Authors: GERALD SEYMOUR
The voice in his ear was respectful, even quiet.
Èxcuse me, it's Mr Ferris, isn't it?'
He turned. A receptionist was beside him. He nodded.
`There's a telephone call for you, long distance.'
There was a frown on his forehead.
`Not the bloody army . . .' Sam said.
`They're holding on for you.'
He let go of Sam. He thought she sounded quite amused, himself he felt bloody
furious. He walked after the receptionist to the front desk. The telephone was lying beside its cradle. For one moment he considered ignoring the call. It was a
short moment. He looked round at Sam. She was lovely, she was pulling a face at
him.
`Hurry it up, David, Penny'll be pouring the gin by now.'
He picked up the telephone.
`Ferris . . .' he said curtly.
`Thank Christ for that. It's Rennie ...'
It was a good line. Ferris could hear Rennie clearly enough to sense the relief.
`Happy New Year's Eve, Mr Rennie.'
`This isn't a secure call, so watch what you say. I know it's New Year's Eve, I know you're on leave, I know you're with your lady ‐ and I'm making no apologies.
We're in deep shit, David. The word I have is that our friend is likely to walk out
on us ... Don't argue, just listen. If it wasn't important I wouldn't have tracked you 247
... David, the boys say that our friend's going through the floor ‐ doesn't matter
why, but he's in maggots. Don't tell me you've got plans for tonight ... David, you're in Roehampton now. Before midnight I want you in Aldershot ... Before midnight I want you in Aldershot ... Before midnight I want you at a club in Aldershot. Our friend's going to be there. He's got to be lifted, he's got to be helped. David, if you don't lift him, then the whole thing's over. Got your pencil,
I'll give you the address.'
Ferris gripped the telephone between his ear and his shoulder, and reached in his
pocket for a pen.
He met Sam's eyes.
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**Ì'm dying for that drink. Hurry up, darling.' Sam blew him a kiss. He wrote the
address.
Rennie said, down the long line, that if David Ferris ever did the decent thing by
the girl that he'd buy them a wedding present, and in the meantime a Happy New
Year to both of them.
It was an hour before midnight.
Sam was bloody extraordinary. He'd thought she might have ditched him, might
at least have gone acid on him. She had shrugged, said that it might be fun, said
that Penny's accountant was a boring pouf, said that they might have a good laugh out of it. He'd just told her that it was something to do with his work, that
there was a man he had to meet.
They'd eaten Penny's dinner. He'd drunk three gins and the best part of a bottle
of wine and he hadn't a lot to say for himself, and Sam didn't seem to notice and
had rabbited about school days, and the accountant had watched him morosely
each time he'd filled his glass. Sam didn't seem to mind, and there was a double
bed waiting upstairs, and turned down, and Sam's nightdress on the pillows.
He was holding her hand and they were walking past shop windows. He heard the disco music.
`Sam, don't ask me who this man is. Please just help me cheer him up, just make
a fuss of him. All we've got to do is give him a bloody good evening.'
Ànd have one ourselves.'
Some bloody chance.
There was a muscled bouncer on the door. The place called itself the
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Midnite Club, and there was a pound surcharge because it was New
Year's Eve, and fancy dress was optional, and denims weren't.
Ìt'll be full of Other Ranks, Sam, sorry ...'
`Don't be so pompous. You're worse than bloody Daddy.'
She tugged him to the door, smiled sweetly at the bouncer, and won
a bow. Ferris paid them in.
They went down the stairs inside and thoughts of Sean Pius McAnally, supergrass
and cracking, were blown clean out of his head by the explosion that was the music.
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The lights flashed from the ceiling through revolving prisms over the dancers.
They were early. Jackson and Boy George pounded their ears. He'd looked
around him as soon as they were inside. There were tables and chairs around the
edge of the dance floor, but the action was middlestage. The minders and the supergrass hadn't shown. There was a bar, but Sam said that she had to drive, and she didn't want him falling over and he didn't need any more to drink, and she'd come to dance. She took his hand and led him to the centre of the floor.
