“There’s a property above the shop. It’s huge, six bedrooms or something. You can live there for free.”
A place of my own! Now you’re talking. I could host my own parties, rent it out to attractive foreign students, even set up a knocking shop. “That will do nicely sir. When do I start?”
I started the next day. The last manager had run off before Christmas, never to be seen again, and the branch hadn’t opened since. Richards was desperate to get the store open and taking money.
Little Chalfont was a bumpy forty minutes out of central London on the Metropolitan line. I alighted from the tube at the village station, kit bag over my shoulder, and walked the couple of hundred yards to the town centre. It was a modest-sized village – a few dozen shops and a small supermarket on either side of a gently buzzing high street.
I couldn’t wait to check out my new home. I walked round the side of the shops and ascended a steep metal staircase. There were three doors, mine was in the middle with a grubby number ‘2’ in the centre of a door with peeling blue paint. Richards had given me a bunch of keys, helpfully labelled ‘shop’, ‘alarm’, ‘flat’ and so on.
I tried the key labelled ‘flat’ in the lock but it didn’t fit. I tried all the others – they didn’t match either. I swore and pulled out my chunky new company-issue Nokia phone. As I brought up Richards’ number I gave the front door a couple of light kicks. Paint flaked off against my boot.
The door suddenly opened to reveal a tall, very broad young man, about my age. He had long blonde hair tied into a pony tail, was bare-chested and bare-footed, and wore a skirt. He looked like a slightly chubby Tarzan. “What do you want?” His tone was assertive but not unfriendly.
“Er… I think this is my house. Who are you?”
“My name is Wodin and I disagree with your arrogant concept of property ownership. I live here with my fellow travellers, although we do not own it any more than we own the trees or the skies. We have squatters’ rights. If you attempt to molest us we will call the authorities.”
Oh bollocks. “Now look. I work for Charlie’s Cellar. I run the shop downstairs. And I’m entitled to live here.”
“Glad to hear they’re sorting the shop out, it’s very inconvenient walking down the road for wine, and I don’t approve of supermarkets. Your range is far superior. Good to meet you, what’s your name?”
“I’m Felix.” I shook his outstretched hand and tried to peer over his broad shoulder into my flat. A waft of warm, incense-scented air emerged from the dark hallway. I could see there was a sheet with a floral design attached to the ceiling by each corner, giving the room the appearance of a Bedouin tent.
“I see you’re wearing a skirt,” I said, for want of something to say.
He looked at my suit and shirt. “It’s a sarong. Far superior to trousers. You should try it.”
There was a period of silence as we eyed one another. “How are we going to sort this out then, Wodin?”
“I don’t see that there’s anything to sort out. We live here and you don’t. Goodbye.” And Wodin shut the door on me. My flat was occupied by a bunch of hippy squatters. This was a major setback to my dreams of upwardly mobile, independent living.
I considered my options. The most obvious was violence. But that Wodin looked a fairly large chap and who’s to say whether, underneath that hippy skirt, he wasn’t sporting a machete? And how many others were in there? In any case, they were claiming squatters’ rights and didn’t appear to have damaged anything, so even if I kicked the door down and bundled them out, they would probably be able to demand re-entry, backed up by the authorities. The other option was legal intimidation – but how long would that take?
I pressed the green button on my phone and Richards answered. “There’s a problem sir. There are squatters in the flat above the shop.”
“Oh dear. That’s unfortunate.”
“But you said I could live here. Charlie’s Cellar will have to get them out.”
“You can live there but you’ll have to deal with it yourself, sorry. Charlie’s Cellar can’t do anything about it. Do you know how much it costs to go to court and evict people? It takes years.” He must have known all along. Arsehole.
I descended the iron stairs and walked round to the shop, unlocking and pushing up the steel shutter. Letters were piled up inside the front door and the shelves were nearly bare. I locked the door behind me. It was a much smaller shop than Crouch End, with a single till and a short counter. I unlocked the middle door and walked through to the office. Papers and files lay all over the floor. The manager and staff had obviously just given up and left.
