Free Southsiders by Nigel Bird Page B

of all he wanted Cliff to stop treating his wife this way. She was a gem. A kind and beautiful woman who’d slipped off the tracks for a while when the baby came along. As far as he knew, she’d done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment. A man like Cliff needed to spend a couple of weeks with Paula to find out how the other half lived. If nothing else, she’d have him learning the true meaning of ‘under the thumb’.
    The thoughts were messing with Ray’s head. A swirling mix of Paula and Izzy, of Jesse and Rose and the craving for a smoke had him needing to grab hold of something concrete to focus on. He chose the bottled Czech lager in front of him. Before pouring it into the chilled glass, he rolled the bottle around his forehead and felt it cooling his mind.
    “Here’s to the newest employee of Belfast’s jewel in the crown. Cheers, mate,” Cliff said, the wink providing a kind of full stop to the toast.
    “Cheers.”
    They clinked bottles and drank from them.
    The suds settled Ray down as he paid attention to them slipping down his throat and lowering his temperature. He took another gulp before stopping to pour the rest of the beer into the glass.
    “Don’t worry. We won’t be kicking you out straight away. You can stay with us for the first month or two, no problem. As long as you can get your arse out with me for a drink a couple of times a week, we’re even.”
    It made Ray feel like a prostitute, putting it like that. Reminding him that he was selling his soul for services rendered. The beer fizzed in his stomach as if it wanted to return to sample a little more of the Travelodge’s great atmosphere.
    The phone on the table did a little dance. “There she blows,” Cliff said. “Bang on time.”
    Ray wanted to smash the phone. To club it with the empty bottle in front of him the way hunters used to do to cute, furry seals. To watch the electronic guts of the thing spill out of the case and dribble down onto the cheap red carpet tiles.
    “Back in a couple of hours,” Cliff said “You should bring a book to read or a paper or something. It’d do you good to take your mind off things.”
    Ray didn’t say anything. Imagined rolling up the proposed newspaper and shoving it where the sun would never shine. Watched as Cliff hurried out towards the lift in the reception area.
    When Ray was alone, the swirl in his mind picked up again like an early breeze warning of an impending storm.
    Truth was he missed Paula. The way she shielded him from the outside world and made sure he knew exactly where he stood. When she was around, everything was black and white. Or at least black and blue. However bad it was, he wished she’d been there with him so he could buy her a beer. Would enjoy the early stages of her drunk before the balance tipped and the tidal wave of anger and malice took over. She’d have told him what to do and have made him do it. She might even have done it herself. He imagined Cliff in one of her headlocks. Saw her pulling at his hair and rubbing her knuckles into his skull. Smiled at the thought. “Get out of that, you fucker,” he said.
    The barman looked over. Raised a pierced eyebrow and got back to drying off the glasses in a way that most likely left smears all over them for their next customers.
    Ray downed his beer in one. Stood up and strode over to the exit, eager to get back to his new home.
    *
    W hile he walked through the warren of terraced houses, each street looking much like the last, he thought about Jesse.
    He was a good lad. Had managed to do well at school in spite of everything at home. The boy deserved a chance in life and there wasn’t much likelihood of him getting that if Paula was the only one raising him. He might not even get to live to be a teenager if she carried on along the path she’d been treading. It would be a murder of sorts, no matter how things turned out. Either she’d kill him when she was on one of her drunken rants or she’d kill off