Utterly Monkey (16 page)

‘I think he’s sorting it out now.’

‘Where was he dear?’ the other one spoke again. Stouter, and perhaps slightly older, she had the centred, confident air of a matriarch.

‘Um…in Belfast. He was in Belfast, in the centre.’

‘In the city centre. On a
Saturday
afternoon. I suppose it’s the twelfth weekend. Lots of rowdies,’ Margaret said and nodded to her friend, who was already nodding sympathetically at Danny. Just to complete the round, Danny nodded at Margaret. She looked distraught and went on, ‘Would you believe it?’

No, not sure I would,
Danny thought, and felt the prickly heat of guilt.

‘Whereabouts in the centre was he, love?’ The matriarch, picking up the baton.

‘Just…in the very centre…by the shops.’ Danny
was trying to think of the name of the big glass-roofed shopping mall, but he couldn’t remember it.

‘Near Castlecourt, was it love?’

‘Yes, just by there. I don’t know too much about it in fact. Only a short phone call. He’s very upset.’

‘I’m sure he is.’ Margaret again.

This was like talking to two of his aunts. There was a pause and Danny thought it was over. He tried to think of a way to draw them back to their work but…

‘Does he live in Belfast dear, your brother?’ The matriarch spoke. Her dyed-brown hair was thinning, Danny noticed. He looked down at the top of his pad where he’d written the names. Margaret and Lillian.

‘Yes, Lillian, he does.’ In fact he used to
have
a great-aunt called Lillian. She’d smelt of soap and hadn’t looked unlike this one.

‘Is he working there?’

‘Studying. He’s at Queens.’

After glancing at Margaret, Lillian said, ‘My Stephen’s at Queens. What does he study?’

Just then Ellen opened the door of the meeting room, a large box of documents balanced on her hip.

‘Here, I’ll take that.’ Danny walked over and lifted the box from her.

‘Thanks. There seems to be a whole set of Intellectual Property contracts missing. I can’t find any which are post-1990.’ Danny looked at the index she’d set on the table. Margaret stood stiffly up and adjusted her cardigan over her redoubtable chest, then marched over to Danny and put a hefty arm around his shoulders. Looking at Ellen with something like pity she said:

‘His brother’s just been mugged dear, don’t worry him too much.’

‘I didn’t realize. Is he all right?’ Ellen looked at him quizzically.

‘Yeah, he’ll be fine…maybe you and I should look at this stuff next door?’ Danny hoisted the box and walked towards the doorway while Margaret sighed and looked pleadingly at Ellen.

‘I thought you said you had two sisters.’

‘I do. It was Geordie on the phone. He was telling me something weird and then I said
fuck
and they looked as if they were about to jump me, so I made something up. Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize to me. If you want to lie to those two nice ladies you just go right ahead.’

‘It’s not that I want to lie…’

Ellen was grinning at him. She was finding him amusing. Amusing was good. He could handle amusing.

It was 1.15 p.m. and the Poles hadn’t showed yet. Ian was watching two men loitering across the High Road. They were leaning against the metal railings that lined the street. Their backs were rigid, their faces sharp and hard. They’d walked past earlier–muscular gaits, as if their limbs were painfully welded together–and had then disappeared. Now they were back, standing opposite Pastry Nice, glancing over, and one was on his mobile, gesticulating energetically. They were both short, even shorter than Ian, but broad and dangerous looking. They had high cheekbones but wide flat faces, one of which had been flattened even further by a broken nose.
Their heads were cropped and their clothes cheap and nondescript: jeans, dark anoraks, white trainers.

They crossed the road and entered the café. Ian watched them nod towards the girl and make their way over to an old man in a long heavy coat sitting at a table at the back. He stood up when he saw them, lifted a blue plastic bag off the seat beside him, rolled up his paper and pointed at Ian with it. He then walked out of the café, pausing at the door to pull a large and ursine hat out of the bag and onto his head. It seemed a bit excessive in the summer heat.

They sat down heavily at his table without looking at him or speaking. Ian moved his right hand from the tabletop down onto his leg to stop it from jiggling but saw that his action immediately affected the one with the broken nose. He had gripped the sides of the table, as if ready to overturn it, and was watching his brother for direction. Ian swept his hand back up and placed it on the glass surface, awkwardly, with the palm upwards so they’d see it was empty. It resembled a dead man’s hand. Ian turned it over and gave a tiny rap with his knuckles on the table. As if he had called the meeting to order, the one with the unbroken nose looked at him, and spoke.

