Piccadilly Line

Piccadilly Line

1

He had never been much of a talker, not at all, really. A quiet lad
growing up. Not at all like that chatterbox brother of his. And anyway,
what on earth could he possibly contribute to the conversations
conducted by Marjorie's friends? Competitions, more like. A set
program, and he didn't know the secret password, either. Anything he
said was unscripted and very likely to earn him a blank look. Raised
eyebrows. A glance exchanged between two sets of hostile eyes.
Marjorie's silent fury later. Sometimes she wouldn't speak to him for
days after one of her get-togethers. At least, that's why he thought
she gave him the silent treatment at that time.

So he never spoke much.

When her lady friends came for tea and bridge and sympathy for their
internal problems and tedious husbands, really, couldn't they keep
their hands, among other things, to themselves at this point in time?
When her lady friends descended on the house armored in their tweedy
suits and woolly twin sets, he retreated for the sanctuary of the dusty
potting shed and sat in the cobwebby gloom and stared at the ordered
rows of hedges and blooms through the dirt-encrusted window, and he
thought about all the good times he'd gone fishing with his mates
instead of going to school.

He was good at thinking. A genuine artist in thoughts, in fact. There
were so many opportunities to practice, sporting matches, meals, shows.
At the cricket matches in St. John's Wood, eyes front, slightly glazed,
pretending to follow the game in rapt fascination as Marjorie and her
father politely applauded each wicket. He'd smile to himself, a
thousand miles away, and, oh, yes, his father-in-law agreed, it was
well-bowled. He wondered vaguely if he might not smash his
father-in-law in the face just to see if the old man's expression would
change. At the polite luncheons which followed the matches he thought
while he picked at precisely crisp cucumber sandwiches and sipped at
his tea. And he especially exercised his brain during the endless
parade of dull operas, ballets, and Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganzas
which Marjorie attended regularly, sitting upright and rigid in their
box, grimly determined to appreciate the spectacle on the stage before
her.

2

When he was older, in his teens, he came into the city every morning
with his dad, with a real bus pass, not stolen fare, the 134 from East
Finchley. They went to the office building where his dad worked. His
dad swept up, and his dad had got him a job. Just an errand boy in the
lowest office for the least ranked exec. Nothing more than a servant, a
bit of scruffy furniture respected only slightly less than the
aphid-ridden plants in the building foyer. Someone invisible unless
there was hell to pay, and then he usually paid it.

But it was temporary, wasn't it? Just some way to pass the time, which
he had plenty of, being expelled from school and all. All right, he
wasn't the best student in the world. He was the first to admit it. How
was he to know that turpentine was flammable? Actually, he supposed he
should have known. Perhaps they'd covered it during one of the days
he'd played truant, off fishing with his mates. Still. Pretty big bang,
wasn't it? And he supposed the headmaster's eyebrows would grow back
eventually.

What he really wanted was a real hands-on profession, sod this pushing
around a glorified shopping trolley filled with mail and parcels and
overnight deliveries. He was good with his hands. Hot wired many a
vehicle, picked a few pockets, copped a random grope or two in the last
row of the balcony at the cinema. He was no athlete, that was for
certain, but he could handle a hammer and a spanner -- why not get a
job doing maintenance at the park? Sure, football was important, but
the spectators couldn't have a decent punch-up if they were in constant
anxiety about the stands collapsing, could they? He could keep the
stadium together, too right. He often daydreamed about that, how he'd
lurk about under the stands, climb to the perilous heights of the light
stanchions. Yes. Just him and his tools, holding it all together,
working quiet-like, behind the scenes. The silent, invisible hero to
thousands.

