This Is Not Forgiveness (21 page)

There should be plastic bags in the shed. I go to open the door and find it secured with a brand-new padlock. I look through the bleary little window. There are bags of stuff on the floor inside. Rob must have been down doing something. Looks like fertiliser, maybe he plans to dig the ground over and make it ready for next year, although Grandpa always preferred manure because it’s more natural. There are some bottles with the skull and cross bones poison signs on the side. Must be weedkiller for the brambles.

I can put the fruit in my panniers. I start picking from the little orchard at the back of the plot. It’s quiet here, peaceful, just the chatter from a couple of magpies and the distant sound of an engine being started, a mower, or a rotavator. I’m absorbed, selecting fruit. Not too soft – I don’t want it squashing – not too green or it will be sour. I don’t hear him until he’s right behind me.

‘What are you doing here?’ he breathes in my ear.

Despite myself, I jump.

‘Picking fruit. What does it look like?’ I try to sound casual, but his sudden presence makes me shaky.

He steps back. He looks different. Sober and dressed all in black. I’ve never seen him wear black like that. Out of uniform, his taste runs from garish to ghastly. He’s clean-shaven and his hair is cut short. He looks extra fit, like he’s been working himself really hard.

‘What have you been doing down here?’ I ask, nodding towards the shed.

‘Oh, this and that.’

‘Why the new padlock?’

‘Security. I’m storing some gear. I don’t want it interfered with.’

‘Break-ins?’

‘Always the risk.’

I don’t believe we’re talking like this, with everything that has happened between us, that we’re talking allotment business when all I really want to know is:

‘Why are you screwing my girlfriend?’

He steps back, the sudden change of topic taking him by surprise. He looks at me, eyes shuttered.

‘First off, she ain’t your girlfriend, Jimbo. Mine, neither. Nobody owns a girl like that. Second –’ He’s grinning now, thumbs in his belt. ‘Second, she offered. She’s a great piece of ass, let’s face it. Would have been rude to turn her down. Anyway, takes a man to handle that. I told you before.’

He turns with a shrug, as if that’s it, as if my feelings in the matter count for about as much as the piece of fallen fruit he’s toeing with the point of his boot.

‘You can’t just say that and walk away!’

‘Can’t I?’ He doesn’t even face me.

‘It’s always the same with you, Rob, isn’t it?’ I yell after him. ‘Things get a little bit difficult and you bail. Maybe you don’t want to know about the damage you do to people, or are you just too thick to see?’

He stops walking. I drop the pannier I’m holding, ready for his turning on me. All the anger, all the rage, I’ve been keeping in check, begins to flow. From some chamber deep inside, comes all the hurt, all the resentment I’ve ever felt, at every time I’ve been beaten, every time I’ve been bested. The two streams come together, seething and bubbling, rising and rising, ready to blow.

I take a run at him, bring him down in a crunching tackle. He’s not expecting it. He’s strong but I manage to hold him. Soon we’re rolling around on the dusty ground and I’m getting some good punches into the ribs and kidneys but it’s not enough. He turns me. I don’t know how, but suddenly he’s on top of me. He has his knee in my back and my neck in the crook of one arm. He tightens the lock until I’m fighting for breath.

He leans down, hissing the words close to my ear.

‘I could kill you now. Break your neck. You know that?’

I struggle but it’s futile. I can’t shift his weight and every movement tightens his grip. It’s like a steel hawser wrapped around my neck.

‘Go ahead.’ I choke the words out in a rasping cough. ‘It’s the only thing you know how to do. You psycho!’

‘Don’t call me that!’