‘You are Ian, yes?’

‘Yes.’ Ian nodded at both of them in turn.

‘I am Bartosz and this my brother, Tomek.’ The broken nose nodded.

‘Great. Ian.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You got the stuff we discussed on the phone?’ Ian
was
nervous.

‘We have everything which you requested. But first and more important, are you with money? You made us to understand half now and half Monday.’

‘I am. I am with the money,’ Ian replied. ‘But not on me.’ They looked at him emptily.

‘I mean I don’t have the money with me now.’

‘So you are
not
with money.’ Bartosz said, as if he’d tricked him into confessing. Tomek, the one with the divot where his nose should be, spoke for the first time. His voice was deeper and his accent even thicker than his brother’s. He leant forward.

‘You get money now and come to the barber’s.’ He jerked his head towards the street. ‘Ask Jerzy to show you the yard. Tell him Bartosz sends you. And you will need a car yes?’

Ian looked across at the barber’s over the road. A huge man, a little flabby but enormously strong-looking, wearing tight black leather trousers and a white T-shirt, was leaning in the doorway. As he turned to go back into the barber shop a stringy ponytail flicked out behind him.

‘No, I’m all right. I’ve a van with me. Can I park it outside the barber’s?’

‘I think rather not. You should put it down there.’ Tomek pointed to the next street off the High Road. ‘Then, on Monday you can drive in under the bridge. We must show you.’ He meant the railway arches, Ian realized. The yard behind the barber’s must be in one of the railway arches.

‘Okay. I’ll be twenty minutes or so.’

‘Good. Remember to ask Jerzy. He is very big and has hair tied like a woman’s, yes?’

Bartosz smiled weakly at his brother’s comment. Ian nodded and stood up. The two Poles rose simultaneously. Their eyes were the same shade of gunmetal grey. For a second it seemed as if something was about to happen, as if they were all going to lift the table or shake hands, but then Ian turned, picked up his jacket and left.

On the side street Ian parked the van outside a derelict house. He hated seeing something left to rot. It made him feel helpless. The door had been boarded up and was badged with yellow council notices. It must have had squatters. Three empty beer bottles sat in a row on the wall outside it as though set up for target practice. There were little tufts of weeds around the front, and the upstairs windows were broken. Shards of glass rose and hung from the frames making the windows look like animal mouths, fanged and dark. Ian locked the van and set off to the barber’s. He carried a white plastic bag with twenty-five grand wrapped in several other bags inside it–the other half was back in his room in the hotel, sealed in an envelope in the base of his holdall. He wasn’t nervous now. Carrying the money actually lent him
more
confidence. He didn’t have to think what to do with his hands. The barber’s was opposite Pastry Nice and, as if in reply to that syntactical oddness, it displayed in large letters above its own glass front, a hand-painted sign plainly stating B
ARBERS
. There were several posters in the lower half of its window and the dates for the events (a Polski Hip Hop Night, an African Spiritual Revival, a Young Ireland boxing match) had all passed, suggesting that the posters were there for concealment rather than advertising. Someone on the street could see and be seen by the standing barbers but couldn’t tell
who was inside on one of the four chairs, or seated on the long wooden bench waiting. Ian entered and clocked a twenty-something bloke: skinny, a little goatee, reading Autotrader and sitting on the bench. One of the barber’s chairs was occupied. An almost perfectly bald head sat at the peak of a cone formed by a brown cape. The seat was pumped up so high the occupant’s brown brogues were dangling in mid-air, and, bending almost tenderly over him, waving a pair of scissors, was the enormous Jerzy. Although losing his hair, Jerzy had kept his ponytail, a lank affair tied with a brown elastic band. After nodding at Ian as he entered, he had gone back to the shiny bonce in front of him, click-clicking the scissors around it but not making contact with the customer’s few surviving hairs, which were mostly clumped above, and coming out of, his ears. Ian nodded back and walked straight up to this giant in leather trousers.

‘Jersey?’

The man swivelled his shoulders round, slow as a building crane. He raised his eyebrows the tiniest fraction but kept his face vacant.

