THIS FUCKING LIFE
by Michael Keenaghan
SIX WEEKS AFTER the accident, I phone Murphy. I’ve been in the house too long, I need to get back out there. I need money.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” he says.
“More than ever,” I tell him.
He tells me to sit tight, he’ll see what he can do.
Three days later I get a call. He tells me to go and see two blokes in a pub in Archway.
“Meet them. See how it goes,” he says. “And Mick. Don’t fuck me around.”
“I won’t, Pat, honest.”
I COMB BACK my hair – or what’s left of it anyway, have a couple lines and head down there. Terry, mid-thirties, leans in doing the talking, while Frank, older and harder, sits back staring at me. Straight away I don’t like them. All I’m getting is questions and after a while it’s beginning to grate. I’ve been recommended by Pat Murphy for fuck’s sake, what more do they want?
Finally Frank leans forward. “Heard you had an accident,” he says, staring at my scar. “Heard it was a bunch of Turks like.” He’s almost smiling.
I lean in. “I’m here to talk about the fucking job.”
“Alright, keep your hair on,” he laughs. Terry laughing along too.
Cunts. I scrape my chair back, head to the toilets.
I stare at the tiles. What am I doing? I need to get on with these people. I zip up, walk to the mirror. I consider taking another line, but that’s just madness talking.
Heading back to the table, I meet Terry coming from the bar with fresh pints. “Here you go mate,” he says, motioning for me to sit down.
“Listen,” Frank says. “We know you’re a good bloke. A grafter too. We were just checking you out, that’s all. No hard feelings, yeah?” He offers his hand and I shake it. “Anyway, interrogation over. Let’s cut the bullshit and talk about work.”
I settle down, things more relaxed now, and Frank fills me in. They’re busy men, scams and business all over the place, and I soon realise Murphy has done me a big favour here. He’s putting me in their hands for a while. Regular work, regular cash.
Terry’s soon pulling out the coke, and come closing we head to a place around the corner. It turns out they’re not bad blokes. We have a few games of pool, and by the end of the night we’re laughing like old friends.
On the street Frank asks how I’m getting home. When I tell him the night bus he laughs. He pulls out a wad, peels off some notes. “Call it a sub,” he says. I’m shocked. He’s just given me two hundred quid.
Back in Hornsey the cabbie stops just off the High Street, won’t go down into the flats. He’s as bad as the pizza cunts. Still, I’m in such a good mood I let him keep the change.
I get in and Janice flies out from nowhere. “You bastard, where the hell have you been!” I’d turned my phone off and she’s tearing into me. I’m trying to make it to the living room when I see little Isla by her bedroom, and Skye starting to scream from her cot. “Look what you done now, you’ve gone and woke the kids,” I say, and Janice heads to sort it out.
I sit in my boxers flicking channels. Minutes later she’s standing in the doorway in her dressing gown looking at me. “Look, Jan, I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I had to meet some blokes about work.”
“What sort of work?” she says. “You promised me.”
“It’s legit, honest. I’m going to be a foreman on a site. A big house renovation over the river. Look, I’ve even been given a sub.” I pull out the cash, peel off three twenties. “Go on, take it, that’s yours.”
Within two minutes I’ve won her round. She’s sitting on my lap. “Oh no, I’ve scratched you,” she says, but I laugh, tell her not to worry.
“But I do worry,” she says, “I can’t help it. Especially after what happened. Going out drinking, getting run over.”
”Don’t worry about me,” I say, kissing her neck, working in, “I’m fine.”
NEXT DAY I GET a haircut. Total shave job. Should have done it ages ago. Then from Monday on I start leaving the house, pretending I’m going to work. Times like this I wish I hadn’t got the driving ban. I take walks, ride the buses, killing time. Each day I come home early, tell Janice the job’s practically running itself. Then Friday afternoon I get the call. It’s Frank. “News for you mate. A few hours work as a little starter.”
By Archway I’m beeped over and I jump in the van. No sign of Frank but Terry introduces me to the driver, Nige, a big bloke who grunts acknowledgement, nothing more. Next set of lights Terry hops out, says Nige will fill me in. Good luck, and he’s gone.
Nige doesn’t seem the talking type so I get straight to the point, ask him where we’re going. “Kentish Town,” he says. “Some cunt owes dough.” And then we’re heading down the backstreets, pulling in by some flats.
