Waving Not Drowning V: Buying a Gun is Not Easy

Buying a gun is not as easy at it looks.
But that wasn’t going to stop me.
My first stop was Portobello Road, not a natural place to find a gun but often you could find all sorts of stuff especially up towards Goldborne Road where they sold old pans, books, hamsters, shoes and maybe just maybe an ancient musket or two? I didn’t know what I was going to do with the gun but for now I simply concentrated on getting my hands on one. It would all become clear. But unfortunately Portobello market didn’t sell guns. Neither did Lillywhites or John Lewis or Robert Dyas.

It was silly to think it would be easy. And I didn’t have the kinds of friends who might ‘hook me up’ with one one either. I didn’t know any gangsters. Ruth worked at the Barbican for God sake! And guns weren’t really knocking around at Café Jingo.

Every morning I got up for work. Frothing up cups of useless milk, ignoring voicemails (none from Phil, most from Ruth who was sounding increasingly panicked) and then after work I plotted where to get my gun. The kids, them, were oddly quiet during this period. It was almost as if they could sniff something in the air, knew I was hatching a plan and were waiting to see what would happen next. Every night they sat huddled around in the courtyard burning fish or whatever it was they did. They were no longer waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs when I got home from work but I knew this was only temporary.

Finally I found a small shop tucked away in a side street not far from Paddington Station. I’d found it after spending ages searching on the Internet. It was a weird, secret sort of place and sold guns, knives, knuckle dusters, basically all sorts of weapons. And the front of the store sold mainly second hand combat gear and sailors outfits. It was only after browsing dusty military outfits for twenty minutes that I plucked up the courage to ask the man standing at the back of store for some help.
‘What exactly do you want to shoot?’ the man asked.
I’d seen this scene played out in films many times before. I needed to look cool and try not to twitch in a strange way or give any kind of signal that I was planning to shoot at people, little people as well! The man had a large moustache that grew right over his top lip. The hairs were all damp at the bottom and made me feel queasy. I wanted to grab my nail scissors out of my handbag and hack the ends off. Then I realised I was starring weirdly at him when I should have been behaving normally.
‘Birds,’ I said unconvincingly.
The man narrowed his eyes slightly and cocked his head to the side.
‘You do know,’ he paused then lent in conspiratorially, ‘that you’re not allowed to just shoot any old birds,’ he handed me a green pamphlet and pointed at some text written on the second page, ‘Crows, jays, they’re all okay for target practice but make sure you don’t shoot anything protect...’
‘No don’t worry,’ I interrupted him, ‘It’s mainly these crows that roost outside my flat. They’ve been driving me a bit mad to be honest. Waking me up at five o’ clock every morning.’
Moustache eyed me suspiciously.
‘Crows I see…’ he said staring more intently.
I tried not to do anything to make me look like a chief barista from Café Jingo pushed to the limit.
‘Well without a licence madam,’ he bent under the counter, ‘ I can only offer you one of these.’
He pulled out a long, impressive looking rifle. It looked like it could easily kill an elephant.
‘That looks great,’ I said enthusiastically.
He lifted it up level with his eyes and aimed it at one of the mannequins who was wearing a jaunty boiler suit.
‘It’s a Cometa 300S, we don’t sell many of them but it does the job. Good for shooting at small mammals, pigeons…crows but don’t let anyone see you. People don’t like it these days. All these bleeding animal lovers.’
‘What else can I shoot at?’ I asked, trying to enter into a bit of hunter-talk.
‘Let me see,’ he said, casting his eyes skyward, ‘Squirrels, rats, mink, rabbits, turtle doves.’
‘What about owls?’
‘No not owls. Don’t think you’d see many owls in London would you?’
I was playing the role perfectly. We were talking like fellow small creature hunters. I was already standing before him in my fatigues and lumberjack shirt. Any moment now he’d be telling me how to build a camp fire and survive on soup made from tree bark juice and badger turds. I asked him if I could hold it for a minute. Moustache nodded and passed the gun over. I felt triumphant, it was going to be mine in a few short, sweet minutes. As I took it out of his hands and lifted it up, testing the feel of it, my first concern was the size. I hadn’t expected it to be so big and so heavy. I’d imagined a small handgun, something I could hide in my handbag and brandish whenever I needed to. Something like ‘Charlie’s Angels’ had. This thing was heavy, cumbersome and difficult to lift but then it was also thin so maybe I could find some way of carrying it around in one of those yoga mat bags or something. Yoga mats bags were a plague around my neck of the woods. You couldn’t do a ‘Backward Dying Dog’ without bumping into one.

