by Dan Tyte
‘You like her, don’t you?’ said Connie, waiting the appropriate time for our respectives to be out of earshot. Either way, the background Levellers would have drowned out her mouse-like voice.
‘How do you mean?’ I said, a little too defensively.
‘You know what I mean, mate. You’re not the old Bill we used to know and…’
‘Tolerate…?’ I offered.
‘No, know and…’ she bit her thin bottom lip and thought for a few seconds, ‘accept. And love, Bill. Although I’m not sure you did…’
‘Yeah, you’re right. You could say I’ve made some changes…’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Easy…’ Smug Connie was less fun.
‘Come on, you know it as well as I do. We don’t hear you stumble in at all hours anymore. You look better. Healthier. And the smell from your room… well even that’s less…’
‘Less…?’
‘Like something has died in there.’
‘Connie!’
‘Oh god, no, not you. Just like a small mammal. A vole. Or a hare.’
‘Well, that’s really encouraging to hear…’
‘Good…’
‘…that I’ve given up my burgeoning taxidermist career to make everyone feel better about me…’ I fake cheers-ed her. Could REALLY do with a dr…
‘Look, Bill, all I’m saying is that things seem better for you. This is a good thing. Don’t fight good things, mate.’
‘Thanks, Con…’
‘And I think she’s the reason why. Isn’t she?’ Connie performed the kind of wink and nudge move that would have fitted right at home in the range of an overbearing pantomime dame.
‘84p for a lime and soda!’ Craig and Christy were back. ‘You two are the definition of a cheap date.’ And you, Craig, are the definition of a fucking skinflint.
As much as I hated to admit it, Connie was right, you know. I mean, should I hate the fact that I didn’t have to have two drinks before I could feel slightly better than a corpse in the morning? Previously, I was always only ever two drinks and a slug of mouthwash away from feeling better. Should I hate the fact that I could actually differentiate between the tastes of different foodstuffs? Should I hate the fact that I had, if not a girlfriend, then a girl, who was a friend? And I was looking better too. With a bit of luck The Mystic would barely recognise me. While it’s fair to say my face had a certain rugged charm even during the darkest days, the three D’s – drink, drugs and deadlines – would take their toll on even the most well-cut of bone structures. The truth was that the cut and thrust of PR agency life was a young man’s game. Being half-cut and chemically thrust didn’t really help. Following the regime change, my eyes were now less like pissholes in the snow and more like shitholes in the sleet. This was a good thing. I kept tripping over. Like money was drawn to money, in the drunk’s case, bruises were drawn to bruises. It was a vicious circle. I was glad I was now a square.
‘I think that woman was right though, you know…’ said Christy.
‘What woman?’ I said.
‘The one with the…’
‘Henna tattoos everywhere!’ said Craig, clearly thinking we were engaged in the kind of word-riff game that would be played for fun in a Steiner school. He meant The Mystic. Stay calm, Bill.
‘Right about what?’
‘The community garden idea. It takes me back to my childhood…’ said Christy. In all honesty, she hardly had to turn her mind to sepia to get back to her youth.
‘Why’s that, mate?’ said Connie.
‘We used to have a little allotment… me and my brother… and my dad. We grew all sorts on there… runner beans, onions, tomatoes that stretched so far up the pole that neither me nor Joe could reach them.’ She shrieked a laugh. ‘We’d get into so much trouble from my dad for bending the sticks to make them drop into our hands. There was only the three of us so Dad used to make us fill up carrier bags full of the extra and drop it round to the old ladies who lived on our road. Me and Joe would always fight over who got to knock on Mrs Higgins’ door. She used to invite you in and give you a glass of cold chocolate milk and the choice of any cookie from her tin.’ Christy lifted her drink, put her lips around the straw and sucked. Her black eyes were starting to smudge. ‘I’ll never forget her front room. She had plastic covers over her armchairs and it smelt like church in there. I remember Dad said she’d been very wealthy at one time, until—’
‘Did she not let you and your brother both in?’ Yes, Craig again.
