Last Train to Gloryhole (63 page)

The three men, who were soon sitting on the low wall near the pub, holding white, plastic spoons in their hands, and munching their take-away Indian from three separate brown, paper bags, went on witnessing what was happening in the car they had been rocking and that sat in the shadows to their right, but, following Volver’s lead, now did their best to ignore them.

‘Did you guys ever see that film
‘Dead Man Walking?’
asked the Afrikaner. ‘Guy out walking one night comes across two dirty bastards, much like that pair there, and decides to put the pair of them out of their misery. If you ask me, he performed a great service for society that day. But what did that society do to the poor bastard? They went and executed his arse with a lethat dose, that’s what they did. Can you believe it? You know, I could easily go over there right now and put paid to the pair of them in seconds, and then come back and finish my food with the very same knife - wiped clean, naturally. But hey - let’s let sleeping dogs lie, yeah? And judging by the fact we can’t hear their rutting racket any more, then I take it they’ve just dropped off.’

The South African’s two dining colleagues inclined their heads, nodded their agreement, and chewed on.

‘You know, for a number of years I used to live in London,’ Volver told them. ‘Did I tell you that? And one wet, windy night in Hammersmith I was forced to stab this druggie who kept giving me the v-sign all the time, and screaming abuse as he was buying gear off my mate.’ The two boys turned and stared at him. ‘Imagine. The cock. Well, I waited until he paid me, obviously, then, as change, I slipped a four-inch blade through his belly-button.’

‘Wow! Now that’s one slow way to do it, I heard,’ said Steffan, holding before him a curry-stained hand, and then twisting it maliciously. ‘The guy had no respect, yeah?’

‘You know, that’s exactly what I told my buddy as he dragged him into the river. Sank in seconds, he did, and without a single rock being laid on him. A bit weird that, I thought at the time.’

‘Yeah, I’d say that’s unusually fast,’ said Jake.

‘I guess,’ said Volver. ‘My buddy told me later that he had tourettes. Well, hey-ho! He’s cured now, I told him.’ The Afrikaner spooned up a mouthful of curry, swallowed it, and carried on. ‘Funny but I can’t remember his name any more. Fetched up in Margate, he did, a fortnight later. The dog-fish down there had made a right fish-supper out of him so I gather. Kent Police thought he’d come across from France, of course. Thought he was continental, you know.’

‘Of course, he might have visited the place and then drifted back,’ said Jake, smiling.

‘Either way, it’s nice that he got to see the world a bit,’ said Steffan, munching away. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ said Volver. ‘Because prior to that I very much doubt if he’d ever been out of west London. But I can tell you his girl was totally devastated when I told her he had run off with somebody else.’ He turned to Steffan, grinned, then slapped him on the back, as the boy and Jake swiftly visualized the funny side to their boss’s callous and cold-blooded, yet incredibly hilarious actions, and then broke out laughing accordingly..

Now that her father was asleep, Carla returned downstairs to where Chris sat awaiting her return, inspecting her strange wind-up wristwatch that was shaped and coloured like a goldfish.

‘Are you going to be singing
Acapulco
?’ Chris asked her. ‘Because I really love it when you do that.’

‘Acapulco!
No, silly,’ replied Carla, wondering why he’d asked her that. ‘Chris - are you high already? I think you’ll find that that’s an Elvis song. She took the spliff from his fingers and drew it in deeply, then coughed with sudden, comical recognition. ‘Oh, you mean
acapella
?’ said Carla. She shook her head about and giggled at him. ‘No, on Sunday I’m going to be accompanying myself on the acoustic guitar all evening, as I heard that the bar is a bit small for my Fender. For the sound, I mean. And anyway there going to be no band there, so I guess I’ve got little choice.’ She handed the joint to Chris who took his turn.

‘I googled you this morning, you know, Carla,’ he suddenly announced, smiling.

‘Well, I didn’t feel anything,’ she replied, eye-brows raised, and affecting surprise.

‘Ha, ha,’ he said, then waited for her to return to being Carla once again. ‘Do you realise that you’re currently the eleventh most google-d person on the face of the Earth?’

‘I never knew that,’ she told him, picking up some ash from the carpet. ‘Who is number-one?’

‘Michael Jackson,’ said Chris.

‘O.K., that figures,’ she said. ‘And second?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think it’s Justin Bieber.’