I lifted the rifle up to shoulder level and aimed at the long damp moustache in front of me. I fingered the trigger. Fingered the trigger! Brilliant! Then Moustache reached across the counter and pulled the rifle back down with his index finger.
‘Don’t ever point a gun at a person,’ he said quietly, ‘only point it at those crows.’
If this was a gangster film I would have sprayed him with bullets, watched him fall in slow motion onto the floor, reloaded it with ammo and then calmly lit a cigarette and walked out.
‘Sorry,’ I said sheepishly, ‘what kind of ammo does it take?’
‘It’s not ammo,’ he crouched down under the counter and then emerged with a small disappointing plastic case which looked like it had bubble gum inside.
‘They’re called pellets,’ he said putting them onto the glass counter.
‘How much is it altogether?’ I asked.
I’d withdrawn five hundred pounds from my savings account.
‘Altogether with the pellets, it’s one hundred and seventy.’
Bargain!
Moustache wrapped the rifle up in brown paper and then put it inside a large plastic box which looked like the kind of thing you’d carry a trumpet in. I’d half thought he’d just wrap it in a plastic bag and make me carry it under my arm. But like this it was better, I wouldn’t arouse any suspicion on my journey back to the flat.

My mobile went as I walked back towards the tube. I picked it up without thinking.
‘Jess! Is that you?’
It was Ruth.
‘I’ve been worried sick, why haven’t you returned any of my calls?’
I sidestepped around some café tables, careful not to prod anyone with the butt of my rifle. The BUTT OF MY RIFLE!
‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘look can I ring you back? I’m sort of in the middle of something.’
‘What?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘I can’t talk but everything’s fine. I’ll ring you later,’ I said, nearing the entrance to the Hammersmith and City.
‘Listen you’re not drinking again are you?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I replied.
‘I’m coming over,’ she announced.
‘I can’t hear you. I’m going into a tunnel. Speak later!’ I shouted as I ran down the steps, my trusty rifle knocking against my knees as I ran.

I was so excited when I unwrapped it that I could barely breath. It was just about the best thing that had happened in ages. Pulling it out of the plastic box, I stroked it like a new pet. A new pet which could protect me and give me extra Womble power.
I sat for maybe an hour or two just holding it in my lap. I thought about all the murderers in history who had probably held their guns in exactly the same position. Did they feel nervous, creepy, excited and alive? Did they feel like I did? Then gradually as the sun started to set and turn pinky-red across the roofs of the council flats, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. What was I doing? But then I also had this sense that some sort of force, out of my control was propelling me forwards, making me buy the rifle, making me sit waiting for them, the kids, to emerge and I had no idea what it would make me do next. In the days when I’d been drinking I’d had the same sort of feeling. The feeling I got after two bottles of wine, the sense that anything could happen, anything at all. I could go home and fall asleep in front of the television or I could fall asleep in the middle of Hyde Park, wearing high heels and hot pants and wake up with a park warden shining a torch into my eyes. I could go to Marks & Spencer and buy myself a ready meal or I could sit outside Charing Cross Station at three in the morning peeling pistachio nuts and throwing the shells at the various winos that tried to make a play for me. Winos always used to go for me.
I was fresh, drunk meat I suppose.

This force rather cleverly absolved me of all responsibility.
You’re not supposed to fall asleep face down in a park when you’re sober.
Just like you’re not supposed to buy an air rifle and contemplate shooting a little person.

By about half seven it was dark and I began to feel really stiff because I hadn’t moved. I felt like I was in one of those sieges that you see on TV except no one knew I was here and there was no one shouting encouraging things through a giant megaphone. So it was actually a bit boring and I couldn’t remember why I was holding this thing. The force had dissipated and gone off to watch Reality TV somewhere else. Then suddenly the doorbell rang. In my mind I was clear it was probably the kids because they’d left me alone for long enough. Now the waiting was over.

