‘I need a word
with you,’ Phoebe whispered to me as Charlie was winding that song
down and winding up another, amending the lyrics so he could remind
people to donate generously. ‘In private.’ She grabbed me by the
hand, led me down a darkened alleyway and pushed me against a wall
behind some bins. The shandy suddenly seemed to turn on me as she
stood there, silently staring into - and eventually through - my
downturned eyes.
‘I might have
underestimated you when I said you were a giant pussy earlier,’ she
said. She was standing so close to me that I could feel her warm
breath against my mouth, her perfume in my nostrils. I remember
thinking that I didn’t have her down as the perfume-wearing
type.
‘Uhh, well,
technically, you said I was a “big sissy girl”,’ I replied, wishing
she’d stop trying to force eye contact.
‘I must’ve
underestimated you there, as well.’
‘Er…how do you
mean?’ I asked, between stammers.
She took a
step forward, and whispered:
‘I
mean,
I’m in.’
‘In with
what?’
If
Charlie’s tried to sign me up for a threesome
, I thought to
myself,
I might have to kill him.
But, of course, he hadn’t.
The truth wasn’t much less annoying than that, though. Phoebe held
her finger up to my temple like a gun, and said:
‘You’re
robbing a bank.’
‘What?’
‘You’re
robbing a bank,’ she repeated.
‘Uh, am
I?’
‘That’s what
he says,’ she said, nodding her head in what I assumed to be
Charlie’s general direction. The sudden uprush of frustration
allowed me to finally assert some authority over my vocal
cords.
‘Considering
he’s the guy who claims to be the second coming of Christ, I’d take
what he says with a pretty fucking big pinch of salt!’ I retorted.
With it, the breath I’d been holding came stampeding out of my
lungs. Phoebe’s nose wrinkled.
‘So you’re not
robbing a bank, then?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m not
robbing a fucking bank!’
‘Why not?’
‘What? Because
it’s illegal!’
She shrugged,
and replied:
‘Nothing’s
illegal if you don’t get caught.’
I opened my
mouth, as if to respond, but then realised I didn’t have a
response.
The acoustic
guitar had stopped playing. Phoebe at last broke off from staring
at me, and with a coy smile and a ‘suit yourself, then,’ she turned
and wafted back around the corner to Charlie. When she disappeared
from view, I cupped my hands together over my mouth, breathed, and
sniffed at the trapped breath.
So it seems
like I’m going to be seeing a lot more of Phoebe over the coming
weeks. Probably starting with this morning, seeing as she stayed in
Charlie’s bed last night. As soon as she leaves, though, I’m going
to collar him and tell him to stop telling random strangers what
laws he’s planning on breaking next. That or duct-tape a balled-up
sock into his mouth, anyway.
No time
like the present, I guess
, I think to myself, hauling myself
out of bed, pulling on a sweatshirt and some jogging bottoms and
traipsing down the stairs. I was assuming I’d have to wait in the
living room before ambushing Charlie once he’d let Phoebe out of
the front door, but - to my shock - he’s already stretched out on
the good sofa, wide awake, apparently showered, and with Phoebe
nowhere to be seen.
‘Ay,
lazybones; come tell me what you think of this,’ he calls as he
spots me in the hallway.
‘What the hell
are you doing up this early?’ I ask him, throwing myself onto the
vomit sofa.
‘There’s a
lewd pun about birds and worms in there somewhere, but I’m too busy
to find it.’
‘Busy? Sorry,
but I’ve got to ask - who are you, and what have you done with
Charlie?’
‘Some unfunny
cunt called; he wants his joke back,’ he replies. ‘But seriously,
can you just listen to this fucking song for me? I’ve spent the
last two hours writing it.’ He bangs his hand against the acoustic
guitar he’s cradling.
‘Go on, then…’
I sigh.
‘Great, so
before I start, I’ve just got to warn you that these won’t be the
lyrics to the proper, finished version. These are just to give you
an idea of how I’m gonna sing it,’ he says.
‘Yeah, yeah,
just play the fucking song, already,’ I reply, with a corresponding
wave of the hand.
‘Okay; here it
goes.’
It starts off
pretty catchy, I have to admit, but I soon work out why that is.
