Murderers Anonymous (39 page)

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light
.

For the first time in several years there was a subdued atmosphere at the table for the Murderers Anonymous Christmas dinner. Not since Malky Eight Feet tried to grab Jenny Four Stretchmarks' boobs over pudding in 1993, resulting in a free-for-all fist fight, had there been such lack of good-humoured revelry.

Around the table set for eleven, there were three empty chairs. And like a team with three players sent off before the end of the match, those remaining were merely playing out time until dinner was over. However, the night ahead in this blighted house, with creaks and noises and ghosts in every corner, did not invite anticipation.

Barney was on a roll and had his wish; a seat next to Katie Dillinger with the added bonus that the one on the other side was vacant, Arnie Medlock having not returned.

It was a huge round table, elegantly set by Hertha Berlin. Cutlery all over the place and more glasses than you could have claimed at an Esso garage in the late 80's. Around the table from Medlock's vacant chair sat Bobby Dear, Ellie Winters, a gap for Morty Goldman, Socrates McCartney, Annie Webster, Sammy Gilchrist, Fergus Flaherty and a gap for Billy Hamilton.

They had waited long for the missing men to show – the Three Wise Men, Sammy Gilchrist would call them after tasting the prawn cocktail – but eventually they had started on the repast and now, in subdued humour, the merriment of Bing and Frank having finally failed them, they munched their way through turkey and roast potatoes, wee sausages, stuffing, a bit of bacon, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

Hertha Berlin appeared as if by magic. Not too concerned whether all her food was eaten, for she knew the handyman would polish off anything that remained. Quite pleased, in her way, that there was not the sort of riotous behaviour she'd been expecting, but was nervous nevertheless.

This crowd gave her a bad feeling and the fact that three of them were missing and out of sight only served to heighten her discomfort.

'Is everything all right for you?' she asked the assembled company, while looking straight at Dillinger. At least Dillinger appeared a solid sort, she thought. Honest. She was not to know that Dillinger had murdered her first four husbands. A knife in the throat every time. The fourth one had cottoned on to the pattern, but too late.

'Aye, thank you, Mrs Berlin, it's fine,' Dillinger said.

Barney watched her lips. Pale, red and full. He could kiss those lips. Right here, right now. Lean the few inches across the table and, if his memory served him correctly, pucker up as if he was drinking a Bud Lite straight from the bottle.

There were a few other nods around the table; a few other comments came to mind, but they all restrained themselves. Except Sammy Gilchrist, released from the presence of Medlock and Goldman, who felt free to air his concerns.

'The prawn cocktail was shite,' he said, 'but the turkey's all right.'

Socrates McCartney laughed; Fergus Flaherty sniggered.

There were one or two embarrassed looks around the table. Hertha Berlin gave Sammy Gilchrist her best
Slow Train to Nuremberg
look, the light grey hairs on her top lip glinting slightly in the candlelight. Gilchrist did not wilt, however. Morty Goldman and Arnie Medlock may well have intimidated him but he could still stand up to an old woman.

Hertha Berlin gave it her best, then quickly marched towards the door when she realised the stare was getting her nowhere. Out she went, and the door closed behind her with a precise, Germanic click.

'That's 'cause I pissed in it,' she muttered under her breath, making her way back to the kitchen.

Back in the dining room there was an awkward silence, filled only by Bing Crosby, sleigh bells ting-ting-tingling away.

'I thought the prawn cocktail was nice,' said Barney to fill the silence. 'A hint of ammonia perhaps, but you get that with fish sometimes.'

'Tasted like pish to me,' said Gilchrist, and the conversation died away once more.

They stared at the table and listened to some pointless line about coffee and pumpkin pie. Good old Bing. The fire crackled; the Christmas tree sparkled in what, to be frank, was becoming an irritating manner; Ellie Winters blew her nose and was caught inspecting the contents of the hankie by a glance from Bobby Dear.

'Doesn't look as if there's going to be much shagging the night,' said Socrates to bridge the gap.

Another few embarrassed looks around the table. Ellie Winters and Annie Webster stared at their thick slices of roast turkey – covered in Hertha Berlin's own special gravy – and thought that just because Dillinger's boyfriend, the seemingly pubescent Hamilton and the mad Goldman had disappeared, didn't mean that there was not love to be made.

So Annie Webster murmured something to Socrates that no one else could hear, just to keep Sammy Gilchrist on his toes, and gradually conversation broke out around the table. Like smallpox. And each of the inmates reached for their glass, wine was drunk, and tongues would be made gradually more loose.

'You think they're all right?' said Dillinger to Barney, strangely the only person to whom she felt like talking.

Despite the Noddy thing, rather than because of it.

'Who?' said Barney, mind not on the job. Had been wondering whether Fergus Flaherty would suit a Victor Mature or a Tyrone Power '45.

'Arnie,' said Dillinger, slightly annoyed. 'And Billy, and that awful little man, Goldman.'

Barney turned to her, a small piece of cauliflower protruding from his mouth. All sex.

'Are you allowed to say that?' he said. 'You think wee Morty's awful?'

She frowned at him to keep his voice down and glanced around the table. No one had noticed, however, all conjoined in the old black magic of love. Or at least, no one appeared to notice.

