The Red Road (24 page)

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But
the rewards are worth it.”

“And what rewards would those be?”
Her tone was one of intrigue, but with a trace of condescension.

“Big bonuses, big houses, lots of
fast cars. I’ve heard most of them have stopped doing it by the
time they’re thirty-five, too, and are retired. You can do whatever
you want with your life after that,” I shrugged.

My mother almost threw her head back
as she laughed. “Only one of those is true.”

“The money?” I asked. It led to
all the other things, after all.

“The quitting before they’re
thirty-five.”

“No, not quitting,” I said.
“Retiring.”

My mother laughed even harder.
“Joseph, very few of them make it to thirty-five, and if they do,
they don’t finish working there because they’re comfortable and
ready to retire rich. It’s because they’re burned out from the
work, and they can’t do it any more.”

“Yeah ... but they will have made
a lot of money,” I said.

“Not necessary,” she said. She
smiled warmly now, without mocking me. “What else have you heard?”

“Champagne parties—”

My mother almost dropped the packet
of rice she was attempting to open, needing to put it down on the
worktop and cover her mouth from the giggles. “Go on?” she
beamed.

“Ex-models as wives ...?” I
ventured.

“Gold diggers, more likely.”

I got the feeling that I had been
grossly misled by the articles I had read in the men’s magazines.
“I read about it in newspapers and magazines,” I told her.

“Joseph,” my mother said, still
wearing a warm smile, “you have to remember that while that might
be true for some, it won’t be true for everyone. There will be some
that will rake in millions every year, but there will also be many
others that will have to make do with a lot less, peaking at eighty
or ninety thousand a year, including the bonus. I’m not saying
that’s not a lot, but it’s a long way away from the millions.

“You need to keep in mind that
people in the same job can be waged at different increments. Take
professional footballers. The ones that play for the big clubs can earn
upwards of ten thousand per week. The ones that play for the smaller
clubs see only a few thousand per month. The same is true in banking.”

“Okay, sure,” I said. “But you
just have to work your way up.”

“Yes. Yes, you do. It’s a very
hard climb though, Joseph, and most fail. I’m not trying to put you
off, but keep in mind that working seventy-hour weeks—”

“What?” Had she just said
seventy
hours
? How was that even possible?

“Seventy-hour weeks,” my mother
repeated. “Fourteen-hour days. Five in the morning until seven or
eight at night, and that doesn’t take into account getting to and
from the office. It could take over an hour, door to door. That’s
an extra two hours of your day gone. That’s sixteen hours dedicated
to your job. And then you have to find time to eat and sleep. The
solution for most is to simply live near the office. Can you see
where the burn out comes from?”

“Oh,” was all I managed to say.

“Still want to do it?”

I steeled myself. I could do this.
There was no harm in setting your sights high. “Yes,” I said.
“I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

“Okay,” my mother said, and
began measuring out the rice into a pot.

“And when I’m done, I’ll buy
you and Dad a holiday home in the Mediterranean,” I said.

My mother smiled at me then, but
said nothing else.

Dave called me towards the end of
the second week. Sam had been staying with him in North London and
wanted to know if Rob and I fancied joining them for the weekend. We
didn’t have a specific agenda, but I knew we would find something
to keep ourselves occupied.

~ ~ ~

“Four for
Basic Instinct
?”
Dave said.

I tried not to hear the upwards
inflection at the end of Dave’s sentence. It reminded me of how Rob
had done a similar thing in the pubs back in Surrey, the previous
week. It was almost as if he was asking the teller if it was the
right film for us.

“Um ... that film’s not out
until May,” the teller said. “And you’re clearly not old
enough, anyway.”

“Yes, we are,” Dave said.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Dave answered, far
too quickly and automatically.

I tried not to look over to the Rob,
Baz and Sam, who were hanging back, making out that they were more
interested in the poster advertising the upcoming
Batman Returns
,
rather than the prospects of full-frontal nudity, courtesy of Sharon
Stone.

“Well, how about ...” Dave
scanned the listings board above. “
Betty Blue
?”

The teller suppressed a sigh. “Do
you have any ID?” he asked.

