Phoebe and I
traded a glance. I shrugged.
‘Worth
following it up, I guess,’ she said to me.
‘I suppose
so,’ I replied, feeling the adrenaline peeling out of my pituitary
gland and into my bloodstream.
Fuck. What if this comes off, and
this Sid guy
does
get us a gun each? What am I going to do
then?
‘Well I’m glad
the brain council agrees,’ Charlie muttered. ‘Lend us your phone,
Sundance; he won’t pick up if he see’s that it’s me calling.’ I
figured this was as good a time as any to do another round of tea,
so I heaved myself out of my seat and passed it to him on my way to
the kitchen.
‘What’s you
PIN, again?’ he called after me.
‘Oh-two-seven-six!’ I hollered back.
The phone call
has been made, and the meeting arranged. Charlie put it on speaker;
Sid didn’t sound all that happy to hear from him, but he couldn’t
really turn down an opportunity to sell some MDMA, being a drug
dealer and everything, so he agreed to meet him at his flat in
Byker - of
Byker Grove
fame - in about an hour’s time.
Charlie’s in the shower, rinsing off another night’s sins. Phoebe
and I are downstairs in the sitting room - sitting around,
coincidentally enough.
Suddenly I
realise I’ve spent a good five minutes just blankly staring at her.
I jerk my eyes back towards whatever claptrap’s coming out the TV
screen, but, almost instantaneously, my neck snaps back in her
direction.
‘Hey,’ I say.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘That depends
entirely on what it is,’ she replies. She spins round on the sofa,
and sits cross-legged - in the primary school kid way, not the
Michael Corleone way - facing me.
‘I was just
wondering why you’re doing this.’
‘You mean
besides the money?’
‘I doubt we’ll
even get enough money out of it to pay off our student loans.’
‘I wasn’t
planning on doing that, anyway,’ she smiles, coyly.
‘Not that you
can actually use it to pay off your loan. The reason most bank
robbers get caught is that they suddenly start paying for stuff
with money they can’t explain how they got. It’s either a case of
spending it in such dribs and drabs you’ll barely notice you ever
had it, or going to jail.’
‘Where’d you
get that from?’
‘Internet.
Library.
Goodfellas
.’
She raises her
eyebrows.
‘I’m a geek,’
I explain.
‘I’d gathered
that.’
‘Do you want
to know what I’ve gathered about
you
?’
‘“Slut” is the
one I usually get,’ she replies. She’s oddly comfortable saying it;
I, on the other hand, go all red and embarrassed.
‘Actually,’ I
say, once I’ve regained my composure, ‘I was going to say that you
don’t strike me as the sort of person who really goes in for the
whole opulence thing. I mean, how long have we known each other
now?’
‘I wouldn’t go
as far as to say we “know” each other.’
‘You also
strike me an incredibly uncooperative person, by the way.’
A smirk creeps
up one side of her face. I continue my line of interrogation:
‘How long
would you say it was since we first began this period of mutual
indifference, then? Three weeks, a month?’
‘It’s felt
closer to a month.’
‘Just this
conversation’s starting to feel like eternity from where I’m
sitting,’ I reply. ‘But if I can actually get my point out; in the
month we’ve known each other, I can’t say I’ve ever seen you buy
food, drink, fags, anything. And from what I’ve seen, you can’t
have more than, like, six items of clothing, tops? Aside from the
few grand you must have spent on piercings and tattoos, I’d say
you’d be pretty happy to live as close to free of charge as it’s
possible to do, short of being a hobo. And you’re definitely not so
greedy that you’d risk going to prison for the extra pocket
money.’
‘Is that
so?’
‘Nope. Just my
impressions from the limited time we’ve been bit-characters in one
another’s lives.’
‘And if you
had to venture a guess, why
would
you say I was doing
this?’
‘If I could do
that, I wouldn’t have asked, now, would I? It would have spared me
an excruciating conversation.’
‘It can’t be
that bad, surely? It’s got to be better than having to pretend to
listen while your bird complains at you for going out
drinking.’
‘She wasn’t
complaining, she was -’
Phoebe raises
a hand.
‘I don’t care.
Do you want to know the answer to your question, or what?’
‘Go on
then.’
‘You’ll be
disappointed.’
‘Try me.’
‘Boredom.’
‘What?’
