Jig stood on his toes on the edge of the planks and, holding onto the bars, leaned out as far as he could. Underneath, the water poured down the lock, crashing onto the chamber, creating a big bubble bath of foam against the rusted metal gates.
The spray came high enough to kiss his face and hands. The whoosh sound from the water made him feel light and giddy. He smiled out to where Micko and Stu were, but they were looking at their phones and talking, loud enough for him to hear bits.
‘I’m telling ya,’ Micko said. ‘His days are numbered . . . fuck up . . . seizure . . . Cracko . . . take over . . . set up on our own.’
‘And,’ Stu said, ‘the RA are out to get them. That’s the word.’
‘Here,’ Micko said. ‘Little ears.’
Jig sensed them looking over at him, but kept staring at the waters, smiling as the memories soaked into him.
‘The chips nice?’
‘Lovely, Granda. Ya get fish supper?’
‘Ah yeah, I loves the old fish supper.’
They sat on the edge of the canal, their legs dangling over the water. Jig kicked the back of his heels against the huge granite slabs. The chips were deadly. He sucked the salt from his fingers and licked the vinegar inside the big brown bag.
‘It’s nice for a child to have a treat,’ his granda said. ‘Not that there was much in the way of treats over there.’
Jig looked up as his granda nodded across the canal.
‘What happened there, Granda?’
‘Children were treated like dogs in there. By the nuns,’ he said, shovelling in chips.
‘In them apartments?’ Jig asked.
‘No. The industrial school’s gone now,’ he said, pausing as he went for the fish. ‘Was a bad country for a lot of children then.’
‘I’ll be okay, won’t I, Granda?’
He gave him a bear hug. ‘So long as I’m around, no one will fucking dare harm ya, Jig. Now eat up them chips before they go cold.’
A huge spray roused Jig, his face tingling at the cold water.
‘Jig, ya dope.’
Jig looked over at Micko. He was leaning over the balance beam and motioning at him to come over.
‘Yer the doziest cunt going, ya know that?’
Jig stepped sideways across the wooden walkway.
‘Take this over,’ Micko said, handing him a bundle of notes, an elastic band tight around it. ‘What do ya be fucking dreaming about anyways?’
Jig stood there, looking at him.
What the fuck is it to youse?
‘Don’t ya be given me the fucking eyes, Jig, or I’ll slap ya right into that canal.’
Micko reminded him of Maggot. That same madness buzzing around inside his head.
‘Ya heard anything from Maggot?’ Stu asked.
Jig’s right eyelid twitched. He was just thinking about Maggot. He saw Micko smile back at Stu.
Cunts.
‘Still up the mountains, is he?’ Micko said.
‘Ya fucking bastard!’ Jig roared and heaved forward, but Micko shoved him back.
‘Ya want to cool the jets there, little Jig,’ Micko said.
Jig was steaming, but Micko was a nasty fucker.
‘Sorry,’ Jig said. ‘Just hate people talking about Maggot and the mountains.’
‘Alright. I won’t smack ya one,’ Micko said, ‘this time.’
Jig got on his bike and cycled down the path. He curved around a bevy of swans grooming themselves on the grass, their orange beaks nibbling and cleaning their wings and backs. Jig cycled straight across traffic, forcing a car to brake suddenly.
Five minutes later he dumped his bike outside the bookies. He dipped under a man at the doorway having a smoke and entered. He looked around for them, but only saw men studying their racing pages or straining their necks at the screens, armed with their slips and their little pens. The floor was covered in discarded dockets.
They were seated in the corner, with an invisible cordon of space curved around them. Ghost was reading the sports pages. Cracko was looking down at a little notepad, a can of Red Bull on the counter.
‘Little J,’ Ghost said, looking up. ‘How are ya?’
‘Good.’
Ghost’s shoulders looked slanted to Jig. His chest was sunken, as if something was eating him. Ghost was wearing that T-shirt he liked. Planet of the Apes. Ghost told him it was a classic. Jig didn’t know what he was talking about, but he liked the image of the man kneeling down and banging the ground with his fists and a big statue out in the sea, toppling over.
