I focused on the screen, my page advertising the Siegel & Shuster. There they stood proudly, typewriter under arm, pants over trouser. Christopher had been right. Not a single click of interest. And right about my email account too. There among the usual spammy drivel from facebook.com, three cheeky chancers – dealers no doubt – offering fivers in cash to take the photo off your hands.
“A lot of things about what?” Laura pressed.
“About …” I looked up at her. Her eyes widened. Or I was falling towards them. I didn’t know which. I did know, however, that I needed to tell someone about my meeting. Anyone. Get it out there, out of my head, off my chest, into the real world. J Peckard Scott, Christopher Laurie, Henry David, a brown envelope and how they were planning to put the con into ‘massive consultancy fee’.
“Hell, I’d do it,” Laura said, coffee cups drained, a long-story-shortened later. “Who wouldn’t? Mixing with grifters? Learning the tricks, all the switcheroos and double bluffs?”
“I don’t know,” I said, knees loose. “I … I don’t know. They said I’d be doing nothing technically illegal. But …”
“You’d be ripping-off this comic buff, whoever he is.”
“Well, helping Chris and Henry rip him off. Y’know. Technically.”
I could feel myself slipping, my insides writhing like angry snakes. A hundred grand. A hundred grand. Just for helping. Maybe I wouldn’t even have to be there? And maybe he did deserve it, whoever he was? Maybe he deserved it more than I deserved to let bad plumbing take my family and livelihood? Take my life?
Christ.
I gave myself a shake and moved out of the office, into the dull glare of the empty shop, over to the basement archway. The thick dead stench of damp and waste clung about the wooden steps, about the peeling walls.
“What does your wife think about all this?” Laura asked. “The solicitors? Going under?”
A guilty pain leaned on my kidneys.
“I haven’t told her,” I said.
“You haven’t – ?”
“No. Not … Not yet. Not everything. She knows there was a leak. But the rest? She doesn’t …” I chewed my lip angrily. “She doesn’t need the worry.”
“You’re coming home with solicitors’ threats, stinking of rotten cardboard. And you haven’t –”
“I promised,” I said. I swallowed hard. I thought about my wife. Her father. “When Jane fell pregnant. I promised I would take care of them. Both.” I shut the basement door, fat, swollen wood sticking, bulging in the frame. “Y’know I’m the only person she’s ever met that hasn’t cared about her title. Who wanted to talk to her about her interests. Who didn’t think dressing as Wonder Woman and playing Lois Lane at primary school wasn’t unsuitable for someone with her heritage. She loves me for that. And I love her because she doesn’t care who she is. She likes a summer blockbuster, popcorn, can name everyone who’s ever drawn Judge Dredd and doesn’t mind who knows it. She’s … I love her.”
The shop fell quiet. I let my eyes drag around it. For the last time? It seemed that way.
“Do you think you’ll be able to keep your flat? I mean, legal fees? They can really …”
The pain in my side leaned a little harder.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s time you told your wife. In case?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I’ve got a few …” I sighed. “Not yet.”
Laura was pulling on her coat.
“And you’re sure she hasn’t figured it out?”
“Jane? Never,” I said. “I’ve been careful.”
“Hey there,” I hollered a few hours later. I had nursed a lonely pint in the pub near work for a while, scoring numbers onto napkins with a chewed biro but it was no good. I had to get home to my family. Thumping through the door, I wrinkled at the perfume that still clung about the thin walls of the flat, twisted with baby poo and warm milk. “Hello-oo?”
No answer.
“J?” I said, climbing the stairs.
Nothing.
There is a sixth sense thing. A shiver. An uneasy vibration of atmosphere that tells one somehow when something isn’t right.
Regretfully it turns out, I don’t have it.
Which is why I slapped a chirpy grin on my mush, dropped my satchel to the hall floor next to the pushchair and Jane’s overnight bag and wandered into the lounge. Jane sat on the tatty couch watching television. Lana was on her lap dozing.
Overnight bag?
