Kicking his shoes off, he laid his hands across his chest and stared at the ceiling.
‘Fucking people,’ he said aloud. Treating me like scum, he added silently.
His job as busboy in a trendy Covent Garden restaurant had not gone too well that day. He had spilt coffee, returned to tables with wrong orders, rowed with the barman – who was a fucking poof, anyway! – and locked himself in the staff toilet for twenty minutes, refusing to come out until he had finished weeping. The manager had warned him for the last time – any more scenes and you’re out! – and the joint owners – two fucking ex-advertising men not that much older than himself! – had agreed.
Well he wouldn’t go back! Let’s see how they get on without me tomorrow! Bastards.
He picked his nose and wiped his finger under the bed. He tried to calm himself, repeating his mantra over and over in his mind; but it had little effect. Visions of his mother (as always, whenever he was angry) flashed into his mind, rudely elbowing his chosen soothe-word aside. It was because that cow had thrown him out that he’d had to accept such menial labour. If he had still lived at home he could have afforded to live on the dole like the other three million or so unemployed.
After a while he got up and went to a white-painted chest of drawers on the other side of the bedsit. Opening the bottom drawer he took out a scrapbook and carried it back to the bed. He turned the pages and, although it did not relax him, a different mood descended. He liked reading about them. Even now, nobody really knew why they had done it. The fact was: THEY JUST BLOODY WELL HAD!
He studied their newsprint faces, an impatient hand brushing away the thick lock of blond hair that fell over his eyes. He thought that one of them even looked like him. He grinned, pleased.
All you needed was the right person, that was all. It was easy if you found the right one. Someone famous, that’s all it took.
He lay back on the hard, narrow bed and, as he considered the possibilities, his hand crept to his lap where it fondled his own body.
7
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
Lewis Carroll,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Monday, late afternoon
Tucker used to love Monday stocktaking. Every empty shelf meant money in the bank. Every empty carton meant his bills could be met. Every empty freezer meant his smile was a little broader. But shelves, cartons and freezers were never so empty nowadays. Recession didn’t stop people eating and drinking – they just didn’t do it so well; the punters became careful with their money and particular in their choice. The profit margin on a tin of asparagus was higher than on a tin of peas, but the peasants were more interested in substantiality than taste. He understood their problem, for he was marking up new, dearer prices on virtually every product each week, but it didn’t mean he sympathized. He had to eat, too, and when his customers ate less well, then so did he. Maybe not yet, but eventually he would have to.
However, there was still one small joy left to Monday stocktaking, and that was Paula. Paula of the lovely bum and thrusty tits. The face was a bit too fleshy, but when you poke the fire you don’t look at the mantelpiece, he always told himself, the old adage a serious consideration to him, never an excuse or a witticism.
Rodney Tucker owned the one and only supermarket in Banfield’s High Street, a smallish store compared to the usual chain supermarket, but then Banfield was a smallish town. Or village, as they liked to call it. He had moved there from Croydon eleven years before, his grocery shop having been forced out of business by the big combine superstores of the area. Not only had he learned from the experience, but the money he had made by selling the premises had enabled him to join the competition. Banfield was ripe for exploitation just then; too small for the big chains, but just right for the big individual (he had always considered himself a big individual). The two grocery stores in the town had suffered in the way he had suffered, although not as badly – only one had been forced to close down. Strangely enough, that particular shop had been turned into a laundromat, as had his own shop in Croydon. Recently, he had driven past his old premises and had noted that it had now become a porn video centre; would that happen in Banfield now that washing machines were as common as toasters? He doubted it, somehow; the planning committees of such places were notoriously hard to impress with the changes in twentieth-century retailing requirements. Strewth, it had been hard enough getting planning permission for his supermarket eleven years ago! Such towns and villages had their own way of carrying on. Even having lived in the area all these years, he was still considered an outsider. He knew most of the important men of Banfield, having dined with them, played golf with them, flirted with their wives – no matter how ugly – but still he wasn’t accepted. You didn’t just have to be born and bred in the area to be considered one of them: your father and his father had to be born there! It wouldn’t matter one iota to him, except that he would like to have been elected to the parish council. Oh, yes, that would be nice. Lots of land going spare around Banfield, and he had many contacts in the building trade. They’d be very grateful to any council member in favour of giving certain plots over to development. Very grateful.
