him to get a room for the night in one of the numberless flea- ridden flophouses in the vicinity and to be at a certain coffee bar at four that afternoon.
It was at that meeting that Roy engaged Martin with a deliberate
intensity.
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‘This is our time,’ he told him. ‘Things are changing in clubland,
the sex trade is becoming respectable. We need to ride the wave.’
Martin hesitated. Roy fixed him with that determined, blue- eyed
gaze. ‘Do you want in or not? There are a thousand others like you
I could drag out of the gutter if you prefer. It’s just your lucky day.
You can fuck off back to your alleyway if you want.’
Not true. Roy wanted Martin for that oleaginous charm, that
dashing profile, at least once he had been cleaned up a little, and for those connections which Roy lacked. They smoked and drank their
milky coffees from glass cups and resolved to change their world.
‘I know of a little shop that’s going under on Berwick Street,’ Roy said. ‘I think I might be able to lay my hands on the money for the lease.’
‘I’ve got some mates in Brussels with contacts in the right places.’
said Martin. ‘They may be able to source some stuff from Sweden
and Denmark, very explicit. Mags and films. We wouldn’t have to
go through the usual middlemen. I can also get hold of wacky baccy.
And pills.’
They decided they would launch the new shop aggressively and
unapologetically, taking sex out of the back streets and making it a mainstream product. As a sideline, they could deal discreetly in nar-cotics, to appeal to their younger, more affluent clientele. The path was already reasonably well worn by those flamboyant men with
flared trousers and thick moustaches who had made their night-
spots planets in the nocturnal constellation.
‘But the market’s wide open,’ said Roy. ‘It’s ripe. This is our
moment.’
3
September crept into October and fog settled over London. Roy
took a couple of days sick from the office and, with the benefit of his little private nest egg, held in a long- term deposit account at Lyons Bank, lobbied his bank manager for a loan to start up a new
business.
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‘Soho,’ said Mr Price dubiously. ‘Not exactly the most salubrious
of districts.’
Mr Price wore a bank manager’s spectacles over his thin nose.
Below it he had grown a bank manager’s moustache.
‘Exactly,’ replied Roy, eagerness written on his face. ‘But it’s on the up. All the more reason to get in before prices go sky high.’
‘Hmm. I’m not sure the bank would wish to become involved in
an area or a business that runs the risk of being viewed as
disreputable.’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Roy, tut- tutting. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t want that either. I’m trying to establish an entirely above- board business here. I’d hope the bank would understand.’
‘Quite,’ said Mr Price, lips pursed sceptically. ‘Tell me more about this business.’
Roy had resolved to be perhaps a little liberal with the truth. No
need to frighten the horses.
‘What I’m trying to do is to create something,’ he said. ‘To turn
a small, grotty shop into a business with roots in the community.
And of course to make some money at the same time.’
Mr Price appraised him. ‘And what exactly do you intend to sell
in these premises?’
Roy’s glare turned quickly to a smile. ‘A number of things. We’ll
be selling books, we’ll be screening avant- garde films, we’ll be providing a venue to drink coffee and discuss current affairs.’
‘So, a kind of modernistic bookshop, then?’ It seemed an effort to
spit the words out, and Mr Price frowned.
‘If you like to think of it that way, yes. The area is steeped in a long literary tradition, as you know. And in among all the tat and
sex there are still a number of people of that ilk. Intellectuals, with money to spend. And of course the shop would draw people from
all over the metropolis. It’s ideally located, centrally, close to the Underground.’
‘And the premises?’
‘A bit run- down. The current occupant is nearing retirement.
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place up and make it look presentable. My business partner has
good contacts with suppliers and is currently in talks with them.
We’re most optimistic.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ said Mr Price. ‘You will be aware that this is
not precisely a propitious time for new businesses. Consequently
banks will approach any new investment with extreme caution.’
‘Oh yes,’ replied Roy, ‘and quite right too.’
‘If I may say so, Mr Courtnay, you do not exactly seem to me to
be the kind of person who would see his future in catering to the
needs of . . . a bohemian clientele?’
‘If you mean, do I associate with a bunch of long- haired,
self- obsessed hippies, the answer is most certainly no. But I’m happy to take their money. That’s the beauty of it. You see these things
they laughably call businesses, these cooperatives, these well-
meaning women with their self- knitted tie- dyed umbrellas, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I can make a business
work.’
‘I see. Personally, I wouldn’t entertain the notion for a moment.
