When We Were Rich

by Tim Lott

  Why ask me?

  You and Owen seem solid as a rock.

  Unconditional acceptance on one side. Recognition of the unconditionality on the other side. Gratitude for it on both sides. That’s all there is to it.

  But Frankie doesn’t appear to be listening.

  I’ve lost everything.

  You haven’t, says Nodge. You’ve still got China.

  Every other weekend.

  And the agency.

  The part of it that doesn’t belong to the bank.

  I thought I was meant to be the pessimist.

  At least nothing much else can go wrong.

  Don’t count on it.

  That’s the depressing bastard I know and love. Thanks.

  You’re welcome.

  Nodge. Do you think Veronica ever loved me?

  Don’t be stupid.

  If she did, then why did she stop?

  Because you lied to her.

  Frankie stares out of the cab window at the dull October day.

  My life doesn’t amount to much.

  Course it does, says Nodge.

  At least Veronica’s given something to the world. She was in medicine. Now she’s helping people with counselling. What do I do? Sell space. Empty space. I thought if I just got enough, made enough . . .

  Frankie’s voice trails off.

  See. I was never sure she loved me. Not really. How could she? I thought I had to be really successful, or she would dump me.

  After you have a kid it’s not about success anymore. It’s just about being there.

  She was better than me.

  She slept with another man. She threw ashtrays at your head when she was angry.

  Frankie is in a dark, sullen reverie now, lapsing into silence. Nodge keeps his concentration on the road.

  How much longer till we get there?

  Ten minutes if the traffic is okay.

  They exit the M4 at Hammersmith, go round the roundabout and head along the Shepherd’s Bush Road.

  Can you stop for a moment, please, Nodge? Just pull into this side road.

  What? Why?

  I’ll only be a sec.

  Hold on. Isn’t this where Veronica works? The drop-in centre?

  That’s right.

  Frankie!

  Just pull over, Nodge. I want to see if she’s there.

  What for?

  I’ve got some papers for her to sign. To do with the divorce.

  Is it so urgent?

  The decree nisi came through today.

  Oh, I see. I’m sorry. That must be hard.

  Nodge turns the corner, double parks just past the large Victorian house.

  I don’t see why you need to do this. You can put the papers in the post.

  Better to be sure with something like this.

  Hmmm.

  Don’t hmmm me.

  Hmmmm. You’re still hoping to get her back. She’s not coming back.

  You don’t have a crystal ball.

  Veronica does, apparently. She’s looked into it. And guess what? No Frankie.

  I’ll only be a moment.

  Outside a patch of rain, a surprise in an otherwise blue sky, is getting heavier.

  Take this, says Nodge, passing over an outsize umbrella. You’ll be soaked.

  A huge articulated lorry pulls up behind Nodge and starts honking.

  Shit. I’ll just go round the block. Get out. I’ll be back in a moment.

  Frankie gets out of the cab to be faced with a penetrating sheet of rain. Standing under the umbrella, he waits a few minutes for Nodge to return, but he doesn’t appear. He can wait no longer, he is getting cold and makes his way into the drop-in centre. Once inside he closes the umbrella, and noticing a stand, puts the brolly into it.

  Maybe twenty lost souls are arrayed around the room. Nobody seems to be in charge. Frankie stands there, confused. Veronica is nowhere to be seen.

  He starts to cast around for someone to give him information. Eventually, by the fire doors, he finds a man in a polo neck jumper with a riot of salt-and-pepper hair who is wearing a lanyard with a local authority insignia on it.

  Excuse me. I’m looking for Veronica Tree. She works here. Sometimes.

  May I ask who wants to know?

  I’m her husband.

  The man looks sad and severe and regretful all at once.

  Ah yes. Frankie is it? A pleasure to meet you. Veronica’s not here in the mornings on Thursdays anymore, I’m afraid. She’ll be in late afternoon, I think.

  Frankie doesn’t try to hide his disappointment.

  Ah. Okay.

  He looks the man up and down. He is old but attractive.

  Can I ask your name?

  My name is Oakeshott.

  Oakeshott? Oleg Oakeshott?

