Utterly Monkey (14 page)

The taxi was late. Danny was sitting on the arm of the sofa, dressed in his smartest pinstripe and sporting, jaunty as a carnation in his buttonhole, a big black eye. It was nearly perfectly round and ranged in colour from the ripe purple of a damson to an apricot’s pearly yellow. His face was a well-stocked fruit bowl. In the shower earlier he realized he needed to think of a good excuse for his bruise. He’d considered two options: the kitchen cupboard or the heroic intervention. He still hadn’t decided. He felt like shit. Clyde was in the bathroom, doing what he termed his
ablutions
. After Clyde had spent ten minutes explaining how Hounslow was actually on the way to Heathrow, Danny’d agreed to take him somewhere west in the taxi and drop him off near a tube station. Now the taxi was outside sounding his horn and Clyde was still abluting.

After they’d climbed into the cavernous black cab, which seemed appropriately sized for Clyde’s head, as if the vehicle had been adapted specially for him, the cabbie drove off. A few houses down Danny saw a white transit van parked by the kerb. A guy in a sky-blue baseball cap was sitting slumped in the far corner of the front seat. Clyde was discussing Pigtails’ breasts and how near he had come to
unleashing
them. ‘You’re an animal,’ Danny said placidly, looking out the window.

Ian had been parked outside Danny’s for thirty minutes. He’d been considering going in when the taxi had pulled up and tooted, so he’d waited. The grey sky was heaped up with clouds. All of the streetlights clicked off together suddenly and other lights came on in the houses, singly, like stars. A bedroom window was raised by a Rastafarian wearing an alice band, a Turkish woman dragged a pushchair over a doorstep and onto the street before going back into her house. She re-appeared a second later carrying a large package shaped like a child, so substantially bundled there was just a slit left for two eyes to peer darkly out. She fastened it into the chair, locked her door and strode off wheeling the buggy. Then Danny came out of his house swinging his suit bag, and that cousin of his who wouldn’t shut up all night was tramping behind him, still talking. Danny’s eye looked mashed up. The cab drove past and Ian slinked down in his seat. He got out and locked the van. To business.

The doorbell was ringing and ringing and in Geordie’s dream it was a phone that he couldn’t find, hidden somewhere in his old bedroom in Ballyglass. He jumped from his single bed, tugged open his wardrobe, the door of which still stuck after these twenty-odd years, and ripped
all the clothes out of it. The shelves held piles of shirts, folded, soft as flags, and of every colour imaginable, which he knew he had never owned or even seen but which, in dream-logic, he understood to be his. Flurries of them fell onto his feet, a rainbow of silks and soft cottons, and as he delved further into the cupboard he could see more and more of them stacked up behind, lemon and cobalt and ivory, then checked and striped and embroidered like blouses, and still others of lace and damask, calico, satin, stiff linen. And the ringing continued. If he could just find the phone he could get out of this room. He woke with a jolt. There was a second’s delay before he knew where he was. Then the doorbell went again, two rings, pause, two rings. He stood up gingerly, one hand against the wall, and then jerked open the door of his room so hard that it banged. He shouted, ‘Danny, your cab’s here.’

The door banging had echoed in his head, and it hurt it still further to shout. The flat was heavy with silence. He stage-whispered ‘Danny…Clyde?’ then tugged on his jeans and walked down the hall to the door. He opened the snib and Ian kicked the door so hard that it smashed into Geordie’s forehead. He clutched his temples with both hands, like a See No Evil monkey, and pulled the palms apart in time to watch Ian enter and neatly close the door behind him.

‘
Fucking
hell.’

‘Morning Geordie. You and me are going to have a little chat.’ The word
chat
was staccato, a punctuation point. Ian shoved him into the living room and pointed to the sofa. Geordie sat down. Ian leaned against the table looking at him.

‘Fucking stinks in here. Did you sleep in here? It fucking stinks.’

‘No…Did I piss you off last night?’

Ian snorted and stared hard at him.

‘Well, did you forget something?’

‘Yeah, I forgot to get the
fifty grand
you owe me.’

Geordie experienced a kind of inner freefall. His throat landed in his stomach, his stomach dropped into his knees, and his bowels tried to escape to his ankles. He attempted to keep a steady face. Ian said, softer, ‘I know about the cash Geordie. I know you took it from Budgie. Well you have to give it back to me. Right now and right here. So let’s make this easier on both of us and you just pay up like a good wee fella and then I can go home and have my cup of tea.’

