Peter May - Runaway

Ricky expressed his feelings in a snort. ‘And we’re going to buy tickets with what?’

Dave laid his remaining cans carefully on the floor and stood up. With slightly unsteady fingers he pulled his shirt out of his trousers and rolled it up to his chest, revealing a thread-worn canvas money belt around his waist. He grinned. ‘Remember that? Saved us once, saved us again.’ Now he laughed at the look on Jack’s face. ‘What’s more amazing than the fact that I’ve still got the bloody thing is that I can get it roon my middle.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Aye, it’s called the alcohol diet. Keeps you skinny when you don’t eat.’ He paused. ‘How much have you got?’

‘Aboot a hundred quid.’

‘And when were you thinking of telling us?’

Dave raised his eyebrows indignantly. ‘I’m telling you noo, amn’t I?’

Half an hour later, the rumble of wheels on tarmac vibrated beneath them as their coach accelerated down the M1 towards what they would once have called the Big Smoke.

They sat again at the back of the bus. Dave had only one can of beer left, and Jack had been relieved to find that there was a toilet on-board. But for the moment, Dave was asleep, one side of his nose and mouth squashed up against the glass of the window, a tiny drool of saliva seeping from the near corner of his mouth.

Ricky sat beside his grandfather, his mood little improved. ‘So where are we going to sleep tonight?’

Jack shrugged. ‘No idea.’

Ricky sighed. ‘Great!’

Maurie’s clawlike old hand came between them from the seat behind, a slip of paper trembling in big-knuckled fingers. ‘Here,’ he said to Jack, urging him to take it. ‘Call this number.’

Jack unfolded the piece of paper and looked at the number. ‘Whose is it?’

Maurie managed the palest of smiles. ‘Who do you think, Jack?’

It was a moment or two before realization dawned, and Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’

Maurie nodded.

Jack handed the number to Ricky. ‘Call that number for me, Ricky, son.’

‘Who the hell is it you want me to talk to now?

But Jack shook his head. ‘Just dial the number. I’ll do the talking.’

It was evening by the time their bus pulled into Victoria Coach Station, and drew in alongside a long row of buses. Late sunlight slanted in through the pitched-glass roof, casting the shadow of the white-painted iron superstructure that supported it across the tarmac below.

Jack had watched the city unpacking itself before his eyes on the other side of his window. Tall buildings and narrow streets choked with traffic. Pavements jammed with folk on their way home from work. Tree-lined avenues in spring bloom, swallows dipping and diving through the waning sunlight that angled its way between apartment blocks and skyscrapers. And it brought back very vividly that day fifty years before when they had arrived by train at King’s Cross and stepped on to the streets of London for the very first time. And there was still an excitement in it.

They were last off the coach, Dave still woozy from beer and sleep. And Maurie, it seemed, losing strength by the minute. Jack and Ricky helped him down the steps to the concourse. It was only when he turned that Jack saw Luke standing there.

It was a strange, heart-stopping moment. He had not set eyes on his friend since the day they parted at Euston Station. There had been no contact between them over the years. No letters, no phone calls. Not really surprising, since neither knew the other’s address or telephone number. But, then, neither had made the effort to find out. They might each have died that day, and yet here they were half a century later staring at one another across all the years in between. And Jack knew that he would have recognized Luke anywhere.

He was still tall and lean and boyish. His shock of fair curly hair was now a shock of white curly hair, but just as abundant. His face was deeply creased by the scars of time, but his pale green eyes were just as full of life and gravity as they had been when he was a boy. He gazed at Jack with unglazed affection. And Jack stood looking at him, almost overpowered by the unexpected wave of emotion that broke over him. How extraordinary, he thought, that the feelings developed during those few short adolescent years should have survived all the decades that had passed since. He stepped forward to shake Luke’s hand, but at the last moment put his arms around him and hugged him instead, feeling the strength of the other man’s hug in return.

When they drew apart, Luke’s eyes were shining. ‘You haven’t changed, Jack.’

Jack laughed. ‘And you should have gone to Specsavers. Or are you too vain to wear glasses?’

Luke laughed. But the lines of fondness and affection that creased his face quickly turned to furrows of concern when he looked beyond Jack to the feeble, failing figure of Maurie Cohen. ‘Bloody hell!’ The oath was whispered under his breath.

Jack glanced back, then lowered his voice. ‘He hasn’t got long, Luke. Maybe only days. Weeks at the most. I didn’t even know he had your number or I’d have called you sooner.’ Then he turned towards the others. ‘What do you think, boys? It’s Peter Pan! How come we’re all old farts now and he hasn’t aged a day.’

Luke laughed then, and stepped up to shake Dave’s hand. ‘Still got trouble with your piles, Dave?’

‘Oh, aye, they’re murder, Luke. Hanging in bunches, noo.’

Then he took Maurie’s hand and held it between both of his. His smile faded as he gazed into Maurie’s drug-fogged eyes. ‘I didn’t know, Maurie. You should have told me.’

‘And you’d have done what? Waved a wand and made it all go away?’ He chuckled. ‘You didn’t need to know, Luke. But I’ll be pissed off if you’re not at my funeral.’ He placed his other hand over the back of Luke’s. ‘Need your help before I die, though. We all do.’

‘Anything,’ Luke said. ‘All you have to do is ask. You know that.’

Then, almost as if for the first time, he noticed Ricky, who was hovering awkwardly in the background, as discreetly as his weight would allow.

‘My grandson,’ Jack said. ‘Rick. Sorry. Ricky. Don’t ever let on I told you, but I’m proud as hell of him.’ And he was embarrassed to meet the look of surprise that Ricky turned in his direction.

Luke shook his hand. ‘Then I’m honoured to meet you, Ricky.’ He nodded back over his shoulder. ‘My car’s parked outside. I was going to take you straight back to my place, but you look like you could do with a decent meal. And I know just the place.’

The Merchants Tavern was just off Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, in a narrow alley of shops and pubs and restaurants beneath yellow-and-red-brick apartments that leaned overhead and seemed to close it off from the darkening sky.

The restaurant itself was in a converted workshop with skylights and exposed ducting, but it had been expensively remodelled with polished mahogany and green leather. Luke had phoned ahead to book a table.

When they were seated, Luke said, ‘The chef’s a young Scottish lad. Cut his teeth in France under one of the world’s top chefs. Opened this place a year or so ago. Fantastic food. Can’t be long before he gets himself a Michelin star or two.’

That Luke was in his element here was evident to the others, and it had the effect of making them feel distinctly uncomfortable. Where he was clearly accustomed to fine dining in expensive restaurants, Dave or Jack were more used to Chinese or Indian carry-outs, or pizzas at Dino’s. There was a time, perhaps, when Maurie might not have felt like such a fish out of water. But his days of good living had all preceded his eighteen months in Barlinnie. And life had never been the same again.