We come to the night. I’m telling you this for the simple reason that it’s the moment of the pivot. The last of the then, before the now. Epiphanic? Steady on. A few chapters in the new Book of Dave? Dickie White’s letters to the Apostates? —I don’t think so. But a dividing line, nonetheless. It’s not even an adventure story either. If it looks like it’s heading that way, don’t be fooled, it’ll only lead to disappointment.
It’s why it’s taken so long to tell, because the now is a secret place, and we needed the distance.
Ware2, guv?
.
.
We’d met the odious Ian Bon-Bon Collings, remember? Emissary, and by his own (unreliable) account, something of an amanuensis to the equally odious, though of a different stripe altogether, Jonny Carver, who to me, could only ever be known as Eggo. It demeans him in the right way —pitching him as a pickled egg balanced on cocktail stick legs.
We sent Collings packing when we realised that he was fronting for Eggo’s absence —devoting the rest of the evening to discussing Plan B. That I had left my money with Eggo to keep safe before I went away wasn’t in doubt —there was an audit trail to that. But whether his reluctance to discuss withdrawal was down to timing, cash flow, absence of notice, or that it had been spent, or lost —and if lost, whether it was by his actions, or an instruction I’d given and forgotten, was all a mystery to us. The only thing we knew for certain was that we were going to get all of it back. We’d shoot for funds plus corresponding rise in the Dow Jones; say we’d settle for funds plus 5%; and actually be prepared to settle for the return of the cash amount originally handed over.
Towards the end of the evening, Friend John had me leave ahead of him, telling me to unpack the shed (where we lived) of all that might be useful on a camping trip. We’d lived in survival mode for a little while by then, and we’d assembled some fair kit between us… say what you will about cataclysmic events that bring about the end of the current cycle of what is considered to be civilisation, it is nice to get in at the ground floor on the new thing coming for once. Anyhow, I had just finished piling up our investment in the arriving-apocalypse under the branches of the overgrown laurel trees that divide our garden from the street, when a car pulled in. It parked on the drive, sixty or seventy yards from the house, preventing the floodlights from coming on —but inside the garden, out of sight of the road.
I didn’t recognise it, and decided to approach it from within the shadows of the laurels. A low light still burned in the shed. Something about the stillness of the driver under his navy wool baseball cap told me that he’d noticed me, and was perhaps tracking me sneaking up on him in his wing mirror. I wasn’t. I was merely approaching cautiously, observing the appropriate protocol, as I’d been trained to. Who was it? I paused, then retreated a step as I realised that I wasn’t certain who the driver was. The door flung open. Bon-Bon? He came at me. Direct and purposefully.
“What have I told you? Once you’re committed, stay committed. No second thoughts.”
I told you it wouldn’t read like a cheap adventure story, didn’t I?
Friend John shook his head in mock despair from under Bon-Bon’s cap. He had on a new jacket too. Was it unfair to call it a car coat? It was the size and shape of one of those Harrington jackets, but without an elasticated waistband, and made of wool —dark grey, with a stand-up collar. Expensive looking. It could even have come from Jaegers. Or maybe it was one of those things you can still pick up from continental Man at C&A’s that merely look like quality garments of style in penumbra? Something from their ideal for alfresco dining on sepulchral evenings range, perhaps?
How to describe the difference in him? Engaged, I suppose, if that doesn’t overstate it. He wasn’t in mission mode, just content really. Like someone who plods through a terrible job all week, seeming just to accept the routine of an eventless social life that went with it, but then quietly comes alive in the dressing room every Saturday afternoon. He wore a lightness that told me he was back on home turf.
He didn’t speak, but he gave me a silent approving nod as he squashed our time-served rucksacks down on top of the final layer of the packed kit. It accorded with his notion of complete.
I left him to go and lock up the shed, then crept back around the far edges of the garden, skirting the back of the car again. An electric car. He’d already started it up.
“I thought we’d forgot this.” I said, showing him a 5l. petrol can.
“It might come in useful. Chuck it in the back,” he said. Then without any further explanation as to how it might serve, he turned to me, holding a phone gripped with his fingers withdrawn into the sleeve of his fleece. He had me do the same before he handed it over, then told me that it was “His,” and that I was to take it with me down the street, in the direction which headed out of town, to put it, unnoticed into a litter bin. Then I was to continue walking without looking behind, or turning left or right, until I reached the first bus shelter no matter how long it took, and to wait there, as if I was queuing for a bus.
I did as instructed, and about ten minutes later, the car pulled up at the bus stop, and he lowered the window to offer me a lift, which I accepted, without so much a hint of over acting.
“Can we get to a remote part of Scotland inside ten hours from here?” he asked.
I nodded. You can get to a remote part of anywhere in Britain inside eight hours, provided you don’t set off from one of the edges.
“Won’t someone be looking for his car?” I’d been with him in these sort of circumstances before. First thing he did usually, was to search out another car that looked like it wasn’t often driven, and swap plates.
“She’s not expecting to hear from him ‘til tomorrow night. And only then, when he gets home.” And, as if that hadn’t brought enough clarity, he added, “He’s gone a day early, you see.”
I wasn’t entirely certain where he might have gone to. Before I could formulate a question, Friend continued, “He gave her a ring. You know, to say that he was setting off to the office tonight,” he said. “I asked him to.”
He pitied his poor apprentice —so slow to pick up on the rules of disappearing people. He’d had an accident, poor Bon-Bon, where all his fingers had ended up broken, he told me. “So, I offered to dial his wife’s number for him.”
That was thoughtful. He was still alive, then.
