Driving Big Davie (Dan Starkey) (32 page)

'You don't have to explain, Davie. We're mates.'

'I know I don't, but I want to — because we are mates. The punk stuff was brilliant. Could have lived those couple of years together for ever. I went to see The Damned last year. Place was bunged with old punks. I stood at the back and watched this showband on stage, and in front of me there were hundreds of bald, fat heads. Punk's not dead, Dan, it's in late middle age.'

I sighed. He sighed.

'I could have been a good cop, but I never got the breaks.'

'And you probably pissed them off.'

He smiled.' There's that. And then peace broke out anyway. I always felt like I hadn't done my bit, do you know what I mean?'

'No,' I said.

'And what happened to you always annoyed me, was always in there eating away at me. When I heard he was out there, I had to do something. And I had to bring you with me, because it was about you.'

'No, you didn't. And I'd like to say I appreciate the thought, but it would sound like I'm thanking you for a crap Christmas present. I never wanted any of this. But it's done, Davie, it's over; we can both go home and try to forget about it.'

Davie shook his head.' I'm going back. Come with me.'

'No, Davie. I'm going home.'

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded abruptly. He climbed out of the car and walked round to open the boot. He opened up his bag, reached inside and took out his gun and a box of ammunition. He loaded the gun, then threw the rest of the bullets into the ditch.

'Can't do it with nine,' he said, 'then I can't do it at all.'

We stood awkwardly for several moments, then we moved forward together and hugged.

I kissed him on the cheek and said, 'You're a stupid fucker.'

He kissed me back and said, 'Takes one to know one.'

Then he turned and started to walk back towards town.

I was just getting back into the car when he shouted: 'Hey, Dan. Remember Karen Malloy?'

The fifteen-year-old girl from Groomsport. As if I could ever forget.

'What about her?'

'One night you went home early, I screwed her in the bushes.'

'I know,' I shouted back, 'I was watching.'

He was lying. So was I.

That was the last time I ever saw Davie Kincaid. A big lanky traffic cop with a gun in his shirt and gold on his mind.

I watched him in the mirror as he disappeared around the bend into Everglades City. I suppose he was a punk rocker right to the end. Anarchy. No respect for authority. And vaguely silly with it. I sat there by the side of the road, knowing I should get well away, but quite unable to move. I pushed buttons on the radio until I found Van Morrison again. He was still singing about the bright side of the road when the first gunshots rang out.

I waited another ten minutes, then started the engine and drove away. I made sure to stick to the speed limit, and indicated when I wanted to overtake. I wasn't taking any chances. I didn't think I had any left.

I didn't tell Patricia that Davie was dead. I said he'd decided to stay in America, that he'd met a girl, a doctor, and was going to settle down out there and raise goats. She said she was happy for him, but didn't ask for too many details; I think she knew I was lying.

She didn't even ask about The Colonel. She knew he was dead because it had eventually made the local papers, once his identity had been established. Michael O'Ryan had been murdered, nobody was arrested, it was dismissed as a drugs deal gone wrong. A reporter called her and asked if she wanted to comment on The Colonel's demise. She said no.

A week after I got home we went out for dinner. Patricia told me she'd met a woman in the library and they'd got talking and gone for coffee, and the upshot of it was that we had someone who was willing to act as a surrogate. She wouldn't do it for free, but she wasn't charging the earth either. We were going to have another baby.

I smiled and held her hand.

'It's good to have you back,' she said.

'It's good to be back.'

Only I wasn't sure if I was back at all. I returned to my job selling Ulster as the ideal place to live. At night I drank and listened to my punk records. To Joe and Joey and Johnny. I checked out the Everglades City newspaper on the Internet and read a detailed account of the fire that had destroyed the local police station and obituaries for the two police officers who had perished in it. There was no mention of a bank robbery or a lynch mob. In one edition under a headline
Home from Hospital
there was a photo of Michelle with a bandage around her head, blowing candles out on a cake. She'd been injured in a swimming accident, but was now making a full recovery with the help of her loving husband, DJ Turner. She would have had her arms around DJ, but she didn't have any. The rest of the initials, full of stomach and beer, were crowded into the back of the picture, their thumbs up, displaying massed ranks of crooked, stained teeth.

One night we went out for dinner with the surrogate lady. She was very nice. She worked as a publisher — had her own small company. She knew about me and had enjoyed some of the books I'd written. Perhaps I could write something for her? What about a travel book? I promised to give it some thought.

Four weeks after my return from Florida I drove down to Groomsport. I had been putting it off and putting it off, but it had to be done.

