When he’d gone back indoors I threw the tea out the window. If it hadn’t contained piss, spit or poison I was a Chinaman.
I looked at my watch. It was nearly three. Might as well have a quick pint and call it a day and go home for me tea. No point staking out Selden’s house any more, not when he’d made me and probably already had his goons following me.
I drove to a phonebox and called Beth.
“Hello?”
“Beth, it’s me, I’m up in Derry, but it’s a bust up here so I’m coming home.”
“Thank God you’re not in Belfast. There have been terrible riots. It’s on the news.”
“I think Lawson’s up there. I hope he’s all right.”
“Lawson, yes. We really should have all your colleagues round for dinner some night. We’ve never done that and we should. And your boss too.”
“Sounds like the sort of thing married couples do.”
“It does,” she agreed.
“Is that a proposal? I think you missed Leap Day.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“I can’t keep track of you. One minute you’re for leaving the country and having me join the Met and the next you want my boss round for tea so we can brown-nose him.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “You’re right. I have to make my mind up. We both have to do a lot of thinking about the future. Anyway, I have to go, Sean, Emma’s at Jollytots and it’s after three. I’m picking her up but I’m having Janette Campbell watch her while I go to the library to work. OK to get your own dinner tonight?”
“That’s fine. Maybe I’ll make us something.”
“Ooh, I’d like that. Bye.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Love you too, eh?
The whole province can go to hell but I got an “I love you too.” Those few days at her parents’ had maybe been her “Big Yellow Taxi” moment too.
I drove to the Joyce Cary pub for a quiet pint before hitting the bleak treeless joys of the A6 again.
The place was deserted but it would fill up at quitting time.
I ordered a Guinness. “You wouldn’t have any food, would you?” I asked.
“An rud a lionas an tsuil lionann se an croi,” he said.
“Well I’ve an eye for grub if you’ve got any.”
“There’s only the lentil soup left. Vegetarian. Vegan, actually, if you can believe it.”
“Sounds horrible. I’ll take it.”
I ate the soup and drank the Guinness. A pretty young woman with what appeared to be a black eye came in, ordered a gin and tonic and sat by herself in the corner.
A few minutes later, from a different part of the pub, a young man came over to the bar to order a drink, but when he noticed the young woman he left the bar and sat down at her table opposite her.
I sighed inwardly. Men. They were all fucking clueless.
The young man started pestering the young woman, who was actually shaking now. I put down my soup spoon and walked over.
“Oi mate, take it easy, she just wants to be left alone,” I said.
“How is it any of your business, pal?”
“Come on, mate. Just head on. You really don’t want to do this.”
If it was Carrick, or even Belfast, I would have flashed my warrant card but you didn’t do that kind of thing around here.
“Do you want to go outside and discuss it?” he said.
“No, I don’t. Move on, son, look at her, she wants a bit of peace and quiet, OK?”
One of his fingers poked me in the chest right in the middle of my Che Guevara T-shirt. His big greasy paw on my T-shirt? I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and bent the finger back with my right. He gasped in pain.
“Just go home, son,” I whispered.
“OK, OK, let go!”
He scurried out of there and I said “excuse me” to the girl and returned to the dregs of my pint.
Five minutes later she was standing next to me at the bar. In the Jameson mirror I could see that she’d been very attractive before the punch in the face. Very attractive after the punch in the face. Dark curly hair, blue eyes, pale. A very Derry look. She had a handbag and a shopping bag and nothing else.
“That was kind of you,” she said. “I didn’t need that aggravation after the day I’ve had.”
“Do you have a place to go tonight?”
“Yes, I’m going to stay with my friend Siobhan. If he comes looking for me he’ll never look for me there. He’ll think I’m with my mum and dad but I won’t be. I’ll be at Siobhan’s. She’s a friend from work. He doesn’t know her.”
“That’s a good plan,” I said.
“Siobhan’s ma is a social worker and she’s got connections with the police. She can get me one of them what do you call them things? Restriction order?”
“Restraining order.”
“Aye, one of them.”
“Yeah, that’s the way to go about it. Stay with someone he doesn’t know and let the courts and the police handle the whole thing. Smart thinking.”
“I’m Mary, by the way.”
“I’m Sean.”
She gave me a frail, ashamed smile. “I couldn’t ask you for one more big favour though, Sean, could I?”
“How much do you need?”
“Oh, it’s not that. I just want to go home and get some clothes for work. He probably won’t be there. He doesn’t knock off his work until five. But if he is home he’ll fucking give me a hammering, so he will.”