Beneath the Earth (17 page)

‘Oh, I love him,' said Gloria, leaning forward in the seat and smiling. ‘He gets a terrible bad press sometimes but I think he seems a lot happier these days, don't you? Since he married Camilla? I never thought that Diana one was right for him.'

‘Sure if she wasn't throwing herself down the stairs at Sandringham she had her head stuck halfway down a toilet at Balmoral,' I said.

‘That's no way to live, is it?' asked Gloria.

‘Charlie, then,' said Mr Chops, interrupting us. ‘He was always a good boy in the past.'

‘Ah thanks,' said Gloria, beaming at him. ‘We've always been proud of him.'

‘But lately,' continued himself, ‘he has shown a tendency towards aggression. He started a fight with Louis Walsh in the playground and punched him in the face.'

‘Is there a man, woman or child in this country who doesn't want to punch Louis Walsh in the face?' I asked. ‘I'd offer a reward to anyone who knocked him out cold.'

‘Please, Mr Hughes,' he said, sighing. ‘This isn't a joke.'

‘Who's joking?'

‘It's a serious offence.'

‘Like I said, the name's Toastie,' I told him. ‘Would you ever do me a favour there and call me by my name?'

‘Toastie,' he repeated quietly, as if the word didn't sound right on his tongue.

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘You're not the best at getting everyone's name right, are you?'

‘To continue,' said Mr Chops. ‘There was the incident with Louis Walsh. And Damien Rice claims that Charles – that Charlie has been extorting money from him.'

‘Is everyone in this fuckin' school named after famous people?' I asked. ‘Do you have Daniel O'Donnell in the fourth class, Bono in the fifth and Mary Robinson in the sixth?'

‘How much money?' asked Gloria.

‘I'm sorry?' asked Mr Chops.

‘You said he was extorting money from Damien Rice. How much?'

‘Is that relevant?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘Why do I ask is it relevant?'

‘Yes.'

Mr Chops stared at her. I don't think he knew what to think. ‘And finally,' he said, ignoring her question. ‘There was a fresh incident with Marian Keyes only two days ago.'

‘Ah tonight,' I said, shaking my head.

‘What incident is this?' asked Gloria.

‘He tried to kiss her.'

‘Get in!' I said, making a triumphant fist in the air. ‘The apple doesn't fall far, what?'

‘Stop it, Toastie,' said Gloria, giving me another puck, but I could see that she was smiling too. There'd been a time a couple of years before when Charlie was mad about show tunes and musicals and he stuck a poster on his wall of Barbra Streisand singing at Carnegie Hall, and Gloria's mam, who can be an awful oul bitch when she wants to be, asked did we think he might be a bit funny. A bit funny how, we asked and she made a face and did that downward sweep of the hand thing like it was the 1970s and we were all in the middle of an episode of
Are You Being Served?

‘Are you saying he might be a bendy-boy?' I asked, and Gloria's mam said, ‘I'm not saying anything of the sort, William' – she refuses to call me Toastie – ‘I'm just saying that he seems different, that's all. It's something you might like to keep an eye on.'

I told her straight out that if my son was a poofter, it wouldn't matter to me in the slightest, that he was my own flesh and blood and I would love him no matter how he turned out, even if that meant he was a shirt-lifter.

‘Very modern,' said Gloria's oul' one, sniffing the air like I'd let one off, which I hadn't. But I meant it too. None of that sex stuff matters to me in the slightest. But still, it had stayed with me, that conversation, and I hoped it wouldn't be the case. Life's hard enough, you know, without all that aggro. Anyway, it was a relief that he'd tried to stick one on Marian Keyes.

‘Can I ask you a question, Mr Chops?' I said.

‘You can, Mr … Mr Toastie.'

‘Just Toastie is fine,' I said.

‘You can, Toastie.'

‘This Marian Keyes one,' I said, leaning forward. ‘Is she a good-looking piece or what?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘I'm just asking, is she one of the good-looking girls or does she look a bit … you know, mannish?'

I leaned forward for an answer and Gloria did the same. You could have heard a pin drop.

