Starting Over (8 page)

Rufus shook his head. ‘They would never do that,’ he agreed. Eamon indicated the bed and my son sat down next to me.

‘You are the one holding the microphone,’ Eamon said. He looked around, snatched up a hairbrush, held it like a hand mic. He nodded at us. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Heckle me.’

Rufus grinned with embarrassment.

‘You suck,’ I told Eamon, with feeling that was not so hard to summon. ‘You really suck.’

‘What’s that?’ Eamon smiled. ‘Young man at the back? What was that, sir?’

‘You, er, suck,’ I repeated, more mildly now, and disarmed by the smile that was starting to split Eamon’s dark good looks. ‘What?’ He cupped a hand to his ear, almost laughing.

‘You…suck?’ I squeaked, and Eamon looked triumphantly at Rufus.

‘You can do that,’ he said. ‘Get them to repeat what they say. Chances are the audience didn’t hear it in the first place. Chances are they’re trying to impress some girl who will think they’re a moron by the time you get them to repeat it a third time. Or you can use a bog-standard comeback: “Listen, if you keep telling me how to do my job, I’ll come
to your workplace tomorrow and start abusing you just as you’re saying, Do you want fries with that?”’

Rufus and I looked at each other and laughed.

‘That’s pretty good,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Rufus said happily. ‘I could use that one.’

There was a pen and notebook by the side of his bed. He picked them up and scribbled something down.

‘Never panic,’ Eamon said. ‘Never get angry. Never feel fear. Never lose control. Never show weakness. Never show nerves. Visualise success at all times. Anticipate glory. Expect laughter – mad, uncontrollable laughter in your adoring audience. And if you get a hater – and you will – then remember that they have entered
your
world, and all you have to decide is their moment of total annihilation.’ He nodded. ‘Stand up,’ he said to Rufus, and when they were facing each other, Eamon placed his hands on my son’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. ‘They are not as funny as you. They are not as smart as you. They are not as brave as you – remember that most of all. There are no cowards on a stage, only in an audience. And promise me one thing…’

‘Anything,’ Rufus said quietly.

Their faces were very close now. Eamon was gripping his shoulders, demanding that he take this in. And I wished that my son would look at me that way sometimes. And I wished I could talk to him like that. And I wished I could hold him like that.

‘Promise me that you will never burst into tears,’ Eamon said. And then he smiled. ‘The audience may perceive it as a sign of weakness.’

They both laughed, and Eamon said, ‘Ah, come here, you big lunk,’ and they embraced each other like friends, like brothers, like father and son. And the feeling I had grew
stronger – that feeling of being grateful and jealous all at once.

And then Eamon’s face got deadly serious.

‘But above all there is one thing you must always remember,’ he said. ‘Everything will unravel if you forget this one thing. It is the key, it is the secret, it is the final piece of the puzzle. Forget this one thing and you place everything in danger.
And it is this
,’ Eamon said, just as there was a polite little knock-knock on the door and Lara came in with a tray of tea and Jaffa Cakes, smiling happily, and saying, ‘Is everything all right? I heard some shouting.’

Eamon’s pocket began to vibrate and he took out his phone. ‘Got to go,’ he said. He shook Rufus’ hand and wished him luck and thanked Lara for the offer of tea and Jaffa Cakes, and said to me, ‘It’s been a real pleasure being abducted by you, and I would love to stay chained to your radiator for a while longer, but there’s a car waiting outside.’

It was true. From the bedroom window I could see a big silver Mercedes idling at the kerb, the driver waiting on the pavement sneaking a cigarette as he waited for his semifamous passenger to emerge.

‘But what’s the one thing?’ I was saying. ‘The one thing that, if you forget, puts it all in danger?’

But by then Rufus was thanking him and Ruby was there and Eamon was turning on the charm as a means of escape. So the one really important thing – the key, the secret, the final part of the puzzle – got forgotten among the thank yous and goodnights.

And my family looked at our guest with affection as he took his leave, waving to him as he slid into the silver Mercedes, all smiles, all three of them, as if there was nothing waiting out there on the other side of luck.

They clapped me when I went back to work. All of them. The canteen cowboys and the ones with medals. The gangbusters and the pen pushers. I walked into the morning parade and they stood as one and put their hands together. The young and the old, the uniforms and the suits. The lean, hard and scarred, and the shiny-arse station cats with bellies like award-winning marrows. They all laughed and cheered and slapped my back. I hung my head and blushed and choked back the tears.

I had never loved them more.