‘
Bartosh
sent me. He said to ask
you
to show
me
the yard?’ The big man nodded, said something in Polish to his customer, and jerked his head towards the rear of the shop. Ian followed him, watching the sail of his T-shirted back ripple as he moved. For his enormous size, he walked very lightly.

Janice had been in the chemists since eight that morning. She came in early on Saturdays to help Mr Martin stock the deliveries: cheap perfumes, medicated shampoos, carbolic soap and novelty bubble bath. The merchandise hadn’t changed much in the five years Janice had been there. They’d sell a few foot spas and hair driers at Christmas, but the year-round trade was no-nonsense toiletries and the prescriptions Mr Martin dispensed from the back of the shop. Janice worked on what she called the
cosmetics counter
, and it did indeed sell lipstick, in three different shades normally, though they only had two at the minute, and mascara, in both brown and black. The rest of the top shelf displayed face masks, two pedicure sets, and a curling device for eyelashes. The condoms and Canesten were kept in a glass cupboard behind her. The middle shelf catered for old people: pill boxes,
an electric feet-warmer, rubber sheets, and several different denture pastes. At the bottom of the counter was an array of tablets for ringworm and fleas, a lotion for liver fluke in cattle, and a gallon-jar of foot-rot spray for sheep. She’d arranged them from left to right in order of colour, darkest to lightest. Nothing had moved in the counter for some time, not since last Saturday in fact, when she’d sold one of the lipsticks to Joyce Hartley’s daughter who couldn’t be more than twelve. A Boots chemists had opened up just across the main street and even Janice now bought her own make-up in there. She’d go over at lunchtimes, telling the Martins she was just popping out to buy a sandwich, and then smuggle the make-up back in her handbag. She always thought Boots big smiley security guard (Declan someone) was going to stop her on the way out and look in her bag. She’d have to show him the receipt and explain that she worked in another chemists, a less well-stocked one. Sometimes she thought she should have applied to Boots when they’d first opened. Their cosmetics counter was amazing, like some enormous paint box: row after row of shades of concealers, lipsticks, mascaras and eye shadows. In fact they had a whole separate range of waterproof mascaras, and that special thickening kind that plumped the lashes. They even had all the metallic shades of eye shadows, and Declan was cute in his own goofy way. The shop girls in there all looked like doctors in those spick white coats, hurrying down the aisles as if they were rushing through Accident & Emergency. Compared to that, Martin’s was more like the Geriatrics ward. Both Mr and Mrs Martin were about seventy, bordering doddery, and Janice’s shop coat had turned grey over five
years of washing. Five years in the same shop, standing in the same spot behind the same counter, but the Martins had been good to her, or good enough to persuade her to stay. Even when the place was turned over and everyone knew that Budgie had done it, they’d never said a word about it, or not to her anyway.

Janice didn’t like Saturdays in the shop. The view of the street–of the far side of it from O’Hagan’s Bakery on the left up to Robertson’s Bikes on the right–was blocked by a lorry selling flowers and plants. There had been a market in Ballyglass since the 1600s, when James the First had granted a Royal Charter to John Stewart, a local landowner, and the townland of Ballyglass, most of which he owned, had become a livestock fair. Now the main street was lined on both sides with stalls. They sold everything a Ballyglassian could want: fake designer T-shirts (the trademarks smudged or slightly askew), rugs embroidered with Indian tigers, plastic shoes, jewellery (home-made from baked dough), carrots still covered in soil. There were at least three burger vans. One stall sold only mobile phone covers, branded with everything from Rangers or the Union Jack to Celtic or the Tricolour.

There was an intricate balance to Ballyglass. For every Protestant business, a chemists, say, like Martin’s, there was the Roman Catholic equivalent, sometimes right next door. It was an instance of the parallel universe becoming visible, as if two separate towns existed and somehow inhabited the very same space. There were different local papers, schools, churches, pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants, shops, petrol stations, dentists, estate agents, insurance brokers, newsagents, car dealers. The odd thing was that now peace (of sorts) had come, the big businesses from
across the water had started arriving. The Boots which had been causing Mr Martin sleepless nights had also caused problems for several of the good people of Ballyglass: was the chemists classed as a Protestant or Roman Catholic operation? There was talk of contacting the shareholders. The same went for the barn-like Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s supermarkets which had opened on the edge of town. The Protestant greengrocer, who’d always favoured carrots in his window display, and his Roman Catholic equivalent, who’d been fonder of cabbages and broccoli, were now closing, along with various butchers and mini-marts. It was becoming apparent to the place that peace had its own difficulties, and it was only the troubles that had kept the community structure. Now, with the Army barracks dismantled, the two concrete sangars gone from the main street, and the invasion of the multinational chains, Ballyglass was starting to look like it could be in Yorkshire or Surrey. It had turned out the threat of losing your identity hadn’t been from the foreign governments of Dublin or London after all, but instead from the money-makers, the profit margins, the businessmen.