‘Umm…’ Christy looked wrong-footed, ‘yeah, I suppose she did…’
‘So why did you and your brother fight, then?’
‘Craig!’ Connie scolded.
‘Are you trying to doubt her memories, Craig?’ I needed to step in. Christy looked like someone who’s woken from a pleasant dream to find a smoking parrot in their bedroom – confused.
‘No, of course not. Just saying, is all. There was a horrible cow just like that on our street. We always used to egg her house on Halloween. Not just on Halloween, actually. She’d go mental and chase us down the street with a broom in her hand, effing and jeffing. She had a big “Beware the Alsatian” sticker in her front window. There was no Alsatian…’
‘Well, thanks for that insight into your childhood, Craig…’
‘Mrs Higgins wasn’t a cow, Craig,’ said Christy, ‘she was lovely. They were lovely times.’
She missed her dad. She missed those times. The family unit. We could be the family unit. The 2.4 children. The two-up, two-down. The dog walks on a Saturday, the car wash on a Sunday. The curled up on the sofa with a half price supermarket bottle of red wine and rom-com Blu-ray. Not yet. But later. Couldn’t we?
Show her.
I reached out the toe of my brown Italian leather brogues under the table towards the ankle of her Converse hi-top. I’ll stroke her foot, in a reassuring, I understand, I know your soul kind of way.
Bone.
Hard.
Shit.
Her foot bolted away. She shot me a look of WTF.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, ‘I was trying to…’ The PA system crackled. A middle-aged man with a greying-gingery beard and green cords tapped on the mic.
‘One, two, one, two.’ He waited for the supportive sniggers to stop. ‘Thank you. Thank you. Now, this movement, which each and every one of you here tonight is now a part of, is founded on the principle of permaculture.’ He paused awhile to let the new word sink in. ‘Our society faces challenges everywhere it looks these days, everything we ever took for granted has changed. Through this movement we want to equip our community – i.e. you,’ he pointed at the crowd, ‘for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil. This is about socioeconomic localisation, man! It’s time we took the means of production back off the man—’
‘And the spoils!’ shouted a just-broken voice from the table to our left.
The beard picked back up, ‘We’ve got to be more resilient. Look at our grandparents’ generation…’
‘Yeah!’
‘They didn’t eat in restaurants, or from packets or tins, or have new mobile phones every 18 months…’
‘Yeah!’ (almost collectively now).
‘They lived within their means. They made their means!’ It was Sixth Form polemic on strong cider.
‘We need creative adaptations across the board, and that’s why we’ve got you here tonight. We want you to get involved. Collective creativity is what this situation needs. Are you in?’
‘Yeah!’ (pretty much everyone bar me now).
‘I’m talking energy production. Health. The education of our kids. Our economy. The food we eat. It’s time to adopt… and adapt, people. We need to stop living on handouts from the oil state, man. But what we need most, above all other things, is to get our message out there, to others, to more people like you, so they can become us, and we can become one!’
Christ.
‘I know someone who can help!’ Christ
y had stood up. Twenty or so pairs of eyes, many bloodshot, turned to look her way. Her frame was slight but sure. She had her back towards me. Her red hair washed down her back and rippled across her cardigan. She took a deep breath and turned towards me.
‘My friend, my very good friend Bill, right here.’ Some of the eyes now turned towards me. ‘He can help you get your message out to the masses.’ They were listening. She had that kind of effect on people. ‘He’s a PR man.’
‘We don’t need those shits!’ an elderly female voice shouted. Christy ignored the heckles.
‘He’s a very good PR man. And he can help you spread the message about your movement. Maybe even get some funding for your community garden.’
‘We don’t want that dirty corporate money!’
‘Hold up, people’, said the greying-gingery one, ‘let’s hear what’s he’s got to say… Will, was it…?’
‘Bill,’ Christy corrected.
