IN HIS LAST week of employment Abe took a day off. He had a lie-in, then he went by tube to Liverpool Street. He would have called the office and said he was sick but illness, in the health insurance business, was a commodity. If you weren’t careful you were fast-tracked to the Personal Advisory team. ‘Good morning, this is Danielle speaking, could you give me your policy number, please.’ ‘Piss off, this is Abe and I’ve got the flu.’ Abe had some leave owing and he had genuinely taken a day off work. He was proud of that. He was heading for Karumi, the sports injury treatment centre in Shoreditch, where his friend Shane worked as a receptionist. Shane was still planning to lease Japanese exercise equipment to gyms and health clubs. Abe had called him and they had arranged a time to go and look at the machinery.
Bishopsgate was the only street Abe knew where everyone kept up. They put one foot in front of the other and moved. As soon as he stepped off the escalator, people carved him up, whooshing by him as if they were on wheels, shouting at each other across him. Abe liked the part of London around Liverpool Street. He liked the reverberations between the massive Victorian buildings and the glassier buildings put up yesterday – and the way everyone, scurrying at ground level, male and female, wore Thatcher-style suits with square-cut shoulders. As it was a day off, Abe was wearing jeans and his white hooded jacket. Also his hat as there was a bit of a wind.
Abe turned off the main road and followed a tall brick wall, stylishly blackened by old pollution, then, when that came to a dead end, because the railway had right of way, he chose a side street at random and cut through an alley, dodging a stream of water that bubbled up through the concrete from a leaking pipe. He hoped he was heading in the right direction. After crossing two intersections he paused. On the far side of the road was a row comprising a half-demolished building, a betting shop, a funeral director, a sandwich bar called Vasco’s. These were the first signs of commercial life since he had left Bishopsgate. Abe needed some coffee. He waited for a gap between the cars and went across.
Glancing in through the window of T. Shipley & Son, Funeral Directors, he noticed a framed poem, propped like a photograph, next to the urn. Before Neil died, funeral directors’ premises seemed like gaps in the high street. Now Abe was slightly fascinated – aware that there were quirky differences between them. Unobtrusiveness came in various styles. He pressed his face against the glass to read the poem. The gist of it was that death was nothing at all and that the dead person had just gone into another room. Abe read it a second time and still couldn’t make sense of it. He thought about calling in and telling whoever was in charge that they were eroding the customer base. Why not just shut up shop and reopen as a deli or a launderette? Looking beyond the window display, he saw a vase of stiff white flowers standing on a table and, just behind it, a panelled door. He supposed it must lead to a room. He tried to imagine it and summoned up an interior, closed like a box, unlit and unfurnished – but the picture lasted less than a second. He saw the reflections of the street again, a post van going past, himself staring at the glass. He thought of the cinema screen blanking out at the moment of a death. You feel the pitch into nothingness – then the credits appear and you shuffle out of your seat, assuming that’s how it will always be; with the capacity to see and to stand up after the shock has worn off. Then Abe thought about Neil and felt sad and guilty, because his death had been, in a way, nothing at all.
Abe turned away and pushed open the door of Vasco’s, hunching his shoulders because the doorway was narrow, as was the interior, with its seating crammed into a sliver of space along the wall. He walked past the counter – the mounds of flaked tuna, sliced tomato, chopped egg, shredded lettuce, each in plastic containers behind curved glass. There were only three customers: two women giggling over some photos on a phone and an elderly man eating a doughnut. Abe negotiated the bolted-down tables and slipped into a seat at the far end, also bolted down. He had set aside the day to replan his life. Vasco’s wasn’t the ideal setting but it would do for the time being. The man behind the sandwich counter was watching him. A kind-looking man with a grey moustache. Abe held up his index finger with his thumb an inch below it, to indicate that he would like an espresso. The man smiled and nodded. Abe liked an old-style sandwich bar. He even liked the sandwiches once in a while. White sliced bread, brown sliced bread, white sticks, chewy as old slippers. There was one with a breaded escalope of meat – chicken or veal – slapped inside a white stick. The smear of bright yellow butter got stuck to the breadcrumbs and the filling fell out as soon as you bit into it. He might order one of those later, if they had one. But this was the moment for creativity. He had purposely left his laptop at home. Abe fished around one-handedly in his bag and took out a clean A4 notebook. He opened it at the first page and stared at it from a wide angle, leaning against the back of the seat, as if he were long-sighted. Running the middle finger of his left hand slowly down the spiral binding of the notebook from top to bottom produced a tingly feeling that started in his fingertip and moved up through his hand and past his wrist. After a while the sensation dulled. Abe wrote ‘Business Plan’ at the top of the page.
