A Charlie Resnick Story
“They’re all dying, Charlie.”
Ed Silver’s words echoed across the years, across the near-empty room in which Resnick stood, remembering. He had been about to go off duty when he’d been called to a disturbance at Emmanuel House: a man threatening to take a butcher’s cleaver to his own bare feet—first the left and then the right and heaven help anyone who tried to stop him.
At first Resnick hadn’t recognised him, and then he did. Silver. Ed Silver. Up on the bandstand at the Old Vic on Fletcher Gate, shoulders hunched, alto sax angled off to one side, fingers a blur of movement as he blitzed through an up-tempo blues with sufficient speed and ferocity to make the eyes water. Now the same hands, purple and swollen, were scarcely able to hold the cleaver steady, never mind a saxophone; Resnick had reached out slowly but firmly and taken the cleaver safely into his own hands. Taken Silver home and fed him, made coffee strong and black, talked long into the night.
“They’re all dying, Charlie. Every bugger!”
Just as Silver himself was to do not so many years later. February 16th, 1993. On the anniversary of which date, Resnick would habitually take down from the shelves an album Silver had made with a local rhythm section: Richard Hallam, piano; Geoff Pearson, bass; Mike Say, drums. Half a dozen numbers associated with Charlie Parker, a couple by Thelonious Monk, one Silver original, and a Jerome Kern ballad, ‘Yesterdays’. But now those albums he hadn’t sold back to Music Inn were boxed up by the front door and ready to go, the stereo alongside.
He’d put it off long enough; longer, probably, than he should. Rattling around in that place, Charlie, must be. All them rooms. Time to do the sensible thing, downsize. Downsize. The word made him shudder. But that’s what he was doing, nonetheless. Contracts signed and exchanged. An upper-floor flat in a newish building just off High Pavement: ten minutes’ walk to the city centre, twenty tops to the Central Police Station on Maid Marian Way. The land at the back sloped away towards the canal and the railway tracks, and he could clearly see the floodlights at the County ground at Meadow Lane and those at the Forest ground beyond. Another forty-eight hours and it would be home.
He poured a small shot of 10-year Springbank into a whisky glass, sniffed, tasted, and poured a little more. Carpet removed, the stairs creaked beneath his weight; dust had gathered in soft curls in the corners of the upper rooms. He stood at the window, staring out, still not really able to believe he was on the point of leaving. A wife, four cats, a lover: that’s what this house had been. A life. While there had been just the one cat left, arthritic, blind in one eye, he had found reason to cling on. But then, just shy of Christmas, the inevitable had happened. Resnick had dug a burial place deep in the garden, deep enough to keep out the foxes, and, that done, contacted an estate agent, put the place up for sale.
“Bit of a do, then, Charlie,” some wag had said, catching Resnick as he was leaving the station canteen. “Want to mark movin’ in with a pint or two I’d reckon. Celebrate, like.”
“Celebrate, buggery!”
“Thought as you’d be well chuffed. One of them smart new apartments in city, in’t it? Single bloke like you. Out clubbin’ afore you know it.”
Resnick cut him off with a stare and continued on his way.
* * *
These last few years, ever since his official retirement, he had been clocking in as a part-time civilian investigator, in which role he was kept busy interviewing witnesses, taking statements and processing the necessary paperwork, aware that the majority of the cases requiring his assistance were relatively minor and anything regarded as serious was no longer likely to come his way. It smarted, but what could he do? He kept his head down and shuffled paper, offered an opinion when asked but not before.
He was in the process of shutting down his computer, tidying away at the end of his shift, when a young PC put his head round the door. “Somebody to see you down front. Been there a while.”
“Why the heck didn’t someone let me know?”
The constable shrugged and went on his way.
She was waiting in the reception area. Dark hair cut raggedly short, piercings, rings; denim jacket over a pale blue T-shirt; jeans with the obligatory tear below both knees; faded pink trainers, bright yellow socks.
“Mister Resnick?”
He held out a hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Nobody told me.”
She shrugged slim shoulders. “S’okay.”
“What was it you wanted to see me about?”
