Part 27 (2/2)

'I could tell when you sat down. Your emanations are more gamma than alpha.'

'You tell without a urine sample?' I almost said 'sperm sample', but chickened out.

She acted a laugh. This was going well. 'I'm Nancy Yoakam. Holistic Therapist. Here's my card.' And here was Nancy Yoakam's hand, lingering on my side of the table.

'I'm Marco. I like your name, if I may say so. You should be from Nashville.'

'I'm from Glas...o...b..ry. You know. King Arthur and the rock festival. Very pleased to meet you, Marco.' Gaze into my eyes... You are sinking into a deeeeep sleeeeeep. Okay. But I'm a bit too old for her to be adopting that Children's TV presenter voice. She probably thinks I'm younger, most women do. That's not vanity, it's having Latin American genes in the pool. 'You see, I'm a person watcher. I like to sit and read people. To trained eyes, humans transmit their innermost secrets. I see your fingers are ringless tell me Marco, is there no special somebody in your life?'

Direct. 'A girlfriend, you mean?'

'Yes, let's suppose I do mean a girlfriend.'

'I see several women concurrently.'

Taking me in her stride. Eyebrow theatrically arched. Nancy did not get sprung from the Lego box yesterday. 'Oh, how nice for you. A Juan Quixote. Doesn't that get rather complicated?'

'Well, it would do, but I always tell a women when I first meet her that I see other women too. Like I'm telling you now. So if they don't want to handle that, they can stop before they start. I don't lie to people.'

Nancy Yoakam put down Dwight Silverwind, still open but face down, and thumbed her lips coquettishly. 'If you ask me, that's a very sophisticated way of luring women.'

'I don't mean it to be. Why do you say so?'

'It sends out a challenge, ”You could be the one to change me, you could be the one to make me believe in love again.” Dwight calls it the ”Bird with the Broken Wing Syndrome”.'

Iannos brought me my tea, and tutted at me like a wily peasant. I thanked him and ignored him.

'Never thought of that. Maybe you're right, Nancy.' Always a pleasure to discover insight in a vacuum. 'I don't not believe in love. I just think it follows its own rather perverse rules of conduct, which I cannot fathom. Actually, I've been in love twice, which I think is rather a lot. Excuse me if I devour this falafel, would you? I'm ravenous.'

'Go ahead. Why do you think we met today, Marco? Why you, why here, why now? Would you like to hear what I think it was?'

'Blind chance?'

'When we say chance, we mean ”emanations”. Dwight would say that your gamma was drawn to my alpha. The north magnetic pole is drawn to the south in an identical way.'

Dwight was beginning to p.i.s.s me off. I sat down because my mate Iannos offered me a free falafel. I sat where I did because there was nowhere else to sit. If Nancy Yoakam had been a bloke I would have been halfway to the door already. She had an interesting mind possibly but all this New Age tosh was daubed over it. However, there was a free s.h.a.g on my d.i.c.k's radar, so I stayed and sat through 'How Crystal Healing Can Change Your Life'. Amethyst is good for depression. Nancy's best friends were minerals. By the time I got her phone number I was no longer even interested in phoning her.

What's wrong with me?

When I was a kid and every female an unexplored continent, my heart would gasp in the wind and all colours held new truths.

Now look at me. I s.h.a.g women like I wash my s.h.i.+rts. More often, some weeks.

Marco at sixteen and Marco at thirty are as different as Tierra del Fuego and Kennington.

No good, Marco my boy, no good at all. If you think about it too much you're lost.

Poppy and I had an argument a few weeks ago, which she ended by saying, 'You know, Marco, you're not stupid, but for someone so intelligent you can be pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned blind.'

I'd had no idea whatsoever how to respond, so I made some stupid joke. I forget what.

Time to head back.

I live in The New Moon. My pad is an attic conversion on the top floor of the pub. It's easy to find if the weather's good go to St Katherine's Docks and keep walking along the river, or just get any bus bound for The Isle of Dogs, and get off at the university. The pub's almost next door to Wapping Tube Station. I wound up there quite by accident, of course. The Music of Chance had a gig there last winter. One of our occasional guest vocalists, Sally Leggs, introduced me to Ed and Sylv, who run the place. The gig went down well, Sally being a kind of local celebrity, and when we were chatting afterwards Ed mentioned they were looking for a lodger again.

'What happened to the last one?' I asked. 'Did a runner?'

'No,' said Sylv, 'you may as well know now. It happened almost twelve months ago. It was in the papers and we were on the News at Ten. News at Ten. Terrorists were using an old forgotten air-raid shelter under our beer cellar as a bomb factory. One night there was an accident, and about five bombs blew up simultaneously. Right under where you're sitting. Hence the refit, and the name change. Used to be The Old Moon.' Terrorists were using an old forgotten air-raid shelter under our beer cellar as a bomb factory. One night there was an accident, and about five bombs blew up simultaneously. Right under where you're sitting. Hence the refit, and the name change. Used to be The Old Moon.'

I almost giggled. But I could tell by everyone's faces that every word was true.

'f.u.c.k,' I said, feeling ashamed, 'that's bad luck.'

People stared inwards.

'Still,' I blundered on the way I do, 'something that freaky isn't likely to happen for another couple of centuries, is it?'

Bigmouth strikes again.

Sat.u.r.day is market day in Old Moon Road, so The New Moon was packed wall to wall with noise, smoke, grumbling, bags of vegetables and antiques. Moya was playing darts with her new boyfriend, a squaddie called Ryan. Moya and I had done the wild thing one scratchy night. It hadn't been such a good idea.

Sylv was doing her s.h.i.+ft with Derek, the part-timer. 'Marco, a man called Digger was on the phone asking for you earlier. I gave him your number upstairs.'

Oh, no. 'Really? What did he want?' As if I didn't know.

'Wouldn't say. But I think it's just as well his name isn't Slasher.'

Sylv is not a very well woman. Her eyelids are raw pink and on her worst days they're red and cracked. One of the regulars, Mrs Entwhistle, told me that Sylv had lost the baby she was carrying on the night of the bomb. How do people pull themselves through things like that? I go to pieces just opening my credit-card bills. But people do survive, all around us. The world runs on strangers coping. And Sylv's been smiling a bit more recently. If that had happened to me, I'd have to sell up if I had anything to sell up and go and live in County Cork. But Sylv's family owned The Old Moon for generations and so she's staying put in The New Moon. When there's a lot of customers I lend a hand, especially if I'm a little behind on the rent.

There are four flights of stairs between the bar and my room. It's a stiff climb, and the stairwell can be quite spooky at night, and sometimes in the daytime, too. The building goes back centuries. From my window there's a fine view over the Thames, as it curves around towards Greenwich and becomes an estuary. Upstream you can see Tower Bridge. It was a clear evening, and I could see streetlights coming on as far away as Denmark Hill and Dulwich.

If I did ever go to live in County Cork, I'd be on a boat back within a fortnight.

I opened the door to my room and my heart went into contractions when I saw the answerphone winking. Surely not Digger. He said I wouldn't have to pay him back until the following Tuesday. My dole cheque comes on Monday, and I'll be able to persuade Barry to give me 30 for this leather jacket of Roy's. Four messages.

But first I bit the bullet and opened the letter from the credit-card company. If they type my name and address in upper case, it's just a statement. If they use lower-case letters, I'm in trouble. This was upper case.

Even so, it hurt. Where had this money gone? A shoe shop, restaurants, music equipment, a modem. There was a nice little bit at the bottom saying that my credit limit had been extended by 300! Are these people stupid?

Nope. They're not remotely stupid.

Next hurdle on the Marco Steeplechase: the answer machine.

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