Lapland : Chapter Twenty Four of a Novel in Parts.

 

There are certain points in any man’s life when his phone simply shouldn’t ring. And this is most definitely one of those certain points. I am drinking and swallowing and preparing to tell Wendy about my resignation from the only case I’ve ever had, when a particularly annoying ring tone bursts into the scene. It’s intrusive and inappropriate, like seeing a Shakespeare play, Macbeth say, performed in modern dress. Still, rightly or wrongly, the very staging gives it some relevance and therefore it cannot be ignored.

            I reach my phone from the pocket of my coat and absorb the fact that Morgan is trying to contact me.

            “You’d better answer that, it may be important,” says Wendy, inching her chair back to give me an essence of privacy, though through no fault of her own, she’ll still be able to steal everything I’ve got to say.

“Hello,” I say. I hold the phone as tight to my ear as I can, hoping at least that Morgan’s words will remain in my possession.

“Hey Morse, where are you?” he says.

“The Sailor,” I say instinctively, though I wouldn’t if I’d predicted hindsight of course.

“Sorry about before. Dylan’s OK.  I didn’t want to sound so harsh and I don’t like the idea of you on your own,” he says.

“I’m not on my…,”

“Look, don’t worry. I’ll be there in a minute,” he says.

“But..,” I begin though he’s already hung up. I toy with the idea of calling him back, but the thought of how this will look to Wendy stops me.

“Who was that?” she asks.

“Just a friend,” I say.

“That’s good. It’s good you’re meeting people,” says Wendy.

“Is it?” I say, with a very real sarcasm that she probably doesn’t want to hear. I realise I ought to explain, but don’t know where to start. With Moon? With Ellie? Or with Quince? With Morgan or with my perilous financial situation? Because I’m once more as broke as stones.

“Do you want another drink?” I say instead.

“Please. Same again, I suppose,” says Wendy.

“Is it your round?” I say, and I know that maybe this is not the most gentlemanly thing to do, but in my defence we are no longer a couple and anyway I’ve spent the last of my loose change, or Moon’s loose change if it is accepted that the money was his.

If Wendy is surprised she doesn’t show it. She pulls a twenty from her purse and hands it to me. “Get some nuts,” she says as I’m on the way to the bar. In the corner, a young man coughs. He spits something onto the fire, presumably thinking it’s real. The flames bicker and hiss and jump up again, burning purple for a second. The young man coughs twice more, but doesn’t spit this time.

It’s quiet but there’s no barman in sight, changing a barrel probably, and as I wait I kid myself that I’ll have a little more time to talk to Wendy before Morgan arrives. After all a minute, in the context Morgan used it, is just a nominal gesture of time and should be a little longer than that. I mean normally it should, but on this occasion it is not.

I’ve just started to pay, when Morgan walks through the door, with a big smile of greeting and without a beard. He sees where I am, waves and, out of politeness, I add a pint and another pack of nuts to the order. I have no idea whether Wendy will mind or not, but I know that she won’t say anything.

Morgan and I meet in the middle of the bar, with a brief hello and then he follows me back to the table where Wendy and I were seated and where now Wendy and he and I will be seated. When Wendy looks at Morgan, her eyes are fixed and straight. When Morgan looks at Wendy, his eyes are not dissimilar.

“Sorry,” says Morgan to me. “I didn’t know you had company.”

“Hello, I’m Morgan,” says Morgan to Wendy, holding out a hand for her to shake and then sitting in the chair which has my coat on the back, although there are plenty of others at the neighbouring tables. I drag one across and plonk myself down as Wendy is introducing herself.

“I’m Wendy,” I hear her say above the squeak of my legs.

“How do you know Dan then?” says Morgan. I can tell from the way Wendy looks at me that she believes I should have already made Morgan a party to all but the most intimate details and failings of our relationship.

“Only he’s never mentioned you before,” Morgan goes on.

“I must have. Haven’t I?” I say, with as much feigned nonchalance as I can trawl from the bottom sand of the situation.

“Really?” asks Wendy.

“Maybe I wasn’t listening, I’m like that some times,” says Morgan, but we all know the fish he’s throwing back is a specimen too little, and a specimen too late. The conversation is floundering on some very jagged rocks.

“Dan and I were…” starts Wendy, then thinks better of it and drinks from her half pint.

“Wendy and I were…” I try to continue, then drink from my own glass.

“Dan and I are friends,” says Wendy and I nod, relieved that we’ve reached an agreement of sorts, although I wouldn’t have put it as simply as this. Wendy pulls apart one of the packets of nuts and starts to pick from it. Morgan joins in with the chewing. Some heavy song I don’t know and I don’t like has started playing and not for the first time in my life I’m thinking there must be better pubs. Neither of my companions seems to notice the music.

“What do you do then?” asks Wendy of Morgan.

“I’m a photographer.”

“Wow,” says Wendy above a crunching chord. It’s not something she says so much and the word sounds ridiculous as soon as it’s out. She acknowledges this. “I mean that’s…that’s…great. What sort of pictures?” she says.

“All sorts. Day to day it’s pasties, but that’s just the meat and veg.” He says and grins and now Wendy’s laughing too.

“You’ve used that line before,” she smiles.

“Maybe. Actually I’m trying to get an exhibition together,” Morgan says, which is the first I’ve heard of it.

“Really?” says Wendy.

“Waves, mainly, because of the surfing I guess,” says Morgan.

“You surf then?” says Wendy.

“Obsessed…and you…have you tried?” he says.

“No. But I’d love to,” she says.

“How long are you here for? We can all go. Get Dan in too. He’s always saying he will one day, aren’t you Dan?” says Morgan to me.

“Haven’t you been yet?” says Wendy to me. I drink again and open the other nuts, but don’t get round to answering.

“Keep putting it off, don’t you Dan,” Morgan butts in.

“I’ve been busy,” I say.

“Not any more though, hey Dan,” laughs Morgan. I’m hoping above hoping that Wendy doesn’t think to read between some very straight and obvious lines. But Wendy has a first class degree in English Literature from a red-brick university, and the deeper meaning of certain phrases is second nature to her.

“Sorry?” says Wendy to Morgan.

“er…well now that Dan’s out of work again, he’ll have plenty of time to play,” he says.

Lapland : Chapter Twenty Three of a Novel in Parts

 

Sometimes heightened expectations will end with an overwhelming anticlimax. For instance, picture Christmas, which I would say from repeated experience, is never quite as good as I hope it’s going to be. However, sometimes these heightened expectations are themselves the disappointment. When the anticipated event actually arrives, I get this feeling that it would have been all the more pleasurable if I’d looked forward to it even more.

