Twisted Agendas

by Damian McNicholl

  Danny’s knees trembled as he put the car into gear and began to move toward the side of the road.

  “You’ve made him furious,” he said through clenched teeth. “They can keep us here for hours.”

  “My father’s a New York cop. I don’t intimidate easily.”

  He succeeded in not making any kangaroo-like hops as he pulled to the ditch and killed the engine after parking. “Have you got your passport in case he insists?” Danny asked, only barely managing to conceal his irritation. A part of him couldn’t understand what the big deal was in showing her passport to the policeman.

  “I brought my Irish pass along.”

  “You’ve got an Irish one?”

  “Americans are allowed to hold two nowadays.” Piper looked out to where the officer was squatted, talking to a colleague seated inside one of the police cars. “That cop’s not allowed to ask for my identification unless he suspects me of committing a crime.” She began to fumble inside her bag. “We have to stand up for our rights. Show these people we know the law.”

  “Maybe that’s the case in America. In Northern Ireland, they can demand identification from anyone as well as search the car.”

  “Yeah, it’s real draconiann over there, ain’t it?” Piper took out a notebook and began to flick through it. “Blair’s trying to get a similar law passed over here, too.”

  His anger gave way to reluctant admiration. He looked over at the policeman. The sound of something tearing made him look back at Piper. She’d ripped out pages from her notebook and was calmly folding them while watching the chatting policemen.

  “Just taking precautions.” She stuffed the notes hurriedly inside her bra. “Should he decide to be an asshole and give us a hard time, it’d be better he doesn’t see these interview notes.”

  The officer returned, stooped and locked eyes with Piper as he handed Danny his driving license. “You can leave.”

  They arrived in Hammersmith at ten past two in the morning. Following Piper’s directions, he turned into a narrow street lit by overhead neon lamps that exposed the peeling paint façades of row houses. Two-foot wide front gardens and triple steps led up to their front doors. At the gables of the end houses on both sides of the street was a diagonal overhead railway bridge. Beyond this was a four-way stop and two zebra crossings and then the street grew wider. Finding no available parking spaces, she instructed him to drive across to the wider section of the street that had an antique shop on one corner and a shabby newsagent’s on the other.

  He parked between an old Jaguar and a Volkswagen Beetle with flower head motifs on its side that resembled sunflowers. The plangent blare of a siren started up. He looked into the wing mirror and saw a car with flashing blue lights coming toward him. Danny stopped in mid-reverse with the front third of his car sticking out into the road. The police car drew closer and closer until it pulled up alongside them. Piper’s face was white as alabaster against the vivid blue of the blinking lights. A policeman looked in but the car continued by, turned right at the intersection and disappeared.

  “Someone’s in trouble, huh?” Piper said.

  A crisp morning breeze cooled Danny’s inflamed face when he got out of the car. Not wishing Piper to know he’d been unnerved, he lifted his arms and yawned as he looked around. Though of the same architectural style as those on Piper’s section of the street, the façades of these row houses were impeccably maintained, their original, small windows replaced with larger modern ones.

  “This is a nice part of the street,” he said.

  “This section of Chumley Street was yuppified in the eighties apparently,” she said. “It was a solid working-class neighbourhood until the yuppies snapped up the properties dead cheap and hired a bunch of trendy architects.”

  “You don’t like what they’ve done?”

  “What gave me away?” She laughed. “Though I’ve gotta admit, I wish my landlord would paint the interior of my house. The wallpaper’s shit.”

  Piper’s house lay in the middle of the block. She hadn’t exaggerated about its interior. The seventies velvet-striped wallpaper in the hall was grimy and ceiling plaster bulged precariously in two places. She picked up the post off the floor and began sorting through it as he followed her into a small living room that smelled of cigarette smoke and stale alcohol. Two half-full mugs of cold tea and empty beer bottles were on the coffee table, beside a tin ashtray laden with cigarette butts. Three tabloids and a Sunday broadsheet were scattered on the floor and sofa.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she said. “I told Pat I’d be away until Friday but I decided to come back early. He’s usually quite tidy.”