I dumped my bag and sat on the only chair, resting my feet on the desk. I had no staff and no customers. I didn’t even have a bed. But I had my own shop! Napoleon said the English were a nation of shopkeepers. I had arrived!
I put up a note in the door saying ‘Staff Wanted’ and went to explore the High Street. There was a furniture store so I bought a cheap mattress and installed it in the office. There was a decent enough pub, the Stag & Hounds, and an Indian restaurant, so that was my everyday needs covered.
I took a seat in the Kabul Tandoori and waved to the waiter. It was lunchtime but I was the only person in there. He handed me a sticky menu. “May I look at your wine list please?” It was a very old fashioned list of wines, all cheap French plonk, some of them misspelt. I doubted the staff knew their Chablis from their Champagne so I asked if the manager was in. An apprehensive-looking man with a superb moustache appeared from the back.
“Felix is the name, I’m the new wine merchant round here,” I said, pumping his hand. “How about I re-write your wine list for you and throw in the first order for free? I’ll match the pricing of your current supplier and I’ll deliver wine within five minutes of you ordering it, seven days a week.”
By the end of the meal I had my first customer and a free Rogan Josh into the bargain. I retired to the Stag & Hounds and got chatting to the landlady, a rather attractive woman in her forties whose serving apron did an excellent job of framing her generous breasts. That was my second customer of the day landed and, given the looks she was giving me by the end of the night, I suspected I’d be delivering more than a case of dry white, next time I was in.
After last orders I returned to the shop and bedded down for the night on my new mattress. As I drifted off I heard the sound of drunks fighting on the street outside and scratches from somewhere in the corner of the stockroom. I made a mental note to buy some mousetraps and sighed with contentment. A skin-full of beer, the muffled sound of fisticuffs and the patter of little vermin feet – just like my old school days at Felching Orchard. I was soon sleeping like a baby.
The next day was one of action. Using a length of cord and a plastic bucket with holes punched in the base, I rigged up a workable field-shower in the toilet. Then I isolated the last dozen decent bottles of wine and spirits still on the shelves and placed them on a special shelf in the back for personal consumption. It wasn’t stealing of course, it was education. How could I sell the finest wines to the good folk of Little Chalfont if I hadn’t drunk them myself? It would be fraudulent to even try.
The roar of an engine and hiss of air-brakes heralded the arrival of the Charlie’s Cellar delivery truck, and my new stock. It was a huge order – the grunting driver and his mate wheeled in no fewer than twenty towering pallets, filling the entire stockroom. I had a hard day ahead of me unless I could quickly recruit some staff.
I hadn’t had much luck on that front. The only applicants had been a teenaged youth with yellow pimples who asked if we sold glue, and a shuffling pensioner with an unkempt beard who smelt as though he had just bathed in whisky and urine.
There was nothing for it but to neck a mug of Madame Joubert’s Lekker Medisyne Trommel and get stuck in myself. By the end of the day I had restocked the shelves, built several towering wine displays and the shop was ready to trade. I propped open the front door to see if I could drum up a
ny evening trade and poured myself a glass of a rather excellent Rioja Gran Reserva.
Wodin wandered in, barefoot despite the January chill, wearing his sarong and a multi-coloured ethnic jacket. “Excellent. You’ve got it scrubbed up nicely.”
“Indeed. Are you a wine connoisseur, Wodin, or do you only drink rainwater that’s passed through the arse-crack of a local druid?”
“Very amusing, my shop-keeping friend. I do indeed partake of the vine.” Wodin took a bottle of expensive Australian Shiraz from the top shelf. “What kind of neighbourhood discount can you do on this then?”
“Ooh, that’s a good question. Let me see… I can offer you a discount of absolutely fuck all. How about that?”
“Disappointing, my man. I may have to take my business elsewhere.”
I had an idea. “How about a permanent skirt-wearing hippy discount, in exchange for a bedroom upstairs?”
Wodin considered my offer. “Now that is more in line with the sharing economy, my friend. And as I have told you once already, this is a sarong. And we audition anyone who wishes to share our tranquil homestead.”
