Sucker Punch (4 page)

“What?”

“Me and me dad. Like, people know about it an' that.”

“Yeah.”

“You start it?”

“Nah, Mo. I kept my mouth shut like I always do. None of my business, is it?”

He nods. “I would've left you to go back, y'know.”

“I know.”

“Dad were the one wanted you out and about. He's the one what sent that fuckin' Clayton bastard all the way up to Newcastle.”

“I know.”

Mo shakes his head. “Know fuckin' everything, don't you?” He coughs. “You got a ciggie?”

I reach into my pocket, pull out the Embassys. Walk over to Mo, who's standing there, all legs and arms. As I get closer, I swear he has a belly under that tracksuit. Putting on the pounds, getting older. It's a shock.

So's his elbow in my face.

I reach out with the cigarette pack and find his hand clamped on my arm, his other arm swinging hard and wild, catching me high, just above the eyebrow. I jerk my head back. Mo keeps my arm, twists it as I turn, slams me into the cracked mirror above the basin. I let out a grunt, the last breath of air in my lungs escaping. He pushes my arm up my back, forcing my face into the mirror.

“Yeah, you know it all,” he says, his voice low. “You know it all, don't you, son?”

My face grinds against the mirror. Glass giving way against my skin, tiny stones burrowing into my cheek. I struggle against him, but Mo's grip is firm. He's picked up some muscle with the extra pounds. Pushing me further, I'm bent over the basin. My back spikes, feels like my legs are going to give it up.

“Mo,” I say. “Mo, you're out—”

“You got fuckin'
notions
, threatening me, man. Just 'cause me dad don’t talk to us no more, you think I give a fuck?” He puts more pressure on my arm. “The fuck I ever got from that cunt, eh? Nowt but a name and a bunch of shite I never fuckin' wanted. Think I answer to him? I don't answer to him.”

I can see him in the mirror. His face is screwed up.

“Nah, Innes, you're looking at a brand new hard case, know what I mean? He cut me loose, I got no fucker to answer to now. How d'you like that? I say a cunt needs a smack, he gets a fuckin' smack and I don't have to get the go-ahead from me deadbeat dad to do it.”

More pressure, pushing my arm. Any more, and he'll have my arm out of its socket. I open my mouth, feel crumbled glass cut my lip.

Mo leans right up to my ear. “I could do you right now, Innes. I could get Rossie to stick his fuckin' butterfly right in your throat. Nobody'd give a shit, neither.”

“You don't have any protection, Mo.” The words come out choked.

“You think I need protection?”

“From yourself, you do …”

Mo nudges my head across the mirror, glass dropping into the basin. Then he lets me go. My balance goes for a Burton, my numb arm dropping down my back. I stumble, try to grab at the basin, miss. End up on my arse in the middle of the floor. I pull myself out of the way as Mo takes a step forward and spits into the basin. He wipes his hand across his mouth as he looks at his reflection.

“You take it how you want it, Mo,” I say, dabbing at the cut on my lip and struggling to my feet. “You want to take it as a warning, you want to take it as a fuckin' threat, a joke, whatever the fuck you want to take it as: leave Paulo's club alone. You took one beating already, Mo. Way I left him, he's all set to tear your heart out.”

“I ain't scared of an old poof.”

“You want to push this?” As I steady myself, I feel a wave of nausea. Takes me a moment to fight it back, but I'm still bent over when I say, “You want to push this, forget we ever had this chat, see what happens. I guarantee you, you do something daft, Paulo'll make sure you do your time up Cheetham Hill. And you won't have your dad or his brief to get you out of it.”

“I don't need me dad.”

“You'll need him, you keep this shit up.” I pick bits of mirror from my cheek. None of the pieces dug too deep. Just another thing to make my face more interesting. “I mean it, Mo. That's all I came to say.”

Mo sniffs, picks my cigarettes from the floor. He takes one out and lights it with a Clipper. Relaxed now, he chucks the Embassys to me, smoke drifting from his mouth. “Then you said what you come to say, right?” He taps ash on the floor. “And I'll do whatever the fuck I want to do about it.”

“You do that, Mo.” I tuck the cigarettes back into my pocket and make for the door.

As I cross out into the pub, I see Rossie getting out of his seat. His lips move, but I don't hear what he's saying. Shake a finger in my ringing ear and keep walking, the carpet tacky under my shoes. I don't look up again until I'm out of the pub, a cold breeze pulling the breath out of me like smoke.