I’ll spare you the lyrics that go along with it, suffice they say
that they could have been written by a five-year-old, if a
five-year-old had a comprehensive knowledge of the names and
symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases. That Charlie somehow
manages to rhyme ‘Chlamydia’ with ‘can’t get ridda ya’ is an
undeniably impressive feat, however.
‘So what do
you think?’ he asks, so excited about his handiwork that I don’t
know whether to mock him or cuddle him. When he catches sight of my
ambivalent expression, he reminds me:
‘I know the
lyrics are like a pervert’s nursery rhyme, but the
riff,
man!
What do you think of the riff?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Yeah...’
‘I think
you’ve spent the last two hours writing “Rebel, Rebel” by David
Bowie.’
‘What? Fuck
off!’ he protests. Rather than trying to beat him down with
argument, I lean over the side of the sofa, plug my phone into the
travel speakers and fiddle around with the touch screen for a few
seconds.
Got your mother, in a
whirl
‘
Cos she’s, not
sure if you’re a boy or a girl…
Charlie’s eyes
flit between the speakers and my face. For a moment, he looks as
though he’s about to resort to violence, but then he seems to
deflate, slumping down into the cushions and letting the guitar
fall down to the side of his seat.
You like dancing, and
you look divine…
‘We’d better
get planning this fucking robbery, then,’ he says. ‘Because it
looks like I ain’t getting rich playing the guitar any time
soon.’
‘I wanted to
talk to you about that, actually…’
Right as I say
it, Freddy swans in, wearing a fluffy dressing gown and a pair of
slippers that look like they should have been sold with a pipe to
go with them.
‘Butch.
Sundance,’ he says in greeting, with a nod towards each of us. I
shoot a withering glare in Charlie’s direction and deliver my - now
even more pertinent - reprimand:
‘Can you
please
stop telling every person under the sun that we’re
bank robbers? We’re gonna end up actually going through with it if
we keep up at this rate.’
‘We’re not
bank robbers; we’ve been over that already, remember?’
Freddy butts
in before I get a chance to retort.
‘It’s too late
drop out now I’ve invested all this precious time into it.’
He falls down
onto the sofa and takes a large glug of the cup of tea he’s
holding. I give an exasperated snort.
‘What do you
even need the money for? You’re rich as fuck!’
He shakes his
head, rearranging his dressing gown to protect his modesty.
‘My
parents
are rich as fuck. But they’re not going to pay for
me to go to the Middle East and start revolutions, are they?’
‘Yeah; I’m
sure you’re exactly what that fucking region needs,’ I reply,
sarcastically.
‘What I do
with my share of the loot is my own business; I’m not going to
bitch at you for spending all yours on fizzy pop and Disney
movies.’ He turns to Charlie. ‘
Now
, if this yellow-bellied
mother fucker is done, can we get started with our first
meeting?’
‘Indeed we
can,’ Charlie replies. He looks around for something to use as a
gavel. He settles for the TV remote, and he bangs it against the
coffee table with such force that the batteries fall out. ‘Meeting
adjourned.’
‘I think that
means the meeting is over,’ I point out.
‘You’re in a
very pessimistic mood this morning, aren’t you?’ Charlie says. ‘So
are we all clear on the basics; where we’re robbing, and when?’
‘John Lewis,’
says Freddy, in response to the first part of the question.
‘Two weeks
before Christmas,’ I add, because I’ve figured that if I can’t beat
them I’ve either got to join them or get out of the living room,
and I’m far too hung-over to seriously contemplate peeling my arse
off the sofa.
‘Freddy gets a
tick,’ Charlie responds. ‘Sundance over here doesn’t.’
‘That’s
definitely the date we agreed,’ I contend.
‘Times change,
my lad. We’re hitting the second day of the January sales now.’
‘But why?’
‘Gives us more
time to plan, and there’ll probably be even more money in the tills
and the safe. Plus, we won’t have to Grinch a load of kids out of
their Christmas,’ he explains.
‘Oh.’
‘That not
sound acceptable to you?’
‘It would have
been nice to at least get a say,’ I reply, sulkily. Charlie and
Freddy turn to each other and chuckle.
‘A minute ago
you were trying to convince us not to do it at all! You’ve got to
earn your say back, mate.’