Still, the office job wasn't so bad, really. Extra money for mum, to
make up for all those times he'd given her hell. He'd been quite the
little git, hadn't he? A little something for himself, too; he never
considered saving it -- it wasn't enough, really. Foolishly spent on
the pretty girls who lingered in the sweetshop when he and his brother
went for cheap chocolates and comic books. Nice, actually, now that he
had something in common with his brother again. One day, best mates, up
to all sorts of didoes; next day, he can barely speak to the lad, stuck
in the mirror, mooning over some spotty girl. Baffled, he was, at
first, now completely understanding. He chased them, too, and with some
success; now it was all his loose change invested in candy, comic
books, and condoms -- no way would he knock up some little tart just to
spend the rest of his life chained to her ankle.

His mates teased him about his posh job, but they were good-natured
about it, always. How he'd got all gentrified and would forget them all
once he owned the company, a squire on his estate, surrounded by his
servants, a fat mistress locked up in some plush flat in town. He
tilted his chin in response to their taunts and looked down his nose,
and replied to their impertinent comments in his toffee-nosed accent
and walked away from them with great dignity, his gait slow and
stately. He did not wish to dislodge the rod rammed up his ass. Much to
their great appreciation and applause.

3

Then one day, he up and went home. A water main broke, there was an
electrical failure, and the office closed for the day. So he switched
off his computer, which had lately developed a rather alarming hum. And
if he left it on for more than a half an hour at a time, it gave off
the distinctive fragrance of over-heated electric train transformer.
But he knew it would be useless to complain. He had the title, he had
the corner office, he had the boss's daughter, but he had no respect.
Not from his superiors, his peers, his inferiors. Not that he cared. He
held them all in secret, universal disdain, the fat twits.

He sighed, and he took up his proper mac and his proper black brolly,
and his proper bowler, and he gave his proper farewells as he exited
the building. All reciprocated, but he knew the looks they exchanged
behind his back after he passed by, and his fixed, slightly pleasant
expression never faltered.

4

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. A rare chance to overcome the
inevitability of his fate. He should consider himself blessed with
fantastic luck. He should consider the tremendous favor bestowed upon
him. The boss, the boss, the head of the company, appraised him with a
hard, disconcertingly pop-eyed stare. He cowered uncomfortably,
embarrassed, painfully aware of his cheap clothes and Vaseline-polished
shoes as he stood slump-shouldered on the other side of the massive
polished desk.

A marriage of great social advantage. An escape undreamed of. A social
leap, position, wealth, power -- unavailable to someone of his station
unless he became a footballer or a pop star. Unlikely to happen any
time soon, and, continued the boss with a moue of distaste, not really
desirable.

Yes, sir.

So. Marriage. A respectable place in society. A house in the country.
A new job -- a better job. A fine, respectable wife. And, oh, yes, a
nice financial settlement for his dad and mum, they could use it.
Only...the only condition --

Yes, sir?

No contact with his family. None. No more. Not ever. Just the thought!
His family mingling among Marjorie's? What errant nonsense! Did he not
agree?

Yes, sir.

So he understood the terms of the contract? The arrangement?

Yes, sir.

Then sign here. Er, you can write, can't you?

Yes, sir.

5

And so he walked down the street, freed again by some unforeseen and
irresistible force of nature. Past the scaffolding and hotels and shops
along Tottenham Court Road and Russell Street. Down the quiet calm of
Montague.

6

Cricket matches! What dreary rubbish! He daydreamed; he was only five,
needing desperately a WC, jumping up and down among the crush and
tugging on his dad's trousers. Jostled and squashed by the screaming
maniacs around him, who, under normal circumstances, were his brothers
and cousins and uncles, now possessed by some demon in the North Bank
Stand -- Lower Tier Outer Wing, or the cheap seats to the uninitiated
-- at Highbury Stadium, taking every yellow card against Arsenal as a
personal insult. He watched solemnly as his dad threw a punch at a
particularly loquacious and eloquent Hotspur supporter, and when the
enemy landed at his feet, he gravely conked him over the head with his
ice cream and asked his dad for another.

