Upgrading

by Simon Brooke

  so the following Monday I am up early—well, ten-thirty, pacing around the living room with a mug of tea in my hand, dividing my attention between I Love Lucy on the telly and the front door. I am ready for business: smart suit, new tie, shaved and groomed with free samples from some of Marion’s magazines.

  Charles’s colleague is Ralph and he is going to introduce me to the property business. I’ve been reading up on the sector in the newspapers and the business magazines in the last day or so and I’ve reached the conclusion that the market being what it is, provided you’ve got the capital, you can’t really fail. And Charles and Marion’s friends sure have the capital.

  Marion, who has gone out to have something plucked or massaged or reshaped, stroked my cheek and wished me luck before she went.

  I’ve decided against a briefcase because I’ll look like a sales rep and also because I don’t want Ralph to think that I think that making money in business is about writing your name and today’s date neatly across the top of a piece of paper.

  Ralph finally arrives. An hour late. I get to the door before Anna Maria does. At first I think there is no one there but then, when I look round, I see him slouched against the side of the house. He is younger than I expected, his face a gruesome patchwork of bum fluff and eczema. His mousy hair looks like it has never been combed and he is wearing a pair of knackered old aviator sunglasses. He is also sporting a very old, navy blue Crombie overcoat, an Oxford cotton shirt and red corduroy jeans without a belt.

  “Hi …” he says. I realize he’s forgotten my name.

  “Andrew,” I say, holding out a hand.

  “Yeah, hi, Ralph.” There is an awkward pause.

  “Shall we go?” I say.

  “Go? Er, yeah, let’s go. Er, can I just use your … er …”

  “Sure, upstairs on the left.”

  He stumbles into the house and upstairs. I wait an embarrassingly long time. When he finally re-emerges I wonder whether to ask if everything is OK.

  “Right,” he says, rubbing his hands together.

  “OK,” I say enthusiastically. “Shall we go?”

  “What? Oh, yes. OK.”

  He leads the way out of the house and sets off down the mews and out into the street, then he turns round and walks back the other way. We stand there for a moment. I’m just about to ask what his car, assuming that is what he has lost, looks like.

  Finally he spots a very old, dark blue Jag, which is actually pretty conspicuous amongst the immaculate Mercs and BMWs that litter the streets around Marion’s. As I sit down in the cracked maroon leather seat I can smell stale cigarettes, body odour and pot. The car, something of a vintage, is a mess. Every surface is covered with papers, business cards, pages of some fragmented A-Z, cigarette packets and old Tango cans. I realize that by the time I get out, somehow, somewhere, my suit will be permanently marked.

  Ralph, meanwhile, is trying to start the car, easing out the choke, tickling the accelerator and whispering, “Come on, baby, come on.” Finally the old crate, aroused by his efforts, groans and roars into life.

  “Yeah,” gasps Ralph and we move off. We turn out into the main road and a car we narrowly miss flashes its lights behind us. Ralph seems not to notice.

  After we have been driving for some minutes I try to make conversation by asking, “Where are we going, then?”

  Ralph suddenly seems to notice my presence. “Oh, right, yeah. Where do you want to go?”

  “Well, you know best. Erm, I thought we were going to look at some property or something.”

  “Er, OK. Let’s do that.” He drives a bit more then says, “Where do you think?”

  This is beginning to piss me off. “I thought Charles had spo-ken to you about this?”

  “Charles?”

  “Oh, Christ! Yes, Charles Montague thought you might know of some properties that Marion and, er, I might want to invest in?”

  “Oh, yeah. Of course, sorry, man. Got the picture.” He nods violently and carries on saying “yeah” until we come to some traffic lights at which point he asks, “I wonder which is the best way to get there?”

  He lights a cigarette and begins grooving out to some imaginary music, thumping on the steering wheel. The car behind us beeps and I realize that the lights have changed.

  “Er, Ralph.”

  “Heh?”

  The car beeps again. “Lights,” I say, nodding up at them.

  “Christ! God! Sorry!”

  We lurch off and drive on a little further until he says, “Yeah, Notting Hill. That’s the place to invest. I know some beautiful little places round there.” At last we seem to be getting somewhere.

