by Antony Moore
'Ta, gov.'
Then smiling in a way intended to take in the rest of the pub's patrons and, in truth, the entire human race, he made his way to the Underground.
It was as he was buying a ticket that he became aware that he wanted to go to his shop rather than head for home. He wanted to look at what, if the hard truth was faced, was his only real achievement in life. He wanted to run his hands over it. Feel that he really was back in town. With a brief burst of 'Mack the Knife', he headed for the barriers. Josh had been left in charge for the four days Harvey had been away and Josh was not to be trusted. He was not managerial material. A good manager should check his stock. A good manager put job before home-life. So instead of taking the Bakerloo Line to Charing Cross, Harvey took the Circle Line to Moorgate and walked up Old Street to Inaction Comix through a light drizzle. The shop was in darkness and he took a while getting out his keys. Like most of the shops in the area a metal awning had been sealed shut from top to bottom over the windows and door and Harvey spent a long time trying to get the key into the lock at the bottom of the doorguard before realising that he was using his house keys. Giggling and with a long, ultimately explosive fart, he found the right key. Grunting with satisfaction he opened the padlock and slid the metal up. He had always liked the way the metal grille folded in on itself and tonight he did it twice before unlocking the door, turning a switch and blinking in the painful glare of the strip lights. Carefully he shut the door behind him and looked around.
All seemed to be well. No one had stolen the stock or set fire to the cash register. Nor were there any signs of flooding or insect invasion. Giggling again, Harvey found his way past the counter and into the back room. It was not uncommon for him, when drunk, to sleep on the long grubby grey couch that took up most of one wall. He seriously considered his condition now. Was he drunk enough to stay the night? It was always a bit of a toss-up. It meant instant rest, which suddenly seemed terribly compelling, but it also meant waking up cold, fully clothed, on a couch, usually with Josh standing over him looking considerate. Like so much in life there were pros and cons. He picked up the heap of mail that Josh had dumped on his desk, most of it bills, and sat down on the couch. It was very comfortable. No, he didn't want to come and look at a fifteen-year-old boy's comic collection, no, he didn't want a TV licence, no, he didn't need another four credit cards, no, he wasn't the winner of a million-pound prize draw. Josh had done very little to sort the mail, mostly because he knew he wasn't allowed to open it and this rankled. But to prevent it slipping off the desk and onto the floor he had piled it in size order with the larger items at the bottom. This meant that the hard-backed A4brown envelope that provided the foundation for the whole pile was last. Harvey was yawning and feeling really that in fact a lot of decisions just made themselves. He leaned back against the tobacco-scented cushions and tore the end off this last envelope, then with a slight struggle, extracted its contents. After that he sat and looked at what he had got for a long time. It was a mint-condition copy of a Superman One in a plastic slip protector. And on the front of the plastic protector were a number of red, smudged fingerprints.
Harvey held it for minutes that seemed to be sucking at him, as if time was draining the alcohol and the faith out of him. Then he got up and walked unsteadily to his desk. He found the keys on the top and this time got the right one at once. Unlocking the bottom drawer where the petty cash was kept and lifting out the black metal tin inside, Harvey put the Superman One underneath it and then replaced the tin and closed and locked the drawer. Then he walked backwards to the sofa, unconsciously enacting an exact reversal of his previous movements, and fell heavily onto its untender mercy. He lay for a long moment awake but without thought, without response. Blank. And then he sank, blissfully, into total darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
'You left the door unlocked . . .' Josh's voice seemed to be coming from the locked drawer at the bottom of Harvey's desk, which unexpectedly was buried under some brambles in Bleeder's garden. '. . . all night with the shutter up.' There was amazement in his tone, mingled with a sort of grudging respect. 'I can't believe you did that.' Harvey untangled himself from his T-shirt, which had become rucked round his neck, pushed off the cushion that was smothering him, shook off the dream that was still circling round his head and sat up. Then he groaned. At everything.
'Leave that!' he said suddenly as Josh, attempting to perch on the edge of the desk, moved the pile of opened mail. 'I'll deal with that.' He rubbed his hand over his face to clear the dreams that had invaded the deep, dark wonderful nothingness of his drunken slumber and then, pushing himself up like an old man, ran bow-legged to the toilet. Josh heard what seemed to be a river cascading through the shop. It took a while before the flush went and the sound of taps replaced it. Harvey re-emerged, drying his face on the filthy hand towel that they kept in the equally filthy staff bathroom. 'That's a first even for you,' Josh continued as if Harvey had not left him, 'all night. Anyone could have wandered in and stolen the stock or done you in. How lucky are you?'
'Lucky?' Harvey emerged for a moment from the towel, his face pink overlaying grey beneath the stubble; his whole head gleaming with droplets. He considered the word for a moment as if examining a rare Japanese Hentai. 'How lucky am I?'
'Well, you could have been mugged.'
'Yes. I could.' He made his way back to the sofa and sat down to light a cigarette.
'What happened by the way?'
'Eh?'
'Your eye. You get in a fight, yeah? Or fell down or something?'
'Oh yeah, bit of argy-bargy, nothing really.'
