Patchwork Man (12 page)

‘Send him up. I’m ready for him.’ It was further from the truth than anything I’d ever claimed in my life until then. I sucked in air and tried to be calm, but all the routines Margaret had taught me were useless. The anxiety I balled in my fist ready to fling away remained there, a solid mass of fury. Perhaps having a weapon to hand wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

The door opened slowly and respectfully at first as Gregory maintained his pretence of servility, but the burly figure behind him barged past when the door was just ajar. It bounced back on its hinges and slammed against the wall.

‘So this is where you’ve been hiding, is it?’ I didn’t need to see the scar. The voice was as loud and strident as it had been when he was denying beating up the old woman, and I’d been running away. The sound of the Croydon I remembered – common, coarse and over-loud.

‘I’ve not been hiding anywhere.’

‘What happened to Kenny then if you ain’t been hiding?’

‘Nothing happened to Kenny. He’s fine.’

‘Pah!’ He straightened his shoulders and was about to carry on when he realised Gregory was still lingering behind him, face animatedly interested in the way I knew meant he was waiting for snippets of scandal. Win swung round and gave him the finger. ‘Piss off then,’ he said. Gregory looked at me poker-faced and for a moment incongruously I wanted to laugh and reiterate Win’s instruction. The number of times I would have liked to have said it to him over the years all had their satisfaction in that one haughtily offended but defeated look.

I made do with, ‘You can go Gregory, thank you.’ Briefly my enjoyment was unabated, but then the door closed behind him with an officious click and Win and I were alone. I expected him to start on a stream of abuse and I’d tried to mentally prepare myself for it. It wasn’t that I hadn’t got a good grasp of the language of the gutter – even become used to it. I’d learnt it over the years from the children’s home onwards and through my many kerb-crawling, debased, filth-regurgitating clients – of all sexes and walks. Verbal abuse didn’t bother me, and strangely, I now found, physical abuse didn’t either; even Win didn’t. It was emotion that terrified me.

He stood quietly and pensively studying me; eyes raking my face and assessing my body, posture, clothing. Summing me up. I did the same back. I saw a balding, chronically obese man who appeared to be well into his late sixties, but of course I knew I was a good fifteen years out on that. Perspiring face, florid cheeks and heavy jowls folding over that still intensely white V-shaped indentation. His breathing was laboured. Gregory had obviously made him climb the stairs instead of allowing him the comfort of the lift.

What did he see in me? Composed and in control, professionally distanced, sleek, groomed and urbane, I imagined – whatever churned in the depths of my soul – this stranger who was a brother; until the façade slipped.

‘You’re a slimy little asshole! You set me up and left me to it!’ It was said quietly and calmly but with absolute malice. I let it sink in – the composure surprising me to begin with. Then it registered. His words cut through the pulled blinds and the tumult of confusion and slid a jagged knife across my nerves, severing all control. I’d barely regained some equilibrium from the disturbing sensations Kat had awoken in me before I’d had Win’s appearance thrust on me. I wished Kat had come with me from the police station instead of marshalling her real-life child charge and leaving me to face this beast from the past alone. Ridiculous, I knew. I barely knew her and had just coolly told her feelings weren’t involved and here I was wishing she was here to help me with mine. Who or what was Lawrence Juste now? I sensed I was about to start finding out.

‘And you’re a manipulative bastard.’ To me my voice sounded cool and unconcerned. In my hand, the fist of fury tightened and in my chest my heart attempted to break through my ribs.

‘What? You’re the one who fucked me over!’

‘And you’re the one who allowed his brothers to be abused to achieve his own ends. You sacrificed Georgie to the pushers and you sacrificed me to Jaggers. Did you ever bother to find out what he did to me to force me into a situation where it I would rather betray my own brother than face what he would do to me next? And did you ever bother to find out who got Georgie hooked and then kept him there? You had the power, Win. You were head of the Winners – you could have headed off the pushers and kept me and Georgie – your little brothers – out of your gang wars altogether, but you didn’t. You were too concerned with feathering your own nest, getting what you wanted and we were just the tools to help you get it. Well, Georgie found his own escape and I had to find mine. You became the weapon of your own destruction.’

