White Goods
by Courttia Newland
I’ve got this tattoo on me palm. Only a small one, an all black spider like a smaller version of the one on that super hero’s costume. Had it done when I was eighteen cos I was too scared to a get a big one like my mate Billy Sirus. He got his whole back done the crazy bastard, a multi-coloured portrait of Poseidon rising from the sea. Looks wicked mate; Sirus says the girls love it, and I believe him even though I dunno why. Me, I’m just content with the tiny spider on me palm. I promised us both I’d get a bigger one eventually, but I reckon me and Sirus both knew that was a lie.
Funny thing is, this spider turns out to be special. It only itches when I’m about to come into luck. Most people don’t believe that, but I don’t give a shit, it’s not for them to believe. Sirus does, cos he’s seen it on many occasions.
It was itching then too, the day me an him were both taking time off working the stall to watch Wimbledon. Now we wouldn’t usually do that when there was money to be made, but we were both dying to see Henman play and were even hoping to catch Serena Williams against one of them saucy Russian birds, the stone-faced ones with all that flowing blonde hair. Happy days, eh? Anyway, we’re both sitting in my flat watching McEnroe go on about his glory days and that tattoo on me palm just wouldn’t stop itching. I was only paying it half a mind, even though it had paid off in a big way over the years; I’d met birds, found money, my horse had come in first, so I wasn’t dismissive about being lucky that day either. It was more like I was concentrating on other things; namely watching tennis. I had a cold beer in me hand and a joint of hash in me ashtray. Like I said, happy days.
Next thing I know there’s a knock on the door. I couldn’t be bothered to move, so Sirus says you gonna get that? All sarky, like he does. He didn’t look like he was movin so I get up and open the door and there’s a deliveryman standing there. Had the whole thing, the little grey jump suit, the peak hat, the clipboard and name badge, the lot. Delivery for Mr Dino, he says. Nah mate, I tell him, I didn’t order anything. He says, that’s not what it tells me on this delivery form, and he shows me so I can see me name. There it is, bold as brass, Mr Terence Dino. Print and sign here, he says, pointing a skinny pen at the little black crosses. That’s when I see the two other geezers standing behind him with a box taller than all of us. Am I supposed to be paying for that? I ask the deliveryman, who was actually more like a boy. Nope, it’s all paid up, he tells me. Then I’ll take it, I say, and sign.
They wheel this massive box in, and I can see the sticky tape they’ve used has COMET all over it. Who the hell bought me a fridge freezer from COMET? I’m asking myself, cos it’s the only thing that monster of a box could be. Sirus is sitting there trying to hide the joint, but it’s no use cos the flat stinks of hash and the blokes wheeling the monster box in couldn’t give a shit anyway. They dump it in the kitchen and leave with a nod and a wink at me. I shut the door and crash onto me sofa.
That you an your fuckin itchy spider? Sirus says, sparking one up.
I s’ppose, I tell him. I’m still a bit shocked.
Thought I saw you stratching away, lucky git, he says, grinning now. Do you know what it is yet?
I think I’ve got an idea Rolf, I reply. It’s probably a fridge freezer innit?
That’s Sam then, don’t you reckon? Daft cow’s lost the plot and bought you a fridge freezer.
Yeah, I say, the thought only sinking in just then that he was probably right.
You’re bound to get admirers in my line of work. Dealing with the public like we do, it’s only natural. Me and Sirus have been selling antique goods on Portobello Market for 15 years, so everyone knows us and everyone who don’t wants to. It’s a great gig, setting up bright and early every Saturday and Sunday, having a laugh and a cup ah tea with all the other stall holders, nattering with the public and getting on with the real business. All the years we’ve been at it, running the stall never feels like real work, especially with me old pal Sirus by me side. We piss about for the most part, have a bit of a dance to the music coming from the CD stalls, chat up the birds and make money. Happy days.
The only thing is, you can’t get away. People know where to find you and often do, and they use you like some kind of agony aunt or shrink, telling you all their woes. The amount ah people that come to me in the early hours of the morning saying they got six months to live. Or they’re having an affair with the wife’s sister. Or they’re tried to chuck the coke but they can’t do without it. Terrible it is, the things you hear, not that I’m complaining cos I believe I’ve seen the rich tapestry of human life in all it’s colours, but Jesus; you see some things.
