Think Yourself Lucky (2 page)

"I wouldn't say any of you was that small." I might add that doesn't include his brain, but instead I say "So long as you enjoy serving the public."

"Serving the public. I'd enjoy seeing a few more of them."

"More of them." I can play at echoes too, but I don't think he even notices. I amuse myself by wanting to know "Don't you enjoy seeing me?"

"Seeing you." He can't quite echo me, and I wonder how much of his resentment has to do with that. "I'll like it when you tell me what you're getting. Words don't pay the bills."

"Let's hope you do." As his face betrays his struggle to decide how insulting this is I say "I've just come in for cigarettes."

"Cigarettes. Better stock up before they're against the law. Pretty soon they'll be something else we're not allowed to mention."

"I thought you said you don't think much of words."

"Don't think much." Before I can congratulate him on acknowledging some of the truth he says "What brand?"

The warnings on the packets behind him are bigger than the brand names. They look as if they're advertising death, which comes close to making me grin. "You don’t sell Fatal Fags, then."

"Fatal Fags." When his face catches up with the notion of a joke he makes a stab at banter. "Not got those."

"Or Lumpy Lungs."

"Lumpy Lungs." If he means to sound amused it doesn't work. "Not them either."

"Poison Puffs? Ashtray Breaths? I know, C & C. That's Coughs & Cancer."

"None of those." He's growing so annoyed that he forgets to echo. "If you've just come in for a laugh—"

"I wouldn't dream of it. Give me twenty Players and I'll think of the game later."

He doesn’t know if I'm still joking. His face loosens somewhat when I hand him the cash for a packet of King Size, with the chance of a free gift of a tumour big enough for a monarch. I'll take the consequences, except they've no chance in the world of catching up with me. I strip off the cellophane and leave it crackling like the start of a fire on top of a local newspaper that I could be in. "I'll let you have that," I tell Slowworm. "We don't want any more rubbish on the street, do we?"

I linger in the doorway to watch him pick up the cellophane and pull it off one hand with the other, then wave the fingers it has stuck to. As he starts tramping on the cellophane to dislodge it from his fingers I lose interest. I can always save him for another day, and I use my lighter on a cigarette while I head for the car. The oily taste of nicotine, the bite in the throat, the hint of dizziness—they all feel like sensations I'm remembering rather than experiencing, hints too meagre to add up to even a foretaste of satisfaction. After another ineffective drag I sprain the cigarette in the dashboard ashtray. The stuffing of tobacco that spills from the torn tube puts me in mind of a soft toy that has been ripped limb from limb. That isn't even a memory, and it leaves me more frustrated still.

My dustbin lies full length across my drive with its mouth gaping like a dead fish. Maybe the binmen left it like that, unless someone passing by thought it would be a hoot to tip it over, or just a way of spending a few seconds of their life. I leave the car in the middle of the road while I right the bin and trundle it behind the house, but nobody drives up for an argument. I don't need one of those for motivation. I back the car into the drive, where a scrape of paint on the gatepost would give me a reminder if I wanted one, and stroll along the road.

Mrs Rubbish has left her vigil now the weekly garbage ritual is done, and nobody else can see me either. The moans of the hungry truck are several streets away, and the streets are deserted under a sullen sky that dulls the colours the houses have been daubed with, shades like stale makeup where they aren't childishly garish. If the culprits haven't gone out to work I expect they're watching television or more likely on the internet. I feel as if I'm surrounded by an electronic mind that swarms with random thoughts. How much of my day happened as I've told it? All that matters is this will. I've reached Mr Accident's house.

It's well out of sight of mine, around more than one bend. With its carriage lamp sticking out of the shallow porch of plastic wood it looks as if it wants to be an inn, unless it's wishing it were in a street a lot more historical than this one, where a caravan squats in a neighbouring drive and half a car is littered all over another. His house makes me think of a child wearing a bit of a costume in the hope it will let them pass for a character. It has no more chance than him, but where is he? I'm enraged to think I've given him time to finish with his gutters. I dodge around the house and find him perched at the top of a two-storey ladder.