            It’s like this with Wendy. Her very presence in the passenger seat as we drive back to Lemon Quay lifts my mood and puts some distance between myself and Helen and Ellie and Quince and Moon and, by association, Moonbeams. We don’t do anything as vague as discuss her journey, or what’s going on with her work. We talk instead about our memories of Mr Smith, his dribble and his drool, the time we lost him for an hour on Hampstead Heath, and the red ball he liked to chew. These are not in themselves sad memories, but they have become poignant since his death, and it is perhaps a little odd that I am able to take pleasure from them. However, I should also point out that Wendy is not crying and indeed she has the occasional flicker of a smile too. We laugh twice, once at the story of the stolen cheese, then again when we recall his fleas.

And because of our shared good humour, I decide not to take Wendy straight to my caravan. I’m not entirely sure how she’ll view the place I now call home. As an alternative then, I settle on The Lost Sailor, where I plot that we can share some drinks, and build on our stories without recrimination. Maybe we’ll move on somewhere, get a bite to eat, and afterwards…  afterwards….afterwards…., well who knows precisely where the evening might go. 

The rain has thinned to a dusting of wet. I park in a side street not so far from the office where most likely it will be safe to leave the car until the morning. We walk through a quiet Lemon Quay, taking a small detour, so I can show her the harbour from above. The sea is not as rough as it gets and two crab boats are in the bay, lanterns swinging as they lift their pots.

“It’s good to see you Dan, it means a lot. Thanks for inviting me. Genuinely. I’ve been down… really down… not just about Mr Smith… about lots of things… about us ending like we did.  I mean I wish you hadn’t moved so far away but I can see why you wanted to come here,” says Wendy, eyes fixed upon the boats. I’m about to tell her that it’s not all postcard stuff, but then bite my tongue because this can wait. We’re getting on fine and, if only for a moment, I want her to respect the choices I have made. She’s dressed for the city not the late November seaside and though she doesn’t ask to go, she begins to shiver, so I link my arm in hers and guide her to the pub.

There was a point earlier in the day when I was sure I’d never drink again, but now that I’m with Wendy my earlier pledges have disintegrated and my body, like my mind, has regained a semblance of normality. I am not aware of any headaches. The faux log fire is on, but I’m neither hot nor cold. I haven’t itched or scratched for half an hour and when we’re settled with our pint and a half, coats hung on the back of our chairs, I take the chance to look at her for the first time in the full light. I have not seen her for three or more months, but she hasn’t changed. She looks like I thought she would when I was texting her. Her black hair has a shine and is bobbed round her face, her chin has a soft curve and, as ever, she is totally in control of her eyes. She keeps them on me, which at various points in our past has had the effect of making me a little nervous, but for now at least, just makes me think she’s interested in what I’ve got to say.  

“So no regrets about uprooting?” she asks. I am considered in my reply.

“Some, of course,” I say returning her gaze, “but on the whole, no… no regrets,” I add.

“I didn’t think you’d do it,” she says.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems… seemed… like such a crazy idea. You know. Moving to some random small town in Cornwall to become a detective just doesn’t sound real. It’s like I thought you were trying to make a point… you know. I said it often enough. Almost as if you’d spent too long watching T.V. and had some bizarre notion that this was how people actually lived their lives. I mean how many people do we know who have been to a private detective?” she says.

“None,” I admit, though it was rhetorical in that she knows the answer because we’ve had this conversation, or one very much like it, before.

“Exactly, none. People like us don’t have these sorts of problems. Which as far as I was concerned meant you were setting yourself up for a fall. I seriously didn’t believe there was a market for this sort of thing. Not here. Not anywhere. Not for someone like you, with precious little experience and, let’s be frank, no clear business plan,” she says.

“That’s not fair,” I say, but not in a truly argumentative way.

“I know it’s not. That’s what I’m trying to say. I honestly thought you wouldn’t get any customers at all. Do you call them customers?” she says. She pauses.

“Sometimes,” I say, before she picks up pretty much where she left off, with another question that may or may not want answering.

“I said it to you didn’t I?” she says. “I thought that you’d be broke within in a year. I thought you’d spend all the money you made from your flat on this… and then… I don’t know… I was worried. I thought you’d be dead or something,” she says. I nod to acknowledge her reasoning. “But you’ve proved me wrong. Despite all my concerns you’ve made a start. You’ve found some work already and that’s important. Not just from the money side, but who knows where it will lead. Word of mouth and all that,” she says.

“Yes…but…,” I begin but it seems I’m interrupting her, when really I shouldn’t be. One of her more frequent criticisms of me was, or is, that I do not let her finish what she’s trying to say.

“Dan, I’m trying to say I shouldn’t have doubted you.” she says.

“Thanks,” I say.

“And I’m proud of you,” she says.

“Thanks,” I say.

“I think I’m trying to say I’m sorry,” she says.

Lapland : Chapter Twenty Two of a Novel in Parts

 

“It didn’t go well,” I say to Morgan.

“Did you really expect it to?” he says, which doesn’t help me much. In truth I’m not sure why I’ve called him. After all, if I were of a more blameful nature, I could quite reasonably say that he is at least partly responsible for the mess I now find myself in. An afternoon has passed since Ellie said leave, and yet time has altered nothing, although it’s given me the chance to change my shirt, which I’ve done though, as it happens, it wasn’t so dirty anyway.  

If anything I’m scratching more than I was at Honeybottom Cottage. This said itch is only made bearable by the distractive fact that I am now sitting in my car outside Truro station waiting for Wendy to arrive. Clearly it’s still raining, but away from the coast, it’s a different sort of city rain, steel grey, less wind, sheet grey, with far fewer opportunities for rainbows. Maybe Wendy will feel at home. The insides of my windows have been steamed by my breath. Every now and then there’s the shudder of freight trains outside. I’m listening to Blood On The Tracks, but can find no comfort here. Every song sounds bitter and cruel and it is always someone else’s fault.

“What are you listening to?” says Morgan.

“Dylan,” I say.

“Put something else on,” he says.

“Why?” I say shortly.

 I suppose I’m trying to establish the degrees of Morgan’s involvement. Whilst his intentions may have been admirable, and he no doubt believed he had my best interests at heart, still it was his idea to lie to Ellie and Helen. Left to my own devices I am convinced I would have handled things differently. However the main point of history is to make hindsight wonderful and, for the sake of our friendship, I have to tell myself that not only did I follow him of my own free will, but also he could have had no idea that what has happened, was going to happen.