Geordie’s stomach was still leaden with dread but he decided, almost as a reflex reaction, to try to bluff it.

‘I don’t know what you’re on about Ian. I don’t know anything about any money or who Budgie…’

The sound of bone meeting flesh is always lower in pitch than you remember. It sounds like a pack of flour dropped on a tiled kitchen floor. Ian had stepped across the room and punched Geordie in the chest. Although it was an ungainly movement–Geordie was sitting on the sofa and therefore too low for Ian to get a decent purchase–it was sufficient to cause Geordie to sob. It sounded like laughter. Ian stood over him.

‘Give me the fucking money Geordie.’

Ian cuffed him on the ear, almost fatherly.

‘I was going to give it back. I’m
going
to give it back when Janice comes over, as soon as she gets to London.’

Ian sniggered adolescently.

‘Who the fuck’s Janice? Geordie, I don’t think you get it. I need the money
now,
in
London
. Budgie was looking after it for me. You were unlucky to meet me, that’s all. Ulster’s a wee place.’

Geordie looked up. He started to repeat, in a miniature voice, ‘I
don’t
have…’ but Ian was lifting his hand again.

‘
All right
. All right. It’s under the bath. I’ll get it. I’ll get it now.’

Geordie scrambled to his feet and Ian followed him, sighing, paternally patient. Geordie fished his keys out of his jeans and squatted down to work at the side of the bath. Ian felt relaxed. He leant against the sink. Geordie’d just made a mistake. But now, by working together, they’d been able to fix it.

‘You see Geordie, this money’s important.’ Then he added, as an afterthought, ‘Anything the ’RA can do we can do better.’

‘Right,’ said Geordie as the panel edged open. He lay down on the floor on his front, halfway in and halfway out of the bathroom, and reached in under the bath. His chest held the dull ache of Ian’s punch and his forehead was already swelling.

‘Here it is.’ Geordie pulled out the white plastic bag filled with money. It was dusty and had ripped on something.

‘Excellent. I’ll take that.’ Ian leaned down and snatched it. Geordie was on his knees, one elbow leaning on the bath. The cold tap had a droplet of water hanging from it. He watched it elongate then draw in its waist and wobble. It broke off and hit the enamel with a wet click. Ian jiggled the bag. ‘Let’s count this out shall we?’

Geordie levered himself up from the floor as Ian sat heavily down on the sofa and emptied the bag onto the coffee table. He started arranging the notes in piles. Geordie looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His forehead was a red bump and you could see he’d been crying. He entered the living room and sat down on one of the dining chairs.

‘Now, let’s see what we got. Make us a cup of tea Geordie. Just milk, no sugar.’

When Geordie came back into the living room carefully carrying the brimmed mug of tea, Ian had the money in three neat piles, all with the Queen’s head on top. There was her imperturbable smile, her mute watchfulness. No one has seen what money has seen. All those arguments she must have witnessed, those atrocities she must have caused. A Helen of Troy, 2-D, with pin curls and thin lips. Starter of wars. He docked the tea gently on a black slate coaster beside the banknotes.

‘I make forty-nine thousand, three hundred. How much did you spend of it?’

‘None, nothing at all.’ This was not strictly true. Geordie had spent almost two hundred quid. He sat down again on the dining chair beside the TV.

‘I’ll be checking with Budgie.’

‘Ask him, he’ll tell you.’

Ian leant back on the sofa and looked at Geordie. Putting his hands behind his head, he crossed his ankles, so completing his favorite pose: The Man at Home in the World.

‘You see, a man has to work out what he wants from his life. For example, what do
you
want from life?’

You leaving would be a start
, Geordie thought, but mindful of his injuries, he nodded, looked pensive, and replied, ‘What everyone does, I suppose. A nice house, nice car, a nice wife.’

‘Not everyone wants that. There’s bigger things. There are some of us who’ll do whatever it takes to protect the rights of our friends and our families.’ Ian was smiling grandiosely.

‘Do you see what I’m saying Geordie?’

‘Not really.’ Geordie was touching his chest tenderly now, checking for all of his ribs.

