Hemispheres (28 page)

Paperwork, he says. Bane of the public services these days. Supposed to be a Labour government.

He’s going to tell me that Paul is dead. I prepare myself.

Sorry to have to tell you this, he says. We’d have got in touch with you, but you didn’t leave any contact details. Paul’s
not here. He checked out.

You don’t have to beat around the bush, I say. You mean he’s dead.

He stares at me.

God, I’m really sorry. No – of course, you must have thought – he really has checked out. As in left. A couple of weeks ago.
The real worry is that he left all his medication here. Anti-retrovirals, everything. Could be in some danger without it.

He rubs the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb.

Anybody know where he is? Did he say where he was going?

Talking about Whitby, according to a couple of the regulars. No guarantee of course, but I’ve alerted the social services
and police down there just in case he turns up.

He liked Whitby when he was a kid. Used to go down there with his mam. A week in the summer. But why leave the medication?

Perhaps he wasn’t expecting to be gone long. Although I wonder whether he was thinking of –

His voice trails off and I finish his sentence.

Going there to die.

It was getting dark when we pulled into Darlington. We stumbled into the echoing station, pigeons flapping high up against
the glass roof with fathoms of night mounting above. Walked past the idling engine of the locomotive, the death-defying thrum
of the diesel.

It was already a dream. The caravan park, the wedding, the scrapyard. Bright splinters of memory – stars dipping into the
sea, circles of eyeliner in the dark, a shot glass of crème de menthe.

And out into the taxi rank, sloping downward towards the railway bridge. I made straight for a taxi and got in the back.

Haverton Hill mate, I said. The Cape of Good Hope.

He started the meter running, luminous red figures beginning to cycle. Paul was still outside, finishing a cigarette. I craned
my neck backwards and saw him crush it beneath a boot, then he was jumping into the seat beside me.

Wagons roll, he shouted, extracting a beer can from his jacket pocket, popping it, slurping greedily.

The driver looked unimpressed. Reversed slowly out of the space, drove down the ramp and out onto the main road. He took Darlington
Back Lane, through Norton and across the Billingham Beck valley on the new flyover. Tanks and towers and columns bristling
above Billingham itself, above the squat tower of the Saxon church and the houses clustered like battlements along the ridge.
We ran up Central Avenue and on out of town, the vast expanse of the Billingham site burning to
the right, fields of shimmering light leaping into the black sky. And beyond the site was Haverton Hill and the Cape of Good
Hope on the corner.

Paul began to stump off down the road, jacket pulled tight around his shoulders. He turned.

Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do, he called.

Something clicked inside.

You never did it, did you? She prickteased you all night but you never got nowhere.

She likes a bit of rough, he said. She likes to rub Charlie’s nose in it. Like she did with your old man.

All your stories are made up, aren’t they?

Son, he said. I done stuff you never even imagined.

Then he marched off and left me standing there looking after him. I pushed open the front door and went in. Stairs in front
of me, up to the flat. Swing doors to the bar on my right. Quiet in there, a few low voices droning like flies. The stairs
shimmered drunkenly, somebody whispering at the top. I flipped the lightswitch and the bare bulb flared into life. Nobody
there. The electricity buzzed.

I climbed the stairs, hand on the smooth wood of the banister, reached the top and went into the flat. The living room was
empty and dark. That buzzing on the cusp of awareness.

Kate was at the kitchen table, bent over some paperwork. She got up and hugged me until I broke away, embarrassed.

What happened to your hair?

Oh, I said. Low maintenance.

Trajan loomed up at me, blunt face questing, paws on my shoulders. I pushed him down and he began scrabbling at the lino with
his claws. The blinds at the windows weren’t drawn and the blackness outside was pressing on the glass. I could feel it mounting.
The pub was at the bottom of the sea.

Where have you been? she asked.

Nowhere really. What are you up to?

I’m filling in the form, she said. For the insurance.

Oh. Expected you to be bugging in front of the telly.

Yeah, I know. I’m cutting down on the happy pills. Still feel drunk all the time, mind. Hazy.

She sat back down and looked at the form.

It’s his life insurance, she said. I’m making a claim.

