Streaking For Mother

By Mark Shearman

How far would you go to help the people you love?

A cynical, famous underwear model, and infamous international Rugby player, despondent and guilt ridden because of a terrible mistake, finds redemption from helping the Streakers who ruined his chances of a world record.

After moving in with this bunch of dysfunctional guerrilla marketeers he discovers all isn't what it seemed and finds out his life is being controlled by his estranged mother from beyond the grave.
His mother is also the patron of a large pawn brokers and the Streakers Matriarch who believe her absence is temporary. It soon becomes apparent to Ashley she has left him with no choice but to help them move on with their lives and come to terms with her untimely death.

Ashley has made enemies too. He is viciously attacked, sent a threatening message, and attempts are made to destroy him in the media - both professionally and personally. With his new house mates by his side, they must discover and deal with his pursuer Streaker style.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Shearman
• Release date: Mar 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310784477

Mark Shearman

Artist, writer, Book Cover Designer. Voracious reader, Blogger. Tea drinker, dog owner. Chief-cook and dish washer loader. Jocose, English Ex-pat in Spain. Beach freak. Science fiction fan. Habitual doubler of entendres. Novelist. Caricature and Cartoonist junkie. Part-time philanthropist. Music nut. Movie addict. Occasional faux finisher. Renaissance man. Opinionated. Wordy. Modest.

Book preview

Prologue

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, London, morphed from its steady stream of organised chaos to an explosion of manic mayhem. The emergency waiting room spilled over with raging drunks, slurring urban expletives, each new arrival through the automatic doors exasperated the situation.

Standing room only, as closing time violence bled out from every facial orifice. Stab wounds and glass cuts, head-butts, and blood-matted hair. The bulk of the casualties, scarcely clad, binge drunken, teen girls, barely off the playground. Variations of never again, spluttered between multi-coloured sick splashes.

Blusterous turmoil, reminiscent of the aftermath of some major disaster, but in the eyes of those who worked there, on a Saturday this was business as usual.

So at that time of night, it was easy for him to freely skulk along the cluttered and disinfected hospital corridors and passed the half-comatose hospital staff at the end of a double shift.

In fact, nobody noticed him shuffle and sway into a brightly-lit, private room on the second floor. His face was hidden under a mass of wild black hair the odd wisp of grey streaking through. If anyone did take the time to look up from their own troubles, they would have clocked him as a homeless guy. A convenient predicament, as all week every media device displayed his face in the UK and on major TV channels around the world. The question now on everyone's lips. Where was he hiding?

He slowed to a shuffle as he reached his destination and paused for a moment. The smell of stale vomit and urine had killed his ten-pound-a-splash aftershave. His blood-grazed hand trembled with impassioned violence, clasping a silenced handgun as he pointed it at the bed-ridden man's bandaged head.

Shaun, featherweight lean, was propped up by several fluffed white pillows helpless and incapacitated, his attention now focused.

Some of the gunman's transient-esque, snarled hair, was detached from his scalp and welded by dry blood to his dishevelled, gutter-stained overcoat. He wiped snot from his ruddy nose, lifting his arm to reveal his slate-coloured coat was cloaking a designer suit from Savile Row tailors. A red rose emblem on his chest pocket was tatted and torn as if someone had mauled it.

Glazed blue eyes twitched with irritation as he dropped two black bin bags onto the floor. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a half bottle of tequila, spat off the top and sucked. Liquid seeped down his solid, stubbly chin.

The business arm, the one holding the gun, lowered. His eyes rolled, weighty lids, ecstasy from each glug. Shaun broke his watery stare and lifted his hand up from the newspaper-covered bed.

If you’re not...you know, give us a tug on that, said Shaun, a little insouciant.

This pulled him back, startled and confused at his dialogue out of context. He tensed the Glock to a raised position again and wiped his florid nose with a handkerchief. An embroidered coat of arms was still visible through the blood stains; his dehydrated lips trembled to speak -- too late. Tears beat the words, betraying his cold 'I’m-hear-to-kill-you' posture.

