Irony In The Soul

Chapter 2

TWO

The child psychiatrist was, Jackie Philips, nicknamed Phil by Jack, but she had firmly suggested that outside work he call her by her name, understanding that in the workplace he had a reputation to maintain; plonker. Jackie was a tall and elegant black woman of mid-forties, and a firm friend of Detective Superintendent Amanda Bruce, and both strong women were observing Jack and Meesh from the cool entrance lobby of Knight and Lee, the Department Store.

‘Certifiable, Mands,’ Jackie quipped.

‘Who, Joe?’

‘You know who I mean, but now you mention it, why does Jack sit there listening to the word of God, thought he got that from Father Mike?’

Mandy snorted, ‘You know about the Father,’ and she went on, smiling benevolently, ‘Jack played rugby with Joe, got pissed together. Jack says you learn a lot about a bloke on a rugby piss-up.’

Jackie tugged Mandy’s sleeve to break her blissful review, ‘You do know that’s Jack psycho-babble?’

‘Oh yes, don’t you just love him, though.’

Jackie was not convinced, ‘I’ll be glad when you wake up and smell the coffee.’

‘Coffee would be nice,’ and Jackie turned to look at the woman she fancied, who, unfortunately, was so in love with Mr. Ugly, and he in love with her; Jackie knew. Jack had once described Mandy to Jackie with his eye closed, face first, novel for a man, she had thought. Mandy was fifty-three, for a few more weeks, and not aware of her innate beauty; Jack’s words. She had lines like any woman of her age, but Jack saw these as an expression of her womanly allure. He loved her eyes, and described their hazel qualities, her thick arched eyebrows and long lashes, light olive complexion, her large roman nose; aquiline was the word Jack searched for, and never found, and had he not given the aqueduct nom to Cyrano of the drugs squad, who truly came from Nose City, Mandy would have had to bear that agony, having struggled with her nose all of her life, but, here she was with a man who loved her fireman’s hose, as he called it.

“My Sophia Loren of Portsea Island”, Jack would say, alluding to Capri; certifiable? Absolutely, and Jackie agreed, Mandy was a handsome woman. Saw also the Sophia Loren resemblance, in that she exuded an innate sensuality. She could see it, and surprisingly, Jack saw it as well. He loved her full body, rounded hips that swayed, another of his observations Jackie had noticed. A real woman, growing old in a beautiful way, not a stick, and any right thinking man would want a woman like this, he had said, and Jackie thought she would to.

‘I give up, Mands. I grant you he is a gentle man, except when he literally goes berserk, but he’s a towering, overweight, in all the wrong places, ugly, crisis-magnet.’

‘I know…’ a dopy loving look on her face, ‘but he’s my crisis-magnet, and I quite like his little belly,’ and flipping her loving gaze from the grossly underestimated little belly, she tutted, he was wearing his Morecombe and Wise, shorts, and sticking out from the ridiculously huge shorts, were two extra-long, skinny legs, embossed with a throng of varicose veins, and like Jack’s distended belly, she chose not see them, though given the chance she would dispose of the shorts.

Mandy thought he had the naughty, boyish, charm of Jack Nicholson. However, his most obvious feature was a disfigured and blind eye, which he steadfastly refused to cover. Wrinkled skin sank into the empty socket, a vertical white scar sketching a line from his forehead to the top of his cheek; a historic, horrific injury. Yes, he was ugly, a cross between Geoffrey Rush the actor and a slapped arse, she thought; not attractive, but then he was, and to a lot of women; she had noticed. Jack Austin required circumspect viewing.

‘Finished drooling?’ Jackie said.

‘Finished drooling over me?’ Mandy answered, enjoying the exchange.

Jackie touché smiled, having recently admitted she desired Mandy, and for a time, this had unbalanced the Detective Superintendent who considered herself a modern and open-minded woman; you had to be in the police service. For instance, she was okay with her computer team Frankie and Connie. “It’s when it’s close to home”, Mandy had confessed to Jackie. She talked about how she had not seen, but Jack had, that her twenty two year old daughter Liz, was not only from the Isle of Lesbos, as Jack so irritatingly said, but was in a committed relationship with another woman, Carly, a psychiatrist whom Jack called, ‘Curly the trick-cyclist’. “And why did everyone think that was funny when it clearly was not?” she would argue, this sense of frustration, exacerbated as her daughter’s partner liked to be called Curly, and frequently quoted Jack’s ludicrous expressions, which Liz, now, ironically, loved.

‘Finished analysing, Mandy?’ Jackie asked, a consummate professional woman who also, ironically, frequently used Jack’s expressions, ‘You want Jack to yourself, and it’s irritating, so many people love him, feel a part of him.’

‘How’d you know I was thinking that?’

Jackie flicked her own lustrous eyebrows, ‘I don’t just fancy you sweet’art. He’s a big man with eyes only for you. Well, eye, and I’ve not a cat-in-hells chance.’

‘Shut-up Jacks, let’s have coffee with Sleeping Bertie and his angel,’ and Mandy strode off, acknowledging Joe as she passed; Joe maintained his stride and so did she.

Jack was asleep. He could sleep anywhere, and frequently did. Notably he could be found asleep in his deckchair in the Community Policing office in Kingston Police station, from where, as a Detective Chief Inspector, he ran his seemingly benign squad of monkey coppers. Meesh was in fits of wriggling, giggling, as Mandy shushed her. Jack remained still, enjoying the sport as she leaned over and kissed him on his right eye socket, the dodgy one.

