Okay, so where we going? Rio? India?
Slow down, Billy, I got some time before…
Come on, Marc, you got to get out of Cardiff now.
I can’t leave without saying goodbye…
Saying goodbye?! Don’t be like me, Marc – I was caught, we’ve got the cash, let’s go – you know it’s the right thing to do. What are you doing now? You checking train times?
Me and Billy get an Uber back to Fairwater. We sit in silence. As the car pulls into the car park, Billy flops a flipper on to my arm and looks up at me with those big stupid eyes of his:
You’re going to get caught, Marc.
The clock reads four-oh-seven as I enter the Ex. My old man is in his favourite corner with a pint of SA and a book. Half of him in Fairwater with the afternoon drinkers and half of him in Barbados with Bond.
Want a drink, son?
No, I, uh… I’ve come to say I’m going away for a bit. A holiday.
I puts two of the six grand on the table.
For you.
He lays James Bond face down, shielding 007 from this crime.
I don’t want to explain too much but…
He leans into me, the smell of Brains SA on his breath.
Give me some credit, son. I’m not saying I don’t need this money, not saying I don’t want it but, believe me, I can’t take it. Would you? I can handle Oggy.
This isn’t for Oggy, you don’t have to worry about him – this is for you.
Thanks but no thanks. You sure you don’t want a pint, son? My shout. Sue behind the bar said you was in here earlier – with a girl who was drinking fizzy wine. That who you’re going on holiday with?
Uh, no. I’m going with, well, it’s complicated.
Shame. Sue said you made a smashing couple. She said you seemed… at ease with each other.
Did she…?
–
Promise me, son, you’ll give that money back, wherever it came from. Yeah?
At that point all I want to do is have a pint with my old man in the comfortable and familiar surroundings of the Ex.
Sorry, Mark, got to go.
You promise?
I promise.
Happy days, son. Don’t worry about me. Fizzy wine!
The old man takes a sip of his SA and plunges back into 007’s battle to bring some justice to this crappy world.
Outside, Billy is balancing an empty can of Red Bull on his nose.
You all done now, Marc? Can you drive? Should we hire a car and go to France? Marc? Marc, where you going?
_
I sees her go up the front path and into the house.
It’s a shock for her as she tries to close the door – my hand is stopping it.
Can I come in?
She walks through to the kitchen and I follow.
I was going to do a runner and then I saw my dad and he said something to me and I thought…
What did he say?
I haven’t got long, the police will be looking for me, but he said, well someone else said and he repeated it –
What did he say?
He said: we make a smashing couple.
Lisa moves a tiny bit closer to me and I’m starting to well up and she’s starting to well up:
If I stay in Fairwater I’m going to die of a broken heart.
–
Let’s fuck off together, Lis, let’s go away with this…
_
I got six grand and we can start again, just me and you. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? Leave Fairwater.
Where’d you get it? The money.
–
Where, Marc?
That don’t matter.
Sorry, it does.
I might not even have to pay it back, depending.
Depending on what?
BUPA.
She shifts to her left, facing me.
You’re in love with me, Marc Chapps. Always was, ever since we was in reg class.
You got it the wrong way round – you was in love with me.
Marc Chapps loves Lisa Short.
No, no, I just wants to fuck you. Tha’s all. I wants to buy you just like Oggy was going to buy you. I wants you to be my sugar baby.
I can see she don’t believe me and I can see I’m in trouble. Big fucking trouble.
She moves towards me.
We don’t have to run away, Marc, to be together.
Now she’s closer and there’s no need for either of us to say anything.
I’m unaware of who’s moving forward; could be me, could be her. Or maybe the world is getting that little bit smaller each millisecond and we’re both riding an ever-shrinking brown-and-white Ikea rug towards each other until we are this far apart.
And we kiss.
Oh yes, we kiss. How we kiss.
Boom.
My world expands a little and different points on our bodies are making connections
And we kiss. Again. This time it’s all me and she pulls away a bit and I grab hold of her and bring her to me – she’s like a fucking yo-yo at this point.
Her lips are tickling the little hairs on my earlobe as she whispers something to me and I’m so out of it that I don’t catch what she says and the focus of her watery eyes shifts away from mine and I turn and I realise why she whispered ‘you have to get out of here now’.
Oggy stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Gary and Mo stand behind him.
Oggy is not dead.
Oggy, you’re not dead, thank fuck for that!
I rush forward and hug him and then realise this is, in the circumstances, highly inappropriate.
I stand back and notice Oggy’s head has a massive bandage around it. Both his eyes are black. The missing front tooth makes him look harder than he is.
Yeah, that’s right, brah, I’m not dead.
I don’t feel as though he’s about to call me Wendy or tell the story about us at Rachel Patterson’s party.
Which, I have to emphasise, again, is not true.
Look, Oggy, I’m sorry, just an accident, yeah? Here, you can have this six thousand pounds, it’ll clear Lisa’s debt, yeah? We’re all mates, yeah? Brah…?
He shakes his pinhead of a head.
I know there’s no getting out of this – this is how it happens in gangster movies: Oggy is going to kill me. I can’t fight back cos if I do Gary and Mo will get involved. I can predict every move Oggy will make. I’ve known him and his type all my life and I knows what he will do next. He’ll take a step forward.
Oggy takes a step forward.
He will get out some sort of weapon to beat me with.
It’s half a pool cue. The bottom half.
I’m begging you, Oggy, please. Let us both go.
Kiss my trainers.
What?
Lick the Nike. Just do it.
The tip of my tongue licks the tick.
Please, Oggy. Please…
He slowly unbuttons his cargo pants and out flops his cock.
Now give little Oggy a little kiss.
He’s going to make me suck him off, then he’s going to kill me.
I turn to Gary and Mo. They look away, this is too much even for them.
Come on, Marky, little Oggy wants kisses.
And what happens if I do give, uh, little Oggy kisses?
You can walk out of here alive. Well, you might not be walking but… What you crying for, Marc? Come on, what you waiting for?
And she does it.
Lisa stabs Oggy in the ribs – he stops, a dramatic pause if ever there was one.
From where I’m kneeling I can see it’s a big knife, with a big black handle. Something you might use for chopping larger veg.
The knife sinks into a point in the middle of Oggy’s gut. It thrust up and sideways and split the stomach lining in two, cutting a slice off Oggy’s left lung before puncturing his heart. Surprisingly there wasn’t much blood to start with. That soon changed though.
This time he doesn’t go down like a sack of shit. Lisa steps back and Oggy brings down the pool cue, drops it, it clatters, he staggers forward and leans on the kitchen table, cock still out. For a second looks he like he’s just taking a rest.
Then he goes down like a sack of shit.
I looks down and Beyoncé is looking back up at me – she ain’t moving.
Oh oh oh. Oh oh oh.
The coroner later said the blade, measuring five-point-four inches long, was probably purchased from Argos.
We snap back to real time and Gary and Mo are already out the house.
While Lisa’s being sick in the sink I turns and sees Billy out the kitchen window. He gives me a wink and runs down Fairwater Road as fast as his flippers can take him.