The Longest Fight (29 page)

H
eadlight beams diluted by the glowing lamps of Oxford Street, a hundred setting suns hanging in the fog. Jack turned off the road. He climbed out of the old Morris Oxford: rusted around the window frames, rainwater pooled on the roof. It didn’t look as if it could make it across the river, but there they were, hidden behind row upon row of bricks, black with dirt. Pearl stared up at the building. Scaffolding stretched high out of sight, thin poles laced like a spider’s web. A black Ford van was parked in front of them with its wheels on the pavement. The rest of the street was empty; only a stray dog raised its head, eyeing them from the alley opposite.

‘Better hope they’ve done with their little job, because he’ll be in trouble if I get hold of him.’

‘How do you even know about it, Jack? Don’t tell me – that’s another one of your secrets.’

‘I can’t do nothing right, can I?’

‘Frank wouldn’t do something like you said.’

‘When you want something bad enough, you can furnish yourself with a thousand reasons why it ain’t wrong. Now wait here.’

‘No.’ The word ricocheted off the wet tarmac.

He stepped backwards into a puddle, the place full of them. ‘I ain’t playing. Stay by the car.’

Drips from the scaffolding planks thumped on to Jack’s head; wind rattled the winches and rigging ropes. He swiped a hand across his face, flicking drops to the floor. Maybe this was exactly what Pearl needed, to realise that Frank was a waste of muscle and Jack was right about everything. He
pushed against the glass doors, stepped over a broken lock; a dustsheet brushed his face, and he swallowed a yelp. But it wasn’t black inside as he’d expected. The lights of Oxford Street formed gluey pools at the front of the building; counters covered in white sheets blushed like cold milk. The windows were covered over with brown paper, but a gap ran along the bottom, and legs walked past outside. They couldn’t see him: the space was three times the size of the gym. If Jack had left Frank to the booths he wouldn’t be there now shivering in his coat and no hat, slinking around like Mrs Bell’s cat. He should have locked Pearl in her room and waited up for Frank with his dad’s old leather belt.

He patted his arms across his chest; nothing else moved on the ground floor and he picked his way through packing boxes towards a side staircase. Flecked concrete steps, air chilled to the level of a morgue. Jack’s teeth started to chatter, he tensed his jaw as if for impact. Someone was up there; streaks of lightning glanced across the steps. He went up on tiptoe to muffle the clack of his shoes. Everything in the stairwell was stripped smooth as boiled bones; his hand slid along the polished wooden banister. Voices filtered down, low like the rattling of windowpanes as buses passed. Jack took the steps two at a time. A distorted double echo followed him up. Stacks of planks and pots of paint littered the landing; the smell of white spirit caught at the back of his throat. Pale beams like early morning sun striped the floor; Jack stepped out. The lights vanished. Blackness so thick it felt like the floor was bouncing under him. He groped for something to hold him up; before he found balance he was caught in a circle of white.

‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ Spider’s voice came from behind the torchlight.

‘Jack?’ Frank’s voice sounded further away.

Jack squinted into the bright beam, but more footsteps came up behind him on the stairs. No time to twist the torches off. Pearl rushed out, kicking a tin of paint that rolled over the floor.

‘Frank, it’s me.’

Frank’s torch flashed across the ceiling and walls. Patches of light sliced through the darkness like blades: cutting open empty cabinets, stacked boxes, covered clothes rails. He let it settle at his feet, his face still hidden. Jack blocked Pearl’s way, and the light scattered around him.

‘Could have been the night watch up here. What you playing at, Pearl? He’s here – happy? Now let’s get going. Frank, get down them stairs.’

Frank aimed the light at Jack’s face. ‘You can’t tell me what to do no more.’

‘It ain’t me you’re in trouble with.’ He held his hand above his eyes.

‘There’s no trouble. Come home, please.’ Pearl turned her head from side to side, trying to find Frank’s face in the darkness. It was a vast half-filled space of a room, nothing finished, shapes and forms hidden under dustsheets like hunched people waiting to jump out.

‘It’s a bloody charabanc.’ Spider spun his light on to Pearl.

The tin of paint rattled to a halt against a cabinet; Spider’s shoulders jumped up to his ears. Frank rammed Spider’s arm aside, gripping his own torch, the bandaged lump of his other hand bulbous as a match head.

‘What you doing here, Pearl?’

‘Jack knows all about what Spider’s making you do…’

‘How does he know?’

‘It ain’t really important how, is it?’ Jack shrugged.

