Dreams of Leaving (36 page)

Ridley nodded.

Moses did likewise, glad to get out of shaking hands. He had already taken a look at Ridley's hands. They were chipped and grazed and scarred, and every scar told the story of someone else's pain.

‘What's he doing here?' he whispered, as he climbed the stairs behind Elliot.

Elliot looked cryptic. ‘We've been getting phone-calls. That's what he's doing here.'

‘A kind of receptionist?' Moses ventured.

Elliot didn't laugh. ‘You could say that.'

He sat down in his red chair, propped his feet on the desk, and lit a cigarette. He didn't usually come in on Mondays, but Moses had seen the white Mercedes float into the mist below his window. Signs of stress littered the office: screwed-up paper on the floor, an almost empty bottle of brandy by the phone, a crowd of Dunhill butts wedged upright in the ashtray like people in a Hong Kong swimming-pool.

‘What are these phone-calls then?' Moses asked.

Elliot flicked ash, ran his tongue along his teeth; for a moment, Moses thought he wasn't going to answer. ‘Bad phone-calls,' he said eventually. ‘Old ghosts from the past, you know?'

‘I thought you didn't believe in ghosts.'

‘Yeah, well,' and Elliot allowed himself a wry grin, ‘these ones I believe in.'

Moses crossed the room and fitted his cigarette into the ashtray. On his way back to the sofa his foot caught a pool-cue that had been resting against the wall. The cue clattered to the floor.

A door opened somewhere downstairs.

‘Everything all right up there, Mr Frazer?' The voice was huge and violent and had tattoos all over it.

Moses stooped, clipped the cue into its wooden wall-rack, and stood back.

‘Everything's fine,' Elliot called out. He looked across at Moses and almost grinned for the first time that evening. ‘That's what he's doing here,' he said.

He stood up, stretched, strolled over to the pool-table. ‘James Ridley. He was a wrestler for a while. Had to stop. Killed someone, apparently.'

‘I believe that,' Moses said.

‘They used to call him The Human Mangle.' Elliot bounced the white ball on his palm, then sent it rolling up the table. ‘He used to sort of tear people apart and scatter the pieces around. That's what I heard. Fancy a game?'

Moses began to set the balls up. ‘Could be you've got the right man for the job, Elliot.'

‘Yeah, could be.' Elliot emptied the remains of the brandy into two tumblers. ‘You were going to ask me something.'

Moses broke first and put a stripe down. As he played he told Elliot about Gloria: who she'd worked with, where she'd sung, and so on.

Elliot interrupted him. ‘I know what's coming.'

‘Well?' Moses said. ‘Could it be arranged, do you think?'

‘Leave it with me.'

When Moses walked downstairs an hour later he heard whistling. Clear repeating notes that seemed to reach from the past and expect no reply. Like a prehistoric bird, perhaps. Something exotic, no longer alive. He passed Ridley on the way out.

‘That whistling,' he said. ‘Did you hear it?'

Ridley tilted the great rock of his face at Moses. ‘Yeah. It was me.'

His words weighed more than other people's. Boulders crashing down a mountain-side. Moses in their path.

Moses framed a silent oh and hurried away. Ridley could whistle like the ghost of a bird long since extinct and tear people into pieces as if they were paper. Ridley was dangerous. Very dangerous.

Definitely the right man for the job.

*

Moses woke to the sound of cheerful men delivering beer. He loved the clanking the metal barrels made as they rolled across the cobbled yard below. Sometimes the men whistled (tuneless whistling, nothing like Ridley's), sometimes they cracked jokes. This morning he could hear them swearing at each other. Short pungent phrases rose into the air like the smell of fresh bread.

From his bed he could see his new red telephone, installed by Elliot ‘for security reasons', and the previous night he had received his first incoming call. From Gloria, appropriately enough. She had invited him to a drinks party at her parents' place in Hampstead. Seven o'clock, she said. It was a long time since he had been to a drinks party (and he had never been to a drinks party in Hampstead), so he was looking forward to the evening.