The pressure increases until I nearly black out. He’s pushing my face down so I taste the earth, feel the grit of it between my teeth. I can’t breathe and I’m choking. Then he lets me go. I get up, spitting out a wad of mud. This is ending like every other fight we’ve ever had, with me beaten, eating dirt, and him walking away. He’s almost at the end of the patch of ground. I take another run at him, launching into a two-footed flying tackle. I catch him on his bad side and he goes down, his face contorted in a howl. He rolls around, clutching at his leg and I’m on him. I’m sitting astride him, forcing him down. It’s his turn to have his face in the dirt. The pain has sapped him, but he is struggling under me. He’s so strong. I can’t believe how strong he is. In a second he’ll topple me and our roles will be reversed. What will he do to me then? I reach out, groping around until my hand closes round the sharp angles of a half-brick. I pick it up, holding it rough edge pointing down, ready to smash it into the back of his head.

‘Enough!’ A woman’s voice shouting. ‘That’s enough!’ I look up and she’s standing on the path, watering can poised, ready to empty the contents over us. ‘It works with cats. Dogs too. Why not young men? Get up the both of you.’

I roll off him and scramble to my feet. Rob’s having trouble standing but I don’t help him. The woman offers her hand instead. I recognise her. It’s Brenda from the next allotment.

‘You’re Fred’s grandsons, aren’t you? I remember you scrapping like that when you were lads but you’re a bit big for it now. Pity you don’t use some of that energy getting the place tidy for your grandfather. Now shake hands.’

We stare at each other, reluctant, but she’s not going to budge until we do. He puts his hand out. I take it.

‘Properly now.’

I grip harder.

‘That’s better.’ She nods, satisfied, and she goes on her way.

Her intervention has dispelled the anger between us. I don’t want to fight any more. Neither does he.

‘You had me there.’ He nods towards the brick. ‘Thought I was a goner.’

‘I wouldn’t have done it. Not really.’

‘Maybe not, but you need to finish what you start. That’s what they teach you in the Army. You got balls, though. More than I took you for.’ He points a finger like a gun at my head. ‘Respect.’

We sit on the rickety little bench in front of the shed and he lights a cigarette.

‘I wasn’t that bad to you, was I? When we were kids?’

‘Yeah. You were.’

‘Not all the time, surely? I used to give you stuff. Tell you stories. I got you that Genesis bike you’re riding.’

‘It was knock-off! The stuff you used to give me was bust half the time and the stories you told me were lies.’

‘There is that.’ He laughs, like it’s a joke that we can share now. ‘Sometimes it’s better than knowing the truth.’

‘Is it? I’m not sure about that.’

‘Believe me, there’s things you are better off not knowing.’

‘Like about Dad? About him killing himself?’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘Caro told me.’

‘She shouldn’t have done that.’

‘Maybe not, but I’m glad she did. Have you always known? Is that what the stories were about?’

‘No. The stories were about something different. I only found out about the old man recently. Grandpa told me when he’d had too many Johnnie Walkers. Ma doesn’t know I know. She should have told us, though.’

Yeah, she should, but I can kind of understand it. Tell a lie long enough and you begin to believe it. We all have to find our own way to keep our sanity.

‘Maybe she was saving us from feeling any kind of stigma.’ I automatically seek to make excuses for her. ‘Especially because he was a soldier. Shouldn’t be, but for some people there’s still a certain amount of shame attached.’

‘Shouldn’t be. You’re right there. But with so many guns about, it’s more common than you’d think.’

‘Did you – I mean, did you ever –’

‘Not when I was in. Never crossed my mind then, but I know it happens.’

‘Now?’

He doesn’t answer straight away.

‘Perhaps. Maybe I’m cursed that way. Like the old man. Some things you can’t break, you know? Like I was mean to you, even when I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t seem to help myself. The old man was the same way with me. Maybe it’s in our genes.’

‘No!’ I don’t like him talking like this. ‘That’s bullshit, Rob! Genes don’t work like that. And, anyway, if they did, if you’ve got them, then I’ve got them. Martha, too.’

‘You two take after Mum.’ He looks down at the cigarette. ‘She don’t smoke, neither do you. The old man did, though. Could run that way with me. Through the father, like. People don’t kill themselves for nothing.’