Frank’s torch settled on a flat glass-covered display, spilling a yellow glow around them. ‘I asked Jack to borrow us the money to get out of here and he said no. I’m doing this for us, Pearl. Spider’s sorted out everything we need.’

‘You won’t get nothing if you don’t get rid of them. Now, or the deal’s off.’ Spider shoved Frank out of his way, cracking the display apart with his torch, reaching in; dragging out a fistful of watches.

The lights lapped against the walls. Pearl strained forward; Jack kept a firm hold on her.

‘Please. You don’t need to do this, just come home with me. I don’t want the money.’

Spider dumped two bags, fur tufts poking through the tops, into Frank’s arms, stuffing the watches inside. ‘I want the bloody money. I’m owed. What was it you said, Frank? A new life? Some such shit.’

He bent down and started opening up crates, spreading out the contents with his foot: cufflinks and tie pins. The floor around Spider looked as though a child had emptied out its toy box; the whole department store looked half-done. That was what worried Jack: unfinished business.

He took a step towards Frank; a white dust-sheet billowed as he moved. ‘Enough chat. Pearl said she wants you home, so we’re going.’

‘When did you start to care about what she wanted?’ Frank balanced the bags in his arms.

The dust, the darkness, it made Jack’s eyes ache; the heat of Pearl’s breath against his neck; the scratching and scraping of Spider still rooting on the floor. They didn’t even know Jack was there: kids playing in the road, unaware of fallen tram cables and rushing buses; those sorts of games always ended in tears.

‘Come on, lads. Just take what you’ve got. Trust me, there’s such a thing as pushing your luck.’

‘Want those passports and medical certificates, don’t you, Frank? I won’t let you kibosh it now. I gave Vincent my word on this job.’ Spider banged his fist on his puffed-out chest; the scars criss-crossing his forehead glowed.

Jack rubbed his chilled hands together. ‘So the man himself sent you on an errand. Ain’t that nice. Better finish up and run on home to him, then.’

Spider cracked open the lid of a box; a sea of nails and screws spilled out. ‘You old ones talk about bloody rules and codes. It’s all changing, Jack. You didn’t need Frank no more
but I fixed him up. Vincent won’t be too happy about you sticking your nose in here.’

Spider had one thing right – Jack did feel old. He rubbed the side of his head, a dull throb spreading from his spine into his skull. The whisky had worn off, and water was soaking up his sock into his trouser leg. He wanted to be in bed, warm against Georgie’s body.

‘I ain’t got time for this. Enough messing. Frank, let’s go.’

‘Why don’t you shut it?’ Spider pulled something out from under his jumper, pointed it at Jack.

It wasn’t his hand – a black gun stuck out from the end of his fingers. A wave of sickness made Jack sway: his dad’s souvenir Luger.

‘Stop pissing about, Spider.’ Frank smiled but his lips didn’t cover his teeth.

Jack grabbed Pearl’s arm; something in him kicked to make sure she was behind him; the wooden handle of the Luger shining, the silver eye at the bottom of the clip glinting.

‘It ain’t loaded, Jack. I loaned it from your place this morning. It’s just for show. Spider, tell him.’

‘Don’t think I’d be stupid enough to do over a place and not come kitted out with the right tools?’ Spider laughed, curling his finger around the trigger.

In the dim circling torchlight their small shadows made them look like cut-out puppets putting on a show.

‘You never said nothing about bullets to me.’

‘Remember who’s in charge here, Frank.’

Spider stared at Jack along the bony barrel of the pistol. Jack stepped backwards, taking Pearl with him. Spider shook his head. ‘Did I say you could go?’ The torch on the floor angled up at his face, deepening the scars into black lines. ‘As you didn’t want to leave first time, you’ll stay and help us with the safe, old timer. Don’t think about wandering off now.’

Spider held the toggle arm of the pistol, pushing twice to get it down. Jack remembered using both hands as a boy to get enough strength to pull the trigger. But it was Spider’s
smile that made Jack’s leg muscles shake and his tongue too big for his mouth. Nothing to fear until a smile appeared; he’d seen it in the ring, seen it on his dad.

‘Pearl, go and wait outside. We’ll be down in a minute. Where’s this safe, lads?’

The floorboard creaked as she took a small step backwards.

‘Did I say
she
could go? How about you all start listening to me?’

‘Don’t point it at her, Spider.’