Dave and I provided him with our
IDs, once again far too hastily. The teller took one glance at the
pair of laminated cards before returning them.

“These are fake,” he said. “I
see these ones all the time, guys. Sorry,” he added, as we opened
our mouths to contest the assertion.

“Oh, come on,” Dave started
pleading. “We’ll sit at the back, out of the way, and won’t
make any noise.”

“Sorry, no,” the teller said.
“You’re under age.”

“But we’re eighteen!” Dave
insisted. “If we were under eighteen, we’d still be at school.”

“You can leave school at sixteen,”
the teller reminded us as what looked like his manager, who had been
watching from the other end of the counter, came over to join him.
“We’d get in trouble with the police if we let you in. You can’t
see any film classified as eighteen. You look about fifteen or
sixteen to me, so I can let you in to any of those.”

The manager fixed us with a stare
that said that we should give up this fight.

“For fuck’s sake,” Dave
muttered.

I could have told him that there was
absolutely zero chance that
Basic Instinct
might be being
shown earlier. The UK always seemed to get films several months after
they were released in the US, sometimes up to a year after.

“Dave, let’s just watch one of
the others,” I suggested.

“If you boys are interested,” the cinema manager started to offer, “I can get you into the advanced preview
showing of
The Lawnmower Man
, starting in the next hour. It’s a science fiction thriller,
just released in America. Mind blowing special effects. Won’t be out here until
June, so you’ll be getting to see it early.”

It seemed I was wrong; sometimes the UK
did
get films at the same time as the US. Shame it wasn’t
Basic Instinct
.
“Is this a press screening or something?” I asked.

“It is, yes,” the manager said. “No charge, all you’ll need to do at the end is give your
honest opinion of the film to the producers.”

We ran the idea past Baz, Sam and Rob, who seemed more than
happy with it. Our attempts to get into the pubs that afternoon had
proven worthless, and they were clearly bored of trying.
The chance to see a highly anticipated film early was also not something we should pass up.

“
The Lawnmower Man
’s that
Stephen King film, right?” Sam asked.

“It is, yeah. It said so on an
advert I saw for it,” Rob said.

“Oh! Don’t they shag in that?”
Baz then said enthusiastically. “I heard it’s got some cybersex
scene in it or something.”

“Cybersex?” Dave asked.

“Yeah, with computers and that.”

“They have sex with a computer?”
Rob half-scowled.

“No, not with a computer,” Baz
said. “The guy and the girl do it in some virtual world thing. It’s
meant to be really cool!”

“Like
Tron
or something?”
Dave sounded sceptical.

“I guess,” Baz shrugged. “Just
not as shit as
Tron
.”

Dave looked a little despondent. He
clearly wanted to see something filthier, but it was obvious to me
that it wasn’t going to happen. The pubs had been a bust, the
‘theatres’ in Soho had been a bust. Now at a proper cinema, I
just wanted to sit down, watch something and get off my feet for a
bit.

“Okay,” Dave eventually
relented. “It might actually be quite good.”

It wasn’t.

~ ~ ~

“Your dad is pretty cool for
letting us all stay here,” I told Dave.

“Yeah, he is,” Dave said. “He
trusts me to do whatever I want. That’s why I prefer to stay with
him, rather than my mum. She always wants to know where I’m going
and what I’m doing, when I’ll be back, and stuff like that. She
fusses over me constantly. Except when Pete is there.”

“Pete’s your mum’s boyfriend?”
Sam asked.

“Fiancé,” Dave said. “They
got engaged a few months ago.”

“Oh, you never told us,” I said.

Dave only shrugged. He didn’t seem
to care either way.

“What does your dad think?” Rob
asked.

“Doesn’t really give a damn,
rather the same as me. Pete’s a patronising, obnoxious prick.”

“What does he do?”

“Chef for some overpriced
restaurant,” Dave said. “Which reminds me, what do you want for
dinner?”

We all looked at each other, not
quite sure what to choose. Dave lived in West Hampstead, near the
Heath. It was unlike most other parts of London that I had visited, a
lot less busy and more suburban. Dave’s house was quite near a bus
stop, just a five or ten-minute walk down the road, from where we
could get to Finchley Road or West Hampstead Tube stations, if we
wanted to go back into the city centre itself.