One hand rubbed his bulging stomach as though his thoughts were food set before him.
‘Running low on grapefruit segements, Mr Tucker!’
He winced at the shrillness of Paula’s voice. Add fifteen years and another four stone and Paula would be a replica of Marcia, his wife. It would have been nice to imagine that his attraction towards Paula was because she reminded him of his wife when she was younger, before years of marriage had exaggerated the weakness rather than realized the promise. Nice, but not true. Fat, thin, buxom, titless – it made no difference to Tucker. Pretty (he should be so lucky), plain, experienced, virginal (he could never be that lucky) – Tucker would take them all. Age? He drew the line at eighty-three.
Most of the bits he pursued had one thing in common with Marcia, though. They were all fucking dumb. It wasn’t a qualification he demanded, far from it; it just helped his bargaining position. He was realistic enough to know that physically he didn’t have a lot to offer: his girth was broadening by the month (despite lack of sales), and his hair, it seemed, was thinning by the minute (his parting was now just above his left ear, ginger strands of hair, some nine inches long, swept over and plastered down onto his skull). But: he had a quick mind, a quick wit, and the eyes of Paul Newman (a bloated Paul Newman, granted). Most of all, and an attraction he had to admire himself, he had a few bob. And it was an attraction he was never modest about. Expensive suits, made-to-measure shirts, Italian shoes, and a change of socks every day. Chunky gold jewellery on his fingers and wrist, chunky gold fillings in his teeth. A flash bright yellow XJS Jag to drive, a beautiful mock-Tudor house to live in. A fifteen-year-old daughter who won rosettes for horse riding and certificates for swimming; and a wife – well, forget the wife. He had a bit of cash and it showed. He made sure it showed.
Tucker knew how to give the women in his life a good time (forget the wife again) and because they were all fucking dumb, that was all they wanted. He could spot a schemer a mile off and had sense enough to stay well clear: no way did he want his comfortable boat rocked.
The dummies were just right: give them a good time in Brighton – a tasty meal, a spot of gambling in a casino or the dogs, disco afterwards – and round off the evening in his favourite motel on the Brighton road. If they were worth it, a trip up to London would be in order; but they really did have to be worth it. Paula merited two stays in the motel so far, but not a trip up to town. Shame about the face.
‘Stacks of cannelloni!’
The voice didn’t help, either.
Tucker sauntered down the rows of shelves, the smell of cardboard and plastic bags strong in his nostrils. Paula was on a small stepladder, clipboard in
one hand, her other hand reaching up to examine the contents of a carton. The fashionable split at the rear of her tight skirt revealed the backs of her knees, not always the most sensual of sights, but on a late, wet, Monday afternoon, enough to tug a nerve in the shadowy regions below the overhang of his belly.
Sidling up to her, he placed a chubby hand against her calf muscle. His fingers slid upwards and she stiffened, annoyed because his heavy gold bracelet had snagged her tights.
‘Rodney!’
He pulled the bracelet free and let his hand travel upwards once more. He stopped where the tights joined in the middle, forming, in collaboration with her panties underneath, an unbreakable seal, a nylon scab over a soft, permanently moist wound. The man who invented tights should have been strangled with his own creation, Tucker thought soberly. His fingers played with the round buttocks.
‘Rod, someone might come in!’ Paula pushed at his hand beneath the skirt.
‘They won’t, love. They know better than to interrupt while I’m stocktaking.’ His voice still held faint strains of a northern whine, hinting at his origins before Banfield, before Croydon, and before London.
