21 Red: A Novel

By Dean Paul Warner

Joe's life consists of monotony, of lost opportunities, lost bets and lost love, that is, until he decides to flee his obligations for the perfect life in the paradaisical lands of Southeast Asia where the sun shines and where beautiful women, good times and cheap alcohol come in abundance.

When Joe invests his 'borrowed' funds in a beachfront bar, he finds that paradise comes at a high price, and that murder, kidnapping and hard drugs aren't just the stuff of action movies. They're what Joe must adapt to if he wants to stay alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481784047

Dean Paul Warner

Dean Paul Warner grew up on a farm just outside Reading, England, and from there went on to live and work in many of the world’s exotic locations, providing inspiration for much of his writing. Dean has now returned to his hometown, where he lives with his wife, Summer, and son, Rainn.

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© 2013 by Dean Paul Warner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/11/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-8401-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-8404-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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For Mum. For Dad.

When writing fiction, one is advised to ply what one knows, as opposed to what one dreams. On writing Twenty-one Red, the author has tried tactfully to interwreathe the two, and while names have been altered to protect the affected, the afflicted, the dilapidated, the debauched, the inebriated, the majority of those who knowingly or unknowingly took part—the bricks in this wall of literary absurdity—are, or were, real people.

1

W hat are the odds?

What could be the odds of Dave Slaughter turning up here? Him, on my turf. Joe’s turf. I don’t get it, particularly since gambling is a complexity far beyond the acumen of his sort, way too cerebral for the inhabitants of his planet, the poor bastards. See, Dave can barely read, let alone play the percentages. What’s it all about, I wonder?

Cockily, he ambles through the entrance straightening his ill-fitting silvery suit-jacket tight over the lager-forged protrusions. And here’s me, me at the rearmost end of the gaming floor amidst the usual medley of fair-weather gamblers, elbows propped up on the roulette baize, shielding my face, eyeing his movements through a V in my fingers while chewing holes into my bottom lip.

Dave hasn’t spotted me. I’m sure of that, because if he did, things just might have kicked off. Dave isn’t afraid of making a scene, I can tell you. See, he’s one of the screamers, one of the shouters, one of the undignified. Don’t let the suit fool you. And no, I confirm, he’s not here to wager. Instead he turns his hulking frame to the left and shuffles toward the casino bar. I might have guessed. But seriously, what are the odds of this—him, here? There must be a couple of hundred other booze parlours in the city of Reading to choose from and show his ugly face in. So why my patch?

Forget the odds. What about that selective door policy they got all shirty about when I turned up two weeks ago in moccasins that looked like gym shoes, but actually cost me half a week’s pay? The rule should also apply to renowned dark-alley debt-collectors with undersized charity-shop clothing. I mean, Christ, isn’t that what I pay my membership for? It’s just not on. But, you know what? Sod him. Sod his suit. I’m going to block him out of my mind and go about my own business. So:

‘More chips, Felix,’ I tell the croupier passing over a fold of my hard-earned. ‘Fifty quid’ll do it.’

Chin up and chest out, I’m using my most self-assured and confident of voices, the point of which, I want the other lot to hear the way I come across at the roulette wheel. They need to understand that I mean business with my pressed suit, my gelled hair and my clean-cut mug, that I’m here to win; that I have a tenure at the table that allows me to address the croupier by not only his name but his first name, and that I’ve long since dropped the please when I want something around here, that etiquette is a redundant formality. It is important they know this. Sometimes, they need to be reminded. I want to convince myself that I’m not at all ruffled by the presence of Dave Slaughter—there’s that too.

Felix refrains from making eye contact because although he knows me, in a croupier-to-gambler sort of way, it’s Felix’s professional obligation to preserve formality and act like the machine that he’s required to be. And with the speed and accuracy of some elite factory robot, Felix entrusts me fifty pounds worth of blue counters, stacked in five neat towers of even height. Felix is young. He’s annoyingly young, way too young to have all that cash passing through those slender fresh-out-of-school hands, yet he’s cool. Cool as a cat. And he doesn’t sweat. He never sweats. I’m convinced: no amount of pressure on Earth could make Felix sweat. Something they teach at croupier school, I reckon. And is he trying to intimidate me with that typically suave sort of croupier aura that buzzes around him? The little weasel should know not to pull that house-always-wins attitude with old hands like me. Catch me on a good night, boy, and I’ll show you how to be fluent at something, because this game isn’t just about luck. It’s about sizing-up the probability, assessing the likelihood. It’s about gauging the next move, and I’m good. Get me in the zone and I’m unstoppable. Kid—I’ll have you believing in magic before the night is out, that is, if I can find the zone with this headache, these ticker-flutters, these shaky hands. I’ll use the intrusion of Dave Slaughter as an excuse if I can’t.