That could've gone better. And I don't know if I feel better for warning Mo, or worse for showing him I can be beaten. Either way, my hands have stopped shaking and the message has been passed on. He'd be daft to try anything now.

But then, Mo Tiernan's never been the sharpest tool in the box.

“You all set?” says Paulo.

“Ready as I'll ever be,” I say.

“I was talking to Liam.”

“Right. Course you were.”

Getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning made my brain numb. Stupid to go to sleep at all, considering the night I've just had. First Mo, then picking bits of glass out of my face. As it turns out, it doesn't look like I've suffered any lasting damage. The tiny cuts should heal in a couple of days, and there's only slight swelling above my eye. Not so slight that Paulo hasn't noticed it, but he hasn't said anything yet. I'm hoping he'll forget about it.

Declan phoned last night. Sounded pleased with himself. Looks like he's coming to the end of his programme, and he's doing great. He's also got some of his accent back. Amazing how little time it takes to fall back into the speech patterns, though he still sounds a bit like a Manc trying on a Leith accent for size. He's going to move out of Mam's place, got himself an office job; he's sailing towards one of those new flats where the prostitutes used to congregate.

Good on him. Glad to know he's doing okay. I told him about my trip and the awe was thick in his voice. I promised to bring him something back. What, I don't know. I don't think they do sticks of rock in LA. And sometimes I wonder who's the older brother here. But then I just put it down to his newfound lust for life in a pure Iggy Pop sense. Certainly made him talkative — he was on the phone well into the wee small hours, which has left me knackered.

It was Paulo's idea to get to the airport early. Nothing was stopping him driving us there. Of course, with all his planning, he didn't reckon on the M60 being a graveyard.

So we're stranded in an almost empty airport, waiting. Small talk ran out about an hour ago, and we're making do with grunts, short question and even shorter answers. That kind of slow-down fatigue that precludes any real conversation.

I try to stave it off once the coffee shop opens. Liam's cradling a cup of some kind of speciality tea that smells like fruit and looks like a urine sample. I've had to make do with an Americano. I ask for a couple shots of espresso, see if that perks me up.

Paulo hands me a sheet of paper. “Here's the reservations at the Ramada. I put directions on there, too. I know what you're like.”

“Cheers, Dad.”

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. You got Liam's passbook, the letter, right?”

I pull out the letter from Phil Shapiro, Paulo's contact in Los Angeles. It's a formal invitation to attend the competition. When Paulo gave it to me, it was like he was handing over a signed copy of the Bible. “I've packed the passbook.”

“Any problems, you've got Phil's number,” says Paulo. “He's expecting you, but if you get lost on the way to his place, give him a bell, he'll point you in the right direction.”

“Okay.”

Liam sips his tea. He's reading from a leather-bound notebook. “We'll be good, Paulo.”

“You better be. This is costing me — Well, it's costing me.”

“I know,” says Liam, turning a page.

“Just so you do.” Paulo checks his watch. “Ah, Christ, how much longer do we have?”

“An hour,” I say.

“Right.”

“An hour till check-in. Then we've got a couple more until we board.”

“Gotcha,” says Paulo. He works his mouth.

I've never seen Paulo like this. Normally the bloke's a rock. There've been times when he's lost it, used his fists or an open-handed slap to the back of a lad's head, but he never went overboard. That tussle with Mo pushed him to places he didn't want to go, made him see parts of himself he didn't want to see. And now, I don't know. Looks like he's veered the other way. This close to clucking like a mother hen.

“Calm down, mate,” I say. “We're here in plenty of time.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Look at you. You never flown in your life and you're calm as.”

“No, actually, I think I'm about to shit myself.”

“Don't let him shit himself,” Paulo says to Liam.

Liam looks at the pair of us as if we're nuts.

“I mean it,” says Paulo. “He'll stink up the plane.”

I yawn, a jaw-cracker. The coffee isn't working. And I'm gasping for a cigarette, but I don't want to leave these two. I pull Paulo to one side and we start walking. Our footsteps echo in the airport. We stop a good way from Liam, who's busy leafing through his wee book. Paulo turns and watches the lad. He doesn't want to let Liam out of his sight.

“Paulo, you going to be okay?” I say.

“What d'you mean?”

“Mo.”

“Mo's a scally. He's not worth getting het up over.”

