Rough Treatment

Twenty-one

Lynn Kellogg’s flat was in the old Lace Market area of the city: finely proportioned Victorian factories built by philanthropic entrepreneurs who thoughtfully provided chapels on the premises. A little uplift for the soul before a sixteen-hour day. Most of these tall brick buildings were still in existence and were gradually being restored, at least to a state of better repair. There were also a number of car parks and, angled between three of these, the housing-association development where Lynn lived.

She led Naylor across the interior courtyard and up the stairs towards the first floor. The post inside the door was the usual collection of unwanted solicitations, glossy offers to lend her money; the usual letter from her mother, Thetford postmark, Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days she went shopping.

“Take off your coat, Kevin. I’ll put the kettle on.”

The living room was small, not poky, a haven for pot plants and paperback books left face down and open, a uniform shirt and a towel draped over the radiator.

“Tea or coffee?”

“Whatever’s easiest.”

“Kevin.”

“Tea.”

“Coffee might keep you awake better.”

“Okay, then. Coffee.”

By the time she carried the mugs through from the kitchen, he was keeled over in the high-backed armchair she had bought at the auction by Sneinton Market, asleep.

The best part of an hour to fill, Harold Roy had wandered into a wine bar in Hockley. All he knew was that he wanted somewhere quiet to sit, a couple more drinks, something, maybe, to eat; think things through. What he was going to say.

It wasn’t the place.

The lighting was right, subdued enough to give the table candles relevance; neither was it crowded. But the music was amplified to the point of rendering conversation difficult, meditation impossible. He made a brief pretence of looking for somebody who wasn’t there and left. In-what? — he checked his watch-fifty minutes now he would be face to face with Alan Stafford.

“Look, Alan, Alan, the way I see it is this …”

He went into a corner pub, ordered a large vodka and tonic, yes, thanks, ice and lemon (there didn’t seem to be any point in asking for fresh lime), and sat on a long bench-seat towards the fire. There was a smattering of other drinkers, a few kids who looked like they might be students, a man in a brown three-piece suit talking earnestly to somebody else’s wife, a dog roaming from table to table in search of crisps. Retriever, Labrador, he could never tell the difference.

His first reactions to Maria’s infidelity had been expected and unthinking: anger, disillusion, shock, rage. Hours later he was beginning to see it in a different light. After all, if someone else wanted to get his jollies humping that tired old body, where did that leave him except off that particular hook? And what was so great about what they had going for them that it was worth keeping together, even regretting? The way to go, the light at the end of what had seemed an infinitesimally long tunnel, let him take her off his hands, see what waking up with the back of that pushed up against you every morning did for romance. Let him. This guy. This Grabianski.

Extraordinary.

Extraordinary fellow.

Like his suggestion about what Harold now realized was a mutual problem. Knowing that, somehow, made Harold feel stronger; gave him a sense of, almost, solidarity. He’d been worried about meeting Stafford, afraid the whole situation might turn against him, turn nasty. Whatever else, Harold hadn’t forgotten the knife that had been in Stafford’s hand. But, as Grabianski had pointed out, when it came down to it, what Alan Stafford was was a businessman. And this was business. Nothing personal. Business.

He looked at his glass, surprised to find it empty.

On the way back to the bar he stooped down and patted the dog. He hadn’t as much as stroked a cat since he didn’t know when. He was feeling good: liberated. He bought another large vodka and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps to share with his new-found friend.

Lynn couldn’t put it off any longer. Kevin was still sleeping and she had already ironed her shirt, sorted through the next day’s washing, cleaned the top of the gas cooker, dusted-what was she doing? — the spaces on the kitchen shelves. Dear Lynnie, it would start, the last thing I want to do is moan, it isn’t as though you haven’t enough on your own plate, I realize that…

But …

But since her aunt had moved to Diss, it wasn’t as though there was anyone close she could talk to; since that last time at the doctor’s nothing she did or took seemed to rid her of those pains at the top of her head which came and went, some of them, Lynnie love, like a red-hot poker pressing against the inside of my skull, you wouldn’t believe, and there wasn’t anything she could do other than go and sit in the dark until they were over.

