Million Pound Appointments

by Higgins, Malcolm

  "She sounds like the fucking Queen." His aliment announces to all the other travel-weary commuters in the carriage.

  "To the end of the landscape where the sun's going down, how far do you think that is?"

  "Many many hundreds of kilometres." She answers.

  "What's that in English?"

  "I'm speaking English."

  "No No. Miles. I'm in my fifties. I don't do kilometres."

  "Many many."

  "Yeah… that's what I thought."

  He watches the sun turn the 'many many' of miles red, orange, purple, plum, and he's loving it. He turns to the old Indian woman.

  "You're not going to jump off the train as well are you?"

  "No." She half laughs.

  "Thank fuck for that." His syndrome sighs.

  The old woman's waning embers get a fresh gulp of air across them; she quite likes the swearing, she's not used to someone treating her as one of the lads; trouble is, if Larry knew he'd swore in front of her he'd be horrified. She looks at Larry.

  "You are going the wrong way young man." She says.

  He heard her but he can't stop thinking he'd love to hear her say, 'My husband and I' He then becomes conscious of her comment. "Sorry, what was that?" He asks.

  "You are going the wrong way." She repeats.

  "How d'you mean?"

  "You are here to find someone."

  "Yeah a boy. Well actually he's a man now… hang on, how do you know that?"

  "I know."

  Larry waits for her to flesh that out a little bit, put a bit of meat on those 'I' and 'Know' bones, but instead she stands up.

  "Please don't jump. I'll have a bloody heart attack if you do." The train starts to slow down. A terrible metal on metal sound fills the carriages "Bloody hell is that the brakes? Or should I say, what's left of them." Asks Larry.

  The train stops and instantly the carriage fills with humid heat. All the time the train was moving the air rushing through the glassless windows kept it cool.

  "We get off here." The old woman says to Larry.

  "We? I'm not getting off I'm going to a place called Vapi."

  "No. Cross the track and go the other way. Go to Tarda."

  "Go where?" Says a confused Larry.

  "You will find what you're looking for in Tarda. I overheard the policemen who put you on the train. They know of the boy you are looking for. The policemen were laughing at you. They have sent you the wrong way."

  "The wrong way? But why would they do that?"

  "You are English. Not all English people are liked here."

  As he begins to play back his time at the police station, two young teenage boys run up to the carriage and help the old woman down from the train. The three of them walk away. Larry is still playing back his police station ordeal in his mind asking… Would the policemen play a trick on me like that? The train starts to move. They did steal my mobile phone, my watch, jewellery, clothes, and most of Ken's money. He grabs his carrier bag. "Of course they fucking would the bastards." He says aloud and jumps off the train. He shouts over to the old woman who is being helped onto the back of a motorbike by the two teenage boys.

  "Where do I have to go?"

  She doesn't hear him. One of the boys jumps on the handlebars and the other one kick-starts the engine and all three of them wobble out of Larry's life forever. He can just see the back of the old woman through a smoke cloud being created by the worn out motorcycle engine. He heaves a huge sigh and then something dawns on him.

  "Why the hell didn't you tell me that sixteen hours ago?" He shouts at the old woman. It takes a full two minutes for the whole train to pass Larry. He blows and notices the heat in the air moves when he does so, much like when you see your breath in front of you when you breathe out on a cold frosty morning.

  "Well I'll be fucked, will you look at that." He says to himself.

  He starts to move his hands slowly up and down watching the humidity in the air ripple as he does so. A four year old Indian beggar boy selling polished stones sits down behind Larry and watches him as he tries to write his name in the air. By the time he writes the 'A' in Larry the 'L' has liquefied and disappeared. Larry tries faster and faster but only ever reaches the first 'R' before the 'L' and the 'A' melt away. He tries this for almost fifteen minutes by which time Rashi the little boy, has spat on and rubbed a dull pebble with his almost worn out piece of sandpaper, more than three hundred times and is ready to sell it to anyone with a different skin colour to his own. Larry gives up and is startled by Rashi jumping from his crossed legged position and holding out his latest shiny stone, shiny because it's wet from his saliva.

  "Shouldn't you be in school or something?"

