Conman

by Richard Asplin

  “Right,” I said. I waggled the envelope as casually as its stiff back and my headache would let me. “An arrangement. Talk to Maurice. Sort it out. Come up with some mutually agreeable …”

  “An arrangement,” the gentleman said flatly. He added a slow blink. A blink that somehow said that if he had a pound for every doorstep he’d stood on hearing this, he’d be able to buy a lot of whatever dull solicitor-types like him liked to buy. Chunky briefcases. Red Bull. Something like that. “Sir, you’ll discover, I regret, that the time for coming to arrangements has passed. That,” and he pointed at the envelope, “is a summons for you to appear at Bow Magistrates Court on Monday the sixteenth of November at three pm. Ten days’ time.”

  I shifted, one foot in a red Spider-Man sock, the other bare on the sticky hall tiles. Some leaves gusted up the steps and had a playful lap about my ankles. I swallowed hard, tasting cheap port and crisps, and gripped the envelope in two hands, which somehow only made it feel heavier.

  The gentleman bent down, clicked shut his case and moved away down the steps, his eyes prowling over the front of the house. He licked his lips. Possibly to gather up the last remaining droplets of energy-drink for the exhausting three-feet trek to his car. Possibly because a voice in his head was muttering ahhh, precious property. T’will be ours soon. Ours. Mmm, heh-heh.

  Not sure which.

  I slammed the door on him, breathing close and tight, like my ribs had been taken apart and rebuilt using only half the pieces and the assembly instructions for a small toast-rack. I stuffed the envelope down the back of my boxers, the thin elastic holding it cold against the small of my back, ruffed my baggy T-shirt over it and trudged back up the stairs to where I’d left Jane in a foul mood, baby in her arms, staring at a stained bathroom lino.

  I found her, baby still in her arms, still staring at a stained bathroom lino.

  Her mood hadn’t changed much either.

  “Who was that?” she said.

  “Nobody,” I lied.

  “I can still smell it,” she said. Not looking at me.

  “I know.”

  “You’ll have to go over it again.”

  “I know.”

  “How long have we had this floor?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Great. Maybe if you’d just cleaned it properly when you offered the first time?”

  “Yes maybe,” I said, which I shouldn’t have done, but the whole morning had been a little like this.

  Jane looked at me for a long, irritable moment and then pushed past to fuss with the baby harness. I got back down on my hands and knees, which caused my head to swim and throb, lights dancing in my eyes. With fragile, morning-after hands, I lifted the cloth and squeezy cleaner for a scrub, a yawn and a mutter.

  Coat on, Jane appeared a moment later in the doorway.

  “You not going in today then?”

  “Not yet. I apparently have some urgent cleaning to do that can’t possibly wait –”

  “Fine. I’m going to speak to Dad. Shall I tell him you’re still all right to pick him up from outside Victoria next week? Or shall we just presume you’re going to forget that as well?”

  “Benno was just as much your friend as mine. Last week you were claiming he was the one who got you and I –”

  “Roll in drunk again? Throw up again? Ruin another dinner? Embarrass me some more?”

  I concentrated on the perfume stain, giving it another citrus squirt.

  Jane left with Lana, loudly, winter coat hissing, winter boots thudding. She slammed the door.

  Barefoot and hungover, I continued to scrub.

  “Fine,” I muttered, as men will. “Fine. I’ll pick your dad up. Sure. Absolutely. Let me shut the shop for two hours. Mustn’t let the fat bastard spend a penny of his millions on a cab, must we. Oh no. Ohhh no. Not while Neil can pick him up.”

  My head was throbbing. Under my furry tongue I winced at that burning, vomity acid taste. I coughed some brown stuff into the toilet with an antiseptic echo and resumed my angry scrubbing mutter.

  “In fact, why don’t I just let the solicitors run the shop while I’m out? They’re going to get it anyway, what difference does a few days make? And maybe you can divorce me, if I’m so drunk and embarrassing? Marry Beevers or one of the Boatman brothers? Marry MY friend Benno who you’ve conveniently forgotten you had a crush on for half a term ten years ago. I’m sure they’re all more daddy’s type,” and on that, I threw the J-cloth with a splat at the tile and tumbled back against the bath, kicking out angrily. Feeling it crumple and pinch behind me, I wrenched out the buckled summons from my pants and balled it up fast in an angry white fist.

