Back out on the pavement, Martin handed over the dosh. It was all there.
‘Thanks, and no hard feelings, eh?’ said the man with a van. ‘Will you be wanting more bringing tomorrow?’
‘Not by you,’ Martin said.
‘Fair enough,’ said the man with a van.
She met him at the door with fifty quid in her hand. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Nice job. You should go on the stage.’
Her brown hair was down round her shoulders, still wet from the shower. She had on a fresh white T-shirt and a long wrap-around skirt.
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he said. ‘You could’ve had me for free.’
She shook her head, smiling. ‘Don’t be daft.’
The birthmark hardly bothered him now. ‘Nah, you’re a stunner. You’ve got me all hot and bothered.’
Her smile faded. Her hand went to her cheek. ‘Enough with the gift of the gab.’
He reached out, moved the hand away. ‘Seriously,’ he said. Gave her fingers a squeeze.
She looked at him, her head tilted, her eyes kind of narrow.
‘How about it?’ he said. ‘Shall we open that bottle?’ He gave her his best cheeky grin.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘Come on, love. Bit of fun. Bit of company, like you said.’
‘No thanks.’ She began closing the door.
‘Okay, so next week then – you’ll be wanting the stuff he leaves shifted?’
‘Not by you,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’ The door closed in his face.
‘Fair enough,’ said the man with a van.
Sunday
Harry
Ye gods, hear me. Take pity upon a poor wretch. Will I never find peace or a haven of safety? I’ve jumped out of the frying pan into a pending tray. In a deserted office in the small hours of Sunday morning, I’m still shackled to the will. Hours of concentrated beseeching have brought no mocking angel; I’m beginning to think Scotty & Co. don’t work at the weekends.
Being a ghost is horrendous. Whatever I might have imagined, the reality is an infinity worse. Brief intervals of mind-curdling terror are succeeded by long days and nights of more boredom than I know how to bear. I yearn from the roots of my soul for unconsciousness. I never properly appreciated that sleep was a way to fast-forward the dull bits, to evade the grinding indifference of time.
I stare at the calendar, with its relentless enumeration of the days of July and its insipid image of Monet’s poppy field. The second hand on the wall clock couldn’t possibly tick round more slowly. Would to heaven I were somewhere lively and bitchy: a Hollywood party or Broadway on opening night. Or had some intellectual stimulation: a concert, a film, a TV drama, a play. Or, if I must be quiet and alone, let it be somewhere serene and beautiful: a sundrenched beach with gentle waves lapping, or my sitting room with its view of the Channel. Ah God, how I wish I were home.
Anxiety seizes me again. Because this may be it, I may be stuck here forever. I put immense care and feeling into my will – a medium for an idea or a message, said Scotty – but what help is that to me now? Have I traded my chances of escape on a molecule of an incinerated corpse for a solicitor’s filing system: locked in a box or a drawer, a wakeful eternity with not even a calendar to look at or the uncertainty of what happens next to help the time pass?
I try to concentrate on the mice. At least they are moving with purpose. There’s one nibbling a crumb by this pending tray and another nosing its way into an open packet of ginger nuts. I rarely saw a mouse while I lived. I would cheerfully have murdered any I found in my beautiful home if Henry V – sweet cat, how I miss you – hadn’t got to them first; but right now I’m glad of their company, thankful to be distracted by their scurrying and rustling, their black eyes alert as they clean their quivering whiskers and fragile pink ears. Boo! I say, Boo! but they carry on, untroubled, oblivious. I have lost all power to command an audience, even of mice.
How horribly great is that loss. In my imagination I am poised in the wings again, impatient for my cue. Stepping forward, smelling the excitement out there, speaking the first line, feeling the love rush towards me across the footlights like a great warm breath. The camera adored me no less – I knew how to play subtle. Barely a twitch of an eyebrow – my mind shone out through my eyes. Countless times in the darkness of a movie premiere, watching such a moment, I have felt the sigh move through the room. It’s obscene and deplorable what I have come to.
