by T. J. Lebbon
He’d seen people going in and out, and often they’d stop and chat on the wide pavement in front of the shop. This village was far smaller than Usk where he lived, and everyone seemed to know everyone else. The Blue Door cafe probably only thrived because of the main road that ran through the place. That, and the entertaining sourness of its owner.
‘So?’ Dom asked.
‘Doesn’t have his helmet on.’
‘It’s hot.’
‘And he’s left the van’s driver’s door open.’
‘It’s really hot. So, what, you’re casing the joint?’
Sue arrived then, placing a tray on their table and giving them their drinks and cake. She knew whose was whose.
‘Busy day?’ Dom asked.
‘Rushed off my feet.’ She left them and cleared a couple of tables before going back inside.
‘Wow. Positively chatty today,’ Dom said, but Andy was still staring across the street and didn’t respond. ‘What now?’
Andy stuffed some flapjack into his mouth and took a swig of coffee. Then he nodded across the small square again. ‘Just asking to be ripped off.’
The security man was standing outside the post office talking to a large, middle-aged woman. Dom had seen her before, and he guessed she was the postmistress. They were standing in front of the display window, shielding their eyes against the sun as they chatted. The woman threw her head back and laughed. The man waved his free hand as if to illustrate a point more clearly. He still carried the case.
‘How much do you reckon’s in there?’ Andy asked.
‘No idea.’
‘Just standing there.’
Dom started on his chocolate shortbread, balancing the guilt against the promise of a thirty-mile ride back home.
Andy ate silently, then drank more coffee.
It wasn’t like him to be so quiet, Dom thought. Usually he’d be joshing, making quips about some of the other patrons, talking about the ride they’d had and the route to take back home.
‘Suppose it’s pretty safe around here,’ Dom said, more to break the silence than anything else.
Andy shrugged.
‘Just take one daring person, though.’ He licked his finger and picked up crumbs from his plate, looked into his empty cup, obviously contemplating another coffee.
‘Or two,’ Dom said. He chuckled. ‘“And no one ever suspected the two innocent cyclists”, the papers’ll say.’
Andy glanced up at him, and the moment paused.
Dom still heard chatter from the women and businessmen, and even the distant mumble of voices from across by the post office. But the air between him and his friend seemed to stop for a moment, movement ceased, and Andy’s eyes grew painted and still.
Then he sat back in his chair and stretched, interlocking his fingers and cracking his knuckles above his head.
‘Gonna be a hot ride,’ he said. ‘Get back to Usk two-ish. How about I carry on home and change, then get back down for a couple of early evening ones at the Ship?’
‘Friday cider weather,’ Dom said.
‘Damn right.’
They stood and headed back to their bikes.
On the way through the small garden area they passed the two joggers. ‘Morning, ladies,’ Andy said. He got a smile from one of them, and a lingering stare from the other.
Dom sighed. It was a hilly ride home. He’d be following in Andy’s wake.
Chapter Three
Dangerous
Later that evening the Ship was full, customers spilling across the gardens and down onto the riverbank. Dom was enjoying the familiar post-exercise glow, a tiredness that felt earned, knowing that his aching muscles the next day would soon fade away. Three pints in, his potential aching head was another matter.
‘Another?’ Andy asked.
‘You’re driving home. You’re already over the limit.’
‘I’ll drink lemonade. Doesn’t mean you can’t have another pint of dirty.’ The Ship served a local scrumpy that they’d nicknamed dirty, an acquired taste but seemingly brewed especially for scorching summer evenings like this. After a bike ride. With canoes on the river and half the village sprawled around the pub.
Dom held out his glass. ‘Hit me, baby, one more time.’
Andy headed for the pub, leaving Dom sitting on the grassy riverbank staring at the water moving lazily by. He knew plenty of people here to chat to, but he was enjoying this moment of peace and calm reflection.
He’d always considered himself blessed. He and Emma made a good team. Their daughter, Daisy, was almost eleven years old, bright and fun, growing towards her teens with grace and intelligence. Some of their other friends were having trouble with their teenaged kids, ranging from strops and long bouts of sulky we-know-better moods, to full on boozing, and in one case being hooked up with a guy ten years their senior. At twenty that wasn’t so bad. At fifteen it was an issue.
