When We Were Rich

by Tim Lott

  They’ll invent some kind of gadget for that, you wait and see. You seen these Garmins?

  The Satnavs? Yeh, I seen them. Don’t worry about it. No one’s going to replace the London Cabbie. It’ll take more than a few bits of hardware. We’re a legend. You seem to be doing all right though. I heard you just got a place in Spain.

  Marbella, yeh. Me and Judy going to retire there in a few years. Get away from this dump. How’s things with you?

  Not bad.

  What about you and your missus? Fancy a place abroad? I know a bloke who does timeshares, kosher, not a con.

  I haven’t got one, says Nodge.

  Haven’t got one of what? says Eddie Fox, who has finished his sandwich and is edging closer.

  Nodge says he hasn’t got a missus, says Mickey the Wrench.

  No, that’s right. Never has had a missus so long as I’ve known him, says Eddie.

  Probably a poof, says Mickey, mildly. You a poof, Nodge?

  Yeh, says Nodge. Course I am. Obviously. A nine bob note.

  Probably is at that, says Mickey. Loves a Hampton up his jacks don’t you, Nodge?

  I’m a giver more than a taker, says Nodge, checking his watch. I’d better get back on shift.

  He’s just ugly, says Eddie. Can’t get a bird.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, Nodge sees Owen approaching along Kensington Park Road. He feels the urge to duck behind the green awning of the cab shelter. But Owen spots him, his face registering surprise and delight, and raises a hand.

  Nodge shifts uncomfortably as Owen walks across the road towards them. He thanks heaven that Owen is not and has never been remotely camp. All the same, anxiety is pooling in his stomach.

  Hi, Nodge, says Owen. Quelle surprise.

  Owen, says Nodge. What you doing here?

  The doctor’s, says Owen, looking puzzled. I told you. Portland Road.

  He waves his hand vaguely towards the west.

  Eddie and Mickey, to Nodge’s disappointment, do not retreat. There is a brief silence.

  This is Eddie, says Nodge. And Mickey. This is Owen. A mate of mine.

  Alright? says Eddie.

  Alright? says Mickey, eyeballing him.

  He’s been to the doctors, says Nodge.

  So he said, says Mickey. You alright?

  I’m fine, says Owen, cheerfully. Are you allowed to get a coffee at the hut if you’re not a cabbie?

  No, you’re fucking not, says Eddie. You got to show your badge and answer three questions from the Knowledge.

  He’s joking, says Mickey. He thinks he’s being amusing, don’t you, Eddie? What do you want? I’ll get you one.

  Thanks, says Owen. Have they got a flat white?

  They got white, says Mickey. And it’s flat.

  Sorry?

  It’s totally fucking flat. Flat as they come.

  Oh, I’m being ridiculous. Sorry. I’ll take whatever comes. Lovely.

  Why, Nodge asks himself in frustration, is Owen suddenly choosing this moment to come over all Graham Norton?

  Mickey heads towards the shelter, but Eddie holds his ground, lights a cigarette.

  So, aren’t you going to ask me? says Owen.

  What?

  About the doctor’s.

  Isn’t it sort of private?

  Yes, of course. Sorry.

  Let’s get in the back of the cab, shall we?

  Mickey returns with the coffee which he hands to Owen.

  Thanks a lot. He reaches in his pocket for change. How much do I owe you?

  Don’t be a cunt, says Mickey cheerfully.

  Come on then, says Nodge. Thanks, Mickey. See you, Eddie.

  See you.

  Yeh.

  Inside the back of the cab, Owen sits and sips at the coffee.

  This is really horrible coffee.

  The tea is better. Coffee’s not really a thing here.

  Owen sips the hot watery liquid thoughtfully.

  They don’t know, do they?

  Who don’t know what?

  The other cabbies. They don’t know that you’re gay.

  I don’t have to tell the world. It’s my business. What did the doctor say?

  What are you ashamed of?

  I’m not ashamed. It just makes life easier. If I worked at John Lewis it wouldn’t be so much of a problem.

  Owen shrugs.

  It’s your life. Hiding stuff doesn’t really help in the long term, though.

