“Oi, Rosbif! Come over here,” snapped Laroche with a jerk of his head, indicating his side of the cell. The boundary line between them was curiously drawn: Laroche could put his feet on Michael’s bed, but Michael had to be invited to sit beside him at the table. The evolution of these laws was touchy and intuitive.
“It’s payback time.”
Michael was a long way down. He had been trying to stop himself from thinking about the flight of stairs at home, the vertiginous distance from the first floor to the ground, the endless loop of Charlotte, falling. He’d been trying to stop himself from thinking about the coat that she was wearing – it was purple, and she only ever dressed in black. He’d been trying not to wonder what that signified, if it signified anything at all: a change of heart, for sure. He’d been trying not to think about that instant of lunacy: the physical strength in a pair of outstretched hands, the swift brutality of a single shove.
There was a storm coming. He stared through the slit of window at the blackened sky outside, where sudden shafts of sunlight glanced against grievous clouds. He remembered telling Delphine the rays were the souls of the dead flying up to heaven, before he knew better.
“Payback?” he said with a shiver, conscious that his voice struck a higher note than usual.
He was stalling for time.
“One good turn deserves another,” said Laroche. “Two phone calls, as I recall. Oink, oink.”
From some crevice hollowed out in the overflow behind the basin, he produced a cellphone, a different one from before. “My new kid was born last week, more than three weeks ‘overdue’, though there was no talk of inducing it,” he said with a grunt, “not that anyone told me about, leastways.” He stared at the phone before holding it out to Michael, who was conscious of a simmer in the air. “I want you to text my wife and tell her that she might think I’m fucking stupid, but the sums don’t quite add up on that one, and even I can work that out. Alright?” he said. “I want you to let her know loud and clear IN CAPS that I am so on to her, that I have been on to her for months and I know just what she’s up to, and while you’re at it you can say–”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m not comfortable–”
“Comfortable? Yer ’aving a laugh, mate.”
“–with the kind of things you want me to say. I wouldn’t feel–”
“No such word as can’t. Isn’t that what they tell you? In school? Not that I would know, oink, oink, ’cos I – didn’t – go – to – school–”
“I can’t get involved,” said Michael.
“Well, you are involved, mate. You owe me for two. Remember?” Without warning, he reached across and with one stringy forearm he pressed Michael’s neck against the wall, leaning into it until he couldn’t breathe. The swift brutality of a single shove. “You’re so fucking up yourself, you pussy,” he hissed before he let him go.
There were paisley lights before Michael’s eyes “Why don’t you write it yourself?” he said when he’d recovered his breath. He felt sick.
“Why do you think?” Laroche sneered at him.
“I think you don’t know how.”
“Tick. Go to the top of the class.”
He swallowed and half-swallowed, “I wouldn’t feel right,” he said, “writing that sort of thing for you.” His throat felt mashed.
“Well, la-di-fucking-da!” Laroche growled. “You’re taking the piss, ain’t you? Telling me what I can and can’t say to my woman, when you topped your own.” For a moment he glowered in his direction, then the steam seemed to go out of him. “The sums don’t add up,” he said. “Even I can work that out.”
“Can’t you read or write at all?” asked Michael.
Boot-faced, Laroche shrugged.
“I’ll teach you, if you like,” said Michael, cautiously. “to write it yourself.”
Laroche held out the phone again. There was no arguing with him. “I must only of been inside for a month when she said she was pregnant,” he said. “But I’m not stupid.”
Michael took the cellphone from him. “I just owe you for one, after this.”
Laroche nodded. “Now you can tell that bitch that I’m on to her, that I’ve been on to her for months, and if she thinks–”
He started to text.
I hope you and the baby are doing ok. “There,” he said clicking Send and passing the handset back. He looked out at the black horizon where the sun’s rays still shone, but he could see no sign of Charlotte’s soul, flying high into the sky.
~~~
He grew used to the daily routine and began to feel better. One of the kangas had told him he’d been made Bicycle Repair Man – cue fanfare and drum roll. He considered it to be overdue recognition of his former life in industrial design. He had a sneaking suspicion there was once a Monty Python sketch that he used to watch with his father called Bicycle Repair Man. It was a privilege granted to prisoners on remand and he knew he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, although on reflection he would have preferred a Trojan horse in his current circumstances.
All the bikes left at all the tips in Paris were brought to the prison to be overhauled, and then they were auctioned off for charity. The idea was that it would be rehabilitation for both the bicycles and for VN1692F – Michael–though it would take more than some WD-40 and a squirt of oil to put him right.
He’d be starting on Monday. He felt like a person again, almost a man.