  “Great,” I say enthusiastically. “Let’s go.”

  We drive on in silence, me reminding him from time to time to go when the lights change to green and once or twice to stop when they are red. Ralph is still grooving out to the track going round in his brain or staring into space. At one point his mobile rings and he grabs it from the section behind the gear lever.

  “Haello? Er, he’s not here. No, I’m just looking after his phone. No, I don’t know where he is.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just switches off the phone and throws it onto the back seat. I keep looking straight ahead.

  Finally we arrive in a deserted street in W11—council blocks on one side, white stucco terraced houses on the other.The houses have the tell-tale signs of socioeconomic decline—Xpelairs at most windows and a line of doorbells at every front door. Washing hangs despondently from lines on both sides of the street. In the distance a radio plays reggae and a baby is screaming.

  “Where exactly were you thinking of?” I’m hoping against hope that he has something in mind.

  “Erm.” At that moment we pass a For Sale sign and he brakes violently and says, “Well, that’s something you could be thinking about.”

  “You know it, do you?” I say, knowing full well he doesn’t but getting pretty pissed off by now.

  “Er … Oh, yeah. Er, look, let’s stop and have a coffee, shall we?” I agree. The smell of the car and Ralph’s last-minute braking is beginning to make me feel sick. We double park and go into a tiny café with sticky-back plastic on the tables and a yellowed picture of some Italian seaside town on the wall next to a sign written in felt tip offering, “Gigs £3.”

  We order cappuccinos, which I pay for. We take them to an empty table near the window and Ralph pours sugar from the shaker into his coffee for a few minutes.

  He lights a cigarette and says, “Yeah, Charles! Jesus!”

  I take this to be an opening for some sort of conversation. By now, I have completely given up on finding any property or doing any business at all with this daft little turd but I decide that I might at least find out something interesting and even useful about Charles and Victoria.

  “How do you know him?”

  “Who?”

  “Charles,” I say. “You fuckwit,” I think.

  “Oh, we just move in the same circles. We’ve done some busi-ness together.”

  “Property?”

  “All kinds of shit.”

  “He seems quite an interesting guy.”

  “Yeah. Wild,” says Ralph, blowing smoke out and shaking his head gently.

  “Why’s he wild?” I ask, deciding, sod it, let’s just go for the third degree after all. If necessary I’ll just put him up against the wall and hit him a bit or hold his face over the chip pan.

  “Oh, he just is. Wild man. Christ!”

  “How does he make his money?”

  Ralph stares at me for a moment. At last I seem to have engaged him.

  “He’s got a number of, er, business interests.”

  I nod, knowingly. Ralph sniffs, rubs his nose and mutters something about paying a visit before we go. He gets up and then from behind me I hear him being told that there isn’t really a toilet but he can use the staff one out in the yard. I finish my coffee. He hasn’t touched his.

  When he returns, about ten minutes
later, I am standing up ready to go. He sits down again. So I do too. Then he looks at me, gets up again and says, “Ready?” God, this is exhausting.

  We step outside and I wonder whether I should just say thanks, nice meeting you, and find a Tube station. Ralph stops to light another cigarette and then starts off, shaking his head and saying, “Yeah, wild.”

  “What is?” I say irritably.

  “What?” he says blankly.

  “You said something was wild.”

  He looks at me for a moment and then laughs and says, “Yeah, I’ll say.”

  I follow, looking around for something to get me out of here: a Tube station, a phone or even a For Sale sign. I decide to make one more effort with Ralph, he must know something useful or Charles would not bother with him.

  “You think this is the best place to buy, then?” I say, gazing up at the houses around us for some inspiration. No reply. When I turn to look at him, Ralph is gone. I stop and look around for a moment.

  Suddenly I hear his voice, an urgent whisper this time, “Fucking move it, will you.”

  “What?” Ralph is standing in a doorway, pressed against a door, a look of stark terror on his face. At that second I am aware of someone standing very close to me, I turn round and see a young guy whose tight, ugly smiling face is almost touching mine. It is the kid standing next to him who speaks.