7

"Please, please, sir," begged the girl, frightening him from his
reverie. She rattled at him a paper cup emblazoned with the name of
some fast-food chain. God, they'd sprung up everywhere for the benefit
of the tourists, hamburger joints and pizza parlors, quaint Dickensian
facades. You want Dickens? Go look at the dirty, crammed council houses
out by the Nestle plant, he thought with his old venom, flashing
glances at the tourists as they wandered along with him, searching for
their bed and breakfast among the identical Georgian rowhouses.
Whatever happened to fish and chips?

Sticky coins clinked together in the bottom of the cup as she shook it
at him. He brushed her aside as if she were nothing more than a
bothersome cobweb. A homeless beggar, was she? Weak and sickly? Eaten
alive by the big, bad city? Well, she'd leapt off those steps and into
his face with some alacrity. Before he could react and blister her
shell-like ear with his opinions on the subject, she was after the next
mark. Efficient. He'd been an efficient little sod, too. Funny how it
was all coming back to him today. Unexpected. Refreshing, really. He
itched to do something spontaneous for once. Something off the menu,
unplanned, unscheduled.

He crossed the green grass at Russell Square. A beautiful warm day.
Too nice, really, to be propped up behind a desk, even if it were in a
corner office. The only advantage he could see in such accommodations
was twice as much petrol fumes, twice as much noise from blaring horns
at his disposal. Air conditioning at full blast, drying his sinuses,
making his head ache. Now he sweat inside his three piece suit and
wished he could sprawl out on his stomach in the cool green grass, too.
Instead he darted across a break in traffic on Southhampton Row and
marched down the street to his Tube stop. He paused at the ticket
machines, wondering, thinking. Then someone pushed him, an American
tourist. She excused herself with a tooth filled grin, her accent sharp
enough to cut sheet metal. He nodded in acknowledgement, his practiced
eye evaluating how long it would take to grab her bulging purse off her
shoulder, God they were so careless, the tourists, and fed his pass to
the ticket gate. Again he paused and glanced wistfully towards the
stairwell that led down into the bowels of the station to the
tracks.

8

And he had begun his quiet life. He kept to himself. Solitary, alone.
It was all right, really, but he did find himself wondering what his
mates had got up to. Did his brother marry that girl, or not? He
married this girl, that was for certain.

And he learned how to hold his knife and fork to suit her. How to walk
and how to stand amid the herd in their stiff, awkward postures. His
talent for mimicry certainly hadn't gone for nought: he softened his
vowels and discovered several new consonants about which he'd only
heard vague rumors. Idly he wondered if he ought to cultivate a speech
impediment. Perhaps a twitch. God knew most of these imbred cretins had
one or the other or both.

9

He smiled to himself, looking at the stairwell, at the warning sign
posted before the entryway. He and his brother had disdained the lifts
unless they decided to play Kidnappers --

"Did yer tie 'im up right and proper? Yer sure 'e can't get
away?"

Brilliant and witty remarks made in urgent stage whispers punctuated
with furtive, wide-eyed glances. All calculated to alarm the punters
trapped in the confined space with them.

He and his brother generally opted to take the one hundred and
seventy-four spiral steps down to the platform, ever mindful of some
wretched film they'd seen on television about a family of cannibals who
lived in the Russell Square Station, pausing at the mysterious hallways
and tunnels that led off at intervals from the landings before they ran
forward again with a delicious shriek of fear. He hadn't been down
those steps in, what? Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty-five years? On impulse he
descended, and the forgotten, yet at once familiar, gusts of hot air
from the tracks far below knocked off his bowler. He smiled as he
remembered the vertigo the narrow steps had given him when he'd run
faster and faster, and he fought desperately against the urge to run
now. He wasn't ten years old anymore.

10

And he kept his mouth shut at the parties and the soirees, but he
talked to himself incessantly in the shower, one-sided conversations,
telling himself stale, yet always-popular dirty jokes, his voice masked
by the blast of the water. He smiled his side-ways pulled smile in the
steamy mirror, his same old cheeky grin, the same old dimple playing in
and out of his left cheek, same old mischief still sparkling in his
green-grey eyes. Reassurances that he was still there, somewhere, under
the sensible haircut, the wool gaberdine suits, Egyptian cotton shirts,
the silk school tie.

