Conman (3 page)

No. What these moments give is a return. A chance, for the briefest moment, to remember,
recapture
, the few precious seconds of boyhood when our strange fascinations first took hold. For a frozen moment business is forgotten and I am back in short trousers and school shoes, eyes wide, breathing in the smell of burnt popcorn. I am stroking the rough primary pages of a borrowed comic, bathing in the tinny glow of a Saturday cartoon or picking cold fingers among the trestle-table tat in a freezing church hall jumble sale, my father beside me, slipping me a heavy fifty pence, the air bubbling with women’s voices, thick with the metal smell of orangey tea.

I was jerked from memory by a loud voice. I looked up from the worthless case of trinkets and tat. The owner was taking a vocal
stroll about the shop, letting fly with his expert advice.
Ahhh, you wanna get rid of all this crap. This? This here? Worthless. These are on eBay for twenty pence. Market’s flooded with ’em. Crap, crap, crap, whassis one? Crap.
On and on. Jolted by disbelief, I threw a look at Laura who dropped a matching jaw and threw the look back.

And then if this wasn’t enough, the stranger, seemingly
oblivious
to buyer-seller etiquette, up-shifted a gear with a crunch and started getting personal.
Gor dear, fuckin’ amateur hour this place. Got stuff worth more than this kickin’ around in my loft. New to the game are you Hero?
He’s calling me ‘Hero’ the whole time for some reason.
Hero, eh mate, new to this lark are ya? Bloody youngsters don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Do ya. Hoy? Hero
?

Well I mean, really.

I was
this
close to slamming his ratty case and asking him to take his bric-a-brac, business and body-odour elsewhere when, at the bottom of the case, beneath a yellowing stack of
2000ADs
, my fingers curled around a thick roll of what felt like card. I tugged it loose.

Black and white photographs. Publicity stills. Cracked and faded most of them, corners bent and orangey. A quick crackle through revealed a veritable who’s who of artists and writers from the
thirties
and forties – the Golden Age of the American comic book: Will Eisner, Bill Finger, Julio Raymond, each posed in shirt sleeves and fedoras, pipes in mouths, all sat chuckling around desks and easels. Shots commissioned no doubt by various publishers way back when. A quirky collection but nothing to get too excited over.

I was already warming up a thanks-but-no-thanks when two familiar faces at the bottom of the photo pile caught the words in my throat.

Could
it … ?

Was
it … ?

Holy.

Heirloom.

Batman.

I swallowed hard and looked up. The man had got his coat caught on a rack and was cursing and tugging at it, postcards and lobby sets swooping to the floor.

“Er, not really my sort of stuff to be honest,” I said, attempting to keep the wobble from my voice. “I mean I’d give you a fiver just coz I like this
Dick Tracy
mug,” and I waved a ceramic Warren Beatty. “But I’d be doing you a favour to be honest.”

“Fuck off ya tosser, got some beauties in there,” the man said, yanking his coat free, the postcards falling around. “Them
2000AD
s are mint. Hundred quid and it’s all yours. C’mon ya tight fucker. You’ll make double that.”

“I’d be lucky to make half, to be honest. And would you mind controlling your language sir?”

“Then give me a fuckin’ decent fuckin’ price, ya fuckin’ fairy. Seventy five,” and he waved a grubby paw at the large MGM posters on the wall. “You’d only spend it on more Judy Garland shit for your boyfriend.”

“For my
boyf
– ? Oh for heaven’s sake.” In the corner Laura was concealing a smirk behind her cigarette. I really was going to have to butch the place up a bit. But until then, I needed to close this deal sharpish. “Fifteen, and it’s my final offer.”

“Twenty.”

“Fifteen.”

“You … Give it then,” he barked in a belch of boozy bitter, snapping his fingers. “An’ I want a receipt.”

I began jabbing through the laborious temperamental quirks of my Jurassic till, the man spitting ’
urry ups and fackin’ell mates, in your own time why dontchas.
The till-drawer finally ground open, thin receipt chattering out noisily. I peeled off a couple of notes and handed them to him.

“’Bout time, ya fuckin’ fruit,” he mumbled, upending the case to let the comics, photographs and nick-nacks tumble to the counter and floor in a flurry. He staggered around and clomped mumbling down the shop, lurching clumsily onto Laura’s toe. She yelled at him but with a thud and a clatter he was gone.