'He gives me the creeps,' she said, dropping her voice a little farther. 'I mean, I know it does him some good to come to the group, and I'm afraid of what would happen if we kicked him out, but he gives me the creeps all the same. Can't like everyone, I suppose,' she added, forcing a smile as she said it.

Barney nodded. You can't dislike everyone, that had always been more his way of looking at things. Although there had been times in the past when he'd proved that adage wrong.

'I thought he was all right,' said Barney. 'A bit weird, but that doesn't single him out among this mob, does it?'

Careless words and again Dillinger looked round the assembled throng to see if anyone was listening, but once more her look was ignored and the idle chatter of romance shimmered around the table.

'I suppose not,' she said.

And so dinner progressed, on and on, through the turkey and on to Hertha Berlin's Unique Recipe Christmas Pudding with brandy butter, then the coffee and mints and mince pies.

Barney and Katie Dillinger got along fine, in a one-sided kind of a way, with one of the parties looking for love, and the other looking for absolution. Socrates McCartney decided to take up the fight and engaged Sammy Gilchrist in a battle over Annie Webster, using words as weapons, each trying ever harder to outdo the other with witty throwaways, intellectual debate, and lengthy discussions on the relationship between Titian and tubes; Fergus Flaherty and Bobby Dear, free of the mad intentions of Goldman, vied for the hand of Ellie Winters.

And every now and again, Annie Webster and Ellie Winters exchanged a passing glance.

***

'So,' said the minister, 'are you two young lovers married?'

Both Proudfoot and Mulholland had their faces buried in rabbit stew. Cooked with onions, garlic and mixed herbs in half a bottle of red wine. Slow-cook for four to six hours. Food of the gods. Drinking red wine with it, despite initial hesitation after the night before. All going down like a dream. Mulholland in his dead man's clothes; a pair of slacks, by God!, a sweater and comfy shoes which almost fitted. He could have been Ronnie Corbett. Proudfoot in her dead woman's clothes could have been June. From
Terry and June
, that is, not mad June Spaghetti, who'd murdered a family of fifteen in Kirkcaldy because they wouldn't let her take a short cut through their back garden.

'Not yet,' said Proudfoot, 'but we're going to be.'

Cast a glance the way of Mulholland as she said it, but he showed no reaction to the statement. Up to his neck in
Watership Down
rejects. Might have thought twice about digging in so readily if he'd known that the meal, while being initially prepared by the moderately kind-hearted Mrs Margaret Rolanoytez, had been finished off by a man who had murdered five people in the past week and a half. And that was not to mention Wee Magnus McCorkindale, whose death now seemed light-years away. Like the Star Ship Voyager or the one-pound gallon of petrol. Remember that? Bastards.

'Any day now,' said Mulholland without looking up, and Proudfoot examined the words and tone in search of sarcasm, but his head was buried in his food, shovelling away like Bart and Homer, and he appeared to be serious.

'Oh, lovely,' said the doppelgänging Reverend Rolanoytez, politely picking away at a small plate of stew. Here was a man who had had his fill earlier. 'Where's the service to be?'

'Don't know yet,' said Mulholland, during a convenient gap in the sprint between the plate and his mouth. 'Might go to Gretna.'

Proudfoot slammed food into her mouth at an almost equal rate. Impressed by Mulholland's seeming willingness to discuss their betrothal. One minute he was for, the next against. That was how it seemed.

Men...

'You don't want to go to that dump,' said Rolanoytez, with unusual vigour. Mulholland looked up at last, colour returning to his cheeks. 'It's for the English and the Americans.' He hesitated to instill the required impression of giving the matter some thought. 'I could marry you here. We've got a lovely church. Beautiful for weddings.'

They looked at each other and back to the faker. No doubt, there was God's light in his eye. A broad smile came to the vicar's face and he clasped his hands together.

'Oh, what a lovely idea,' he said, and the smile broadened. 'You know I was wondering what it was that brought the two of you here, because you know God does not do things for nothing. And now he has spoken. It is kismet, it is the work of the Lord. I must marry the two of you, that is your destiny. That is why God has brought you to me.'

They took a break from the Great Food Race. They looked at Rolanoytez, they looked at one another. The smile in his eyes was infectious. A kind man, wishing to spread the light of God into the hearts of others. Proudfoot could feel the tears begin to well up. Daft, but there you are; she always had cried at moderately emotional points in her life. Like during the final episode of
Blake's Seven
or when unknowingly spending half the day with her skirt tucked into her pants.

Mulholland looked at her and could see that emotion. Felt it too. Wanted to reach across the table and kiss those warm lips.

'All right,' he said, nodding. 'You on?'

Proudfoot smiled through the first tear that had formed. This was it, they were about to start planning their wedding. She'd found her Lancelot; her hero; her knight in shining armour, her Lothario; her recently divorced, verging on middle-aged, moderately psychotic, grumpy sod.

'Aye,' she said.

'Right, then,' he said. Turned to Rolanoytez. 'When are you free?'

Rolanoytez licked a small amount of potato from his lips. The smile returned, although this time with a devilish, or psychopathic, edge.