“Hey sweetheart,” I said, leaning in for the kiss. Jane didn’t reciprocate. Didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Hovering an inch from her awkwardly, I slowly retracted again. This wasn’t right. I looked over at the television. It was awfully dark. Awfully dark and awfully quiet and awfully off. Off, as in not on. In fact, not on, in the same way going through all my box files and digging out all the secret paperwork and laying it all on the carpet in a huge incriminating fan is not on.
Overnight bag.
Shit.
“Were you going to tell me?” Jane said. The cat, clearly hogging all the sixth sense, squeezed out from beneath the couch and darted into the hall for cover.
“What?” I said, my voice squeakily high. The wrong thing to say. “What have you –”
“Found out?” Her voice was firm. Level. Practised. She’d had this conversation already without me. Jane cradled Lana gently, laying her on a blanket next to her and got up.
“Look, Jane, look –”
“Look at what? Hn? Look at what?” she said. Not shouting, exactly. But not happy.
Oh God. Oh God she knows. She knows. Oh God. Keep calm. Calm.
Shit.
“Take … take it easy, it’s not as bad –”
“Look at what? All the solicitors’ letters you’ve been hiding? Look at the bank statements you’ve stuffed at the bottom of your files? Final demands from plumbers? Drain clearers? Skip hire?”
“Jane …”
“Dad phoned. Said his financial chap would be able to put together some portfolios before we scheduled the meeting.”
“Jane –”
“But he’d need some idea of our status. So he asked me to look up some figures. The savings, the shop …”
Daddy knew. Daddy knew. Oh Christ.
“Did … did you tell him … ?”
“About what? About WHAT?! Where would I fucking start ?!” she yelled suddenly, writhing, fists clenched. “The two missed mortgage payments?! Is that right? How have we missed two payments?! Where’s the money?!”
“I was going to –”
“They’ll take the flat, Neil!”
“They won’t take the flat.”
“They’ll take the flat! That’s what happens! You don’t pay? They take the flat!” She scooped Lana up, cradling her, protecting her in her shoulders. Crouching unsteadily, she rootled through the carpet of paperwork. Through letters I’d thought I’d hidden. Letters I had hidden. God knows how she’d found them.
“Who the fuck are Rod-o-Matic? Is this right? Three thousand pounds you’ve paid them?” She stood, brandishing an invoice. “A little leak you said?”
“I said –”
“You said,” and her eyes blazed, “a little leak. You stood by my hospital bed. Six weeks ago. In the maternity ward. I asked you and you said a ‘little’ leak.”
“I … I didn’t. I was …”
“And THIS?!” she screamed, moving to the mantelpiece, snatching up a letter. My Siegel & Shuster photograph and a ceramic Lex Luthor were sent tumbling.
“Easy –”
“What the fuck is THIS?!”
From my spot by the door I recognised the letterhead. Boatman, Beevers and Boatman.
“Thirty-six thousand pounds?!” she yelled, waving the heavy legal stationery at me. “Why do we owe this Maurice man thirty-six thousand pounds?!”
“It’s all right,” I said, moving towards the mantelpiece for repairs, stomach tumbling. “I-I mean I’m sorting something out …”
The photo was okay, a little bent at the –
“Leave that. Leave it! Who is he? What have you done?”
Lana began to hiccup and wake in her arms.
“Earl’s Court,” I whispered. “We were splitting the cost. Shhhhh”
“Don’t shush me!”
“Lana –”
“Tell me!”
“Maurice … shit. Maurice brought me all his gear. Boxes. For the fair. I didn’t know what was in them. I stored them in the shop cellar. You were in hospital. Then … I don’t know, a pipe burst …”
“Oh! So it’s a burst now? What happened to leak?” Jane began to vibrate. Almost imperceptibly. Hands, teeth. Eyes wide and white. Lana gurgled, shifting in her arms.
“I thought … I thought I’d sorted it. But …”
“But?”
“Overnight. I don’t know what happened. Frost or something?” I suggested feebly.
“What happened?”
“I-I was going to tell you –”
“Neil!” she bellowed. Lana began her keening siren, little fists tight.
“I didn’t … You weren’t in a state to –”
“Oh so it’s my fault!”
