Subpoena Colada

by Mark Dawson

  Now I’m on my own, I can’t keep up the payments.

  The bank and the utilities have sent me several letters in increasingly menacing shades of red. I should probably sell up and move out, but that’s a Rubicon I can’t cross yet; the unconscious sentiment remains that, if I stay put, Hannah will eventually return.

  As I stagger around outside fumbling for my key, there comes the familiar boom of a night train as it thunders over the bridge. There are two bridges here, one on either side of the flat: one for the high-speed locomotives rushing people and freight in from the east, and another carrying the more sedate light railway running down to the Isle of Dogs. Opposite is the depot for the buses serving this part of town. Between the three of them, the night is divided into small parcels of calm amid the rumbling and clattering of engines and wheels. And when the buses reverse down the ramp into their parking slots, the angle of their descent sweeps headlights across my bedroom ceiling, criss-crossing like searchlights seeking out escaped convicts - or absent girlfriends.

  Hannah’s cat, Nelson, is waiting for me inside the door. Hannah rescued him from the Cat Protection League after he was found half-dead in a box. His previous owners had mistreated him; cigarettes ground out on his fur, besides kicks and more prosaic abuse. He had broken ribs and needed to have an infected eye removed. The empty socket has been stitched shut, hence his new name.

  Nelson is a serial victim: Hannah left him behind with me when she bailed.

  Nelson rubs up against my legs. Does he know how much we have in common? Deserted, both of us. I pick him up and take him into the kitchen. His bowl has been licked clean. I open a tin of tuna and scoop it out. He kneads my calf with his forepaws until I put his bowl down. I change his water and his litter tray and leave him to it.

  GIRLFRIEND BAIT

  Nothing on the answerphone. You live in hope. The telephone always seemed to be ringing before.

  Into the lounge. For a short moment I think I’ve been robbed. But then I realize this is all my own doing: no self-respecting burglar would be as untidy as this. The room is in a real state: pizza boxes with bits of pepperoni stuck to the cardboard like fungi; Indian and Chinese takeout boxes coated with dried curry and noodles, soy sauce and ginger; bottles and cans; newspapers. A mug on the coffee table has a white web of mould coagulating in the bottom.

  Stacked next to the wall are three cardboard boxes fastened with tape. These are full of Hannah’s things. She took most of her stuff with her when she left, one afternoon while I was at work. The stuff she couldn’t carry - her books, a few ornaments, some videos - I tearfully packed when I realized she wasn’t coming back. She still hasn’t collected them but I’ve left them just in case, like a small child leaves a glass of milk and a mince pie for Santa. A reason for her to return.

  Perhaps I could bargain with her for them. A proper explanation in exchange for her cuddly toys? A reconciliation if she ever wants to see her signed copy of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin again?

  On the table, a stack of videos has been extracted from my far too-large collection. I’ve been collecting movies for years and it was my love of cinema that fed my media law itch. Now I’ve got hundreds: one whole wall of the flat is devoted to floor-to-ceiling shelving I had fitted especially. I’ve been sorting through the tapes, distilling a selection to match my mood:

  Brief Encounter.

  An Affair to Remember.

  Fatal Attraction,

  God, I’m sad.

  WE HATE IT WHEN OUR FRIENDS BECOME FAMOUS

  I clear a space on the sofa and rewind the tape in the video I set to record earlier. Nelson struts into the lounge and watches me with disdainful pity while he licks his lips.

  The soap Hannah appears in - Skin Trade - airs on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. I know this because I’m an avid viewer.

  The show is set in the world of high fashion. Hannah plays Ella, a catwalk model with a closet full of shocking skeletons. Her storyline at the moment involves the return of the fiancé - played, inexplicably, by Dempsey from Dempsey and Makepeace - she jilted at the altar at the end of the last series. Now Dempsey’s stalking her and her new man, Jake Cocozzo (played by C-list American model/actor Vincent Haines). Dempsey wants payback and this irony isn’t lost on me, either. I’m always rooting for the bad guy. I cheer his every psychotic turn for the worse. Wednesday’s episode saw him running his finger along the edge of a bread knife; he was at the end of his rope. Tonight, I’m hoping for blood.