A smile slipped across her face. “You don’t know me, do you?”
“No, I’m afraid not… “
It was the smile that did it. Fleeting. The eyes, like her mother’s eyes, bluey-green like the sea.
“Rebecca, isn’t it?”
“Becky, yes.”
When he’d seen her last it had been a photograph. A beach somewhere. Mablethorpe? Filey? Seven, eight years old. Now she’d be nineteen, twenty. Older?
“How is your mum?”
“Not so good.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you think,” she said, a flick of her head towards the door, “we could talk somewhere else?”
* * *
They walked alongside the theatre towards Wellington Circus and found a table outside the Playhouse bar. Anish Kapoor’s steel sculpture crested over them, reflecting clouds passing slowly across the sky.
“You were saying, your mum’s in a poor way.”
“She’s in hospital. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” Resnick fidgeted forward on his chair. “How serious is it? I mean…”
“Look, do we have to talk about it?”
“No, no, of course not, if you’d rather…”
“She’s dying, okay.”
Resnick drew a slow breath and held it in. Becky stared at the ground. A pigeon fluttered down from the curve of bare trees behind them, pecked aimlessly, then flapped away.
“Can I get you something?” Resnick nodded in the direction of the bar.
“No. I mean, yes. Yes, okay. Gin and orange, then.”
“Gin and orange, it is.”
“No ice,” she called after him. “No ice.”
When he got back with her drink and a half of Castle Rock for himself, she was chipping at the polish on the fingers of one hand with the thumb of the other.
“This bloke,” she said, not looking at him, still fiddling with her hands, “this bloke Mark, Mark Brisley. I was going with him best part of a year. More’n that, I suppose. Together, you know? This place I was living, I was sharing, right, so it was easier to stay at his. Stayed over more and more till I was more or less living there.” She picked up her glass, swirled the contents round then set it down. “It were fine at first. And then, after a bit, I don’t know, he’d get all quiet. As if he were angry with me for some reason, something I’d said or done. I’d ask him an’ he’d say, shut up, just shut the fuck up, and I did, but then, this one time when he still wasn’t speaking, wouldn’t as much as look at me, I asked again and that was when he hit me. The first time. I mean, hard. Sudden, out of the blue. Knocked me halfway across the room.”
She glanced across at Resnick, held his gaze then looked away.
“He said he were sorry. Didn’t know what’d got into him. Promised it’d not happen again.”
“But it did.”
“Not right off. He were lovely then, Mark, more than before. Fun, you know? And then, this one time, we’d been down the pub with his mates, laughing an’ that. Soon as we got back he started accusing me of trying to get off with one of his pals. I tried telling him it was nothing but he wouldn’t listen. Ended up called me a dirty whore and worse, and all the time hitting me, kicking and punching.” She ran a hand up through her hair. “Course he was all over me after, sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. I promise, I promise.”
“You believed him.”
“I wanted to.” She lowered her head, her fingers trembling a little as she reached for her glass. “The next time it happened I had to go to Queens. A & E. One of the nurses there, told me I should report it to the police, which, in the end, after I’d talked to me mum an’ that, is what I did. Saw this copper. Woman. Thought she might’ve been a sight more sympathetic than she was. Did I have any proof of what I was saying? Accusing him of. As if I was making it up. So I showed her these photos, selfies like, I’d taken when I come out of hospital. This copper, she brightened up then, as if she might be taking me seriously.”
“The officer, you remember her name?”
“Thomas. Dawn Thomas.”
Resnick pictured a youngish woman, early-mid thirties. Hair tied back, glasses. An accent of some kind? Geordie, maybe.
“Mark,” Becky said, “when the police went to question him, he denied everything, said I was making it up. Called me—what was it?—a fantasist, that’s it. Bloody fantasist. Reckoned I’d done all that to myself to get back at him for dumping me, chucking me out on street. Copper, I’ll say this for her, she wasn’t having any of it. Didn’t believe him and told him so. Next thing he was arrested and charged. Assault, actual bodily harm.”
“He’s out on bail?”