‘You ain’t the big champion no more, Frank. I could put you down, any of you…’

Jack couldn’t look away, but he raised his hand up to his neck, gripped the base of his own throat. Frank saw it, those hand signals to finish and get out. He barged sideways into Spider, bags rolling from his arms, loud as the thud of feet on canvas. Legs knocked away. The tangled mess tumbled to the floor, fur coats swelling around them, bandages unravelling, watches skittering away. Frank didn’t cry out as Spider smashed the heavy handle of the pistol into his shoulder and then again across his cheek. Torchlight twisting over ceiling and walls, lighting them up with a flash like the end of a picture reel. Pearl skidded down on to her knees in front of them. All Jack had to do was keep her back and he couldn’t even do that – nothing but a fluff of yellow wool left from her jumper. Spider between him and Pearl.

Spider cracked the barrel against Frank’s arm but it slipped from his hand, crashed to the ground and slid past Pearl, spinning on the floor. Jack reached the middle, the air filling with fur and wood shavings. Frank threw his weight against Spider, a shoulder smashing into his neck. Jack couldn’t find an in, couldn’t reach Pearl. Spider’s fingers groped for the gun, pinching it away as Jack’s thumb and forefinger grabbed at it. Pearl’s skirt flapped against Frank’s legs, he was trying to push her away. If the gun went off she wouldn’t even know she had been hit.

Jack lunged, catching her around the waist and swinging her to the side. Spider kicked at Frank’s right hand, low blows. Jack circled, coming at them from behind this time. He pressed his weight in between them. Spider wrapped his hands tighter around Frank’s throat, knuckles cracking as he squeezed, the gun forgotten. But Jack saw where it went. Pearl stood up, arms out in front of her. The black barrel absorbed the light, shapes shifting along the matt metal. She pointed it towards the floor as if it was too heavy to lift. Frank gasping for air, Spider crouched over him, putting all his weight into the suffocating grip, his knees clamped to Frank’s ribs.

‘Always knew you wanted to fight me, Frank. Always knew I’d fucking finish –’

A sliver of white like a trapped Jumping Jack firework; glass in the cabinets shaking. A scream, just one. Pearl dropped the gun. Frank rolled over, pushing up with his good hand. She hugged him around the waist, thrusting her face into his chest. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No.’ Frank held on to her.

Jack felt his tongue drop down into his throat as he remembered to breathe again. His body throbbed, but he wasn’t hit.

‘She done me.’ Spider crumpled over. Blood pumped up, black between the fingers he’d wrapped around his thigh, soaking into his dark clothes. The scars on his face whitening, disappearing, as the blood ran out of him.

Pearl didn’t look up. She tried to catch her breath but it came out as a hiccup of words. ‘I never meant it.’

‘It was an accident, Spider. I’ll get you to a doctor. It’ll be all right, Pearl.’

Frank coughed as he rubbed at the darkening fingermarks on his neck. But Pearl wasn’t making a sound: not crying, not sobbing. She was frozen in that moment, going over the decision in her head, watching every frame like flicking backwards through a photo album; Jack knew because he had done the same. He kicked aside the watches, faces smashed,
hands bent, and picked up the Luger: lighter and smaller than all those years ago. The beam of torchlight on the floor glinted against Spider’s eyes, black as the furthest corner of the room. Jack’s shadow fell across him. Frank wiped a spot of blood from Pearl’s chin with the edge of his shirt.

‘He’s going to be all right, ain’t he?’

‘What you fucking whispering, Frank?’

‘We’ll get you help, Spider. It’s just your leg. A thigh’s best place to get injured – all that flesh. It’ll heal right up.’

‘Just a leg… Vincent’ll finish you off, Frank, and them both.’

Jack stepped over Spider, standing in front of Frank and Pearl. ‘Half of Oxford Street will have heard that shot. Soon it won’t just be us up here.’

‘You and Pearl need to go, Jack.’ Frank straightened up, let go of Pearl’s hands. ‘This is my fault. I’ll see to Spider.’

The torch lay abandoned at his feet. Jack gave it to Pearl. He smoothed the hair around her face, turned down the edge of the blouse poking out from the yellow jumper. She held the light under her chin, making her skin transparent.

‘I can dress it, stop the bleeding.’

‘She’ll pay…’ Spider huffed up air and spit as he leaned against a display case. ‘My leg…’ He screamed, wet and throaty.
Raise your guard and go for the clinch,
that was what the trainers said to do if a fighter knew he was losing. Jack patted the gun in his pocket, straightened out his jacket. He walked back towards Spider.