The Last Card (6 page)

N
ina finished her last song for the night, an old one from the mid 90s – Des’ree’s ‘You Gotta Be’. Nina wasn’t a great fan of all that gospel stuff that came with Des’ree but you couldn’t argue with her voice: the woman could sing. And Nina had always found the lyrics uplifting. That’s why she always chose to make this the song that she performed at the end of the night – for all the women out there.

Nina took her bow and the applause from the sparse crowd was enthusiastic. With a gracious smile she left the stage and trod
delicately
over to the bar. She lifted the bottom of her dress so she could sit on one of the bar stools. As she sat down loud, pumping disco music started up. Nina turned to survey the room. The gracious smile she had beamed down to her audience at the end of her song was now replaced with a surly look. She glanced quickly at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Two small, vertical lines appeared in her otherwise smooth forehead, just above her eyebrows. They always appeared when Nina had this particular expression on her face and she always had this particular expression on her face when she was unhappy. Those two lines had become almost constant companions over the last month or so. When she first noticed them she tried to smooth them out by using one hand to pull the skin between her eyebrows to the left and the other hand pulling the skin to the right. It didn’t work. As soon as she stopped pulling the two small, vertical lines reappeared. This made her more surly. The lines became deeper. She had decided the only way to stop these two small, vertical lines appearing in her forehead was to stop wearing a surly
expression. She had to smile more. But now, as she forgot this
resolution
and wore the surly expression, she turned back to look round the room.

‘Every time, Nina. You bring tears to my eyes.’ Tony, the barman, was a nice guy. He was from Nigeria, very dark skinned, good body … and as camp as a Spanish bullfighter.

‘Bring tears to my eyes, Tony, and fix me the usual. A double, please.’ As she ordered her drink, White Alan, with Gavin following behind, made his way over.

‘It’s off tonight, Nina. I’ve got business, I’ve got to go home.’ White Alan often dispensed with the formalities of greetings these days. And if Nina had thought carefully about how this made her feel, she would have realised that this was one of the main reasons why she had two small, vertical lines furrowing the smooth, clear skin of her forehead.

‘But what about the party at Janine’s?’

‘I’ve got to work, I’ve …’

‘But I want to go to the party! It was her first night on stage tonight and, and …’ Nina lapsed into silence. The look Alan now gave her was encouragement to nothing less.

‘I’ll take you home.’ Now that he had silence from Nina and had told her of her new arrangements, he turned to Gavin.

‘What did Dunstan say when he rang?’

‘He said he had a problem with Paul; he wants to deliver directly to you this month.’

‘Coont!’ Alan’s expletive made Nina flinch. She knew tonight was not going to be a good one.

‘And what does Paul say?’ Alan continued.

‘He says it’s a local problem. He can handle it.’

Alan looked at Gavin as though he was the cunt and it was him who was saying he could handle it.

‘He can handle “it”? But he didn’t say what “it” was?’

‘No.’

‘Right! Ring him back and tell him his big brother wants to know what the foock is going on! I’m sick of this shit!’ Tony returned with Nina’s double Tanqueray and tonic. Alan swept it from the bar and took a big gulp. He spluttered into his hand and glared at Tony.

‘What the hell is this?’ Alan slammed the glass on to the bar. Tony
stepped forward and took it from Alan’s hand. He bent down smelling the remaining contents of the glass as though he, Tony, had not just poured the drink himself. Sixty seconds later, having smelt and
examined
the glass and its contents in minute detail, he looked nervously over at Alan.

‘Smells like, like gin and tonic to me.’

‘So why are you giving me a gin and tonic when you know I only drink dry Martinis?’

‘Er … I wasn’t, I wasn’t giving it to …’

‘Forget it! You’re fired! I can’t stand this foocking incompetence all around me! Foock off!’

‘What? Alan, I wasn’t, I didn’t …’

‘You’re fired! Go! Gone! You’re history!’ Without another word Tony turned and left the bar area. Nina stole a glance at Gavin. He caught the look but made a point of not holding it for more than one, maybe two nanoseconds.

Alan suddenly remembered something. ‘Give me two minutes, Nina.’ And he too left, round the side of the bar and back up the stairs. Nina watched him leave.

‘What’s his problem now?!’ She spat the words out as she looked up at Gavin. She didn’t like Gavin – he walked around as though he had a poker up his arse. The kind of pompous idiot who thought he was better than everybody else. She certainly couldn’t trust him, but the way she was feeling right this minute she had to let her feelings out to someone. Gavin paused before he spoke, weighing his words carefully.

‘You know what I think? I think he’s going through a mid-life crisis.’

‘So see a therapist!’

