I’m getting married in the autumn, to Shauna’ – he indicated the girl beside him, with a proud flourish of introduction – ‘and I’m running a car valeting business now, employing about ten people. It’s going pretty well, we’re getting a lot of corporate accounts. But listen, how are all the rest of them – do you still see Titch?’
In truth, Sammy had always been a bit impatient with Titch, who was a human liability in Sammy’s embryonic money-making schemes. When we were twelve, Sammy had set us up with buckets and sponges to wash all the cars on our street, at a cost that undercut the nearest carwash (Sammy took his cut, naturally, for supplying the materials and sweet-talking the neighbours). We were all raring to go: Sammy had sketched for us a tantalising picture of entrepreneurial rewards, with bouncy new footballs and cinema tickets ripening as the fruits of our labours.
It all began smoothly on day one, with the Sergeant Major strenuously demonstrating the correct procedure on his own father’s gleaming red Ford. It was to be Titch’s job to fill the water-buckets, and mine to rinse and clean the different cloths. Then we set to work, but by midday I could see Titch’s mouth drooping sullenly, and a lead-limbed, lackadaisical quality sneaking into his polishing. Titch never really understood the concept of delayed gratification. At one point he went off down an alleyway on his own, and was sitting there gratefully peeling a chocolate bar when I found him and dragged him back.
The next day, at the appointed hour for beginning the car-washing, I was there all by myself. There was no sign of Titch, or the water-buckets which he had carted home the day before, grumbling. Sammy and I went round to Titch’s house: nobody there, and no explanatory note – nothing. Sammy was livid. He had to go begging for water-buckets and help me do it himself, abandoning his superb supervisory role as our manager, or risk angering his new customers. He damned Titch – the lazy big fathead – to high heaven. When Titch and his mother arrived back the next day, from a visit to his grandmother in Larne, the Sergeant Major wouldn’t speak a word to him for a fortnight.
‘Titch isn’t too good,’ I said. ‘Four paramilitaries dragged him out into waste ground last night and gave him a terrible hammering.’
Sammy’s expression took on a curious mixture of surprise and intimate understanding. He leaned close, and asked in a lowered voice, ‘Was he dealing drugs?’
I stared back at him. ‘Sammy, catch a grip. Titch can hardly get around to dealing you a hand of cards, there’s no way he’d be up to drugs.’
‘Well why did they do him, then?’
‘He got into a row with old McGee, who runs that corner shop. Titch nicked a packet of Jaffa Cakes. McGee’s son is involved.’
‘Jaffa Cakes.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘And they did him for that?’
‘They did him for that.’
‘Poor bastard.’
Sammy started chewing over this information, soaking up its future implications for himself. He shook his head, slowly and sorrowfully: ‘They’re really getting out of control now. Everything you want to do, or think of doing, they’re on your back. They came round the other month asking for a slice from the car valeting business.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘I cut them down. What they were asking for at the beginning was a joke: there wouldn’t have been any business left in a year to take anything out of. But you’ve got to give them something, or—’ he broke off, raised his eyebrows, and mimed striking a match ‘—and I don’t want to collect any insurance money on my place just yet. I like it where I am.’
There was a seam of absolute pragmatism running through Sammy. He just did whatever he had to do to keep going. It wasn’t a question of right and wrong. That stuff didn’t keep him awake at night. There were simply certain people that had to be dealt with and paid off. Whether it was the government taxman that came banging on his door or the local hoods demanding their protection money, it was really all one and the same to Sammy. Yes, it would be better if the system was straight, but was it Sammy’s fault if it wasn’t? It did pain his businessman’s heart, though, to have to pay out over the odds.
Sammy wasn’t a bad guy, at all. He was even kind, at bottom. There are businessmen like him all over America, gently rolling their eyes as they slide their monthly envelope over to the local Mafia. I could have seen Sammy keeping shop in small-town Nazi Germany, mournfully complaining about the boisterous antics of the young Brownshirts, maybe even occasionally passing his dwindling band of Jewish customers a wee something they were officially forbidden – but making sure he always kept the framed picture of Herr Hitler on the wall and a little nip of schnapps for the visiting SS man.
In that moment’s pause, he must have caught a flicker of what I was thinking. Whatever else, Sammy was never slow. He looked me in the eye: ‘Jacky, I’m not Charles Bronson. And if I was, I’d have a nice big pile of rubble and ten more people on the dole to show for it.’
I smiled at him and shrugged: ‘I know.’
He finished up his pint in one expansive gesture. ‘Listen, tell Titch I was asking for him, will you? If there’s anything he or the ma needs …’ A protective arm moved around his fiancée, who was already making a ‘we’re leaving, but it was nice to meet you’ face.
For a departing second, Sammy’s astute eyes rested on me, taking in the stubble on my chin, and the loose hang of Big Jacky’s oddly cut overcoat. Casually, as though it was an afterthought, his hand rummaged in his back pocket and produced a business card: Cleen-Sheen Cars.
‘I know you’ve probably got a lot else going on, but if you ever fancy a few hours on the side, we always need people with a bit of sense. It’s very flexible. Or give me a ring anyway, if you just want a pint.’
I took his card, and shook his hand. I had to give it to Sammy, the offer had been made with a certain panache. I watched the two of them go out the door, huddling together against the rain while his girlfriend struggled to put up her umbrella. As I said before, he wasn’t a bad guy.
When I finally got home, the house was dark. Phyllis had gone to bed. I was relieved at this, and sad too. I could see the Belfast Telegraph lying open at the television page, where she had marked out her evening’s viewing in pencil, alone.
Everything suddenly had a drunken clarity. The thought of her specially picking out which programmes to watch made me want to weep. I should have rung and told her where I was. I hadn’t. She wouldn’t mention anything about it the next day: that made it worse. I failed her as a companion, I knew. Would she be happier back with bloodhound Mary and remote-control-man Sam? Probably not.
She loved working in the newsagent’s: she hoarded little bits of information about everyone. She helped people out, sending them cards and chocolates when they were sick, and they never stopped being grateful. At least Phyllis was busy making herself part of something real. She was a spider at the centre of the sticky human web of fussing and affection. Not like me. I just hung around on the edges of things, ineffectually watching. Phyllis was trying to mean something to people. I didn’t mean anything to anybody.
I could have saved Titch, with more effort and conviction, and I hadn’t. I had guessed this would happen to him, I had even warned him, and yet there he was trussed up in bandages anyway. My superior knowledge had made not the least impression on events. The terrible, predictable misery had unfolded just as though I had never spoken, never even existed. Why had I let him learn it for himself? Had I wanted, somehow, to be proved right?