He turns off the engine. “Just to let you know, this bloke might have his missus and kids there, but don’t let it worry you. We’ve got to put on a show.” He hands me a bag, something heavy inside. I look in and it’s a fucking sawn-off. “Just stand holding it,” he says. “Leave the rest to me.”
“Wave a sawn-off about in front of kids, are you fucking mad?”
“Orders from the top mate.”
I hand it back to him. “Leave the shooter in the car.”
He shakes his head, turns to me. “Are you the cunt that had the problem with the Turks?”
I look at him.
“Well if you are, I suggest you back me on this. Because from what I’ve heard Murphy’s keeping a close fucking eye on you. I’d be seriously watching your step, do you know I’m saying?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You’re full of shit,” I say.
“You wanna bet?” he says. “Stuff I’ve heard mate. I’m doing you a favour here.”
I think of Tom McKenna and Johnny Mac, two of Murphy’s men who last year disappeared. Some said to sunny climes, others that their bodies were buried in concrete.
“If I were you, mate,” he continues, “I’d start pulling your weight and proving things.” He shoves the bag back into my hands. “Now come on. Let’s get this shit done.”
I climb out of the van, totally para now. We take the stairs up into the block and Nige raps hard on the door. “Yeah?” A girl in her twenties peering through the crack.
Nige storms past her and she’s struggling with him, until he grabs the bag off me and pulls out the shooter. “Where the fuck is he?”
A man appears at the end of the hall, hands up, pleading. Nige passes me the gun, heads towards him. He grabs his head, cracks it twice off the wall. “Money, you fucking cunt, where is it?” The bloke crumples and Nige is kicking him up the hallway. “I won’t ask you twice, you piece of shit, the fucking dough!” The woman’s screaming and two kids appear by the living room. “Get over there!” I shout, pointing the gun, and she runs to them, slams the door behind her. Nige pulls the bloke off the floor. “Tomorrow night, you cunt. All of it.” He headbuts him in the face and walks away, patting my shoulder as he goes.
Back in the van. “Well, that’s number one off the list anyway,” he says, passing me a list of five more addresses. “So, time to get a move on, I reckon.”
Three hours later we’re done. Everyone else had the money waiting. Nige tells me he’ll drop me off home, but I tell him I’ll walk. I watch the van disappear up the street and walk the four miles home with Nige’s threats about Murphy never once leaving my head.
I DON’T SLEEP. I toss and turn all night. The next day I phone Terry. I tell him I need to see him. No problem, he says, I’m in the pub, come on over. We sit at a table and I come straight out with it. Ask is it true that I’m practically a marked man.
He laughs, says ol’ Nige must have been filling my head with shit. Murphy’s fine with you mate. Don’t listen to the cunt. First class nutter that bloke.
Terry seems easy with it all, and the relief gets me a little too relaxed. I tell him there’s something else. All this muscle stuff, knocking round on people’s doors with shooters – to be honest, mate, it’s not really my thing.
He leans in. “I thought I was doing you a fucking favour. You telling me it didn’t go well or something?”
“No, it’s not that -”
“Good,” he says. “Because tonight you’re out with him again. One debt outstanding. Same time, same place.” He gets up, walks away.
I feel a rush of blood, but hold myself together. I check the time. It’s 3 o’clock. I’d told Janice I’d bring the kids to the park, but I’m no mood now. I move to the next pub along and sit drinking until it’s time for the meet.
Nige beeps me over and I climb in. We say nothing. Then nearing Kentish Town, he says, “If this fucker ain’t got the dough I’m doing some damage tonight. Maybe use the shooter on him, what do you reckon?” He turns to me and laughs. He’s winding me up.
I look at him. “Tell me the truth, you fat cunt.”
He doubletakes. “What did you just say?”
“You heard.”
He pulls the van over with a screech, and grabs me. “You got a fucking problem with me?”
“I just want the answer okay.”
Slowly he lets me go, starts laughing. “You’re one paranoid piece of shit, you know that? I was shitting you. Firing you up ’cause you were bottling out. You happy now?”
He shakes his head, starts the motor. “Now cheer up, you miserable cunt, we’ve got work to do.”
The second we knock at the flat, a brown envelope drops out of the letterbox. “No round two,” he laughs. “Oh well.”
We drive to Frank’s lock-up and do three runs of gym equipment to a place up Tottenham. Then Nige says, “Hey pisshead, you coming for a drink or what?”
I slam the door, walk off.