Lynn used the handle of a spoon to tear along the top of the envelope, her mother’s less-than-steady writing, blue Bic Biro on Woolworth paper.

Dear Lynnie …

She cast a glance at Kevin Naylor, possibly the longest undisturbed sleep he’d had in weeks. It was, she realized, the first time a man had been in her flat since the one she had lived with had up and pedaled away. Somewhere in the back of a drawer there was a puncture outfit he’d left in his haste and which she had been meaning to throw out with the rubbish, but somehow had failed to get round to.

Lynnie, it’s your father. Ever since he had to slaughter all those birds, the whole twelve hundred …

She could picture him, a brittle-boned man in a plastic raincoat and wellington boots, back and forth between hen houses, pushing at the ground with his stick.

Christ, Kevin! she thought, wake up!

Harold Roy was feeling so good he was late for his appointment. Negotiating his way to the rendezvous as Alan Stafford had described, his head swam with ideas of liberation. Fuck the business! Fuck Maria! (Well, no, let Grabianski do that-him being so great at it anyhow.) He would invest his money in something solid, buy a cottage in the Forest of Dean, write a book, maybe; get a dog.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Hey!” Harold waved his hands around in a display of intemperate good humor. “What’s a little time between friends?”

“Are you drunk?” Stafford glowered.

“Merry.” Harold pulled his chair closer. Another pub, out-of-date enough to advertise a public bar. There was music, but it was quieter, older. Harold thought he recognized Neil Sedaka. The radio was tuned to Gem-AM. “That’s what I am, merry.”

“You’re fucking drunk.”

“No, no. Not at all.” He poked a finger towards Stafford’s glass. “What’ll it be?”

Stafford straight-armed himself back from the table. They were alone in the bar. He had to hold himself back from punching out at the ludicrous, grinning face in front of him.

“Lager?” asked Harold, lifting Stafford’s glass.

“Forget it.”

Harold was rising to his feet. “I’ll have a vodka.”

“Like hell you will!” Stafford hauled him back down, his face jammed smack up against Harold’s, the bitter odor of those paper-thin cigarettes that he rolled. Pipe tobacco.

“You’re supposed to have things to tell me. Business we’ve got to sort out.”

“That’s right,” Harold beamed. “Just let me …”

Stafford dragged him back a second time. “You make a move towards that bar once more …”

“Okay, okay. You want to get them that badly, go ahead. Large vodka tonic. Ice and lemon.”

It was like stepping into the London Dungeon and discovering you were in Disneyland. Stafford got up and called the barman through from the lounge: vodka and a pint of lager. Jesus! This had better be good.

“Is that …?” Harold began, uncertainly.

“What?”

“Is that…”

“Is that what?”

“Is that Connie Francis or Brenda Lee?”

In the end she had to nudge him gently, wait while he stretched and yawned then stretched some more, embarrassed. Twenty-what? Five going on seventeen? She put a mug into his hands and he was surprised it was still warm.

“I thought I’d been asleep for longer.”

“You had. I poured the first lot away and made fresh.”

“How long …?” He looked at the time and sat bolt upright. “Debbie, she’ll …”

“It’s all right.” Her hand across his arm, easing him back. “I called her.”

Naylor’s eyes moved around the small room, startled. What on earth was Debbie going to be thinking? If ever he was going to be late off shift he always made a point of letting her know. And that was only work, duty; whereas this …

“Don’t worry. She doesn’t think we’re having an affair.” Said it without thinking she would or should; one of those phrases that jumps from your mouth unbidden, a soap-opera cliché. Neighbours. EastEnders. What kids watched with their tea where ten, fifteen years back it would have been making a life-sized model of the Titanic from cornflake packets, how to adopt a tree in the Kalahari Desert Naylor was on his feet, mug between both hands, his eyes still restless.

“Kevin.” She took the mug from him, the soft outside of her hand, there below the littlest finger, brushing his knuckles. Had she meant that and, anyway, what did intention have to do with this? “Kevin, I told her you fell asleep in your tomato soup. I wouldn’t have rung to say you’d fallen asleep again here if there was anything she might suspect.”