  Oleg? No, my name isn’t Oleg. It’s Peter. Peter Oakeshott.

  He holds out his lanyard to Frankie, which reads Dr P. Oakeshott.

  We do have someone called Oleg here, though. That’s him.

  He nods to a dissolute man sitting in a crummy armchair, sullenly smoking.

  He was one of Veronica’s clients. Between you and me, probably the most difficult one.

  Frankie looks puzzled.

  So there’s no one here called Oleg Oakeshott? Who went to Prague?

  Oakeshott responds slowly, as if explaining something simple to a child.

  There’s someone called Oleg. Who is from Prague. And I’m called Oakeshott. But there is no one called Oleg Oakeshott. Who’s gone to Prague.

  Has anyone gone to Prague? Anyone at all?

  Not so far as I’m aware.

  Frankie considers this, and can only find partial sense in it. Why would Veronica lie about which stranger she slept with? He packs the thought away before he can be troubled by any possible answer.

  Look, would you do me a favour? I’ve got to give Veronica some papers. Very important. Can I trust you to give them to her?

  No problem.

  Frankie hands the envelope to Oakeshott, then, his head spinning, he turns in a daze and returns to the street where Nodge’s cab can be seen at the kerb through a curtain of rain. He reaches the cab, pulls open the door and climbs in.

  Was she there? says Nodge.

  No. You want to know something funny?

  What?

  She told me she had an affair with a man called ‘Oleg Oakeshott’ at the centre. But there is no Oleg Oakeshott. Why would she lie like that? I mean it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. I don’t know the guy, after all. She told me he’d gone to Prague. Swore to it.

  Beats me, says Nodge, urgently starting the cab. Because he has seen, in his rear-view mirror, Tony Diamonte approaching the door of the drop-in centre.

  At least the rain has eased off a bit.

  Shit! I forgot your umbrella.

  Leave it. Really. I’ll drop back later.

  But Frankie is gone, before Nodge can protest further.

  Nodge watches in the rear-view mirror as he sees Frankie and Tony nearly collide. They both stop and stare at one another. He watches as they exchange words. A silent soundtrack plays out. Nodge thinks of going to intervene, but it is clearly too late to save the situation.

  Moments later, Frankie starts waving his arms wildly. Tony is laughing. Frankie goes to punch him, but Tony dodges him, traps him and sends him flying. Frankie falls to the wet pavement, the slabs cracked by the swelling earth underneath, open to the rain. He lies there, like a crab upended, as Tony walks away and unhurriedly enters the drop-in centre.

  Nodge sighs and gets out of the cab. When he reaches Frankie, he has not moved from his prone position.

  You need to get up, Frankie.

  Frankie says nothing.

  It’s wet. You can’t stay there all day.

  Frankie looks up at Nodge. It’s as if he doesn’t recognize him at all.

  Come on, Frankie. Let’s go to the opening, says Nodge, softly.

  I saw Tony.

  I know.
/>   We had a fight.

  I know.

  Nodge hauls him onto his feet. He notices there is a smear of blood on Frankie’s forehead.

  Come on. Back to the cab. You’ll catch your death otherwise.

  Frankie says nothing. He lets Nodge lead him back to the cab and throws himself into a slump in the back seat. Nodge takes up his position behind the steering wheel.

  You okay, Frankie?

  Do you know what he told me?

  Nodge turns round and looks at Frankie, who is sitting shivering in his mud-smeared suit.

  I think I can guess.

  Now Frankie looks up at him, blinking at twice the normal rate.

  What do you mean – you think you can guess? He told me he was the one Veronica had an affair with. Him! Tony Diamonte. That can’t be true, can it? I mean that’s not possible, is it? Tony doesn’t work at the drop-in centre. Does he? Veronica would have told me.

  Nodge says nothing because he can think of nothing to say.

  Frankie feels dark, suffocating vapour of understanding rising.

  Did you know?

  Frankie . . .

  All this time. You knew. Didn’t you?

  How could I tell you, Frankie? You were in a bad enough way as it was.

  Right. Okay. No. Right. You kept it from me.

  Frankie says nothing for a long time.