“Pleaded not guilty, didn’t he? Magistrates’ court. Trial’s less’n a month off.”
“You’re due to appear.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what’s worrying you?”
Becky nodded. “He keeps sending texts, leaving messages. Telling me what will happen if I go to court. Warning me, like.”
“Threatening you?”
“I dunno what else you’d call it.”
“You kept them, these texts?”
Becky shook her head. “I know I should. I know it was stupid, but I just wanted rid of them. There and then.”
“And did they continue?”
“I changed my number, got a new phone.”
“That put a stop to it?”
“Yes. Only since then he’s tried calling me at work, going round to where I’m living. I wake up in the night sometimes and there he is, parked across the street.”
“Harassment. Intimidation. You can apply for a restraining order.”
“Thomas, she told me about that, only I wasn’t… I wasn’t certain. I thought it would only make him more angry. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
Resnick leaned away. “I can talk to her, see if there isn’t anything else can be done. But without a restraining order it’s going to be difficult, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t, you know, have a word with him yourself?”
“Warn him off, you mean?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Not really.”
“No, no, course not. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“S’all right. I just wanted someone to talk to, that’s all. Mum being sick an’ that, it in’t right to worry her. And she always spoke of you as if you were a friend.”
“So I am.”
“Yeah?” Pushing back her chair, she scrambled to her feet.
He watched her walk quickly away.
* * *
Night came nudging in. As Resnick crossed the ring road towards the hospital, rain began to fall steadily. The oncology ward was on the fourth floor.
“Are you a relative?” the duty nurse asked.
“No, a friend.” Remembering Becky’s earlier scorn, the word burned on his tongue.
Elaine was in one of four beds partly screened off at the far end of the ward.
“She’s sleeping just now,” the nurse said.
“I’ll not wake her.”
In the years since he’d last seen her, she seemed to have aged threefold. Skin like parchment. Hair like straw. Her face hollow and lined. When he leaned over her, an eyelid fluttered then was still.
Tubes ran in and out of her body.
With sudden clarity, he remembered the first time he had met her, shy of twenty years before. A basement wine bar, evening. Music meandering between innumerable conversations. Her hair auburn tumbling loose over her shoulders. Her mouth generous and wide. Those eyes. She had not long been married to Terry Cooke, Becky’s father: Cooke a career criminal, a medium-weight chancer in and out of trouble since he was first excluded from school.
Resnick had glanced at the near-empty glass near Elaine’s hand, guessed Bacardi and Coke, and carried a fresh one across, along with a Scotch and water for himself.
“Copper, aren’t you?” Elaine had said, but, accepting the drink, had shifted sideways to make room.
Getting familiar with the criminal fraternity, drinking in the same pubs, the same bars; a word here, a misplaced remark there; friendships, betrayals. It was part of the job, went with the territory. Not so long after that meeting, Terry Cooke, under growing pressure, would take his own life rather than go back to prison, leaving a wife and young daughter. For several years while growing up, Becky would be in and out of care.
With a slight moan, Elaine’s head shifted sideways and a dribble of saliva snailed across her cheek. One hand twitched.
After Terry Cooke there had been others, chosen, to Resnick’s estimation, with a similar lack of care. She had moved away from the city, moved back. Once, in too deep and in fear for her life, not knowing where else to turn, she had gone to Resnick for help and he had taken her in. Shelter from the storm. Somewhere around two on the first night, she had slid out from the bed he’d made up for her and slipped in with him. Her legs lithe and surprisingly long, her hands knowing and cold. Just before dawn, Resnick awake, she had pressed her face close up against him and whispered a name that wasn’t his.
“Charlie?” Her eyes blinked open now for an instant, closed and opened again. “Is that really you?”
“Really me.”
“Thought I must’ve been dreaming.”
Sitting cautiously on the edge of the bed, he rested a hand gently on hers. Bones and skin.
“How long’ve you been here?” she said.
“Not long.”
She coughed, a raw scraping of sound, and Resnick lifted a water glass and straw from alongside and brought it to her mouth.
“You’ve seen Becky?” she asked once she had settled.
