. ‘Nice.'

‘Yeah, well, there was a time.'

‘What d'you mean?'

Fairbairn leaned forward. The movement caught the eye of a prison officer. Fairbairn sat back.

‘I've been hearing things, Tommy. Word gets to me.'

‘Wh-what d'you mean, things?'

‘That you've taken your eye off the ball. You're going soft.'

Tommy stared at him. His eyes flint, his face stone. Like Fairbairn had taught him.

‘I don't know who said that,' said Tommy, ‘but they told you wrong.'

‘I hope so, son. Because I don't want to get out of here and find nothing left for me. Know what I'm saying? And I will get out, you mark my words. I'm not paying good money to that bunch of overpaid briefs for nothing, you know.'

Tommy swallowed.

‘Don't worry, Mr Fairbairn. Everything is in good hands. You know that. You can trust me.' Tommy smiled. ‘Like family, you used to say.'

Fairbairn stared at him. Flint and stone. ‘No smoke without fire.'

Tommy sighed. ‘Listen. Everything is being run exactly as if you were there. There's no trouble.'

‘So why am I hearing things?'

‘Because with you in here all the chancers come out of the woodwork. They all see it as their time has come, you know? They make sure you hear things because they know they'll prey on your mind. Especially in here. Set you wondering, set us at each other's throats. So we destroy ourselves and you've got nothing to come out to. And they take over.'

Fairbairn kept his eyes on Tommy. The words were absorbed, like a stolen car sinking slowly to the bottom of a deep lake.

And in that moment, eyes unguarded, defences stripped down, worry marking his face, Tommy saw Fairbairn as he really was.

Not the feared/revered head of the biggest firm in the north-east, but an old man: scared, alone, deluding himself about being released again, knowing in his heart he was here to die.

‘Well …'

‘Don't worry, Mr Fairbairn, everything'll be fine for when you come out.'

Fairbairn sighed, nodded. ‘Yeah. You just … In here …'

‘I know.' Tommy's voice had softened.

‘No, you don't.' Fairbairn's eyes were suddenly ablaze. Like a spark of life animating a clay golem. Activated. Ready to rip out hearts. ‘Don't you ever tell me what it's like in here. Ever. You have no idea.'

‘Suh-sorry, Mr Fairbairn. You're right,' Tommy said quickly.

Fairbairn subsided, nodded.

They sat silently, looking at anything but each other.

Some of the other prisoners had wives and children meeting them. The younger children played in a play area in the corner, content. The older ones sat at the tables, sullen for the most part, unable or unwilling to equate the person opposite them with the word father. The wives looked at their husbands. Representatives of two different worlds looking for common ground conversations, hardly speaking, communicating through silence and near silence, or chatting volubly and incessantly, thin smiles papering over deep and, in most cases, irreparable cracks and chasms.

‘How's Caroline?' said Fairbairn, eventually.

Tommy's eyes aimed for flint, missed. ‘Fine,' he said. ‘She sent her love.'

Fairbairn's eyes glittered. A smile that most people would have missed appeared at the corners of his mouth. Cold. Mirthless.

‘Tell her I send it back.'

Tommy swallowed hard. He tasted bitterness in his mouth. ‘I will.'

They then set sail on a sea of silence for the remainder of the visit, making only occasional forced landings on to islands of words. Fairbairn began to reminisce, relive old triumphs. The action of a man whose best was in the past, whose future was grey and small. Tommy joined in, indulged him, played straight man.

Then time to go.

‘Good to see you, Mr Fairbairn. Glad you're well. Thanks for inviting me.'

Fairbairn smiled. ‘Call me Clive. After all this time.'

Tommy smiled. ‘Clive.' The name seemed strange coming from his mouth. It fitted like a glove two sizes too small.

‘But listen.' Fairbairn's smile disappeared. His eyes were suddenly hard and bright again. ‘Whatever's going on, sort it. And quickly.'

‘Yes, Mr Fairbairn.'

Time was up. Fairbairn was escorted, along with the other prisoners, back to his eight-by-four world. The visitors, patted down, mobiles returned, were free to go.

Back in the car park, Tommy checked the Daimler for signs of vandalism, found none, got it. Diana Krall was soon back in his ears, his mind.

He started the engine, changed the CD. He wanted something different.

He flicked around the five installed discs. Sinatra. Dino. Billie Holiday. Dino. Back to Diana.

He switched it off, drove out of Durham and back home in silence.

He wanted something different.

But he didn't have it. And he didn't know what it was.

Karl supplied, Davva and Skegs sold. The system was simple and good. It worked.

Their territory was now the whole of the T. Dan. They had regulars. Clients, Karl called them. They worked their market, got to know their customers' needs, who wanted what. Blow. Skunk. Crack. E. Horse. Got stuff on demand. Uppers. Downers. Speed. Tried not to miss an opportunity to sell.

They stashed stuff all over the estate. Merchandise. Money. Behind loose bricks, buried in secret places. The golden rule: carry as little money or product as possible at any time. Karl had wised them up, trained them well: don't get caught. If you do get caught, don't get done as dealers. And don't give up names.

