The Bricks That Built the Houses (25 page)

Rags pauses for effect. Ron leans forwards.

‘And there’s Joey, looking like a fucking Picasso painting, all his bits are in the wrong place, like, lying on the floor murmuring to himself. All the cash has gone, along with about a key and a half of uncut gear.’

He stops dead. The silence swallows them both. Ron shakes his head. Stands up and paces the café floor. Rags watches him. ‘Sit down,’ he says, ‘you’re making me nervous.’

‘I can pace if I want to,’ Ron tells him without looking at him, strolling up and down the aisle between the tables. He stops suddenly. His face a green snarl. ‘How could you be so FUCKING STUPID?’ he roars at his brother.

‘What?’ Rags’ voice jumps up two octaves. ‘Me?’ He points at his chest, outraged. ‘I trust this Lucy with my
life
, right? I thought it was OK to leave the shit there.’

‘When, in all the days of this wretched planet, has it EVER been OK to leave that much money ANYWHERE? You PLANK. You fucking IDIOT. You . . . Urgh . . .’ Seething, waving his hands in front of his face as if to wave the night away, shaking his head, Ron paces towards his brother, stands over him, about to draw his fist back.

‘IF YOU HIT ME, RON, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A FIGHT. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?’ Rags shouts at his brother, levelling with him.

Ron lets a bark of laughter out. Eyes like two smashed cymbals, ringing. ‘Yes! That’s what I want, you fucking idiot. You fucking stupid—’

Rags stands quickly, his chair falls back, he grips Ron’s arms, pins them to his side. Holds him still.

‘You’re angry, so you’re lashing out.’ Their noses an inch apart.

Ron breathes heavy like a panicked horse. ‘Course I’m lashing out. We’re in the fucking shit here,’ he whines.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Rags explains, patient as he can be holding his struggling brother.

‘Whose fault was it then?’

Rags doesn’t answer, just stares knowingly into Ron’s face, taking deep breaths in and out, indicating that Ron should do the same. Ron begins to breathe with him, and Rags holds
his eyes until he sees the madness has gone out of them. They stand, saying nothing, breathing, for a good few minutes. Staring at each other. Eventually satisfied, Rags pats Ron’s shoulders and lets go. He walks back over to his chair, picks it up, and sits delicately back down. Crossing his legs and leaning his head back into his hands. Ron goes back to pacing. Slower this time.

‘Look, mate,’ Rags begins apologetically. ‘I’m still adjusting to all this, you know. I never
asked
for this responsibility. I never said to Pico, you know, look, why don’t you pop off to jail for eight months and give me a chance to get my blood pressure up. Did I?’

‘No matter if you asked for it or not, just, what I’m saying is, what the fuck were you
thinking
?’ Ron has his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes.

‘I wasn’t really thinking anything. OK?’

Ron is victorious, throws his arms out to the sides. ‘See?’ he says. ‘My point exactly.’

‘Things have been, you know . . . since Amy left. I’ve not been . . . You know what I’m saying.’

‘My God, Rags! You’re not bringing THAT into this, are you?’

‘What?’ Rags takes a sip. ‘I was just saying.’ He swallows as he speaks, his words come out a damp gurgle.

Ron glares at him for a moment, bemused, before retrieving his glass from the table and holding it in the air grandly, like a trophy, thrusting it about. ‘It’s this Harry that’s done it
then? No?’ He stops and turns to Rags, shows him his most questioning eyebrows.

‘Well . . .’ Rags uncrosses his legs and crosses them again, stretches his back in his chair. ‘It came out, eventually, after a particularly tedious Q and A, that this miserable little drywank, Joey, tried to rob
Harry
, is the thing.’ Rags spreads his arms, incredulous. ‘That’s what happened.’ He lets his hands hang in the air, shakes his head and brings them back to his lap. ‘He thought he’d charge this girl Harry double the price and keep the difference. Or keep it all if he could get away with it. When Harry didn’t go for it, he panicked, and said OK, gimme all your money then. At which point—’

Ron cuts in, clicking his finger as the penny drops. ‘Harry beat him up, robbed him, and left.’

‘Exactly.’ Rags breathes deeply. Strokes the stubble on his cheeks.

‘Harry, who is a
girl
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Beat the fuck out of this guy,
alone
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who the fuck is this Harry character?’

‘Superwoman, by all accounts.’

‘And given the nature of Pico’s friendship with Harry, which we know is extremely amicable’ – Ron goes back to strolling – ‘we think he’s going to be pretty understanding about what went on.’ Ron takes a measured swig, holds it in his mouth and swills it round before swallowing it.