“Jesus. What an arsehole,” Laura said.

“And thank the Lord,” I said excitedly, riffling through the debris.

“Otherwise I might have felt moved to give him the full market value for … where are you, where are you … here. Look at that!”

Laura ambled up the aisle and peered at the photograph through her cigarette smoke.

“And what is the market value,” she shrugged, “for a signed snapshot of two Brylcreem boys with their underpants outside their trousers?”

“A great deal more than fifteen pounds,” I said, heart lifting. Maybe this was a sign? Maybe it was like my dad used to tell me – that luck came in streaks? Run of bad, a run of good.

I caught a glimpse of the yellow plumber’s invoice atop my
in-tray
. Further down the pile, two matching yellow demands and a Beevers & Boatman letterhead peeked out a little.

Christ, let my luck be changing.

“Fur-mur fob-mim
oof
,” Jane said later that evening, to which I replied “Beg pardon?” for the obvious reason. “You
robbed
him?” she said, lifting her mouth up from the pillow a bit, and then added another small
oof
noise.

“
Robbed
– I didn’t
rob
him,” I said. “It’s not like he – whoopsie – like he came in and I clunked him over the head with a
cardboard
Chewbacca and nicked his suitcase.”

The
whoopsie
was because the essential oils I was massaging into Jane’s shoulders had got a bit runny and began getting under my watch-strap. I warmed up a spot more liquid between my palms with a noisy rubbing motion and resumed the long broad strokes along Jane’s pale shoulders. “I offered him fifteen pounds and he took it,” I went on. “Fair and square.”

“
Fair
?” Jane said, twisting to look up at me. I shushed her back into position. “Well then I hope
you
never get old and have to sell any of your –”

“Oh c’mon, shush shush, this is meant to be relaxing.”

The lounge dropped into quiet once again, just Michael Nyman’s score to
The Piano
tinkling softly from the (
£
10 o.n.o.) stereo. Lana was asleep in her cot next door, a chunky baby monitor propped up by Jane’s pillow crackling murmurs and sighs. The flat smelled of our weekly date night. Baby poo smothered with oils, candles and clean towels. Propped up behind her, straddling the small of Jane’s back, I rubbed and smoothed her soft bathtime skin and tried to enjoy the moment.

Jane shifted a little, brushing bath-wet hair from her face.

“
How
is it fair?” she said. “
Fair
, surely, would have been telling
him what a picture like that was worth and offering him two hundred pounds? Or a hundred at least? That would have been
fair
. Do you know where he got it? Maybe they’re his wife’s
collection
.”

“Wasn’t very ladylike stuff.”

“Right, we going to have
that
conversation again? When
we
met, I had more copies of
2000AD
than –”

“All right, shush shush, you –”

“Your team all cocky at the Freshers’ Week quiz. Playing the
girls
…”

“You win, you win,” and I gave her a soft kiss between her shoulder blades, inhaling her bathtime scent.

“All I’m saying is, maybe they were her pride and joy? Down a bit.”

“Then why is he selling them door to door out of a suitcase? There?”

“Maybe she died? Right there.”

“Yes
maybe
,” I said. “But it looked more like he was about to spend the money on booze.”

“Naturally. Drowning his –
ooh
, that’s good, a bit more there,” Jane said. “Drowning his sorrows. Married thirty years. She has a heart attack, he’s left alone. Forced to sell her rare collections to meet the funeral expenses?”

“You wouldn’t be saying this if you’d met him.”

“Poor old chap.”

I thumbed the dip beneath her left shoulder silently for a moment.

Did I want to tell her that I didn’t have a hundred to give him? That apart from a listless
Kerplunk
and Cheng coming back in for another peer at Robert Redford at ten past four, I didn’t have another customer and spent the rest of the day knee-deep in antique papier-mâché? No, I thought. Best not.

I moved across to Jane’s right shoulder, gazing over the pale violin of her back. Swallowing hard I tried to concentrate. My wife. My perfect angel. But even there, hands kneading gently her velvet curves, guilt stared back. Plain guilt. The word stared up at me from her shoulders like Jane was a premier league football player and it was the tattooed name of her firstborn.