‘That you Maisie?’ he reacted, and Meesh burst out laughing. Mandy feigned upset. ‘Finished talking about me, and Jackie…I saw you looking up the legs of me shorts; get an eyeful did yer?’

‘Hardly an eyeful,’ Jackie retorted, the two knew each other well, Jackie having been a colleague of Jack’s late wife, and they had a strong banter that usually left Jackie winning, only Jack couldn’t see it. Jack rarely conceded he was beaten. ‘631 to nil,' Jackie commented, using Jack’s nonsensical scoring system that he made up as he went along, so he could prove he had won. It was also amazing how many people got upset, they could not possibly be six hundred points behind, and Jack would wet his finger, and in the air sketch the addition of another point.

‘Shut-up Jacks, you’ve not added my seven thousand from last week, so that’s me winning, eh Spesh?’

Meesh leapt up, hugged Jackie’s leg and declared, ‘The winner.’

‘Turncoat,’ Jack muttered.

‘Is that Joe’s coat?’

Joe heard Meesh’s reply and cracked a heartfelt smile, a rare gesture from a man who had killed his family drunk driving.

Mandy broke the spell, ‘Costas, Jack?’

‘Coffee, Spesh?’ and Jack mimicked her screwed up face. ‘Okay, chocolate milk shake?’ Meesh was unmoved, her face familiarly questioning; a girl accustomed to mind games and never getting her way. Jack recalled a similar face when he agreed she could keep his dog, Martin; her comforter, no longer his. ‘Okeydokee, chocolate milk shake, espresso for me, and two sour puss juices for Jacks and Amanda, and afterwards, let’s take Martin to the countryside, eh, a pickernicker?’ A momentary excitement on Meesh’s face, then circumspect, but eventually she took Jack’s hand and lead the way to Costa Coffee, swerving to avoid some slouched hoodies. ‘It’s eight ‘undred degrees, ‘ow come you’re wearing fleeces and woolly ‘ats?’ Jack remarked, unable to resist a comment.

‘f**k-off back to the monastery, Granddad,’ a spotty youth hurled back.

Mandy caught Jack’s arm, and with a disarming smile, disarmed him, steering him to Costas while addressing the yobs, ‘Swear in front of children again and you’ll have me to deal with, got that?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ a synchronised reply.

Jack looked back from ushering Meesh into one of the street-side seats; how come I can’t do that, he thought.

‘What’s a monastery Jack?’ Meesh enquired, as a fleece armed his way into the coffee shop; Jack had assumed a transitory daydream.

‘Jack.’

‘Luv?’

‘You go inside and order, then pay, Dinlo. Do that and I’ll explain to Meesh about your monk’s haircut,’ Mandy said.

Meesh laughed, not fully understanding, but since Mandy and Jackie were enjoying the joke, she joined in. Jack stood as the fleece ran out; a muffled shout from inside. Jack was a bit deaf and missed what was said, but stuck his leg out all the same; just for the hell of it. It was a natural reaction, a trick in the Nick was to make people jump, or to trip them up. One of the more mature activities Jack had instigated, and, in what Jack thought was a smooth and elegant movement, but was him falling over, he sat on the boy, sprawled on the floor.

He looked up to Mandy, ‘Not bad eh, darling?’ head tilted, to receive adulation.

Mandy explained, as if nothing else was happening, ‘Jack’s the Nick tripping champ.’

‘Got to be worth 652 points,’ a smug smile from the champ of chumps, looking to affirm the score.

‘In your dreams, dipstick,’ Jackie replied.

The lad, if he could have expanded his lungs, would have complained, but Jack was more concerned about the point’s allocation than the death of his temporary seat; this would mean a tie with Jackie if he was not mistaken. The Manager arrived to see Jack sitting on the miscreant and carrying on a near normal conversation with two women and a giggly girl.

‘Can you hold him until the police get here?’

‘Sure,’ Jack said, ‘can we have a chocolate milk shake, a double espresso, a glass of tap water with ice, and two Americanos, please?’

The Manager was distracted, ‘You order and pay inside…’ he carried on looking for the arrival of the police.

Jack spoke to the lad, who was starting to squeal; wimps, kids these days, it’s not like he was heavy or anything. Mandy and Jackie laughed, ‘Did I just say that out loud?’

‘You did, Jumbo.’

Childish, he thought, and addressing his seat, ‘Listen, son, I’m a police officer, give us the money you took,’ and Jack eased his not insubstantial buttocks, whilst multitasking a fart; he knew he was accomplished. The boy coughed and spluttered but dug into his pocket and handed Jack the money. ‘You gonna to do this again?’ Jack asked, sitting back down for a bit of a rest.

‘No sir,’ the boy expelled; no staying power kids, today.

‘If you do, I’ll make it bad, understand?’ The lad managed a miasma blurred, “Yes sir”, and Jack got up, and the lad ran off.

‘What’re you doing?’ the Manager seethed.

‘I’m going inside to order my drinks,’ and Jack waved the money, ‘close your mouth we are not a codfish,’ and he walked into the shop.

‘Mary Poppins, hooray’ Meesh called out, looking for points.

Jack returned with a tray of drinks and gave the change to the manager as a uniformed officer approached, ‘Morning Ma’am, what’s occurring?’

‘No table service, Bobby,’ Mandy quipped.

The Manager decided to cut his losses, and rattling what was left of his money, excused himself.

‘Hi, Jack, how’re you doing; the lads’ll wanna know?’ Bobby asked.

‘He’s a very naughty boy,’ Mandy answered.

Meesh giggled with her fist in her mouth, squeezed beside the straw, her other hand clinging to the milk shake as if her life depended on it. Yep, her first milk shake, Jack thought.