Grimms 89

Del parks the Jaguar car, and pulls the handbrake, on the hill across from Clydebank College. ‘How many doors in the pub? he asks.  

‘Two.’ Jaz pats the shape of the gun in his inside pocket as he reconsiders. ‘Main entrance aff the main road.’ He glances out the side window, at the rear end of the pub, checking. ‘And one beside the chippy.’

‘Right,’ Del says, turning to have a peek. ‘How do you want to play it? He waggles a finger in the direction of the double doors off Kilbowie Road. ‘You go in that way and I’ll get tooled up and I’ll gie you a few minutes and I’ll come in that way.’

Jaz rubs at his chin. ‘Sounds alright to me.’ He puts his hand on the door handle, smacks his lips together. ‘I’ll get crackin’.’

‘Listen,’ Del says, stopping him, the car door half open. ‘We’ve rode our luck a bit. Too many bizzies cutting about for our liking. So we’re gonnae go home the day after tomorrow for a bit. Until things cool down.’ 

Jaz checks Del’s face, to see if he’s going to say any more, but he looks straight ahead.

‘Aye, that’s understandable.’

‘No, but, you’re comin’ with us.’

‘I’d love to, but— ’

‘Dougie insists.’ Del raises his brow and smiles in a concerned way. ‘You don’t want to be pissin’ him aff.’

 ‘Aye, alright then,’ Jaz says. ‘We’ll see.’ The car now seems overstuffy. He is glad to swing his hips, push the door open and stand on the pavement in the smirry rain, swaying a little, as if getting his bearings. A drunk man in a long coat and Houndstooth deerstalker floats out of the side door of the Cleddan’s and disappears around the corner into the lane and the bollards behind the chippy. Sweetie papers drift in the wind and pick themselves up and dance ahead of Jaz washing up against the cul de sac and pub wall. He pushes through the swing of double doors, his shoulders square, holding his breath until the familiar smell of tobacco smoke, whisky and beer assail him and make his eyes crinkle. His gaze sweeps the pub, windows like trenches above his head, with light filtering through a long barn of a room. His right hand in his pocket clutches the handle of the gun and the hairs on the back of his neck rise from sweat stains. The jukebox rifts a melancholic Lighter Shade of Pale and an older man in a tan raincoat, his hand in his pocket addresses the barmaid in a mock English accent. ‘A few pints of your local anaesthetic, dear.’ He jingles his coins and laughs. ‘And don’t spare the horses.’

The barmaid, a half-pint of permed orange hair, laughs on cue as she watches the old man fiddle with the change in his hand before spilling it onto the counter for her to count.

Snatches of conversations in the hubbub seem to grow dimmer and bend around the cordon of wooden chairs and tables set aside for the hunkered down Dunne clan. Identitkits, reddish hair, scuffed denim jacket, checked shirt and wide-cut trouser worn high and wedged shoes, a uniform Jaz also wore with a casual ease. He recognised the sense of energy and the sense of themselves that had taken root and grown beyond the rough plaster of the walls and his mark in it, the livid scars of Frank standing out like lightning bolts as he glared across at him. A balding brother, seated to his younger brother’s right, in his mid-forties, baldy, tired eyes, looks at Jaz anew through NHS specs, white sleeves on his shirt rolled up as if ready to go to work, raises an arm and waves him across. ‘Over here,’ he shouts, nods pleasantly and smiles, nudging the brother next to him to make room, lift his pint and packet of cigarettes and go and sit on another chair.

Jaz waves back. ‘Can I buy you lot a round?’ he hollers, letting his hand slide from the gun and trying to attract the attention of the barmaid, standing chatting to a man in an open-necked tartan shirt at the far end of the bar. The jolt of somebody bumping into him from the side is unexpected.

A pockmarked face with pleasant green eyes gazes down at him. Jaz feels something tipped over his head, soaking his hair, jacket and shirt and smells petrol. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a light, bud?’ the man with the pockmarked face cackles, flicking the flint of a throwaway lighter and lighting the cigarette in his mouth.

Jaz scrambles for his gun, but another man with reddish hair and shoulders like billboards pins him squirming to the bar.

‘Bert,’ shouts the man with NHS specs shouts to the man with the lighter and turning, joining in the guffawing laughter of his brothers. ‘Don’t want an audience. Take the cunt outside, for fuck sake.’

The explosion from the shotgun hits the man with the lighter in the chest and carries him across the room and his body buckles and comes to a halt against the panel of the door with as if arguing with a Guinness poster. Jaz gets his hand on the gun and points it downwards, shooting the guy holding him below the knee. He brings the gun up and shoots into the scrum of Dunne brothers, ducking down and trying to scramble away, tables tipping sideways and glasses smashing. A woman in the corner table, with plastic shopping bags at her feet, screams.  He feels the blast of air and smells cordite at the man with the wide shoulder’s head disintegrates beside him, his hair matted with blood. Del stands with his back to the side door, holding it open, shotgun pointed into the centre of the room, where hands are being held up as if auditioning for a movie.

Jaz’s ears are ringing and he can’t hear his feet smacking the floor as he runs towards the door and out into the rain and barges into the man with deerstalker hat sending the old man flying.

‘Jesus, where’s the fire, son?’ the old man says, looking up at him from the pavement with hurt eyes and scrambling for his hat which has fallen from his head.