“Is your house like this?” Sam
asked Baz.

Baz glared at him. I knew that Sam
hadn’t meant it as an insult. Dave’s house was big, almost what I
would honestly describe as a mansion. Perhaps it was. I had always
gotten the impression that Baz’s house was actually quite humble
compared to many of the others that attended St Christopher’s. Even
so, most others probably didn’t live in a place as big as this.
There certainly were some very large houses on the street, a fair few
even larger than this one. I wondered if I might find myself living
on this street one day, thirty-six years old, having completed a
stint in the City.

“Shall we go back out?” I
suggested.

“No,” Rob said. “Let’s save
our money for tomorrow. My parents only gave me a bit, and it’s
only Friday.”

“I could loan you some,” Dave
offered.

There were mumbles of refusal; no
one wanted to be in debt to one another. It could cause problems back
at school, living in such a close-knit community.

“Okay, so how about pizza? And
afterwards we can just watch a couple of films, or just chat or
whatever,” Dave said.

We all looked to one another and
nodded agreeably. Dave went to the kitchen and returned with a
Domino’s menu, a pad of paper and a pen, writing down what we
wanted as we passed the menu around.

I then heard the front door of the
house open, and a man came walking into the living room, wearing a
long winter coat and carrying a briefcase with him. We all shifted in
our chairs, sitting a little more upright from how we had been
lounging.

“Evening, boys,” Dave’s father
said. “Oh, there’s five of you,” he then added, looking about
us.

“Baz, I mean Barry, joined us in
town,” Dave said. “He lives in South London.”

“Barry Green?” Dave’s father
asked. Baz nodded. “I saw your father today at work. Just in the
canteen, buying a coffee. He was in a hurry, so we didn’t have time
to chat.”

“You’re home early, Dad,” Dave
said.

“Yes, I actually went out for
lunch to celebrate the successful delivery of a project and ... well,
I didn’t come back in until five. There was no point in doing any
work after that, so we all just packed up and left for the weekend.”

“Okay for some,” Dave quipped.

“Hello, I’m David’s father,
Jim,” the man then said, coming over to Rob and shaking his hand.

“Oh sorry, Dad,” Dave said.
“Dad, this is Rob. Rob, this is my dad.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Rob
said, automatically switching on all the airs and graces that were
expected of us when in someone else’s home.

“Good to see you again, Joe,”
Jim said, coming to me after greeting Barry.

There was something on
the man’s breath as he spoke; it smelled strongly of alcohol. He
had clearly had quite a few drinks during his extended lunch break,
or perhaps just one before leaving for the day. I wondered if he had
driven home.

“You been in the pub, Dad?” Dave
said.

“I have, yes,” he admitted. “But
I left the car at work and got on the Tube,” he added quickly as he
saw all our eyes on him, clearly all questioning his decision to get
behind the wheel after drinking.

“What car do you drive, Mr Nurse?”
Rob wanted to know.

“Call me ‘Jim’,” Dave’s
father smiled. “I drive a Porsche Carrera at the moment.”

I noticed the other boys roll their
eyes as Rob almost jumped excitedly out of his seat. “Really? Wow!
What model? A 911?”

“A 911, yes,” Jim grinned,
glancing to the rest of us.

“911 Classic?”

“No, the latest 964. I’ve kept
hold of the Classic, although it’s at my sister’s house right
now.”

Rob’s eyes nearly popped out of
his head.

“I considered the 930, but just
preferred the 964,” Jim finished.

“Can I see? Oh, damn, I forgot
you’ve left it at work,” Rob said, sounding annoyed.

Jim chuckled. “Really into your
cars, I can tell.”

“Always have been, always will
be,” Rob said proudly. “They’re amazing. Got to love the noise
of some of the engines in the sports cars when they’re going flat
out.”

“Yes, because you’ve been in so
many,” Baz remarked.

“Well, okay, I’ve only seen them
on
Top Gear
,” Rob conceded.

Jim chuckled again. “You can see
it tomorrow. I’ll pick it up in the morning. I might get Terry to
drive me down there, as I can’t stand getting on the Tube.”