Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

They looked at him as if he were from Mars – or as if they were on it – so he shrugged and walked down to the newsagent’s across the main road. The short strip of shops there, set back from the road by a stretch of tarmac, had gone through dozens of changes over the years. When he first moved to the estate, Banks remembered, there had been a fish and chip shop, a ladies’ hairdresser, a butcher’s, a greengrocer’s and a launderette; now there was a video-rental shop, a takeaway pizza and tandoori place called Caesar’s Taj Mahal, a minimart and a unisex hair salon. The only constants were the fish and chip shop, which now sold takeaway Chinese food, too, Banks noticed, and Walker’s, the newsagent’s.

Banks waited to cross the busy road. On the other side, lower down from the shops, stood the remains of the old ball-bearing factory. The gates were chained and padlocked shut and it was surrounded by high wire-mesh fencing with barbed wire on top, the windows beyond covered by rusty grilles. Despite these security precautions, most of them were broken anyway, and the front of the blackened brick building was covered in colourful graffiti.

Banks remembered when the place was in production, lorries coming and going, factory whistle blowing and crowds of workers waiting at the bus stop. A lot of them were young women, or girls scarcely out of school, and he had a crush on one of them. Called Mandy by her friends, she used to stand at the bus stop smoking, a faraway look in her eyes, scarf done up like a turban on her head. She had pale smooth skin and lips like Julie Christie, whom Banks had gone to see in Darling with a couple of school friends because she did a nude scene in it. They had only been fourteen or fifteen at the time, but the bored woman in the ticket office at the local fleapit hardly even looked at them before issuing their one and threepennies. The nude scene was terrific, but he didn’t understand much of the rest of the film; it didn’t make the same sense as Billy Liar did for him when he saw it only a few months later. Escaping a boring environment was something he could easily relate to.

One day Mandy started wearing an engagement ring, and a few weeks later she no longer stood at the bus stop with the others, and he never saw her again. He spent ages in his room moping, and even a few years later, when he bought Beggars Banquet and listened to ‘Factory Girl’, he thought of her.

Banks went into the newsagent’s. Mrs Walker moved much more slowly now, and the joints on her left hand were swollen. Arthritis by the look of it. There was still a small pile of Independent s under the magazine rack, so Banks picked one up and took it to the counter.

‘You’re the Banks lad back again, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘That’s me,’ said Banks.

‘I thought so. My body might be falling to pieces but my mind’s still all right. Haven’t seen you since that business in the summer. How are you doing?’

‘Fine, thanks. I see you’re still soldiering on.’

‘I’ll be here till I drop.’

‘I’m surprised you can manage all by yourself.’

‘Oh, I’ve got help. Some local lads help with the papers, and there’s Geoff helps with going to wholesalers, stocktaking and whatnot.’

‘Geoff?’

‘Geoff Salisbury. Nice lad. Well, I say “lad”, but he’s probably your age or older. Always there when you need him is Geoff. And with a smile on his face, too. There’s not too many folk you can say that about these days.’

‘True enough,’ Banks agreed. So the ubiquitous Geoff Salisbury had his feet under Mrs Walker’s table, too. Still, he did say he did odd jobs, and Banks assumed Mrs Walker paid him for his ‘help’. He had to make a living somehow. It didn’t seem that one could go far around the estate, though, without finding some traces of its patron saint, Geoff bloody Salisbury.

The bell jangled and someone else walked into the shop. Banks half-expected it to be Salisbury himself, but when he turned he was gobsmacked by who he saw. It was Kay Summerville. And looking hardly a day older than when he had last seen her thirty years ago. That was an exaggeration, of course – her eyes had gathered a few crow’s feet, and the long blonde hair that still cascaded over her shoulders now showed evidence of dark roots – but she still had her figure and her looks.

A hoarse ‘Kay’ was about all he could manage.

She seemed equally stunned. ‘Alan.’

‘Are you two going to stand there gawping at one another all afternoon or are you going to step aside, young man, and let the lady get what she’s come for?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘Of course.’ Banks moved aside.

Kay smiled. She was wearing a thin white T-shirt under a blue denim jacket, and hip-hugging blue jeans. The hips looked as if they were worth hugging. She caught him looking at her and gave him a shy smile.

‘Packet of Polo mints, please, Mrs Walker, and -’ she turned to the magazine rack and picked out a copy of Marie Claire – ‘and I’ll take this, too.’

Banks stood by the door and loitered, pretending to be looking at a display of anniversary cards. When Kay had finished, she walked towards him.

‘Walk back with you?’ he said.

She did a little curtsy. ‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’

Banks laughed. He had been sixteen when he had first met Kay, and just about to go into the lower sixth. Kay had been fifteen, about to enter her O level year. Her family had just moved up from north London, and Banks had seen her walking along the street in her blue jeans and orange jacket, or in her school uniform – white blouse, maroon jacket, grey skirt probably just a couple of inches too short for the principal’s liking – pouty lips, pale skin, head in the air, and her long blonde hair trailing halfway down her back.

She had seemed unobtainable, ethereal, like Mandy from the factory and, if truth be told, like most of the women or girls Banks lusted after, but one day they met in the newsagent’s, just like today, both wanting the latest issue of New Musical Express . There was only one copy left, so Banks, being the gentleman, let Kay take it. They walked back to the estate together, chatting about pop music. Both were Cream fans, upset about the band splitting up that summer. Both loved Canned Heat’s ‘On the Road Again’ and hated Mary Hopkins’s ‘Those Were the Days’. Kay said she would lend her NME to Banks when she had finished with it. He asked her when that would be, and she said probably Saturday. Emboldened, he went on and asked if she’d like to go to the pictures with him on Saturday night. He could have dropped in his tracks when she said yes.

They went to see Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush , on a double bill with I’ll Never Forget Whatshis-name , and that was it, the start of Banks’s first serious relationship.

‘I heard about your mother,’ Banks said, holding the door for her. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kay pushed a stray tress of hair from her forehead. ‘Thank you. She’d been ill for a long time. She was riddled with cancer and her heart wasn’t strong. I know it’s a cliché, but in this case it really was a blessing.’

‘Is that why you’re up here?’

‘Yes. I’ve got to deal with the house before the council relets it. The rent’s paid up till the end of the month, so I thought I’d take a few days and get it all sorted. You?’

‘It’s Mum and Dad’s golden wedding tomorrow.’

‘That’s marvellous.’

‘It is pretty remarkable, isn’t it? Fifty years. What kind of work do you do?’

‘Investment banking.’

‘Oh.’

Kay laughed. ‘Yes, that’s usually the reaction. Quite a conversation stopper.’