Except that you might, Lynn thought; if you were clever enough, if anything had happened, that might just about have covered it.

“I’d better call her,” he said, turning towards the phone.

Her hand again, stopping him; the second time. He was losing what color he had from his face. “Don’t you want to talk?” she said.

Naylor reached out his hand. “Yes,” he said. “Another time.”

“Let me get this straight, Harold.” What was he doing? An hour here, watching this media-type in poncey clothes down vodka like it was going out of style; listening to him, taking him seriously for God’s sake, and now calling him Harold. Like they were friends, or something. Partners. What did he think he was doing? He knew what he was doing. Waiting to find the best way of getting his hands back around a kilo of cocaine. The real thing. Serve him right for thinking stupid in the first place. Look, Harold-no, he hadn’t called him that, not back then; he was just another over-age yuppie who’d started in because it was smart, because if it was that expensive, well, it had to be good. Dipped his nose a little too far a little too often and got hooked. Look, Stafford had said, I’ve got this problem, why don’t you earn yourself a bonus, help me out, keep the supply flowing? Free-market economy, that’s what we’re all in favor of, isn’t it? Crest of the wave we’re all riding home on.

And he had handed Harold the bundle and said keep it safe.

Now he was getting a lot of pressure from people to deliver, pressure to come up with more cash, keep his end of several bargains, ripples that were noticed way back down the line.

You don’t stay in there, Alan, a lot of other guys watching for the break. Not only them. Already he’d had to move his stash, switch his place of operations. Three times in as many weeks. Two steps ahead of the drug squad, one wasn’t enough.

“Harold …”

“Hum?”

“What you’re saying is this. The package I left with you for safekeeping was ripped off and now the guy who ripped it off wants to meet with me and sell it back.”

“At a discount.”

“You don’t say!”

“Two-thirds of what it’s worth.”

“Two-thirds, shit!”

“How much then?”

“Ten thousand.”

Harold laughed in Stafford’s face; actually, it was more of a giggle. In the background Dion was singing about being a lonely teenager in love. Was that with or without the Belmonts? Harold could never remember.

“Twelve.”

“I have it on good authority,” Harold said pompously, “this merchandise is worth exactly double that.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Sorry.” Quietly, “Double that.”

“Maybe that’s what it’s worth to me. Maybe. To you and this dickhead friend, it’s worth nothing but a serious spell behind bars.”

“Aha,” said Harold, “you’re trying to frighten me.”

I’d like to take you outside and kick the shit out of you, Stafford thought. “Fourteen thousand,” he said. “That’s it. Beginning and end.”

“Fifteen.”

Alan Stafford snapped shut his tobacco tin, drew on his cigarette. “Bye, Harold,” he said, beginning to walk away.

“All right.”

“All right what?” Turning back, but taking his time about it.

“What you said. Fourteen.”

Stafford sat back down. “Couple of days. I’ll need that to raise the money. I’ll phone you.”

“No,” said Harold hastily.

“What d’you expect me to do? Advertise?”

“It’s just that …”

“What?”

Harold had a hazy idea that he might not be around that long. Hell, he’d have to be. Sitting downstairs waiting for the phone to ring while Maria and her Polish burglar were up above humping.

“Phone me,” he said.

“That’s what I said I’d do.”

“Two days?”

“Somewhere around there.”

“You want another drink?”

“No,” from close to the door, “I don’t want another drink, Harold.”

Fine, who cares? Buy myself a drink. Vodka. That’s the stuff. He wished he had some of that kilo back in the bedroom, but that had gone. He laughed. Stolen. What was lost has now been found: rejoice! “Hey,” he said to the barman, “you know the parable of the prodigal kilo?”

“Vodka?” asked the barman.

Harold nodded, pushed across another five-pound note. “Great music,” he said.

“Gets on my tits,” said the barman.

Harold shrugged and stood there at the bar, leaning against it, alone and thinking about what kind of dog he might choose. Had that been Patti Page or Lita Roza? He never could decide.