Clapham Lights (25 page)

‘Don’t you want to know what it said?’

‘It was probably just about my account wasn’t it?’

‘No. It wasn’t. It was turning down your application to have your credit card limit increased.’ Peter pauses. ‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’

Craig turns to his dad and sits up. ‘I’ve just been a bit short recently. I just needed some money to get me through until the end of the month.’

‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

‘I don’t want to keep borrowing money off you, Dad.’

‘Craig, it’s better you borrow from me than borrow from the bank. How much is your overdraft at the moment?’

He looks out into the garden. ‘Six thousand,’ he mumbles.

‘
What?
And you’re up to the limit?’

‘Yes, just about.’

‘How much interest are you paying a month?’

‘About eighty pounds.’

‘Bloody hell, Craig! That’s just throwing money down the drain. What are you spending the money on?’

‘Rent and bills… and petrol.’

‘How much is the rent on the new place?’

‘It’s working out at over a thousand a month.’

‘Craig, that’s an obscene amount for someone on your salary.’

‘I know, I know, but when we moved in I’d had a few good months and it seemed affordable. But since then the market’s slowed I’ve not made the commission.’

‘But you’ve still got your basic salary though.’

‘That doesn’t go anywhere.’

‘Is it still seventeen thousand?’

‘No. They’ve changed the pay structure to put more emphasis on sales. It seemed good at the time. I was taking home a lot more, for a while.’

‘What is your basic then?’

Craig sighs. ‘Four thousand five hundred.’

Peter shuffles forward in his chair, his brow furrowed. ‘You’re
working
for a basic of four thousand pounds a year? Craig, what were you thinking? The boy who comes in at the weekend to help clean the lorries gets more than that!’

Janet enters the living room carrying a pot of tea. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Do you know how much work are paying him?’ Peter says. ‘Four thousand a year! It’s bloody slave labour.’

Janet puts the tray down. ‘Now, don’t get angry,’ she says, seemingly not taking in what he was saying.

‘Did you choose to go on this commission structure or did they make you?’

‘I chose. It seemed like the best thing to do.’

Peter shakes his head. ‘And no doubt they encouraged you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Craig, why didn’t you talk to me you daft sod?’

‘Peter, don’t talk to him like that.’

‘It’s obvious why they did it. They can get away with paying you nothing whilst you work all hours because you’re desperate for the money because the market’s slumping.’

‘It’s meant to pick up soon.’

‘How long will that take? Months? Years? All the while you’re
racking
up thousands of pounds of debt.’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Well what is it like? How much money have you got on credit cards?’

‘A fair bit.’

‘How much? Exactly. And tell me the truth.’

Craig glances up at his mum who is standing beside him and then looks across to his dad. ‘About ten thousand,’ he murmurs, ‘over four cards. I’m sorry. And I borrowed two thousand from Atlantic Finance.’ He coughs and bites on his thumb.

‘Jesus Christ, Craig!’ Peter shouts.

‘Oh, love.’ Janet sits next to her son and put her arm around him. Craig leans forward, his head dangling towards the floor.

‘It’s hardly the time for sympathy, Janet.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ she asks.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘I was always against you moving to London and you know that,’ she says.

‘Janet, please, that’s not the issue here,’ Peter says.

‘If he was still here with us, he wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘Janet, he’s twenty-five. You can’t keep him locked up. The problem is the bloody job and the rent. How many credit cards did you say you had?’

‘Four,’ Craig sighs, closing his eyes.

‘We knew something was up when that letter came through, but bloody hell, Craig.’

‘I needed the money,’ Craig says. ‘I had to do something to pay the rent. I didn’t want to keep asking you. Dad, I was trying to be
independent,
I hate having to keep asking you for everything. I feel like a child.’

‘Where’s the money gone you saved when you were here?’

‘I used it.’

‘Drinking?’ his mum asks.

‘He’s paying a thousand pounds a month in rent, Janet. I’m
surprised
he can eat, let alone go out.’

‘Couldn’t you have found somewhere cheaper?’

‘I thought I could afford it at the time,’ Craig says.

‘Pushed into it by Mark no doubt,’ Peter says.

‘No, we both agreed. I knew it was a lot but I just had to make sure I kept the money coming in. It’s work. Nothing’s happening.’ Craig picks at a fingernail to avoid his dad’s gaze.

‘What are the others at work doing? They can’t be taking home anything either,’ Peter says.

‘No, they’re not. Quite a few of them have left.’

‘Are you still looking for other jobs?’

‘Yes, when I get the time. But I’m working so much. It’s difficult.’

‘Have you been to more recruitment agencies?’

