Not Gonna Happen Read online

  Without any viable avenue of escape, Starke decided he would have to face his girlfriend sooner or later, and so (making sure he was actually fully dressed first) he moved to the door and opened it, forcing himself to smile and managing it perhaps a little too much. “Hi, Liz. What a surprise to see you here.”

  “Not really,” she replied, “I do live here.”

  “I suppose you do. You coming in?”

  “Nah, thought I’d just stand out here for a while.”

  “Okedoke. Let me know when you change your mind.” He closed the door, returned to the television and debated upon whether to turn it back on again.

  There sounded another knock upon the door. Had to be Liz again.

  “Hi,” he said as he opened the door a second time. “Changed your mind already?”

  Liz did not answer with words and instead moved past him into the living-room. She seemed to be scowling, and Starke wondered what he had done wrong. He said nothing, however, and thought it best to let her do the talking. When she was in one of her moods it was always best to let her do the talking (and technically everyone was in some sort of mood all the time, even if it was a happy one, so what he supposed he was saying was that it was always best to let her talk).

  “Richard,” she said at last, after some mindless pacing of the room which led Starke to wonder whether one could actually wear a circular hole in the carpet should such a practice be allowed to continue. “Richard, I think we need to talk.”

  “I thought I’d let you do that,” he replied. Women liked to talk, it was what they did best, and far be it for Richard Starke to be the man to interfere in such a pursuit. It was, however, when women wanted for men to talk that there lay a problem.

  “Look,” and he noticed that she didn’t meet his eye, “we’ve known one another for a long time now, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we know one another pretty well, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re happy with the way things are?”

  “Happy.”

  “Will you stop doing that!” she shouted, although he could see she was more distressed than angry. Her anger was a release of tension, of nervousness, and she felt she could make the situation a lot easier if she was angry. Even though she wasn’t. He thought about mentioning all this to her, although doubted it would have done him much good. It may well have made her angry.

  “Do you want some tea?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t want any tea, I ...”

  “I have sugar. Real sugar, none of that fake sugar-like stuff they keep advertising on TV.”

  “I don’t want any sugar, Rich.”

  “But you always take sugar.”

  “Not when I’m not drinking tea I don’t.”

  “Do you want some tea, then?”

  Liz looked up at him and some of her anger subsided. It was as though her resolve had broken, and for an instant Starke believed she would not say that which she had come to say. But she hardened that resolve and stood a little straighter. “Why is it that talking to you is like singing There’s a hole in my bucket?”

  “Because there’s a hole in my teapot?” he offered.

  Liz tried not to laugh. It wasn’t even that funny, and Starke would not have minded if she hadn’t, although they had been together for a long time and they knew what they liked about one another. Unfortunately, they also knew what they did not like, and what they could not stand. “Rich, I think we want different things,” she said at last.

  “You’re off tea now completely?” he asked, exasperated.

  “Enough with the tea already!” The anger this time was genuine, and Starke made a mental note not to mention tea again for the duration of her visit. She resumed her pacing, not circular this time, and Starke said nothing while she did so. Finally, she stopped and turned to face him. “I think we need a break.”

  “From work?”

  “From each other.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Is that really all you have to say?” Her eyes were almost pleading, and Starke wondered just what she wanted him to say. ‘Oh’ wasn’t all he had to say, certainly not all he wanted to say, and definitely not all he knew he should say; but at that particular moment it was all he could think of to say. Images flashed pell-mell through his mind, memories of their time together, and he could suddenly see it all evaporating like a beaker of water held above a lava pit.

  “How long?” he said, wondering why that was all he could muster.

  “I ... I don’t know.”

  “A week? A month? A year? Forever?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, more loudly this time. She turned from him and ran her hand up across her forehead and through her hair. “I just ... I don’t know.”

  “Oh.”

  “Back with the Oh.” There was bitterness to her tone, although Starke knew it was borne of familiarity, and the fact that she was trying to let him down gently. Not that she had to let him down at all, but he supposed he should have been grateful for small mercies.

  “There’s a lot of goodness in those little Ohs.”

  “Richard, please!”

  “Sorry. Can’t change the way I am, I guess.”

  “Don’t. Change, I mean. Don’t ever change the way you are.”

  “But you just told me you wanted to leave me. How can I not change the way I am after that?” Starke was angry himself now. He may have played the fool more often than he should, may even have believed half the things he thought were happening about him, but that did not mean he was immune to having his heart torn out. “There’s obviously something wrong with the way I am, so why would I not want to change?”

  “Just ... Richard, I don’t think we’ve been good together for a long time. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “I don’t want to end on bad terms, Rich,” she said, for she could see he was upset, could see that she had hurt him, and suddenly believed that trying to be nice to him might actually make him a little happier. Just as someone who drops a hammer on your foot and offers you a lollypop to suck afterwards might have done.

  “Then don’t end on any terms,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You mentioned that already.”