Right.

Draw a line under it. Then we can sell this place. I can’t carry on here.

It’s not so bad.

It’s haunted Dan.

The man at the end of your bed, I said.

Somebody got into bed with Michelle, she said.

I laughed.

That’s most of Teesside mam.

Kate pursed her lips.

She was on her own. She heard the springs creak and the mattress give, and then someone pulled her by the ankles, down under
the covers.

I’m knackered, I said. I could do with a shower.

Yeah, she said. You could.

I was halfway to the door when she spoke again.

You went to look for him, didn’t you?

Aye. Sort of.

Did you find him?

No.

She smiled. Nicotine stains on her teeth, lines gathering at the corners of mouth and eyes.

He was a waster, I said.

She shrugged.

I was in the box room, showered for the first time since the caravan park. Pulled on a clean black shirt and jeans. Darkness
pressed its nose to the
window and I shivered. A tap at the door and I opened it and there was Hagan, larger than I remembered him, the muscles more
pumped and the skin darker.

You’ll get cancer on them sunbeds, I said.

He smiled. Even white teeth in the pudgy face, gold earring glinting against the tan.

Danny, he said. I like the bonehead. It suits you, kind of. Can I have a word?

Have as many as you like.

Listen, he said. We haven’t got off on the right foot, like. Can we start again? Fresh start and all that.

He held out a hand, gold bracelets at the wrist beneath the designer shirt. I thought for a moment and then I shook it. Looked
into the face, at the expressionless blue eyes. He was smiling, but they were cold.

Nice one, he said. Listen, why don’t you nip down the bar for a pint later? There’s something I want to ask you.

He looked at me appraisingly, well-trimmed eyebrows raised beneath the gelled blond mane.

Aye, I said. Later.

He turned and trotted down the stairs and the air was shimmering around him.

Hagan held a pint glass aslant under the beer tap and let the foamy lager rise, the head overflowing time and again until
it was displaced by clear liquid.

On the house, he said, holding the glass out to me. I took it and sipped, putting the dripping glass down on a beer towel.

It’s about territory, he said.

The glasses on the shelves were glinting, reflections multiplied in the rank of mirrors behind the bar.

Got to piss in the corners of your life, he continued. Mark it, like. With your scent.

Like a dog.

Aye. Like a hound dog swinging his dick. Like a boss wolf on his patch.

A knot of them around the pool table. Franco, Magoo and a few younger lads not much older than me. Hagan started slopping
lagers and stouts into pint glasses, lining them up on the bar.

Anyone sniffs your piss and keeps on coming, he said. That’s when you need to show your fucking teeth.

Pulled a tenner out of his pocket and shoved it at me. I shifted uncertainly on the bar stool.

Have a look, he said. Whose mug shot is it?

I looked.

Darwin, I said.

Aye. Charlie fucking Darwin. Why’s he on the money?

I shrugged.

Because he knew the score, said Hagan. Survival of the fittest, eh? The strongest. Not just strong in the arm. Anyone can
be a meat axe these days. Strong up here as well.

He tapped the side of his temple with a broad forefinger.

Got to be in tune with the times, he said. Maggie Thatcher. Aye, she’s a woman, but she’s going to fuck the lot of them. Dole
wallahs, bedwetters, coal miners and puffs. Shove ’em in the gutter and tread on their fucking faces.

His enormous upper arms swelled and glistened.

Natural selection, he said. The strong get selected and the weak get lost.

He took a sip from a bottle of lager, frosted with condensation. I gulped at the gassy pint he’d given me. Magoo was threading
coins into the jukebox. They clattered down and the machinery whirred.

Do you like the new George Michael? asked Hagan. He’s a pussy magnet that charver.

I shrugged.

You sniffed my piss and kept on coming, he said. Didn’t expect that.

He sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip, put both elbows on the bar and looked at me.

You got big
cojones
Danny, eh?

There was a roar from the pool table and one of the young lads was picking up a bundle of wedge from the rail.

Pleasure doing business with you Mr Frankland, he crowed, cigarette dangling from his gob and gold chains at his wrists. There
was this smudged blue tattoo on the side of his neck next to a livid purple lovebite.