‘Yes, a couple but whatever I’m interested in they just tell me that I haven’t got the experience or the qualifications.’

‘But you’ve got a degree,’ Janet says.

‘So has everyone else, and from better universities than me. It counts for nothing.’

Peter sips his tea and sits back in his chair, exasperated. ‘Do you owe anyone else money?’ His tone is now calmer and more controlled.

‘Like who?’

‘Anyone. People at work, loan sharks?’

‘No, of course I don’t. Dad you know I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Don’t be silly, Peter.’

‘I don’t think I’m the silly one here. I was just checking. If you are in any other kind of trouble, now’s the time to tell us.’

‘No, there’s nothing. I’m hardly spending anything. The train ticket back here is the most expensive thing I’ve bought this month.’

‘What are you eating?’ Janet asks.

‘I go to Asda late at night and pick up the discounted stuff before they throw it away.’

Janet hugs her son and kisses him on the side of the head. ‘Craig, I
could cry hearing you talk like this.’

Peter takes a pad and pen from the walnut bureau and hands it to Craig:

‘Write down absolutely everything you owe and don’t leave anything out.’

‘OK.’

‘Have you paid this month’s rent yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well at least that’s something,’ Peter says, taking out his pocket calculator. ‘Look Craig, you might not want our help but you’re going to get it whether you bloody like it or not.’

L
ambeth Council have sent Craig a letter informing him that his ‘name and facial image’ have been published on a website of drug users in Brixton. It also warns him that they withhold the right to use his image on any future anti-drugs poster and/or television campaign. The web address where Craig can see himself is underlined at the bottom of the letter. Also enclosed is a leaflet for ‘Crack Up’, an independent drug counselling service based in Stockwell.

Craig tears the letter and leaflet in half and throws them in the bin. He changes out of his work suit into shorts and a sweatshirt and goes into the kitchen to make dinner.

It’s dark when Mark gets home. He tosses his rucksack into his room and gets a bottle of Evian from the fridge. His cheeks are flushed and his hair is unstyled.

Craig is lying on the sofa with Mark’s MacBook on his stomach. He asks Mark where he’s been.

‘Gym,’ he answers.

‘What gym?’

‘A new one’s opened near work. I’ve got a corporate membership.’

‘What is it, Fitness First?’

‘No, it’s a Pump House. They’re a new chain aimed at blokes. It’s mainly weight training and boxing. There’s no pool, or yoga classes or anything bent like that.’

‘What did you do tonight?’ Craig asks, uninterested.

‘Just did a bit of circuit training and then worked on my delts.’

Craig watches as Mark, whose suit trousers don’t appear as tight as usual, puts a family-sized Marks and Spencer chicken arrabbiata in the microwave and stands flexing his biceps and rubbing his shoulders.

The microwave pings and Mark scoops the smouldering pasta into a
bowl and sits at the table, using an old
FHM
as a placemat. He stops once he’s eaten half of it and forks the remains into a Tupperware container which he leaves by the fridge. He briefly flicks through the magazine his bowl was resting on and then stares at the blank television screen. Craig is tapping away on the laptop.

‘Why haven’t you pulled the blinds?’ Mark asks.

‘It’s only just got dark.’

‘We should keep them closed at night. You never know who’s
watching
.’

‘I know who’s watching,’ Craig says. ‘Nobody.’

‘That’s what you’d like to think. People would try to nick our TV if they knew it was here.’

‘They wouldn’t get very far. It’d take ten blokes to carry it.’

‘A gang might steal it.’ Mark closes the magazine. ‘Sell any houses today?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Never mind. We can’t all be good at our jobs.’

‘Fuck off, Mark,’ Craig says flatly.

‘I was only joking. There’s always tomorrow,’ he says. ‘What are you doing anyway?’

‘I’m on Facebook.’

‘Stalking Hannah again?’

‘No.’

‘Have you seen the photos of her holiday?’

‘No,’ he says, looking up at Mark’s grinning face. ‘Which holiday?’

‘Thailand. The one she’s just come back from.’

‘How do you know…? How have you seen them?’

‘They’re on her friend’s page.’

‘You’re not even friends with Hannah are you?’

‘Yes.’

Craig frowns and picks at a small scab on his knee. He then goes back to Hannah’s Facebook profile and searches in vain for the photographs before shutting the MacBook and lowering it onto the floor.

‘Couldn’t you find them?’ Mark asks.

‘I wasn’t looking.’

‘Would you like to see them? I could show you… but if you’re not that bothered…’

Craig looks at the wall. ‘Show me then,’ he says, irritated. ‘You’re clearly dying to.’

