Runaway (36 page)

‘How d’you know that?’ Maurie asked.

Jack grinned back at him. ‘Cos it says “Me” next to the name.’ He scrolled down. ‘And here’s Jessica Burley. Bet that’s his wife. Or his mother, or his sister. Any of the above will do.’ He tapped to dial and handed the phone to Ricky. ‘Here.’

Ricky almost dropped it, juggling it in his hands as if it were red hot. ‘What?’

‘Just tell her where the car is.’

‘Me?’

They heard a voice answering, and Jack nodded encouragement to his grandson.

Ricky bared his teeth and raised the phone to his ear. ‘Mrs Burley? I . . . I don’t know if you’ve heard from Adam. But his car was stolen. Well, not stolen. Taken.’ Then he corrected himself again. ‘Borrowed.’ He winced at the voice in his ear. ‘Doesn’t matter who I am. The thing is, his car’s safe and sound, and it’s in the car park at London Gateway Services on the M1. We’ll leave the keys for him under the driver’s mat.’ And he hung up quickly, before she could respond.

The look he gave his grandfather would have curdled milk. But he couldn’t come up with words adequate to express his feelings. Instead he leaned over to drop the phone into the glove compartment and got out of the car.

‘Out!’ he said. ‘The sooner we get away from this damned car the better.’

He and Jack helped Maurie out of the back seat, then Ricky hid the keys, and they hobbled across the car park to the huddle of box-like buildings that housed the facilities, the metal tip of Jack’s walking stick clicking erratically on the asphalt.

Inside, they stood in the middle of the crowded concourse, looking around, feeling more than a little lost. They were so, so near to their goal. But without wheels, they might just as well still have been in Glasgow. People milled around them as if they weren’t there, and Jack had that sense of invisibility again. This was no longer his world. At some point, without his even being aware of it, the baton had been passed from one generation to the next. The past and present co-existing in the same space, but barely touching. The world he had known, populated now by others. Ricky’s generation, he supposed, and their parents. Although Ricky was as alien here as his grandfather. Too clever, too fat, his knowledge of reality scarcely extending beyond his bedroom and the virtual world of his violent computer games.

The names of all the commercial outlets around them were known to Jack, of course, but familiar only in name. Starbucks. Waitrose. Costa Express. A bewildering array of food and drink, newspapers, magazines, people, children, more people.

‘So what now?’ Ricky’s voice forced him out of his cloud of uncertainty, and he tried to clear his mind. But nothing came to him.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Well, we’re not stealing another car.’

‘No.’

Maurie’s voice, thin and reedy, cut above the hubbub. Once such a beautiful voice, Jack thought.

‘Where’s Dave?’

They looked all around, but there was no sign of him. He had been gone for ten minutes or more.

Jack said, ‘Better check the toilets.’

There was a constant stream of men coming and going at the urinals. But Dave wasn’t among them. Three of the cubicles were occupied. Jack raised his voice. ‘Dave, are you in there?’

No reply.

Ricky went off to search the shops and restaurants, while Jack and Maurie stayed in the toilets in case Dave showed up. Maurie leaned back against the wall by the dryer and closed his eyes.

‘Are you going to be okay, Maurie?’

Maurie slowly opened his eyes to look at Jack, and nodded. ‘As long as I make it through the day tomorrow. There’s somewhere we’ve got to be by tomorrow night.’

‘Where?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘Maurie, we’re taking an awful lot on trust here.’

Maurie stared at him through his misery. ‘It’s all I ever asked of you, Jack. That you trust me. Will you do that? Will you?’ He paused, then, ‘I’m sorry I hit you. I really am. It’s been on my mind.’

Jack’s smile was wry and touched by sadness. ‘Aye, for fifty years.’ Then, ‘I trust you, Maurie.’

Ricky returned after about ten minutes. He shook his head. ‘No sign of him.’

Jack sighed deeply. ‘Damn him!’ Then a worm of suspicion wriggled its way to the head of his queue of thoughts. ‘Wait a minute.’ He strode across the floor of the toilets. ‘That end cubicle’s been occupied the whole time we’ve been here.’ He rapped on the door with the head of his stick. ‘Dave! Dave, are you in there?’

There was a brief hiatus before Dave’s muffled voice returned to them. ‘Can a man no’ get five minutes tae himsel’?’

‘What are you doing in there?’

‘Whit dae ye think?’

‘Are you drinking?’

The silence that followed was laden with guilt before the denial. ‘Course not!’

Ricky looked at his grandfather, appalled. ‘Where would he get drink?’

Jack banged on the door again with the brass owl’s head. ‘Open up, Dave. Come on, open the door!’

Another hiatus, then they heard the bolt being pulled back and the door swung in to reveal Dave sitting on the toilet, three cans of beer in plastic wrap cradled in his lap, two empties on the floor and a third in his hand. ‘You’re just spoilsports, the lot of ye.’

Jack stared at him in astonishment. ‘Where did you get those?’

‘They were on the floor by my feet in the back of the car. Wasnae gonnae tell you. You’d just have chucked them oot the windae.’

Jack reached in to try to grab the remaining cans, but Dave wrapped his arms around them.

‘I’ve been good for long enough. We’re on a wild fuckin’ goose chase here, and nae bloody idea why.’ He glared across at Maurie, who hadn’t moved from his place beside the hand dryer. Then a sly smile crossed his face. ‘Anyway, I’ve earned them.’

‘How’s that?’ Jack wasn’t in the mood for forgiveness. Dave had promised to stay sober.

‘Oh, just caught sight of a wee notice oot there. Didn’t know this was a coach stop, did you? On the road tae London. Another one due in . . .’ he glanced at his watch, ‘aboot twenty minutes.’

