The Good Liar (11 page)

morning, he had come across Martin White, lying in his own vomit

and incapable of response. He had known White as a front- of- house man in one of the clubs. His toffish manner had, it seemed, offended one of the gangland clientele and Martin had found himself out of

favour, homeless and on the drink. However, Roy could see for him

an important role in his plans. He had flung him three quid, told

him to get a room for the night in one of the numberless flea- ridden flophouses in the vicinity and to be at a certain coffee bar at four that afternoon.

It was at that meeting that Roy engaged Martin with a deliberate

intensity.

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‘This is our time,’ he told him. ‘Things are changing in clubland,

the sex trade is becoming respectable. We need to ride the wave.’

Martin hesitated. Roy fixed him with that determined, blue- eyed

gaze. ‘Do you want in or not? There are a thousand others like you

I could drag out of the gutter if you prefer. It’s just your lucky day.

You can fuck off back to your alleyway if you want.’

Not true. Roy wanted Martin for that oleaginous charm, that

dashing profile, at least once he had been cleaned up a little, and for those connections which Roy lacked. They smoked and drank their

milky coffees from glass cups and resolved to change their world.

‘I know of a little shop that’s going under on Berwick Street,’ Roy said. ‘I think I might be able to lay my hands on the money for the lease.’

‘I’ve got some mates in Brussels with contacts in the right places.’

said Martin. ‘They may be able to source some stuff from Sweden

and Denmark, very explicit. Mags and films. We wouldn’t have to

go through the usual middlemen. I can also get hold of wacky baccy.

And pills.’

They decided they would launch the new shop aggressively and

unapologetically, taking sex out of the back streets and making it a mainstream product. As a sideline, they could deal discreetly in nar-cotics, to appeal to their younger, more affluent clientele. The path was already reasonably well worn by those flamboyant men with

flared trousers and thick moustaches who had made their night-

spots planets in the nocturnal constellation.

‘But the market’s wide open,’ said Roy. ‘It’s ripe. This is our

moment.’

3

September crept into October and fog settled over London. Roy

took a couple of days sick from the office and, with the benefit of his little private nest egg, held in a long- term deposit account at Lyons Bank, lobbied his bank manager for a loan to start up a new

business.

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‘Soho,’ said Mr Price dubiously. ‘Not exactly the most salubrious

of districts.’

Mr Price wore a bank manager’s spectacles over his thin nose.

Below it he had grown a bank manager’s moustache.

‘Exactly,’ replied Roy, eagerness written on his face. ‘But it’s on the up. All the more reason to get in before prices go sky high.’

‘Hmm. I’m not sure the bank would wish to become involved in

an area or a business that runs the risk of being viewed as

disreputable.’

‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Roy, tut- tutting. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t want that either. I’m trying to establish an entirely above- board business here. I’d hope the bank would understand.’

‘Quite,’ said Mr Price, lips pursed sceptically. ‘Tell me more about this business.’

Roy had resolved to be perhaps a little liberal with the truth. No

need to frighten the horses.

‘What I’m trying to do is to create something,’ he said. ‘To turn

a small, grotty shop into a business with roots in the community.

And of course to make some money at the same time.’

Mr Price appraised him. ‘And what exactly do you intend to sell

in these premises?’

Roy’s glare turned quickly to a smile. ‘A number of things. We’ll

be selling books, we’ll be screening avant- garde films, we’ll be providing a venue to drink coffee and discuss current affairs.’

‘So, a kind of modernistic bookshop, then?’ It seemed an effort to

spit the words out, and Mr Price frowned.

‘If you like to think of it that way, yes. The area is steeped in a long literary tradition, as you know. And in among all the tat and

sex there are still a number of people of that ilk. Intellectuals, with money to spend. And of course the shop would draw people from

all over the metropolis. It’s ideally located, centrally, close to the Underground.’

‘And the premises?’

‘A bit run- down. The current occupant is nearing retirement.

He’s happy to hand the place over to me. I’ve managed to get a good deal on the lease, but time’s short. It doesn’t need much to tart the 68

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place up and make it look presentable. My business partner has

good contacts with suppliers and is currently in talks with them.

We’re most optimistic.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ said Mr Price. ‘You will be aware that this is

not precisely a propitious time for new businesses. Consequently

banks will approach any new investment with extreme caution.’

‘Oh yes,’ replied Roy, ‘and quite right too.’

‘If I may say so, Mr Courtnay, you do not exactly seem to me to

be the kind of person who would see his future in catering to the

needs of . . . a bohemian clientele?’

‘If you mean, do I associate with a bunch of long- haired,

self- obsessed hippies, the answer is most certainly no. But I’m happy to take their money. That’s the beauty of it. You see these things

they laughably call businesses, these cooperatives, these well-

meaning women with their self- knitted tie- dyed umbrellas, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I can make a business

work.’

‘I see. Personally, I wouldn’t entertain the notion for a moment.

The issue is not so much you as a potential borrower, or your

business acumen’ – he affords Roy a thin smile – ‘as your target audience. Wholly unreliable, in my view, as well as, I must say, morally questionable.’

‘Quite so,’ said Roy with a smile. ‘But –’

‘However,’ continued Mr Price, holding up a hand to stop him, ‘I

am prepared to put this up to head office. I dare say views there may be rather more progressive than my own. I wish you every good

fortune.’

