The Magpie Trap: A Novel (28 page)

As
soon as the meal finished, Mark beat a hasty retreat; jumping in to a waiting
taxi to take him home to Wortley, where at least the people only wore hoods,
and not the masks the other diners had worn. As Mark was lowering himself into
the back seat of the taxi, he felt strong arms pull him back out; he turned to
see Danny standing behind him.

‘Look
mate, I know that was pretty awful, but don’t think too badly of Chris and me.
We had to say goodbye to those people; it was like a ceremonial chucking away
of our old life. I know that I won’t ever give any of them another thought once
we’re away from here… I also know that I’ve been a complete mess over the last
few weeks, and I can only say how sorry I am…’

Mark
was a little confused; was Danny maudlin drunk or actually telling the truth
for once?

‘Don’t
worry about it,’ he muttered, shaking his head, actually finding it an effort
to speak after so long sat in a kind of enforced mental solitude around the
dinner table. ‘You stay out; have a good time.’

‘That’s
the thing Sparky. I’m not having a good time. We
shouldn’t
be having a good time, not when we’re so close to doing something
like this. I think Chris is even beginning to believe his own cover story. We
know different though, don’t we?’
      

Mark
gave Danny a masculine, conciliatory tap on his shoulder and then turned back
to the cab, scrunching himself and his inflated belly through the back door and
onto the ripped seating. The seat was spilling its foam contents all over the
place like a sad, sick drunk. For Mark it had a poignant symbolism; he quickly
wound down the window, and before the taxi drove off, shouted: ‘Go and see
Cheryl tonight! Say goodbye properly; otherwise you’ll always regret it!’

Mark
didn’t know how much of what he had shouted had been lost to the wind, because
the impatient driver had gunned his engines and sped away from the
kerb
. Twisting in his seat, Mark saw Chris stumble out
of the restaurant and drunkenly put his arms around Danny; probably singing
some football song or other. And then they were around the corner and speeding
towards home.

Relief
spread through Mark as he realised that he would miss very little about
Leeds
; not his house, not his friends; he had no girlfriend to miss, and
he certainly would not miss most of his workmates. These old streets were
almost too familiar for him; he knew every turn the taxi would make, and the
familiarity had bred contempt. He was already seeing Leeds through the eyes of
someone just passing through; all of this building work, all of this
show
, it covered up what was really
underneath it all; a grey, morbid cynical worship of wealth. Mark shed no tears
as he passed the blue EyeSpy Security bell-boxes on factories, new blocks of
flats and shops; he was now divorced from this reality.

Maybe,
he thought, just maybe the significance of their very real Last Supper was that
it put that final full stop on his old life.

Goodbye

Danny took Mark’s final, shouted advice; he
decided that there were more important things to do that final evening than to
get uproariously drunk, unceremoniously sozzled or unbelievably plastered.
Danny was also searching for a conclusion; a full stop to his time in
Leeds
, or at least a conclusion to his speech-marks; he didn’t want to be
left with any lingering parentheses. Even an exclamation mark would do;
anything but a question mark.

           
He
extricated himself from Chris’s drunken embrace and bade a silent farewell to
their trailing cronies, who had been left to argue over their share of the
bill. No matter how much these people earned, they still maintained an almost
neurotic desire not to ever have to pay more than they owed. So Danny pushed
Chris away, and saw Chris’s face crumple into a heap of disappointment.

‘I thought this was
supposed to be a big night? We’ve still got tomorrow to recover before the job.
I know I won’t be able to sleep anyway without a
skinful
of booze mate,’ Chris whined.

‘I still have things to
sort out, I’m sorry, I really am… just make sure you don’t give anything away
when you’ve had a few…’

Chris slipped his arm
around Danny’s shoulder for a second time, his leather jacket creaking with the
effort. Chris was bending from his usual towering height to a crooked almost
beseeching stoop.

‘Remember how this all
started, mate? At Sela Bar? I never believed that it would have happened,’
Chris’s breath wafted a heady mixture of garlic and
liqueurs
over Danny. ‘Please stay out mate… it means a lot
to me. Unlike you and Mark, I’ve been in
Leeds
all of my life… I’m saying goodbye to everything I know.’

But Danny shrugged him
off again, and gave him his best impression of a carefree grin.

‘In two days time,
we’ll be on a plane to
Mauritius
together. We will then get there and spend nearly
every waking moment enjoying a freedom we could never have here. It’ll be all
for one, and one for all; for tonight though, we all have our own personal
errands to run. If you choose that yours is to spend your remaining time here
with jokes like Steve Elton, then so be it. Go see your dad, Chris; it may be
your last chance.’