“Do you think I should call her?” I say.

“Who?” he says.

“Ellie,” I say.

“Of course not,” he says as the wrong train rumbles by. I slump back in my car seat.

“Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t do any good,” he says. He, more than I, grasps the finality of certain things. I don’t do endings very well.

“I’ve got to go, speak later,” I say pushing the red button on my phone, which could be interpreted as my millionth mistake of the day. Now I’ve no option but to wait on my own in my car, unless of course I get out of my car and go into the station, getting wet, and appearing like some over eager romantic, the sort who inhabits black and white films on Sunday afternoons.

The trouble is I know if I do stand on the platform, breath making fog in the shadowy rain, then when Wendy arrives and slightly hitches her skirt to step down from the train, I am worried that I won’t be able to stop myself from running towards her. I will get faster and faster, and as the train pulls away she will be revealed by a cunning mist. I will throw my arms around her, pull her so tight I’ll feel the heave of her breast, and I will try to kiss her, which could further compound all my earlier errors. I mean if I’m totally honest with myself, I’m not sure that this is what Wendy either wants or expects. 

And I’m still caught in this illusion when there’s a tap on the glass of the car window. I use the sleeve of my clean shirt to wipe a clear circle in the steam. Given that I’m at the station waiting for Wendy to arrive, I should perhaps not be surprised to see that it is her. I should open the car door straight away, but wind the window down instead.

“Jesus, Dan, you could have met me inside,” she says.

Laplpand : Chapter Twenty One of a Novel in Parts

Ellie puts a coffee and a packet of digestives on the kitchen table in front of me. Under normal circumstances they would be most welcome, but I don’t remember asking for them, and my conscience says it would be wrong to either drink or eat. The station clock on her off white wall ticks past one o’clock and Helen has still not arrived. There is nothing unusual in this, Ellie says, she has another life, but although both of them deserve an explanation, I can’t see myself waiting too much longer before I offer my confessions. An hour making small talk is as much as any man can bear. It doesn’t mater that I now know why Ellie left her husband or that she likes to make her own jams.

            “We need to talk, it’s important,” I say.

            “Shouldn’t we wait for Helen,” she says.

            “I can’t,” I say. Ellie doesn’t drink, but turns her mug in front of her, and plays with the spoon that stands in the sugar bowl, making and collapsing her own sweet mountains and then digging trenches I don’t fully see. I think she’s starting to feel my discomfort.

            “Okay. Is it about tomorrow’s council meeting?” she asks.

“No…yes…not directly,” I say.

“Because if it is, Helen will want to hear it too,” she says.

“I know…but…,”

“You’re not coming are you?” she says. She flicks sugar onto the table by mistake. “You’re like all the others. You don’t care. We’re just two silly women with an attitude problem,” she says.

“No. Not at all. It’s not that,” I say.

“So you are coming?” she says.

“It’s not that simple,” I say. I mean I’m not a politician, and this is the problem, but still I’m becoming one more and more.

“Of course it’s simple. You’re either going to come and ask questions about Moonbeams or you’re not,” she says. She gets up and takes a raggedy blue cloth that was hanging over the taps and dripping old water in the sink. She uses it to wipe away the spilt sugar. I wait for her to finish, watching as she rinses the cloth out and re-hangs it on the taps.

“I’m not who you think I am,” I say. A brittle silence takes the kitchen now, a hush of expectations, and Ellie’s voice shakes when she speaks.

“How come?” she asks.

“I’ve no interest in politics. I’ve no intention of standing for this council or any other,” I continue.

“You can’t give up so easily,” says Ellie.

“You don’t understand. I’m not giving up. I never started,” I say.

“Sorry?” 

“I never was going to stand for the council,” I say. There’s a smear of confusion across Ellie’s face. She’s still by the sink. She takes the raggedy cloth from the taps again, but doesn’t know what to do with it. Her hand hangs low, so she could be looking at the plug-hole, watching whirlpools, as the scraps of breakfast cereals slowly swill away.

“But you knocked on my door,” she says, as though I might be wrong.

“I know,” I say.

“You said….,” she says.

“I lied,” I say.

“But…. why….?”

“Because…,” I say and I want to carry on, get everything of my chest, to let the wave grow, to build and build, until it reaches a peak and then, when I’ve nothing more to add,  it can come crashing down. But I can’t say what I mean to say. I am hot. I don’t feel good in my shoes and I don’t feel good in my skin. I was hoping for some kind of relief with the truth, but it seems I’m just itching some more.

“Who are you?” says Ellie. She turns away from her plughole.

“I’m still me. My name is Daniel Kitchen. I used to live in London, but I’d had enough of my life there. It was making me tired, so I moved to Lemon Quay three months ago. I set up my own business,” I say.

“Doing what?” asks Ellie and I can no longer delay the inevitable. I scratch at my arms and my neck.

“I’m a private detective,” I say, and here I fully expect her to throw the dish cloth at me. I expect my admission will be the catalyst for a violent reaction of sorts. She will stride across the room and slap me. Punch me in the eyes and throw my cooling coffee down my shirt. She will hit me and hit me as she drags me by my hair, toward the front door and pushes me out of her house. She will, I believe, scream and shout and rant and rave. She will bring Helen and Jo into the equation. I mean I expect any or all of these things. However what I don’t expect is the very thing that happens.

Ellie starts laughing. A belly laugh to let me know that it isn’t just the ridiculousness of the situation she finds so amusing. It’s me, and everything I am.

“But I’ve never met anyone more unlike a detective in my entire life,” she says with a smile that proves she doesn’t really believe me.

“I’m serious,” I say.

“Come on Dan. Grow up,” she says, a little like maybe Wendy would. Or did. Or does.

 “But…,” I begin to protest.

“Only how can you be a detective… a private detective? You don’t even look like a policeman or anything. I don’t know….you look like…you sound like…you act like…I don’t know, someone who works in administration or something.”

“Well, I don’t, not anymore,” I say.

“Now a councillor I can just about believe, but a private detective…err…no. I mean is it all some sort of bad joke? Has someone put you up to this?” she says.

“No..honestly. I was lying before but now I’m telling the truth,” I say.

“And you seriously expect me to believe you. You seriously expect me to believe that you’re a threat to the criminals of Lemon Quay,” she says.

“You don’t understand,” I say.

“Obviously,” she says.

“It’s not the criminals I’m investigating,” I say. Ellie stops laughing and it’s like she’s a television that someone’s just turned off. The colour drains from her face, which becomes white and blank and also grey. She is still, like a statue of an obscure Egyptian princess. Her nose twitches slightly, nostrils flare, but that’s all.

