Beneath the Earth (16 page)

The words were like alien sounds coming out of my mouth and I could scarcely believe that I was saying them. I wanted to be his friend, that was all. I wanted him to like me. And somehow I had found myself with the keys of his Vespa in my hand, telling him what he could and couldn't do.

He stepped off the bike now and moved slowly towards me but I held my position on the pavement, looking up at him, feeling the heart pounding fast in my chest. Without flinching, he lifted his left hand and gave me a belt across the face with the back of it, and as I stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, I dropped the keys and he reached down to retrieve them before climbing back on to the saddle. I looked up, the tears forming in my eyes as I held one hand to my reddened cheek, and saw Kathleen looking at me with a mixture of regret and annoyance on her face.

‘Tadhg, I'm sorry,' I said, the words coming out with such desperate longing that I felt embarrassed by the sound of them, but he didn't say a word or even look back at me now, simply slipping the keys into the ignition, turning it on and pulling out on to the street. From where I stood, I watched as they disappeared down past the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood at the fork of the road, her hands raised to heaven, the expression on her face suggesting that she had had enough misfortune visited upon her for one lifetime and could take no more.

I stood up, looking down at my left hand which had a red scratch down the palm from where I had landed clumsily, and turned around, hoping that no one had observed what had just taken place, but the street was quiet and if anyone inside the shops had seen, then they didn't care, for what was it, only a couple of local lads having a scrap on the street. To them, it was just a moment like any other. Quickly forgotten. Barely worth even commenting upon.

I had a little job to do over in Paris, a quick in-and-out number, no frills, no fuss, but Gloria lost the head altogether when I told her where I was going.

‘Paris?' she said, one hand on her hip, the other pulling the fag out of her mouth and pressing it tip-down into a flower pot. Her lower lip was drooping in the same way her mother's does whenever she's annoyed about something. It's a terrible turn-off for me because I can see exactly what she's going to look like fourteen years from now when she's her mother's age. ‘I hope you don't think you're going to Paris without me, Toastie?'

‘It's work,' I said, turning away so I wouldn't have to stare at the mammy's lip. ‘I get in Tuesday afternoon and I'm out again first thing Thursday morning. It's not like I'll be climbing the bleedin' Eiffel Tower or kissin' up to the
Mona Lisa
.'

‘Are you fuckin' some young one?' she asked, marching over and spinning me around, and I gave her my innocent/wounded expression – one that I've had cause to use many times over the years of our marriage.

‘You know full well that I'm not,' I said. ‘So maybe lay off the dramatics for a few minutes, love, yeah?'

She glared at me and walked back to the kitchen where she poured half a bottle of white wine into a pint glass and threw in a bit of Britvic 55 to give it a lift. She knew that I wasn't doing anything like that, of course, it wasn't my style at all, but she wasn't ready to let it go just yet.

‘If I ever catch you with some young one, I'll cut your bleedin' balls off,' she said.

‘I better make sure you never catch me then, better'nt I?' I said, grinning away like a mad thing.

‘Shut up, you,' she said, a half-smile on her face now as she looked out the window into the garden where the three dogs were all staring at each other in some mad Mexican stand-off. ‘I never get to go anywhere,' she added, guzzling down the vino.

‘Are you joking me?' I asked. ‘What about when you took off with your sister to the Canaries for ten days in January? And then over to London with that Sharon one for a long weekend in April.'

‘I never get to go anywhere with
you
, Toastie,' she said, mooching up to me now and setting the glass down on the counter so she could wrap her arms around my waist. She ran her hands down my sides and I could feel the way they pressed into the fat above my hips. I deffo need to lose a bit of weight. I keep telling myself that I'll get one of those personal trainers but I never do anything about it. You get all these young ones doing it now in the gyms and they're only gorgeous in their Lycra and their little bra-tops.

‘We'll get a break before the end of the year,' I told her.

‘Do you promise?'

‘I do.'

‘Where will we go?'

‘Anywhere you like,' I said. ‘Within reason. Wexford, maybe.'

