Wasted Years

Forty-One

Jeans? Debbie used to say how much she liked him in jeans; about the only time he didn’t look like a policeman. Trouble was, he never really felt comfortable in them. Not the pair he was wearing now, Levi Silver Tabs he’d bought eighteen months back at Bankrupt Clothing Company, nor the ones he’d got in the Gap sale. Simply, they didn’t feel right. Like going out on an undercover and being spotted within the first few minutes. He pulled them off and draped them over the back of the chair. Where were those beige jobs he’d worn to the last police smoker? Those and the dark jacket, the blazer, at least he felt smart in that without being dressed up like a dog’s dinner. All that was left now was the tie, yes or no, finally deciding no, much too formal, definitely not, then slipping it into his side pocket in case he felt like changing his mind.

Any minute now the taxi would be here.

Watch, credit card, cash, keys.

Kevin hesitated by the bathroom door; the aftershave with a tang of lime-was that the one brought Debbie out in a rash or not?

Divine had stopped off at WH Smith no more than ten minutes before closing. “These tapes,” he’d asked, pointing towards a boxed set of French in Five Easy Stages, “they any good?”

The assistant thought Divine looked more the type for Club Med, somewhere with a beach and sun enough to show off a good body. “We do sell a lot,” she said hopefully.

“Yes, but do they work?”

She giggled lightly. Not bad, Divine thought, take away the crossed front teeth and surplus facial hair, fair pair of tits though, wouldn’t mind giving it a pull.

“See, I’m off to Paris. Pretty soon. Business.”

“Oh. Well, there is this one here, two double-length cassettes or one CD and accompanying booklet. See? Eurospeak Languages for Today’s Businessman. That might be more the kind of thing.”

“Thing I’m looking for,” Divine confided, leaning a well-muscled arm on the top of her counter, “something more personal. You know, relaxing after hours. Hard day’s graft. Can’t enjoy the night life, no point in going. Stay here and get legless at the Black Orchid, eh?”

“Miss Armitage,” the supervisor sang out like a frost in summer, “let’s see you cashing up now.”

“What d’you reckon then?” The picture on the box showed a girl with a long blonde pony tail and a black beret, pointing excitedly up to the Eiffel Tower. “Biggest one she’s ever seen.”

Maybe he wasn’t cut out for Club Med after all, the assistant thought. Works outing to Skegness, more his kind of thing. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we are closing now.”

Divine settled for a pocket phrase book and a paperback visitor’s guide to Paris, thumbing through the latter as he stepped out on the pedestrian precinct, stopping short at the picture of a girl in a scarlet G-string from the Crazy Horse Saloon. A mother with a pushchair ran into the back of him and most of the child’s Mr Whippy ice cream slid down his leg.

“What the chuffin’ heck d’you think you’re doing?” Divine bellowed.

“It’s you, you great lummux!” the woman shouted back. “Parking your great backside right in front of us without a by-your-leave. What’ve you got in that head of yours for brains, sawdust or what?”

And she swung pushchair and wailing child around him, leaving Divine to wipe away the ice cream that was still slithering down his second-best pair of trousers.

Naylor stood close by the plate glass front of the upstairs, looking out at the groups who were beginning to swarm the square. Down the hill from the Concert Hall and the Theatre Royal, along St James Street and past the Bell opposite; from the right past the cinemas, the Odeon and Cannon, spreading the length of the old Market Square itself, past the fountains and the lions to the underground lavatories and the mobile stall selling hot pork rolls and beefburgers with glistening onions. Pushing and shoving and laughing. The police van alongside the bus stop. Listening to the plods in the canteen it got worse week by week, month by month, but Naylor remembered Resnick saying that when he’d been out there in uniform twenty years ago there’d been trouble Friday, Saturday nights just the same.

He wondered about finishing his half and going back into the bar to fetch another, maybe get one for Debbie too, save queuing later when she turned up. If she turned up. He was rehearsing her excuses in his head-my mother, the baby-when he saw her alighting from a double-decker over on Beast Market Hill. Dark blue skirt or dress, silvery top, thin blue jacket, leather bag slung over one arm. Forehead pressed against the inside of the glass, he waited for her to look up and, stepping off the crossing onto the broad curve of pavement below, and, smiling with surprise at her own pleasure, that was what she did.