Then I went up to the office, and when I was settled at my old desk, time just seemed to congeal. I had forgotten the mind-numbing monotony of processing charge sheets, witness statements and the edited highlights of police interviews. I had forgotten what it was like to feed the Crown Prosecution Service’s insatiable appetite for pointless paperwork. Or perhaps I had never realised it until now. But my chores seemed drained of all meaning, and my head reeled with the stupefying boredom of it all. How could this be
how I spent my day? My first day back at work would last for the rest of my life.

So I slipped away to a place that Ruby had introduced me to. It was like one of those web sites that will beam you to any address in the world, and your head spins with all the dazzling possibilities of life as you watch the planet turn, racing across oceans and mountains and deserts and cities and rain forests. This site was even better because it propelled you into outer space.

Soon the office had faded away and I was falling through the stars. I watched solar systems being born and planets dying. I travelled light years into the infinite blackness, only pausing for a cup of tea and a Jaffa Cake when I was staring at the remnants of Crab Nebula, a star that had collapsed one thousand years ago with the radiance of ten billion suns. Then I realised that someone was standing by my desk, and with a guilty touch of my thumb and index finger, I hit
quit.

Keith was standing there grinning at me, an unlit cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. He placed a brown paper bag from a coffee shop on my desk and it landed with a soft metallic clunk. I picked it up and was surprised at the weight. I glanced quickly inside at the dull oily gleam of the replica gun and then put the bag in my desk.

‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

Keith’s partner was waiting by the car. When he saw us coming he got into the back seat without being told, giving me a deferential nod of welcome. Keith got behind the wheel and gunned the engine. He knew exactly where he was going. When we were on the road he shook his head and gave me a wonky grin. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said. ‘Because I can’t believe it myself.’

We headed south. We crossed the river. All the tourist landmarks dropped away and we were suddenly in darker, shabbier streets. And then we saw him. Matted beard, tatty coat, and looking like a soup-kitchen Jesus. Exactly as I remembered him. Standing on a corner on Borough High Street, rocking back and forth as he had an animated conversation with himself.

Rainbow Ron.

‘But he had a bloody gun,’ I said to Keith.

‘No,’ Keith said, savouring the insanity of it all. ‘He didn’t have a gun. He had a toy gun. A replica.’

‘Didn’t they bang him up?’ I said.

‘He was sectioned under the Loony Bastard Act of 1814,’ Keith said. ‘Something like that. And later released back into the community awaiting psychiatric reports.’

‘History of mental illness,’ murmured the boy on the back seat. ‘Paranoid schizophrenia. Manic-depressive psychosis. Self-harm. Personality disorder.’

‘The whole raving nut-job package,’ sighed Keith, and he swung the car up on to the pavement, making Rainbow Ron look up with alarm.

‘And he hadn’t been taking his medication,’ said the boy in the back.

‘Stop,’ Keith said. ‘You’re breaking my heart.’

He kicked his door open and got out. Rainbow Ron had not moved. He stared intently at Keith, as if trying to place him. Keith took his arm and gently guided him to the back seat. The boy shuffled over. Then we were off again, Keith steering with one hand and moaning about the grime on his other hand, and telling us to open all the windows. He glared at Rainbow Ron in his rear-view mirror.

‘What a whiff,’ he said. ‘You should be bloody ashamed of yourself.’

Rainbow Ron sniffed the air once and declined to comment. He looked at me briefly and then turned away, his matted face impassive as the world slipped by.

We drove back to the river. Even now, with the Thames bordered by shining towers and fancy apartments, parts of the old London docklands somehow remained. Keith turned into a labyrinth of streets that snaked between buildings that had been abandoned decades ago, only to somehow miss out on the future. He put his foot down. He knew where he was going. He had done this before.

There was an old warehouse right on the river. There had been a padlock on the big doors but someone had sawn through it and one of the doors had been pulled off its hinges. Keith drove straight inside. It was dark, but spears of sunlight came through the shattered roof. There was a flurry of movement in the shadows and half a dozen hooded figures dashed for the door.

‘Little rascals,’ Keith said, and we all got out. I looked down at the sound of running water. Between the floorboards you could see the river, as grey as a battleship.

The boy went to watch the door. Keith stood facing Rainbow Ron, whose eyes were wandering to the ceiling. I saw the tail of a rat as it scuttled across a rafter. When the rat had gone, Ron looked back at Keith, just in time to see him throw the first punch – a short uppercut, Keith bending his knees for leverage and bringing his fist up like a shovel into Rainbow Ron’s midriff. With a shocked little gasp, he sunk to his knees. Keith took a step forward and pulled back his hand to hit him again.

‘No, Keith,’ I said, as Rainbow Ron looked up and Keith threw a left jab into the middle of his face, the snapping motion of his hand so fast it looked like he was catching a fly.