‘Yes. That’s about the size of it,’ Rags tells him, satisfied.

‘Fucking hell.’ Ron looks at him. ‘Do us another line then, will you?’

Rags nods, begins the process. ‘Joey got disciplined, there and then.’ He opens the wrap, takes out a rock, crushes it beneath the flat of his credit card, smooths the little boulders down to powder. ‘Told us everything. Described this Harry. She was slim, five foot nothing, you know, tiny frame, geezer bird. Hard as nails apparently. Joey says she came out of nowhere. They were talking one minute, next minute she’d beat the fucking shit out of him and was giving him a cigarette to smoke while she walked out the room. Trained in martial arts, the lot. Brown hair, shortish. Unusual face. Funny nose, or something. Was it funny mouth? Might be alright, apparently, if she tried a bit harder. But yeah, absolute nutter.’

Ron nods as he listens,
nutter, funny-looking, comes out of nowhere
. ‘So we’re going after her then?’

‘Well . . .’ Rags looks up from the lines he’s cutting, wiggles his nose around, a strangely cute gesture in such a brutish face. ‘No.’

‘WHAT?’ Ron shouts the word like it’s the name of a sleeping god. The walls shout the word back at him.

Rags flinches, runs his hand across the top of his head. ‘It seems like, word from Pico is, let’s just take this on the chin for now. Wait for things to settle down, wait for him to get out of jail, and pick it up again then.’ Ron stares at his brother,
unmoving. One hand holding his throat. Rags ignores him. Carries on talking. ‘The way Pico sees it—’

‘You’ve spoken to Pico?’ Ron interrupts him.

‘I rang him as soon as it happened.’ Rags lowers himself for his line. ‘He knows Harry. He reckons that this is a . . .’ He pauses, sniffs the line in a short hard blast, leans his head back, wrinkles his nostrils, wipes at the edge of his nose with his knuckle, ‘a
misunderstanding
that he can iron out, but he doesn’t want
us
dealing with anything. He’s pretty angry with us, actually.’

‘With
you
? Not
us
, surely?’

‘Everyone. He’s effing and blinding, you know, I’m gone five minutes and you can’t fucking blah blah blah. He left us in charge, and we, you know . . .’

‘You,’ Ron says forcefully.

‘Well, the way he sees it,
we
fucked up.’

‘So am I gonna lose this place then or what?’ Ron’s voice rises, climbs up his throat and throws itself out of his mouth.

‘No. If you keep your payments up, I don’t see why he would want to kick you out. It’s good business, this place.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘He said OK, we lost a chunk of cash. But it’s not the end of the world.’ Rags looks at his brother calmly.

‘Not the end of the world?’ Ron is outraged.

‘Not the end of the world.’ Rags doesn’t rise to it.

‘So what about this Harry?’

‘Well, we don’t know who she is, where she’s from. Even Pico can’t really tell us much. Obviously, he wants her found. I mean, there can’t be too many girls out there selling big lumps of gear called Harry, now can there?’

‘No.’

‘And obviously he wants his cash back, but it’s not on
us
is the thing. It’s on this Joey character, it’s
him
who’s gotta pay.’

‘How the fuck is he gonna make that kind of money?’ Ron sits down again, opposite Rags.

Rags shrugs. ‘Lucy’s guaranteed he’ll get Pico what he owes him.’ They consider what that means, shudder briefly. ‘Obviously,
if
she’s found . . .’ Rags tails off, lets Ron fill the blank in.

‘It’s hardly gonna be frowned upon?’

Rags nods. ‘Exactly.’

They mull it over. Ron finishes his drink. ‘Nice, that,’ he says.

‘I know. Gin fizz. Can’t beat it.’

‘Shall we have another one?’ Ron asks him.

‘Probably.’ Rags drops his head and exhales deeply. Rubs the back of his neck. Holds his shoulders.

Ron looks at him. ‘You’ve had me pacing this fucking floor. I’ve been going out of my MIND. He left us in charge, Rags, he left
us
in charge, and now this has happened. It don’t sit right with me.’

Rags stands up and walks over to his brother.

Ron watches him, perplexed. ‘What you doing?’ he asks him.

‘Giving you a cuddle,’ Rags tells him.

‘I don’t want a cuddle,’ Ron says.

‘Course you do. You always want a cuddle.’ And he leans down over his brother and wraps him in an uncomfortable embrace, cricking his neck at an awkward angle and slapping his back too hard.

