Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

♦

Money is the problem. Haile Selassiedied leaving perhaps a hundred million dollars locked in Swiss bank accounts. It is there still. Sometimes money can be come by very easily, all you need do is find a wallet or shit on a glass table. There is money for nothing. There is money for which you work your balls off. Ishmael worked hard at the library. Of course he knew it wasn’t hard work like mining, or labouring on a building site, but to get up every morning and go to a job he hated — that was hard. And the money was nothing. The Plan required money. It had to be stolen.

♦

When the war ends Nina still considers herself a young woman, and a few years’ deprivation has whipped her body to an erotic leanness it never had in the thirties. She even has high cheekbones these days; and dark eyes, and lips and nails the colour of blood. Dressed in tight black lace she sits at a scratched Steinway and sings ‘These Foolish Things’.

♦

A lonely, one-man-operated, twenty-four-hour self-service petrol station. A Volkswagen camper pulled into the forecourt and Ishmael got out. He filled the petrol tank. The camper was from the commune and full of people. They looked as though they were on their way back from a party. There was a festive atmosphere and fancy dress and party hats were in evidence. Ishmael went into the office to pay and to engage the cashier in friendly conversation.

Ishmael knew that the people who work as petrol station cashiers these days are either teenage boys or ageing men who have seen better days. In another economic climate they would have respected, steady jobs. They would have futures. But now there’s a recession and they settle for what they can get. Sometimes they even have to pretend to like it.

This time there was a solid family man behind the counter. In another life he might have been a cheery milkman, but tonight he wasn’t cheery and it probably wasn’t just tonight.

‘How are you?’ Ishmael asked.

‘So-so.’

‘Nice night, eh?’

‘Depends what you’re doing.’

‘What would you rather be doing?’

‘Sleeping. At home. With the wife.’

‘Night shifts must be hard.’

‘You should try it.’

Ishmael looked around the office as if he were about to compliment the man on what a nice place he had here, but he didn’t. He said, ‘Do you know what the French word for petrol is?’

‘Is this a quiz?’

‘ Essence . Pretty essential if you see what I mean.’

He didn’t see what Ishmael meant. Ishmael laughed. The cashier didn’t.

Ishmael said, ‘Do you ever look into your heart and ask what’s most essential to you?’

‘No.’

‘You should. Try to work out what things are worth living for, and what things are worth dying for.’

This produced a smile on the face of the cashier. People do sometimes smile when they start to get frightened.

‘I’ll bet you get some crazy people in here,’ Ishmael said.

‘Not until tonight.’

‘Not until tonight,’ Ishmael smiled. ‘So how much do I owe you?’

The cashier smiled, this time with relief, thinking that Ishmael was getting down to paying, getting down to business, and in a sense he was right. Ishmael was getting down to business.

‘Eighteen pounds,’ he said.

‘Did you say eighteen?

He repeated, ‘Eighteen.’

‘Anyone would think I’d got money to burn.’

Ishmael laughed again.

He said, ‘How long would a man like yourself have to work before he earned eighteen pounds?’

‘About six hours, on a night shift.’

‘That’s a long time.’

‘You’re making it seem longer all the time.’

Fat Les and Davey and Marilyn and Eric and Tina then entered the office. Davey had shaved his head and was bare-chested except for some chains and a few streaks of oil. He looked dangerous. They all started examining the motor accessories, the key rings, the tins of oil and de-icer. Eric helped himself to a Mars Bar and handed out packets of cashew nuts and chewing gum.

‘Have you ever been robbed?’ Tina asked.

‘Not until tonight,’ the cashier replied.

‘I could see you were an intelligent man,’ said Ishmael.

Davey stood over the cashier, Fat Les emptied the till and Ishmael made a short speech.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he did sound genuinely sorry. ‘We’re only stealing this money because we need it and because it’s in a good cause. We mean no harm, but we’ll smash your brains out if you get in the way of The Plan. I’m sorry you’ve got such a rotten job and I’m sure you’ve got enough problems without my adding to them, but these are hard times for all of us. Personally, I don’t see any political solution to human misery, all that seems a bit simplistic — I mean when you didn’t have a job you probably thought a job would solve all your problems, but now you’ve got a job and you know it hasn’t. Still, that’s just a personal view. However, I do know that there are ways out. There are some roads that give smoother rides than others, and take you nearer to where you want to go. I found my road and I believe that it’s within all of us to find it. And remember that a pocketful of truth is worth all the bulging cash registers on earth.’

Fat Les shut him up. Tina planted a kiss on the cashier’s cheek, and the robbers piled into the camper and returned to Fox’s Farm.

The Plan continued in this way. Two or three petrol stations a night, picked at random and all distant from each other, was enough to finance The Plan, though there was little left over for frills. Sometimes the cashiers were less philosophical than others but they were fortunate in not meeting any heroes. Ishmael supposed that heroes were reluctant to accept jobs in petrol stations.

♦

What foolish things is Nina reminded of? Prostitution that became increasingly heavyweight as the war went on. When you will sell your soul for a pair of nylons, what price the body? And then the Yanks arrived — revaluation.

She supposes she’s a survivor, perhaps even a winner. In England Richard Huntingdon has had a second highly-praised book of poems published. They speak of love in sufficiently ambiguous terms to be acceptable to most sexual preferences. Nina’s so-so English will not enable her to determine whether there is some trace of herself somewhere in the poems, but she feels that surely there must be.

In Buchenwald Peter Baldung has shot himself in the head, but inexpertly, the bullet has done some damage but not enough and he is now in hospital with only enough brain left to allow feelings of intense well-being. Another winner.

Most foolish thing of all, Nina still has her Volkswagen savers’ card. She even managed to fill it. With the revalued Deutsch Mark her savings would be paltry enough, but imagine her anger and frustration when she learns that the 280 million Marks belonging to the savers were lodged in the German Labour Front’s Bank in Berlin, and that the bank has suddenly found itself in ‘East’ Berlin and that the Russians have taken the money as reparations. Now would that have happened with the British?

Nina has difficulty knowing on whom to vent her anger. On Hitler? On the Nazi Party? On Russia? She feels her anger will not make much of an impression there.

But how about the newly constituted Volkswagen company? How about Herr Nordhoff?

♦

Sunday lunchtime at the Castle Hotel, Crockenfield. Huddled in a corner, in a cloud of pipe and cigar smoke, talking urgently in hushed voices, are Marilyn’s father and half a dozen of the Crockenfield Blazers. Normally they position themselves expansively at the bar, order doubles and exchange anecdotes that confirm their rugged, mannish, world view. But today some shared hurt has made them introverted and hushed. A plaque on the pub wall above their heads reads ‘You are a stranger here but once’.