Keith knew chances were if he simply dumped the Citroen, abandoned it, it would get trashed before it was found. Normally that was part of the point, only this was not a normal car. Gliding along the A52 on his way back into the city, engine close to silent, suspension like feathers, Keith thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

He knew it was a risk, but for the first time ever, he was determined to return the motor to the exact spot where he’d found it.

Our luck holds, Darren had said, you’ll be able to buy one of your own. Keith chewed at a hangnail on the little finger of his right hand. Mixture of his luck and Darren’s stupidity and he could see himself ending up back in court. Back in prison. Just thinking about it was enough to turn his bowels to water. Never in his miserable life had he been as serious as when he’d tried to top himself in that cell. And Darren, hollering for help, unfastening the sheet and lifting him down. What for? So that he’d have someone to boss around the rest of his life? Someone to look up to him, run errands, steal cars, drive him from one increasingly risky robbery to another.

Hear him running off at the mouth before Keith had dropped him off. About how he was going to trade up from that pathetic toy pistol to a real one; how he was going to walk in on that Lorna Solomon and show it to her, see the look on her face, do the thing right.

Keith had felt grateful to him for saving his life, in a way at least: each day now he was less and less sure. Turning with the traffic in front of the big MGM night club, Keith indicated that he was moving across into the inside lane, looking to park.

“Where are we going?” Debbie asked, as Kevin Naylor took her arm and steered her around a group of young white males in short-sleeved white shirts.

“You’ll see,” he grinned. “Surprise.”

The restaurant was quite dimly lit, tasteful, round tables with a single flower in a white vase at its center; the menus were padded and thick and pages long.

“What d’you think?” Kevin said, looking round. He’d asked Graham Millington, who went out for a meal with his wife first Friday after payday, regular as clockwork. Lynn Kellogg, too. The consensus seemed to be, of all the Chinese restaurants in the city, this was probably the best.

“It’s nice,” Debbie admitted. “Only …”

“Only what?”

Only you know I’m not all that keen on Chinese food, was what she’d been going to say, but instead she shook her head and gave him a quick smile and said, “Oh, nothing.”

He had looked nice standing up there in Yates’s, waiting for her, really nice, and although talking at first had been a bit of a strain, now they were both beginning to feel more relaxed.

“You watch out for him,” her mum had said, “got to be after something, you mark my words.” Then she’d got that look on her face, the one she’d paraded when Debbie had first told her she was moving back home, smug and prophetic. “I wouldn’t mind betting he’s found himself somebody else, that’s what this is all about. Wanting to talk you into one of those do-it-yourself divorces. You see if he isn’t.”

If that was the case, Debbie thought, he’d hardly be sitting there, wedding ring shining from the back of his hand. Without warning, she thought she might be about to cry, so she picked up her bag and excused herself, went to the ladies, leaving Kevin to order.

Keith phoned his mum and his stepfather answered so he hung up; his dad was still hauling bundles of old papers and magazines up from the cellar, sorting through and arranging them in piles all over the front room floor.

Keith made himself baked beans on toast and ate it watching TV. If there had been a tape player in the first-floor room he’d taken over as his own, he would have gone up there and listened to some Luther Ingram or some David Peaston, Galliano, or Dream Warriors except that he didn’t have the tapes either, they were still back at his mum’s. Truth was he didn’t know what on earth he did want to do.

When his dad stuck his head round the door and asked if he fancied lending him a hand, Keith shrugged and said, “Why not?”

It turned out to be simple enough. Check through the pages to make sure they were all there, nothing torn out or otherwise missing; if it was all okay write down the date and issue number.

“What’s all this in aid of?” Keith asked.

“Making a few bob.”

“For this old crap?”

When his dad explained it to him, Keith was really surprised. Though he knew youths who’d lash out just about everything they had on some comic or other, ten pounds for one in Japanese and then you couldn’t read the words. No accounting for some people’s taste.