‘Dear, dear. And you said I was eleventh? So who is tenth?’ she asked

‘Oh, I do remember that one,’ he replied, grinning. ‘It’s Jesus Christ.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Carla, her mouth falling open.

‘Er - the very same,’ said Chris, beaming out a smile at her. ‘And you are only one place behind him. Say - isn’t that amazing?’

‘No, it’s not at all,’ shot back Carla sharply. ‘The whole notion is absurd. Do you want to know what’s amazing, Chris? Yeah? What’s amazing is that you bothered.’ Carla took the spliff from him, but instead of dragging on it, she quickly put it out in the ash-tray that lay beside her.

‘Oh, I’m sorry if I offended you,’ he told her, instantly regretting that he had brought it up.

Carla reached out a hand and stroked away his budding shame. ‘Oh, you haven’t offended me,’ she told him. ‘I realise that it’s tempting to go on-line and do what you did. Millions do it, don’t they? I’m just glad I wasn’t ninth, that’s all.’

The pair glanced at each other and laughed.

‘What the hell is
Google
anyway?’ said Carla. ‘If I curse Michael Jackson today - out loud, or under my breath, or The Good Lord Himself for that matter - then I bet there’s sure to be thousands upon thousands of unfathomable, throw-away pages that refer solely to my supposed slur, in a hundred-and-one different cultural, scientific and psychological contexts, recorded on it before six o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘I believe it, Carla,’ said Chris, grinning. ‘If you so much as fart it seems to circle the world.’

‘Well, I could easily take exception to that comment, young man, but I won’t,’ she told him. ‘Though it’s an interesting way to put it nevertheless. And as for
Twitter
and
Facebook
- those twin cess-pools of fuckery and self-delusion that I’ve always detested with a passion, and shun at all costs - please do me the kindness of never mentioning either one of them in my presence.’

‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ he replied. ‘though I don’t reckon I’ve alluded to them even once up to now. But hang on, Carla - you’ve always had a
MySpace
page, haven’t you?’ he countered. ‘So aren’t you being a teeny bit hypocritical here?’

‘What do you mean?’ she cried. ‘The
MySpace
was never ever
my
space at all. Not really. Since every other artist they represented or endorsed was already on it, both my management and the record-company simply demanded I follow suit. And I basically just let them get on with it. That’s all it was, Chris, I swear.’

‘You know, I believe you,’ said Chris.

‘Pass me the bottle of wine, would you?’ Carla asked him. Taking it from Chris, she unscrewed the top and filled to the brim both glasses that sat on the table between them. Then watching Chris swiftly grab hold of his glass and swallow a goodly portion, she sat back in her chair and sipped her own more decorously. ‘You know, I read that a scientific study made using a series of detailed brain scans has revealed that alcohol doesn’t actually cause us to behave badly, it just stops us from caring about embarrassing ourselves when
we are
behaving badly.’

‘Is that right?’ said Chris.

‘Apparently,’ she went on. ‘A classic depressant like alcohol can suppress shame and inhibitions for a time. But what I say to that is - just witness the remorse when ‘the high’ wears off. And remember it was me that told you this when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning.’

I had gone into ‘
Poundland’
out of the rain to see if they had a video of
‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’
that my wife Gwen desperately wanted to watch, and I was standing in front of the shelf that displayed them all for sale, at a pound a piece, when a young man came and stood next to me. I glanced briefly to my side, but quickly realised that I didn’t know him.

The black cases were all lined up completely haphazardly in one long row, not even sorted by stars or genre, with
‘Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels’
propping up
‘The Sound Of Music’
and
‘Silence Of The Lambs’
right next to
‘Bambi,’
when the guy chose to pounce.

Plonking a large, unzipped hold-all on the floor before him, the young man in the dufffel-coat and trilby reached out with both arms, and grabbed hold of, then tossed, the entire contents of the shelf inside, then zipped up the now bulging container, and, heaving it onto his shoulder, spun round, and dashed straight past the check-outs and out of the shop.

However the thief had missed one, which he had dropped on the floor, and which now lay under my feet, so I picked it up and walked with it over to the young girl who sat at the cash-till, who was engaged in serving a customer. ‘Did you see that?’ I asked her.

‘What?’ she replied.

