‘Where are you, One Eight?’ A beat, a drag and the metallic rustling of the courier’s voice. ‘What the fuck are you doing in Regent’s Park? You’re going to thirty-six from Covent Garden and you’re in Regent’s Park. What is going on, One Eight?’
He went on like this for a while and as he was still talking dug a docket out from under the messiest part of his desk and held it out for me to take. I was relieved to get out of there. I looked at the docket as I returned to my bike. The job was somewhere near the Barbican, between St Paul’s and Old Street. Not that far from the office. I freewheeled down Pentonville Road and took a left.
A few minutes later I was going down a bus and cycle lane with a line of traffic stationary on my right and some fucking well-intentioned idiot left a gap in the queue and waved through a Vauxhall Astra that was aiming to cross from the other side of the road into a garage forecourt on my side. But the driver didn’t look out for me. I could almost forgive that. It was the twat in the Golf who waved her through I soon wanted to have buried alive.
So the Astra crossed my path — nice and slowly as well, that was the essential comedy touch; if she’d been doing more than ten miles an hour I’d have missed her — and I braked but there wasn’t much point. My front wheel smacked straight into the rear door and then I was flying. It must have been an impressive sight for all the motorists sitting in their cars with nowhere to go as my body described a parabola in the air above the Astra and landed with a sickening crump in the bus lane just beyond the car.
I lay still and in total silence for a few moments not knowing if I could move, not daring to try in case it was bad news. Then the spell was broken as the driver of the Astra came running and crouched down beside me. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she was saying. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you all right? He waved me on. I thought it was clear.’
I sympathised. She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. Obviously she should have looked instead of relying on the wave. It was the man who waved I wanted to have a stern word with, but the traffic was moving again. Which was more than I was.
‘Are you all right?’ The woman was frightened she’d done terrible damage. At this stage I still didn’t know. I was just lying there sort of enjoying the attention and the luxury of being able to lie flat in the middle of the road. ‘Please say something,’ the woman implored.
‘OK,’ I said, deciding it was time to see what the score was, and I started to feel my way back into my body. It was all there, as far as I could tell, and in one piece.
No dogs yet, but stay with it. I’ll come to the dogs.
Soon I was getting to my feet and the woman was helping to dust me down. I probably ended up cleaner than before. She went and looked at my bike before I did. She was gone a while, around the other side of the car. Meanwhile everyone was just driving past, slowing down to look for blood on the road. When she came back I was lighting a cigarette. I was shaking like fuck but had been remarkably lucky to have sustained only grazed ankles and an extremely sore back and shoulders.
‘The news is not good,’ she said, wearing a very worried expression. ‘I’m very sorry. It was my fault and I’ll pay.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I tried to reassure her. ‘No bones broken, I don’t think, and I’m not leaking smoke anywhere.’
She laughed nervously and we both went to take a look at my bike. She had been understating it really. The bike was completely fucked.
‘I’ve no idea what bikes cost,’ the woman said, producing a chequebook and pen. ‘If this isn’t enough I’ll write my name and address on the back, just let me know what else I owe you.’
I was a bit dazed at this point and didn’t look at the amount. The poor woman was muttering away to herself about having to go. I dragged my bike onto the garage forecourt she’d been trying to get to and then she was in her car burning rubber. I sat down on the little fence at the front of the garage, lit a cigarette and looked at the cheque for the first time. Two hundred pounds. To me that was a fortune and would have bought eight bikes the equal of mine. I suddenly felt quite lightheaded and started daydreaming about spending all that cash. I was brought back down to earth by the Thin Controller’s nasal voice crackling over the radio.
‘Alpha Two Three… Alpha Two Three. Where are you, Two Three?’
‘I had an accident, control.’
‘What about the job, Two Three?’
What a cunt. No How are you? Are you hurt? Was it serious? None of that. For all he knew I could be in casualty with only my voice still functional and the nurses were only waiting for him to call before unplugging the machines.
‘I’ve got to do something about the bike, try and get it fixed up,’ I said, surveying the wreckage in front of me.
‘Will you be able to do it?’
‘Probably. The wheels aren’t too good. A couple of new wheels and a bit of work and it should be OK.’
‘The job, Two Three.’ His voice had risen an octave. I could almost smell his dog and his disgusting roll-up cigarettes. ‘Will you be able to do the job?’
As I say, what a cunt.
I wanted to tell him to roll the job up tight and stick it up his arse and I’d help if he was having difficulty.
‘The job will get done but it may take a while to fix the bike,’ I said through clenched teeth.
‘Call me when you’ve done the job, Two Three.’
I lit another cigarette and kicked my bike. Then I remembered the cheque and smiled. Two hundred quid. I hoped there’d come a day when I’d demand a good deal more to cheat death and be completely humiliated in the space of ten minutes, but the state of my finances at that time meant it was a pretty good deal.
I left the pile of scrap where it was and walked the remaining mile and a half to the job address. I often asked myself later why I bothered to complete the job, given that I’d decided after picking myself up off the road — even before seeing the state of my bike — that I would ride no more jobs for the Thin Controller.
There’s a part of me that doesn’t like to leave loose ends. I find it hard to walk out of bad films and I never leave a football match until the final whistle even if my team are three goals down and leaving five minutes before time would get me home an hour earlier. I like to see things resolved. It sort of all ties in with my love of maps and my search, years later, for the city on my map.
It was painful to walk for the first quarter of a mile but then I seemed to loosen up and I knew how best to place my feet to minimise the jarring effect.
I headed vaguely south. I had my A — Z in the big fluorescent bag along with the radio and the job itself. Sometimes I wondered what was in the envelopes and packages I delivered. I liked the mystery and the sense of bringing people together, becoming a conduit for their communications. This job was a stiff-backed envelope, A4 size, bearing an address label and the words, handwritten in ballpoint, ‘By hand’. Despite my natural curiosity I had never been tempted to open any of the jobs.
The sun had sunk behind the old warehouses on the other side of the street. I wondered what I might do next. The idea of telling the Thin Controller I was no longer going to work for him frightened me a little. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have just called him up and told him, but I had to return the bag and the radio, and I had to get paid for my last week.
Eventually I reached the street, without the aid of the map, and crossed over to the odd numbers, looking for number 23. At first there didn’t seem to be one; it was a short street and the numbers only went up to 15. Then I noticed an alley down by the side of number 15. I turned down it and the alley opened out into a narrow road with old derelict properties on either side. They seemed to have been workshops and light manufacturing units. There were also occasional doorways that could have led to flats. Most of the jobs I did were delivering to businesses but very occasionally I’d get one to a residential address. There were no numbers on the doors and the street had not been given a name unless it was a continuation of the first street. Down near the bottom on the left hand side was an archway with the number 23 hand-painted on the wall at waist height. I passed under the archway into a courtyard scattered with household rubbish and black binliners ready to burst. All I wanted was a door with a letter box. I wasn’t sure I would bother waiting for a signature this time. I was feeling nervous, though I couldn’t account for it.