Samantha was one of those things. She come to the stall with her husband wanting to buy this huge statue of Ganesh I brought back from Thailand last year. Made from iron this thing was, an fuckin heavy too, could sit on your matelpeice if you had space for it. Anyway, hubby wasn’t having any of it, thought the thing was ugly and un-Christian, but she wouldn’t give in, so they spent half an hour going at it in front of everyone, arguing in that middle class way, whispering at each other with red-faces; I’m not being unreasonable, you are – stuff like that. Cos I’ve seen a lot of couples come and browse my stall I can more or less tell whether a relationship’s good or bad from how they shop. If they can discuss their differences and decide to buy or not to buy through mutal agreement, they’ll do well. If they can’t, they won’t. Young, budding relationships can be more giving. Older couples often find it difficult to communicate, as though the years have stretched their patience to breaking point. Gay couples of either gender are usually better than both, and say stuff like; What do you think? No, what do you think? No, you…
Sam and her husband fall into the second bracket. They’ve been married as long as I’ve been running the stall, have four kids, and fell out of love ages ago. Sam’s husband clearly wants to wear the pants and I think that grinds her down; she just wants to live. So they argued back and forth until he put his foot down and stormed off. She shrugged her apology at me and Sirus and went away. Two customers later, we’d forgotten ‘em.
Next day, I was standing on the stall scratching me palm when Sam came back on her own. She marched right up to me, pointed at Ganesh and said I’ll take that please. She seemed so different I hardly recognised the woman; her shoulder length blonde hair was loose around her shoulders, and I’m not the type of man that can usually tell, but I could’ve sworn she was wearing make up. It made her big blue eyes seem even bigger. Sirus was on lunch so I couldn’t even ask him whether I was right as soon as she left; though as it goes, I suppose that was for the best. I wrapped and bagged Ganesh for her and when she give me the money she kissed me on the cheek. We said our goodbyes and when I was putting the money in me pouch I saw she’d slipped a piece of paper between the notes. Call Me it said, next to her mobile number. Being a smart geezer, I followed her orders – when a woman asks you don’t think twice. The day after that, while hubby was at work, we did the wild thing all over my flat. Happy days.
That was a month ago. Sam had been round mine once a week every week since then, and, much as I’d enjoyed myself something didn’t feel right. My spider hadn’t itched until that afternoon watching Wimbeldon, and that kind of freaked me out. It made me think that what I was doing with her might be wrong on some level. I’m not usually such a moral soul, but there you go.
You keepin it? Sirus asks, passing me the joint. On the TV behind him, there’s a grunt and the Umpire yells Juice.
Let’s take a look and I’ll see, I reply.
So we get up and strip the box away to reveal a brand new shark grey Zanussi, with an icemaker an a water dispenser and enough space to stick a side of beef inside it, if I ever wanted to. The thing was huge. I kinda resented the COMET men not installing the whole thing, but having the type of job I did meant I had most of the tools to DIY. We spent the next few hours removing my old fridge freezer and replacing it with the new ‘un, which we wheeled into the kitchen with a metal trolley I kept in me attic. We exchanged all me foodstuffs, connected her up, switched her on, then stood there with satisfied smiles when the Zanussi started to hum.
Very Notting Hill Gate, says Sirus. Pimm’s ah clock I think.
I agreed one hundred percent.
Sitting on the sofa with our glasses of Pimms and lemondade on the rocks, courtesy of my brand new icemaker, I realised we needed to get rid of me old fridge. It was an old model I’d found on the street and liberated for me own use; now it was time to set her free. I wanted to throw her back onto the street, give some other lucky local the opportunity of experiencing her charms. Sirus was having none of it.
Take it to the dump, he tells me like an order. You can get rid of the rest of this junk.
I wasn’t really happy with his use of the word junk, but I had to admit he was right; my flat was more like our antique stall, mixed with a bit of car boot sale, mixed with a bit of bric n’ brac. There were VHS videos, and lamps, and books, and chest of drawers, and clothes and a single bed matteress leaned against the wall behind the sofa. Broken chandeliers and fake marble statues in a corner. Futon frames and miscellaneous boxes I hadn’t peeked inside for months. Every nook and cranny of that room was inhabited by some item waiting to be sold, or chucked out; I liked it that way, no one else did. Even though I was enjoying the Pimms and the tennis on my telly, I knew a clear out was well overdue. I drained my glass until the ice was touching my lips, and slammed it on the coffee table.