  Danny folded the newspapers on the sofa and sat while Piper went into the kitchen to fetch iced water for them. Loose photographs were scattered on the coffee table, many of them smudged with fingerprints. He picked them up and flicked through them. All the shots were of bridges: Tower Bridge and another one he didn’t recognise. The most attractive photo was of a galleon with tiers of blazing white sails passing underneath the uplifted arms of Tower Bridge, but most were close-ups of the sides and underbelly of the unknown bridge that had enormous green piers and a pedestrian walkway..

  “Are you into photography?” he asked Piper, as she gave him a glass of water.

  Her eyes chinked. “Why do you ask?”

  He held up the photograph of the ship passing under Tower Bridge. “This one’s good.”

  Piper took the photo. She set her water on the table and beckoned him to give her the rest of the photographs.

  “I don’t know the other bridge,” said Danny.

  “It’s Hammersmith Bridge. It’s just a few blocks from here.” Piper tapped the photos on the surface of the table until their edges were aligned. “I’ll show you the room now.”

  When they reached the head of the stairs, Piper pointed to a closed door and told him it was Pat’s room. Three more stairs at right angles to the main staircase led to a short landing. “Bathroom’s in here… I mean toilet. Keep forgetting that.” She pulled on the drawstring to switch on the light. It was pretty, with gleaming white and green tiles and a surprisingly large shower. “Don’t flush the john real hard. The handle’s loose and the plumber hasn’t come yet.”

  Two more doors stood at right angles to one another. Telling him to go into the first room, she excused herself and went into the second. She returned moments later without the photographs.

  “Like I said, it’s small.”

  “It’ll do fine.”

  She nodded at the wardrobe and informed him he could remove some of its contents and put them into her bedroom to make space for his things. “Time I get some shuteye. I’ve got to go early to the library and catch up on a bunch of stuff I should have read ages ago.”

  “Running behind, are you?”

  “Wouldn’t be if they had enough copies of the books on the reading lists at the library.” She laughed scornfully. “You have to literally elbow students out of the way at Course Collection.”

  “That’s the way things are here. It was the same at my university.”

  “It’s a cultural thing. The Brits think Americans don’t understand irony, and we can’t understand why they line up so quietly for everything, even goddamned library books.”

  After fetching bed linen and a pillow and helping him shift a large cardboard box laden with books so he could set up the sofabed, Piper took her leave. Despite the metal rod in the bed’s middle that kept digging into his lower back and ribs every time he shifted on his side, tiredness won out and he fell asleep within half-an-hour. The sound of water gurgling through water pipes awoke him. He put out his hand, fumbled for the switch on a table lamp on the floor nearby and checked his watch. It was already late morning. His joints ached like he was in the preliminary stages of flu.

  He pulled himself up on the sofabed and looked around. The room was just a little bigger in dimension than his mother’s dressing room. On one side there were boxes and a stack of s
uitcases with airline tags secured on their handles. A bundle of wrinkled shirts and jeans lay on top of a wooden trunk, adjacent to an ironing board with a heavily scorched cover propped against the side of a single-sized wardrobe that had three more suitcases nested on its top. Behind his head, bookshelves ran the width of the room, extended up to the ceiling, and were laden with bric-a-brac, economics and law textbooks and novels.

  After showering, Danny went down to the kitchen where he discovered Piper had brewed real coffee. That was a pleasant surprise. Everyone he knew made the instant kind. She’d also left a key and a note stating where he’d find the cereal, cautioning there was only powdered milk and that, as she didn’t have to work at the pub that evening, she’d cook dinner for them. He slathered a brick of Weetabix with strawberry jam and ate it in the living room while peering out the front window at pedestrians. The London accent sounded as he’d heard on the television. He felt lucky. Only hours in the city and he already had the run of someone’s house. London was going to be very good to him.

  He fetched the rest of his luggage from the car and began to sort through his clothing, removing enough T-shirts to last him a couple of weeks. His suits, jackets, two pairs of chinos, dress shirts and an overcoat needed hanging. He tried to open the wardrobe but found it locked.

