The Boxer's Dreams of Love

  The Boxer’s Dreams of Love Copyright © 2015 by Philip Boyle

  www.philipboyle.vpweb.ie All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United Kingdom. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews and fandom. For information, direct all enquiries to boyle.philip89@gmail.com

  __________

  A novel by Philip Boyle

  Philip Boyle is the author of two previous novels, The Body Politic, and The Woman of Rivoli. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For S.

  CHAPTER 1

  Eddie Brogan’s last chance Eddie felt like he was dressed for a funeral. His bruised, swollen hands suffered the cold and he looked on in envy at the black gloves worn by the other bouncer on the door. He stood at the bottom of the metal stairs, the second line of security, the older, slower man, here only because of a favour, a last chance act of charity for a fading faded former giant.

  Behind him the music pumped and pounded, alien to his damaged, corrupted ears. Just a few lonely souls on the dance floor on a solemn Tuesday night that promised little more business. He was glad, he was tired, no, he was fucking exhausted, his knee was killing him and only now did he remember the tablets sitting beside his bed, forgotten this evening before he had left for work. He fixed his earpiece, hated wearing it and he wondered why they had to. Definitely not needed tonight when the world had decided to stay away. Static in his ear, in his mind, he ran his hands over his black suit and tie, looked down at the bright clean shoes that were a black mirror. He looked up to see Paul staring down at him from street level. A youthful, probing glare that hinted at contempt.

  ‘Alright, pop?’ Fuck him, fuck him, I’ll take him out in the back later and show him how old I really fucking am, I’ll watch him laugh through broken teeth and the taste of his own blood.

  ‘Grand,’ said Eddie, knowing he would do no such thing. Not now. Not anymore. Two in the morning and the last remains of desperate love danced in slow drunken circles on the square floor. Eddie’s watch had stopped. He wondered what she was doing right now, what Edie was thinking.

  ‘Not working, Pop? Bit like yourself.’ Paul even walked with a sneer. ‘Yeah.’ All Eddie could think to say, caught between fear and failure. A guy like that, all muscle, no fucking brains, working a door like he was a brain surgeon or something. Paul ‘Maisie’ Lynch, what was that all about? He didn’t ask, didn’t want to know. Had seen them come and go, rise and

  Philip Boyle fall. Was Edie thinking about him now? He hoped and couldn’t believe all at the same time. The music had finally ended. He took out his ear piece and put it in his jacket pocket. There was a tap on his shoulder which made him jump. Jimmy, the wiry, greasy barman, his head permanently down as if a great weight was pressing on his shoulders. He hardly looked at you as he spoke.

  ‘Frankie. Wants to see you.’ Message relayed, he was gone, to whatever rat cellar he lived in.

  Few things lonelier than an empty nightclub, like the world a few hours after it had ended. The echo of life, the sad memory of happiness. Through the bowels, along white washed stone walls to a white door with a tiny gold star on it, a joke, this was where the boss resided and everyone had to know. Eddie knocked, a naughty schoolboy visiting headmaster.

  ‘Fair’ Frankie Noon was a creature of the night. His ghost pale skin almost matched the silver white mane of hair tied back in a ponytail that somehow didn’t look stupid on him. He sat behind a black desk in a white room and continued to look down at the papers on his desk as Eddie walked in and sat down. He looked up finally and beamed a smile that erred on the side of sincerity. This man was the reason Eddie was here, employed, able to pay a rent, eat. Survive.

  ‘Eddie. Quiet night.’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘Nice way to start. Paul alright?’

  Eddie nodded and Frankie laughed, understanding. ‘I know what you mean. Fucking arrogant. But he’s good, nobody better. Just let him have his head and don’t worry about him. And what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Keeping out of trouble, laying low, not dreaming of things that ain’t gonna happen?’

  Eddie looked at the ground between his feet. Linoleum, he thought that’s what it was. Something from another age. Looked cheap. But it did the job he supposed.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me. Not anymore.’ He suddenly felt very tired, very old and Edie was a long way away.