Winner stays on, said Hagan. I’m next up.

He rounded the bar and moved over to the table. I stayed perched on a bar stool.

I’m next pal, said one of Lovebite’s mates, a skinny feral kid with cropped ginger hair. That’s my cash on the side there.

Hagan stood in front of him, muscles bunching like thunderclouds beneath the tight tee-shirt.

Did you hear something Franco? he asked.

Franco shook his head with mock seriousness.

Thought I heard something squeaking, said Hagan. Like a little high-pitched mouse.

He fixed the gaggle of younger lads with a hard stare, one after the other. None of them said owt.

Must have been imagining things, said Hagan. I was wondering where I’d put me cash down, and there it is.

He picked up the coins from the rail and slotted them in, releasing the balls with a low rumble. Looked over at me and winked.

See what I mean Danny? Natural selection. Fuck off son, you’re barred, he said to the skinny ginger kid. Go and sniff glue
in the park.

The kid looked at his mates.

The rest of you can stay, said Hagan. It’s just that ginger cunt.

The kid thought for a moment, turned and walked slowly out of the bar. None of his mates glanced after him.

I watched Hagan win Franco’s money back from Lovebite. He raped the table, hard and fast and powerful. Buried the black and
held his
hand out for the cash. Lovebite and his mates sidled out of the front door, left the bar almost empty. On their way past one
of them gobbed a great slick of curdled phlegm at the front window and then we heard them sprinting away. The gob hung there
like a raw egg before sliding down the glass, and the walls bowed under the pressure of night.

This is our territory Dan, said Hagan, back behind the bar, polishing a pint glass with a towel. Our patch. The lads wanted
to take you apart for robbing the till, but yer mam doesn’t want you hurt and they’ll do what I say. They’re my dogs.

He put the glass down on the bar.

She said she’d give me an answer. Once she’s got your dad’s insurance money.

An answer?

Aye. You know what I mean. We’re all grown-ups, right? I need you to make sure she’s filled out that form and sent it mate.
I need to know she’s not just playing me.

I saw her filling it in tonight. Upstairs in the kitchen.

Good lad. You let me know when she’s posted it.

Razia ran into my arms and hugged me fiercely. Then she dropped away, embarrassed.

Dan Thomas, she said. Back in town and twice as ugly. Did you find what you were looking for?

We walked through to the living room, where the TV chirruped innocently in a corner.

No, I said. Not really.

You’re back, anyways.

She flounced down onto the threadbare sofa. I perched on the arm.

He’s a waster, I said. Not worth the effort. I don’t know why I bothered.

Yeah, you do. He read you bedtime stories, wiped your little arse for you. He took you out birding on Saturdays.

Yeah, he did all that. Until he got bored and went somewhere else.

Whatever he did or didn’t do, he’s still your old man. Blood’s thicker than water, I reckon.

Not me Raz, I said. I’ve got thin blood, me.

And in the night I wake up and can’t get back to sleep because of that buzzing in my ears and I pad through to the kitchen
and there she is sat at the table with her back to me and a bottle of Napoleon at her elbow. Barefoot in her towelling robe
and she’s shredding that insurance form into the pedal bin and the sobs she’s making sound like an animal and blue night pissing
from the pipes like gas.

I want to reach out and touch her but I can’t.

And Hagan sat at the same kitchen table in the morning in his boxers and a tight tee-shirt drinking a protein shake and sunlight
hissing from his blond highlights. Turns to me and winks and says, she’s posted it, hasn’t she Dan? Tell me she’s posted the
form. And I look at him.

Aye, I say. Took it to the postbox meself.

And a summer went by, dribbled by like a gas leak only nobody made a spark. After exams I helped around the pub, bottling
up, shifting barrels down in the cellar, with Hagan to the cash’n’carry. A hot summer, curdling in the bowl of Teesside, trapped
between the North York Moors and the Durham coalfield. Haze over the estuary, a lush topiary of steam hanging heavy over chemical
plants. My hair grew and I shaved it off again. Exam results dropped through the front door, good but unspectacular. Time
slowed.