‘No, Rod, we can’t. Not here.’ Paula began to descend the ladder, her lips pursed with resolution.
‘It’s never bothered you before.’ He snatched his hand away lest his finger got crushed in the vice between her thighs.
‘Well, it’s a bit tacky, isn’t it?’ She turned away from him, clutching the clipboard to her breasts like a chastity shield and looking thoughtfully at the shelves around her as though concentration, too, was a protective force-field.
‘Tacky?’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘What’s that bloody mean?’
‘You know perfectly well.’ She moved away, ticking off items on the clipboard
Paula was Tucker’s secretary-cum-supervisor-cum-easy-lay-ever-since-the-Christmas-Eve-after-the-store-closed-party. He’d taken her on three months before because she could type, add up without using her fingers, organize staff (she had worked one season for Butlin’s as assistant to the entertainments manager) and had thrusty tits and looked knockout against the three spotty-faced youths and one failed double-glazing representative who had applied for the position. Paula was twenty-eight, lived with her widowed, arthritic mother, had a few boyfriends but no steady, and wasn’t bad at her job. Since the Christmas-Eve-after-the-store-closed-party, their relationship had been highly pleasurable: drinks after work, a few nights in Brighton, a couple in the motel, swift titillating gropes whenever the occasion allowed. Like Monday stocktaking. What the fuck was the matter with her today?
‘Paula, what the fuck is the matter with you today?’ His words were whispered so that the cashiers in the shop could not hear, but his exasperation raised the tone to a squeal.
‘There’s no need for that kind of language, Mr Tucker,’ came the stiff reply.
‘Mr Tucker?’ He touched his chest pointing at himself in disbelief. ‘What’s all this Mr Tucker? What happened to Rod?’
She whirled on him and the disdain in her eyes was intimidating. ‘I think, Mr Tucker, we should keep our relationship on a strictly business basis.’
‘Why, for f – ? Why, Paula? What’s happened? We’ve had fun together, haven’t we?’
Her voice softened, but he noticed her eyes didn’t. ‘Yes, we’ve had a lot of fun together, Rodney. But . . . is that enough?’
Alarm bells began to clang in his head. ‘How d’you mean exactly?’ he asked cautiously.
‘I mean perhaps I think more of you than you do of me. Perhaps I’m just a good screw to you.’
Oh yes, he thought, here we go. She’s building up to something. ‘Of course you’re not, love. I mean, you are, but I think more of you than just that.’
‘Do you? You never show me!’
He raised his hands, palms downwards. ‘Keep it quiet, lovey. We don’t want the whole shop to know our business, do we?’
‘You may not; I’m not particularly bothered who knows. I wouldn’t even care if your bloody wife found out!’
Tucker sucked in his breath and felt his heart go thump. Oh no, he may have misjudged Paula. Maybe she wasn’t so dumb. ‘We could have a night up in London, if you like,’ he said.
She looked at him as though he had slapped her face. Then she threw the clipboard at him.
He was more concerned with the clatter as it bounced off and then fell to the floor than any injury to himself. He bent to retrieve it, one hand flapping at her in a ‘keep the noise down’ gesture. A silent grope was one thing, an hysterical row that could be heard outside was another: it could demean his position as owner/manager – and word could also get back to Marcia.
He staggered against the shelves as Paula pushed by. ‘You can finish the bloody stocktaking yourself!’ she told him as she marched towards the door leading into the main shopping area. She paused at the door as if to adjust her emotions before stepping through. As she looked back at him he was sure there was calculation in those tear-blurred eyes, just behind the distress. ‘You’d better think about our situation, Rodney. You’d better decide what you’re going to do about it.’
She disappeared through the door leaving it open wide.
Tucker groaned inwardly as he straightened. He’d misjudged her. She wasn’t so dumb. Her next ploy would be conciliation, get him panting again; then wham! – more histrionics, only more so. Something to really frighten him. Bitch! He knew the name of the game – he’d played it once before – but not whether the blackmail would be emotional or financial. He hoped it wouldn’t be financial.