“You want me to sing a song?”
“No. I want you to prove that you are cool and down with the kids.” Wodin extracted a large joint from his pocket.
“Aren’t you concerned about doing that on CCTV?”
“Your CCTV doesn’t work. Which is why the local criminal fraternity keep knocking off this good shop.”
It was true. I had just put in an order for a new camera system but it was unlikely to arrive for another month. “You’d better come through to the office.”
So Wodin and I shared his potent spliff, and a very pleasant little number it was too. We chatted over the rest of the Rioja and I gave him the bottle of Aussie wine for free, in exchange for a promise that he would discuss my application to become a flatmate with the rest of the occupants.
Just before closing, I had some more luck. A presentable young Polish lady put her head round the door and asked whether she could apply for the advertised position. Since she appeared to have four working limbs, a reasonable grasp of English and didn’t smell like decayed taxidermy, I gave her a job on the spot.
Over the next few days the locals noticed the store was back in business and customers began to trickle in. Little Chalfont was an affluent village and there were plenty of people in the market for fine wine. I took on more evening staff and, after a couple of weeks, my complement of workers was complete, so I was able to spend most evenings down the Stag & Hounds. Angela, the landlady, was only too happy to let me stay over every so often, in exchange for a little light work around the bedroom of course.
Sales were increasing at a good rate and Richards was very pleased. He popped in to check the figures, nodding approvingly over the jump in profitability. “You do appear to be writing a lot of stock off against the tasting budget, however,” he complained.
“Vital sir, to hook in some of these big spenders. I can’t increase sales without showing the wares, can I?”
“You appear to know what you’re doing, Felix,” he shrugged. “Any problems from the local criminal fraternity?”
I thought he meant Wodin from upstairs for a moment until I remembered the robbery problems they’d had last year. “No, nothing like that.”
“Good. See you in a month or so then. Keep this up and one day you might get one of those.”
He nodded towards his company car, a brand new Vauxhall Cavalier. He patted me on the shoulder and departed.
I had spoken too soon.
The following day, in the name of education, I uncorked a rather cheeky New Zealand Pinot Noir in the back office. I poured a glass, savoured the wonderful berry-scented aroma and took a little sip. The bell sounded, telling me a customer had opened the front door, so I swallowed the wine and strode out to greet them.
For a second, I thought a particularly ugly veiled woman had entered the shop. Then, with horror, I realised it was a slender-built man with a stocking over his head.
“Do you know how much fucking damage this will do if I fire it into your belly?” He had a rather rough voice. I suspected he had not schooled at Eton, as Lady Edith might have said. He was a few inches shorter than me, dressed in a dark green jumper, faded black jeans and dirty trainers. He carried an old sports bag that looked empty. But my main concern was the object in his other hand – a wooden stock, from which there protruded a short double barrel, wrapped in a supermarket plastic bag. It looked very much like a sawn-off shotgun.
“A lot?” I suggested, my bowels twitching with fear.
“Yes, a lot. So lock that door before I blow your fucking guts out!” He shook the gun at me, aiming it at my stomach. I was too far from the office door to make a run for it and I knew it would have been a suicidal move anyway. At that range he wouldn’t need to aim – a couple of feet either side and I’d still be peppered like a Swiss cheese.
My stomach gurgled in horror as he stepped even closer. I could see his bared teeth through the stocking mask. I pulled the keys from my pocket with a shaking hand. Oh Christ, please don’t shoot me! Why couldn’t he have held up one of the evening girls? There would have been more money on the premises then too, the idiot.
“Stop fucking looking at me!” he shouted.
I looked down and walked to the front door. He followed right behind me, shoving the barrel into the small of my back for good measure. No chance of making a quick dash outside. I turned the key in the lock.
“Now, open the fucking safe.”
He shoved the barrel into the back of my neck this time. I wanted to tell him he really didn’t need to keep prodding me – I’d already shat my pants. I had visions of his nervous finger slipping on the trigger and a red-hot cloud of lead blasting through my brains. Did he really have to point it right at me? For God’s sake, did he not know the first thing about gun safety?
