Graven Image

If you go round the cloisters and have a look at all the stained glass windows, you'll find one of a man being burned to death, and he looks a bit like me, if I was white and had a beard. And even if he didn't look like me, I straight away knew all about him. I didn't know who he was or what he'd done, but I knew he was paying for something he’d done, and that he’d had no choice but to do that thing. I could see myself going the same way. And soon.

Saying that, I hoped I was wrong.

Getting burned to death seemed a bit harsh.

I turned, spotting someone come round the corner. I knew this was no abbey-going punter. No punter moves with that kind of purpose, eyes burning a hole in your skull from fifty yards. The cloisters are a big, square corridor surrounding a nice garden that you can look at through the windows but not go in, and I was stood halfway along one side. Behind me was the gift shop and the main part of the abbey. Habit had me making a mental note of that in case things turned serious and I needed a way out. But I knew I wouldn’t be needing that mental note. I had hope, didn’t I? Things could be sorted.

Burnings could be avoided.

‘Where’s Graven?’ I said to the oncoming ned with his chin up, arms swinging a foot adrift of his hips, bigging himself up big-time. He was all of five foot five and built like a variety-sized box of cornflakes. Twenty yards shy and he reaches inside his hoodie. Not a good sign.

Things weren’t just turning serious, they were starting out that way.

House of God and all.

He was five paces away now and I could make out his eyes, but they weren’t on me like those of a good blade boy should be. Or even a shit one, really. It was around then I came to wonder if I might be wrong, if this one here was nothing to do with Graven’s dirty workings. Could be he was Mr Average, headed for the gift shop, after a nice key-ring or an embossed prayer book. Especially with his hand still in his top and not producing the stainless. Mind you, does Mr Average keep his hood up inside the house of God? I don’t know, but I had mine up.

I had good reason to.

He pulled alongside, the hand coming out now. This is where it got a bit odd for me. Meaning unusual things started going on up there in my head. I mean, your first instinct is self-preservation, right? Someone’s about to flash a tool, you either show him your heels or toss him a pre-emptive set of knuckles. This had been my way for as long as I could remember.

But I got a different thing occurring to me this time. It occurred to me - with the sun bursting out behind my head, flashing the colours of that burning man across the ned’s grey Diesel with a big black 50 across the front - that I could always just take it. I could let him do what he’d been sent to do.

Why prolong the inevitable? I mean, what is life, really and truly?

One long trail of shit stretching day to day.

Until you die.

That’s why I closed my eyes. Serious, that is the reason. Bring it on, I was thinking, send me to the big sleep from which no bastard awakes. And when I opened them again I saw an angel approaching, coming down a long tunnel. Or maybe it was a leery-eyed vicar walking down the cloisters in my direction, I realised after blinking a few times. I now had a letter under my arm. A sealed envelope, brown smudges all over one corner and some damp on another. I sniffed it.

Soil.

The ned was nowhere. Common sense said he was in the main abbey, hiking sharpish for the exit after doing his drop-off. Which meant he was actually in the gift shop, because I knew how his sort operated and it wasn’t via common sense. I went in there, stuffing the letter down my arse pocket where it belonged. He was browsing your more expensive class of gift down the far aisle, where the old dear at the counter couldn’t clock him. I yanked his hood down and swung him back, sending him crashing into a rotating postcard stand. Then I dragged him to the door, all eight stone of him. I was sorry about trashing the shop but there were more pressing matters just now. Before I could get him out he wriggled free of the Diesel and scuttled behind the counter.

The old dear was backed up to the wall, hand on heart.

I apologised to her and grabbed the ned by the ankle, intending to get him away and thereby give her heart a rest. She didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts there, looking at her, but that’s not what it’s about, is it? It’s about respecting boundaries. It’s about making sure your bad shit doesn’t hurt innocent people.

‘What’s this?’ I said to the ned. I was kneeling on his back. His hoodie was riding up and you could see part of a large koi carp tat on his ribs, outlined and long healed but never coloured in.

‘What?’

‘This!’ I was still trying to get the letter out of my pocket.

‘What?’

‘Shut up a minute!’

I finally got it out and shoved it in his face.

‘This!’

‘I dunno! I’m just—’

‘Don’t you swear in a lady’s presence, you little—’

‘You’re hurtin’ me!’

I probably was, to be fair. I’m no goliath but I do like a pie. And I can handle myself. I got off him. None of this was turning out like I’d hoped. Straight away he bolted for the door. I didn’t bother going after him. I was knackered, inside and out.

‘I’ll tell you what you are!’ the ned was shouting from the glass doorway, spit flying. ‘You’re a fuckin’ spanner!’

I shrugged at the old dear and started picking up the rotating postcard display.

That’s what it said on a piece of paper inside that soil-stained envelope, in big block capitals. I’m no expert but I thought it might have been written by a female. There was a careful curve to the letters that you saw in Kelly’s handwriting, although Kelly wrote with a bit more confidence than seen here. That’s all you can give a kid, if you ask me. Confidence. And a surname.

And a big hug every day.

