Dance On My Grave (8 page)

I left feeling very angry with myself for making another mistake in dealing with Hal. But he is so different from any other case I’ve handled that I find myself puzzled about how best to tackle him. I think I must discuss him at the Team Discussion next week.

Arranged to see Hal at my office at 2.30 p.m. on 22nd.

1/‘Bubby, it’s the boy who turned over this morning,’ Mrs Gorman carolled when she opened the door that evening. A fog horn on bennies.

‘Fetch him in then.’

His voice came from the kitchen along with a whiff of curry.

Leading the way, Mrs Gorman said, ‘He’s been a bad boy, my Bubby. He came to the shop this afternoon. On his day off. I tell him he shouldn’t. Week in week out I tell him. All work and no play . . .’

‘Hi,’ I said. He was at the table, finishing a meal.

‘Thanks for the clothes.’ I put the bundle down on a spare chair.

‘But still he does it,’ Mrs Gorman said. ‘On his day off!’

‘Smells good,’ I said.

‘Want some?’

‘Just eaten, thanks.’

‘What good is a day off if he goes to work?’ Mrs Gorman started clearing dishes from the table, clattering them under a tap before stowing them in the dishwasher. ‘He’s worse than his poor father, who was a slave to that shop. For twenty years a slave. And look what it did to him. Dead.’ She rounded on me. ‘And I thought you were his friend!’ She flicked her fingers at my nose. ‘Ha!’

I looked at Barry for help, not knowing whether to treat what was happening as a joke.

‘Well,’ he said, comedian to fall-guy, ‘answer the lady.
Are
you my friend?’

Routining the patter,
‘Am
I your friend?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, exaggeratedly puzzled, ‘I
think
you’re my friend. But are you my friend?’

‘If you
think
I’m your friend . . .’

‘. . . then you
must
be my friend. In which case I think we can safely say . . .’

‘. . . that I
am
your friend.’

‘There you are, Mother,’ he said, holding out his arms.
‘He
thinks we’re friends.
I
think we’re friends. So we
must
be friends.’

Mrs Gorman sniffed with polythened disdain. ‘Some friend! He lets you go to work on your day off when you
should be enjoying yourselves together. Having fun. Relaxing.’

‘He didn’t know I was coming to the shop, Mother. He had an appointment to keep. It wasn’t Hal’s fault.’

‘Hal . . .?’ Mrs Gorman turned her full measure at me. It was like being turned on by a brontosaurus.
‘Hal!
What kind of a name is that? Is it short for something? Hal . . . Halibut? I didn’t know people were named after fish.’

‘It comes from Shakespeare, Mother.’

‘Shakespeare? I thought he was a William. Halibut was also his name?’

‘You’re being deliberately cussed.’

‘Henry the Fourth, Mrs Gorman.’

‘Shakespeare had four first names! What extravagance! What was his third?’

‘No, no, Mother,’ Barry said with heavy patience. ‘Hal is short for Henry.’

‘Well I’m glad it’s not short for a fish. He doesn’t look a bit like a fish.’ She took my head between her damp hands and smacked a suction-cushion kiss firmly on my brow. ‘Even though he is good enough to eat.’

‘You’ve already had your supper, Mother dearest,’ Barry said, getting up from the table. ‘And aren’t you missing
Take a Card
?’

‘It’s time? My God, and I haven’t finished the dishes!’

‘We’ll do that. Then I’m taking Hal to a film, okay?’

‘All right, my darlings. Have lots of fun.’ She left the room, which suddenly seemed twice the size. ‘But Bubby,’ she fog-horned from the stairs, ‘don’t stay out all night, you hear?’

Barry winked, shrugged, called back, ‘I hear.’

‘And Hal . . .’

I went to the kitchen door. Her face mooned at me over the banister. ‘Yes, Mrs Gorman?’

‘You see he keeps his word,’ she whispered at ten
megahertz. ‘You’re his friend. And you’re a nice boy, I can tell. Straightaway this morning I could tell. I can trust you. He needs a friend, my Bubby. Some of these other boys he knows, well . . . they lead him astray—’

Barry came up behind me, putting an arm over my shoulder, leaning. For the first time I smelt him, his clean bodywarmth.

‘You’ll miss your programme if you stand there gabbing, Mother,’ he said mocking.

Mrs Gorman peered at us, mouth pursed. ‘He’s all I’ve got now, you know, Hal,’ she said. ‘Since his father—’ Barry’s hand pressed down on my shoulder, a warning for silence.

