I stood up and went over to the window. She was right. I knew that. It would be madness to go out.
I looked down into the street and watched the people move in their enviably aimless directions.
“I shan't be long,” Sheila said. “But I'm going to the launderette so if I'm held up a bit, don't worry.”
“I won't,” I said. “You could bring me some paperbacks if you've time.”
“Anything in particular?”
“James Hadley Chase, something like that.”
“I'll find something.”
Sheila took Timmy's hand and manoeuvred the fold-up pushchair and the laundry bag out of the door.
“Say, âBye-Bye, Daddy,' Timmy,” Sheila said.
Timmy beamed up at me.
“Bye-Bye, Daddy,” he said.
He began waving his arm
“Bye-Bye, Timmy,” I said. “See you later.”
“Seelater,” he said.
Sheila ushered Timmy out on to the landing.
“And some lemonade,” I said. “Get us some lemonade.”
“You and your bleeding lemonade,” Sheila said, closing the door behind her.
I listened to the pushchair being bumped downstairs. Then I walked over to the window and waited to see Sheila and Timmy emerge on to the pavement below. I watched Sheila unfold the pushchair and negotiate Timmy into it. Then she balanced the laundry bag on the back of the pushchair and started walking towards the zebra crossing twenty yards down the road. I watched as she waited for the traffic to thin out, looking right and left, just another mother with her kid on her way to the launderette. Then she moved forward on to the crossing. A minute later and I couldn't see her any more.
I walked away from the window and into the bedroom and took my overcoat out of the wardrobe. I stood in front of the mirror on the wardrobe door and put the coat on. It was the first time I'd worn it in three years. The coat felt strange and heavy. I went over to the chest of drawers and took out a dark blue scarf and wound it round my neck. Then I took my black leather gloves from the same drawer and slipped them on. I turned and looked in the mirror again. I felt like a tailor's dummy, unreal, with the bleached hair and the waxy complexion and the stiff overcoat and the shiny gloves.
I bent my arms and flexed my shoulders and tried to shrug some life into my reflection but it didn't seem to make any difference. The only answer was to turn away from the mirror and ignore the reflection.
I walked into the lounge and opened the door into the passage but before I closed it I checked that I'd got the spare key. Then I closed the door behind me. The Yale lock clicked shut.
I walked the few feet to the top of the stairs and looked down. Daylight from the street doorway flooded the grubby hallway below and illuminated the shiny green paintwork. I lowered a foot on to the top step. A part of my mind kept telling me how crazy I was but the light at the bottom of the stairs drew me downwards. Halfway down I became aware of the draught from the street. The traffic noises got louder and then I could hear the sound of voices in the street. And then I was at the bottom of the stairs, looking straight ahead of me into the light.
People and traffic hurried past the doorway. I moved forward. A woman glanced in as she went by, glanced away again before she was even out of sight. Now the dusty outside air was on my face, and I was standing in the doorway itself. There was nothing else between me and outside. I stepped out on to the pavement. I felt much lighter, almost as if I needed some kind of anchor. I looked into the faces of the passing crowd. Nobody was taking any notice of me. I hesitated for a moment, then I turned left in the opposite direction to the one Sheila had taken and began to walk. The pavement felt hard beneath my feet. I imagined that my footsteps were louder than everybody elses. I imagined that my walk was different, and my clothes. But nobody took any notice.
I got off the main road as soon as I could and weaved my way through back streets of warehouses and scrapyards and run-down offices and small shops. There was hardly anyone about. As I walked I'd sometimes look up beyond the skylines of the buildings, just to watch the clouds drift across the sky.
I walked for over twenty minutes. Turning into a new street I saw that at the end of it there was another main road. I stopped and looked around. Behind me there was a street narrower than the others. Halfway down this street was a pub. I looked at my watch. It was quarter past eleven. The idea of having a drink in a pub appealed to me. After all, it'd been over two years. And I was in an area where no one knew me. If the landlord had an arrangement with the law he'd only be on to the local villains. Again the warning voices filled my head but I began to move towards the pub. I'd just have one, I told myself. Just one drink, at a bar.
