Authors: Simon Brooke
When he returns, about ten minutes later, I am standing up ready
to go. He sits down again. So I do too. Then he looks at me, gets up again and says,
'Ready?' God, this is exhausting.
We step outside and I wonder whether I should just say thanks,
nice meeting you, and find a Tube station. Ralph stops to light another cigarette
and then starts off, shaking his head and saying, 'Yeah, wild.'
'What is?' I say irritably.
'What?' he says blankly.
'You said something was wild.'
He looks at me for a moment and then laughs and says, 'Yeah,
I'll say.'
I follow, looking around for something to get me out of here:
a Tube station, a phone or even a For Sale sign. I decide to make one more effort
with Ralph, he must know something useful or Charles would not bother with him.
'You think this is the best place to buy, then?' I say, gazing up at the houses
around us for some inspiration. No reply. When I turn to look at him, Ralph is gone.
I stop and look around for a moment.
Suddenly I hear his voice, an urgent whisper this time, 'Fucking
move it, will you.'
'What?' Ralph is standing in a doorway, pressed against a door,
a look of stark terror on his face. At that second I am aware of someone standing
very close to me, I turn round and see a young guy whose tight, ugly smiling face
is almost touching mine. It is the kid standing next to him who speaks. 'Hello,
Ralphie. Who's your mate, then?'
'What?' is all I manage to say before the first guy slaps me
hard across the face and then thumps me in the stomach. I fall down onto the pavement
and am just about to retch when I feel a boot on the side of my head, crushing my
ear. It pushes me gently but powerfully onto the ground and holds me there. The
pavement bites into my forehead. I suddenly find myself focusing on the really thick
tread on the sole of a shoe, the stitching and the smell of plastic. I feel sick,
more out of shock than the punch in the guts I've just suffered.
I can't see properly, can't breathe properly and with one ear
squashed onto the pavement and one folded underneath a DM, I can't even hear properly.
I'm still staring at the sole that is less than an inch away from my left eye. The
other boot, I suddenly realise to my horror, is probably poised to swing into my
face. But it doesn't and a second later I am aware of the pressure on my head being
released and both boots moving away quickly.
I lie on the ground for what seems like hours, trying to catch
my breath and work out if I dare get up. Somewhere behind me I can hear thumping
and grunting. It's a bit like a fight at school only slower and heavier. And it
all happens in silence: no shouting, no swearing, no cheering. Just an atmosphere
of quiet concentration. I lie still. Paralysed. Looking down at the shops above
my head, the pavement next to my right eye and the vast expanse of innocent blue
sky next to my left.
I hear a voice say 'OK, OK' and the noise stops. My throat goes
into spasm - for a second I think that they are about the start on me. Oh, Jesus!
Why did I ever get involved in this? What the hell am I doing with these people?
Christ, I'm sorry, I've learnt my lesson. There is no free lunch. Please don't let
it happen and I'll forget my plan with the rich women. I don't want to be mixed
up with people like this. If I'd ever known, if I'd ever had any idea that this
is what it meant, I wouldn't have dreamt of it. Oh, please! I'm sorry, I'll go back
to media sales, or accountancy or anything. I want to be safe and suburban and not
beaten to mush!
But nothing happens - they're walking away. Walking. Not running.
Just ambling down the street for a lunchtime pint. A job well done. Fucking nerve.
I lie perfectly still until I am sure they have gone for good. All I can hear is
Ralph coughing behind me. Then I hear a rumbling and shuffling. Help? First Aid?
A stretcher? That was quick. No, it is a little old lady with her trolley. She pauses
for a moment and looks down at me with mild interest. She turns her face square
onto mine, she looks down my twisted, curled up body, frowns for a moment and then
shuffles off.
I decide to get up. My stomach aches and my face stings. My arms
and legs are trembling but otherwise I'm not hurt. When I look at Ralph I immediately
feel sick and have to get down on my hands and knees to stop myself from fainting.
It isn't just the blood but the thought that what had happened to him could have
happened to me.
Still shaking, I walk slowly over to the doorway he is lying
'Are you all right?'
His face is a mess: blood, soot and spit are marbled over his
nose, mouth and shirt. His left cheek and eyebrow have a deep cut in them and his
lip is already beginning to swell. I begin to find myself feeling sorry for Ralph.
