by Paul Harris
“But you knew I was coming back!”
“Anyway, they all thought I was pushing in front of them.”
“And were you?”
She was starting to sound disinterested, as if I’d stretched her attention span to its limits. “No! Absolutely not! But, they had been waiting much longer than me.”
She sighed and used her whole mouth to do it. I could smell tobacco on her breath. “Oh, Rodney, why do you always have to cause problems?”
“You’ve been for a smoke!”
“So?”
I shook my head at her. “On your own! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not on my own; I met a friend on my way to the loo.”
I gave her a darkly suspicious look which she disregarded out of hand, and then grabbing my hand, whispered in my ear, “I did it for you.” I could smell tobacco on her breath again but couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“What?” But, before she could answer, “All or Nothing” burst from the sound system and I fell into a trance.
Tom Potts
They found an old rowing boat floating along the Somme. It drifted into Peter’s sphere of attention whilst Tom was relieving himself in the reeds. Someday, Peter, in a drunken haze, would finally begin to wonder whatever had happened to its original occupants. But right now, at this point in his life, such thoughts never occurred to him; he saw only opportunity and risk. “Hurry!” he called to Tom, “It’ll get away!”
“I can’t go any faster,” groaned Tom half-heartedly. “I’m in the hands of Mother Nature.”
“Come on!” But the vessels rudderless progress was slow as it bounced off the riverbank and was snagged amongst the overhanging willow trees. Clumps of grass and reeds burst from the languid surface of the water to block its progress further. Peter ran thirty yards downstream where he knew there was a small jetty and he leant over the water’s edge to grapple the boat ashore. There was a single oar lying in the hull along with a packed lunch that had partly been devoured. Peter clung for dear life to the short piece of ragged tether that was attached to the bow. He strained against a relatively weak current and felt his shoulder joint beginning to tear.
Tom buttoned his flies and ran to catch up with him. “Hold on Pete!”
“Just get in!”
“They’ll be drinking on the river,” Tom shouted, “We’ll find them in this. It’ll be cool.” He flung the plastic bag that he’d been carrying into the boat and grabbed the oar. The bag rattled as it landed in the hull next to some pieces of discarded eggshell.
Peter leapt in beside him. “You don’t know how to row.”
“How difficult can it be?”
Peter shrugged and waved him on.
“It ain’t rocket surgery, is it?”
“Go on, then; don’t crash though; we’re not insured.”
They rowed towards the city, past the new apartment blocks on their left. More traditional bungalows lined the right hand bank and solitary fishermen gazed into the river and into deep, deep space. A drayman was rolling stainless steel beer kegs up a steep ramp and into a bar at the foot of the bridge. As the boat floated beneath the Boulevard de Beauville, the boys were plunged from bright sunlight into dank darkness but only for seconds. They emerged on the other side of the bridge to see the cathedral on the horizon before them, silhouetted against the low evening sun.
They went on almost silently, never speaking a word to one another, as though they were on a water-born dark ops mission, heading towards the next bridge beyond which the brightly coloured awnings of the bars and restaurants lined the quayside and crowds thronged the promenade. Soon the frontages of Quai Belu would be illuminated against the twilight. Pretty young waitresses would be flitting like butterflies from table to table to kitchen to till. Always a temporary position while they wait for something better. Tourists would take photographs along the river, capturing the bright reflections in the calm dark water. But not the British tourists; they would be tripping over chairs in the Irish Bar up in the town; spilling Guiness over their Airwalk shorts; and then blaming the staff for having too many chairs.
Before they reached the next bridge Peter tugged at Tom’s elbow and Tom raised the oar out of the water. They drifted ghostlike causing barely a ripple on the surface of the river.
“Is that them?” Peter whispered.
It was a warm evening. The sun was disappearing behind the cathedral up in the town. The air was heavy and still. Hardly anything moved; not a thing disturbed the calm ambience of the moment. Then a dragonfly hurried past Tom’s head as he followed Peter’s gaze towards the bank where three figures were ambling drunkenly along the waterside. “I’m not sure, it might be.” He dipped the oar and steered the boat a little nearer to the bank.
The evening being so quiet and still, the sound of the oar crashing through the water resounded disproportionately. A bird flapped its wings against the leaves of a bush where it had taken refuge, and fled the untimely intrusion. Suddenly there was sound everywhere. A motorcycle sped along Port d’Amont and then another followed. A woman’s laughter could be heard through an open upstairs window. There was a steady murmur from beyond the bridge and the cathedral bells began to chime.
When the three figures finally became aware that Peter and Tom were approaching them, they broke into a chorus of threatening jeers. They lurched menacingly towards the riverside. Peter grabbed the plastic bag from the bottom of the boat. It slipped from his grasp and he fumbled with it so that he could hold it aloft and show them what he and Tom had brought for them.
One of the men had a beer bottle in his hand; one had his arms outstretched, beckoning confrontation. The empty bottle was launched at the boat, but it missed. Peter and Tom ploughed on, regardless, towards the bank; Peter still fumbling for the plastic bag that lay at his feet; until one of the men vaulted over the balustrade that ran along the towpath, and ran to the shore to meet them, with his fists raised. His face was contorted with violent rage. This wasn’t the greeting that Peter and Tom had anticipated.