The other distraction is this God-awful heat. The air-conditioner is on the blink again, and this particular Friday night is a sultry October one marking what they’re calling an Indian Summer—any weather slightly out of the ordinary and the tabloids have a name for it—so my collar is loose and the usual black tie stays balled up in the glove box of my 1973 Ford Capri. Felix, though, remains unfazed by all this.

Suzie, the little Korean waitress comes around once more and asks me what I want to drink, and she holds out the tray like it’s an obligation to do so. I drink, and I gamble, but I never drink and gamble. ‘Come on, Suzie; how many times do I have to tell you?’ I huff, and wave her on with a backhand.

Suzie pokes out her cat-like tongue at me and wrinkles her flat nose. ‘Arsehole,’ she mouths and moves hastily on to the next punter.

No-drinking and gambling is dangerous. I’ll drink and drive—fine. The law harps on about it like it’s a big deal. I’ve done it a thousand times, shit-faced, and never spilt a drop. I’ll outdrive anyone, blathered or not, but I need all my brain cells active when I’m playing the roulette. Fact is, though, I need to can the drinking, can it altogether, full stop. It plays havoc on the old ticker, you know; dodgy rhythms, palpitations and the like. And other things have started to go too; the memory, the hairline, the balance, and my pee, these days, looks like undiluted orange squash. One of these days, I will. I’ll can it.

‘No more bets,’ announces Felix. As he sets the wheel in motion with a routine swipe, I peer cautiously over his shoulder towards the bar. Nursing his pint twenty-five yards down the carpet, Dave Slaughter leans against the counter, eyes glued to whatever’s on the roof-mounted flat-screen, his only movement the act of raising the glass to his big round head. No worries; he’s just here for the booze as I thought. Let’s now focus on what I came to do.

Tonight, I use the same technique as I normally do: I stand back for ten minutes to see where she’s landing, get the feel for things, and then I dive in. Some will say that this game is completely random, but I’ve read all the books and watched all the DVDs, and you know what; there is a knack. Several chips dotted here and there, on splits and squares is the way I begin. Those are contingency bets. The big money’s stacked five-high on seven, and five-high on thirty. Why? Because they neighbour each other on the wheel. See! It’s a good bet. What—do you think I just throw my money around the table like those Chinese housewives that come in here all dolled-up, all cocksure, all gung-ho? Come on; who do you think you’re dealing with?

Deliberating, the ball eventually comes to rest. ‘Thirty-three, red,’ says Felix.

Okay, fine. This is normal. This is like a pre-game warm-up.

I like the odds of the same number twice in succession. It happens, you know, and it’s the last thing that rookie gamblers expect. I repeat the bet and sit an extra five chips on thirty-three, and clench. Here we go.

‘No more bets.’

Four, black. And six times more, I repeat this process of betting and losing. Felix sweeps away the unlucky chips and allows the players to place the next round of bets, not a hint of pity or compassion to be seen. Why should there be? This is his job. He earns his money by taking mine. And he throws me a glance which I’m sure has the hint of haven’t you had enough yet? And a second glance when I shun the first: don’t blame me if you go home skint again.

I won’t—go home skint, that is. Not again.

I sweep a tower of blue chips over to number five, red. I watch Dave Slaughter suck the dregs from his pint glass. He checks the inside of his jacket, one side, then the other, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, tens, not twenties. Then he fishes around some more, and pulls a lighter from his trouser pocket. He says something to the barman, the barman acknowledging with a nod, and waddles his way through the exit, my eyes following him every step of the way, past the slots, then the ATM, up the stubby flight of flight of steps, and through the double doors. A quick beer; a change of scenery. That’s all it was. No need to panic.