‘That’s not exactly his style.’

‘Can’t you make it his style? You’re his batman!’ As soon as she’d said it Nina knew she’d said too much, but Alan was making her feel more and more uneasy these days. She had no time for Gavin’s delicate sensibilities. Gavin looked at her coldly.

‘He has his own style.’ Nina waved to another barman, gesturing for him to fix her another drink. Gavin again paused before he
continued.
‘Alan carried out his threat.’

‘Oh, God, no!’ Nina’s hand flew to her mouth a look of horror on her face.

‘The night club owner? He …’ Gavin nodded. ‘Sweet, Jesus!’ Nina leant over the bar to where one of the barmen had left a packet of cigarettes. Fingers outstretched, she lifted one out. She put it in her mouth and tried to light it with a book of matches from the ashtray in front of her. Her hand shook so badly she couldn’t do it. Gavin carefully took the matches from her and lit the cigarette.

‘I thought you stopped smoking?’

‘I did.’

Gavin watched her inhale hungrily and then he continued. ‘It gets worse. Paul went cocaine crazy, then went AWOL. Or some other madness. Now there’s mutiny amongst the ranks; some kind of trouble happening back in Hackney.’ Nina looked at him without comprehension.

‘So?’

‘So I think it’s all getting too much for Alan. I think he might be looking for a way out.’

‘He could just leave, couldn’t he? He’s got enough money!’

‘Has he? How much is enough?’ Before Nina could even begin to answer that one Gavin spoke up again. ‘I think Alan’s looking for a big pay-day. I would be if I were him. And there’s too much stuff going on right now to walk away. Like the fact that the man that runs the new shebeen on Duck Lane, he wouldn’t pay up.’

Nina pulled hard on her cigarette. ‘Does he know who he’s up against?’

Gavin gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘I suspect not.’

Nina’s drink arrived, she took a big swallow. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling something very bad is going to happen.’ She said the words softly, without inflection, not expecting an answer from Gavin.

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ Her surprise at his response prompted her to go further than she probably should have.

‘I’ve got to get out of this scene, Gavin. I can feel it, something is very wrong here.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

Nina and White Alan made their exit from the club. They left Walker’s Court and turned right on to Brewer Street. Alan’s white
Rolls Royce was parked nearby. The casually dressed Jimmy, White Alan’s driver, spotted them, stepped out of the car and nipped round to the rear passenger door to let them into the veritable landscape of white of the Rolls Royce interior.

Nina ensconced herself on the back seat, as far away from White Alan as she could possibly squeeze herself.

‘Where to, Mr. Akers?’ Jimmy was one of a dying breed: a chirpy cockney, satisfied with his lot in life, with no desire to become a TV presenter or a singer or even an actor. As he looked in the rear view mirror, his eyes meeting Nina’s.

Nina turned away, peering out of the window, not looking at anything in particular. Alan had raped a man that evening – raped! It sent waves of horror and revulsion through her that she did not know how to begin to deal with. Why had he chosen this particularly violent way to teach the man a lesson?

As the Rolls Royce eased its way through the West End, all kinds of questions were circling in Nina’s mind. And as they circled ever more furiously, her body language became more and more distant. She squeezed herself further into the corner of the car. Alan looked across the snowy expanse of the back seat, eyeing Nina’s back.

‘Better make it Holland Park first, Jimmy, then up to Hampstead.’ Holland Park was where Nina lived. In a mews house rented by Alan. Alan lived in a sumptuous house in Hampstead village.

Nina stared fixedly out of her window. Every so often Alan turned to her, about to speak, but then thought better of it and turned away. To distract himself he removed a small canister of breath freshener, sprayed it twice into his mouth and then slipped it back in his pocket. While Nina maintained her frigid silence, Alan’s hand then took on a life of its own. It made its way across the back seat of the car and an errant finger tickled the edges of Nina’s coat. No response. The hand took this as encouragement and made its way round the coat and on to a thigh. The thigh flinched at the touch and the hand scurried hurriedly back from whence it came.

White Alan looked casually ahead of him. Nina again caught Jimmy’s eyes watching them via the rear view mirror. Jimmy quickly flicked his eyes back to the road ahead. White Alan now touched Nina’s arm.

‘Why don’t you stay with me tonight?’

‘I’m tired, Alan. I think … I’d rather go home.’