‘Is ready.’ The man with the grey moustache was leaning over the end of the counter holding a cup of espresso.
Abe stretched up for it and said ‘Cheers’. There were two paper wraps of sugar in the saucer. ‘Have you got any real sugar?’ he asked. The man looked puzzled. Abe mimed dipping a lump of sugar into his coffee and sucking it. The man nodded, suddenly happy, and turned to the shelf behind him. He opened a biscuit tin and handed over two small macaroons.
‘Thank you,’ Abe said. ‘You’re a star.’
The man beamed and continued his drying-up. Abe took one of the biscuits, dipped it in the coffee and sucked it. The almond taste was bitter. Abe took a swig of coffee.
‘You study?’ Vasco said.
‘Soon. I’m going to give up work.’
The man laughed. ‘What your boss say?’
‘He’s a tosser,’ Abe said. He looked again at the title he had written. ‘Business Plan’. A rational head which, following the pattern of his old school essays, would acquire a short, wind-filled, ruptured body. As the rush from the coffee hit his brain, he tore off the sheet and crumpled it into a ball.
Suddenly the café was full of people. A queue was forming at the counter for lunchtime sandwiches. Office workers started pushing for places at the tiny tables – colliding with an opposite stream who were trying to leave with their takeaways. The man with the grey moustache was working at speed, delving into the fillers and pressing them into the bread, juggling cups under the sputtering spouts of the coffee machine. He looked as if he had six hands. A chubby woman wearing a bobble hat and a tatty raincoat wedged herself into the place opposite Abe. She placed her tray, with its plate of egg sandwiches, mug of tea and iced bun, on top of Abe’s notebook. Picking up one of the sandwiches, she squinted at it, before taking a bite that left a row of tooth marks in a jagged crescent moon shape. Her lower arms were covered in a fine dust of hair; the sleeves of the coat halfway between her wrists and her elbows. Abe eased his notebook out from under the tray and the white pages reappeared streaked with a film of reddish grease. In this part of the world, this district of suits, Abe’s pull-on hat had given the wrong signals. Like to like, the lady must have thought. Abe ripped the stained pages out. The woman started on the iced bun. She looked at Abe over its gluey top with tired eyes. He picked up his bag and his notebook, and shimmied through the gap between the table and the end of the counter. The man with the grey moustache was strewing salami across three open baguettes as if he were dealing a pack of cards. Abe left the right money and pushed his way to the exit.
‘You’ve forgot your studies,’ the man called out as Abe passed through the door.
‘No worries,’ Abe said.
‘Study well,’ the man added – laughing at him.
Abe set off up the street to look for Karumi. The buildings he passed were uncared for, bypassed by developers; similar to the battered row of shops that Vasco’s was part of and made of the same Victorian brick, the rusty colour of faded theatre curtains. The next block consisted of tall commercial properties with twice as many storeys. These frontages were boarded by black-painted panels at ground-floor level; the warehouse windows above were covered with mesh. Abe pushed open a door and entered a hallway with unplastered walls. To the left was an old-fashioned lift with a concertina gate. The stairs were enclosed in a metal cage towards the back of the building. Abe passed through the gap in the grille and started to climb. The steps resounded as if they were hollow and Abe pounded up, two at a time, glancing down into the well at each platform where the stairs turned. Every level had a door and a keypad for entry but there was no signage to indicate which businesses occupied the premises. As Abe reached the last bend, the door at the top started buzzing. He jumped the final steps and pushed it open.