Amidst the confusion, Tom thought that he heard their assailant telling them not to get out of the boat. Their eyes met momentarily, but not for the last time, and Tom decided to take his advice. He took up the oar and prodded the bank with it in order to engineer a rapid retreat.
As they drifted on toward the cover of the bridge, Peter glanced back over his shoulder and saw one of the men trying, desperately, to excavate a boulder from the compacted earth of the path with the heel of his shoe. Eventually, he worked it free, and raising it above his head, he swung around, hurling it towards them. Peter’s stomach turned as the rock connected at full speed with the back of Tom’s head. He heard a sickening thud and Tom rolled forwards into his arms; blood pouring from his mouth.
Tom woke up in his hotel room the following morning with nothing more than an explosive headache and the distinctive aroma of marijuana pervading the close and humid atmosphere. He sought no medical attention, merely a couple of days in bed and a ready supply of Nurofen which Peter assiduously purchased for him from the pharmacy in the pedestrianised shopping precinct near the railway station. Soon, Tom was back on his feet but his life would never be the same again. He never returned to work and he never returned to the river.
As the days went by and turned into months, the headaches never left him. Indeed, they steadily became worse. He found that he could no longer concentrate for more than a few moments; not on anything. He became lethargic, bitter, and resentful. He spent days at a time lying in his bed doing nothing in particular and when his friend attempted to rouse him from his indolence, he responded with rage and violence.
Over time Peter, disturbed by his friend’s behaviour, visibly shrank away from him. When Peter elected to remain in France where he had met a delightful young lady by the name of Monique whom he would eventually marry and settle down with, Tom returned to London, with all of its vicissitudes. But he was unable to focus properly and suffered from randomly violent outb
ursts of confused aggression. His speech suffered and his intellect went into reverse. He couldn’t hold down a job for more than a couple of days at a time and took to roaming the streets of North London in an attempt to eke out a meagre living.
He would ask people for money on the grounds that he needed to eat or to buy a hot drink and sometimes they would give it to him. But sometimes they would give him a sandwich from their packed lunch instead or a packet of crisps or a brown banana or skip off to Café Metro to buy him a cup of tea, returning with armfuls of sachets of sugar and sporting huge self-satisfied smiles. He would express his gratitude for such acts of kindness by throwing the scalding tea right back in their smug looking faces along with their ham and their cheese and their bagels and the rotten fruit.
“I’ll buy my own tea! You just give me the money!”
When they refused, he asked more firmly still. He would sneer and spit and rebuke and sometimes cry for pity. He learnt that intimidation and the threat of violence were far more productive tools than cries for pity or begging for mercy. Begging became a dying art; the exclusive residence of the weak and vulnerable and needy.
Eventually, Tom Potts streamlined his business model, making the process significantly shorter and far more efficient by asking firmly in the first place. This slight shift of policy paid huge dividends but not everybody welcomed his new approach. Sometimes he was firm with the wrong kind of clientele and they turned out to be more aggressively unhinged than he was himself. This was incredibly poor business as spells in accident and emergency at the University College Hospital drastically affected his bottom line not to mention his top line and his mainline.
Mercifully, a solution was just around the corner. Tom began to carry a knife in his jacket pocket but only for his own protection. People became ever more enthusiastic in their contributions and Tom found that many would kindly hand over their wallets, watches, and jewellery without him even needing to stab them.
But still, very occasionally, you got the odd one who would refuse. It became something of an occupational hazard so to speak. They would stare straight into their own reflection in the shiny steel blade with not a murmur of fear. They would look deep into Tom’s eyes and ask searching questions of him. They doubted his courage and, what’s worse, they doubted his fortitude.
That’s what happened up at Archway Station. He had asked the man clearly enough. He’d made the situation plain. He had been unambiguous in his approach and forthright in his intentions. He had not prevaricated or fudged the matter in hand. The man had taken a step towards him and stared him down with such a fearfully malevolent expression in his dark and brooding features the like of which Tom had never seen before. Their noses almost touched and the light in the man’s eyes shone and danced to a tune that only the devil himself could have composed.
Tom, being a man of integrity, had attempted to clarify the situation once more lest the man had not completely comprehended his initial explanation. He gave further emphasis to his inside jacket pocket, from which he quite openly exposed his knife. There had reached a point in the exchange where Tom would have been quite satisfied with an amicable withdrawal on the part of both parties concerned. But this man; this man; appeared most disinclined to withdraw at all, even by an inch. He prodded and probed with his dark glistening eyes and his protruding brow. He had clearly taken great umbrage at something Tom had, quite inadvertently, said or done.
The man poked Tom in the chest. Tom grabbed the knife from his pocket. The man shoved Tom against a ticket machine. Tom left the man to bleed to death on the cold tiled floor of the deserted ticket hall.
My Generation
After “All or Nothing” came “Waterloo Sunset”. It took me back to sad times on the banks and bridges of the Thames. Bitter memories and dark images flashed before me and I compared those times with these and felt contentment. My reverie was broken by Brie jabbing at my ribs in a completely unnecessary way.
