Junk - Melvin Burgess [11]
‘You fill yourself up with tar,’ he said. He got in front of me and peered into my face. ‘There, it’s turning your skin grey,’ he told me.
I stopped short in the middle of the pavement. An old lady nearly collided with me from behind. ‘Pack it in…!’
I mean, there I was helping him out and he was telling me I was turning grey. He just grinned and I thought… you bugger. He was teasing me. He had me going, too.
We carried on down Picton Street, and I thought, He’s right, though. My old dad’s eighty-two, he smokes like a chimney and he’s the colour of fag ash.
I smoke cigars meself. When I was younger I always tried to have a fag hanging out of the corner of my mouth by way of advertisement. As a tobacconist, if I don’t smoke, who will? You see a lot of tobacconists these days – particularly the Asians, I may say – who never smoke anything. That’s not right. How can you respect your customers if you think it’s stupid to smoke? How can you know what you’re selling ‘em? I reckon I could tell a Benson from a Regal blindfold, from smell alone. Or I used to, anyway.
I gave up fags, I was smoking too many. A cigar is the ideal smoke for a tobacconist because you can always have one in your gob, but it keeps going out. That way, you’re still smoking even when you’re not, if you see what I mean.
‘How about a Mars bar, then?’
He took that. I always keep a pocketful of chocolate bars, again on account of being a tobacconist. I eat them, too. Consequently I’m fat and permanently short of breath, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.
And I’m well informed, too. I read the newspapers.
Richard was waiting in the shop for us. George Dole’s old electrical shop, that is. He’d squatted it a few weeks before.
‘Hello, Skolly.’ He beamed at me. Or rather, he beamed at the door behind me. He’s a strange person, Richard. Very friendly but – he’s always smiling but he never actually seems to look straight at you, for some reason.
He’s like me, Richard is, a bit of an act. ‘Here’s the lad I was telling you about.’ I gave David a little shove in the back and he stumbled towards the door. Richard held his hand out.
‘Always delighted to meet a new candidate for the squatting movement,’ he said.
‘Thanks, thanks…’ said David.
I made to go. Richard was disappointed.
‘Aren’t you going to join us, Skolly?’
‘I’ve got a home of me own, thanks.’
‘No, for tea. I’m making burgers especially for you.’
‘Burgers?’
Every time he saw me he was inviting me round to eat some disgusting mess of beans or sprouted seeds or yoghurt.
‘Especially for you,’ repeated Richard, grinning at the street opposite.
I paused. The missis was away visiting the brood in Taunton. I had been planning on going down the pub, but then the pub was open all night. Richard only wanted to convert me, but unlike some I could mention, I’ve never lost my curiosity. Besides, let him try and convert me. It might amuse me.
I pushed David in front of me and followed them up the stairs to the flat above the shop.
When I first found out that George Dole’s old electrical shop had been squatted, I was quite upset. George used to be a friend of mine until his heart did for him – that was about eighteen months before. I don’t like squatters. What’s to stop ‘em working and paying rent? And they’re such a scabby bunch. They like to think they belong to the underworld, but most of the crooks I know work for a living…
I first had my suspicions that this was different from the usual type of squat because this little notice appeared on the front door, announcing that the place was squatted and that the police had been informed. It just goes to show what this country’s come to if the villains go and tell the police what they’re doing, so they can be left alone to get on with it. I mean, can you imagine it with any other sort of crime? A little notice going up: ‘This bank will be robbed tomorrow at 11 a.m.,’ and the police touching their helmets and saying, ‘All in order, sir, let us know if you have any problems…’
After a few days the usual lot appeared – scabby-looking yoofs with