Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (35 page)

In one way, it was actually the perfect neighbourhood for the Dark Man, as Ray always believed his greatest fear must be that he’d end up somewhere he belonged, where he’d have no‐
one to feel different from or superior to.

Ray didn’t fancy the place much himself back then, but wasn’t so dismissive now. Even if he wasn’t fired or jailed, he knew he was never going to have the secluded mansion with the recording studio in the basement and six‐
seater Jacuzzi in the en‐
suite, so a pretty, clean and quiet suburban neighbourhood on the edge of the countryside was nothing to be sniffed at, especially with a wee one at your feet. There were lots of kids playing on the pavements, bikes left unguarded outside front doors, garages open invitingly to reveal toys, garden swings and washer/
driers. It was very ‘choose life’ and twee to the point of smug, but it was also obvious that crime and fear didn’t stalk the place either.

Ray parked in front of the house and took a breath, working out how to play it in the happy event that she was still there. Obviously a knock at the door, a brief hello and then asking whether her deceased bidey‐
in might actually be still alive and running about with the bullet‐
brigade was not on. He’d just have to get her talking and see what was there to be found. There’d been a small gathering at the house after the service, and they had spoken then for a few minutes in the kitchen, Ray having gathered up the used disposable plates and brought them through from the living room in an attempt to make himself useful. He had been feeling awkward and hypocritical about being there, not just given his history with the deceased, but because the wake had been announced as being ‘for any family and friends who wish to attend’ and despite technically not fitting either category, he had been dying for a pee and thus tagged along. Clearing up the debris from the sausage rolls had seemed the least he could do for the use of her lavvy and a drink of Irn‐
Bru. They didn’t speak for long, but there had definitely been a connection and a sense that they might have a lot more to say to each other under different circumstances. Either that or Alison was just very good at talking and listening to people. Living with Simon, she’d definitely have needed to be the latter.

Ray got out of the car and walked to the driveway, where for the third time in as many days he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. This time his assailant didn’t miss.

Ray dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, the damp seeping into his fingers through his T-shirt.

‘Ya got me,’ he said, looking up in time to see the gun being levelled for the coup de grace.

‘Connor,’ said a female voice. ‘No.’

But it was too late. The trigger was pulled and Ray got a faceful of cold water, accompanied by an impish laugh.

‘Connor.’

Ray wiped his eyes and got a good look at his assassin. On any other day, he’d have found it pretty freaky, but today it simply belonged: he was looking at Simon Darcourt in miniature. The guy wasn’t dead, he had merely shrunk.

‘Ha ha ha – all wet,’ mini‐
Simon said, grinning. Ray, for his part, was grateful for the soaking, it being the equivalent of a slap in the face after which he could be sure he wasn’t seeing things.

‘God, I’m really sorry.’

He turned his head to see Alison McRae, Simon’s onetime significant other, hurrying across the grass towards him. She looked better than he’d remembered, and she’d looked pretty good then; at least as good as the bereaved can look at a wake. She was about five foot ten, long sandy blonde hair, with angular features, a face that looked coldly but perfectly sculpted until she smiled, when it warmed up a treat. There was a vivid sparkle to her eyes that had been understandably missing back then. Ray wished he could take a picture back to show Kate: proof that there was such a thing as a maternal glow, once the sleepless nights and physical ravages had been left behind.

‘It’s no bother,’ Ray said. ‘He’s a crack shot.’

‘Crack pot more like. Aren’t you, monster?’ she said, picking him up in her arms. It was affection and defence: Ray may have been soaked and apologised to, but he was still an unknown quantity. He got to his feet, hoping she’d clocked the upmarket car and subtracted it from the vagabond effect of the face‐
fuzz and cheap threads.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked. Some people had a way of making that question sound a lot like ‘fuck off’, but fortunately she didn’t seem to be one of them.

‘I don’t know if you remember me. My name is—’

‘Raymond. Sorry, I didn’t recognise you at first. You were at the funeral.’

‘That’s right. Eh … you said to drop by if I was ever in the area. It’s been a wee while, I know, but I was passing through, so … Is this a bad time?’