He looks like he is in shock, poor kid. I notice for the first time how stick thin
he is. I try to help him up but he is too weak and shaky.
The letter box above us rattles and I realise that someone is
looking out at us.
'Help,' I say weakly but it rattles shut and I hear someone behind
the door running upstairs. 'Could you call an ambulance, please?' I add pathetically.
'No,' says Ralph. He starts to get up, wincing in pain. I help
him and this time, eventually he is standing, bowed like an old man. His coat is
ripped and his shirt, which has footprints on it, is hanging open. He attempts to
tuck it in. 'Bastards,' he murmurs. It seems so inadequate, as if they had taken
his parking place. I remember his silence as they worked him over.
'Ralph, who the hell were they? Do you know them?'
'Just some .. .'He winces again in pain, holding the side of
his stomach. He spits out some blood and reaches inside his mouth. Something tiny
and white - a bit of tooth. We stare at it for a moment.
'Just some friends of a friend.'
'Friends? We'd better call the police.'
'No!' he shouts. 'No. There's ... there's no need for that.'
He disengages himself from my hands and leans over to pick up his sunglasses, which
are miraculously still in one piece.
'Ralph, mate,' I gasp, 'shouldn't you see a doctor or something?'
'No! I'm fine, just let me get my breath back, that's all. Should
have used my TA training. Too many of them.'
'What are you talking about? Who are they?'
'Never mind, it's just business. It's not always very pleasant
making money.'
He lets me take him back to the cafe which is only fifty yards
away.
The girl behind the Gaggia machine gasps and looks terrified
but lets us use the staff toilet again. Ralph says he is fine and so I go back to
the counter and order two more cappuccinos from the girl, who is flattened against
the far wall. I try to make a joke to reassure her but she is having none of it.
I feel pretty disgusting in front of this quiet, hardworking, law-abiding girl
with her clean counter and her sensible job. What am I doing? What am I playing
at? Is this how it is going to be from now on l I put a generous measure of sugar
in one cup for Ralph and begin to sip the other myself, trying to work out what
to do next.
After a while Ralph re-emerges, looking cleaner but still badly
beaten.
'Cheers,' he says to the girl, with well-rehearsed but very unconvincing
jollity. She looks more terrified than ever by this. His left eye is already swollen
shut. He limps up to where I am sitting, trying to walk as normally as possible.
Watching him brings back my own pain and I feel my stomach. Bruised, but nothing
broken. My ear is bleeding slightly and my cheek is burning.
'Right,' he says, trying to smile through swollen lips. I can
see now where he has lost a bit of front tooth. 'There are some places a couple
of blocks away from here that would be right up your street. Oh, no pun intended.'
He laughs at his own joke.
I just stare in disbelief and then say slowly, 'You're going
to hospital.'
'What? Oh, Jesus! I'm fine. I told you, business isn't always
a tea party, you know. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.'
'Look,' I say, taking some money out for the coffee. 'I'm going.
You'd better see a doctor or something.'
As I walk out of the door, I hear him shout, 'Come back, Anthony.
I-I mean, Andrew, come back. I've got some other ideas I'd like to run past you.'
I walk down to Notting Hill station and buy a paper to read on
the Tube home but it is difficult to concentrate on anything. The side of my face
stings and my ear is still bleeding a bit. I can still hear that dull thump of the
first kick that landed on Ralph. I'm think I'm still in shock. As a favour to Marion,
Charles had obviously promised him fifty quid or the equivalent in coke if he went
through the motions of giving me some business advice.
I sit on the rocking,
jarring Circle Line train and am pestered by weirdoes. A variety of weirdoes: a
white-haired City gent in a slightly crumpled but otherwise respectable pinstripe
suit suddenly shouts at the woman next to him to stop feeding all these fucking
immigrants.
She looks horrified and then giggles to her friend. 'He's another
one,' shouts the old man pointing to me. A Rumanian gypsy pushes her floppy, drugged
baby in my face and then offers her upturned hand, muttering something incomprehensible.
At South Kensington station a blonde girl with dreadlocks and a ring through her
eyebrow and her nose rattles an old McDonalds cup at me as if she hated doing it
but it had to be done.