“And then, because he’s also attached to his eyes —prizes them really, he said exactly what I’d asked him to say.”
That doesn’t sound quite as kind.
He turned his hands palms upwards. “No one’s going to be looking for this car until, ooh, a few days after it’s gone.” Then he raised a finger to his lips, as if to say, “Don’t tell him yet.”
Tell who? What’s going on? No words came out.
As he said it, he gestured with his head towards the back seat. It was empty, bar the petrol can. Did he plan to burn his house down while he was away? Had he rung his wife to warn her to get out? A lead weight hit the bottom of my stomach. It felt like I had become an accomplice to someone else’s plan. I didn’t like it – I’ve had enough of that – it’s the insidious craft of the bully, exploiter, whoever – that point at which they start to describe their unlicensed frolic in terms of we.
We’d sort of married our fortunes together back then. Remember? I loved and trusted John. Owed my life to him in a way. We had a sibling relationship, which I’d only known previously with Neil, as a teenager —we didn’t take on the world; we didn’t say we’re doing this, fuck you. But we were a guilt-free, one-unit force, where each half found inspiration and courage in the other. Me and Friend felt like that, too. We never asked anything of each other, but we knew that we had a resource to call on. And now… I don’t know, it suddenly felt like I was being dragged into a project that hadn’t been agreed, let alone discussed.
“Do you think we’re going too far?” I asked him. Notice the use of the we? “I mean, ultimately, he’s more pathetic than he is venal. He’s just a wannabee inadequate.”
Friend shook his head. “No, he isn’t!” It was as if I couldn’t see something that was blindingly obvious to him. “Who cares about a dog like him? We’ve got to do something to make that Fried Egg thing take notice.”
I know that he was making a serious point —but Fried Egg. You’ve got to stop and have a laugh at that, haven’t you? It was just so fascinating to him, that I called him Friend, or Friend John, and there was this thing, a fried egg, where fried was but a letter different to his name, and yet came with an entirely different sound. And he could never quite come to terms with the fact that I had two acquaintances, one called Friend, and another called Fried. Not, by the way, that I had ever once referred to Eggo as Fried. Not even so much as a Egg —yes a. Nevertheless, it stuck with Friend, and he couldn’t get past it. And I loved the way he said Fried Egg in his Central European accent with the sounded consonants.
“—I thought we’d agreed all that. And that,” he pointed with his thumb, behind him. “is the quickest route to our money —the arsehole’s disposable. Do you think that you’re going to get your two hundred k back from Fried Egg by just asking for it? You won’t. He’ll do it when he’s in fear for his life …or his eyes … and he’ll believe in all that stuff a lot more if he thinks we’ve already done it to someone else. Collings did you all that damage back in the day, didn’t he? What do you owe him. Apart from hate and revenge?”
There was a detached groaning noise, as if a cat had accidentally found its way into the car and travelled with us.
“Has that petrol can, got any left in it?” he asked.
I lent into the back seat, to swish it about a bit, and as I did, I suddenly saw what he’d been talking about. A body stuffed in the well between the seats.
“How long’s… why hasn’t he…?”
“Pour what’s left on him, and get him to shut up,” he said.
I paused, with the can in my lap, unscrewed the cap, then brought it close to my eye to see if there was sufficient left to be able to conjure it out through the spout. John took it from me, turned it upside down with his left hand, then shook it carelessly in the general direction of Bon-Bon’s trapped body, before handing it back to me.
“What about what you told me earlier this evening. Your mum died believing you were a bum because of what that arsehole did to set you up. That’s what you said. And now, you want to spend what’s left of your life waiting for him to invite you to have a bit of what’s already yours? Fuck that! Look what Press Daddy’s just done to us! And we did nothing but serve him well. And he liked us!”
He never became angry Friend. No one could ever get close enough to him to make him mad. But he came close at that moment. Maybe he was angry for me. He gripped the steering wheel tight, and made himself take three or four steady deep breaths, to bring it all to an end —the injustice raged within him. Something about that creep, Collings, that I’d endured on and off over a lifetime, had landed on him in a concentrated dose and he had developed a deep visceral hatred for him.
I learned, a long time later, that he’d tried to negotiate his way out of his predicament with Friend by telling him more lies about me.
“And he —that nobody, he’s our means to it. He’s your asset now. As it should be. He has scrap value as ransom. And that’s as much as he’s worth.”
It is difficult to describe the physical sensation that happened next. When I was young – say about nine years old. Someone from a rival gang, threw a large stone into the midst of ours. It hit me on the head, and as it did, a dark red, turning black, blind fell down both my eyes simultaneously. Almost like something you’d see in a cartoon. It lasted no more than a second or so, but an identifiable switching off and closing down occurred. It was as if a small part of my brain had been switched off forever that day. Well, that’s the nearest I can find to explain the sensation. The opposite of that. It was if every neural pathway opened up at once, my entire consciousness lit up like pinball machine. I was no longer me. I belonged to a side. Was that how everyone else feels? All the time? And I’d chosen Friend John’s side. He stood for more of the things I believed in, than the snake lying on the other side of the seat. My course was set.
That wasn’t the bit that wasn’t the epiphany, by the way. There’s something else that’s not going to be that, coming in the next instalment.
And this isn’t even a cliffhanger. There might be a cliffhanger coming in the next part, but if there is, it will be more literal than figurative, I can tell you that for nothing.
Stay tuned.
2Nu Lundun!
*image: Willard Wigan’s Three Wise Men, in the eye of a needle.
Dickie White's Diary 