But Chris, without
Danny to lean on, was now staggering backwards towards the huge glass frontage
of Di Maggio’s. Luckily for him, Jed Burton had just left the restaurant and
managed to avert catastrophe. Danny, meanwhile, was already walking away.

Cheryl’s sister lived in the leafy suburb of Roundhay;
a stone’s throw from the beautiful park. Danny, for once in his life, had no
trouble hailing a taxi, and didn’t even abuse the driver once on the fifteen
minute journey; his mind was elsewhere. He promptly paid the driver, and
without waiting for his change, sparked up a cigarette and cautiously walked up
the drive towards the menacingly quiet house.

There appeared to be no
lights on the front side of the house, and Danny was almost tempted to shin
over the fence and into the back garden to see if there were any signs of life
in the back of the garden, but reconsidered, thinking that such an unexpected
arrival would put paid straight away to any hopes he had of a long talk with
his wife. Danny instead tried the more conventional route; he rang the
doorbell.

After a suitable pause
with no discernable change in the outlook of the house, he decided to ring it
again, this time keeping his finger on the button to achieve a more prolonged
sound. Finally, a silhouette appeared through the stained glass of the front
door; he could hear an angry muttering.

‘What the hell’s going
on? Is that you? I gave you bloody keys to this house the other week…’

Cheryl’s sister’s
monologue was promptly stopped when she opened the door to see Danny’s sheepish
smile.

‘Danny… I thought it
was Cheryl. Oh never mind. She’s not in, and she wouldn’t want to see you even
if she was here. You’ve blown it, pal.’

She was talking like a
gunslinger in an old time Western; Danny had always hated her affectations.

‘Where is she then?’
Danny asked, perfectly reasonably in his opinion, but the door was already
being pushed closed, and his foot couldn’t hold it for much longer.

‘Get your foot out from
my property. You are not welcome here.’

Cheryl’s sister
emphasised
her final point with a triumphant slam of the
front door.

‘I never was, was I,
Jean? You never wanted me here. Wasn’t good enough for darling Cheryl!’

Danny’s anger was
reduced in force by his retreat from the front doorstep; licking his wounds and
tremendously frustrated, he sat down on the
kerb
, lit a cigarette, and began to flick through his
mobile phone’s contact list for a local taxi firm number. Suddenly the yellow
light of a taxi rounded the corner at the end of the road. Saved! At least he
would not have to waste his time on his last night waiting for a taxi to come
and pick him up; he never usually had any luck with taxis.

           
Danny
struggled to his feet as the taxi began its steady approach to the front of the
house. It was almost as though Danny had hypnotized the taxi-driver to drive
right up to him in order to pick him up in the most comfortable way possible.
He grinned; was his luck finally changing? But as the taxi drew ever closer, he
began to make out two figures already in the back of the taxi.

It was a drop off; the
light was only on because the driver was touting for his next business of the
night. Danny realised that he was probably shrouded in darkness; the overhang
of a large laburnum tree had blocked out the street-light’s entire warm glow.
He stepped out of the shadows just as the first of the two figures climbed out
of the taxi. A second figure followed shortly after, leaning to pass a note
through the driver’s open window, and with a wave, the driver began his U-turn
to leave the street.

           
They
had still not seen him. He could still escape, but some animal force drove him
forward into the inevitable confrontation.

‘Chhheeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyylllllllll’
Danny’s yell erupted into the quiet street like an explosion. ‘What the fuck is
going on! Who is he?’

Cheryl almost jumped
out of her skin, and then turned, her face contorted with anger to face her
husband.

‘Danny,’ she said,
anger bubbling into her throat like a poison. ‘What are you doing now? Stalking
me?’

Next to Cheryl, the
short, slightly balding man looked utterly confused, his face was drained of
all colour.

‘Who is he?’ asked the
short man, fear making his voice tremble in alarm.

‘Never mind who am I.
Who are you?’ Danny shouted back, long strides eating up the distance between
himself and the man. Then he thought better of it and decided to explain who he
was. ‘I’m her fucking husband you little shithouse.’

‘Get away from him,’
Cheryl warned, as Danny reached them. She moved her body into Danny’s path,
blocking his route to his quaking victim. Suddenly, the small man had turned on
his heels and was running; deceptively quickly back up the street wailing for
the taxi to come back for him.

Cheryl even allowed him a nip of brandy in his
coffee which she retreated into the kitchen in order to make for him. She
opened the gate which led into the back garden, and told him to wait on the
patio. She could not risk her sister hearing him in the house, she said.