  You don’t know London cabbies, mate. So to get back to the point. What did the doctor say?

  Owen sighs.

  It looks like there’s fibrosis of the liver. Which could turn to cirrhosis. Or liver cancer.

  Shit. And what then?

  It probably won’t come to that.

  Nodge pauses to take this in. He had been more or less expecting it, but it still rocks him. There is sourness in his throat, fear. Nothing shows in his face.

  What do you need to do in the meantime?

  Take Lamivudine. It’s a drug to help out. Might improve the symptoms. It can reduce the viral load. In the meantime it’s business as usual.

  Meaning?

  Tiredness. Sleeplessness. Nausea. Weight loss.

  I could use a bit of that.

  Be my guest. Dizziness. Cramps in the lower abdomen. It’s chronic rather than acute, I think. White tongue. It tastes like there’s metal in my mouth.

  You have all those old-fashioned fillings. That’s probably the taste.

  You should have an injection against the virus, Nodge.

  Why? We’re always careful.

  All the same. Also, I’ve got to stop drinking alcohol. Eat more fruit. Spend a lot of time in bed probably. I can get fevers. Bad fevers. Feeling bloated and gaseous. I’m always cold. It’s like having the flu.

  What about your job?

  I don’t know. John Lewis has decent health care.

  Just think. You’ll get the chance to tell them that it might be curtains for you.

  Almost makes it worth it.

  They fall into silence.

  I can’t drink this, says Owen, eventually. He hands the coffee to Nodge, who pours it out of the open window.

  Not flat enough for you?

  In some cases, for no reason at all, the virus just goes away completely, says Owen.

  Never know your luck.

  Nodge nods, then clambers into the front of the cab and starts the engine.

  Shall I sit up front with you?

  It’s fine. Make yourself comfortable.

  They drive home to Nodge’s flat. Owen can hardly make it up the stairs to Nodge’s front door. Inside, he washes his face, then flops down on the sofa. Nodge stands over him.

  Let me help you out of your clothes.

  I’m not an invalid yet, Nodge. It will pass. Don’t worry. I just need to rest for a few minutes. Then I’ll get these off, put them in the laundry. Have a shower and go to bed with a book. I’m feeling much better, actually. Just knackered. Don’t look so helpless.

  But I am. I am helpless.

  Welcome to the human race, then.

  Owen manages a smile. Nodge smiles weakly back.

  I’m going to the bedroom to meditate, says Nodge. I’m stressing out.

  Since when did you meditate?

  Veronica taught me to do it. Only she called it something else. ‘Mindfulness’. It’s quite good. Calms me down. Very good for road rage.

  Five minutes after he has settled into his silence, he thinks he hears the latch go and breaks off his session. He gets up. Owen isn’t in the living room. Further investigations reveal that Owen isn’t in the flat at all.

  Nodge rushes out into the corridor, where he catches Owen, bent double, waiting for the lift. He stares at Nodge despairingly. Nodge takes his arm and leads him back into the flat.

  As he sits him down, he notices Owen reaching for a piece of paper he has left on the table. Nodge snatches it from his hand.

  What’s this?

 
Owen responds simply with a deep breath and a sigh. Nodge reads it.

  Nodge

  This is no good.

  I know you’re trying hard, but you’re just going to end up hating me.

  Don’t come looking for me.

  I love you.

  O. x

  You fucking twat, says Nodge, screwing up the piece of paper and throwing it at Owen’s face.

  It’s for the best, says Owen, now in tears.

  Stop being such a martyr. This is the second time you’ve pulled this shit on me. Don’t pull it again. And don’t say you’re doing this for me. You’re doing this because you want to be the noble hero.

  What do you mean?

  You’ve always loved those songs. Johnny Cash standing alone on the plain staring at the moon, strumming his guitar, nobly bemoaning his tragic fate.

  It’s no good, Nodge. It’s not going to work.

  What, because you love country and western?

  It’s not funny anymore.

  Because you don’t believe that I love you, says Nodge, furiously. Not enough anyway. Not enough for this.