“I’ve been paid to watch you,” I say.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“By Moon and Quince,” I say and here, at last, is the response I’d thought would come. The television is on again. The laughter has gone again. She throws the dish cloth at me. She strides across the room and slaps me. She punches me in the eyes and throws cooling coffee down my shirt. She hits me and hits me as she drags me by my hair, toward the front door and pushes me out of her house. She screams and shouts and rants and raves. She brings Helen and Jo into the equation. Or at least, whilst she doesn’t physically do these things, because she is a better person than this, she still does them metaphorically.

“I think you’d better leave,” she says quietly.

“I never want to see you again,” she whispers too.

“I’m not working for them anymore,” I say, but it makes no difference. She is far more convincing when she says never, than Wendy ever has been. And she emphasises the point by closing the door behind me.

The physical pain I feel is imagined only, and doesn’t bother me much, and so I’m not sure why I try to tidy myself as I walk back down the garden path. I scratch and itch. I go beneath the Alder trees. I run a hand through my hair and massage my scalp where Ellie might have pulled, but didn’t. I tuck my shirt into my jeans and rub my eyes with my knuckles. I walk past a climbing frame and a fire engine.

At the gate I turn and look back and try to imagine Honeybottom Cottage in the springtime. I picture blossoms like confetti, floating on a breeze. And I’m trying to comprehend how bad it feels knowing that now I’ll never see Ellie’s shed, when Helen materialises, quiet as a ghost, by my side.

If anything she looks worse to me than I think I must appear to her. She wears random unmatched clothes that do nothing but cover her, and her face is puffed and blotched from crying, and her hair looks like the sort of nest a seagull might enjoy. She pushes past me, without stopping to ask why I’m standing like I am. I’m grateful for this. I don’t want to have to repeat myself and would rather Ellie pour the necessary explanations down her open mouth.

Lapland : Chapter Twenty of a Novel in Parts

-20-

 

It starts well enough. I throw the envelope and my notes on Quince’s desk, so they almost knock his bottle of water over and almost skid to the floor. My suddenness takes him by surprise. He looks up sharply with a practised glare that tells me he’s meant to be in charge. He nods to the chair on the opposite side of the desk, inviting me to sit, and though I’d rather not on this occasion, I can articulate no good reason to refuse.

            “It’s not Wednesday yet,” says Quince as I lower myself.

            “I know,” I say.

            “So what’s this?” he says tapping the envelope and my notes with the frame of his glasses.

            “It everything I’ve got,” I say.

            “Which is?” he says.

            “I know about your company. I know about Cornish Leisure Industries and, by association, your involvement with Moonbeams.”

            “So?” he says. I wait for my words to rise from inside. I take a breath before I speak.

            “You should have told me,” I say.

            “So?” he says.

“So I won’t be working for you anymore,” I say, which is something he’s appears to have anticipated. He displays no outward signs of shock, but rather picks up the paperwork I’ve given him and puts it into the top drawer of his desk. He does something with a key and then slowly slips his glasses on.

            “I see,” he says.

“Do you?” I say.

“The lesbians have got to you then,” he says.

“Not at all…I just can’t….,” I begin, but I don’t get to finish, because this is his office and I was until a minute ago, just a number on his payroll.

“Which one is it? The blonde with the kid or the dyke with the repetitive name?” he says.

“Pardon?” I say.

“You need to get some balls. There’s no point falling in love with a lesbian. Has no-one ever told you that?” he continues.

“I’ve not fallen in love with anyone,” I say, then wish I hadn’t because now I’m a witness for my own defence and Quince is more practised in the drama of the courtroom than I. There’s a harsh intensity to his performance. He doesn’t let up, of course. I’m still wondering how the tide got turned.

“Really? I thought we’d employed a man of the world. Someone with a bit of get up and go. Spunk. But look at you now. You’re pathetic. How long has it been? Three or four days?  And now you’re in the thrall of two women who wouldn’t even notice if your cock fell off!” Quince starts laughing at what I presume he thinks is his own cleverness.

“I’m not in the thr…,”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re not important. And those two will soon fall apart anyway. It’s inevitable. Women can’t stop bitching you see. It’s in their nature. They get jealous. I’ve already told you they’re jealous of the dancers, which is why they’re doing all this in the first place. But what you’ve got to realise too is that soon they’ll get jealous of themselves. I know all about women, you see. That’s why I’ll never give women any jobs of authority…,” he says. I stand up, but not quickly enough to stop him finishing.

“…they only start picking on each other,” he says. He slams his palms face down on his desk as if to emphasise his argument, and although there is a loud slap of sorts it isn’t enough to convince me. If anything it sends me further the other way.  

“I’m not working for you anymore,” I say again.

“Fine,” says Quince like a petulant child.

“I’m leaving,” I say.

“But I want my money back,” he says, which is the high card I was hoping he’d forget to play. Most of the cool two hundred is still snug in my wallet but some of it has gone on kebabs, and some on beer, and some on phone credit, and chips, petrol, coffee, a pastry, a newspaper and two jars of flavoured nuts.

“You can have what I’ve got. Let’s call the rest expenses for the work I’ve done so far,” I respond with as much bravado as I can muster, given the situation. I fish the money out and throw it in front of him, notes only, because I’ll need what’s left of the change to get me through the day. Quince counts it quickly, licking his finger to turn the queen’s head.

“I don’t think so, there’s only one hundred and sixty here,” he says, which is what I’d made it too.

“Yes,” I say.

“I want the other three hundred and forty by the end of the day,” he says.

“Three hundred and forty?” I say.

“Three hundred and forty.”

“But I only had two hundred in the first place,” I say.

“Irrelevant. The contract was for a five hundred. You’re breaking the contract. Ipso facto that’s what you owe me. You should be grateful I’m not asking for any potential bonuses as well,” he says, with a misplaced logic that leaves me lost on my feet. If I hadn’t had the five pints, maybe I could come back with a better answer.

“I’ll give you forty when I’ve got it,” I say.  

“This is not a negotiation. Three hundred and forty, by the end of the day. Or else,” he says, which, if I’m not very much mistaken, should be interpreted as some kind of threat. I’m beginning to understand how Morgan must have felt all those years ago, when it looked like he might lose his lunch. And I know too what Morgan would do in this situation.  After all, he’s told me, succinctly. However, if the last few days have taught me anything, they have taught me a little about who I am. And a Morgan I am not. I leave without further reply.

“End of the day,” shouts Quince through the door. My best response is to ignore him. You can’t give what you haven’t got, my maiden aunt used to say.

