James Craig: The Circus

Trying not to smile, the man heading for the door shook his head; life can be so unfair .

As the game restarted, the fourth official signalled that there would be six minutes of added time — which, ironically, was longer than Duncan Brown had left on this earth.

No, no, no . .

‘For God’s sake!’ Marc Harrington tipped back his head and threw more of the white wine down his throat. After a week spent kowtowing to a bunch of unbelievably demanding Israeli clients, he had to come home to this? It just wasn’t fair. Angrily, he banged the glass down on the granite worktop of the Boffi kitchen and glared at his wife. ‘We spend seven million to buy a house on bloody Wellington Road and we end up stuck with the neighbours from hell.’ As if on cue, the music next door ratcheted up another notch. It was now so loud that Marc imagined he could see the windows shaking. ‘I told you we should have gone to Highgate, but oh no. .’

Knowing better than to rise to the bait, Angela Harrington sipped nervously at her gin and tonic, making a face — too much tonic. They had only moved into the neighbourhood three weeks ago and already her dream home was turning into a nightmare.

‘Instead we’re stuck here with all these bloody chav parvenus.’

Thank you for pointing that out, Angela thought. She wanted to scream at her aggressive, know-it-all husband. Instead, she took another gulp of her overly diluted Blackwoods 60, hoping that the gin would start kicking in sooner rather than later. Maybe for the next one she would just dispense with the tonic altogether. Somewhat embarrassed, she glanced at the three-quarters-empty bottle. It had been purchased from Waitrose only two days ago; not for nothing was gin known as ‘mother’s ruin’.

Pulling open the door of the wine cooler located in the middle of the triple fridge-freezer, Marc grabbed another bottle of Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 2006. After violently removing the cork with his Legnoart Grand Cru Sommelier black acrylic corkscrew, he refilled his glass, spilling some of the?345-a-bottle wine over his lime-green Lacoste polo shirt as he did so. ‘Bollocks!’

Despite everything, Angela felt a grin spreading across her lips. She quickly turned away before her husband noticed.

Taking another gulp, he gestured furiously in the direction of number 40, next door. ‘That bloody boy of theirs will have been left on his own again.’

‘He is sixteen,’ Angela pointed out, her words barely audible over the rock music crashing across what the estate agent had called a ‘Mediterranean-style secluded garden’.

‘The parents have basically given up,’ Harrington snorted.

Unlike you, Angela mused, as she clasped the remains of her G amp;T to her weary bosom.

‘He’s an idiot.’ Madeleine Harrington, sixteen herself, appeared in the doorway in an AC-DC Back in Black T-shirt and grey jeans. Her father noted with some distaste that her platinum-blonde pixie hair had been given a red tinge since the last time he had seen her. ‘Is there any wine for me?’

The music died away, before quickly building back up to another crescendo. ‘Go and tell him to shut that crap off first,’ her father snapped.

‘It’s 30 Seconds to Mars,’ Madeleine said, slouching past her father and reaching into the dishwasher for a wine glass.

Her parents looked at each other blankly.

‘That’s the name of the band,’ she explained, helping herself to some wine. ‘30 Seconds to Mars.’ She sighed — this really was like talking to a pair of retards. ‘American soft rock.’

‘That little sod is thirty seconds from a good kicking,’ her father grunted. By now he had the best part of a bottle and a half of Chevalier-Montrachet inside him and he could feel the alcoholic buzz feeding his fury.

‘Whatever.’ Madeleine took a mouthful, her expression suggesting she thought that the wine was okay but nothing special. ‘Anyway, I’m not going over there. The randy little sod will try and jump me. . again. He thinks that somehow I’m his girlfriend just because I let him come along to that party the other week. If he’s not careful, Ben will give him a hammering.’

Mention of his only daughter’s real boyfriend, a useless, lazy little twerp whose father was nothing more than a glorified car salesman — he sold Minis, for God’s sake! — did nothing to improve Marc Harrington’s mood. Another couple of gulps and his glass was nearly empty again.

‘Anyway,’ Madeleine grinned from behind her wine glass, ‘right now he’s probably in there playing with himself.’

Harrington almost choked on his wine. ‘Too much information, Maddy,’ he grunted.

‘He’s addicted to porn.’ Madeleine flashed her parents the standard naughty-little-girl grin that had stood her in such good stead over the last decade or so.

That act is getting a bit tired, young lady, her father thought sourly. You’re going to have to find something else.

‘He made me watch some one time.’

Her father held up a hand. ‘Enough!’

‘Marc. .’ Angela shot her husband a look.

‘Okay, okay.’ Harrington took a final slug of the wine and placed his empty glass on the Calligaris Park dining table. ‘I’ll do it.’ Like I have to do everything around here, he reflected. Pining for the quiet leafy streets of Highgate, he stormed towards the door.

Hovering on the kerbstone, Hannah Gillespie waited for a gap in the traffic. Standing at her shoulder, her friend Melanie Henderson was wittering on about some cute boy called Ricky that she’d met at the Westfield shopping centre the weekend before. Hannah was not really interested in boys; at least not since she’d got herself a man, a proper bloke.

Smiling at the thought, she clocked a couple of creeps sitting in the front of a silver Range Rover, shamelessly eyeing her up. Hannah knew exactly what they were thinking and felt the urge to gag. If her boyfriend were here, he’d give them both a good slap. They were old enough to be her dad — even older, probably. They were parked on a double yellow line, too; hopefully they would get a ticket.

Melanie gripped her arm. ‘I’m sure he fancies me. .’

‘Uh-huh.’ Hannah took a tentative step into the roadway, hoping that one of the passing cars would slow down to let them across. Time was pressing. She needed to get back to do her homework. Then she had plans.

Inspector John Carlyle sat in the passenger seat of an unmarked police car and watched the two girls struggling to cross the road in the face of an unrelenting stream of traffic. Catching the eye of the prettier of the pair, he saw a look of annoyance cross her face before she rudely gestured towards his car with the middle finger of her right hand. Ignoring her, he stared at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. I look tired, he thought, rubbing his hand across the five o’clock shadow on his jaw. But it’s more than that. Time is moving on, and it’s certainly not waiting for me. The face that stared back at him contained the familiar quizzical plebeian features of yesteryear, but there was no denying the growing bags under the eyes and the suggestion of greater fleshiness under the chin. Middle age might be an increasingly amorphous concept, but there was no denying that he had reached it. His temples were now almost exclusively grey and there was even the first hint of a receding hairline. ‘You’re getting old, you old bastard,’ he nearly said aloud. Then thought: Talking to yourself, too? Going fucking senile, sunshine.

Maybe not quite yet.

A break in the traffic allowed the two girls to reach the middle of the road.

‘What do you call an exploding monkey?’