The Boxer's Dreams of Love Read online

  ‘Do you actually know what you’re supposed to be doing here? I mean, what your job entails? You think you’re just supposed to stand there and look pretty? Well?’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Say fucking something. Tell me why you stood there and did nothing. This is your area. Down here. You can’t handle two fucking kids what fucking use are you?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Paul laughed with a sneer that carved his face apart. ‘Sorry? Jesus. I heard about you, you know that? Heard all about you. Fucking hard man about twenty years ago, was it? I thought, alright, give the guy a chance, make my life a little easier, ’cause all I’ve had to work with here are kids, skinny fuckers who’ve never been in a fight. But when I saw you. Know what I thought? Old man. First words that came to mind. Know why?’

  He paused, took his time, letting the words settle in.

  ‘I looked in your eyes and there was nothing there. They were soft. Whatever had been there was gone. I spend my life looking at people’s faces, looking in their eyes. ’Cause that’s where it is, the soul, character, whatever the fuck you call it. People can say what the fuck they like to you, call you all the names under the fucking sun. Most of the time they’re bluffing and you know, you know there’s nothing behind it. Nothing. There. Behind it.’ He moved, swaggered away, up the stairs, back to his post, leaving Eddie shaking, puffing, heaving slow, cumbersome breaths. The music like a sledgehammer in his head, he saw the dancing feet, the clinging bodies, the sweat on lusty faces. All the pretty people he thought. His mobile vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and in the dim light he read Edie’s message. It calmed him a little. But only a little.

  He slept late the next day, not rising until well after two, with rain knocking on the windows wanting to come inside. In that moment of empty clarity before memory and knowledge seeps back in he was pure and happy, born anew, no past or future just now, here, present only. Then Paul’s words echoed off the walls and through the floors and Eddie turned his face back into the sheets, wanting to be swallowed whole, to go back. Back moments before the fight started. This time he would move in with stealthy grace and diffuse the bomb before it exploded.

  Afraid? Was that what it was? Only of himself. The irony was deafening. A lifetime of throwing punches, a few even landing, and now he risked everything if he even clenched his fist. Frankie hadn’t spoken to him about the incident but that didn’t mean he was unaware. Of course he wasn’t. Even if only by the smirk on Paul’s face. Eddie was now the comedian who couldn’t tell jokes. It took everything he had to get out of bed, more to fill the kettle and switch it on. He read Edie’s message again but it was small comfort, colder now in the light of day than it had been last night.

  Hey, how’s it goin’ stranger?

  Stranger? He knew what she meant but it hurt him a little nonetheless. Strange maybe. He had swept her off her feet the first time they met. Literally. Carrying four pints of beer across the beer-stained floor, his body a mass of drunken swerves and he hit the edge of a table. Let go and the beer sprayed mayhem across her black diamond dress.

  He could hardly talk, he was so drunk, so he could hardly apologise, could he? He mumbled something as he was pulled away from the table, her disgusted face receding as they carried him out of the club. Outside, his friends missing in action, he wandered the streets in oblivion. Woke in hard daylight, standing up outside a chipper, looked down in dismay at his dirty clothes, knowing his face was bruised even before he saw his reflection in the shop window.

  His day off and he sweated under the covers with a sudden flu. Borne of self-pity no doubt and the tiredness of worry about her. He still hadn’t replied to her message, how fucking crazy was that? How selfish. The connections he had lost over the years because of that distrust of himself. That doubt in his own worth that nobody believed. He could walk into his old gym and be welcomed like a prodigal son, swap stories, some of them even true, shake hands and feel the arms on his wide shoulders. But still. There would be little closeness, little conversation after the initial small talk. Why was that? Where did all his thoughts flow to? They would drift away and he would smile and just watch them leave. He accepted, or thought he accepted, his station. His purpose was what it was. It had brought him here, to this flat, this job, this life. And what of it? It wasn’t the bottom rung but pretty close. But what of it? He had Edie. He had met Edie and so that made up for all the rest. Didn’t it?