  Damn it. Damn it all.

  The phone began to ring shrilly.

  Breathing slow, breathing deep, I hauled myself up by the toilet and dragged my way into the lounge. Streaky watched me, stretched out in his square of winter sunlight on the floor.

  It was Andrew. Either on his mobile or having the north circular diverted around his mini-bar.

  “This is your place right? Heroes … I can’t read it, the sun’s in my … Heroes Incorporated? That what the sign says?”

  “What? Where are – ?”

  “You not opening up today then? I’m standing here like a hung-over lemon. Get yourself round. I’ve had an idea. Well, not an idea. But I think an idea about where we could get an idea.”

  “Idea?”

  “About last night. What we discussed?”

  Last night. A memory dragged itself sluggishly behind my eyes. Jack and Catherine. Fireworks. Arguing. I backed up a little further. Andrew. A red notebook. A plan. The memory then promptly dumped out the remains of its nauseating litter-bin onto my tongue. Whisky. Ribena. A kebab.

  “I’ve got a meeting with O’Shea in a few … bloody hell. Taxi? Taxi!”

  “Andrew? What –”

  “I’ll meet you at your shop in ninety minutes. Taxi? Bloody h –”

  The line went dead.

  An hour later I was climbing up, out of the underground, a zombie from its crypt. I drifted through Soho floating like litter on the wind, in and out of the gutters and kerbs. The air was cold and misty, my breath fogging, surrounding me like a wraith, adding to the ghostly sense.

  Around me, London continued, unaffected by my existence. No one met my eye, no one bumped my shoulder, no car slowed as I crossed. Like a dream where everything is out of reach, everything falling, I moved from street to muted street watching the cast take position, exchange their lines and act their scenes. Finally I wandered over frozen cobbles to the deserted quiet of Brigstock Place. I hauled up the shutters with a dumb rattle, toes bitten and cold in my thin black Converses.

  I shuffled inside, picking up the post and snapped on the flickering lights, ignoring the dust and debris, head thudding. The cold walls hung with damp, clammy and spored, the rot from bowels beneath furring my tongue. Above the office archway, Elvis said it was just after ten a.m. and I had no reason to doubt him. As I moved through to the office and the kitchen, I tried not to look at the large empty square on my counter – a ground zero of fluff and forgotten biros – where my till had once stood.

  I sat out the back for a while, in the dark, in the quiet, just thinking. Breathing deep, trying to sit on the panic, keeping it down, keeping it low. People and places shuffled around the perimeter of my mind. Jane, Edward, Earl’s Court, Robert Redford, Superman, Solicitors.

  Andrew.

  Hauling myself up, I dragged myself to the kitchen and distracted myself with tea, moving to the laptop while the kettle coughed into life. I booted up wearily and dunked a tea-bag while the signal dialled.

  My inbox was empty, save yet more spammy drivel. But trying to focus, to keep tears and rage subdued by the motions of normalcy, I sat down, sat up and selected the spammy friendsreunited drivel and double clicked my way onto their site. I waded through gurning snapshots and the hundredth permutation of essential eighties hits on CD, until I unearthed my
University. My year.

  I sipped my tea.

  Ahmed, Anderson, Atherton, Barber, there.

  Andrew Benjamin, like myself, had chosen to avoid the exclamations and emoticons of his dorm-mates, plumping instead for a straightforward where-are-they-now. Small family, New York, real estate, happy memories. And like myself, his posting too was worded to actively discourage replies or reminiscence. But then hey, that had been our Uni’ years all over.

  Andrew and I were on the same corridor and met about a fortnight into the first term, bonding immediately over that which we had in common. Namely pitiful A-level results, wayward fathers, virginity intacto and – most importantly – a mutual desire to rid ourselves of all the weirdos we’d mistakenly befriended in Freshers’ Week. This we managed to do more or less successfully with chess, which we played daily on the steps outside his room. Andrew, an intense young bearded lefty with a collection of chunky-knits and whale posters, had made it clear almost immediately he had no interest in the college cliques and the college cliques made it even clearer they had no interest in me so we naturally gravitated together, orbiting uneventfully about each other for a year.