11

He caught his train, still smiling to himself, smiling that he was
slightly out of breath. At ten he would have taken the steps up as
well, punching his brother the entire way so that he had some chance of
winning the race to the top. He glanced up at the map of the line above
his head. Next stop, King's Cross. Be there in a trice. Then off again
to catch his train out to his squire's manse in the suburbs. He sighed
unhappily, unconsciously, as his eyes traced the route to the north
beyond.

12

Parties, bridge, tea. Cucumber sandwiches. Rabbit food, rabbity teeth.
Ersatz Wildean wit culled from their abridged compendia of famous
literary quotations. Posh education, yet dumber than posts to a man.
Social life! He'd show them a thing or two about family togetherness,
he mused, watching them swilling down the free booze. For there was no
escape into the garden from him this time, not when she had over
couples. They all ignored him for the imposter he was as they sipped
their brandies and smoked their velvety cigarettes. He watched them
play cards at the little bridge tables and thought of his uncles and
the stout bottles littering his mum's scarred kitchen table, the blue
haze from their hand-rolled, and, judging from the stench, home grown,
fags hanging in a dense fog around the bare bulbed light on its frayed
cord, flipping dead dog ends to the floor, cheating at poker, counting
cards, blistering the paint with their off-color stories. He had been a
silent observer then, too, absorbing everything, savoring the dirtier
words, wondering at their meaning, hoping no one would notice him, a
little boy in worn flannel pajamas up past his bedtime quietly playing
with friction cars on the tiles near the dripping sink. Marjorie's
parties kept him up past his bedtime, too. Listening to some drivel
about the stock market or the high cost of theater prices, always at
the edge of the group, never quite a part of it, nothing to contribute
to the talk, as baffled by their vocab as he had been by his Uncle
Jack's, and he wished fleetingly he still had a toy car or two with
which to pass the time.

13

And he stayed in his seat at King's Cross, and stayed there as the
Tube stopped at Caledonian and then Holloway Road, and more people got
off, and less people got on, and he stayed there as the train sped off
again, his ears popping as they ascended closer to the surface, and he
stayed there as they stopped at Manor House, and his heart pounded, and
he clutched his brolly and briefcase with white knuckles, and his hands
sweat, and he trembled, and then he leaped up and stumbled towards the
doors as the train slowed at the Turnpike Lane station, and he flailed
his arms as he fell from the carriage and nearly landed on his face on
the platform.

14

And please. High society and entertainment were mutually exclusive in
his book. Marjorie could keep her Madame Butterfly and her Miserables
and her Phantom. Wistfully he dreamed through Culture in Covent Garden
and thought about the sex shows in Soho, before they cleaned it up,
sneaking in to the smokey dives with his older brother. A blissful
glimpse of a bare tit before a boot to his backside propelled him into
the alleyway rubbish. A grunt and a burst of pain as his brother
followed and landed hard on top of him. Mum walloped the hell out of
him when she saw the muck on his clothes, did he think she didn't have
enough to do already? But he never developed any sort of deviant desire
to see naked breasts while being spanked. He may have daydreamed a lot,
but he certainly wasn't some sort of dirty old man.

15

He stood on the platform for a long moment, breathing hard in the
deserted tunnel. The roar of the train, speeding now towards Wood
Green, Bounds Green, Arnos Grove and other points north to Cockfosters,
end of the line, faded from his ears. With a shuddery sigh he wandered
up the ramp to the exit.

16

Even though the little girl wasn't his, he loved her dearly. She was a
beautiful little thing, and he was awestruck. He didn't dare ask about
her father.

He envisioned the little girl and her little brother playing on the
vast expanse of green lawn before the house, Madeline attired in a
starched white dress and crowned with a large, white bow in her hair,
and Kenneth, after his maternal grandfather, dressed up in a middy
blouse and shorts -- perhaps a round of croquet? Or walking their pony?
Overseen by Marjorie as she cut roses from the hedge, or while she read
Plato in the garden gazebo.