  “Hello, Ralphie. Who’s your mate, then?”

  “What?” is all I manage to say before the first guy slaps me hard across the face and then thumps me in the stomach. I fall down onto the pavement and am just about to retch when I feel a boot on the side of my head, crushing my ear. It pushes me gently but powerfully onto the ground and holds me there. The pavement bites into my forehead. I suddenly find myself focusing on the really thick tread on the sole of a shoe, the stitching and the smell of plastic. I feel sick, more out of shock than the punch in the guts I’ve just suffered.

  I can’t see properly, can’t breathe properly and with one ear squashed onto the pavement and one folded underneath a DM, I can’t even hear properly. I’m still staring at the sole that is less than an inch away from my left eye. The other boot, I suddenly realize to my horror, is probably poised to swing into my face. But it doesn’t and a second later I am aware of the pressure on my head being released and both boots moving away quickly.

  I lie on the ground for what seems like hours, trying to catch my breath and work out if I dare get up. Somewhere behind me I can hear thumping and grunting. It’s a bit like a fight at school only slower and heavier. And it all happens in silence: no shouting, no swearing, no cheering. Just an atmosphere of quiet concentration. I lie still. Paralysed. Looking down at the shops above my head, the pavement next to my right eye and the vast expanse of innocent blue sky next to my left.

  I hear a voice say “OK, OK” and the noise stops. My throat goes into spasm—for a second I think that they are about to start on me. Oh, Jesus! Why did I ever get involved in this? What the hell am I doing with these people? Christ, I’m sorry, I’ve learnt my lesson. There is no free lunch. Please don’t let it happen and I’ll forget my plan with the rich women. I don’t want to be mixed up with people like this. If I’d ever known, if I’d ever had any idea that this is what it meant, I wouldn’t have dreamt of it. Oh, please! I’m sorry, I’ll go back to media sales, or accountancy or anything. I want to be safe and suburban and not beaten to mush!

  But nothing happens—they’re walking away. Walking. Not running. Just ambling down the street for a lunchtime pint. A job well done. Fucking nerve. I lie perfectly still until I am sure they have gone for good. All I can hear is Ralph coughing behind me. Then I hear a rumbling and shuffling. Help? First Aid? A stretcher? That was quick. No, it is a little old lady with her trolley. She pauses for a moment and looks down at me with mild interest. She turns her face square onto mine, she looks down my twisted, curled up body, frowns for a moment and then shuffles off.

  I decide to get up. My stomach aches and my face stings. My arms and legs are trembling but otherwise I’m not hurt. When I look at Ralph I immediately feel sick and have to get down on my hands and knees to stop myself from fainting. It isn’t just the blood but the thought that what had happened to him could have happened to me.

  Still shaking, I walk slowly over to the doorway he is lying in.

  “Are you all right?”

  His face is a mess: blood, snot and spit are marbled over his nose, mouth and shirt. His left cheek and eyebrow have a deep cut in them and his lip is already beginning to swell. I begin to find myself feeling sorry for Ralph. He looks like he is in shock, poor kid. I notice for the first time how stick thin he is. I try to help him up but he is too weak and shaky.

  The letter box above us rattles and I realize that someone is looking out at us.

  “Help,” I say weakly but it rattles shut and I hear someone behind the door running upstairs. “Could you call an ambulance, please?” I add pathetically.

  “No,” says Ralph. He starts to get up, wincing in pain. I help him and this time, eventually he is standing, bowed like an old man. His coat is ripped and his shirt, which has footprints on it, is hanging open. He attempts to tuck it in. “Bastards,” he murmurs. It seems so inadequate, as if they had taken his parking place. I remember his silence as they worked him over.

  “Ralph, who the hell were they? Do you know them?”

  “Just some …” He winces again in pain, holding the side of his stomach. He spits out some blood and reaches inside his mouth. Something tiny and white—a bit of tooth. We stare at it for a moment.

  “Just some friends of a friend.”

  “Friends? We’d better call the police.”

  “No!” he shouts. “No. There’s … there’s no need for that.” He disengages himself from my hands and leans over to pick up his sunglasses, which are miraculously still in one piece.