A pause. Glass threatened by a brick. Then suddenly Mrs Gorman smiled. The brick a feather duster.

‘But you’re a sight for sore eyes, the pair of you,’ she said and clumped away upstairs.

2/What was all that about?

‘Forget it,’ Barry said, the question unasked. ‘She thinks I work too hard. That’s because the shop is work to her.’

‘Not you?’

‘I told you. I love it. I like music. Like people. Like selling.’ He grinned, aping greed. ‘Like money.’

‘Who doesn’t.’

He was stacking the dishwasher, reloading it after his mother’s attempt. He was one of those people whose movements are as natty as a conjuror’s. I handed him odds and ends so as to feel helpful.

‘And what about the ineffable Oz?’ he said. ‘Had he a master plan for your brilliant future?’

‘Only wants me to join his English Sixth, doesn’t he!’

A melodrama of dishes. I’d tapped a nerve seemingly.

‘Never!’

‘Split my tongue and hope to cry! He also told me in the same breath that Eng. lit. would be useless to a genius like me.’

‘He said that?’

‘Words to that effect, yes.’

‘The crafty pillock!’

‘Why?’

‘Obvious. He asks you to join his Sixth. You feel chuffed at the rare honour, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then he tells you what he has to offer won’t be any use. And you think, “How honest! This is a man I can believe.” Right?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But telling you that is like putting up a “No Trespassing” sign. Anybody with any gump thinks there must be something worth trespassing for and wants his bit of the action. Besides, if you tell anybody who’s worth anything
not
to do something, they go and do it right off, don’t they?’

‘So?’

‘So he’s testing you. If you take the bait against all opposition, even from him, he’ll know you’re really keen.’

‘Isn’t that good?’

‘Marvellous. Wonderful. One more disciple in his ranks.’

‘And now comes the coup de butt.’

‘The boy’s a giggle in every bite.
But
—what he’s telling you is still true, idiot!’

‘There’s no future in Eng. lit.?’

‘You said it.’

‘No.
He
said it. I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

‘Oo, you Fierce Northern Tribes! You’re so
strong
! So
independent
!’

I slung a teatowel at him.

‘One long laugh, you Southerners,’ I said.

He snatched the teatowel from his face and came round the table stalking me with it. ‘You should have called yourself Hotspur,’ he said, flicking the towel at my thighs.

I dodged round the table, grabbing up a chair as a shield.

We both started giggling, like kids in a playground.

‘Careful what you’re doing with that thing,’ I said. ‘I’ve need of my vitals yet.’

‘Maybe my need is greater than yours,’ he said.

‘You trying to tell me something?’ I said, fending off a torrent of damp cloth with the chair.

‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘But I thought you and me was going to be chinas.’

‘Whatever gave you that idea!’ I said.

He suddenly stopped trying to flense me and tossed the cloth over my head. When I’d put down the chair and unveiled he was eyeing me frankly.

‘Right though?’ he said.

I might have run a mile. ‘You talk in riddles,’ I said.

He turned away, switched on the dishwasher.

‘We could stay in if you like. Instead of going to a movie, I mean.’

I was glad his back was to me. It was getting harder to look honest.

I said, ‘I think I’d like a movie.’

‘Have a butcher’s at the local rag,’ he said, making for the door, ‘see what’s on while I have a jimmy.’

He dashed out, like he was needing to escape.

3/Know what I made of that? A can of magic beans offered on sale or return is what I made of that. Hence the
sudden symptoms synonymous with sprinting the five thousand metres.

I could hardly read the newsprint announcing this week’s filmatic attractions because my eyes were palpitating to the rhythm of hard rock in my head led by the drummer, high on C9H13 NO3 in my chest. No surprise. The rhythm stick was forcing.

And I might have been wrong. Which added to the excitement, as the possibility of being wrong always does.

But was I to proceed to the cinema through Southend’s crowds with my hands held before me like a defrocked choir boy? I could hardly stand up straight even now. Which wouldn’t do at all.

So three deep breaths, a no-nonsense juggle with my pudenda, a readjustment of my round me’s, and the newspaper came into focus at last.

‘Porno or sci-fi epic,’ I said when he came back, by which time I had recovered some calm again. ‘That’s the choice.’

‘Sci-fi for me,’ he said, checking the kitchen was safe to leave. ‘There’s enough porn in my head without needing more.’

4/He stopped on the pavement outside his house.

‘We could ride if you like. I run a Suzuki.’

‘Whichever, I don’t mind.’