“Please your fucking self then,” he laughs, beeping as he drives away.
NIGHTTIME, IN BED with Janice. After a couple minutes of moving in and out, I have to leave it. Nothing happens but I pretend it does. I’m just not in the mood these days. I roll off, get rid of the rubber. Janice sits up reading a magazine.
“I’m not stupid, you know,” she says.
I look at her.
“You’re not working on a site at all, are you?”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re not,” she says. “But if you end up inside again, I’m not standing by you this time. Even if it’s just a couple months, I don’t care, that’s it.”
Her eyes are welling. “I’m thinking about the kids, Mick. They need a proper father. Someone who’s going to be there. The kids…”
“Come here.” I hold her close. “It’s okay, Jan. I promise you.”
I DREAM OF THE accident. I’d known Mustafa way back at school, but since then he’d become something big. I met him again recently and though he knew I was working for Murphy, he let me do some errands for him on the side. He paid well, a favour for old times. Treat the wife and kids, he said.
None of his men liked me, but I didn’t care. One night at one of his parties I got chatting to a woman. She looked like an exotic model; but nobody paying her any attention. Mus wasn’t there, hadn’t arrived yet, and I started flirting with her. I’d had a bit too much coke and she soon got sick of me, said I was a pest. With a few parting words I walked, thought nothing of it.
On my way home I got a call. Mus wanted to see me. It was 3am, the meet a dead end Hackney backstreet, all railway arches and lock-ups, so maybe I should have known. I stood waiting. His car cruised slowly towards me, then suddenly came charging. Too late. I rolled off the bonnet, hit the floor, his men jumping out, kicking the shit out of me. At last Mus stepped forward. I remember the way he looked. Black overcoat, slicked-back hair. I’d been living in the past; he was a stranger to me. I writhed in pain as he spieled me on trust, respect, said I was nothing but a bit of trash in the gutter. I’d insulted one of his women, called her a whore. It was unforgivable. He leaned in close, grabbed me. “Cross me ever again and I’ll kill your whole fucking family.” His razor cutting open my face.
I jolt awake. Janice asks if I’m alright. My fingers touch the scar, skin slicked in sweat. “I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” I lie back down and she holds me close. I fall asleep in her arms.
“ALRIGHT BALDY!” FRANK SAYS as I walk into the pub. He’s holding court at the bar, and what has so far been a pleasant afternoon with Janice and the kids has just turned sour. He’s perched there with a dead-eyed grin and I feel like ripping him off his stool.
He brings me over to a table and we sit opposite. He’s staring at me. “You and Nige. What the fuck’s going on?”
I search for words but, “Hold ‘em,” he says. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He leans in. “Now listen to me. If you can’t do a few simple runs without getting the hump, how are you going to fare when the big shit comes up? Murph told me you were a good fucking fella, so what are you playing at?”
I start to speak but again he puts up his finger. “I already told you, I don’t want to hear it.” He stands up. “Just sort the fucking attitude, okay?”
I nod.
“Now go home,” he says. “And next time I see you, you better be smiling.”
He walks back to the bar, and I head out. Turning a corner I kick a bin bag out onto the road. A car screeches up, the driver shouting at me, but I offer him out and he zips away. It takes me an hour pacing the streets to finally calm down.
I stop in a pub, my throat like sandpaper. I’m in Crouch End, a pub I hardly recognise even though I was once a regular. It’s all kids now, trendies; the Irish family that ran the place long gone. It’s early Saturday evening and I sit drinking, watching the pub go from near empty to near full. As the music gats loud and things get lively, it takes my mind off things. I do some coke in the bogs and soon there’s a group of girls larking about to an Abba tune, and I’m wondering if I’m imagining the looks I keep getting off this blonde little number.
I smile over, try my luck, not that bothered either way, but next thing she’s sitting next to me and we’re chatting away. She tells me she’s an actress, and asks what I do. I tell her I’m in the bone breaking business and she laughs. Thinks I’m a joker. One of those blokes that keep women entertained with the humour non stop. Laughing at everything I say. We’re getting on well and when her friends move on to a club, she stays behind with me. Then a few drinks later she’s leaning in close, saying she lives just around the corner.
We get to the flat, stripping each other off, and next thing we’re on the bed and I’m going at her like a battering ram. When I’m done I roll off in a sweating heap. The girl is resting her head on my chest. I’m staring at the ceiling. I think of Janice at home with the kids and a wave of guilt rises through me. What the fuck am I doing? I get up, start dressing.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m off. I’ve got to go.”
