One of Us (23 page)

“It is only me,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. “Was nodding off.”

“It’s OK. Sleep if you want to.”

“Just for half an hour, maybe.”

He was asleep before I had put my bag down. I made a sandwich with some bread and a piece of ham and I ate half and left the other half for Sean. I had a whole pot of yoghurt, because I had two of those, and I peeled a battered orange and counted out the segments. Then I sat on the floor, and I dozed myself.

When Sean woke up he rubbed at his eyes and stretched and said, “That hurts. How long was I asleep?”

“Hours. But it’s OK.”

He staggered over to the sink, and splashed water over his face. “Good job there isn’t a mirror here,” he said.

“Very good job,” I said.

“Oh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Is this for me?”

“Yes, I have eaten, it is for you, all of it.”

Sean gulped the can of coke down, and then ate as if he had not seen food in days. I wondered if this was true. He sat back when he was finished, and grinned at me.

“What?”

“Something I’ve been thinking about. While I’ve been away.”

“What?”

“I wanted to find the right time to do this. But I dunno when the right time would be, and now with what you’re telling me about your...your status...”

“What? So tell me.”

“When this is over. When we find a way through it. Marry me.”

I stared at him, but he was not laughing.

“Marry me.”

My face must have been funny, because Sean looked at me and laughed. “It doesn’t have to be, you know. Like a real marriage, where we...but you can marry me, we’ll live together for a bit, just look like a proper couple, so you get to be legal, and then after a while you can do what you want. It does work like that, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, Sean,” I said. “I do not know what to say.”

“Well there’s a first.”

Thank you, I thought, for making this a moment like we are just sharing a joke, talking about something funny, because I do not know what to say, I do not even know what to feel. It was the sweetest thing that anyone had ever done for me.

But it was also more than that, and it scared me. Because I felt like saying yes, sure, let’s, and let us not make this just a plan to fool some bureaucrats so we can get a piece of paper. Let’s make it real. Because there is you Sean and there is me, and we are not like normal people, so maybe we belong with each other. We will argue over things, and our broken pieces do not fit well together. But maybe they fit a little, and maybe that is enough. If I wait all my life to be swept away, I might find no-one. Or be swept away, and then find that he is another Daniel. Maybe what we have is enough. But I do not know. Maybe it is not enough. I said none of this. Instead, I said, “Is there not supposed to be a ring?”

Sean looked around on the floor, and found the ring-pull from the top of the coke can. He knelt down and held it out.

“All I got,” he said, and suddenly all of the laughter was gone, and there was nothing between us but the truth.

I took it from him. “I do not know what to say.”

“‘I will’, is kind of traditional.”

“You are so sweet.”

He shrugged again, did not trust himself to speak.

“But I do not know...” I wanted to say that if I could not do this for real, he would find it so difficult if we lived together, all the time, and he had to pretend that I was his, but I was not. I was scared of what that might do to him. And I did not know if I could live like that either. It would be so easy, one evening, just to do something that felt right then, but which changed everything. How could I do that to Sean if I was not sure? And was I not sure? I did not know. I did not know anything. Maybe time would let me get straight in my head all my thoughts about everything. But that would take time. I put the ring-pull into my pocket.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Just an idea. If you want. Get married. If you don’t, we won’t.”

The door to the boiler room opened.

“Aw, bless,” Daniel said. “Sweet.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“You—” Sean said and he stepped forward, and Daniel raised his arm and there was a gun at the end of it.

“Back off, nutter,” Daniel said. He swayed from side to side, the muzzle of the gun making little circles in the air. I could smell the stink of drink from where I was. His face was a mess, dark bruises under his eyes, his nose swollen and bent.

“Daniel,” I said.

“Didn’t think I’d find you here,” Daniel said. “Came looking and you weren’t in. But a little bird upstairs told me where to find you. Tell the nutter to stand in the corner. Now.”

“Sean. Do what he says.” Sean stood where he was. It seemed like the longest time in my life, and no time at all, all at once. Then he took a step back, and then another, and stood in the corner by the boiler.