Jig turned around, but no one was looking at them. He handed Cracko the wad. Cracko pulled off the elastic with a snap and flicked at the edges. He slapped the band back on and slipped it into his pocket. It took just a second or two. Jig liked the way he did it.
‘Fifty short,’ Cracko stated.
‘Ya what?’ Ghost said.
Cracko nodded and scribbled on his little notebook. Jig had heard Ghost call it a ‘tick list’ the last time. There were numbers and letters on each line.
‘Go back and tell that cunt,’ Ghost said to Jig, a pointy grey finger poking out at him, ‘that I want that fifty plus fifty extra tomorrow. Or I’ll rent that patch to someone else. Maybe get my friend here to pay him a visit,’ he said, with a look at Cracko.
Jig nodded.
‘Ya could be running that bridge in a few years. How about that, little J?’
Jig smiled at the thought. Being a little boss of his own, having little rolls of cash. But, he had something else on his mind.
‘Ya ever hear anything about Maggot?’
Jig stood there, knowing he had just said something he shouldn’t have. Ghost glanced over Jig’s shoulders, then at Jig.
‘Why would I?’ Ghost said, his voice drowned out by the racket from the screens. ‘Yer his bro?’
‘Just, Micko and Stu were asking?’
Ghost leaned closer to Jig, his eyes as black as a crow’s.
‘Don’t worry about it, Jig,’ he said quietly. ‘He had serious charges coming to him, so he could have legged it to Spain or something, to lie low for a while. What ya think, Cracko?’
‘Yeah, could be lying low alright.’
Jig looked down at his feet and swiped at the floor.
‘Micko said something about someone’s days being numbered after some fuck up or seizure or something.’
Jig watched Ghost stiffen, like a rope being twisted. His cheekbones jabbed against his skin; his jaw protruded. Ghost glanced at Cracko, who was staring at Jig and biting down on his bottom lip. Jig didn’t know which one of them scared the shit out of him more. He could see Ghost was trying not to let rip.
Jig wanted to go for a piss.
‘Anything else?’ Ghost said through clenched teeth.
‘He said about Cracko taking over.’ Jig could hear the nerves in his voice. ‘And said about them setting up on their own.’
Ghost didn’t look at Cracko this time. Jig thought he could see colour, like a dull red, on Ghost’s yellowy cheeks. He hadn’t seen that before.
‘They said something about the RA out to get youse as well.’
‘Did they? They know ya were listening?’
‘Nah, I was pretending to be away with it looking down on the canal. They didn’t think I heard nothing.’
Ghost stared at him.
‘I went at Micko after he said about Maggot being in the mountains and he shoved me back.’
‘Did he, the prick?’ Ghost said.
Jig could feel Ghost’s brain was spinning.
‘That Micko is a fucking runt,’ Cracko said. ‘His whole family are headbangers. They are going to be serious fucking trouble down the line.’
Ghost didn’t speak for a while.
‘Don’t say nothing to no one about this,’ Ghost said, eventually.
Jig was looking down at the floor. Ghost tossed a pen at him, hitting him on the head.
‘What did I say?’
‘Say nothing to no one,’ Jig replied, rubbing his head.
‘Except for the cash that’s short,’ Ghost said. ‘Tell the fucker that alright.’
Ghost strummed the counter with his fingers, the nails clipping hard against the wood. He pulled his arms up and folded them on the back of his head.
Jig turned his head to look at the inside of Ghost’s lower arm. He had only half seen it before. It was a tattoo of horses running away from each other, pulling something on ropes. Jig blinked as he made out two arms, a head and shoulders at one end and legs on the other. He scrunched his face when he copped it.
‘Keep those little ears wide open down on the canal, with each of them crews,’ said Ghost. ‘Things are getting way too loose around here. There’s no fucking respect any more. We’ll have to work on that.’
Jig nodded.
‘And I’ll tell ya what,’ Ghost added. ‘I’ll lob a big chunk off that bill of yers. Keep it up, and it will be paid off in no time.’
That’s that bill for the woman, Jig reminded himself. The bill was unfair; he was only doing what Ghost had told him. But he felt good cos he was ‘taking it like a man’, as Ghost had said.