  He had Edie

  He had Edie. Where was she now? He didn’t even know that for sure. He sat in the Palace bar and the dust danced in the blade sliver of light that cut through the high arched window. He lazed in a corner and struggled with his second pint. His left knee trembled and he planted it hard on the ground. So where was she now? At two in the afternoon. He took out his phone and took his time composing the message. He was still a little unsure how these things worked. His swollen hands didn’t help. It wasn’t perfect but he sent it anyway and even now, even now he thought that her reaction on seeing his name would be to sigh with a kind of regret that she hadn’t severed the ties a long time ago. What did she have to do, what did anyone have to do come to that, to show that they liked him? There came a point with everyone when they couldn’t wait for him any longer. And so here he was.

  And there he stayed. There he swayed. It was what? Ten o’clock? You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me. His hand missed the bowl and he fell back against the tiled wall. His feet slipped on the wet floor and he hit his head on something hard. Hit his head but he didn’t fall and he wouldn’t feel the pain until the next morning. Could hardly tie his belt and left his shirt hanging outside. He saw his own face lurching in the toilet mirror and then felt someone at his side. That someone was calling his name, whispering close by and he felt whiskey breath, not his own. He was moving, floating, but not by own his own effort. He was being carried, borne aloft.

  Through a swarm of bodies that reluctantly moved out of his way. The night air hit him with a kind of fury and he suddenly wanted to lie down. He tried to sit down, wanted nothing more but somebody wouldn’t let him. He looked up into the eyes of his helper and couldn’t recognize the face.

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘No, Eddie. Not yet.’

  ‘Let me – .’ And that was all that would come out. His eyes closed, his senses shut down.

  Let me go.

  Eyes opened momentarily and the world swam in circles. In that fragment of dream he saw Edie standing in the bedroom doorway with her hands across her chest and cold, fresh tears in her eyes. But that couldn’t be. Couldn’t be.

  When they opened again the world had stopped moving. And there she still stood. Wearing one of his own t-shirts, leaning against the door jam, her hands pushed deep in the pockets of her jeans.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ She forced a smile but even in his comatose state he knew it hadn’t come easy.

  He tried to say something but his brain wasn’t connected to the rest of his body yet. He waited for it, the nausea, the realization of what he had done the night before. He watched her, doubted her still, saw her turn away and disappear. Noises from the other rooms. He closed his eyes again and wanted sleep, hated this dream, wanted the real world back. Seconds, no more than that, and she was beside him on the bed. The smell of her skin, the brush of her hand on his face and he shivered. She placed a mug on the locker beside the bed. He heard it as it touched the wood, it seemed real. Inches from his face now, sweet breath, a crumb of something on the edge of her mouth, the parted, expectant lips and he swam in her dark eyes, followed them as they peered intently at him. Here.

  She was here.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ she repeated. They were at the kitchen table. She made him a fresh coffee because the old one had gone cold. He had barely managed two words and one of those was her name. A question, still doubt in his mind that she had returned. He still waited for his stomach to turn over and punish him for last night but the distraction of Edie was keepin
g that at bay for the moment.

  ‘I don’t have to ask, do I?’ She smiled and he followed suit, like a baby copying its mother.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here. What are you doing here?’ His voice was a dirty deep river, clogged with alcohol debris.

  ‘You want me to go?’

  They talked little for the next hour. He ate the breakfast she cooked and saw her disapproving eyes move over the layers of dust that had re-settled in the flat. As she stood drying dishes at the sink, he moved up slowly behind and touched her. She moved back into him and he strengthened his grip on her, his arms moving around her waist, then higher, touching the soft breasts under his borrowed shirt. He hesitated, knowing how his own breath and body must smell but she didn’t pull away, didn’t care.

