Ten Stories About Smoking (2 page)

I laughed and sipped at my tea. For a brief moment I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to be the detective’s partner, a fellow gumshoe eating donuts on stake-outs and hunting
down leads on missing persons. Andy and I would make a great team, I thought.

‘Do you miss it?’ I asked. ‘The police, I mean.’

‘I miss a lot of things, Mr Moore, but the police isn’t one of them. There’s no paperwork now, no desk johnnies telling me what to do, no plastics thinking they know it all.
It’s just me, an office, a computer and a camera. Some days you’re giving folk bad news, but most days it’s pretty good news,’ he said and smiled. ‘Just like
today.’

I got a package deal and flew out to Spain at the earliest available opportunity. The travel agent tried to point me towards other destinations, places that she said were
perhaps more suited to the solo traveller, but demurred when I told her I was visiting family. ‘That
is
nice,’ she said, ‘I just didn’t want you being disappointed,
you see.’

I was under no illusions. My only experience of Spain was of two business trips, one to Valencia and one to Barcelona; cities whose architectural flourishes, restaurants and culture I fell for
instantly. But I had seen enough late night television programmes on the British abroad to know what to expect.

Our transfer took us through the town centre, all grubby streets and mobs of men, bright signage and lurid advertisement hoardings. It was like an entire suburban British town had got drunk,
passed out and woken up on the Spanish coast. When I finally arrived at the apartment complex, the screams from the poolside competed with the constant thud of the beat from a bar over the road.
There was no escape, even in my rooms; everywhere I went the air was filled with the heat and howling noise.

On that first afternoon, I opened the door to my apartment, threw my bag on the floor, turned on the air-conditioning unit and slept under its huffing vents. I woke frozen and stiff, my mouth dry
and cracked. There was nothing in the tiny fridge and I wasn’t sure about the water, so I decided to venture out to the shops.

In the local supermarket I bought water and some wine, a loaf of bread and some instant coffee. The lighting was much too bright, and even behind the lenses of my sunglasses it strained my eyes.
The products were mostly familiar, but with odd Spanish brands thrown in, no doubt to appease the locals. The people shopping were all either English or German, and they conducted themselves at a
terrifying volume. I paid for my shopping and said
gracias.
The girl behind the counter glared as if to warn me against showing off.

I got back to the apartment and drank a glass of water and a glass of wine on the balcony. I spread out a tourist map over the small plastic table and began working out where my brother’s
bar, The Throstles’ Rest, was located. I looked out over the town, the lights pulsing in neon pinks and greens and slowly began to relax. The screams from the pools were stilled and the
breeze whistled against the hem of my trousers. I wondered what my brother was doing at that moment in time, what his bar was like. I hoped we could later share a glass of wine out on the balcony,
perhaps even talk about our father.

I slept in late and ate breakfast outside, the sun already peelingly hot. I hid myself in the shade and read a novel I’d bought at the airport. It was about a man with a
serial killer as a brother; a joke just for my benefit. At 7 p.m. I drank a glass of wine, took a shower, dressed and headed into town.

The main drag of bars, nightclubs and restaurants was fat with people. The air stank of sun-cream, beefburgers and spilled lager. Amongst the football chants and sportswear, the tan-lines and
tattoos, I wandered along, avoiding the pretty girls with their tiny drinks on silver trays. Outside a bar called Susan’s I relented and accepted a tequila and shot it down. I felt pink-faced
and slightly drunk. Eventually I found the correct turning and zigzagged left then right.

The Throstles’ Rest was little more than a shack with plastic windows and a small outside area, but it was just as busy as many of the other places on the strip. And there was no music,
save for the soundtrack of a man calling out bingo numbers in a shrill, sad voice.

I poked my head inside and looked around the packed room. It was impossible to tell if my brother was in there or not. A woman with a tray came up to me. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said in a
broad Yorkshire accent. ‘Bingo night. Finishes at ten if you fancy coming back.’

At a small restaurant I ordered paella and was rewarded with a huge plate that I struggled to finish. I was the only one eating alone and halfway through my meal a duo came on
the stage to serenade the diners. A couple – introduced as Mr and Mrs Wright celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary – danced slowly as the band played ‘Can’t Take My
Eyes Off You’.

As they danced the waitress came and took my empty plate. ‘I gave you an extra portion,’ the waitress said. ‘You looked like you needed it.’ I laughed and paid the bill.
It took me an hour to walk off the heavy settling in my stomach.

At ten thirty I arrived back at the Throstles. It was quieter than earlier, though there were still a good few plump men and women sitting around the wooden tables. It was cool inside and
sixties music was playing on the stereo. I sat down and the same woman who’d spoken to me earlier put some peanuts down on the table.

‘Good to see you back, love. What can I get you?’

I ordered a glass of wine with some ice and looked around to see if there was anyone who looked like an ex-army man. There was only one. He was sitting at the far corner of the bar, a man with a
hulking physique that I suspected had once been powerful but had now run to fat. He did not speak to anyone, and didn’t look up from his drink. A cigarette burned in his hand. For over an
hour I watched him. Just as I was about to leave, he looked up for a moment, almost as if he had just awoken. In the mirror behind the bar his reflection told me all I needed to know.

I went to the bar the next day and the day after that. He was always there, but I never quite got a chance to speak to him. Instead I watched closely, trying to get a fuller
impression. He seemed never to go to the toilet, never appeared drunk – though he drank steadily throughout the day – and he talked softly when he spoke, which was not often.

On the sixth day of surveillance, I saw my opportunity. The barstool beside him was, for the first time, vacant. I asked him if it was taken and he waved a hand. In front of him were six
cigarettes smouldering in a black plastic ashtray. He picked up each cigarette in turn, took a drag, replaced it, and then picked up the next one. He worked anti-clockwise, then clockwise,
anticlockwise, then clockwise. He smoked those six cigarettes to the filter, then lit six more, arranging them in the ashtray in the same formation.

‘Does it upset you?’ he said quietly.

‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

‘The smoking,’ he said, ‘does it bother you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no, not at all.’

He grunted and took a quick sip of his beer, then he turned and fixed me with his eyes.

‘This one here is Charlie’s,’ he said, holding up a cigarette and puffing on it. ‘This here is Davey’s, this one’s Butcher’s, this one’s
Damo’s and this one’s Steve’s. And this last one’s mine, you see?’

My wine glass was halfway to my mouth, stalled.

‘Falklands, yeah?’ he said, picking up Davey’s cigarette. ‘You remember the Falklands?’

‘Of course,’ I said. He nodded and went back to his drink.

The next day the same seat was free. I sat down and this time Jimmy looked up from his cigarette-filled ashtray. He looked so much like my father I wanted to hold him in my
arms. But there was a hollowness to the eyes, like there was nothing he hadn’t seen and nothing he couldn’t do.

‘Here again?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I like it here.’

‘It’s a shit hole,’ he said picking up Butcher’s cigarette.

‘I like the music,’ I replied.

He sniffed and tossed a look back to me. He put down Butcher’s and picked up Damo’s.

‘You’re the bloke who thinks I’m his brother, aren’t you?’

I looked at the glass of wine sweating in front of me. He put down Damo’s and picked up Steve’s cigarette and sucked on it. I nodded.

‘Go home,’ he said putting down Steve’s and picking up his own cigarette. ‘I don’t need any more brothers.’

‘You have brothers?’

He turned, his face red and urgent.

‘Get the fuck out of my pub,’ he said.