Tony Black - Loss

He snapped, ‘Keep your hands off me!’ He cuffed my arm away, puffed his chest. I smiled in his face. Had seen Clint do this in the Dirty Harry movies — someone wearing a grin before a pagger says I enjoy this shit, try me on for size.

He didn’t flinch: there was more to this guy than he let on.

I was ready to pound him into the bricks when, ‘Gus, Gus… Are you up there?’ It was Jayne.

Lodger man took a step to the side. He winced as he put weight on his bad leg, said, ‘Go please, you have no right to come into my room.’

‘Oh, no…’

His eyes blinked a spasm. ‘I can expect some privacy.’ He limped away from me, went to smooth over the duvet on the bed. He tugged out the edges, stood up and put his hands on his hips. Sweat glistened on his upper lip.

Jayne called again, ‘Gus?’

The lodger lifted a hand from his hip, indicated the door with his palm. I put one foot in front of the other, but kept a bead on him as I went. For a second I wondered if I had him all wrong, but I still had my suspicions. At the door I turned, said, ‘Pray I don’t take an interest in you.’

Jayne had climbed the stair, was waiting for me in the hall.

‘She’s quietened down.’

‘That’s good. Look, I know this must be a shock and you must have questions and…’

She looked back at the door I’d just walked through. ‘Were you talking to Vilem?’

I tried the name on. ‘Vilem…’ I looked back to the room — the door was closed now, ‘Yeah… Where was he last night?’

Jayne tugged nervously at her earlobe, playing with the little gold hoop in there. ‘He was here with us… He watched a movie downstairs with Alice.’

‘He was here all night?’

‘Yes, all night… Well, he was here when I was. I went out to my book group.’ Her eyes misted over as she remembered. She turned away from me and sucked in her lower lip. I could tell that she was replaying the last time she saw Michael.

‘I’m sorry… I don’t mean to…’

Jayne snapped, ‘Are you checking our alibis or something, Gus?’

‘I’m just… checking.’

I watched her closely for a change of tone, a tell; nothing came. ‘Vilem is a nice boy, he’s one of Michael’s new workers. He’s just here till he finds a flat. Michael was helping him out.’

I took her back a few steps. ‘New workers?’

‘After the lay-offs… Michael was…’ Her face drained of blood; she flattened her hair back with her hand. I watched her eyes follow the ghost of another memory.

I hadn’t heard about any lay-offs at my brother’s firm. He always prided himself on looking after folk, last of the great cradle-to-grave employers. I wanted to know more but couldn’t face the tears; knew this was the wrong time to press her. I said, ‘I’ll let you be, Jayne.’

She jerked back to me, rubbed at the outside of my arm, then hugged me. ‘Thanks for everything… I know you mean well. For Alice and me.’

I didn’t want to hear the words, they put ice in my belly — the thought of them on their own, without my brother, wounded me. I stood silently — nothing seemed the right thing to say, then some stored response began to play: ‘Jayne, if there’s anything you both need, or I can do…’

I didn’t have the words to make her feel any better. I was stood in my brother’s home, talking to his wife about his death when he had been with us less than twenty-four hours ago. It seemed like I’d started to inhabit someone else’s life.

‘Thank you,’ Jayne said. She looked wrecked, black circles forming beneath her eyes. ‘Oh God… Davie.’

Michael’s business partner Davie Prentice was a golf-club bore, what we refer to in Edinburgh as a cheese merchant. ‘I’ll go and see him: you need to know the lay of the land with the business.’

I walked to the stairs. I’d reached the bottom step before Jayne hollered to me, ‘Gus, please don’t give Davie a hard time.’

Her words sliced me like a rotor blade; was I carrying that much threat? I lied: ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

I felt punchy. Numb. I palmed off the job of telling Mam about Michael to my sister. Catherine would handle the task better, but it stung. I consoled myself that I wasn’t up to the job — it would have ended me and I needed to keep it together. Was struggling though, even drove home with Debs’s Katy Perry CD playing and didn’t bother to switch it off. The dog greeted me like a Ritalin-deprived six-year-old, jumping and clawing, diving all over the furniture to land a paw on me. He was a dog that I’d rescued, took the name ‘Usual’ from the regulars in a pub I ran for a while. Another failure of mine; something else to forget.

I shut Usual in the living room and hit the hay. I’d been up all night without any sleep. As my head hit the pillow the dog clawed at the door. I realised I didn’t actually want to be alone and got up to let him in. As I climbed back into bed Usual chanced his luck and jumped up. I allowed him to curl silently at my feet.

I felt tired. Damn-near exhausted. But sleep didn’t come. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to block out the light streaming in through the curtains.

Wasn’t happening.

I knew whatever I did next, none of it would sit well with Debs. After our divorce we’d went our separate ways but we’d patched things up now; there was something that pulled us back together. A bond? Shared history? We’d been through so much misery that maybe we just knew where to stack the ballast to keep each other afloat. My jaw tensed at the prospect of her reaction to me raking into my brother’s death.

A child in the flat upstairs started laughing. Sounded like it was trapped in the floorboards. It was all I could take.

Grabbed my mobi, dialled: ‘Y’right?’

‘Gus, lad, how’s it hanging?’

I didn’t need to soft-soap Mac the Knife. ‘My brother’s dead.’

He rasped, ‘Michael… dead?’

‘Killed. Plugged.’

‘What the fuck?’ His voice dropped. ‘Where are you?’

‘Home. I need some gear. Can you get me some speed or something?’

A pause.

‘Erm… is that a good idea?’

I sat up in bed, took a bit of a flier: ‘Don’t gimme good or bad idea here, mate, can you get me fixed up?’

Mac took the blast well. ‘Aye, sure. I’ll be round.’

‘Fine.’

I hung up.

There was a stack of folk I needed to see and Davie Prentice topped the list. If there was some trouble at my brother’s business, I needed to know. Shit, I needed to start somewhere. The factory seemed like the best place to turn up a motive. Fat Davie needed to face some harsh questioning.

I got out of bed and put on the shower. Got it burning hot; pushing up the steam, I crouched down and let the hot water burn into me for the best part of an hour.

When I came out, the dog was sat at the bathroom door, lying on the rug with his chops between his front paws. He looked up when I appeared.

‘You’re a smart animal,’ I said. He sensed the change in me; I felt it myself.

I hunted for some music, but nothing seemed right. The nearest I approached was Johnny Cash, toyed with it, put it in the player and cranked up the track I wanted to hear: ‘Hurt’, his Nine Inch Nails cover, but I couldn’t bring myself to press ‘play’.

Got dressed in a new pair of Gap jeans and a top from River Island that Debs had bought for me. They didn’t feel quite comfortable enough, like I was trying too hard for trendy. Still, she hadn’t quite succeeded in weaning me off my Docs yet.

I had the kettle brewing for coffee when Usual let rip with a burst of loud barking. Someone was on the stairs. The door went.