“Amarillo Brillo – Frank Zappa”
“Brooklyn Dreams – Neil Diamond.”
“You can’t have Neil Diamond,” Laroche objected. They were playing cities in song titles, alphabetically, in the terminal stages of boredom. “On taste grounds. You can have Barcelona by Freddie Mercury, if you like. I had it up my sleeve ready but I’m giving it to you.”
“I don’t like. I’m going with… Billericay Dickie – Ian Dury.”
“Century City – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which is a double. Woop, woop.”
“OK. Buried in Detroit – Mike Posner.”
“El Paso – can’t think the fuck who… it’s coming, it’s coming…”
“I’m going to have to hurry you.”
“Marty Robbins!”
And so they went on, ploughing from Kashmir by Led Zeppelin, through Meet Me in St Louis by Judy Garland which was a bit of a low point, to Viva las Vegas by Elvis Presley, all the way to Youngstown by Bruce Springstein. They couldn’t think of a Z, so Laroche suggested song titles where you replace the words love or heart with knob. “Can’t Stop Knobbing You,” was his opener.
Michael was still trying to think of a song title with a city in it beginning with Z on his way to the hobbit shop. He tried not to let his spirits sink as he filed into the shed with its queasy lighting and its damp walls. He was working on a child’s bike so heavy it was difficult to lift and he glanced around the room as he heaved it into position, checking what was what and more importantly, who was where. Chapot was in which was unusual, looking sleek, but he didn’t think anything of it.
There was a clot of earth with a few wisps of grass jammed into one end of the handlebars and it made him wonder briefly, about the child who had thrown it down on some lawn… Rosbif… Rosbif… or some verge, before hurrying in for tea. He started digging the dried mud out and it went crumbling onto his shoes… Rosbif… Rosbif… and he tried to picture the discarded bike with its pedals still turning and the tick tick tick of its wheels slowing: that sense of adventure, put on hold.
He felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck, the pricking sensation of somebody walking a little too close to him. He glanced up to see a guy he hadn’t come across before… Rosbif… Rosbif… A heavy-set bloke with a dented nose in a face that had seen too many fights, arcing past him en route to the supplies cupboard, curling the long way round the room with a speculative swagger, before sauntering back to the privileged corner near the stove, where the men parted as he approached, Michael took note.
He wasn’t concentrating; he was watching the bruiser. That was his first mistake. During the instant in which he ceased anticipating trouble, trouble struck. Somebody knocked his wrench off the workbench – Belfiore, who never looked as if he could move quickly enough? As he stooped to pick it up… Rosbif… Rosbif… it was kicked beyond his grasp and he was diverted again as it was passed and passed back in a scuffle of feet. There were taunts in the air, although nothing was said. Incitements. The wrench was further up the line now, beyond the reach of easy retrieval.
Same old, same old, he thought; which was his second mistake. He gave the wrench up for lost and turned his attention back to the bike, gripping the front wheels between his knees so he could straighten the handlebars. Out of the corner of his eye, on the far side of the room, he saw the new guy remove a sock from his pocket and unroll it and although that seemed odd and he was curious to know what the sock was for when rags were supplied for polishing off, he went on with his adjustment of the handlebars – a little bit this way, a little bit that way – squinting through a half-closed eye to see if they were level. He’d learned how to absorb himself into the task in hand, blotting out the murmurings; a transcendental concentration that gave him space and peace in which to be. He didn’t hear the whispers ebb, the flow of silence into stealth. Even the diversionary fracas on the far side of the room failed to divert him, although the kangas went racing across to deal with it – there was always some kind of a dust up going on. He was thinking of song titles with cities beginning with Z, that it’d be good to get one over on Laroche. He didn’t notice the footfall or the sweat stink, though he thought for a second that he heard the words wife killer wreathe around him, although he couldn’t be sure and he swung round to see, glimpsing the sock but not the wrench inside it and as the blow caught him on the side of the head he thought – Zanzibar – Billy Joel! – before he went sprawling face down onto the floor.
~~~
“I’m sure there must be a song about Zamboanga City somewhere,” said a voice.
