In the lift, I use the mirrored wall to confirm I look good then move my attention to Gavin. Their moustache is a touch lopsided from the smooching. I fix the hair above their lip, finishing it off with a gentle kiss as the lift doors open. Nicol sees it, he’s waiting for us. I couldn’t have planned it better. This is not a game. If it were, I’ve already won it by finding my power, being all I can be, etc, etc. Still, if tonightwerea game then I’ve just scored in the opening seconds. Me 1 – Amara and Nicol 0.
It doesn’t feel as triumphant as it should. Nicol’s eyes are vacant, elsewhere, his mouth open in a way I’ve only seen before when he was asleep. He rubs the back of his neck, stuttering the start of words that don’t fully form while I notice the sharp edge of his black shirt’s collar. Finally, what he’s been trying to say comes out of him.
‘Thank you for all you’ve done to help us fight the good fight. I wanted to catch you both before you go in to warn you it’s quite a weird vibe tonight. You might not want to hang around, so you guys can go first.’
This statement has me wanting to ask many questions, the top one being,Am I the weird vibe? Are you so pathetic you can’t be around me when I’m happy?But before I can say anything Nicol is leading us to the flat.
It makes sense that this is where union meetings are held. It’s roomy enough for twenty or so people to stand or sit on the various sofas and surfaces but gives everyone a privacy that wouldn’t exist in a church hall or a pub lounge. I see the spiral staircase at the end of the room that leads upstairs to the two bedrooms and one bathroom. I know this because obviously,obviously, I looked at pictures of the interior online, too. It’s all very bland, but what else can you expect when you rent? The thing that strikes me most is the vibe Nicol warned us about – he’s not wrong. Where I had expected an orderly, efficient, business-like air to the proceedings, this is far more emotional. People are huddled close together, hugging and talking in hushed tones, cuddling one another. Amara is flitting between the groups, asking if anyone needs a drink, waving a platter of sandwiches around making sure everyone is fed.
‘Who,’ Gavin asks, the source of the vibe becoming clear, ‘has died?’
An L-shaped black leather sofa faces a large flatscreen TV, which is hung on the wall. Nicol previously believed a telly being displayed like art was tacky and lowbrow. But then I used to think murder was always inexcusable. The screen flicks into life; the separate little groups use this as their cue to assemble as one. Gavin and I hang back, to the side of proceedings behind the kitchen island. The union’s logo appears. Amara has unburdened herself of her platter and positions herself in the centre of the area everyone is looking towards. She claps her hands in front of her crotch preparing to speak, and then instead of saying anything she breaks into sobs. Nicol cuts through the crowd to stand behind her, rubbing her back. Whether she means to or not, Amara casts a look over to me as Nicol touches her, a sheepish sort of guilt across her face. Me 2 – Amara and Nicol 0.
Amara snorts back her tears. This is the kind of emotion I never saw from her during our entire friendship. She was not someone I would ever have described as a crier. I genuinely didn’t know she was capable of it until I rang her the day she and Nicol absconded, confused as to where all of her things and half of the contents of the flat had gone. If telling me what she’d done was what made her last cry, fuck knows what atrocities have been committed this time to make her this emotional again in the same calendar year. Her disgusting noises have cleared enough for her to speak.
‘Hi everyone. Thank you so very much for coming. That this many of you made the effort is really touching. I know if Haz could see what an impact he’d had, how loved he was, he would have been in an even bigger state than me.’ She blows her nose into a raggedy paper tissue.
‘After finding out he’d died, been murdered–’
Amara breaks down fully here, puts her head into Nicol’s chest and cries and cries. She gives me no guilty glances now. Does that give her a point? I decide no. In among the crowd a few people wipe away tears from their eyes. The wanton display of emotion doesn’t appear to be embarrassing anyone except me. The union’s logo is replaced by a picture that, given the context, I understand to be of this Haz man at a rally holding a banner that saysHOLD LANDLORDS ACCOUNTABLE. Haz is not a stranger, although I know him by his two other names: Harry, aka Henry Hamilton.
If Harry had something to do with here, then was he not a baddie? If he wasn’t evil then that makes me… No. Harry going was the right thing. It has to have been. Amara keeps crying, and I notice the snaking red flush up Nicol’s neck, which happens when he’s annoyed. He picks up the speech.
‘I think what Amara’s trying to say is Haz would want us to keep on track with the cause. So we’ll have a regular meeting and then make time at the end to reminisce about the great man he was.’
‘Hear hear,’ a grizzly wee man agrees, hoisting a bottle of beer to the sky.
‘But first we’re going to get down to business. We’ve got two guests with us tonight.’
With his arms wrapped around Amara, Nicol has to nod in the direction of Gavin and me to introduce us. Gavin gives a little salute to the group and I say, ‘Hi,’ at too low a volume. For this, Amara and Nicol get a point, making it 2 – 1, because we’ve let ourselves down.
