Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
The DJ on Magic had just finished making a joke about the weather when the little bell above the door went. I looked up and froze, slightly.
It was Matthew Fowler, the kid I used to teach. Well, not teach, exactly. The kid who’d sit there while I just sat there. The one who nearly blinded someone. The father of a ten-month-old, who itself couldn’t be more than ten months away from shouting at someone on Jeremy Kyle or Trisha.
He was wearing his hood down and there was the tinny tik-tik-tik of an MP3 player somewhere in his tracksuit bottoms.
His eyes flicked towards me and then away again, and he started to go through a box of second-hand carts and CDs.
He hadn’t recognised me.
I relaxed a little, and started to pretend to be tidying up the counter, but I couldn’t help keep looking over at him, through fascination, I must add, not suspicion. What had he been up to since leaving St John’s? Why was he in here? It was a bit like spotting a celebrity, though one you’re a little afraid might beat you up.
The tik-tik-tik stopped, and he cast another look my way. I felt guilty for watching, and so turned away and started to pile things that didn’t need to be put into little piles into little piles.
And then he was at the counter.
‘Hullo, sir.’
Oh.
‘Hello … Matthew. Matt.’
‘You work here, do you?’
It would be weird if I didn’t.
Hang on – I don’t.
‘No. Just looking after the place. For a friend.’
He nodded, and glanced about the shop.
‘Yeah, what’s his name again? I been in here a few times. Quite nervous, that fella, isn’t he?’
That’ll be the hood.
‘You still at St John’s, then?’ he said.
He was talking to me, but looking anywhere but.
‘No, I’m a journalist now. Sort of. A sort-of journalist.’
‘Yeah, I seen your name in the paper. Didn’t know if it was you or the other one.’
‘The bloke from 90210?’
‘Reasoned it probably wasn’t.’
I smiled.
‘You all right then, sir?’
Now he was looking at me, shyly.
‘You don’t have to call me “sir”.’
‘What then?’
‘I dunno. Mr Priestley?’
I suddenly felt ludicrous. I was a man standing in front of a Sonic the Hedgehog poster demanding a customer address me as Mr Priestley.
‘Or Jason. Just call me Jason.’
Matthew sniffed and scratched his face.
‘I’ll call you Mr Priestley. You’re all right, though, yeah?’
There was an awkward moment. I didn’t know what else to say. I tried to think what Dev would say.
‘Yeah. Did you find everything you need?’
‘Just looking.’
‘How’s your kid?’
It was instinct. But now he’d wonder how I knew. He smiled.
‘I saw you that day, too. At the station. Thought you wouldn’t recognise me.’
‘What’s his name? Or her?’
‘Elgar.’
Elgar? Elgar the baby?
‘Elgar is a wonderful name for a … baby.’
‘I haven’t got a baby,’ he said, smiling. ‘That woman you saw, she’s always on at everyone about babies. Better she thinks I’ve got one and I might be able to get something done with my days.’
I laughed. Elgar seemed a weird reference for him, but one I liked.
‘How’ve you been?’
He shrugged.
‘School wasn’t for me. Dunno what is.’
‘Where are you working?’
‘Garage off Chapel Market.’
And then, from somewhere in his trousers, Akon started singing. Either it was Matt’s ringtone, or Akon really needs to start looking for new gigs.
He stared at the name on the screen.
‘I gotta go. Cheers, sir. Nice to see you. Glad you’re all right.’
‘See you again—’ I started to say, but his back was turned and he was already halfway out the shop.
I watched him jog across Caledonian Road towards a scuffed-up mountain bike chained to a lamppost.
School wasn’t for him. I knew how he felt.
And then, the small tinkle of the bell above the door again, and in walked another customer. I flashed a half-smile at him and turned away, not really taking him in, and not trying to either. I wasn’t done thinking about Matt yet. But there’d been something familiar about the shape of the man, about his tan and his neat hair, and I turned back, and there he was, still in the doorway, smiling a small smile and raising two thin eyebrows.
‘Hello, buddy,’ he said, with something approaching sadness in his voice, like I was a kitten coming out of anaesthetic, and he was a vet with a hammer in his pocket.
SIX
Or ‘The Sky Is Falling’
‘I know you still love her, buddy.’
Oh, please, no, not buddy. Who says buddy who’s not from America or the 1950s? Gary’s thirty-four and from Hertfordshire.
I’d closed the shop – Dev would understand – and reluctantly agreed to a ‘quick coffee … just a catch-up … just a chippity-chat.’
I’d already spent ten minutes staring at Gary’s mouth while words came out. Big, round words, meaningless and foggy. And then, like coming out of a long tunnel and realising you’re still tuned to the radio, he was there.
‘… how hard it must be for you that she’s with someone else,’ he said, and I snapped myself to attention. ‘But at some point, you’re going to have to take responsibility for your actions. Put your hands up. Say, “I messed up”, and move on. Otherwise your life just won’t be worth living.’
From anyone else, this last line could have been intimidating. A warning shot fired across the bow. From Gary it came across like something from a weaker episode of Dr Phil.