  Rashi puts his fingers to his mouth and then rubs his tummy; he's hungry. Larry sighs, he wants to help the lad but he's seen Slumdog Millionaire and thinks wrongly in this case, that some unscrupulous Indian Fagan type will only take away anything he gives the beggar boy. Had Rashi not stole what little money Larry had in his back pocket whilst he was flapping his arms around like a lunatic, the poor lad would have remained hungry until the next train came through; and that's not for another three days.

  Jane is trying to relax in the garden but not having much success. Even though the windows are closed and she's more than twenty-five yards away, she can still hear Ken screaming at his phone inside the house. Something he's been doing since they got up. An hour ago.

  "Connect for fuck sake. Connect. It's India, not the fucking moon, India. Connect connect."

  The book Jane is struggling to read is 'My Word Is My Bond' Sir Roger Moore's autobiography. She slams it shut and looks over to the house at Ken pacing up and down dialling repeatedly.

  "Connect, connect." He screams.

  "Oh sod this for a laugh." She says throwing the book onto her seat as she marches towards the house.

  When she gets there she swings open the door and shouts.

  "Half an hour I've been out there, thirty pointless minutes. I've read one page one bloody page. Do you hear that Ken? One. Any chance you can take yourself and your screaming down in the cellar please?"

  "It won't connect." He says not realising just how annoyed Jane is at the moment. "Do you remember when I sent him to Turkey and he forgot to take his phone charger, I bet he's done that again, I bet he has. I'm going to shove it right up his arse when he gets back, he won't leave it behind anymore."

  "Are you even listening to me?" Jane shouts.

  Of course he's not listening to her, he wants to hear from Larry and doesn't have the ears for anyone else until he does.

  "He's been gone for nearly two weeks now. I knew I should have gone myself."

  Jane laughs contemptuously at him. If there's something to be done, and Ken can get it done, he will. Ken doesn't 'do'

  "You? Don't make me laugh Kenny Webster." She says derisively.

  The speakerphone rings.

  "What's that meant to mean?" He asks as he casually presses the answer button.

  "Ken? Is that you?" Comes out of the speaker phone, but Ken is still annoyed with the 'you' comment to pay it any mind.

  "What so I'm not capable of going to India now is that what you're saying?" He asks.

  "Ken, its Larry are you there?"

  Ken's body reacts in the same way it would had he been hit on the back of the neck with a cricket bat wielding Kevin Peterson.

  "Happy now?" Jane shouts and promptly leaves the room.

  "Where the hell have you been? Ken shouts at the phone. "Two weeks you've been out there, two weeks you've made me wait around. Haven't they got fucking phones out there or something? Only I recall telling you to call me every day didn't I?"

  "I couldn't Ken I was locked up for four days; beat the fuck out of me they did the bastards. Yeah they've got phones but they're rubbish. I got through to a screaming German woman the other night or at least I think she was German, might have been Russian or Polish or something like that and yet I know, I just know, I dia
lled your number. Everyone complains about it, you'd hate it out there. Flies? I'm not kidding Ken, I must have eaten hundreds of the fuckers, they fly straight into your gob they don't seem to care."

  Ken hollers into the phone.

  "Have you found him or what?"

  Ken jumps across the other side of the room as the Sir Roger Moore autobiography smashes through the window showering him with glass.

  "Yeah I found him; we've been back for hours we're just waiting for…"

  Another cricket bat to the back of his neck.

  "You're back?" He shouts as he walks back to the phone removing glass fragments from his hair. "Jesus wept man, tell me that at the beginning of the call instead of banging on about fucking flies and screaming Germans."

  "It was an absolute nightmare Ken. Your gay Gavin was so bang on the money; do you know it's so hot out there you can actually write your name in the air?"

  The 'Your gay Gavin' comment registers with Ken and as much as he would like to explain to Larry as he did to Jane that heterosexual Gavin and Guy are simply milking the system, and not each other; he lets it go. All he wants to know is, will the little boy in the forty year old DVD be darkening his doorstep anytime soon…

  Ken is slowly catching up with this conversation.

  "Hang on; you were locked up for four days?"