  Danny searched for the key, trying first in the drawers and then checking under the sofabed even though there was only a tiny gap between its frame and the nubby carpet. Next, he tried the bookcase, searching inside any ornaments where it might have been placed. He ran the tips of his fingers along the edge of the wardrobe’s top and then, fetching a chair, stood and searched the entire top of the wardrobe. Before climbing down, more as an afterthought, he stuck his hand between the tiered suitcases and found it sandwiched between the bottom and middle one.

  A curious acrid aroma filled his nostrils after he opened the wardrobe door. A black work boot dropped to the floor, a piece of caked mud resembling a miniature portcullis breaking away from the ruts in its sole. Sudden movement above caught his eye and he looked up just as a portion of a down duvet that had been crammed into the shelf slid to the floor.

  The wardrobe railing bulged with winter dresses and coats. He removed six dresses and an overcoat and took them to Piper’s room furnished with contemporary blonde wood Danish furniture. A replica of Edvard Munch’s The Scream hung on the wall. The edge of a narrow trapezium of sunlight streaming through the window sliced the photograph of a young boy clutching a cat to his chest on her bedside table, imparting a chiaroscuro effect on his neck and part of his face.

  A second purge of the wardrobe still didn’t create enough space for his clothes. As he was leaving his room a third time with a larger bundle of dresses, he heard a scraping sound followed by a dull thud. Something had fallen on the floor of the wardrobe. He set the dresses on his sofabed and went to investigate, expecting to find that the brass rack holding the garments had collapsed. Instead, the barrel of a gun pointed at his shins.

  A final stance

  Agnes Hartley sat on her rocker and gazed at the Queen Mother’s photograph hanging on the wall above the fireplace. Flanking its left side was a frame containing a signed sun-faded photograph of Margaret Thatcher. On the opposite side were two framed letters from the Queen Mother – one dating from the mid-seventies, the second from the early nineties – in which she thanked Agnes for various correspondence. Every shelf and wall in the living room was cluttered with photographs of Agnes’ family and members of the Royal family through the generations, as well as plates, spoons, ashtrays and other Royalty memorabilia. On a small table, partly pushed into an alcove that had a frayed Union Jack affixed to the wall, was a Royal Navy sailor’s hat. A collection of photographs were arranged around it. The photographs were of her late husband Charlie who’d died of a massive coronary nearly one year ago, including a photo of him with their son Keith as an infant on his shoulders, another of Agnes and him on their wedding day and a faded Polaroid of Charlie in gardener’s overalls holding a large striped marrow.

  Approaching footsteps alerted Agnes to the postman’s arrival. She waited for the thud of the post as it hit the floor, but instead the doorbell rang.

  “Mornin’Agnes,” the postman said. “This needs signing for.”

  She squinted and regarded the buff coloured envelope. “I’m not expecting anything needing my signature.”

  “Got your name on it, love.”

  She signed and took the registered letter into the living room. Her heart missed a beat when she opened it. Fingers trembling with excitement, she began to read:

  Sebastian Church & Co.

  London ♦ Rome ♦ Paris ♦ Berlin

  Discriminating Properties for Discriminating People

  Att: Mrs. Agnes Hartley

  40 Chumley St,

  London, W6

  Dear Mrs. Hartley,

  Re: Sale dated September 12, 2000 of 42 Chumley Street, London W6 by Edward Williamson to Miss Julia Ralston

  Clare Short of our Hammersmith branch recently forwarded your entire correspondence to her in connection with the above-referenced property sale. As you appear unwilling to accept her responses, she asked me to write in order to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

  As you are aware Mr. Williamson listed the property with this agency and I can assure you that it was sold to Miss Ralston in accordance with all pertinent legal requirements. You are misinformed in your belief our client’s ex-wife was also a lawful owner and, therefore, her signature was required. The issue of ownership of 42 Chumley Street was settled during their divorce proceedings, at which point Mr. Williamson became the sole legal owner.

  It is not this agency’s concern that relations between you and Mr. Williamson were strained or that he informed you immediately after the property’s transfer that he sold it to Miss Ralston at a price well below the last offer you made. Neither does it matter that the price they agreed on may have resulted from their having sexual relations, as you allege. Any prior oral promise by our client that he would sell the property to you has no legal validity. Transactions involving agreements to sell a house must always be in writing according to the law.

