by Paul Harris
This scene is always in my mind. It haunts my dreams, and it haunts my every waking moment. The smoke obscures everything except for Angker Fischer who remains with me every second of every day.
Tooled Up
As I approached Sol’s house, the garage door was slung up and over and he was sitting in an old armchair surrounded by old amplifiers and keyboards. He appeared to be restringing a battered Les Paul, with fierce concentration written into his face. My cat-like approach went unnoticed and I stood in the doorway surveying the scene. It was a truly well-stocked garage; his late father’s legacy. Tools of every description hung from hooks along both walls. Mechanics’ tools, builders’ tools, woodworking tools, tools for every occasion. Beneath the hooks were benches upon which stood plastic boxes full of screws and nails and bolts and nuts and washers, and rivets and grommets. Every box was labelled and the size and composition of its contents clearly displayed. A single, low wattage, light bulb hung above Sol’s head as he played the strings along the frets of the guitar. It barely offered any light at all.
I coughed in order to announce my presence. He slowly raised his head, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek as though he were deep in concentration. “Alright, Rod?” he said softly, seemingly completely unperturbed by my unscheduled visit. He licked his lips, ever so slightly nervously, and groped for a pair of wire cutters that were lying on the work bench to his left.
“You seeing Henshaw House later?” I asked him, directly and without any prevarication.
“Why would I be?”
I cut him off before he could tell me any more lies. “Someone told me that you were out with him tonight, and I believe them. So?”
He swallowed and replaced the wire cutters back on the bench without using them. “Look, Rod, I’m not that keen on the geezer, but…”
I cut him again, unwilling to listen to anymore of his snivelling doubletalk. “Where? When?”
“We’re going for a meal, at the new Italian in the High Street. I can’t remember what it’s called; Gino’s or Angelo’s or Mario’s or something. Why?”
“Time?”
“We’re meeting in the Trumpet at seven, the table’s booked for eight.”
I picked up the wire cutters and handed them to him, leaning close to him as I did so, never removing my eyes from his. “No, you ain’t meeting at seven; you ain’t going; stay here and fix your musical instruments.”
He swallowed again. “It’s all arranged, we planned it weeks ago.”
“Tell them that you’re ill or something.” I took a claw hammer from the bench where the wire cutters had been. “And I’ll be needing to borrow this.”
He stood up and reached out for the hammer. “No, Rod, I can’t let you have it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring it back.” I slid the handle of the hammer into the waistband of my jeans. “If I lose it, I’ll get you a new one,” I smiled.
“It’s not the hammer, I got loads.” His hand was still reaching out towards me and his fingers were trembling. “Can’t you leave the past behind, Rod?”
“All I got is the past, Sol.” I gently pushed him back into his armchair. “Stay here and fix your guitars. Ciao!”
Chapter Fourteen
Gino’s or Angelo’s or Mario’s
I knew where the new Italian restaurant was. There had been a huge fanfare and a great deal of excitement when it had first opened. The food was reportedly “divine”, but it wasn’t for me; not my kind of place. The portions were too small and too over-priced, and it was more to do with posturing and posing and chatting nonsense than actually eating. The kebab shop next door was far more appealing; and it was outside this very fast food establishment that I now paused in order to collect myself and run through my proposed plan of attack. I stared at the menu in the window without actually reading it. There was a passageway that ran between the two buildings and led to a shared yard where steel bins were piled high with wasted food. The stimulating aromas of fried onions, doner meat and bolognese sauce mingled with the far less engaging aromas of stale urine, rotting chicken carcasses and dog excrement. I stroked the head of the hammer, pulled my shirt down over it, and entered the restaurant.
Henshaw House was sitting rather complacently at a table for five but two of the seats were empty. There were five wine glasses on the table but two of them were still upturned. House was pouring red wine into the other three glasses. A waiter approached me, smiling. “Buona sera, Sir. You have a reservation?” I brushed him aside and approached the table.
Bothwell’s brother was wearing a Burberry cap. As he raised the peak towards me, he snarled, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Shut the fuck up, you fat bastard!”
He leapt to his feet and looked to his brother for moral support. His brother tugged at his arm and coaxed him back into his seat. “Not here,” he said, under his breath. I looked from one brother to the other, running a little mystery through my distracted mind. As Bothwell was their surname and, presumably, they shared the same surname, how did people know which one was Bothwell and which one was Bothwell’s brother?
“Can we help at all?” asked House, peering dismissively down his freakishly enormous nose at me.
“I’d like to talk to you outside. Just you.”
He looked at the brothers and smiled as if to say, “If we ignore him, he’ll surely go away.” He poured himself some more wine and I snatched the bottle from his grasp and slammed it down on the table.
“Now!”
“It really is rather inconvenient at the moment, old man.” He glanced at the brothers once more as if to satisfy himself that they were enjoying his condescending performance as much as he himself was.
I leant toward him and put my hand on his. “Don’t come it to me with your pretentious, self-possessed Surrey bullshit!” He licked his lips, nervously, and I let go of his hand. “You coming or do you want to do it in here?”