I pushed open the door.
There were no customers in the pub. Once it had been split into two or three bars, but the brewery had done it up and now the pub was all one bar, circular, with a pink laminated plastic top and plastic wrought iron work making pointless divisions.
A woman was standing behind the bar. The till had No Sale rung up on it and she was looking thoughtfully into the cash drawer. On the counter a freshly lit cigarette was burning away on the edge of an ashtray. The woman didn't turn her head until I reached the bar. Then she turned abruptly, released from her thoughts by my presence.
“Yes, dear,” she said. “What would you like?”
I cleared my throat.
“I'd like a lemonade shandy,” I said.
“Half or a pint, dear?”
“A pint, please. I'll have a pint.”
“Pint of lemonade shandy,” she said, already holding the pint mug underneath the beer-tap.
The woman was getting on for fifty, but she'd taken care of herself. Her platinum hair and Ruth Roman lips were immaculate.
“There we are, dear. Seventeen p.”
I took a handful of silver out of my pocket and gave her two two-bob bits.
“Ta, dear.”
She rang up the till and came back to the bar.
“Three p change, dear.”
“Thanks.”
The woman turned back to the till and began writing something on a pad.
I took a drink and sat down on one of the bar stools. There was a folded copy of the Express on the bar. I picked it up and opened it out and pretended to read it. But instead of reading I just sat there savouring the atmosphere of the pub.
A few minutes later the woman finished what she was doing at the till and came and leant on the bar near where I was sitting. I turned a couple of pages of the paper.
“Nothing worth reading in there,” she said.
I looked at her.
“I say there's nothing in the paper today.”
I shook my head.
“Never is these days. Only gloom and despondency.”
“That's right,” I said.
The conversation lapsed. I carried on pretending to read the paper. But inside I felt human again. I'd talked to another human being and that was what I'd needed: outside contact, to prove I was real.
I drained my drink and left the pub.
I got back five minutes before Sheila. I was sitting in the chair reading when she and Timmy came through the door. Timmy ran towards me and threw his arms round me.
“Timmy back, Daddy. Timmy back.”
I kissed him and picked him up and whirled him round at arms' length above my head.
“So I see,” I said. “And has Timmy been a good little boy for his ma?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“He's been a little sod,” Sheila said, kicking off her shoes. “Kept trying to open the dryer door.”
“Have you been trying to open the dryer door, then?”
“Come on, it's time for your sleep,” Sheila said, taking Timmy from me. “It's a wonder you're not worn out.”
Sheila put Timmy to bed and came back into the lounge and flopped down in an armchair.
“Mind you,” she said, “I'm almost dead on my feet, trying to get round in no seconds flat.”
“Fancy a cup of tea?” I said.
“You must be joking.”
“I'll put the kettle on,” I said. “Or . . .”
“Or what?”
I knelt down on the floor by Sheila's chair.
“Or shall I make it after?”
“After what?” Then she cottoned. “Here, now hang about . . .”
“Timmy's in bed, isn't he?”
“Yeah, I know, but . . .”
“But what?”
“It's the middle of the day.”
“Since when did that worry us?”
I pulled her down on to the floor.
“I still got me coat on,” Sheila said.
“Quiet,” I said. “It won't get in the way.”
A few days after I'd gone out Ronnie phoned to say he was coming over. He said he'd got a proposition.
After I'd put the phone down Sheila said:
“What did Ronnie want?”
“He's coming over. Said he's got a proposition for me.”
“And what sort of proposition would that be?”
“I don't know till he gets here, do I?”
“Well if it's a job . . .”
“It won't be a job. Ronnie knows I wouldn't go on a job. So he won't offer one, will he?”
“I don't know. But if . . .”
“Sheil, leave off, will you? Just wait till he gets here, eh?”
