He set off down the hill. The night smelled of the river. Above a cluster of black trees, the moon looked thinner, sharper. Climbing into his car, he fitted the key in the ignition. His actions felt heightened but claustrophobic; if he moved his hand, it seemed to leave staggered versions of itself in the air behind it.
After Heswall, he saw a farm off to the left. Dark windows, nobody awake. Parking his car, he walked until he found some bags of silage piled in the corner of a field. He began to hit the nearest bag, his fists slamming into the shiny plastic. He carried on punching until his arms felt slow and heavy, then he stood back, panting. There was a breeze now, and it had brought clouds with it. He waited for his breathing to calm down, then returned to his car and drove away.
When he had left the Wirral, he switched the radio on. News and sport. The weather. He kept thinking he could smell rotten vegetables. At some point, maybe, the bag containing the silage had split. He took his right hand off the wheel and brought it up to his nose. Oh God, that was awful. But he’d had to release some of his frustration. McGarry, though…He still couldn’t believe the fury — the self-righteous fury — of that old man. How dare you. Fuck off out of here. Perhaps the fact that he had woken from a deep sleep had insulated him from the shock he might otherwise have felt at Billy’s appearance on his doorstep — or perhaps the defiance was a symptom of his fear.
Billy had been shocked by his own behaviour too. The words that had streamed out of him, the quiet, vicious threats. The air of menace. He’d been better at it than he’d imagined he would be, which wasn’t an entirely comfortable thought. In going over certain aspects of the encounter, he had to keep reminding himself that he was the one who was in the right.
He didn’t speak to Venetia for more than a week. He couldn’t decide how much to tell her, what to say. When he finally called, her voice sounded smaller than usual, and flatter, and he knew right away that something had happened. She had some strange news, she said. Her father had died.
“What?” he said. “When?”
“I just heard.”
She didn’t say when exactly the death had occurred, and he didn’t ask.
Still holding the phone, he looked out of the window. A woman was wheeling a pushchair down the middle of Frederick Street. Her child was clutching a brightly coloured plastic windmill, and Billy heard the spokes revolving in slow-motion, the sound as weighty and liquid as a helicopter’s rotor blades. He felt as if his head might float backwards into the room, leaving his body where it was.
“Well,” he said at last, “I suppose it’s what you wanted…”
Venetia didn’t answer.
“Isn’t it?” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Listen, I’m at home. Could you come over?”
“No. There’s too much going on. The funeral…”
Frederick Street was deserted now. Turning away from the window, Billy stared out across his living-room. “Do you need anything?”
“Don’t call me again,” she said.
They didn’t see each other for several weeks. At work, he seemed to be waiting for something without necessarily knowing what that something was. People kept asking him if he was ill. Once, he went to the pub on Paradise Street with Neil, but Venetia wasn’t there.
“Remember the last time we came here?” he said.
Neil nodded. “I only had two pints. I had to leave early.”
“There was an Indian girl sitting behind you.”
“Indian girl?” Neil looked blank.
On the pretence of visiting the Gents, Billy checked the bar on the first floor. It was empty, but he saw that they had bought a new black ball for the pool table. He cupped it for a moment in his hand, then sent it rolling slowly down the table. He watched as it rebounded off the far cushion with a noise that was like a soft full stop.
Then, one evening, his bell rang, and when he opened the door she was standing on the pavement. He knew that a long time had gone by because he didn’t recognise anything she was wearing. The lemony gleam she used to have had faded: her skin looked dry, and slightly dusty. He asked her in. Upstairs, he offered her a beer — it was all he had — but she shook her head. She’d stopped drinking, she told him.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said. It seemed to be what she expected to hear.
She nodded, but said nothing.
Later, when they were sitting on the sofa, he leaned over and put his head on her lap. He tried to work out how many times he had made love to her. It wasn’t much more than ten. Less than twenty, certainly. It startled him when he realised quite how little he’d been happy with. He was facing out into the room, his cheek resting against her thigh. The taut yet supple curve of muscle. The flutter of a heart somewhere above.
He felt her hand on his head, pushing it away.
“You’re too heavy,” she said.
“I miss you,” he said.
None of their sentences fitted together.
They met up one last time. A beautiful evening in Liverpool. Above St. George’s Hall the clouds were edged in gold like invitation cards or pages from the Bible. Outside the station he thought he smelled tar and ropes, as though a tall ship had sailed past just minutes earlier; the air still had ripples in it, all that remained of the wake. He had travelled into the city with a desolate lightness in his heart. The fact that she was prepared to meet him in a public place could mean only one thing.
“It’s over,” she said.
She had to repeat the words because it was so noisy in the pub. Half-five, and people had just left work. Everyone excited. Summer here at last.
“I don’t love you,” she said.
“You never did,” he said.
She sighed and looked away.
“Well, did you?” He leaned forwards, moving his face into her eye-line.
“If you’re going to make a scene,” she said.
He leaned back again.
He picked up his drink, but found he couldn’t swallow it and pushed it to one side. He had never been able to look at her without wanting her. He had never had enough of her, nowhere near. Was it any wonder that he was upset? In giving him so little, she had bound him to her all the more closely. Didn’t she realise that?
“What were you doing with me, anyway?” he said.
Once again, she had no answer.
He consoled himself with this one thought, which was unworthy, if not downright crueclass="underline" she would never know the truth about her father’s death. She may have talked to Billy about revenge and furnished him with the name and address, but she had no way of proving that he had actually done anything. She didn’t know that he had driven out to the Wirral. She knew nothing of the eleven minutes he had spent in George McGarry’s house. Had his unexpected visit brought about her father’s death, or would it have happened anyway? No one could possibly say, not even Billy, and he found a certain comfort in that element of doubt.
As he reviewed their brief history, a smile spread across his face. Ironically, the very aspect of their relationship that he had most resented was now providing him with a measure of protection. No one was aware that they had slept with each other. No one had ever seen them together. No one even suspected that they might be friends. In the eyes of the world there was no connection between them whatsoever, and never had been.
“What’s so funny?” Venetia asked.
On that warm night, in that loud pub just down the road from Lime Street station, he looked across at her and saw her father. That mouth, those eyes. You can fuck right off. He shook his head.