My Neighbours Are Stealing My Mail

by Ian Edwards

  James sighed. ‘I mean what have you got since I was here…last month?’

  Arty laughed. ‘You may well ask.’

  ‘I just did.’

  Arty beckoned James closer, lowering his voice. ‘Just taken delivery of thousands of cassettes. All manner of bands. I think there’s even some Springsteen in there.’

  James frowned. ‘I thought cassettes were finished?’

  Arty shook his head. ‘No mate, they’re making a revival. They’re going to be big again,’ he whispered conspiratorially.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Arty nodded. ‘They’re up on the third floor if you’re interested.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’ James asked.

  ‘These cassettes, they’re going to go like hot cakes once I put them on line. I’m giving you a chance to get in there before the dealers start knocking the doors down.’

  James nodded. ‘Thanks mate, I appreciate that. I’ll pop upstairs and have a look.’

  ‘Take your time. You don’t want to miss anything. I’ll bring you a cup of tea up in a bit.’

  James thanked his musically obsessed friend and headed for the stairs. Pausing for a moment he turned back to Arty.

  ‘How are the kids? Keeping well?’

  Arty smiled. ‘Emerson’s fine. Starts big school in September. Lake’s got his GCSEs next year and Palmer’s just ticking over, he’s chilled.’

  Smiling, James continued up the stairs.

  *

  ‘Find anything?’ Arty asked, placing a mug of tea on the trestle table.

  James looked up from rummaging through the contents of a cardboard box. ‘A couple of Springsteen albums so far.’

  Arty gestured at the several stacks of boxes. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘Cheers mate. Who’s minding the shop?’

  ‘No one. It’ll be fine. No one comes in here anyway.’

  ‘Except me.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Whilst James drunk his tea, Arty sifted through the boxes, offering up cassettes that he thought James might be interested in.

  ‘Jailhouse Rock. Elvis.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ James replied.

  ‘Rubber Bullets. 10cc.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Folsom Prison Blues? You can’t beat a bit of Johnny Cash.’

  ‘No! James snapped. ‘Nothing about prison or going to prison…please.’

  Arty shrugged and went back to the boxes.

  ‘Chain Gang. Sam Cooke?’ Arty asked, receiving a glare in return.

  Arty ferreted around in another box and produced a double cassette. ‘Here you go,’ he said, offering the chosen cassette to James. ‘The Clash – The Singles Collection. You’ll love this.’

  ‘No I won’t,’ James told him and handed the cassette back.

  ‘Why not? It’s a classic.’

  ‘Track four on side one. I fought the law, and the law won.’

  Arty nodded and put the cassette back.

  *

  Performing a delicate balancing act, James steadied the heavy cardboard box between his arm and the front door whilst fishing his front door keys out of his pocket. He opened the front door, transferred the box into both arms and waddled into the hallway, pushing the door shut with his backside. He entered the kitchen and put the box down at his feet with a sigh.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  James looked across the kitchen. ‘You got out then?’ He asked.

  Amy laughed. ‘I escaped when no was looking.’

  Chapter 2

  James looked at his wife. ‘I can’t believe you escaped. I know what those teaching conferences are like.’

  Amy grinned at her husband. ‘I slipped away before the afternoon session started. A talk on running in the school corridors.’

  ‘So you missed the most important part,’ James said sarcastically.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll get the gist of it when they start putting up speed cameras in the corridors.’

  James gave her a funny look, unsure if she was joking or imparting some new development in the ongoing war against the biggest problem in today’s schools.

  ‘Or speedbumps,’ She added. ‘Anyway, what happened in your trial?’

  James pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Guilty. Three years.’

  ‘Really?’ Amy exclaimed, trying hard not to laugh. ‘After all the time you spent championing her cause.’ She watched as James sunk deeper into his chair. ‘I thought you had the rest of the jury eating out of your hand…you said,’ Amy paused. ‘And I quote. “I’m going to talk the rest of the jury into accepting her innocence.” I thought you were going to remake Twelve Angry Men with you in the Gregory Peck role?’