She crawls across the bed, tells me she hasn’t finished with me yet, and I’m shocked at how young she looks. “Fuck off,” I hiss. I push her away and suddenly she’s backing into the corner, pulling up the sheets, screaming.
I’m grabbing her by the hair, telling her to shut up, and for a second I feel like strangling her, packing her body into a suitcase, disposing of the whole night like it never happened. But I pull back. I feel like I’m going mad.
“I’m sorry.” I say. “I’m fucking sorry.” I grab my jacket and leave.
I’M OUT DOING deliveries with Nige. Building materials from A to B. We’re talking now and it feels better that way. It turns out we’ve even got a few mutual friends. None on the out though. One or two even dead. He tells me about his cagefighting years. How he worked his way up, even won a cup in Las Vegas. It was four years ago. The pinnacle of his career. “Go on then,” I say. “Tell me the bad bit.”
“I got stabbed thirty times outside a pub in Deptford. Three blokes waiting for me. Machetes, bats with nails, the works. I died twice on the table but refused to go. The doctors said it was all the muscle that saved me, that if I hadn’t been so built I would’ve been a goner. You should see my chest though. Looks like a map of Britain.”
“And what about the three blokes?”
“Two down, one to go.”
ONE NIGHT WALKING down Turnpike Lane I’m stopped by police – the same two bastards that got me five months in Pentonville. They check through my pockets. “Get in the car, Mickey.” They drive around by the gas works, pull over, not a soul.
“Right, Mick, fill us in. What you been up to?”
“Fuck all, let me go.”
“It don’t work like that and you know it. If you don’t want your name on the next set of dawn raids, you better start squealing. We want info, names, addresses.”
Ten minutes later I’ve given them a couple local names. One deals from his shop, the other his house. Both have guns, and I give a shit for neither of them.
“Nice seeing you, Michael,” and I’m out they’re driving away. Bastards don’t even return my wrap of coke.
WE’RE IN THE BACK room of a pub, Nige pocketing an envelope, the governer getting stroppy.
“You can tell your man that’s the last he’ll be getting for a while. Business isn’t what it used to be. Can’t you lot see that? I’ve got the brewery on my back, the police cutting my hours, at this rate I’m going to end up fucking bankrupt.”
“That mean you’ll have to sell the Merc?” Nige says. “And what about the motor you got for your daughter’s 21st? Will that have to go too?”
“Now look,” the landlord says, but Nige waves him away: “Sort this cunt out, Mick, will you?”
I give him a swift one in the gut, another in the face as he doubles. He staggers breathless and I push him to the floor.
“Nice work,” Nige says in my ear, before pulling the bloke up and slumping him on a chair. He pulls out a knife, holds it to his throat. “Listen here you cunt. Start causing complications and that daughter of yours might have to start losing her looks, are you hearing me?” The bloke’s nodding, terrified, his mouth a mess of blood. I feel sorry for him, but what can you do? It’s business. It’s life.
I’m expecting Nige to leave it when suddenly he cuts him, ear to mouth. The bloke screams and Nige throws him to the floor, kicking him. “Do you fucking hear me?”
He’s completely lost it, and I have to pull him off.
I’M ALONE IN a pub, coked and pissed. I’ve been staring at my mobile for hours telling myself I’m going to phone Murphy. Being Frank and Terry’s runaround boy, it’s not working out. They’re amateurs, Pat. Fucking cowboys. And Nige a thick fucking fool who’s going to get us all nicked. I’m worth more than this, you know it and I know it. I’m not happy with it, I’m telling you now.
I don’t phone him. But the next day sober it scares me how close I came. The coke’s going to get me into trouble.
“YOU DON’T LOVE me anymore.” Janice is standing decked out in basque and stockings, the room candlelit, the kids at her sister’s. There are tears in her eyes.
I’ve come home and she’s surprised me. But I’m not in the mood. I’m up to my ears right now. Can’t she see that?
“I’m just fucking tired, okay,” my fist slamming the table.
She stares at me, then runs crying out of the room.
I’M SENT DOWN the Elthorne Estate to collect a shooter. This is Murphy’s old manor. Rumoured properties in Spain and Northern Cyprus yet he sat it out until only a few years back. He’s up in Barnet now, a four-bed detached. I push through the broken door and snort some coke in the lift heading up, a used nappy in the corner and a trail of dogshit as I head out on to the walkway. The place has gone to pot. I reach the flat and press the bell.