Ron winces. ‘Get off me.’ Rags ignores him. ‘You’re hurting me.’ Ron struggles. Pushing him off.

Rags laughs, puts up his fists. ‘Come on then,’ he says, ‘spar with me?’ and he starts dancing around Ron’s chair.

Ron waves him away. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Rags tells him. ‘You need to lighten up a bit.’

‘Lighten up? You fucking prick. You call me up, I was sleeping soundly, get me down here, tell me it’s all gone to shit, my fucking
life
flashed before my eyes. I thought we were in serious trouble. It’s gonna take me a little while to be all fucking peace, love and bell-bottoms again, I’m afraid.’ Ron spits while he talks, too excited. Beads of white foam gather at the corner of his mouth.

Rags walks over to the sink behind the counter, splashes his face. ‘We’re getting too old for all this,’ he says to his brother in a kind voice.

‘I pay that fucking Pico rat good money every month,’ Ron says, congested with cocaine residue. ‘If he can afford to let this go, why can’t he let
me
go, Rags?’

Rags walks back over to him, rests his elbow on his brother’s shoulder. Leans down. ‘Because you made a deal,
and you’re an honourable businessman. You stick to your word and that’s a good thing. This Harry kid will get what’s coming to her. If you hear anything, you know, do what you need to do, of course. But in the meantime, it’s late.’ Ron nods to the lightening sky outside. ‘You should go back home, make Linda a nice cup of tea, tickle her toes and get into bed.’

Ron looks at his brother’s face, leaning down close to him, and fights the urge to scream at it. His brain feels condensed and hard and overexcited.

‘OK?’ Rags asks him.

‘OK,’ Ron spits back. Agitated.

‘Good man.’ Rags ruffles his hair, a gesture Ron has hated ever since he can remember.

The morning comes up fast. As cold and blank as a stranger in rush hour. Baggy-faced. Eyes shrinking in their lids, Leon and Harry stare at each other across the table of a twenty-four-hour American diner in a part of town they’ve never been to before. They are on the edge of a sprawling park seamed with monuments and sculpture. The shops sell floaty dresses and designer pestles and mortars. They feel this is probably as good a place as any to stop for breakfast.

Despite having spent their entire lives together, and a lot of that time just them, alone, it seems to Harry that she’s never looked Leon directly in the face before. She doesn’t know where to focus. They look away from each other,
stare out the window at the car in the car park. The cash like a corpse in the boot.

Harry checks her phone for the tenth time that minute. Leon raises an eyebrow over his milkshake. He leans over, takes the phone off Harry, who extends her arm to give it to him, but clings a little too tightly to it, and so they sit there with it held between them like a Christmas cracker. ‘Harry,’ Leon says gently, and she drops her hand, a little surprised. Leon takes the battery off the back and removes the SIM card. He drops the SIM and the battery in his glass of water. Harry nods her thanks. They watch the SIM float towards the bottom of the glass.

Plates of food sit untouched before them. Leon ordered pancakes and fruit and syrup. Harry ordered eggs and bacon. Harry drinks black coffee, thickened with sugar. Leon drinks a strawberry milkshake. All night they have driven around, pulling over to kill time in various bars. They spent a good two hours browsing the electronics aisle in an all-night outskirts superstore. Walked away with a new TV and a top-of-the-range pressure cooker. Now they are far west and regretting not being closer to home. It’s just after dawn and the pale sky is streaked with yellow. The sun’s on its way, sending its first colours ahead of it to let the people know it’s coming. Harry watches the colours.
Must be nearly eight
.

‘Do you think they’re going to kill me?’ she asks Leon quietly.

‘Us,’ he corrects her.

‘No one knows you exist.’

‘Well, maybe so, but they’d have to kill me first.’

‘We fucked up, Leon.’

‘Come on, mate. Snap out of it.’ Leon’s voice is firm.

Harry drinks her coffee and listens to the music barely playing through the speakers. Just too quiet to hear. She hates it when music’s played at that volume. She tries to ignore it but can’t drag her ears away. She turns to her bacon and eggs. Eats tentatively, feeling the food with her teeth as she chews it. Life is on autopilot – too busy getting things done to really think about what’s happening. She stares out, past the car, at the road edging the park, the closed Turkish cafés, the buses packed with workers, even this early. The first joggers pumping their legs around the park’s freezing perimeter, neon and grey bodies, pushing forwards, committed to the idea of a better self.