John Harvey - Easy Meat

He was building a sandwich, waiting for the kettle to boil. Four slices of fresh garlic salami overlapping across rye bread, a pickled cucumber sliced narrowly along its length, goat cheese that he crumbled between his fingers, a single, thinly cut shallot; finally, the second slice of bread he drizzled with extra virgin olive oil before setting it on top and pressing the sandwich closed, encouraging some of the oil to seep down before he sliced the whole thing in two.

Tinker, tailor, mother-in-law, wife. Slowly, he poured boiling water onto coffee grounds. He had not heard from his ex-wife Elaine since two Christmases ago, not seen her in twice as long. He knew that she had remarried, redivorced, seen the inside of more than one psychiatric ward. When he had seen her it had been like meeting a stranger, someone who had lived for a long time in another country and spoke a language he didn’t understand.

“ Are we having a row? ”

“ No, it’s a discussion. ”

Rather than wait until the lift doors closed across her face, he had walked away.

When the phone rang, it made him jump.

“Charles, I am surprised to find you in.” Marian Witczak’s voice, tinged with the accent of a homeland in which she had not been born, which she had not visited until her teens. “I was wondering, Charles, about the dance. This weekend, you remember? 1 wonder if you have made up your mind?”

“Marian, I’m not sure.”

He could feel her disappointment as eloquently as words.

“It’s difficult, Marian, you know that. To promise. I never know what’s going to crop up.”

“All work and no play, Charles, you know what they say?”

“Look, I’ll try, that’s all I can do.”

“You remember, Charles, that time we persuaded the accordion player to forsake his polkas for ‘Blue Suede Shoes’? Well, it is the same band again.”

“Marian, I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll be in touch, all right? I’ll let you know.”

He ate one half of the sandwich standing near the stove, the other sitting in the front room, listening to Frank Morgan play “Mood Indigo,” the wind curling the rain against the tall panes.

Norma sat up suddenly and opened her eyes. Rosa had been home to sort out the youngest of her own kids and then returned. They had eaten Birds Eye lasagna and chips and drunk two cans of Kestrel, got through the Lord knew how many cigarettes. Norma had slept. “Nicky’s dad!” she shouted, waking. “Peter. How’m I ever going to get in touch with Nicky’s dad?”

Sheena had an address, written on a sheet of torn paper, in pencil that was beginning to smudge and fade.

“How long’ve you had this? How long?”

“On my birthday,” Sheena said, “when I was fourteen. It was tucked inside the card.”

Norma rubbed her eyes. Peterborough. “No saying he’s still there now, he could be anywhere.”

“You’ll let him know, my dad?”

“Here,” Norma pushed the paper back towards her. “You let him know. You’re the one he give his address to.”

Hannah sat in the chair near the upstairs window, a sweater round her shoulders to foil the draughts. Curtains still open, she could see the rain silvering past the street lights outside, before it was lost against the blackness of the small park facing where she lived. The mug which had held her peppermint tea lay cold in her lap. She was reading a collection of new poems she’d picked up in Mushroom, the soundtrack for The Piano playing in the background.

As though a man is no more than fear and fire for a woman to feed and carry like a torch. As though a woman is no more than light at the end of a long and hard tunnel. As though my sweet life needs it. As though ache could be enough to smooth the edges of a desperate day.

How different would her life be if she had married, had a child? The same issues, tugging at her beneath the tide of her life. She had her own house, a job-a good job, one most days she valued, and which she thought of as in some small way doing good. Her Visa bill was paid up at the end of each month, her mortgage was manageable, she went abroad three times a year, enjoyed the company of friends. If she saw a new book or CD she fancied she could buy it without too much thought. Aside from those children she taught, the only person she was feeding and caring for was herself.

Her choice.

Why, then, did she feel as empty as the china mug she cradled in her lap, as pale and cold?

Shane walked up to Peter Turvey in the main bar of Turvey’s local and head-butted him in the face. “You, you bastard! You fucking slime!” Blood was running down Turvey’s forehead into his eyes, half-blinding him. “You’re paying for what you fucking did.” Shane brought his fist back level with his shoulder and punched Turvey in the face, breaking his nose. Shane’s own shirt was ripe with blood and snot. “Here!” As Turvey sank to the floor, Shane brought his knee up hard and broke his nose a second time. It had been Pete Turvey and his brothers who had hurled a fire bomb from their car into Nicky Snape’s path, though it was never proved. Shane caught hold of Turvey’s shirt and hauled him off the ground.

“For pity’s sake,” called someone, “leave the poor bastard be. You’ll kill him, sure is that what you want?”

Shane let Turvey go and the back of his victim’s head collided with the bar; then he walked ten feet away, swiveled back, and kicked out at Turvey’s chest, burying the toe of his boot in Turvey’s gut.

“For Christ’s sake,” came the same voice, “call the law, why don’t you?”

Shane slapped two pound coins on the table and ordered a pint of best.

He had it almost finished when the door spun open and Turvey’s two brothers arrived. They had others with them: Gorman, who toured around with the fairs, taking on all comers in the boxing tent; Frankie and Edgar Droy, and Carl Howard, who had served an extra eighteen months in Lincoln for assaulting one of the screws with a bucket, causing him to need twenty-one stitches in his head.

This was what Shane wanted, to be lost in this. They started on him there, inside the bar, beside Pete Turvey moaning over his twice-broken nose and broken ribs. They hauled him off into the urinal, Shane hardly even bothering to fight back now, almost unable to raise his hands. Finally, they dragged him out into the street and left his body slewed across the road, only the sound of police sirens saving Shane from more of a beating.

While a young uniformed officer talked to the landlord, who had seen nothing-maybe a little scuffle, nothing to write down in his little book-Shane was in an ambulance, heading for Queen’s. More than an hour later he would be in the cubicle next to Pete Turvey, waiting for the same doctor to examine their injuries.

It was a bad sign, Resnick knew, when he played Monk last thing at night, the pianist’s fractured attempts at melody obeying no logic but their own. A big man, as Resnick was big, Monk’s fingers stabbed down at single notes, crushed chords into the beauty of an abstract painting, twisted scaffolding seen in a certain light.

Almost an hour ago, certain it would not be there, Resnick had checked through the phone book and found Hannah’s number, written it, for want of somewhere else, in biro on the back of his hand. Now he stared at it from moment to moment, sitting near the phone. One of the cats jumped onto his lap and he shooed him off as “Solitude” came to an end. He pointed the remote control and set it off again.

As though a woman is no more than light at the end of a long and hard tunnel. As though my sweet life needs it.

Wetting his thumb, he rubbed the numbers from his skin.

While this was happening, Norma Snape lay in the dark of her room and when she slept she cried and then when she woke she cried some more.