Silas Page 18

  He takes a breath and squeezes my hands.

  “I will tend her grave, Grace. I will put fresh flowers on every week, just like I’ve done this last month, and I will make sure the world still sees that she was loved.”

  Tears spill from my eyes again, and he finally releases my hands, so I can wipe at them. I sniffle and shrug at him dejectedly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “I haven’t got any money to get back on a plane any time soon.”

  He cocks his head.

  “Sounds to me like you need to get on one much more pronto than ‘any time soon’, belissima. When is this fight?”

  “Tomorrow. But I mean it. I can’t. I’m all maxed out already.”

  He reaches across and pats my cheek.

  “Hmm. Then let me see what Uncle Vincent can do for you.”

  Silas

  “Man, you really have the hots for me, don’t you?” George taunts me as he has me in the second triangle hold this session. “You really do love it between my legs.”

  With my free hand, I tickle him below the ribs, and I can feel him holding in the chuckles as I practice my escape. Soon as I’m out and up, we call it a day. We’ve been going for over an hour, through all the takedowns and chokeholds under the sun, though George can’t do a flying scissor for toffee, so we left it out.

  At the end of the day, it makes no difference anyway. There is a reason Rowan is called Python. He’s a master at chokes and George is nowhere near his calibre. I’m more of a kick ‘em and punch ‘em in the right places as soon as you can kinda guy. I found out early that the best bet is to not let them get up close and personal in the first place but lay them out from afar. Wait and strike. Hard and fast. Knock out, don’t choke out. Most of my fights are over in seconds because I try to avoid all that rolling around on the floor bullshit as much as possible.

  If I wanna roll around, I wanna do it with a woman.

  Grace.

  Fuck, I miss her.

  But the fact of the matter is that in a street fight among real fighters, nine out of ten times a choke still wins. And I haven’t fought anyone like Rowan in years, so I’ve been practicing.

  George goes to pick up his towel and dries his sweaty face, still laughing, and I go and pick up my water bottle. He’s been good as gold, turning up to spar with me every day since he came to check on me. I thought he was just gonna stay that first session but no, he’s taken it upon himself to make sure I don’t lose on Saturday.

  Part of me thinks he’s got money riding on it though he swears he doesn’t. Either way, it’s actually been really cool having him around. It’s like we’re having an illicit affair, where I get to call him by his real name and he gets to horse around with me like the good old days when we were both still living in Brighton, going to the same school, eating microwave popcorn on my mum’s living room floor, watching Tarantino films, feeling like right little bruisers ‘cause they were all 18s. George is not remotely good enough a fighter for his services to really help me, but if nothing else it takes my mind off Grace for a couple of hours a day.

  “How are you feeling?” George asks me.

  I give him a small smile. He deserves it.

  “You’re gonna invite me for a cuppa before I have to go and be Diego again?” he adds by-the-by and that really makes me smile.

  Firstly, because I love the self-deprecating part of this guy. I hadn’t seen it in so long I thought it was gone. Turns out it was just hiding beneath the surface. He can still take the piss out of himself with the best of them. And secondly, because I have the sneaking suspicion that coming over to mine for a coffee after our training sessions is a huge part of the attraction for him.

  About as huge as the hard-on he has for a certain young Polish girl I live with and though he won’t touch her ‘cause he reckons she’s too young for him, it doesn’t stop him from going all googly-eyed over her in my mum’s kitchen each time he comes over.

  It’s hilarious to watch.

  Diego, night-club owner, organiser of the biggest illegal fight club league on the south coast, Prince Regent to a much wider operation nobody in their right mind wants to know the details about, turning into little George Benson with a crush on a girl so bad he’ll happily hang in our crummy little house.

  “Sure,” I say. “Let’s hit the showers first, though. Wouldn’t wanna overwhelm Kalina with your manly smell, now, would ya?”

  His face turns serious, and then he comes over to me and grasps my shoulders.