He eased out of bed and leaned on the windowsill. The north side of the building stood in cool shadow. In the distance the Houses of Parliament lay wrapped in a blue haze like presents that were no fun because you could guess what was inside. It was going to be a hot day. One of those days when the city smells of dusty vegetation, when the roads glitter with the chrome and glass of passing cars, when businessmen sling their jackets casually over their shoulders and secretaries lie on the grass in public parks. He moved towards the kitchen. He lit the gas and put the kettle on. Then he walked into the bathroom. A warm breeze drifted through the open
window, tickled the hair under his arms, dropped a cellophane wrapper on the floor. He smeared his face with shaving-foam and reached for a razor.

And it was then that the pigeon landed on the window-ledge.

It immediately began to strut up and down as if it owned the place. Maybe it had once. Maybe it was one of the pigeons he had thrown out in April. Or maybe it was some kind of tourist pigeon who had got wind of that event and flown down from Trafalgar Square to do a bit of sightseeing. A snarl twisted his foam-bearded face. He put down the razor and picked up a bar of soap. He flung it at the pigeon. The soap grew wings and flew out of the window. The pigeon seemed to smile. Conspiracy of pigeon and soap.

‘Bird,' he shouted. ‘Bird, I need you.'

But Bird was probably far away. Sometimes he disappeared for weeks at a time. He was a free agent, no strings attached. He knew the city from rooftop to sewer, he knew its ins and outs, its ups and downs, he knew its fire-escapes, its skylights, its manholes. He stalked flocks of scavengers on the mud banks of the river, he raided the plush dustbins of Kensington and Chelsea, he slept in the warm air-vents of the West End. He would return with his ear torn and bleeding or a seagull's wing wedged between his blunt jaws, and Moses loved him for his nonchalance, his self-sufficiency. Yes, Bird was probably far, far away. Moses would have to deal with this alone.

He reached for the scrubbing-brush. Took careful aim. Let fly.

An explosion, a splash. The pigeon nodded, chuckled, casually took wing. A triangle of glass lay on the floor, reflecting the window it had once belonged to. The scrubbing-brush floated serenely in the toilet-bowl.

Moses examined the window. Only one pane broken. Well, he muttered to himself, at least it's summer, and began to sweep up the glass. He wondered whether he could get Jackson to invent some kind of pigeon deterrent, something that would blast the fuck out of them once and for all. He smiled as he finished shaving, dreaming of pigeon carnage.

The kettle boiled and he poured the water into his cracked brown pot. While he waited for the tea to brew, he went over to the phone. It was around ten. If he phoned Vince now, he might just catch him before he got out of his head. Vince didn't waste much time. Especially at weekends. He dialled the number. Somebody groaned at the other end.

‘Vince,' Moses cried. ‘It's a beautiful day.'

‘You bastard.'

Moses smiled. Even Vince's language seemed benign this morning.

‘Vince, part those filthy bits of cloth you call curtains and feel the sun beating on your face.'

‘I'll give you beating on your face, you cunt. You woke me up.'

Oh, sacrilege.

‘But Vince, you have to smell the morning air.'

‘Fuck the morning air.'

‘Well, all right. I just thought we could go out for a drink, that's all.'

‘Where?'

Give Vince credit. He could sort the wood out from the trees.

‘That pub next to you,' Moses said.

‘About twelve, OK?'

‘Yeah, but Vince, why don't – '

‘If you say another word about the weather, I'm going to bloody kill you.'

Moses smiled again. Vince's threats were always idle. Now if that had come from James ‘The Human Mangle' Ridley –

*

Vince was already standing outside the pub when Moses turned up a few minutes after midday. Both Vince's arms were bandaged from the base of his fingers to the crook of his elbow. He was struggling to light a cigarette. Eddie lounged against a nearby wall. He was wearing a three-piece suit and a pair of sunglasses. He was doing nothing to help. When he saw Moses he pointed to a bottle of Pils on the table.

‘I got you a drink.'

‘Cheers, Eddie.' Moses's throat was dry and he swallowed half the bottle before he put it down. He looked round for the inevitable girl. ‘Not alone, surely?'

Eddie nodded, lit a Rothman's. Moses raised an eyebrow. They both drank.

‘Nice suit,' Moses said.

‘I'm working today,' Eddie explained. ‘Got to be back by three.'

‘That's rough.' Moses jerked his head in Vince's direction. ‘What happened to him?'

