Crusaders (46 page)

Gore supposed that no one else in this bristling company knew him from Adam, or wished to improve their acquaintance. But when West Ham scored, he found himself applauding gently and instinctively, and one of the strangers barked at him. ‘Divvint clap the other
side
, man, we divvint fuckin’ pay to hear
that
.’

Stevie’s riposte was harder. ‘
Whey
, man,
language
. The bairn.’

Come the half-time whistle and the pensive trudge of players from surface, Gore looked to Stevie, who seemed untroubled by Newcastle’s deficit. ‘Well, I’m about ready me bait,’ he announced, rubbing his hands. ‘Lind, will you gan doon the back into the cheap seats and fetch us in a pie?’ A few more stray orders got shouted.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Gore murmured, rising unheeded.

Back out in the concrete maze she knew where she was going and he followed in silence, until she threw him a look that seemed to implore that he keep in step.

‘John, look, I’ve been wanting to tell you. With Stevie, but –’

‘I know. We’ve talked.’

‘You’s two? What did he say?’

‘Not much more than you.’

They took up places in a slow-shuffling queue before a counter vendor of teas and reheated snacks. Warily she watched him, as he chewed over his intended words.

‘Have you
really
wanted to tell me? Or did you just plan on – oh, I don’t know – toughing it out?’

‘I told you from the start, John, I was happy telling you all about us, any bloody thing. It was
you
told us you didn’t wanna know.’

‘Yeah, but – God, this – you could have just told me anyway, Lindy. It would have been helpful.’

‘It’s personal, man, between me and him, it’s not summat we gan round shoutin’ about. How would it’ve helped
you
?’

‘Because. We’ve had an association, me and Steve. You know that. So you and me – I mean, it would have saved me feeling how I feel
now
is how.’

‘Fine, I hear you. So now you know. Happy?’

‘Oh, I’m over the moon, Lindy, it’s … delightful. There, look, don’t miss your turn.’

They threaded their way back through the corridors,
blisteringly
hot snacks ill-cushioned by napkins in their palms. For Gore the thought of returning to that box in this temper was a prison sentence.

‘How the hell did it happen then? The two of you?’

‘Aw,
now
you want the story, do you?’

‘Don’t be like that. I’m just …’

‘Look, I used to gan a lot to this club. Zeus.’

‘I know it. I went to a funeral there.’

She frowned. ‘Well, Stevie was doorman, right? There was a crowd of us used to knock about after it shut, we’d gan on to
parties
and that.’

‘You went out together?’

‘Nah, it was just one night. One or two.’ She sighed. ‘We were
pals
, he was like me brother. Used to buy us stuff, little gifts and that. There was just a night we ended up at mine and we were both a bit off it, and … that’s how.’

‘How did you handle it? When you found out?’

‘Handle it? I called him up and telt him. He come round and gave us a big speech. All serious, you know what he’s like. How he’d always see us right and all, but he wasn’t ever gunna be tied down. I said get away, man, as if I’d set me cap on
you
.’

A smile squeezed itself out of Gore. That much, at least, served to recall a girl of whom he had once grown fond. ‘So you just
managed
? Alone?’

‘I’ve always managed. Stevie, but, his big thing – I mean, I can’t fault him, not for money, or time. He gets us what we need. I could do it me’sel if I had to, but Jake – I know how it works, he should have a daddy, it’s boring but it’s just the bloody truth. Stevie’d never let us have it any other way.’

They were too close to re-entering the lion’s den for Gore’s
comfort
. He took her arm, arrested her steps. ‘Look, you can say. If you’re scared of him.’

‘Stevie? Naw, man. It’s just a set-up we’ve got, it’s fine. Look, we’re not like … I mean, he’s got another one somewhere. Another bairn by another lass? I know nowt about it. ’Cept they don’t get on, him and the mother. But with us, he’s fine. Fine. Not so clever the day, like …’ She sighed. ‘It’s not
important
, but. Jake’s got us – he doesn’t need owt except us. He likes men, right enough, I
thought
he liked you. But you’ve not said a word to him all afternoon.’

Gore groaned. ‘Lindy, I find this a bit awkward, you know?’

‘
You
do? What about me? I dunno, John, you just pitch up … then you’re sat there like stone as usual, not kissed us or held wor hand or owt.’

‘It didn’t’ – he forced out between teeth – ‘seem quite the place.’