But Dom did not fear Daisy growing up. She already seemed to have her head screwed on right, and had a great sense of humour that he put down to her confidence amongst adults. Sometimes he looked at her and loved her so much it ached.
He blinked and smiled softly. Booze getting to his head. He’d changed a lot upon becoming a father. Softened up, so Emma said, and when he found himself sobbing watching certain programmes on TV, he couldn’t argue. But as well as softening up, becoming a father had rounded him out. Occasionally Andy’s shenanigans sounded attractive – the women, the bachelor pad, the impulsive trips abroad to climb some mountain, or kayak along a bloody river somewhere – but he couldn’t imagine being without his family.
He and Emma had their troubled moments, but what married couple didn’t? They were comfortable, at least to the extent that they didn’t really worry about the day-to-day things. More money would always be nice. Working less would be good, too, both for him and Emma. He didn’t want to be grafting like this into his late fifties and sixties, that was for sure. But overall they were blessed.
So he wondered just how that seed planted by Andy had taken root.
Every time he blinked, he saw the postmistress standing outside her shop, leaning back and laughing at the sky.
‘Here you go, pisshead.’ Andy handed him a pint and sat next to him. He had a pint of lemonade and a couple of bags of nuts. ‘They never should have banned swimming in the river.’
‘It was dangerous. Young Sammy Parks almost drowned.’
‘Yeah, and spoiled my view.’
‘Not all women in bikinis are parading for your delectation.’
Andy stared at him hard. ‘Of course they are.’
They laughed. Drank. Two friends with an easy, undemanding friendship. Andy got on well with Daisy and Emma. He flirted with Dom’s wife, but he’d flirt with an oak tree if it wore a skirt. Or probably more so if it didn’t. Harmless fun, friendly banter.
Andy was the impulsive one. The dangerous one, Emma had said more than once, which Dom didn’t try to take as her saying he should be more impulsive or dangerous.
‘That post office,’ Dom said.
‘Yeah.’ Andy turned suddenly serious, speaking quieter and looking around. Kids played and laughed, music rode the steamy evening air from somewhere. No one was paying them any attention. ‘We should do it.’
‘Huh?’
‘As you said, no one would suspect us.’ Andy swigged his lemonade. He’d had three pints of cider beforehand, but Dom had rarely seen him drunk. Alcohol didn’t seem to affect his friend’s opinions or judgement. It barely seemed to touch him at all.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Me, an electrician. Primary school governor. I’ve even got a Labrador. Mr Average, Mr Boring.’
‘You’re not boring.’
Dom looked at Andy. ‘I’m not the one who jets off to climb glaciers.’ One of Andy’s recent trips had taken him to Iceland. He’d been gone for two weeks.
Andy shrugged. He had a strange expression, similar to what Dom had seen at the Blue Door earlier that day. A bl
ankness to his eyes, like he was suddenly someone else.
‘And you,’ Dom said. ‘Technical writer. Lots of cash. Bit of a cock, true, but never been in trouble.’
‘Bury the cash for a while,’ Andy said. ‘Carry on normally.’
‘Just one job,’ Dom said, chuckling at the cliché, then falling quiet again. It was a weird subject to be talking about in such a place of sunlight and laughter.
‘So let’s plan!’ Andy said. ‘It’ll be a laugh.’
It took on the air of a joke, and with that lightness came a rush of ideas from them both. It was a throwaway conversation, one they’d have both forgotten by the time they got home, just one of many conversations that filled the times they spent drinking together. Emma would often ask, ‘So what did you talk about all evening?’ Dom’s response was invariably, ‘Can’t really remember.’ Four hours with barely a pause for breath, and he often recalled none of it.
This was like that. Except their conversation had an air of danger about it, and a sense that they were discussing forbidden things, secrets that could never be shared. It was a private, almost intimate thing between them, and it made Dom feel good.
‘We’d have to steal a car,’ he said.