My relief is noticeable; all four other players move their heads when I let out an almighty sigh. And as I return my gaze to the table, there’s this blonde, this blonde pulling up a stool right across from me. She swiftly addresses her dainty black handbag and exchanges a respectably thick wad of cash for some of those posh chips; high-denominated nickel-centres edged with a burgundy red that happens to match the shade of her designer evening dress. Can’t say I’ve seen this one in here before. I’d know if I did—this one’s a proper looker. Her shoulders have this olive tinge of southern Europe, but her face the sharps of an easterner. A goddess in any realm, with those slender arms and those voluptuous…

Forget it, Joe. Play the game.

I try my best to keep my eyes on the table, I really do, but we cross glances and she dips her brow as if looking for the answer to why I’m daft enough to lay so much on a single number. I return a nonchalant half smile, my glance spontaneously flicking down at her hands to check for a wedding ring. Nothing there. So what? What’s it to me? A bad habit is all it is.

I check her eyes, those eyes big and blue, to see if she’s cottoned on to the cleavage-analysis (an eight out of ten, by the way), but she’s still fraught with confusion over my strategy and offers a questioning, curious smile.

See, I’ve a strong feeling about number three, red, and if it comes up, she’ll be looking at me in a different way altogether. But that’s women for you—the ones that I’ve known anyway. They don’t give two shits until you’ve bagged a few quid. And once it’s spent, they’re history. I’ve often considered that it’s just me. Maybe I look like an easy target, a sucker, a stooge. But, hey, don’t get me started on that. This is a casino; no place for that.

The wheel comes to a halt, the ivory ball finding its home once more. Eighteen, black. Felix sweeps away the losing chips and stamps the glass finial on the winning square. I suppose I won’t be buying her a drink tonight. But don’t feel sorry for me. It’s all part of the game. Just not my night. Too many distractions.

The cordial croupier glances at me again asking the same silent set of questions while I finger through the insignificant fivers and crinkled tenners left loitering in my wallet. The hot blonde has the same look about her, although somewhat more sympathetic. She can tell. I can tell she can tell my woes, just by her expression, just by my expression. Boy do I need a drink.

‘Keep it warm for me, Felix,’ I say standing, sighing, and brushing off the imaginary dust of failure. Pathetically, I nod to the blonde. ‘Excuse me.’

No—I have no intention of coming back.

Felix raises a cheeky eyebrow as if to say ‘you’re excused!’ and carries on about his dealing and spinning and sweeping.

I pass the ATM on the way to the bar and the draw-some-more-cash-because-I-know-I-can-win-it-back feeling kicks in (you know the feeling if you’re a gambler like me), but the need to douse the fire of ill-fortune with alcohol outweighs my desire to gamble any further, and so I settle into the same old faithful cushioned stool that often calls my name at about this sort of time, and order a brandy with cola and ice. The result of the mixture is a bit fizz-heavy but I’m not good at drinking spirits straight. They burn my throat and go straight to my head inducing a tingle in the vomit gland, and I can’t justify spending that amount of money on one little mouthful. But then, who am I to try justifying expenditure? Financially speaking, I’m a fool, a muttonhead. If I were my own accountant, I’d sack me without a second thought.

So here I sit and sip the drink and twirl the ice around in the thick crystal glass. I love the musical clink that somehow complements the slow bass-heavy jazz piece that flows satirically from the roof speakers—a sax instrumental of My Funny Valentine, I think. No, I’m sure. Well, whatever it is, its jazziness gives me an easy and cosy feeling—the feeling of belonging. Belonging—a casino? ‘Come on, really?’ I laugh to myself and signal the bartender for another drink before the first one gets down past the ice. With a clenched fist, I iron out a ten-pound note on the bar top, yawn, run a hand through my thinning, sticky rug, and yawn again.

‘Had enough for one night, huh?’ comes a female voice.

Ah! It’s the blonde. Stealthily, she’s taken a seat a few down from mine. She places her bag on the counter and perches her red stilettos on the lower rim of the stool. My heart beats out of turn, and I blurt out this sloppy, camp sounding ‘hi!’

‘No luck?’ she keenly asks and cocks her head for the response.

‘S’pose not. But I just about managed to salvage enough left for this,’ I say holding up the first glass, ice clinking against the sides with the ding of a cowbell.

‘Sorry to hear it,’ she says and sounds genuinely sympathetic.