He sits up and Mark shuffles along next to him. Mark logs onto Facebook, making sure that Craig can’t see his password, and finds the profile of Emily Ferley, a pretty girl with pink sparkling lips.

‘Who’s she?’ Craig asks.

‘A friend of Hannah’s. I did some detective work: I saw that she’d written something on Hannah’s wall about Thailand so I clicked on her and there was a whole album of holiday photos. She just hasn’t tagged them yet.’

Craig sits forward as Mark opens the album. There are forty-two thumbnail photos, initially of Hannah, Emma Ferley and another, unnamed girl in a hotel room. Mark clicks through to the second page.

‘Here’s what you want to see,’ he says.

He selects a photo of Hannah sunbathing on a beach in Koh Samui. She is smiling and wearing a white bikini and large, square sunglasses. Craig studies it and takes control. He slowly scrolls through shots of palm tree lined beaches, an elephant trek, the chaotic streets of Bangkok, and then stops on one of Hannah posing on the back of a boat off the coast of the Phi Phi Islands. She is holding a snorkel and squinting in the sun. The next photo shows her in the sea, her wet hair pasted to her head and droplets of water glistening on her tanned shoulders.

‘You probably want to stop there, mate,’ Mark says.

‘There’s only a few left-’

‘You’ve seen the good ones. Seriously, can I have it back now, I need to email-’

‘I’ll be two seconds.’

The next photo is tagged as ‘Full Moon party’. There’s a dark, crowded, fire-lit beach and the three girls are only wearing shorts and bikini tops. Their bodies are covered in luminous handprints and they have yellow and orange dots and squiggles over their faces. Hannah is holding a pink bucket that their other friend is drinking out of. The next shot has a tall, deeply tanned man wearing a fluorescent green headband with his arms around Hannah and Emma. In the next photo he’s
painting
something on Hannah’s chest and she’s laughing. In the final photo, they are kissing.

Mark looks at Craig and goes to speak but stops. Craig doesn’t look
away from the screen and logs Mark out.

‘I tried to warn you,’ Mark says.

‘Cheers,’ Craig says, deflated.

‘Mate, everyone pulls on holiday.’

‘I don’t.’

‘That’s because you never go on holiday. What are you so upset about anyway? You whacked it on that girl from the
Addams Family
right in front of Hannah the other week.’

‘I was smashed. I didn’t know what I was doing.’

‘At least the bloke Hannah’s with is good-looking.’

‘Is that meant to make me feel better?’

Mark checks his BlackBerry. ‘You’ve not even pulled Hannah though have you?’

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘And you never will unless you actually try.’

‘I have tried, sort of.’

‘What do you mean, “sort of”?’

Craig gets up and walks to the kitchen. Mark follows him.

‘Don’t ignore the question,’ Mark says.

‘Do you want a drink? I’m having a beer.’

‘Err, yeah OK. Stop ignoring the question.’

Craig takes two bottles of Carlsberg from the fridge.

‘Well?’ Mark says.

‘Well what?’

‘What do you mean you’ve “sort of” tried to pull Hannah?’

Craig opens the beers and sits on the worktop. ‘I asked her if she wanted to go to the cinema last weekend but she said she was going home for her sister’s birthday.’

Mark laughs. ‘So?’

‘So, she turned me down.’

‘No she didn’t. She had something else on.’

‘It sounded like an excuse.’

‘What made you think she wasn’t telling the truth?’

‘I don’t know. It was just the way she said it I suppose.’

‘Why, did she take ages to answer?’

‘No, but-’

‘Have you spoken to her since?’

‘Not much.’

‘You know she’s probably wondering why you’re ignoring her.’

‘I doubt it.’ Craig shrugs and places his beer between his legs.

‘Mate, if you like her so much, why don’t you do something about it?’

‘I tried to.’

‘You were hardly going to win her over with two tickets to
X-Men
and a Pizza Express. Cinema dates are for teenagers anyway. You need to get her in a situation where it’s not just the two of you so it’s not
awkward
, and where she’s very drunk. Fire Bombs is really the ideal place. Does she go there a lot?’

‘No. Hardly ever.’

‘Umm.’ Mark clicks his fingers. ‘I‘m just trying to think of
somewhere
you could go together where it wouldn’t be weird for you to ask her.’

‘She’s quite sporty.’

‘Craig, what are you going to do? Take her to a Norwich game?’

‘No, I was just trying to think of something we have in common, apart from work.’

‘Well perhaps work is the angle you should use. Why don’t you send round an email in your office on Friday asking if anyone wants to go down the pub? If Hannah fancies a drink, she’ll go, if she doesn’t you can send her a jokey email saying that you’re disappointed she’s not coming.’