  Aching, drifting souls, colliding in the space that held still in the cold morning. Beneath fragrant, damp sheets they hid from the world and sought nothing but the comfort of each other. Weeks apart, childish blame ended. At peace for now.

  CHAPTER 4

  Eddie and Edie back together, for now He didn’t ask. A part of him didn’t want to know. That was always one of his problems. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. That’s what he believed. If he didn’t go the doctor he’d never get cancer because they’d never be able to tell him.

  She was here, that’s all that mattered. He awoke to find her there, living, breathing, holding on to him.

  He would hear her in the other rooms sometimes, most often in the bathroom, and her voice would catch a piece of a song. And then it would be gone in an instant, as if she suddenly remembered that he was near, that he could hear. Or maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing at first and when she did, something would stop her.

  But he didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.

  The blur of constant comfort. Worries spirited away, buried under the distraction of something that came from another world. Weeks now and Paul hadn’t said a cross word to him, had no reason. Eddie worked the solemn, drunken hours and the time passed in a whisper. And at the end of it, always, she moved against him, even asleep her body would gravitate towards him, find him, and finally rest. Sometimes she muttered incomprehensible words and he would smile and wait with contented breath for his own sleep to come. In the morning, always up before him, he would wake to find her there, waiting for him, on him. He’d sit at the table, watch and wait in wonder, unable to say much, his mind a confusion of thoughts, over and over again fighting the idea that this couldn’t last. It could be in the fractured reflection in a spoon, the metallic edge of the toaster, where he would see his own doubt most clearly.

  Couldn’t be… couldn’t… be

  He didn’t ask but he had to. Can’t carry on like this. She’s been back weeks and hardly said a word. They haven’t had a single row, she seems utterly content to be here, be with him, no sign of wanting to be anywhere else. A thought just occurred to him. She was buying food, other stuff, she never mentioned money, he never offered, he never thought, not until now. She stared at him, no, not stared, that was the wrong word, she looked intently at him, across the table while he had cereal in his mouth. He always felt uncomfortable when people watched him eat.

  But she wasn’t watching what he was doing, not really. She was trying to hold onto him in her own way.

  So he broke the connection himself, forced his eyes down, on the food, the plate, the table, anything, nothing. But his thoughts remained there, locked on her. Finished the food, she took it away immediately, went to the sink and looked back at him with that frightened smile. That’s what it was.

  ‘What do you want to do today?’ he asked her. They had exhausted daylight hours in cinemas, cafes and bars. They had idled hours where previously he would have slept or gone to the gym. He knew how she would answer because it was always the same.

  ‘I don’t mind. Whatever you want to do.’ It wasn’t that he was bored. It was – what? Was all this a holiday for her? A short break before she went back to Brighton or some other grim town where she sang in permanent semi-darkness?

  He had to ask. Didn’t want to.

  Eddie led when he wanted someone to lead him. There was a shift, a falling off. Edie began to slide into permanent ennui. He took her hand and practically had to drag her with him. He would have preferred anything to this, this lack of anything. Unseen, something new in her, something frightening. He had asked her that first day back how Brighton had been and she had brushed the questions aside, fine, fine, money had been good, audiences undeserving, ungrateful swine who ate, drank and talked through each performance. She didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t want to ask any more. He didn’t want to ask when, if, she was going back, for how long this time. He wanted her here, always, forever, that stupid fucking cliché of a dream that can never be. He didn’t even want that for her. She had pulled him away, up, out of the hole in the ground into which he had fallen. But her steps had slowed, she had slipped behind him and he didn’t have the strength to carry both of them. Sliding back to the soft, muddy murky edge. She had stopped caring, that was it. Wasn’t looking ahead anymore. She seemed to be looking down at the ground beneath her feet.

