I had no role model - no sagely elderly relative or contemporary streetwise uncle. My father, of all people, was the least likely role model. He was an impatient, spiteful old bastard. Embittered by misfortune and profoundly aggrieved by life’s indiscriminate tribulations, he loathed his only son with all his might. ‘Mark my words, little mong’ he’d said when I was only ten, ‘You will be in serious trouble with the bill before you turn 25’. Since then, I marked those words every day. They plagued my waking moments and blighted my walking thoughts. I’d established my sole aim in life - to prove my father wrong. Whenever I spotted a policeman I crossed over to the other side of the road, and I instinctively turned my face each time a police van wailed past.
I left Birmingham at the age of 18 to avoid questioning after I witnessed an attack on an old man. Without any real skills or qualifications, without any money, no farewell or approval from my mean old man, I set out for London on my own. The first year was tough. I lived in hostels when I had the luxury, but I slept on the streets most of the time. I ate from wheelie bins and smoked discarded cigarette butts. The following years were just the same. My only reprieve was that I had found my level and tamed my modest expectations. I’d signed on the dole, of course, but my stipend of £36 per week rapidly vaporized, even before I could satisfy my most basic needs, and I was soon back to the wretched menu of the bins. I sought work, but without any serious determination. All I wanted was to be was a kitchen porter in restaurant, nothing too strenuous. After all, for all your efforts and stress in life, what will be will certainly always be.
Damn! I yanked my coat from the stand and fled from the restaurant like a hare with tail aflame. I was sure I'd taken down his instructions correctly. He'd said The Marok on St Stephen Street at 3pm. Having bungled it two times already, I was determined not to mess up this time around. I arrived well before the appointed time and took a table that gave me an oblique view of the busy high street. The waiter did not raise an eyebrow at my clean but flayed and crumpled shirt and my clapped-out shoes. He merely indicated that I should hang my coat along with other ones on the stand. He hovered until I told him I was there to meet someone and then he drifted away noiselessly.
Perhaps the place was too comfortable. I nodded off almost immediately. When I next opened my eyes, it was 3:30. My first thoughts were that he'd been there, failed to see me and stormed off in anger. But the waiter assured me that nobody had turned up in the past hour. So I thought maybe I’d got it all wrong again. What the hell was wrong with me. I was fed up with these random bouts of blackout and amnesia.
When I asked the waiter if I could use their telephone, he politely advised me that there was a pay phone just down the road. So, off I went, struggling into my coat as I stepped out of the door. I'd been hoping at least to have lunch on the guy. I was starting to digest my own intestines, and I was down to my last 50p - just enough to make the call. I drummed on the coin box with my fingers as his phone rang on the other end. If I only got through to his voice mail, then I’d be stuffed. There was no use leaving a message. He would not be able to contact me because I had no mobile phone. I'd resigned myself to the worst when the ringing finally stopped. There was a short delay, the line crackled, went dead and then his furious voice basted into my ear. ‘Where the hell are you? I’ve been waiting here for more that 30 minutes!’ Even after I told him I was where I thought we'd arranged, it did not take the bite out of his voice.
‘The Hallam Cuisine on Terry Street... I said Terry lane, you idiot. If you don't get your ass here in the next 20minutes I'll be gone, and that will be the end of it.’.
I wasn’t too surprised how, over time, he had gone from a friendly, professional voice to one that cursed and swore. I tended to have that effect on people anyway. However, on this occasion I knew he was messing me about with me. I was sure he hadn’t said The Hallam Cuisine. If he had, I would have known. There was no way I could have confused it with another restaurant. I knew the place all right. I’d been there before and never wanted to go there ever again.
I picked up their ad at the Job centre in Lewisham and got an interview with the manager. I had no bus fare, but I found my way there just the same. As I stood in front of the glass door, I could see two customers. One of them, probably in his late twenties, was wearing a black suit and a fancy red tie. He wore his hair neatly combed and parted in the front, and an expensive-looking watch glinted savagely as he moved his hand. He had a black leather brief case by his side on the floor. The other guy was the older of the two, and was dressed casually in a black T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Unlike the younger one, he was slightly overweight and profoundly bald, although this hairless-ness could have been self-afflicted. Nevertheless, he had an unmistakable air of menace about him. Standing there outside, looking at them I was transfixed and I imagined there was something going on between them.
The younger man, Ben, let us say, was a wheeler and dealer. He’d left Birmingham where he was a top class fixer who fronted as a salesman although he didn’t sell anything in particular. He made his living by perpetuating the appearance of success. The more he lived the life the more successful he became. He drove an Aston Martin and lived in the presidential suite of the Hilton. He rubbed shoulders, belly and cheeks with celebrities and dined with the cream and froth of high society. He only smoked Cuban cigars and was allergic to cheap wine.