The cogs in my brain grind trying to churn out appropriate words, but the cogs need a little more oil to get going. See, when I’m pissed, chatting the birds up is child’s play. The words will flow like beer from the tap. In this condition, sober, I’m hopeless. Sobriety isn’t my deal. It hasn’t been for a long time.

‘My luck isn’t always this bad,’ I say, but I nearly said something really dumb like since you’re here, my luck has just turned right around! No, no, I’m cooler than that. Besides, the likelihood is that she’s only sitting here because she wants to order a drink (it’s a bar after all) and making conversation because she feels obliged to, because of that little bit of eye-contact a moment ago. She might even feel sorry for me. Imagine that!

‘You mean you come here a lot?’

‘Oh, no. What, here? I was talking about my luck in general; it’s not always this bad.’ My cool is slipping—I can feel it. I’m trying to find something to do with my hands, and before I know it, the second brandy is gone while the ice is still solid.

‘Oh,’ she says and starts fiddling with her handbag strap. Then it goes quiet.

I really am the worst at this lark. This girl could be trying to crack on to me, and here’s me, choked up, stuck for words. What a loser. What a waste of space I am if I can’t hold a conversation with a casino-going blonde.

So, I come out with this: ‘I’m Joe,’ and smile awkwardly.

‘Martine.’

I’m not sure if I should extend my hand, so I don’t.

‘Hi, Martine.’

‘Hi.’

Silence again.

‘Can I buy you another one of those?’ she asks, as if only to carry the conversation forward.

Okay, so now she wants to buy me a drink. Why would she… Oh, no. I’ve got it: she’s one of those—she’s a hooker. I wonder. Not necessarily, but then what beautiful woman would willingly want to buy me, Joe Fleck, a drink without rationale? In the space of several seconds, my mind makes a few probability calculations: what is the likelihood that she really does like me? I’m nobody special: six-one, average build (in today’s society) and features, receding above the temples slightly as most men do when they hit thirty, and bulging in the midsection when I forget to suck it in. What could she possibly see in me?

Hang about.

There’s a second calculation: what’s the going rate for a hooker in Reading as good-looking as this one? This friend of mine, a connoisseur of the subject, once told me that eighty notes will get you one twenty-minute go on a ropey Polish bird from down Oxford Road, who’ll spend those twenty minutes with anyone or anything to feed the five kids she has back in Krakow, which suggests that this one is worth more than double that. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not into hookers. No harm in being prepared for the unexpected, though. It was a friend that told me. Honest it was.

There’s a third calculation too: could I afford her if she did end up asking me for money? And one more: how can I be sure whether or not she’s a hooker before I leave with her? Presumption, in this situation, could be embarrassing. I snap out of it and say the coolest thing I could have: ‘Don’t be silly—I’ll get you one. What are you drinking there?’

The series of jazz renditions rolls into The look of love, and I feel alive in my own sad little way, tapping my pinkie-ring on the brass rail along to the down-tempo beat.

‘So kind of you,’ says Martine with this great, beaming smile flash across her face. ‘Vodka and orange. No ice.’

Olive skin and sharp features she may have, but her accent is as British as fish ‘n’ chips wrapped in old news. A bonny sort, mind you. One of those UV tanning birds, I reckon. Gym, pilates, sports car, the whole deal.

‘Proper ladies drink that is.’

‘Hmm.’

I pan around for the barman in this dimly lit recessed corner of the casino. He’s not there. Gone for a piss, I bet. A tad untimely. There’s a party of businessmen in the corner with a champagne bucket and finger-food, laughing with executive laughter, with money laughter, and one other fellow at the end of the bar with his face buried in his hands, and when I turn back around, my view of the hot blonde, of Martine, is obstructed by a boulder of a man who’s squeezed his big arse into the stool next to me.

‘Ello fella,’ says the fat bastard who has possibly just ruined my entire evening.

‘Oh, shit.’

It’s Dave Slaughter, or Dangerous Dave as he’s known in the underground, the overground and the outhouses of Reading by those who are unfortunate enough to.

‘What—not pleased to see me?’

He’s not really that dangerous unless you’re a large portion of chips or a pork pie, but he looks a bit dangerous if you don’t know him, and he happens to work for the shark from who I recently borrowed a few grand. And that’s what all the fuss is about, the ducking, the diving.