  “I miss you, man,” he says and lets go, turning away.

  I swallow hard.

  I know what he means.

  Somehow the world was a lot better when we were just kids and the shit that went down was our parents’ shit that went down and not ours.

  Grace

  “Are you sure you want to do this, honey?” Cindy is sitting cross-legged on the bed in my room, watching me frantically fold the clothes that I just dragged from the dryer.

  “Ouch,” I swear as I accidentally touch the scorching hot zipper on a pair of jeans.

  That’ll teach me not to wait out the cool cycle. But I don’t have time. My flight leaves in five hours and I’ve still got to get my shit together and get to the airport.

  “Yes, Cinderella, I am abso-fucking-lutely sure about this,” I say, not really stopping to look at her, while I keep piling stuff into my suitcase.

  Back into my suitcase. I only unpacked it not even twenty-four hours ago. Until last night, I lived out of it, not wanting to subscribe to the reality of being back in the States. Well, I’m fucking well unsubscribing again now.

  Cindy makes a squealing noise.

  “I knew it,” she claims. “Holiday fling, my ass. You looove him.”

  I look up at her, raising my eyebrows.

  “You’re such a child, Cinderella Dawson!”

  She smiles at me broadly.

  “Yes, I am,” she admits proudly then makes a sweeping gesture around the room. “But a child with a huge apartment, medical insurance, pension plan and a scorching hot boss.”

  In that exact moment the noise of a throat clearing comes from the door and ─ it couldn’t be more sitcom perfect ─ Leon is standing there. Cindy goes wide-eyed but to her credit she doesn’t blush.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Leon says to the wall behind her as if he hadn’t heard what she just said. “I’ve been trying to call you, but you haven’t answered, so I came to see if everything is alright down here.”

  “I’m sorry.” Cindy scrambles to the edge of the bed and gets up. “I left my cell in the living room. My bad. It’s just that Grace is leaving us again and I wanted to spend her last hour with her.”

  Leon frowns at that and looks at me directly.

  “You are leaving again?” he asks me sharply, and I’m surprised at his tone.

  So is he I guess, since he immediately looks at his shoes again as soon as I meet his gaze.

  “I am,” I answer gently because I get that he is just upset at me on Cindy’s behalf. “I’m going back to England.”

  “That’s a shame,” he mumbles. “I was hoping you’d keep Cindy company for longer.”

  He sighs.

  “I’ll call for my driver. What time do you need to leave here?”

  “Six, but you don’t need to do that. I can get an Uber.”

  He looks up and frowns directly at me.

  “No,” he says decisively. “My driver will take you.”

  Then he turns and leaves.

  He’s a strange, strange man.

  But I kinda like him.

  Silas

  The night before the fight, I sleep abysmally.

  When I finally give up rather than wake up, I know with total clarity that I’ve been bullshitting myself. I convinced myself that it was better if Grace was long gone by the time this came around, but now I wish she was here, by my side, getting me through the next hours.

  The day leading up to a fight is always a bit bo
llocks. It’s a bit like when you’re scheduled to go away somewhere but you’re not leaving till the evening. Your bags are packed, you’re primed to go and you can’t really get stuck in much else because you know you’ll be leaving soon and need to be ready.

  Not that I’ve gone many places in my life. I’d like to, though.

  If I win tonight and we can wipe the slate clean, I’ll find a new job and I’ll start saving up to maybe go and see a little of the world one day.

  Today’s day-before-the-evening will be even longer than normal since my weeks with Grace have completely thrown me out of sync. Whereas before I’d get up at three in the afternoon, I now wake at nine every morning. It’s been bliss not working in the club. I hadn’t realised how much I love being up and about during daylight hours. But today it just means that there’ll be even more time in which I don’t know what to do with myself.

