Free Time's Long Ruin by Stephen Orr Page B

smiled smugly. ‘You wanna find the Don?’
    â€˜Maybe Himmler’s here,’ I replied.
    Anna giggled and Gavin started to parrot her.
    â€˜Let’s play kidnap,’ I suggested.
    â€˜Who’s it?’ Janice asked.
    â€˜Not me,’ I replied.
    â€˜Gavin,’ Janice smiled, looking at her younger brother.
    Back on the mound, Bill had made a friend. He had overheard a conversation and invited a tall, balding man to join them. He’d cracked one of Dad’s beers and given it to the man. Then he’d asked, ‘This hotel you manage, does it have a dining room?’
    Meanwhile, my crime was taking shape. I led Gavin behind the cafeteria under the scoreboard, sat him on a wooden crate and said, ‘Wait here.’ Then I ripped a piece of cardboard from a box, took a pen from my pocket and wrote: A thousand pounds by twelve o’ clock or the kid gets a bullet. I asked a man, returning to his family with an arm full of pasties, to deliver the note to the girl in the white jumper. I watched as he walked past, spoke to Anna and then handed her the note.
    Back on the mound, Bill Riley was handing the man his business card. ‘Give me a ring. You’d be very surprised: tablecloths, napkins, the whole lot. If you want to make that dining room classy . . .’
    â€˜They got years of wear in them yet.’
    â€˜No, you don’t want to think like that. What message does that give people?’ He stopped to applaud a six. ‘Listen, you go into Ayers House – ’
    â€˜The Halfway Hotel isn’t Ayers House.’
    â€˜But it could be. It’s just the small touches.’
    Back behind the scoreboard it had all started falling apart. Gavin wanted his sisters. I sat down beside him and said, ‘It’s a game. They’ve gotta pay the ransom.’
    â€˜What ransom?’
    â€˜Yours. A thousand pounds.’
    But he wasn’t interested. ‘I want Dad.’
    â€˜In a minute.’
    â€˜Now.’
    And before I had a chance to do or say anything he exploded into tears.
    â€˜Okay, come on,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘We’ll find Janice.’
    But it was beyond that. He just cried louder and louder and a lady in an apron came out of the canteen. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked me.
    â€˜It’s a game,’ I replied.
    â€˜Where’s his parents?’
    â€˜Watching the game,’ I said, taking Gavin’s hand and trying to drag him off. He screamed and threw himself on the ground. ‘You go get ’em,’ the woman said.
    I hobbled off and fetched Janice. When his sisters arrived, Gavin stopped crying but the woman wouldn’t let him go. ‘Get your parents,’ she said to Janice.
    Janice wasn’t about to get herself in trouble. She took Gavin’s hand and started to walk off. The woman took his other hand. ‘Your parents?’
    â€˜Let go,’ Janice screamed.
    â€˜Listen to me.’
    â€˜Fucking old bitch.’ And with that she kicked her hard on the shin. The woman dropped to the ground, clutching her leg. ‘Come here . . . NOW!’ We ran through a sea of hatted men, lost in a fog of body odour, men with shirts unbuttoned to the belly, smelling of beer, laying on dead grass with their Best Bets and rollies, men farting without shame, no longer bothering to clap for singles but mustering a few calls and whistles for a six.
    Eventually we sat down, hiding nervously behind our fathers as the old bag scanned the mound. Then the clouds finally decided to open up.
    Half an hour later we were still there, soaked through, sitting on our wet, muddy rug. As Bill and a hundred other men sang:
    Lips that once were mine,
    Tenders eyes that shine –
    They will light my way tonight,
    I’ll see you in my dreams . . .
    As the cricketers came back on without anyone really noticing.
    The rabbit hutch was a place where things settled. Like the spot behind a