“You here for the ting?” a black bloke says.
“Yeah, the ting, that’s right.” He doesn’t get it, leads me through. There’s a baby crying somewhere, the stink of weed, and a blonde girl sitting in front of the TV. He tells her to fuck off, and as she leaves the room I notice the bruises.
“Fucking bitch, man,” he tuts. “Gives me nothing but grief.” He produces the kit, a 12-bore sawn-off, tells me he’s cleaned it thoroughly. I give it a look, tuck it under my jacket and wish him adios. The flat stinks and so do the people in it, and I’m glad to be heading out of there. Why shooters are being lent out to scum like that I don’t know.
I’m heading across the dim-lit estate, when a bottle smashes just behind me. I turn round, a bunch of hooded youths by the corner. “Weren’t us,” one of them says, and the rest laugh. I’m debating whether to walk away, then the same runt says, “Fucking pussy,” and I see red.
I charge towards them, pulling out the tool. “What did you just say?” They’re backing into the corner shitting it. I’m pointing the sawn-off in the mouthy mug’s face and suddenly he’s whining for his life. Fucking little runt. Back in the day I had untold mates down here. English mates, Paddy mates. Now look at the place. A fucking zoo.
I bash him in the mouth and he’s down, crying on the floor, spitting teeth; voices panicking, pleading. I notice a white girl in the mix. I move in on her.
“What you hanging round with this scum for?” I say. “Open your legs for these little cunts, do you?” She’s staring at the floor, lips trembling, starting to cry. “Fucking little slag.”
I walk away.
WE’RE SENT DOWN to Southampton to collect a shipment of Olive Oil; a batch of it going up to Manchester. It’s due to be a simple drop, one of Murphy’s relatives at the other end, yet Frank and Terry were pacing around all morning, nervous about this one.
Heading up the M1, Nige tells me we’re carrying several dozen K’s of cocaine. Not that I hadn’t figured it of course. Then he tells me you know what, we’re being made fucking mugs out of.
“If the police pulled us over, do you know how many years we’d get for this? We’re being paid peanuts for this shit. This ain’t fridges and ovens now, you know, this is fucking Class A.”
I tell him we’ve been promised a bonus, but he says: “What, a few hundred quid?”
We drive into Manchester. Just before the stop at Longsight we pull over and inspect the load. Sure enough, the bottom of each drum has been hollowed out, stuffed with packages. We sift off a stash, hide it in the bushes by the side of the road. We make the drop no problem, then bingo, we’re heading back south with our own little wager.
“That’s what you got to do, Mick. Take your share. But you’ve got to be careful. Look at Frank and Tel. If Murph knew half the shit they were robbing off him, they’d be holding up the next bypass.”
We don’t hang about. Nige phones some old mates. Nearing London we slip off the M1, head to a flat in Borehamwood. A quick price for a quick deal then we’re back in the van, Nige halving out the cash in front of me. We’re laughing all the way back to Archway.
The next day we do Nottingham. Night after, Birmingham, then a smaller load to Southend. Each time we take a percentage. Each time it goes straight to Borehamwood.
I BUY JANICE some wheels. A nice little Clio that I’ve fitted with a baby seat. I bring her outside, surprise her.
“It’s for you, babe, all yours.” I give her the keys.
She can’t believe it. She’s the happiest I’ve seen her in months.
FRANK THROWS A party at a little club in King’s Cross. “Here they are,” he beams as Nige and I walk in. He puts his arms around us. “Good fucking boys these are.”
After a while Frank brings us into a back room. Chopping out some lines he asks how we’ve enjoyed out recent little jaunts. Then he slips us each an envelope and winks. Stay good and there’ll be more of the same. Leading us back out he slaps our backs. “Plenty fanny here tonight lads, so hope you’re tucking in.”
I head to the toilets, check the envelope. Nige was wrong. Frank’s bonus is four fucking grand.
JANICE THROWS A bottle at me. I duck and it hits the wall. She always tells me I’m never home, but when I am, look at the way she acts.
“You’re not right in the head.” I reach for my jacket.
“That’s it, go on, fuck off with your criminal friends. Why don’t you go and move in with them? You will eventually – in fucking prison.”
I shake my head, slam the door behind me. Sitting in my local I get a call from Frank. He wants to see me. Now.