  “Look, I really don’t want to leave like this. Not after everything we’ve ever been through.”

  “Strangely enough I was thinking much the same thing, although on a somewhat more permanent basis.” More permanent? Surely something could not be more permanent, it would be like being more unique, and that would have been just a stupid thing to have said.

  “I have things I need to work out,” Liz said. “Issues I have to deal with.”

  “You have issues?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I do?”

  “Richard, I ...”

  “No, say it. You’ve started, so you might as well finish. Do you think I have issues?”

  “I ...”

  “Yes or no.”

  “Richard, I ...”

  “Yes or no?”

  “I ...”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “or no.”

  Liz sighed. “Yes. There, you satisfied now? I think there are thing going on in that mind of yours that really don’t have a great deal to do with reality, and yes I think that while there’s nothing wrong with that, it scares the hell out of me sometimes. I used to think it was cute, but now I just find it disturbing.”

  “So you’re leaving me because you think I’m a freak.”

  “Hey, I’ve never used that word and I never will.”

  “Which means you think I’m a freak.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I don’t. I just ... Richard, you’re just being so God-damned awkward.”

  “Oh excuse me for being awkward.”

  “I’m sorry this is happening, but it is, so we each have to deal with it. Goodbye, Richard. I had hoped we could still be friends, but
I have no idea any more whether that’s even possible.”

  “What, you want some time away from me and still want to be friends? Like that’s going to work. Where are you even going to be staying?”

  “I don’t know. My mother’s, for the moment at least.”

  “So I can reach you there?”

  “I ... Goodbye, Richard.” She did not even say she was sorry for the forty-thousandth time. Instead she just left, and Starke let her go. There was a part of his mind which was screaming at him to stop her, to bring her back, but instead he simply let her go. Afterwards he would not know why he did it, although at that moment he convinced himself it was his own doing, his own decision.

  However, as he closed the door after her, one of the words she had used began to run through his mind, and along with it there came a tune. She still wanted to be friends.

  I’ll be there for yoooooooou!

  Aaarrgghh!

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was something Crotcher wanted Corsac to see. He had not mentioned over the phone the nature of this elusive thing, only that he wanted Corsac to see it. He did not, Corsac noted, say whether it would be well-received, which was something of a concern for him. So far as Corsac was determined, his vaguely responsive agent had something lined up which he knew his client clearly didn’t want to be involved in. Had Corsac something else he might have been able to do, anything else in fact, he would have gone to that instead, although the truth was that Corsac was verging on broke, and he was desperate; and desperate men turn to desperate measures, as they said. If he did not even look at what Crotcher was offering him, he would have to resort to robbing banks, and somehow he could not see himself being very good at that. The only robber who quipped as he did the deed, then left it off with “Not gonna happen.” He would, in fact, have been more annoyed had the police not been able to piece together the fact he was their main suspect, for it would indicate that the country had indeed forgotten him.

  Anyway, just because he was looking at what his agent had to offer, it did not mean he had to commit himself. If he did not like the look of whatever it was, he could always leave. Return to his television or something. Yeah, he thought, not gonna happen.

  Crotcher met him at Corsac’s house with a big smile upon his face, and didn’t stop long enough for tea. Instead they drove along a journey Corsac did not know, heading for a destination of which he was equally in the dark. He found it all far too cloak-and-dagger for his liking, although knew that wherever Crotcher was taking him, it would not be a shadowy warehouse with lots of guys wearing suits and holding briefcases. The worst-case scenario that Corsac could picture was that his agent had decided the world was too cruel a place for either of them and was currently in the process of driving them to the nearest cliff, whereupon their duel torment would at last be ended.

  Eventually, Corsac hit on a strange idea and decided simply to ask him where they were headed. “Where we going?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “That sounds a tad vague.”

  “But true though.”

  “Wouldn’t be somewhere I wouldn’t want to go, would it?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “Oh.”

  They drove in silence for some time, heading farther into Central London. Corsac began to recognise places; he had after all lived in London most of his life and therefore knew the sights quite well, although it did not enable him to understand just where they were headed. They did not pass any famous landmarks, such as the Houses of Parliament or Big Ben, although he believed they may have passed directly beneath the Gherkin at one time. It was difficult to be sure when he was used to seeing a tall building from a distance, because whenever he was right next to one he couldn’t seem to notice it.

  In fact, presently they did not seem to be heading anywhere of especial note. They were moving through streets whose names he knew well enough, and areas of Soho and Leicester Square where he had performed many a time, although he could not believe that Crotcher was leading him back to one of these old haunts. There really did not seem to be any point to this, unless it was his agent’s intention to try to return some sense of familiarity to Corsac’s mind: to make him miss the good old days enough to actually want to come back and start re-living them.