In their own way, all of these loonies and drop-outs seem to
have better prospects than me, a better sales pitch. I've sold all I can sell and
I haven't got much in return for it. Perhaps the most I can expect is a few more
little treats from Marion until one of us gets sick of the other.
Anna Maria opens the door and says, 'Oh, Mr Andrew, your face.'
I smile sadly at her. As I start to walk upstairs I hear Marion grunt and then groan.
I look round to Anna Maria for some explanation but she has pissed off back to the
kitchen. I go further upstairs and hear Marion breathing deeply. The bed creaks
slightly and then she gasps again, 'Oh God!'
This was something I hadn't quite banked on. I suddenly feel
quite hurt. OK, she might shower me with gifts by way of apology but all the same
it is bloody insulting. The worst thing is that I had never heard her make noises
quite like this when we're making love. What's his secret?
Two more steps reveal that his secret is that he is a her, weighs
twenty stone, is wearing a white apron and is rubbing Marion's back aggressively
with some oils that smell of eucalyptus and mint. I walk in and sit down on the
chair while the masseuse carries on pummelling and Marion smiles at me dreamily.
'Oh God,' she says with faint irritation when I tell her the
whole story.
'You don't sound very concerned. I could have had the shit kicked
out of me,' I say, yanking off my tie and dropping it on the floor, which I know
will irritate her.
'Have you seen a doctor?' she says bossily. Then she reaches
out and strokes my injured face gently. 'Poor baby.' I begin to feel slightly horny
like a medieval knight back from the crusades ready to reclaim my conjugal rights.
'No, it's not serious,' I say. 'I'll go and put some TCP on it
in a moment. I just got thumped in the stomach but you should have seen the state
of Ralph. I think he's lost a tooth.'
'Oh no,' she gasps in horror. 'That sort of thing always makes
me feel nauseous. I wish you hadn't told me that. I've got a thing about teeth -
can't even have mine capped. Not that I need to.' She runs her tongue over them
luxuriously. 'It made me feel quite nauseous as well. What kind of friends does
Charles have?'
'I don't know. Charles has a lot of contacts and some of them
probably aren't nice people. You don't always do business with people you would
invite to dinner.'
'Oh, don't you start.'
'Well, I'm sorry, Andrew, but it's true. 'Where do you want to
go for dinner, by the way? Never mind, I'll think of somewhere.' She groans as the
masseuse continues her work.
'Anyway, you can have your Rolex back,' I look up but she is
facing the other way now.
'Thank you. Has it been cleaned, then!''
'Clea-?' Caught you, I think to myself with grim satisfaction.
I should know, though, that there is no embarrassing Marion. 'Yes, yes, they cleaned
it at the Rolex store.' She gives into her massage again for a moment and then says,
'I think you should have a good quality watch. A watch is one of the ways people
evaluate you by.'
'Oh, thank you. It is beautiful.'
I find myself picking my tie up off the floor in gratitude. 'You're
welcome, sweetie. We can discuss it tonight at dinner. I'll book a table at Aspinalls
for eight-thirty. We'll eat outside if the weather's still good.'
At this point I can tell she is getting bored with the conversation
and wants to devote herself entirely to Brunehilda or whatever her name is.
Lying in the bath, I decide that if making money the Charles
Montague way involves getting the shit kicked out of you at regular intervals, then
I'd rather not bother. On the other hand, getting my beloved Rolex back (I'm wearing
it now and I'll never take it off again) and the thought of eating tonight and probably
tomorrow and the day after that at the kind of restaurants that people in the office
can only read about in magazines, makes me reconsider my idea about chucking it
all in during that state of panic with my head sandwiched between DM and paving
stone. That certainly won't be a long-term plan - I did say I'd give it a month
with Marion, didn't I? But I'll never go back to selling fucking ad space as long
as I live.
Just as I'm trying to forget it all and enjoy the embrace of
the warm bath water on my still aching body, Anna Maria's voice asking Marion something
reminds me of the only alternative.
As the head waiter leads us across the restaurant to our table
Marion smiles hello at a couple of people. I do too, in case I've met them. The
waiter pulls back her chair to let her in and sit down. I could certainly do with
some food and good wine after my experiences today. The waiter hands us menus and
we order vodka martinis.