  That was until the emotional upheaval and the eventful arrival on the corridor of –

  “Yes yes, tip-top. Never better. You?”

  I looked up at the sound of the door’s jingle, Andrew’s voice wafting in on the chilly breeze.

  “Will do. Nice to see you old man,” he said with a wave and bustled in. “Morning morning. Blimey, stick a tea on old stick. Christ, what’s that smell?”

  “Don’t ask,” I sighed, hauling myself out into the light. “Who were you … ?”

  “Chap next door. Lord, he’s got a memory on him, hasn’t he? Blimey.” Andrew dumped his case on the counter among the biros and rolled his shoulders, peering about the walls while he fished out his mobile phone from his usual pocket junk and popped his hands-free into his ear. “Great shop by the way,” he nodded. “Looks like your room at Uni? All the …” and he motioned at the kitschy crap on the wall.

  “Next door? You know him?”

  “Hm? Yes.” He dialled out quickly. “Keatings … You remember O’Shea last night? Said he’d had his eye on a development round here a few years – hello? Mr O’Shea please.”

  I left him to his call and threw a bag into a mug, returning a moment later with his tea. He was pacing, chatting into his hands-free like a schizophrenic, red notebook flapping.

  “… New York is scheduled to complete on Tuesday. There’s no … Well the Holborn people are looking at the thirteenth, which leaves us plenty of time in case of … Friday, that’s right … Uh-huh? The site visit? Yes yes …” Andrew caught my eye and rolled his, giving a mock yawn. “Well I’ll see what I can do. Speak to you later sir. Cheerio,” and he hung up.

  “Big business?”

  “Don’t,” he sighed, popping the earpiece out and taking his tea with ouchy-fingers. “We’re selling O’Shea’s New York place next week to some fund-managers looking for a temporary Manhattan address. One floor, no bathrooms. Five million pounds. Which’ll leave O’Shea with six figures to plough into an off-plan artist’s impression over here.”

  “And this is what you do now? No saving the whales?”

  “I’m just a simple estate agent. I’ll sell you that, buy you this and take a percent for the trouble. Easiest job in the world.”

  “And a nice tie to go with it.”

  “Huh? Yes, bugger off,” Andrew said, flapping a poorly judged purple paisley number. “Hotel dry-cleaners again. Total waste of space. Anyway, look at you. Look at this,” and he gazed over the walls again. “Where’s your Robert Redford? Shouldn’t that have pride of place somewhere?”

  “Sold it,” I sighed. “Needs must.”

  “And after all the trouble we had getting it on your wall.”

  “Someone else’s problem now.”

  “Well,” Andrew shrugged, trying to gee me up a little. He took a tour of the six dusty square feet. “Cracking location anyway. What are you paying, if you don’t mind me asking? You want me to talk to some people?” He flapped his red book and clicked open a biro. “Might be able to get you a better deal?”

  “I think my problems extend a little further than saving a tenner a month on rent,” I said, and I handed him the morning’s crumpled, yet legally binding, summons.

  Andrew sipped his tea and gave the document his attention.

  I watched as he furrowed, taking it in studiously. As a man would. With a man’s sombre intelligence and focus. I then began to torture myself, picking at my mood like a fresh scab, and pictured Andrew in my shoes. Finding a burst pipe one morning. I pictured him calmly moving boxes with spade-sized hands, broad shoulders and a gritty determination. Barking at plumbers, haggling with landlords. Getting it sorted. Getting it done. Jane at his side, her slender frame wrapped by Andrew’s tree-trunk arm.

  Christ, what was I doing?

  “Bloody hell old man,” Andrew said, handing back the paperwork. “I’d better ask around rent-wise pretty sharpish. How did you get on last night by the way? Get home all right?”

  “Bit of a scene,” I shrugged. “We had friends over for dinner. I was sick, Jane … well let’s say our friends didn’t have to look too far for the fireworks.”

  “You tell Jane anything about – ?”

  I shook my head.