‘Yes. I mean no. I mean yes I said that and no, it’s not a bad time. I think I owe you the use of a towel at least.’

‘Man all wet.’

‘Yes, he is, Connor. And whose fault’s that?’

‘Mine,’ he said gleefully.

‘Come on in.’

Ray bent to pick up the water pistol.

‘No, just leave it there. It’s not even his. It belongs to Wendy next door. I think she’s inside getting her tea.’

Alison led him through to her living room and gestured to him to take a seat. ‘What you doing up in this neck of the woods?’

‘I was visiting a friend,’ he lied. ‘Dropping off some computer gear.’

‘Oh. Are you still in that line?’

‘Em, unbelievable as it may sound, I’m an English teacher these days.’

‘So why aren’t you in school?’

Ray held his breath for a second, trying to decide whether this constituted suspicion or merely chitchat.

‘Holiday weekend for Glasgow schools. Friday to Monday.’

‘Missing it?’

‘Oh aye. I live for it.’

She smiled, much to his relief. ‘I’ll fetch you that towel.’

Connor took her absence as his cue to begin handing Ray toys from the floor, one after the other. There seemed to be no purpose to Ray’s role other than to accept them, though putting them down on the settee was cheating, and resulted in them being handed over a second time. Ray gave his best shot to accommodating the pile, all the time beguiled by the child’s likeness to, presumably, his dad. He was like George W Bush, in that he looked more like his father than his father looked like his father. Wheels began whirring. Maybe Alison wasn’t going to get a towel, but was about to walk in with a gun and blow him away to protect the secret he’d stumbled upon. Given his current environment, however, it seemed a little out of context.

‘Oh, he does that to visitors,’ Alison said, returning with the towel. ‘He normally waits until you’ve got a cup of tea in your hand, right enough. Would you like one?’

‘I’ve never wanted one more in my life,’ he said, honestly.

They each had a seat in the kitchen while Connor watched TV next door. The kid’s viewing lasted less than ninety seconds before he was in after them, offering Ray more toys. Alison red‐
carded him and sent him back outside, where she could hear the aforementioned Wendy returning to the fray.

She sighed with relief as he bombed through the door, wincing only a little as it slammed loudly behind him.

‘You got any kids, Raymond?’

‘One. Martin. He’s three months.’

‘You poor bastard. They get better.’

‘So I keep hearing.’

‘I know. When they can walk and talk they’re a lot of fun. Actually, once they’re old enough to realise you’d have them in a square go, things get a lot easier.’

‘I’ve a cheek to complain. You’re on your own.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, contemplatively, perhaps thinking back. ‘I got a lot of help. The girls either side have kids.’

Ray couldn’t wait any more. ‘Forgive me for prying, but I have to ask. He’s … there’s something very familiar …’

‘He’s his father’s double, I know.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Two and a half. You can do the subtraction. Simon’s wee legacy.’

Ray nodded, taking a moment to erase the notion that the Dark Man might be about to walk through the door and say ‘Daddy’s home’.

‘Did you know, at the time, I mean, when …?’

Alison handed him a mug of black tea and placed milk and sugar on the table in matching earthenware.

‘I had no idea. God, when I found out … Some irony, let me tell you. Simon didn’t want kids, safe to say. I did, but I didn’t think I’d ever be having his. In fact at that time I didn’t think we’d be together much longer. Turned out I was right.’

Ray poured some milk and stirred his tea. ‘Nobody plays silly‐
buggers quite like fate,’ he said, feeling eminently qualified to comment.

‘No kidding. Connor was conceived the very night before Simon died. I know that because it was the first time we’d had sex in months.’

Ray did his best not to spit the tea he was drinking, but his widening eyes betrayed his reaction to her sudden candour. Alison had a very serious look on her face; not defensive, but earnestly adult‐
to‐
adult. This was still a friendly cup of tea in the kitchen, but they weren’t going to be discussing the weather or even their kids any more. Alison stared at the floor for a moment, slightly embarrassed.

‘When you were here before, things were too hectic to really talk,’ she said, looking up again. ‘But I recall you said if I ever needed to speak to someone about Simon …’

Ray nodded, remembering. That was the part where he thought they’d made a connection.