Mrs Burnett spoke very softly. It was as though she was scared of being overheard. Mrs Burnett was not a well woman. She wanted a new toothbrush and looked very intently into Janice’s face just as Jan’s phone started ringing. It was set to the Mexican Jumping Bean tune–Malandra had done it–and Janice didn’t know how to change it. She led Mrs Burnett–poor Mrs Burnett who’d lost husband and son, one to cancer and the other to prison–into the middle of the shop, to the toothbrush rack, and then went back to her counter to answer her phone. ‘Geordie!’ Janice squealed it and Mrs Burnett turned
slowly round. She was looking for a toothbrush with soft bristles, not the harder kind which hurt her gums.

‘Hello tiger. How you going?’ Geordie felt something unscrew a little inside him, come looser. He could see her behind her counter, examining her nails, watching the street.

‘Fine, I’m fine. But are
you
all right?’ Mrs Burnett was now leaning against the toothbrush rack. It seemed to be the sole means of keeping her upright. Janice edged out round the counter and over towards her.

‘I think something’s wrong. Budgie’s gone weird. He never mentioned the money at all yesterday.’ She put one hand on Mrs Burnett’s shoulder and gently eased her away from the wobbling carousel.

‘It’s all sorted out now. I met an associate of his over here and delivered it to him.’

Geordie was sitting on Danny’s sofa. The horseracing was on the telly but a sunray had successfully censored the picture. He couldn’t be bothered to get up and close the curtains.

‘Thank God for that. Does Budgie know?’

‘He should do now. Listen, Jan, can you talk? Is Martin around?’

‘He’s in the back…but I’ve a customer with me.’

Mrs Burnett, though, was not really with anyone. She had wandered over to the wooden chair by the rack of walking sticks and sat down. Some shopping spilled out of the two bags she’d dropped by her feet: a small tin of beans, a single banana. She was holding two different toothbrushes in their extravagant packets and looking at them, hard. Her perm was coming out and her hair looked greasy.

‘I can call you back later.’

‘No go ahead. It’s fine.’

‘Okay. I thought maybe…do you fancy coming here? To London?’

‘For a weekend?’ Janice’s voice was shrill with surprise.

‘For good, I mean, for as long you want. You could stay here, at Dan’s. He doesn’t mind.’

Some relationships are always going to be serious (when you decide to begin seeing, say, a devout Christian, or your best friend) and some just aren’t. Sometimes, though, one thing slips into another, the sex becomes tender, and you realize you’re enjoying your pillow talk more than you thought. Janice was silent for a few seconds. She liked Geordie more than any of the others she’d been with. He was funny, and he didn’t care about acting hard or fighting. She thought he might be clever. And he
was
good at sex. He enjoyed it and wanted her to as well. With other boys it had seemed almost like fighting–being held down and tugged at–but with Geordie it was like they were playing together, like they were sharing an amazing secret. She hadn’t expected him to like her though, not like this.

‘I could come over for a while.’ She pressed at the lid of her wonky eye, something she did when she was concentrating hard. Mrs Burnett was unconsciously, and with some difficulty, demonstrating the brace position, having dropped one of the toothbrushes under her chair.

‘Good.’ Geordie stood up in Danny’s living room and yanked the curtain across. The TV screen coloured. ‘I miss you Jan. More than I thought I was going to, you know.’

‘I bet you don’t. I bet the women over there are just
too snobby for you.’ She was swaying a little behind the counter.

‘Do you not miss
me
?’ Geordie asked, his little boy voice.

‘Course I do, you know I do. Listen, I’ll have to ask, you know, about getting some time off.’ She looked over at her lone customer, who, still in her seat, had pressed her forehead against the Quit Smoking poster. ‘We’re pretty busy at the minute here.’ Geordie felt irritated. God, she really could be slow. Here he was telling her to come live with him for good and she was talking about asking old man Martin for a holiday.