“TAKE YOUR FUCKING hands out of your pockets.” I’m in a Portakabin on Frank’s builder’s yard – Frank behind the desk, a lump manning the door. “Do know who I’ve just had on the phone?”
I look at the floor.
“Murphy,” he says. “Calling from Cyprus. On his fucking holidays. Over you.” I feel my legs go weak. Then he tells me one of the kids I pulled the shooter on was Murphy’s niece. Thirteen years old.
He thumps the table. “Are you some kind of fucking nonce or something?” He doesn’t let me explain. He gives his mate a signal and I feel a blow to my kidney, then to the side of my neck. I fall and curl into a ball as the kicks come pounding in. Finally I hear: “Enough.”
Frank leans down, grabs me by the ear. “First trying to piss off the Turks, now this. I reckon you’ve fucking done it this time, Mick, don’t you?”
Murphy wants to see me in person. He’s back from Cyprus in three days.
I WAKE UP IN agony. My head is throbbing, whole body aching. I can’t remember how I got home. All I recall is going from pub to pub trying to drink away reality, but it’s no use. I clutch the sheets in pain. What am I going to do?
I drag myself out of bed. Janice has her back to me in the hall; she’s setting out the pushchair, ready to head out with kids. She turns around and I jolt in shock. One of her eyes is bruised black.
“Don’t come near me,” she says. “Or the kids. Ever. We’re off to my mum’s. You’ve got one week to get out of here. We’re finished.”
“I don’t understand.” Suddenly she lunges for me, laying in hands and feet. I’m down on the floor, the kids screaming, Janice shouting through her tears. “For years I watched my dad come in drunk and batter my mum, and I’m not having my kids see the same thing!”
The front door closes and I stay where I am, shaking on the floor.
THE DAYS AND NIGHTS become one, and I sit in the flat, the table covered in drink and drug debris. Janice finally answers one of my calls. She tells me not to ring again, and I hear her mum in the background calling me a good for nothing bastard. Let him rot, she says. And Janice hangs up on me.
I pull out some photos. Janice on the beach in Marbella. In a club. In our hotel room smiling with a cigarette after we’d made love. I root out some dirty snaps we’d once done. Back before the kids. When we’d be at each other all the time. Janice once told me she’d thrown them out, but here they are. I sit with my boxers round my ankles, one hand free, staring at them.
I’LL TELL HIM everything. Tell him I was provoked. I couldn’t help it. I made a mistake. I see myself pleading on my knees, Murphy letting it go with a beating maybe, a punishment. Then it all changes and I see him raging. No mercy. See myself kneeling in a wood somewhere, a shot to the head and I fall.
I see myself running. Getting away. Holland, Portugal, Spain. The whole picture shattering as two hired thugs burst into the flat to take it out on Janice.
The day arrives. I shower, change my clothes. Then I leave a message on Janice’s voicemail. I tell her I love her, love the kids, then I say goodbye. Two men call at the door. They lead me down to the car. We drive in silence.
MURPHY IS STANDING behind his desk, his back to me, staring out the window. “It’s a shame I have to do this, Mick, it really is.”
“Please, Pat, please.” My face is swollen from where he’s slapped me, my eyes full of tears.
He turns round, nods to one of his men. “Put him in the box till I’m ready to go.”
I’m dragged across the yard, locked into an empty goods container. I spend the next few hours in total darkness.
The doors clanks open, the light blinding me. “Get up.” I’m led back before Murphy.
He holds a gun to my head. “Get down on your fucking knees.” I close my eyes tight as the seconds tick by.
Then I hear, “Redemption, Mick, do you believe in that?”
I look at him. “Yes,” I say.
He presses the gun between my eyes. He pulls the trigger, laughing with his men as it clicks repeatedly.
He walks behind his desk and puts the gun away. “You’re going to do something for me, Mick. Something big.” He opens a bottle of Martell. Tells me to sit down.
Opposite him at the desk, he passes me a glass. Leans in.
“Frank and Terry, Mick,” he says. “Frank and Terry.”
HOURS LATER I’M alone in a pub, Murphy’s words still ringing in my ear. What Nige had said was right. They were ripping Murphy off. Now I’ve got seven days to kill them. I start dozing over my drink and the barmaid offers to call me a cab. I tell her it’s okay, I’ll do it myself. I pat myself for my mobile, but it’s gone. Maybe I left it at home. I can’t remember now.
