The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (8 page)

   He ripped the sheet off, screwed it up, and threw it in the corner.

   Start again.

  
Dear Glen,

  
I have been meaning to write to you for some time.

   (Lie number one. How could you write when you didn’t have an address?)

  
I guess I owe you an apology for not attending your leaving do, but I made a mistake, and I’m sorry for that. Am I forgiven? I do hope so. The office seems quite empty without you and everyone’s asking after you.

  
(Lie number two. No one, and he meant no one, had ever mentioned her name. Weird!)

  
I hope you are enjoying your holiday in the States and are behaving yourself.

   (Fat chance!)

  
When are you due back? There is still a job for you here if you want it.

   (Lie number three. There probably was no job. Natural wastage, cut backs, credit crunch, finding a job anywhere would be a damned hard thing to achieve.)

  
If you ever fancy a chat you know my number. Ring any time you like. Don’t worry about the money, reverse the charges. I’ll pay. Dialling from the States you need to put +44 before the number, then the city code, and I am sure you remember it, 246-1966.

   Have you been anywhere exciting? What is New York like? Why not drop me a line? I’d love to hear from you. Tell me all your news, eh?

   That’s about it for now,

   All my love,

   Stop!

   You can’t write that!

   Not
All my love!

   Give me a break. Jeez!

   He ripped off the page, screwed it up; tossed it on the floor.

   Start again.

   Maybe it should be ended:
Sincerely yours
.

   Bollocks! He reprimanded himself. You are not writing to the bank manager trying to get a bloody overdraft!

   What about:
Lots of love
.

   Bit girly, bit school girlish.

   What about:
I miss you babe.

   Yeah, he liked that,
I miss you babe
, that’s the answer, but when he’d written it down in his over large scrawl, it looked and sounded dreadful.
I miss you babe.
Jeez! I am supposed to be playing hard to get, he muttered. Who the hell would write
I miss you babe
, if they were playing hard to get?

   Oh Please!

   Stop!

   He tore it off. Screwed it up. Tossed it on the floor.

  
All my love
is cool.

   Yeah, you can take that as serious or as casual as you like. Then he remembered. That’s what he had written before, the very first time,
All my love
. Jee-zuss! One of screwed up efforts languishing on the floor! He cursed aloud again. He couldn’t bloody well unscrew it!

   Do it again! Write it again!

   Do it now! Get on with it!

   Get the job done! Get writing!

   Ah… Finished at last!

   An hour and a half to write one and half pages. Give me a break.

   He picked up the address and read it out loud. He wondered what it was like, Lincoln Heights. It certainly sounded grand. He wondered what Harry Wildenstein was like. Gringo’s mind flashed back to that last fateful date with Glen.

   He’s a banker, Gringo, rolling in it they say, a very wealthy family, tall, dark and handsome. I could find myself falling in love with Harry Wildenstein, and that’s a fact
.

   It was almost as if she was in the room now, her sweet voice bouncing off the walls.
I could find myself falling in love with Harry Wildenstein, and that’s a fact
.

   Gringo wanted to strangle bloody Harry Wildenstein; and her too for that matter, for thinking such hideous thoughts. He wanted to hit her, to knock some sense into that thick head of hers, but that wouldn’t do any good, not really, and the thought evaporated as soon as it had germed. Sometimes life sucks. In times like these it definitely does.

   He eased an envelope from the flat pack and wrote the address as neatly as he could, taking care to write Miss Glenda Martin, c/o, for it was very important to write
care of
, when one didn’t want to take anything for granted, his mother always used to say that too, and then the address:

   Lincoln Heights

   2605 West End Avenue, and the rest of it.

   He folded the paper and inserted it in the envelope, but didn’t seal it, just in case. In case of what? In case he should think of something else he should have written. In case, in the fresh light of a new day, he didn’t like what he’d written at all, in case those exact words should speak something entirely different on a new day, as they sometimes did, especially with his rambling prose. He stamped the letter ready, but wouldn’t seal the envelope until the last moment.

   Afterwards he fired up the telly and put the phone back on the hook. By then he was beginning to hope that Brenda might ring after all. But she didn’t. He could always have rung her, but that naughty little man inside his head who was always making naff suggestions, like the paper clip git on the word processing software, always butting in when it was least wanted, and never to be seen with a sensible suggestion when help was really needed, that little demon inside him, put him right off the idea.

   As it turned out, in the morning, he didn’t change a thing, though he was still uncertain as to whether to post the letter. He took it with him to work. There was a post box right outside the main entrance of Frobisher Buildings, the six story office block where Dryden’s rented the top two floors.

   It was drizzling as he slipped the envelope from his raincoat pocket. He glanced around. It was busy, people rushing this way and that, anxious not to be late for work, anxious not to fall foul of a bad tempered boss… like him. He brought the letter to his mouth and kissed it and slipped it into the fat red box that stood there like a silent sentry. For a moment he wondered what other letters might be held captive inside, how many love letters had made their way via this very post box, how many blackmail letters, breaking off letters, threatening letters, begging letters, hopeful letters, hurtful letters, puzzling letters, proposals even. Perhaps he shouldn’t have posted it at all. Too late now. He snorted and kicked the ground like an angry bull, and set off for work.

