It seemed to work. Mr Bristow made his way to the pond to feed his fish, allowing Danny to make his excuses and escape.
Grabbing his coat, he thought about Wendy: her glowing beauty, her beloved bump, how she would be the mother of his child. The image strengthened his resolve as he made his way to the Live and Let Live.
Lenny was already at the pub, sitting in his usual seat and sipping his usual drink. “So how’s married life treating you then?” he asked.
“Well, I’m still married,” Danny replied.
“You keep it like that.”
Albert was as usual serving behind the bar and keeping an eye out for any trouble. Not that there was ever any trouble, probably due to Albert’s reputation.
Danny looked around. Nothing had really changed from the first moment he’d walked in here, when Lenny had bought Wendy a drink as they were underage all those years ago. He’d been nervous and apprehensive then, but now the pub felt safe, secure, like a second home. With everything in his life changing and feeling so different, it made Danny feel good that the Live and Let Live stood unchanged and constant.
“What’s it gonna be?” said Albert as Danny leaned on the bar.
“No, I’m all right,” Danny said. “I just came to confirm that meeting thing with Cohen and Costa. It’s tomorrow at three at their office, is that gonna be OK?”
Albert took the address that Danny had written on a piece of paper. “Still sure you want me come?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” said Danny. “You and Patsy.”
“And they’re all right with it, are they? Cohen and Costa?”
“Yeah, looking forward to it,” Danny surmised.
Albert sighed. “Right. I’ll tell Patsy when he comes in.”
Leaving the pub, Danny couldn’t help feeling as if he had lit the blue touch paper and fireworks could erupt. He walked the damp streets for half an hour, thinking everything through. Then, instead of going back to the Bristows’, he made his way to Rosie’s house.
It felt good to walk the streets he’d walked as a child, looking for sense memories that would make him feel more secure. He passed the alleyway where he’d had his first kiss, a kiss from a buxom girl the kids called Titsalina: an innocent secret he had kept from Wendy, just in case. As he walked past Old Nosy Parker’s house, the net curtains twitched. “Nosy” hated children, Danny remembered. He’d once kicked a football through Nosy’s back window: a powerful shot, but off target. He’d never got the ball back.
The old house still felt like home. It was empty and quiet today, except for a radio Rosie always kept on to deter would-be burglars. Not that there was much to take.
Danny climbed the stairs to his room and the red and silver tin box. Opening it up as he had done so many times, feeling the cold medals in his hands, he searched for an answer to what might be a difficult choice tomorrow: a choice between prospects and loyalty.
As he looked at his father’s yellowing army photograph, the doubts settled in his mind. The photograph radiated loyalty. Loyalty to comrades, King and country. He would be loyal to Albert and Patsy, come what may.
“Thanks Dad,” he said, before closing the box and putting it back under his bed.
Feeling clearer, Danny left a quick note for Rosie saying he had popped in and he was sorry he’d missed her. It wasn’t completely true. In a way, he was relieved to be given some time alone with his father’s memory to think things through.
He thought about taking the box over with some other things he had taken to the Bristows’, but decided for the time being to leave the box in the bedroom where he’d grown up. Almost as a shrine to his childhood.
As he was walking back to Wendy’s, a gleaming Austin Cambridge pulled up and the window wound down.
“You want a lift?” asked Lenny.
“Nice motor, Lenny,” said Danny. “Does the owner know you’re taking it for a spin?”
“Doing a test drive,” Lenny replied, tapping his nose. “Drop you off at the top of Wendy’s road?”
The Austin Cambridge was an old car, but elegant, with a smell of leather and petrol inside. It went at a fair lick, and pretty soon, they were at Danny’s drop-off.
“So, big day tomorrow, champ,” said Lenny as Danny got out of the car. “The meeting and all that.”
For the first time Danny felt like he didn’t have to avoid the question. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, Albert and Patsy are gonna hit the big time.”
“Hey now, don’t forget your cheerleader here!”
“Never,” confirmed Danny.
And with a thumbs up, Lenny drove off.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ON his morning run, Danny often liked to go down by the River Lee, away from the traffic and away from people or, some days, to Albert’s park. Today it seemed better to do the river run. He would be seeing Albert later at the meeting, and he wasn’t totally confident he could answer any tricky questions posed by Albert beforehand.
But Danny was optimistic. Things would work out.
Back at the Bristows’, the family had gone to work. Danny ran a bath and sank into the water. There is something about taking a bath that allows you to mull things over, think things through. Lately, Danny had been doing his fair share of thinking through. Relaxing, he looked at the fish and sea shells on the bathroom wallpaper and felt the warmth of the water wash away his troubles.
As he climbed out of the bath, he couldn’t help drawing a smiley face on the misty bathroom mirror. Most men have a little boy inside them just wanting to break through, and Danny was no different.
Wendy had ironed her favourite Danny shirt for the meeting. It wasn’t Danny’s favourite, but as fashion wasn’t really his thing, he thought it best to go along with Wendy’s opinion. The blue suit was hanging up, waiting for him. Although he felt much more relaxed in a tracksuit than a lounge suit, Danny made the effort to make an effort. Not quite looking like himself, but looking reasonably smart, he was ready to go.
He was giving his shoes a bit of a shine on the back of his trouser legs when he heard a key in the door.
“Just back for lunch and checking you’re looking respectable,” said Wendy, kissing him on the cheek. “Let’s have a look then. Remember they said the local press might be there.”
Danny, feeling like a small boy getting ready for school, stood still, arms by his side, as the inspection commenced.
“Where’s the tie Dad lent you?”
“Do I have to?” said Danny, now definitely feeling about six years old.
Ignoring him, Wendy fetched Mr Bristow’s favourite stripy blue tie and fixed it firmly around Danny’s shirt collar. “That’s it,” she said, smoothing down his shirtfront. “You look lovely. I reckon, when you go for something like this, you have to look like you don’t need it, in order to get it. You know what I mean?”
Left to face the world done up like a dog’s dinner, Danny was hoping against hope not to bump into anyone he knew on the way. Thankfully he got to Costa and Cohen’s without seeing anyone he knew well, although he did get some quizzical looks and a wolf whistle from some building-site workers he had worked with in the past.
Checking the address and with a belly full of butterflies, he rang the bell. The door opened to a swanky reception with boxing posters on almost every walclass="underline" some famous, some forgotten.
Hidden somewhere behind a mask of make-up sat a receptionist: a pretty girl in her twenties with blood-red lipstick and nails to match. Danny approached her, but was ignored in preference to an incoming phone call. Mid-conversation, the receptionist pointed to a seat.
Danny obediently sat down. Looking around the impressive reception, he took in a brown leather sofa, three chairs, a coffee table and a rather tasteless water feature gurgling in the corner, with water flowing from a giant frog’s mouth. The receptionist carried on her conversation, oblivious to Danny’s presence.