I tried to stop him.
‘It’s not that I still love her,’ I said, staring into my coffee, but he ignored me and just carried on.
‘We’ve all been there,’ he said, and I noticed his fleece. Dubai Desert Classic 2004 and a small Emirates logo. No bobbles, no fluff. This was a fleece he took care of. ‘I mean, you have someone, you lose someone. But this is the way of the world. Life’s too short.’
I suddenly realised what Gary was. Gary was someone who said things like ‘Life’s too short’ as if he’d just come up with it himself. He probably thought he was a genius, coming up with something as profound as ‘Life’s too short’. I bet one day he’ll see it on a bumper sticker and think someone’s ripped him off.
‘You need to use every day as if it’s your last,’ he said, at least pretending to find this awkward and fixing his eyes on a stain on the tablecloth. ‘And if you’re hung up on someone—’
‘I’m honestly not hung up on Sarah,’ I said. ‘I was drunk, and in front of a computer, and yeah, I agree I made mistakes – I made one huge mistake – and you can pat yourself on the back because you’ve never made a mistake like it, but people make mistakes, Gary.’
Oh, God. I just said ‘People make mistakes’. I’m worse than Gary.
‘It’s no use living in the past,’ he said.
Then again …
This was embarrassing. Like being told off by a grown-up. A real man. Someone who’s perfectly able to take a relationship in his stride. And that, I think, is why he was enjoying it so much. He wasn’t doing this out of pity, or concern. He was doing this to say, ‘Look at me. Look at what I can do. Not only can I make it work with Sarah, I’m big enough to be able to tell you where you’ve gone wrong, why you’re a failure, and yet still make it seem like I’m doing you a favour. I should really be wearing a top hat’.
‘Gary, listen, I’d better be going,’ I said, snapping out of it and doing my best to swig half a cup of coffee in one. I inched my chair backwards to show I was serious.
‘D
Gary panicked.
‘Before you go, mate,’ he said. ‘Look, it’s not my place to say it, but …’
But what?
He paused, and seemed to love it. Usually, I love pauses, too. I can pause for anything up to a minute; it’s like a gift. Sarah used to say life happens in the pauses; that some pauses are great pauses; comforting pauses. The pause a taxi driver gives you the second after you name a street, the second before the nod that confirms they know the way. The pause between the ads at the cinema, when the music and the visuals and the noise disappear all at once, and all you’re left with is the glow of a mobile being switched off or the slow self-conscious rustle of a sweet wrapper. But this pause … this wasn’t a good pause. There was no comfort to be taken from this pause.
‘Forget it.’
‘What?’
‘No, it’s not my place.’
‘What, Gary?’
A final, decisive pause. A quick one, this time, but no nicer.
‘No.’
And with that, he threw a fiver down on the table, smiled, and inched his chair back too.
‘Righty-ho.’
Gary had insisted on walking me back into the shop. I’d tried to show him how busy I was by splitting the little unnecessary pile I’d piled up earlier into two, but to be honest, it still didn’t make me look particularly busy. It just made me look like a man with piles.
You know what I mean.
Gary had picked up a few games and read their descriptions out to me. Gary’s one of those people who reads things out.
‘Two for one!’ he’d said, in a jaunty voice, as we’d passed the Esso garage. ‘Fresh rolls!’ There’s very little you can say in response to ‘Fresh rolls!’, let alone ‘Caledonian Food & Wine!’
And excellent: now he’d found the photos. I’d not had time to put them away.
‘These yours?’ he said, and I had to stop myself from visibly squirming.
‘Yeah. No. A friend’s.’
I held my hand out, tried to get him to relinquish them, but he was fascinated.
‘Who is she?’
‘She’s … like I say, she’s a mate. A chum.’
A chum?
He allowed himself another moment to study her. His eyes flicked around the first one. I knew what he was doing. He was comparing her to Sarah, weighing up who the winner was.
‘That’s good, Jason,’ he said, eventually, and fanning the photos out in front of him. ‘It’s good to have friends.’
I nodded. Well, what was the harm? If Gary thought I was hanging out with pretty blonde girls with lively eyes, perhaps he’d tell Sarah. Although, of course, he wouldn’t. That would make me seem far too attractive. No, Gary would tell Sarah I was working in the videogame shop and was wearing a jumper with a sailor on it.
‘Whitby,’ he said, wistfully.
‘Hmm?’
‘That’s Whitby, isn’t it? I recognise the abbey.’
He pointed at one of the photos. She – whoever she is – was wearing a red scarf, and laughing at something someone off camera was saying. It was one of my favourites. You couldn’t see the wind, but you could almost feel it. Brisk and cold and sweeping away the cobwebs, fresh and clean. In the background, high on a cliff, was the building Gary now had his finger all over.
I did my best to subtly move them away. These were mine. You can’t have them, Gary.
‘I used to go there as a kid. Not on my own, obviously. Dad had a caravan and liked it up there. When were you in Whitby?’
I managed to nod and shake my head at the same time. Gary took this in whatever way he took it.
‘Well, good luck, Jason.’