Eight Foot Blue : A Novel (3)

I turned left directly outside the restaurant and headed downhill into the centre of town. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew where I’d end up. Although we’d only bee on holiday for two days, it was already obvious to me that there was only one place to go. All roads led to the Banjo Pier, which wasn’t even a pier exactly, not like other piers I’d seen. Instead it was a concrete platform that stretched into the sea like a fat finger prodding the waves. But still it was the best thing about this place, and the best thing about the holiday.

             Just before I got to the pier itself, at the corner of the quayside where the river met the sea, was ‘Banjos’, the flash light amusement arcade. As I got closer, I could already feel the change, the new buzz in the air. I started to walk faster. I wanted to listen to the jangle of coins, the electronic bleeps, smell sugary donuts. And I wanted to watch people smoke.

            There were about a million people inside the amusement arcade, almost everyone with a cigarette between their lips, no matter how old they were. About two million eyes were stuck to the screens in front of them, or to the other games the hands of their owners played. All around I could hear the curses of people losing. Fucking machine. Bloody machine, it’s a fix. Still, I had the ten pence piece tight between my fingers, and I knew it would only pay for one go.

            I thought I’d chosen my game for the night, but before I could get to even have a go on the Space Invaders in the corner, which was the game that everyone wanted to play, I saw Lily, though I didn’t know she was Lily then. She was hunched over Quest. It was a tall machine on the far wall, behind the pool tables, and on the sides and the border surrounding the screen, were pictures of a wizard with a long grey beard, with beams of light shooting out from his fingers, and a staff that was taller than him.

            And I don’t know what I noticed first. Maybe it was Lily’s elbows pumping up and down, her hands working furiously on the joystick and the buttons. Or maybe it was her blue hair dancing when her head moved, bouncing on her shoulders and flowing along the length of her neck, reaching down her spine. It was the sort of blue hair which meant I had to get up close to see. I lost control of myself, as though there were something, say a line just pulling me in.

             I crossed the room, slipping in and out of the other folk, with my ten pence still in my hand. When I reached Quest and her, I watched over her shoulder as her wizard was zapped, and her elf was zapped, be spectres and ghouls, which were white blobs on the screen.

            “You  know I could do better than you,” I said, then stopped. My words slipped out like prisoners escaping through my teeth, because I wouldn’t normally speak unless spoken to.

            Lily’s last cartoon body crumpled in a heap and red cartoon blood dripped in clumsy blobs from her head, before her body disappeared. Her score came up. She was dying, then dead, and as she looked from the lights of the screen she tutted annoyed, and then brushed her blue hair from her eyes. She scraped it behind her ears, so that they stuck out all funny and odd.

            Then she looked me up and down.

            I could feel myself burning all over, in my stomach, the ends of my toes, and I already wished that I’d kept quiet. Lily looked at me as if to say, hey you’re just a boy, and I’m a girl, and you’re shorter than me, so how could I possibly be interested in you. She looked at me as if to say these things, but she didn’t exactly use these words.

            “Piss off,” she said slowly and loudly, almost pronouncing each letter, which is when I suppose I fell in love and when I realised that I’d never been in lover before. I mean my stomach stopped burning and started churning, and my feet started tingling like my socks were giving electric shocks.       

            Lily had been sort of rude, she would have got a detention if Mr Griggs, my form teacher, had heard her at school, and her rudeness was all aimed at me. And also if we had been at school say, then I might have turned and run away, locking myself in the toilets until break was over, and I would’ve cried, though I wouldn’t have let anyone see. But now I was on holiday and I felt different. Maybe the sea breeze took my embarrassment, because for whatever reason, it didn’t matter so much and I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her.

            And I was trying to understand why.

            Was it because of her red lips, or her cheek bones, or her blue hair itself, r the way she swore? Piss off, piss off, piss off. Or perhaps it was the clothes she wore, the long sleeved black T-shirt with a purple flowery pattern on, and the long black skirt that brushed the floor. Or perhaps even it was because she was taller than me and a second earlier she’d been hunched over Quest which was in fact my favourite game.

            I liked Space Invaders, and I was good at it too, but still everyone was playing it now. And hadn’t I spotted Lily because I’d been waiting for her to finish Quest? So maybe I loved her then, because I was going to prove I was better than her. Without saying anything, I began to push Lily out of the way, not hard exactly, but like we’d been playing musical chairs at a small kids party. I mean I used to push girls then, when I was younger.

            I already had my hot and sweaty coin in my hand. She didn’t seem to notice how I wiped my palms on my jeans, because the main thing about Quest, other than the concentration you needed, was the fact that your hands shouldn’t slip.

            “Oi,” said Lily as I edged past her. “I’m still playing.” There was an irritated sharpness to her voice, like she thought I’d done something wrong.  I was trembling inside and my heart was boom-boom beating, so it might even have been visible through my T-shirt. Still, kind of to my surprise a bit, Lily shuffled aside to let me take my place. I took a quick look over my shoulder, just to make sure she was watching, before I dropped my money in straight through the one player slot. The coin rattled and I pressed the start.

            And it was easy because I’d done it all before.

            First I took my wizard with his wands and spells, my elf with his arrows and bows and my fighter with his axe, right through the forest, killing trolls. No problems. I didn’t need to use any of my magic, or my healing potions, not even in the castle. All the time I was doing this, I could hear and feel Lily breathing behind.  The tingle to my skin got worse, or better, especially when I was in the maze, my fingers moving faster as it was getting more difficult now.

            I killed an ogre, but lost the fighter, which didn’t actually bother me much, because the fighter wasn’t so good, and the maze wasn’t such a bad place to lose him, considering he was the first of my cartoon characters to go.

            The game was almost half way through.

            I only  had one more level to complete before I would have gone as far as she went. And I’d been here so many times before, that I knew I could do it without losing anyone else, especially as behind the hidden door in the room in the centre of the maze was an extra life that Lily hadn’t known about.  When I got there, I heard a gasp a little breath that came hissing out.

            I looked over my shoulder and smiled. “See,” I said. “Watch me,” Then I went down into the dungeons, which is where Lily had ended up.

            “You’re just a little shit,” she said seriously, though I knew she was watching still.

            “Uh-uh,” I said, unsure, and I carried on anyway. I guessed she was impressed, and I killed another ghoul, not getting caught by its poisonous breath.

            I’d got this far and I felt anything was possible, a good feeling, so then I killed three spectres next, right at the point where Lily had died. I turned to look at her again, because I was going to say something like, see how easy it is. But when I turned she wasn’t smiling anymore, not that she’d been exactly smiling anyway. Instead Lily was swallowing hard. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say, so I watched her throat bob up and down, because at least it was better than watching the screen.

