I looked up, helpless.
‘For Christ’s sake Michaela! You’ll have us both killed!’
‘Both? I was under 18 South African indoor diving champion didn’t you know?’ She leant back, everything on show. ‘Still kept my shape wouldn’t you say? How about you?’ She placed her hand on the front of my trousers, fingers splayed out. It’s not what a chocolate bar, thirty minutes in the sun, needs, sudden pressure.
‘Oh Al. What’s happened to you? You’ve gone all soft. Out of your depth, is that it?’
She stood up. It was all there before me and all I could think about was the cleaning bill. They were brand new, those trousers.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, buttoning up. ‘Twelve o’clock.’
And she left me, hanging on the edge.
10
The next morning, first thing, I packed the blue cold store bag on the boot, drove the Citroën down to Poole, bought two new mortise locks for the front and back doors, then tooled down to the harbour and the gift shops they have lined up in the passenger complex for the holiday makers the on their way to Cherbourg. I figured that if anywhere would be likely to stock giant Toblerones it would be there, something for the sorry Herberts to tie round their necks if they fancied a spot of drowning on the way over instead. Sure enough they did. Three, to be exact. I bought them all, two for Carol and the extra for Alice, a little present by way of thanks for all she’d done for me. I put them in the cold bag, with the ice packs in the bottom to keep them cool and drove back pronto. I took the cold store out the car, ready to put the Toblerones back in the freezer, but the sight of those locks reminded me. I didn’t have much time before Michaela came round. The chocolate could have to wait. The important thing was to stop Michaela ever going walkabout in my bungalow again.
It took even longer than I thought. The lock on the back door was a bastard to get out and I had to chip out an extra size hole in the door for the bit where the lock slots into. There’s a name for that part but I’m fucked if I know what it’s called, or want to know. I was never very handy at all that DIY bollocks. The only tool in the DIY collection I have some fellow feeling for is the hammer. Bish bosh bash. That’s my approach, and probably explains what Miss Prosser called ‘my innate aptitude for monolithic form’ because that’s what you need isn’t it, when faced with a lump of wood that’s going nowhere. But painting window frames, wallpapering the hallway, forget it. If I had my way I would outlaw DIY shops, make all amateur home improvements illegal, so that when your better half asks you to put up a couple of curtain rails you can say ‘sorry darling I’d love to but it’s against the law’. Audrey once tried to persuade me to put a bidet in the spare en suite bathroom, just in case we had foreign guests staying overnight, but as I told her, we hadn’t had any guests staying overnight, foreign or otherwise, and besides, if that’s what they spend their time doing when no one’s looking, I didn’t want any foreign guests staying in the en suite bathroom overnight. (Although, and this I did not admit, bidets are useful when you just need to wash your feet and nothing else. Otherwise you have to hoik your foot up into the basin, or kitchen sink, which is a tricky manoeuvre at the best of times. Doc Holiday once told me, washing one’s feet in the basin causes as many domestic accidents as starting the lawnmower for the first time or installing insulation in the loft. Which rather proves my point.) But as I said to Audrey, if you really want one put in, get a man in. Trouble was, I was in a hurry. I didn’t have time to get a man in. Consequently it did not go to plan. I had issues with the chisel and the self-propelling screwdriver that Audrey had bought me for a Christmas present when we weren’t talking to each other. I’d bought her a set of luxury tea towels that year if I remember rightly and Good King Wenceslas was looking out onto a distinctly frosty feast.
Half way through my DIY effort, Alice poked her head over the fence.
‘You sold your first fish I see.’
‘It was nicked Mrs B, can you believe it, in this neighbourhood, so called art-lovers nicking an artist’s very livelihood? Hence all this carry on. I’m keeping them under lock and key from now on.’ Her face fell.
‘From the sound of it I thought you might be starting on another,’ she said, eyes all twinkly. She lifted her hand. ‘Brought my own paint brushes, see. Move over Rover, let Alice take over.’ She’d been smoking again. Still, they were proper professional brushes, all different thicknesses with those long wooden handles so you don’t have to paint too close up. Establishing a constant perspective, that what it’s all about Miss Prosser used to say. I could make the koi patterns real intricate with brushes like that.