Resnick nodded.
“I told her to go and see you. She didn’t want to but I said you might be able to help.”
“I’m not sure if I can.”
“Oh, Charlie…” A small shake of the head. “The apple don’t fall far from the tree.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“I know.”
Settling back against the pillows, she closed her eyes and seemed to fall immediately back to sleep.
“You shouldn’t stay too long,” the nurse said quietly over his shoulder. “She tires easily.”
After several more minutes, Resnick lifted his hand gently away and set off down the ward. Outside the rain had slackened and the wind risen in its place.
* * *
Dawn Thomas was at her desk early, glasses nudged forward as she peered at the computer screen. Hair pulled tightly back and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. Resnick had picked up a brace of flat whites from The Specialty Coffee Shop on his way in.
“Bribery, Charlie?”
“Kindness of my heart.”
She removed her glasses, touched the mouse and the screen went blank. “What can I do for you?”
“Becky Cooke.”
“What about her?”
“She came to see me.”
“Whining, was she?”
“Why d’you say that?”
“Sort she is.” Distaste clear on Thomas’s face.
“She’s frightened.”
“Of him? Brisley? No one to blame but herself.”
“How so?”
“Taking up with him in the first place. In and out of trouble since he was sixteen, seventeen. Violence, often against women, intimidation. Not the first time he’s been pulled in for abusive behaviour.”
Thomas tasted her coffee, nodded approvingly, took a mouthful more. “Look, I sat with her, Charlie, talked her through everything, the process, coming to trial, what it’d mean. Warned her he might do what he could to get her to change her mind. No, she says, no. It’ll be all right. Then, next thing, she’s back in here, he’s been texting her, sending threatening messages. Show me, I said, then maybe we can do something.” Thomas shook her head. “Deleted them, hadn’t she? Silly cow.”
“He’s been following her, she says, turning up where she lives.”
“No surprise.”
“Restraining order, not an option?”
“Went through that with her as well, didn’t I? Didn’t want to know. Not that I’m convinced we’d have got one, anyway.”
“So, there’s nothing?”
“Look, Charlie, you know what these girls are like.”
“Do I?”
“Bloke’s older, good looking in that kind of way. Bit of a reputation. Seen around with him, people notice. Enough to make her feel good, something special. Slaps her once in a while, well, part of the territory.”
“Bit unfair on her, maybe?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She came here. Came to you. Dropped him in it. Wanted to press charges.”
“After he put her in hospital, yes.”
“And that’s wrong?”
“What about all the times before? Tells her mates she walked into a door then takes him back.”
“Once, maybe.”
“Once? What she told you, was it?” Thomas shook her head. “Girls like Becky, sometimes I think… Oh, I don’t know.”
“You think what? They get what they deserve?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I should’ve thought she’d have got a bit more sympathy.”
“Because I’m a woman, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“It’s maybe because I’m a woman, I find it hard to have much sympathy. Weak, isn’t she? Where she should be strong.”
“Is it?” Thomas’s voice was fiercer, a sudden light in her eyes. “You’d need to know a sight more about me—about my life—before you could say that. And then you might be surprised.”
Swivelling away, she set her glasses back in place, reached for the mouse and brought the data she’d been reviewing back on to the screen.
* * *
A motorcyclist had swerved to avoid someone who’d stepped off the kerb against the lights and had been broadsided by a lorry. So far, Resnick had interviewed the driver of the lorry, the pedestrian and two bystanders; an appeal had been made for any other witnesses to come forward. The motorcyclist was in intensive care: touch and go.
Dawn Thomas knocked and entered.
“I didn’t want to leave it like that.”
“Okay.”
Thomas pulled round a spare chair. “She did come forward, Becky, I’ll give you that, and that’s more than most. Less than a quarter of women in her situation get that far.”
“And those that do…”
“Those that do are putting themselves at risk of further violence, yes, yes, I know.”
“So we should do what we can to protect them.”
