‘That’s it. Couldn’t be the same here, of course. Not a lot of pot you could slip in with bills of lading.’
‘Maybe we should try it!’ grinned Dave, rummaging in his blazer pocket. ‘Give ol’ Gemma a blast! Ah –’ He popped the cellophane off another black and gold packet.
I stood up. ‘If you’re going to light up more of those coffin-nails, I’m off! It’s late, and you’ve probably done me in already today. Never heard of secondary inhalation? If I get cancer, I’ll sue.’
‘Go ahead, man! I’ll claim I was driven to it by a brutal boss who slunk off early and left me up to here in it. Literally!’
‘That’s no way to talk about Barry!’ I said reprovingly. The banter covered up my departure nicely, and my injured arm gave me a good enough reason for leaving before the others, even on this embattled evening. The wince as Clare helped me on with my anorak was quite genuine.
‘Oh, sorry – Steve, look, be sensible for once.’ Those clear eyes were weighing me up with an expression I couldn’t fathom, almost as if she could see right through the frantic unease I was hiding. And dammit, she was nibbling at that finger again. ‘Let me drive you home. Go on –’
That was the last thing I wanted. ‘Don’t fuss! Just a bit tired, that’s all – same as you. You get out of this, too. Tomorrow’s soon enough.’
Judy’s good night was even more sympathetic than before. But once through the door I had to stop myself running for the car.
I headed home, chafing at the tail end of the rush-hour traffic; I took some absurd risks lane-hopping, because home wasn’t where I was going, and I might already be too late. I had to tell Jyp, and fast; but I’d already let one night slip by. By the time I turned into Danube Street the sun had already sunk behind the high buildings, and I was racing into a gulf of shadow. It had never looked more mundane; and behind the rooftops there were no masts to be seen. I writhed with doubt; but I drove on.
My tyres rumbled like urgent drums across the cobbles, echoing off the grime-crusted walls. I turned into Tampere Street, where what looked like the same filthy paper was still blowing about, but this time I didn’t park. I thought I’d worked out which way the docks ought to be, but it turned out not to be so simple; a one-way street sent me careering off like a pinball through a maze of featureless back streets, and I was as lost as I had been on foot. Every so often as I passed a narrow turning I’d glimpse something at the far end; then I’d turn down the next one and find it dog-legged around and away in the wrong direction. Or I’d slow down, reverse back and into the actual turning, only to find the glimmer of light that suggested open water was a reflection from a boarded-up window, or that the flash of red that looked so much like the tavern signboard was a forgotten poster flapping ragged from a wall. When at last one such alley spat me out into the wider street I’d glimpsed, it turned out to be Danube Street again, much further along past Tampere Street. And there beneath a glaring orange streetlamp hung a gleaming new brown and white tourist sign, that I’d have seen the first night if only I’d kept on going – <<< HARBOURSIDE
Somehow or other the sight of it only made my heart sink more. But I turned the way it pointed, and drove on. Until, quite unexpectedly, there were no more grim walls ahead, and Danube Street opened out onto a neat little roundabout with bright lights and bushes growing in concrete tubs, and blue parking signs in all directions. And beyond it, flanked by a row of buildings whose scrubbed stone and brick and new paint positively blazed in the last rays of the falling sun, was a dock pool, empty of ships and hung with the same white chains you find on suburban gardens. I pulled in beside them, at a vacant parking meter, and clambered slowly out of the car. I looked down the pool, to where it opened out onto the sunset sea; but the waters were empty. There was not a ship in sight, and the only warehouse I could see was marked with a pink neon disco sign across its upper storey. The seawind was tainted with dust from a scaffold-shrouded building behind me, and the spicy staleness emanating from an Indian restaurant nearby. I’d found only what I’d set out to look for, that night; and it seemed almost like a mockery, a judgement.
Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find. What had I found before? Hallucination? Delusion? In my mind I couldn’t be sure it had ever existed; in my memory it was already clouded. And yet all my feelings shouted that it was there somewhere, that I had to find my way back to it before it was too late. I thrashed frantically against the doubts that ensnared me. But what could I do? I was a child again, and lost. I was shut out.
Chapter Three
That place …
Just two days back I’d have liked it. I might even have checked out that disco, it looked stylish and upmarket. Not that that would make the cocktails less lurid, the moronic beat less numbing; but the clientele would be smoother, and there’d be no need to talk. Eye to eye, body to body, direct; no well-worn lines, no show of caring, no rite of lies. That was the way they liked it, too, the ones who went there; a short, sweaty, sleepless night, make-up smears and animal smells, and if it went well a shared breakfast. The girls who hung up their clothes first – they were the ones it went best with; I’d noticed that. Names were things we traded lightly, without obligation, between kisses; no need to call again, and these days I seldom did. All right, so it wasn’t love; but love isn’t for everybody. At least – unlike so much – it was honest. At least nobody got hurt.
Now, though, even the idea of the place and all that went with it made me sick. The sight of the whole pettifled street clawed at my sanity. Its mere existence seemed to clash horribly with what I’d stumbled on that night, romanticized or not. I had to get out, or believe … Or believe nothing, trust nothing, my senses least of all. I forgot the car; I blundered blindly across the road, lucky that it was empty. If there was anyone to see me they must have thought me drunk. I plunged gratefully into the sheltering blackness of an alley mouth like an animal injured, desperate to hide. My fingers skidded along the still fresh paintwork of a window-frame, and struck worn stone beyond it. I blinked, and looked around. The alley was narrow and dark, now the sun had gone down; but that only made it look more like the ones I’d gone weaving through that strange night. Whatever had been done to it the shadow hid; the faint glimmer of twilight, sheltered from the harsh street lighting, draped its mantle of mystery around it once more. I looked back and laughed aloud at the contrast; all that newness seemed like a façade, a thin gaudy crust over what really lay here. Suddenly it wasn’t so hard to believe in myself again. Just as Jyp had predicted, I’d come back.
As Jyp had predicted – and what else had he said? ‘… you ask for Jyp the Pilot, right?’ It came back to me, clear as I’d heard it. ‘Ask anyone, they all know me …’ Well, that ought to be easy enough. But somehow I didn’t relish it round here, not in any of those dinky-looking little bistros, they didn’t seem suitable somehow. But at the far end of the alley there was a dim yellowish gleam of windows. That ought to be something.
It turned out to be a pub, not very large and anything but restored; in fact, it looked about as rundown as any I’d seen. It stood on the alley corner, defined by a curved fascia of Edwardian glazed tiling in dark red and blue, very cracked and dirty, and stained-glass windows, equally dingy and opaque, etched with advertisements for the forty-shilling ales of forgotten breweries. The light that escaped was glaring, the sound of voices raucous; it looked tough, and it made me nervous. But it was somewhere to start. The warped door squealed as I stepped through into a suffocating cloud of smoke.