Obviously that didn’t work. It might have if Bobby – miraculously recovered from his explosive upset over missing his mother’s funeral – hadn’t come downstairs to get a snack from the fridge, causing Trish to push me away so that we weren’t caught in a compromising position. It might even have worked if she had managed to smother her suspicions about Lenny for a few moments longer, but she couldn’t resist another poke, asking Bobby as he passed between us, a doughnut in each hand, if Lenny had acted anything remotely like an apartment block manager on her visit, and he’d just smirked and that was enough to send her flying off the handle and me out of the front door shouting abuse back at her.
A few days before, in the absence of anything as unlikely as a customer, I had been concentrating on my attempt to watch every single music video on YouTube when I came across a single by Jack Jones from the sixties called ‘Wives and Lovers’, which was so perfect for its time, and so perfectly out of step with our own. Its lyrics suggested that women should remember that just because they’re married they shouldn’t forget to wear make-up, that they should run into your arms when you come home from work, and that they should most definitely never send you off to work with their hair still in curlers, because you might never come home. For some inexplicable reason, the words came back to me as I stood screaming at her.
She was yelling something along the lines of me being a two-faced fuck-face, and I counter-attacked with, ‘You should be fucking grateful for me coming round! And at least I wash my fucking hair!’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Whatever you want, but at least I make the effort! I don’t remember you ever standing at the door with your make-up on and your arms open wide waiting for me! You never did that! Too much trouble! And you haven’t even the wherewithal to make me a fucking rissole!’
I was kind of paraphrasing.
I stormed off, leaving her at least as perplexed as I was.
I sauntered through the dusk, quietly grateful that she’d picked the fight, because at least for a little while it shifted my focus off the Millers and what they might be up to, off Pike and whether he could be trusted, and squarely on Patricia and our marriage.
I returned to the Bob Shaw. I supped, sitting at a table, back to the wall, watching for trouble. Lenny wasn’t working, and it was a relief. I returned to the apartment pleasantly inebriated and went on to the veranda with a Bush and a couple of slices of reheated pizza. I wasn’t hungry. I was lying in wait for my phantom attacker. He was going to get the surprise of his life. However, by two a.m., I’d eaten my ammunition. By three, I was asleep. At a quarter past, I was woken by a slice of Hawaiian frisbeeing out of the darkness to wrap itself around my face. I was on my feet instantly, but there was only hurried footsteps and laughter.
I retired to bed, but lay awake for a long time, plotting revenge.
In the morning, I showered first and then had a banana for breakfast. When you live by yourself, sometimes it’s whatever takes the least effort. I was dressed by eight and out the door. First open shop I came to, I purchased a coffee and a box of Jaffa Cakes. A banana will only get you so far. As I continued to the office, I called Trish.
‘Sorry about last night,’ I said. ‘It’s just . . . everything.’
‘I know. I’m sorry too. But one thing . . .?’
‘Yep.’
‘Where the fuck did rissoles come from?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I don’t even like them.’
‘I think you’re starting to lose the plot, Dan.’
‘Honey, I could do with a little less plot.’
She said, ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Can I have that in writing?’ I said. ‘How is he this morning?’
‘Sullen. He’s going to have to start walking to work; these early starts are killing me.’
I came to a junction. I stopped, waiting for the green man. ‘You sound like he might be there for a while longer.’
She sighed. ‘No, just until, you know.’
‘Convincing.’
‘He hardly says a word, and he’s as moody as hell, but . . . there’s something about him. Something in there.’
‘Potential.’
‘Aye. Maybe. He’s smart, y’know? You can see it in his eyes. Do you ever notice that in people? There’s a kind of brightness in the eyes of people who have a bit of wit about them. Does that make sense, or am I talking shite?’
‘No, I know what you mean. I see it in the mirror every morning.’
‘Yeah, you wish.’ She hesitated. ‘Sometimes I think . . . you know . . .?’
‘Our boy might have been like him.’
The lights changed. I crossed over.
‘Is it wrong to think that?’
‘No, it’s natural. They’re about the same age.’
‘Sometimes I think they look a bit the same.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’
‘I wonder all the time about how he would have turned out.’
‘I know.’
‘He’d have been just like you.’
‘He had none of me in him.’
‘It’s nurture, Dan, not nature. He was a little you. Youse laughed together so much.’
‘Aye, well.’
‘And he sulked when he didn’t get his own way. He was inconsolable whenever you left. I went out, he never noticed. You, he cried the place down. I miss him so much.’
‘I know you do.’
‘But I don’t want to project that . . . on to Bobby.’
‘You’re not. You know what’s real and what’s not. There’s not a problem with him staying longer as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Anyway, his family sound like a bunch of chickens. I think he’d be miles better off with you.’
‘Well, it’s just a mad thought. Nothing will come of it.’
‘Let’s see how this all plays out.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Fingers crossed for you, anyway, today. You’re very brave, my Dan, confronting bastards like that.’
‘It’s not bravery, it’s foolishness.’
‘Is that not what I said?’
I smiled. I told her I’d phone her as soon as I heard anything, and cut the line. It was a pleasant morning for walking. Having a good conversation with Trish always cheered me up.
Five minutes later, just as I neared the office, a Romanian approached.
‘Big Issue?’ she asked.
‘Fuck off,’ I replied.
The shutters were up on Joe’s, but the meat hadn’t yet made it to the trays in the window, and the front door was still closed. They were probably slicing and dicing out back. I placed the Jaffa box against my throat and jammed it there with my chin while I felt in my pockets for the keys. As I did, I glanced around at a bunch of kids in Methodist College uniforms gathered around something on the pavement that I couldn’t quite see but which they evidently found hilarious. I located the keys and slipped the correct one into the lock. There was a mechanical wheeze from behind and I turned to see an Ulsterbus: its doors were open and the kids were hurrying towards it. Just as I turned the key and opened the door, my eyes fell on what they had been gathered around.
A leg.
A false leg.
Standing erect.
All by its lonesome.
Except for a wire, leading away from it.
And in that very moment of jarring recognition, a huge force lifted me off my feet and hurled me into the air, and for what seemed like an eternity I was looking down on Belfast from above, at the traffic, and the smoke, and the flames, and glass, and the charging pedestrians, and I was wondering how come I was flying, and who’d turned the sound down and what had happened to the Jaffa Cakes, and I had the distinct impression that something wasn’t quite right.