The issue is not so much you as a potential borrower, or your
business acumen’ – he affords Roy a thin smile – ‘as your target audience. Wholly unreliable, in my view, as well as, I must say, morally questionable.’
‘Quite so,’ said Roy with a smile. ‘But –’
‘However,’ continued Mr Price, holding up a hand to stop him, ‘I
am prepared to put this up to head office. I dare say views there may be rather more progressive than my own. I wish you every good
fortune.’
4
At work he played surreptitiously with scissors, glue, a typewriter and an old letter from his bank, producing a collage that would pass muster when run through the new Xerox machine in the corner of
the typing pool, which was guarded assiduously by the head of the
clerical staff. He waited until the lunch break, when, with sweating 69
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fingers, he made his copy. The first effort was reasonable, and he ran off two more just to be safe. Back at his desk, his attempt at
Mr Price’s signature was rather too shaky for his liking and he was glad to have a second copy.
It was a regrettable but necessary subterfuge. The wheels of
Lyons Bank ground exceeding slow. He was confident of receiving
the loan but needed to sign the lease straight away. There was no
way of covering the gap other than by producing a letter confirm-
ing sufficient funds in his account and signing a cheque that, he
hoped, would not be cashed immediately. Further cheques would
need to follow for utilities and the modest fit- out of the premises.
Cheques would not be necessary to buy stock: in th
is business hard
cash was what it would take before Martin’s continental suppliers
released goods to them. Roy had ideas about where to find the
liquid assets to effect the necessary deals.
He left the office at four, claiming illness. He reckoned he’d need the next day off as well. But he required this job only for a short while longer. Soon he would be released from the long grey linoleum corridors and liberated into the bright lights of the real world.
5
It was high time for one of their periodic arguments. She could start a fight in an empty room, he always thought. Well, so be it; it was convenient right now. In fact it was necessary. It would not take
much to escalate it to the proportions of full nuclear war.
What was it to be this time? The state of the bathroom? His lazy
habits? Martin popping round all the time and staring at her tits?
From the perspective of now, he could not fathom how they had
come together or why they remained together. She was so much
younger than him for a start, which was evident to anyone who
came across them. Younger not simply in years. Maureen was naive
and almost infinitely enthusiastic. If he had ever possessed those
qualities they had been knocked out of him a long time before.
Life- affirming was beyond him: he didn’t see the point.
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Maybe she’d been drawn to the force of his being. Maybe she’d
needed a father figure, having come down from the primitive North
to the Big Smoke. Maybe she just found him sexually irresistible.
Any or all of these could apply. He didn’t care. It had palled and
outlived its usefulness. In fact his advantage was flowing in an
entirely different direction now. At one time there had been, for
him, available sex with an attractive younger woman, someone to
cook his meals and look after his home (not that she was particu-
larly good at either), and the potential material benefits of a high earner in the household. But when they had opened the joint building society account he had not reckoned on her being so gobby and
strident. He had put up with the sound of her voice with infinite
patience.
Well, not for much longer. Now it was all about the process of
extricating himself to his best advantage.
It was work, when it came. They were sitting in the lounge after
their evening meal, the sound of the television turned up loud to
drown the noise of the young couple in the neighbouring flat, with
their Stones or Bowie or whatever it was. Roy suspected they must
be junkies, they looked so gaunt and white, with straggling identi-
cal hair, pale smiles and eye sockets darkened to blue- black with the fatigue of listening to rock music at all hours of the night.
The building in which they lived had been hastily partitioned in
the 1960s. With its peeling, faded woodwork, its botched pointing
and the vandalism of its improvised division into flats, it was now barely recognizable as a once comfortable merchant’s house of the
nineteenth century.
They occupied one third of the ground floor. Below them, in the
highly undesirable basement flat, with its dark and dank corners,
lived the quiet, pious West Indian immigrant couple who, he sup-
posed, kept themselves neat enough, he with his job on the buses
and she the school cleaner. Across the hallway lived the little junkies, touchingly naive and young, destined for their early graves,
while above them was the rake- thin embittered old man, with his
flat cap and collarless shirt and a visage where the razor each day missed a large swathe of its duty, reportedly a widower, who
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glowered whenever they met in the communal areas. Roy had no
idea who, if anyone, occupied the remaining two flats. It was noisy and cold in this place, it was dismal and hopeless. He knew there
was a better life to be had.