  "Oh god." He says with real unease in his voice. "Don't remind me Ken. If you don't give them the answers they want, they smack you across the knees with a rubber pipe because it doesn't leave a bruise. Yeah? Well tell that to my black and blue knees. And can you believe this Ken. They actually pinched the skin on my back with pliers, fucking pliers, man that hurts…" Larry stops; he's obviously remembering his ordeal. Ken looks at the silent speaker phone and raises his hands with a look on his face that says 'Where is he?' but neither Larry or his syndrome answer.

  "Larry. You still there?"

  Larry snaps out of his flashback.

  "Yeah I'm still here Ken. Anyway once customs have cleared his brother, we'll be on our way."

  One, two, three, four, five, six; that's how many seconds it took for Ken to digest the 'once customs have cleared his brother' comment.

  "His what?"

  "Oh Ken that bleeping sound is the money running out." He says hurriedly.

  And with that, the dialling tone fills the air. Ken closes his eyes and sighs. After a few seconds he opens them again and looks at the broken windowpane and the glass fragments on the carpet.

  "Oi." He shouts over to Jane. "You could have had my fucking eye out then."

  Chapter 2.

  Doreen, Tommy Rae's light-fingered domestic, is waiting outside Tommy Rae's bathroom; a bathroom that she's stolen endless aftershaves, soaps, bath oils, and towels from over the four years she's worked for him; they make nice birthday and Christmas presents is how she sees it, and he can afford it anyway. So in her mind, it's not stealing at all. Twice a week on a Monday and a Thursday, Tommy Rae has an early morning shave. Most men need to shave every day, some individuals, Neanderthals, twice a day. Tommy Rae? Twice a week. Hair grows quicker on a bowling ball than it does on Tommy Rae's chin. Tommy Rae loves the sound of a violin, especially when he's having a shave, and Doreen's moody little son Mickey, just happens to be able to play the violin.

  "Just relax." Says Doreen using a licked thumb to straighten one of Mickey's eyebrows.

  "Relax? He's a nonce; he put his hand on my arse last week."

  Doreen grits her teeth.

  "Do you think I like scrubbing his effing floors? Do you? Only I don't. And no he didn't."

  "Well I bet if I said he could, he would." Huffs Mickey.

  "Will you be quiet, he might hear you."

  "I don't care if he does, he don't frighten me."

  She lifts up the violin in Mickey's hand.

  "As long as he keeps replacing the ones that get stolen off you."

  "That you sell on Ebay you mean." He says loudly.

  "Shhh you little sod, do you want him to hear you?"

  Once a month, with crocodile tears in her eyes, Doreen breaks the news to Mr. Rae that his next shave will have to be unaccompanied due to the 'bigger boys' at the school stamping on Mickey's violin on the way home. When what's really happened is, she's made a quick five hundred pounds, selling a two thousand pounds violin. She could easily get more but she wants a quick sale, on Ebay, off Ebay, job done. The bathroom door opens and Daz gives Doreen a disingenuous smile and ushers them both in. Mickey huffs as only an eleven year old can huff. Tommy Rae is seated in a professional red leather barber's chair. Eyes closed.

  "Come in son. Play that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I like that one."

  Mickey pushes his bottom lip out with his tongue; Doreen threatens a smack across the head. With no enthusiasm at all, Mickey starts to play. He only really likes playing along with his classical CD's on his own, locked in his bedroom. When Mickey was just three years old, a distant Irish cousin at a funeral let him play with his fiddle, and to everybody's amazement he had natural born talent. None of Doreen's family know where that talent comes from, and they don't really care now that the bedroom has been soundproofed. Using a fine hair shaving brush, Daz starts to artistically apply shaving cream to Tommy Rae's neck and chin.

  "What can beat a peaceful shave?" A contented Tommy Rae says smilingly. Everybody in the room knows it's a rhetorical question and requires no answer; after all, they hear it twice a week, every week.

  "Shall I tell you? Fuck all." Says Tommy Rae.

  Using a cut throat razor, Daz begins to shave a totally composed stress-free Tommy Rae. Daz watches the silver razor in his hand cut off the wispy-weak-wannabe-whiskers.

  "Do you know what?" Says Daz. "I've never slit a throat before."

  Tommy Rae's eyes snap open, and although his head is already resting up against the back of the chair, he still manages to remove his neck from the razor.

  "Yeah? Well let's keep it that way shall we Daz?"