‘That young chap just nicked all the videos you had in the shop. But it’s O.K., you’ll probably have him on CCTV, for sure.’

‘Please, mister,’ said the girl. ‘This is
Poundland
. They can’t even provide us with proper toilets.’

‘Or radiators,’ said the woman she was serving, who picked up her purchase, smiled at me, and walked out into the rain..

‘So what are you going to be doing about it?’ I asked the cashier.

‘Well, I’ll report it, naturally,’ she told me, searching for her note-book. ‘Say - did he take the video you were after, then?’

‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’
? Yeah, he did, as a matter of fact,’ I replied. ‘Now I suppuse I’ll have to watch this one. It’s the only one left.’

‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ she told me, smiling thinly. ‘Shall I pop it in a bag for you?’

I was still stunned and pretty incensed at the outrageous nature of the crime I’d just witnessed. ‘And you mean - and you mean that’s it!’ I exclaimed, mouth agape.

‘Well, what else is there I can do?’ the cashier asked me. ‘Perhaps you could have stopped him yourself.’

‘Have you any idea how old I am?’ I asked her. ‘If I had it could have been my own funeral you’d be seeing, if you’ll pardon my pun. The chap could have been my grandson.’

‘And is that who he was, then?’ she asked, pausing from her scribbling.

‘No, of course not,’ I replied. ‘I don’t have a grandson, as it goes, and if I did I’d be sure to have him locked up for doing something like that.’

‘Wow! You’d do that?’ exclaimed the girl, clearly shocked. ‘Your own grandson too! I’m shocked. Anyway, that’s none of my business, I suppose. You’re taking the video yeah?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose I’d better,’ I replied, placing a pound-coin on the counter. ‘After all, it’s the only one you’ve got left.’ I let out a chuckle, then turned to see if any of the customers queueing up behind me found it as humorous as I did, but I could tell straightaway that they weren’t in the least bit interested in the conversation I was having, or even knew that a theft had just occurred while they were in the shop.

‘And do you want it wrapped?’ the girl at the counter asked.

‘Aye, go on,’ I said, watching her place the video in the polythene-bag. ‘After all it’s chucking it down out there. Do you know, I haven’t even read what it’s called yet.’

The girl turned the package round so she could read the label. ‘Oh, it’s one of my favourites,’ she told me, smiling. And quite appropriate too under the circumstances.’

‘Why? What’s it called?’ I asked.

‘Gone In Sixty Seconds,’
she responded, grinning. ‘Vinnie Jones. Love him. Next, please.’

The bald, hatless man I saw walking into
Lloyds Bank,
with his right hand buried deep in his coat-pocket, didn’t look very like a robber to me, but after my recent experience just down the road I couldn’t really be sure, so I studied him closely from behind. There was something familiar-looking about him, I thought, but wasn’t at all sure what it was, so I decided to go inside.

The drying queue at the ATM machine was breaking up, so I approached and soon took out some money in ten-pound notes. As I turned and folded the money, and then placed it safely in my trouser-pocket, I saw the man wandering over towards the long seat in the corner, where he took off his dripping overcoat, then sat down, and, making use of a crumpled handkerchief that he drew from his pocket, began to to mop the raindrops off his face, and the two little puddles off the leather upper of each of his sopping shoes.

Well, he had certainly put the wrong coat on this morning, I pondered, watching him sympathetically from across the large room. How on earth could that have happened? After all, he clearly wasn’t blind, and the incessant rain that was falling had started the previous night.

It was just then that I remembered who the chap was: he was my Gwen’s first husband - Dick Plant! I chuckled briefly at the thought I had that this was one plant that had been grossly over-watered, and no mistake.

Disregarding our unusual, rather obtuse, relationship, (and the fact that we had never even once met in person,) I decided to go over and greet the man, whom I figured might easily have already recognised me anyway, and was simply feeling hesitant about making the first move. I sat myself down beside the bald-headed man and stared into his eyes. He recognised me straightaway.

‘God Streuth!’ Dick bellowed
.
‘It’s Dyl Cook, isn’t it? Long time no see, pal.’

‘We’ve never actually met, Dick,’ I reminded him. ‘It was the pictures in Gwen’s album that clinched it for me. If it wasn’t for those then I might have thought you were the god Neptune, just popped up to see what life on land was like.’ I smiled at the queer picture I had created.