Louise was in the second room he tried. On her own, apart from a foursome at another table. There was a coal-effect gas fire in the hearth, pub mirrors advertising drinks around the walls. She had a full glass in front of her, but he still offered to buy her a drink. She declined. He ordered a pint at the bar. Tried to remember when he last had a pint in a pub. With Jason, up in Durham, a pie and a pint when they’d moved his stuff into halls. He took a mouthful of the foam as soon as it arrived so that it would be easier to carry without spilling.
He set his drink down on a beer mat, took off his coat and sat opposite Louise. He didn’t bother with preambles. ‘This friend recognized the picture?’
‘Yes. Declan, Luke’s friend.’ She gathered her dark-brown hair in one hand, pulled it back as if to make a ponytail. Then let it loose. ‘Declan and Luke met the lad at a party. Luke and he had a barney and the boy went for him. Luke tripped him up.’ She sighed. ‘Then he filmed it.’
‘Luke did?’ Andrew leaned forward, his hand tight around his glass.
‘Yeah, on his phone, a video.’ She gave a little shake of her head, her eyes clouded. ‘And he sent it to everyone he knew.’
Andrew had heard the terms: happy slapping, cyber bullying. He tried to sort out what this meant. ‘He knew them, then?’
‘Not well, but he’d met that one. He’s called Tom Garrington.’
Tom Garrington. Andrew waited, expecting the name to signify something, to explain or illuminate or resonate. But nothing changed. Tom Garrington. Four syllables. ‘You’ve told the police?’
‘Yes, that’s why I rang. See if you’d heard.’
He looked away. Gazed at the fire. Befuddled. His cheeks warm, skin clammy. He drank some beer. ‘When did you tell them?’
‘This afternoon.’
This was important, Andrew thought, this was the start of all the answers. Who and why.
‘I asked if they were going to arrest him, but she said that it might not happen straight away; they have to follow procedures.’
‘But if they know who it is…’ He stared at her.
‘I know!’ She nodded her head, emphatic in agreement.
She talked some more about how they had a copy of the video, then she excused herself. She wanted a smoke. She pulled her bag over her shoulder. ‘You won’t disappear on me again?’ she teased him. He saw she had dimples, and her almond-shaped eyes narrowed and almost closed as she smiled.
He drank the beer, the taste hoppy and fruity. He stared at the nearest decorative mirror, Bell’s Whisky, elaborate letters, ribbons and bells. He thought about what she had told him, and began to feel ill at ease. Disturbed. Soiled, somehow. Because of the pathos? The tawdry background to the attack. A squabble, a lad on the floor, humiliated, and teenagers sniggering over the short film, showing it to their mates. The lead-up to Jason’s unthinking action had been petty and trivial. Call an ambulance. I think they’ve killed him.
It all seemed to get in the way of what mattered, the arrangements for Thursday, for saying goodbye to Jason and honouring his life, celebrating him. All this was like smearing dirt over everything.
When Louise came back in, he could smell the smoke on her and feel the cold air around her. He had finished his drink.
‘Do you want another?’ she asked him.
‘I’ll get them. What are you having?’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘I’ll get them,’ he repeated. He assumed he was better off than she was. He knew she was a lone parent, and somewhere in all the column inches, he had read that she was a care worker. Low-paid, on the bottom rung.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘just a Coke.’
‘Nothing in it?’
She wrinkled her nose, thought about it. ‘Oh, go on then – rum. Thanks.’
The pub had been a good choice, he thought. A roomy, anonymous sort of a place. Not somewhere he might run into anyone he knew.
She was on the phone, texting, when he went back. She thanked him for her drink and finished the message. ‘My daughter, Ruby,’ she explained.
‘I remember.’ A fleeting impression, a lovely-looking girl. Willowy, beautiful eyes. ‘How old?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘When you got in touch, I thought it might be Luke.’
‘No, still under.’
He hadn’t meant that he thought Luke might have woken, but that he might have deteriorated. Why had he thought like that? Because he’d seen the state of the boy, perhaps, and couldn’t imagine him recovering? Or because his own situation was so dark it made him pessimistic?
‘It was out of character, for Jason,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think he’d ever been in a fight in his life. Not a proper fight. He just wasn’t that sort of kid, you know?’
She nodded, did that thing with her hair again. ‘Well he wasn’t fighting,’ she said. ‘He was trying to stop it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Luke…’ She blew out a sigh, stretched her back, ‘he’s a handful. He’s had his moments, got into the odd scrap at school, but he’d never start anything. Selfdefence half the time. That and being too cocky for his own good.’ The words were harsh, but he heard the love behind them.
‘This trouble with Garrington…’ The name felt odd to say. ‘What was that about?’
‘Declan said that Garrington – they call him Gazza, actually…’
‘Oh, please,’ he moaned. The image of a pudgy footballer known for weeping and later for his chaotic personal life mushroomed in his mind, and then the thought that these nicknames, Gazza, Baz, Mozzer, were typical for young thugs.
She shrugged. ‘Well, he was having a go at some lass. Nasty – threats and that. Luke told him to pack it in.’
Andrew was surprised; he’d expected something more loutish, laddish. Not the chivalry she described. She seemed to read his thoughts, and there was an edge to her tone when she said, ‘He wasn’t looking for trouble; he was doing the right thing.’
But trouble had found him, trouble had caught up with him, dragging Jason in its wake.
The second pint was nearly gone, slipping down faster than the first. Andrew was aware of the softening in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his gut uncoiling some.
‘I keep thinking,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t filmed it, would it have been okay? Would they have let it go? He always has to have the last word. Drives me mad.’ Her face fell suddenly, lines puckered her brow. ‘God, I’m sorry. Going on like this when you-’
‘It’s fine,’ Andrew said. ‘No one knows how to be, you know, how to talk to us. I laughed at something on the radio the other day. Laughed. I was mortified. How could I laugh? Even we don’t know how to be.’
‘I don’t think there are any rules,’ she said softly.
‘Maybe not.’
They talked a little longer, about their sons, the similarities and differences. Then he said he’d better leave. ‘Thanks for ringing.’
‘Something’s bound to happen soon,’ she said. ‘Now they know who he is.’
‘Yeah.’ He buttoned his coat and they walked out together.
He felt awkward again as they parted; the intimacies they had shared suddenly lost currency as they stood like strangers on the pavement. But once he was in the car on his own, he found himself replaying bits of the conversation, and recognized that for much of the time he had been comfortable in her company. That there had even been moments of pleasure in among all the chatter. Flashes where they were just two human beings communicating, and doing it reasonably well.
Jason’s shrine, the mementos and cards, glimmered with frost. Val had gone to bed when he got in. Andrew didn’t want to sleep yet. He took the whisky into the conservatory and sat there, opposite the cardboard coffin and the rowan tree, and drank himself numb.