  ‘To be fair, it wasn’t a unanimous verdict,’ James explained. ‘The judge accepted a majority decision.’

  ‘How many?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Eleven to one.’

  ‘So no one agreed with you?’ Amy grinned.

  ‘Nope. Not one person agreed with me,’ James whined. ‘They pre-judged her.’

  James had been keeping his friends updated throughout his two weeks of jury service, despite constant reminders from Amy that he wasn’t supposed to talk about the trial outside the jury room.

  The previous evening, Alan, Rosie and Harry had come round to dinner and James had run through all the evidence. Halfway through the main course Rosie suggested that jurors weren’t allowed to reveal the details of a case they were sitting on.

  ‘That’s only murder cases,’ he had said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Rosie replied.

  ‘Oh yes, definitely,’ James confirmed, looking at Alan and Harry, who looked at each other and shrugged.

  By the time they had reached the desert (a sorbet prepared by Rosie which Alan had described as fake ice cream) James had them all convinced of her innocence.

  ‘It will be a travesty of justice if she’s found guilty,’ Rosie had said.

  ‘Probably be the subject of one of those documentaries about miscarriages of justice,’ Alan added.

  At the end of the evening, Rosie had hugged James and said, ‘This woman’s liberty depends on you. You have to make them believe you.’

  ‘I will,’ James replied stoically, as he shut the door behind Alan, Rosie and Harry. But he had failed. Badly.

  ‘I think,’ James said, returning to the present. He placed a mug of tea in front of Amy, ‘that they couldn’t see beyond her past convictions.’

  Amy paused, mug mid-way between table and mouth. ‘What past convictions?’

  ‘It came out that she’d been doing this all over the country,’ James told her.

  Amy stared at her husband. ‘Well it’s good that you weren’t swayed by her previous record. What was this, the second or third time..?’

  ‘Not quite,’ James admitted. ‘Thirty seven times.’

  Amy let out an involuntary laugh. ‘Thirty seven times..? You’re kidding.’

  ‘No, she asked for thirty seven other offences to be taken into consideration.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ Amy laughed again. ‘You’ll be sure to let the documentary team know that when they want an interview, won’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I should leave my contact details with her solicitors for when the BBC come calling,’ James mused.

  ‘If you like,’ Amy sighed, her interest flagging. ‘What’s in the box?’ She asked, catching sight of the cardboard box that James had placed on the floor.

  ‘You’re going to love this,’ he said enthusiastically and lifted the box onto the table. ‘I called in at Arty’s on the way home and …’

  ‘Arty, the guy who runs that music junk shop?’ Amy asked.

  ‘What? No,’ James said ignoring Amy’s attempts to tease him. ‘Arty the music dealer.’

  ‘I thought so. Same guy,’ Amy continued in her goading.

  ‘Anyway,’ James removed piles of cassettes from the box, stacking them on the table. ‘Arty put me onto these.’

 
‘Are they cassettes?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ James confirmed as he made several neat piles. ‘Arty told me that they’re making a revival. This lot,’ he gestured at the table, ‘are going to be worth a fortune one day.’

  Amy leaned over the table and started looking through the piles of cassettes. ‘Please tell me you didn’t pay any money for this junk?’

  ‘It’s an investment. Arty reckons cassettes are making a comeback. It’s going to be bigger than the Vinyl revival.’

  ‘James do you honestly believe that…’ Amy picked up a cassette, ‘a grubby version of Phil Collins’ “No Jacket Required” is actually worth anything? There’s only one person in the world stupid enough to pay any money for this.’

  ‘Oh, who’s that? Maybe I should contact them directly to agree a price.’

  ‘It’s you, you idiot!’ Amy snapped.

  ‘That’s the problem with you,’ he said as he continued to remove cassettes from the box. ‘You can’t see potential.’

  You mean the potential in the Greatest Hits of Huey Lewis in a cracked case with…’ Amy paused. ‘What’s this?’ She asked, taking a small pencil out of the case.