However, although he lived such a classy life, he did not have a single penny to his name. The car, his hotel suite and his expensive shoes, shirts and suits he purchased with loans of last resort. He borrowed from loan sharks to pay other loan sharks. Eventually he smoked one cigar too many and the sharks were calling for him to pay up. If he failed to deliver, they were going to break both his legs. He went into hiding for several days, but they eventually caught up with him and gave him the final ultimatum: pay up within the next three days, or prepare to meet your maker. They kept him under 24-hour surveillance. But he was extremely smart, he managed to escape.
He moved to London and assumed a new identity, completely changing his appearance and the way he spoke. But the thing he could not change was his lifestyle for he was soon wining and dining with the high fliers in London. He met a beautiful lady called Veronica who was the daughter of Eric Taylor, the owner of Ellis Transports and many other business ventures. After they engaged, he did not ease up on the reckless lifestyle of fast cars, hard play and hot babes. Veronica knew all about his womanising, but she was too scared to confront him - she did not want to lose him. But she was so distraught that she confided in her brother, James.
I was jolted out of my reverie by the appearance of the waitress on the scene. She was approaching the men with a tray of red wine precariously balanced on her palm. She opened the wine and poured a small amount in the glass of the younger man who contorted his face curiously, as he concentrated on tasting it. He nodded, and the waitress proceeded to fill his glass.
Then disaster struck.
For some reason, she appeared to lurch forward and spilled the wine on the young man’s suit. I could only make out from his gestures and his face that he was telling her off in the strongest possible terms. He must have said ’idiot! This suit is worth more than your whole year’s wages’.
She stood with her head bowed and then backed away until she disappeared from view. I’d seen her before at the Job centre. He name was Niyati. She was from Nepal although she liked to tell people that she came from India.
James had told Tony about his sister’s plight. Tony told Adrian who decided that the best thing to do was to have a man-to-man with Ben. He invited Ben to the restaurant on the pretext of some business idea, investing in the A & M security services. He was himself taken by surprise when Ben turned out to be his escaped debtor from Birmingham. Sitting there, keeping up the act, James trembled underneath because he knew that his number was finally up.
How long I’d been standing at the restaurant door, I’ll never know. I was startled when the waitress suddenly turned up in front of the door staring at me with strange blazing eyes. Her face was a terrible mask of anger and hatred.
‘What are you doing here?’
Although she had mouthed the words, I imagined her voice - a piercing screech that hit the back of my head like a burning spear. I muttered futilely that I had come to see the manager about a job, but she could not have heard from behind the glass door. As she opened the door, I could feel her breath searing my face.
‘Get lost!’ She hissed like a rattlesnake. She scoured the depth of her throat with a retching sound and brought up a substantial gob of phlegm, which she spat hard at my face. It felt heavy and warm as it slid gently down my forehead, between my eyebrows and down the spine of my nose. Then she turned round and walked away.
The manager came to the door. He was a squat Asian man in his mid thirties. I hadn’t wiped my face and the phlegm was now swinging pendulously from the tip of my nose. ‘I’ve come about the vacancy’ I stuttered.
‘Sorry, mate. It’s been filled ’, with that he shut the door and drew the curtains close.
Terry Street was not far, five minutes by bus or 15 minutes of brisk trudge. As I did not have the bus fare, I would have to foot it. I was determined to give this meeting one final go. I had never met him, and I didn’t even know his name, but I believed that whatever he was going to tell me was going to change my life.
It all started with something I saw in the local paper when I was looking for the horoscope. It said ‘IF THIS IS YOU THEN CALL 077554489’ and there was a small section describing an occasion on a bus where a young man helped an old man off the bus and took him over safely to the other side of the road. That was me. It was out of character of course. I had no idea what came over me that day. I had enough problems of my own, and I would not normally be inclined to go out of my way like that. But when I saw the old man I was compelled to go to his aid. Now with this thing in the paper, maybe I had helped a wealthy old man without knowing it.