‘Not today I’m afraid. I got other fish to fry, excuse the pun. However, if you take yourself to the garage, have a rumble in the cold store bag there, you’ll find a present for you. Another monsteroony Tonto, Mrs B. There’s three in there but only one’s yours. The other two are for Carol.’ She waggled her brushes at me.
‘That’s sheer favouritism, Al Greenwood.’
‘Can’t help it Mrs B. What’s a father to do if not to cater for his returning daughter’s every whim? Now go on. Help yourself before I give her all three. We’ll have another crack at Mr and Mrs Fish tomorrow. Polish off the Stolichnaya. Have that game of scrabble.’
Michaela came round at eleven forty. I’d been ready for half an hour, white t-shirt, navy blue shorts, pair of old flip-flops I’d found in the garage. I’d cut my toenails too. She had a big straw hat on, like Audrey Hepburn used to wear in the vain hope of looking alluring, sunglasses the size of dinner plates, with a big canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Round her body she had this sort of beach towel kimono.
‘You ready?’ she asked. I nodded to the cold-store standing in the hall.
‘She won’t like it much, but she should be OK for an hour or so. I’ve got a packet of fish meal in there too. I’ll add it to the water after I put her in, keep her happy on the journey back. But it’s important to get her here as quickly as possible, savvy?’ She nodded.
‘Understood. A dead fish won’t do anyone any good. Rubber gloves?’ I patted my pocket.
‘Rubber gloves, phone, they’re all in here.’
‘I’ve got something extra for you,’ she said. She reached in her bag and unfolded this shirt. There was a guy in bathing briefs and dark glasses on the front, straddling a shark. The shark was surfing the waves with a girl in a bikini between his teeth. He was smiling.
‘You want me to wear it now?’
‘If you wanted to.’
‘Let’s save it for when this is all over.’ I handed it back and picked up the keys to Carol’s hire car. She followed me out, looking disappointed.
‘We’re not going in the Citroën then.’ She sounded disappointed too.
‘It’s been sitting in a garage for the last three hundred years. We don’t know how reliable it is, do we? Also it was last taxed in 1987. Untaxed car, dickey motor, Mother Teresa perched on the back seat. Could lead to problems. Hence the rice bowl.’
The drive over was slow, tense. Neither of us spoke for the first twenty minutes. It’s best not to, just before a job. Then she ran her hand up my leg.
‘A pity about yesterday. You were so…forceful, and then it all seemed to collapse. Do you have a problem in that department?’ Marvellous. A confidence building opening if ever I heard one.
‘Only when I’m hanging over a three hundred-foot cliff,’ I replied. ‘It’s a bit like Audrey when she was dangling over that river. Takes away the notional drive for hanky panky in all its varied forms. Anyway enough of the problem page chit-chat. Got the ransom note?’
She patted her tote bag.
‘What does it say?’ She folded her hands together.
‘It says, “If you want to see Mother Teresa again withdraw £100,000 by Friday and wait by the phone for instructions. Contact the police and she’s fish fingers.” Here, you take it. You have to leave it somewhere prominent when you leave.’ I took it, laid it on my lap.
‘Nice. And what do I get, out of this hundred grand?’ She patted my knee.
‘You get me Al, me on a cruise with Rio at the end. If you want it you also get the last thing the woman said to me on her way to the Beacon.’ I nearly stood on the brakes.
‘What last thing? You never told me there was a last thing. You said you’d told me everything.’
‘I did, didn’t I? But then, how would I be sure you’d do this? Incentives, that’s what the world runs on, a little carrot, a little stick…’ She leant over, nibbled my ear. ‘Exciting isn’t it, this sort of thing.’
As we got to the coast, the road narrowed, the traffic full of holidaymakers, on their way for an afternoon out. The car park was about half a mile from the beach proper. Michaela unclipped her safety belt.