‘Bill, what do you say, Bill…?’ My eyes took in the scene. Craig looked like he was either finding this whole situation extremely funny or infuriating. Connie smiled an encouraging smile that would have written, ‘go on, mate,’ if her mouth could have held a pen. The assorted earth lovers eyed me with the suspicion of a far-right father meeting a daughter’s mixed-race boyfriend. The bearded one was waiting to see if I could make his dream a reality. He had more than a look of David Koresh about him. Did I want Waco II on my hands?
But then there was Christy. Her black eyes saw through me. They softened on my sight.
‘Yes, yes I am a PR man, and yes, yes I can help you get the word out there…’ This wasn’t among my best presentations. The Mystic gave me a knowing look. Fuck fuck fuck.
‘Manipulate the media, you mean?’ a voice shouted.
‘We don’t manipulate them, we manage them to open a dialogue around your message…’
‘What about money?’ said Koresh.
‘I’m sure I may know of some parties who’d be really interested to be involved in a project like this…’ If only to partially wash their hands of the fact they tested make-up on bunny rabbits.
‘Good, good. We should talk…’
‘We should,’ I said and handed him my card.
‘Morgan & Schwarz?’
‘That’s us.’
‘I’ll call.’
‘Please do.’ The crowd tailed off into conversation and I sat back down. I’d just invited a potential cult leader into the offices. What the fuck was Miles going to say about that? Probably give him a fucking job.
Then, under the table and out of nowhere, Christy squeezed my hand.
Who cared if I’d committed to spinning yarns for a sustainability sect?
All was well with the world.
Chapter 23
SAD END FOR HOMELESS WAR HERO
An Iraq war hero who ended up sleeping rough has been found dead by a Hackney cab driver. David Jenkinson, 29, was discovered in the early hours of Wednesday morning in an alleyway behind the Queens Lane Shopping Centre. Locally born, Jenkinson served two tours of duty with the Royal Welsh 2nd Battalion in Basra province. His family has confirmed he was of no fixed abode at the time of death. Doctors say the cause of death is acute liver failure. Police are not treating the death as suspicious but have asked anyone with any information to come forward.
His former squadron leader Captain Agnew Faulkner said Jenkinson was a ‘bold soldier’ who ‘put the lives of others before his own.’ The ex-St Ignacius pupil was mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in rescuing colleagues when a grenade was thrown at his car by insurgents in 2007. His nephew William Turner said his uncle was ‘an inspirational man’ who ‘struggled with his demons’, but lived an ‘ultimately happy existence.’ Charity Heroes Heads claimed not enough was being done to help returning soldiers readjust to civilian life.
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’
‘Jesus, Pete, you scared the hell out of me, creeping up on me like that.’
‘Well, there’s no need for that kind of language, Bill. A good man’s died here.’
‘I can see that, Pete.’ I’d drifted off at my desk, daydreaming while the words and pictures of the local newspaper danced around my brain. It was a side effect of being on the wagon, or so my internet-based diagnosis told me.
‘Isn’t it ironic that he manages to avoid death out on the battlefield but can’t keep his big old heart ticking when back home amongst those he fought tooth and nail to save?’
‘It is terribly sad, Pete, but I’m not sure it’s irony as such…’ He wasn’t listening to my pedantry.
‘I was very nearly a military man, you know.’ I could only assume the use of the 24-hour clock, sharp creases and homoerotic undertones appealed to Pete’s character.
‘The sense of adventure, of duty, of doing it for Queen and country, it gets me right here,’ Pete said, pointing to his breast pocket. ‘My family has been serving with distinction for generations.
‘But what about you, Pete? You work in PR. It’s hardly Where Eagles Dare, is it?
‘There was my great-grandfather Algernon White, who took direction from Sir Douglas Haig at the Battle of Passchendaele…
‘But what about you, Pete?
‘And his son, my grandfather that is, Reginald White, spearheaded Operation Compass against the Italians in North Africa…
‘But what about you, Pete?
‘And his son, my father that is, Derek White, sailed on HMS Invincible in the Falklands. Or Las Malvinas, as the Argentinians would call it…
‘But what about you, Pete?’ My questioning was obviously falling on deaf ears during his army incest-a-thon.