He sat miserably alone
in Jean’s ostentatious garden; it was like a B and Q show garden, complete with
herbaceous border, sculpted rockeries and a sun-deck with a little-used
barbecue. He heard Cheryl’s approach on the patio.
 
As she passed him the steaming mug, she gave
him a weak smile; Danny slumped back into his chair defeated.

‘I know that you’re expecting
me to say this but that was not what it looked like… Don’s my friend, that’s
all. He cheers me up; he’s like an English Danny De Vito.’

She tried to reach over
the garden furniture, but the wooden table was far too wide to allow any such
placating touch.

‘That’s how bloody
Danny De Vito thinks he’s going to get into your knickers, woman, by being
funny. Do you know nothing? He’s probably seen you around a few times and
thought ‘I fancy that’, but then noticed that he is a short, fat, balding shit,
and then realised he’s got no chance; so he pretends to be friends and bides
his time; he knows that good looking women like you are likely to have
dickheads for boyfriends and at some point you’ll grow tired of them. One day,
he sees you upset, and thinks, ‘my time has come.’ Where did he take you? Casa
Mia? That was
our
restaurant…’

The small traces of a
smile appeared on Cheryl’s lips, but soon disappeared as she tried to look
sternly at him.

‘Whatever Danny; yes,
he might like me… but the difference between you and me is the fact that I
won’t return his fumbling advances. I still don’t know what went on between you
and Paula; not properly, but I know that the blame lies with you. And before I
forget, what the hell are you doing lurking in the shadows outside my sister’s
house?’

Taking a huge swig of
his still-too-hot drink, Danny took a second to try to compose his mind.

‘I don’t know how I can
tell you this Cheryl; but I might as well go ahead and tell you in m usual
mumbling way,’ he began. ‘I am leaving
Leeds
. I am leaving
England
. I am going away; perhaps forever. I have already
got myself a decent job out there… I… would you come with me?’

‘Where, Danny? What the
hell are you talking about now? Are you drunk?’ asked Cheryl. She could not
mask the obvious disappointment in her face.

‘Well, believe it or
not, I’ve started up a charity, with Chris and Mark… we’re going to be doing
relief work in
Mauritius
…’

Cheryl cut him short.
‘Chris? Chris? Why does everything you do revolve around that bloke? A charity?
What kind of fool do you take me for? He’d never do anything for anyone but
himself and yet you’d follow him to the ends of the earth.’

‘I thought you’d be
pleased… I was going to write you a postcard once we got there; invite you to
come too, but I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.’

‘But can you not see?
There will be a catch. This will all be some big scam. And he has got you so
twisted around his little finger, that you’ll probably be the fall guy.
Honestly Danny, would you jump off a bloody cliff if Chris told you to?’

 
Cheryl shook her head with exasperation, some
of her hair escaping from her hair-clips and cascading playfully over her face.
For some reason, Danny was suddenly infuriated by her feminine wiles.

‘What a ridiculous,
hackneyed, question that is,’ he railed. ‘Everyone always asks that, but it’s a
nonsense. What has jumping off a cliff got to do with this? It’s like asking
would you kill someone for Chris. It doesn’t take into account circumstance,
situation, need, anything like that. It’s a totally irrelevant question. We are
setting up a charity.’

He said the last few
words painfully slowly as if talking to a child. He sulkily picked at a knot of
wood on the patio table, refusing to meet her gaze; his bowed head seeming to
amplify the widening chasm of non-communication that was developing between
them.

‘Stop trying to be
clever in everything you say. You’re talking to me now. What the hell do you
think you’re doing? You know if you leave now, then there’s no chance of us
getting back together? Or is that why you’ve planned all this, so I realise
that I can’t live without you, beg you to stay and all’s back to normal again?
You’re
threatening
me?”

Danny couldn’t believe
how quickly their conversations descended into arguments. It was clear that
they both still loved each other, but too many awful things had happened for
either of them to act as though they had a clean slate; chance comments
triggered bad memories of the past, little digs started huge avalanches of pain
which threatened to sweep their remaining love away with it. Danny knew that he
would have to back down if his last night with his wife was not to collapse
into a disastrous wreck of recrimination and torture.

‘No baby, I’m not. How
many times have I said that I need to get away from this place? How many times
have I said that I need a change of scenery?’

Danny was almost
breathless in his attempt to try and resurrect the situation.

‘I just feel as though
I’ve burned all of my bridges, Cheryl, there’s no way back for me. Will you not
come with me? Chris has offered us all this chance to go and work for him out
there, and it’s like a big window of opportunity has been thrown wide open,
letting in a breeze which will blow away all the straggling cobwebs of my old
life.’