‘Or just blank the number plates with mud. Use yours. Everyone’s got a Focus.’
‘Right, thanks.’
‘Just that stealing a car changes it from one job to two.’
‘Fair point. So … weapons?’
‘Don’t need them,’ Andy said.
‘And we couldn’t get them even if we did,’ Dom said.
Andy didn’t really answer. ‘These postmasters don’t give a shit about the money in their safe; it’s not theirs, it’s insured, and they won’t lose a thing if it’s nicked.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Dom asked.
‘Just guessing.’ Andy drained his lemonade. ‘It’s afterwards that matters. The job takes ten minutes, but it’s the days and weeks afterwards when we could give ourselves away.’
‘We’d still have to ride out that way!’ Dom said. It was almost exciting. ‘Sit outside the Blue Door as usual.’
‘Everything as normal,’ Andy agreed.
‘Then we’d be seen on crime scene photos by the investigators, like perps returning to the scene of their crime.’
‘What, Dom, you after infamy?’
‘I’m after nothing,’ Dom said. It sounded awkward, too serious. ‘Just buckets full of cold, hard cash.’
‘Probably won’t get buckets from a little provincial place like that.’
‘How much do you reckon?’
‘Dunno.’ Andy shrugged. ‘Hit it at the right time, maybe forty grand?’
‘Nice little nest egg.’
‘Not bad for ten minutes’ work,’ Andy agreed. He looked around and smiled. ‘Wonder what everyone would think if they knew what we were talking about.’
Dom glanced around at the full pub garden and bustling riverbank. Men with sun-reddened torsos smiled wider than usual, alcohol soothing their worries. Women sported summer hats and sleeveless dresses. Kids darted here and there, a few people in canoes fought against the river’s flow, and a couple of hundred metres along the bank, youths were jumping ten feet into the water from an old wooden mooring. A boy and girl crouched near the bank with phones, trying to get the best shots.
‘No one would believe us,’ Dom said. Andy grasped his arm and leaned in close.
‘That’s why we really should do it.’
‘Don’t be soft.’
‘Why not? It’s not hurting anyone. Your worst criminal record is a speeding fine. I don’t even have that. We’re the last people the law would turn to. In, out, done. And like you say, a nest egg for the future.’
Dom swigged some more cider. It was going to his head now, swilling confusion behind his eyes, freeing inhibitions. Emma always said he was a man made free after a couple of pints, as if alcohol could snip off the constraints he’d imposed upon himself to get by in society and life.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘After another pint.’
‘Pisshead.’
‘Sure.’
Dom swayed a little as he walked across the pub garden, nodding at the people he knew, pausing to chat a couple of times.
Inside he dumped the empties on a table and went for a leak. Leaning his head against the wall, watching his piss swill down the urinal, he tried to make light of the post office idea.
But he couldn’t. Though it was something he knew he could never really do, just thinking about it was exciting, and talking it through with Andy gave it that edge. That sheen of reality. Andy had a way of making the dangerous seem possible.
Dom knew he should stop drinking, but it didn’t feel like a normal day. Still buzzing from the long ride, the blazing sunlight and unusual heat, and the weird sense of danger pervading their conversation, he bought one more pint.
On the way back to Andy on the riverbank he was thinking about disguises.
‘One last glass?’ Mandy asked.
She and Emma had already polished off one bottle of Prosecco between them, and were halfway through the second. But it was that sort of day. Gorgeous weather, a nice couple of hours that afternoon with Dom in the garden after his bike ride, Daisy at a camping sleepover with friends.
Mandy had turned up at their house unannounced, complaining that her boyfriend, Paul, had fucked off on a football weekend without her again, and it had turned into one of those long, impromptu boozy evenings that were always the best kind.
‘Be rude to leave it in the bottle,’ Emma said.
‘Rude,’ Mandy agreed, giggling. She couldn’t hold her drink very well, but she drank the most out of all Emma’s friends. It wasn’t quite a problem, Emma usually thought. Not yet.