‘Won’t that look weird?’

‘Only if you start acting weird.’

‘But I don’t like anyone else in the office - I don’t even know half of them - and if Christian comes, which he definitely would, he’d stick to her like glue all night.’

‘I thought she didn’t like him?’

‘She doesn’t.’

‘Well that’s perfect then; you’ve got a mutual enemy. You should take every opportunity to take the piss out of him in front of her and then, when she lets her guard down, you should suggest going for a drink.’

‘I’m not sure that would work.’

‘You’ll never find out if you don’t try.’

‘I suppose so. It’s just, I’m not sure that she thinks about me in that way. Perhaps I’d be better off just trying to become better friends with her first.’

‘No. That’s the worst idea ever. Guys who try to worm their way in with girls by being friends always leave empty-handed. Once you start being friends with a girl, you can kiss any chance of sleeping with them goodbye. One minute you’re going shoe shopping with them, the next minute they’re telling you about a guy they’ve sucked off outside a
nightclub
.’

‘Hannah’s not like that.’

‘You’ve got to be a bit clever. No girls want a bloke who’s going to follow them around like a lovesick puppy. It’s boring. How often do you see a girl with a bloke who looks like an arrogant twat?’

‘All the time.’

‘Exactly. The blokes may be twats, but because they act like they’re something special, girls start to think there’s something special about them, even when there isn’t.’

‘What are you suggesting I do then?’

‘Just don’t act like a drip. Actually pulling that girl in Fire Bombs might turn out to be a good thing, even though she was rabid. It showed Hannah that you can pull, probably making her jealous, and that you’re not that bothered about her.’

‘But I am.’

‘Yes, we know that, but as soon as she knows, she’ll lose interest, if she has any in the first place. How did seeing that photo of Hannah
kissing
that bloke make you feel?’

‘If I’m honest… a bit sad.’

‘Craig, that’s a loser’s mentality. It should make you feel more
determined
. If you don’t make a move on her soon, it could end up being too late.’

‘Yeah, I know, but it’s never the right time.’

‘You’ve got to make it the right time. Take the initiative for once. Can we go and sit down please, I think the wrestling’s on.’

The pair go back into the living room and Craig passes Mark the four remote controls it takes to operate the television and surround sound. On the screen, a woman with fake breasts hits a huge oily man over the head with a fold-up chair in an underground car park. Mark turns the sound up. The wrestling cuts to a car advert and he turns the volume back down.

‘When did Hannah break up with her boyfriend?’ Mark asks.

‘A while ago now.’ Craig is stretched out with his hands behind his head.

‘Who was he?’

‘Some bloke who she’d been with since she was sixteen.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He worked for some Japanese bank. I think he had lots of money.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘He’d still have more money than me. They went on holiday to
Barbados
just before they broke up so he can’t be penniless. Why are you suddenly trying to be helpful anyway?’

‘It’s all those endorphins being released after exercise; they put me in a good mood. And I’m bored of seeing you looking miserable. I thought you might benefit from my advice.’

‘I was forgetting what an expert with women you are.’

‘I pulled more girls than you did at uni.’

‘You pulled more rank girls.’

‘I would never discriminate against a girl just because of what she looks like. I’m an equal opportunities puller.’

Craig smiles. ‘You’ve got that right.’

Mark turns the volume back up and flicks over to
Shameless
. ‘I’m not here tomorrow night, by the way.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m going to dinner with Amy.’

‘You’ve been out with her a lot recently, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah, but only because we’ve both got client hospitality budgets to spend. If you spend less than two grand a month on entertaining, Justin starts asking questions.’

‘Aren’t you meant to take clients?’

‘Yes, but he never checks who you’re with.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I suggested Nando’s but Amy has booked us a table at Manger Sans Yeux - the place where you eat in the dark.’

Craig looks across at Mark. ‘You eat in the dark? What’s the point in that?’

‘It’s meant to improve your other senses so you appreciate the
flavours
of the food more.’

‘And you sit there in the pitch black?’

‘Yep.’

‘How do you order?’

‘You order before you go in.’

‘How expensive is it?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s French cuisine though so it won’t be cheap.’

‘And you sit there in complete darkness and you’re expected to eat and drink?’

‘
Yes
.’

‘How would you know what you’re eating if you can’t see it?’

‘By tasting it, obviously.’

‘How about if it’s undercooked? It’s not like the waiters would know. How do they even know they’re bringing the food to the right table?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Mark replies, getting annoyed.

‘They must use night vision goggles or something.’

‘Craig, it’s a restaurant, not
Silence of the Lambs
.’