Nina had been hoping against hope that tonight of all nights, Alan would not ask her back to his place. They had been together for four and a half years. Early in their relationship Alan had had a live-in
girlfriend
, Zoe, and Nina had insisted that he had paid for Nina to have her own place in Holland Park. Now that Zoe was history Nina had continually resisted Alan’s attempts to have her move in with him. She did not intend to give up her independence lightly, small though it was. Tonight however, she knew that if she turned Alan down in a way that offended his masculinity, as a matter of principle he would insist that she return with him to Hampstead. Consequently, she had tried to add a note of disappointment to her refusal. Apparently, she hadn’t tried hard enough.

‘I thought you wanted to go to Janine’s party?’

‘That was earlier.’

‘So? What’s changed?’

Nina racked her brains to think of something that had changed. She could think of nothing. About to say anything and stall for time, Alan pre-empted her.

‘I tell you what Jimmy, why don’t you drive directly to my place.’

‘Right you are, Mr. Akers.’

And that was that. The Rolls pulled to the side of the road, did a three point turn and headed back the way it came.

W
ha Gwan watched as the slightly-built Indian girl entered the twenty-four-hour grocery store on the corner of the Uxbridge Road. The chill in the air reflected his mood. He hunched his
powerful
shoulders against the cold and sniffed loudly. His nose had been running since he had been sitting on the exposed bench in the middle of West London’s Shepherds Bush Green for some time. A line of snot trickled, untroubled, down on to his upper lip.

The bench was an oasis favoured by the neighbourhood drunks; three of them loitered nearby. If any of them felt brave enough to question the heavyset Wha Gwan about the temerity he had shown in usurping their position on the bench … they let it slide. The hurt on Wha Gwan’s face, the tension in those powerful shoulders, indeed the very set of his body as he eyed the three Indian people entering the grocery shop on the other side of the Green, told them that now was not the time to question his presence on the bench. Whatever was bothering the heavy-set young man in the full length, padded parka coat that loudly proclaimed its origins as New Jersey, it was a problem that he was best left alone to deal with. Full-time drunks tend to be more acquainted than most with the harsh realities of life and the glistening, brimming eyes with which the young man stared out at the world were no more than was to be expected. Were they not?

W
ith sweat running into his eyes and his arms beginning to feel like lead H took big, slow, methodical swings at the heavy bag. This wasn’t the way he usually worked. He usually used his time training with the heavy bag to work on his body movement, bobbing and weaving from the waist, aware of his footwork as he manoeuvred himself around the swinging bag. He usually gave it a jab, stepped to the left, the bag swung back, thwack! another jab, bend from the waist, to the left, to the right, thwack! two steps to the right, never crossing the legs, keeping his imaginary opponent off balance, never letting them predict your next move, thwack! thwack! a one-two combination, big step to the left, move your head, always presenting a moving target, thwack! big right hand. That was his usual routine. But not today. Today H took big, slow, methodical swings at the bag, pounding it, with all his strength, on every swing. Without his usual energy, without his usual bounce …

H had started the day with a row with Beverley. Days had been starting like this more and more often recently, but today’s row was different. Beverley had finally had enough of H’s gambling – that H had heard before – but this time she was saying she wanted out of their relationship. Beverley had threatened to move out and take Cyrus with her! H told her she was out of her mind. Despite the fact that they’d been together five and a half years, three years living together, she seemed not to be listening, she still didn’t seem to understand when he was serious and when he was jesting. He was certainly not jesting about Cyrus. If she wanted to move her black
arse out of his council flat that was her choice. But take his son with her? She was out of her fucking mind!

The argument had escalated almost to the point of violence. Not quite, because although H was a cruiser weight and came in at a chunky 188 pounds, Beverley was a woman you didn’t want to go down that road with. They both understood that. If violence were ever to flare seriously between them one of them was sure to be very
seriously
hurt and neither of them knew who it would be. Beverley had nails like a big cat, she was as stubborn as a mule and she had a memory like an elephant; she could probably remember every day of her 28 years. H had once seen her leave a scratch on the face of a woman who had wronged her and the scratch looked as though it had been made by a mountain cougar. No, fighting was not for them. But certainly the argument this morning had been heated.

As usual, while H slept, it was Beverley who had risen and prepared Cyrus for school. As usual. She then took him into school. As usual. What wasn’t usual was that instead of going straight to work she had returned home. Just as H was rising from his bed, scratching his balls and ambling casually into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. He was surprised to see her back at home and said as much. That’s when things became heated and nasty. It turned out that Beverley had come specifically to see him and talk.

At first H tried to laugh off the serious expression that Beverley wore, but once he could see that she meant business he felt his anger begin to rise. What really stirred him was that she didn’t immediately complain about his gambling, which is what he’d expected. They’d been over that course a thousand times before. At least this time H had five Gs, five big ones burning a hole in his pocket. No, this time Beverley came at him from a completely different angle. She attacked his boxing. She wanted to know how long he was going to put off doing real, honest work, to continue pursuing a dream in the boxing world that was long past its sell-by date.

