Fallout (4 page)

Luke bent down to peer into the car. The window squeaked down another inch.

‘You’re letting the bloody rain in!’ shouted the passenger, a young man, pale face, past the girl in the tiny car.

‘Well, he’s the one standing in it!’ she retorted. She sounded like a girl off the telly, clipped.

‘Get in then,’ barked the man, who couldn’t have been more than Luke’s age.

He got out, chin tucked down into his collar, and Luke ran round the car before he could change his mind and folded himself into the back, fighting with the lever for the front seat and dripping everywhere.

The man climbed back in, slammed the door, turned to Luke and held out a hand.

‘Paul Driscoll,’ he said. He was sandy, with short, forward-combed hair.

‘Luke Kanowski,’ said Luke and he had the impression, oddly, that someone was taking a photograph of them shaking hands, like Kennedy and Hoover, a flashbulb moment of a meeting, saying their names in the dry bubble of the car surrounded by the driving rain.

‘I’m Leigh Radley,’ said the girl rather crossly, not turning, so Luke couldn’t see her face just the memory of her eyes above the window. She put a hand over her shoulder and he held it for a moment and then drew his back, but not more quickly than she did.

‘Can we get on now?’ said Paul.

‘Don’t be so bossy,’ said the girl.

‘Where are you trying to get to?’ asked Luke.

‘A pub called the Bell Inn. D’you know it?’

Luke did know it: an old man’s pub known locally as the Bell End. It had none of the gathering feeling of the working men’s club; a disparately populated, dying place. Paul Driscoll pulled out a huge sodden map that had plainly been their unhelpful passenger; an enemy, torn and wrinkled.

‘HELL!’ he shouted and tried to fold it.

‘That’s a 1:25000 Ordnance Survey,’ said Luke.

‘What did you say?’ Paul looked round, surprised and aggressive.

‘You aren’t going to find your way around a town with a 1:25000 Ordnance Survey, are you?’

‘You can get out now,’ said Paul but didn’t mean it.

The girl said, ‘I told him,’ grumpy and quiet.

Paul rocked back and forth, moaning a bit. Luke laughed.

‘You’re well out of your way,’ he said, jiggling his foot up and down and beginning to enjoy himself.

‘Not exactly well lit, is it, your town?’ said Paul. ‘Like being down a bloody mine.’

‘Well, yeah,’ said Luke, ‘it’s better unseen.’

The girl revved the engine.

‘Sterling Moss,’ said Paul. ‘So, please, in your own time, Luke whatever-it-was, where is this pub or don’t you know?’

The girl’s hand flicked the indicator.

‘Go down here and turn right,’ said Luke, who liked them both. ‘Where have you come from?’

The girl, Leigh, started to drive.

‘Staying in Sheffield tonight, but up from London,’ said Paul, crushing up the map and shoving it down past his legs.

‘Why?’ asked Luke.

‘To meet someone.’

‘Who?’ asked Luke.

‘Why?’ said the girl, and Luke caught a glimpse of her eyes in the mirror.

‘Why what?’ said Luke. ‘Left.’

‘Why’d you ask who?’ she responded, turning and accelerating at the same time.

‘Left again at the end here. I was just wondering who you were going to meet at the Bell End. I wouldn’t come from Nottingham for it.’

‘The Bell End?’ Paul gave a snort of laughter but recovered his bad mood as soon as he could.

‘Which way?’ asked Leigh, easing slightly off the gas as the Mini careered towards a wall.

Luke wound down the window and put his face out into the rain to see. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘There’s Market Street at the end there, see? It’s past there. I can tell you the way. You can let me out here if you want.’

The girl jammed on the brakes and they skidded into the kerb. Luke banged his cheekbone on the window frame, metal and loose rubber.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Paul.

‘Or you can come with us, if you like,’ she said, still without turning. Her hair long and thick – dark – inches from Luke’s eyes.

‘Can he?’ said Paul, looking at her.

‘If he likes,’ said Leigh, looking straight ahead.

‘Well, it’s your bloody car.’

‘Thanks,’ said Luke, ‘I will.’

She started the car again and Paul shrugged. ‘I suppose he might still be there.’

‘Who?’ asked Luke.

‘Don’t bloody start that again.’

There was a slight movement in front and Luke thought that it was possible Leigh was laughing.

