beers and a smoke with my mates. I can score some good gear there — something that’ll keep us going all night.”
She laughed again. The sound grated on his nerve endings. “I like it when you keep going all night, Fran.”
It was starting to rain; the charcoal sky looked like someone had slashed it repeatedly with a knife, showing the flat blackness beneath. The clouds were low and heavy, lumbering like pregnant beasts, and the air was turning cold. Boater ducked into a pub doorway, losing his grip on the girl’s hand for a moment, and made his way through the hot, sweaty crowd to the bar.
They had two drinks, and during the time it took them to finish he realised that he was already bored of this girl. He didn’t even know her name; she was pointless, just another way of wasting time as he waited for that good thing to appear — the event that he knew, deep inside, would never happen, not even if he lived for a million years. Where had he even met her, anyway, this plastic sex toy? He reached inside his memory and plucked out an image: she owed Monty Bright some money, and had taken the option of servicing him once a week to bring down her payments. Growing tired of her, Monty had given Boater permission to take her on, and it had all clicked into place.
It happened all the time, this trading of bodies. Monty got sick of them fast, and he passed them on to his men. This time it was Boater’s turn, but each moment he spent in the girl’s company was another inch towards the thought of killing her — one more step along the road to oblivion.
He was glad when his mobile phone rang. It pulled him up out of the swamp of his thoughts, made him realise where he was and who he was with — another empty vessel, a cast-off he was about to use as a receptacle for his dead dreams and his dull desire.
He pulled the mobile out of his inside pocket, where it was vibrating against his ribs, and flipped open the lid with his thumb. “Monty. What can I do?” he always answered the same way whenever his boss called; it was a ritual, a habit that he enjoyed. It placed him inside an ordered moment, like a well-oiled hinge in time and space, and made him feel important. ‘Doing things’ was what he was good at.
“Where are you?” Monty’s voice was calm, unhurried — that was good, at least. There could be no trouble if he wasn’t on edge.
“In some shitty pub down at Newcastle Quayside.” The sound of the revellers inside the building swelled, threatening to steal Monty’s response, but he pressed the mobile handset tight against his ear.
“Get your fat arse back here. I’ve had a phone call. We’re going to have some fun.”
He could imagine Monty’s face and over-gelled hair shining in the low light, and the way he would be leaning back in his chair, perhaps even fondling his crotch as he spoke, anticipating the night’s pleasures.
“I can be there in about half an hour. Who is it?” The crowd surged, dragging him sideways. He lost sight of the girl as a host of people spilled between them, moving in a clot towards the back of the narrow space.
“You know — that bitch from the other day. The Fraser woman. The one with the daughter. She’s decided to take us up on our offer. She wants to negotiate a deal, payment in kind.” His laughter spewed through the phone handset. It was a terrible sound, like the gurgling of a backed-up drain.
“Okay, I’ll just dump this slag and be right with you.” Her face came into view, over the shoulder of a thin black man in a sparkly shirt that made Boater want to reach out and slap him. She looked afraid, as if she knew what they had in mind for Lana Fraser. “In fact, I’ll probably be there even quicker than that.” He smiled, but somewhere inside he was aware of something tugging as it threatened to break: a small hand, tightening around his guts. The smile felt wrong, as if it had been manufactured. It didn’t quite fit his bloated face. “Just let me deal with this situation, and I’m gone.”
Static crawled along the connection, reaching for him. More small hands, but these ones made up of sound. Then, just as quickly, the static cleared. “Okay,” said Monty. “Don’t be late or we’ll get this show on the road without you.”
The line went dead but the words hung there, like objects suspended in the darkness of space.
Boater put away his mobile and finished his pint. Then he looked at the girl, wishing for a moment that he knew what to say, how to act like other people. He jerked his head, indicating that she should follow him, and then he set off for the main entrance, barging people out of his path.
“G’night, Boater,” said the tall, lean doorman who was lounging against the wall to his right. Boater couldn’t remember his name, but he might have sparred with him years ago.
Boater turned around, glared at him. A dull, uninspired rage moved through him, coiling like snakes. “What was that, fella?”
The man’s eyes flickered — whatever confrontation was brewing, he had already lost. That was all it took: a faltering glance, a tiny show of weakness. “Nothing… just saying goodnight, like.”
Boater squared up to him, straightening his back so that he reared to his full height and with his chest pushed outwards, narrowing the space between them. “No. What did you say, exactly? What were the exact words you just said to me?” He clenched his hands into fists; they were like steel, the joints between fingers sealed shut, welded with sweat.
“I… I just said ‘G’night, Boater’.” The man took a step back, his spine hitting the wall. That was another show of weakness, his second within the space of a minute; an unforgivable act of defeat that could not go unpunished.
“I’m
The doorman nodded, looking to his friends for assistance. He raised his hands, but they were open; he held out his palms, surrendering before the fight had even begun.
Boater didn’t even need to look over his shoulder to know that the other two doormen would not intervene. He was a known face; his violence was both feared and emulated all across the region. Nobody fucked with Francis Boater, not unless they wanted their face remade into a sculpture of flesh and bone and their family beaten like dogs. He didn’t know where to stop; violence was his fuel, his food. He lived to hurt, to cause pain. It had always been his way. That’s why Monty Bright had brought him in, trained him up, and trusted him with his life.
“That’s
It was over in seconds. Barely anyone had seen it happen, and those who did failed to understand what they had glimpsed: the raw, brute power of the blows, the finality of the knockout, and the strange compression of time and energy which resulted in Boater walking away the victor. He was always the victor; nobody he had ever met could even come close to besting him.
He left the building, trusting that the girl would follow. They always did. It never failed him, the allure of violence. Not with this type; not with a girl like this one, who always mistook savagery for heroism and confused a beating with a show of passion. He hated her; hated them all. These bitches, these bastards: these fucking empty shells tottering around with nothing on their minds but badly dyed hair.
“Where are we going, Fran?”
He was facing the thick black tongue of the River Tyne, watching people caper like cartoon characters on the other side, waiting in line to enter The Tuxedo Princess, the decommissioned car ferry that now served as a grotty floating nightclub. He refused to turn around, to look at her, but she insisted. Her hand clutched his arm, pulling at him, trying to get his attention.
He focused on the boat and the fact that it was soon to be sent to Greece, where it would probably be scrapped. He’d once worked the door there, pushing around scrawny students and estate kids, flexing his muscles to make the men shake and the women giggle. The end of an era; another local landmark stripped down, floated away, soon to be forgotten. He often felt like his world, his private northeast, was being slowly demolished, bit by bit, memory by memory. Soon there’d be nothing left of the life he’d once known.
Finally, with regret, he allowed himself to be turned.
“Where to now, then?” Her eyes glittered like the stars above them; the skin of her neck was flushed a deep shade of red; her cheeks trembled. She was aroused, she wanted him.
“Fuck off, pet. I have to go somewhere.” He breathed deeply, trying to get his rage under control. Even a random act of violence had failed to clear his system, to give him that fix of blood and thunder he seemed to need more and more often these days.
