William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

“Going to a party,” she said. “On a boat on the river.”

“Fabulous,” Adam said. “You look great.”

She looked at him sideways, quizzically. “Are you joking me?”

“No, seriously. You look great.”

“Thanking you, kind sir,” she said, rummaging in her handbag for keys. Adam looked at her hard cleavage and smelt the pungent chemicals of her scent, finding her suddenly extremely sexually desirable — recognising the simple efficiency of her outfit and the messages it was designed to send to people — to men. There was something impish, elvish about her — if you could imagine a sexually alluring imp, Adam thought — and her thin, hooded eyes added to this otherworldly effect.

She paused at the door. “You signing on?”

“Ah, not yet,” Adam said. “But I am making a bit of money, these days.”

“Tugging?”

“What?”

“On the game. Selling your arse?”

“No, begging.”

She thought, frowning. “I got a spare room here, you know. If you want. Twenty a week. Seeing as we go to the same church, like.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine for the moment. It’s a bit pricey for me, to tell the truth.”

“You can owe me.”

“Better not. Thanks all the same.”

“Suit yourself.” She opened the door for them both. “Thanks for bringing back the flip-flops. That’s kind, that is, that’s well nice.”

“It was kind and nice of you to lend them to me. And to tell me about the church. I don’t know what I would have done, otherwise.”

“Yeah, well…What’s being a Samaritan for, eh?” They stepped out on to the walkway and she closed and locked the door.

“Will Ly-on be all right?” Adam asked, unconcernedly, he hoped.

“Yeah, he’ll sleep to tomorrow lunchtime if I let him.”

They walked through The Shaft and then on to Canada Water Tube station. “See you, John, god bless,” she said when they parted and she headed off to find her platform. Adam watched men turn to look at her pass by, saw their eyes swivel and their nostrils flare. He thought he’d pop into the Church of John Christ — he was feeling hungry.

♦

“Soon I getting passport,” Vladimir said. “When I getting passport, I getting job. I getting job then I getting apartment. I getting bank account. I getting credit card, I getting overdraft facility. No more problem for me.”

Adam listened to him almost as if Vladimir were a traveller returned from a distant, fabled land — a low-rent Marco Polo — telling of unimaginable wonders, of lifestyles and possibilities that seemed fantastical, forever beyond his reach. That he had once been a homeowner himself seemed laughable; that he’d had a wallet full of credit cards and several healthy bank accounts an intoxicated dream. He bowed his head and spooned a mouthful of chilli con carne into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, thinking back. He was sitting at his usual table, Gavin Thrale also present, but no sign of Turpin.

“Where will you ‘getting’ this passport?” Thrale asked, offhandedly.

Vladimir then began a complicated story about drug addicts and drug dens in European Community countries — Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland — where, if an addict looked close to death, on his or her last legs, he or she was encouraged by ‘gangster people’ to apply for a passport. When the addict eventually died, the passport was then sold on to someone in the same age-range who vaguely resembled the deceased junkie. No forgery was involved, that was the benefit, that was the absolute beauty of the scam: they were impossible to detect.

Thrale looked highly sceptical. “How much do these passports cost?”

“One thousand euro,” Vladimir said.

Adam remembered he had once had a passport but he had left it in Grafton Lodge when he went for his interview. No doubt it had been impounded with the rest of his belongings.

“So,” Thrale continued, obviously intrigued. “You get one of these passports but you might have to pass yourself off as…as a Dane, a Spaniard, a Czech—”

“Is no matter, Gavin,” Vladimir said, insistently. “Most important thing is passport of European Community — we all the same now. Is no matter what country.”

“When do you get it?” Adam asked.

“Tomorrow, next day.”

“So you won’t be back here again.”

“Absolutely no!” Vladimir laughed. “I get passport, I get job, I finish with church. I was to training for kine , you know.”

“Physiotherapist,” Adam added for Thrale’s benefit.

“Of course. That was when your village in Ukraine collected all that money and sent you here for a heart bypass.”

“Not Ukraine, Gavin. Not bypass, new heart valve.”

Adam finished his chilli con carne — the servings in the Church of John Christ were copious. Bishop Yemi’s sermon that evening had lasted two and a half hours, expatiating further on this concept of John Christ as the leader of a small cell of freedom fighters struggling to liberate their people from the oppression of the Roman Empire. Jesus — loyal lieutenant — had sacrificed himself for John in order that the leader could disappear and the struggle continue. It was all there in the Book of Revelation if you knew how to decipher it. Then he had dozed off for a while — only the hungriest could sit the sermons out with full concentration.

“Anyone see Turpin?” Vladimir asked.

“Probably loitering by some nursery school playground,” Thrale said.

Bishop Yemi appeared at this moment and beamed down at his Johns.

“How’s life, guys?” he said, his smile unwavering, clearly indifferent to their reply.

“Fine, thank you,” Adam said. He felt a strange warmth towards Bishop Yemi: the man and his organisation had clothed and fed him after all.

Bishop Yemi spread his hands. “The love of John Christ go with you, my brothers,” he said, and wandered off to the next table. The congregation had been sparse tonight, barely into double figures.

“Why does the word ‘bogus’ suddenly come to mind?” Thrale said.

“No — he a good man, Bishop Yemi,” Vladimir said, standing. He looked at Adam and made a smoking gesture. “Adam, you want come? I have monkey.”

“Ah, no thanks, not tonight,” Adam said. Vladimir routinely asked him to go and smoke monkey after their evening meal — he must like me, I suppose, Adam thought — and Adam routinely declined.

Later, at the church door, Adam and Thrale stood together for a second, both of them looking up at the evening sky. There were a few fine clouds, tinged with an apricot glow.

“Cirrus fibratus,” Adam said without thinking. “Change in the weather coming.”

Thrale looked at him, curiously. “How on earth do you know that?” he said, intrigued.

“Just a hobby,” Adam said quickly, but he felt his face colouring. Fool, he thought. “Some book I read once…”

“How come people like you and me end up here?” Thrale said. “Hiding behind our beards and long hair.”

“I told you: I had a series of nervous break—”

“Yes, yes, of course. Come off it. We’re both highly educated. Intellectuals. It’s obvious every time we open our mouths — we might as well have ‘BRAINS’ tattooed across our foreheads.”

“That’s all very well,” Adam persisted. “But I cracked up. Everything fell apart. Lost my wife, my job. I was in hospital for months…” He paused. He almost believed it himself, now. “I’m just trying to put my life back together, bit by bit, slowly but surely.”

“Yeah,” Thrale said sceptically. “Aren’t we all.”

“What about you?” Adam said, keen to change the subject.

“I’m a novelist,” Thrale said.

“Really?”

“I’ve written many novels — a dozen or so — but only one has been published.”