‘You don’t need his permission, y’knaa. What, are
you
scared of him?’

He had felt himself bluster, and now wanted badly to be terse and chilly. But irritation was reinstated on her face, a stronger force.

‘Come on, these are burning a hole in us.’

On the way home – the radio cranked up to reports, interviews and supporters’ views of the Toon’s second-half revival – Gore sat in the back, one eye on the restless boy fastened in at his side, the other on the disparate pair of twitching shaven necks before him. This bizarre domesticity, his ill-sorted place in it, had begun to upset his innards. Worse, in his head, was a kind of vertigo. Who were these people? How had his mission directive brought him to this impasse, this queasy back-seat function?

I’m a missionary – that’s it, that’s what I am. They told me, ‘Take the good word to the natives, just ignore their manners.’ And what have I gone and done? Treated myself to the first fuckable native girl. Turned out she was wed to the chief.

At Oakwell Gore helped Jake from the car, seeing that Stevie and Lindy lingered in the front seats for what seemed like a
troubled exchange – his hand clamped to her shoulder, her chin on her chest. Uneasily he turned his attention to the boy.

‘Did you enjoy the match, Jake?’

‘Nah. Was crap.’

‘You didn’t? Why not?’

‘We’s just drew. Didn’t get seein’ who’s-his-name.’

‘Didn’t you like it when Newcastle scored?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Liked the noise. That was mint.’

Then the Lexus was pulling away, Stevie offering a thumbs-up.

From the dim upstairs landing he watched Lindy watching Jake grow steadily immersed in the act of scrawling on a page. Then she rose and pulled the door to, and Gore followed her down the stairs. The bunch of freesias remained limp under cellophane on the coffee table.

‘John, look, I’m sorry … I dunno, if your feelings are hurt I’m sorry. It’s my life, but, see? It’s just what happened. I can’t
apologise
for that, can I?’

Gore shrugged. ‘No. Of course you can’t.’

‘So what are we gunna do then? You and me?’

‘Oh, I don’t know … Try to get along. Like we’ve been doing.’

She lowered herself to the arm of her chair, pulled off her soft hat, looked at him ruefully. ‘We’re a pair, aren’t we?’

She rubbed her eyes. He moved to her side and folded her into an embrace – nuzzled and kissed the top of her head, surprised to find it softer than it looked. He felt her clasping on to him with something like feeling.

‘Do you still want to see us, like?’ She spoke into his chest. ‘I mean – what
do
you want?’

‘Maybe we just need to give it a bit of time,’ he said, staring out through the open micro-blinds into her darkened garden, as
desolate
as his own.

She freed her face from his front buttons. ‘What does that
mean
, but?’

No idea. Time for you to change entirely. You, or me. Time for me to think how to get out of this cleanly
. He cursed himself and this quandary of a day, at the outset of which he had fancied that all
existing grievances and gridlocks were soon to be relieved by best effort. What was the game plan now?

‘I do think – that I need more time with you. The two of you.’

‘Me and Jake?’

‘Yes, you and Jake. Who else?’ He relinquished hold of her shoulders. ‘What do you say, shall I fix us all a bit of dinner?’

She bit her lip and glanced disconsolately toward her thin wristwatch.

‘Aw, I’m working the night, man. Gotta get me’sel together.’

‘Where are you working?’

‘Where? Aw, at the club, just.’

‘Teflon?’

‘Aye, Teflon.’

He was much too familiar with her usual candour to ignore the clear unease, the sudden indirectness in her gaze.
Liar
, he thought, the vehemence of his feeling arriving unbidden.

Before he reached his doorstep he knew what he would do with the evening. He wouldn’t call it spying. There seemed no other means by which his curiosity could be relieved. And it didn’t seem a terrible subterfuge to discreetly test her word, observe her in her environment. If all was well and the mood right, he could perhaps step from the shadows and surprise her. After such a day, he reasoned, how bad could that be?

He cooked a simple omelette, drank two glasses of white
burgundy
, listened to a CD selection from
The Well-Tempered Clavier.
For an hour or so he sat at his desk over some notes, though
nothing
he typed cohered into sense. He was merely idling, waiting for the night-time to deepen. When the hour seemed apt he went to his wardrobe and reviewed his sparse options. A ‘clubby sort of a bar’, hadn’t she said? Generic smartness, would that pass muster? Thus his black suit, a white shirt, a grey tie. He shined a pair of Oxfords, assumed the accessories, combed his hair with tap water, splashed some old pale cologne about his cheeks. It would have to suffice. As ten o’clock ticked round he dialled a local cab firm, then extinguished all his lights and sat waiting in silence.

