Hawks E-Book

Peter Hollywood

• Herausgeber: New Island
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 153

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

With Hawks, Peter Hollywood has crafted a gripping collection of stories which reflects the changing face of Northern Ireland. While Northern Ireland is in the process of a gradual transformation into another place, despite the glitz on the surface, it is yet to arrive. Haunted by the collective memory of moments shared, it could embrace a bright future, or retain the darker colours of its past In clear, elegant and sombre prose, though never beyond humour, emotion and feeling, Hollywood charts the movements towards this new world with gusto.

Leseprobe

Hawks

Hawks

&

Other Stories

Peter Hollywood

HAWKS

First published 2013

by New Island

2 Brookside

Dundrum Road

Dublin 14

www.newisland.ie

Copyright © Peter Hollywood, 2013

The author has asserted his moral rights.

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-84840-236-2

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84840-237-9

MOBI ISBN: 978-1-84840-238-6

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing Data.A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

New Island received financial assistance from

The Arts Council (An Comhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, Ireland

To Michael and Brian – the brothers.

About The Author

Peter Hollywood was born in Newry at the tail-end of 1959 and began writing at an early age. Hollywood is married with three children who are erroneously convinced that they are the models for the siblings in the stalked and harassed family at the centre of his first novel. Having worked in a wide range of jobs, Hollywood currently plies his trade in the field of education and literacy.

Also By Peter Hollywood

Jane Alley

Lead City And Other Stories

Luggage

Contents

Farrow and Ball

After the Conflict

The Spanish Civil War

Hawks

C-PAP

Squirrels

The Man with the Banana Joke

The Girl with the Greek Haircut

The Gardens of Suburbia

Upstairs

The Widow

‘Thinking is a dizzy business.’

– Dashiell Hammett

Farrow and Ball

For J M

The first occasion they came into the shop, they took four cans of Farrow and Ball black paint.

The following night, the police found two local girls bound to lamp-posts with their heads half shaved. Black paint had been poured over them and then the feathers from some gutted pillows. In those days not many people had heard of synthetic material.

After this event, Sergeant Ferris came into the shop for the first time. Declan’s father had been in the office at the back and came out now at the sound of the spring-action bell that alerted him to any entrance to or exit from his premises. He eyed the empty can the policeman carried; there was a black tongue of paint lolled down its side. Behind the massive bulk of the sergeant, his father saw the police Land Rover taking up the kerb space reserved for the shop’s delivery van. Declan was off school and his father had sent him to the wholesalers to pick up stock.

– Are you the key-holder? Ferris enquired.– I am indeed.– Mr Flood is it?– Me again, his father confirmed.

The sergeant raised the can up into full view.

– Do you stock this brand?

Declan’s father indicated a pyramidal display of similar cans over to the side of the shop.

– Do you know if you’ve sold any over the past day or two?– Not sold, his father said. I’ve had four cans taken.– You mean shop-lifted? Ferris looked amazed.– No. Taken. Two young lads came in and told me they were taking them. That’s all.– What age were they?– Well. My son’s eighteen. They would’ve been a little older, I guess.

Ferris was silent a while as he considered this information. At length he looked at Declan’s father and asked:

– Would you recognise them again?

Mr Flood shrugged his shoulders.

– They were just young fellas. Like any others.

The sergeant digested this response as he gazed at the can still in his hand. Then he came forward and placed the can in the middle of the counter between him and Mr Flood.

– Did you report the theft?– What was the point? For a couple of cans of paint. I will if it happens again, he assured the policeman.

Ferris seemed to be in the habit of taking his time, weighing up information, deciding on his next comment or response. Eventually he made up his mind and turned slowly to leave the shop.

– Do, he advised over his shoulder as he opened the door, glanced up at the bell and stepped out into the street, scrutinising the roof-tops opposite as he went.

From his position behind the counter, Mr Flood could not count how many police officers had accompanied Ferris, but there was a lot of noise and commotion as they remounted into the back of the Land Rover and drove away.

– We want the keys to the van, one of two new youths said the second time.

Declan’s father objected:

– Jesus, lads. I need the van for my business. You can’t take it.– We’ve orders to take it.

As Declan’s father handed over the keys he asked:

– Will I get the van back?– You’re not to report it missing for six hours, was the sole reply he got to his anxious enquiry.

Sergeant Ferris rang him in the middle of the night to tell him the van had been reported abandoned in the middle of an estate in the north of the city; it was undamaged and the keys were in the ignition. His father roused Declan out of bed, despite the fact that he had been burning the midnight oil revising for an examination the next day. He drove his father in the family car to retrieve the van. They must have been moving munitions for the petrol tank was near empty and the floor of the van was littered with cigarette butts.

A month later they came and took the van again.

– Did they threaten you? Sergeant Ferris wanted to know.