  ‘No? Show me your hands’

  Eddie reluctantly held up his hands, palms open and facing forward like he was under arrest.

  ‘Come on, Eddie, you know what I mean. Show me your hands.’

  Eddie shut his eyes in resignation for a second and clenched his fists, one slightly ahead of the other. Muscled, bruised tough hands, punished and punishing, they carried him momentarily back to the sweaty, humid arenas. Frankie regretted it as soon as he’d asked and opened a drawer while Eddie put his hands down.

  ‘Here.’ He handed Eddie a white envelope. ‘Call it a favour, not a loan and don’t refuse or I’ll be fucking insulted. Just take it. And don’t thank me ’cause I fucking hate that as well.’ Eddie took the money and hid it away in his jacket. Said nothing, tried not to look directly at Frankie and took his leave with just a nod of the head.

  Back out through the white corridors and Eddie thought he heard the distant hum of the waiting, expectant crowd. Up the steps and the noise would become louder, tinny piped music and his own pumping heart. He walked up the metal stairs to nothing but the cold empty street where his breath floated on the air. It occurred to him now how their names were almost the same. He must have noticed that before, surely? Just one letter away.

  Eddie… Edie.

  CHAPTER 2

  Edie sings the blues The pearl necklace of lights around the dressing room mirror cast harsh reality on her face. She cleaned and scrubbed and only made it worse. She removed the bands and pins from her hair and shook it free. It looked too tired to escape so it hung there meekly. There was a knock on the door behind her and June shoved her little face around it to say goodnight.

  Edie always wanted to go with her. June thought that Edie would be going on elsewhere, some other club, somewhere better, somewhere June didn’t belong. Edie sang the last line of the last song she had sung that night.

  ‘That’s how I should have done it,’ she whispered to her reflection and shivered at the sound of her own voice. She finished dressing and put on her watch last of all. Near the hour of the in-between world.

  On Brighton pier she watched the dawn, looked at her phone, knew she should have phoned Eddie, even texted because he would never do the same, hated the things, hoping he was asleep, praying that he had gone straight home, closed her eyes and saw him lying bloodied in some forgotten doorway. Stop thinking. She was tired, she was hungry.

  She had breakfast in the Tudor and cursed the stain the ketchup left on her new trousers. Felt her eyelids droop and her mind drift as the town came to life. She walked slowly back home, taking a different route this time for no particular reason. Against the tide of the regular crowd who wound their way impatiently as the morning skies grew dark. It threatened rain. Edie heard the first drops on the window as her clothes fell to the bedroom floor and she fell into bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow her mind staggered into life and every noise in the house, in the street and the world beyond became a cacophony. She went over every note she had sung the night before, every good and bad one, the obvious and the carefully hidden behind the drums and guitar. Every morning the same routine, the minute rewinding of the night before, the eternal dissatisfaction in her own performance.
No matter what the band said, what the club manager said. That voice in her head overcame them all, that voice that told her, like a needle stuck in the groove, that, yeah, she was okay, sometimes she was pretty good, but – she would never be great. There was no sadness like the realization that you were never going to be more than average.

  In the promising light of late afternoon she ironed her clothes and sipped from a cup of black tea, watching her afternoon quiz shows and hearing the constant bleep from her mobile as messages were left. From the same person, over and over. She had to end it, didn’t even like him and yet she knew she would be with him this evening, as she had been the previous night. And possibly the one before that. There was comfort in even the most unlikable strangers.

  She showered and changed, wore a drab raincoat over a green sparkling low-cut that showed more than she really had. Down the narrow creaking stairs on heels that more than once had threatened to end her life. Out into pummelling rain that assaulted the senses. It was tiring rain if such a thing was possible. She was running late so she ran or tried to. In the unseen crack her shoe caught and she grazed her right knee on wet, rough ground. She studied the tiny, pounding wound even as the rain hammered down, through her coat, through everything. Blood seeped out through the torn nylon and ran down her leg with undue haste. And she cried, over this, over nothing more than a childish injury that a small plaster would cover.

