Think Yourself Lucky (20 page)

I've shut the door and am standing with my back to it. "You mean somebody who works here."

"That's him," he says and peers harder at me. "You're not related, are you?"

"You could say that."

"Thought so." He shoves a hand out so abruptly that I can't tell whether he's offering a handshake or trying to clear me out of his way. "Met him at All Write," he says. "Maybe you've heard about me."

"All your fame has preceded you, definitely."

"Anyway, I'm here for him," he says, nodding at the door like a threat to butt me if I don't move.

"And me. He's not available just now."

Scrawlrat squints between two of the posters on the window. "How do you mean, not available?"

"Not here. I don't see him, do you?"

He doesn't, but I can't tell how much longer this will last, and I wonder what the staff inside are seeing through the window—just the customer they've lost? If he looks as if he's talking to himself, presumably they'll assume he's on a phone, unless they have a vague sense of a companion with him, too generalised an impression to deserve a second glance. Everybody is too brainless to notice more than that, and their stupidity is multiplied when they're a crowd, like the one that's all around us. "Anything I can pass on?" I say to Scrawlrat.

"Don't say that, chum, if you don't mind."

"Forgive me," I say without remotely meaning it, "what's the problem?"

"My old nan used to talk about passing on and she hasn't long done it herself."

"I expect you'll be visiting her soon, will you? I can see you must feel close." I arrange a sympathetic expression on my face, mostly to hide my amusement. "How would you like me to put it, then?" I say. "You give me the words. You're the writer."

"Give us a hint what you're on about, chum."

For somebody who calls himself a writer he seems to have too much trouble with language. "I'm asking what message you'd like me to pass on to him."

Have I antagonised Scrawlrat by using the phrase he was whining about? I'm preparing to feign remorse—it amuses me to try—when he says "Tell him I warned him."

"I didn't catch you."

When I gesture at the trumpeter, who may fancy his racket is jazz, Scrawlrat trudges grudgingly uphill. He can't be seen by anybody in the shop now. "I said," he complains, "I warned him."

"I should know what about, should I?"

"He told us a title he'd thought up when he came to All Write. I said he should watch out nobody stole it, and somebody did."

"You don't think it could have been him all the time."

"I can't believe he'd be the kind to write that stuff. There's some things you shouldn't ever say."

"That doesn't sound like a writer." Before Scrawlrat has time to feel insulted I say "So is that your message?"

"I came to tell him it's got worse, the blog. I've been keeping an eye on it since I told him."

"And what do you think you've been seeing?"

Scrawlrat stares at me. I'd be delighted to learn he's figured out more than I thought, but he says "It's got no ideas of its own for a start. It just pinches from the news."

"Originality's the name of the game, is it?"

"I don't like anyone that steals ideas. They're all we've got, us writers. They're our lives."

"You want to do away with whatever you dislike, do you? I know how you feel." I give him a look innocent enough for Blushpuss as I say "You couldn't be mistaken about the blog."

"How am I going to be that?"

"If it was there first."

I'd enjoy provoking his suspicions, but he only says "Tell you what, chum, you've got a weird mind."

"Aren't writers meant to have those?"

"Not that weird. You'd know what I mean if you saw the blog."

"By all means show me what's on your mind."

No doubt he takes my smile to underline the invitation, though in fact I'm fancying how it might feel to scoop out the contents of his skull through whichever orifice I could find or make. "My phone's at home charging," he complains. "Got yours?"

"I've never needed one. I'm electronic enough. You can show me on a computer."

"That's at home as well."

Scrawlrat's stare looks like the end of his words, but I say "Don't you think I should see what you want me to tell him about?"

The stare seems to begrudge Scrawlrat's answer. "You'd have to walk."

"I've learned to do that pretty well, you'll find."

"Funny with it, eh?" Scrawlrat says but doesn't laugh, and trudges uphill without looking back.

I could let him wonder where I've gone and surprise him with my reappearance, except there are questions I'd like to pursue. Once I'm alongside him he glances sideways as if at first he's not entirely certain what he's seeing. "So what do you think ought to be done?" I ask him.