‘She's eleven years old, Toastie,' he said, blushing a little. ‘She's just a child.'

‘Ah but still,' I said, winking at him. ‘You can always tell, can't you?'

‘All I will say is that the boys do seem to compete for her attention,' he said. ‘Although Charlie is the first to physically assault her.'

Gloria and I grinned at each other and for a moment I considered a high five but thought it might be inappropriate under the circumstances.

‘We'll talk to Charlie,' said Gloria, picking up her bag. I suppose she'd decided that she'd had enough and was ready to go home to hear the gossip from Sharon.

‘Mrs Hughes,' said Mr Chops. ‘I have to tell you that if there are any further incidents involving Charlie, then the school will consider suspension. Which in turn could lead to expulsion. This is a very serious matter.'

‘We know it is,' I said, standing up. ‘And you're very good to bring it to our attention. We'll have a word with Romeo Beckham as soon as he gets in tonight and I'll tell him that if he lays another finger on that girl I'll beat six shades of shite out of him.'

‘Toastie, no!' cried Mr Chops, raising his voice, and it cracked now as if he was going through puberty all over again. He coughed and tried to pretend that hadn't happened. But it had and we'd all heard it. ‘That's not what we want at all! Physical violence is never the—'

‘He's pulling your leg, Mr Chops,' said Gloria, giving me one last puck for the road.

‘I'm pulling your leg,' I agreed, smiling at him.

‘Oh,' said Mr Chops. ‘Oh, right so.'

‘Right so,' I repeated, winking at him as we left.

That evening, Charlie and I sat side by side doing our homework. The young lad was trying to make sense of quadratic equations – just as well as they're so useful once you leave school – and I was working on an appreciation of Milton's
Comus
and the masque culture of eighteenth-century England.

‘What's this I hear about you fighting in school?' I asked him.

‘I didn't do it,' he said. The standard reply.

‘And trying to snog the face off some young one?'

He blushed scarlet. God love him, he's only eleven. He doesn't know what he's at yet, it's probably just something he saw on the telly.

‘She's a slut,' he said.

‘Ah Jesus, Charlie,' I said. ‘I don't want to be hearing words like that in this house, do you hear me? And not about some poor little girl.'

‘She's a slut,' he repeated, and I frowned and leaned in.

‘Is she?' I asked. ‘Why, what did you hear?'

‘She'll give anyone a blowie for a Toffee Crisp.'

‘Do they still sell them?' I asked, amazed. ‘I used to love an ol' Toffee Crisp.' I hadn't had one in a long time although, to be fair, it'd been an age since I'd had a blowie either.

He told me what else he'd heard and it fair shook me. Did that kind of thing go on in the schoolyard at eleven years of age? I wasn't even pulling me own mickey when I was that young. But the kids, they grow up so quickly these days. I can't be keeping up with them at all.

‘Why did you go back to school, Dad?' he asked me after we'd got back to our work, heads bowed over the foolscap paper.

‘I'm not back at school,' I told him. ‘I've told you that before. I'm at college. Adult education.'

‘But why?'

‘Because I want to better myself,' I said. ‘And because I've always had a deep appreciation of literature.'

‘Is that why there's so many books in the house?'

‘It is, son,' I told him.

And then Gloria called us in for our tea and she read him the riot act and told him that if she ever got a call from that school again, that she'd hang him out the upstairs window by his toenails and give all his computer games to the poor unfortunate lad in the wheelchair down the road. She didn't hold back, she was in one of her furies, but in fairness to her it seemed to do the trick because I could see that he was taking it all in and he even had the good grace to apologize to us for the trouble he'd caused.

Fair fucks to him, I thought. My little straight son.

I received an enquiry regarding the dispatch of a politician from one of those Russian satellite states with a -stan at the end of it. I'll be honest with you, I wasn't sure about it at first, as I'm not political. I prefer finance, white-collar-type jobs. It's not that I don't
do
politics, I've probably done half a dozen over the course of my career, but there's just a lot of hassle involved and it's far more dangerous. I knew I couldn't say yes without further details though, so I met up with my agent, Mary-Lou, at The Mongrel's Bone. She wasn't always my agent, of course. I originally worked for her father, the Master-At-Arms, but he died of a heart attack three years ago and she took over the business from him, ousting her older brother in a spectacular coup that yours truly stayed right out of.