‘Fuck off,' she said. ‘I've always wanted to see Venice.'

‘Right so,' I told her. ‘We'll go to Venice. I'll take the car.'

‘We can leave Charlie with me mam. He'd enjoy that.'

‘Or we could take him with us,' I said, because I knew rightly that the young lad would go mental if he was left behind. Whenever he stays with his granny she forces him out to Mass in the morning and makes him kneel and say his prayers when the Angelus comes on the telly.

‘Ah Toastie, he'd only ruin it on us,' said Gloria, which made me give her a look. Maternal love, wha'? ‘We wouldn't be able to go out at nights. We'd need a baby-sitter. And I wouldn't trust a foreign bird to look after him, would you? Most kids that go off to the Continent get kidnapped and sold on to the sex traffickers.'

We left it at that for now and I got my bags packed and headed off to the airport a few days later. Mary-Lou had booked me on RyanAir –
on RyanFuckin'Air
when I have made it clear on any number of occasions in the past that I don't
do
RyanFuckin'Air – so I was already in a bad mood when I squashed myself into the seat, fifty euros lighter for wearing the wrong colour shirt on a Tuesday or whatever it was they found a way to charge me for. And then there was the bus into the city from Beauvais, which takes about a hundred and twenty hours. A child behind me kept kicking the seat all the way there and I turned around to give him the daggers before asking his mother would she not do something about him.

‘He's only five,' she said, as if this excused everything. She was all done up to the nines, acting dead posh. If she was all that posh, she'd have been getting off the plane in Charles de Gaulle and not in fuckin' Beauvais.

‘I don't care if he's still a foetus,' I told her. ‘He's giving me a sore back with the kicking. Would you put a stop to it, please?'

‘Jasper, there's a good boy,' she said, patting his knee while playing some game designed for five-year-olds on her phone. He kept kicking and I couldn't be arsed starting an argument, so I got up and moved. I found an empty seat next to a quiet little nun. She was wearing some gorgeous perfume and I kept trying to get a sniff of her. She gave me some quare looks, so she did. She wasn't bad-looking either for a nun.

Thankfully the hotel was more than up to scratch. A good big room with one of those massive showers in the bathroom with a huge head on it and a narrow yoke you can pull out of the wall to wash the crack of your arse. I gave myself a great wash, scrubbing all of RyanAir's scum from my skin, and came out of it feeling like a million euros. Taking the laptop out I said a silent prayer like I always do in hotel rooms that the Wi-Fi would work. God must have heard me because it connected without a bother. I checked my regular emails. Nothing special there. The usual shite. The ma looking for a cost-of-living increase in her allowance. Sky wanting to sell me the football channels. Then I checked my work emails and the details I needed for the next day were all there in a single message.

I went out for a bit of lunch and afterwards took the 6 metro to the 7
^th
arrondissement and strolled down the Avenue Charles Floquet, counting off the numbers on the doors till I found the one I wanted. A woman answered. She would have been gorgeous about ten years before, I'd say, but now her best days were behind her. She looked me up and down like she was deciding whether or not to eat me. I didn't know what she was expecting. It wasn't a shag, that's for sure. I'm gone to seed long since. She said something in French and beckoned me upstairs where she gave me the case, and I said, ‘Au revoir, chérie,' and left.

Straight back to the hotel then, where I hid the goods under the mattress before hitting the town for a slap-up meal and a few beers. Back in my room later, I tried to work on my
Middlemarch
essay but it was going nowhere. It had to be submitted in less than two weeks and I still had about three thousand words to get down but nothing was coming so I put it aside for now. The few drinks were slowing me down, that was the problem. I got into the bed – huge it was, and soft and deep – and rolled over and that was me for the evening. Goodnight Saigon.

The next morning there was a motorbike parked across the street from the hotel for me with the keys waiting under the hubcap of the front wheel. There were a few tears in the seat with the stuffing peeping out and I felt a bit insulted to be offered something like this – is there no respect any more? – but I took her for a spin around the block and she went like good-oh, so I didn't worry. She'd do fine. I prefer not to complain if I don't have to.