  Do you still want to go to the shopping centre opening? says Nodge.

  Doesn’t matter, he mumbles, looking out of the window at nothing at all.

  * * *

  The crowd inside the shopping centre is immense. There are balloons, posters and most strikingly, a procession from the McDonald’s franchise, dressed up in foam-rubber glory. Hamburglar, masked and bucktoothed, Ronald McDonald, psychotically happy. Mayor McCheese looks to be the most uncomfortable – a heavy man wearing a huge foam rubber bun on his head, a tiny top hat on top of that, then a slice of yellow foam cheese and brown foam patty sandwiched between the slices of the bun. Underneath this arrangement there are a pair of concealed eyeholes to enable the unfortunate occupant of the costume to navigate. He wears a sash emblazoned with the word ‘Mayor’ and carries a pair of large round plastic spectacles. McCheese is a character who looks sinister, frightened and depressed, the most disturbed member of the McDonald’s family, nervous of Hamburglar and Ronald, almost certainly bullied by them, at least in Nodge’s imagination.

  Nodge and Frankie make their way up to the first tier of the shopping centre. Frankie slopes behind Nodge, each step appearing to be an enormous effort. Nodge tries to get him to talk but he remains stubbornly silent.

  The opening ceremony is about to begin. The presenter walks on to a crescendo of anticipatory strings. She is wearing an op-art dress, Bridget Riley inspired, black and white.

  Good morning Westfielllllld, shouts the presenter. How exciting is this? Are you ready to shop?

  There is a muted cheer.

  Who’s she? says Nodge.

  Frankie doesn’t answer.

  I said, are you ready to SHOP?

  The second cheer is rather more enthusiastic but still somewhat muted. There are a few whistles and cheers mixed into the gruel of the reception.

  I’m delighted to welcome you to this fantastic, amazing new shopping destination. Or ‘experience’, as I’d like to call it.

  Frankie has fished the gold key out of his pocket and is fumbling with it.

  I’d like to introduce you to the founder of Westfield London, the man who had the vision fifty years ago . . . Mr Frank Lowie.

  An elderly man in a suit and white shirt and tie comes onto the stage amid uninterested applause and starts making a dull speech.

  The incredible mix of retailers . . . quality . . . service . . . provide for shoppers . . . more than fifty years of Westfield experience . . . London . . . very special city.

  He keeps the speech short, to the obvious relief of the shoppers who are largely ignoring him and crowding in and out of the stores. Then Boris Johnson, mayor of London, wearing a suit with a blue tie and a poppy in the lapel, appears on the podium to cheers and some scattered boos.

  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My fellow consumers. What a fantastic event. Absolutely amazing!

  I was asked on my way in by a reporter whether this was the right time, in these dark days of austerity, to be opening a shopping mall the size of thirty football pitches, as big as Buckingham Palace and its gardens combined. With free champagne and chocolates. And white marble floors. And I have to tell you, my fellow consumers, in a hotly contested field, it was one of the silliest questions I have ever been asked.

  Are you in favour of it?

  Weak cheers float up across from the balconies. Johnson, unfazed by the lack of response, continues.

  Some eight minutes later, the great tousled windbag finally concludes his speech and announces with as much gravitas as he can manage:

  It is my privilege to declare this great shopping centre – open.

  He cuts the red ribbon. On cue, a fifteen-piece gospel group headed by Leona Lewis turns out to sing ‘Feeling Good’.

  It’s a new dawn . . .

  The violins crash in.

  Overkill, says Nodge. But when he turns to look, Frankie isn’t there.

  He scans the balcony. To his right, he immediately spots Frankie. He is sitting on the edge of the glass wall that stands at the edge of the balcony above the main space, with his back to the drop. His feet swing, searching the air for support.

  Frankie cranes his neck to stare down at the marble floors below, showing muscles bulging beneath the chin.

  Nodge starts to shout his name, tries to make his way there, but the crowd is too dense.

  Frankie’s mind is fully focused on what he can see of the floor beneath and behind him. The tiny, pointless, milling people below. The huge looming shops. The brutal, reflecting glass above his head. The processed air in front of his face, the air he breathes day in day out, pointlessly, without ceasing. Until the meaningless cessation. Whether it comes now or in fifty years no longer seems to matter.

