During the winter since I had come to the city, I had seen it done. Stumps and fragments of teeth spat out in sprays of blood from between burst flesh and then a gush of vomit.
I heard the suck of his breath as if he was drawing up liquid through a straw and then his head came at me like a bullet. I had no chance to get out of the way. It happened too fast for me to move and I would feel it, see my own blood, hear the blurt of teeth and sour liquid vomited out; and in the same second Davie’s head struck the flat palm of Primo’s hand held before me. There was no give in it at all. Davie seemed to be stunned. As for me, I was in shock.
Minutes later we were reorganised and heaving at the brute wardrobe. If there was a knack, Andy must have had it. Or maybe it was the only way out we had left ourselves – to get that monstrous burden down. Primo and I took the front for the awkward turn of the stair. Again the weight crushing down put everything out of my head except the pride that wouldn’t admit it was too much for me.
My mouth stretched wide, a yell of protest in silence.
‘Steady as you go . . .’ Andy’s voice sounded extraordinarily controlled. ‘Together . . . Let her come.’
I watched it come and it dipped down at me. It was like Davie’s greasy skull, inevitable. I tried to hold it but it tipped and I watched it go down on my foot. The pain was white like going into ice. I fell on one knee, twisted half under the weight. I was held between the wood and the worn stone. I was helpless against every particle of the weight. A mountain of wood moved and leaned out over me.
I knew I was going to die.
At a distance Andy was shouting and then Primo made an animal noise and his arm came round above me. Against nature, the mountain rose. I fell away to one side, crouched tight against the bannister like a child refusing to be born, and the great side hurtled down before me endlessly.
There was an avalanching uproar and when I could look everything was smashed and the wall sliced with crazy gaps as if it had been bombed.
Into the silence like reverence Andy said, ‘Christ! What a disaster!’
Primo was pressed against the wall. I could see the thick cords of his neck black and swollen. He was staring up at them.
‘You were pushing,’ he said not loudly. ‘I wasn’t just holding that weight – I was taking you pushing it down on me.’
God help Andy! I thought; but it was Davie who whimpered and started to back up the steps. He did not get far. I had never seen a man being punched in that way – professionally, even after he was unconscious and falling.
‘Can you walk?’
Before I could answer, he picked me up. Above us Mr Morrison squealed like an old nanny goat and Andy shouted about Police, police, and more faintly bloody maniac and as we wound down the old stairs I felt the calm thunder of his heart.
‘In you go!’
As I slumped in the seat, deciding I wouldn’t go unconscious after all, the ramp door slammed up and then there was the noise of bolts going in with an iron, final chunk! chunk!
Primo came in at the driver’s side. Without paying any attention to me, he started her up and we pulled away – another job done: satisfaction our motto. I was too big to cry so I giggled, but that didn’t sound too good either so I sat and watched the dogs foul the pavements.
‘Foot bad?’ Primo asked.
When I put my leg up on the bench seat, I was astonished.
‘Bloody hell!’ I said. ‘The toe of the shoe’s squeezed in.’
‘Shoe? It’s your foot being squeezed in you should be worried about.’
I unpicked the laces and eased my foot out. When I felt inside, there was a gap left under the steel toecap: not much but I sweated to think how lucky I’d been.
‘I had them from my father. They’re – like factory shoes. I nearly didn’t wear them. It’s just that I’ve only got one other pair and I wanted them kept decent. I nearly wore an old pair of trainers.’
I was babbling. The thought of what might have happened kept down the pain of what had.
The van stopped.
‘I thought we were going back to the yard,’ I said.
‘Why?’
It was a good question. I couldn’t imagine our welcome back, not once Mr Morrison contacted them.
‘Well, we’ve a vanload of furniture. The old guy’ll go crazy.’
Without answering, Primo got out of the van. He left his door swung open and the keys dangling from the ignition. I scrambled out, wincing, but could not refrain from closing the door on my side. As he walked away from the van, I followed him, not wanting to be left with the responsibility for the load. It was a bad street; but although it reminded me of the one Andy collected Primo from every morning – hundred year old tenements, gouged and broken down, smelling of piss and rotted wood – I was sure I had never been here before. He led the way into what seemed to be an alley between streets, but it took us into an enclosed space. The black stone backs of the tenements reared up like the boundaries of a prison yard. I followed him as he began to cross to the other side. There were iron railings that should have separated the back courts but they were partially destroyed. In the middle there was a cluster of brick wash-houses and near them we waded through rubbish spilled and scattered from bins set in alcoves at their sides. A thin boy about five with bright red hair stretched down by his hands from the edge of a wash-house roof as if trying to find the courage to let go. Suddenly, convulsing out from the wall, he fell and rolled from us, his feet scrabbling among the rubbish. Despite the windows open for the heat, it was quiet. I could make out the words as a woman somewhere above started to scold. In a thin wail like a knife edge she made a weapon of her misery.
Primo swung round to me. The broad face with the splayed nose was thrust into mine.
‘Sometimes you’re ordered to do a thing,’ he said, ‘and it doesn’t matter if it sticks in your craw. You’re a soldier. You can’t plan the battle.’ He glared round. ‘I don’t know how to get rid of all this shit.’
I hadn’t realised he could be angry. Even when he had been punching Davie to the ground, it had seemed more like an execution than something done in anger. It came out of him like something you could touch, but it wasn’t aimed at me.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘but remember I didn’t ask you to follow me.’
I didn’t feel like arguing with him. We crossed at an angle and went side by side into a rear close entry. After the sunlight it was very dark. I limped up the stair after Primo. Old man Morrison’s close had been several cuts of respectability above this. There the walls had been tiled; here it was dull maroon paint and whitewash peeling from shoulder height. On the first landing it was too dark to read the names on the brass nameplates. The sash window on the half landing was boarded up apart from a slot of light where a plank had been torn away. When I peered up the stair, I couldn’t see him though I had the impression he was there.
‘That you, Primo?’
My voice sounded thin and young. I took a breath and deepened it.
‘Anybody there?’
He was hunkered down between the doors like a bull in a June heatwave. The doors looked like the others I’d passed coming up, only instead of a brass nameplate or a clan tartan one in plastic from Woolworth’s, each of these, one on either side of the landing, had a white card pinned in the middle of the upper panel. The one beside me had the word ANDERS printed on it like a business card.
‘Is this where you live?’ I asked.
I did not know his real name but only the joke nickname the driver Andy had given him out of malice.
‘I don’t live anywhere any more,’ he said.
As he stood up, I backed down a step. He reached out and prised the white cardboard nameplate from the door. He held it out to me and I snatched it from him because I was afraid he would grab my hand. I had seen people pulled into a punch that way. I kept backing down one step at a time.