FORTY

No ‘birds’ whatsoever had proved to be even remotely ‘up for it’ by the time Allen and Bridges left their fourth pub of the evening. They had tried their luck gamely in each place and Bridges called the latest woman to reject their advances a ‘fat lesbian’ before the pair of them stumbled out on to the Lower Clapton Road. Allen said, ‘She wasn’t fat,’ which reduced Bridges to fits of hysterics and they were both still laughing fifteen minutes later when they arrived at Allen’s front door.

‘Nice place, pal,’ Bridges said, when they got inside. He walked across to the stereo and whistled. ‘Where did you get all this gear, then? It’s like one of them shops on Tottenham Court Road or something.’

‘Came into some money, didn’t I.’

‘Where from?’

Pissed as he was, and tempted to show off, Allen knew better than to say any more. He shrugged.

Bridges did not seem bothered. ‘We could have had a major party in here if your ugly mug hadn’t put all the slags off.’

‘I think that was you, mate.’

‘Bollocks!’

They both started laughing again. Allen’s dog came running in from another room and they both made a fuss of it for a while.

‘Beers?’

‘In the fridge.’

‘Go on then,’ Bridges said.

Allen collected four cans from the kitchen, and by the time he came back in, Bridges had selected a CD and turned the volume up good and loud. They opened cans and stood grinning at one another, heads nodding in time to the music and fingers moving against the tins as though they were the necks of Fender Strats.

‘Slayer,’ Bridges shouted above the squeal of a guitar. ‘Fucking excellent.’

Allen nodded. ‘Top band.’ He moved to nudge the volume down. Said, ‘Neighbours can get a bit arsey.’

‘Leave it.’ Bridges sat on the floor and leaned back against the sofa. The dog jumped up and lay down behind him. ‘Fuck ’em.’

Allen turned the volume down just a little, then joined Bridges on the floor and they sat and smoked and drank a couple each. They talked about their time at Barndale and other places. The screws they had hated, the scraps and the war stories.

‘Like a holiday camp,’ Bridges said. ‘Barndale. Compared to some, you know?’

‘No holiday camp I’m ever going to visit,’ Allen said.

‘They all get easier after a while.’

‘Not going back, mate.’

‘Right.’

‘Straight up,’ Allen said. ‘Got a bit of dosh now, going to get things sorted out.’ He picked up the empty cans and carried them towards the kitchen.

‘Don’t be such an old woman,’ Bridges said.

Allen turned in the doorway, the empties clutched to his chest. ‘Spent too much time in a pigsty,’ he said. ‘My place stays nice and tidy from now on.’ He walked into the kitchen, dumped the cans into the bin and pressed his forehead to the cool glass in the back door. He stared at the outline of the plastic chairs on the dark patio outside and hoped that Bridges was not planning on staying too much longer. Allen was one more beer from slaughtered now and struggling to think straight. He just wanted to crash out, to curl up with his dog and get some sleep.

When he came back into the living room, Bridges was taking his works out of a battered metal tobacco tin. A syringe and a needle, a crooked and blackened tablespoon, a wrap of paper.

‘Get us some water, would you, pal?’

Allen turned and walked back towards the kitchen.

‘Got any lemon juice?’

‘Who d’you think I am, Jamie fucking Oliver?’

‘Vinegar?’

‘Yeah, somewhere.’

‘That’ll do.’

He came back with a glass of water and a Sarsons bottle, sat and watched Bridges tip the drug carefully out into the spoon and drizzle a few drops of vinegar on it. Bridges filled the syringe with water, added it to the spoon, then heated the mixture over a lighter. He broke off the filter from a cigarette, dropped it into the bubbling brown mess and drew the liquid up through it into the syringe. Then he fixed the needle, the movements small and sure. He told Allen to take off his belt and once Allen had handed it over, he tied it around his arm, tapped up a vein and injected himself. His head nodded a few times and when he finally looked up and across at Allen, he looked as though he’d just come in his pants.

‘Beautiful,’ he said.

‘How you getting home?’ Allen asked.

Bridges held up the syringe, shook what liquid was still left inside. ‘Come on, we’ll do half each,’ he said. ‘Seeing as I’m feeling generous.’

‘I’m fine, mate,’ Allen said. ‘You do the lot.’

‘You scared?’ Bridges showed as many ratty-looking teeth as he had left. ‘You never shot up before?’

‘Course I have. Just too pissed to enjoy it, that’s all.’

‘Come on,’ Bridges said. ‘That big “fuck you” to Barndale, eh? Like a celebration kind of thing. We’re going to get out of it, let’s get out of it!’ He took the belt from around his forearm, leaned across and began tying it around Allen’s. ‘Half each, yeah?’

Allen stared at the syringe. Looked like a lot more than half left in there, but what the hell. He had always wanted to, had come close a few times, and he certainly wasn’t going to chicken out in front of a prick like Bridges.

He nodded.

‘Take you to the moon, pal,’ Bridges whispered. ‘Won’t even be able to remember Barndale … ’

Allen sucked in a fast breath as the needle went in and watched as Bridges drew back the plunger. The skinny scarlet thread that twisted and bloomed in the barrel.

‘Sweet, isn’t it?’ Bridges looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s how you know you’ve hit a vein, not just going to skin-pop, which hurts like fuck and doesn’t give you the same hit.’

‘Like a lava lamp,’ Allen said.

‘In she goes … ’

Allen instantly felt like someone had driven a bus across his chest. He struggled to breathe and wanted desperately to be sick, but before he had the chance to do either he heard a loud bang. He was still wondering what the hell it was as the blackness fell across him.