  In the dim light her legs remained largely hidden. They swayed with the rhythms of each song and carried her thoughts away. Tonight she was good, she soared beyond the ordinary and thought the applause rang a little harder, an element of surprise in it. She saw a look of wonder in the members of the band and more satisfyingly in the hard, dark eyes of Terry Marsan, the bull-like man who ran the Orinoco club and liked absolutely nobody. But he liked her tonight, almost smiled, revealing a gold tooth at the upper edge of his mouth. It was a look that told her that she had a few more nights. Maybe. They were out of season down here, out of time and the cold was more bitter. Terry could click his fingers, lock the doors and head off to Spain for the winter. She wondered why he stayed. A part of her wanted to go home, see Dublin, see Eddie. Another part of her however…

  He was waiting for her outside. Standing by his precious car with his hands buried in the leather coat, a cigarette hanging from the mouth. As far away from Eddie as a man could get, he saw and heard nothing but himself, she was draped on his arm like a heavy gold bracelet. And she went along for the ride, for the noise and the escape. She had no idea what he did during the day, was a little scared to ask. He wouldn’t tell her anyway and she didn’t want to know. He didn’t exist, he couldn’t be real. She heard the sound of her own heels as she walked toward him but the world around him was silent and empty. From club to club, from neon shimmer to the drowsy slow dances of early morning, she paid for nothing except her piece of mind. And the sex. The sex was just there like an afterthought, for both of them. And later that morning he’d leave her by the pier, by herself and she loved the fierce cold that accompanied her epic tiredness, glorious moments before she slept.

  CHAPTER 3

  The boxer dreams of love

  The boxer dreams of love and on awakening he spies the steel grey realities of day. Eddie cleaned the flat without much enthusiasm. Awaiting her return which could be today, could be next week. So the dust would settle once again before she came back and all she had to do was give him that one hard look that displayed her disappointment. In the long day hours when his mind was awake and his body asleep he wandered like a ghost waiting for the night to come. He should force himself to sleep, he couldn’t take the chance of being slow on the door. There were no third or fourth chances with this job. Not even a second. One shot at the title and little reward but his own self-respect and the chance, the slim hope, of being able to live permanently with a woman who already had stayed far beyond the call of duty. Self-pity was a jacket he kept in the wardrobe and wore on a regular basis. When you had nothing you grabbed whatever was close by, whatever. The posters on the wall were wallpapers of the past, boxers long since dead, long since ruined, mythologised, buried and re-born in romantic shades. In the empty times like now he liked to live among them, understand, shed tears for those he never knew.

  The body had been worn down, trampled by time, by punches thrown in controlled fury. Parts still hurt when he touched them. Only when Edie lay her soft hands there did the pain carry any solace. And in that pain were buried memories, of nights long since past. Nights in the brooding, drunken halls where men sat, spat and laughed, spilled drink and waved notes in the air, he broke his own fucking heart, with every step another ragged breath would be drawn from him as he fought the demons in the ring, in himself. And those times when he fell, when his head hit the stretched canvas in defeat there would be a moment of glorious relief that it was all over. And Eddie had lost more often than not, and his heart had been his meal ticket, his crazy courage, Eddie ‘Lionheart,’ never put your money on him, not to win anyway, but what a show, what an effort. Jesus, grown men were seen to weep at the punishment he had taken, this mediocre middleweight who had stood up against the ropes, lifting both hands and all the while blood spitting from cuts in both eyes. And referees with blood money in their back pockets letting the fights go on well past the legal or moral limits. All of this Eddie saw and remembered in a single glance at the snarling picture of Jake ‘Raging Bull’ La Motta on the poster in the kitchen, on the wall beside the fridge. He ran the brush over the floor, put the dirt in the bin and carried the overflowing plastic into the back yard. He washed his hands and cut himself a dull sandwich that he ate to the ticking of the wall clock. He turned on the radio and turned it off almost immediately. He wanted something but didn’t know what. He drummed his fingers on the table. He carved a tiny indent in the wood with the blunt knife and stopped when he thought what Edie would think when she noticed it. And she would notice. She saw everything, all that was there and not. His freight train mind hurtled from station to station without stopping at a single interesting thought. No, there was one thought at every station along the way. She was there, Edie was always there, everywhere he went, when he closed his eyes, when he opened them. His mobile rang but only for a second, no number registering.

