The Magpie Trap: A Novel

by AJ Kirby

  ‘Sounds like you exploited the old fool to me,’ observed Jed Burton, playfully.

  ‘Don’t worry Jed, so as not to offend your sensibilities; I slipped a handful of pesos into the inebriated peasant’s pocket as he lay snoring. His head was resting on the drum kit and the bottle of tequila was drizzling its final contents right onto the abandoned saxophone. It was as if the whole thing had been a dream.’

  Mark believed that the Rodrigues’s music was the equivalent of a doodle on the notepad next to a telephone: it wasn’t supposed to be taken so seriously; it was not properly thought out. He preferred simple rock songs which had a beginning, middle and end; verse, chorus, verse. He did, however, admire the way that Chris had furnished his flat in a simple, tasteful way. With money, he could see himself living in a space such as this flat, with its rugged exposed brickwork, and the rich mahogany table and chairs. He loved the steady functionality of the flat, and its deference to the heritage of the building.

  Mark decided to get himself another red wine, already feeling a little light-headed from his first glass. He was waylaid on his way to the kitchen by Steve Elton however:

  ‘Marco! I do hope that van is still serving you well - she’s a good ride, I told you that didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes Steve, it is still running. It’s only been three days…’ Mark was gradually trying to edge away from Steve, but was too polite to simply turn his back and walk away.

  ‘But Mark; you didn’t tell Chris about its, erm, history did you?’ Steve was now gripping his arm tightly, a look of concern in his eyes. Chris and Danny walked past them on their way to the kitchen, not even registering that they had seen either Steve or Mark.

  ‘Why would I?’ Mark hissed. ‘He doesn’t need to know. He wouldn’t care anyway…’

  Mark finally wrenched his arm from Steve’s tight grip but it was some effort. The man was clearly used to applying a tight-grip on people while he endeavoured to exhort a sale from them. He walked away, feeling relaxed again, but as he entered the kitchen, he overheard Danny and Chris talking about him. They appeared to be unaware of his quiet slinking presence; he had taken his shoes off when entering the flat, and therefore his sock-clad feet did not announce his arrival as it did everyone else on the flat’s laminated wooden flooring.

  ‘…we had to invite him. He’s an integral part of our team. We’ve told everyone that he’s going to be working with us out there, so we can’t very well not have him here,’ Danny said.

  ‘I know, Danny, but he’s pretty strange, isn’t he? Do you think the death of his father has fucked him up a bit?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, I know. But we’re all a bit on edge at the moment. These are difficult times, cocker.’

  Mark was about to back out of the room without being seen, but Chris caught sight of him in the reflection on the hard, almost metallic slate worktop.

  ‘Mark! How long have you been there?’ asked Chris. ‘Come on; I was about to call a taxi. Table’s booked for half eight.’

  Chris had simply swept the overheard conversation under the carpet. Mark simply shook his head. ‘I know that I might sometimes be an embarrassment, but please bear in mind that without me, you do not have a plan,’ he said, the wine going to his head a little.

  ‘All right; don’t snap mate,’ Danny interjected. ‘I know you have all of the technical aspects covered mate. Just one thing; who thought this up?’

  They were all staring at each other across the kitchen table, each refusing to back down; the tension in the room was tangible.

  ‘You two roisterers need to calm down,’ Chris finally sighed, ‘We can’t have our team break up even before we do the heist. Then we really will be England’s Stupidest Criminals. Passing up an opportunity like this for a petty argument’s sake!’

  He chanced a smile and a wink, and finally they all began to laugh. It was a laugh of release; the liberation of pent up tensions and anxiety.

  ‘What’s all this about roisterers?’ asked Danny. ‘That sounds like something I’d say…’

  Di Maggio’s was only a short walk away from the flat, however a convoy of three taxis took the ten friends there; Chris wanted to arrive in style; to be seen to be arriving in style. Di-Maggio’s was the Italian restaurant for the footballers’ wives generation: ostentatious, almost tongue-in-cheek décor reflected the opulence of this people-watching paradise. It was a place where appearances counted, and despite the fact that Di Maggio’s was incongruously found on the ground floor of a new-build multi-storey car park, it oozed panache. Notwithstanding the seeming revolving-door style of filling and emptying tables, the food proved that there was some substance behind the style.