I wanted to say more, tell him how terrified I’d been in the cellar, waiting for the rats to gnaw me to shreds, how disgusted I’d been with myself after Jaggers had violated me, how uneasy every day of my life in that home had been, wondering whether I would be beaten up, coerced or abused, and how I’d looked to him for safety – bigger, stronger, more confident. I didn’t. What was the point if he hadn’t already seen that for himself? I was tired – tired of pretence, of waiting and watching, of trying to be someone I wasn’t, of never stumbling or admitting to weakness and finding someone there to help me up again. He didn’t reply. His face was frozen in a mask of surprise. I wasn’t sure if it was surprise I’d argued back, or surprise because he hadn’t thought about any of it before.

‘What did he do to you?’ His voice was raw.

‘Do you really need me to describe it?’ I asked bitterly.

He hesitated. ‘Naw.’ I almost didn’t hear it. We stared at each other. I shrugged.

‘It’s in the past now, Win. Let’s say we’re quits.’ I wanted this over with. He made me sick to look at him. His mouth worked and then sagged at the corners.

‘Georgie died last year,’ he volunteered. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear but I wasn’t surprised.

‘Drugs?’

‘Hepatitis or something like that. They said it were dirty needles.’

I thought of Georgie and his dreamy expression – limpid blue eyes far away in another world he must have found better. Maybe it was. Maybe he was there right now, and it was a world of dreams, not nightmares. The pounding in my chest twisted into a hard knot at the thought I would never see Georgie again. The kind of sadness I should have felt for Margaret.

‘Who was it?’ Win asked abruptly.

‘What?’

‘Got him hooked?’

‘One of your cronies, I should think – or one you were fighting with. I don’t know. All I know is they only targeted him to get at you. One less in your army.’

‘It weren’t my fault.’

‘Not directly, but it was because of you and you just didn’t bother to think about it – or us. I was in the wrong letting you take the rap for the old woman. Maybe I should have told someone later that it was Jaggers, but you seemed to be getting on OK, in your own way, so I got on in mine.’

‘I thought you’d set it up together.’

‘I had no idea he was going to beat her up. I thought he was just going to get you into trouble for snatching the bag so you’d be out of his way quicker than having to wait for you to finish school. He was impatient.’

‘He said it were your idea.’

‘He said what? When?’

‘Don’t matter.’

‘It does to me.’

‘Well, it ain’t your business, is it Mr Clever Barrister Boy? It’s mine and I’ll sort it.’

‘Is it anything to do with why you’re here?’

‘I came to see what my little brother Kenny’s been up to, didn’t I?’

‘Kenny’s fine but he’s not here anymore. I’m Lawrence now. Kenny was my past – you are my past.’ He shifted awkwardly and I wondered if supporting such bulk was tiring. I could have offered him a seat but that would have been like inviting him to stay. ‘Why now though?’

‘Why what now?’

‘Coming to see me.’

‘Why not now?’

‘If you’d wanted to find me you could have easily done so years ago. Why wait until now.’

‘That’s my business.’

‘Well it’s mine too.’ Ironically it seemed it wasn’t the misdeeds of years ago that were going to set us at each other now, but something present day. Something Win didn’t want to tell me about. His chin jutted like it had always done when we were children and one of us had disagreed with his leadership.

‘I came to see if you were who I thought you were, that’s all. Now I know.’

‘And? Win, there has to be a reason for that. You don’t suddenly get curious after thirty-five years of not being bothered.’ I waited. The V-shaped scar contracted and expanded again as he swallowed.

‘I have me reasons, but ...’

For all his bluster and bulk he seemed weaker than me. I could have asked what his life had been like then, I suppose –
really
like. I could have reached across the abyss and grasped his hand. I could have described my path and why I’d taken it, and listened to an account of his. I almost wanted to. I almost wanted my family back, and yet the old associations still hung round me like a shroud waiting to engulf me whenever I allowed myself to remember. Like the boy, Win brought all the memories flooding back, all the misery and uncertainty, all the sick fear that had lain in the cavity of my chest where there should have been joyfulness. I felt the breath being expelled from my lungs, almost as if it was being sucked out of them and with it the noxious fumes of my childhood fear. My head spun and I felt suddenly empty. Inside was a void, waiting. The anxious child entering the children’s home still sat in my place at the desk but the man observed from across the divide. I heard myself speaking without it being me, but I let the man take over whilst the child adjusted to the void.

‘Then I think it’s time you explained them.’ Win shuffled his feet as if to spread the weight. The perspiration on his forehead stood out in small round globules, even in the murky light of the darkened room.