Except Maddy became a miniature version of her mother. Pushing him
away, wincing and flinching from his paternal cuddles and kisses as
young as three years old, her haughty stare perfected at her mother's
knee. She believed him to be some mad sexual pervert. Particularly
interested in little girls. Maddy did, however, have a horse, and she
kept it immaculate in the stable behind the house. She was more
interested in dogfood on the hoof than she was in the congenital twerps
who came about and made boring small talk at the garden parties in
imitation of their parents, then groped each other behind the hedges
where they thought they were invisible from prying adult eyes.

And despite his hopes and, well, yes, his expectations -- he had done
her rather a service, saved her reputation, redeemed her virtue --
Marjorie made it perfectly clear that he would keep his own bed and his
own room, and he was mortified when Kenneth made his appearance. He
made a game of studying the halibut and trout who regularly attended
the garden parties with their wives, shifting his eyes between
Marjorie's son and their faces, searching for a resemblance. Kenneth
sure as hell didn't look like him; hadn't granddad noticed?

17

"Yer got an all-day pass, guv?"

He started and fumbled to retrieve his underground ticket from the
return. A scruffy youth stared at him, a look of dishonest sincerity on
his spotty face.

"Buy it from yer. Face price. Like a refund. Fair, innit? I mean, yer
can't use it no more, can yer?" he asked, speaking the old, painfully
familiar accent out of the corner of his mouth.

"No, I need it, I'm only here on business," he stammered, clutching
the ticket in his sweaty hand. He shoved brusquely past the boy and
along the tunnel walkway to the stairs which led to the street. He
resisted the urge to run, to look back.

Coming up and into the fresher air and sunshine, he paused to catch
his breath and take his bearings. He heard the tout shuffling up the
stairway behind him, and he quickly walked away. A group of youths
lounged about on the benches near the bus stop, ostentatiously ignoring
him, carefully watching him. So determined was he to get away from the
station that he stepped off the curb without looking and nearly got
flattened by a battered white Vauxhall. With a half-hearted wave of
apology he crossed the High Road and all but scurried down past the
shops along Turnpike Lane itself.

As he strode past the businesses, his pounding heart gradually calmed,
and he slowed his pace. He glanced into the plate glass windows,
observed cheap wares and cheaper prices, and he felt happier, lighter,
higher than he had in years. He developed a positive spring in his
step. He wasn't the dowdy forty-five year old ersatz vice-president of
a major accounting firm any longer; time fell away and he was thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen. With every step, his Serious Attire unravelled,
replaced by worn, familiar clothes. The weighty bowler on his head
transformed into his own long, untidy hair, flopping about his face and
neck, camouflaging a truly spectacular constellation of spots on his
forehead. He was confident, cheeky, ready to take on anyone he saw who
did not belong in his street, in his neighborhood.

He smiled to himself, his crooked smile, oblivious to the curious
stares of the parchment colored locals who stood on the sidewalks in
clusters of twos and threes and fours, their delicate, melodious speech
tinged with a heavy North London accent, falling silent as he
approached, whispering suspiciously as he passed. He was in Eden, and
paradisiacal construction ran towards heavy red-brick Victorian houses,
turrets, window boxes, chimney pots, all familiar and cozy despite the
proliferation of signs and adverts with their Hindi calligraphy. He
gazed into the shop windows on his left, bemused at the blatant display
of questionable meats at a butcher's, coughing as a blast of dry air
from the launderer's caught at the back of his throat, wondering how
anyone could afford to sell five shirts at L15 when each
mother-of-pearl button on his own shirt cost more than L3.