‘Times
change,’ I tell him, feeling a sense of pride kicking in. ‘So, I
guess our next step is working out what we’re going to need for
this little exercise in stupidity-’
‘Guns!’
Charlie suddenly jumps in.
‘Balaclavas,’
adds Freddy.
‘Grenades!’
adds Charlie.
‘Matching
black trench coats,’ adds Freddy.
‘Samurai
swords!’ Charlie shouts, bouncing up and down on the seat
slightly.
‘I was
thinking more along the lines of how many people we’re going to
need,’ I say, cutting off Charlie’s train of thought before he
starts surfing the internet for a place to buy SCUD missiles.
‘Charlie, what the
fuck
would we need samurai swords
for?’
‘For when we
run out of bullets,’ he shrugs.
‘To be fair,’
Freddy interjects. ‘I think my granddad actually
did
smuggle
a grenade back from France in the forties, so that one is
technically doable.’
‘Sorry, but
you’ve forced me to ask:’ I say, incredulously. ‘How many people
are you two planning on killing?’
‘None if we
can help it, but I was just thinking we should make preparations
for if it all goes a bit like the last twenty minutes of
Heat
,’ Charlie replies.
‘I can’t speak
for you guys, but if
I’ve
got a dozen coppers pointing guns
at me, I’m tying my soiled underpants to a stick and using them as
a white flag. Armed robbery gets you eight years, parole after four
if you don’t shank anybody. You blow a police offer’s brains all
over a shopping mall, you’ll be lucky to ever see sunlight
again.’
‘Where’d you
get that from?’ Charlie asks.
‘I was doing
some research the other night.’
‘I wondered
where my laptop went.’
‘You can’t
expect me to do it on mine, can you? The thing’s held together with
scotch tape. The battery sounds like it’s powered by a load of
cockroaches on treadmills. Anyway, one night without wanking won’t
have hurt you.’
Charlie lays
back and sighs to himself.
‘So much for
the “glorious death” idea, then,’ he laments. I’m pretty sure he’s
just taking the piss. I hope he’s just taking the piss, anyway.
‘I’m all for
going out in a blaze of glory, as long as it doesn’t hurt and it
happens when I’m eighty-five,’ I reply.
‘We’re going a
bit off-point here, gentlemen,’ warns Freddy. ‘I believe we were
supposed to be talking numbers?’
‘Yeah, we
were,’ I say, glad to get off the subject of my own premature
demise.
‘I also
believe I should be the one to take over from here,’ Freddy
continues, ‘because this is exactly what I’ve spent the last hour
or so puzzling over.’
‘Alright, hit
me.’
‘Okay, here
goes. When we first get into the shop, I figure we need two people
on crowd control, at least. January sales means the place is gonna
be packed to the rafters, so I reckon we need to just get everyone
on the ground floor the fuck out of there as soon as we can, then
we can concentrate on taking everyone on the second floor as
hostages to buy us some time with the police if shit goes
pear-shaped. There’s only one set of stairs connecting the upper
level with the lower one, so it’s just a case of parking one guy
halfway up the stairwell and getting him to politely inform anyone
coming to see what’s going on that they’re requested to remain
quietly upstairs. You know, assuming they want to live to enjoy
whatever useless shit they bought in the sales.’
‘So that’s
three, so far,’ I say, wondering if there’s any less terrifying
roles available.
‘Thus far,
yes, but we also need one person to get a shotgun pointed in the
face of whoever’s manning the cash office, preferably before anyone
on the staff has worked out what’s going on and realised they
should be calling the police, locking down the safe, or
whatever.’
‘Four,’
mutters Charlie to himself, taking far longer on the mental
arithmetic than a university student should have to. His voice
picks up. ‘Well we’ve got that many people already! Us three and
Phoebe! Sorted!’
‘Yep, but it’s
not four people we need,’ replies Freddy grimly. ‘I’m pretty sure
they’ve got CCTV in there. If they have, then within the first
couple of minutes we need another person to go backstage and knock
shit out, so they haven’t got the whole job on film.’
‘Can’t someone
just get rid of it before we leave?’ I ask.
‘We’re gonna
do that as well, but I assume it all gets backed up remotely, and I
can’t run the risk of getting caught because one of you idiots
shouted my name, or took your balaclava off to do your hair in the
mirrors behind the checkouts.’