'Right. Bad one.' Josh put on his best bedside manner. 'Want a McBreakfast?'
'Yeah, OK.' Harvey realised that Josh was right, he did need a McBreakfast.
'Big Breakfast?'
'Yeah.'
'How many?'
'Two.'
'Sure?'
'Yeah . . . No. Three.'
'Right. Can I take a fiver from petty cash? I'm a bit boracic?'
'Yeah, yeah, OK.' Harvey was searching for his matches, which had fallen off the end of the sofa during the night. The difficult bit was getting his hand down to the floor without bending over because bending over made the blood, and more importantly the pain, rush to the front of his head. Josh tinkered for a moment with his keys and then began to pull open the bottom drawer of the desk. His progress was impeded by Harvey who rugby-tackled him from the side and hurled him bodily to the floor.
'What in fuck ... ?'
'Shit. Sorry.' Harvey got up, shut the drawer and then rubbed his shoulder. 'Shit, that hurt.' He looked down to where Josh lay on his back. Somewhat distractedly he reached out to help him up. 'Sorry, just, er, playing.'
'You nearly broke my bloody back, you fucking idiot.' Josh got up slowly and tested his limbs for damage. 'You could have killed me.'
'Yeah, sorry.'
'What the fuck's the matter with you? Just 'cause you get in one fight in Cornwall you start acting all . . . twatish . . .'
Twatish? Harvey stifled an inopportune giggle, which started in the pool of hysteria he could feel somewhere down at the bottom of his stomach. 'Sorry, Josh. Look . . .' He felt in his pockets and found a tenner. 'Look, get us both some breakfast, all right? Get yourself some pancakes and syrup, that's your favourite. And a thick shake.' But Josh was not to be mollified. He refused to go at first but then grabbed the money and without a word stalked off, slamming the shop door behind him. As soon as he'd gone Harvey went at once to the bottom drawer. There was just a chance, if he prayed really hard, if he called in all the favours he had ever done a benevolent maker, that it would turn out to have been just a drunken hallucination. That was the best plan he could think of at the moment. He knew it wasn't a good plan and that it had very little chance of success. And sure enough the Superman One was lying neatly under the moneybox. He took it out and looked hard at it for several minutes. None of his old desire was left. He felt no pleasure in i
t, no wish to open the packaging, no interest in its contents. It represented nothing but suffering and misery. And mystery. While drunken sleep rarely fulfils the same purpose as good sober rest, it had allowed some things to clarify. What Harvey now felt for certain as he had only vaguely guessed before was that he was being set up. Somehow, someone was trying to get at him. He felt the rising panic, the anxiety attack coming, he felt his head throbbing, his mouth felt like a sawdust floor and he could taste vomit somewhere in the background of his palate. As he held the bloodstained comic in his hands he realised something more: whoever it was was succeeding. Never in his life had he felt as got-at as he did right now. What was he to do with the evidence? He had read Edgar Allan Poe but had always considered him a fool. Hiding something in plain view was all right in novels but if he left a real Superman One on the mantelpiece Josh would wet his pants. He might perhaps have burned it, although if Josh came back to find him setting fire to priceless comics at ten-thirty in the morning that might be the end. Harvey wasn't sure that the end hadn't come anyway because when Josh did return he refused to speak and took his pancakes and syrup off to the counter where he sat making disgusting slurping sounds. Having returned the Superman One to the petty-cash drawer, Harvey went and fetched his three Big Breakfasts without complaint from the counter where they had been dumped. In truth, the silent treatment was just what he needed.
In his mind he ran over the facts. People knew that he wanted the Superman One. He had told his story many times. His old school friends knew. Josh knew. It seemed for a moment as though everyone must know. Except his parents, of course. He never told them anything. And people told other people: for a while part of Harvey's resentment about the Superman One was that it had become the most interesting thing about him. When people talked about him they would often mention it. Indeed, in his darker moments, he had imagined being referred to as 'that bore who lost the comic' or 'that weird guy who could have been rich . . . remember him?' So other people at the reunion must have known how significant his meeting with Bleeder really was. Not many people had mentioned it, of course. But that was because people were like that. They were polite or they were discreet, or most often of all in his experience, they weren't really interested enough to bother. Of course, one of those someone elses might have been rather more interested than he knew. Just because he had dreamed of the Superman One for so many years didn't mean that he had some special claim on it. Anyone who fancied two hundred grand might have popped round to Bleeder's house to try their luck. Harvey pictured the scene . . . for some reason Jeff Cooper was cast in the role of burglar. Mrs Odd comes in from her shopping trip just as Jeff is getting the comic out of the box in the basement. Mrs Odd hears a noise, she creeps along the hallway to the cellar door ('Don't do it, Mrs Odd'), she peeps inside but of course you can't see into the cellar from the top step, so she moves silently down step by step ('Go back, Mrs Odd') but she goes on, down and down; Jeff has a knife from the kitchen for opening the box, it is a big carving knife with a red plastic handle. He snatches it up as he hears a creak from the stairs ('Don't do it, Jeff '); she runs at him, trying to stop him; they wrestle; he turns her round and cuts her throat ('Oh my God, what have I done?'). Then in a panic he runs out of the house, dropping the knife, or maybe washing it first . . . and he must be really bloody too . . . Well, anyway, he runs out but then realises that in his fright he has left the comic behind. He returns, planning to collect it, but as he is about to enter he sees Harvey Briscow, his old enemy and sexual rival, fucking about in the garden. He hatches a cruel, nay wicked, plan. He waits somewhere outside – in a bush or whatever – then when he sees Harvey run panic-stricken out of the house having left lots of incriminating fingerprints, he sneaks back in and steals the Superman One, little knowing that Harvey will also return and helpfully clean up all the evidence for him. Perfect. Fiendishly simple. Harvey nodded with great confidence. Jeff did it. But then he spoke aloud: 'So why the fuck did he send me this?'
