their chops.
Dennis Hathaway looked at Reilly, his son and Charlie.
‘Right, we got some planning to do. Reilly, let’s go to your place.’
Hathaway was driving an Austin Healey these days. Charlie still preferred his motorbike but left it on the pier and took a lift with his friend. They didn’t speak at first.
Things had been strained between them ever since Dawn’s pregnancy. The day after Dawn had told Hathaway about Charlie, he’d gone to confront the drummer. He’d tracked him down in a coffee bar under the arches near the Palace Pier.
‘What the fuck have you been playing at?’ he said, standing over Charlie.
Charlie indicated the seat opposite him and blew into his coffee.
‘This is the cafe where Tony Mancini worked as a bouncer back in the thirties. The Trunk Murderer?’
‘I know who Tony Mancini was. What’s that got to do with you putting my sister up the duff?’
‘Sit down, Johnny, for God’s sake. You’re looking a right prat.’
Charlie saw Hathaway’s fists clench.
‘Johnny, think carefully about what you do next. If you start something, it won’t stop. You know that about me. I don’t stop.’
Hathaway had dragged Charlie off enough people to know that was true. He slumped down in the seat opposite Charlie.
‘I’m sorry about what happened with Dawn. It was just boy and girl stuff. I didn’t take advantage of her. I like her.’
‘So you’re going to marry her?’
‘Fuck sake, Johnny, I’m not the marrying kind.’
‘My dad expects you to marry her.’
‘Does he know it’s me?’
Hathaway shook his head.
‘Not yet.’
‘I think she should get rid of it,’ Charlie said.
Hathaway thrust his head forward.
‘You want my sister to go through an abortion? You scum.’
Charlie watched Hathaway’s expression.
‘I bet that’s what your dad wants too.’
‘What about what Dawn wants?’
‘Well, she can’t want me as a husband if she’s got any sense.’
Hathaway leaned back.
‘Well, she obviously hasn’t got any sense to be with you in the first place.’
They both looked at the table. Charlie blew on his coffee.
‘Did you do it just to spite me?’ Hathaway said.
Charlie looked puzzled.
‘Why would I want to spite you? We’re mates, aren’t we?’
Hathaway looked at him, then away.
‘Aren’t we?’
‘Yeah,’ Hathaway said. ‘Forget I said that.’
Under pressure from her father and Charlie, Dawn had the abortion in Hove. Hathaway took her to a posh house in a Regency terrace. The doctor was Egyptian and elderly. Dawn had seen Alfie and was terrified the abortion was going to be a coat-hanger job like in the film, but Dr Massiah’s rooms were spick and span. Despite his age, Massiah obviously knew what he was doing.
Dawn was living back at home now. She’d given up her secretarial course. She stayed at home most of the time, her mother fluttering around her. She wept a lot.
Hathaway looked across at Charlie as they drove along the seafront.
‘Dawn talking to you yet?’
Charlie shook his head.
‘Probably as well. Your dad would go apeshit again.’
Hathaway could never predict how his father was going to react to things. He’d given Charlie a beating – broke a couple of his ribs and two fingers – then had accepted him back as part of the gang as if nothing had happened. Charlie’s thing with Dawn was never mentioned again.
Reilly lived in Portslade on the top floor of a newly built block of flats. He had a five-room apartment with a wide balcony looking out to sea. They all sat on the balcony, a bottle of Irish whiskey and bottled beer on a table in front of them. Reilly had put a record on. Jazz.
Charlie gestured at the view.
‘Very nice, Mr Reilly. Very nice.’
‘Sean. Thanks, Charlie.’ A motorbike roared by on the road below and the sound of its engine ricocheted round the balcony. ‘Acoustics could be better.’
‘Who’s this playing trumpet?’ Hathaway said.
‘I don’t know but let me pay him to have some lessons,’ Dennis Hathaway said, his tumbler of whiskey clamped in his massive fist. ‘Jesus.’
‘Miles Davis. He’s playing modally, Dennis.’
‘That right? You and your highfalutin tastes, Sean.’
Reilly looked at the sun hanging above the horizon.
‘Whenever that sun goes down I think of King Arthur, wounded, heading off to Avalon. The Once and Future King.’
‘And whenever I think of Avalon and The Avalons,’ Hathaway said, ‘I think of your furniture.’
Reilly grinned.
‘Still a good name for a group.’
Hathaway looked from his father to Reilly.
‘How long have you two known each other?’
‘We were at school together. Brentfoot Primary and up through junior school. Then Sean’s family went back to Ireland and we went our separate ways.’
Dennis Hathaway reached over and lightly punched Reilly’s arm.
‘Sean here gave me a right walloping once. You wouldn’t have thought it to look it him but he was hard. Always been hard. That’s how he got in the commandos and I ended up as quartermaster.’
‘That’s cos I was stupid and you had brains,’ Reilly said to Dennis Hathaway. ‘That’s why I work for you, not the other way round.’ He saw Dennis Hathaway’s look and raised his hands. ‘OK, OK – I know we’re partners.’
‘Damn right.’
‘You were a commando?’ Charlie said.
Reilly nodded.
‘Where?’
‘Crete and other Greek islands. Normandy. Italy.’
‘Did you kill people?’ Charlie asked. Dennis Hathaway and Reilly both looked at him and he shifted in his seat.
‘That was the general idea,’ Reilly said.
Charlie looked at Dennis Hathaway.
‘Did you, Mr Hathaway?’
Dennis took a swig of his whiskey.
‘Only anybody who crossed me.’
He looked at the others.
‘We’ve got more legit business coming up. We’re investing in the future of this town. Moving the money that we’ve earned in the black economy into the mainstream.’
Charlie had an odd expression on his face.
‘Am I boring you, Charlie?’