His reasoning is all over the place. It doesn’t make sense, but if it’s what he believes, it will be hard to talk him out of it. He’s stubborn like that.

‘Is that how you feel?’ I have to ask him straight out. ‘That you want to kill yourself?’

‘I don’t know. Sometimes. Maybe. Or . . .’ He shakes his head and puts his hand up to his temple, as though the action hurt him. ‘I’m telling you, Jimbo. The drugs don’t work no more. Booze, neither. I’ve gotta find some way to ease it.’ It’s as though he’s talking about a physical pain, something that can be alleviated. ‘All this shit inside me. It’s building. Like how you feel before a battle, or a firefight, but there’s no way for it to come out . . .’

‘Perhaps you need to go back to therapy.’

‘Bollocks to that! I’ve had that. It doesn’t work.’

‘Maybe they didn’t find the
right
treatment.’

He looks at me with weary disappointment, like he expected me to understand something and I’ve failed.

‘Fuck that. There is no
right
treatment because there
is
no treatment. I’m beyond treatment.’ He takes one last drag and flips his fag away. ‘Gotta man up. Do what’s needed.’ He gets up from the bench and tests his leg, wincing as he puts his weight on it. ‘Whoa! You really hurt me, you know?’

I’d almost forgotten about the fight, although my neck is sore and my arm hurts from where he twisted it.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘Me, too.’ He laughs. ‘Ain’t sure she’s really worth fighting over.’

‘Caro?’

‘Who else?’

‘I’ve finished with her, anyway. It’s over.’

‘How do you know she’s finished with you?’ He gives me a crooked grin. ‘Be careful of her. She’s a dangerous girl. Take care of yourself, little bro.’

Chapter 30

Good thing I got a new lock for the shed. Jimbo’s a nosy little bugger. I’ve been busy since that little trip to the seaside. Making preparations, getting ready – you’re only as good as your planning.

While I work I get to think about things – like how that Yank was right. People being blown up there every day – their side, our side. Innocents caught in the middle. Every day someone somewhere gets the knock.
His family have been informed
– but who the fuck else cares. They’ve moved on to the next news item – like those bastards bricking Dixons and nicking stuff from PC World. No one cares about that poor fucker brought back in a box.

They have to be made to care – nothing like a bit of death and carnage for getting the message across.

Caro likes to think I’ve bought into all that political crap she spouts on about but I’d do it anyway because she asked me – because it needs doing, because it’s what I do – what I’m good at. I look at it like a job. I don’t think about all that political shit – I just know it’s the right thing and since I committed to this and started to get into the preparation I’ve been happier than I’ve been for a long long time.

Her and her friends think they’re smart but I know stuff they don’t – like what kind of materials to use and how to handle them and what kind of gun you need for what job. You don’t need an M107 – although it would be nice to have one. All you need is a high-powered hunting rifle with a decent sight. I got one of those courtesy of her stepfella – old Trevor. A Weatherby Mark V Accumark 30-378. I don’t know what old Trev was planning on hunting but that gun is one of the best there is. Accurate up to 500 metres, so they say. So you need that and you need a good vantage point. Checked a few out before going for the multi-storey. It’s the perfect spot – awaiting demolition so the place is boarded up. There’s CCTV but it’s all pointing in the wrong direction – easy to dodge. The stairs are blocked off so I go up the ramps. I check the spot every other day to look for any sign of work starting, dossers – skateboarder activity – wouldn’t want any surprises. It takes me longer than usual to get to the top with my leg thanks to Jimbo but when I get up there I know why I picked it – hell of a good position. I’ve got a hide up there made out of plastic sheeting coated with cement dust and bits of rubble – if there were to be a search they would never find me – they’d expect me to be out in the open like some tool – I crawl under the plastic pulling the edge over me like a hood. I take my scope with me – an S&B 5-25x56 day scope – plus state-of-the-art telescopic day and night all-weather sights x3-x12 x 50. Sight and spotting scope courtesy of the British Army.