Charlotte Street (10 page)

I found the smudged side of A5 I’d pressed down into the very bottom of my pockets, and brought it out.

Film
, it said.
Two lads. Alex and ???

I wasn’t sure how much use this would be.

Director: Peter Donaldson. Funny bit with an owl
.

I thought back. That
had
been funny.

Somehow, I had to make this last 250 words.

Alex & Bob Get F***ed Up
, I wrote.

Word count: 6.

I sat back in my chair and stared at my work so far. I liked it. I had a sip of coffee and leaned forward again

….
is a film directed by Peter Donaldson
.

Word count: 13.

I drummed my fingers on the table.

Don’t get distracted, I thought. Concentrate.

I turned the radio on and then turned it off again.

Take two guys
, I wrote.
One called Alex, one called Bob
.

Word count: 22.

I added
and
after Alex. 23.

I drummed my fingers again and looked out of the window. A truck was delivering vegetables to the grocer’s on the corner. The man who ran the Ethiopian restaurant was putting out the bottles.

I looked at my drawer. Opened it. Saw the pictures lying there, in their packet.

‘Jason!’ shouted Dev, from downstairs. ‘Favour!’

‘What?’ I shouted.

‘Can you look after the shop for a bit? Pawel’s going to teach me a Polish love song!’

I closed the drawer and looked again at the word count.

23.

Yeah, not bad.

Dev had been gone maybe fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. He’d left the theme tune to
Golden Axe
running in the shop, which I turned off the moment the door clicked shut and replaced with Magic FM.

I know next to nothing about games. There are facts I can regurgitate, and there are things I can say, but knowing about them – that’s different. It makes interaction with those few
brave souls who enter Power Up! a tricky affair. I bluff sometimes, if they look like the sort of person I can bluff, but more often than not I have to hold my hands up and admit there and then, I’m looking after the shop. Sometimes they’ll look relieved. That means they’ve heard about Dev.
Retro Gamer
magazine ran an interview with him recently, calling him ‘the UK’s last bastion of high-street retrogaming quality’. He had it printed up on business cards, and then framed the article behind the counter, next to a signed picture of Dave ‘the Unstoppable Games Animal’ Perry, a joypad that had once belonged to Big Boy Barry, and a photo of Danny Curley, European Games Playing Champion 1992, who he thought had once come into the shop but had been too shy to talk to.

The DJ on Magic had just finished making a joke about the weather when the little bell above the door went. I looked up and froze, slightly.

It was Matthew Fowler, the kid I used to teach. Well, not teach, exactly. The kid who’d sit there while I just sat there. The one who nearly blinded someone. The father of a ten-month-old, who itself couldn’t be more than ten months away from shouting at someone on
Jeremy Kyle
or
Trisha
.

He was wearing his hood down and there was the tinny
tik-tik-tik
of an MP3 player somewhere in his tracksuit bottoms.

His eyes flicked towards me and then away again, and he started to go through a box of second-hand carts and CDs.

He hadn’t recognised me.

I relaxed a little, and started to pretend to be tidying up the counter, but I couldn’t help keep looking over at him, through fascination, I must add, not suspicion. What had he been up to since leaving St John’s? Why was he in here? It was a bit like spotting a celebrity, though one you’re a little afraid might beat you up.

The
tik-tik-tik
stopped, and he cast another look my way. I felt guilty for watching, and so turned away and started to pile things that didn’t need to be put into little piles into little piles.

And then he was at the counter.

‘Hullo, sir.’

Oh.

‘Hello … Matthew. Matt.’

‘You work here, do you?’

It would be weird if I didn’t.

Hang on – I don’t.

‘No. Just looking after the place. For a friend.’

He nodded, and glanced about the shop.

‘Yeah, what’s his name again? I been in here a few times. Quite nervous, that fella, isn’t he?’

That’ll be the hood.

‘You still at St John’s, then?’ he said.

He was talking to me, but looking anywhere but.

‘No, I’m a journalist now. Sort of. A sort-of journalist.’

‘Yeah, I seen your name in the paper. Didn’t know if it was you or the other one.’

‘The bloke from
90210
?’

‘Reasoned it probably wasn’t.’

I smiled.

‘You all right then, sir?’

Now he was looking at me, shyly.