I went to school with Dave. Bit of an idiot, a dud, a G-grade bottom-of-the-classer, diseased with incurable stupidity, a pseudology scholar. A council estate kid. A single-parent family kid of seven or eight in total if I recall, all from different fathers. Never had a girlfriend, used to pinch stuff from shops and give it away at school because he thought it would earn him popularity, associated his self with the bad guys, drew vulgar pictures on toilet-cubicle walls with permanent markers—that sort of kid. We had a friendship once, Dave and I. A friendship of eventuality that fizzled out when I realised that his conversation would never evolve past juvenile crime and the porno magazines stashed beneath his stepdad’s bed. I found his efforts to be bad as amusingly dismal as they were dismally amusing. How you know somebody at school, I find, is rarely the same as how you know them when they’re grown up. Occasionally, the change doesn’t occur. Then some never grow up at all. That’s Dave.

‘Before you ask, Dave, I still don’t have it. Christ, it’s not even been a week.’

‘Can’t a man sit down for a drink with an old mate?’ Old mate being the correct term. I no longer wish to associate myself with this inbred unless I absolutely have to. In this case, it seems I have to.

‘Suppose so,’ I whisper, ‘but can’t you see I’m getting somewhere with Martine here.’

‘Martine, eh?’ he bellows turning to the blonde and saying ‘Don’t waste your time on this one, Love. His pockets are empty, just like his head,’ followed by a laugh that’s annoyingly loud and overdone. Martine coolly gathers her handbag and heads back to the gambling floor. It appears that, once again, I’ll be going home alone this evening.

‘Very funny, you fucker.’ I suddenly decide that I hate Dave more than I hated him before, and that he’s aged grossly more than I have during the last fourteen post-school years. He has barely any hair left on his rock of a head, and there is a pair of ugly saggy bags beneath his bloodshot eyes. I’d almost feel a sense of pity if I didn’t wish him dead.

‘Gotta laugh,’ he grunts.

‘I’m not laughing.’

‘I got you out of buying her a drink, didn’t I? You can’t afford her anyway.’

‘She isn’t a hooker,’ I say with false certainty.

‘Fink about it,’ he says with his fake cockney slur evolved from years in the sewers with the other rats. ‘Why else would a girl like that talk to you?’

Bastard. I hate him and I hate his humour. They can both sod off.

‘Hooker or not, I was in.’

‘Speakin of birds, how’s that bird of yours? Wossername? Kerry… Claire?’

‘Catherine.’

‘Yeah, er. Always wanted a go on er. Very tidy. Crackin pair on er. Never knew what she saw in you.’

‘She’s fine. Thanks for asking.’

‘I don’t fink she’d be appy with you, mate, down ere, chatting the dollies up. And I’m not sure that Barny would be appy with you gambling and spending his money on prostitutes, my old mate.’

Barny, or Big Barny (all these crooks have silly nicknames that have stemmed from local popularity) is Dave’s boss. I’ve never met Big Barny. I don’t want to. When I think of what he might be like, I can’t help but conjure up a big purple fluffy dinosaur who sings to happy American children with a really silly voice, but from what I hear, he’s a hard bastard known for a lot of really bad stuff.

‘If I borrow money, I’ll do what I want with it. That’s the point of borrowing money.’

‘Don’t get arsey, mate. Well, I hope tonight’s loss wasn’t too bad for you.’ The stench of cigarettes on his breath mixed with the funk of cheap aftershave makes me feel sick.

I don’t believe a word he says. I believe that he hopes I can’t pay back the money so he can get his mates to beat the shit out of me and then say it was just business. That’s the kind of arse that he’s become. He’ll shake your hand with his right and stab you with his left.

‘Not too bad,’ I say.

‘Then what are you drinking there, mate?’

‘Er… mine’s a double brandy, cola, ice.’ Now Dave Slaughter buying me a drink; there must be a catch.

‘By the way,’ he growls after necking his pint, ‘you-know-who’s asked me to give you another week to get the money back to him, alright?’

I knew there was a reason he’s here. He’s probably followed me here and waited until I finished losing what he knows is Barny’s money at the tables.

‘Mate, how am I supposed to do that? You said I would have until payday. That was the whole idea of the loan. And all I’ve had is you breathing down my neck ever since I borrowed it.’

‘Don’t shoot the messenger, fella. The man has changed his terms, and I’m not going to be the one to argue with him, believe me.’