“Do what?”
“Have a chat about the past, that’s all.”
He pushed his chair back, stood up, and straightened his neck tie. “Will it take long?”
“It’ll be over in a blink of an eye,” I assured him.
“You be okay?” Bothwell asked him.
“This chap’s no problem,” and he followed me outside.
“Up here,” I instructed him, gesturing towards the passageway.
“Why? It’s filthy.”
“It’s private.”
Foolishly, he complied and, as I followed him towards the bins, I raised the hem of my shirt and stroked the hammerhead again. The cold steel filled me with a placid fear but I had to fight any feeling of compassion. I followed him as far as the brick wall that enclosed the yard. It was stained with urine and paint. Someone had spray painted “Arsenal” across it but House was standing in front of the last three letters, obscuring them from my view.
He turned and confronted me, his speech still full of pride and indignation. “So, what’s it about, little man?”
“It’s about an old friend of mine called Bird. He used to live around here.” I paused to let the information sink in, searching for a reaction; a flicker of guilt in his eyes.
“Used to?”
“He’s dead now.”
“Oh, dear,” he said with an implausible lack of sincerity, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Really? You robbed him of everything he had.”
“I think not.” And he was still speaking down his nose to me.
“I rather think you did. He committed suicide over it. You took him for every penny.”
And, then, he laughed, laughed right in my face. He laughed as if someone was stamping on his foot. Henshaw House always had laughed like that; yelping like a throttled fox. His laughter could make dogs bark and babies cry from half a mile away.
I stood staring at him, bemused by his reaction, and realising that he was the one with the mental issues and not me after all. He appeared to be genuinely amused by th
e whole proceeding. I couldn’t see the funny side, myself. We were standing face to face in a piss-stinking yard, out of sight of anybody; I was armed and he was a coward, but he was laughing right in my face.
“I really don’t see how that is remotely attributable to me, old boy.” He tried to push past me. “I need to get back to that rather fine Rioja now.” He laughed again but then stopped when I pushed him against the wall and took the hammer from my jeans. The condescending smile retreated from his face and was replaced by an expression of pitiful dread. He bit his lip and looked, pleadingly, at me. His Armani trousers were darkening with dampness, and a pool of urine was assembling at his feet.
“Please,” he begged, “It’s just business. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand; you do business different to me. This is how I do business.” I raised the hammer and kissed the head affectionately.
“I have money,” he offered desperately.
“You ain’t fucking laughing now, are you?” and I swung at him; just once, but once was enough. He crumpled to the ground and lay motionless on a bed of his own bodily fluids.
Man’s Best Friend
If you ever met Lola’s despairing better half, you would no longer wonder why he spends half his life listening to the trivial ranting of Buffalo at the corner of the bar in the Pig & Whistle. She’s a large lady and rather more contrary than most ladies. There is very little known to mankind that she could not find fault with, particularly when applied to mankind itself. She can manufacture an argument or disagreement from the most agreeable of circumstances. If you were to take her side, particularly if you were Lola, during the course of such a dispute, she would immediately change her side and take the opposing view. Her only redeeming feature was that she never, not once, stepped foot within the hallowed walls of the Pig & Whistle and broke its status of sanctuary.
However it has been possible to observe her peering through the window of that very establishment. Her ruddy veined face would appear below the words “smoking room” which are engraved into the glass and remain as a memorial to a time long passed. If she caught your eye, you were lost, you were hers. You would tremble and for the rest of the evening your mind would be distracted, frequently flashing back to that ferocious sight. You would know a feeling of guilt strong in its paralysing effect and incomprehensible in origin. She despised us all; and, some would say, rightly so.
Lola never looks at the window. In moments of vacancy and when the conversation lulls or descends into tedium, he fixes his stare on the television screen or his feet or someone else’s feet, but never on the window or the view through it. His daily objective is to remain in the pub, or at least out of doors, until he can be sure that his good lady wife has retired to bed for the evening. In this respect, he occasionally fails, with spectacular consequences.
On one such occasion, Lola staggered through his front door, after far too many attempts to insert his key in the keyhole during which he scratched a criss-crossed pattern in the red paintwork, only to encounter Mrs Lola waiting for him. The ambush had been planned meticulously and the trap set with great enthusiasm. His heart sank as he discerned her vague outline silhouetted against the open kitchen door. He froze like a defenceless animal staring down the barrels of a twelve bore.
She was well armed and hurled a small blue china Buddha at his head. He ducked and the ornament rattled against a mirror, sending a spider‘s web of cracks radiating from the point of impact. He returned fire by grabbing the nearest missile at hand which happened to be Mrs Lola’s mobile phone which was sitting, minding its own business, on the hall table. He missed his target and the phone smashed against the kitchen door jamb, falling onto the floral carpet in many pieces. She began picking shards of glass and plastic out from between the carpet fibres and, once satisfied that she had recovered every last one of them, flung them into Lola’s reddening face.
Inglorious retreat was his only option. “I’m taking the dog for a walk.”