“No! –”
“You idiot. Idiot!” and she pushed past me with a sharp elbow, storming down the hall. I scuttled after her, hands in my hair.
“I came in one morning and it was everywhere. The pipe was spraying this black … The boxes, all over the shelves. Maurice’s stock, everything I was storing. Pulped. Beyond salvaging. I lost half my stuff as well,” I pleaded. As if this made it all right somehow.
“What about the insurance?”
“Well usually, but Maurice’s stuff. Extra coverage, I …”
“You said you’d sent a cheque,” Jane said. She was standing by the worktop in our freezing kitchen, shushing Lana’s tears, jigging her in her arms. “When that letter first came and I asked you. You said not to worry. Said you’d sent a cheque to the insurance. Neil?”
“I know. I know. I was meant to. I guess –”
“Meant to? Great. Grrreat.”
I looked at her beautiful face, torn, twisted and bent with rage. I was empty. Spent. I had nothing to give.
“So how are you going to pay it?” she said flatly.
Not we, you notice.
“C’mon? How? Where are you going to get the mortgage money and thirty-six –” She was pale. Trembling. I was going to get a smack in the face or tears. I was bracing myself hopefully for a smack in the face. “Tell me!”
I opened my mouth and a little croak came out. I was breaking her heart and all I could offer her were frog noises.
“God! This, this is why you were looking at that stupid price book isn’t it,” she blazed. “That night? Seeing if you could bail yourself out. Isn’t it? With Dad’s present. Sell it. Isn’t it? Tell me. Tell me!” Jane shrieked, eyes glistening. The plush, embroidered, imported rug I had built her life upon had been tugged, with one sharp yank and her life was falling about around her.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I lied, moving gingerly forward.
“It’s not all right!”
I tried to hold them, but she turned her shoulder, writhing with rage. I stepped back, arms loose and shruggy, able only to watch as Jane strode out of the kitchen. I stood breathing deep, kicked in the gut, alone in the kitchen among the £2 car-boot kettle and the £25 ‘o.n.o.’ washing machine. I could hear Jane putting Lana to bed in the nursery next door, cheap blinds clattering, drawers slamming.
Deep breath. I moved out into the hall where I met Jane emerging, eyes red and raw.
“It’s all right,” I said. All I could say.
“How?” she said. Quietly, steadying herself on the banister. “How is it all right?”
“They’re old letters. I’ve sorted it out. Please, trust me. Let me explain, it’s okay shhhhhh, it’s okay …” and I folded myself around her shaking body. “It’s all going to be okay …”
Lies.
Of course lies.
But she was crying. Crying. I’ve never learned what to do with tears. I didn’t have teenage summers full of making-out and breaking up. I had teenage summers full of visiting my dad and watching Batman, Backdraft and Beetlejuice. I can’t deal with tears. Shouting and fighting I can cope with. I had a million comic-book pages full of instructions. But tears? There’s no response. What do you do with tears but hug and lie? Whatever words will stem the flow. Verbal duck-tape – easy, it’s okay, don’t worry, trust me.
They say you should never trust a man who says trust me, I know. But what else could I give her?
The truth? Ha.
Jane didn’t want the truth. I mean, people don’t, do they? Oh they think they do. They tell themselves they do. But they don’t. Jane didn’t. She wanted to hear that everything was going to be all right. That her husband hadn’t lied when he had promised to take care of her. That her father had been wrong when he’d said I was a scruffy waster. That I’d spoken to the insurance people.
That they would cover the damage. Valued customer, twenty-eight-day-flood cover, emergency call-out, blah-blah-blah. That was my role for the next few hours. To be the man she thought she’d married. The man I’d promised to be. Strong and soothing, using lies like Bonjela, cooling the ulcer of her anxiety. There there, easy now, don’t worry.
I guess Jane must have bought it. It calmed her down, anyway.
I made tea. Cleared up the paperwork. Rubbed her feet, made soothy noises. While all the time of course, through all the lies, I was –
Well. Shitting my pants, obviously.
“You … you should write to them.”
“Write … ?”