  On their arrival, the group was squeezed onto a table in the back corner of the room, close to the kitchens, and regardless of Chris’s moaning, there really wasn’t anywhere else they could have all sat. The fact that they were away from most of the rest of the diners, however, meant that the setting became far more intimate; they were at least able to hear each other talk. At first, all of the talk had, as usual, been about business; who was earning what; what deals they were involved with; the undertone of aggressive competition lay beneath every word spoken.

  Chris and Danny were evidently happy in this kind of a conversation; enjoying the banter and macho posturing. They paused briefly to order their starters and more wine, but the waitress’s intrusion seemed to Mark as awkward as a cleaner entering a rugby club changing rooms embarrassingly early; when the players were still sizing each other up in the showers. Mark watched her squirm with embarrassment as a procession of them ‘accidentally’ brushed against her or made crude comments as she rounded the table taking the orders. When she had returned with the first course, Steve Elton looked as though he was about to slip his hand down her top under the guise of ‘helping her’ distribute the armful of plates she brought.

  Mark did not notice at first, but a silence descended on the table as they waited for him to finish his starter. The other diners proceeded to stare at their forks, the light-fittings, the elegant candle set; anything but Mark, as he stirred his fork into what was now some kind of unpalatable stew. The diners impatiently waited, their embarrassment disallowing any speech. Mark allowed himself furtive glimpses up at his dining companions; for the first time he saw them for exactly what they were; people who wore masks to hide their real selves. The wine he had drunk had given him alcoholic x-ray glasses which seemed to grant his eyesight the power to burrow deep down into the reality of this mixed crowd, and see the innate uncertainty in them all.

  Adjacent to Mark was Jed Burton; gangly elbows drawn in so as not to disrupt any glasses, plates or bowls. Jed was perhaps the most difficult guest to please because he was a restaurant critic by trade. In front of him lay over half of his chicken-wrapped-in-Parma-ham starter; pieces were discarded to the side of the plate as though the detritus from some one-man game of pass the parcel. Mark had spied Jed Burton eating alone in restaurants on many occasions, and knew that his outward arrogance hid a real fear that he would grow fat; he never really seemed to enjoy or even swallow any of his food, preferring to simply move it around on his plate.

  To the left of Jed the bird-like Suze perched. Suze was Chris’s current bit-of-fluff, and her nervous anticipation of his leaving led her head to perform some kind of repetitive twitching movement from side to side. She had arrived at the table late, vaguely interrupting the clashing Y chromosomes around the dining table. Chris had ordered for her, but Mark noted that Suze had devoured her entire starter, whatever it had been; as always snatching at the opportunity to eat when it presented itself; usually, it seemed, she forgot. Corrupted by endless weekend alcoholic dazes in the company of Chris, and sometimes Danny, she spent the week trying to overcome a massive guilt complex at having thrown her life away; she would voraciously train at the gym, endlessly mark books and clean, clean, clean. A teacher, she had been beaten down by the brute force of teen disrespect for her authority. Mark saw that Chris offered her
the only chance she had of adult conversation, but because of her innate lack of confidence she allowed Chris to treat her like shit.

  Steve Elton, meanwhile, had consumed the entrée as though it had insulted him personally. He had hacked and sawed, ripped and chewed, like a lion devouring its prey, and had in fact spilled much of the juices down his shirt. But underneath his bestial mannerisms, Mark saw a sad man, a man angry at his lot in life, a lonely man who could not make any meaningful connections with other people.