  * * *

  Later that night, they lie curled in bed together. Owen is feeling better, almost normal. Nodge reaches for him. He wants to make love. Owen turns away, but Nodge persists, feeling obscurely insistent, and Owen begins to respond despite his weariness.

  Owen reaches for the condoms by the side of the bed. Nodge takes them from him but tosses them aside.

  What are you doing?

  Owen starts to protest, but Nodge will not be halted. Eventually, Owen submits. The sex that follows is passionate, more than Owen can ever remember, tender, brutal, tender once more.

  Afterwards, he stares at Nodge, eyes flickering with puzzlement.

  Why did you do that?

  What?

  Go bareback. You could get infected. Did you get carried away? Are you just being reckless?

  It won’t happen again, says Nodge.

  Why, then?

  I wanted to prove something to you.

  What did that prove?

  That we’re in this together.

  Owen takes Nodge’s hand. He does not try and leave again.

  * * *

  You need to get out of bed, Frankie, says Veronica. And drag yourself out of the cellar. And have a shower, for god’s sake. You reek of – I don’t know what. Old underpants.

  Frankie is watching TV, stretched out on the camp bed in the basement, covered by a scratchy blanket. The sheets underneath the blanket are rumpled and stale. A DVD of Pinocchio is playing. Frankie has been watching it dully. China, who sits at his feet in a pile of crisps that Frankie has been eating and has since discarded, has grown bored with the film and is playing with her Furby.

  Frankie has been in the basement since Colin’s funeral. He says he can’t sleep with another person in the room. Too many noises. Too much movement. Respiration. Stretches. Snores and coughs.

  On the screen, Pinocchio, accompanied by Jiminy Cricket, is swimming down towards Monstro the Whale to save his father, Gepetto.

  Propped against the wall is a framed poster of St George and the Dragon that Roxy took from Colin’s workspace to give Frankie as a keepsake.

  Have we got to keep that horrible BNP poster?

  It’s not a BNP poster. It was the dragon Colin was fascinated by, not St George. He always had this thing about dragons for some reason. He used the dragon as a template for his video game. He had dozens of pictures of the bloody things.

  It’s still hideous.

  That one’s from about a thousand years ago apparently. Not exactly a figure of fascism. They hadn’t thought it up in those days. So it’s not BNP. There isn’t even a picture of a flag in it. Just a dragon.

  And a virgin.

  They usually come as a pair.

  Gives me the creeps.

  You don’t have to like it, do you? Don’t worry, I’ll keep it down here hidden from all your Guardian-reading buddies.

  I don’t have any Guardian-reading buddies.

  Veronica feels anger rise through her chest, imagines colour surging into her cheeks. Trying to draw on her professional training, she keeps her voice level, controlled.

  I’m not saying that there’s not a place for grieving, Frankie. I know you’re a bit depressed. But you don’t know how frustrating it is for me. It’s months now since Colin passed.

  That’s all right then, says Frankie. Months, is it? That should do the trick.

  And China needs supper. As she did yesterday. And the day before that. Always it’s me that has to give it to her.

  Supper, pipes China. She gets up and walks towards the stairs.

  Daddy will come up in a moment, says Veronica. You had three phone calls today from tenants who need work done. Have you got back to any of them?

  Tenants?

  From your ‘buy-to-let empire’.

  His eyes, which are shark-like, without inner light, are stuck on the screen.

  Veronica sits on the bed and holds Frankie’s hand.

  It’s not even that you were that close to Colin anymore. Roxy is back at work, taking it in her stride.

  I bet she is.

  What’s that mean?

  She’s a rich woman.

  You shouldn’t say that. She loved him.

  If you say so.

  Did you love him?

  Frankie’s hand is cold, like meat from the fridge.

  Not really.

  Frankie turns his eyes back to the screen, where Monstro, now breathing fire, is pursuing Gepetto and Pinocchio through mountainous waves.

  Actually if I were an Islamic terrorist, I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather blow up.

  That’s a horrible thing to say, Frankie. Shame on you.

  Truth hurts, isn’t it? Frankie mumbles, thumb poised over the remote. Veronica grabs the control out of his hand and switches it off.