“To everyone,” Jane sniffed, looking for a dry corner of her kitchen towel. “The solicitors, the bank, the skip-people. Let them know the situation’s taken care of. That they’ll get their money. Five working days, is it, this emergency cover?”
“Hn? Oh. Oh yes. Yes. I-I will,” I said, absently enough so I could claim to not remember.
Jane was curled in the chair, cushion hugged tight on her lap, feet tucked beneath her. The television (one owner, £25 o.n.o.) burbled the Channel 4 news. I was at the mantelpiece, surveying the damage. Lex Luthor had a little paint missing from his elbow and there was a white crease running across Joe Shuster’s shoe, but it didn’t seem to have worried him. He still stood, hands on hips, feet apart. Proud, strong, invincible. Pretty damned confident for a man in a trilby hat with his underpants over his suit.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I know,” I said softly, swallowing the guilt, keeping it low. “I know, but we had a deal. You’ve got enough on your plate with the little one. It’s about time for her feed, isn’t it?”
“Just about. We should … what’s that? Is that new?”
Jane was staring at my tacky wristwatch. I waggled it and laughed and made some comment about a customer giving it to me. Chunky. Fake. Ha-ha, anything in the freezer?
Fortunately for me at this point, we were interrupted by a toot-toot from the street and a buzz on the intercom. Jane and I exchanged shrugs. Sniffing and wiping, Jane moved to the intercom in the hall. I went to the window.
A dull green Bedford van was at the kerb among the remains of Laura’s broken glass. First thoughts were another robbery. Same characters targeting the same street. But the bonnet was up, back doors open and a fluorescent Halfords repair kit was visible on the pavement. A figure sat in the passenger seat. An awfully formal car-jacking if it was one.
Jane wandered back in.
“A guy just needs some water for his radiator or something. Do you want to take him down a jug? I’ll see what we’ve got for tea.”
“Evenin’ mate,” Henry said from the doorstep, his Antipodean smile failing to reflect my rather British panic. Despite the chill, Henry was in a bright surf-wear T-shirt and denim jeans cut off at his calves. “Thanks for that,” and he took the jug and shuffled down
the steps in his flip-flops to the van.
“What … ? Wh-what the hell do you want? How did you get this address?” I hissed, jumpy, pulling the door to and following him onto the cold street. Under a black October sky, early Hallowe’en fireworks whizzed and whistled, bursting and banging brightly. “What are you doing here? Jesus …” I shivered, throwing anxious looks up at the soft light in the window above me. The television was flickering.
“Forgive the interruption old fruit,” Christopher said, pumping down the passenger window, letting a sweet plume of pipe smoke escape into the night. He sat, comfy in a dark tweed jacket and striped club tie. “Knocking up the ole homestead and such. But my grandfather’s clock, while too tall for the shelf and standing ninety years on the tufted Wilton, is whizzing around like a gumshoe’s desk fan.”
“Gumshoe? What do you want?”
“Tick tock tick tock,” his pipe bobbed. “What’s it to be?”
My heart slammed hard, fingers cold against the edge of the van door.
“Consider the lilies of the field, Neil,” Christopher said, sucking on his pipe. “They do not sow or reap.”
“Yes, yes and they don’t rip each other off at three-card monte either. What’s your point?” I could feel panic spreading about my chest. My throat was closing, fat and tight.
“My point Neil, as I suspect you are aware, is that this planet of ours, this island earth, is divided into the strong and the weak. The hunters and the hunted. The circle of life, as Elton John revoltingly put it. Every mouse knows it is food for cats, every antelope that it is food for lions. Nature has designed us to freely exploit one another for our own good. It’s her plan.”
I jumped at the loud splash beside me. Henry poured the water into the kerbside drain.
Christopher was still talking.
“Now in the savannah, in the forest, these roles are irreversible. Antelopes cannot choose to be the hunters. Creatures are born into their roles and they do their best to survive. In our species, however,” and Christopher’s eyes flashed, “the playing field is more or less level. We can choose to be lions or we can choose to be antelopes. Everyone makes that decision for themselves. Now, you think that in a world thick with lions, those who choose to be antelopes are, what? Saints? Salts of the earth?”
Conman Page 8