‘Quits?’ I said.

I was walking through town, keeping to back streets. I’d long since read the letter, such as it was, but it was still messing with my head and making no sense. How could we be quits? I’d been waiting for a blade in the guts, back there at the abbey - that’s how far in Graven’s debt I was. And we’re not talking loans here. I’m on about the currency of grievance, where eyes and teeth are exchanged in violent transactions.

See, I’d fucked up. About a week ago, this was, during which time I’d been hiding out in the sticks. I’d still be there now if I hadn’t got that text from Graven. Let’s get this sorted, he’d suggested. Life’s too short for grudges and contracts on the heads of former friends and loyal compadres, so let’s meet up, shout at each other a bit and then have a little hug.

If he thought I was hugging him he could kiss my black arse. And if I thought he wanted to make up, my black arse deserved the kicking it had coming.

So why had I come back? Homesickness? Had exile got me down... all that country air making me hanker for the polluted streets I knew? Bollocks had it.

I missed my daughter.

And that is the only reason.

What it was, just so you know, is that I’d gone overboard with my duties and someone had got hurt. Very hurt, if blood and exposed bone is anything to go by. Which wouldn’t be a problem on any normal day - people were always getting a bit hurt where my job was concerned, sometimes in life-changing ways. But they’re not normally Graven’s VIP guest.

Even if he did have it coming.

So you can see why I was expecting some sort of violent retribution, that being Graven’s preferred method of disciplinary procedure. And you can see why I was scratching my head over this “QUITS” business.

How had the score been evened? The inconvenience of having to go to the abbey at 4pm, standing Kelly up and missing one of our precious rendez-vous? The indignity of having to joust with that ned in the gift shop? Was it all about that dirty envelope? What does anthrax look like? Maybe I was a goner already, just by touching the paper. What was that film where they did that?

I got my phone out and rang Darren. I needed him in the game with me. Graven and his crew were the only ones who knew I was back in town and I didn’t like it that way. You need an ally in your corner, someone to notice when you go missing. Plus I wanted to run this “QUITS” bollocks past him. Darren could always see the angles where I had a blind-spot.

But he wasn’t answering just now.

I went to pocket the phone but it went off in my hand. I answered, thinking it was Darren on the ring-back. I should have looked who the caller was. I could have prepared myself.

‘Darren?’ I said, trying to light a fag with my spare hand. ‘Look, I got a bit of a situ—’

‘Where is she?’

‘What? Who’s—?’

‘Who d’you think it is? It’s Jane, OK? Where is she?’

Jane being my ex, of course. I dropped my unlit fag.

‘
Where’s Kelly?
’ she shouted.

‘I dunno! How should I know? Injunction says I can’t come within fifty metres of her, remember?’

‘Oh shut up! I know you see her! You think I’m stupid? You think I dunno you meet in that nasty pub on Wednesdays after school?’

‘Thursdays.’

‘What? Oh yeah, that’s what I meant.’

‘And it’s not a nasty pub, that’s the whole point.’

‘What are
you
doing going there, then?’

‘What’s that supposed to—?’

‘Where is she?’

‘Look, I never met her today. I had to—’

‘You know where she is or not?’

‘No! I swear I—’

‘Don’t bother swearing. If you want to help, just go and look for Kerry.’

‘Alright, but she’s... It’s Kelly, by the way.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Was it? Oh... Look, she’s probably gone to her friend’s house or something.’

‘Whatever. And you owe me some mon—’

I hung up. I’d heard all I needed to hear.

I remembered that film now:

The Name of the Rose
.

Leon was what they knew me as at school. My mum hated my dad so she wouldn’t let me use his surname. She hated her dad as well so I couldn’t use hers either. So I ended up just having LEON on all my name tags, written in marker because she couldn’t sew. And she must have put that down on the forms and stuff when I started going there, because all the teachers called me Leon as well, even the ones who called you by your last name. You’d think a parent wouldn’t get away with that. But then you didn’t know my mum.

I used to hate having only one name. It made me the odd one out, even more than my colour did. It put me at a disadvantage compared to everyone else, with their surnames and middle names. I missed the middle name most. A middle name is like a secret identity you can use whenever you want. Or you can ditch the first name if you don’t like it and just use the middle one. That’s what my ex did, the mother of my only daughter. But she was advertising a weakness there, showing the world how they could get under her skin and hurt her.

Took me a long time but eventually I got used to having just one name. I felt like Pelé, or Eusébio. Except I wasn’t as good as them at footy. I looked a bit like them as well, especially Eusébio. Maybe that was why people didn’t make such a fuss about me having one name. They’d never have tolerated it if I was a white kid, but a little black boy... that’s alright. ‘It’s part of their culture,’ they’d say. ‘They do things different over there.’

I never did find out where “over there” was, but I found out I had a surname. All you have to do is look at your birth certificate. Sounds easy now, but it took until I was eighteen and mum was dead before I realised I even had such a thing. She’d kept it stashed under her bed, in a flat box with other bits and bobs. It’s strange, the little objects a woman cares about.