The gunman craned his neck and drowsily scanned the private room. It was decorated with well-wisher cards. A humorous soft toy penis hid amongst sunflowers and lilies. A black-framed photograph showed a group of smiley people. The whole clinical-smelling place was drenched in affection.

Shaun held up the Sun newspaper.

We made the third page again, still, not bad. It's been a week... What kept you? Where have you been?

Shaun's small talk failed to dissuade the intruder.

He let go of the bottle causing it to explode in a mass of shards and jagged slithers on the shiny, pristine floor. Shaun flinched at the noise. This was it. He shuffled his powerful frame forward as if in pain, trying to be as menacing as possible, gritting his teeth. His hand curled up in a contorted angst claw, depicting his anger. He barely moved his cracked, blood-weeping lips.

I've been laughing all week, said the gunman, sarcastically. Can you possibly perceive-? Why... why did you zero me out? Why me? You've ruined my life!

The broken man’s ice-blue stare shifted from Shaun and homed in on his arm as it stiffened up, cranking back the hammer on the Glock 17.

Chapter One

For Shaun, it all started on a bright, Saturday morning. He sat at a stainless steel table, foot tapping al fresco in front of Joe’s café, Greenwich high road. A big issue newspaper rolled up in one hand, and a frothy latte held firmly in the other. Shaun carried the guilty expression of a slouching dog, deep in thought about his precarious situation.

Saturday retail workers filled the pavements, striding towards the station at the end of the road. This was meant to be the start of the return journey up north. His failed attempt at a new life in London had beat him down to just the clothes on his back.

His only possession of value left was his grandfather’s Timex, the one thing that so far, hadn't let him down and that's including him. But Shaun was an optimist, and some would say, a Polly-Anna optimist, often biting off more than he could chew.

He didn't blame anyone else for his predicament and viewed his defeat as a retreat to fight another day. Still, for every adversity, there's a greater or equal opportunity and unbeknown to Shaun, he was staring at his from across the road.

This particular edifice, like so many in Greenwich, had been changed, reformed, and reinvented. The building was colossal with thirty-five rooms on four floors built around the 1830’s. Most of its time spent as a hotel and corner pub featuring, externally, red brick string-courses above panels of ceramic faced bricks. The windows spanned with arched tops, cast with painted stucco.

A sign loomed over the three brass balls of the Pawnbroker. Traditionally written with a dark green background and gold lettering it read: KLEPTOMANIACS.

That morning had a delicious chill as Shaun cupped his hands around the coffee mug. He was fascinated by a woman cleaning the windows from within the building. The next day after the royal wedding, sales for self-tanning products sky-rocketed, a reaction to seeing the English socialite, Pippa Middleton.

But not this woman. Even if she had seen the event, she would staunchly prefer to remain a typical English beauty with a milk and rose complexion, big pansy brown eyes, which had experienced well over fifty years of life, and an extremely interesting one. She was immodestly dressed in a red chequered dressing gown wrapped with a yellow scarf as she continued to clean the shop windows.

The lady clutched her gown together in the middle, stopping her breasts from spilling out. She had piled her long strawberry blond hair atop her head, held in place with another yellow scarf, tastefully matching the one around her waist.

She seemed to beckon him in-between window smears. He raised his eyebrows, compelled to find out what she wanted and how this intriguing person knew he was waiting for the shop to open.

Shaun hated not being able to afford to leave a tip for the waiter. Don’t look back, he thought as he scuttled across the road, darting in-between the traffic gaps. He slowly pushed the door open, as if not wanting to draw attention to himself, but it jarred from the swollen, damp timber.

He half cringed awkward and embarrassed to be in the shop, skint, as the ringing bell jingled, reminiscent of a corner sweet shop from the seventies he had seen on the TV. In fact, he instantly felt like he'd walked through a portal in time, the smell of the place was comforting and nostalgic.

A sweet sounding voice came from the belly of the shop, I'll be with you in a mo' love.

At that moment, at that failed pathetic point in his life, a warm safe mum-like person was there to welcome, save, tell him well done or that everything was okay.

To the right of the door, a mural dominated the wall where a masked Scaramouche, from the 1952 film, swung on a tassel rope from a Parisian theatre balcony, steel rapier in one hand. At the side of this massive wall painting, Ivy trees climbed up and along the plaster moulding.

