‘Barely, Mr Moss.’
‘Yeah, well, uh …’ Dean’s throat is dry. ‘I’ve been robbed.’
The knitting needles stop. ‘How very unfortunate.’
‘Not half. I got out my rent money, but two pickpockets did me over on Denmark Street. They must’ve seen me cash my bank order and followed me. Daylight robbery. Literally.’
‘My my my. What a turn-up.’
She thinks I’m spinning her a yarn, thinks Dean.
‘More’s the pity,’ Mrs Nevitt continues, ‘you didn’t persevere at Bretton’s, the Royal Printers. That was a proper position. In a respectable part of town. No “muggings” in Mayfair.’
Bretton’s was indentured cocksuckery, thinks Dean. ‘Like I told yer, Mrs Nevitt, Bretton’s didn’t work out.’
‘No concern of mine, I’m sure. My concern is rent. Am I to take it you want more time to pay?’
Dean relaxes, a little. ‘Honest, I’d be ever so grateful.’
Her lips pinch tight and her nostrils flare. ‘Then this time, this time only, I’ll extend the deadline for your rent payment—’
‘Thank you, Mrs Nevitt. I can’t tell yer how—’
‘—until two o’clock. Never let it be said I’m unreasonable.’
Is the old cow putting me on? ‘Two o’clock … today?’
‘Ample time for you to get to your bank and back, surely. Only this time don’t flash the money as you leave.’
Dean feels hot, cold and sick. ‘My account’s actually empty right now, but I get paid on Monday. I’ll pay yer the lot then.’
The landlady pulls a cord hanging from the ceiling. She takes a card from her writing bureau: ‘BEDSIT TO LET – BLACKS & IRISH NEED NOT APPLY – ENQUIRE WITHIN.’
‘No, Mrs Nevitt, don’t do that. There’s no need.’
The landlady places the card in the window.
‘Where am I s’posed to sleep tonight?’
‘Anywhere you wish. But it won’t be here.’
First no money, now no room. ‘I’ll be needing my deposit.’
‘Tenants who default on their rent forfeit their deposit. The rules are pinned up on every door. I don’t owe you a farthing.’
‘That’s my money, Mrs Nevitt.’
‘Not according to the contract you signed.’
‘Yer’ll get a new tenant by Tuesday or Wednesday. At the latest. Yer can’t take my deposit. That’s theft.’
She resumes her knitting. ‘You know, I detected a whiff of the Cockney barrow-boy about you from the first. But I told myself, No, give him a chance. Her Majesty’s Printers see potential in the young man, after all. So I gave you that chance. And what happened next? You abandoned Bretton’s for a “pop band”. You grew your hair like a girl’s. You spent your money on guitars and Heaven knows what so you have nothing left for a rainy day. And now you accuse me of theft. Well, that’ll teach me to second-guess myself. What’s born in the gutter stays in the gutter. Ah, Mr Harris …’ Mrs Nevitt’s live-in ex-army goon appears at the parlour door. ‘This –’ she glances at Dean ‘– person is leaving us. Immediately.’
‘Keys,’ Mr Harris tells Dean. ‘Both of ’em.’
‘What about my gear? Stealing that too, are yer?’
‘Take your “gear” with you,’ says Mrs Nevitt, ‘and good riddance. Anything still in your room at two o’clock will be in the Salvation Army store at three. Now go.’
‘God al-bloody-mighty,’ mutters Dean. ‘I hope yer die soon.’
Mrs Nevitt ignores him. Her needles click-clack. Mr Harris grips the back of Dean’s collar and hauls him up.
Dean can hardly breathe. ‘Yer choking me, yer scumbag!’
The onetime sergeant shoves Dean into the hall. ‘Up to your room, pack and get out. Or I’ll do more than choke you, you nancy-boy faggot layabout …’
At least I’ve still got my job. Dean tamps the coffee into the metal pod, clips it into the brew socket and pulls down the handle. The Gaggia blasts steam. Dean’s eight-hour shift has dragged. His body’s bruised from the tumble he took in Denmark Street. It’s a freezing night out, but the Etna coffee shop on the corner of D’Arblay and Brewer Streets is warm, bright and raucous. Students and teenagers from the suburbs are talking, flirting, arguing. Mods meet up here before hitting the music venues to take drugs and dance. Well-groomed older men eye up smooth-skinned youths in need of a sugar daddy. Less well-groomed older men stop in for a coffee before a visit to a dirty flick or a knocking shop. Must be over a hundred people crammed in here, thinks Dean, and every man Jack of ’em has a bed to sleep in tonight. Since he began his shift, Dean has been hoping that someone he knows who owes him a favour might drop by so he can cadge a sofa. His hope has grown feebler as the hours have passed, and now it’s faded away. The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ blasts out of the jukebox. Dean once worked out the song’s chords with Kenny Yearwood, back in the simpler days of the Gravediggers. The Gaggia’s nozzle dribbles coffee, filling the cup two-thirds full. Dean unclips the pod and empties the grounds into a tub. Mr Craxi passes by with a tray of dirty plates. Ask him to pay yer early, Dean tells himself for the fiftieth time. Yer’ve got no choice. ‘Mr Craxi, could I—’
Mr Craxi turns around, oblivious to Dean: ‘Pru, wipe the farkin’ counters at the front, they’s disgrazzful!’ He barges by again, revealing a customer sitting at the counter, between the cold-milk dispenser and the coffee machine. Thirtyish, balding, bookish-looking, dressed in a houndstooth jacket and hip blue-glass rectangular glasses. Could be a queer, but yer never know in Soho.
The customer looks up from his magazine – Record Weekly – and meets Dean’s gaze, unembarrassed. He frowns as if trying to place him. If they were in a pub, Dean would ask, ‘What d’yer think yer looking at?’ Here, Dean looks away and rinses the pod under the cold tap, feeling the customer’s eyes still on him. Maybe he thinks I fancy him.
Sharon arrives with a new order slip. ‘Two espressos and two Cokes for table nine.’
‘Two ’spressos, two Cokes, table nine, got it.’ Dean turns to the Gaggia, flips the switch and milky foam settles on the cappuccino.
Sharon comes round to his side of the counter to refill a sugar pot. ‘I’m sorry you can’t kip on my floor, honest I am.’
‘’S all right.’ Dean sprinkles cocoa onto the cappuccino and puts it on the counter for Pru. ‘Bit of a nerve to ask yer, really.’
‘My landlady’s half KGB, half Mother Superior. If I tried to smuggle you in, she’d ambush us and it’d be “This is a respectable house not a bordello!” and she’d turf me out.’
He fills the coffee pod for an espresso. ‘I get it. It’s okay.’
‘You won’t be sleeping under the arches, will you?’
‘Nah, ’course not. I’ve mates I’ll ring.’
Sharon brightens. ‘In that case –’ she hip-wiggles ‘– I’m glad you asked me first. If there’s anything I can do for you, I’m here.’