THREE MONTHS LATER
Larry thinks the river Avon is at its most beautiful at night, with tethered boats rocking gently and the lights of the dockside reflecting on the inky black water. At 3 a.m. most of the city is asleep with just a few stragglers making their way home from nightclubs and bars. A few months ago, Larry would have been tucked up in bed too. He always used to be a good sleeper – a hard day’s work, a good meal and then he’d be out the moment his head hit the pillow – but something strange has happened to his brain. It doesn’t turn off the way it used to. It waits until dark, then bombards him with questions. Who will he be when he’s not a security guard any more? Is his cough bronchitis or lung cancer? Why didn’t he ask out Linda Bailey in 1973? That’s why he walks, so late at night, to drive the questions out of his head.
He’s pretty sure it’s his impending retirement that’s stealing his sleep. As a young man he dreamed of empty days with nothing to do, telling himself that his last day at work was his first day of freedom. Now that date is within touching distance he feels unsettled and unbalanced, as though the ground is shaking beneath his feet. He doesn’t want to be one of those old blokes who spend every day in the bookies or the pub. He’s got no interest in travelling and the thought of joining a club makes him feel sick. For all its faults, at least people know who he is at work. He’s Larry Woolley, security guard, and he’s treated with respect.
He screwed up letting that lunatic Edward Bennett into the shop, but how was he to know that he wasn’t the new area manager? He said he was, although he hadn’t given his real name. Alice never told Larry anything about staff changes, and besides, with his smart suit, briefcase and nerdy glasses Edward was certainly dressed the part. It still rankles Larry that he left before it all kicked off. He’d have sorted it quick sharp. Although fair play to Gareth for stabbing the bloke. Lunatics like that have to be stopped. Another wrong ’un was on the radio news that morning. Some bloke called Paul Wilson jailed for seven and a half years for beating up his wife and kid. A shocking sentence. They should have strung him up by his neck. But the country hadn’t completely gone to the dogs. At least the murder charge against Gareth had been dropped. Good thing too.
Larry turns his head sharply as a swaying figure emerges from a side street about twenty metres away. Pissed. Lost. Stumbling around, trying to find his way home. Larry grinds his teeth as the man starts to sing. It’s a tuneless rendition of Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’. As the man stumbles towards the river, Larry maintains his gentle, ambling pace but his breathing begins to quicken and his hands twitch at his sides. Larry doesn’t like singers, especially young, drunk ones. The last bloke that insulted him was so drunk he couldn’t walk in a straight line. He was shouting lyrics at the top of his voice and as Larry passed him he told him to keep it down because people were trying to sleep.
‘Fuck off, granddad,’ the bloke slurred.
Larry turned. ‘What did you just say?’
‘Something wrong with your hearing?’ He rolled his eyes, then took a sudden, unbalanced step to his left, straying towards the edge of the path and the sharp drop to the river below. ‘I told you to fuck off. Mind your own business you miserable—’
‘Have some respect.’
‘Respect?’ His face twisted into a sneer. ‘For you? I could fucking flatten you. Piss off back to the old folks’ home you waste of space.’
Larry’s pulse quickened. ‘Come here and say that.’
‘Nah.’ The young bloke waved a dismissive hand through the air and turned to go. ‘I don’t fight old men.’
Larry ran at him and pushed him hard in the chest, the force enough to knock him clean off his feet. His arms windmilled desperately as he fell and then splash; the river swallowed him whole. Larry rushed to the edge of the path and watched him flailing around in the dark water, gasping and spluttering as his coat billowed around him, pressing up round his head. There was a moment – a good two or three seconds – when Larry considered diving in after him. Nah. He shook his head decisively. Fuck him. If he was such a big man he could get himself out.
That night he slept better than he had in months.
His second victim didn’t see the shove coming. Larry had trailed him for a while after spotting him arguing with a girl on the steps of the amphitheatre where he’d called her all sorts of horrible names. She’d run off crying and the bloke – a miserable excuse for a man – had set off for a wander, a bottle of vodka in his hand. After he disappeared under the water, Larry didn’t stick around.
He decided not to do it again. To get away with it once was lucky, twice was a fluke, but then he heard that little weasel, Liam Dunford, blackmailing Gareth and the injustice of it all made his blood boil. He was only popping up to the changing room to get something out of his bag. Alice didn’t like him sharing the shop changing room with the sales girls. She said it made some of them feel uncomfortable. Larry wasn’t bothered. He thought the world had gone unisex mad and besides, he likes the camaraderie of being around the other security guards even if the only thing he has in common with most of them is the job. He was rounding the first set of stairs when he heard Liam’s whiny demands. Horrible little runt. He knew Gareth’s mum wasn’t well, they all did, and there he was, blackmailing the bloke, trying to steal his hard-earned cash.
Now Larry allows himself a brief little smile of satisfaction as the gap closes between him and the drunk singing and stumbling towards him. It turns out he might have decided how to spend his retirement after all.