“If they’ll let us.” Thomas sighed and looked away. “Not easy though, Charlie. Coercive control, that’s the fancy name for it. Men like Brisley, one way or another, they exert it right up to the courthouse steps. Survey not so long back, you probably saw. Northumbria, maybe? Just over half the cases where defendants stood accused of abuse, the complainant didn’t turn up at court and the case was dismissed. That’s why so many of them choose to take the course they do. Play the system. Plead not guilty so it has to come to trial. Knowing full well there’s a good chance the case’ll get thrown out.”
“And you, that’s what you think’ll happen? Comes down to it, Becky’ll not show and Brisley’ll walk free.”
“If I was laying bets, yes, fifty-fifty at best.”
“I’ll try and talk to her again. Bolster her confidence if I can.”
“Okay. And I’ll have a word, see if I can’t get one of the local patrols to do a drive-by or two. If Brisley is hanging around, that might scare him off.”
“Right, Dawn. Thanks.”
“Owe you a coffee, Charlie.”
“Two shots, no sugar.”
“Got it.”
They went back to work.
* * *
Becky was living in a shared house in Sneinton, two up and two down, front door opening straight onto the street. Working two jobs, part-time, plus occasional bar work, enabled her—just—to pay her share of the rent and expenses. The first time Resnick called round, she’d asked one of her housemates to say she wasn’t home; the second time he arrived just as she was fitting her key in the door and she agreed to go for a quick drink with him, one drink that grew into two and then three; Becky happy to talk about anything and everything but Brisley and the forthcoming trial. Before Resnick left her back at the house, she agreed to go with him that coming Sunday to visit her mother in hospital.
The day proved cold, Becky shivering in a short skirt and a denim jacket that didn’t fasten at the front. No hat, no scarf, no gloves. Resnick, in contrast, wore a heavy overcoat and a crumpled felt fedora, a black and white Notts County scarf, somewhat incongruously, round his neck.
Despite her best efforts to claim otherwise, Elaine seemed to have slipped backwards. Her breathing was laboured and heavy, her voice rarely rising above a whisper; for minutes at a time, she seemed to lose all awareness they were there, responding to their presence in slightly startled surprise.
As they were getting ready to leave, Elaine scrabbled one bent hand across the sheet and beckoned him close. “Look after her, Charlie.”
Resnick gently kissed her cheek, her skin damp against his lips.
Tears in her eyes, Becky stood waiting at the end of the ward and they rode the lift down in silence. A blast of cold air struck them as they stepped outside.
“I don’t know,” Becky said, as she fumbled for her cigarettes. “I don’t know how many more times I can stand to see her like that.”
The flame from her lighter quivered then caught. She drew deeply then released smoke upwards, fanning it away from her face.
It was a week and a day until the case against Mark Brisley was due to be heard in court.
“Why don’t I pick you up?” Resnick said. “Give you a lift in?”
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. No need to bother.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure.”
“Meet me then.”
“I am gonna be there, you know.”
“I know. But just to humour me, if you like, let’s meet beforehand. Coffee, maybe. Go over what you’re going to say. Can’t hurt.”
Becky half-smiled. “All right, then. If it’s just to shut you up.”
“Best make it eight o’clock then.”
“Quarter past.”
He nodded. “Quarter after eight, the Old Market Square.”
“Where exactly?”
“By the Left Lion, of course.”
“Like a date, you mean?”
Resnick laughed. “Yes, just like a date.”
It was where, traditionally, couples met, by one of the two stone lions guarding the Council House steps on one side of the square: one to the left, one to the right. When, early on in their relationship, Resnick had arranged to meet the woman who was to become his wife, she had been standing by the wrong lion, right and not left. “It depends,” she had said in her defence, “if you’re coming or going.” Going turned out to be the case, though she’d taken her time about it.
* * *
Resnick liaised with Dawn Thomas during the week: staff shortages notwithstanding, she’d successfully arranged for a patrol car to do a number of drive-bys past the house in Sneinton. Resnick phoned several times and Becky reassured him that everything was fine. Not only had Brisley not been seen, he had made no attempt to be otherwise in contact. No texts, no messages via social media, no calls.
“Eight o’clock tomorrow, then,” Resnick said on the last occasion.