‘I really haven’t got it,’ I say, ‘and that’s the truth.’

It is! I’m skint.

‘That’ll fall on deaf ears, mate. And you know what he’s like: fingers, kneecaps, noses, relatives.’

‘There’s no need for all that. It’s only ten grand.’

‘Only ten grand, eh? So you’ll ave no problem paying it back, will you? Anyway, that motor of yours out there must be worth a few quid, I bet. Proper classic, that is.’

‘So that’s how you knew I was in here.’

‘Not just a pretty face, mate.’

‘He’s not having my car.’

Dave sucks air in through his yellowed teeth. ‘I’m not so sure that’s up to you, fella.’

I huff. ‘I’ll get the cash, alright?’

‘Seven days, Joe.’

‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘Good man. I’ll be seeing you around.’

Dave slams the empty glass down on the bar and leaves digging into his fag box with fat fingers. The barman, with a pitying upside-down smile, privy to the whole conversation, averts his gaze and gently asks me for eleven pounds and thirty pence.

2

L et me explain: I was four years old when I decided that I’d grow up to be an astronaut. Really: four years old. Really: an astronaut. That old, worn out question: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ they’d ask, and erupt with laughs and awwws at my response. But NASA rocket fuel formed the blood running through my infant veins. I had the Milky Way mapped out. I calculated how long it would take me to reach Tatooine, should I have chosen it as my destination. I had the costume and everything, ready to go. Put it down to being an only-child. Put it down to too much telly; I don’t know.

I was twelve when it became palpable that my life was not taking that sort of course. Really: twelve. I blamed Mum and Dad, going blindly about their industrious lives, for not making the phone call. And I was fourteen before I acknowledged that a kid educated at a poorly staffed comprehensive school where the other kids exchanged stolen cash for substances and stabbed each other with Stanley blades would likely struggle his way through the rest of his life looking up at the stars instead of floating among them, that a kid from your average suburban semi could as well settle for blending in instead of rising up. Admittedly, there was a phase when I became one of the kids on the block, punching and kicking my way out of trouble. I was especially good (or lucky) at punching and kicking.

But look at me now; flogging life insurance and index-linked savings plans in exchange for my casino chips and beer vouchers. A pension plan, a dental scheme (unused), a phone, a laptop. A high-rise office in the murky middle of the same town I was born in. A one-bedroom cave in Scumton Street, Thugbourne. A car so old, people think it’s intentionally classic. No—it’s Polyfil; it’s a cheap respray. And I swear my forearms are bulkier for six years of steering the thing.

Things could be worse though. Apart from my vices, now, I work on the cards and live by the book. I pay taxes like every other sheep in the herd and… I am coming to a point here… and I settle my credit card bills on time. I send money to help stop the maltreatment of bears in Ukraine, and to help blind Inuit kids avoid eating the same snow they piss in. I drop change in the hats of vagrants and urban guitarists. I’m no crook. I’m no desperado. My point is this: I screwed up. Recently, royally, I screwed up. I screwed up big-time. I’ve screwed up in the past, but, you must understand, never like this. As a four-year-old; as a twelve-year-old, I never wanted to be this screwed up.

And so now I’m indebted to a gangster infamous for mangling the legs and burning the homes of his non-paying/late-paying debtors. Good going, Joe. Excellent work.

Right now, a time machine would be very handy. Got one?

Friday afternoon, seven days ago—absolutely pissing down outside like never before. Cats, dogs, woolly mammoths. I could have been on the phone making appointments; the blank pages of my appointment diary stared up at me like they wanted a fight, but frankly, I couldn’t be arsed. The Morley brothers had buggered off, thank God. I could have felt sore about that, but since the pair of annoying, weedy little twats own the company, and since they’re a pair of annoying, weedy little twats, that was just fine with me. What did get my back up is that they let Rebecca go home, Rebecca the new secretary with her permanently exposed cleavage. Those two, ogling all day long over the spines of the Fiscal Times—they think I haven’t clocked it but I have. See, I also ogle Rebecca’s cleavage, but with discretion, with stealth.

So other than myself, there was just Shirley left. Us in the undersized fourteenth-floor office with our endless influx of Vend-O-Coffee. Shirley’s in her late thirties. She buggers around with the accounts, a job that fuels her need for a bit of extramarital activity, she appeals. ‘Fancy it?’ she asked right about a quarter to four.