  Dave Redford had only just managed to avoid a different kind of connection; the splashes of juice from his neighbour’s plate. He was a careful, deliberate man; a man who had managed to avoid being labelled an IT geek despite his proficiency in the subject, but his oh-so-obvious attempt at the look of ‘aloof cool’ was not helped by his discomfort in his own skin. He looked as though his mother still dressed him in his black roll-neck and tight black jeans which would make him ‘look nice’ for the ladies of Leeds.

  Paul Sellars and Andy Gregory sat opposite Mark. They were so alike as to be interchangeable; both sported the Leeds haircut of choice - the mullet - and both looked as though they were the losing contestants in some kind of awful reality TV programme. They both attempted to drink like Danny, or to charm like Chris, but Mark was struck by the fact that their eyes betrayed their youthful naivety and fundamental fragility.

  Saul Chambers, Peter Dance and Andy Matthews completed the table; Mark could see that they all shared the same kind of late-twenties fear, a fear of what their lives were turning into. Even Chris and Danny, who so majestically presided over the table, wore ghostly looks of apprehension; the tides of time and fate were beginning to wash over all of them, leaving their dreams battered and washed-up on the shore.

  When Mark had finally finished his starter, the buzz of conversation began to jolt into life, as though every one of them was attempting to laugh off the spectre at the feast; growing old.

  ‘I for one do not want any of this new country of ours,’ said Chris. ‘England is changing, people; becoming more fragmented; the internet has allowed more and more of us to pursue our own special interests, however what worries me is the fast food, fast talk culture which we live in is humanity’s one common denominator. We’re becoming mind-numbed by this, just like my father’s generation was by the new wealth after the war.’

  Some of the diners agreed. There was much sage nodding of heads. But in this nodding, Mark sniffed out the underlying sense of desperation. He wanted to scream at him – ‘this is all an act’ - he wanted to ask all of these people what they were doing to change their lives, to escape the cynical nature of the age…

  ‘Technology was supposed to serve the needs of the people,’ continued Chris, ‘but we now find ourselves changing our behaviours to suit it. Maybe that’s why we are all planning to leave…’

  Mark silently seethed at these people; could they not see that they were preaching against a world in which they were all complicit; every one of them played a part in the formulation of a world in which screaming for attention is rewarded by fifteen minutes of fame, a world in which Western people with no discernable talent or hard work increasingly expect riches and fame to be dropped into their laps. Mark saw that Chris and Danny were trying to talk themselves into a moral justification for their proposed horrible crimes, but no amount of clever talk would persuade him that the heist would be anything other than pure opportunism, or perhaps desperation.

  An expectant hush descended on the table; finally Chris was going to explain why they were escaping the country. He climbed to his feet and chimed his knife against the side of his wine glass- reinforcing the manufactured stillness of the moment. He cleared his throat and looked around the table at the collection of appreciative faces. Mark was struck by the sheer performance of the whole thing; it reminded him of a rehearsed Oscar acceptance speech.

  ‘Danny Morris, Mark Birch and I have asked you to join us here to celebrate a momentous occasion; this is the last time we shall all be in Leeds together. We have chosen to leave the country and to follow our desires. We have chosen to start a new life in sunny Mauritius.

  Imagine if you will, our fear upon reaching the forbidden age of thirty without realising any of our wildest dreams. This is what we wish to overcome; this fear; this regret. I believe that regret is quite possibly the most bitter emotion known to man; we three want to avoid looking back on this, our most potent age without being able to say: “I gave it my all.’”

  Danny began to heckle:

  ‘Chris, you’re about to start sounding like Robin Williams in Dead Poets’ Society! Seize the day, and all that. Or else you’re Henry V trying to rouse us all into battle: ‘Once more unto the breach dear friends…’”

  Chris laughed off the interruption, ‘I’m sure that by now, you all know about our plans, no matter how much we promised ourselves we would keep them quiet, we’ve all let little tasters slip through, and by now there’ll be a whole internet full of speculation and rumour.

