Page 35 of Pressure Head
I’d arranged to meet Gary outside the Merchants Café in St. Albans at eleven the next day, so he could show me his new light of love. He was ten minutes late, and I was about to nip inside for a cappuccino when I saw his cuddly teddy-bear figure lumbering towards me. “All right, Gary?” I called, waving. He gave a cheery grin and let Julian drag him in my direction.
“Fantastic, darling. Found anything interesting in the drains this morning?”
I’d had a loo to unblock. “Only a toilet duck and half an Action Man,” I said, hampered by the huge, hairy paws that had landed on my chest. Julian’s paws, that was, not Gary’s. “God, you’re a ton weight,” I told the dog. “What has your daddy been feeding you?”
“Tender young virgins, of course. It helps keep his coat glossy. Shall we?”
Leaving the café behind us, we elbowed our way through the crowded streets of market-day St. Albans. The market’s a jumbled mix of food and clothing, leather goods and bolts of fabric—something for everyone, and everyone seems to turn out for it. We passed a fishmonger’s stall and were nearly knocked flat by the whiff—the cats would have been in ecstasy. Stall holders assaulted our ears with cries of “Two fer a pahnd, when they’re gone they’re gone,” and I felt a sudden burst of nostalgia for my London childhood.
“So are you going to tell me about this bloke of yours?” I asked, dodging a couple of tracksuited mums pushing armoured buggies.
“Darren? Oh, he’s justadorable. You’ll love him. Very good-looking. Actually—” Gary broke off and glanced around furtively before whispering in my ear. “He’s an ex-porn star.”
“Yeah?” I tried not to sound too staggered. Gary’s a great bloke, and I love him to bits, but I’d never have expected him to land a porn star. “Oi, I hope you’re using protection,” I added.
“Sweetie! We’ve hardly done more thankiss, so far.”
“And how long’s that going to last? Make sure you’ve got some on you at all times, then you won’t be tempted to take a risk.”
“Tommy, darling, I may be besotted, but I’m not silly. Of course I’ll use protection. Scout’s honour.”
“You were a Boy Scout?” I was having a lot of trouble picturing it. Girl Guides, maybe, but Boy Scouts?
“For about a month. The uniform was lovely, but the other boys were terribly rough. And going camping wasn’t nearly as much fun as I’d thought it would be. Here we are,” he added, his voice suddenly breathless. “This is Darren’s stall.”
Even though I was gagging to see what the porn star looked like, something about the way Gary said it made me glance over at him, instead of at the stall. There was a faint flush on Gary’s cheeks, and his eyes were shining, his lips parted in a tender smile.
Bloody hell. I’d never seen him like this before. It must be love. I stared for a moment, then dragged my eyes round to the stall.
Gary’s bloke was currently selling fruit and veg to an old dear with a bag on wheels. As she shuffled away, her place was taken by a Boden-wearing lady who looked at the bowls of mixed veg (“pahnd a bowl, three bowls for two pahnd”) as if she’d found a cockroach in one of them. “I really only want a cauliflower,” she said doubtfully, in ringing middle-class tones.
“Here you go, love,” he said, his tones slightly nasal as he unabashedly tipped the contents of the bowl into a paper bag, twirled it shut, and handed it to her. “That’ll be a pound for the cauli, and just for you, I’ll throw the carrots in free.”
She paid up, either overpowered by the force of his personality or just not too strong on logic.
I studied Darren carefully. He had dark hair swept back from his face, and a neatly trimmed goatee. There was certainly something arresting about his looks. I could see why he’d got a job in film—although to be honest, I reckoned a handsome face was probably an optional extra in the sort of films he’d been in. He towered over us from behind the stall, but I got the weirdest feeling something wasn’t quite right. It took me a moment to work out what it was. His proportions were all wrong, for a big bloke. His arms were too short, and his torso was as well, unless . . . unless he was standing on a box.
A big box, I decided. “Gary!” I hissed furiously. “You didn’t tell me he was a dwarf!”
Gary looked like he was about to pitch a fit. “Well, if that’s all you can think of to say—”
He was interrupted with a cheery call of, “Gary! All right, mate?” We’d been spotted. Gary’s face transformed as he turned to the (fresh, juicy, four-for-a-pahnd) apple of his eye.
“Darren, sweetie, this is Tom,” he said, having apparently forgotten he was pissed off with me.
I was given a brief but thorough inspection by the undeniably good-looking man behind the counter. “This the one you was telling me about?”
“The same,” Gary cooed. “Thomas Paretski, plumberextraordinaire.”
Darren’s eyes narrowed. “Bit of a short-arse, ain’t he?”
My jaw dropped, as Gary shrieked with laughter beside me.
Sod Rome—apparently these days, all roads led to Brock’s Hollow. At least, I found myself driving through the village again that afternoon, after a sandwich lunch in the Merchants with Gary, taking the not-quite-direct route to a cracked kitchen sink in Harpenden.
I wasn’t the only one paying the place a visit. Dave Southgate and his boys in blue were parked in the lay-by outside the church, the one the hearses always parked in so they could take the coffin in through the lychgate. Looked like today it was Robin East’s funeral. He crossed the road between Dave and a uniformed officer, his face flushed but his head held high. George Clooney starring in a remake ofPapillon, maybe.
Bloody hell. Had it been him after all? There was a gaggle of old dears and young mums gawking at him from outside the WI shop, and they obviously had him tried and convicted already—arms folded, noses in the air, they might as well have been shoutingI always knew he was a wrong ’unfor everyone to hear. Standing in the doorway of the estate agents was a pale, hunched-over Pip Cox.
