The Hiding Place(27)

I loved watching my grandad deal, flicking out cards as fast as lightning with his yellow, callused fingers; fingers that looked rough and clumsy yet could be so dexterous and light with a pack of playing cards.

I tried to copy the shuffles, the cuts, the sleight of hand. Some of my happiest times as a child were spent sitting at the chipped Formica table in their tiny, grease-stained kitchen, a glass of flat cola in front of me, stout for my grandad, lager and lime for Nan, staring at our cards as their cigarettes burnt down to the filters in the ashtray.

I taught Annie some of the same games. Mum and Dad never had time to play so it wasn’t quite the same. You usually needed a minimum of three people, but we still whiled away many rainy afternoons playing Snap or Patience.

After the accident, I stopped playing. I concentrated on my studies. Decided to enroll in teacher-training. I liked English, it seemed a decent job (one that might even make my mum proud) and perhaps a part of me thought that it was a way to do something good. To help kids and make up for all the stuff I had done wrong as a kid myself.

To my surprise, I was a good teacher. There was even talk, in one school, of promotion: head of year, progression to deputy head. I should have been happy; at the very least, content. But I wasn’t. Something was missing. There was a void inside me that nothing, not work, friends or girlfriends, could fill. Some days, my whole life felt unreal. As if reality had ended when Annie died and everything since had just been a bad copy.

Somewhere along the way I picked the cards up again. I would usually find some like-minded acquaintances to play a few hands with in the pub after work. Like drinkers, other gamblers manage to seek each other out. But soon the friendly games, betting pounds or fivers, weren’t enough.

I met a man. There’s always a man. A game-changer. A devil who appears at your shoulder. I was getting ready to leave one night, a little worse for wear, when one of the regulars—a thin, pasty individual whose name I never knew or asked—motioned me over and whispered: “Fancy a real game?”

I should have said no. I should have smiled, pointed out that it was already late and I had work in a few hours, not to mention piles of neglected homework to mark. I should have reminded myself that I was a teacher, not a card shark. I drove a Toyota, bought my coffee from Costa and my sandwiches from M&S. That was my world. I should have walked away, got a cab home and got on with my life.

That’s what I should have done. But I didn’t.

I said: “Where?”

And later, much later, when I realized I was out of my depth, when the debts had begun to pile at my feet like unexploded grenades, when I had sold the Toyota, left my job, been turned down by every lender; when I was dragged into the back of a van one night, to find Gloria sitting there, smiling her American cheerleader meets American Psycho smile…

That’s when I said, “No. Please, no!”

I don’t limp these days because of a car accident twenty-five years ago, although I did, for a while. But that limp had gone, the scars long healed, when Gloria placed one candyfloss-pink nail against my lips and whispered sweetly: “Don’t beg, Joe. I can’t bear a man who begs.”

I stopped begging. And started screaming.


—



She taps her nails against the steering wheel—a glittery red tonight. Human League blasts out of the stereo.

Every atom cramps in terror. The other thing Gloria likes, aside from hurting people, is eighties music. I can’t listen to Cyndi Lauper without rushing to the toilet to vomit. It makes eighties nights something of a no-no.

“How did you find me?”

“I have my ways.”

My heart stalls. “Not Brendan?”

“Oh, no. Brendan’s just fine.” She gives me a chiding look. “I don’t go around hurting people for no reason. Not even you.”

I feel relief and, stupidly, gratitude. Then something occurs to me.

“What about the other two? The ones who attacked me?”

“Ah, Dumb and Dumber. Dislocated shoulder and a broken nose. I went easy. Didn’t take much for them to run off.”

No, I think. I bet it didn’t. Gloria might look like a delicate china doll. But the only doll she has anything in common with is Chucky. Rumor has it she was a child gymnast who changed her specialty to martial arts. She was banned from competitions after putting an opponent in a coma. The woman is fast, strong and knows every vulnerable spot in the human body. Some, even anatomists haven’t discovered yet.

She glances at me. “They’d have killed you if I hadn’t intervened.”

“And saved you a job.”

She tuts. “You’re no good to me dead. Dead men do not pay their debts.”

“Reassuring.”

“And the Fatman still wants his cash.”

“Do people really call him that, or is it just a name he got from a comic book?”

She chuckles throatily. “You see, that’s exactly the type of comment that makes him hire people like me to hurt you.”

“Nice chap. I must meet him one day.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I’m working on getting the money. I have a new job.”

“Joe, forgive me for being blunt, but a few quid here and there is not going to cut it. Thirty grand. That’s what the Fatman wants.”