He was flanked by a constable who was studiously taking notes. The two men seemed to fill up the shop floor on the customer side of the counter. On the other side stood Mr Flood and behind him, standing in the doorway of the office, Declan looked on.

– Yes. Of course they did.

Ferris looked sideways waiting for his colleague to scribble this response.

– I’ll need a copy of the police report for the insurance, his father informed the officers. This time the van had been found burnt out.– And they definitely threatened you? Ferris pressed the point.

Mr Flood locked eyes with the sergeant. The note-taker looked up at the sudden silence.

– Yes. They said the shop would go up if I didn’t do what they asked, Declan’s father slowly and firmly impressed upon them.

The insurance paid for a replacement van and it was six months before they came for this one.

– For fuck sake, boys. I’ve only just got her. After the last time.– It’s orders, mister, one of them said, holding out his hand for the keys.

They got this van back but with a good deal of damage done to the body work due to it having rammed a police road-block. The van had then mounted a traffic island and the occupants had run off into the night.

On this occasion, Ferris had a new line of enquiry.

– Did they have a gun when they came to take the van?– A gun? Mr Flood looked askance at the sergeant. They could have, I suppose.– But you didn’t see one, Ferris confirmed.– Why? What are you saying? Mr Flood suddenly demanded.– It’s just I hear the insurance people are beginning to look for details like that. They’re out a fortune with high-jackings and car-bombs and joy riders. You can imagine.– And I’m out a fortune paying their premiums.– Well. I’m sure it’ll not be a problem this time. We’ll fax through a copy of the report, Ferris said, turning to leave and looking out and up at the rooftops opposite.

Mr Flood didn’t recognise the two youths running across traffic towards the shop but he guessed their intent. The plumper of the two approached the counter while his accomplice lingered like a look-out at the door.

– We want your van, he announced.– Do you have a gun? Declan’s father enquired of him. This wrong-footed the youth.– What? He said as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears.– You must have a gun, Mr Flood advised him.

At a loss, the youth looked around as if appealing for assistance from his partner at the door but he just looked nervous and on edge. The youth stood a few moments, eyeing Declan’s father all the while, weighing up the situation; then, he turned on his heel and, signalling to his companion by jerking his head in the direction of the street, left the shop and ran back again across the traffic.

It was after lunch when the same pair re-appeared. Coming forward but glancing backwards out at the street, the fat one opened the flap of his denim jacket. There was a gun stuck in the waist-band of his jeans. Declan’s father turned and went into the little back office to get the keys.

– Yes. They had a gun, Mr Flood assured Sergeant Ferris. Both of them watched as the constable noted this down; then, from Ferris:– Did he produce it?– What?– Did the youth take it out and physically threaten you with it, Ferris rephrased the question.– Are you joking me or what? Declan’s father eyeballed the sergeant. Is this the next thing?– I’m just saying it’s a wonder the insurance people haven’t been asking questions; that’s all.

The final occasion they came into the shop was on a Saturday because Declan’s sister was working with them behind the counter. The one with the gun wore a khaki-coloured bush hat pulled low over his eyes. Although he had not been in the shop before, he went through the motions of opening the front of his Wrangler jacket to show the shop-keeper that he was armed. At the same time he recited his line, requesting the keys of the van.

– No, Declan’s father simply said. Fuck off out of my shop.

The youth pushed up the brim of his hat, the better to get a look at the older man. Declan and his sister looked at their father too. When they looked back at the youth they could see his face contorted with the effort of coming up with the appropriate verbal response. Eventually, unable to compose one, he drew the gun and waved it about for a moment for all to see, then suddenly aimed it straight at Mr Flood’s head.

– The keys, he shouted. Now.

The older man’s reflexes took them all by surprise. His right hand shot up and gripped the barrel of the gun. He did not do this to deflect the gun away from him. Instead he pressed the muzzle more firmly against the side of his head and half-whispered to the youth to pull the trigger.

– Go on, he urged him. You people are fucking bleeding me dry. I can’t make ends meet. The insurance people are going to refuse to pay out any more. You won’t leave me alone even though I’ve been serving this community for over twenty years. I’m slowly but surely going under. Go on: shoot.

Frantically, the youth tried to pull his gun away.

– Let go of my fucking gun, will you, he shouted.

Pulling with all his might, the gun came free suddenly and the youth stumbled backwards, almost toppling a stand of paint brushes, white spirit and masking tape in the process.

– Fuck, he roared at no-one in particular while looking wildly around him. Then seeing Declan he grabbed him by the neck and stuck the gun up against his head instead, the barrel half disappearing into the depths of his thick, Rory Gallagher head of long hair. Declan’s sister started to cry. The youth looked at Declan’s father to make sure he got the point.– Him? Mr Flood exploded. Jesus. He’s a liability. I’m going to have to pay three hundred pounds a month so that he can go to university. He’s a drain. Go ahead. You’d be doing me a favour.