And I would’ve watched him go, except I had the picture in my hands, and I didn’t want to look away.
Dev was back an hour later and humming a strange tune.
‘It’s “Bo jesteś Ty” by Krzysztof Krawczyk,’ he said, before adding, ‘I have no idea what I just said.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Love. Endless, yearning, aching love. The kind of love only a man in a videogame shop can have for a Polish waitress called Pamela. What you been up to?’
‘Gary came round.’
Dev’s face fell. But secretly, he loves stuff like this.
‘What did he want?’
‘To sort things out. Make sure there’s no bad blood. Call me buddy.’
‘He’s brilliant, is Gary. Enigmatic.’
‘But also – I think – to unnerve me.’
‘How so?’
‘He paused.’
‘He paused?’
‘He paused. On purpose. Started to tell me something. Then paused. Then didn’t tell me.’
‘Sometimes people pause. Sometimes I pause.’
‘You press pause. And this wasn’t just a pause. It was a notable pause.’
‘Sometimes I pause notably. I paused notably just the other night. People took note as I paused. I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘I just think—’
‘Don’t think. If you think, you’ll never truly get over her. Thinking just extends things.’
So I decided not to think.
Upstairs, I finished my Bob & Alex review (3 out of 5) and stared at the screen.
Enigmash-up: A Journey through the Ego to the Id via You, Me & They.
The cursor blinked at me, as surprised by the sentence as I’d been.
What the hell was I going to write about?
I studied the leaflet. Lots of inappropriate words were in bold and there were too many exclamation marks.
‘Kaiko Kakamara is one of Britain’s most surprising new artists!! His vision and tenacity have set the scene on fire, and his fans include …’
I suddenly lost the will to live and exhaled, heavily. Art is subjective, no? So my opinion is valid whatever. But is it valid even if I haven’t seen the exhibition?
Yes, I think it is. I began to type.
With fans including …
And ten minutes later, I emailed it off.
I sat back in my chair and thought about Gary. Why had he paused? And what would he have thought if he’d known I’d had a stranger’s photos?
And then my phone rang. It was Zoe.
‘Hello, dickhead. How are the words coming on?’
‘Emailed them off a moment ago.’
‘What did you think?’
‘You’ll find out!’
‘Of the exhibition, I mean.’
I picked up the leaflet.
‘Oh, you know. Surprising. Full of vision, and … tenacity.’
‘Gosh, it sounds amazing. And there was me, never taking you for an arty one.’
‘Well, it turns out I am.’
‘Do you remember at uni when we were in that house on Narborough Road with that French art girl and Dev and she asked you to do that life modelling thing and you nearly moved out because you thought she meant naked?’
I laughed.
‘She just wanted you to sit on a bench and hold an apple!’
Now she was laughing, that familiar, smoky laugh. We’d come close to being together, me and Zo, if you know what I mean. Just once at uni, after one of those fashionable School Disco parties. Her cousin had been in town and was being violently ill in her room so she’d snuck into mine and we’d watched The Goonies ‘til dawn. So I knew she’d liked me once. Maybe she still did. Maybe that suited me, after everything.
‘So anyway, I didn’t see you there.’
‘Hmm?’
‘I didn’t see you at the gallery.’
I froze. Was she joking?
‘What do you mean?’
‘At the exhibition. I went along in the end.’
Was this a bluff? Or had I been found out?
‘You were there, were you?’ I said, with what I hoped was a light and jokey u
‘I was. I thought I’d stop by. Whereabouts were you?’
‘I must’ve been … in the other part.’
‘Which other part?’
‘The part just off the main part.’
‘There was no other part. There was hardly even a main part.’
‘Well, I only popped in, and it was so busy, so I just—’
‘It was half-empty. You didn’t pop in.’
In the background, I heard her computer ping. Shit. My email. My email had arrived.
‘I popped in! I popped my head round the door!’
Please believe me. Please believe me.
‘Jason,’ she said, and now I was starting to sweat, because I could hear her using her mouse, clicking on something, opening an attachment. ‘Have you submitted a review of something without having seen it?’
Was that her clever trick? Remind me of the old days, catch me off guard?
‘No … I’m … I went, but maybe you didn’t see—’
‘“With fans including Evan Dando and Carl Barat”,’ she said, and my stomach flipped, because that was how my review started. ‘“Kaiko Kakamara is an artist of surprising vision” … Well, I must say, Jason, I’m surprised at your vision.’
‘Zoe, I’m sorry, I can explain—’
‘Did you see that film? Or did you make that up too?’
‘I saw it. I can describe it in painful detail, but the exhibition … I was late, and the trains were—’
‘How about that restaurant? Did you even go there?’
‘I did! I ordered the Margherita!’
Factually correct.
‘Knowing what you’ve done makes this phonecall a lot harder.’
Oh, God. Oh, Christ. Come on. No.
‘I’m going to need you to come into the office.’
What? Why? If you’re going to sack me, just sack me.
‘Rob’s still off sick and he’s just phoned to say he’ll need a few weeks. Some kind of operation. So I need someone to fill in.’
‘Rob the …?’