Count your blessings, I tell myself for the ninety-ninth time. The horror of those minutes between Scotty’s abandoning me and my leap for the shoulder bag make even this ignominious cul-de-sac seem cosy and kind. But oh, the powerlessness. I’ve no fingers to switch on the radio that sits right beside me, or to open Friday’s newspaper, whose second headline, trumped only by some twaddle about television nonentities, shouts HARRY’S LAST SHOW – see page 3. How immensely frustrating.
Why the deuce didn’t Ms Pearl Allen LLB – says her brass-and-wood nameplate – have the decency, or greed, or curiosity, or plain laziness to pop in for a drink and a canapé at Marine Parade, just for five minutes? I would have been home and dry. Instead, huddled close against the will in the shadowy confines of her bag, after a muffled fuss of raised voices, I endured the cruelty of hearing everyone head off there without me. While they drank champagne to my memory, trampled my Persian carpets and smiled out at the bright turquoise sea, she brought me here through the bad-tempered afternoon rush hour. She dumped the will unceremoniously in this tray before spending the rest of the afternoon with a couple who’d been gazumped in Saltdean. That was Thursday, she was scarcely in the office on Friday, and the only person I’ve seen since is a gum-chewing woman who was here for all of three minutes, emptying the wastepaper bin, scratching her behind and making a few passes with a vacuum cleaner and duster.
The grey light is softening and gathering colour. Dawn is breaking at last. The herring gulls on the rooftops outside start up their aching lament. Only a mile away, my house calls to me. How I long to be among my familiar, beloved possessions. I wish to God I’d never answered the door to my chauffeur that last morning of my life. If I’d died in Marine Parade among my belongings and memories, I’d have slipped away from the corpse with no trouble and been at home all this time, safe and sound.
Have mercy on me, I beg you, Ms Pearl Allen LLB. Bring me something on Monday I care about, something that will carry me home.
Richard
Turning off the front, fishing for his keys, Richard was startled to see that the café was already open. Sunday was supposed to be Tiffany’s day off. Not just open, it was crowded with mums, dads and children. A buzz of chatter hit him as he squeezed through the door. The place smelled of aftershave and warm cake and freshly ground coffee.
The woman beside him looked vaguely familiar. She was clutching a sandcastle bucket, half full of money. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked her.
‘Book launch,’ she said with an air of great pride. ‘My friend is a children’s author. Well on her way to being famous.’ She held out a copy of the book and rattled the bucket. ‘You just missed the reading. Pirates, monsters and mermaids.’
Across the room Richard could see Tiffany’s pink hair, sculpted into Lisa Simpson spikes. She was serving a queue of customers at the counter.
‘The books are a bargain today,’ the woman persisted. ‘Only eight pounds, and my friend will be delighted to sign one for you.’
‘I don’t have children,’ he said.
‘Humpf.’
It came back to him that this was the soup woman, the irritable customer who’d announced Harry’s death to him. ‘You were here once before,’ he ventured.
‘Where?’
‘Here, in this café.’
‘What?’ She seemed affronted. ‘I’ve been lots of times.’
‘Apologies. I’ve only seen you the once.’
Recognition dawned. ‘It’s you! You’re the owner. The man who ran away.’
&n
bsp; ‘Not exactly,’ he said.
‘Well, exactly and precisely, that is what you did. Most inconsiderate. God only knows what you thought you were up to.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Tiffany was in a terrible fluster. She barely knew where to begin, what to do for the best. So I offered my help, of course. We packed Maurice off and put the cakes in containers and figured out how to lock up. I told her, “Take the till money home with you. You don’t want his nibs blaming you if there’s a break-in.”’
‘No. Yes. Thank you.’
‘She’s a good girl, is Tiffany. Once she finds her feet, she doesn’t need help dancing on them. Heaps of initiative.’
‘I didn’t realise you knew her.’
‘Come again?’
‘Forgive me, I’m confused. You seem to know Tiffany.’
The soup woman stared at him, then snorted. ‘I get it. Gosh, you are out of the loop. I didn’t know her – I met her that day. As I say, I’ve been several times since to make sure that she’s coping, and surprise, surprise, it’s you that’s never here.’ Her expression was fiercely censorious.