  “Ralph, mate,” I gasp, “shouldn’t you see a doctor or something?”

  “No! I’m fine, just let me get my breath back, that’s all. Should have used my TA training. Too many of them.”

  “What are you talking about? Who are they?”

  “Never mind, it’s just business. It’s not always very pleasant making money.”

  He lets me take him back to the café which is only fifty yards away.

  The girl behind the Gaggia machine gasps and looks terrified but lets us use the staff toilet again. Ralph says he is fine and so I go back to the counter and order two more cappuccinos from the girl, who is flattened against the far wall. I try to make a joke to reassure her but she is having none of it. I feel pretty disgusting in front of this quiet, hardworking, law-abiding girl with her clean counter and her sensible job. What am I doing? What am I playing at? Is this how it is going to be from now on? I put a generous measure of sugar in one cup for Ralph and begin to sip the other myself, trying to work out what to do next.

  After a while Ralph re-emerges, looking cleaner but still badly beaten.

  “Cheers,” he says to the girl, with well-rehearsed but very unconvincing jollity. She looks more terrified than ever by this. His left eye is already swollen shut. He limps up to where I am sitting, trying to walk as normally as possible. Watching him brings back my own pain and I feel my stomach. Bruised, but nothing broken. My ear is bleeding slightly and my cheek is burning.

  “Right,” he says, trying to smile through swollen lips. I can see now where he has lost a bit of front tooth. “There are some places a couple of blocks away from here that would be right up your street. Oh, no pun intended.” He laughs at his own joke.

  I just stare in disbelief and then say slowly, “You’re going to hospital.”

  “What? Oh, Jesus! I’m fine. I told you, business isn’t always a tea party, you know. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

  “Look,” I say, taking some money out for the coffee. “I’m going. You’d better see a doctor or something.”

  As I walk out of the door, I hear h
im shout, “Come back, Anthony. I-I mean, Andrew, come back. I’ve got some other ideas I’d like to run past you.”

  I walk down to Notting Hill station and buy a paper to read on the Tube home but it is difficult to concentrate on anything. The side of my face stings and my ear is still bleeding a bit. I can still hear that dull thump of the first kick that landed on Ralph. I’m think I’m still in shock. As a favour to Marion, Charles had obviously promised him fifty quid or the equivalent in coke if he went through the motions of giving me some business advice.

  I sit on the rocking, jarring Circle Line train and am pestered by weirdoes. A variety of weirdoes: a white-haired City gent in a slightly crumpled but otherwise respectable pinstripe suit suddenly shouts at the woman next to him to stop feeding all these fucking immigrants.

  She looks horrified and then giggles to her friend. “He’s another one,” shouts the old man pointing to me. A Rumanian gypsy pushes her floppy, drugged baby in my face and then offers her upturned hand, muttering something incomprehensible. At South Kensington station a blonde girl with dreadlocks and a ring through her eyebrow and her nose rattles an old McDonalds cup at me as if she hated doing it but it had to be done.

  In their own way, all of these loonies and drop-outs seem to have better prospects than me, a better sales pitch. I’ve sold all I can sell and I haven’t got much in return for it. Perhaps the most I can expect is a few more little treats from Marion until one of us gets sick of the other.

  Anna Maria opens the door and says, “Oh, Mr. Andrew, your face.” I smile sadly at her. As I start to walk upstairs I hear Marion grunt and then groan. I look round to Anna Maria for some explanation but she has pissed off back to the kitchen. I go further upstairs and hear Marion breathing deeply. The bed creaks slightly and then she gasps again, “Oh God!”

  This was something I hadn’t quite banked on. I suddenly feel quite hurt. OK, she might shower me with gifts by way of apology but all the same it is bloody insulting. The worst thing is that I had never heard her make noises quite like this when we’re making love. What’s his secret?

  Two more steps reveal that his secret is that he is a her, weighs twenty stone, is wearing a white apron and is rubbing Marion’s back aggressively with some oils that smell of eucalyptus and mint. I walk in and sit down on the chair while the masseuse carries on pummelling and Marion smiles at me dreamily.