The Bell End was chilly and stank of sour beer. The three of them, fresh from the rain, stood in the doorway; the youngest people in the imaginable universe, straightening their limbs out from the Mini. The talk, such as it was, had stopped when they came in. The barman was very short, peering at them through the beer taps, and apart from an old man sitting at the black piano and hitting the same three sharp notes on and off between sips of his beer, it was very quiet.

‘Jumpin’,’ said Paul, pulling a packet of Strands from his pocket and going over to the bar as he lit one.

‘Evening,’ said the barman, expressionless.

Leigh stalked over to a table in the corner, ringed with glass-marks and a cut-glass ashtray heaped with fag-ends, and sat down. She didn’t look approachable so Luke hovered busily in the doorway for a while, until Paul said over his shoulder, ‘Drink?’

‘All right.’

‘Leigh?’

She shrugged. Paul, unable to interpret this, waited.

She glared at him. ‘No. Thanks.’

Luke went and sat with her at the table. Rocking slightly and rubbing his palms on his knees, he watched her as she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. She looked up.

‘What?’ she said, interrupted by his staring at her.

‘Who are we meeting?’ he asked.

Grudgingly, she held out the paper. It was very crumpled. Luke took it. It was warm from her pocket. It said in pencil,
Joe Furst, 7p.m., Bell Inn, Seston
. He handed it back as Paul came over with two pints and a small glass of something cloudy-looking for Leigh. He put the drinks down.

‘I got you a gin and tonic.’

She looked nonplussed. ‘But I didn’t want anything. Thanks.’

She had a strong face with wide cheekbones, high up, right under her eyes that reminded him of somebody, but he didn’t know who.

‘Well, he’s not bloody here, if that’s what you were wondering,’ said Paul.

‘Joe Furst?’ said Luke.

Paul jerked a thumb at Luke. ‘How does he know?’ he said to Leigh.

‘But who is Joe Furst?’ asked Luke.

‘He’s a writer.’

Luke hadn’t thought they were seeing a man about a dog but still he was shocked. The word
writer
coming out of Paul’s mouth. It was as if he were having a conversation he had dreamed, a moment he had lived, but forgotten. He had never, he realised, in his life heard anyone referred to as a
writer
before. He grew sharper, quickening, and tried to cover it, knowing he was sharp enough at the best of times for most people.

‘He’s a what?’

Leigh glanced at him briefly, sipping her drink.

Paul said, ‘A
writer
. Heard of him?’

His sarcasm bounced off Luke who smiled. ‘No. What are you meeting him about?’

‘A play he’s written.’

‘For what?’

‘For what? For the theatre. For fun. For money. I don’t bloody know. It’s a play.’

Luke’s mind was buzzing, too fast for comfort. He looked around the Bell End – took in the black piano, the peeling carpet, the derelict fireplace, the yellow walls and fake flowers in an earthenware pot . . . What would Joe Furst,
playwright
, be doing here? What in God’s name would he be doing in Seston and, if he was, why didn’t Luke know about it? Joe Furst. A bloody writer.

‘Why’d you want to meet him?’ he asked Paul. ‘What’s his play got to do with you?’

‘I’m a producer.’

At this bold statement Leigh cast Paul a look and then her eyes went down again to her lap.

Luke had an instinct for thin ice. The ground beneath his own feet was too fragile not to have a good sense of other people’s weaknesses. He could tell Paul didn’t want to say anything else.

‘Are you an actress, then?’ he said to Leigh instead.

‘No.’ She looked bored, angry to be asked, and Luke was surprised; most girls were pleased if you asked them that. Paul looked at him as if to say,
See what I put up with?
And shook his head. Luke couldn’t work out if they were together or not.

‘So what’s in Nottingham, then?’ he asked Paul. ‘Been to the Playhouse? Did you see
The Resistible Rise
?
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
?’

‘Yeah,’ said Paul.

‘Was it good?’

‘What you asking me for?’

‘I didn’t see it,’ said Luke.

‘Right.’ Paul squinted, trying to get the measure of him.

‘
Othello
?’ Luke ploughed on. ‘Last year?’

‘I thought they fucked it up.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, Robert Ryan’s just a movie star,’ said Paul. ‘What did you think?’

‘Didn’t see it. Read it.’

He could feel Leigh’s eyes on him.

‘
Oedipus
?’ Paul asked him.

‘Didn’t see it,’ said Luke. ‘Read it.’

‘Read it?’

‘
Oedipus Rex
? Yeah. A few times . . .’