‘You don’t have to call me “sir”.’

‘What then?’

‘I dunno. Mr Priestley?’

I suddenly felt ludicrous. I was a man standing in front of a
Sonic the Hedgehog
poster demanding a customer address me as Mr Priestley.

‘Or Jason. Just call me Jason.’

Matthew sniffed and scratched his face.

‘I’ll call you Mr Priestley. You’re all right, though, yeah?’

There was an awkward moment. I didn’t know what else to say. I tried to think what Dev would say.

‘Yeah. Did you find everything you need?’

‘Just looking.’

‘How’s your kid?’

It was instinct. But now he’d wonder how I knew. He smiled.

‘I saw you that day, too. At the station. Thought you wouldn’t recognise me.’

‘What’s his name? Or her?’

‘Elgar.’

Elgar? Elgar the baby?

‘Elgar is a wonderful name for a … baby.’

‘I haven’t got a baby,’ he said, smiling. ‘That woman you saw, she’s always on at everyone about babies. Better she thinks I’ve got one and I might be able to get something done with my days.’

I laughed. Elgar seemed a weird reference for him, but one I liked.

‘How’ve you been?’

He shrugged.

‘School wasn’t for me. Dunno what is.’

‘Where are you working?’

‘Garage off Chapel Market.’

And then, from somewhere in his trousers, Akon started singing. Either it was Matt’s ringtone, or Akon really needs to start looking for new gigs.

He stared at the name on the screen.

‘I gotta go. Cheers, sir. Nice to see you. Glad you’re all right.’

‘See you again—’ I started to say, but his back was turned and he was already halfway out the shop.

I watched him jog across Caledonian Road towards a scuffed-up mountain bike chained to a lamppost.

School wasn’t for him. I knew how he felt.

And then, the small tinkle of the bell above the door again, and in walked another customer. I flashed a half-smile at him and turned away, not really taking him in, and not trying to either. I wasn’t done thinking about Matt yet. But there’d been something familiar about the shape of the man, about his tan and his neat hair, and I turned back, and there he was, still in the doorway, smiling a small smile and raising two thin eyebrows.

‘Hello, buddy,’ he said, with something approaching sadness in his voice, like I was a kitten coming out of anaesthetic, and he was a vet with a hammer in his pocket.

‘I know you still love her, buddy.’

Oh, please, no, not buddy. Who says buddy who’s not from America or the 1950s? Gary’s thirty-four and from Hertfordshire.

I’d closed the shop – Dev would understand – and reluctantly agreed to a ‘quick coffee … just a catch-up … just a chippity-chat.’

I’d already spent ten minutes staring at Gary’s mouth while words came out. Big, round words, meaningless and foggy. And then, like coming out of a long tunnel and realising you’re still tuned to the radio, he was there.

‘… how hard it must be for you that she’s with someone else,’ he said, and I snapped myself to attention. ‘But at some point, you’re going to have to take responsibility for your actions. Put your hands up. Say, “I messed up”, and move on. Otherwise your life just won’t be worth living.’

From anyone else, this last line could have been intimidating. A warning shot fired across the bow. From Gary it came across like something from a weaker episode of
Dr Phil
.

I tried to stop him.

‘It’s not that I still love her,’ I said, staring into my coffee, but he ignored me and just carried on.

‘We’ve all been there,’ he said, and I noticed his fleece.
Dubai Desert Classic 2004
and a small Emirates logo. No bobbles, no fluff. This was a fleece he took care of. ‘I mean, you have someone, you lose someone. But this is the way of the world. Life’s too short.’

I suddenly realised what Gary was. Gary was someone who said things like ‘Life’s too short’ as if he’d just come up with it himself. He probably thought he was a genius, coming up with something as profound as ‘Life’s too short’. I bet one day he’ll see it on a bumper sticker and think someone’s ripped him off.

‘You need to use every day as if it’s your last,’ he said, at least pretending to find this awkward and fixing his eyes on a stain on the tablecloth. ‘And if you’re hung up on someone—’

‘I’m honestly not hung up on Sarah,’ I said. ‘I was drunk, and in front of a computer, and yeah, I agree I made mistakes – I made one
huge
mistake – and you can pat yourself on the back because you’ve never made a mistake like it, but people make mistakes, Gary.’