Now, for the first time, she joked about his damaged nose and he gave the same
lie that had stopped his mother's fussing, and the lie was good enough for Sam as
well.
She wore a full black skirt, and she showed her glorious legs when the tempo was
going hard and she twirled from the ends of his fingers. She wore a tight‐fitting
polka dot blouse, and he felt the warmth of her against his shirt when the music
was slow, loving. And she told him he was a damned heifer when he scraped her
toes and that he wasn't that bad close to, and she nibbled his ear and chewed his
lobe.
He was a prisoner who had escaped. For twelve weeks he had been incarcerated
in the Springfield Road, and he had bust out. Belfast was ancient bloody history
... There was nothing in his mind of the Turf Lodge, or of a hidden marksman, or
of Sunray or the 1.0. The present was Sam, and the sweat streaking the fair strands on her forehead, and the damp lovely warmth of her, and her hips that
were swinging and drifting against him. She was a bad bloody woman, and she
knew it, and he thought he might just love her for it.
Sam kept Ferris to the centre of the dance floor, and she grinned because her elbows made room for them to dance without being buffeted by other couples.
And the Midnite Club was O.R.'s territory, and O.R.s and their girls gave space to
an officer and an officer's woman. Obvious she was an officer's woman when she
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didn't care that his cheek had lipstick smears, when she wore a string of pearls at
her throat, when she didn't give a damn who saw her thighs. Ferris thought that
Sam was the best‐looking woman in the Midnite Club.
They didn't talk. The bedlam of the noise was too much to talk across. He no longer looked every minute or so to the entrance steps. He was close to forgetting what he was there for. Her hands were locked on the nape of his neck
and her lips nuzzled under his chin.
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**Midnight was closing on the Club. The floor was emptier as the dancers struggled to reach the bar and gain the refills for the twelve o'clock toasts. Ferris and Sam danced on. Ferris heard nothing around him but the gentle breathing of
Sam. He danced as if he were unaware of the music, he moved in the world that
was Sam and himself. And Sam was lovely, the loveliest.
The voice rabbit punched him.
The accent carved through the music, through Ferris's preoccupation with
holding Sam tight to him.
The accent rasped in his mind for recognition.
Ìf we's wants a bloody drink, we'll have a bloody drink.'
He could pinpoint the accent. The accent was Gingy McAnally's. `So get your fat
arse out the way, so's we can get a bloody drink.' The accent was drunk.
Ferris had stiffened, he no longer moved with the music. He felt Sam pulling him,
trying to drag him back to the dancing steps. There was a puzzlement in her face,
merging with annoyance.
`Where's the bloody bar? ... and it's your bloody shout, Goss.'
He turned slowly, towards the door. He saw McAnally shove himself past the bouncer, and as the bouncer reached to grab him, then Prentice's arm was out and restraining, and Goss was grimly flashing his warrant card. The bouncer backed off. On the edge of the dance floor McAnally seemed to lose his footing
and he careened into a girl who was dancing, and half tripped her, and the girl's
fellow was squaring up when again Prentice's hand dropped on the arm. At the
bar McAnally tunnelled for space and service and Prentice and Goss were hard in
behind him.
`Scotch for me, Goss ... whatever you's having, Scotch for me.'
It was ten days since he had seen McAnally, since they had walked on the mountain of Mullaghmore.
`Shift your arse ... three Scotches, he's paying.'
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The man was devastated. There was a new suit on him, three‐piece Burton's in the High Street, but that couldn't conceal the devastation, nor could the centre-parting hair salon job hide the damage.
`Come on, Goss, for fuck's sake, show her your fucking money so's we get served.'
McAnally had put on half a stone that bulged his waist under his unbuttoned waistcoat, and his shirt tail was out of his trousers, and his tie of brilliant green was loose at his throat. His face was a blotched red mess, and his eyes blinked as
if to focus on his nose, and a cheroot cigar hung from the side of his mouth and
jerked when he shouted. Prentice was bent over his shoulder, whispering in his ear.