            And then without saying anything more, Lily turned and walked quickly away. She went suddenly, unexpectedly, and it seemed she didn’t want to watch anymore, though I was nowhere near finishing my game. I wasn’t sure if I should follow her. It was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make, because I’d never left a game unfinished before. Still, hadn’t I just fallen in love? And wasn’t there this line between her blue hair and me?

            My stomach churned again as I watched Lily go, as I watched her swerve between some other kids on a driving game, two lovers playing pool. Then she bumped into an old man who liked like he was always here, dropping coppers into the Penny Falls.

Lapland : Chapter Nineteen of a Novel in Parts

-19-

 

There’s a dead seagull in the gutter outside Gordon’s fish and chip shop. It’s hard to tell how long it’s been here. It hasn’t stopped raining for nearly twenty four hours and its white, brown and grey feathers are matted and glued to its body and also some of them have been blown free by the wind, and now they are fluttering down the high street like so many mini balls of tumbleweed.

A dull moon is on one side of the sky, whilst the other side holds up a dull sun. The wind howls a low tune as it rolls off the waves. It’s still too early for traffic, just the odd man on a bike and the worn and dented red Royal Mail vans and in the distance, along with the wind, I can hear the steady rumble of the rubbish trucks as they start and stop and start again. One by one the street lights go out.

            The seagull has open eyes, covered by a white film and its head rests twisted at the most unusual angle. There’s no need for an autopsy.  It’s plainly obvious, even to someone as scientifically challenged as me, that this poor creature has broken its neck. I prod it with the toe of my shoe, and watch the head roll gently sideways towards a fish and chip wrapper and a crushed and empty can of Coke. It’s odd, because in death this seagull manages to look unique and familiar and yet the same as any other dead seagull I’ve ever seen. I mean, it’s possible he’s the one who has made my office windowsill his home, and yet it’s equally possible that he’s an entirely different bird. I notice from the orange and black sacks outside Gordon’s that the rubbish men haven’t made it this far and so I leave the seagull where he is, hoping they will clear his body away, with as much dignity as their job allows.

Then, without pausing for prayer or any more maudlin thoughts, I let myself into my office and begin to gather up all the notes I have pertaining to Eloise Maine and Helen Hurst.

After Wendy had hung up I was unable to return to sleep. Our night time chat provoked all sorts of memories and provided a link to my past, to the way I used to be, and I don’t look on this as a negative thing, because I now know what I have to do.

It’s only taken a few tears and brushes with mortality, albeit of a dog and a seagull, to make me understand that of course I am a moral man and I should have known this all along. After either forty years or four days, depending on when you start the counting, I’ve come to realise that a job is not always just a job. Some times the occupations we choose have far greater implications than simply waking up at half past seven, to get to our desks by a quarter to nine, so that we have time for a full lunch at half past twelve, and can leave at half five, and make it home before the evenings gone.

Some times, in choosing our work, we give our approval to all sorts of practices that really don’t stand up to scrutiny. I read something like this once, that no structured behaviours can exist, without the consent of society.

And this is why I have made good use of a drawn out dawn and decided to end, voluntarily, my association with Moon and Quince. To put it a simpler way, as of three hours ago, they have become my erstwhile employers, which is why, when I have collected all I need, and watered my plant, and checked my windowsill on the off-chance, I leave my office again with the sole intention of offering my  resignation, effective from right now.

            Decision made, there’s a spring in my step. I take the narrow stairs two at a time, and hop skip my way past Gordon’s and along the high street, nodding bright good mornings at the keepers who rattle their keys as they open their shops. Shutters with graffiti fly up with a crash. The greengrocer arranges a tray of cauliflowers, whilst the newsagent drags a postcard spinner behind him.  

            The traffic picks up on the Higher Cliff Road, with buses and any number of cars of all colours, and also white vans with builders and yet despite this activity Quince’s office is still closed when I arrive. I buy a coffee and a pastry in the cafe next door and settle on an outside table, in the rain, using the sleeve of my coat to wipe the wetness from the metal chair before I sit. I watch people walking by with the clip clop of heels, rolled newspapers tucked under arms, most of them swinging briefcases or shoulder bags. Uniformed children ride their bikes to school. This, I think, could be any town in the rain, by the sea. I take my mobile and call Ellie.

            “Dan, hi, I’m just getting Jo ready,” she says. I can sense the distraction. I can hear her daughter crying in the background.   

            “Sorry. I just wanted to know if we could meet later. It’s important,” I say.

            “Jo..stop it now….sorry…yes…yes, of course. Helen’s coming over at twelve or so….can you make it for then?”

            “No problems,” I say.

            “And listen I had some of the neighbours over last night and none of them have heard of you before…” she says as I try to swallow. It would be wrong for her to find things out, before I have a chance to tell them to her.

            “They must have been out when we were doing our rounds,” I say.

            “That’s not a very good explanation is it?” she says.

            “No,” I say.

            “Because if you’re serious about standing for the council you’re going to have to knock on doors more than once,” she says.

            “I know,” I say, as Jo screams again.

            “Good. Got to go. See you later,” she says, and for once I don’t have time to reflect, because at the precise moment our conversation ends, I actually see Quince climbing out of the passenger seat of a Japanese four by four. He leans through the wound down window and kisses the driver goodbye, lightly, on the cheek. I’m confused. I’ve never thought of him in a relationship. I can’t see the woman’s face, but I’m guessing she’s a woman because of the way her long hair is cut, and styled, and because of the way she waves him goodbye, with a little wiggle of her fingertips as she pulls away. It’s a farewell which seems neither loving or unkind.

            Quince swings his briefcase in front of him as he crosses the road and opens the door to his office. I stand and take a final swig of my cappuccino, wipe the froth from my mouth, wrap the pastry in a serviette and put it in my pocket. There’s a crispness to the air, puddles on the ground, and my guts are a tangle of old fishermen’s nets. My hop and skip have gone. I have never been good at confrontation, but for my own sake, I’m going to have to try.

Lapland : Chapter Eighteen of a Novel in Parts

Tuesday

  

Every boy took a girl round the waist

And hurried her off with tremendous haste.

Whether they knew one another I care not

Whether they cared at all, I know not,

But they kissed as they danced along.

 

 

When or if Wendy has children, she will endow them with the sort of names that most people would give to pets. A girl might be called Dewdrop say, or Clarabell, whilst a boy would carry Zeus or Benji through some difficult early years. Conversely, when Wendy got a dog, she decided to call him Mr Smith. The name didn’t seem to bother him, one way or the other.