"How do you mean, chum?"

"I'm asking what you think he ought to do."

Scrawlrat turns right opposite a church that has doffed its roof to God—it's as grey and empty as the sky—and heads towards Chinatown. "He'd better let folk know he's not mixed up with that thing online."

"How do you suggest he does that?"

"Come and tell them at All Write. They're the ones that heard his title."

"You aren't capable of telling them on his behalf."

"Len says we should all have our own voice. What's up with your brother? Can't he talk for himself?"

For a moment I can't talk either, and I don't know why. It's too soon to do without words; there's more I mean to learn. "What are you saying he ought to deny?"

"All that stuff on the blog. It even went on about Mick Magee last week."

"Should I know the name?"

"Mick Magee." When repeating it brings him no acknowledgement Scrawlrat says "Don't you know your footie?"

"I'm interested in other games."

"Not much of a Scouser if you don't care about football." This seems to be the worst he can say about me. "He died the other night and that blog made out he suffered even more than he would have," he says in the same offended tone. "You'd think whoever it is had some sort of grudge."

"Would I? Do you think he might have had some reason?"

"No reason about it, chum. More like he's mad."

A Chinese family dodges past me on the pavement, and I wonder if they'd be unable to see me in any detail even if they weren't all busy chattering. "Angry, do you mean?" I suggest to Scrawlrat.

"Sick in the head. He even goes for people that are as mad as him. Some other head case fell down an escalator, and this twat seems to want to think he made him. Same as someone that collapsed in a loo at the pictures, and another one died in a lift at the station. Don't tell me he's got that many grudges. He'd need to have them against the whole world."

"What do you think is behind it, then?"

"Weren't you listening? I told you, he's got maggots upstairs. If you ask me the net's responsible for half his kind. Lets you say anything you like even if it's not worth saying and nobody with any sense would want to know."

I'm amused by how much this enrages me and by storing up my rage behind a smile. "So am I to believe you're a writer yourself?"

"Better had, chum. I am."

"Will I find you on the rack?"

"There's some shops stock me. Len at We're Still Left does for one. The big places, all they want is the big names their publishers pay to make big."

"Let's hope something adds to your fame quite soon." I indicate a porcelain Oriental cat that nods and nods in the window of the shop we're passing. "Perhaps that means your luck is on the way," I suggest. "Tell me something you're proud of."

His frown looks as if it's straining to squeeze a thought out of his brain. "I'm proud of quite a lot, chum."

"Give me a title, then."

"Get Your Fortune Told Here.
That's my latest. Heard of it?"

"I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it before. What might it be about?"

"A feller that's not happy in his job. He goes to a woman at a fair and she tells him three things that's going to happen to him."

"I expect you'd like to be able to see your future too. So what does she tell him?"

"There's somebody at work whose job he wants. She says he'll get it, and then he gets a text saying he has."

"Well, that's uncanny. Whatever else?"

"She says he'll get the supervisor's job on top of that, and when he goes to work that's what they give him."

"Someone isn't satisfied, though."

Scrawlrat scowls as if I've stolen his inspiration. "He tells his wife and she says he's worth better."

"Because the clairvoyant has promised that he'll have the boss's job."

"I said that, didn't I?" Scrawlrat searches my face, if he isn't searching for it, before admitting "Any road, she did."

"And what does the wife do about that?"

"Has the boss round for dinner and then she gets her feller to batter him to death on his way home. Only he makes it look like a druggie did it, and he kills them as well so they can't talk."

"That won't be the end of it, though."

"One of the fellers whose job he got starts to suspect, so he has to kill him. Then the wife goes mad with all the murdering, and then—" Scrawlrat glowers and says "You won't want to buy it if I tell you any more."

We're in sight of the arch at the entrance to Chinatown. Under the dull sky its multicoloured scales look dusty, and beyond it a tenement block faces a few restaurants. "Shall I tell you the rest?" I ask him.

"Think you can?" This sounds close to a challenge to a fight. "Go on, then," Scrawlrat says. "Give us a laugh."

