by Helen Zahavi
‘We eating soon?’
. . . and turned her head to look at him. He was a good-looking boy, and she liked to look. There was stubble on his cheek, for he didn’t care to shave too much. Just now and then, when he got the urge. He said he’d do it, if she wanted, but she told him not to bother, for she likes her men to look like blokes, she likes them post-pubescent.
He hung a right into Arkwright Road.
‘You hungry, babe?’
‘Well . . . not exactly.’
‘But you wouldn’t say no?’
‘Might pass the time.’
‘So how much you get, then?’
Because he hadn’t forgotten.
‘Get, Joe?’
‘Get, babe. Off of Henry.’
‘What makes you think—’
‘I can smell it, can’t I. You got that money smell.’
He was coasting down, engine in neutral.
‘I’m interested, that’s all. I mean it’s no big deal.’
She frowned at the dashboard.
‘You just want to know . . . ’
‘I’m a curious bloke.’
‘And it’s finders keepers. Right, Joe?’
‘Right.’
She wrapped her arms around the bag and clutched it to her belly.
‘I got plenty, Joey.’
She nodded to herself.
‘I’m loaded, see.’
He slipped into first.
‘What you probably mean . . . ’
He went sharp left.
‘ . . . is that we’re loaded, sweetheart.’
She watched the buildings go floating by and drew a large D on the misted-up glass.
‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘Probably.’
Stuck in the queue at the lights by the station. Six lanes of traffic, their engines revving. Noise and filth and aggravation, the eternal stink of the Finchley Road. He adjusted the mirror, rooted for a fag.
‘So how’d it go, then?’
She touched a filling with her tongue.
‘All right, I guess.’
‘No problems . . . ?’
‘Not really.’
He crushed an empty pack in his fist and chucked it in the back.
‘Did you wipe my debt?’
‘I sort of wiped it.’ She watched a lad on a mountain-bike go threading between the cars. ‘I also wiped your job.’
‘Never liked that job.’
‘Say thank you, then.’
‘Thank you, then.’
The lights went to orange.
‘You see it, did you?’
‘See what, Joe?’
‘His thing,’ he said. ‘The Henry thing.’
She picked up the pack of loose tobacco and pulled out a generous pinch.
‘Might have caught a glimpse.’
He released the handbrake.
‘I’ve seen it too,’ he said. ‘Such as it is.’
He was holding the clutch at biting point.
‘Bit small, I thought.’
‘Minute,’ she agreed. She wrinkled her nose in pained distaste. To think of what he’d wanted her to do. The cheek of it. The total fucking nerve.
‘Made me stop in Holland Park,’ Joe said. ‘Had to take a leak.’
‘Right in the park?’
‘In Addison Road.’
‘That’s Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘You the A to Z?’
She peeled off a paper and started rolling him a fag.
‘So you stopped the car . . . ’
‘And he had the leak. Did it all over this redbrick place. Right in the porch, right on the door.’
She shook her head.
‘Not nice, that, is it.’
Joe nodded sadly.
‘Quite nasty, really.’
The line of traffic began surging forward. He took a right, and they sped through Kilburn. Then Kensal Green, the Scrubs Lane junction, and before too long they were hitting Harlesden, with its corrugated lock-ups and quick deals for cash, no questions asked.
‘You done my fag, yet?’
‘I’m doing it, Joe.’
He pulled off the high street and looped round the houses, riding the brake so he could check the numbers. Night had fallen, and he dispensed with the image and took off his shades. She looked up from the ciggy, stared out through the tinted windows. There weren’t a lot of cafes, really. Not a lot of night-life.
‘We stopping here, are we?’
‘Just taking a spin,’ he said. ‘Just passing through.’
‘And then we have our dinner, yeah?’
‘Soon, babe,’ he said. ‘Few minutes, okay?’
He drove up on to the pavement, beside an eight-foot, fly-postered wall.
‘Have to do some business first.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘Motor business, precious. Not your thing, I would have thought.’
She licked down the paper and passed him the roll-up.
‘You dumping the car, then?’
He cut the motor.
‘It’s got to go.’
‘I like this car.’
‘We can’t all get the things we like.’
She pulled down the vanity mirror and moistened her lips.
‘I think you get plenty, Joe.’
‘You reckon, do you?’
‘Yeah, I reckon.’
The warm engine was ticking over. They smiled at each other in the deepening gloom. He got out of the car and went through a small door cut into high wooden gates. A couple of minutes later, the gates swung open and he came back out and drove them through. He circled slowly round, parking next to a stripped-down Bristol.
They climbed out and stood in the yard. Fluorescent light was shafting down, and the smell of paintspray hung in the air. She watched the owner heave the gates shut.
‘All right, is he?’
Joe sucked his lip.
‘More or less.’
He’d brought them to someone he vaguely knew, a man called Phil, a friend of a nodding acquaintance. A lanky, thin-haired man with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. There was an Austin-Healey parked nearby, and a Mercedes hard-top round the back, because Phil was quality, only dealt in the best. They watched him wipe his hands on his overalls and stroll towards them, barely glancing at their motor. A brief nod to Joe, and he took the matchstick out of his mouth.
