Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 Read Free Page B

back when he first arrived in London, his accent so thick he had to repeat everything he said. He had been working as a KP in an Italian restaurant, the only white boy in a kitchen devoted to ‘authentic Tuscan cuisine’. Magnus had grown used to being ridiculed by boys with accents as thick as his own, but whose voices lilted to different rhythms and whose journeys to London had been sans passport. Magnus had rolled with their jokes and contributed a few of his own. After all, he too was fresh off the boat and had had the privilege of an easy passage on the Hamnavoe rather than the long hikes, the stowaway goods trains, overcrowded night boats and container lorries his workmates had endured. But when Kruze had stopped Magnus in the middle of his routine about the fear that could hit you on your way home when it was after midnight and you were fu’, and said, ‘I can’t understand a word you say, kid. Save up for some elocution lessons,’ Magnus had bunched his fists. Later he was glad that there had been no set of golf clubs propped in the corner of Kruze’s office, no handy paperknife, or pair of scissors on his desk, because the urge to score the smile from the manager’s face had been strong. Perhaps Kruze had sensed the danger. He had leapt to his feet, like a man who knew life was short and had decided not to waste a second of it, opened the office door and ushered Magnus into the corridor with a ‘Good luck.’
    Magnus had put his foot in the door, leaned in close and said, ‘Awa and fuck yoursel, ya big poof.’
    But as Hamza, the best pizza maker this side of Islamabad, remarked later over a consoling beer, it didn’t really matter what Magnus had said. Kruze wouldn’t have understood a word of it.
    Magnus and Kruze had run into each other a few times over the years since then. The manager had been polite and Magnus had wondered if he had forgotten the incident, but now the apologetic look Kruze threw Magnus told him that the older man remembered.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong, you did well tonight, Mags,’ Kruze said, and something inside Magnus cringed.
    Johnny flapped his hand at his manager again. ‘Don’t get your Y-fronts in a tangle. Your goose will be on stage crapping golden eggs tomorrow night.’
    Kruze hesitated for a moment as if he were going to say something else, then shook his head and shut the door behind him. Johnny Dongo spat into his handkerchief again.
    ‘Thank fuck for that.’ He turned his bloodshot eyes on Magnus, his pupils microdots. ‘I thought you were an island boy. Stop shaming your ancestors with that piss-poor stuff.’
    Johnny splashed a goodly measure of Admiral Benbow into a glass and shoved it towards Magnus who took a sip. It was navy rum, dark and bitter, and it reminded him of late afternoons in the Snapper Bar, ship masts swaying at their moorings, giving a hint of what brand of wind would greet you when you went outside. Then, if you stayed longer than was wise, the ferry docking, blocking all view of land or sky, lit gold against the black of a winter’s night.
    Gold and black made Magnus think of the boy’s hair shining on the gravel, the rush of the train. Bile rose in his throat. He drowned it with a swig of rum, finished the measure in his glass and helped himself to more.
    ‘Take it easy, man,’ said one of the Dongolites, but Johnny Dongo laughed. ‘He’ll be all right, he’s Scottish. My old man was Scottish. He used to drink until his fists were full.’
    Magnus could have gone home after his set, stood beneath a hot shower and attempted to wash the day from his skin, but he had stayed on to watch Johnny from the wings. Johnny had danced across the stage, skinny legs encased in herringbone trousers of a lavender hue that would have made old Harris weavers fear for their souls. The audience were a storm of sound, out in the dark of the auditorium. So loud that Magnus wondered Johnny Dongo was not lifted from his feet and thrown on to his arse by the