He found himself somewhat out of breath as he huffed along up the hill
and under the train bridge. Didn't he and his brother once race up and
down these streets? Didn't he jog alongside his brother to practice for
school football matches and track meets and still have the energy for a
race around the block when they'd got back home? Under the bridge, he
felt a painful nostalgic ache to be under the trestles when the train
came from Hornsey Station. He hesitated at the corner, studying the
street sign planted in the middle of the green verge: Tottenham Lane,
N.8. The block of flats on the corner was for sale. He carefully
studied the blue and white estate agent's sign, barely visible amid the
untidy ivy which scrambled up and down and around the bricks and
windows. Memorized the name and number.

Why not?

Why not buy it?

A capital gain -- isn't that what his father-in-law would call
it?

A tax dodge.

An investment.

A piece of his childhood, he could buy a piece of his childhood back.
Take one of the flats for his own. A secret hideaway. An escape from
Marjorie and the two strangers she had borne. A private lair.

With a sigh, his thoughts awhirl, his stomach fluttering, he turned to
walk down Tottenham. As he passed under the elaborate scaffolding set
up in front of one of the shops, he unconsciously turned his shoulders
inward, fearful that a stray I-beam would fall and bash in his brains.
His brother swore he'd seen it happen once, and he believed everything
his brother said. A lot of renovation work going on up here, he thought
idly. Perhaps with his purchase of the flat block, he could contribute
to progress. Bring something back to the old neighborhood. Boost the
local economy.

The houses to his left gave way to a tall, wooden fence; the tracks
lay on the other side. For a moment he was deafened as a train sped by.
Idly he kicked at the loose gravel on the sidewalk as he passed the
fifties and sixties on the other side of the street, two and three
story redbrick Victorian houses. All cut up inside now, flats instead
of single homes. They were beautiful under the rare, deep blue sky.
Scruffy, but neatly kept. Poor people took pride in what little they
had. Not like some people. He thought of his mother scrubbing the front
porch steps, handwashing fragile lace curtains from the front room
window. Far above was a thin white contrail, a flight out of Heathrow;
in town the jets were so low he often resisted the urge to wave to the
pilots. Flowers trailed from window boxes. CLASS WAR NOT OIL WAR
proclaimed a chalk scrawl on the peeling wooden fence. Food wrappers
and bits of plastic and paper rubbish lay strewn in the browning,
stubbly grass between the walk and the fence.

Why not buy the building? Over and over again in his brain, in time
with his steps on the walk. He felt positively feverish. He wished he
could just materialize in the estate agent's office. Rent the flats out
to the art students -- an easy walk to the school, surely. And if he
kept the top floor, just for himself, one huge room -- he could
renovate it -- just for himself! He smiled crookedly. He paused and
stared at the small factory building across the way, nestled among the
red brick homes. Bright blue paint, nearly as deep in color as today's
sky, gleamed in the morning sunshine on its doors. He could brighten up
the flat building. Have all of the rubbish bins moved around to the
back. Sandblast away the spattering of graffiti on the bricks. Surely.
It looked sound. That's what mattered the most. Everything else was
cosmetic. Superficial. Easily fixed, repainted, covered up.

A man unloading a small van before the little factory cast him a
suspicious glance before knocking at the building's blue door. A bright
orange advert for a fun fair, suspended from the lamppost in front of
the factory, caught his eye. His crooked smile deepened: he and his
brother would have gone, any how, any way. Now the man across the way
punched a number into the entry coder; he knew the secret password,
too. The doorlock buzzed and shook the man from his reverie. He smiled
as the deliveryman threw him one last distrustful look before
disappearing inside. He remembered the factory as a broken down,
disused, shoddy building; some musician had purchased it and renovated
it in the early 70s. Nice job of it, too.

So, why couldn't he come back and have a go of it in his old
neighborhood? A secret home, a friendly bolthole. He could look up lost
friends, estranged family. He could rebuild his whole life. Maybe he
could even buy season tickets. Humming, he ducked into the newsagent's
across the street and selected a tabloid. Headlines easily visible from
Mars. Probably originated there, for all the sense they made. Marjorie
wouldn't have the things in the house, but surely the underground
journey was long enough, even for a casual read, a quick glance at
scantily clad maidens. He could switch to a more reputable paper at
King's Cross when he caught the train home this evening. No one would
be any the worse for not being wiser.