‘Jan, I’m
serious
about this. I want you to come over and
stay
here.
Chuck
your job. I’ve arranged for Danny to pick you up tomorrow morning.’

‘
Have
you now? And when were you going to let me know?’

‘Well, I’m telling you this minute, aren’t I?’ He knew from her voice she was smiling.

‘You’re very full of yourself Geordie Wilson, you know that. What if I’d decided not to come?’

‘Well then he wouldn’t be picking you up. Don’t muck around Jan. I still have to sort your ticket out. You can fly back with him and Ellen tomorrow.’

‘Who’s Ellen?’

‘Girl he works with, and I think he’s seeing her now. They’re over in Belfast on business. He said he’d get you at 10 a.m. by the Esso garage on Moneyronan Corner. Do you know who he is?’

‘Of course I know who he is. He’s gorgeous. Big tall thing.’

‘Easy up.’

‘I’ll have to call you back.’ She switched the phone off. Mr Martin had come out from the back of the shop and was stooping over Mrs Burnett, his hand on her arm.

‘Janice, I think you should make Mrs Burnett a wee cup of tea. Would you like that Mrs Burnett? Warm you up.’

Mrs Burnett sniffed and swallowed heavily. Janice went into the back of the shop to boil the kettle. She could go over for a while anyway, just see what happened. Mr Martin would let her take two weeks off. She would talk to him as soon as Mrs Burnett had gone.

Geordie stood up and walked into the boxroom to get his jacket and trainers. He was going to book Janice’s ticket. By this time tomorrow they could be in here together, fucking in bed. He should wash the sheets maybe. Or just open the window for a bit.

Mrs Burnett supped at her tea carefully, like a child, as if it might burn her or spill. Mr Martin had brought Mrs Martin’s chair from round behind the prescriptions counter (she was visiting her sister in Newry hospital today) and was now seated opposite Mrs Burnett. He was such a good man, Mr Martin. Janice watched them from across the shop.

‘There now, a cup of tea never did anyone harm.’

Mrs Burnett looked up slowly. His head tilted slightly to the side with professional concern, Mr Martin continued.

‘So how are you feeling?

‘Not great Harry, not great at all. I don’t know what it is. I’m not myself…I get up and I want to go back to bed…I go to bed and I can’t sleep…I can’t do anything.’

‘How long has it been now, since Alex…?’

‘Three months, nearly three months.’

‘Well Jean, these things take time. You don’t get over something like that immediately. You’re sad now and you should be sad. Nothing wrong with feeling sad.’

‘But I can’t
do
anything. I can’t decide on anything. I can’t even decide on a toothbrush.’

She lifted the two toothbrushes that lay in her lap. Mr Martin had picked the dropped one up from under her seat.

‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t you take them both and then tell me which is better? We’ll call it market research.’ He eased them from her grip and put them in one of her shopping bags. She smiled at him weakly, and nodded, embarrassed at his hands touching hers.

‘Okay Harry, thanks. I’m sorry for taking your time.’ She bent down and made as if to lift the plastic bags. Mr Martin stayed her arm with his own soft hand. It was hairless and pinkly pale, something new-born.

‘Now you stay your ground. We’re not exactly busy,’ he looked up and down the aisle for effect, ‘so sit tight until you’re feeling better.’

‘I wouldn’t be saying that to me, I could be here for months…I’ll get up in a minute or two.’ She leant back in the chair and put both hands around the blue mug, warming them. Her face was almost white. Mr Martin slowly pushed the chair back up the aisle to the counter and went into the back to do his prescriptions.

The glass front door swung open and the electronic singsong went off. Mrs Burnett leant into the wall and looked up to apologize for being partly in the way, but the customer had already moved on, across to the counter
where that nice Janice was. He was big and moved very fast. Janice had shrunk back against the cupboard behind her. It was Budgie. He placed his two hands on the glass top and leered across it (Janice thought of the little tented sign on the top shelf she’d scratched out in red biro years ago:
Please don’t lean on the counter
). His voice was full of anger.

‘Okay Jan? Having a nice day at work are we? And what the
fuck
is all this about you going to London? Are you still talking to Wilson?’ He was nodding his head, shouting, becoming more and more enraged. Janice shook hers slowly.