Nirvana Bites (5 page)

But Stan lived in a world where money was
never
funny. He may have been living in my world right now, but he still couldn't see the joke. He got it wrong again. Full house, bless him. He laid his hand over mine.

‘Jen,' he said earnestly, ‘we'll have the best.'

What a guy! My heart was won.

By the time the others trooped in, Stan and I were well bonded, having been reminiscing over the old days at the Torture Palace. He seemed to have taken the seediness of my habitat entirely in his stride. Gaia was first, and stooped to hug me and then stood and rolled her eyes theatrically. She stretched her hands towards us, beads and bracelets clinking as they jostled for space on her podgy forearms, and began to trace patterns in the air a few inches from our heads.

‘You poor darlings,' she moaned. ‘You've clearly had a spirit-shattering experience. Your auras have more lumps than Frank's custard.'

Usually I love it when she hits that precise blend of esoteric and prosaic, but now was not the time.

‘Sit down, Gaia,' I said in a voice that brooked no argument.

She settled on the floor with much rustling of voluminous clothes and tinkling of jewellery and busied herself mixing essential oils in a little dish over a nightlight. I put the £500 in the middle of the floor. I might have my price, but it doesn't buy my principles.

Ali sloped in wordlessly, followed by Frank, Nick and Robin in a huddle. They each shook Stan's hand self-consciously and introduced themselves, then grunted at me before dropping to the floor. Mags as usual was the only one who rose to the occasion. She squatted down in front of me and peered into my eyes.

‘You OK, honey?' she queried and then with great solemnity she handed me The Spliff.

Stan she ignored completely, so didn't notice his eyes light up as he handed me his Zippo and edged a little closer. Didn't take him long to get into the Nirvana vibe.

It was no surprise to learn that they had gleaned little in the way of detail from Ali, so I thought it best to fill them in myself before we moved on to interrogating Stan. I was confident that at last I would have an audience who would be suitably impressed by my prowess. But I only got as far as the bit where I chucked the axe at Baldy when the no-interruption rule went out of the window on the wings of a chorus of ‘Jesus,' ‘Fucking hell,' ‘You did
what?
'

I looked round at the circle of shocked faces.

‘What? What?'

Frank spoke first. ‘Um. Don't you think that's a bit heavy, Jen?'

‘Heavy?' I barked. ‘Of course it was fucking heavy. What are you on about?'

Gaia tried to soothe me. ‘I think, Jenny, that what we are all feeling here is that you may just have been overreacting a smidgen. Mars is moving into–'

‘Fuck Mars!' I yelled. ‘You weren't there. Stan was screaming. I had to think fast.'

‘But an axe, Jen. You could have killed someone. It was more luck than judgement that you missed,' Robin insisted.

‘I didn't
want
to miss. Stan was yelling for help. There was all this noise…' I pleaded.

‘Jenny,' Nick said, emphasising each word, ‘I hope Stan here will excuse me, but he does have certain tendencies that might mean a scream of agony does not necessarily indicate a lack of pleasure…'

I looked at Stan. He gave a minute shrug and looked at the others with a sheepish grin.

‘You mean…' I stopped, appalled. ‘Stan. Did you know those guys? Please. Tell me that isn't true. They had guns, for Christ's sake.'

‘Did they?' he yelled. ‘I didn't know that. And for the record, people, I definitely draw the erotic line at being mutilated and abducted. Those guys were real psychos.'

‘Well,' said Mags after a pause, ‘I'd say they had stiff competition in the psychosis stakes. Nuff respect, Jen.'

That was better. For a moment there they had me worried.

I carried on with my story without further interruptions. When I reached the end I looked around, expecting at least admiration if not adulation, and then promptly fell into the paranoia pit again when no one would meet my eyes.

Only Ali was staring at me knowingly. Only who knows what Ali knows?

Mags broke the silence.

‘Well all I can say, Jen, is that if ever I'm in serious trouble I'd certainly feel better knowing you were at my back.'

‘Yeah,' said Nick, spoiling it utterly, ‘but by the same token you wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley.'