‘Better walk. I haven’t a spare helmet and the old Bill is heavy handed in town. Every biker a Hell’s Angel. But we’ll have to buy you one.’

‘We?’ I said. ‘And are we going somewhere?’

‘Why not?’ he said.

We strolled to town along the esplanade, the tide in
and the bathers mostly gone. But plenty of sea-watchers. And the weather was cool and gentle now after the storm.

‘So you’re chucking your lot in with Ozzy,’ Barry said after a while.

‘I told you,’ I said, ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

‘You will.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You’ve got that lean aesthetic look.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.’

‘Anyway, you’ll be a gentleman of leisure till September.’

‘Not if my dad gets his way.’

‘Wants you earning, does he?’

‘Part-time at least.’

‘Quite right too. Schoolboy layabouts!’

‘Yes, grandad!’

‘I was thinking about that after you went this afternoon.’

‘You’re keen. I haven’t even started thinking about being a dad yet.’

‘Har har,’ he said. ‘You’d slay them at the Palace. About you being a layabout, I mean, knucklehead. What sort of thing are you looking for?’

‘I’ll do anything except anything.’

He stopped and leaned on the railing at the edge of the pavement, looking out to sea.

‘How about Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, four till six, and all day Saturdays?’

I’m so thick I really didn’t know what he was playing at.

‘Where?’ I said.

‘Gorman Records.’

And he really did take me by surprise.

‘Are you having me on?’

‘Serve in the shop, help keep the stock in shape, chat up the customers, that sort of thing.’

‘Why?’ I was watching him carefully, but he wouldn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on the view.

‘Because we need somebody. Mother’s a genius with the accounts. But she’s hopeless in the shop. We get busiest in the late afternoons. Mostly kids wanting to hear the new discs. They drive Mother crazy. And Saturday is the worst time of all. More than I can manage on my own.’

I said nothing for a minute or two. Leaned on the railing beside him and stared at the sea. Another bout of symptoms synonymous started up as the light began to dawn. If all he wanted was a shop assistant he could have found plenty of people at the job centre who were eager for that kind of work and who had experience of it.

We set off for town again and I said, ‘I’ve never worked in a shop.’

‘You’d soon pick it up.’

‘But what about your mother?’

‘You heard her. She trusts you. Can’t think why! But she’d be all for it.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Stop fighting me, will you!’ he said, stopping me by the arm and making me face him. ‘Give it a try, eh?’

I felt he was hustling me and I didn’t like that. It was his worst side. If he wanted something he prodded and pushed till he got it. And if he didn’t get his way he pouted and sulked and went sour. I didn’t know that then, and wouldn’t have cared if I had. I wasn’t going to be hustled.

I said, ‘Look, Barry, I’ve told you. Give me time. I’ve got to work myself up to things.’

‘All right, all right. Relax!’

‘Well, you’re not just offering me a job, are you!’

‘You’ll be okay. You’re a natural. Just smile a lot, be polite, and stay cool. That’s all it takes. Honest. The customers will lap you up.’

‘It’s not the customers I’m thinking about.’

‘What then?’

‘Look, is this a game of telling truths?’

He started walking again. ‘If you want it to be.’

‘All right. It’s you. That’s who I’m thinking about.’

‘Me!’ The comic exaggeration! ‘What have I done?’

‘Ah come on, Barry, stop mucking about. You know what it is. You’re pushing me too fast.’

‘Why waste time?’

‘I told you. I’ve got to think things out a bit.’

‘Okay, okay. I’ll say no more. But you’ll give it a try? Just for a few days? A week? We’d be a great team.’

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

‘Done.’

5/There’s always a moment. The point of no return, when you know if you go on you can’t ever afterwards go back. I know that now. I learned it with Barry, then. And Ozzy showed me some lines the other day. They sum it up. They’re by T. S. Eliot in a poem called
The Waste Land
which Ozzy keeps trying to make me read. Here are the lines:

It happens in the moment when that small word ‘Yes’ will be enough to change your life. Your stomach gets the jitters—or mine does, anyway. Your brain melts inside your head. Your tongue feels like it’s contracted elephantiasis and will shortly choke you. Your mouth gets lockjaw, and your hands get cramp. You start keeping an eye
out for the nearest lavatory because your bowels indicate an imminent onset of dysentery. You tend to yawn a lot, and also grin, stammer, giggle, hiccup, shiver, sweat, break out in facial ticks, itch in crevices awkward to scratch in public, and unexpectedly to fart.