The Good Liar Page 9

  him to get a room for the night in one of the numberless flea- ridden flophouses in the vicinity and to be at a certain coffee bar at four that afternoon.

  It was at that meeting that Roy engaged Martin with a deliberate

  intensity.

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  ‘This is our time,’ he told him. ‘Things are changing in clubland,

  the sex trade is becoming respectable. We need to ride the wave.’

  Martin hesitated. Roy fixed him with that determined, blue- eyed

  gaze. ‘Do you want in or not? There are a thousand others like you

  I could drag out of the gutter if you prefer. It’s just your lucky day.

  You can fuck off back to your alleyway if you want.’

  Not true. Roy wanted Martin for that oleaginous charm, that

  dashing profile, at least once he had been cleaned up a little, and for those connections which Roy lacked. They smoked and drank their

  milky coffees from glass cups and resolved to change their world.

  ‘I know of a little shop that’s going under on Berwick Street,’ Roy said. ‘I think I might be able to lay my hands on the money for the lease.’

  ‘I’ve got some mates in Brussels with contacts in the right places.’

  said Martin. ‘They may be able to source some stuff from Sweden

  and Denmark, very explicit. Mags and films. We wouldn’t have to

  go through the usual middlemen. I can also get hold of wacky baccy.

  And pills.’

  They decided they would launch the new shop aggressively and

  unapologetically, taking sex out of the back streets and making it a mainstream product. As a sideline, they could deal discreetly in nar-cotics, to appeal to their younger, more affluent clientele. The path was already reasonably well worn by those flamboyant men with

  flared trousers and thick moustaches who had made their night-

  spots planets in the nocturnal constellation.

  ‘But the market’s wide open,’ said Roy. ‘It’s ripe. This is our

  moment.’

  3

  September crept into October and fog settled over London. Roy

  took a couple of days sick from the office and, with the benefit of his little private nest egg, held in a long- term deposit account at Lyons Bank, lobbied his bank manager for a loan to start up a new

  business.

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  ‘Soho,’ said Mr Price dubiously. ‘Not exactly the most salubrious

  of districts.’

  Mr Price wore a bank manager’s spectacles over his thin nose.

  Below it he had grown a bank manager’s moustache.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Roy, eagerness written on his face. ‘But it’s on the up. All the more reason to get in before prices go sky high.’

  ‘Hmm. I’m not sure the bank would wish to become involved in

  an area or a business that runs the risk of being viewed as

  disreputable.’

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Roy, tut- tutting. ‘Oh no. I wouldn’t want that either. I’m trying to establish an entirely above- board business here. I’d hope the bank would understand.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mr Price, lips pursed sceptically. ‘Tell me more about this business.’

  Roy had resolved to be perhaps a little liberal with the truth. No

  need to frighten the horses.

  ‘What I’m trying to do is to create something,’ he said. ‘To turn

  a small, grotty shop into a business with roots in the community.

  And of course to make some money at the same time.’

  Mr Price appraised him. ‘And what exactly do you intend to sell

  in these premises?’

  Roy’s glare turned quickly to a smile. ‘A number of things. We’ll

  be selling books, we’ll be screening avant- garde films, we’ll be providing a venue to drink coffee and discuss current affairs.’

  ‘So, a kind of modernistic bookshop, then?’ It seemed an effort to

  spit the words out, and Mr Price frowned.

  ‘If you like to think of it that way, yes. The area is steeped in a long literary tradition, as you know. And in among all the tat and

  sex there are still a number of people of that ilk. Intellectuals, with money to spend. And of course the shop would draw people from

  all over the metropolis. It’s ideally located, centrally, close to the Underground.’

  ‘And the premises?’

  ‘A bit run- down. The current occupant is nearing retirement.

  He’s happy to hand the place over to me. I’ve managed to get a good deal on the lease, but time’s short. It doesn’t need much to tart the 68

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  place up and make it look presentable. My business partner has

  good contacts with suppliers and is currently in talks with them.

  We’re most optimistic.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ said Mr Price. ‘You will be aware that this is

  not precisely a propitious time for new businesses. Consequently

  banks will approach any new investment with extreme caution.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied Roy, ‘and quite right too.’

  ‘If I may say so, Mr Courtnay, you do not exactly seem to me to

  be the kind of person who would see his future in catering to the

  needs of . . . a bohemian clientele?’

  ‘If you mean, do I associate with a bunch of long- haired,

  self- obsessed hippies, the answer is most certainly no. But I’m happy to take their money. That’s the beauty of it. You see these things

  they laughably call businesses, these cooperatives, these well-

  meaning women with their self- knitted tie- dyed umbrellas, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I can make a business

  work.’