The room he entered was high-ceilinged, peaceful like a courtyard, with the grey daylight filtered through paper blinds. A shallow stone bowl full of water stood in the centre with two long leather sofas to either side. A man was sitting on one of them, prodding at an electronic diary with the point of a pencil.
Shane was at the far end behind a slate-topped table. He smiled as Abe walked towards him. ‘I saw you in the CCTV, coming up the stairs,’ he said.
‘Erase it later,’ Abe said. ‘When can you get away?’
‘Afternoon. Threeish. Lunch is the busiest time.’ Shane looked slightly puzzled.
Abe stared at the plain but beautiful objects in the showcase beside the table – bowls and black Japanese teapots. The polished wood at the back of the cabinet mirrored them, turning them to the colour of clear honey.
‘Nice space to work in. Quiet,’ Abe said. ‘Just the water glugging and the voices.’
‘Buddhist monks on a continuous loop. They’re there to disguise the clicks of the credit card machine,’ Shane said.
‘So there’s money here,’ Abe said.
‘Yeah, plenty. We don’t get to see any of it.’
‘My mum likes this sort of thing,’ Abe said, referring to the chanting.
Shane bounced his head from left to right and back again. He changed the pattern of the nodding and stuck his chin in the air, as if new higher notes were resounding inside his skull. Abe laughed.
‘Why are you here?’ Shane asked.
‘We’re going to see your mate about the machines,’ Abe said.
‘Oh shit.’ Shane stood up, agitated. ‘We were going to do that, weren’t we? I forgot to call him.’ He picked up his phone and started scrolling through the options. ‘He won’t be around. He lives in Dorset. But there’s a place over at Barking where you can go and have a look at the equipment. Do you want the number? See if anyone’s there? Sometimes there is.’
‘No. It’s all right,’ Abe said. ‘Sit down.’
Shane sat down but carried on flicking through the phone’s address book.
‘Aren’t there any pictures?’ Abe asked.
‘Of the machines?’
Abe pointed at the high bare walls. ‘No. Pictures of bones. I thought this was a sports injury centre.’
‘People don’t want to see that kind of stuff.’
‘The bones are in a different room,’ Abe said in a spooky voice.
Shane blinked.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Abe said.
‘It’s great you came.’
‘I might go to the pub,’ Abe said.
‘Go on. I’ll join you later. The Peacock. Not the Friendly Camel.’
‘All right.’ Abe left the clinic and went down the six flights of stairs and out into the street.
Abe retraced his steps; back to Vasco’s, across the street, down the alley. Everything looked drab. Bishopsgate, when he got there, was no more than a thoroughfare of heavy wheeled lorries and buses, rumbling up and down. Neither the 1880s nor the 1980s cast a historical glow. Abe had noticed before the distorting effect of his mood. Which was the right way of looking? He was conscious of drilling – the persistent demolition of buildings and road stone. It set his teeth on edge; communal teeth that shook all around him, rooted in concrete. He had achieved nothing; neither the master plan nor the new career. He had been thinking for so long about quitting work, just thinking, daydreaming, really. It felt weird that he had intervened and was making it happen. Like meddling, even though it was his own life. Already the decision seemed botched somehow. Not as risky as he had thought it would be. He liked risky better than botched, he thought. One was an assessment of a situation before and the other afterwards. How had he managed to get to botched already? He was sorry that Shane’s man was out of town, but he didn’t take it personally. He didn’t blame Shane. Abe kept walking. The weather brightened up and he pulled off his hat. He walked westwards, through Moorgate, Holborn, the West End, Bayswater. By the time he reached the slicked-up streets of Notting Hill Gate the sun was out and he had forgotten his disappointment. That was the good thing about walking. Somewhere along the way he had missed the Peacock.