‘So they’re going to give us the rundown on Heather Gray’s business.’ Someone boos at the mention of Heather’s name and is shushed by someone else. ‘You all won’t be surprised to learn it’s as bad as we suspected.’ We wait for this half an introduction to be rounded off with a final comment; it’s not. There’s a small smattering of applause as we make our way to the centre of the floor. My steps are like those I took after all those hours on the treadmill waiting for Pete – unreal, yet propelling me forward.
Nicol tries to move to let us through but gets in the way instead. I don’t cede any land to him; he has to shuffle himself and Amara to the side to clear our path. ‘A gentleman, thank you,’ I say. He flinches from my words. Having an audience mutes whatever cutting response he would like to give me. That’s another point. 3 – 1. I win.
38
Despite my clear victory over Amara and Nicol, and the magnificent display of facts against Heather by Gavin and me – threats to force people to leave properties before the end of their contract so she can raise the rent with a new tenant; installing thermostats only she can control remotely and keeping her tenants as close to freezing as she can get away with; forging benefit paperwork so she can get more money from the government for her tenants – I decide we aren’t leaving until the meeting is completely over. I have to hear what is said in the memorial portion of proceedings.
To begin with, our presence seems to hinder the sharing of precious memories. The first speaker, the grizzly wee man from earlier, recalls Harry introducing himself by saying, ‘I’m a former landlord and I’m here to repent for my sins.’ Wiping the corner of his eye with a grubby thumb, the man spies Gavin and me in the crowd and his posture changes. He’s alert, rigid. He fumbles the rest of his story and excuses himself before he’s reached a satisfactory conclusion.
The next person stares at us for too long before they start speaking, trying to telekinesis us away. When we remain rooted to where we stand, she reluctantly tells the room about Harry helping her care for a litter of stray cats she found in an alley. After that, everyone’s sufficiently warmed up; their group vulnerability and us being within it gives the impression of us being safe. For Gavin’s part, this is a solid assumption to make. Less so for me.
What is said is not terribly insightful, it’s the kind of thing you’re expected to say about dead people with none of the nuance you would have given the person while they lived. Everyone’s tales about what a great guy Haz was have the same story structure; it’s extremely boring to listen to twenty variations of it in one sitting. They open with a comment about how shocked they are by the murder. Next they claim they’ll do whatever they can to ensure his killer is found, although how they’ll do this is unclear. Then they move onto Haz’s landlord regret, which convinces me he wasn’t a very nice landlord, although him having donated money to help fund the union’s activities has done the trick of making everyone here think Haz was a saint. To finish, the stories all mention a good thing or two Haz did in his post-landlord days. There’s the animals he cared for at his sanctuary, the hungry he gave parcels to at the local food bank on the days when he wasn’t volunteering at a community group, playing board games with autistic teens or coaching young girls to play football. He couldn’t do any of it on Sundays, of course, as he always worshipped at two church services on the Sabbath. There’s no denying that allsoundsimpressive, but that’s too much, isn’t it? A level of kindness and compassion that is surely disguising acts or behaviours so depraved and evil he had to do all that for karmic balance.
All things considered, with everything I’ve heard, there’s a really wee, very real possibility I may have made a mistake. I try to dismiss the thought, but it’s niggling as the end of the eulogies is marked by a slideshow of pictures of Haz looking sexy at various points in his life.
When it’s over, Gavin says, ‘I’m going to use the loo and then we’ll head?’ What is actually going to happen next is that I’m going to collect evidence to verify I was right, obliterate any doubt.
The queue for the bathroom is long; it snakes down the spiral staircase. Gavin is at the back of it. When they see me looking around the room trying to figure out who to approach, they give me a wave, like a child on stage at a school play. I reciprocate, and they move one step up the staircase only to find themself joined by Nicol, who slaps them on the back, heartily thanks them for their participation. As much as I would enjoy watching Nicol struggle to have a conversation with a soul as pure as Gavin, the conversation next to me draws my attention away. While most people’s faces are etched with grief, the two people who have crept through the crowd to the kitchen island do not look upset. They go into the fridge for bottles of beer, muttering to one another. I catch snippets. ‘Load of pish,’ one of them says. ‘Never heard so much shite in all my life,’ says the other.
Hiding to eavesdrop is not something I am able to do in the room, so I do the next best thing. Bring out my phone and pretend to be engrossed in my Instagram feed, scrolling the images, the bright light of the screen shining into my retinas, my brain taking in none of it as I listen to what they’re saying.
‘Did you hear the rumours he was a gangster?’ There’s the clank and hiss of a bottle cap being removed. The sound is quickly repeated.
‘I mean, he was definitely dodgy, but I dinnae think he had the balls to be a gangster. He wouldn’t need us to go after Heather Gray, would he?’
‘What you on about?’