As he passed the rack of sweets, he saw the pretty young girl. She
stood hip-shot, studying the magazine covers. Years ago he would have
chatted her up without hesitation. Long hair, brightly colored, cheap
glass earring studs, three in one ear, two in the other. He smiled just
as she glanced up at him, eyes smudged with a heavy-handed application
of kohl.

"What yer looking at, granddad?" she sneered. She pushed past him and
out of the door in a swirl of grubby rayon dress.

He was at once upset -- not because of what she said, but because for
a fleeting instant he had barely understood what she had said; her
words had been little more than gibberish. He laid his money on the
newsagent's counter, face aflame.

18

Shopping. That's all Marjorie did. It was her sport. She had so much
bloody cash she couldn't spend it fast enough. As if it disgusted her
to have it in her possession. When he saw the parcels and packages from
shops in Knightsbridge and Kensington, he wished he were skulking about
with his older brother down round Oxford Circus, pinching apples from
the fruiterer's stand on the corner, then racing off, laughing, needing
vaguely to piss, while the enraged grown-ups shouted and shook their
fists. Nothing was better than those illicitedly got Granny Smiths as
he stumble-skipped to keep up with his brother, pausing to peer into
the windows of the posh shops on Regent, staring at the goods they
could never afford, clutching each others' hands, alarmed and
frightened, as they wandered wide-eyed down Carnaby Street to look at
the freaks in their silk frock coats and eye make-up, in the time
before the once groovy street had become a haven of cheap gimcrack and
nostalgic yuppie tourists and posing teenagers. Making fun of the toffs
and the tourists out throwing away their money. Picking someone's
pocket so they could take the 134 back home before their dad discovered
their absence and then blistered their bottoms anyway.

19

The counter clerk barely acknowledged him. He had to think hard to
speak properly. His old accent wanted desperately to come out; this
posh rubbish caught in his throat. He was an imposter, playing the toff
to make his brother and cousins and friends laugh, but the woman
glanced sharply at him when he answered her, his cheeky old grin in
place.

Oh, Christ -- he'd forgotten how he was dressed. She thought he was
making fun of her. He stammered his apologies -- posh -- and scooped up
the change she dropped on the counter, and stumbled his way back into
the sunshine.

Red-faced, he stumped back down the street, consoling himself with his
potential purchase. Look, of course people were going to regard him
strangely. With this suit! Next time, he'd come up for a little recce
dressed a bit more appropriately. He'd have his secretary call the
estate agent's first thing in the morning. Find out the going price.
Couldn't be that much, not in this area, not in this neighborhood. Make
an irresistible offer. And could she also please find him a good
contractor? Surely there was inspection work to be done, and --

"Yer certain yer're in the right neighborhood, squire? Only, yer look
a bit lost," said the tout from the Tube station. He leaned against the
board fence quite near the chalked slogan. The other youths from the
bus stop milled about, moths drawn to the flame.

20

The man from the post office in Tottenham brought him home. No trouble
at all, he reassured him. Was he positive that he didn't want to go to
hospital? Some nasty bruises there from the punch-up. Lucky he came
along in his van when he did. Those scruffs would've beaten him good
and proper otherwise.

No, he was all right. Really. He could just get out at the end of the
drive. No reason to inconvenience the man any further. Thank you so
much, you are quite kind.

He walked up the long drive. He didn't need a bright red Royal Mail
van up at the front door. His suit was torn and blood-stained and
dirty. His briefcase gone. No great loss; there was never anything of
importance in it, anyway. But he'd miss that brolly. Beaten with his
own umbrella. Rather humiliating, really.

Marjorie waited for him in silence, held the door open for him. He
shuffled past her into the cold light of the foyer, and she let the
heavy door fall to with an inarguable bang behind him.