  Contrary to your position with regard to any alleged damage to the wall of your house and backyard fence caused when the seller was trimming shrubbery etc., I state most emphatically that this agency had no legal duty to stop or subsequently set aside the sale for such reasons. I suggest you contact Mr. Williamson’s solicitor should you wish to pursue legal remedies, though it is my understanding our client is now returned permanently to Australia. (It is also my understanding Mrs. Short furnished you with the full contact details of Mr. Williamson’s solicitor.)

  Finally, and once again contrary to your position, Mrs. Short is a licensed estate agent and enjoys an outstanding reputation in our industry. Moreover, she is a valuable employee whom I know personally. She is not required to present you with copies of her credentials or a list of legal actions or complaints against her or the Hammersmith branch of this company.

  Please be advised we do not wish to receive any further correspondence in relation to this sale, nor should you visit Mrs. Short at her place of business again. Our files are closed. Any further correspondence or contact from you will be immediately handed over to our solicitors with instructions to take action against you to the furthest extent of the law.

  Let your actions be governed accordingly,

  Sincerely,

  Sebastian Church

  Managing Director

  Agnes scrunched the letter tightly in her hand until it formed a ball, took it into the kitchen and tossed it into the bin.

  Too close, Madam

  It was bizarre to the point of comicality and Julia Ralston, as she watched through her front window, could not understand what her eccentric neighbour could be searching for near Julia’s car. She’d caught her acting this strangely twice before. The first time was two months ago, just minutes after Julia parked the J
aguar on the far side of the street across from her house. Realising she’d left her newspaper in the car, Julia had gone outside to fetch it and encountered Mrs. Hartley passing her hand alongside the back bumper of Julia’s vehicle before attempting to open one of the back doors. On the second occasion, Julia had been to the off-license to purchase wine for a party she was throwing and on her return came upon Mrs. Hartley, grey-white hair studded with pink curlers, emerging from Julia’s narrow strip of front yard. Julia kept her rubbish bin there prior to its collection and she was almost certain Mrs. Hartley had been rummaging through it. She asked her startled neighbour if she could render any assistance, but Mrs. Hartley recovered quickly and mumbled she’d been searching for her cat before walking back to her own house and slamming the door shut.

  Julia left the window, took a last pull of the joint and stubbed the spent roach into the half-filled ashtray as she looked about the living-cum-dining room. Jeans, jumpers, and two skirts lay strewn over the sofa and armchairs. A pair of tights flowed like stretched toffee from an upper branch of a tall fichus placed on one side of the French doors that opened onto a spacious garden. The garden itself was girded by five-foot brick walls on two sides, shrubbery and a stockade fence at the rear. CD cases including KD Lang’s Ingénue and magazines lay scattered on the carpet. Upon the dining room table was a phone and a platter containing a resealable plastic bag of marijuana, cigarette papers and a roller.

  Keeping the house constantly in order in case someone called from the advertisement she’d placed in the local paper was more challenging than she’d anticipated. At times of despondency like this, Julia wished her salary was larger and the mortgage payments more reasonable. She also regretted her rush to evict her prior tenant.

  Six months ago, she’d purchased 42 Chumley, a cozy terraced house on the well-maintained North section of the street. Spaniel Street bisected the North and South sections, at the junction of which was an elevated railway bridge that served the Piccadilly and District tube lines. It hadn’t been love at first glimpse when Julia, accompanied by her estate agent, drew up to the house on that cold October morning. She’d winced at the powder blue façade and instructed the woman to proceed to the next property, but the enthusiastic agent insisted she take a look. Once inside, Julia had been quietly pleased when she saw the house was tastefully renovated and made an appropriate offer for both it and the salvageable pieces of furniture. Within hours the seller’s agent rang her agent, and raised the specter of another bidder, thus setting in motion a blitz of counter-offers until the price was within a hair’s breath of beyond her means and Julia had had quite enough. She contacted the Australian owner, arranged a clandestine meeting with him and a contract was drawn up and executed next day.