“Eight o’clock.”
The morning was bright but cold. Buses shunted busily from Friar Lane around the corner into Angel Row. Trams came from opposite directions into South Parade, disgorging their passengers into an already busy Market Square.
Resnick stamped his feet, clapped gloved hands.
No Becky.
Five past eight.
Ten.
He checked his watch, the Council House clock.
At a quarter past he called her mobile. The person you are calling is unable to answer your call. When he tried the house phone, no one picked up.
The nearest taxi rank was on Wheeler Gate, just off the Square. Morning traffic was heavily congested, the oneway system a nightmare. After ringing the bell a number of times and hammering on the front door, he finally roused one of Becky’s housemates sufficiently to come down and open up. A face stared out at him from under tousled hair.
“Becky, where is she?”
“In bed, I s’pose.”
He pushed past her and hurried towards the stairs.
“Hey! Where d’you think you’re going?” A tall woman, sweatshirt hastily pulled on over pyjamas, met him halfway.
“Becky’s room. Which is it?”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Just tell me.” He showed ID and she stepped aside.
“Up there on the left.”
The bed was empty, unmade. Drawers half open, a scattering of clothing on the floor.
“She’s gone.” A third woman appeared in the doorway. Asian, small features, dark hair.
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. I asked her but she didn’t say.”
“When was this?”
“Last night, late. Must have been close to one.”
“And what? She just up and left? She must have said something.”
A shake of the head. “Someone called her a little earlier. Twelve? Somewhere around there. We were in the kitchen and she went out into the hall to answer. Closed the door. I could hear her voice but not what she was saying. A couple of times she got louder. And then I think she might’ve been crying. She ran upstairs and slammed the door and when I went up and asked her if she was all right, she said, ‘No, no, what did I fucking think?’ There was a lot of banging around and then, next thing I knew, she was pushing past me with this holdall and she must have called a taxi because when she went outside there was one waiting.”
“You sure it was a taxi?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Know where she might have been going?”
“That time of night, no.”
“Friends?”
“There’s this girl she works with. Wilko’s. She’s stayed over with her a couple of times. Too out of it to get back home. I can’t think of anyone else.”
“This girl, you know where she lives?”
“Top Valley somewhere.”
“Name?”
“Nat? Nat-something. Natalie. Nadia. I’m sorry, I just don’t know.”
“Fuck!” Resnick said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Then, steadying himself, “Thanks. Thanks for your help. Here’s my number. If you do hear from her, if she rings or anything, please get in touch. As soon as you can.”
Knowing that no matter how soon it was, it would be too late.
* * *
“It’s over, Charlie. Done and dusted. Should have placed that bet after all.”
“You don’t have to look so damned smug about it.”
“Smug?” Thomas laughed derisively. “You should have seen the expression on Mark Brisley’s face if you wanted smug. Grinning from ear to fucking ear.”
They got the address from the taxi firm, the workmate’s name, Nadia Jagoda, from their place of employment. Becky had called late, asking if she could come round, sleep over. When she got there she’d been in a real state, Nadia said—agitated, frightened, something to do with an old boyfriend, she thought, but Becky hadn’t wanted to talk about it, wouldn’t say. Early next morning, really early, she’d left for the station. Train station, bus station, she wasn’t sure. And no, she hadn’t said where she was going.
Thomas was right: it was over.
* * *
In common with most other areas of the country, the number of officers leaving the Nottinghamshire force without being adequately replaced had increased, meaning the workload of those remaining rose in proportion, Resnick’s included. Despite which, come summer, he found his days reduced from four to three. He sought to fill the extra time by taking self-improving walks alongside the Trent and around the Arboretum; going to the occasional afternoon movie; reacquainting himself with the intricacies of County Championship cricket from a seat in the Upper Stand at Trent Bridge, where the conversation around him took in everything from the beauties of left-arm spin to hip replacements and problems of the prostate.