Declan had a close-up, almost magnified view of the startled expression on the youth’s face and for the stillest of moments, the youth turned his head away from the direction of his father and their eyes met. Then, before he fled from the shop, he said:

– You’re fucking mad, mister, you are. You need your head looking at.

The spring-action bell seemed to ring longer than normal in the silence that ensued. Then Declan’s sister burst out crying again.

– Stop your crying, girl, her father said.

The old man moved and went back into the little office behind the counter. The keys to the van were still hanging from the hook on the wall below a framed black and white photograph of Mohammad Ali; it was taken at a training camp for Ali who seemed suspended in mid-air, surrounded by the thin smoke of a skipping rope. If you looked closely you could just make out Angelo Dundee watching paternally from the sidelines.

When Declan went to the door of the office, his father was sitting at the desk. Its surface was a clutter of bills, invoices, and order forms. He was staring blankly at the pile of paperwork and Declan stood in the doorway waiting for his father to look up at him. At length, his father spoke but he did not look up at him.

– Go on, son, he said. Go on out there and mind the shop.

After the Conflict

After the conflict, huge, mechanical cranes suddenly overarched the city centre sky line and skips appeared in the suburbs.

Property prices soared, after the conflict, and most people stopped moving house. Instead, they renovated; there were loft conversions and kitchen extensions; front gardens were often slabbed over, gravelled or interred in tar macadam to make secure parking space for one or both cars. There were hagglings and horse-tradings with architects and surveyors, negotiations with planning services; tenders sought from small construction companies, whose small, dirty vans were seen buzzing about everywhere. Loans arranged; re-mortgagings. Lawyers and barristers managed to move house. Elsewhere there were rows over boundary lines and deeds produced from nowhere; cans of white spray X-ing driveways and walls with what looked like badly applied band-aids.

After the conflict, you could hardly get a plumber or plasterer for love or money; some brave souls had a go at it themselves.

In the suburbs there were Kangos and Bobcats and long lorries, loaded with red brick and breeze blocks, Rosemary tiles or Bangor Blues; setts and cobbles: Cedar, Heather, Charcoal and Bracken; Old Court flags or textured and riven flags, Sandstone circular and kerbsetts: Autumn Brown, Sage Green, Sahara. There was traffic congestion in small avenues and closes, courts and cul de sacs.

Daylight burst down, Bible-like, after the conflict, through apertures in roofs made for the insertion of Vellux skylights and dark and dust scurried off on four legs and eight for cover under the suddenly exposed joists, purlins and rafters. Wasp-nests were detonated, swallows and swifts and bats put to flight.

Avenues clanged with the sound of industry. Little corner shops did a brief boom trade in cigarettes and sandwiches, high energy drinks and newspapers, Mars bars and teabags. Urban foxes poked their noses into suddenly overloaded yellow skips. Dog-walkers strolled past and peered inquisitively into the rash of miniature building sites, taking notes, inspecting, making comparisons and simply satisfying their own curiosity. On dry, windy days, there were mini sand-storms and tarpaulins flapped and slapped loudly; plastic carry-out coffee cups and torn plastic sheets, fangs of white polystyrene got ensnared in people’s hedges and neighbours complained about the mess the street was in and the health and safety implications of badly illuminated skips at night. People peered out through double glazing, conservatories. Orangeries.

All the time, downtown, the construction continued apace. Old buildings that had survived the conflict got make-overs and face-lifts or were torn down and demolished; making way for the new. CCTV sniffed the air.

Meanwhile, a smarter class of helicopter began to buzz the skies above us, lighter and brightly bubbled and often with a corporate logo emblazoned on the fuselage. Police cars too became candied and colourful. Helmets and flap-jackets were mostly shed. For a brief season, youths purchased pink and lilac kaki coloured combats from high street stores.

Talk of betrayal began to fade from beer-soaked, heated bar-room debate replaced instead with words such as amnesty and reconciliation; the obfuscating fug of cigarette smoke lifted too with that ban. According to some critics and commentators, however, it was not cool to write about the conflict any more, preferring that authors did not dwell overmuch on the Troubles.

So, from Canada and America came ice-hockey players; plasterers and plumbers from Eastern Europe, furniture from Sweden. Then, also from America, sub-prime mortgages became a topic of vexed conversation along with the associated fear of a credit crunch so that property prices took a tumble and people continued to mostly stop moving house. In flood-plains wise residents moved sockets higher up their walls and demanded more regular purgation of drains. Many retained sodden sand-bags; just in case. There was talk of climate change.

However, out in the countryside, someone was setting age-old Orange Halls alight and hoax devices were being found tethered to railings around rural Gaelic playing fields. It appeared dark men were still meeting in late places.