Garry said goodbye but went across the road to wait, and when Henry came out swaying and swearing to himself, he followed. At the end of a dark street he pulled him from behind, and while Henry lay half stunned in the gutter Garry told him how his infancy had really been. Then he gave every kick back that he had ever got.
And now the king-sized bastard of them all had come with his clapped-out van of explosives to do you and your mates an injury, even to kill you. If there was no justice in the world you had to make it, that’s all Garry knew.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘I’m stiff all over.’ Eileen woke from her dreams so troubled she thought they were real. ‘I suppose I should go upstairs to bed. What are we doing down here, anyway?’
‘We’ve just got to sit,’ Parsons said, ‘until the crack of doom.’
She yawned. ‘Believe that, and you’ll believe anything. He’s only saying the van’s full of bang-bangs to frighten us. He’s like one of them poxy hoaxers who phones an airport and says there’s a bomb on a plane. It makes him feel good. Then he puts the phone down and has a good wank. The dirty bastard’s the same as a flasher. There’s plenty of them around, as well. You see ’em all over the place.’
She stood, and bowed to their laughter, as if she was acting in that play again at school, only this time it looked like being real, because if that beaten-up old flasher was to be believed, the whole lovely hotel would soon be on fire, which was a shame because it was one of the nicest places she’d been in. Maybe they should have kicked him in a bit more up in the attic, though they hadn’t done a bad job, to look at him wincing and twitching. No wonder Trevor had been such a numbskull, with teachers like him knocking around. Keith must have had better schooling, not to mention the mam and dad who brought him up. He knows how to talk, and I’ll bet he’s got a good job that pays lots of money — as well as being tall and strong, and standing no fucking nonsense from anybody.
But there was a sense of violence about him that made her afraid. When he was angry, from habit it seemed more than reason, his eyes were sunken and closer together, nose almost hooked, a bit like an eagle, as if violence was mustard to his meat. Even when there was no reason for violence you could tell he was hoping for it. He had done something, or something had been done to him, or he had done something because something had been done to him, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He was tense in look and limbs, always ready to spring — as he had up the ladder to pull those bikers off Daniel, when, if he hadn’t got his own way, he would have killed the lot and enjoyed it.
She felt love for him but did not know whether she ought to like him, though she did because she wanted to. She wondered who his wife was and how they managed together, hard to imagine him easily in love with anybody, but she could understand women being in love with him. He was the sort who kept too much of himself secret, a man women love till they know better or get fed up with him. On the other hand he couldn’t be so rotten, because he had brought her to this hotel, so that instead of twenty-five pounds single it had cost him forty quid double. Maybe he might think it worthwhile because she had been to bed with him, but she had enjoyed it as well, so he’d still been generous.
He hadn’t done her such a favour if staying any longer meant getting blown to bits, but he wasn’t to know, because he had got himself into the trap as well, which didn’t seem to worry him all that much, and that was strange, as if something funny nagged at his mind, unless that was his way, and he was too proud to show he was upset like mad at what he had driven into. Not everybody screamed and swore if things went wrong, like her father and some of the men she had known, lashing out left, right and centre when they couldn’t think what to do, and only making things worse.
Keith seemed like a clock that could take care of anything to do with time, though sooner or later the springs would break and the whole thing split apart. There were moments when she wondered who he was, and she didn’t get very far but at least it was easier than trying to find out who she herself might be, which became impossible whenever she tried to try, though maybe that was the same for everybody, and it was easier to see other people, if that was easier at all. She thought she ought to stop thinking, because if you got ravelled up you would have a hard job starting again, which must be worse than not having started at all.
Keith liked her affectionate smile, the perfect girl friend who would never question him, because in her apparent mindlessness she thought it would be no use. And he wouldn’t ask anything of her, even though he might want to. In any case they were far from being empty-minded, but out of love and good will towards each other (that rarest of attitudes between men and women) they could become devoted because it was no effort to be so.
Such dreams were of little use, dangerous to you and others if you strove to make them real. Daniel had tried, and turned into one of those who blew limbs off people but had never cut their own finger. Without experience or imagination his ideals had been easy to maintain, though you had to curb your contempt for such types if you believed it was right or useful to understand them.
He knew he must get on his feet for what he had to say. ‘I assume you can all hear? We have to think about getting out of this place, beyond range of that van, because there’s enough stuff inside to demolish the hotel. I take it that none of us wants to die?’
Wayne pulled Daniel’s hand vertically like a railway signal. ‘Here’s one who does.’ He let it fall, which pained Daniel more than the lifting and made him cry out. ‘He ought to, anyway.’
Sally’s flat hand swung so quickly he wasn’t able to dodge, two fierce slaps chasing each other, though he hit back with equal force before she could run from what she had done. ‘No bloody woman, or anybody else, hits me and gets away with it.’ He was breathless with surprise, and holding her wrist that was hinging out for another blow.
‘He’s helpless,’ she cried. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’
‘We thought we had.’ Garry’s leg throbbed, and he wondered if he would be able to ride his bike again, saw himself sitting when the others had gone, sucking on his last fag and waiting for a flash whiter than any snow. ‘We haven’t started yet, if you don’t behave yourself.’
Her breasts were rising and falling, breath grinding in her throat with passionate loathing. The bones of her skull were ringing with pain, but she took both hands away, sat by Daniel and stroked his arm. ‘Don’t worry, everything will be all right.’
She wasn’t sure about that, in her misery, heart keening at such injustice, and at the stupidity of Daniel for involving himself in a cruel and useless cause. He was a child who had been led astray by the balloon man, with no matter what justification, dazzled by the hot air filling their plastic gewgaws.
Enid’s face was pinched with the anxiety they all felt. ‘My boy friend’s supposed to pick me up in the morning. He said so when he dropped me off in his car this afternoon, so I didn’t bring a proper coat, only this cardy and what I stand up in. I’ll freeze if I have to go outside.’
Aaron put an arm around her. ‘You can use my coat.’
Keith smiled. ‘We all want to live. That’s understandable. There are a few options, which I’ve been thinking over, so I suppose it’s time I shared them. The first is that we stay in here and don’t do anything. After all, the van might not explode.’