‘…PETE?’
‘Sorry, what, Bill?’
‘Enough about your heroic ancestors, what about your career in camo?’
‘Ahhh.’ He looked wistfully into the middle distance. I couldn’t help thinking the filing cabinet in his line of sight may have detracted from the moment somewhat. ‘I had a promising career in the TA’s back in my youth. Those were the days. Manoeuvres in the rolling hills of the countryside…’ His glasses started to mist up a little.
‘Not quite a war-zone though, hey, Pete?’
‘As near as damn it, Bill. The team spirit and the camaraderie we had was above and beyond anything I’ve known in this place.’ If Miles heard Pete say that, he’d be better off at Abu Gharaib with a horny redneck.
‘So why are you here bending truths instead of playing toy soldiers?’ I asked. Pete looked the closest I’ve ever seen him to cursing. There was something particularly pleasing to the provocateur in me in pushing a puritan towards profanity.
‘Firstly, Bill, I don’t bend truths here.’
‘Oh come on, we all do.’
‘Well I don’t. And secondly, it was to do with my eyesight… and the shin-splints…’
‘Shin-splints?!’
‘Yes, Bill. They can be treacherous if relied upon in a life or death situation.’
‘I can imagine. So the great White military lineage comes to an end…’
‘Not strictly, Bill. I make a pilgrimage every spring, as you know, to the war graves of northern France, and I retain a keen interest in the history of the great battles.’ He looked like a toddler admiring a turd in a training pant.
‘Algernon would be proud,’ I said.
‘You know what, Bill,’ Pete said, ‘I think he would.’
There had been no death of course. No tours of duty, no insurgents, no mentions in dispatches, no Gulf War syndrome or post-conflict traumatic stress. There had been a permanent homelessness, of sorts, and there certainly had been liver damage, debilitating if not fatal. There had been no valour. There would be no funeral. No triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off, no awkwardness between second cousins, none of the obligatory platitudes about the pleasantness of the service. No ashes to ashes. No dust to dust. Sometimes it helped having influence with the media. Sometimes you could get them to print whatever the hell you liked.
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Twenty-nine years ago on a Friday afternoon I’d sprung punching and shouting from my poor mother’s slender loins, bringing resignation and stretchmarks. I was four days late. The behaviour of the following three decades make it pretty fucking likely I’d been waiting for the weekend. The Buddhists amongst your number will profess (placidly, granted) that when my bloody umbilical was being cut by my half-drunk father against the self-sepia-tinged backdrop of a paint-peeling maternity ward, someone, somewhere was being read the last rites. One in, one out. Balance was restored. Over the weekends that followed my first, a private eulogy was made each Sunday for the sins of the Saturday and Friday. The weekend was the carrot to my carthorse. The social sniff which dragged me through the grey days to the restrictive freedom of the 48 hours. But like a hungry baby, two sucks was not enough. Thursday became the new Friday. Wednesday the new Thursday. Monday the old Saturday. The weekend invaded the week much as if Monaco marched across the border into France. Decadent but ill-equipped. Before you knew it there was going to be a dead princess. When every day was a discotheque, the anticipation for the elevation from the daily grind couldn’t change gear. There was nowhere to go. Alcohol was scratching an itch, not the treat at the end of a stretch of slog. For boozers, the weekend was dead. Today, I was going to revive it for my old drinking buddies. Long live the weekend.
I switched my email to out of office, made a barely audible assertion about an afternoon of briefings with key media targets, shot Christy a wink on reception and rode the twelve floors down to the sparkling lobby. I could see my two o’clock through the floor-to-ceiling one-way windows of the building. But these were no members of the fourth estate, even if some of their personal hygiene standards were on a level with some unmentionables I knew on newsdesks. My date was with my old drinking buddies. It had been a while.
The bums had been there for me when I wasn’t all there. When I needed wingmen to bounce off, someone to share stories with, crack jokes at, or simply to stand there and say nothing, together in our silent suffering. They signposted an ominous parable that although I may well be down, I was not out. Yet.