Right then, I said.
That was how we found ourselves motoring towards Wandsworth and the biggest commerical, industrial and household tip in that part of London, the Western Riverside Waste Authority. When I got started in the game you’d often find the big junkyard dealers wandering the outskirts of the tip, looking for bargains. Inside, there were guys who spent years sifting through the rubbish people threw away and selling what they found to the people that sold to you. Many an antique, or even some humble second hand item has been liberated from that stinking mass of dirt and grime to find its way into the homes of Portobello, or Camden Lock. These days the council cut the trade down to a minimum, but if you’re a dealer with the time and the van space, Western Riverside’s the place for you. I hadn’t been there for many years, so I was feeling pretty excited. Even as a kid, I’d loved to wander around the local tip, burrow into rubbish and find that special object some idiot had thrown away.
Sirus thought I should phone Sam right away and thank her, but I was having none of it. I appreciated the gesture, and I loved my new fridge freezer but I still thought she was going too far. Last thing I wanted was to get involved in breaking up her marriage, yet a feeling told me things were heading that way. I liked her a lot, and the sex was great, but I didn’t want to be with her. I wasn’t sure how she felt about me, although the appearance of me new fridge freezer was a clear indication that it might be time for us to talk.
We paid our toll at the gate and trundled through amongst the rubbish trucks, lorries and vans around us. As soon as we were inside I knew how an insect must feel in a mansion. There was rubbish heaps twice the size of my van in that place! It didn’t really smell of anything other than old dustbins, but Sirus rolled up his window all the same. We drove around looking for the smaller heaps where people dumped their household goods. The sound of hydralics, air brakes and reverse warning messages echoed all around us.
Once we found the right place, getting rid of the stuff, including my old fridge, was easy. It didn’t take longer than fifteen minutes. Sirus was looking at me with a gleam in his eye by then.
Wanna take a butcher’s? He says. That’s what I like about old friends. They know what you’re thinking before you do.
Sure. See you back ‘ere in twenny minutes?
Make it twenny-five, he says with a wink and walks off towards the big rubbish piles. I picked around our heap for a bit, but there was nothing but broken TV’s and metal chairs, clock radios and stained bed mattresses. I looked at my watch. I’d already killed five minutes. I took a wander around the back of our heap, where the medium sized piles are. Of course I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I was just enjoying the atmosphere and the feeling of space and the cloud-filled sky above me. It’s rare to see an uncluttered sky in London, unless you go to the park. There were small puddles of rain created by tyre-treads in the rust coloured dirt that made up the road between the rubbish heaps. Swarms of buzzing insects floating above the water. Barking dogs from somewhere far away, and cats lazing on black plastic bags, or prowling the dump looking for mice. Although it wasn’t hot, whenever a cloud moved away from the sun I could feel the warmth on my skin. It felt good to be out and about. Away from the ‘Bella, in the relative quiet. It felt peaceful, and reminded me of when I went rambling by myself in the little bit of woodland left in North Acton, the bit that was now a housing estate.
At the bottom of one of the rubbish piles I saw something that made me smile. A huge, industrial freezer like the ones you see in Iceland, about the size of my Zannussi, only lying horizontal. God, that brought back memories. Playing with me mates in the dump, pretending to be vampires, using the freezers as coffins and weaving a game of tag around our imaginations. Daft thing to do, right? Yeah, we’d seen the adverts but we also saw the ads that said don’t play on the train lines, or mess around with fireworks, or take drugs; never stopped us from doing it anyway. I walked closer to the thing, ran my hands along the smooth surface. It must have been a recent dump; it looked almost brand new. The glass wasn’t smashed and there was no rust. I moved the door back and forth, testing it out. It squeaked a little, otherwise it was fine. I was grinning by then. I would’ve put it in the van but Sirus would’ve killed me. I had absolutely no need for another freezer, I just had the urge. I remembered something; that was why I’d stopped coming to the dump in the first place.