‘Usual story.' Eddie flicked ash. ‘He got into a fight with a couple of windows.'

Moses sighed.

Vince moved closer, held his arms out for inspection. His fingers shook. They were stained bright yellow from the iodine. Blood had dried under his nails and embedded itself in the criss-cross creases on his knuckles.

‘Did it hurt?' Moses asked.

‘No,' Vince said. ‘Glass doesn't hurt.'

Moses hadn't realised that.

‘Not until afterwards,' Vince added, on reflection.

They laughed at that. Acts of self-destruction seemed to mellow Vince out. Afterwards he became tolerable, almost human. For a few days, anyway.

‘I had to take him to the hospital,' Eddie said. ‘It was two nights ago. I got back from Soho about half three. Cab dropped me off. When I walked up to the front door I saw it was open. Thought I'd been broken into. I went in and turned the light on. Everything looked normal. TV was still there. Nothing missing at all. Then I went into the bedroom. Vince was lying on my bed. Blood everywhere.'

Vince grinned at the ground. He was nodding as if to say, Yeah, it's all true.

‘He was a right fucking mess. Out of his head completely. Skin hanging off his arms in flaps. I had to phone a cab, take him to St Stephen's. Didn't want him bleeding to death in my flat.'

‘How did he get in?' Moses asked.

‘I bust the door down,' Vince said.

‘I'm going to get one of those metal doors,' Eddie said. ‘You know, like they have in New York. Next time he's going to have to find somewhere else to bleed.'

‘I'll smash the window,' Vince said.

Eddie gave him a steady look. ‘I'll move.'

‘I'll find you.'

‘I'll move so far away you'll bleed to death before you get there.' Eddie smiled and went inside to buy another round. The drinks were on expenses, he had already told them.

Moses looked Vince over, sighed again.

‘All this is mine,' Vince said. He pointed at the ground. The pavement around his feet was spattered with drops of blood, all the same shape but all different sizes, like money or rain. Some of them still looked fresh, a rich red; others had dried in the sun, turned black.

‘You must've been here a while,' Moses said, bending down. ‘Some of this blood's dry already.'

Vince grinned. ‘Sherlock fucking Moses. I was here last night.'

Moses straightened up again. ‘How many stitches did they give you?'

‘That's nineteenth-century stuff. They don't use stitches any more. They use tape.'

‘Tape?'

‘They tape the flaps of skin together. It's better than stitches. Doesn't leave a scar.'

Vince liked to be thought of as an authority. He took a pride in knowing things that most people weren't fucked up enough to know. He was like a veteran returning from a war that nobody had ever heard of. He told stories of action he had seen, he showed off his wounds, but if you asked the wrong questions he retreated into sullen silence. With Vince there was always some kind of war going on. Whenever he got angry or depressed, bored even, he would hit himself with some lethal mix of drugs and alcohol, and then he would go out and try and beat shit out of a brick wall or a truck or a football crowd, anything so long as the odds were impossible. He always came off worst, he always suffered. His wars were all lost wars. But he never surrendered. That was where the pride came in.

Eddie returned with the drinks. He had taken his sunglasses off, and Moses now saw the swelling around Eddie's left eye. The skin had a singed look: yellow shading into brown.

‘Christ,' Moses said. ‘Not you as well.'

Eddie put his sunglasses back on. ‘Somebody hit me.'

‘Why?'

‘He thought I was stealing his wife.'

‘And you weren't?'

‘I was just talking to her.'

‘Just talking to her,' Moses scoffed. Eddie never
just talked
to women.

‘All right, she read my palm.'

‘The love-line,' Vince leered from the shadows.

‘So you were holding hands,' Moses said. ‘What else?'

‘She asked me to dance.'

‘How could you refuse?' Vince said.

‘So we danced. I tried to, you know, maintain the proper distance, but– '

Moses snorted.

‘– but she held me close.'

‘And her husband didn't like it,' Moses said.

Eddie sighed. ‘Her husband was a rugby player.'

Smiles all round. The conversation drifted, becalmed in the heat, the stillness outside the pub. At quarter to three Eddie said he had to go. ‘What are you two going to do?'

‘Drink,' Vince said. ‘You got any money, Moses?'

Moses swapped a look with Eddie.