Well, it sort of almost made sense. Harvey was reunited with the sofa. He rolled flat on it again and lay in his favourite position, on his back, blowing smoke up in neat streams towards the ceiling. The problem with being in the comic business was that it made you a narrative idealist. Comics, unlike the modern novel or the post-modern artwork, had a linear and complete logic. However complex the plot, in the end the good guys won and the bad guys got caught, usually by the good guys, often with the good guys wearing muscle-defining body suits and cool capes and masks. You can't be exposed to that sort of storyline too many times without starting to expect some sort of logical outcomes and neat resolutions – involving capes at the very least – in your own life. So it was that Harvey's daydream, up till now sensible and well reasoned, did not end at that point. Instead, a whole story developed from it in which Harvey returned to Cornwall, followed the trail of clues to their obvious denouement, captured Jeff, gave him two black eyes, handed him over to the local police and got off with his wife. This last section went on for a very long time and Harvey was at the point of rolling over onto his stomach when Josh came in.
'Phone,' he said and went out again.
Harvey struggled with his erection for a moment and then managed to stand upright. Had he slept again? He looked at his watch and found that it was ten past twelve. Jesus, it was lunchtime. He discovered that he still had some bits of Macpattie in his teeth and – when he put his hand to his head – in his hair. He was picking at these as he made his way through into the shop.
'Thanks, Josh,' he said pointedly but got no response.
Harvey picked up. 'Hello?'
'Harvey? It's Maisie Cooper.' And his heart did a twist.
'Hi, Maisie,' he said, and he said it in tones of such honeyed sweetness that his erection reasserted itself, presumably assuming that sex must be on the cards. Josh also gave him a grudging glance of interest. Harvey hadn't had women ringing him for a while and Josh loved gossip. Wait until he hears she's married to my old school friend and that he gave me the black eye, Harvey thought. If that doesn't make things up between us nothing will. He turned his attention to the phone.
Chapter Sixteen
'Can you talk?'
'Er, yeah.' Harvey glanced at Josh who had acquired a packet of wine gums. He hadn't had them when he came back with the McBreakfasts and Harvey wondered vaguely how he had managed to go out and buy them without leaving the shop unattended. 'Yeah, no problem.'
'Look, this isn't an easy conversation for me to start. But I figured you didn't have my number . . .' Would Josh really just wander off and leave the shop? 'Harvey?'
'Yes. I mean, no, I didn't. If I had I would have called you.'
'So when I didn't hear from you after that ridiculous fight . . . God, fighting like two schoolboys, how pathetic was that? I assume you're OK?'
Leaving the shop unattended was strictly forbidden. 'Oh yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I guess I didn't exactly shine in the hero stakes but I did get a black eye.'
'Oh please! The very idea of Jeff attacking you . . . I suppose that reunion just put him back in the playground. Not that he ever moved very far from it in the first place.'
'Yeah, well, he was obviously angry. I mean, I was hugging you.' OK, he had left the shop unlocked all night but that was different. Drunkenness had always been an acceptable excuse for bad behaviour in Harvey's world but Josh was stone-cold sober.
'Yes, you were, and I think we need to talk about that.' He'd have had to go all the way to the newsagent's. That was further than McDonald's.
'Right, yeah.'
'I can tell that you don't want to talk about it. Men never do want to talk about things.'
Ten minutes minimum. 'Mmm? Well, it is hard, like you said.'
'Yes, it is. But I think we should be clear about what happened and where we are now. For the record, Jeff and I have broken up. I've left him.'
Fifteen if that girl Shanaz was serving. Josh always went all red and giggly and hung around wasting time when sh
e was there.
'Right. Bad one.' He thought for a moment. 'Or rather, good one. Look, where are you?'
'I'm here. I've come up to stay with my old school friend Lisa. It's strange, this all seems to be about school somehow, about going back . . .' Fifteen minutes, they might have been cleaned out. Harvey looked round the shop critically. What if half his stock was missing? He was mentally checking the racks when he realised there was a pause to fill.
'You're in London?'
'Yes.'
'Cool. Let's go out.'
'You want to go out?'
'Hell, yeah. Of course I do.'
'I've just told you I'm not sure what is going on. I've arrived five minutes ago. I don't know where I am or what I'm doing. I think maybe I want to just be on my own for a while, think things through.'