I grabbed her outstretched forefinger to stop her. “What?”
“Where you been?”
“Thinking. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“That skanky looking barmaid’s been calling you. What’s she want?”
“How would I know what she wants?”
I looked at the barmaid. She was gesturing towards me and mouthing silent words in my direction. “Do you want another?” and indicated the Amstel pump.
I shook my head and held up my still almost full glass. The crowd at the bar were glaring at me and seemed to be turning ugly again. I turned away. “Let’s go outside for a cigarette.”
“I’ve just had one,” responded Brie. “How does she know you? You told me you never come in here.”
I shrugged. “I don’t.”
I made to go outside to the garden for a cigarette but Brie grabbed my arm. “So, how does she know you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she knows someone who knows someone who knows me.”
Brie snorted derisively but released her grip on my elbow. “What tune do you want on next? Shall I ask for another one for you?”
I mulled it over as she stared into my face with her eyes screwed up tight and piercingly. “My Generation”, and I made my way to the garden via the toilets.
In the toilets were three or four lads huddled around the hand basin, a couple of which I vaguely knew. They began milling around aimlessly as I pushed the door open. One of them began to restyle his hair in the mirror and another crouched down and began untying his shoe lace. One of them recognised me and caught my eye. “Alright?”
“No worries. Don’t mind me,” I reassured him.
They relaxed again and two of them leant over the taps. I ignored them and stared intently at the stained white tiles on the wall in front of me.
“Line?”
“Nah, mate. Clean,” I replied over my shoulder as I shook off. As the sink was out of commission I had to satisfy my hygiene phobia by wiping my hands on the front of my jeans.
The music from the bar was being mainlined straight out to the dope smokers in the garden and I listened out for “My Generation” as I tried to light up. The flint had gone in my lighter. I held my face to the barroom window to see if I could catch Brie’s attention and borrow her lighter but she was nowhere to be seen. I approached a girl with long dark hair who I could see was smoking. She was no more than five feet tall and was wearing a cream coloured crop top and black jeans. She had her back to me so I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned slowly, not at all startled by my intrusion, and stared dolefully right into my eyes. She seemed to be peering into my soul. I shuddered involuntarily and felt uncomfortable.
“You got a light?” I asked her.
She looked vacant and didn’t appear to understand me. Her deeply sunken, deep dark eyes never left mine and she didn’t blink once.
“Light?” I mimed the process of lighting a cigarette.
She handed me the roll-up that she’d been smoking and I took a light off that. After a couple of frantic sucks I had ignition and handed it back to her. “Thank you.”
She said not a word and drifted off silently, sullenly and ghost-like to a corner far away and all alone. “Weirdo!” I muttered to myself as I watched after her.
Brie was at my shoulder lighting a cigarette of her own. “Who’s she?” she demanded to know.
“No idea, she’s a strange one though.”
“Well, you must know her. Why are you staring at her?”
I was still following the ghost girl to her destination with my eyes. I looked at Brie. She seemed confused and so was I. “What? I don’t know. She’s just a bit weird.”
“You must know her. You’ve been standing here chatting her up for the last half hour.”
“I haven’t!”
She jabbed me in the chest. “I saw you through the window!”
“I was getting a light! And it wasn’t half an hour! And I’m getting a bit pissed off with all this jabbing and poking and stupid questions!”
“That’s bullshit! You’ve got a lighter. I saw you with it.”
I sighed dramatically. “I don’t need this.” I took my lighter from my pocket, clenched it in my fist, and held it up in front of Brie’s face. “It’s knackered! See?” I span the sparkwheel and an extremely healthy looking jet of flame leapt into the air. Brie threw her lit cigarette in my face, turned on her heels, and went back inside. “My Generation” still hadn’t come on so I followed her in, wiping ash out of my eyes.
Brie had joined a crowd of people at a table. Someone gave up a seat for her so that she could sit down and pour her heart out to her audience; but all she did was fidget with a porcelain pepper pot and stare into the distance, seemingly unaware of my existence not four yards away from her. I got another drink and hovered awkwardly keeping watch over her. I felt foolish and wanted to leave. I wasn’t sure if it was fair to leave without her or not. I wasn’t sure what the rules of etiquette were for such a circumstance as this. She was acting as if she didn’t give a damn whether I was there or not, but did that really mean that I could leave?
I noticed that she’d been hemmed into a corner by the two geezers who’d been in the Trumpet with Sol some few Saturdays earlier. I tried to catch her eye and signal to her; to ask her if she needed rescuing or if she wanted to leave; but she just didn’t seem to notice me. The smaller of the two young men was chatting at her relentlessly. The older brother was smiling into her face and paying her disingenuous compliments. She seemed nervous and kept glancing about her as if she was making sure that I hadn’t left. I began waving my hand in the air, knowing that would catch her attention but still she couldn’t see me. I leant back against the bar. “She don’t want to know, Love,” drawled the overbearing dog blanket wearing barmaid in my ear. “You pissed her off or somethin’?”
“Looks that way.” I could hear the resignation in my own voice.
“Want another drink?”
“You trying to get me pissed or something?”