I had a bit of breakfast, a whole plate of those cold meats and cheeses that they leave out in European hotels like they're having their tea first thing in the morning. There was a bottle of champagne in the centre of the buffet in an ice bucket and I wondered what kind of yahoo you'd have to be to start drinking Moët and Chandon at this time of the day. After that I buckled down to Dorothea Brooke for a couple more hours. By the time I finished I had four thousand words on the page. Clap, clap, Toastie. Nice one. Well done. Only another thousand to go and I'd be on the home straight.

There was great weather in Paris that morning and I went online again to check my route, even though I'd memorized it carefully over the previous days. I have a very good sense of direction, if I say so myself, and once I study a map for long enough I can be in a strange city and know that I'll get along fine. Not that Paris is strange to me. I've been there often. The first time was when I was a young lad and I came over for a bit of dirt with a young one I was seeing at the time. And of course I'd had a few jobs there over the last five years, so I was a bit of an old hand with the place.

I'd planned on taking a slightly longer route though, so I could ride down the western end of the Champs-Élysées and take a spin around the Arc de Triomphe. The traffic in Paris can be a nightmare but I'm a careful driver and I've never had an accident in my life. And in the end I even pulled in for a few minutes to get a squizz at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier until one of the
gendarmes
told me to get back on the bike or he'd have it taken away.

Then back over to the financial district, keeping a close eye on the time. The job was scheduled to take place a few minutes after one o'clock. I parked at the end of the street and waited until I saw two men emerging from the bank, and then I put the old visor down, copped the big bald noggin on the fella I was after, drove down casual as you like, turning only to put one in his head and one in his heart, and the poor fucker sank to the ground while his companion just stared, not knowing what was after happening. Then I drove on, not pulling over for ten minutes, at which point I took the case from the carrier, put the gun back inside and threw the whole thing in the Seine before making my way back to the hotel where I had a bit of a snooze before dinner.

The next morning, I didn't take any chances and sat in the back seat of the bus to Beauvais so no little brat could be kicking me. Although in fairness my body felt in great condition after the great sleeps I'd had in the hotel. I thought maybe I should take Gloria to Paris after all. Instead of Venice, like.

The young lad got into trouble for fighting at school and Gloria and I were called in to see his teacher. A tall, lanky streak of misery who goes by the name of Mr Chops, which in my book is the funniest name ever. He asked whether we were having any difficulties at home.

‘The washing machine's been playing up,' I told him. ‘You have to put the spin cycle on twice or the clothes come out soaking.'

‘And one of the smoke alarms keeps going off,' said Gloria, nodding her head so furiously that her jewellery rattled.

‘Yeah, the smoke alarm,' I agreed. ‘The one on the landing. Doesn't matter how often I change the batteries. It's just bip-bip-bip all the time. Does my head in.'

Mr Chops smiled and looked down at a piece of paper in front of him and examined it carefully for a bit. I don't know why he was doing that. It was just a list of books with ‘Second Year Required Reading' written across the top of it. Was he smirking? I think he was. He'd want to watch that, I thought. Gloria's phone pinged and she took it out and read the message.

‘Fuck me,' she said. ‘Sharon's only gone and broken up with Tommy.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' I said. Not because I thought they were a good couple – they weren't: she was an alco and he liked jazz music – but because she'd be around ours later with four bottles of wine and the watery eyes and her and Gloria would be sitting around the kitchen island all night giving it the old boo-hoo-hoo.

‘Mr and Mrs Hughes,' said Mr Chops.

‘It's Toastie,' I said, smiling. ‘Toastie and Gloria.'

‘Charles has been displaying some anti-social tendencies of late.'

‘Who's Charles?' I asked, giving him the full whiteners.

‘He means Charlie,' said Gloria, hitting me a puck on the arm.

‘Ah right,' said I. ‘Would you mind calling him Charlie, Mr Chops?' I asked. ‘On account of that's what his name is, like. Calling him Charles just makes it seem like you want to turn him into someone else. He's not the Prince of Wales, you know.'