Davie's mum was pleased to see me. She ushered me in and made me tea and brought me biscuits and chatted away about the work she was getting done to the house and how she was taking a computer course at the tech and that she was thinking about learning to ride a horse, even at her advanced age.

She was putting a brave face on it. Neither of us had mentioned Davie, or the holiday. I had no idea how much he'd told her; she had certainly been very convincing in her distress over Davie being dropped just before his wedding.

Eventually I said, 'Mrs Kincaid . . . about Davie.'

She set her tea cup down and clasped her hands in her lap.'I know this is very awkward for you, Dan. There's always one gets left behind.'

'It's just . . . I feel terrible about it.'

She nodded sadly.'These things happen.'

'But . . .'

'It was his choice, Dan.'

I sighed. I could feel the tears starting to come.

'Dan. He sent me some photos from your holiday. Would you like to see them?'

I cleared my throat. I nodded. She crossed to a small bureau, opened a drawer and pulled out a padded envelope. I had a vague memory of Davie taking some snaps with a crappy disposable camera during the first few days of our vacation.

Mrs Kincaid opened up the envelope and handed the photos across. There were only four of them.' You really look like youse were enjoying yourselves.'

'We were.'

The first showed me lying by the pool in the Del Mar with a baseball cap pulled down over my eyes. My chest and shoulders were bright, bright red, but I was laughing.

I must have taken the second; it was Davie posing by our $500 car, arms folded, chest puffed out, Hawaiian shirt, and giving me the fingers.

The third was Davie with his arm around my shoulders, both of us grinning drunkenly. I had a vague memory of asking somebody to take it in a bar in St Pete. Back when we were just on vacation, before I had any notion of the death and destruction to follow. Whoever it was had left half of their thumb over the lens, but it was still a good picture. Sure, we were boozed up, but our eyes were bright. We had been friends, once, in Groomsport, two decades before, and we had become friends again in Florida. But it was an Ulster kind of a friendship, an unacknowledged one, one built on verbal abuse, sarcasm and huffing. Friendship wasn't about how often you saw someone, it was about how relaxed you felt in their company, about being yourself. We had, undoubtedly, been ourselves. Davie had been mad, unpredictable, frustrating and violent; he had also saved my life. I had been drunken, sunburned and when called upon to save his life, I had chickened out. He was a better man than me. No two ways about it.

I blew air out of my cheeks and moved to the final photo.

Davie, sitting in a bar with his arm around Dr Kelly Cortez.

This time I did wipe a tear from my eye. True love, snatched away. Mrs Kincaid came up, slipped a supportive arm around my waist and looked at the photo with me.

'They look so happy,' she said.

I nodded miserably.

'I always wanted to go to Mexico,' she said.' Don't suppose I'll get the chance now.'

I didn't know whether to correct her or reassure her that she was young yet.

And then I didn't do either, because I realised that the photo hadn't been taken in the Mountain View Bar and Grill. That the bar in the background was festooned with small Mexican flags. That Davie had had a hair cut. That there was a great whalloper of an engagement ring on Kelly's finger. In the bottom left-hand corner of the photo there were small digital figures showing the date on which it had been taken.

Less than two weeks before.

The son of a bitch had walked into the sunset, but instead of burning up, he'd walked out the other side with a girl on his arm, and judging by his choice of relocation and the sparkler on Kelly's finger, a huge amount of gold in his suitcase.

The fucking fucker.

'I'm so happy for him,' Mrs Kincaid said.' He says he's going to go travelling for a few months. She seems like a lovely girl. She's a doctor, you know. I always knew he'd meet the right girl eventually.'

I shook my head in disbelief, then smiled, and handed back the photos.

'So did I,' I said.

He was alive, and in love, and rich.

I drove back up to Belfast blasting The Clash out of the CD player.

Davie was alive, Joe was dead.

His music would live for ever, but he had moved to a different label. Davie had also moved on. Maybe it was time for me to shake up my life. Or at least my music. You couldn't always live in the past, because you only ended up trying to recreate it. There was bound to be fresh young rock'n'roll out there, it was just a question of finding it.

We were young yet. Patricia and I could still set the world on fire.

I burst into the house full of the joys of spring, able at last to tell my wife the truth about Davie's fate.

She met me at the bottom of the stairs. She was clutching our Visa bill in her hands. Her face was red and her eyes were bulging. This was not a good sign.

'Two thousand dollars,' she screamed, 'to Big Fuck Porn Websites pic?'

I swallowed.' It wasn't me,' I protested.' It was a thirteen-year-old boy.'

This did not help matters.