Dominating the centre of this large room was a rotund bar from its public house days.

Starting on the left and curving around to the right, once timber varnished, now painted a silvery grey. The small kitchen in the back led out into a yard. A skinny black man wearing a dusty red tracksuit and Martindale dust mask, rubbed down a sparkly fab 50s fandango cocktail bar with sand paper.

On the other side of the room, the once public toilets had been demolished, adding more room for shelving and a display area. Where the access to the public bar used to be was now a wrought iron security gate.

On top of the bar, more iron-art scroll-work spanned the full length, painted black, and doubling up as a security grill. In the middle, a section was left clear for handing over small goods. Across most of the wall space, hung bespoke wooden display shelves with items for sale in no particular order: a violin next to a Basil Brush puppet and a copy of Jas de Bouffant by Paul Cézanne.

Half a 1970's red VW beetle jutted out the wall with seating in the front boot - target audience, forty-year-old men with caves.

Behind the bar were shelves of laptop computers, various electrical items, gold and silver jewellery, saxophones, and electric guitars. Most things were waiting for their owners to return, and on occasion, they did.

Shaun ran his fingers over a rack of Lady Killer TCB, Elvis sunglasses, and an ornament, which caught his interest. He pocketed it with the compunction and speed of a monkey from Assam, India, and moved around to another stand. Almost without thinking, he lifted a crisp packet, pulled opened, and crammed a bunch in his mouth. He spied with delight an item and slipped it deftly into his denim jacket pocket.

A sound behind him of steel scraping against rock stopped him, a flash in front of his face and a sharp pain in his neck. The quickness of her hand deceived his eye. He stood frozen. Was this his Coup de grâce putting him out of his misery, he thought and stiffened even more, not daring to move he raised his hands in supplication and lowered his head. His eyes slowly slued around following the shiny steel blade. Suddenly, she pulled the sword from his throat, spun full circle like a gladiator, and stopped at his protruding Adam's apple, scathing skin.

You took four things. Tell me what the items were, the cost, and whatever it is you're eating?

Hesitating in wide-eyed shock, he pushed out the half macerated stolen crisps with his tongue onto his chin. Glad he had just used the toilet or his already stained underpants would have a fresh load.

What and why? she repeated, more tempered.

I hadn’t eaten for days. He emptied the residue off his chin into one of the packets. Crisps. Cheese and onion, I think, I picked the ones out of date because I thought they were heading for the bin. I stole these for my grandmother, a gift.

He held up a chain of rosary beads and a Madonna. She lowered the sword and screwed her freckled nose in disbelief.

What?

My grandmother, he repeated.

"Why?’

She raised me. I call her mum, figured it'll be nice when I hit home.

She leaned on the sword drumming her fingers on her chin and looked him up and down. From her body language, he could tell she believed him.

I’m sorry, I…

She interrupted, I know this doesn’t seem real to some people, like a toy shop. The sign has a subliminal effect.

The lady seemed to take the blame for his felonious behaviour. She turned her back.

Anything else?

He shook his head in consternation and quickly pulled out a home pride figure and placed it back on the shelf, more nostalgia. She eyed him in the reflection of a 1970's Coca Cola mirror and smiled.

He asked her what her name was and she glanced up at an old sign that used to be part of the pub, read: The Rose. She held her hand out after drying them on her dressing gown. Her eyes widened at the sight of bandages on his wrist.

Rosie, as we will refer to her at the moment, was born in Blackheath, south-east London, in the 50’s to a home-maker and architect. In her rebellious days, she had been arrested twice for public nuisance before finishing Bedingbridge School for young ladies. She met Earl St John at university. They married and had only one child, some say was conceived well before wedlock and enjoyed fifteen years of marriage from his father’s estate in Chislehurst.

When disaster struck, her marriage ended in a savagely expensive divorce. Her son was sent away and it was the last she would see of him. Rosie lifted Shaun’s arm, so gently, and eyed his wristwatch.

I can't afford it. Worth too much.

What, he thought, worth nothing. She answered after reading his reaction.

Worth more than money. When was the last time you ate – a proper meal? Shaun looked down at the floor, still embarrassed, and changed the subject.