They cycled the length and breadth of the estate, sorting clients out. Strictly cash. No cash, no hash. Karl took his share of the wedge, left them with their wages. When they weren't working, they were having fun. In the arcades, on the video games, the bandits, the pool tables. Feeding themselves on burgers, kebabs, chicken. Chips with everything. Lifting, or occasionally buying, designer gear and CDs.

They were living it, larging it, loving it.

Skegs drew all the mucus from the tubes in his face into his mouth, rolled it, and let it fly. It landed square in the middle of the lamppost.

‘Beat that,' he said, triumph lighting up his face.

Davva, sitting next to him on the wall, looked at his friend. Skegs had beaten him in everything today. He had stunt-ridden his mountain bike without falling off. Davva had fallen off. He had got a higher score on Quake in the arcade. Davva kept dying. And now the spitting contest.

Davva got down off the wall. No point in even taking part.

‘Wassamatter?' said Skegs.

‘I'm goin' home.'

‘What for?'

Davva shrugged. ‘Just am.'

‘But we've still got stuff to do. We've got to go to your Tanya's.'

‘You do it. I'm goin' home.'

Davva started to walk off.

‘See you later.'

He left Skegs sitting alone on the wall, confused by Davva, but proud of his spit.

Davva walked through the T. Dan dragging his feet, in no hurry to reach his destination. He hated going home. Only went there when he had nowhere else to go. Best thing about it: his stuff was there. Worst thing about it: his parents were there.

He reached the house. A small square box terraced to a row of identical small square boxes. An occasional burned-out or boarded-up one broke the monotony. Davva's house was neither well nor badly maintained. It was just there.

His footsteps slowed further. Legs dragged as he walked round the back, opened the gate, let himself into the postage-stamp-sized strip of blasted barren earth described by his parents as a garden.

He opened the kitchen door and entered. His mother was there unloading carrier bags, putting pans on the gas. She stopped what she was doing, looked at him.

‘Oh. So you're back, then.'

She didn't smile.

Davva nodded, grunted.

‘I suppose you want feedin', then.'

‘Aye.'

‘Where've you been, then?'

Davva shrugged, started to rummage in a carrier bag for something to eat. His mother grabbed the bag off him.

‘Get yer thievin' fingers out of there.'

He got his thieving fingers out of there.

‘We're havin' chips, sausages and fried eggs if you want to eat with us.'

‘Smashin'.'

Davva's mother: big to start with, getting bigger. He saw she had a packet of biscuits open on the worktop, saw her help herself to one. A new packet, straight from the shopping. Davva noticed it was nearly half-empty. She crunched the biscuit round in her mouth, absently, as if she was just giving her jaws something to do. Her face was fat: piggy big, but hard. Davva could never remember her laughing or even smiling much when he was around. less when Tanya had been at home. All he had got from her was questions. Judgements. It was all he had ever got from her.

The emotions Davva felt for his mother had full titles. They had been named and documented. But not by him. So he didn't know what he felt for his mother. He couldn't name it.

And he had no idea what she felt for him.

‘Where's me fatha?'

‘Front room,'she said through a mouthful of biscuit.

Davva wandered into the front room. His father was sitting in an armchair,
Mirror
on his knee,
Neighbours
on the box, rolling a fag.

‘Hello, bonny lad.' He smiled at Davva.

‘Hiya.'

Davva sat on the settee, stared absently at the prancing Aussie bimbos and himbos.

‘Had a good day?'

Davva shrugged.

‘All right.'

‘Where you been?'

‘Round.'

Davva didn't take his eyes off the TV. He knew there were questions his father wanted to ask, answers he didn't want to hear. But his father wouldn't ask them. He was too weak. So if he stared at the screen long enough, the questions would go away.

‘Hey,' said Davva's dad, deliberately changing the subject, ‘did I tell you about the football match on Sunday. You shoulda been there, man. Hey, it was crackin'.'

‘Aye.'

‘I played, y'kna. Second half.'

Davva nodded.

‘Helped set up the goal.'

Davva watched TV.

‘You know, that's what you should do. Play football. Give you an interest. Somethin' to do. You'd like it.'

Neighbours
finished. The air in the house was thick with more than frying: a kind of squandered energy that started with his parents and radiated outwards. Like they'd given up and you could feel it. Davva noticed it every time he set foot in the house. He thought of it as an airborne disease, something he could catch if he sat there long enough. He got up, went upstairs.

His room had a padlock nailed to it. He had done it himself. He took the key from the back pocket of his D&G jeans and opened it.

Inside, it was a teenage boy's Aladdin's cave. PS2. Games. DVDs. CDs: Garage and RnB. Portable CD player, bass-heavy.

Clothes in the wardrobe, label-heavy.

In a slit in the bed base: stashed notes. A small supply of pills. Draw. Es. Personal use only. Not for sale.

He slid the bolt into place on the door and relaxed.

This was his space. The only place he felt safe in the whole word. He could lock everyone and everything else out, forget about them. Just be himself. His parents' disease couldn't touch him in here.

He didn't know what he had been feeling when he left Skegs. Some sort of sadness. He couldn't name it. All he knew was when he felt it he wanted to be home, in his room, surrounded by his own things. Things he'd bought with his own money or lifted with his own skill. He drew comfort from them. Found solace in them.