‘You see to the car,’ she said. ‘ I’ll go and hire the pedalo. It’ll save time.’ She plonked the hat on her head and set off.
I paid my three pound fifty and circled round before I found a spot not far from the exit and backed in. There was an old couple sitting in the front seats of their hatchback, radio on. They were holding hands and eating sandwiches, crab by the smell of them. Sounds barmy I know but that’s what they were doing, him stuffing his face with his left, her stuffing her face with her right. Made me feel sad and empty just to look at them. They watched me as I lifted out the cold store. The old dear in the driving seat nudged her husband.
‘Picnic for one,’ she said. ‘Such a nice looking man too,’
‘Liquid lunch more like,’ he said, and tippled his hand at me. I grinned, trying not to show my teeth. Fucking oldies. They notice everything.
I walked down the wooden boardwalk to the hire area, boats and pedalos all tied up alongside the wooden jetty that stuck out into the sea. It was calm and blue, the sea, little waves tickling the sand, like it should be in these places. Built for toddlers these beaches, buckets and spades and kites that flap away from the sand. Back in the old days when me and mum went to the beach, every day if we could, I used to take this little green watering can with me, make a little garden out of shells and seaweed and water it just like mum did in her little garden back home. When it was really hot though and everyone was lying half asleep, soaking up the sun, I used to fill the can up and creep up dead quiet and water their stomachs. They didn’t half sit up fast. You could only do it a couple of times a day, otherwise Mum would cop a load of complaints but when I did it, boy did it make us laugh.
Michaela was standing at the end of the jetty, beach robe flapping half open in the breeze, showing off the white one-piece I’d seen hanging over the bedroom mirror, one hand on the hat. She beckoned me over. I walked down, past a couple of corkers getting into a little two-seater. In the old days I’d have turned on the charm, offered to buy them a trip round the bay myself, anywhere you want darling, but today I hardly gave them a second glance. Besides, all they had eyes for was lover-boy in charge, dark skin, slick hair and a gold ring in his ear. I love chancers who do that. Get into a barney with them and it’s the first thing you do. Pull the ring off, nice and hard. All the blood that comes streaming out, they think you’ve cut their throat. Can’t think straight. Game over. Michaela was tapping her foot.
‘All set?’ I inquired.
‘Fifteen quid,’ she said. ‘The whole day. Quite a bargain don’t you think?’
Her hand was resting on this pedalo, like she was Cleopatra and it was the family barge. It was hard to credit.
‘Very nice. Couldn’t you have hired one a bit more discreet?’
‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s got an eight-foot swan at the front that’s what’s wrong with it. Out of all the pedalos on offer, you’ve chosen the only one that follows you around with its eyes. Why don’t we take our clothes off and pedal away starkers just to complete the picture. We’re being stared enough at as it is.’
‘It was the only one free,’ she said. She peeled off her beach robe and climbed aboard. ‘Shall we cast off?’
Only one free. I didn’t believe her for a moment. I’d passed half a dozen empty ones walking up. Then I twigged it. Of course she hired this one. Of course she wanted to arrive in the Frog-mobile. She wanted us to be noticed. Or rather she wanted me to be noticed. I mean, who could identify her behind that hat and those sunglasses? But me, I was right in the frame. Click, click, click. That’s why she wanted me to wear that gaudy rubbish from the fifty-first state. That’s why she was shagging me rigid at every opportunity, turning my brain to mush. It was a set up, the whole thing. I was going to steal the fish and I was going to get caught. This was Audrey getting her revenge, Michaela doing her one last favour, before she fucked off back to South Africa. The cruise! I bet there was a cruise but I bet it wasn’t to Rio and I bet it wasn’t with me. It would be to Durban, perhaps with flush-my-fork Nelson on board, his telescope extended.
I shoved the cold store in space between us, and settled in the right-hand side. Rudolf Valentino waded across in his thigh high boots, hand on hip. He winked at Michaela then gave us a push.