‘“Noun,
abstract: an emotional state brought about by a lack of meaningful
activity, or intellectual engagement with one’s surroundings. Can
be used interchangeably with the more impressive sounding French
term,
ennui
, if one is a pretentious cunt.”’
‘I know what
it means.’
‘Then why’d
you ask?’
‘I’m not going
to get a more helpful answer out of you any time soon, am I?’
‘Probably not.
So what’s your excuse?’
‘Dunno,
really. I thought this was all one of Charlie’s little jokes, then
by the time I realised it wasn’t I was buried under a month’s worth
of criminal conspiracy.’
Phoebe
chuckles like a drunkard.
‘Fuck
me
, man; my motive might be shit, but at least it’s my
own.’
I roll my
eyes.
‘Yeah, laugh
it up, ya slut.’
She leans
across the sofa and punches me in the leg.
‘
OW!
Fuck!
’
‘You realise
that all you have to do is say “I’m out” if you don’t want to go
through with it?’
‘That easy,
huh?’
‘Nah, only
kidding. You try to get out of it now and I’ll bury you under a
railway bridge just to be on the safe side.’
‘Thanks for
the warning.’ I don’t know whether the face that goes along with
this comment is scared or sarcastic.
‘You’re very
welcome. And, for the record, now that I’ve told you that, you have
no right to be angry at me when I actually
do
shoot you and
bury you underneath a railway bridge.’
‘Sounds like a
deal,’ I reply.
‘Hey, does
this look like the sort of thing a cold-blooded killer would wear?’
Charlie asks, coming back into the room. He’s wearing a full suit;
the tie’s tied, the jacket’s buttoned up, and so is the collar on
his shirt. He’s even wearing fucking sunglasses.
‘You look like
a blind person going for a job interview,’ I tell him. ‘Just wear
your own clothes, you fucking idiot.’
‘Alright,
Jesus; I was just trying to do things properly,’ he retorts. He
slopes off back upstairs to get changed again.
‘I swear, this
whole “doing things properly” is going to be the death of me,’ I
mutter. Phoebe giggles.
‘Don’t fucking
laugh. I wasn’t speaking figuratively,’ I add. Phoebe laughs
again.
‘You know, I
think Charlie might’ve been onto something when he called you a
sociopath,’ I add again. Phoebe shrugs as though she doesn’t feel
any need to argue. Even if she did want to, Charlie’s now returned
in some more-appropriate attire, and he’s hurrying me out of the
front door. When we’re outside on the porch, he turns to have a
quick word with Phoebe, who is still in the hallway.
‘You don’t
have to go home,’ he says. ‘You can stay here ‘til we get back, if
you want.’
‘What are you
talking about? I’m coming to see the drug dealer,’ she replies,
looking affronted.
Charlie
laughs.
‘Not a fucking
chance. A crack den is no place for a lady.’
‘It’s no place
for a premature ejaculator and a virgin, but you two are both
going.’
‘Jesus, can
you just give it a break with the “shit in bed” stuff? It’s a
compliment, you ungrateful fucking toe rag,’ Charlie retorts.
‘Why are you
having a go at me as well?’ I ask. ‘I didn’t fucking say
anything!’
‘Fuck; hit
couple of sore spots there, didn’t I?’ Phoebe smirks, looking proud
of herself.
‘I’m not even
a virgin,’ I point out.
‘You look like
one, though,’ she replies, with a sympathetic face.
‘That’s even
worse!’ I exclaim, throwing my arms up in the air.
Charlie and I
silently make a pact to cut her out of the conversation for the
rest of the trip, in protest. This is harder to keep up than you
would imagine, since Byker is a good forty-five minute walk from
our place in Jesmond, and when Phoebe gets bored after two minutes
of us ignoring her, she invents a means of amusing herself at our
expense. She walks just in front of us, and every now and then will
suddenly stop dead with one leg stuck out to the side to see if we
trip over it. Charlie, not being the most observant of guys, nor
having the most reliable of memories, gets caught five times before
we’ve even made it past Sandyford. At this point, Phoebe decides to
move on to me, and I’m forced to adopt a weird sort of hybrid
between skipping and limping for the rest of the journey.