She walked to the television and switched it off. The thumping
beat and the tuneless shrieking could be heard through the wall.
‘You don’t really care about anything, do you?’ she said. Her voice when she hectored him took on a shrill harshness that crashed
around his ears. ‘Least of all your career.’
‘Depends what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I do my job.’
‘That’s all it is, though, isn’t it? A job.’
‘That’s all any job is. A job. You do your work and they give you
your money. End of story.’
‘Don’t you ever think we’re doing something more important
than that?’
He shrugged before saying with deliberation, ‘It’s important for
me. It pays our bloody bills. Keeps the wolf from the door.’
‘Do you ever commit to anything?’
‘Commit? What exactly does that mean? And anyway, why should
I? Beyond an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work?’
‘Because we can change the world, if we want.’
He looked at her with an expression of astonishment.
‘Change things? And why would I want to do that? Assuming, for
the moment, that such a stupid idea held any water. The world is
what the world is. We just get on with it, getting whatever we can
from it.’
‘You don’t care about anything, do you?’ she repeated.
‘That’s for others. I get my orders and carry them out. I get paid.
Or if I don’t do what I’m told I get fired. Simple as that.’
There was a loud thud from the flat above. Possibly a suitcase had
been dropped, or a body had hit the floor.
‘I’m just interested in getting on with things. Not theorizing. Not changing the world.’ He hurled this last out with a bitter, thin line of spittle that hung like gossamer on his chin. He wiped it off with his sleeve.
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She was silent, at a loss. It was as if she suddenly lacked the power, or the will, to contend with this.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, don’t say anything, then,’ he riposted immediately but
with intent.
‘Shall we just stop this conversation now?’ she said.
Despite its sharpness, he knew that for her this amounted to a
proposal for a truce, however uneasy. Early, he thought: normally
they arrived here much later, exhausted and impotently frustrated
each with the other. Perhaps the edge to his voice had alerted some subliminal instinct in her. But he was not about to let go. Oh no.
‘I’ve had about enough of this bleeding- heart nonsense,’ he said.
‘I’d like to teach the world to sing. In perfect harmony. Well, buy a bloody Coke, then, and shut your trap.’
She was visibly alarmed. This was not how the game was played.
These were not the rules.
‘Well, you know what you can do, then,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes,’ he said decisively.
Her eyes narrowed slightly and he was certain he could sense her
flinch.
He was not proud of it. It had happened when he was at a vulner-
able point, when he had returned from the pub on a particularly
dark and windy night. She had gone on and on, about something he
could not now recall. So he had belted he
r, quick and hard, about
the temple. A short, sharp shock. It had not been sufficient to knock her from her feet or inflict greater damage, but no doubt she was
dazed. Her head had lolled elastically on her neck for a moment. It had had the desired effect: the momentary look of animus had
turned to fear and then, gratifyingly, to compliance. It had been
spontaneous and unplanned, but he had learned from its efficacy.
He had felt no shame. In the circumstances the act, while not pre-
cisely desirable or elegant, had been defensible; even necessary, he now thought. He looked at her and saw that glint again in her eyes.
‘Why don’t you go and spend a few days with your mum?’ he
said, and it was less a placatory question than a quiet command.
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As she looked at him her resentful fear melted into resignation.
‘Yes, I might,’ she said, and he continued to look at her steadily.
6
Busy busy busy. Time to get weaving. Taking his belongings and
removing all trace of himself, he had moved swiftly out of the flat, having learned enough to last a lifetime about playing house. He
cleared the building society account, placing some of the money
into his own account but retaining most as ready cash. They had
opened that account together, at Maureen’s insistence, to save for a mortgage. So much for her being unconventional and against the
system. So much, now, for happy families. He had enjoyed ripping
up the passbook.
He resigned from the Ministry by means of a curt letter painfully
scratched out with blotchy biro on grubby Basildon Bond. To hell
with the notice period, he had thought; to hell with the final month’s salary. Let them find me, let them sue.
The shop was now his home. It was squalid but liveable: there
was neither hot water nor heating and he had to sleep in the tiny
windowless back room on a threadbare old couch that bore grisly
stains and exuded an unpleasant aroma. But he had known much,
much worse in his lifetime. The bank loan had been declined, so
there was a potential cash flow crisis. But for the moment he could juggle, using the money from the building society account and citing the bank’s ineptitude to the landlords. The sale of the first
consignments would see them right. The important thing was that