  ‘It’s a pencil,’ James said.

  ‘I can see that, James,’ Amy said patiently. ‘But why is it with the cassettes?’

  James sighed, as though the answer were obvious. ‘It’s for winding the tape back when it jams. Arty threw in the pencil for free.’

  Amy shook her head and watched as James took the last of the cassettes from the box.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he groaned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I told him I didn’t want anything like this. He must have slipped them in when I wasn’t looking.’

  Amy looked over at the items that had distressed James.

  ‘What’s the problem with these?’ She said. ‘A couple of albums by the Police, although...’ she opened the case and shook her head. ‘The cassette inside is not the one it should be.’

  ‘I told Arty I didn’t want anything with a link to the police, law and order or prisons. I didn’t want anything that might upset you.’

  ‘James, you have to stop being so protective. I can deal with the police without flashbacks or sleepless nights.’

  ‘So you say,’ James said. ‘But there’s no need to test that unless we really have to.’

  Amy smiled warmly at her husband. His concern was touching, but it had been eight months since she had been summoned to the headmaster’s office to find two police officers waiting to speak to her about the property developer, Clive Oneway. Their questions had been innocent enough. Amy explained that she had met Oneway while she was on a school trip to a theatre shortly before his death.

  They had asked Amy if she knew of any reason why an apparently successful businessman would take his own life. She had answered no, as she barely knew the man. The officers seemed satisfied and had thanked Amy before leaving.

  After the officers had gone, Amy had sunk to the floor and wept. She had been in Oneway’s apartment when he fell to his death, and whist she hadn’t pushed him, she still felt a heavy sense of guilt at his death.

  Amy had suffered many a sleepless night following her conversation with the police, but had slowly begun to move on. Unfortunately, James was convinced Amy needed protection from police brutality and harassment.

  Amy put her hand on James’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you take all your jun…’ she corrected herself, ‘…cassettes, up to your den and sort them out? I’ll bring you a cup of tea up in a minute.’

  ‘OK,’ he said and enthusiastically began to put them back in the box.

  Amy watched as James struggled out of the kitchen with the large box. She had no doubt the cassettes would stay in the box for six months before he realised that he had wasted his money and threw them out.

  ‘Amy..?’ He called out from the hall.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do we have a cassette player anywhere?’

  Chapter 3

  Hands on hips, Rosie stood in the bedroom glaring at Alan, lying face down on the bed, a pillow over his head.

  ‘So are you coming or not?’ She asked.

  Alan mumbled something into the pillow.

  ‘Could you take the pillow off of your head before speaking to me please,’ Rosie barked back at him.

  Alan slowly rolled over, the pillow falling away, and raised himself up on his elbows. ‘I said coming where?’

  ‘The antique fair.’

  Alan stared blankly at his girlfriend.

  ‘The antique fair in Sussex. The one I’ve been telling you about all week.’

  Alan screwed up his face. ‘Oh that one.’

  ‘I’ve taken the day off to go. You said you’d come with me,’ Rosie said, keeping her temper in check. ‘Don’t you want to go?’

  Alan rubbed his hand through his hair. ‘No, no I really want to go, it’s just I was late back last night and I’m knackered. I’m not sure I’d be much company.’

  ‘We’re looking at antiques, not going to a rave.’

  Alan doubted Rosie had ever been to a rave, and if she had she would have asked them to turn the music down. ‘Can’t you go on your own?’ He asked hopefully.

  ‘No, I don’t want to go on my own. I took the day off to go with you.’

  Alan rested his head back on the headboard. ‘Why don’t you go with your sister? She likes all that old stuff.’

  ‘She’s working.’

  ‘Amy..?’

  ‘She’s working too,’ Rosie sighed. ‘Normal people have jobs. You remember that, don’t you? It’s what people do to earn money and pay bills.’

  ‘I work,’ he protested. ‘I just work different hours. Just because I don’t go to an office anymore, doesn’t mean I’m not working.’

  ‘So you’re not coming?’