Michael was trying to work out where he was, piecing himself together until a blurry sequence of memories gathered momentum and he remembered everything – the prison, Charlotte, all of it.
“But I’m buggered if I can come up with it.”
He opened and closed his eyes. The subdued light of the room he was in – not his cell – stung.
“Rosbif! You’re back! At bleedin’ last.” Someone leaned over him. He took in the shaven head, the bony face, the close-set, pale-lashed eyes. “See you’ve met Joubert,” the man said. “Chapot closed the book; he was calling in the money. Yer number was up.”
“Laroche?” said Michael. He was feeling slightly sick. His skull burned as if his brain had swollen inside it.
“You’re in the ding wing. How many fingers am I holding up? Who’s the president? What day of the week is it?” said Laroche. “You’ll live.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I used up some credit, let’s say, without going into the small print. Somebody owed me. Can’t stay long though. Five minutes, maybe.”
Michael put a hand to his head, which felt like broken eggshell. There was a bandage, some tape. “I saw a doctor, I think. I think I can remember that. And having some stitches.” He lay carefully on the bed, cautious with himself. “What about Joubert? It was Joubert, wasn’t it? I saw Chapot, too.”
“Somebody else’ll take the rap – you won’t catch Joubert on the block. ’S all trade. Chapot was there to see fair play.”
“Fair play?” said Michael derisively.
“Following the rules.”
He let it go.
“I did warn you. I did tell you it was going to happen. Tried to toughen you up, woss more. Education ain’t juss ritin.’”
A key turned in the lock and they fell silent. The kanga looked round the door and jerked his head at Laroche. “Time’s up.” Laroche strolled out with the kind of insolence that follows the rules, but only just, with a little oink oink to punctuate his leaving.
“You’re wanted,” the kanga said to Michael. “You have permission to receive a telephone call.”
~~~
“Hello?”
“Michael?”
It was his father’s voice. He felt unsteady on his feet. Like the bicycle handlebars, the ground was not quite level and even if he half-closed an eye he couldn’t adjust it. He couldn’t straighten anything out.
“Hello Dad,” he said warily.
“I’m ringing you because – well, it’s Delphine. She’s had an–”
“Delphine? What’s happened? Tell me what’s happened? Is she–?”
“She’s had a little accident. It’s nothing – she fine, she’s OK. I don’t want you to worry, but I thought I ought–”
“An accident? What kind of accident?”
“She fell into a lock.”
“Into a lock? For Christ’s sake! Is she alright?”
“She’s alright. She’s alright.”
Michael felt out of breath, as if he’d been running and running.
“She’s alright,” his Dad said again – the salient news, the phrase to hold on to. He rested his forehead on the wall of the phone booth, forgetting the bandage and the stitches and the sock with the wrench, forgetting everything except his daughter.
“It was a fright, as much as anything, for all of us. But I took her to the hospital, just to be on the safe side, so that the doctors could have a look at her and they’ve kept her in overnight.”
“You took her to hospital?” he said.
“Just to be on the safe side. I’m on my way to collect her now.”
“And she’s alright?”
“She’s fine.”
“She fell into a lock?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t see how–” he began. An incoming tide of tiredness washed over him: his head was throbbing. There were moments, which he tried to fight, when the burden of remorse was simply too heavy for him. “Never mind,” he sighed.
“Michael–?”
“Will you give her my love? Tell her–”
“The solicitor thinks you should change your plea. She telephoned me to say,” his father blurted out.
Michael took a moment to reply. “Just tell her that.”
“Please will you consider it? Please. Think what it would mean to your daughter–”
The bandage felt tight as a tourniquet round his temples. “I think about that all the time,” he said curtly.
“If you go for not guilty, at least you have a chance.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Think of the damage–”
“You have no idea what you are asking me.” His heart felt as if it were beating in his head; he was all pulse.
“Parents sometimes have to make difficult decisions. As a father–”
“I’ve got to go,” Michael said abruptly. “Sorry. Send her my love.” He hung up, then stood with his hands pressing against either side of the booth, holding himself steady.
“You had three more minutes,” the kanga said sardonically, checking his watch.
“I’ll save them for another time,” said Michael.