I did not immediately call the number. I mulled over it for two whole weeks before finally plucking up the courage. When I called, I was surprised to hear the voice of a young man at the other end. He sounded businesslike but polite. He asked a few questions about the incident; what was the old man wearing? What did he say? I suddenly froze. The phone turned into a red hot iron rod, but he sensed my panic, and he quickly explained that it was not a police investigation or anything like that. He just needed to confirm that he was talking to the right person. So I recounted everything I knew about the event. He thanked me but did not provide any further information other than that we should meet. It left me wondering whether the old man had croaked and left some money in his will for me, the unknown young man who had restored his faith in humanity. It got me thinking that maybe my luck was about to shift. I could start a better life, get a respectable job, attend evening college, get some qualification and join the police. Imagine turning up at home in Birmingham wearing a police uniform. It would give my old man a heart attack.
I’d been walking for five minutes when I suddenly discovered that the jacket I was wearing was not my own. It was slightly bigger than mine, and it had a smell. I put my hand in the pocket and I quickly withdrew it because it felt strange and slippery in there, as if I had put my hand in a wet crab hole. What I should have done at that point was to take off the jacket right away and return it to the restaurant. Some forgetful turkey took my jacket and left his own in its place, but if I returned this jacket, I would probably not get my own back. I walked on past the Baker’s Arms on Munro Street and turned into Green Lane. Anyway, I didn’t have anything valuable in my jacket, and this one was of better quality.
I had only 5 minutes to my appointment. I put my hand in the pocket again and this time I touched something. It was cold and wet, with slightly rough texture. I had a growing sense of unease as I felt it with my hand, now severely apprehensive but tremendously curious I clasped it and thought it felt like - I could not resist the terrified gasp that escaped my lips as I lifted it out of my pocket. It was a severed hand dripping with blood. I don’t know what instinct caused me to put it straight back in my pocket. I should have thrown it up in the air screaming ‘It’s a hand! It’s a hand!’.
Although other people surrounded me, it seemed no one had seen me. The person behind me merely nudged along, turning round to give me a baleful look of indignation and rebuke, but nothing more - a look that might be saying ‘So you found a severed hand in your pocket, big deal. You wouldn’t be the first, and you wouldn’t be the last.’ It was more likely, ‘Get your ass out of the way, you retard’.
I was trembling. My mind was racing. What I needed to do was to turn right back and head straight to the nearest police station, but I was overcome by policophobia. Besides, how does one walk into a police station, produce a severed hand, and not be locked up right there on the spot?
I decided it was better to keep on walking. I’d have to deal with it after my date with Mr X. I did not put my hand in my pocket again as I stumbled my way toward The Hallam Cuisine. But here was no sign of the man anywhere around the restaurant and he could not have been in there because there was a blue tape across the entrance and there were a couple of police officers warding off curious onlookers.
I sleepwalked all the way to the YMCA in Lewisham where I was lodged for the last two weeks. A dull pain spread through my chest. For some time, I had come to experience gloom as a physical sensation. At the worst of times, it felt like a jagged rip in the heart - a yawning chasm that emitted despair and despondence. It hurt like an internal damage that oozed with blood and bile, which I already could taste. My lot in life was failure and disappointment. Life was all a dreary routine; a fool's errand, a futile course, a dogs dream.
I’d got it all wrong for far too long. What was the point in keeping to the law? Life in prison would be an improvement on the life I was living – three square meals, to say the least. There would be a structure and order. No need to look for work or keep up unnecessary pretexts of moral conduct. My freedom was a pointless burden that I could no longer sustain.
I almost walked past the hostel. I had lost track of time. There was no one in the communal lounge. I sat numbly in front of the TV and stared at the photo fit on the screen. The grim voice of a news presenter was announcing the murder of a waitress in a restaurant. She had been seen having an argument with a stalker three days before. The image on the screen did not do any justice to my rugged and handsome features. My forehead was not as large, and those eyes were too far apart. But it was me in the photo fit all the same. I did not have long to wait before I heard the scuffle outside and then the crash of the police ramming the door of its hinges even though it was not necessary. I did not make any fuss as I was led away, still wearing the jacket, with the dead woman's hand in my pocket.
- - - - -
Next story
Due date: 20 Nov 2010
Working Title: The Emperor is not dead
This is a story about the imaginary empire of Banania in the throes of violent power struggles. The emperor has not been seen in public for over a month, sparking off rumors about his health and then about whether he was dead or alive. The situation neatly splits the empire into four raging camps.
the power brokers who are desperate to maintain the illusion of the emperor's soundness of health.
the mischief-makers who are benefiting from the state of confusion and will do everything to keep it that way...
the rebels and dissidents in whose interest it is that the emperor should be dead. If he was not dead, they are keen to make it happen...
... And the people who just want to know the truth
The empire lurches and rocks as these people out-scheme out-spin and out-manoeuvre each other in a chronicle of misplaced loyalties and the most callous acts of deceit and betrayal.