“I already walked him while you were in the pub with your friends. How do you think that dog ever gets walked?” she snapped.
He took the dog lead from a coat hook and barged past her. As soon as Android heard the clinking of his chain, he bounded from an upstairs room where he’d been hiding.
The air was still and silent, as Lola and Android stepped out together, Lola with a slight stagger about him and Android with what seemed like a touch of anxiety. They wandered aimlessly from street to street, each, in his own way, muttering injustices to himself. They heard a police siren in the distance and stopped to listen. They looked at one another, Lola’s breath forming clouds in the cold night air and Android pricking up his ears. Then, they walked on towards the shopping parade and it’s plethora of charity shops.
They were tired and weary and longed for the comfort of their beds, but neither were in any hurry to turn their steps towards home and their domestic haven. Lola envied Android the privacy of his basket beneath the stairs and, in his turn, Android envied Lola the solace that was the Pig & Whistle.
They could hear a vehicle speeding along the road behind them. They turned into Darwin Street and, slowing, the vehicle also turned into the street behind them. It drew up beside them and stopped, the engine still running: a white van; a police van full of policemen. Lola and Android feigned ignorance and continued to walk, but neither could hide their anxiety any longer. A door opened and a police officer climbed from the van and called Lola’s name. He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Yes. What is it?”
“Would you mind coming with us, please, Sir?”
“Yes.”
Another door opened and two more officers climbed from the van. Lola, his heart beating intolerably, wheeled around to face them. Android began barking quite enthusiastically, first at the police officers, then at Lola, and finally at himself. He started to run around in circles, barking all the time, winding his lead around Lola’s legs.
“Are you arresting me?” asked Lola in disbelief whilst attempting to untangle himself from the dog lead without falling over and thereby exhibiting his inebriated state.
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“Criminal damage,” was the stern reply, “We’ve had a complaint.”
Lola sat down on a crumbling garden wall and, swaying slightly, began to unwind the lead. “What about the dog? If you let the dog go, I’ll come quietly.”
One of the officers laughed. Another one said, “We can’t leave the dog roaming the streets alone. What about if the RSPCA pick him up?”
“I won’t let you arrest my dog. He’s an innocent party in all this.” And, in saying that, Lola burped loudly and thought he could taste vomit in the back of his throat. “You’ll never take me alive!” Lola nodded emphatically and then fell backwards over the wall.
Lola’s a big man, a very big man, and it took the might of all three policemen to bundle him and Android into the back of their van. They were taken to Wandsworth Police Station where Android was immediately released without charge when Mrs Lola came to fetch him. Lola spent the night tossing and turning and cursing and vomiting in a cell, but was released at 3am when Mrs Lola withdrew her complaint and the duty sergeant determined that he was no longer a threat to society.
Another Score Settled
By the time that I got back to Sol’s to return the hammer to him, dead still night had settled calmly all around, darkening the streets and the cul-de-sacs of his estate. As I approached his house I could see the dull illumination of his garage light, made stronger now by the dark outside. His garage door was still open and he had remained sitting in the armchair just as I had suggested he do. He was strumming the Gibson, pausing occasionally to tune it.
He was aware of my approach and had watched me all the way from the corner of his road. He stood as I handed him the hammer, looking me coolly in the eye, and then seemed to examine it for bloodstains.
“What did you do, Rod?” He tossed the hamme
r onto the workbench from where I’d taken it some hours earlier. “I hope that ain’t a murder weapon. I hope the old bill ain’t gonna be around. What will I tell them?”
“Nothing. I done nothing. You got a kettle in here? I’m thirsty.”
“No, I got a fridge. There’s Becks or there’s Diet Peps.” he went to the glass-fronted mini-fridge that sat atop one of the work benches and tossed me a bottle. I picked up a pair of pliers and began trying to wrestle the top off the bottle with them. Sol handed me a bottle opener and I sat down in his second-hand armchair. I picked up the guitar and began to stroke the newly installed strings with my fingers. A ghastly noise emerged from one of the many amplifiers that were strewn across the garage floor.
Sol looked far more horrified than he had when he was searching for evidence of murder on his dear departed father’s hammer. “Be careful, Rod! Please! That’s worth a lot of dough!”
“It’s battered! Look at it!” I held it up towards him and he flinched as if he thought that I was going to hit him with it.
“You’d be surprised.” He gently took it from my hands and placed it on a bench out of my reach. “So, what happened?”
I took a mouthful of cold lager from the bottle he’d given me and wiped my lips with my wrist. “Got any fags?”
He pointed to a packet that was lying next to the hammer. I helped myself to one and then offered the packet to him. He took one and then retrieved a lighter from his pocket. “What did you do to House?”
“He’ll live.” I took the lighter from him as he passed it to me and lit my cigarette, taking a long deep drag of toxic smoke. I washed it down with another mouthful of beer. “I went to kill him, you know.”
“I know! And?”
“I didn’t.” I looked around, examining the benches and shelves, piled with musical instruments and gadgets and electronic circuit boards. “What you doing with all this stuff?”