Rainbow Ron bent his head, like a man saying his prayers, a hand clutching his broken nose.

I went behind Keith and threw my arms around him and held him. He cursed me and struggled, sinking to drop his centre of gravity, and then pushing up to throw me off, slinging his head back, trying to nut me. But I didn’t let go. And I was stronger than him.

‘This is for you,’ he said, twisting his head sideways to look at me.

‘But I don’t want it,’ I said. And I let him go. He immediately aimed a wild kick at Rainbow Ron’s head, which just missed, and we had to go through it all again – me with Keith in a bear hug, Keith trying to headbutt me. Me telling him to stop. Keith telling me to fuck off. Locked in this mad waltz.

I let him go again and this time he didn’t attack Rainbow Ron. I put my hand on Keith’s arm. I wanted him to understand.

‘He’s sick,’ I said. ‘And giving him a good hiding won’t change anything.’

Keith furiously threw off my hand. He tugged at his jacket and then stuck an index finger in my face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re the sick one.’

Then he was off, the boy at the door falling into step behind him as he strode to the car. I helped Rainbow Ron to his feet and felt in my pockets for something to mop the blood streaming from his nose. But I had nothing, so Rainbow Ron bent his head, and delicately used his sleeve. At the sound of the engine I looked up to see Keith pulling away, as the boy leaned across cradling the flame of his lighter, holding it steady for the cigarette in his partner’s mouth.

I sat at my daughter’s computer, falling through the stars.

Ruby was at school. It was after nine, but her brother had yet to stir. I could hear Lara softly knocking on his door, calling his name. Perhaps he didn’t come home last night, I thought, as I sipped my tea and wandered through space.

I was travelling through Messier 101, better known as the Pinwheel Galaxy – a trillion stars, a billion suns and twice the size of our Milky Way. So there was plenty to look at.

I took a bite out of a Jaffa Cake, letting the giddy cocktail of dark chocolate, sponge and orange jam melt on the back of my tongue as I zoomed into the golden core of Messier 101, and felt my breath catch, and my Jaffa Cake dissolve.

Slowly, pulling back out, I shook my head with awe and wonder at the full, mind-boggling majesty of Messier 101 – a Catherine wheel of space dust, galactic gas and new-born stars, white and blue, looking like a sprinkling of heavenly frost as they spiralled and danced out into infinity.

‘Rufus? Are you up?’

I could feel her hesitate and then go inside, and even from the bedroom next door I could sense the suffocating fug of young manhood. Opening his door was like pulling off a giant’s sock. I caught the smell of ancient pizza and forgotten clothes and some terrible sweet perfume that he probably used to make him irresistible to women, or to kill flying insects. I heard him stirring under his tangled duvet as Lara pulled back the curtains.

‘You’re late again,’ she said, moving about the room, trying to restore order. I heard her throw open the window. And heard our son groan as the sharp morning air flooded the room.

I tensed, imagining him sitting up in bed, bleary-eyed and scratching himself, hair everywhere. Because I somehow knew what was coming.

‘I’m not going in today,’ he said sheepishly.

His mother said nothing. But I could feel her eyes on him. Waiting.

‘What am I doing wasting my time in school anyway?’ he said. And then the punchline. ‘Dad’s right.’

I took a deep breath. Before my eyes new stars were being born, and old suns were dying.

‘What is your father right about?’ Lara said, very quietly.

‘About everything,’ Rufus said, and I could imagine his eyes shining with belief, and I felt a surge of love for him that almost overwhelmed me. ‘About following your dreams,’ he said. ‘About being, you know, true to yourself. And sort of doing what you want.’

I waited for her to laugh. But Lara was silent.

‘You have to find something you love, don’t you?’ Rufus said plaintively. ‘What’s it all about if you don’t do something you love?’

There was silence. And then Lara spoke.

‘Get dressed,’ she said. ‘Go to school. Get an education. Get a job – get a bloody
job
, Rufus – and if you can pay your way in the world doing something you love, then I salute you, and I’m happy for you.’ She moved towards the door. ‘But save the I’ve-just-gotta-be-me stuff until you’re doing your own laundry.’

She left the room and shot me a look as she came past the open door.

‘You,’ she said. ‘I’m not even talking to you.’

And then she tripped over the jeans that had been left on the landing for someone to fall over. Oh, bloody hell, I thought.
Lara picked them up, went back into Rufus’ room and threw them at his head.

‘And if you are going to live in this house,’ she said, her voice rising, my little spitfire, ‘then show some respect and pick up your own bloody clothes, will you?’

I could almost hear Rufus scratching his head as he examined the crumpled denim.

‘But, Mum,’ he said, ‘these are Dad’s.’