  ‘I see. Personally, I wouldn’t entertain the notion for a moment.

  The issue is not so much you as a potential borrower, or your

  business acumen’ – he affords Roy a thin smile – ‘as your target audience. Wholly unreliable, in my view, as well as, I must say, morally questionable.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Roy with a smile. ‘But –’

  ‘However,’ continued Mr Price, holding up a hand to stop him, ‘I

  am prepared to put this up to head office. I dare say views there may be rather more progressive than my own. I wish you every good

  fortune.’

  4

  At work he played surreptitiously with scissors, glue, a typewriter and an old letter from his bank, producing a collage that would pass muster when run through the new Xerox machine in the corner of

  the typing pool, which was guarded assiduously by the head of the

  clerical staff. He waited until the lunch break, when, with sweating 69

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  fingers, he made his copy. The first effort was reasonable, and he ran off two more just to be safe. Back at his desk, his attempt at

  Mr Price’s signature was rather too shaky for his liking and he was glad to have a second copy.

  It was a regrettable but necessary subterfuge. The wheels of

  Lyons Bank ground exceeding slow. He was confident of receiving

  the loan but needed to sign the lease straight away. There was no

  way of covering the gap other than by producing a letter confirm-

  ing sufficient funds in his account and signing a cheque that, he

  hoped, would not be cashed immediately. Further cheques would

  need to follow for utilities and the modest fit- out of the premises.

  Cheques would not be necessary to buy stock: in th
is business hard

  cash was what it would take before Martin’s continental suppliers

  released goods to them. Roy had ideas about where to find the

  liquid assets to effect the necessary deals.

  He left the office at four, claiming illness. He reckoned he’d need the next day off as well. But he required this job only for a short while longer. Soon he would be released from the long grey linoleum corridors and liberated into the bright lights of the real world.

  5

  It was high time for one of their periodic arguments. She could start a fight in an empty room, he always thought. Well, so be it; it was convenient right now. In fact it was necessary. It would not take

  much to escalate it to the proportions of full nuclear war.

  What was it to be this time? The state of the bathroom? His lazy

  habits? Martin popping round all the time and staring at her tits?

  From the perspective of now, he could not fathom how they had

  come together or why they remained together. She was so much

  younger than him for a start, which was evident to anyone who

  came across them. Younger not simply in years. Maureen was naive

  and almost infinitely enthusiastic. If he had ever possessed those

  qualities they had been knocked out of him a long time before.

  Life- affirming was beyond him: he didn’t see the point.

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  Maybe she’d been drawn to the force of his being. Maybe she’d

  needed a father figure, having come down from the primitive North

  to the Big Smoke. Maybe she just found him sexually irresistible.

  Any or all of these could apply. He didn’t care. It had palled and

  outlived its usefulness. In fact his advantage was flowing in an

  entirely different direction now. At one time there had been, for

  him, available sex with an attractive younger woman, someone to

  cook his meals and look after his home (not that she was particu-

  larly good at either), and the potential material benefits of a high earner in the household. But when they had opened the joint building society account he had not reckoned on her being so gobby and

  strident. He had put up with the sound of her voice with infinite

  patience.

  Well, not for much longer. Now it was all about the process of

  extricating himself to his best advantage.

  It was work, when it came. They were sitting in the lounge after

  their evening meal, the sound of the television turned up loud to

  drown the noise of the young couple in the neighbouring flat, with

  their Stones or Bowie or whatever it was. Roy suspected they must

  be junkies, they looked so gaunt and white, with straggling identi-

  cal hair, pale smiles and eye sockets darkened to blue- black with the fatigue of listening to rock music at all hours of the night.

  The building in which they lived had been hastily partitioned in

  the 1960s. With its peeling, faded woodwork, its botched pointing

  and the vandalism of its improvised division into flats, it was now barely recognizable as a once comfortable merchant’s house of the

  nineteenth century.

  They occupied one third of the ground floor. Below them, in the

  highly undesirable basement flat, with its dark and dank corners,

  lived the quiet, pious West Indian immigrant couple who, he sup-

  posed, kept themselves neat enough, he with his job on the buses

  and she the school cleaner. Across the hallway lived the little junkies, touchingly naive and young, destined for their early graves,

  while above them was the rake- thin embittered old man, with his

  flat cap and collarless shirt and a visage where the razor each day missed a large swathe of its duty, reportedly a widower, who

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  glowered whenever they met in the communal areas. Roy had no

  idea who, if anyone, occupied the remaining two flats. It was noisy and cold in this place, it was dismal and hopeless. He knew there

  was a better life to be had.

