Desmond Barry - London Noir

The following afternoon, struggling home from the supermarket — since arthritis had calcified the knuckles in his hands, he was unable to load more than a few items into his bag at a time and so had to go shopping each afternoon — Coughlan ran into Pete again. As Coughlan was crossing the junction at the foot of the estate, a line of impatient cars pushing at the red light, Pete came rushing out of the greengrocer’s with a loaf of bread under his arm and bumped straight into the old man. Coughlan stumbled but did not fall, though he did drop his shopping bag, and a tin of processed peas rolled into the gutter.

“Whoa, watch where you’re going,” squealed Pete, and then pulled up as he noticed that it was Coughlan he had bumped into.

Coughlan frowned at him and shook his head, and then stooped to pick up his groceries.

“Here, let me get that,” said Pete, crossing to pick up the peas from the gutter. He held out the tin to Coughlan and the old man took it and put it in his bag with the other things.

“Sorry about that,” Pete continued. “Look, why don’t I carry your shopping home for you? The lift’s not working again.” Without waiting for an answer, he took the bag from Coughlan’s hardened and aching hands and started walking.

Pushing through the door of the building, the boy holding it open with the back of his heel, Coughlan noticed that Pete headed straight for the stairs without so much as a casual glance at the mess of graffiti on the wall. It had not been touched since Coughlan had stumbled across Pete and his friend with fresh paint on their hands, but he thought that Pete would have at least sneaked a look at it. Or perhaps that was the reason behind Pete helping him with his shopping...

Upstairs in the flat, Pete put the shopping bag on the kitchen counter, took out his own loaf of bread that he had put in there for safekeeping, and then turned toward the door. But he appeared to be in no great rush to leave, his lips mouthing silent words as if he had something on his mind.

Coughlan thought he knew what it was. “Don’t worry about it, son,” he said, smiling. “I’m not going to tell your mum about the graffiti or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about...”

“Oh no, that’s not the reason I helped you,” insisted Pete, shaking his head. “No, that’s got nothing to do with it. I just saw you struggling across the street and I thought...”

“I know, I know,” Coughlan assured him, patting the air in front of him with his palms. “And I do appreciate it. It’s just that... Look, can I get you a drink of squash or something?”

“No, that’s all right,” said Pete, shaking his head. “I better get this bread home or my mum’ll be wondering where I am.”

“All right,” said Coughlan. “Well, thanks again, Pete.”

The boy offered him a brief smile and then turned and disappeared back down the stairs.

The following afternoon, Pete was waiting for Coughlan when the old man came out of the supermarket, and once again offered to help him with his shopping. Coughlan was surprised to see him after the awkwardness of their last meeting, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut if it meant that much to the lad. And on the walk back to the estate, it did seem that Pete had forgotten all about it, chatting about his school and his teachers.

Over the following couple of weeks, Pete helped Coughlan with his shopping a number of times, and soon Coughlan found that he was timing his trips to the supermarket to coincide with Pete coming home from school. Sometimes Pete would accept the old man’s offer of a drink, gulping it down, but more often than not he would decline, telling him that he had to get home.

And then one afternoon, an hour or so before Coughlan was due to leave for the supermarket, there was a knock at the door. When he opened it he was surprised to find Pete standing there with a couple of bulging shopping bags in his hands. “These weigh a ton,” he gasped. “Are you going to let me in or what?”

Startled and amused, Coughlan stepped aside to let him across the threshold. “What’ve you got in there?” he said, trailing Pete down the hall and into the kitchen.

Pete left the question in the air as he hefted the bags onto the counter. He let out a great breath, and then turned and rested against the counter, smiling and shaking his head.

“I don’t understand,” said Coughlan, frowning.

“The teacher was sick, so we got let out of school... I thought I might as well pick up your shopping for you.”

“But that lot must’ve cost you a small fortune,” said Coughlan, stepping forward and peering into the bags. “You didn’t pay for it yourself, did you?” He had no idea how much pocket money Pete got each week, or whether he had a paper round or some other job, but, whatever, he should have been spending it on himself, not on an old man. “You must let me give you the money.”

Coughlan moved into the front room, the fire turned down low, and returned with his wallet. He took out a ten-pound note and handed it to Pete. “Is that enough?” he asked, looking at the remaining note in his wallet, a fiver. He felt that he should give the boy more for his thoughtfulness, but the fiver was all he had until he claimed his pension at the end of the week.

“Ten’s fine,” replied Pete. He took the crumpled bill from the outstretched hand and folded it into his front pocket.

“It was very kind of you, anyway,” said Coughlan. “Very thoughtful.”

“Look, I was thinking,” said Pete, hesitant. His cheeks were flushed pink, and there was a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “Why don’t you let me do this all the time, get your shopping for you on my way home from school. I know it must be difficult for you, what with your hands like that... It’s no problem, honest, especially as you always eat the same things.”

Coughlan felt tears prick the back of his lids. “That’s a great idea,” he said. “Thanks.”

“And then you can pay me when I get here,” Pete added.

“But what if I’m not in?” said Coughlan, sniffing.

“Well, I don’t know...”

“I might want to go out. I don’t want you getting my shopping for me and then not being here to let you in.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a mobile phone, have you?”

“Er, no. No, I haven’t...”

“Well, I don’t know then,” said Pete, his forehead crinkled in thought. “What about if you let me have a key or something? Or how about leaving it with one of the neighbors?”

Coughlan thought about his neighbors, the born fighters. “I’ll go down and get you one cut in the morning,” he replied.

“Sorted,” said Pete.

The new arrangement suited them both fine. But then Coughlan found that he was just waiting in for Pete to arrive, and not getting out and about as much as he would have liked. He let this go on for some time, until one afternoon, as he was looking out the window, the clouds above the estate parted, the solid shapes of the buildings started to soften around the edges, and he realized that he was just being ridiculous and decided to go out for a walk. Pulling on his jacket, he left the estate and headed down Castle Road toward the center of Camden Town, past the boarded-up pubs, the shops that sold little more than international phone cards, and the cafés with names in languages that he did not even recognize let alone understand. As he walked, he saw a number of walls and bridges littered with both the castle and YBT graffiti, the castle artwork faded and peeling while the YBT letters shone with a brittle freshness. It did not cross his mind for one second that perhaps Pete had been one of the artists.

At the junction in front of Camden Town tube station there was a traffic island, a triangular slice of concrete and paving stones that for as long as Coughlan could remember had been known as Penguin Island. In the street behind the tube station, there was a Catholic church that back in the ’50s had been frequented in the main by the Irish families who lived in the immediate area. After the regular Sunday morning Mass had finished at 11:30, the men would gather on the traffic island to wait for the pubs to open at noon, while the women would go home to prepare lunch. Standing there in their uniform black suits and white shirts, with their hands in their pockets, shuffling around on impatient feet, the men had resembled nothing so much as a squadron of penguins stranded in the middle of a sea of traffic.