Ronnie arrived half an hour later. After we'd exchanged the usuals, Ronnie said:
“It's like this: there's this little firm I've got an interest in, not an active one, you understand. But an interest. Now they're doing not too badly at the moment, and things are going to get even better over the next two or three months. They've got several things lined up . . .”
Sheila cut in on him.
“Ronnie, I thought Billy told you all that was out.”
Ronnie kept on looking at me.
“Leave it out, Sheila, will you? Ronnie's trying to do me a favour. He doesn't have to come here.”
“He'll do you the kind of favour that'll get you straight back into the nick.”
“Sheila, I'm telling you . . .”
“It's all right, Billy,” Ronnie said, showing all over his face that it wasn't all right. “I don't mind.” He looked at Sheila. “Sheila, I'm not asking Billy out on a job. Honest. I wouldn't. I know how he feels.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“Why don't you shut your fucking trap and listen,” I said, standing up.
“You going to belt me, Billy?” she said.
I managed to stop myself. But only just.
“Are you?”
I sat down again.
“You can piss off, the pair of you,” Sheila said and with that she slammed off into the kitchen.
Ronnie was looking at me.
“I'm sorry about that, Ronnie,” I said. “But you know how it is. She's just scared . . .”
“Sure she is.”
“I mean, she feels the same as me about what you've done. Straight up.”
“I'm with you, Billy. It's all right, I'm telling you.”
“Anyway. Carry on. She'll be taking it out on the kitchen for a while.”
Ronnie lit a cigarette.
“Well, it's like this. They're pretty well tooled up. A shooter for every occasion. But of course they've all got forms and if they're done in possession, well, I don't have to tell you, do I?”
“Go on.”
“So they're looking for a minder who's not likely to get turned over himself. And it occurred to me that you'd be the very man. Because you're not going to get turned over, are you? Not unless you're very unlucky. And I'd make sure it was worth your while, because, as I said, I've got an interest in the firm and I know the firm can afford it. So what do you say?”
I took a sip of my drink. It sounded good all right. It didn't matter whether I was in possession or not if I was turned over again. No difference at all.
“Who'd know?” I said.
“Only me,” Ronnie said. “I'd be middleman. The stuff would have to be brought here by a couple of the boys but you and Sheila could stay in the bedroom when they came. You could lend me the key and we'd let ourselves in, dump the stuff and leave. After that it would only be a matter of me coming here and collecting what was actually needed. What do you say?”
“It sounds good, Ronnie,” I said. “Thanks for putting me in it.”
“So you're on, then?”
I nodded and stood up.
“I'd just like to tell Sheila before you go. So you'll see that it was just worry that made her act that way.”
“Look, Billy, you don't . . .”
“You stay there. I won't be a minute.”
I went into the kitchen. Sheila had got the ironing board out. She didn't look up from what she was doing.
I leant against the kitchen door.
“Ronnie wants to put me in a bit of minding.”
She stopped ironing for about ten seconds, then carried on again.
“So he didn't come here to pull me on a job,” I said.
She didn't answer.
“He came here to help me. To help us. It'll be good money and Ronnie wanted to put it our way.”
She still didn't answer.
I walked over to her and put my arm round her shoulders.
“Look, love,” I said, “I know you were only thinking about us. I know that. But Ronnie's done a lot for us and it looks as if you don't appreciate it. And that makes me look bad. So why don't you make us all a cup of coffee and bring it through and let Ronnie know you're pleased the way he's looked out for us.”
Sheila put the iron down and leant against me.
“I was just so frightened that you'd want to go if he had a job lined up,” she said. “I mean, what with being cooped up the way you are. I know you. I just thought you'd go.”
I turned her round so that I was looking into her face.
“Listen, love,” I said. “All I care about is us. Me, you and Timmy. Our future. If we can sit this one out and we have the breaks then we'll be all right. Do you think I'm going to put chances on that not happening?”