“Fancy a beer?” Rylands asked after they’d been working half an hour or so.

“I thought you’d given it up.”

“Doesn’t mean you’ve got to. I’m having tea myself.”

“Tea’s fine.”

While they were drinking it, Rylands sounded Keith out on his idea of hiring a stall in the market, Fridays and Saturdays at first, selling back numbers of NME and stuff like that, jazz magazines-kids were supposed to be interested in jazz, weren’t they? — maybe other things. He’d wandered into one of the second-hand bookshops on the Mansfield Road and come across a couple of hundred mixed film magazines, copies of Picture Post as well, made an offer for the lot. Bloke was holding them for him till the Monday. Him and Keith trawled round a few car boot sales and the like, they’d soon pick up more stock.

“So,” Rylands said, sitting cross-legged, leaning back against the wall. “What d’you think? Reckon it’d work?”

“Might.”

“You’re interested then?”

“Me?”

“Why not? What else you got to do?”

Keith shrugged and made a face.

“Thought, you know, we could run it together.”

“I’d lose my dole.”

“Not necessarily. Depends how we work it. And anyway, what d’you want, be on the dole the rest of your life?”

“No.”

“Well, then. Why not give it a try?”

Keith shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Rylands finished his tea and pushed himself to his feet. “Best get on. Plenty of time for you to think about it. Might be a bit of fun, though. Laugh if nothing else.”

“What about Darren?” Keith asked, staring at the front page of a Melody Maker from 1959: “Emile Ford and the Checkmates to Headline Moss Empires Tour.”

“What about Darren?”

“He’ll expect me to be with him.”

“Don’t you worry about Darren,” Rylands said, bending to take Keith’s empty cup from his hands. “I’ve got ideas how to deal with him.”

“It tasted different somehow,” Debbie said.

They were standing inside the hallway of the starter home she and Kevin had first moved into, the one where he still lived.

“Least come in and have some coffee,” Kevin had said as the taxi that was meant to be dropping him off drew close. “You can always get another cab in a bit.”

They’d got inside the front door and not much further; hadn’t as much as switched on the hall light.

“What tastes different?” Kevin said, kissing her again. When they moved their mouths apart minutes later, she could sense him grinning at her in the dark. “Not this,” she said.

“What then?”

“The meal. Chinese meal. Find it so salty as a rule.”

“Ah,” Kevin said, grin widening, “that’s because I asked them to hold back the monosodium glutamate, I expect.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Oh, yes. Just a matter of knowing what to ask.” She laughed and reached inside his jacket, tickling him, and they ended up on the floor.

“Kevin, no.” Though there was something specially exciting, Debbie thought, about being there, so close to the front door.

“No, we can’t.” The only place she and Kevin had ever made love was in bed, their own bed or a bed and breakfast.

“Kevin!”

His hand was high on her tights, ball of his thumb starting to apply pressure …

“No!”

“What?”

She smoothed down her skirt and drew her knees towards her chest.

“We are still married, you know.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“Kevin, switch on the light.”

“You’re angry, aren’t you?”

“No. No, I’m not.” She reached for his hand and held it. “Really, I’m not.”

“What is it, then?”

Even though it was dark and she could see little more than the outline of his face, Debbie looked away. “I’m not on the pill any more. There didn’t seem to be any point.”

“So?”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got anything with you. Any, you know, protection.”

“There’s a twenty-four hour garage not far. They’re bound to sell them. I could nip and …”

“Kevin, no. Maybe it’s not such a good idea this time anyway.” He sighed and she gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m not rejecting you, you know.”

“No? Well, that’s what it feels like.”

Debbie laughed and deftly moved her other hand. “No, Kevin, that’s what it feels like.”

He laughed, surprised, and reached for her again, but she was quickly to her feet and they were both blinking in the sudden light. “What about that coffee?” she said. “While you’re getting the kettle on, I’ll order a taxi.”

“You could stay.”

“I know. I will. One step at a time.”

Kevin grinned and kissed her on her forehead and alongside her ear and, quickly, at the corner of her mouth and, still grinning, walked off into the kitchen.