  Daz laughs out loud. Doreen does too. Daz shoots her a look. She stops laughing. Daz doesn't like Doreen; he knows she steals from Tommy Rae who also happens to know. There's a camera behind the bathroom mirror, in fact, there are secret cameras in every room. Some look like pens on a shelf, flowers in a vase, and if you look very closely at the right eye of the portrait of Princess Diana, you'll be looking straight into one. To Tommy Rae Doreen's kleptomania is just a mild irritant. All the time young Mickey agrees to play his violin on shave days, Daz has been told he mustn't ask Doreen to pick a number between one and ten. When that day does come though, she may well pick number seven, or number three, or god forbid ten, and it isn't until that point, when he's pushing seven, or three, or god forbid ten, of her fingers backwards until they break, that he'll tell her why he's pushing seven, or three, or god forbid ten, of her fingers backwards until they break. He used to ask them to pick a number between one and twenty, but a particular sweaty pair of feet put an end to all that. He pushes Tommy Rae's head back and begins to shave around his neck again.

  "Weird though don't you think? I've kneecapped people. Cut fingertips off…"

  Tommy Rae takes hold of Daz's hand again, and gives the slightest of nods over towards Mickey.

  "I'm sure that's not right Daz."

  Doreen suddenly becomes aware Tommy Rae is referring to Mickey's violin playing, and she threatens Mickey with another smack around the head.

  "Is it meant to be that fast son?" Tommy Rae asks.

  Mickey slowly stops playing.

  "Yeah of course it fucking is."

  This kid could strop for England.

  "Umm… you sure? It wasn't that fast last time was it?"

  "It's the right fucking tempo, nonce." He huffs.

  Doreen takes a sharp intake of breath. She was worried Mr. Rae might have heard him in the hallway earlier, but now she's really worried; the little bugger has just called him it to his face. It's not the fact Tommy Rae may tell Daz to throw Mickey out of the unopened window tha
t she's worried about, no, it's the twenty-five pounds twice a week he pays on top of her cleaning money that she's more concerned about. After all, Mickey's young; he'll probably just bounce anyway. Her puckered brow lines quickly melt away as Tommy Rae begins to laugh. She's up for a nervous laugh herself, but fears Daz might shoot her a look, which isn't dissimilar to being punched in the kidneys. So she stays stony faced.

  "He's a spunky little mite, reminds me of me." Says Tommy Rae.

  Doreen sighs with relief. With the wave of Tommy Rae's hand, Mickey begins to play again, only this time with even less enthusiasm than no enthusiasm at all. Tommy Rae settles back into the chair and Daz refreshes the foam around his chin, paying far too much attention to the neck. Daz can read Tommy Rae like a book and vice versa, and he knows there's still something wrong. Tommy Rae sighs, opens his eyes, and with the slightest of nods Daz reads that Tommy Rae wants him to sort out the little speed problem. He stops shaving Tommy Rae and walks over to Mickey.

  "Oi sour chops, slow it down a bit." He snarls at him.

  "Fuck off monkey face, what do you know about it anyway, you're as thick as shit and twice as smelly."

  Doreen is mentally waving that extra fifty pounds a week goodbye, but she's not giving up without a fight and clips Mickey around the head three times, then looks at Daz to see if it's had the desired effect.

  "Right that's it." Shouts Mickey. "I'm calling Childline again, and this time I'm fucking going with em."

  Doreen delivers a fourth quick clip, and sits down hoping she's done enough to call off Daz. She hasn't.

  "How old are you, you little punk?" He asks Mickey.

  Doreen is sure the temperature in the room just dropped.

  "Eleven. Monkey face. Why why come on why, can't you speak monkey man, can't ya, can't ya?"

  Daz grabs Mickey by the throat and lifts him three foot into the air pinning him high up against the wall, and all this is done with no more effort than it would take you or me to do the same with a rag doll. Doreen removes the violin from Mickey's hand; it'd be a pity to waste five hundred pounds, and sits down and shows it to Tommy Rae, and with the slightest of facial expressions, reassures him that she'll take great care of it while Mickey is being reprimanded for his impudence. Mickey is turning a funny colour, best described as powder-blue; and for some reason he's thinking about school, and how lucky he is that Daz isn't one of his teachers. Daz glares at Doreen.