‘The kid.’ I waited. He cleared his throat. ‘He reminds me of you and then all of a sudden there you are, defending him. It were like a sign that I ought to see what you turned out like and then decide what to do about the kid.’

‘The kid? Danny Hewson?’

‘Danny, yeah.’

‘How do you know Danny?’ I’d already guessed. It was obvious. Win was a tallyman. The one with the V. He didn’t answer. I tried another approach. ‘OK, what did Mrs Harris owe you?’

‘Who?’ He looked genuinely confused.

‘Mrs Harris, the old lady that Danny has been accused of killing.’

‘Oh, her.’ He looked disinterested and disinclined to say any more.

‘You didn’t know her then?’

‘Nah.’

‘So you’re not the tallyman Danny talks about?’

‘Tallyman?’ He was mystified. ‘I ain’t no tallyman, and I don’t know the old gel – only what happened to her.’ I believed him. So who was the tallyman? Was Danny confused? If the tallyman with the scar wasn’t Win, who was he? And why had Win felt the need to confront me and yet back down so quickly when he had every right to be as angry with me for my part in his incarceration all those years ago as I was with him for my abuse? Now it was my turn to be mystified. I wanted to press him about it but I knew him of old and his belligerent expression told me all too clearly he wouldn’t be pressed any further on this point. I decided to play the disinterest card.

‘Well, you’ve satisfied your curiosity now and seen who and what I am. Do we have any more business to settle between us?’ He gaped at me, all pretence at aggressor disintegrating.

‘You’re a cold bastard, aren’t you? Don’t you want to know about any of your kin?’

‘I don’t know. Do I?’ On reflection it was as much a question of myself as him. Probably, in the furthest depths of the child who still lived inside the man, I did. I still wanted to be bossed by Sarah and Binnie, gently teased by George, and hero-worshipped by Pip and Jim. I even missed Mary, even though I’d ignored her most of the time – as we all had. Most of all, I missed Ma. I didn’t know how to say that. Nor did I want to say any of it to this obnoxious bully-boy who couldn’t ever be my brother. As individuals we were too far apart. But unexpectedly, curiosity was too great. ‘Tell me then. Tell me how Georgie died to start with.’

‘Told you. That blood thing.’

‘Hepatitis. When was it diagnosed?’

‘Eh?’

‘When did he become ill?’

‘Dunno. He went yellow. Looked like a Chinky when I saw him. I had to identify him for the coroner. I hadn’t seen him for a while by then. He were living in a squat in Brighton – not far from the home. He went his own way, if you know what I mean – gays and the like, though I don’t think he were.’ I pictured the depravation my brother must have known; the demise of spirit and soul before he succumbed to collapse of the body. I hated Win then with a hatred I couldn’t control or quench. If I’d had sufficient strength and lack of dignity I would have pummelled his brutish pug face, hammered his useless flabby gut, battered him to a pulp for letting our sweet-faced dreamer of a brother become the base drug-ridden addict he’d had to ID; yellow and shrivelled on a mortuary slab. His face twisted momentarily in a caricature of grief. ‘I wish I hadn’t seen him like that,’ he added sadly. Despite my ire with him we shared a moment of joint tribute – to the brother we’d lost and the childhood we’d mislaid. Our mutual silence muffled the sounds of the world around us and locked us into our mutual tragedy. I broke it when it became too intimate. I didn’t want intimacy with this thug.

‘What about the others?’

‘The gels are still around. I can put you in touch with them if you want. Don’t know how they’d take to you. Ain’t been easy for them and you’ve got pots of money you ain’t sharing. One of the boys bought it out in the Falklands. The other’s a bit doolally since – but OK when he ain’t pissed. Mary’s in a home. She’s a bit screwy still – it’s called something but I can’t remember what. All right some days though.’ I held my breath and waited to hear whether Ma and Pop were still around. Ma would be in her eighties if she was. Win faltered. ‘Do you want to see them?’

‘Maybe. What about our parents?’

‘Pop went a while ago – a stroke. Ma, no. Sarah could tell you all about her.’ The decision was made with that statement. Come one, come all. I had a question to ask Ma, if I still could – one the boy inside had wanted to ask all through the long years of waiting and surviving. The same one Danny had asked me and I had asked him. Why? Even if you couldn’t stop us being taken, why didn’t you get us back?