He emerged from the stockroom an hour later and his mood was even blacker than before. He had already known the weekend take was bad, but the untouched cartons piled high on the shelves always mocked him with the fact. Not much to re-order this week and the way things were going, there wouldn’t be much the following week, nor the one after that. Strewth, Monday, bloody Monday!
The sight of his customerless shop and his three cashiers huddled together at one checkout increased his gloom. His shelf-loader was sitting in a corner reading a comic, index finger lost up to its first joint in his nose. Tucker turned away in disgust, too gloomy even to shout at the boy. He looked up at the office and saw through the long plate-glass window that it was empty; Paula had obviously gone for the day. Just as well. He was in no mood.
‘Come on, ladies,’ he said loudly, forcing himself to walk briskly towards the cashiers. ‘Back to our tills, get ready for the rush.’
The three women in their green overalls looked up with a start. Hubble bubble, toil and trouble, he thought as he approached them. God, there were some ugly women in this village!
‘Ten minutes to closing time, ladies. Word might get around there’s threepence off the double-pack Kleenex this week, so be prepared for the stampede.’
They giggled self-consciously at his oft-repeated joke – he changed the product from time to time to keep the humour fresh – and one of the cashiers held something up in the air. ‘Have you seen the early Courier, Mr Tucker?’
He stopped before them. ‘No, Mrs Williams, I haven’t. Been far too busy to read newspapers, as you well know.’
‘We’ve made the big time, Mr Tucker,’ another cashier said enthusiastically, causing her companions to giggle like croaky schoolgirls.
‘Your syndicate’s come up on the Pools, has it? I hope this doesn’t mean you’re going to leave the security of a good job just because you’ve become millionaires.’
‘No, Mr Tucker,’ Mrs Williams chided. ‘It’s about Banfield. We’re on the map now.’
He looked at her questioningly and took the newspaper. His lips moved as he silently read the main story.
‘It’s the church just up the road, Mr Tucker. Didn’t you hear about it yesterday? My sister’s boy was there, you know. I don’t go to church much myself, nowadays, but my—’
‘You’ve seen the little girl, Mr Tucker. Alice Pagett. She’s often in here with her mother d
oing the weekly shop. Deaf and dumb, she is . . .’
‘Used to be deaf and dumb, Mr Tucker. They say she can talk and hear now. Some kind of miracle, they reckon . . .’
He walked away from them, quickly scanning the columns. It was a good story, although the reporter had obviously got carried away with himself. But it claimed to be an eyewitness account, that the reporter was present when it happened. ‘MIRACLE CURE BANFIELD GIRL’ the headline screamed. And underneath, the subhead asked: ‘Did Alice Pagett see vision of Our Lady?’
He climbed the three steps to his office, studying the article, and closed the door behind him. He was still rereading the story when the three cashiers and the shelf-loader left.
Finally he reached into his desk, took a cigar from its pack, lit it, and stared thoughtfully at the exhaled smoke. His gaze returned to the paragraph which compared the alleged ‘miracle’ cure to the ‘miracle’ cures of Lourdes in the French Pyrenees. Tucker wasn’t a Catholic, but he knew about the holy shrine of Lourdes. A gleam came into his eyes and, for the first time that day, excitement pierced his gloom like a laser through fog.
He reached for the phone.
Monday, early evening
The priest left the Renault and walked back to the white swing-gate he had just driven through. He pushed it shut, gravel crunching beneath his feet, wind, spiked with drops of rain, whipping at his face. He stepped back into the car and drove slowly up to the presbytery, eyes constantly flicking towards the grey-stone church on his right. The drive ran parallel to the church path, trees, shrubbery and a small expanse of lawn between them. It seemed appropriate that there should be a division between the two, one path leading directly to the House of God, the other leading to the house of His servant. Father Hagan sometimes wondered if his gate should bear a TRADESMEN ONLY sign.
Shrine Page 6