  He took her to the piano bar of the Westbury hotel for a drink. Because she hadn’t been there before and had expressed a kind of curiosity about it. Because they had been in every other bar he could think of and nowhere lifted the dust gloom in her eyes. Eddie had felt slightly nervous as he walked across the lobby of the hotel, up the wide lush stairs and into the elegant open space of the bar where people from the other world lived. He hoped that Edie would distract any unwanted attention from himself. What

  Philip Boyle was it with some women that they could wear anything without appearing any less elegant? Whereas, with men, and him in particular, the reverse was always true.

  There was a grand piano but no one to play it. A few couples sprinkled like discarded glitter long after the party had ended. There was a couple on a couch opposite. They were middle-aged, middle-brow, middling in everything, even their clothes, their haunted eyes that suggested the world appeared never more than somewhat disappointing. But the thing about them was, they sat at least two feet apart, and the woman had her arms folded across her substantial chest, except when she leaned forward to sip from her tall, slim glass with red liquid and ice. They stared straight ahead and mournfully surveyed the flat, dull landscape of their marriage. They never looked at each other, never uttered a word.

  Eddie looked at Edie. She was smiling, the fingers on her left hand playing playfully on the hem of her thin green dress. She watched this maudlin couple and smiled. She looked at Eddie and they both started laughing.

  ‘That’s not us, Eddie, is it? Tell me it isn’t?’

  ‘No. For one thing we’re sitting at least six inches closer. You are at least ten years younger than she is. She’s wearing far too much make-up. Although I have to say that she has magnificent breasts.’ Eddie mockstared at the woman and Edie punched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hey! Eyes off!’

  Eddie took her hand, as if a little afraid of catching whatever disease the other couple had. Indifference. The word had jumped into his mind. They had taken their eyes and ears off each other and found themselves on different roads. Now they were unable to get back.

  ‘Promise we’ll never become like that,’ she said.

  He put a hand on her cheek, kissed her, then kissed her again, hoping that the other couple might see. Edie asked if they could get another bottle of wine. Eddie nodded and much as he wanted a pint, he would grant her whatever she wanted.

  ‘Eddie? You alright?’ She called him back from his own dark romantic thoughts. Back down on the ground, beside, looking into eyes that were alive once more. She was back, Edie was back.

  ‘I’m fine.’ The new bottle had arrived and she sipped greedily from the first glass. The couple opposite had disappeared.

  ‘You think they’re staying here?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Maybe they’re
on a romantic break. They’re upstairs now. Can you imagine, ripping each other’s clothes off, like animals. We should have followed them, stood outside the door. Come to think of it, she probably has an orgasm when he takes off his tie.’

  Eddie put a hand over her mouth. ‘Stop, will you. They’ll throw us out!’

  They sat there for another hour in comfortable silence. And finally she said it. Made it easy for him.

  ‘I know you want to ask me. Poor Eddie, think if you don’t ask it won’t happen.’

  ‘No, it’s just—’

  ‘Yes, I’m going back. In a week. Back to Brighton for two weeks and then we’re hoping to go to Edinburgh. I’ve never been there.’ She waited for something that never came. ‘When I say ‘hoping,’ I’m not sure what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean. It’s what you do, Edie.’

  It’s what you do.

  How often had he said that to himself? How often had others, with devil dark motives of corruptions in their pockets, said that to him? When he sat, no, when he lay, bleeding, sweating, gasping for breath in dressing(down) rooms after another defeat or even after a victory that had tasted like defeat. When he swore, under his breath, told himself that was it, never again, because one more and he could be dead. His body was far beyond broken but while there was the slightest trace of some nobility left, he would leave. But these men stood over him, these money mad men with uncertain eyes, and promised him the world, that next time, it would happen, he’d earn the big shot, the big money.

  ‘It’s what I do,’ said Edie. ‘So why am I hiding here with you?’

  Words, the choice of when and where. Context was all. But in the fragile drowsy dreamlike state brought on by glasses of red wine that stained the mind as well as the tongue, the words came tumbling out in a frenzy of misunderstanding.