Although I wasn’t clear on what was going to happen next, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to use the rifle as a deterrent. I hadn’t bought the ammo for nothing. I slipped it down the back of the sofa, switched the hall light on and pressed the intercom button next to the front door.
‘It’s Ruth you bloody idiot. Let me in.’
I’d completely forgotten about our earlier conversation.
I’d entered a parallel universe. Except it wasn’t parallel because nothing felt the same as my normal one.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘Jess let me in,’ she paused, ‘Or I’m going to call your parents.’
She sounded out of breath. I hoped the kids weren’t behind her, digging a finger gun into her back.
‘That’s hardly a threat!’ I laughed.
I just couldn’t face her. Not until I knew what I was going to do with the rifle and whether it was the start or the end.
‘I mean it, let me in. Look I just want to see you’re okay.’
‘I’m not drunk Ruth. I promise,’ I said.
‘I want to tell you something. It’s good news.’
Good news. I certainly needed some good news. I hesitated with my finger still pressed against the intercom and then let her in. Whilst I wasn’t scared of her calling my parents, I didn’t want them bothering me. Or trying to stage some sort of ‘intervention’ which was what they’d done before. Which had been possibly the most embarrassing event in my life (and that was saying something).
‘Come up then,’ I shouted and opened the door.
I went back into the front room and double-checked that the rifle was shoved right down the back of the sofa. I got a cartoon like image of Ruth sitting down and it going off and blasting her up the bottom. But it wasn’t loaded. The pellet things were still sitting in the pocket of my tracksuit top. Ruth was soon standing in my hallway out of breath. She walked into the front room, looked at me and then scanned around for any empty bottles of booze, then moved into the kitchen where she no doubt did the same. I remained standing over the sofa. I heard her pour a glass of water from the tap.
‘What’s going on Jess?’ she asked.
‘Not much. I’ve just been watching a bit of TV and stuff, do you fancy some beans on toast?’
I was a good liar.
‘No I mean look outside.’
She pointed at the large brick wall that faced the flats. Some white swirly writing was scrawled across it at an angle. I couldn’t quite make out what it said.
‘Look Jess, read it.’
I went up on my tiptoes and lent over the sink.
In white spray painted letters, five feet high.
CHECK YO’SELF!
‘Have you forgotten to tell me something?’ Ruth asked and turned round to face me.
I forgot about the rifle then and just hugged her. We didn’t say anything. Then after a while she held me by the shoulders and studied my face. I self-consciously ran my fingers under my eyes to wipe away any runny mascara and tried to arrange my features into something that resembled an ‘upset but not going mad’ look. It was the second time that day I’d had to act like someone else.
‘Has it got worse?’ Ruth asked.
‘It's nothing I can’t cope with,’ I shrugged and sat down on the plastic kitchen chair.
‘But really can you cope with this?’ she gestured outside at the graffiti.
‘I didn’t see it,’ I said.
Starring in my own gangster film had distracted me somewhat.
‘Do you want to come and stay with me for a while? You know just till things calm down. They’ll probably leave you alone and move onto something I mean someone else eventually.’
‘What, just give up?’ I said angrily, I rubbed the skin under my eyes, it was itchy. My whole face felt like a big itchy itch.
Ruth sat down on the chair opposite and took one of my hands. She squeezed it. She smiled.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.
I went through a myriad of emotions in about five seconds; surprise, happiness, sadness and then back to the rifle crammed down the back of the sofa.
‘Wow!’ I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, ‘Congratulations!’
‘I wanted to tell you for a few days now but every time I called you didn’t pick up. And then I got really worried about you. I thought you were drinking again. I mean I know you don’t drink anymore but I thought what with the Phil thing and the kids…’
‘I’m fine’ I said, ‘You know I’d never drink again, not after what happened last time.’

The last time, the time when they made me get help, I’d ended up in water.
Not the Thames or anything half as dramatic as that.
I’d ended up in the bath and fallen asleep and almost drowned.
Luckily my neighbour downstairs had complained about the water leaking through her ceiling and the police were called.
Water.
It was my destiny.

Ruth finally said goodbye after I’d reassured her more than ten times that I would be okay, that I would ring her the next day, that I would contact the local council office and get them to clear up the graffiti, that I would perhaps come and stay with her for a few days if things got worse and that yes I would love to be godmother to her baby when it arrived. I could think of nothing I would love more. Once she’d gone I dug out my tracksuit top, found the ammo in the pocket (I can’t call them pellets, it doesn’t sound right) and loaded up the rifle. It was hard at first, not having done it before and Moustache hadn’t shown me how to do it in the shop. Nevertheless I got there in the end. Then I took up my position next to the window. Like all the great murderers before me I waited for my little people to emerge.
Hello Nice Eyes. How’s it going Grey? It was probably only half nine.
They’d be loading up with their first shot of mobile phone battery fluid. Then they’d eat some high fat food and drink some peach schnapps. Then they’d start burning small creatures.
Then I’d get to work.