‘I’m after a club called Teflon?’

‘By the Swing Bridge, aye?’

They proceeded down the Hoxheath Road, Gore sunk in
disquiet
, until the driver grunted some words he didn’t catch.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’m saying, you want in Teflon you might have a job? Don’t mean owt by it, like, but it’s a trendier lot than yer’sel, mostly. Least that’s what ah see.’

Gore said nothing, only gazed out of the window at the
hurly-burly
of the night streets as they broached the Quayside – traffic solid, raucous hubbub in the air, lads and lasses in pavement packs, baring a good deal of skin to the cold – insulated, maybe, by the first half-dozen drinks of the evening. The girls teetered on heels, tossing hair and bouncing cleavage, clutching tiny bags, faces thickly veneered, paler thighs flashing – lots of tiny dresses, some on rather large girls. The boys walked the walls, fists in the pockets of heavy-belted jeans, biceps thick in pocketed
short-sleeve
shirts, big and yet straining to make themselves bigger – so young and full of it, as if they might surge out onto the road and stop cars with the flats of their hands. Gore’s reflection met him in the muted glass.
Were you ever that age
?

Paid up and deposited at street level, the wind off the Tyne whipping at his trouser legs, he walked with irresolute tread across the cobblestones toward the entrance of the club, a
converted
building. A couple passed him, the girl stumbling forward as her four-inch heel snagged between cobbles. Ten yards ahead a rope-cordoned square of six-foot-by-six marked the doorway of Teflon – from within, the metronome thump of bass; without, a smallish queue filing in turn past the eye of a brick-solid doorman. Gore endured some derisive gum-chewing looks to reach the end of the line. But a few of the males seemed to favour dark trousers and crisp shirts. Perhaps his outfit would pass?

‘Oi, mistah …’ A tug on his sleeve. Two girls had edged up to his side from behind a parked car, both of them dark-haired, faces glossily daubed, glammed-up in short dresses, one notably prettier, neither liable to have seen their eighteenth birthday. They
were whispering, conspiratorial.

‘Oi, mistah, can you help us, like? Please? Help us get in?’

‘Just past the bouncer, aye? We can be like your girlfriends.’

‘Aye, your bitches, like.’ The prettier one giggled.

‘How man, we’ll make it worth your while, promise.’

The lewd cast of her purple mouth Gore took for mere front. He had made a fast assessment, decided he had been favoured with a certain advantage.

‘Okay, alright …’ Without further deliberation he threw one arm around each of them, so drawing a breath of their cloyingly lacquered hair, and they giggled anew. Shortly the line was
moving
, they were up to the ropes. The bouncer wore black suit, black shirt, black necktie, like a chain-store Mafia pallbearer. He looked them over, impassive. ‘You sure you’re in the right place?’

Gore tried a slow would-be worldly grin. ‘Aw, help us out here, will you? I’ve more than I can handle.’

‘How old’s she?’ The bouncer’s terse gesture was to the plainer of the girls.

‘She’s thirty, man. Thirty tonight. I’ve promised her your best champagne.’

He earned half a smile. The rope was raised.
I am an actor
, thought Gore.

They passed through a foyer of bolted aluminium panels, oddly blackened by phantomic shapes as if licked by flames. A woman behind a glass grille instructed Gore that it was past ten and he would have to pay. The girls shot him hopeful looks.
In for a penny,
he decided. On demand he gave up his wallet to another bouncer, who poked through its folds and clasps.

Through double doors, into a warm dark bath of bodies and noise – shoving room only, a head-splitting four-time pulse. All about him were blithe and curt young faces, eyes clocking and discounting him. Draughts of dry ice oozed through the crowd, a sickly throat-clogging scent, and pink laser-light slashed the fug. Plain Jane lunged up and kissed his cheek, then both his little
consorts
were weaving off and away.

He let the crush of bodies carry him from one end of the space
toward the bar in sight at the other. The distinction between bar and dance floor that he had thought essential to discotheques was negligible here – everybody seemed to be jiggling, their eyes wide and avid. A black man danced alone, his body shaking,
trance-like
. A girl with her eyes tight shut had a dummy in her mouth, her friend wore a spangly studded dog collar.