Of all people, it was Stan who came to my rescue.

‘Well I, for one,' he asserted, ‘am heartily grateful for Jen's psychotic tendencies. Without them I could be dead now. Or worse.'

It was time to turn the spotlight on my client and guest. The first thing to get clear was how he had arranged for the aquarium to be removed. He told us he had contacted the shop that had originally supplied it – the somewhat bizarrely named Koi Korner in Rotherhithe.

‘Should be Koi Kaput,' Frank uttered brightly. Poor Frank. It was probably his wittiest utterance for weeks. We all turned withering gazes on to him until he self-immolated before our eyes and dissolved into a small pile of ashes.

I asked Stan if he had their phone number. He produced a miniature electronic-data digital thingy that was neither a laptop nor a mobile. Nirvana was being dragged screaming into the third millennium all right. He tapped the screen with what looked like a toothpick and turned it to face me. I pulled over the phone and dialled 141 followed by the number he showed me. I wasn't really expecting an answer at 7.30 in the evening, but the phone was picked up on the second ring.

‘Koi Kor-ner,' a voice sang at me.

I'd anticipated Bermondsey Boot Boy. But this voice was pure posh. That's ‘posh' as in Victoria Thompson-Witherington-Hartley-Smythe, not ‘Posh' as in Victoria Beckham. I adjusted my vowels to fit hers.

‘Oh, hello. I'm phoning on behalf of Stanley Highshore. He had an appointment today to remove an aquarium.'

There was a long silence. I could hear her breathing.

‘One moment, please,' she said, before being replaced by a tinny sea shanty.

The music continued long enough for me to wonder if she'd forgotten me. When she came back on the line, she was brisk and assertive.

‘Oh yes,' Ms Plum replied. ‘Our driver was unable to gain access. We tried to contact Mr Highshore but his phone was out of order. I'm afraid they had to leave empty-handed.'

I asked her what time that had been.

‘Four o'clock,' she simpered. ‘The driver waited twenty minutes…'

Four o'clock. Two hours
after
I had arrived.

‘Well, thanks for your help,' I trilled, but she cut in before I could hang up:

‘Would you like to reschedule the appointment?'

‘No thanks,' I replied breezily. ‘We've already disposed of the aquarium by other means,' and then hung up before she could reply.

‘Actually,' Stan mumbled, ‘it was hired from them.'

Whoops. Sorry. But on the list of things to worry about, the aquarium came pretty low down right now. Koi Korner itself was another matter. It was obvious that whoever had sent Pinky and Perky to abduct Stan had either known about the appointment from the shop itself or had tapped Stan's phone. Dealing with a posh fish shop was one thing; coming into contact with the kind of people who tap phones was a whole different ball game. Apart from signing on, we all had as little contact as possible with the Establishment, so it was vital we eliminate the piscine option first before turning our attention to any alternative. We formulated a plan to check out Koi Korner, then moved on.

Next we questioned Stan about the alleged attack on the Beeb by eco-warriors. Although he must have been fighting a combination of shock, pain and exhaustion, he made the effort to cooperate. He told us the vandalism had been in response to a programme that was being made, attempting to state the case for genetic modification. A ripple of hostility floated through the room Stanwards, but if he noticed it he hid it well. We illuminated him on the results of our own research, which definitely suggested that eco-warriors were not responsible for the attack. Not because they supported the programme's contents, but because they had no idea it was being made.

Stan looked puzzled. ‘But…why…?' he began.

‘Exactly the question we asked ourselves,' I interjected. ‘Apart from the décor, was anything else damaged?'

Stan shuffled uncomfortably but said nothing.

‘Look, Stan,' I insisted, ‘if you don't tell us everything we can't possibly help. And besides, you owe me now.'

Stan glanced at the pile of money in the middle of the room, but wisely didn't mention it. Instead, he reached over and plucked the remaining seven-eighths of the javelin-sized spliff from my fingers and lit it with his Zippo. Wordlessly, Maggot leaned over and, before he had a chance to take a proper drag, she snatched it from his lips. He shrugged and reached for his packet of Gauloises.