“Daniel,” I said again. “Please.”

He laughed, and waved the gun in my direction. “Oh, it’s please now, is it?” He made his voice like that of a little girl. “Pwease, Daniel. Pwetty pwease”. Then he laughed again, sniffed, wiped his face with the back of his free hand, and looked at me.

“I want it,” he said.

“What?” Sean said. I was quiet, because I had thought that Daniel was talking about me, and I thought no, you will have to shoot me first, and I know that you will have to shoot Sean before me.

Daniel made a idiot’s face. “The rent money. Next week’s lottery numbers. What the fuck do you think I mean? The tape, or whatever the fuck it is. Give me it.”

When I was in my late teens, there was a craze for those pictures that were dots, but when you stared at them for a long time you could see a boat or a tiger. Every shop sold them. I could not see anything, not for the longest time, and I got nothing but a headache. Then one day, I was looking through second-hand textbooks in a bookshop, and I looked up, not looking at anything, just thinking my thoughts, and there was one of those pictures on the wall and I saw it straight away, a Mickey Mouse. I remembered this moment, even though Daniel was pointing a gun at my face. I remembered this moment now, because like then, everything suddenly made sense without me even trying.

“It was you,” I said. “At the squat. You were the person who was there before me, looking for Sean.”

“Got to be up early in the morning to be ahead of Daniel,” he said.

“All that time,” I said. “When you were helping me to look for Sean, when we went to Tessa’s, all the time, you were lying to me. You just wanted to find Sean so you could get the recording.”

“You just worked that out?” He sniffed again, like he had a cold.

“You betrayed me, for money.”

Daniel laughed again. “Listen to her. Betrayed. Jesus. Grow up, Anna. Anyway, it wasn’t for the money. This is where I’m smart. You, you think you’re fucking smart, but this is where Daniel knows more than you ever will. It’s not for money, it’s to get me where I want to go. I’m going to give it to Lomax, for nothing. Get in on his side, so when Corgan’s gone, he’ll remember that. He likes loyalty, does Lomax. I’ll be right in there, trusted. Like I always told you, moving on, moving up.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “And you tell me to grow up? You think Lomax will trust you, when you have betrayed Corgan? You are stupid, Daniel, stupid, and it is why you will always be what you are, a little boy on the outside, feeding off the scraps that the grown-ups throw you. Lomax will never trust you.”

He frowned, shook his head. “What do you know? Fuck all.”

“Enough,” I said. “I know you.”

“Give me the tape.” Daniel was not sure who to point the gun at, me or Sean. “Just give me the fucking thing.”

Sean held his hands out. “There is no recording.”

“What do you mean? Look, don’t piss me around, give it to me.”

“Do you want to tell him Anna, or shall I? There never was a recording. Elena didn’t switch it on properly.”

“You’re lying,” Daniel shouted. “Give it to me.” He held his arm out, pointing the gun at Sean. “Give me the tape.”

Sean shook his head. “Wouldn’t if I could. But I can’t. There is no recording, Daniel. Guess you better kiss goodbye to your little fantasies about being Lomax’s bestest fwiend.” He imitated Daniel’s little girl voice.

Daniel stepped forward, lifting the gun as if to hit Sean but then he came to a stop, grinned, and turned slowly on his heel. The barrel of the gun moved across the room, from Sean, and then stopped when it got to me.

“And one more time,” Daniel said, not shouting any more. “Give me the recording.”

“If you harm a hair on her head, I’ll kill you,” Sean said.

“No you won’t,” Daniel said. “First because you’re a sackless coward, and second because I’ll shoot you. Give me it.”

“I can’t,” Sean said. “Don’t have it. Never had it. It doesn’t exist.”

“Stop pissing me around. I’ll do it, you think I won’t do it?”

I took a step forward, then another. The gun was only six inches from my face now. It wobbled in Daniel’s hand. “Yes,” I said. “I think you won’t do it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Daniel said. “All you ever were was my ticket onwards and upwards.”