  VICARIOUS THRILLS

  Settling back into the sofa I let the video roll. The familiar title music plays and Hannah appears, in the first scene. As she’s undressing backstage, getting ready for the catwalk, I reach for the Kleenex.

  Nelson puts his nose in the air and goes into my bedroom.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and Hannah’s face permeates the red darkness. Her smile. The flecks of green floating within her blue irises. Only the small details present themselves; I try to bring the image into sharper focus but nothing happens. I can see the tiny hairs on her top lip, the way a milky moonbeam curves back across her head - the scalp at the centre of her parting - and the rinds of sleep I brushed out of the corners of her eyes when we woke up.

  Just like always, I remember the things I’ll never do or see again:

  I’ll never mould myself into the warmth of her body when I’m cold, late at night.

  I’ll never watch her sleeping.

  I’ll never kiss her awake, her mouth tasting subtly with the saltiness of sleep.

  I still don’t know why these things have been taken away from me.

  LAUGHTER IS NOT THE BEST MEDICINE

  I’m reminded of a bad joke Cohen told me just after Hannah and I broke up. He didn’t know about us then; he doesn’t know about us now.

  ‘A man walking along this beach stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up, rubbed it and out pops this genie. The genie said, "This is the fourth time I’ve been let out of the lamp this month, so forget about the three wishes deal, you’re only getting one."

  ‘The man thought about it for a while, then he said, "I’ve always wanted to go to France but I’m scared of planes and tunnels and I get seasick. Could you build me a bridge to France, so I can drive over to visit?"

  ‘The genie laughed and said, "That’s impossible. Think of the logistics! How would the supports reach the bottom of English Channel? Think of how much concrete you’d need, think how much steel! Can’t do it, pal - think of another wish."

  ‘The man agreed and tried to think of another great wish.

  ‘Finally he came up with something and he said, "OK, I’ve got it. I’ve been married and divorced three times. My wives always said that I didn’t care, and that I’m insensitive. So I wish I could understand women. I wanna know how they feel inside and what they’re thinking when they give you the cold shoulder, I wanna know why they’re crying when they’re crying, I wanna know what they really want when they say ‘nothing’, and I wanna understand how to make them truly happy."

  ‘And the genie said, "Do you want that bridge to have two lanes or four?"’

  MONDAY

  I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS

  Couldn’t sleep.

  The leftover coke is still buzzing around my head when I come around. I’ve got a monster-sized hangover. Nelson presents himself for his morning stroke. He rolls over on the bed so I can rub his belly. He circles his paws in the air and purrs loudly.

  There was a heavy snowfall last night and I have to shove hard at the outside door to open it enough to squeeze through. The skies were the colour of spilt mercury for a week before the first fall. The atmosphere was pregnant with it, waiting for the temperature to drop. It fell gently at first, a dusting as fine as icing sugar, then heavier. A haze in the air, fat flakes I watched gathering in the crooks of buildings and then overflowing, spilling out onto pavements and roofs until everywhere was white. The odds are shortening for a white Christmas, but I’m feeling very unfestive.
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  Hannah used to love the snow. I remember a snowman we made last year with pebbles for eyes and a raw carrot for the nose that scruffy sparrows and starlings pecked away. Blue hands and red noses. Holding hands and merry laughter. Hot chocolate and buttered crumpets afterwards.

  I shuffle through my post as I trudge to the station: bills, bills, bills. No idea how I’m going to pay them all. I stuff them into a rubbish bin.

  Three trains stroll through the station but I ignore them all. I just need a moment to clear my head. I sit down on the metal bench at the side of the platform and watch the fat pigeons swoop down from white-streaked girders. Another train wheezes alongside. It’s festooned with graffiti and, on the cusp of the rush hour, almost empty. The only evidence of morning hustle is a carpet of discarded papers on the carriage floor. I trail inside behind a six-foot Rasta smoking herb, a schizo with a manic facial tic, and a man so fat I can’t see the tapering where his wrists should end and his hands begin.