‘How much?’
Joe looked him in the eye.
‘It’s worth over thirty.’
‘I know what it’s worth,’ Phil said. ‘Give me a figure.’
‘Twenty.’
The man’s face creased into a smile.
‘Three,’ he said softly.
‘Do me a favour . . . ’
‘I’m trying to.’
Dust was shimmering in the artificial light.
‘Fifteen,’ Joe muttered.
The man wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
‘You’re not really in a strong position,’ he said. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Not for bargaining, if you get my drift.’
‘It’s a bit hot, that’s all.’
‘It’s scorching, my son.’
‘Twelve, then.’
‘Three and a half,’ Phil said. ‘And I’m being generous.’
The man shoved the matchstick back in his mouth.
‘Done?’
For a moment, Joe hesitated. He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the tarmacked ground and seemed to shake his head. And then his body sagged, his whole frame drooped. It was as if he’d been shoved against a wall, as if they’d pinned him by the arms and punched him in the solar plexus.
‘Done,’ he muttered.
They waited out in the yard while Phil disappeared into a prefab shed to get the cash. She was beginning to feel vaguely bereft. No more trips in Henry’s car. No tender, Donna rump on the shiny, leather seats.
‘Never mind,’ she soothed. ‘It’s only money.’
(The most mindless thing she’d said
in at least four hours.)
Phil came out again after a couple of minutes and walked towards them. He was tossing a set of keys from one hand to the other.
‘Fancy a new motor?’
‘I’d like that one,’ she announced, pointing at the Austin-Healey.
Joe grinned and punched the man lightly on the shoulder.
‘Don’t go winding up my lady.’
Phil grinned back at him.
‘Can’t help it, squire.’ The grin went stiff. ‘But you need some wheels, right?’
‘Might do.’
‘I mean you need them bad, right?’
‘You making an offer?’
The man fiddled with his nose again.
‘Just a suggestion.’
‘So what you got, then?’
‘Mark Two Capri.’
Joey nodded, thinking it over.
‘Runner, is it?’
‘Like a rocket. It’s a wideboy motor, if you know what I mean.’
He led them round to the back of the shed and there it was, in shades of blue: a two-tone Ford Capri. Joe lifted the bonnet and peered at the engine.
‘Bit clean,’ he muttered.
‘It’s for the punters. You know they’re fussy.’
Joe started walking slowly round, kicking the tyres, running his fingers over the body. He squatted down in front of the radiator and squinted along the wing.
‘Got a new door,’ he noted.
Phil chewed the matchstick.
‘I’m not saying it hasn’t had work.’
Joe hauled himself to his feet.
‘Can we get it on the ramp?’
‘Bit late for that. Have to think of the neighbours.’
‘Yeah,’ Joe grunted. ‘Sure.’
He glanced at Donna and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged and nodded.
‘I’ll give you eight hundred,’ he said.
Phil snorted. He pulled out the rod and banged the hood closed.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’
‘Get what?’
‘Punters like you get special prices.’
‘A grand,’ Joe said, ‘and we drive away.’
‘Three and a half,’ Phil countered, ‘and I’ll fill the tank.’
Joe gazed at him.
‘You know what you are?’
‘I’m a dealer, son.’
‘You’re a nine-carat cunt.’
Phil shrugged.
‘Same thing.’
* * *
CHAPTER 9
‘We could always go abroad.’ she said
It was only a suggestion, her way of being helpful, her modest contribution for the evening. They’d found a room in Finsbury, a quite appalling room, but she’d blocked it out, she’s not complaining. Small double bed, an unshaded bulb, and it’s twenty-three pounds, all charges included. There wasn’t a telly, though you had your own shower. But it’s got a smell, and she knows that smell, a syrupy compound of damp and decay, like a place she’d stayed in Camden. For Donna’s been around a bit, been shifting herself around.
‘Just shoot off abroad, just the two of us.’
She looked at herself in the mirror.
‘Be quite romantic. Like a honeymoon.’
‘You mean somewhere foreign?’
‘Somewhere like that.’
She put a finger on the shadowed skin beneath her eyes and pulled it gently down. Inflamed, she thought. I’m dying.
‘Where they do pasta,’ she added.
‘I don’t like pasta.’
‘Where they do burgers, then.’
He was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had his shoes on, which bothered her, but only slightly. She leaned towards the glass and scrutinized her reflection. A small, pink lump had formed on her chin.
‘I’ve got a spot, Joe.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe it’s a guilt-spot, because I took an old man’s money.’
She peered closer.
‘My conscience must be troubling me.’
‘You haven’t got a conscience,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve got a spot.’
‘Do you think that bloke downstairs noticed?’
‘I think he did.’
‘Is it very noticeable?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Say no.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll put some stuff on it tomorrow.’
‘Why don’t you just squeeze it?’
‘Makes them spread, if you do that.’
‘They’re spreading already.’
‘That supposed to mean something, is it?’
‘It means you had one the other night.’
‘Which night?’
‘The night we met,’ he said. ‘Round at Carlo’s.’
‘That was a period spot.’
‘A what spot?’
