Кен Бруен - A Fifth of Bruen - Early Fiction of Ken Bruen

“I’m a no frills man,

I tell it as it is lad,

Yorkshire pud and two veg, that’s yer staple,

Canno go wrong then lad.”

If you misplaced your current “Stan” model, they’d slip you a new Stan by return, and you’d never tell the difference.

In the years when Stephen cared, he’d once asked him, “Don’t you ever get excited, Stan? I mean, are you ever, ‘Really starving,’ could you really wallop in a few a cold ones...?”

Stan said,

“Moderation in all things, lad.”

Yes, yea.

Stephen had searched through literature to find the meaning... if not of life, then perhaps... Stan. In Henry James, he’d read,

“I never read a good English novel without

drawing a long breath of relief that we are not part

and parcel of that dark, dense, British social fabric.”

Ironically, Henry James had said to his brother,

“I revolt from their dreary deathly want of intellectual

grace, moral spontaneity.”

Stephen made coffee. A mug of black, strong instant. He put in two sugars and racked his mind as to what might give coherence to his thoughts. Anything, rather than the thought that he’d never say anything to Martin again.

Jim had introduced him to Schopenhauer and he searched the bookcase for him. Behind his Ruth Rendell’s, yea... still there.

He took a large gulp of coffee... felt it burn his tongue, and exclaimed,

“Jaysus, that’s sweet... I’m giving up sugar, but not today.”

He read aloud in the hope that volume would bring clarification.

“Suicide was thought as one of the options open.

It wasn’t.

It was the end of all options.”

Stephen was nodding his head and gulping coffee.

“Yea, O.K.... Schopy... I’m with you so far...”

“Suicide may be regarded as an experiment. A question which man puts to nature trying to force her to an answer. It is a clumsy experiment to make, for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. While we live, there is always the possibility, the certainty of change.”

He read the last lines louder, several times. Then he made more coffee, powdered heaped spoons of sugar, said,

“Mother gives the lie to them lines.”

He was about to put the book down when a few lines caught his eye,

“Hello...? I don’t remember this bit.”

“When a man has reached a condition in which he believed that a thing must happen, when he does not wish it. And that which he wishes to happen can never be. This is really the state called desperation.”

“Now you’re fucking talking,” he roared, drained the coffee and got washed and dressed.

He caught the Northern line to Clapham, the Morden train.

The carriage was empty save for one old black man who appeared to have silver tips on his shoes. As soon as the doors closed, he got up and began to tap dance... tap, tap, tap, tap.

Stephen shouted,

“Hey... Hey, cut that out!”

... tap tap tap, tap.

And the man said, without looking at Stephen,

“What’s it to do with you Man? Ain’t hurting you... why I should heed wotcha say, Man.”

Stephen stood.

... tap tap tap tap.

“Cos if you don’t, I’ll fuckin tap dance all over yer head.”

The man sat.

An uneasy silence followed.

When Stephen got off at Clapham South, he looked back at the carriage. The man was dancing and he had his middle finger rigid in the air. Stephen suppressed a grim smile.

Stephen felt the cold December night pinch at his cheeks. He turned at the Rose and Crown after Clapham Common. The pub seemed full of pre Christmas warmth. “Come in,” it beckoned.

He moved on to his Mother’s house. She had an intercom recently installed. He ignored that and went down a quiet street at the back of her building and looked up. Her small balcony threw light invitingly.

“As if a person of welcome lived there,” he said.

A quick flick of the back door, and he was in.

She threw open the door.

“What kept you?”

This evening she was sporting what the mail order ads call “A soft velour leisure suit,” in a dashing pink. Her hair was now jet black with a flash of silver. Cigarette smoke caressed her.

“Christ, Mother, you’re in the pink.”

He moved to open the doors to the balcony as the smell of nicotine was ferocious. A tray of drink was perched on a small table.

“I will, thank you Mother,” and he poured a large gin. Mrs. Beck faced him.

“Nina is in Khartoum, and Suzy... and Suzy is in the care of a man named André in Paris.”

“What... Good God, how do you know that?”

“I hired a private detective, a friend of Stan’s... it’s my Christmas present to you.”

“What, you’re giving me a detective... sure beats socks and aftershave.”

“Really, Stephen, don’t be facetious... I should think you’d thank your Mama. All my boys are so unfeeling.”

“Two, Mother, you have two. Did you get a detective for Martin, he’d like one.”

“Plu... eeze... don’t mention that boy, there’s no talking to him.”

“Ain’t that the truth, no never, no more.”

Mrs. Beck moved to pour a drink. Crème de Menthe — she was visibly angry.

“Don’t you care that that... whore has left the child with some whore-master in Paris?”

“Don’t call her that!”

“Oh I’m sorry Steve-o, how shall I put it... your wife is, ‘a care worker’ with the deprived of Sudan. She’s staying at a place called... the Acropolis Hotel. What are you going to do?”

Stephen drained the gin and walked out to the balcony. He didn’t know.

“I dunno.”

Mrs. Beck marched up behind him and said,

“When she was in the hospital, I took one look at the baby and knew you weren’t the father. She had the nerve to call me a... a walking disease... me!”

Stephen felt as if a knife was slow twisting in his stomach. An urge to throw up was near over-powering.

“Do you hear me, Stephen... do you hear what I said... she foisted some man’s bastard on you.”

Stephen turned, his left hand grabbed the top of her suit, the right gripped her hip. He moved one step, two, like the old waltz, then hoist...

hold...

... said, “fuck you B.B.”

and flung her over the balcony.

She never cried out. A sound like a sack of spuds hitting the ground reached him. He stepped back into the room. Took his glass, rinsed, dried and put it on the tray. The gin, Crème de Menthe he uncapped and poured down the toilet. As he did, he saw a packet on the bath. It read,

“Midnight Black Hair Colour.”

The Crème de Menthe bottle he left on the floor, the gin he stood on the balcony edge, looked at his watch.

8:10

Stan would come at 9 on the dot and use his key. Stephen let himself out and didn’t meet anybody. By 8:40, he was getting off the train at the Oval... he headed for The Cricketers.

The barman had a name tag. “Jeff.” Long, thin and bald. He spotted Stephen instantly as the unacknowledged fellowship of baldness dictates. Tighter than Masons. Stephen took a vacant stool and said,

“Yo Jeff, a large gin and Crème de Menthe.”

“Not in the same glass, I trust.”

“Good old London town, everyone’s a comedian, a touch of ‘dancing on the Titanic ,’ eh. No... the Crème de Menthe is for my old Mum, a pre-dinner aperitif.”

“Her birthday, is it?”

“Yea... she’s going over the top tonight. Give us a shout when she comes in... can’t miss her, she’s got jet black hair with a silver streak!”

“Bit of a girl, is she then?”

“Oh, she’s a one, all right, have something yourself.” Jeff set the glasses on the bar. Stephen took a hefty belt... and muttered,