The move into his flat complete since the spring, he no longer woke in the mornings wondering where he was. Most of his possessions were out of boxes, shelved, hung up, tidied away. Herman Leonard’s photograph of Lester Young, taken in Paris in 1959, hung, framed, above the stereo. Everything compact, close at hand. He missed the accumulation of clutter that only came with time; missed having to walk up or down several flights of stairs to retrieve something misplaced or mislaid. He missed the cats.
In early autumn and desperate for something to do, a new project, he decided to catalogue what remained of his collection of vinyl albums and CDs, now that it was down to a manageable size. Catalogue properly: track titles and composers; instrumentation and personnel; place and date of recording; label and date of original release. He got as far as G for Dexter Gordon before giving up. Our Man in Paris, 1963. Gordon, tenor; Bud Powell, piano; Pierre Michelot, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums.
Paris again.
He’d never been.
Wouldn’t that be a better use of his time than this? He promised himself he’d set it right. A long weekend at least. This year, next year? Maybe next year would be best. Next year in the spring.
Once, passing through what remained of the Broadmarsh Centre, he thought he glimpsed Becky Cooke heading in the opposite direction, but when he called her name there was no reaction other than to carry on walking. He thought he might have been mistaken.
He went several times to see Elaine in hospital, her mind increasingly vague and logged back in time. “You’re a cheeky bastard, you!” she called out once, clutching at his arm, and he knew she meant her ex-husband, Terry, and not him at all. The last time he went she was sleeping and he stayed the best part of an hour waiting for her to wake, then left.
She died a week later.
There were leaves loose in the air as the coffin was lifted into the chapel. Becky sat in the front pew, alone. The voices of Resnick and a dozen others faltered to silence before the end of the hymn. When the service was over, Becky stood on the path outside, turning a cold cheek to strangers’ kisses and whispered words of commiseration. She held Resnick’s hand for a moment then let it go, never looking into his eyes.
At home afterwards, dusk masking the windows, Resnick poured the last of the Springbank he’d been saving into a glass, set an Ed Silver album on the turntable and sat back to listen.
‘Yesterdays’.
* * *
Becky’s friends weren’t going to let her mope around miserably for ever. “C’mon, Becks. Shift off your moody arse and come out wi’ us. It’s Tricia’s birthday, for fuck’s sake.”
They met in the Square and headed up to the Suede Bar; five of them, all reckoning a slice of pizza would stop their stomachs rumbling, provide the necessary balance for what was to come. If you were going to throw up at the end of the evening, best to have something other than just white wine or vodka and cranberry juice inside you.
From the Suede Bar they went on to Revolution and Das Kino. Pitcher and Piano was too crowded, too noisy. There were only three of them by now, Becky, Tricia and Nadia.
“Let’s go to Propaganda,” Tricia said.
“Feeling gay, are we?” Nadia said.
Tricia grabbed hold of her and kissed her on the lips and they stumbled back, spluttering with laughter.
Becky linked arms with the pair of them and they sashayed, still laughing, along Broadway towards the entrance to the club.
Once inside they were swept up in the crowd, dancing, singing, pausing only for another vodka cocktail. After an hour or so, head throbbing, Becky went outside for some fresh air, chatted with the bouncers on the door, bummed a cigarette. By the time she went back inside, neither Nadia nor Tricia were anywhere to be seen. Half an hour more and she decided to call it a night.
She was heading down Barker Gate, looking to pick up a taxi outside the Arena, when she heard footsteps behind her and quickened her pace.
“Hey! Wait up! Becky. What’s your rush?”
Mark Brisley.
“Slow down, why don’t you?”
If she stopped long enough to pull off her heels she could run.
“Becky, come on. Don’t be so daft.”
One shoe off, she wobbled unsteadily, close to losing her balance. A hand reached out to steady her and she shrugged it away.
“No call to go rushing off like that. All that stuff from before, forgotten. Put it behind us, eh? New start.”
He circled his hand round her arm and this time she let it stay.
* * *
The incident in the opening paragraph refers back to my first published short story, ‘Now’s the Time’, commissioned, like ‘Yesterdays’, by Maxim Jakubowski, and published in London Noir [Serpent’s Tail, 1994].