Ascension Day

‘I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up,’ Alaysha said. ‘But you know that warning letter we talked about having sent to Gerry?’ She sighed and rested her hands in her lap. ‘I think it would be a good idea to now send it.’

When Alaysha had first mentioned likely problems with her ex, Jac had suggested sending an initial warning letter on the firm’s letter-heading; then, if that didn’t work, they’d go the whole hog and get a restraining order.

‘I know you said he’d been phoning you.’ Jac arched an eyebrow. ‘But has he been round here at your door, too?’

Alaysha closed her eyes for a second and eased out a sigh of submission. ‘Yes. Yes… he has. I didn’t want to say anything before while you were ill.’

Jac nodded pensively. ‘Was it bad?’

‘No, I…I…’ Alaysha’s eyes flickered briefly shut again. ‘Yes, it was. He came round a couple of days before you came out of hospital, banging and shouting, and I told him to stop: Molly was home and he was frightening her. He kept shouting a while more, then finally calmed, saying he had a jacket of mine I’d left at his place a few weeks back. He’d come to give it back. I checked through the spy-hole, and, sure enough, I could see it in his hand — so I said, okay, but I was leaving the door on the chain. He wasn’t coming in. He seemed fine with that, just nodded numbly, as if all the fight had gone out of him. “Okay, babe, okay… I understand,” he says.’ Alaysha shook her head, her eyes shutting heavier this time as the memory of what happened played against the back of her eyelids. She bit at her bottom lip as she opened her eyes again, as if still fearful of what they might see. ‘Then as soon… as soon…’

Jac reached out and gently touched her arm, consoling. ‘That’s okay… don’t worry. I’ll… I’ll get the letter sent off as soon as I get to the office.’

‘Thanks, Jac. I appreciate it.’ She swallowed hard, shaking off the last of the images. ‘You know, I thought he was going to rip the chain right off the door. I… I don’t know how I managed to shut it again.’ She glanced back briefly towards the door again, as if it still might suddenly burst open. Then she looked down uncertainly; something was still troubling her.

‘What is it?’ Jac asked.

‘Unfortunately it… it didn’t end there.’

Jac’s concern gripped like a stomach cramp. His hand, laid lightly on her arm, pressed gently. ‘What happened, Alaysha… what happened?’

‘He came by the club the night after, making a scene.’ The shadows in her eyes shifted hesitantly as she forced a tight smile. ‘But, thankfully, the security at the club’s good. They made quick work of getting rid of him.’

‘Thankfully.’ Jac felt his jaw tighten. But what was going to happen when next time he tried and there was no security or a chained door between them? ‘I suppose if all else fails, there’s always one way of handling Gerry.’ Jac held a fist up.

‘Oh?’ Alaysha eyed him curiously.

‘Young kid doesn’t last long on the streets of Glasgow without learning to use these. And my father always kept a boxing bag at our Rochefort farmhouse — said that it was one of the best ways to keep fit.’

Alaysha gave another quick, tight smile, unsure whether Jac was serious or if it was just bravado to make her feel more secure.

Jac wasn’t sure either. He’d spent the first night out of the hospital at her place, for various reasons: he had no fresh food at his place, he was still weak, and Alaysha commented with a sly smile that she wanted to ‘nurse him a bit.’

Their relationship had changed markedly while he’d been in the hospital, without much actually happening between them. Not only because he’d seen how much she seemed to care about him, belying the short time they’d been involved — but so had his mother and Jean-Marie, from witnessing Alaysha’s vigil at the hospital and talking with her there. He’d begged both of them not to say anything about Alaysha to Aunt Camille. ‘She probably thinks I’m still going out with Jennifer Bromwell, courtesy of Jennifer’s parents. It’s a long story — I’ll tell you later.’ But he decided to wait a while before telling them that Alaysha lap-danced. From what she’d told them, they appeared to think she did interior decorating and ‘some modelling’.

He’d also finally met Molly. Almost as if Alaysha kept Molly away at her mom’s while any new boyfriends visited, until they’d passed the initial acid test. Alaysha had brought Molly with her on her last visit to the hospital and introduced them, and Molly was there at Alaysha’s when Jac first came out: ‘Are you okay now?’ she enquired. He couldn’t help smiling, her soft, high tone attempting to be adult and grave. ‘Yes, fine… fine.’ He put one hand lightly on Molly’s shoulder as he knelt down to her height. ‘And you?’ Fine too, she said; then he spent the next half hour on his knees as she led him through the fantasy world of her dolls and informed him who hadn’t been fine recently amongst them.

Alaysha touched his cheek with the back of one hand. ‘It’s so good to have you back, Jac… so good.’

‘For me too.’ He closed his eyes at her touch. He could feel them getting closer, and wanted so much for it to work. But he’d seen those shadows in her eyes when she’d described Gerry trying to break her door down and visiting the club. Just what baptism of fire might their relationship have to endure to finally be rid of him?

Alaysha stroked her fingers gently across Jac’s cheek and back through his hair before taking her hand away. There was something else Gerry had said while at her door that had sent a chill through her, but that was the last thing she’d want to tell Jac about. After all, that was the whole point of this lawyer’s letter now: hopefully finally closing the book on her past life with Gerry and what she’d done with him.

She swallowed, took a fresh breath. ‘When are you supposed to be hearing from the police?’

‘Tomorrow or the latest the day after, they said.’ Shadows in his eyes: knowing finally if his car, dragged up from Lake Pontchartrain, had been tampered with. He put one arm around Alaysha and gave her a reassuring hug. ‘And when Gerry gets this letter — let’s just hope he gets the message and leaves you be.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

But Jac could see from her tight smile that she was as unconvinced as him.

Rodriguez felt in fine form this morning.

Jac McElroy had made it, the sun was breaking through a thin cloud cover, and the air was clear and crisp. Rodriguez inhaled deeply as he sauntered across the exercise yard. One of the first times the air had been crisp for a long while — Rodriguez liked this time of year. The temperature inside the prison was bearable for once, and hopefully would remain so for the next few months.

Rodriguez fired a quick fake-cap acknowledgement to BC and Larry lifting weights on the far side of the yard. BC was by far the keenest muscle-freak in their little circle, in the yard practically every day. Larry, Theo Mellor and Gill Arneck trained-up at most twice a week, and himself and Peretti, never.

‘Hey, you wanna try this som’ time, Roddy,’ BC called out as he approached. ‘Your arms are startin’ to look like strands o’ spaghetti.’

‘Nah. Might give myself an injury.’ Roddy made a mock grab at his crotch. ‘Would ruin my wild sex life here.’

BC shook his head and smiled. ‘Yer know, Roddy, at times you’re such a pussy.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Roddy shrugged amiably. ‘Like they say — you are what you eat.’

BC and Larry laughed out loud, bringing a glare from Tally Shavell, six yards away at the other end of the muscle yard with Jay-T and another crew brother — the separation between them obvious, nobody else daring to go into that electrified no man’s land.

Rodriguez gave them a guarded sideways glance, and signalled to Larry with a small nod that he wanted to talk: they should move further away from Tally and his crew. They sidled five yards away so that even BC would have trouble overhearing them, but Rodriguez kept his voice low in case.

‘Just got an e-mail in from Jac.’ Having almost lost his life trying to help Larry, suddenly he was ‘Jac’ instead of Mr McElroy; one of them. ‘As you know, his side-kick Langfranc filed last week with the BOP and Candaret, and part of that, Jac reminded me, was talkin’ about your literary expertise. He’d like to send a couple o’ the books you