‘You remember, sweetie: off our food, and blood everywhere . . . ?’
‘Oh yeah.’ He rolled over on to his side. ‘I remember.’
It had been gone eleven when they got there. A bed-and-breakfast cheap hotel, the sort of place you hate on sight because it strips away the fantasy and reminds you that you’re poor. They’d had to pay upfront, so they booked themselves in for just a couple of nights. Forty-six pounds, plus fifty on top in case of breakages. Everything costing, everything dear.
When the guy in reception handed over the keys, he’d had that look on his face, that caretaker’s smirk. She saw it in his eyes, a ‘hello, darling’ type of look, as though she were a working girl, some piece of painted flesh that rents it by the hour. She’d had a sudden urge to tell him who she was, to let him know the things she’d done, that she and she alone had been the one to rob the Fatman. Instead of which, she held her peace. Just followed Joe upstairs, and stepped inside the room, and peeled off the skin-tight jeans and talked to him of spots and pasta.
She crossed to the table and picked up a ciggy, sliding it smoothly between her lips. There was a soft grunt as he heaved himself off the bed, a muted exhalation as Joey made an effort. He struck a match and held the flame a few inches in front of her face. She leaned forward and sucked heat into the weed. Nothing like it, she was thinking, for it’s her all-time, second-favourite sensation. She took a long and perfect drag and held the smoke inside her lungs, almost beyond the limit, until it seemed the lungs would burst.
‘You shouldn’t do that,’ he said.
‘Do what?’
‘That smoke thing.’
He shoved the matches back in his pocket.
‘One day you’ll go too far.’
‘I know.’
‘One day you’ll die.’
‘I know.’
Her bag lay on the bed. She pulled him down beside her, shoved a hand inside, and took out the wad of currency, a big, thick wad of fives and tens. And the Donna bitch can’t help it, but just holding it, just gripping Henry’s money in her hot and eager fingers, makes her quietly start to lubricate.
‘Looks a fair amount,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Yeah. Done well here, Joe. Going to live in style.’
She spread it all out on the nylon quilt, and almost ached with adoration. Crisp, new notes, unfingered by humanity. Unsullied bits of paper they could use to run away. All mine, she thought. She glanced across. All ours, she added.
He flexed his fingers.
‘You want to count it?’
She shook her head.
‘I took it, Joe. You count it.’
He leaned forward and collected several tens into a small pile.
‘That’s a hundred,’ he said.
‘Good start,’ she said.
‘There’s heaps more,’ he said.
‘Loads,’ she agreed.
It didn’t take long to add it up, but they still checked twice, just to be sure. Six hundred pounds, which is not a lot to take, not too much to liberate. Not when you’re the Donna bitch, and you like the feeling of silk against your
skin. Six hundred quid off a millionaire. It’s nothing, frankly. Fuck-all, if you’re counting. Six hundred lousy quid to start a life.
Better not take a sum like that. When you rob a man like Henry, you’d better take it all, or leave him be. You shouldn’t dip your fingers in his pocket and steal a bit to tide you over. You should take the bread from his mouth and the clothes off his back, and leave him naked in the street, alone and helpless in the street. Just take it all, or leave him be.
For there’s one thing Donna ought to learn: never provoke a rich man, because rich men take revenge. So when she slipped the notes inside her bag and left him dripping on the floor, she was being soft, too tender-hearted, letting charity prevail. Should have flogged his things and burnt the house, just torched it to the ground.
The bastard would have understood. Might not have liked it, but he’d have understood. Some poor, mad bitch who comes in from the cold and looks around with hungry eyes. They half-expect it, men like him, for it’s what their nightmares are made of. And when they wake up sweating in the night, they’ve been dreaming of girlies like Donna.
She gathered up the tens and twenties.
‘I mean you don’t like abroad, anyway,’ she said, ‘I mean, do you, Joe?’
Stacked them together in a small, neat pile.
‘Cause East, West — home’s best. That’s what they say, see?’
He nodded.
‘I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘But mustn’t grumble, eh, babe? Keep on smiling, right?’
‘Yeah, Joe. Sure.’
For she knows they’re losers, him and her. Just punters, really. The sort of kids who get screwed a lot. They’ve got it written on their foreheads: I am nothing, on this earth. They touch a diamond and it turns to dust, for as Henry would have put it, as the Fatman might have said, it’s their true and only destiny to live a shitty life.
She’s always known she’ll lose. It’s in her blood, inside her bones, this recognition that she’s something less, she’ll never bridge the gap, she’ll never reach the other side. And Joey-boy, her man of choice, is a poor, soft lad. Been born like that, and he’d stay like that. For he didn’t understand, it hadn’t yet impinged upon his throbbing Joey brain, that he’d been robbed before he’d even started, crushed before he had a chance. They’d stolen his life before it began, and all he could do was to pull on a mask, take out a cosh, and do his best to steal it back.
But Joey was devoid of rage. That was one of Joey’s troubles. Even when they kept him down, had their foot on his face and his face on the ground, he never hungered to finish them off, just wipe them out, just blow a neat, round hole in the back of their heads and slowly walk away.
