Grimms61

Del scoots in behind the couch and draws the chintz curtains. On the radio, T-Rex and ‘I’m your main man, Telegram Sam-Telegram Sam,’ beats out, in a tinny voice. Jaz feels Del’s bulk standing behind him,  but his thoughts snag like sticky tape, whether to stay or run. Fear has a focus and it’s Dougie, drumming his fingers on the ironing board, his light blue eyes drifting around the room as if he doesn’t recognise it or anybody taking up space. He follows the cable, tugging it towards him. A metallic horse’s hoof in his fist. He brings it in a flash of silver face down above Jaz’s knee, branding his thigh. The iron has lost much of its heat, but a smell of burning is matched by Jaz’s writhing and jerking away from the pain, but Del puts him in a headlock. His screams ricochet off the walls and light up the tenement building. The edge of the iron catches him across the nose and the iron comes down flat above his other knee. Pain bubbles up and Jaz is drowning in nausea, mixed with the realization he’s going to die. Clumps of hair come away in Dougie’s fist as Jaz’s writhing gets him a second of relief, as he scrambles to the far side of the couch and jumps up, cowering, his hands flapping in entreaty.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ he pleads, bawling and crying. ‘I gave yeh aw the money. Whit mair dae yeh want me to dae? Tell me.’ His arms gesture defeat. ‘I’ll dae it. Just don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.’

Del stands beside Dougie at the door, a human barrier. Jaz glances behind him at the window and does some mental gymnastics, thinks about a third-floor fall on long grass turned to hay, assorted cheese and onion and salt and vinegar crisp packets in bloom and used condom wrappers snagged below.  

‘Look son, I don’t really want to hurt you. Don’t need all this fuss.’ Dougie says. ‘You think you’re a hard man, but you’re about as hard as Ginger Rodgers without the tits. But that’s no’ whit it’s all about. It’s all about trust. And it’s about the cause. I’ve got things to dae and you’re pullin’ strokes, I need to come fuckin’ back here to run after you, ya fuckin’ clown.’

He turns to Dougie. ‘Was the guns there?’

‘Aye.’

‘Much was in the bag?’  

‘£1826.’

He gazes at Jaz, who has taken a step sideways and backwards. ‘Aye, well,’ shrugs, ‘not bad’.  ‘I’m gonnae ask you a few questions and for your sake I better get the answer I’m lookin’ for.’

Blood runs down Jaz’s nose onto his denim jacket and he swipes it away. ‘I widnae tell you any lies Dougie.’

‘Yer, a fuckin’ liar.’ Dougie snorts. He puts the iron face down on the ironing board. ‘I see I’ll need to get a wee bit rough with yeh.’

Del edges round the side of the couch to flush Jaz out.  It’s like a playground game of British Bulldog, Jaz feints one way towards Dougie and his left knee knocks against the telly, and he’s ready to cut across the fireplace and try and get past Dougie in a lopsided sway. Separate bits of his body are on fire. One eye is puffed and closed. The other searching side to side and forward, checking for a space to fit into and escape. His cheek glows purple and swollen and his nose a caved in blow hole which makes animal snorting noises.

Dougie waves a finger like a baton and Del stops slinking nearer. Jaz stands shivering beside the mantelpiece, a gilt-frame picture of a younger Dougie and a wee girl in school uniform, white socks up to her skinny wee legs. Red hair in a frizz that frames a heart-shaped face that is all smiling white teeth the camera locks in.      

‘That pregnant lassie in the papers, yeh killed,’ Dougie says. ‘Whit did yeh shoot her for?’

‘Her boyfriend tried to grab the gun aff me and I panicked.’ There’s a kind of desperation in the way that Jaz says it, acknowledgement of the terror he feels, he believes it himself.

‘So you’re sayin’ it was collateral damage?’

‘Aye,’ Jaz clings to that notion.

Del chips in with a quip. ‘She wiz a fuckin’ Pape anyway. And that’s two less of the wee bastards to worry about.’

Jaz is aware of his slowed breathing and the sudden, unexpected, silence on the radio slot between songs. Dougie is for a second defused as he ponders.

‘Whit about that other post office in Parkhall?’ Dougie asks, turning his gaze to Jaz.

‘That’s nothin’ to dae with me,’ spouts Jaz, becoming a tad more upright and confident.

‘That’d be fuckin’ two jobs in a week,’ says Del. ‘You’d need to be the worst kind of fuckin’ idiot to dae that.’

‘Exactly,’ says Jaz.

‘I’ll need to make a phone call.’ Dougie tells Dell. ‘Keep him here. And if he makes any attempt to leave break his legs and cut his baws aff.’

Del scratches his head. ‘Aye, nae bother.’  

But when Dougie leaves Del isn’t sure what to do next. ‘Sit doon there,’ he tells Jaz, pointing to the couch and a seat near the window and telly.

He wanders into the kitchen. Jaz hears cupboards opening and closing, and the sound of water running. He knows that he can make a run for it, but stays put. Del comes lumbering back into the living room, grinning like a schoolboy, carrying a bottle of Eldorado and two glazed brown mugs.

He plonks himself down beside Jaz. ‘Thought we might as well have a wee drink, while we’re waiting.’ He puts the mugs at the edge of the rug and fills them up.

Jaz tries to keep his hand from shaking when he’s handed his measure, but he needs to use two hands and  his bruised lips jerk away from contact with solid objects and his teeth clatter off the enamel he’s in such a hurry to get it down him and calm his nerves.

Del doesn’t seem to notice he’s too busy scoffing his own drink and smacking his lips. ‘She’s some bit of stuff, that Lizzie.’  

‘Aye,’ Jaz answers tentatively, wondering if it’s a trick question. ‘Very nice. Is that Dougie’s daughter?’

‘Fuck off, yah stupid cunt. Better no’ let him hear you sayin’ that. That’s his wife.’