“It is nothing to do with me,” I said. “I know that you will not do it because of you.”

“Because I’m too nice,” he sneered.

“No. Because you are too weak.”

“Anna,” Sean said, his voice urgent. “Anna.”

Daniel did not say anything, just looked at me, twisted his lip. I shuffled forward, until the gun was describing its little circles right in front of my eyes.

“Anna,” Sean said again. “Don’t push him.”

“What he said,” Daniel muttered. “Don’t push me.”

“There’s nothing to push,” I said, and I leaned forward a little, so that the barrel pressed into my forehead. Daniel took a step back.

“Don’t make me do this,” he said. “Just give me the recorder.”

I stepped forward again, felt the metal rough and cold against my skin. He stepped back again. I moved forward.

“Stop it,” he shouted, sounding desperate. “Just give me what I want. I will, I’ll shoot you.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You won’t.” And I slapped his hand with the gun, slapped it hard, and the gun dropped to the floor, and I punched Daniel right where his nose was still bruised and swollen from Corgan’s blows. I think at that moment he would have shot me if he could, but the pain bent him over and froze him for a moment and he could not pick up the gun, and by then Sean had crossed the room in two quick strides. He kicked Daniel in the face, and Daniel jerked upright, the back of his head hitting hard against the boiler with a sound like a mallet hitting wood. I bent and scooped up the gun. Sean stood ready, fists cocked, but Daniel slid down the boiler, his face streaming blood, and he huddled in a little heap, like a pile of unwashed clothes.

I stepped back, took a breath. It felt like I had not breathed for a long time.

Sean stepped forward and kicked Daniel hard. The heap shuddered and moaned.

“Sean,” I said.

He kicked him again. Harder this time. He drew back his foot again and I walked in between them and said, “No.”

“After what he did to you,” Sean panted.

“I know,” I said. “But that is what makes us different.”

Sean glared at me, and for a long moment it was not Sean at all, and I did not know the man that I was looking at. Then something went out in his eyes, and the Sean that I knew came back. He straightened up and took a step back. He nodded. I knew that it was not easy for him. I knew that it was not easy, because I held Daniel’s gun in my hand, and for just a moment or two the thought had come into my head that it would have been no trouble at all just to lift a little, point a little, squeeze a little, done. And just for a moment or two, my hand had shaken, as if it wanted to do it all on its own.

But I did not. That is what made me different.

“You’re madder than me,” Sean said, but he sounded like a man who was saying something nice, not an insult. “He could have shot you.”

I shook my head. “Not Daniel. If he was the kind of man who could have shot me, just like that, he wouldn’t be the little boy running around tugging on Corgan’s coat. He would be one of his men. But he is not, because Corgan knows that he is weak. And I knew that he was weak. Get up, Daniel.”

The heap shivered and stayed where it was.

“Get up or I let Sean do what he wants to do to you.” I walked over to the heavy door that led to the back alley behind the hostel, unbolted it, and dragged it open.

Daniel pulled his limbs in close to him, wrapped his arms around his head. “Feel sick,” he said.

“Get up.”

He slowly wobbled up. His face was a mess, a mask of blood and snot. He staggered, grabbed the door frame to stop himself falling. “Dizzy,” he said. “Need a doctor.”

“My professional opinion, based on all of the evidence is, you will live. There, you have been seen by a doctor, now piss off.”

“I can’t stand, I’m dizzy.”

“Sean, feel free—”

“Fuck off man, I’m going. Bitch.”

Sean moved forward, but he was looking at me, and I shook my head. I did not care what Daniel said. I knew that he would get braver the more he moved away from us. That was Daniel. By the time he reached the end of the street, he would be a lion.

He hesitated at the door. “Not my gun,” he said. “Rented it.”

Sean laughed. “You think we’re going to give it back? Piss off.”

“Nutter,” Daniel mumbled, staggering through the door. “Bitch. Deserve each other.”

“Daniel,” I said, before he went. “One last thing. If Corgan finds out that Sean is back, I tell him why you came here today.”

“Think he’d believe you?”

