Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

She was silent. She began to say something then stopped.

I felt a pang of nausea. She was hiding something from me. I loved her and she was lying to me.

I said, ‘What did you mean when you said in your message that we needed to talk?’

She hesitated. ‘Well, we haven’t been seeing much of each other recently and I thought that, well, you know, we should meet.’

‘Well, I’ve been ready to meet for the last month. You’ve just never been around.’

Angela sighed. ‘I know, I know, it’s my fault.’

There was a pause. I said, ‘Look, never mind. Why don’t I meet you at your place tonight? I’ll cook some pasta and maybe you could get a bottle of wine. We’ll have an evening in, just the two of us.’

‘Darling, I can’t make it tonight. I’m going to some thing with clients. And then from tomorrow I’m away for three days.’

I was too hurt to say anything.

Angela said, ‘My darling, I’m so sorry. I was thinking that we might see each other on Monday.’

‘What, next week? That’s seven days away, for Christ’s sake. Are you saying that you can’t fit me in in the next seven days? Is that what you’re saying? Angela, what the hell is going on? Are you seeing somebody? Is that it?’

‘Don’t be like that, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve got an idea: why don’t we meet tomorrow lunchtime. I’ve got half an hour. We’ll have a sandwich at the gym. OK? Meet me there at one o’clock. OK? Johnny?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and I hung up abruptly. I waited for her to call back, but she didn’t.

Devonshire did, though, and as soon as I heard his voice I hung up.

I picked up my cigarettes and went out. I didn’t want to be around when he rang back again.

I decided to go to the police station, which was only a five-minute walk from the flat, to see what kind of a mess Steve had got himself into now. A worrying thought had occurred to me. Maybe it was Steve, finally pushed over the edge, who had smashed up the flat. Maybe Steve had hurt Rosie.

I spoke to the officer at the reception desk. ‘I’m looking for Stephen Manus,’ I said. ‘The name is Breeze. I live with him. He rang me from here.’

The policeman looked at his paper and scratched his goatee thoughtfully. ‘I’ll check,’ he said finally.

I waited standing up. Moments later a door opened and a group of bedraggled men emerged. They were, I saw, Rockport United supporters, almost certainly the ones who had rioted after the game. Judging by their sheepish demeanour, red eyes and dirty T-shirts, these men had spent a night and a day in the cells and their indocility was well and truly exhausted. I moved aside from the reception window as they obediently scribbled forms, their signatures ornate and unintelligible, like the signatures of children.

The receptionist returned. ‘We’ve tracked Mr. Manus down, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s helping us with our enquiries at the moment. You’ll have to wait a few minutes until his interview is over.’ He looked at the United fans, who had remained uncertainly in the lobby. ‘All right, lads, you can go home now.’ They trailed out. ‘What a bunch of losers,’ he said.

I sat down on a hard bench and lit a cigarette. Helping the police with their enquiries. Shit. Everybody knew what that meant.

‘Johnny.’

I looked up. From a door to my left, Steve had come in. A brown stitched-up gash ran diagonally from his eyebrow to his hairline.

‘Jesus, Steve, what’s happened? Are you all right?’

He took a cigarette from me. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Why are you here? What have you done?’

‘I haven’t done anything. I’m a witness,’ he said, pronouncing the word with solemn emphasis. Seeing my confusion, he began to speak quickly, grinning in his excitement. ‘I went out on Sunday evening to get some milk, right? So, anyway, I’m coming back and about twenty yards from home I see this bloke running out of one of the houses on the street, number 6 I think it was, and he’s carrying a hi-fi or something. I don’t know why, but I can tell immediately that he’s a burglar, so I approach him and, well, I jump on him just as he tries to get into his car.’ Steve tapped his cigarette. ‘I thought, you know, that I might, you know — make a citizen’s arrest.’

‘A citizen’s arrest?’

‘That’s right,’ Steve said. ‘Anyway, he hit me and I fell and knocked my head.’ Steve pointed at his head. ‘Then he legs it down the road and then, I don’t know why, I run after him.’

‘You ran ?’ I couldn’t imagine it.

‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘So, I catch up with the guy — don’t forget, he’s carrying his gear — and then’ — here he hooped his arms — ‘then I sort of tackle him.’ He took a drag of his cigarette. ‘So the two of us go down, and this bloke lands face-first on the hi-fi he’s carrying, and suddenly it’s like he’s really bleeding and lying there moaning.’ Meanwhile, I’m bleeding as well, and so there’s blood everywhere. Then before we can move, this police car arrives and picks him up.’

I shook my head. ‘Steve, what can I say? That’s amazing. To be honest, well, I never thought that …’ I abandoned the remark. ‘Fantastic,’ I said. ‘Well done. So, last night you were …’

‘In hospital. Because of this,’ he said, pointing at his scar. ‘Sixteen stitches. I should have rung, I know, but …’ He made an apologetic movement. ‘I suppose Rosie must have been worried?’

‘You could say that,’ I said, thinking of the flat.

At this point, a woman in a track suit who had been loitering within earshot for some time approached Steve and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying. I’m from the Rockport Crier. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?’

‘Well,’ Steve said, smiling coyly, ‘I’m not sure you’ll find it very interesting.’

The woman laughed. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it interesting,’ she said. She extracted a portable telephone from her handbag. ‘Do you mind if I call our photographer?’

Steve raised his eyebrows in excitement. ‘Wow,’ he said, ‘no.’

The reporter brought out a pocket tape-recorder and the man in my sister’s life told his story again. Shortly afterwards, the photographer arrived, and after a short conversation with the reporter it was decided to wrap a bandage around Steve’s head for dramatic effect. Steve did not mind. They lined him up outside the police station and photographed him standing there like a war hero.

That is how, the next day, a photograph of a smiling Steve, a tussock of hair sprouting above the head bandage, appeared in the Crier. There was an accompanying caption.

MAN OF THE MONTH. Have-a-go hero Steve Manus, 29, who on Sunday single-handedly grabbed a dangerous burglar in north Redrock. ‘It was nothing,’ Steve said last night from hospital. ‘Anyone else would have done the same.’ The Crier disagrees. Jobless Steve showed the kind of gallantry this city badly needs. That’s why we’re making him our Man of the Month. Well done, Steve!

The headline read, TO CATCH A THIEF.

The train groans and moves forward a few feet before stopping again. I throw my cigarette stub out of the window.

Headlines.

Here’s another one for the scrapbook: FREAK LIGHTNING KILLS WOMAN, 34.

She was wearing a pink track suit. She was running across the town square on the way to the gym. There was not so much as a drop falling from the sky.

I light up another cigarette. The train still isn’t going anywhere.

I read the piece about Steve on Tuesday morning, on my way to meeting Pa to accompany him to the municipal kennels. When I rang the doorbell of the house there was no response at all. I went around the house into the back garden and saw that, up on the first floor, the curtains of his bedroom were still drawn. He was in, it seemed, but for some reason he was not answering. I went in through the back door, using the key he hides under the third flowerpot in the shed.