“That's what I thought. But I wanted to hear it from you.”

Paulo looks at me. “You think I'm unsteady, eh?”

“I think you've been steadier, mate.”

He shakes his head, turns his attention back to Liam. “Nervous about the comp.”

“Not just that, though, is it?”

“How's that?”

“You drinking?”

He squints at me. “You popping pills?”

“You are drinking.”

“Only what I'm used to. A pint every now and then. Not like I'm coming home bladdered.” He licks his bottom lip. “And who d'you think you're talking to, Cal?”

“I'm just asking.”

“I'm just worried, mate,” he says. Paulo sips his coffee, pulls a face. “That's foul. I can't believe I paid three quid for that.”

“You're worried.”

“Yeah. I mean, what if Liam goes all the way?”

“What if he does?”

“Well, it's not just his future, is it? It's the club's too. Liam does well out of this tournament, we all do well out of it. Not the cash, mind — that's all Liam's. But if he does this, ends up turning pro, it's like all the shit I put up with for years is worth it.”

“Don't build it up, Paulo.”

“I know. That's what I've been telling myself. Don't build it up. Too many things can go wrong.” He looks around the airport. “There a bin round here?”

“Took 'em all out, I think.”

“Yeah, bombers everywhere. Least of my worries.”

“About Mo …”

“I thought I saw the back of that bastard six month ago.”

“I'm sorry I brought him in the club,” I say.

Paulo looks down at his coffee. “You didn't bring him in — he brought himself in. Or Ewan brought him in. I dunno. Whoever brought him in, it wasn't your fault. You can't keep knocking yourself in the gut over that. You did your bit in Newcastle, you didn't fuck up my life, you didn't fuck up your own too badly and you'll get over it. That's good enough for me. All we do now is keep you on the straight and narrow, right?”

“Cheers, Paulo.”

“No bother, son.”

I sip my coffee. “Don't worry about Liam. He'll do it or he won't. Like you said, he does his best, there's nothing to worry about. Either way, you did all you could.”

“Yeah.”

Paulo starts walking back to Liam, his step a little slower. He looks at his watch again, says, “You lads better get yourselves checked in.”

I nod, grab our bags. “I'll call you when we're settled.”

“You do that. Want to make sure you get to the hotel in one piece.”

We're about to leave when Paulo puts his hand on my arm.

“By the way,” he says. “Where'd you get that shiner from?”

“Noticeable, is it?”

“Where'd you get it?”

“I fell over,” I say.

“Shit,” says Paulo, shaking his head. “All that bonding we just did and you go and lie to me like that.”

“I'll call you from the hotel.”

When we leave, I look over my shoulder. Paulo's never looked so small. He waves at me.

I don't wave back.

Charlotte Douglas.

There was a lass at my school called Charlotte Douglas. She had all the fragile grace of a bin lorry and thighs that rubbed together as she walked. My mam said she'd blossom with age, but all that happened was that Charlotte grew tits. That was enough change for some lads. Every time I looked at her, I saw the mean, fat Charlotte who dunked me in a muddy puddle and told me it was shitwater. And if you got shitwater in your mouth, that was it, you were due a long, slow and painful death. See all them kids in Africa, the ones with the swollen bellies and flies on their faces? That was shitwater did that to them.

It just goes to show, some ugly ducklings don't grow into swans; they grow into ugly ducks. And while beauty's only skin deep, Charlotte's kind of ugly went right to the fucking marrow.

This place could've been named after her. Charlotte Douglas International Airport, North Carolina. If you put a gun to my head, I couldn't point to this place on a map, but here I am. And it feels like purgatory, if purgatory ends up being one giant fucking shopping mall. Sterile. Too much white on the walls, glancing the sun into bleary, jetlagged eyes. Because if I thought I was tired before I got on the plane, I'm dead on my feet by the time we get to Charlotte. We've done a whistlestop tour of the United States, a clutch of airports that seem as empty as each other. For all Paulo moaned about how much this was costing him, it seems he's done a cheapskate on the tickets.

I want a cigarette. That's a given. I've been on a plane for thirteen bloody hours, got another seven to go, of course I'm going to want a cigarette. But this place is plastered with no smoking signs. I could go outside, but there's no guarantee I'll be able to find my way back in. So I've camped out with Liam at a table outside Canton Cuisine with a pile of food on a plastic plate and a Budweiser on the side.