‘Did you
really need to bring the wife and kid along, Charlie?’ Sid asks,
opening his front door just a fraction and glaring with suspicion
at Phoebe and me, as all we huddle shivering in the corridor
outside his flat. I can tell immediately that he’s a native, not a
student - first from his accent and second from the fact that he’s
dressed in a vest and shorts despite it being minus-five degrees
out. I take an equally immediate dislike to him.
‘Comedy
genius, as ever,’ Charlie replies, pushing past him and into the
flat. Sid leans to one side and watches him walk past with narrowed
eyes. Phoebe strolls in just after Charlie. She stops and inspects
Sid before entering, throwing her hair back out of her face so she
can get a better look. Sid adopts the expression of a man with a
shit-streak just under his nostrils as Phoebe peers closely at him,
but she acts as though she’s not aware of how uncomfortable she’s
making him. I smirk to myself, because I know that she knows
precisely
how uncomfortable she’s making him. Then Sid tries
to shut the door on me and I have to scrabble through the gap like
a tag-along trying not to be ditched, and the social hierarchy
reverts back to its normal arrangement.
‘Just so you
don’t starting making a habit of this; I don’t really like selling
by the gram, and I definitely don’t like people coming round my
house whenever they feel like snorting some MD,’ Sid informs
Charlie as he comes into the kitchen, with me straggling behind
him. I notice that Phoebe has already helped herself to some weed
and Rizlas she found lying on the counter and is now standing in
the corner rolling herself a joint. Sid also notices this, but
seems to let it go for now and instead continues his lecture to
Charlie. ‘I’m only letting you get away with it this once because
the two of us are…’ He goes quiet.
‘Friends?’
Charlie suggests.
‘No. Not
that,’ he replies.
‘Artistic soul
mates?’
‘No.’
‘Business
acquaintances?’
‘That’ll
do.’
‘Fair enough;
do business acquaintances get cheap rates, by any chance?’
‘Behave
yourself. You’re paying for the weed the bird with all the staples
in her face is smoking, as well.’
Sid tosses a
zip-lock baggie with a small amount of white powder in it onto the
counter beside Charlie. Charlie shoves it in his right pocket and
pulls his wallet out of his left one. He takes out the contents and
places them where the baggie had just been.
‘There’s two
ten pound notes there,’ Sid observes.
‘Yep,’ Charlie
agrees. His bandmate remains eerily silent for a moment. I can hear
Phoebe’s joint crackling as she inhales, followed by her erupting
into a fit of coughs. I turn around to look at her; she’s holding
it under her nose with a bemused look on her face.
‘Either you’re
not very good at maths, or you’re trying to rip me off,’ he says
finally. ‘Although I suppose it could easily be both of the
above.’
‘That’s all
the money I’ve got, I’m afraid,’ Charlie replies.
A crease
appears at the side of Charlie’s mouth. A crinkle appears on Sid’s
forehead.
‘That ain’t my
fuckin’ problem. You want to buy drugs, you pay the asking
price.’
‘What, is my
credit no good? It’s hardly like I can avoid you for long, is it?
We do band practice together on a weekly fucking basis!’
‘And yet I
still don’t trust you,’ Sid replies. ‘So what does that tell you
about yourself?’
Charlie
doesn’t bother to answer this question. Instead, he decides that
the time is right to segue into the real reason he came here
today:
‘I tell you
what; seeing as we’re “business acquaintances”, I’ll make you a
business proposition: I pay you twenty pounds now, and then I give
you ten thousand this time next month.’
‘What the fuck
are you on about, Charlie?’ Sid sighs. There’s not the slightest
hint of curiosity in his voice.
‘I’ve got a
plan.’
‘Your last
plan was supposed to end up with us headlining Glastonbury last
summer, but look:’ Sid motions towards his mantelpiece. ‘Still no
Grammys.’
‘Yeah, well,
you’ve got no-one to blame for that except yourself and your
parents. They made you ugly, and you didn’t work hard enough to
make up for it,’ Charlie replies with a shrug of indifference.
‘You’re not
here to argue about who spunked whose chance at fame,’ Sid mutters
wearily. ‘You were supposed to be turning up, handing me fifty
quid, then fucking off and letting me get on with my life.’
‘And what a
life it is you’re living,’ Charlie sneers back. ‘What is that, a
seventeen
inch TV? It’s a good thing this place is so roomy,
otherwise you’d never be able to fit all that screen in your field
of vision.’