‘You and Mark Bolan eh,’ he said to me. I should have ripped his ear out there and then.
I don’t how many of you have driven a pedalo, but they’re not built for the high seas. In fact they’re not built for any seas at all, just water where movement of any description has been removed, castrated water if you like, say a fetid pond or an anaemic lake. Sit in a pedalo somewhere like that, and hey, it’s whipping through the stuff like the Cutty Sark with a load of tealeaves. But put a pedalo on something that’s got a set of balls twenty metres down and, oh deary me, it doesn’t like it. Whoops. Up and down it goes. Whoops. Sideways too. Any direction it likes in fact, except forward. Water sloshes in. Water sloshes out. You pedal like a buggered vicar but still you don’t seem to be making any headway. Is it a stiff sou’wester that’s suddenly got up that’s impeding your progress, or is it a treacherous underwater current that’s taking you out into the path of the twice daily paddle steamer from Weymouth? No it’s the high-density, abrasion resistant, polyethylene pedalo, doing what it always does, showing you up. People on the shore are pointing at you, laughing into their sandwiches. I mean what man with an ounce of self respect, lowers himself onto such a thing, unless there’s an obvious life-affirming reason, like knocking off those two beauties I’d just walked past, lying at the end of it. You tell me.
That’s what your ordinary pedalo is like. But we weren’t on an ordinary pedalo. We were on one that had this painted amphibian stuck on the front, with a six-foot neck that made it impossible for me to see where we were going. Not only that, it was a four-seater, built for four sets of legs instead of two and it weighed a ton. Michaela wasn’t worried. She’d cycled to Sydney and back, had muscles on the back of her legs like a ship’s mooring cable, but me, I wasn’t used to it. They’d taken a pasting anyway, with all that running uphill I’d done the afternoon previous. This was more than I’d bargained for.
We pedalled out for a fair while, then turned east, across the broad mouth of the bay to where Rump’s house backed on to the next beach. The waves rolled in, tilting the swan to one side, like she was trying to chuck us out of her nest. Every now and again one would slap against the sides, spray soaking me from head to foot. Sitting on the other side, Michaela was hardly touched.
‘Everything all right?’ she said.
‘Tickety boo, me,’ I replied.
‘Only I thought you might be getting tired, you not being used to such activity.’ She leant across, took a fold of my stomach in her fingers. ‘Regular work- outs could get rid of all that.’
‘What, like getting on one of those exercise bikes of a morning, like you’re a fucking hamster? I’d rather eat lettuce every day.’
‘Not everything has to be done indoors, Al. Audrey cycled fifteen cross country miles most days, rain or shine. She had legs like a Texan oil drill. Once going, hard to stop.’
‘Like her drinking then. Tell me, what do you think
she would think of all this, you and me and Adam’s fish. What would she think if you wrote her a postcard saying “Dearest darling Audrey, I’ve decided I like a bit of blunt end after all, and your hubby’s is as blunt as they come, so here we are, him and me pedalling across the sea outside Poole, about to steal Adam’s fish. Hope the prison sentence is going well, best wishes, Michaela.” Or did she call you Micky?’
That shut her up. She pedalled ahead, not looking at me once.
‘She wouldn’t believe you,’ she said eventually
I didn’t answer back. I didn’t believe me either. A couple of months ago I was lying in my prison cell thinking of ways of doing the old trout down. Last week I’d shagged my first South African and chain-sawed my first fish. I had ten thousand pounds coming and had got away with murder. What the hell was I doing now?
Forty minutes later we came into land, hardly a soul about; a pair of canoodling love-birds snogging up by the rocks on the far left, a family of four with Monty-type dog tied to the beach umbrella twenty yards down in the same direction and lying on the beach almost directly in front of us, a bird in a polka–dot bikini and a newspaper over her head. Actually apart from the obvious reference to Damien Hirst she didn’t look bad at all.
Fish Tale (Cliffhanger Book 2) Page 19