  Nodge fights his way forward. A security guard is gesticulating for Frankie to come down from the glass partition.

  Frankie!

  Nodge is edging closer, but the churning crowd blocks his path.

  Frankie feels the pull, the magnet of black. To fall from the cinema level – the fantasy level – to the lifestyle level beneath. On 9/11, there was this one man who simply just flew, you could see his poise, the falling man, it was beautiful, he had made his peace.

  Frankie.

  The security guard is nearly there too, they can both just about reach Frankie. Nodge makes a grab at his jacket and catches a corner of material.

  Frankie turns his gaze to Nodge, then to his sleeve where Nodge has touched it.

  His face is completely blank.

  He lets himself slide backwards over the sharp polished glass edge, and lets himself fall.

  Fall.

  * * *

  Nodge has never moved so fast, down the stairs down another set of stairs, elbowing people aside to yells of protest.

  At the bottom he pushes through the crowd distracted momentarily by Frankie’s descent. He is greeted not with the mess of blood and organs he had expected. Frankie is straddled across a fallen Mayor McCheese, the foam rubber distended by his splayed body.

  Frankie is not moving. He is completely still. Bystanders seem scared to touch him. Nodge pushes everyone out of the way. He can see that Frankie isn’t marked, but he remains unmoving, silent. The huge man in the Mayor McCheese outfit is bellowing in pain and outrage.

  Nodge reaches Frankie, pushing through the knot of rubberneckers, and whispers in his ear.

  Frankie.

  Someone in the crowd mumbles. Somehow Nodge hears this through the screams and commotion.

  He’s a goner.

  Nodge puts himself directly into Frankie’s eye line, takes him by his shoulders and shakes him gently. />
  Frankie.

  Frankie’s eyes open, eyelids flickering, curtains on a stage. There is a pause, then he starts to gabble.

  Sorry, mate. Really sorry, mate. Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know.

  Frankie! Are you alright, Frankie?

  Uh.

  Are you hurt? Do you feel okay?

  I think so.

  I’m fucking not, interrupts Mayor McCheese, ripping his foam rubber costume off to see if any permanent damage has been done. But the rubber has protected him, there is barely a bruise.

  As Frankie sits up and checks his limbs, all of which appear to be undamaged, the onlookers start to drift away. It was, after all, just another part of the entertainment, with an anticlimactic ending.

  Now, without warning, Frankie rolls over, suddenly enough to shock the remaining bystanders looming over him. He stands and looks behind him, takes in, for the first time, the squirming mass that is Mayor McCheese, a moaning flurry of yellow foam rubber and outraged occupant. The joke spectacles he was wearing lie shattered, and his sash, emblazoned with the McDonald’s logo, is soiled and torn. Hamburglar is standing in front of Mayor McCheese helplessly holding out a tissue. Ronald McDonald is wringing his hands furiously, his painted-on smiling face undermined by the rictus of fury evident now beneath his orange fright wig. His accent is Liverpudlian.

  Are you messin’? Are you feckin messin’?

  Suddenly, taking himself by surprise, Frankie starts to laugh, prompting a matching fury in the man wearing the McCheese costume, whose tiny top hat has collapsed.

  What’s so fucking funny?

  Nodge, despite himself, cannot help but join in with Frankie, while the rest of the crowd stand around in confusion. Minutes later, when the ambulance and the police arrive, Nodge and Frankie are still laughing helplessly as the lights play from the ceiling and the pop music, the big hit of the year, blares indifferently, penetratingly, inescapably from the invisible, arc-lit heavens.

  Hallelujah

  Hallelujah

  Halleluuuuu

  jah.

  Epilogue: The Phoenix and the Crocodile

  Mum. I want you to listen to me.

  I know you have to go, but just try and listen this once.

  Don’t go. Listen.

  Please.

  You’re not listening!

  You’re not even looking at me.

  Do you remember when I was, maybe, six years old?

  Yeh, I know. You’re right. I was a funny kid.