  To set your minds at rest; in two day’s time, we set sail for Mauritius. We have set up a registered Charity called Backpackers Heaven, and the money we’ve already raised has allowed us to charter a small boat to take over most of the equipment we’ll need; including vans, building supplies, and ourselves.

  When we get there, we will be setting aside a whole strip of beach-front land on which we will start to rebuild the shanty towns devastated by the weather. We will not be employing local labour; instead, travelling students and backpackers will pay us to volunteer on site; with food and accommodation provided by us. When the project is complete, we will hand the land over to the locals…’

  Chris’s speech dragged on, and on for Mark; he had heard all of it before and knew that it all formed part of Chris’s huge confidence trick; people believed that his style was his substance, his appearance was his reality. Surely people would be able to see through the rehearsed platitudes of this brash young man? Amazingly though, as Mark’s eyes had surveyed the table, he had seen sentimental tears in some of the people’s eyes.

  Suze, who had been so afraid of Chris leaving her for some recklessly masculine foreign jaunt in search of women and bungee ropes, now looked at him as though he was some kind of saviour who was making a brave sacrifice for the paupers of South Asia. He saw the jealousy in Jed Burton’s eyes - Jed had not been asked to participate in the scheme; Steve Elton simply looked bemused. Why would anyone do anything like that without there being a money-making scheme wrapped up in there somewhere?

  Mark’s eyes glazed over and he began to pay more attention to the Italian football game being shown on one of the big screens behind the bar area of the restaurant. The initial buzz of the red wine was now starting to wear off, and he was resorting to drinking the over-priced mineral water, in an attempt to resuscitate his senses. He felt like a charlatan; he could not play a part in the forced joviality of the evening.

  As soon as the meal finished, Mark beat a hasty retreat; jumping in to a waiting taxi to take him home to Wortley, where at least the people only wore hoods, and not the masks the other diners had worn. As Mark was lowering himself into the back seat of the taxi, he felt strong arms pull him back out; he turned to see Danny standing behind him.

  ‘Look mate, I know that was pretty awful, but don’t think too badly of Chris and me. We had to say goodbye to those people; it was like a ceremonial chucking away of our old life. I know that I won’t ever give any of them another thought once we’re away from here… I also know that I’ve been a complete mess over the last few weeks, and I can only say how sorry I am…’

  Mark was a little confused; was Danny maudlin drunk or actually telling the truth for once?

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he muttered, shaking his head, actually finding it an effort to speak after so long sat in a kind of enforced mental solitude around the dinner table. ‘You stay out; have a good time.’

  ‘That’s the thing Sparky. I’m not having a good time. We
shouldn’t be having a good time, not when we’re so close to doing something like this. I think Chris is even beginning to believe his own cover story. We know different though, don’t we?’

  Mark gave Danny a masculine, conciliatory tap on his shoulder and then turned back to the cab, scrunching himself and his inflated belly through the back door and onto the ripped seating. The seat was spilling its foam contents all over the place like a sad, sick drunk. For Mark it had a poignant symbolism; he quickly wound down the window, and before the taxi drove off, shouted: ‘Go and see Cheryl tonight! Say goodbye properly; otherwise you’ll always regret it!’

  Mark didn’t know how much of what he had shouted had been lost to the wind, because the impatient driver had gunned his engines and sped away from the kerb. Twisting in his seat, Mark saw Chris stumble out of the restaurant and drunkenly put his arms around Danny; probably singing some football song or other. And then they were around the corner and speeding towards home.

  Relief spread through Mark as he realised that he would miss very little about Leeds; not his house, not his friends; he had no girlfriend to miss, and he certainly would not miss most of his workmates. These old streets were almost too familiar for him; he knew every turn the taxi would make, and the familiarity had bred contempt. He was already seeing Leeds through the eyes of someone just passing through; all of this building work, all of this show, it covered up what was really underneath it all; a grey, morbid cynical worship of wealth. Mark shed no tears as he passed the blue EyeSpy Security bell-boxes on factories, new blocks of flats and shops; he was now divorced from this reality.