"Our hero goes back to ask what's in store for him now. And the clairvoyant tells him he's completely safe unless, oh, let's say unless the trees in the park in front of his house start to walk about. Which is fine till the police start watching the house and using bushes for cover. They don't just hide behind them, they bring some and use them to creep up on the house. And she could tell him he's safe from anyone who's been born like a human. You'd feel safe if you thought that, wouldn't you? Only—"

"I'm about to give him yet another hint when Scrawlrat says "How'd you know all that? You must have read my book."

"Perhaps it was a lucky guess, it could just be lucky. Perhaps that's my name."

"That's the sick bastard's name on that blog." For someone who thinks he's a writer Scrawlrat is dispiritingly deficient in imagination, and he confirms it by demanding "Is that what you're on about? Did you know about it all along?"

"You surely can't believe you're the only one who knows."

He grimaces as he strives to make me out, and then he glances around the deserted street in front of the tenements. "Are you trying to pretend you're him?"

"Now why do you imagine anyone would do that? Don't you think they would be afraid he'd come to find them?"

"If you're trying to put the wind up me, chum, you've no chance," Scrawlrat says and squeezes his eyes thin. "Hang about, though. Have you got his other name?"

"Does Newless sound familiar?"

"Sounds like something somebody made up when they couldn't come up with anything better. What's it meant to mean?"

"I really couldn't tell you if I cared to." I'm infuriated by the question, even if that's how I relish feeling. "Maybe I was new," I tell him, "but I'm the longest way from less."

Perhaps Scrawlrat sees I've stopped being playful, because he retreats towards the tenement block. "Stay away from me, whatever your name is," he says, raising his voice. "Come any closer and I'll be calling the law."

The empty concrete balconies send back his flattened shout. It seems to provoke an outburst of Chinese in one of the locked restaurants, but I can tell this sounds useless to him. As he hurries up the enclosed steps to the fourth floor of the tenements his echoes clatter after him. He may well imagine that's me, but there's no need. His keys are clanking in his hand before he's halfway up the steps. He jabs a key into the lock on a nondescript door, rattling the plastic number that dangles from a solitary screw. The single digit shakes again as if it's betraying the nervousness he tries to hide by slamming the door behind him.

The front room of his flat looks out on the balcony through a window smeared and spotted with old rain—at least, it peers through the unevenly skewed slats of a cheap Venetian blind. Yesterday’s clothes sprawl on a sagging couch, or perhaps they aren't even so recent an outfit. Beyond an open door to a perfunctory hall a kitchen bin gapes, unable to swallow a takeaway carton. Scrawlrat tramps to a table that squats in front of the couch. A laptop lies low on the table, next to a mug stained with dregs of coffee, which has printed circles like a disintegrating Olympic emblem on the dull wood. He plugs the laptop into the wall and sits in a chair, having cleared it of a book with his name and a borrowed photograph on the shiny cover. So much for his dislike of stealing material—apparently images at large online don't count—and I wonder if he reads anyone besides himself. Yes, he reads me, and I watch him plant the computer on his knees and bring my thoughts onscreen. Might it be diverting to watch him read about himself? The notion that he might see these very thoughts makes me feel as if I could be in two places at once. It's a disconcerting sensation, too much like losing substance, and so I step forward to show myself.

I come as such a shock that his entire body jerks as if he's been electrocuted, and the laptop crashes to the floor. "You," he cries, or perhaps it's the start of an insult until he finds his vocabulary doesn't run to any words sufficiently vicious. "Look what you've made me do."

Apparently the threat of damage to his creations on the computer distracts him from the larger situation, "It won't affect me," I assure him. "No great loss."

By now his position has caught up with him, and he blusters "How did you get in?"

"More easily than you. I was waiting by the time you did."

"I said what I'd do if you didn't stay clear," he declares and grabs his phone from the charger beside the chair. He must be clinging to his banal notion of the world—that all he has to do is call the police. His bravado doesn't convince either of us, and I only have to take another rapid step towards him to make him jerk from head to foot again, flinging the phone out of his slack hand. "Help," he cries as if the police may yet hear him and be capable of rescuing him. "He's got in."