‘Not my type, Shirley.’

‘You’re going to blow me out again?’

‘Yep,’ I say, logging in to Gamble-your-socks-off.com.

‘Come on,’ she says biting the end of her pencil, ‘stationery cupboard.’

‘Nope.’

‘Here, then. The desk.’

‘You ought to go home, Shirley. I won’t tell anyone. Promise.’

‘Well, sod you,’ she huffed, gathered her handbag and got gone before I could curse her back.

‘Good,’ I said to myself as the closed door left behind only the office’s regular moody hum and buzz, and then there was the ding of the elevator as she boarded.

So I played blackjack, uploaded twenty quid and got all the way to a hundred and ten before the thing started to rip me off. That’s what these websites do. They let you get ahead and when you lay it all back on, Dealer Wins. Ah! What a coincidence. It’s a bloody cheek if you ask me. So I slid the debit card out ready to go again, this time on Itsonlymoney.co.uk, and out of nowhere came this tightness in my chest, worse than ever before. I clutched and writhed and grimaced until finally the pain went away, but the ten-to-the-dozen ticker carried on like an alarm clock out of control. This happens sometimes—it’s the booze, you see. The booze and the junk. The pizzas, the curries, the unused gym memberships, the stress. It all needs to change.

It happens a lot at work too—gets me when I’m not ready. So I’ve got this corkboard of pictures pinned skewiff above my desk for times like these. This is what I do: I stare into them until the pain and the quick-tick subsides—my own little hypnosis technique, sort of. There’s a postcard of a gazelle being chased down by a cheetah that my Auntie Nora sent from Tanzania one year during my childhood. I like that one because I can create a different outcome every time I look at it; the cheetah catches the gazelle and tears it up; the gazelle escapes from the cheetah and laughs from a distance while the shamed cheetah tries to catch its breath; the cheetah catches the gazelle, but just in time, a whole herd of gazelles come out of nowhere and hoof the living shit out of the cheetah. The cheetah normally ends up the bad guy. Then there’s a page I cut from a magazine, of a primitive-looking Tibetan monastery against a backdrop of distant snowy mountains and a clear blue sky, a mountain goat in the foreground hanging around living its problem-free life. This one provides me with a sense of calm when I imagine the serenity of actually being there, not as a goat but maybe a monk deep in meditation, detached from reality.

My favourite though is an eroding photograph of a log cabin in the midst of a blizzard so fierce that you can barely make it out. I swiped it from a photo album that belonged to my late grandfather who was undergoing military training in Siberia at the time the picture was taken. He said he’d taken the picture himself to show Grandma the luxurious lodgings he had to endure during his tour. He also explained that later that night when the storm had calmed, a hungry pack of wolves had surrounded the cabin and howled with such volume and such intensity that he and his fellow soldiers were struck with terror more severe than ever encountered in any gunfight or air-raid. ‘We didn’t get a minute’s sleep between us,’ he declared in his dark tones used especially for yarn-spinning. ‘The wolves remained posted outside the cabin until dawn, waiting for us to submit to their cries and come out.’ I stared into the picture and envisaged the wolves, longing to be there in the cabin with a burning fire and a rifle at my side. Who knows why?

From the office window, I watched the cars and the trucks and the buses move along at their snail’s paces while the pavements bustled beneath a sea of black umbrellas—no point in even stepping a foot outside until it all began to subside, I told myself.

I’d been staring into these pictures, the pain went, and I didn’t even know it. That’s the great thing about my pictures. They’re like time portals that take me away from the shit and bring me back when everything’s okay again. Then ping! (The defining moment): an email pops up. I decided, for a minute, that I’d leave it until Monday. I didn’t want anything else to think about until the new week started. But this one was harmless, or so I thought. This one was from Fat George, Catherine’s dweeb brother, the big-shot city broker/tipster now camped up in Canary Wharf making proper money by sitting on his huge bubble of a backside. Though, after ten long university years of bread and instant noodles, George isn’t that fat, not like he used to be, and certainly not like his mum and dad. Catherine is an anomaly, an abnormality almost, the way she came out!

Bro . . .

Check out Vorchenko, Russian energy company. Major oil find in the Black Sea. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Share prices rock-bottom until the world