“It… it… it’s on a time lock,” I stammered.
“I fucking know it is. Move!”
Ah, a regular customer. I tried to look on the bright side – at least the long history of armed robbery at this store had never included murder. But might he make an exception this time? He could be on drugs. Or maybe he wasn’t on drugs and was very angry about it. I wondered if I should offer him some Pinot Noir. I also considered explaining that, despite being a big chap, I definitely wouldn’t be trying any heroics.
“And don’t try to be a fucking hero. Unless you want to spend your life in a wheelchair?”
“I definitely don’t, sir.”
“That’s better. Call me ‘sir’.”
I turned the key in the sunken safe lid and started the time lock. It buzzed quietly as the clockwork mechanism began to count down the fifteen minutes.
“Now sit on the floor!”
He shoved the barrel hard into my thigh in a very unfriendly way. It knocked against the penknife in my pocket that I’d used to open the Pinot Noir – there was a dull clunk of metal against metal. I sat down, cross-legged, next to the safe and faced away from him, looking down at the floor. Well, this was awkward. We had fifteen minutes to kill, no pun intended, and I really didn’t feel like chatting. Luckily, nor did he.
Finally, the time-lock pinged, and I climbed to my feet, reaching out to detach the heavy lid from the safe.
“Careful!” he warned, nestling the barrel against the front of my trousers.
That focused my mind, I can tell you. I shivered and gave the weapon an involuntary glance. I saw the flimsy plastic bag had split slightly where it covered the end of the barrel, exposing the muzzle. It must have been when he grazed it against my penknife. Something about it looked strange.
“Put everything in there!” he demanded, dropping the battered sports bag at my feet.
I took another look. Instead of dark metal, the protruding barrels of the shotgun were orange in colour. Who the hell has an orange shotgun, I wondered. But it wasn’t orange, it was copper. And you don’t make gun barrels out
of soft copper – you make them out of hard steel. Our friend had simply stuck a couple of water pipes onto a wooden handle and was merrily using it to terrorise the good shopkeepers of Buckinghamshire.
I breathed a little sigh of relief – I wasn’t going to get my bollocks shot off after all. But what should I do? I started to transfer the money into his bag, reaching down into the safe and lifting out the neat bundles of used notes, one at a time.
“Hurry up!” He prodded me with the barrel again.
I could just give him an almighty kicking. That really appealed. I was feeling rather sore about having a pretend gun shoved in various parts of my body, and he wasn’t a very heavily built chap. He might have a knife, of course, but one well-aimed roundhouse from young Felix and he’d be down like a sack of spuds.
On the other hand, maybe I should cut a deal? A couple of hundred quid for his trouble and the rest for me? I’d let him go on his way with no more than a couple of slaps. How much was there in the safe. Two thousand pounds, perhaps? No, it wasn’t worth it. I’d do it for half a million, but he didn’t look like a criminal mastermind and he’d probably get caught and blab. We’d be sharing a cell in Wormwood Scrubs before the week was out.
No, back to plan A, it would have to be a jolly good beating. But first, a little refreshment, my mouth was somewhat dry after all the drama. I walked over to the desk and downed the rest of the Pinot Noir. “Excellent! Have you ever been to Central Otago, old bean? They make quite exquisite Pinot.”
“Do you have a fucking death wish, you prick? Get over here and fill the bag!” he screamed.
I strolled back to the safe and was curling my right fist into a ball when I heard a key turn in the front door. It was Daphne, one of the evening girls, arriving for her four p.m. shift.
“Who the hell’s that?” shouted chummy, in an even more panicked tone. The customer bell sounded, indicating the door had opened. He levelled his toy gun at my chest.
“Hiya!” called Daphne. “Why is the front door locked?”
“It’s Daphne,” I said, deadpan. “She’s a black belt in ju-jitsu. She’ll probably tear off your head and shit down your neck.”
Corkscrew Page 5