Conversation had moved rapidly on from character assassinating Mandy’s absent boyfriend. They’d gossiped about others in the village, the housing estate being built on the outskirts, the new headmistress in Daisy’s primary school, and a dozen other things she could hardly remember. It had been a fun couple of hours. But now there was a slight chill on the evening air, and as Mandy poured, Emma stood to fetch blankets for them.
‘You’re lucky,’ Mandy said.
‘How so?’ Emma leaned against the back door jamb.
‘Dominic. He’s so dependable.’
‘Yeah, he is.’ Emma nodded and smiled, glancing at the ground.
‘Oh, really,’ Mandy said, shaking her head and almost tumbling herself from the patio chair. ‘Come on, Em, there’s no way you can deny it.’
‘I don’t deny his dependability. Never have.’
‘But …’ Mandy said. ‘Sheesh.’ She shook her head and took a big swig of Prosecco.
They’d had this conversation a thousand times before, and Emma was angry at Mandy for bringing it up again. She’d done it on purpose, barely mentioning Dom before launching into judgemental mode.
‘We’re fine,’ Emma said.
‘Yeah, but he’s “boring”.’ She made speech marks with her fingers.
‘I’ve never said that.’
‘You’ve never had to.’ Mandy tapped her glass. She wore rings on every finger apart from her wedding ring finger. ‘Got a good business, worships you and Daisy, not bad looking. Good in bed.’
Emma waved her hand from side to side, trying to lighten up the conversation. She really should tell Mandy to stop, go home, sober up. Her boyfriend would be home in a couple of days and she could take it out on him.
‘You should be happy. You’re lucky.’
‘I am happy,’ Emma said. She ignored the inner niggle casting doubts on that thought. She always did.
‘Dunno what’s good for you,’ Mandy muttered.
‘I’m going to get those blankets.’ Emma entered the house and stood in the kitchen for a while, pouring a glass of water from the fridge and relishing its cool tickle down her throat.
She moved past feeling angry at Mandy. They’d been friends for a long time, but M
andy was sometimes a mess, and she was never averse to projecting her own unhappiness onto her friends. Some of it was self-pity, some jealousy. She was definitely jealous of Emma.
She glanced at the clock. Dom would be home soon. She smiled, because there was nothing wrong with dependable. Perhaps compared to what she’d known in her younger years, he was boring. But boring was better than imprisoned, boring was better than dead. She had friends from her twenties who were both.
‘Bloody freezing out here!’ she heard Mandy shout from outside.
Emma went through to the living room and swept up a couple of throws from the sofa.
‘So when do you and Paul go to Menorca?’ she asked when she returned outside, determined to take control of the conversation.
Mandy smiled, then frowned, then started crying. Yeah. It really was time for her to go home.
‘I remember when a first class stamp used to be eighteen pence,’ Andy said. ‘What is it now? Fifty? Sixty? I’ve lost touch. It goes up so often I’m confused. That’s not inflation, that’s Royal Mail screwing us for as much cash as they can because they’re a monopoly.’
‘There’re other delivery firms,’ Dom said.
‘Like who?’ Andy took another chip from the polystyrene tray between them. It was such a nice evening that they’d decided to sit in the small park opposite the chip shop to eat.
‘Little old grannies,’ Dom said. ‘It’d hurt them. Stealing pension money that an old granny needs to buy her food.’
‘Wrong,’ Andy said, his voice sing-song. He had a way of doing that, sometimes. Announcing Dom’s mistake with a flourish, almost revelling in his wrongness. ‘I told you, they’re insured.’
Dom sighed and held his head, elbows rested on the wooden park table. He didn’t feel drunk any more. He felt tired, a little hungover, and the heat had gone from pleasant to claustrophobic. With darkness fallen, the humidity persisted like a ghost of the day just gone. I really need to go home, Dom thought. Emma. Bed. Normality.
Instead, they were talking about robbery.
Dom still couldn’t quite put his finger on when things had changed. Even at the Ship, their discussion had been conducted with the air of an adventure, an almost childlike game of what-if? As fresh pints of dirty stole his balance and slurred his voice, Dom had found himself giggling as they’d discussed what sort of disguises they could use, what to call each other, and how it would actually work out.