Oh, shit!

His boxing was a taboo subject. It was accepted that this was his world, he knew what he was doing and Beverley should keep her
opinions
to herself. This morning that had all changed. Beverley attacked him about how his dream was ruining her dream, which was for the
three of them to be happy; H’s dream was ruining their lives. She seemed to think that H’s gambling was somehow linked to his boxing and that if he gave up his boxing dream then his desire to gamble would fall away. H was stunned. As far as he was aware he had never, ever expressed anything about a ‘dream’ to her! So why did she assume that he had a ‘dream’ that needed fulfilling as a boxer? But that wasn’t even the worst. Her next blow was her rabbit punch. It blindsided H completely. Beverley didn’t go to yoga on Thursday nights. She went secretly to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting.

What?

H considered himself a conscious man and a cool customer but at that moment he could happily have torn out a clump of the hair
Beverley
was so proud of. Instead he offered to box her face. Beverley stood up and said if he was a man let him try. After the silence that followed she told him that he was an ignorant ox, he didn’t know what he had with her and Cyrus, and he was killing her love for him.

Beverley claimed to know him better than he knew himself. She said that she could see he was trying somehow to redeem himself through boxing, but if he didn’t hurry up and do it he was going to throw his life away trying! But she, Beverley Angela Hyacinth Fredricks was not going to let him throw her life away. And Hell would freeze over before she let him deprive their son of the rights and opportunities he deserved. It was tough enough out there already. Cyrus should not have to grow up with a punch-drunk gambling addict for a father who was never there and never had nothing to offer no how!

H stepped back, reeling, when he heard all of this. His heart raced as he sat himself down at the cheap kitchen table. Was she asking him to choose between his family and his boxing? She told him to read her lips. That was precisely what she was asking.

And so H was now in the run-down gymnasium in South London where he had trained for over ten years, pounding Hell out of a heavy leather bag that looked older than he did, thinking about life. Around him, the gym with its peeling paintwork, its dust and its grime, was abuzz with activity. Ten other boxers trained hard at various stations; on speed bags, shadow boxing, skipping, floor work. At one end of the gym there was an elevated boxing ring. Two boxers sparred with each other while Nick, the man from Belfast who set up the gym
some twenty-four years earlier and who was now its gnarled trainer, watched from one corner. Six other boxers stood around the ropes.

The staccato, syncopated orchestration of the gym’s movement was held in place by the booming music system that pumped out the music and words of the American rapper, the late Notorious B.I.G.

The pounding, slapping, scuffling of leather throughout the gym mysteriously kept time to the music that dripped with the depraved violence of the deceased New York gangsta rapper.

H didn’t particularly like rap music, but the brutality of the lyrics and the beat somehow complimented his colleagues’ and his own pursuit of violence.

Matt, walked past H with a bundle of skipping ropes. Matt was Nick’s only son and at twenty-three was now training and managing fighters in his own right. He joined his father, standing outside the corner of the ring watching the two talented boxers, one in his early twenties, the other in his late teens. Both boxers were black – Sam and Blood – and both sparred stylishly with each other in their head guards. Blood, nineteen years old, was clearly the more talented; if he kept his rate of progress up, he would be destined for good things.

Nick watched the action with intense concentration, screaming his commands, He was old and grizzled now, wearing grey stubble and a sweat-stained T-shirt.

‘No punches to de head … I said no fuckin’ punches to de head! … Dat’s good, dat’s good … keep movin’, keep movin’ … slip dat jab, Sam, slip de fuckin’ jab! … for Chroist’s sake willya move your fuckin’ feet!..’

Nick looked over at the big clock on the wall with the red minute hand.

‘Roight, toime! Good work, Blood, you’re lookin’ good, son.’

Sam and Blood touched gloves. Sam climbed through the ropes and out of the ring, joining the others outside. Blood, meanwhile, prowled inside, staying loose. Nick looked around the gym.

‘So who’s next?’ Although he shouted this into the body of the gym his voice was drowned out by the gems delivered by the
notorious
one.

‘Oiy!’ Nick gave a shrill, piercing whistle. ‘Which one of you useless, fuckin’ toime wasters is next?!’

You can take the man out Belfast’s south side but can you ever take Belfast out of the man? H didn’t think so.

‘Turn dat fuckin’ rap music shite off!’ Nick’s face went beet root red and flecks of spittle flew from his mouth.

Benjamin, a lanky, white fighter from New Cross stepped quickly over to the battered old stereo sitting on a shelf on the wall and pressed ‘stop’. There was a sudden silence in the gym.