4

At work he played surreptitiously with scissors, glue, a typewriter and an old letter from his bank, producing a collage that would pass muster when run through the new Xerox machine in the corner of

the typing pool, which was guarded assiduously by the head of the

clerical staff. He waited until the lunch break, when, with sweating 69

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fingers, he made his copy. The first effort was reasonable, and he ran off two more just to be safe. Back at his desk, his attempt at

Mr Price’s signature was rather too shaky for his liking and he was glad to have a second copy.

It was a regrettable but necessary subterfuge. The wheels of

Lyons Bank ground exceeding slow. He was confident of receiving

the loan but needed to sign the lease straight away. There was no

way of covering the gap other than by producing a letter confirm-

ing sufficient funds in his account and signing a cheque that, he

hoped, would not be cashed immediately. Further cheques would

need to follow for utilities and the modest fit- out of the premises.

Cheques would not be necessary to buy stock: in this business hard

cash was what it would take before Martin’s continental suppliers

released goods to them. Roy had ideas about where to find the

liquid assets to effect the necessary deals.

He left the office at four, claiming illness. He reckoned he’d need the next day off as well. But he required this job only for a short while longer. Soon he would be released from the long grey linoleum corridors and liberated into the bright lights of the real world.

5

It was high time for one of their periodic arguments. She could start a fight in an empty room, he always thought. Well, so be it; it was convenient right now. In fact it was necessary. It would not take

much to escalate it to the proportions of full nuclear war.

What was it to be this time? The state of the bathroom? His lazy

habits? Martin popping round all the time and staring at her tits?

From the perspective of now, he could not fathom how they had

come together or why they remained together. She was so much

younger than him for a start, which was evident to anyone who

came across them. Younger not simply in years. Maureen was naive

and almost infinitely enthusiastic. If he had ever possessed those

qualities they had been knocked out of him a long time before.

Life- affirming was beyond him: he didn’t see the point.

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Maybe she’d been drawn to the force of his being. Maybe she’d

needed a father figure, having come down from the primitive North

to the Big Smoke. Maybe she just found him sexually irresistible.

Any or all of these could apply. He didn’t care. It had palled and

outlived its usefulness. In fact his advantage was flowing in an

entirely different direction now. At one time there had been, for

him, available sex with an attractive younger woman, someone to

cook his meals and look after his home (not that she was particu-

larly good at either), and the potential material benefits of a high earner in the household. But when they had opened the joint building society account he had not reckoned on her being so gobby and

strident. He had put up with the sound of her voice with infinite

patience.

Well, not for much longer. Now it was all about the process of

extricating himself to his best advantage.

It was work, when it came. They were sitting in the lounge after

their evening meal, the sound of the television turned up loud to

drown the noise of the young couple in the neighbouring flat, with

their Stones or Bowie or whatever it was. Roy suspected they must

be junkies, they looked so gaunt and white, with straggling identi-

cal hair, pale smiles and eye sockets darkened to blue- black with the fatigue of listening to rock music at all hours of the night.

The building in which they lived had been hastily partitioned in

the 1960s. With its peeling, faded woodwork, its botched pointing

and the vandalism of its improvised division into flats, it was now barely recognizable as a once comfortable merchant’s house of the

nineteenth century.

They occupied one third of the ground floor. Below them, in the

highly undesirable basement flat, with its dark and dank corners,

lived the quiet, pious West Indian immigrant couple who, he sup-

posed, kept themselves neat enough, he with his job on the buses

and she the school cleaner. Across the hallway lived the little junkies, touchingly naive and young, destined for their early graves,

while above them was the rake- thin embittered old man, with his

flat cap and collarless shirt and a visage where the razor each day missed a large swathe of its duty, reportedly a widower, who

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glowered whenever they met in the communal areas. Roy had no

idea who, if anyone, occupied the remaining two flats. It was noisy and cold in this place, it was dismal and hopeless. He knew there

was a better life to be had.

She walked to the television and switched it off. The thumping

beat and the tuneless shrieking could be heard through the wall.

‘You don’t really care about anything, do you?’ she said. Her voice when she hectored him took on a shrill harshness that crashed

around his ears. ‘Least of all your career.’

‘Depends what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I do my job.’

‘That’s all it is, though, isn’t it? A job.’

‘That’s all any job is. A job. You do your work and they give you

your money. End of story.’

‘Don’t you ever think we’re doing something more important

than that?’

He shrugged before saying with deliberation, ‘It’s important for

me. It pays our bloody bills. Keeps the wolf from the door.’

‘Do you ever commit to anything?’

‘Commit? What exactly does that mean? And anyway, why should

I? Beyond an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work?’

‘Because we can change the world, if we want.’

He looked at her with an expression of astonishment.

‘Change things? And why would I want to do that? Assuming, for

the moment, that such a stupid idea held any water. The world is

what the world is. We just get on with it, getting whatever we can

from it.’

‘You don’t care about anything, do you?’ she repeated.

‘That’s for others. I get my orders and carry them out. I get paid.

Or if I don’t do what I’m told I get fired. Simple as that.’

There was a loud thud from the flat above. Possibly a suitcase had

been dropped, or a body had hit the floor.

‘I’m just interested in getting on with things. Not theorizing. Not changing the world.’ He hurled this last out with a bitter, thin line of spittle that hung like gossamer on his chin. He wiped it off with his sleeve.

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She was silent, at a loss. It was as if she suddenly lacked the power, or the will, to contend with this.