“But think about it hon. I do the
nice
thing, the
honest
thing,” I jabbered, giving the word as naïve and foolish an inflection as I could. “Give the bloke two hundred and fifty quid, which is what a signed promo shot of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel is
worth
–

“Neil, you know that’s not –”

“And then sell it on for two hundred and fifty, what’s been the point of that? I’m trying to make a
living
here. For us. But if you’d rather I didn’t …” I said, somewhat petulantly.

It was a strategic manoeuvre. It was only a matter of days before Jane discovered what I’d done. How much I’d screwed up. And I knew that when she did – when the smoke cleared and she was able to pick through the debris of what used to be her life – I was going to be on the wrong end of a very big row. A
plate-hurling
, parent-phoning, locks-changing,
never-want-to-see-you-again
scale bust-up. So I was pushing this point as preparation. Ground work. Something I could barter with later.
But hon, when I tried to make a little money to put things right you accused me of being unfair. Ow, ow that hurts, I’m sorry I’m sorry ow.

Something like that.

Jane was laying quietly. She does this during disagreements. The silent thing. Implying I’m not worth listening to. Which makes me frustrated and shouty and incoherent and not worth listening to.

“All I meant was,” she said, “you could have been nicer.”

“So could he!” I spat. Streaky looked up from underneath the radiator. “He trod on Laura’s toe and didn’t apologise, he
virtually
pulled an entire display down, told me I was a tosser,
fuckin’ amateur hour, don’t know what the fuck you’re –
”

“Who’s Laura?”

“What?”

Jane lifted her head from the pillow a little.

“You said he trod on Laura’s toe. Who’s Laura?”

The room went quiet. The cat blinked.

“Oh. Uhmm the woman. The Chanel woman. Yesterday. With the car. Turns out she works nearby. Dropped in to say thank you. Brought me a coffee.”

I didn’t mention her buns.

“That was nice of her.”

“Huh? Yes, yes. I s’pose. C’mere, let me move down a bit.”

I edged down to the back of Jane’s legs, adjusting my weight and began to smooth the oil into the base of her back. The
conversation
was over. Topic dropped. Died a natural death. We could leave it be, draw a veil, usher out the mourners without it being considered hurried or disrespectful.

Which I suppose, with less fear and beer inside me, is what I would have done.

“Your dad wouldn’t have had a problem with it,” I mumbled.

“Yours neither,” Jane said back quickly.

Ooooh ref. Yellow card.

I stopped. Chin up, I wiped a hand on the towel and picked up my beer.

“Sorry,” Jane said.

I sighed, easing myself to my feet.

“Neil?”

“S’all right,” I pouted. “Just a bit of cramp,” and I gave my thigh a half-hearted rub.

“I didn’t mean –”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Did you post your letter to him?” Jane said tentatively. She leant up a little, propping herself on an elbow. She was making peace. “You were going to send him those photos of Lana too. Neil?”

“Hn? No, no not yet.” I sighed and sloshed back another mouthful of beer, fizzing about my gums, making my head swim. “I will. But …”

“What? What is it?”

“You have to admit it. Your dad would have slapped me on the back and bought me a drink.
Shrewd, young man, shrewwwwwd,
” I said in my best Edward voice. It’s an easy one to do. You basically imagine Windsor Davies playing Shere Khan in a touring rep version of
The Jungle Book.

“Dad never said you should –”

“He’s told me I’m too nice to be a businessman. That I don’t have the killer instinct. Never tires of asking me how the shop’s going.
Made that first million yet young man
? You know he’d have preferred you to have got hitched to some –”

“Oh Neil, for heaven’s sake, how many times. Dad doesn’t –”

“… some macho, six foot, alpha male provider. Like … thingy. Andrew.”

“
Andrew
? Wait, where’s
this
come from?” Jane sat up.

“Oh nowhere. Forget it. Forget it. I was just thinking about him today,” I said. I perched myself on the chair by the desk. “That Sting poster he helped me hang when we shared halls. I’ve had an offer on it. Not much but …” I burped a stale beer burp, head thick and cloudy. “Andrew was much more your dad’s idea of husband material though, don’t you think?”

“Hairy Andrew, eco-warrior? With those chunky jumpers and wounded ducklings? Hardly Mr Wall Street, was he?”