‘T’ank fuckin’ Chroist for de sound a soilence! Now which one a you brain dead, prickless excuses for proize foighters hasn’t yet been up here?’ Nick looked around at the open faces of the boxers below. ‘Have you all been in?’ Silence. People now began to go back to their work out, most of them already having been in the ring with Blood.

‘What about H?’ It was Matt. Nick looked over at H standing by the heavy bag, hands on hips, blowing hard.

‘D’you fancy a turn in the ring, H?’ Nick said it scornfully. H ambled slowly over and climbed up to the outside of the apron.

‘I thought you’d forgotten I was alive.’

‘I had!’

‘Come on, H, I need a good punch bag. You know’t I mean?!’ That was Blood. He smiled as he slammed his boxing gloves together and chewed on his gum-shield like a skittish horse. In the boxing fraternity Blood had just thrown out a challenge that couldn’t be ignored. Although H had at least fourteen pounds on Blood, he was also
thirteen
years older.

H nodded and climbed into the ring. He beckoned Matt to take the gum-shield from the back pocket of his shorts and slip it into his mouth. Nick looked at the big wall clock and watched the minute hand approaching the sixty second mark.

‘Your t’ree minutes are starting now.’ Nick looked over to Blood.
‘And dis is your last round Blood, so go to work.’

‘Head shots?’

‘Yep. Unload de lot.’

Matt climbed quickly back through the ropes to grab a headguard for H. Nick stayed his hand.

‘Leave it.’

Matt gave his father a surprised look but Nick shrugged it off.

‘He’s a big man, he can take it.’

H and Blood began to box, H circling, testing, exploratory jabs, moving, looking for an opening. Blood flew at him, two handed,
throwing
ones, twos, snorting loudly with each thrown punch. Fitter and faster than H, at the peak of condition in readiness for an upcoming fight, Blood pushed forward, peppering H from every angle as he bobbed and moved, jabbed and drove. At first H was able to contain him; holding his own, moving, staying out of trouble. But as he tired, ninety seconds into the round, one hundred seconds, H’s arms drooped. More and more of Blood’s shots connected.

H took a big one flush on the chin – bang! He staggered; his
technique
crumbled. He tried desperately to fend off Blood’s blows. Matt looked at the wall clock and winced. One hundred and twenty seconds had passed, sixty to go.

‘Take it easy, Blood!’ muttered Matt.

‘Don’t you fuckin’ dare!’ Nick screamed at his protégé. ‘You’ve got another minute.’

Other boxers were paying attention now, wincing with concern as H took another heavy blow to the head. He dropped to one knee. Blood stopped, looking to Nick.

‘What are you lookin’ at me for! You’ve got another t’irty seconds!’

Humiliated, H stayed down. He took two deep breaths. He passed a glove over his forehead to wipe the sweat from his eyes then rose. Straight into another cluster of blows. Blood was making it look good now, better than it was, dancing and posing. Blood was beating on H from all angles and like a man wading through mud, H vainly tried to defend himself. He was again knocked to the canvas.

With a satisfied look on his face Nick turned to the clock.

‘T’ree … two … one … toime. Good job, Blood, good work out,
son, you’re looking grand in dere.’ Blood helped a groggy H to his feet and then trotted over to Nick. Nick unstrapped his head guard. ‘You look as dough you’re about ready to me.’

In the changing room H slumped down on a bench, his back against the wall. Using his teeth, he took his time unlacing the gloves. Beverley. Blood. Jesus Christ, what a day.

H could hear his phone ringing from inside his locker. He didn’t care. As he sat, without making a move, the changing room door
clattered
open and Blood strode in carrying his T-shirt and gloves. H looked at his young body. It was ripped.

‘Hey, man, sorry about that out there. You know what Nick’s like, he gets carried away. He doesn’t mean anything.’

‘No problem.’ He said it but he didn’t mean it. It was a problem. Blood turned to one of the lockers and fiddled with the combination lock. H rose and slipped a small key from inside his sock and fitted it into the padlock on his own locker. His mobile was still ringing.

‘Who’re you fighting?’ asked H. Blood pulled out his wash bag. As he stripped off his shorts and trunks he turned to H with a grin.

‘Glen Patterson. Up in Sheffield, next Monday.’ He dropped to the bench to unlace his boots. Brand new Nikes. Glen Patterson was a seasoned pro fighting out of a gym in Wincobank, Sheffield, run by another displaced Irishman. His fighters were known for their
defensive
style and were notoriously difficult to beat.

‘Yeah, Patterson is ranked three in the division and he’s looking to get an easy win so he can make a charge for the top.’