   A few seconds earlier Melanie had rounded the corner. She noticed him immediately, prevaricating there by the post box. She witnessed the self conscious little kiss, and the casual toss of the envelope into the belly of the red beast. Well, well. She could guess who that was to. Maybe Gringo Greene
was
sweet on Glenda Martin after all. She watched him hurry away and hustle into the front entrance and scamper away for the lift.

   He hadn’t seen her, she was sure of that.

Gringo took his place in Naughton’s Bar at ten past seven. Paul wasn’t there but that wasn’t unusual. Paul was often late. Gringo went through to the rear bar he preferred. It was long and narrow with a low ceiling that somehow kept any atmosphere firmly inside. But it was Tuesday night and it was very quiet. He ordered a pint of lager from the usual barman, the last pint before the barrel blew and burped and needed changing like a demanding baby. Gringo drank half the beer in one visit and leant on the bar and stared into the glass.

   ‘Penny for them,’ said the girl at the other end of the small bar. He hadn’t noticed her come in. He looked up and across at her and smiled. The babe nodded at the beer.

   ‘Oh, I was just thinking,’ said Gringo.

   ‘I could see that. Where’s the barman?’

   ‘Beer’s off. Needs changing. He’ll be back in a tick.’

   She was foreign, the girl. No, that wasn’t quite right. She was Indian, Asian perhaps, dark, shoulder length black hair, good teeth, slim with a pretty face, and Gringo had a feeling he might have seen her before.

   ‘You work in Dryden’s, don’t you?’ she said.

   ‘Yeah, office manager.’

   ‘Emberdy’s, me.’

   ‘Eh?’

   ‘MBD’s, Mitchell, Barrett and Deaver, Accountants. Everyone calls them Emberdy’s. I’m a trainee accountant.’

   ‘Yeah, right,’ said Gringo. ‘I thought I’d seen you before.’

   Her employer occupied the whole of the floor beneath Dryden’s. She picked up a beer mat and tapped it nervously on the bar. There was still no sign of the barman.

   Gringo said: ‘Don’t mind me asking, but are you British?’

   That put her on the defensive, and who could blame her?

   ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

   ‘No, nothing really, I just wondered about your background, that’s all.’

   ‘Are you racist or something?’

   ‘No, certainly not, look I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

   There was an awkward silence that was probably only a few seconds but seemed much longer.

   ‘I’m a British Asian if you must know.’

   ‘I see. I thought you might have been an overseas student or something.’

   ‘Nope, my fulltime student days are well and truly behind me, born and bred in Birmingham, but I hope without the accent.’

   They shared a nervous laugh.

   ‘You don’t have an accent at all. You have a lovely voice.’

   She smiled, displaying those bright white teeth.

   ‘Former Portuguese colony in India, that’s where my grandparents came from, if you’re that interested.’

   ‘Goa?’ he said.

   She smiled again.

   ‘Yes. How did you know?’

   ‘Not so many to choose from,’ and as he said that he was wondering what a person from Goa was called. A Goan, a Goanna, a Goer maybe, but perhaps not, and he stifled another laugh.

   ‘I’m Maria by the way. Maria Almeida.’

   ‘Gringo Greene. Pleased to meet you,’ and he raised his glass and toasted her.

   ‘I’m with my mate,’ and she beckoned behind her.

   Gringo glanced round and sitting there, before the clouded window that bore the old brewery logo, before it had been taken over by the Danes, on the long bench seat that ran the length of the bar, sat a red headed girl in a red two-piece suit. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and her skirt was shorter than it should have been

   ‘That’s Vicky. She works at Emberdy’s too.’

   Right on cue Vicky sensed her moment and performed a silly circular wave.

   ‘Hi, Vicky,’ said Gringo, ever willing to be introduced to new talent.

   ‘Where’s this lazy barman?’ said Maria, as she leant across the bar, and then glanced back across at Gringo when she thought he wasn’t looking. She liked his thick black hair, though she wasn’t so sure about the muzzy, but you couldn’t have everything. He was okay. He was, as her mother used to say,
just your type
. At that moment the barman came back grumping about incompatible pipes.

   ‘Two white wines please,’ she sang, still managing a smile. ’Can I get you a drink, Gringo?’

   ‘Thanks, but no, I’m waiting for my mate.’

   ‘Another night maybe?’

   ‘I might be in here tomorrow night, around 7.30.’

   ‘That’s funny because I
might
be in here too.’

   ‘Well if you are, you
might
like to buy me a drink.’

   ‘Well if I am I just
might
do that,’ she said, grinning and collecting her change.

   At that moment Paul strode into the bar. His mere presence alerted Maria Almeida and her mate too. Paul had that effect on women. He was six feet six and built like a mosquito, sunken chest, exploding unkempt black hair, and glasses that looked as if they’d been hewn from the bases of brown beer bottles. Tall, dark and handsome, well two out of three can’t be bad.

   ‘See ya, Gringo,’ she said, and she collected the wines and hurried away and went and sat with Vicky, all the while keeping a wary eye on the weird stranger with the high waistline and ridiculously long legs.

   ‘Reach for the sky, man!’ Paul said, punching Gringo playfully on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?’