Jog On Fat Barry by Kevin Cotter Page B

she’d been squirreling away for our holiday in Torremolinos because Granddad had died in his sleep and that meant there wasn’t going to be a holiday on the Costa Del Sol this year. Two months later, Frank and I were standing outside Camden Town underground station: him in his new suit and me in my bloodstained apron. Frank held a suitcase in his hand and the sun was shining. He shot a glance across the street. Dad was standing outside the shop watching us. Frank looked at my apron and grimaced.
    “Hard to pull a sort stinking like a fishcake,” he said.
    I sniffed the fingers of my left hand: a moment later I sniffed the fingers of my right hand.
    “Granddad used to say stinking or not stinking, you couldn’t keep the girls off him when he was my age. Said he’d be on the job for hours, with women queuing up for it from all over London, and Camden Council threatening him with litigation because he’d put half the girls in Somers Town in the family way.”
    Frank put down the suitcase and lit a cigarette.
    “Yeah, well… Granddad said a lot of things,” he said.
    A blast of warm air shot out of the tube station. Frank sucked on the cigarette. I listened to his jaw click as he blew smoke rings.
    “Do you miss him?” I asked.
    “Miss who… Granddad?” Frank asked back.
    A 24 bus rumbled past us. Frank watched it slow down and then stop across the road. As people got off and people got on, Frank could remember seeing Granddad knock our gran about even though she was old and frail. The bus pulled away from the curb and Frank spat.
    “No,” he said softly. “I never liked the cunt.”
    Frank smoked in silence for a minute or two. Every now and then he’d shoot a glance across the street. When Dad wasn’t serving someone, he’d stand at the front of the shop and watch us.
    “You got any regrets about joining up, Frank?”
    Frank smiled.
    “Regrets? No chance. Do you know what the recruitment officer told me during my interview at Scotland Yard?”
    “What?” I asked.
    “He told me they’d be teaching me how to really handle a motor car, and that I’d be getting taught self-defence by some of the most feared men in Britain. He said they’d make me well hard, train me up proper. Said I’d be learning new skills: learning how to slip away and blend in with the furniture. Said they could teach you how to take on the appearance of a streetlight, or a hat stand, a rechargeable battery, or a telescope, a pair of sunglasses, or a television set. Told me they even had one bloke who could do murals.”
    I laughed.
    “What about paperbacks by Penguin?” I asked. “Or exceedingly good cakes by Mister Kipling?”
    Frank laughed too.
    “You could be a Tetley teabag, mate. All the tea in China: the fucking teapot!
    “Could I be a Stamford Hill Cowboy, or the rain in Spain? How about a raspberry ripple, a dirty weekend in Blackpool, a front-wheel skid, the number four dog at Walthamstow, a line of charlie, or a Big Mac with large fries and a strawberry milkshake?”
    “You could be them all!” Frank answered.
    A 31 bus rumbled by without stopping. Frank stopped laughing. I did too. He looked across the street at Dad. The gloomy looking clouds that hovered over our estate had followed Frank and me up the High Street. The sun disappeared behind them, and a moment later it started to drizzle.
    “No more stinking like a cod cutlet or selling mince fish to the sheenies for me, Freddie,” he said. “I want more out of life than fish scales behind my ears and up my fucking arsehole.”
    Frank glanced at his watch. He dropped his cigarette and then crushed it into the pavement.
    “And if things go right, I’ll be buying a villa in Majorca from all the backhanders that you get when you’re in The Met, and I’ll be living like my world really is an oyster.”
    He reached down for his suitcase and walked into the station. I watched him buy a ticket. When he reached the escalator, he turned and smiled.
    “You