  I swing my legs out of bed to start my pre-fight routine of light snacks every couple of hours and waiting around. You don’t want a full stomach but neither do you want to be starved by the time the ref goes ‘and fight’. I briefly wonder who Diego will have ‘refereeing’ tonight or if there’ll be anyone at all down there in the pool with us. The job is paying lip service at best when it’s at the club. Wonder if they’ll even bother tonight. I push the thought aside as I go to open the bedroom door. No point pondering. I’ll find out soon enough.

  I step out onto the landing and hear Kalina laughing downstairs, followed by my mum’s voice and it stops me dead in my tracks. Why the fuck is Mum home? She should be on an eight to eight, which would have been perfect in terms of her missing out on the car that is supposed to come fetch me at seven to take me to the Bensons. It can only mean that she has taken the day off.

  Shit. Fuck. Bollocks. Awkward.

  I go to take a piss then proceed down to investigate.

  I find Mum and Kalina sitting in the kitchen drinking tea. Mum looks up at me when I appear in the door frame and shakes her head disapprovingly.

  “You look terrible, Silas. Go back to bed. You need your rest if you want to hand Rowan his arse tonight,” she says evenly and makes a shooing motion. “Go, sleep. I wake you at midday with some apple and banana porridge.”

  I stare at her, flabbergasted.

  She knows.

  Of course she fucking knows.

  Sheena O’Brien never just knows the half of it, she always knows the fucking whole of it.

  “Is that why you’re home?” I ask her.

  She raises her eyebrows in mock pity.

  “What do you think?”

  “You’re not planning on being there tonight, are you?”

  She laughs mirthlessly at that.

  “And on what planet do you reckon I’d have an invitation?”

  The one where Cecil wants to see you suffer, I think. But I keep that thought to myself. I’d rather not give her any ideas.

  “So why are you not at work?” I reiterate the question.

  “The better to look after you today. Now go back to sleep.”

  She points at the door, but I hesitate. Might as well tell her in case something happens to me tonight. I look at Kalina and I feel bad for not trusting her, but I’m not taking any risks. Not with that amount of money.

  “Come upstairs with me for a sec,” I tell Mum.

  She frowns but follows me upstairs when I turn around and go back to my room.

  As soon as we’re inside, I tell her to shut the door, and then I kneel in front of my bed. I look back at her over my shoulder.

  “I need you to come over here. I want to show you something.”

  She comes over and lowers herself to her knees next to me.

  “What is this?” she asks.

  “You’ll see,” I tell her. “Slide your hand along until you find the patch in the carpet. Like, feel around for a ridge where I cut into it with a Stanley knife.”

  She frowns but starts rummaging around.

  “I think I got it,” she says after a few moments.

  “Great. Lift out the patch. Then feel around for a loose section of floorboard.”

  She does and I can hear her tip the floorboard up.

  “Can you feel it?”

  “Yes,” she answers.

  “Great, put it all back together and remember it’s there,” I say and stand up.

  She does as directed then scrambles back to her feet. Then she goes toe to toe with me with her hands on her hips, cocking her head and looking at me questioningly.

  “I’ve been saving up my prize money over the last couple of years. There is a hundred grand under there,” I tell her, matter-of-fact.

  She gasps and takes a small step back, throwing her hands up.

  “You what? Why? Silas, what on earth?”

  I shrug.

  “I was gonna give you the whole lot once there was enough to pay off the loan, but I don’t know what’s gonna happen tonight, so I thought I’d better tell you where it is.”

  “Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “’Cause you would have stopped me.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Too right, I would,” she says, sinking down on the bed, and shakes her head, exasperated yet with a smirk. “But do you have any idea how difficult it is to whitewash a hundred grand?” she asks. “Would have been much easier to do it in small increments!”

  “What?”

  She pats the space next to her, and I sit down. She takes my hand in hers and strokes the back of it with her other hand, just like she used to when I was little and she was explaining the world to me.