How did you know I was waiting to come in here?

You've been spinning that watch around your finger and staring over at the shop for an hour, and a few other things: that accent, the fact you're wearing three jumpers and two pairs of trousers. The only thing missing is a scruffy dog and a cardboard sign.

Shaun cringed, ashamed at his predicament again.

You leaving London? she asked. Sit down.

He pondered two chairs, one comfortable, the other a stool. He chose the wooden stool.

Yeah, I'm trying to get the bus fare together.

Why did you choose the stool?

Shaun couldn't keep up with her questions.

Although the chair's a Portobello Ercol and worth a lot of dough, the stool, which is Queen Ann, still has a label tied to its leg with 'for repair' in red ink.

What about that piece over in the corner, the table? asked Rosie, intrigued.

Shaun studied for a moment. Ebony Victorian renaissance revival centre table and four side chairs.

She lifted up a guilt-framed painting and passed it to him. He mooched over the canvas like he was an expert. Shaun had no clue about paintings; he only knew furniture types because he used to help his granddad clear out houses on the weekends before he passed away two years ago.

Oil on canvas. The colours are… it’s a fake, they have tried to add age, to achieve Craquelure by applying varnish at unequal drying times called crazing.

She took back the painting, knowing full well he was blagging - she liked his effort.

Come on, sell me. What are your super powers and how would they benefit this business?

This place or have you other things in mind?

Good question, she thought. Shaun noticed her gown had come open, revealing her tight stomach and cleavage spilling out over a blue lacy bra; he whipped his eyes away, too late, captured.

She pulled her dressing gown closed, smiled, and said, Only flesh darling. You'll have to get used to it in this house.

Shaun smirked, his face red from embarrassment.

There’s a room upstairs with your name attached, but you have to bring more than the rent to the table. We work together here. Obviously you're not prepared to do anything illegal above petty theft or you wouldn’t be running back up north. We believe in keeping things legal and ethical, however. Are you willing to bend the rules, just a little? She made a pincer gesture with her finger and thumb.

I can learn and listen.

Good, because that’s rule number one: don’t question, do. Pull your weight and try hard to impress, right.

She tapped him on the leg for him to stand.

See the handsome fella in the back? Ask him what needs to be done. Breakfast is at 9:30am. The rest of them will be here by then. I’m Lady G, or simply G. You’ll know when you can start calling me Rosie.

Shaun reprieved and lucky. Had he by chance found opportunity knocking, he wondered, or the beginning of some twisted indentured servitude? Who cares, for now it’s the best offer he had had since he hit the big smoke.

Lady G never asked for anything from one individual, it would always be as a group or she'd give a suggestion motivating one of them to volunteer. She declined until the one she thought should volunteer came forward. So years later, one day, when she pulled Shaun to one side and asked if he would help her with her son as she was going away for some time, it was a double shock.

First, that she had a son, a well known, and unfortunately some times, an infamous son, and second, he was living in the same municipality. Also, she gave Shaun the honour of knowing her plan for her son first, but that was how she was, asking you specifically to make her a cup of tea, felt special.

Shaun didn’t know at the time she had asked everyone in the house the same request. Adding, all of them will find themselves if they achieved this one task. Unbeknown to them, that was the last thing she would ever ask of them. So they braced for their biggest challenge yet.

Chapter Two

Marriott hotel, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is a luxurious 4-star accommodation offering one hundred and fifty six fully equipped bedrooms and easy access to Twickenham Stadium.

Shaun pressed his shoulder up against Nadine as they staggered with a modicum of dignity, holding in their laughter. They canoodled down a long, plush, carpeted corridor, stopped to swipe a chrome security lock, and paused to spy on a muscular, heavy man, Ashley. His smile framed athletic handsome with faint traces of a pugilist. He bent down and slipped a piece of folded white paper under a door.

Shaun and Nadine regarded him with intrigue and then faced each other, sharing twisted smiles, connivance. Both were dressed in evening-wear and could be mistaken for models, although Shaun was starting to lose his edge.

