Page 153 of Playing By Ear

“The queue’s halfway up the street,” Anna said, inching forward to peer around the doorpost into the living room, like a concertgoer waiting for admission.

The aunties, Jamie, Belinda, and Stuart had set up an orderly system for Martin “holding court.” Visitors would file through the front garden for a security check and a briefing on Martin’s condition. After speaking with him, they’d enjoy tea and biscuits in the kitchen or back garden, all under the close but friendly supervision of at least one MacKray.

Though the visitors attended with the reverence of churchgoers, the house was far from silent. Jamie had assembled an upbeat playlist of Martin’s favorite tunes, both to lighten the mood and to grant privacy for his final conversations with friends and admirers.

Of which there were hundreds. Jamie had worried himself sleepless all week, wondering how Martin would find the energy to greet so many people when he could barely trek to the toilet. The family had wheelchaired him out under cover of darkness to shower at Belinda’s house, where he’d submitted stoically to assistance in cleaning himself, without a hint of his usual temper.

Fight back, Jamie had mentally shouted while wrapping his father’s dripping, dwindling body in a bath towel. Growl, snarl, be a total shit. Just fucking fight.

But Martin had merely been saving strength for today’s swan song. His luminous smile and effortless charm—hidden from his family of late—poured like sunbeams onto each visitor. As they sat with him, their obvious unease melted into calmness, then joviality, until they were laughing through their tears at Martin’s “tumor humor.”

Now, Martin gave a last wave to Gordon, the debtor who’d once paid his arrears with trout, as the man left him to enter the kitchen.

“Okay,” Jamie said to Anna, “we can⁠—”

“Martin MacKray, my angel!” She made a beeline for Jamie’s father and clasped his extended hand between her own. “It’s Anna. Anna Flaherty.”

“Of course, of course,” Martin said, though the tumor’s position in the right frontal lobe often made him forget names. He gestured for her to take the nearest chair. “Jimmy, come and hear Anna’s story.”

Oh, this was new.

Jamie sat on the couch beside his father. The shock of relief to his aching foot almost made him groan.

Anna spoke to both of them. “Our landlord wanted to sell our flat—the whole block of tenements, in fact. Gentrification, they call it.”

“Jimmy’s been there.” Martin batted Jamie’s arm. “How many times’ve you had to scarper because your rent shot up or your flat got turned into some middle-class bellend’s house? Six? Seven?”

“Five. But aye, I know what it’s like.” He looked at Anna. “Sorry that happened to you.”

“It’s fine now,” Anna said. “Your da found out and convinced the landlord to stop the sale and lower my rent! Then he found a decent electrician to fix the broken wall switches my landlord hadn’t got round to.”

“Sent him the bill, of course,” Martin said with a wolfish smile.

“And since then,” Anna said, “my weans and I never worried for an instant about getting chucked from our wee flat. All down to your kindness, Mr. MacKray.”

Jamie wondered what had happened to Anna’s landlord to change his mind. A trip to the hospital? A family member’s trip to the morgue?

And what about the people who weren’t here today, the ones killed by the drugs or guns Martin peddled, or simply eliminated because they stood in his way? Across the city there were surely people raising a glass to the brain tumor.

Anna bid them a tearful farewell, then moved on to the kitchen, where Belinda greeted her with a long hug.

Jamie turned back to Martin, who wore a blank stare that quickly morphed into a fierce scowl, then a wide grin. “Middle Tony! As I live and breathe.”

Leaning against the living room doorpost was Ferret Face himself. What the fuck?

“Mr. MacKray, it’s an honor.” Tony Coyle strode forward and shook hands with Martin. His nod to Jamie was indecipherable.

“Welcome, welcome.” Martin showed Tony the chair Anna had just vacated. “Jimmy, we need a private chat, me and Tony.”

“Dad, I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

“Gerry already frisked him, so unless he plans to kill me with his bare hands”—he turned to Tony—“Do you plan to kill me with your bare hands?”

“I’d never.” Tony held up both hands, as if that meant anything.

Jamie checked the kitchen doorway for Belinda, but Stuart stood there instead. He joined his brother-in-law. “Is it safe to leave them alone together?” he whispered.

“They’ll not be alone,” Stuart said. “You and I’ll be right here watching them like hawks.”