— It’s a funny old life, gel.
— But my father is chief of police, she moans, — for the whole island! He is a real man! How can he be homosexual?
That was a good move, though. My advice, that one. He listened and learned, no flies on old Costas. — Stranger things have happened at sea, gel, I tell her as the boat tears through the waves.
— It’s not possible… it’s just not possible…
— Maybe it’s all just been a misunderstanding, I shrug, happy to see the Fuerty shoreline and Corralejo harbour coming into view.
Cynth’s there at the dock and she’s looking at me and then Seph in bemusement. She’s got that sour, betrayed face, like she’s been put in her place by younger skirt she can’t compete with, which, I suppose, is the case. I put her out of her misery by introducing them and giving her the party line: — Cynth, Seph; Seph, Cynth. Cynth, Seph’s an old friend who has just been, how could one put this delicately, disappointed in love. Her boyfriend’s been working on this film they’re shooting over here, and he’s only gone and done a runner. Left her a note, the lot.
— Oh… okay, says Cynth, now relieved and rather sympathetic.
Seph pouts, starts grizzling and bursts into tears again, and Cynth, on cue and now delighted cause she thinks she ain’t got no competition, is waiting to smother her into that ample bosom. As Seph gets the treatment and is happy to succumb, Cynth coughs out, — Still not heard from Em. This German boy she met seemed ever so nice, she pleads, her voice rising in panic. — I never thought they’d stay out, Mickey, she promised she’d be back before midnight!
— Yeah… I say, struggling to stay cool myself, especially as I’m thinking again of them gangster cunts. The top crowd among them maniacs these days ain’t like the old school who played by a certain code. They always target the families of the geezers they want onside. Farking low-life pseudo-nonce scumbags. — Listen, Cynth, you take Seph back to base and wait there in case of Em showing up. I’m gonna go off looking for her.
So I leave them and jump in the motor in search of Em.
I’m off driving down to the Kraut side of the island, watching the vegetation get lusher and the villages get more picturesque. I hit a few bars, asking questions, showing Em’s picture, which Cynth thoughtfully brought out, an update on my mobile phone edition, but there ain’t nobody biting.
Then as I’m driving back into Corralejo, outside a block of shitty tourist apartments, I see em: them two geezers. Them that was in the Bull the other night.
I pull into the car park outside the gaffs and watch them. The big cunt goes into the apartments, but the little weaselly un turns on his heels and heads back out. He gets into a motor. I follow him and he parks behind the supermarket. It’s empty. He gets out the motor. I do n all. My nerves are jagged with the hangover, all the booze of the other night leaving my system. Sweat’s pouring off me. My limbs feel heavy. I gotta do something, but I ain’t particularly great shakes at the physical side of things as it happens. I loved running with football mobs, but I was never a top lad, never a front-line troop. I’d be game enough when it came to thirty-second windmilling bouts with other mugs, but this cold-bloodied stuff was never my style. But I gotta do something. But I feel like shit. Like proper shit. Like a dirty, discarded, old brown shit sweating in some toilet that won’t flush away.
The geezers might be—
No. I gotta do something—
He sees me approaching.
— Alright, John? I shout at him, pumping myself up, ramping is what I believe they call it, as the faces of every top lad I’ve ever known come into my head, egging me on.
— Mister Landlord, he says with a nasty smile, like he’s some farking Bond villain expecting me. Well, I’m straight over and my nut’s in his face, and he goes down like Cynth on a dirty weekend. The cunt obviously wasn’t expecting that. I’m right down on top of him battering his head off the tarmac, screaming in his face, — I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FUCKING GANGSTER BOLLOCKS, I’LL RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF AND CRUSH YOUR FARKING SKULL IN A VICE IF YOU’VE TOUCHED ONE HAIR ON MY LITTLE GEL’S HEAD, YOU CAHHNNT!
I can’t hear anything except a ringing in my ears as I crack his weaselly head twice, three, four times, but then I realise that the phone’s ringing The Dam Busters in my jacket. The geezer’s lying under me, moaning and groaning, again like Cynth after a good nailing. And like her, he ain’t going nowhere fast. I tear the wobbly out of my pocket and answer it. It’s only Cynth. — Michael, Emily’s here. Everything’s fine. Jürgen brought her back. We’re all having tea on the veranda. Yeah, they got a little tipsy last night and decided that it might be best not to try and drive so they sat up drinking coffee.
— Sweet. I’ll be back shortly, I say, clicking off the phone. My heart sinks in my chest as I look down at the geezer.
— Please don’t… he begs, and now his voice sounds all posh, — I’m not who you think… he moans.
— I… I… I try to speak and can’t, so I get off him and stand up. — Look, mate, I apologise… I think I might have got the wrong end of the stick. I offer the geezer my hand, but he waves me away and starts to sit up of his own accord, taking deep breaths, rubbing his nut. — I thought you’d kidnapped my daughter to put the frighteners on me cause you thought I heard something I shouldn’t have, which I didn’t, I try to explain. — I mean… a geezer like you…
— I’m an actor, he moans in that posh voice.
Suddenly all I can think of now is old Costas and his stupid farking movie. — Fuck me, I gasp, and I’m helping him up. — Your mate n all?
He rubs his bonce again and keeps taking deep breaths, then bends over like he’s gonna puke. After a bit he lifts up his head. — We’re shooting a film… we were method acting… learning our lines.
— Fuck sake… I’m sorry, mate. I should have thought. I even know the farking film you’re on about, I tell him, helping him back to his motor and sitting him down in the front passenger seat. — I know it might not be much consolation to ya, but you geezers are pretty good at your job, I tell him. — Had me proper wound up, you did! I laugh, but he still ain’t for seeing the funny side.
Later on, when I get back to the pub, I learn that the local Old Bill found out that the businessman geezer got shot by his wife. Seems he was knocking off the au pair, and she caught em on the job and took exception. That made me think: thank fuck for gun control in England! Trees caught me in similar circumstances once and came at me with a kitchen knife. Had to scarper pronto. In another country, say like America, old Mickey here would’ve been brown bread. Just for a farking shag, and not, as I recall, a particularly great one at that.
No doubt the likes of Trees would say it was poetic justice.
So I had the actor blokes, Will and Tom, back at the pub for a night out on me, to show there was no hard feelings. They turned out to be decent geezers: a bit la-di-da, but alright. Even got me some work on the film, Old Iron, playing the hit man’s associate! A speaking part, no less, although my character was called Silent Billy. I had to say, ‘Don’t like the sound of this. Not one bit,’ just before a bunch of us got cut down by a hail of bullets. A thespian debut. I thought: let them get their green eyes on that one back home.
Cynth was fairly enjoying playing mother hen to Em and Seph. Everything seemed sorted for a while, except that every time I looked round, and I ain’t naturally what one might call the paranoid sort, they would all suddenly go quiet. What was it the old cunt said: ‘When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.’ — C’mon, you lot, I demanded, — out with it. What’s going on, then?