  Frankie. Talk to me. I’m worried about you. What’s wrong?

  What’s wrong? What’s wrong?

  Frankie looks like he’s actually trying to work this out. His brow contracts with the effort.

  It’s obvious, isn’t it?

  Not to me it isn’t.

  Now he looks directly into her eyes. Veronica can see there no one that she recognizes. Only two black pools of sunken light. When Frankie speaks, he does so with an intensity that unnerves her.

  Nobody’s safe. Nothing makes any sense. That’s what’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what you do. It’s all completely random.

  He slumps back, loses eye contact, reaches for the TV control again.

  Not all of it, says Veronica, looking at China, who is still navigating the stairs. She has reached the top step.

  Don’t look at her, says Frankie. She was random too. It’s not like we sat down and made a decision or anything.

  Veronica unfurls her fingers from Frankie’s, picks them off one by one.

  It’s not easy to be with someone so self-pitying.

  Why don’t you throw an ashtray at my head and see if that will perk me up.

  Frankie, having retrieved the remote, switches the TV back on.

  I can’t take this much longer, Frankie.

  I can’t sleep. I can’t stay awake. I can’t do anything. I have bad dreams.

  What do you dream about?

  Snakes. Every night. Coming up under the floorboards.

  Veronica nods, slipping into her professional mode.

  Could mean anything. Snakes. Worms. Draw your own conclusions.

  And you. I dream of you. Snakes coming out of your head. Like that monster woman in the old stories.

  What did you do when you saw me with snakes coming out of my head?

  I couldn’t move. I was too scared.

  Seems a natural enough reaction.

  Thanks for the insight, says Frankie, closing his eyes. His body language, which was momentarily open, closes again. He pulls his knees up, and hugs himself. So what next? Are you going to
tell me to pull myself together?

  This isn’t good for China. It isn’t good for me. Are you taking the tablets?

  Yes, I’m taking the tablets. Started two weeks ago. Makes no difference. We’re all taking the tablets, aren’t we? The whole fucking country. We’re all rich and we’re all taking the tablets. But they don’t save us. They don’t protect us. They don’t make things better. There’s nothing in the centre of us. Nothing behind us. Nothing underneath us. Just black. Black.

  Veronica stands up, and begins to clear up the mess that China has made with the crisps.

  Every week in my training, Frankie, I see people whose lives are destroyed. They have no family. No homes. They cannot go an hour without a drink. Or a fix. They are cold and tired. They are lost. But some of them have a lot more spirit than you do.

  Frankie pulls the blanket up to his neck.

  It’s just how I feel. That’s all that’s important nowadays, isn’t it? How you feel? And I don’t feel good. In fact, I don’t feel anything at all. At least your clients have got real problems to be miserable about. All I’ve got is a dead mate who wasn’t even really my mate anymore. And that makes it worse. Because I haven’t the right.

  Frankie’s face corrugates. It looks like he’s about to cry. Veronica finds herself unable to move to comfort him.

  I can smell urine, says Veronica. Did China wet herself?

  It wasn’t China, says Frankie, flatly. He wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his pyjamas and turns his eyes back to the television screen, where Pinocchio is lying in the surf, drowned.

  * * *

  Three days later Frankie appears at the breakfast table, shaved, showered and dressed in a clean and pressed suit.

  Right, he says. The bitch is back. Starting now. Mojo back, action stations.

  Veronica stares at him, bewildered.

  What brought this on?

  Victor rang me last night. There’s a window on this deal. The six-bedder off the Askew Road.

  You told me about that months ago. You said it was mad risky.

  No avoiding risk, is there? I’m going to go for it. Life’s too short. Look what happened to Colin. Cautious old Colin. I’ve got to move fast. I’ve wasted too much time for too long.

  Where you going to get the money to buy a six-bedroom house? Even I know that no one is going to make a loan on a multi-occupancy.

  There are ways and means. You clear the tenants out for the day the mortgage assessor comes round. Get some nice furniture in from one of your other properties. Bring in some nursery bits and pieces. Clear all the junk out from the individual rooms and bingo! It looks like one big happy family home. Anyway, I know a few friendly surveyors.