Oh, God. I just said ‘People make mistakes’. I’m worse than Gary.

‘It’s no use living in the past,’ he said.

Then again …

This was embarrassing. Like being told off by a grown-up. A real man. Someone who’s perfectly able to take a relationship in his stride. And that, I think, is why he was enjoying it so much. He wasn’t doing this out of pity, or concern. He was doing this to say, ‘Look at me. Look at what I can do. Not only can I make it work with Sarah, I’m big enough to be able to tell you where you’ve gone wrong, why you’re a failure, and yet still make it seem like I’m doing you a favour. I should really be wearing a top hat’.

‘Gary, listen, I’d better be going,’ I said, snapping out of it
and doing my best to swig half a cup of coffee in one. I inched my chair backwards to show I was serious.

‘Dev’ll wonder why I’ve shut up shop. He’s learning a Polish song. And Tuesdays between three and four are our busiest time. His busiest. I don’t work there.’

Gary panicked.

‘Before you go, mate,’ he said. ‘Look, it’s not my place to say it, but …’

But what?

He paused, and seemed to love it. Usually, I love pauses, too. I can pause for anything up to a minute; it’s like a gift. Sarah used to say life happens in the pauses; that some pauses are great pauses; comforting pauses. The pause a taxi driver gives you the second after you name a street, the second before the nod that confirms they know the way. The pause between the ads at the cinema, when the music and the visuals and the noise disappear all at once, and all you’re left with is the glow of a mobile being switched off or the slow self-conscious rustle of a sweet wrapper. But this pause … this wasn’t a good pause. There was no comfort to be taken from this pause.

‘Forget it.’

‘What?’

‘No, it’s not my place.’

‘What, Gary?’

A final, decisive pause. A quick one, this time, but no nicer.

‘No.’

And with that, he threw a fiver down on the table, smiled, and inched his chair back too.

‘Righty-ho.’

Gary had insisted on walking me back into the shop. I’d tried to show him how busy I was by splitting the little unnecessary
pile I’d piled up earlier into two, but to be honest, it still didn’t make me look particularly busy. It just made me look like a man with piles.

You know what I mean.

Gary had picked up a few games and read their descriptions out to me. Gary’s one of those people who reads things out.

‘Two for one!’ he’d said, in a jaunty voice, as we’d passed the Esso garage. ‘Fresh rolls!’ There’s very little you can say in response to ‘Fresh rolls!’, let alone ‘Caledonian Food & Wine!’

And excellent: now he’d found the photos. I’d not had time to put them away.

‘These yours?’ he said, and I had to stop myself from visibly squirming.

‘Yeah. No. A friend’s.’

I held my hand out, tried to get him to relinquish them, but he was fascinated.

‘Who is she?’

‘She’s … like I say, she’s a mate. A chum.’

A
chum?

He allowed himself another moment to study her. His eyes flicked around the first one. I knew what he was doing. He was comparing her to Sarah, weighing up who the winner was.

‘That’s good, Jason,’ he said, eventually, and fanning the photos out in front of him. ‘It’s good to have friends.’

I nodded. Well, what was the harm? If Gary thought I was hanging out with pretty blonde girls with lively eyes, perhaps he’d tell Sarah. Although, of course, he wouldn’t. That would make me seem far too attractive. No, Gary would tell Sarah I was working in the videogame shop and was wearing a jumper with a sailor on it.

‘Whitby,’ he said, wistfully.

‘Hmm?’

‘That’s Whitby, isn’t it? I recognise the abbey.’

He pointed at one of the photos. She – whoever she is – was wearing a red scarf, and laughing at something someone off camera was saying. It was one of my favourites. You couldn’t see the wind, but you could almost feel it. Brisk and cold and sweeping away the cobwebs, fresh and clean. In the background, high on a cliff, was the building Gary now had his finger all over.

I did my best to subtly move them away. These were mine. You can’t have them, Gary.

‘I used to go there as a kid. Not on my own, obviously. Dad had a caravan and liked it up there. When were you in Whitby?’

I managed to nod and shake my head at the same time. Gary took this in whatever way he took it.

‘Well, good luck, Jason.’

And I would’ve watched him go, except I had the picture in my hands, and I didn’t want to look away.