‘Sorry. No smoking,' I objected.

He threw his hands into the air. ‘OK. OK,' he groaned. ‘I'll tell you. But this stuffs not public, right? Somehow they hacked into the computer system. They wiped out all the material for the coming season's
Vox
programmes. Every bit of it. We're going to have to start showing repeats from next week.'
Vox
was the BBC's flagship documentary series, with a reputation for top-notch research and a willingness to tackle controversial subjects.

I glanced at Ali, who nodded encouragement at me, with a tiny smile puckering the corners of his lips.

‘Can you tell us the subject matter of the programmes?' I asked Stan.

‘Sure,' he replied, pulling over his laptop. Nick's eyes lit up. He'd brought his own laptop and his fingers were unconsciously caressing the cover. How sweet. Maybe Stan's laptop could get it on with Nick's laptop and together they could make adorable little laptop babies.

‘Do you have a printer?' Stan asked, and then looked round bemused at the sea of smouldering faces. ‘Oh,' he said, and swivelled the screen to face me.

I read out the list displayed, while Mags noted it down on the pad.

Phew! Plenty of scope there for people whose interests would be served by a cover-up –
and
with the power to organise one.

After an hour of further heavy interrogation, we finally relented. I ran Stan a bath, which Gaia anointed with aromatherapy oils. Once he was steaming nicely, the rest of us allocated tasks and agreed to meet again – same time, same place – the next day. Same crisis too, but with hopefully a bit more of a handle on it. None of us felt quite sure about Stan, but we all found his presence unsettling. On the other hand, I'd never seen the co-op so energised and motivated. Even more than for the annual party.

And the money was only part of it. I put £100 into the building fund, raising its coffers to the princely sum of £102.32, and gave £50 each to everyone there. That left £100 for me, so I agreed to provide food for any further meetings. Such is the way of Nirvana. As for the wages promised by Stan, I hadn't seen them yet. But if and when I did, they all knew I'd see them right. That's something Stan would never understand.

I even came to the momentous decision to shock them down at the dole and stop signing on. For a while.

The others left, looking almost jaunty. Mags stayed behind. I made us camomile tea while she rolled another spliff. When I came back in with two steaming mugs, she had put Billie Holiday on low on my stereo and had occupied Stan's vacant place on the cushions. I lowered myself next to her and for a while we lay back in silence and watched the trains slice through the night.

After a while, I asked in a tiny voice, ‘Mags – you don't really think I'm psychopathic, do you?'

‘No, honey,' she murmured. ‘Not clinically anyway. You just have that total disregard for your own safety that means you sometimes do things without thinking through the consequences.'

‘Yeah,' I pleaded, ‘but
you
know why I'm like that, Mags. The others don't, but you do.'

‘Sure I do, honey.'

Mags put her arm round me and squeezed till I felt the bones crunch.

‘You don't have to explain to me.'

Mercifully, she released me before any permanent damage was done. I picked up my mug as defence against any further displays of affection and took a gulp of camomile.

‘Anyway,' Mags continued. ‘When you check it out, I reckon we could be a fairly formidable team when mobilised.'

I frowned at her over the edge of my mug.

‘Well, take me for example,' she went on. ‘You guys look at me and see a cute and cuddly playmate.'

I spluttered, simultaneously sending the teabag on a pell-mell journey down the mug to bounce against my nose, soaking my face and T-shirt. I'm so cool.

Mags carried on regardless. ‘But anyone getting on the wrong side of me would see a big black ball-busting bull-dyke bitch from hell.'

Aaaah. That's more like it.

Maybe she successfully reassured me. Or maybe I was just stoned out of my box. Either way, I slept long and dreamlessly that night in my sleeping bag on the cushions.

6

THE FOLLOWING DAY
, Frank and I stepped from the bus and walked along Southwark Park Road towards Koi Korner. The shop nestled between a dry cleaner's and a newsagent's, its smoked-glass windows looking strangely upmarket amongst its tattier neighbours.