‘At the time I didn’t really think about it. Wakes are a great time for platitudes; I garnered quite a collection. Emotionally and, as it turned out, hormonally, I was all over the place, and I thought you were just being polite. But once the dust had settled, I began to understand what you meant. And I think I would probably have called, except that once I found out I was pregnant, I had other things to concentrate on. Good things.’ She smiled a little, then the seriousness returned. ‘Simon wasn’t a very nice person, was he?’

Ray said nothing.

‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to tread eggshells. That was what you meant, though, wasn’t it?’

He nodded, trying to look solemn rather than enthusiastic.

‘You lived with him too, for a while. You knew him.’

‘When we were young.’

‘But that was what you meant.’

‘It was nothing specific you said after the service, just an impression I got. I couldn’t picture you clutching his photograph and crying yourself to sleep. I just thought … there might come a time when you needed to talk about him, warts and all.’

‘He was a bastard,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s what I’d have needed to talk about, if I hadn’t been suddenly very distracted. And the reason I knew that was what you meant was that I remember being surprised when you told me your name. You were the last person I’d have expected to attend.’

‘I didn’t get a very good press, I take it.’

‘I heard a lot about you, let’s put it that way. And very little of it was good.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘But you still came.’

‘I didn’t hate him. It all happened when we were too young and daft to know better. I wasn’t going to rubber his death.’

‘I did hate him. I do hate him. More and more, every day.’

Alison got up. Ray thought this was because the conversation had strayed into dangerous ground, but was wrong in assuming it heralded the end. She excused herself and disappeared for a few minutes, then returned to say she had asked Wendy’s mum to look after Connor for a while. With the coast clear, they took their teas through to the living room and sat at either end of the settee. The TV was still on, with the sound muted: Neighbours, inexplicably still going after all these years. It had been cult viewing in his student days, having made the jump to post‐
modern‐
ironic‐
kitsch status after about two episodes.

Alison put her mug on the carpet, clearing a space among the discarded toys.

‘After Simon died, I went through the usual rose‐
tinted remembrance at first. Hard not to, especially when everybody’s saying sorry for your loss and telling you how great he was. Even when I thought about how unhappy I’d been, I was more inclined to remember the good times we’d shared. Then gradually I began to look back a bit more objectively and realised that they were simply good times we were both present at. We didn’t share them. Simon never shared anything. You could be around him when he was having a good time, and you’d be having a good time too, but … oh, I don’t know.’

‘I do,’ Ray assured her.

‘A few weeks after he was gone, I remember trying to think of an occasion when Simon ever did anything for me, you know, that took him out of his way, or put his own needs second. I came up dry.’

Ray felt chilled by the remark. Div had said roughly the same thing a few months back, when they were talking about old times and he got fed up with Ray sticking up for Simon. ‘Can you honestly tell me a time when that bastard did anything for anybody else, when he made any kind of sacrifice?’

Ray couldn’t. He was about to offer Div the time Simon lent Ross twenty quid because there was a problem with his grant cheque, but then remembered how the story panned out. When Ross’s money did finally come through, he and Simon kept missing each other for a few days, so the debt wasn’t repaid. Simon, who was awfully fond of telling his friends how friends ought to behave, clearly believed Ross should have taken steps to remedy this sooner, and sent him an invoice through the post, thus transforming it from a minor embarrassment to something extremely ugly. The fact that Simon had owed Ross close to fifty quid for half the previous term was, in Simon’s familiar justification, ‘different’.

‘He was an only child,’ Ray said neutrally. ‘And he had a minor problem with the Earth’s orbit.’

‘You mean he didn’t buy the theory that it went round the sun?’

‘Exactly.’

‘We always forgave him, though, didn’t we?’

‘He was easy to forgive. It made for a bad habit.’

‘That’s what I kept asking myself, after … you know. Why did I keep forgiving him when he was always going to crap on me again? It was easy, though. He had charm to burn, and it was always tempting to put whatever he’d done behind him because his good side seemed such a special place to be. It was the same at his work. Anybody else would have talked their way to a P45 years ago. Simon rubbed everybody up the wrong way, but never got the bullet. That’s how he ended up in the marketing department.’