  Inside the carriage, our clothes start to steam from the change in temperature. I settle into a seat and pick up a discarded copy of the NME.

  There is a retrospective piece on the Black Dahlias, tied in with publicity for their new album. The item is entitled ‘Spandex Ballet’, the nickname the Dahlias were given after their first, rubber-encased, appearance on Top of the Pops. The article alludes to the riches the band members amassed during their glory days. Martin, John, Damon and Alex are claimed to be worth millions. The article goes on:

  Ironically, the exception to this may well be Brian Fey, infamous in the early 90s for leading a life of unabashed excess. Recently, following a catalogue of mishaps (involving a marriage, a divorce, an overdose, a suspected suicide attempt and then a spell in rehab) it’s been rumoured that Fey is almost broke.

  I reach my stop. If anything the mercury has continued to fall. The other commuters seem to have retracted in the chill, hunching their shoulders and sloping forwards, nurturing any remaining embers of warmth. I get a coffee to go from the Costa Coffee kiosk at the top of the escalators, and trudge through the slushy mess on the pavement. The salt leaves a tide-mark of scurf on the uppers of my shoes.

  Brian’s new album is out today. I’m already late for the office but I can’t resist stopping off at the record store for a look. Vicarious excitement is replaced by disappointment as I survey the aisles. The shelves are dominated by the new releases from the Black Dahlias and Monster Munch. Brian’s offering - Songs from a Twisted Youth - seems less popular. The store’s buyer has seen fit to order only five copies, and these are crammed into an out-of-the-way nook on the bottom shelf. They hardly leap out at the impulse buyer. I feel almost sheepish as I do my bit for the cause and buy one. The assistant regards me with a pitying look as I hand over my card.

  I notice another assistant working in the shop window. He’s installing a display for the new Dahlias’ album: The Human Condition. It’s a life-size cardboard cut-out: John French - replacing Brian as singer - is flanked by the others, French having done the minor-instrument-to-frontman-shuffle better than anyone since Phil Collins left his drum kit behind him.

  The reviews for it have been ecstatic. As far as the critics are concerned, it’s been the most anticipated new album for years. And if the fans now treat it as a posthumous tribute to John French, there would appear to be no limit on how many copies it might sell.

  Chastened on Brian’s behalf, I head on for the office.

  HOW IT ALL BEGAN

  So. Daniel Tate, that’s me - Dan or Danny if you want to annoy me. Average height, average build, average all the way around. Twenty-seven going on twenty-eight, and just treading water, life passing me by. Stop the world I want to get off. No girlfriend, no money, work my only solace and now even that’s losing its luster.

  I wanted to be a lawyer for as long as I can remember.

  Watching Leo McKern as Rumpole, Crown Court on slow school-holiday afternoons, taping the American lawmen on the family’s Betamax when their shows came on after bedtime on school days. Thinking I could do that, too, practicing my lines in front of the mirror in my parents’ room: ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you…’

  I was a straight-A student, read law at university and was offered a place at a big city firm before I went to law school. Two years as a trainee in the City were followed by a few months as an assistant. But then I determined it was time for a change. Prosaic documents and jejune disputes weren’t for me, I decided. I wanted glamour, glitz, grandeur, the cheap and tawdry thrills of Mammon. I wanted to move into the entertainment business, so I swapped the Square Mile for Soho Square.

  I’ve always been a sucker for the bright lights, and media law’s where I thought I’d find them. Drafting movie contracts for Tom Cruise, entertaining Brad at the Ivy, or Keanu at Nobu. Robbie at the Bleeding Heart, or Kylie at the Criterion. Libel readings for Salman and Martin. Invited to the Michael Jackson gig, VIP backstage passes, ‘Thanks for all the great work you’re doing.’ I wanted to defenestrate TVs. I wanted to be banned from expensive foreign hotels for outrageous behaviour. I wanted glamorous, illicit habits, just like I knew my clients would have.