  Andrew’s eyes wandered about the shop once again. They came to rest on where the till wasn’t standing. He put his hand to the bare formica, almost involuntarily, shaking his head, fists flexing. “This is … ?”

  “Used to be,” I said.

  “God,” he sighed. The muscles in his jaw ground and bulged restlessly. “How did they … I mean, why you? Why did the bastards pick you?”

  “Because I’m greedy.”

  “Heyyy, come on, less of that. We both know that’s not –”

  “They told me. Told me over and over. The mark is greedy. The mark is stupid. My character is one who is happy to make a dishonest buck fleecing fellows out of their heirlooms. I got what I deserved.”

  “Neil –”

  “I rip off the rude. I lunch with the likeable. Christopher and I have that in common.”

  “Really?” Andrew blustered loudly, shoving his hands in his pockets like a dad. “So you’ve now got a completely different personality from when I knew you ten years ago, have you? The guy who did all those posters for Film Soc’ in his free time? Could have charged them, but didn’t? Who did that Fun Run for the Student Union with Jane and me? Who donated those comics to the Cats Protection League charity shop every month? Who –”

  “People obviously change,” I said, angrily, slamming debt after debt into a pile.

  “People don’t change.”

  “What about you?” I said, deflecting the attention. “Look at you.”

  “We’re not …” and he trailed off. I saw a frown scuttle across his features. “We’re not talking about me.”

  “Look at you though. Mr Madison Avenue? Mr Bigshot? Just over from New York. What happened to you? You were on that Fun Run too, y’know. In a Bob Dylan T-shirt if I remember the photos. You had an acoustic guitar with a CND sticker on it for God’s sake.”

  “That’s … Look, we’re getting off the –”

  “Everybody changes. I became a greedy, lazy, selfish idiot who clearly got what he deserved and you somehow became a capitalist pig riding roughshod over the little man.” I fished out a sheet, turning it over.

  An unfinished letter.

  “No,” Andrew said flatly.

  “Maybe it’s genetic, like they say? Maybe I’m just my father’s son,” and waggled the letter with a flap. “And maybe it’s for the best? Maybe it was a lucky escape for Jane. Finding out at last who she’s really –”

  “NO!” Andrew yelled, making me jump. His eyes blazed. “God! Listen to you! Taking all the responsibility from … These people are scum. The fucking scum of the earth. What, you think
because they use their cunning instead of a baseball bat this makes them heroes? That it makes the poor souls they rob more complicit? Man oh man.” Andrew threw his head back, fists tight.

  “All right, all right. I know.” I lay my father’s letter on top of the pile of bills. “I’m just feeling –”

  “When they use your weaknesses against you? When they twist your dreams, feed your basest, greediest human instincts and then blame you for what you did to yourself? You think this makes them what? Robin Hood?”

  “I didn’t say that. That’s not what I –”

  “Come on Neil, snap out of it man,” Andrew shook his head. “Shall we release all the drug lords from prison too? I mean while we’re absolving blame? If it’s not their fault? Or a conman’s fault? Or an arms manufacturer’s? Remove everyone’s responsibility? So that it’s us, our fault for being tempted into their wares. Our fault?!”

  Andrew was shouting now. Arms out, spinning, railing at the racks and frames. I got the feeling that somehow, in some way, this went deeper than the last ten days.

  “Benno, look –”

  “Oh they’re just trying to make a living, they’ll say,” Andrew sang, thick with sarcasm. “Just trying to … There are other fucking ways to make a living!” he yelled. “Other ways! That don’t leave my fucking friends bankrupt. That don’t take away people’s homes and families. Other … other ways,” he said, slowing down a little. He breathed deep, blinking, puffing.

  “Are you … Hey, hey,” and I put down my tea. “I appreciate what you’re saying, what you’re doing here. I do.”

  Andrew looked up at me, eyes fixed, breathing slow. His fists opened and closed.

  “Where’s this come from?” I said.

  He looked at me a little longer.

  “What aren’t you telling me? Why are you taking this so personally?”

  “Because … just because we go back a long way.”

  “We haven’t spoken in a decade,” I said. “You didn’t even turn up for graduation.”