I get back to Hornsey. As soon as I open the front door I hear noises. I’m being burgled. I reach behind for the baseball bat and burst through into the kitchen.
Janice clutches her heart, and her brother Ray says, “Jesus, Mick. God…”
I drop the bat, laugh in relief.
They’re both staring at me. “You bastard,” Janice seethes. “We thought you were fucking dead!” Ray holds her back, and I notice her eyes, swollen from crying. She shakes him off and pushes past me into the living room. I’m confused.
“She’s right, you know,” Ray says, holding up my mobile. “That message you left. It sounded like you were going to top yourself.”
I snatch my phone off him. “I want to be with my wife okay.” I head to the living room, close the door behind me.
Janice is walking around the room. “Jesus Christ, what have you done to this place?”
She’s right. It’s a tip. But now she’s back I could have it clean in five minutes. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “Everything’s going to be all right now.”
“Get away from me. Don’t touch me. You’re insane.”
Something tugs at my arm. It’s Ray. I push him away from me. “I thought I already told you to piss off.”
He floors me with one punch, goes for me again but Janice holds him back. “Leave him,” she says. “Let’s go. He’s never seeing my kids again.”
I crawl laughing across the floor, grab a bottle of vodka and sit on my chair. The whole thing’s mad; it’s a dream, it must be.
I WALK INTO the pub with a gun in my hand. Terry drops his drink. Frank just stares at me; tells me I don’t have the balls. My hand is shaking. Suddenly there’s a bang and I feel a pain in my side. I turn, see Nige with a grin and a .38. “Alright Mickey.” He comes forward, aims for my face, and I wake up in a sweat.
ONE OF MURPHY’S men delivers the hardware. A Browning 9 mil handgun, and a sawn-off shotgun. I sit staring at them on the table. Janice phones. She wants me out of the flat in three days, needs to move back in with the kids. I tell her no problem. Move in, do what you like. “What are you up to?” she says. I hang up on her. Janice and her moods are the least of my worries right now. I’ve got a job to do.
I WALK TOWARDS the pub with the nine – the sawn-off I’ve left at home. I push through the doors. There’s a short scattering to the toilets then all goes silent. Frank and Terry are sitting at the bar. Terry says, “Mick, no, we can sort this,” while Frank clutches his arm, ready for a heart attack. Terry steps down off his stool. “Now, Mick, take it fucking easy okay.” I shoot and he’s thrown back against the bar. I fire twice more and he’s down. Frank is struggling for air. “Mick, please.” One shot and he’s clutching his gut, blood coming through his fingers. Another and he falls to the floor. I stand over them, shoot them both twice in the head.
I hit the night air, rain and sweat soaking my skin. I drop the gun into a skip and walk all the way back to the flat. Then I sit on my seat and wait for the police to arrive.
They don’t.
I sit out the next day also. Reports on the news of cold blooded murder; a wall of silence. Then in the evening there’s a knock at the door. But it’s not police, I can tell.
I go out to the hall. “Who the fuck is it?”
“Well done, Mick.” I hear a laugh. “It’s me – Nige.”
I open up. He’s smiling, holding up a bottle of Malt. “You gonna invite me in or what?”
“Fuck me,” walking through, “you’ve certainly been partying mate.” We sit down and he pours two glasses. We catch the latest report on the news. Then he says, “Murphy’s one happy bunny, Mick. He wants to thank you personally.”
I stare at the TV. “And what if I don’t want to go?”
He leans forward and I see he’s strapped. “Come on, Mick, don’t be stubborn. He wants you.”
I shrug, turn back to the TV. I light up some brown, offer him a smoke but he shakes his head. I feel him stare at me.
“Is it true you just walked away?” He’s smiling. “I never knew you had it in you.”
“I need the bog.” I get up. Nige follows.
I close the door on him. “Give me some privacy, Nige, for God’s sake.”
I pick up the sawn-off from behind the bath. I cock it and blast a hole through the door. Then I go out, step over Nige’s body and sit back in front of the TV.
I phone Murphy. For the first time in his life he’s speechless. “So, you sent Nige round to get me? I’d let you have a word with him but he’s lying in my hallway with half his fucking chest blown away.” He starts to speak but I’m not finished. “I’ve done what you said, Pat, so leave me the fuck alone.” I hang up on him.
I sit back, drink more of Nige’s whisky. Coronation Street is about to start.