  It didn’t quite turn out that way.

  Because I had no experience of media law, I couldn’t move straight to one of the big players. But, after a couple of interviews at White Hunter, I was offered a place. I thought about it a bit, then accepted. The way I saw it, I’d do a couple of years here to fill in the blanks on my CV, and then move on again. Maybe switch to Abrahams & Co, or Pattersons, firms where the kudos was.

  The firm of White Hunter was established some fifty years ago by the incumbent senior partner, Charles Hunter, and the now deceased Peter White. With a few notable exceptions, its clientele tends towards the grotty end of the media spectrum. We do contracts, broker deals, resolve disputes. We even act as agents for a few desperate clients. A- and B-list celebs generally get snaffled quick by the big boys; for example, the Dahlias went to Pattersons, an altogether classier outfit, when they decided to sue Brian. We tend to swim in murkier waters: wrinkled popstars, out-of-fashion TV hosts, fossilized celebrities from a bygone age, some of which might be described as Z-listers.

  BLAMESTORMING

  Monday means the weekly early-morning meeting in the office. By the time I arrive, late as usual, Fulton is already speaking. Fulton is the head of my department, litigation. There’s an awkward silence as I apologize and shuffle in and sit down next to David Cohen, my room-mate. We’re in a conference room on the sixth floor. Everything is beige. It’s 10.30.

  We call this blamestorming. The main topic is usually why project X or assignment Y wasn’t finished in time, and which member of staff was responsible for that shortcoming. Most of us spend the whole hour keeping our heads down; that doesn’t mean we don’t take sick pleasure in watching some unlucky bastard get skewered. Today’s victim is Lucy Stiles. Lucy lost .a case last week because her expert witness developed a crisis of ethics and actually told the truth in the box. The truth! I know that problem. Brian suffers from the same affliction.

  Fulton goes on for fifteen minutes about the importance of witness coaching. Lucy slowly collapses in on herself as he points out to the rest of the group all the mistakes that she made. This is pretty stolid behaviour; I’ve seen assistants flee the room in tears. It’s particularly impressive since Lucy knows she’ll be forced to atone with really grotty stuff for a month. She’s probably imagining a dozen trips to hospitals and retirement homes to discuss testamentary requirements with decrepit and deathly television executives and washed-up game-show hosts. That’d be the standard punishment. But I’ve seen worse: after he missed a court deadline last week, Aaron Platt was forced to atone by working on the pet project of a certain golf-loving Liverpudlian comic. Some kind of variety-show idea that needed our advice. A fate worse than death.

  Fulton’s moved on now. I’m not really listening as he drones on about the current reforms to the civil justice system, jus
t as I ignored him when he was grumbling about the lack of fees generated by our department during the last fiscal quarter. I’m gazing out of the tinted window of the conference room, which is suffused with gold in the morning winter sun, out onto the rooftops of the offices outside. Everything’s still cloaked with last night’s snow, the sharp edges rubbed away and everything rendered in smooth, rounded slopes.

  ‘… and we’ve got to get our billing averages up…’

  Fulton is trying to motivate. I snag a sticky Danish from the platter on the table.

  ‘That’s why, as of today, I’m pushing up the minimum charging target. The firm expects each of you to charge ten hours a day to a file, unless you’ve got a good reason why that’s not possible. From today.’

  There is a low murmur of dissent, quickly choked back. Ten hours, and that won’t include lunch and fag breaks.

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ Dawkins chirps up. People shoot him hateful glances.

  ‘I’m sure it won’t,’ Fulton says. ‘You already average more than that, Oliver. That’s impressive. But it’s an example I want to see followed by the rest of you.’

  The Dork can hardly keep the smirk off his face. ‘How far can one man get his tongue up another man’s arse?’ Cohen hisses, much too loudly. I jab him in the ribs.

  I switch my attention back to the window.

  ‘Daniel.’

  By combining a studied expression with aimless doodling, I can pass off the impression that I’m paying close attention and taking careful notes.