‘How are you, Toastie?' she asked, sitting down opposite me and ordering a West Coast Cooler. I had a mineral water. I wanted to keep a clear head. She's only young, Mary-Lou, no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, but she's got a good head on her shoulders. She looks after about a dozen of us throughout Ireland, the UK and the Channel Islands (excluding Guernsey) and no one has a bad word to say about her. She always remembers Charlie's birthday and sends him an Eason's voucher. Gestures like that can go a long way in my line of work.

‘I'm well, Mary-Lou,' I told her. ‘But I have to tell you, I'm not sure about this job.'

‘Tell me your concerns,' she said, opening a Filofax and taking out a beautiful Montblanc pen, one of them fancy ones with the little snowflake things in glass at the tip. I've always wanted one of them myself. I dropped a fair few hints to Gloria last Christmas but she ended up getting me a Parker, like I was making my confirmation or something. ‘Let me see whether I can alleviate them. If you feel you have to say no at the end of it, sure you know me, Toastie, there's no pressure either way and we'll find you something else soon.'

‘I don't like politics,' I explained. ‘It's not really up my street.'

‘I don't much care for it myself,' she said. ‘I have to turn the telly off whenever it comes on. But it pays good money.'

‘Who is this fella anyway?'

‘It's not a fella,' she said. ‘It's a woman.'

‘Ah tonight,' I said, shaking my head. Again, not my type of thing, although I've done it in the past.

‘I can't pronounce her name,' she said. ‘Too many letters. All those
v
s and
k
s. Here, take a look.' She whipped one of those tablet things out of her bag and I saw a copy of the new John Banville novel in there.

‘Is that any good, is it?' I asked her.

‘This?' she said, handing it across to me. ‘I only started it at the weekend but I can't put it down.'

‘What's it about?'

‘A young lad riding an oul' one.'

I nodded. I liked the sound of that. I'd read a few of oul' Banville's in the past but I had to take them slow as there were a lot of carefully placed words in there. But the man was on to something, there was no two ways about that. I hadn't tried the crime ones though. I have no interest in any of that malarkey.

‘Here, this is her,' said Mary-Lou, putting the book back in her bag and turning her screen to face me. ‘She's the leader of the opposition. They're having free elections in a few months' time and it looks like she's going to win. Our client wants a different outcome.'

‘Don't you love the way they always specify free elections in these places?' I said, scrolling down the page and reading a little bit about her. She was a sour-faced trout, that was for sure. Her husband had been killed by government forces a few years before and two of her young lads were in jail. A third was working as a dancer in
Wicked
on Broadway. ‘As if someone would say
we're now having unfree elections. Everyone to the polls, please
.'

‘We've had some great business with the Russian states ever since the USSR broke up,' said Mary-Lou, taking a sip from her WCC. ‘Sure the Master-At-Arms did great business with some of those oli-whatsits.'

‘Oligarchs,' I said.

‘Yeah, them. Did you never do a job for him out there?'

‘Once,' I said. ‘A long time ago now. The visa restrictions were a fuckin' nightmare. I was in and out of the embassy on Orwell Road for weeks trying to get myself sorted. I swore I'd never do it again.'

‘I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important,' said Mary-Lou. ‘And this will be a nice little earner.'

‘How nice?' I asked.

She told me and I whistled. ‘That's the makings of a good Christmas right there,' I said.

‘That's why I thought of you,' said Mary-Lou. ‘It's a very good payday and with your Charlie getting older—'

I threw her a look and she stopped herself from going any further. This was out of line and she knew it. In fairness to her she went a little red and shook her head. ‘Sorry, Toastie,' she said. ‘I shouldn't have said that.'

‘No bother, no bother.' I looked at the picture of the sour-faced trout again. ‘Is she any good, do you think?'

‘Who?'

‘Herself,' I said, pointing at the screen.