‘I’m here most days, but—’
‘Whatever. And then last week my friend was looking for somewhere to hold her Worthing launch, somewhere informal, so—’
‘Omigod, Richard, I’m sorry.’ Tiffany arrived at his elbow, grinning up at him, flashing a bejewelled skull and crossbones in her navel between peacock-blue shorts and an artfully ripped crop-top. ‘Went completely out of my head to tell you. Hope you’re cool with it.’ She didn’t pause for an answer. ‘We’re doing ice-cream sodas. And muffins, too – special order this morning, but don’t worry, they’re selling. Can’t stop – there’s a queue. Good thing you went to the wholesaler’s.’
‘Cool, yes, great,’ he called after her. His voice died to a mumble. ‘Well done.’
His feelings were uncomfortably mixed. Of course it was great, the espresso machine was going full pelt, but this felt like someone else’s café, not his. He eased through the crowd to the library corner, where a miniscule woman with enormous costume jewellery had usurped Maurice’s armchair to sign books for a swarm of kids. Maurice was backed up against the bookcase, clutching Tolstoy to his chest. Richard offered him a comradely scowl.
It fell flat. He saw now that Maurice was deep in conversation, holding forth to three ten-year-olds. ‘Still no Ruskies to parley with, city burned to ashes and his supply line under attack. Boney had no option but to turn tail, head back to Paris, fifteen hundred miles. Then the winter came down, thick and heavy on all those soldiers and horses and guns. More snow than you can imagine. And the freezing, bastard cold—’
Richard pushed on towards the till, where Tiffany must be in dire need of help. But she was fine too, taking orders and payments. She shot him an anxious smile, still with her crush on him, wanting him to be pleased with her. Which he was – yes, of course he was – he’d be churlish not to be pleased.
She wasn’t alone behind the counter, he realised. A young woman with a ponytail shouted, ‘Yes, chef!’ She was working the espresso machine like a pro and dishing up muffins. Then, ‘Excuse me, sir,’ a middle-aged guy in pink rubber gloves manoeuvred past Richard with a tray of used plates and mugs, which he unloaded into the sink and set about washing up.
‘My husband. My daughter,’ came a voice in his ear. He swung round to see the soup woman’s barbed smile. ‘And my own job today, you’ll have noticed, is greeter and bookseller. All in all, considering the free help and the boost to your takings, I think you should buy one.’ She indicated a pile of her friend’s books on the counter and held up the bucket. ‘I’m sure you know a child who would enjoy it.’
He didn’t welcome her help, free or otherwise, but Tiffany was watching. This was Tiffany’s friend. What on earth was the matter with him? The money was flooding in. His business was booming. He pulled a tenner from his pocket. He wasn’t needed, that was the problem.
Not a problem – the answer! He didn’t want to be needed, here or by his mother or by anyone he knew. In a flash, it was done. He’d decided. Because if not now, when?
‘Keep the change.’ He ducked past the soup woman, who said, ‘Take a book.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, grabbing one from the pile, flapping a hand to get Tiffany’s attention. ‘I need a word. Spare a minute?’
He was through the counter flap, beckoning her into the back room, eager to announce his impulsive decision. ‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ he said.
‘Ooh, thank you.’ Pleased as a puppy-dog. ‘I’m really enjoying it.’
He felt rotten to be bursting her bubble. ‘But there’s something you need to know. I’m about to sell up.’
Her hand shot to her mouth and her face fell a mile. ‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I’m so sorry, Tiff. I was going to leave it to the end of the season, but, well, what with one thing and another, I can’t wait that long. I have to leave Worthing at once.’
‘No,’ she said, crestfallen. ‘Why?’
‘I’m thirty. I’m stuck here. I need to move on.’
‘Worthing’s lovely,’ she said. ‘And I’ll miss you.’
‘For five minutes, maybe. Thing is, it’ll happen quite fast. I just have to give notice on the shop lease and my flat, flog the espresso machine and any other stuff anyone wants to buy, and I’m free to go. I thought I should tell you, because you’re—’
‘Hang on a minute,’ she said. ‘Can I buy it?’
‘What?’ Was she crazy?