            I should perhaps add that when I say, when Wendy got a dog, what I really mean is when we got a dog. He is, or rather was, a chocolate Labrador from a rescue centre, and we adopted him, specifically because he had the saddest, wisest, kindest eyes that we had ever seen. Also, he didn’t run away on walks or scavenge food from the table, and his body never quite grew enough to match the size of his paws.

Less specifically we adopted him because we had agreed, after discussions, that although we were the forty side of thirty, neither of us were ready for children of our own, or even moving in with each other, and dividing household chores. Still, we agreed, after these discussions, that our relationship had reached the point where it did need something else – some element of shared responsibility. And also, we’d not been to a museum in years, but had got into the habit of spending Sunday afternoons in front of the television, watching alternately old films or the football, and therefore it would be good, we thought, to give ourselves a reason to get out of the house and breathe the closest thing to fresh air that London had to offer.

Predictably perhaps, it didn’t quite work as planned. Although we chose Mr Smith together, and split the vet’s bills and the food costs too, and sometimes he would stay with me and sometimes he would stay with her, I always understood that deep down he was Wendy’s dog. His fat tail didn’t wag quite so much when I walked into the room. He never jumped up to see me, or bought me balls to throw. If I’m honest, I was always of the opinion that he smelt a little ripe.

So, when Wendy tells me that he is dead I am sad, obviously, but also instantly aware that she is sharing the news not so that I can retreat to some grief soaked corner of my own mind, but so that I may comfort her. And naturally, I oblige.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Sorry?” she says as though this wasn’t the response she was expecting.

            “About Mr Smith,” I say, letting the ridiculousness of our dog’s name bounce around the cardboard walls.

            “But what do you feel?” she says. I have to think. I’ve just been woken from a dream I can’t remember and I had five pints with Morgan last night and I don’t have any other emotions to hand. The rain’s falling so hard it may come through the roof. It’s nearly December and I am cold, toes numb, stuck in a static caravan with no obvious source of heating other than the duvet around my knees. I pull it over my shoulders.

            “Sad, obviously,” I say.

“Jesus Dan,” she says.

“And you?” I ask. She doesn’t have the same problems as me. It seems she can say what she feels, before she’s even given herself time to know she’s feeling it.

“Lonely and tired and empty and every time I go into the kitchen I expect him to be there, you know, sitting in his basket like he used to, that little bit of spit hanging from his lips, wanting a dental stick or a tummy rub, and it’s like he’s all I had. You know, for company. Of course he had bad breath, but still. It’s like I’d come home and get his tea and it would make me feel….feel…. I don’t know…. better. That’s it. Better. And now what am I supposed to do. Jesus. I’ve got a cupboard full of dog food and I can’t stop looking at his lead. Shit. He’s gone, but there’s still dog hair everywhere….” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say as she pauses for breath.

“… and then I can’t stop thinking about that day when we got him and when he came home he whined for a week. Do you remember? And we said have we done the right thing…which of course we had. We did. We did, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

“So what now?” says Wendy. I don’t believe she’s talking about practicalities. I don’t believe she wants me to arrange for the collection of Mr Smith’s body. I think her question has a far more ethereal importance. She wants me to predict her future. And if I could, I would, but I can’t. As I might have pointed out before, I’m not that sort of detective. I’d never describe myself as wise.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Jesus, Dan,” she says.

“What?” I say.

“I need to see someone,” she says, and I know that if this had happened a week ago, in the olden days, in an era before envelopes stuffed with easy money, then I would squeeze my hangover into the back of my head and jump in my car and drive, as quickly as possible, the eight hours to London so I could put my arms around her and say something like everything’s going to be alright.

“I can’t come. I’m a little busy at the moment,” I say instead.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says.

“What then?”

“I need to get away from the flat. I was hoping you’d ask me down to Lemon Quay,” she says.

“Would you like to come to Lemon Quay?” I say.

“Yes. Thanks, I think I would,” she says.

Lapland : Chapter Seventeen of a Novel in Parts

 

You know what it’s like. You’re alone in your bed, lost in some dream, when you think you hear the doorbell ring. This ring is not a separate entity, but becomes a part of the said dream. You are with a beautiful woman, Ellie say, or Wendy say, and you are about to kiss her and then the doorbell rings. Or you are laughing and talking to Morgan, sharing stories, and then the doorbell rings. Or you are naked in the street or falling from a great height or perhaps your teeth are dropping, or just maybe, maybe, you are the last person left alive in a very empty world. And then the doorbell rings.

And it is raining now, a machine gun pitter-patter on the roof of your static caravan and the ring is part of the rain, an off beat or an up beat, something musical. You curl your toes warm in the duvet, but this doesn’t help because the doorbell won’t stop until it’s taken over the song. Pitter-patter, ring-ring. Pitter-patter, ring and ring.  Ellie and Wendy and Morgan, your teeth and the empty world are all fading to pictures you can’t quite touch. You reach out and knock the Chekov to the floor, because you must have tried to read it before you went to sleep. So now there’s a thump on top of the ringing and the dream isn’t a part of you, it’s something else, distant and becoming more so, although the doorbell isn’t.

            I mean this is how I’m woken in the middle of the night. I sit upright as the duvet falls around my waist. I have to think to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth. It feels like I’ve been eating either lemons or some very yellow sand. It’s dark, but I know what hour it is because of the red blink and redder blur of the digital alarm clock by the side of my bed. Not seven or eight, but four O’clock.  

On most occasions, as I have already implied, I would consider five pints to be an excessive quantity for me to consume and I am regretting each and every one by the time my eyes are fully open. Any lingering memories I’ve got of the dream I had are quickly replaced by some clearly defined images of myself and Morgan drinking, and then, a split second later I realise that the doorbell is still ringing, except that it’s the not the doorbell at all, because I’m not in my flat in London and I’m not in Wendy’s flat in London.

I’m in bed in Lemon Quay, in a static caravan that I’ve rented for the winter season, because I can just about afford it. And I’m getting some coherence now, because the noise I’m hearing, the incessant ring-ring, cannot be a doorbell, for the plain and simple reason that my caravan doesn’t have one. It doesn’t need one. People on holiday, don’t tend to have visitors and if by chance they do, then a heavy knock will suffice.   

I regroup and take a long second to understand that what I’m actually listening to is my mobile phone, and I should probably have realised earlier because my ring tone sounds nothing like any doorbell I’ve ever heard. It takes another long second for me to find my phone in the rubble of my duvet and then another even longer second for me to register who might want to speak to me in the darkness of the night, when the only things awake are the wind and rain.