“Yes,” I said. “He knows what you are like.”

Daniel muttered something else and made his way down the alley. Sean stood in the doorway, watching him. When he was certain that Daniel had gone, he came back in.

“Are you going to put that fucking thing down?”

I looked down at the ugly thing in my hand, and then I laid it down, very gently, on the top of the sink. “Is it real?” I asked.

Sean shrugged. “Asking the wrong person. Looks it. Christ, what are we going to do with that?”

“Shoot people,” I said, and he looked at me hard to make sure I was joking. And I was. Mostly.

“We could throw it in the river,” he said, bending down and looking at it without touching it.

“No. We should hang on to it for a day or two. Just in case.” If Kav or one of the others found us we’d have no choice. With luck we would not have to use it, just point it. But Kav was not Daniel, and anyone else that Corgan would send was not Daniel either, and just pointing it might not be enough.

“He’ll tell him,” Sean said. “That wanker, Daniel. He’ll tell Corgan about me. Or find a way of doing it.”

“I do not know if Daniel will tell him or if he will not,” I said. “He is scared of Corgan. If Corgan knew that Daniel was going to pass information to Lomax...he wouldn’t think twice about killing him.”

“Maybe you should tell Corgan,” Sean said. “I’m serious. Then he’d get what was coming to him for touching you.”

I shut my eyes, shook my head. “I cannot.”

Sean pursed his lips, made a face as if he had tasted something sour. “Still feels like he gets away with it.”

“I don’t think so. Not in the long run. All Daniel wants is to be something. He has got a long life to live, knowing every single day that he is nothing.”

“I’d rather he had a short life to live,” Sean said. “We need to get out of here.”

He was right. So we did.

~

We sat on our scribbled-on bench in the park. There were still no ducks in the pond. The sun was almost gone from the sky, and the shadows of the trees were being eaten up by the dusk. Now and then people walked dogs, or jogged through the dog shit. Normal lives, just going on all around us. We were just two scruffy people on an ordinary bench, in an ordinary park. The weather was not one thing or the other. I felt as though the world should look different, be changed by the drama of our lives. But it did not. It just went on the same.

I could feel the heavy weight of the gun in my coat. Or the weight of it in my mind. I was not sure. No matter what I had said to Sean, I knew that Daniel would find some way of letting Corgan know that Sean was back, that he was with me. He would not do it himself, he would be too scared, but he would tell Paul, or someone else. There would be a way. And once Corgan knew that Sean was back, and that he was with me, it would all be over. I could not let that happen to Sean.

There was another way. If I followed it, things would be all over, but in a different way. One that would not be so good for me, but would at least save Sean. I do not know why I said if I followed it, because there was no if. It was the only way. Life had been many possibilities, once upon a time, with many choices to make. All that had happened over the last few days had taken away those choices, one by one. And now there were none left to me.

“We ought to look for this room,” Sean said. “If we’re going to rent one.”

“We will live in luxury for one night,” I said. “We will stay in a hotel tonight. A cheap one, maybe the cheapest one, but a hotel all the same. We can look for the room tomorrow.” But tomorrow everything will be different, I thought. And you must not be with me. “Here,” I said, and I held out the money that Peter had given me. Sean looked at me, puzzled.

“You look after it,” I said.

“OK,” Sean said. “And why?”

“I just feel better if you do,” I said. “Does there always have to be these questions? Anyway, it is your job to go and find us this hotel.”

Again the look. “Are we not going together?”

“No,” I said. “I have one last thing that I have to do. I have to see Alice, who lives with me. I have some information she needs, and I want to say goodbye to her too.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sean said. “Then we can go look for the hotel together.”

I shook my head. “What I have to see her about is...she won’t want you there. No offence. It is...women’s things. Yes.”

Sean shrugged. “I’ll wait outside.”

“No,” I said, and I was annoyed because he was making this much more difficult than I wanted it to be. “I do not need a bodyguard, and if you are seen, all this is for nothing. Why can you never do as I ask you, Sean? It is just a simple, little thing.”