Before I could second guess meself, I was going around the other side of the freezer, climbing in. I know, I know… Very stupid of me, but what can I say? I wanted to relieve my childhood? I was feeling the chill now the clouds had covered the sun? I was a lunatic? All three? I clearly wasn’t thinking, because I the next thing I knew I was throwing my legs over the side, getting in and laying back. I’m not the tallest of blokes, so I could stretch my legs out pretty easily. There wasn’t really the space to move my arms, and I soon discovered there wasn’t much space at all, not like when I’d been a kid. There was that strong smell of plastic you get from the inside of fridges I’d forgotten about too, although it was soothing to look up and see the clouds whizz past in the sky, a random bird swoop past, wings outstretched. I tried to take a deep breath, but the smell was stifling. I tried to turn so I could get out, an bumped the side of the fridge. The glass door trembled, and fell closed.
Instant panic. That was the first thing that hit me, as I pushed and struggled to get the door back open. I had a flash of memory, when one of me mates had been stuck that way, in an ordinary household fridge freezer. We’d left him for a bit, laughing and calling him names from outside, then let him out when we thought he’d had enough. He was red-faced and gasping, the tears staining his face. We’d been in hysterics, thought it was a great laugh, and we were still curled up on the floor when he ran home. Poor sod never came out to play with us lot again. There’d been about five of us that day, and I only had Sirus, and he was probably somewhere miles away.
It was already getting hot. The air was stifling. The glass began to grow cloudy. I tried to sip thin breathes between my lips but it was a difficult job. I banged on the glass, only to imagine me actually breaking it and huge shards peircing my belly, my groin. It made me thump lighter than I would’ve done otherwise, although the way my air situation was going in a matter of minutes I probably wouldn’t care. Nothing I did made any difference, that bloody door stayed put. Sweat rolled behind my ears, from my armpits and down my back. My hands were prickly with heat. I started to kick and yell as I felt my lungs begin to burn, reaching down with and unconcious hand and starting to scratch. It took me a moment to realise what I was doing.
It was me itchy palm. The bloody spider was at it again.
I let me head fall back, allowed meself a long wheeze, even though I knew I shouldn’t. But I trusted it. The spider had never done me wrong. It only took another minute or so before a grey-haired bloke looked into the glass, worried and shaking his head. Hands wrestled with the clasp on the door, then it opened and sweet, fresh, cool air was flooding into my nose, my mouth and lungs. An arm thrust into the fridge in order to pull me out. I ignored it, not out of malice, but because my limbs were weak beside me, paralysed by my relief and fear. For the next few seconds, all I could do was scratch me palm and suck in air like a baby taking its first taste of the outside world.
I thought I’d only been trapped in the fridge a matter of minutes or so, but when I went back where I’d parked the van, Sirus was gone. I looked at me watch. Twenty minutes had passed like two. Lucky wasn’t the word. I should’ve been dead, although I tried not to dwell on that. When I looked around, the silence of the dump felt like a cemetary. I felt goosebumps on me arms and me heart pumped like mad.
I thanked me saviour, an old bloke in a fluorescent jacket over orange overalls with Western Riverside Waste logo stitched into the breast pocket. He nodded and stared at me like I’d just escaped from St Mark’s Mental Ward. I was a little embarrassed, though I didn’t blame him, and he watched me all the way out the dump.
It was a long walk from there to the bus stop that would take me back to the Grove. I was glad I had some change in me pocket for the fare. It was only when I felt in me jeans that I realised I’d had me moby on me the whole time. Despite feeling like a first class pratt, I had to laugh. I’d scared meself for nothing. At first I was gonna phone Sirus and ask why he’d left without phoning me, but then I thought I’d make another call. Scrolling through me address book, I found Samantha’s number and dialled with a hand that shook. Something told me I owed her that much.
Courttia Newland published his first novel, The Scholar, in 1997. Further critically acclaimed work followed, including Society Within (1999) and Snakeskin (2002). He is the co-editor of the anthology IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (2000) and has short stories featured in many anthologies including The Time Out Book of London Short Stories: Vol 2 (2000) and England Calling:24 Stories for the 21st Century (2001). His latest books include a novella, The Dying Wish (2006), and a collection of macabre short stories, Music for the Off-Key (2006). In 2007 he was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library Award. For further information go to Courttia Newland