Bridges winced as Allen’s head crashed against the floor, then watched, fascinated, as the eyelids fluttered and the eyeballs rolled around like hard-boiled eggs. He waited until Allen’s chest had stopped heaving, then pulled himself up. He fetched a cloth and a bottle of spray-cleaner from the kitchen, then moved around the flat, carefully wiping down any surfaces he might have touched.

The heavy metal was still thumping from the speakers and he turned the volume back up, moving his head and hand in time to it as he sprayed and polished.

‘I’ll clean your place up good and proper, you fucking old woman.’

He wiped down the stereo and the CD case. He went into the kitchen, rooted in the bin and wiped down each of the empty beer cans. He wiped down the syringe that was still dangling from Allen’s arm then, last of all, he applied a delicate squirt to his tobacco tin. He would miss that, it had seen him through some hard times, but if everything was going to look kosher he would need to leave it behind and he knew these things had to be done properly.

The song was almost finished by the time he’d put the cleaning things back where he had found them, so he waited. He wheeled his arm around on the final chord, jumped in the air on the last deafening crash of drums and almost lost his balance. He steadied himself against a chair, giggling. It was very decent gear indeed and he was pretty far gone himself. He looked down at Allen’s body.

Way too good for pussies like that, anyway.

The dog was looking up at him from the sofa, tail going like a bastard and tongue lolling out. He thought he might get a puppy himself, thought about taking this one while he had the chance, then decided that would be a stupid move, all things considered.

He spent a few minutes rubbing the dog’s belly and tickling it behind the ears, then left.

He is lying in bed watching the news when he gets the call.

It’s one of his greatest pleasures, stretching out between clean sheets with a decent malt close at hand, greater even than the pleasure he gets from some of the bodies he shares his bed with now and again. That, however, is never more than a temporary arrangement, an hour or so to get what he needs, after which there is no company he craves but his own. He would certainly never dream of letting any of them stay the night. He has never so much as entertained such an idea. It’s not just that he could not bear to wake up next to one of them, he could not even contemplate going to sleep with anyone that close. An arm draped across him, or a foot against his own, someone else’s hot breath on the back of his neck.

Just the thought of it makes him shudder.

It’s not that he isn’t … tender. He prides himself on being a considerate lover, but he just prefers his own company when the sex is over and he always sends them home in a taxi with a little something extra in their pockets to spend on whatever drug lights their candle. They come looking for him, some of them, because they know they’ll be given a good time, in and out of the bedroom.

He is pleased that he has earned that sort of reputation.

He is watching the rolling news on Sky, which is nothing short of a godsend when something like this happens. Of course, it gets tedious after a while, with the same news – or lack of it – being tarted up a dozen different ways within the same programme, but it is oddly hypnotic nonetheless.

It will help him sleep, if nothing else.

There is one reporter standing just a few feet from the police cordon at one end of the street, a uniformed officer grim-faced behind him, while another – a young black woman, who is clearly the junior of the two – delivers her reports from outside the railway station, which is still closed of course. She occasionally talks to a disgruntled and barely literate commuter, but otherwise her screeching monologues have none of the drama commanded by her colleague. He has a face you can take seriously. He has coppers in shot as well as the occasional emergency vehicle, which always ramps up the excitement, such as it is.

He lies there and chuckles to himself.

There are, after all, only so many ways of saying that nothing whatsoever is happening.

He sips his malt and asks himself again what on earth the man inside the wretched little shop could possibly be doing this for. Yes, a few questions asked, but to what end? Is the man going to get his son back?

He takes another drink. Not going to happen.

Now the black woman is wittering on about ‘tension in the community’ and, as the phone rings, he decides that she could only have got the job because of some positive discrimination quota, and would be better off presenting children’s programmes …

‘Just watching the latest at Fags ’n’ Mags,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘The newsagent’s. These Indian places usually have some stupid name like that. Same as when they call a barber’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow! Bloody ridiculous.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Silly bastard’s still waving his gun about at some poor policewoman. Nothing to get excited about.’

‘Yes, well, on a related matter—’

‘Oh stop talking like a ponce, will you?’ He sits up in bed, mildly irritated. He mutes the sound on the television. ‘I get enough of that at work every day.’

The man at the other end of the phone sniffs and says, ‘Fine. I just called to let you know that things have been sorted out. I thought you might like to know.’

‘Our Scottish friend earned his wages then?’

‘Well, I’ve only got his word for it, but he knows better than to try it on.’

‘And he was careful?’

‘Made a point of telling me just how careful he was.’

‘Good. As long as he’s careful enough to keep his own head down now he’s done what was asked of him.’

‘He’s got enough money to disappear, so there shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘I want this to be the end of it.’

‘Don’t you think I do?’

‘Where are you?’

The other man’s voice drops. ‘I’m at home. Downstairs.’

‘Get yourself off to bed, man, for God’s sake. Have a quiet wank, or better still give your wife a good seeing-to. Sounds like you need to relax.’

‘Shall we talk tomorrow?’

‘Well, I’ll be seeing you at the party, I presume?’

‘You think that’s a good idea?’

‘Like you said, things have been sorted out. We should enjoy ourselves a little.’ On the TV, the male reporter hands back to the studio. Behind the two suntanned anchors is a large picture of a smiling Javed Akhtar. ‘With any luck our newsagent friend will have done us all a favour and put that gun in his mouth by then. We can crack open a bottle of something.’