`Don't tell me to shut up, Prentice.'
The drink from Goss was in his hand, and swigged. `Piss poor measures they give
here.'
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Prentice had him by the throat.
`Don't tell me to behave . . .' McAnally drained his glass. `Goss,
keep shouting, same as before.'
Ferris shuddered. The sight of McAnally appalled him. He under
stood why Rennie had tracked him down.
`Sam ...' Ferris spoke softly in her ear. Ì'm sorry, you should go
back to Penny's. I'll catch you there.'
She stared at him, astonished. Ì'm not going anywhere.' `Please, Sam.'
`We're in this ghastly place to meet your friend who hasn't come. So
we enjoy ourselves. I'm not going anywhere.'
`Come on, darling.' He tried to gently pull her off the floor. She held her ground.
Ìt's five to midnight, David.' Ì don't want you to stay here.'
`Because a drunk's making a bit of noise, don't be so wet ... I'm
not going at five minutes to midnight and neither are you.'
She kicked him sharply on the ankle. As he hopped she swung him
back into the rhythm of the music. As he danced he twisted his head,
always watching McAnally. She tweaked his nose, hurt him.
`What's special about the drunk?' `Don't ask,' Ferris said.
`Why not ...?' She was laughing happily into his face. Ìs that your
friend?
'I said, don't ask.'
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`You can't actually know him.' `Sam, be quiet.'
Àren't you going to introduce meet 'When I bloody have to, not before.'
The disc jockey, an excited sallow youth with a purple streak in his
hair, was calling for the floor to be filled, the last spin of the old year.
Sam danced mechanically, distant from Ferris.
He heard McAnally's voice.
`There's no bloody offence meant, so's you needn't be taking offence.' He heard
Prentice's voice.
`Just close your hole up, Gingy, do us a bloody favour.'
Ì was just telling the man that there's no offence meant ...' `He got your message.'
Goss was trying to pour water from a jug into McAnally's new whisky,
and McAnally's hand was wobbling, and the water had flowed into the
lap of a lady, and her husband was on his feet and remonstrating. Ferris
reckoned the husband to be at least a colour sergeant and an evil little
toad whatever he was, the sort of little toad who'd break the bottom
off a bottle.
Àpologize, you silly shit,' Prentice shouted. `No offence meant, that's a bloody
apology.'
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**The man was apparently satisfied.
His lady was standing and squeezing the water out of her frock.
Ferris closed his eyes. A bloody nightmare.
The disc jockey was on the countdown. The dancers were shouting the numbers
with him. Ferris looked at Sam, she wasn't shouting, she was staring straight ahead, at Sean Pius McAnally, fascinated.
Ì'm sorry . . . Sam, I'm sorry.'
He tried to kiss her lips and she turned her head away and his mouth brushed her
cheek.
Ìt's a bit different to what Penny had in mind for us, and that would
have been bloody boring. You're a right laugh, darling.'
`Happy New Year . . . Happy New Year ...' the disc jockey
shrieked.
`Happy New Year, Sam,' Ferris said softly.
`Happy New Year yourself,' she said, from the side of her mouth.
`Level with me. Are we here to meet that drunk?'
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The dancers linked arms, made a long bent line that circled the dance
floor.
Auld Lang Syne on the turntable, and everyone singing, and Ferris singing and trying to wake up from a bad dream.
The line stamped across the dance floor, squashing itself together. Bodies barged
together, elbowed each other, kneed each other. He held tight onto Sam's hand.
The faces in front of him were blurred, blurred as the noise of the singing.
Ìt's the fucking officer . . .'
He saw McAnally. McAnally was in the line opposite him, pinioned by Prentice and Goss.
`Look, you daft bugger ... look, Goss, it's our bloody officer.'
The line swept back. Across the floor McAnally's feet scrabbled for