I'm glad my rage hasn't deserted me, but then it never does. I watch him poke at the gutter above his head like a bird searching for insects to crunch. The trowel he's holding dislodges a sodden wad of leaves, and as he flings the blockage onto the concrete outside the house he sees me. The ladder wobbles and the gutter gives a plastic creak as he grabs it with his free hand. "What are you doing there?" he gasps.

"Just going for a walk so I'll feel better."

"Forgive me, I didn't realise you were ill."

"Forgiveness is no fun, and I don't mean that kind of better." I take a step towards him before enquiring "And what are you up to? Doing somebody out of a job?"

"Pay a man to do a job you can do yourself and you've cost yourself twice over."

I should have known he'd go in for homilies. He lets go of the gutter and rests his hand against the house while he squints at me. "What kind of work do you do? We don't seem to know much about you, Mr..."

"You'll know enough." I can tell he's hoping I've no job so that he can lecture me about it. "I wonder what you'd want to say I am," I muse aloud. "Just call me Lucky, and a collector if you like."

"I will if it's appropriate. What do you collect, may I ask?"

"Let's say payments that are due." I'm at the foot of the ladder now. "Today I'm after payment for an accident," I advise him.

"I wish you joy of it. If people paid up when they should there'd be no need for your kind of profession."

"I'm glad you agree," I say and take hold of the ladder.

"You carry on with your good work. I don't want any help."

I plant one foot on the lowest rung. "I am."

"I've already told you I can do this by myself. Please just leave it alone." With a grimace that quivers his floppy jowls he adds "And me, if you don't mind."

"I mind," I tell him and climb another rung. "I'm only doing what you asked for."

There's a loud clang below us. He has dropped the trowel, and now he's staring at it as though he should have kept it for a weapon. "What are you playing at, you lunatic? Get off my ladder."

His situation has caught up with him at last. That often happens, and watching the delay can be half the fun. "I keep telling you what I'm doing," I remind him. "Collecting."

He slaps the wall under the gutter with both hands and stifles a cry. "Collecting what, you—" Apparently he can't think of a strong enough word, unless even in these circumstances politeness won't let him discharge it. "Get off there this instant," he says as if he imagines I could be a child, "or you won't like the consequences."

"I'm glad you've brought those up. That's exactly why we're here. Don't tell me you've forgotten what you said to Mrs Rubbish not half an hour ago. Someone scraped their car and all because of you distracting them."

There's recognition in his eyes at last, and it's on the edge of fear. "If you're after compensation you must know this isn't the way—"

"It isn't just the car. It's never just that kind of thing. It's everything you are," I say and scurry up the ladder to tug at his ankles. This time he can't keep his cry to himself. As I dislodge one of his feet from the rung they're desperate to stay on, he lunges upwards to clutch at the gutter.

I couldn't hope for better. I'm down the ladder in a moment, and in another I've snatched it away. It clatters at full length on the concrete as its owner dangles from the flimsy gutter. "Help," he screams. "Look what he's done. Christ, someone help."

He's saying more than he needs to, as so many of them do. You'd think they've taken a vow to use up all the oxygen they can, but he won't for much longer. I watch him struggle to haul himself up and find a handhold on the roof. His hand slips off the wet tiles, and the gutter emits a creak that sounds as if it's splintering. I might enjoy watching him dangle and wave his helpless legs for however many seconds he has left, but my instincts send me to the back door, since it's partly open. As I hear a choked gasp and a long loud creak I let myself into the house.

I can't see anything worth noticing. A day next week on the calendar beside the coffin-sized refrigerator is ringed in red and marked GREAT NIECE'S CHRISTENING. That'll be missing a guest, I'm guessing. I prop my elbows on the edges of the metal sink and peer between the slats of the plastic blind. Pretty soon a flailing shape falls past the kitchen window. I don't see it land, but I hear it. You might think somebody has thrown a bag of rubbish on the concrete—pottery and useless meat. The large flattened slap will be the bag, and the crunch could be a piece of pottery that's sticking out of the top of the sack. I crane over the sink to make sure nothing is about to move except the contents of the piece of pottery, which has produced quite a spill. "We need you, Mrs Rubbish," I murmur, but the sight isn't sufficiently interesting to detain me. I make my way along the hall, past a lonely yellow vacuum cleaner with a furry upper plastic lip, and out of the house.