And before I accept Wendy’s call I try to remember if I texted her again last night. I was drunker than I usually am, and I assume I considered it, and if I was loyal to my usual patterns of behaviour, then I probably considered it some more, but ultimately I can’t recall if I took these thoughts any further or if I just fell asleep. If I had time I would check my outgoing box, but I’ve no clear idea how long she’s been trying to get through and so I don’t. I just press the green button instead.

“Wendy,” I croak. She only croaks three words back, but these are enough for me to tell that all is not right with her world. There’s still a chance she’s angry at words I can’t remember sending, but it doesn’t sound like it.

“Dan, it’s me,” she says.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, not mentioning the time as wind blows and rain falls and I wait for her to answer me.

“Oh…Dan…,” she says.

“Go on,” I say.

“I wish you were here,” she says.

“Really?”

“You don’t understand,” she says.

“I know,” I say.

 “Something’s happened. Something bad,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“You don’t understand.  Something really bad,” she says.

“What?”

“It’s Mr Smith. Mr Smith is dead,” she says.

Lapland : Chapter Sixteen of a Novel in Parts

 

“I should have guessed,” says Morgan. “Fallow and Quince have always been joined at the hip,”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“They were friends at school. They didn’t mix with anyone. Lonely buggers. It’s not so much they kept themselves to themselves though. Rather no-one else wanted to know them,” he says.

We’re in The Lost Sailor again, the remains of our first pints in front of us, alongside two fresh ones that Morgan has fetched. I’ve been trying to update him on the status of my investigation, but it’s not been that easy to do. Every time I’ve started a sentence we’ve been joined by some acquaintance or other of his and I’ve thought it wise to hush my voice. It’s possible even flock wallpapered walls have ears, which means I’ve had to sit back and listen as Morgan chewed the cud, talking about his pasties and the weather and the football and different friends who I don’t know. During one particular lull in his court I even suggested that we might move on, but Morgan only went to the toilet and came back with more beers and this, I suppose, was his answer.

Still, despite the interruptions, I have now managed to unburden myself of the secrets I hold.

“So what do I do?” I ask. Morgan whistles through more red whiskers. He can grow facial hair at a whim. He can put beards on, like I would a hat. One of the people who Morgan was speaking to earlier, stands at the bar and coughs.

“That I can’t answer,” says Morgan.

“Try,” I say.

“Come on Father Brown. You’ve got to be in control. There’s no point to a detective who can’t make decisions,” he says. His words are sharp and sharp things cut and hurt. It appears there’s to be no comfort in his advice, just a hard cold clarity, a realisation that I have taken myself to a crossroads and now have a choice to make. It’s a junction with no warning signs. I can either carry on with my deception or I can withdraw, diplomatically from the proceedings. I can show my cards and fold and maybe start looking for another game to play, although I have to face up to the possibility that this would be a game that involves neither envelopes or easy money or Ellie.

Or I could stop thinking in metaphors and put some effort into sorting things out.

“Do you think I should tell Ellie about Moon and Quince and this Fallow, then?” I ask.

“It’s your call,” says Morgan.

“What would you do?”

“I take pictures of pasties. How would I know?” he says.

“But is there a right thing to do?” I ask.

“As I said, you’re the detective. I don’t know how much right comes into it,” he says, as I pick up my second pint. I drink a third of it straight down, barely tasting the cool fizz. Morgan matches me sip for sip and gulp for gulp. Piped music plays Meatloaf, Paradise By The Dashboard Light. It is heavy and overblown, like the wallpaper, and also it is the sort of song, all pomp and drama, that beats the rest of my thoughts from my head, if only for five minutes or so. By the time I’ve finished my drink, I’m feeling more on top of things, though I’m not sure quite why.

“Listen. If it was me, I suppose I’d confront Quince. Find out what he’s got to say. I’d tell him that I don’t appreciate being taken for a ride by anyone. Even if I’m being paid to go,” says Morgan. I put the empty glass down. He puts his empty glass down. Meatloaf finishes too and now I can hear the wind and the rain again. A gas fire, made to look like logs, sends a semblance of heat from the corner of the room. We’ve been here an hour and I haven’t taken my coat off, so now I’m all sweat and steam. I was wrong. I’m not on top of things at all.

“Then what?” I say.

“Then I’d think about his answer,” says Morgan.

“Then what? I say.

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” I say.

“Then I’d get another job,” says Morgan. I let his statement sink and try to stop myself sinking too. I’m a boat with a hole, the harbour miles away, and I’m quickly forgetting how to swim. I’m thinking in metaphors, once more.

I mean I know that I’m canvassing Morgan. I know that he’s trying to be helpful and I know also that I’m ungrateful and selfish and many other things besides, but this critical self awareness cannot rid me of the notion that he’s not behaving like a sidekick should. There’s no accidental hint, no throwaway comment, to become my lifejacket of enlightenment.

I’ve had two pints, which is one less than three, but on this occasion my head was spinning before I even started drinking and so, I conclude, there’s no place I’d rather be right now than alone in my static caravan, wrapped in my duvet with my Chekov and my topped-up phone.

“I’ve got to go,” I say.

“Not yet, it’s your round,” says Morgan, wiping beer from his beard.

“Must I?” I say, because some decisions still aren’t my own.

“Yes,” he says. I stand and make for the bar. True friendship is worth nurturing. I read that in one of Wendy’s magazines.

“Get some nuts…,” he shouts. “….and then I’ll tell you some more about Fallow and Quince,” which is exactly what I and he both do.

So, despite my better judgement we drink another three pints as he tells me about his schooldays with candour and an absence of either rancour or fondness. Through a thickening lager-mist I listen as he talks about the first girls he ever loved and his penchant for skipping chemistry so he could catch crabs off the harbour wall, with a thin line and some mackerel bait.    

By the end of the conversation I am able to name every teacher who had the pleasure of his attention, and the homework he did and the homework he didn’t. I also have a far greater understanding of what I am up against. According to Morgan, Quince is not just a solicitor who was good at French and now happens to be running a company which happens to be running a lap-dancing club. And Fallow is not just a spotty boy, with a lack of social skills in his formative years, who happens to be the deputy mayor, and also happens to be running a company which happens to be running a lap-dancing club. Oh, no. Both men, or boys as they were, are also failed bullies who at one time in the second, or possibly third form, tried to extort dinner money out of Morgan. And this, as Morgan so succinctly puts it, was not a good idea, given that they were both smaller than him.