  There was a letter on the sideboard in the bedroom. It sat in the envelope that had been opened, read, replaced and then opened again. He kept meaning to hide it, somewhere she wouldn’t see it. Just burn the fucking thing. Why keep it at all? He knew the contents by heart, knew who had sent it and where that person could be contacted so there was no reason to leave it sitting there in plain sight. He left it there because Edie wasn’t home, he didn’t know when she would be and he hadn’t heard from her for two days. He could have phoned, no sane reason not to but a part of him didn’t want bad news so he let it go. Left it up to her. He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t come back, could hardly understand when she did. And they always saw the light in each other’s eyes and found something that neither had apart. But it scared him, and in the times apart that fear only grew, to nightmare proportions. Was she thinking of him now?

  ‘Alright, Eddie?’ The tap on his shoulder and he jumped, saw Frankie’s flashing smile against the neon background, wondered what he had done wrong.

  ‘Fine. Quiet.’

  ‘Too quiet. Too fucking quiet. Too fucking cold that’s what it is. And no money floating around like it used to. They’re putting it under beds, in biscuit tins. You remember that? Your mother do that? Yeah, course she did. Maybe they were right, look at the way those fucking bankers, wankers, fucking toerags, have fucked things up. You have much put away, Eddie? No, I guess not. No, I forgot. Sorry, sorry man. Listen, whatever you heard, whatever the fuck you may hear, I ain’t goin’ nowhere, you understand? There is no villa in fucking Spain. Here to stay, this is where I live, my fucking place and I ain’t gonna desert her now.’ Frankie’s eyes were floating as he spoke and Eddie decided not to say anything at all. Frankie N
oon was howling at the moon tonight and fair was the way to play it with him, let him go, let him say what he had to say and just nod your head. Frankie stumbled a little going up the stairs but he hung on and reached Paul at the top where he no doubt repeated his little speech. Paul nodded like his head was on a spring but made the mistake of touching Frankie on the shoulder. Frankie just looked down at the hand on him and it was pulled away in a moment. Then the boss looked around, looked lost, looking for more customers, searching the broken streets. A couple of teenage girls arrived, way too young, about fourteen, and they would never had made it past Paul, let alone him. But Frankie welcomed them with open arms, like long lost friends and accompanied them down the stairs. As they descended Eddie couldn’t help seeing under their too short skirts, to the bare uncovered flesh beneath and he immediately looked away, shocked that he had seen, that he had lingered there for even a fragment of a second, however unintentional it all was. The girls brushed past him, and grinned at him as if they knew, as if they had enjoyed his guilt.

  It happened that night. It was always going to, only a matter of when. The fight broke out for no reason at all, for the wrong look, the wrong word, drink-fuelled rage, dislocation, disorientation. Eddie was closest to it and the last to arrive at the incident, the last to get involved, the least effective. He watched from the sides, a spectator inside his own ring.

  ‘Eddie, what the fuck are you doing?’ Paul screamed in his ear as he rushed past to separate the two young men who were now on the floor, throwing desperate punches, fear and loathing in their frighteningly young faces. Paul pulled them apart with ease, dragged the smaller one away and got him to his feet, planting him against the wall and telling him to stay there. Paul went back for the other one, who was now sitting on the floor and put up no struggle as he was wrestled from the dance floor and dragged up the stairs, cutting his hand along the way, tearing his good shirt. He was planted on the street and sat there not knowing what he was supposed to do next. Paul followed with his ‘friend’ soon after and two young women, now completely sober and questioning their choices. Eddie was back at his post, breathing hard and waiting for Paul.