‘Look at this
cunt
who lives here.
Danny
.’ Ian made such a face when he pronounced Danny’s name that it seemed he was picking the word out of his teeth. ‘He doesn’t care about Northern Ireland, or give a fuck about anything but his own life, about making money for big business, about buying a bigger flat, buying more
crap
to fill it.’ He looked around the room disdainfully. ‘The crimes those big corporations commit…he’s just a foot soldier for them.’

Geordie nods. He tries, gently, ‘I suppose he just wants an easy life.’

‘Yeah well, the life of a turncoat
is
pretty easy. Pandering to the English while they betray his country. He’s been bought.’ Ian brought his arms from behind his head and folded them across his chest.

‘He’s been in England for years. I don’t see how the
English
betray…?’

He was cut off by Ian sitting forward suddenly, and raising his voice, ‘Of course they fucking do. They think they can walk all over us, that our rights as British citizens are some kind of fucking gift from them. You did
well to beat the shit out of him last night. Look at this place. Look at his friends. Who the fuck does he think he is?’

‘Right.’

‘He’s just some fucking twat from Ballyglass. Did you hear his poncy accent? Sounds like he was fucking born and bred in Kent or somewhere.’

Ian was getting himself exercised into a fury now. Geordie sat quietly and watched. He took a couple of slow breaths through his flaring nostrils and the rage seemed to subside. Watching him it was apparent to Geordie that this was a technique Ian used for controlling his anger. He must have learned it at her Majesty’s pleasure in Maghaberry or the Maze. Ian leaned back on the sofa, and smiled, reasonable again.

‘The way it goes, Geordie, is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You know it, I know it, and the Irish Republican Army certainly fucking know it. And how they’ve squeaked. Squeak squeak squeak. Well we should squeak for a while. Our turn.’

‘Okay.’

‘You see I’m a contractarian, Geordie.’ He waited, staring, until Geordie nodded.

‘As
I
see it, the state has a relationship with its citizens,
whoever
those citizens are, Protestants, taigs, blacks like those ones last night,’–he waved a hand expansively–‘or whoever. The point is this…’–suddenly noticing he hadn’t touched his tea, he leaned forward and carefully picked it up. ‘The point is this, a right is a
right
and not the
gift
of whatever government’s in power. Our loyalty’s to the
Union
, not to the English…and that Union’s defined as people united
not
by reli
gion, or race, or whatever, but by recognition of the
authority
of that union…Are you with me here wee man?’

‘I am. I am, Ian. You’re on to something there.’ For God’s sake go, Geordie thought.

As if he’d heard his thoughts, Ian suddenly seemed embarrassed to still be there, and talking so volubly. The anger flicked back into him like voltage.

‘I’m trying to
educate
you. Someone like you could have been something, instead of a snivelling feckless little thief. You could have made a difference.’

‘Yes.’ Geordie nodded, agreeing to everything to get him to leave.

‘Anyway, you are what you are. Pity.’

Ian stood up and Geordie did too. Then Ian shrugged, a minuscule relaxation of his ox-shoulders, and Geordie mirrored the action. He was like Ian’s wobbly skinny reflection in a playground mirror. Geordie had a momentary urge to offer his hand, feeling obscurely that their transaction had been a success.

‘I’ll see myself out.’ Ian nodded at him, workmanlike.

‘Okay.’ Geordie sat back down on the chair. He folded his arms, feeling shattered and oddly embarrassed.

On the street a female black parking attendant was standing by Ian’s van. She was wearing a too-big official jacket and a cap that came down low on her head. It made Ian think of a child dressed up in her father’s livery, or those African women called up to fight who have to wear a male uniform. She was writing the registration details of Ian’s van into an electronic clipboard. Ian slammed the front door behind him and walked over to her. He was smiling broadly.

‘All right? Just had to nip in there for a second, bring some groceries round to my nan? Yeah? She’s very sick. Can’t walk.’ He touched his right leg as if to confirm it.

‘Sir,’ the traffic warden sounded tired but spoke very precisely, ‘your car has been parked here for over fifteen minutes. I first noticed the vehicle parked at 8.32 and it’s now,’ she tapped her pen against the LED display, ‘8.48 a.m.’ Ian strode up to her, stared in her face, menacingly at first, before switching to an unpleasant grin. He said, ‘Fair enough. The law’s the law,’ and gently took the ticket she was holding out before getting into the van.