  “For someone who works for the Bensons, you’ve learned astonishingly little. You didn’t think I could just roll into the bank with a suitcase full of cash and tell them here you go, have your money back, did you? That money needs to come from somewhere, Silas. And ‘my son earned it with illegal fighting’ is not an answer the bank, or the tax man, will accept. I need to somehow make it legit.”

  I stare at her sideways, feeling about four years old. I so often forget who my mum once was that each time a reminder like this comes along it slaps me in the face like a wet fish.

  “Shit, Mum. I didn’t think of that.”

  “Clearly,” she grins. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “So how are we gonna do this?”

  She pats my hand and winks at me.

  “Let that be my concern. I still have connections. That money down there will be white as bleached linen in a couple of months’ time. It’ll cost about fifteen percent, but I say it’s worth it. Smaller increments would have meant I could have done it much, much cheaper. But you live, you learn. So how much more are you bringing home tonight?”

  I smile at her, appreciating her confidence in me.

  “The rest,” I say and see her face fall.

  “Another hundred K?” she asks, going white as a sheet.

  I nod. She clasps my hand.

  “Don’t, Silas. Back out. That’s too much. One of you is going to get killed. They don’t lay on that kind of brass unless they want blood. Please.”

  I’ve never in my life heard my mum plead. It’s part of why she drove the men in her life so nuts. She wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t cower, wouldn’t plead. She is pleading now, but I know I can’t back out. I need to finish this. Not for the money. But for me. And for Rowan. For our story to finally fucking end. She sees it in my face before I can answer.

  “You can’t,” she says soberly, tears in her eyes.

  I shake my head. She nods. And I know she understands. She never knew what happened between Rowan and me, just that it was bad, but still she gets it. On some primeval level, mother to son.

  “Okay,” she says at the end of a sigh and gets up. “Go back to sleep. I’ll bring you that porridge in a couple of hours.”

  She is almost at the door when she turns back for a moment.

  “And Silas? I love you.”

  Then she leaves and I craw
l back into bed.

  And bizarrely, I actually manage to fall asleep again.

  Grace

  The journey back to England is literally and figuratively the longest of my life. Literally, because at such short notice Vince couldn’t get a direct flight for me, so I had to fly Aer Lingus and have a stopover in Dublin for five hours, turning an eight-hour flight into something that lasts approximately two centuries. As a bonus, though, the Irish flight attendants are extremely funny, clowning around in the aisle the entire way from Dulles to Dublin, and have me in hysterics, even if I only understand half of what they are saying sometimes.

  Figuratively, because worry that I won’t make it in time before the fight to kiss Silas and tell him I love him trumps my fear of flying and prevents me from sleeping even a wink during the thirteen-hour journey.

  When all is said and done, Heathrow spits me out onto the curb by the bus station on June 6 at 1700 hours. Which is too fucking late in the day.

  Frustration claws itself through my delirious overtiredness and I want to cry, but then I have one of those rare moments you get long after somebody dies when you hear the deceased’s voice so clearly in your ear, it feels like they are standing next to you.

  “In for the penny, in for the pound,” Mum says in that beautiful, well brought up British accent of hers that she never lost. “Get a cab, Grace. Another couple of hundred pounds won’t make a difference.”

  Who am I to argue with my dead mother?

  Silas

  I don’t know the bloke who picks me up. He’s one of old man Benson’s crew and he doesn’t talk to me beyond confirming he’s got the right man on board. He takes me over to the house and passes me on to Goran who greets me outside, waiting for me on the drive. Goran takes me around the back to the garden and shows me the pool house, explaining in the fewest words possible that that’s where the fight is going to happen. I can tell he’s still miffed ‘cause he never got to go up against me. Tosser.

  He studies my face when he switches the lights on in the main pool room, gauging my reaction. I have to admit, if I hadn’t been forewarned it would have shocked me to see the pool pumped out and the floor tiles covered in mats. I note that the sides are not cladded in anything, so if you get your head rammed against those or, better yet, the aluminium ladder leading down into the basin, you’re probably fucked. Nice.