  Corsac maintained his silence, although toyed with the idea of putting Crotcher through the “Are we nearly there yet?” routine every two minutes until he got the truth from him. The problem Corsac faced, unfortunately, was that he was not actually certain he even wanted to know the truth. Having already made up his mind that he was not going to like where they were headed, he could not see that discovering the nature of their destination would help his temperament any.

  This was all assuming, of course, that Crotcher even had a destination in mind, of which Corsac was sorely hopeful. Much as he did not mind taking a pointless drive through the heart of London, he would have much preferred for there to have been some form of purpose involved. Particularly one which might well involve some money for his pocket (or bank, technically, since he was hoping it would involve rather a lot of money).

  “We’re here,” Crotcher said at last, and Corsac stared out the window with a frown. To his eyes they were not here, simply for the fact that they were nowhere. Well, of course they were somewhere (everyone’s gotta be somewhere), but just where they were did not seem to him to be somewhere. Not somewhere he wanted to be anyway.

  “Where are we?” Corsac asked.

  Crotcher got out of the car and after a few moments of basic thumb-twiddling did Corsac suppose he had best follow. It was not that he particularly believed his agent had found him some worthy work, but that he was curious. Curiosity was a damnable thing, and Corsac did not like to admit to it, but it was the one vice to which he would admit. Aside from the gambling and the reformed alcoholism of course.

  The car had been parked in an alley, and Corsac reasoned that it might well not even be there when they came back to it. There were unemptied dustbins along one wall, while a drainpipe churned a continuous stream of water into an already overflowing gutter. Corsac cringed to consider that he had sunk so low as to have to resort to looking for work in such places, then began to worry at the nature of the work his agent had found him. Realising Crotcher had continued some way ahead, Corsac hastened to catch up, and found him entering one of the buildings forming the alleyway by a side entrance. Corsac hesitated only a moment before entering the doorway after him. The interior of the building was narrow and confining, and a bulb above his head fizzled spasmodically. He could see tiny black forms circling the light and hastened past it. Crotcher had walked briskly down the corridor until he came to a door, upon which he abruptly rapped his knuckles. Corsac stood behind him, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and sorely wishing he was elsewhere. He did not know where exactly, but anywhere would have been better.

  “Come on,” Crotcher said to the door. “I know you’re in there!”

  Only silence replied to his rapping, so Crotcher knocked again.

  “Dave? Dave! Open the door!”

  “What are we doing here?” Corsac whispered, as though to raise his voice to ordinary speech would somehow insinuate his presence.

  “Trying to find you work,” Crotcher replied.

  “Doing what?”

  “That depends, what would you like to do? Dave!” He thumped again.

  Corsac winced. “H?”

  “I promise you it’s not comedy.”

  “Suddenly I’m beginning to feel that comedy’s not so bad.”

  “Dave!”

  The door opened and Crotcher almost pounded upon the chest the man who had opened it. He was tall and slim of shoulders but broad in the gut and wore black shorts under a white vest several sizes too short to contain his belly. His feet were naked, and his beard and hair could have done with cutting a month earlier.

  “Ah,” Crotcher said, “there you are.”

  “What?” Dave grunted.

 
“Well, you going to let us in or what?”

  “What?”

  Crotcher laughed good-humouredly. “I guess I was asking for that one. Where’s Dave?”

  “I am Dave.”

  “Oh. Let yourself go a bit over the years haven’t you?” Crotcher playfully punched the other man in the gut, and the large brute’s eyes narrowed accordingly.

  “Maybe we should just go,” Corsac pleaded.

  Dave looked from one man to the other, seemed to register both in his small mind, and gave a loud belch. “Whatcha want?” he grumpily asked at last.

  “I was wondering whether there was still a position going in the main foyer? I know you were after a doorman before, and I may have just the man for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, my friend here of course.”

  Dave looked Corsac over briefly, sniffed, and turned back to Crotcher. “You havin’ a laugh?”

  “H ...” Corsac urged.

  “It’s all right, Jack,” Crotcher said. “I promised it wouldn’t be comedy and it isn’t. Wages aren’t too bad, but at least you won’t have to crack another joke in your life.”

  “I’m thinking maybe we’re not welcome here.”

  “What gave you that impression?” Dave asked.

  “Exactly,” Crotcher said. “Now, you stop being paranoid, Jack.”

  “How’s he going to work the door?” Dave asked with a grimace. “You ever frisked anyone, old man?”

  “H!” Corsac all but screamed, and Crotcher nodded.

  “OK, OK, I get the idea,” Crotcher said. “Cheers, Dave, but I think we have a difference of opinion here. Seems someone thinks he’s suddenly too good for this dive.”

  Dave shrugged and closed the door, did not even bother to slam it, and Corsac doubted whether five minutes from now he would remember there had ever been anyone there.

  They returned to the car and found that not even the wheels had been touched. Neither man spoke until they were back on the road and turning away from Dave’s Dive. “What was that place?” Corsac demanded at last.