"Here's our favourite waitress," David's mother declared.

"Our favourite chef," David's father said.

"So long as you're having a good birthday, Susan," Stephanie said, "I don't care what you call me."

She was wearing her chef's apron that said MICK'S. The candle on the cake she was carrying lent an extra radiance to her face—round chin, pinkish lips ready with a smile, snub nose, brown eyes with a glimmer of green beneath eyebrows whose height seemed to anticipate a surprise. Her auburn hair was tied back from her high forehead but had grown a little dishevelled, no doubt by the heat in her kitchen, which had left a bead of perspiration bejewelling her hairline. Once she'd set down the cake she led the song. "Happy birthday—"

"Who's having one of them?" Mick protested and trotted weightily to the Bothams' table, mopping his wide fleshy forehead. "Nobody told me."

"David's mother Susan is, and this is his father Alan. You know David."

"Not a comp, are they? You know you've got to clear freebies with me in advance. There's still plenty of my mates that haven't eaten here yet." As all the Bothams gazed at him he urged "Go on then. Happy birthday—"

By the time he finished singing along he'd mopped his forehead twice. David couldn't see much reason, unless Mick's bulk was constricted by the dinner jacket and dress shirt and bow tie he seemed to think a manager should wear. The photographs on all the walls showed that he'd been less podgy as a footballer. "Steph been keeping up our standards, has she?" he said.

"It was exceptional," David's mother said. "You've found yourself a treasure, Mr..."

"Call me Mick," the manager said but was visibly peeved not to have been recognised. "Mick as in Mediterranean Mick's, because we give you a mix of stuff from over there. She's good at all that food, no argument. I don't care where you come from if you do what I want, same as if you were ace with the ball on the field we never bothered what colour you were or if you could speak English."

"Thanks for the appreciation," Stephanie told him.

"No sweat, girl. Go ahead and cut the cake and bring these their coffees and liqueurs if they're having them. I've sent Jess and Rio home before they start squawking about overtime, so you can clear up in the kitchen, can't you? I'll be doing it out here."

Apart from the Bothams' table he would have nothing to clear. They were the last remaining diners in the restaurant, which had never been more than half full. As Stephanie headed for the kitchen, having dealt each of the Bothams a slice of cake, David's father said "So what made you choose Stephanie for your enterprise, Mick?"

"She came cheapest."

David's parents opened their mouths as if they were about to perform a reproving duet, until Stephanie sent them a quick wry smile from the kitchen doorway and put her finger to her lips. Nevertheless David's mother murmured "Nothing like being valued, is there?"

His father wasn't quite so muted. "And that was nothing like."

David saw the manager hunch up his shoulders as he might have prepared for a clash on a football field, and then he shambled into his office behind the bar. "Well," David's mother said and let the word gain weight. "Just you make sure she knows she's appreciated, David."

"I do."

"Hang on to her, that's what we're saying," his father contributed. "I don't mind telling you we didn't think Andrea was any great loss."

It was apparent to David that they'd all had a good deal to drink. He felt it was best to keep his thoughts to himself, but his silence earned him an injured blink. "Don't listen to us more than you want to," his father said. "Maybe we're so used to sorting people's lives out that we don't know when to stop."

"If they're sorted that's what matters."

"Too often they aren't, is that what you're saying?"

"I wouldn't." Since both his parents were gazing at him David couldn't help admitting "Some of the people at work might, but they wouldn't have meant you."

"What were they saying, David?" his mother said as if she were coaxing a child to speak.

"Just about someone's friend who was attacked by somebody in care. The friend was a community policeman and he was trying to defend his daughter."

"Sounds like—who is it, Susan?"

"Benny Moorcroft." She was plainly annoyed with having divulged the name as she said "He's one of my cases, David."

"But you wouldn't have defended him if it had gone to court."

"I'm afraid I would. He's been on cannabis since he was seven years old. "You'd be psychotic too if you were him. People like him never had a chance at the kind of lives we have."