Another woman, Yanna, a year older than Nadine at twenty-five, dragged a silk shawl lagging behind her. A thinly strapped white dress clung to her slim, but in front-of-the-queue in all the desirable places, body. Her blue eyes sparkled from too much champagne, using one hand to push herself off the wall, trying to maintain equilibrium, still preserving the posture of a tall, blond, model cat-walking down a Milan runway.

She spotted Ashley and perked into a stride passing him. He barely acknowledged her, for that to be, with this stunning beauty, he must have more than an overcast, shadowy soul.

Shaun and Nadine fell into their room, followed by Yanna. Ashley's concentration focused, continued his paper posting at various doors from a list. He stopped at one door and paused, twitching his nostrils at the smell of perfume and pushed it open.

Light flickered from within as a 42" flat screen TV fixed to the wall, pumped out hip-hop from a music channel. Ashley squinted at several small pieces of paper that cluttered the floor - obviously delivered in the same way as he had been doing.

He scooped them up. A black leather suitcase was open on a chair. Two empty red bull cans squeezed flat, next to a large dumbbell on the timber effect laminated dresser. Ashley lifted the 50kg weight and pumped his guns in-between pulling off his suit jacket. He threw his black trousers onto the edge of a king-size bed, kicked off his underpants, and dived amongst charcoal coloured silk sheets. Hunched up the pillows for support and arranged the square papers, matching them as if playing patience.

He pointed a remote control and clicked off the noisy plasma TV and ass bounced off the mattress, sifting through the notes with an air of tension. He sprung up off the bed, still reading, and paced up and down on a plush oriental style rug, seriously considering the information, stopped, and focused on one.

The note read, 'This should be candid, so I’ll get to the point. Your best work is when you calm down. As a team, it’s to our advantage to have you on the pitch, being sent off is no good....' He screwed it up, and read another.

'While this is anonymous, I thought I’d take this opportunity. What’s your fucking problem? Tighten up! This is supposed to be a tight unit. I know you have personal troubles, but sort yourself out. Good luck with the record tomorrow.'

He tossed the note on the floor next to a waste-paper bin, festooned with paper balls. Squatted on the bed, rubbed his hair, stood, pulled off his T-shirt, collected the papers, and straightened them out for another read. A breeze swirled in from an open window, a plastic cover fluttered, revealing a pressed suit hanging on a hanger from the bathroom door, pocket emblazoned with a red rose.

Ashley stood at the window naked and surveyed Twickenham Stadium below. This was the home of England rugby with seating for an impressive 82,000 spectators, and the largest dedicated rugby union venue in the world. All of a sudden, it occurred to Ashley he was visible to the outside. Instinctively, he covered his genitals and recoiled back into the room.

The next day, the same red rose on Ashley's jacket was on the pumped chests of a line of blood, sweat, and muddied white England shirts. As they spiralled the ball to each other moving forward.

In pursuit, the recognizable shirts of the New Zealand all blacks. Snarling and snorting through a sprint, Ashley leapt and crashed down across the touchline. The crowd's anxiety released with a roar. The scoreboard showed a tie, the last minutes remaining of the match.

Bodies piled on top of him. He flexed up, mauled, and pummelled. He stretched his neck to glimpse through the mass of muscular thighs to where the goal posts were and smiled at his placement centre left. A burly hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him from the suction of the mud. He spun around and feigned a head-butt at a steaming, sweaty mass of Maori muscle, but the potential tussle was quelled. Conservative pats on his back by his team-mates as he was led away, phlegmatic.

From a press box, high up on the third tier, east side, a wiry grey-haired commentator, pinched faced and hunched, spoke through his microphone in a hushed and nasally tone, adding effect for his listeners.

One kick away from victory here at Twickenham and for this player, one kick away from a world conversion record, possibly the most important moment of his entire Rugby career. We are talking about the difference between disaster and complete triumph. The crowd are so quiet you can hear a pin drop as most people cringe and cover their eyes, in fact, I don’t think I can watch and I’m getting paid to do so.

Ashley placed the ball on his sand tee, stretched his powerful, Herculean leg on his back foot, and lined up for a conversion. He placed his hand over his heart, almost as a salute, and hesitated. The clock ticked, a pin clanged on