  ‘Harry!’ Alan exclaimed. ‘That’s it. Why don’t you ask Harry?’ Alan offered in an attempt to diffuse the Rosie bomb that was about to explode. ‘Harry’s ancient. He’s bound to like antiques. They’ll remind him of his younger days.’

  ‘I’ll call him,’ Rosie snapped and flounced out of the bedroom.

  Alan slid down into bed and congratulated himself on his quick thinking. Rosie and Harry were good friends. Harry was much better suited than he was for traipsing round an antique fair.

  ‘Harry said he would love to go,’ Rosie said, poking her head through the bedroom door. ‘Despite him working nights too,’ she added, pointedly. ‘I’m off to pick him up now.’

  ‘That’s great. Have a nice time,’ Alan smiled weakly.

  ‘Will you be here when I get back?’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’m meeting Sarah later,’ he said, instantly regretting it.

  ‘I’ll see you later then,’ Rosie said, and once again flounced into the hallway, narrowly missing Frankie as he appeared in the doorway.

  ‘If the comedy doesn’t work out you’ll have to take up grave digging, son.’ Frankie said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Oh, and why’s that?’

  ‘Because when you dig yourself a hole, you really don’t know when to stop.’

  *

  Rosie and Harry stood in the entrance to the exhibition centre, looking out across the hall.

  ‘There must be three hundred stalls in here,’ Harry said.

  ‘Three hundred and fifty it says here,’ Rosie said, gesturing at the poster on the wall.

  ‘Best get started then,’ Harry grinned and made his way into the hall.

  Rosie was quickly impressed with Harry’s knowledge of antiques. On two occasions he warned her off of paying over the odds for some items, while encouraging her to buy a pair of egg cups which he told her would be worth double within the year.

  ‘You’re really good at this,’ she said while they were enjoying a coffee break.

  ‘I used to go to a lot of antique fairs, so I have a half decent idea of what to look for.’ Harry paused. ‘You don�
�t really forget.’

  ‘Anything you’ve got your eye on?’

  Harry took a final sip of his coffee. ‘Well, according to the programme, there are a couple of dealers offering some antique magic tricks. I’d like to have a look at those. You never know what you might find.’

  Rosie finished her Danish pastry, using a napkin to dab at any crumbs on her lips. ‘That woman who we bought the egg cups from…’

  ‘Maggie wasn’t it?’ Harry asked.

  Rosie laughed. ‘You know it was. She told you enough times.’

  ‘A fine looking lady,’ Harry mused.

  ‘She certainly had a thing for you.’

  ‘Actually she gave me her number.’

  ‘Really?’ Rosie’s eyes widened at the news.

  Harry nodded. ‘While you were paying for the egg cups, she slipped me a note with her number on it.’

  ‘Wow. That’s brilliant. Are you going to call her?’

  Harry shuffled in his seat. ‘I don’t think I can, I’m afraid. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  ‘Oh come on Harry, she you never know, it could be the start of something. You have the same interests…’

  ‘Egg cups?’ Harry interrupted.

  ‘Antiques.’

  Harry laughed. ‘I’m sure she’s really nice. But, well, I’ve actually just recently started seeing someone.’

  ‘Harry you old fox!’ Rosie exclaimed. ‘You’ve kept that quiet.’

  Harry smiled. ‘It’s early days. We’ve only been out a couple of times.’

  ‘Where did you meet her?’ Rosie asked, desperate for information.

  ‘After a gig…’

  ‘Does Alan know?’ Rosie asked, interrupting.

  Harry shook his head. ‘No, and I haven’t told anyone else yet. As I said, it’s early days.’

  Rosie patted his hand. ‘Well I think it’s wonderful. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. But if she’s got any sense, she won’t let you go.’

  Harry felt himself redden. ‘Well, I guess we’d better get back to it,’ he said, hoping to change the conversation.

  *

  The dealers displaying antique magic tricks had been squeezed into one of the ante-rooms. Harry noted they appeared to be given less space than a stall selling collections of used cheese labels.