Ricky expressed his feelings in a snort. ‘And we’re going to buy tickets with what?’

Dave laid his remaining cans carefully on the floor and stood up. With slightly unsteady fingers he pulled his shirt out of his trousers and rolled it up to his chest, revealing a thread-worn canvas money belt around his waist. He grinned. ‘Remember that? Saved us once, saved us again.’ Now he laughed at the look on Jack’s face. ‘What’s more amazing than the fact that I’ve still got the bloody thing is that I can get it roon my middle.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Aye, it’s called the alcohol diet. Keeps you skinny when you don’t eat.’ He paused. ‘How much have you got?’

‘Aboot a hundred quid.’

‘And when were you thinking of telling us?’

Dave raised his eyebrows indignantly. ‘I’m telling you noo, amn’t I?’

Half an hour later, the rumble of wheels on tarmac vibrated beneath them as their coach accelerated down the M1 towards what they would once have called the Big Smoke.

They sat again at the back of the bus. Dave had only one can of beer left, and Jack had been relieved to find that there was a toilet on-board. But for the moment, Dave was asleep, one side of his nose and mouth squashed up against the glass of the window, a tiny drool of saliva seeping from the near corner of his mouth.

Ricky sat beside his grandfather, his mood little improved. ‘So where are we going to sleep tonight?’

Jack shrugged. ‘No idea.’

Ricky sighed. ‘Great!’

Maurie’s clawlike old hand came between them from the seat behind, a slip of paper trembling in big-knuckled fingers. ‘Here,’ he said to Jack, urging him to take it. ‘Call this number.’

Jack unfolded the piece of paper and looked at the number. ‘Whose is it?’

Maurie managed the palest of smiles. ‘Who do you think, Jack?’

It was a moment or two before realization dawned, and Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’

Maurie nodded.

Jack handed the number to Ricky. ‘Call that number for me, Ricky, son.’

‘Who the hell is it you want me to talk to now?

But Jack shook his head. ‘Just dial the number. I’ll do the talking.’

_III

It was evening by the time their bus pulled into Victoria Coach Station, and drew in alongside a long row of buses. Late sunlight slanted in through the pitched-glass roof, casting the shadow of the white-painted iron superstructure that supported it across the tarmac below.

Jack had watched the city unpacking itself before his eyes on the other side of his window. Tall buildings and narrow streets choked with traffic. Pavements jammed with folk on their way home from work. Tree-lined avenues in spring bloom, swallows dipping and diving through the waning sunlight that angled its way between apartment blocks and skyscrapers. And it brought back very vividly that day fifty years before when they had arrived by train at King’s Cross and stepped on to the streets of London for the very first time. And there was still an excitement in it.

They were last off the coach, Dave still woozy from beer and sleep. And Maurie, it seemed, losing strength by the minute. Jack and Ricky helped him down the steps to the concourse. It was only when he turned that Jack saw Luke standing there.

It was a strange, heart-stopping moment. He had not set eyes on his friend since the day they parted at Euston Station. There had been no contact between them over the years. No letters, no phone calls. Not really surprising, since neither knew the other’s address or telephone number. But, then, neither had made the effort to find out. They might each have died that day, and yet here they were half a century later staring at one another across all the years in between. And Jack knew that he would have recognized Luke anywhere.

He was still tall and lean and boyish. His shock of fair curly hair was now a shock of white curly hair, but just as abundant. His face was deeply creased by the scars of time, but his pale green eyes were just as full of life and gravity as they had been when he was a boy. He gazed at Jack with unglazed affection. And Jack stood looking at him, almost overpowered by the unexpected wave of emotion that broke over him. How extraordinary, he thought, that the feelings developed during those few short adolescent years should have survived all the decades that had passed since. He stepped forward to shake Luke’s hand, but at the last moment put his arms around him and hugged him instead, feeling the strength of the other man’s hug in return.

When they drew apart, Luke’s eyes were shining. ‘You haven’t changed, Jack.’

Jack laughed. ‘And you should have gone to Specsavers. Or are you too vain to wear glasses?’

Luke laughed. But the lines of fondness and affection that creased his face quickly turned to furrows of concern when he looked beyond Jack to the feeble, failing figure of Maurie Cohen. ‘Bloody hell!’ The oath was whispered under his breath.

Jack glanced back, then lowered his voice. ‘He hasn’t got long, Luke. Maybe only days. Weeks at the most. I didn’t even know he had your number or I’d have called you sooner.’ Then he turned towards the others. ‘What do you think, boys? It’s Peter Pan! How come we’re all old farts now and he hasn’t aged a day.’

Luke laughed then, and stepped up to shake Dave’s hand. ‘Still got trouble with your piles, Dave?’

‘Oh, aye, they’re murder, Luke. Hanging in bunches, noo.’

Then he took Maurie’s hand and held it between both of his. His smile faded as he gazed into Maurie’s drug-fogged eyes. ‘I didn’t know, Maurie. You should have told me.’

‘And you’d have done what? Waved a wand and made it all go away?’ He chuckled. ‘You didn’t need to know, Luke. But I’ll be pissed off if you’re not at my funeral.’ He placed his other hand over the back of Luke’s. ‘Need your help before I die, though. We all do.’

‘Anything,’ Luke said. ‘All you have to do is ask. You know that.’

Then, almost as if for the first time, he noticed Ricky, who was hovering awkwardly in the background, as discreetly as his weight would allow.

‘My grandson,’ Jack said. ‘Rick. Sorry. Ricky. Don’t ever let on I told you, but I’m proud as hell of him.’ And he was embarrassed to meet the look of surprise that Ricky turned in his direction.