‘It’s
Nottingham
,’ said Paul, gesturing over his shoulder as if the city were just there in the street outside, ‘it’s not Broadway.’

‘Well, I – I’m busy.’

‘Busy doing what?’

‘I work in the office at the paper mill.’

Paul nodded, respectfully. ‘Ah.’ He picked up his drink.

‘And nights in a place up the road sometimes.’

Paul nodded again, and sipped his pint.

‘I mean, it’s not all that easy to get away.’ There was silence. ‘I’ve got the programmes,’ Luke said, unable to stop himself.

Leigh’s eyes, again, flicked up at Luke and away. Paul said, ‘You what?’

‘I’ve got the programmes. From the last two seasons at the Playhouse.’

‘Serious?’

‘Yeah. And I’ve got the reviews. I save them. I sent off for the programmes. The plays too, if I can.’

‘You never,’ Paul said softly, but without mockery.

‘I do. They’re bringing back
Volpone
,’ said Luke. He cleared his throat. ‘I heard.’

Paul smiled slightly. ‘It’s
Volpone
,’ he corrected him, ‘like pony.’

‘Is it? Thanks. I’ve only ever seen it written.’

‘Excuse me.’ Leigh got up, suddenly, and went off towards the Ladies.

‘I don’t think our Mr Furst is probably coming,’ said Paul. ‘Or else he’s been and gone. There’s a phone over there; I’ll try his number.’ He began to search his pockets for change.

‘
Thebes, city of death
,’ said Luke and Paul, startled, looked up.

‘
One long cortège
,’ said Luke, warming to his performance, and the shrivelled man at the piano ceased his one-finger playing to turn and watch him with rheumy eyes ‘. . .
and the suffering rises. Wails for mercy rise
,
and the wild hymn for the Healer blazes out, clashing with our sobs
.’

Paul stared.

‘Seston!’ said Luke, more loudly. ‘
City of death! One long cortège. And the suffering rises. Wails for mercy rise, clashing with our sobs.
’ He stopped. He could have gone on – he could have done it in Greek – but he checked himself with an effort that made him blink.

There was a silence. Luke tapped his foot.
Oedipus
running across his mind, biting his tongue to stay quiet.

‘Someone said Pink Floyd played a gig in Seston,’ said Paul; ‘it can’t be that bad.’

‘It was at the club where I work. I was there.’

Paul’s face broke into a huge grin. The solidity of his face, prematurely manly, relaxed into boyishness. ‘Seriously?’ he said. ‘You were there?’

‘Last March. They probably fired their manager after, for booking them there. Syd Barrett probably
left
because of Seston.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Paul. ‘And all that
moaning
. Thebes my arse. Hang on a minute.’ He got up.

He went to the telephone, pulling coins from his pockets. Leigh came out of the toilet and stood next to Paul as he dialled.

Luke looked at the two of them.
I know you
, he thought,
you’re my friends
.

Paul listened for a while as Leigh stood, her hands in her pockets, reading a bill posted next to the phone on the wall; something about a circus, a broad fan of red and orange, and then he put the receiver down and shook his head.

‘No answer,’ he said, and they came back to the table.

Paul downed the rest of his pint. ‘We thought we might get something to eat, if there is anything. Want to come?’

Luke nodded and got up fast. ‘There’s chips up the road,’ he said, ‘or we could go to Parker’s.’

‘Parker’s?’

‘Parker’s Pies,’ said Luke, as if they should have known, and they left the pub together.

Earlier that evening, before the three of them met for the first time, Leigh Radley and Paul Driscoll in her Mini had chased the rain clouds towards Seston.

Paul busied himself with the map, wondering how to please this quiet and apparently assured young woman as she sped heedlessly past the factories and chimneys and into the dank and blackening landscape, making no effort to please him, as far as he could see, except the fact of her presence.

Paul owned a three-year-old Ford Anglia that up until then had not let him down. Leigh was doing the props on a student production that he had just seen and they met in the Union bar afterwards. He had Joe Furst’s typed manuscript in his pocket and gave it to her for a second opinion, and to pay her the compliment of asking.

She left it two days before she rang him at his bed and breakfast and pronounced it, ‘Not bad.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he said and asked her out for a drink.

When they met at the bar, she asked for a pint. Paul had nearly fallen over in shock and had to stop himself from laughing at her as she drank it. It just looked unnatural to him, her woman’s hand around the glass. And she seemed so bad tempered.