‘Buy the stuff, take over the lease?’
He stood back against the shelves of tins and boxes and took in her eager face, the ripped crop top, the spiked hair. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said slowly. ‘The espresso machine’s worth a couple of thousand. The rent’s pretty steep, and then there are other bills, lots of them. I’ve been making a loss.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Scary. Two hundred a month. More in winter.’
He stared at her. ‘How did you... did I tell you?’
‘I shouldn’t have looked.’ She ran a blue sparkly fingernail down the spine of his accounts book, propped on a shelf between two cake containers. ‘But it’s really interesting, isn’t it, running a café?’
‘I suppose.’
‘My dad can lend me the money.’
‘He’d be daft to.’
‘I’ll make a business case to him, like on Tomorrow’s Tycoon.’
‘But Tiffany, it’s not a good business.’
She said nothing, just smiled and put a hand to her ear. The café noise was her answer. Richard opened his mouth and shut it again. He was a crap businessman, that was the truth of it.
‘We can have a proper contract drawn up and everything,’ she said.
‘Tiffany?’ The soup woman’s head came round the door, glaring at Richard. ‘You’re needed on the counter.’
‘Two ticks,’ she said.
When the door closed again, Richard slumped against the shelves. Inept. A failure. ‘Okay,’ he conceded, ‘but sleep on it. Talk to your dad.’ Sounding hollow and forced. ‘And your mum as well. Make sure this is what you want to do with your life.’
‘Hey, Richard,’ said Tiffany, peering up at his face. ‘I promise to do all that, but honestly,’ all concern, ‘I really, really wish you weren’t going.’
‘That’s nice of you, but I have to. So it’s yours if you want it. You have first refusal. See what your parents say and we’ll talk more tomorrow.’ He shook her hand solemnly, then reached for the door. ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay to help, but there’s someone else I have to tell.’
He pushed back past the soup woman’s daughter, through the counter flap and the queue at the till and the crowd at the library corner, heading for the door. Maurice’s voice followed him. ‘Ambushed daily. Dying in droves. Eating the horses.’
He was going be free, that was what mattered: free of the café, its keys, debts, stock, float and furniture, but more than that,
free of his mother. Her denial of Harry to that reporter was nothing short of amazing. She was over Harry, breaking free herself at long last. He would go straight to her now to make one final offer – take it or leave it – a month tops to help her dejunk her house and smarten her life up before he was out of here.
‘Running away again?’ called the soup woman after him, but he took no notice. Out into the street, the café door shutting behind him. In his head it was done. Back to the flat for the bike, then fast-pedal the ten miles to Brighton for the showdown with Mum. Next stop Thailand or Togo. Tibet. Timbuktu. Not running away, not at all. Putting a decade of failure behind him. Starting anew.
There was a book in his hand about pirates, monsters and mermaids. He gave it to a child on the front. ‘Travelling light,’ he told the child’s mother.
Monday
Harry
What unimaginable relief, after days of solitary confinement, to be a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on a human conversation. The luscious Pearl Allen is here at last, and she has brought with her my good friend Simon Foyle, ushering him in and requesting him to sit down. She settles herself with her back to the view of bricks and downpipes, he with his back to the door. She offers him coffee. He declines but accepts a ginger nut. She bites into one herself before jumping up to unlock a drawer and fetch a folder.
Just look at the two of them, how splendidly alive they are. Pearl’s supple, generous lips enunciating pleasantries and occasionally my name. Simon’s moisturised jowls quivering as he smiles. Her brown fingers, tipped with glossy red varnish, searching among papers in the folder she has opened. His, pale and unmanicured, tugging at his earlobe.
He clears his throat tentatively. ‘I should mention,’ he says, ‘Mrs Butley is still popping in every day, to feed Harry’s cat and check on the place. I hope it won’t seem penny-pinching of me, but I’m more than a little financially embarrassed, just at present, so I wondered—’
‘Of course,’ Pearl interrupts, ‘the estate will pay her wages. Keep a note of any expenses you have on Lord Whittaker’s behalf and I’ll reimburse you immediately.’
The Posthumous Adventures of Harry Whitaker Page 9