  She walked to the television and switched it off. The thumping

  beat and the tuneless shrieking could be heard through the wall.

  ‘You don’t really care about anything, do you?’ she said. Her voice when she hectored him took on a shrill harshness that crashed

  around his ears. ‘Least of all your career.’

  ‘Depends what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I do my job.’

  ‘That’s all it is, though, isn’t it? A job.’

  ‘That’s all any job is. A job. You do your work and they give you

  your money. End of story.’

  ‘Don’t you ever think we’re doing something more important

  than that?’

  He shrugged before saying with deliberation, ‘It’s important for

  me. It pays our bloody bills. Keeps the wolf from the door.’

  ‘Do you ever commit to anything?’

  ‘Commit? What exactly does that mean? And anyway, why should

  I? Beyond an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work?’

  ‘Because we can change the world, if we want.’

  He looked at her with an expression of astonishment.

  ‘Change things? And why would I want to do that? Assuming, for

  the moment, that such a stupid idea held any water. The world is

  what the world is. We just get on with it, getting whatever we can

  from it.’

  ‘You don’t care about anything, do you?’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s for others. I get my orders and carry them out. I get paid.

  Or if I don’t do what I’m told I get fired. Simple as that.’

  There was a loud thud from the flat above. Possibly a suitcase had

  been dropped, or a body had hit the floor.

  ‘I’m just interested in getting on with things. Not theorizing. Not changing the world.’ He hurled this last out with a bitter, thin line of spittle that hung like gossamer on his chin. He wiped it off with his sleeve.

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  She was silent, at a loss. It was as if she suddenly lacked the power, or the will, to contend with this.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Well, don’t say anything, then,’ he riposted immediately but

  with intent.

  ‘Shall we just stop this conversation now?’ she said.

  Despite its sharpness, he knew that for her this amounted to a

  proposal for a truce, however uneasy. Early, he thought: normally

  they arrived here much later, exhausted and impotently frustrated

  each with the other. Perhaps the edge to his voice had alerted some subliminal instinct in her. But he was not about to let go. Oh no.

  ‘I’ve had about enough of this bleeding- heart nonsense,’ he said.

  ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing. In perfect harmony. Well, buy a bloody Coke, then, and shut your trap.’

  She was visibly alarmed. This was not how the game was played.

  These were not the rules.

  ‘Well, you know what you can do, then,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said decisively.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly and he was certain he could sense her

  flinch.

  He was not proud of it. It had happened when he was at a vulner-

  able point, when he had returned from the pub on a particularly

  dark and windy night. She had gone on and on, about something he

  could not now recall. So he had belted he
r, quick and hard, about

  the temple. A short, sharp shock. It had not been sufficient to knock her from her feet or inflict greater damage, but no doubt she was

  dazed. Her head had lolled elastically on her neck for a moment. It had had the desired effect: the momentary look of animus had

  turned to fear and then, gratifyingly, to compliance. It had been

  spontaneous and unplanned, but he had learned from its efficacy.

  He had felt no shame. In the circumstances the act, while not pre-

  cisely desirable or elegant, had been defensible; even necessary, he now thought. He looked at her and saw that glint again in her eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you go and spend a few days with your mum?’ he

  said, and it was less a placatory question than a quiet command.

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  As she looked at him her resentful fear melted into resignation.

  ‘Yes, I might,’ she said, and he continued to look at her steadily.

  6

  Busy busy busy. Time to get weaving. Taking his belongings and

  removing all trace of himself, he had moved swiftly out of the flat, having learned enough to last a lifetime about playing house. He

  cleared the building society account, placing some of the money

  into his own account but retaining most as ready cash. They had

  opened that account together, at Maureen’s insistence, to save for a mortgage. So much for her being unconventional and against the

  system. So much, now, for happy families. He had enjoyed ripping

  up the passbook.

  He resigned from the Ministry by means of a curt letter painfully

  scratched out with blotchy biro on grubby Basildon Bond. To hell

  with the notice period, he had thought; to hell with the final month’s salary. Let them find me, let them sue.

  The shop was now his home. It was squalid but liveable: there

  was neither hot water nor heating and he had to sleep in the tiny

  windowless back room on a threadbare old couch that bore grisly

  stains and exuded an unpleasant aroma. But he had known much,

  much worse in his lifetime. The bank loan had been declined, so

  there was a potential cash flow crisis. But for the moment he could juggle, using the money from the building society account and citing the bank’s ineptitude to the landlords. The sale of the first

  consignments would see them right. The important thing was that