12

 

LUCKY BEGGARS!

 

I LAY UPON THE BED, HANDS BEHIND MY HEAD, THINKING.

Litany had gone off to the en-suite to do whatever it is women do there after making love.

Have a shower, probably.

As I lay there, glowing warm all over and feeling blessed that I had lost my virginity to such a beautiful woman in such elegant surroundings, a grim thought came to me.

‘Now look here,’ said this grim thought, ‘why do you think that beautiful woman has just had sex with you?’

‘Because she loves me,’ I replied.

‘Bullshit!’

‘Why?’

‘She’s just after something; women are always after something. Men work on impulse but women plot and plan ahead.’

‘So what’s she after?’

‘She’s after your money.

‘I don’t have any money.

‘But you could have. Once you’ve worked out how to do the mystical butterfly routine, you could give her the world. That’s what she’s after, she’s planning ahead. You see if I’m not wrong.

‘Nonsense,’ I said, but the grim thought got me thinking. Now I know there’s been a lot of talk that men and women are not, in fact, members of the same species, that the similarities are purely physical. And it seems to be the case that although no man has ever really been able to understand how a woman thinks, all women understand how all men think only too well.

Which gives them a natural advantage.

My Uncle Charles, whose name I can never remember, worked for a while on the railways before he went into light removals. Shifting things from one place to another always fascinated him and he told me that doing this had given him a small insight into the way women functioned.

He drew an analogy between women and trains. He said that if you consider a woman to be the locomotive and the freight, cargo, passengers she carries to be money, then much will become clear. Men, he said, were the guards and porters on the station, they directed the cargo (money) aboard, but the women (locomotives) went off with it and dictated where it ended up.

Imagine a beautiful well-dressed ambitious young woman full of fire and passion, she’d be your express-train type. Load her up with carriage loads of money and whoosh, she’s off into the night.

Now an average woman, she might be your goods-train type, you put your money on board, but she comes back with a load of goods from the other end in exchange. He suggested a stable home, children and a relationship as an example of this load of goods.

And so he went on. It made some kind of sense, although not much. I understood when he said that you can’t stick an express in the goods yard and expect it to function as a goods train, nor vice versa. And I think I got the general gist, which was that ultimately the distribution of money in the world (where it ultimately gets spent or goes to) is ultimately down to women (ultimately).

It’s rubbish, of course. I mean, what about the blokes manning the signal boxes and the trains that break down or crash? And anyway ultimate distribution of money, where money actually goes to, is not down to women at all. Well, it is indirectly. But, well…

Allow me briefly to explain.

A short while ago I had a very strange experience. It was one of those experiences that make you re-adjust the way you think about the world. I recount it here for two reasons. The first, that it is an absolutely true story and the second, that it relates to what happens next in this narrative.

At the time of which I speak, I was seated in the Pizza Express, munching upon a Veniciana (lop goes to Venice in peril) and staring distractedly out of the window (watching young women go by).

As I looked on I saw this beggar[26] come around the corner. He wore the basic uniform of the new-age traveller: dreadlocks, studied-raggedness and bare feet. The bare feet marked him out as slightly different, as big boots are usually considered de rigueur. But it was more than this that made me notice him. It was the manner in which he carried himself. He didn’t shuffle, and he wasn’t sitting in a doorway with a dog on a string. This chap was begging on the move and he moved like a man with a mission who was off somewhere important, hated to have to beg on the way, but just did.

I wondered where it was he was off to and hoped that it was somewhere exciting.

Not ten minutes later, however, around the same corner he came again and then ten minutes after that, again. Each time begging and each time definitely looking as if he was off somewhere.

I was quite impressed by this technique.

I finished my meal, paid up and left the restaurant. As I did so, around the corner came the young beggar again and tried to touch me for my small change.

I almost put my hand in my pocket.

Almost.

‘Now, hang about,’ I said.

‘I can’t stop,’ said he. ‘I have to be off.’

‘No you don’t. I’ve been sitting in Pizza Express watching you and you’ve circled this block of buildings four times now.

‘So?’ said he.

‘Well, so, actually I’m impressed. The way you carry yourself, this impression you convey that you’re off somewhere, it shows imagination, originality of thought, perseverance, all qualities that might lead a man to success. What I want to know is, why someone such as yourself, who obviously possesses these qualities, is spending his time in such a low-paid occupation as begging, when he could no doubt turn his hand to something far more profitable?’

And he looked at me as if I was quite insane.

‘Low-paid occupation?’ he said.

‘Well, it’s all small change, isn’t it?’

‘Small change is what pounds are made of,’ and he tried to push past me.

‘Just hold on,’ I said. ‘Surely you are wasting your talent? Surely you could find an occupation that would enable you to make big bucks rather than small change?’

He looked me up and down. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I do. How many times did you see me from the restaurant?’

‘Three times,’ I said.

‘And how many times did you see me beg someone for money?’

‘Three times.’

‘And how many times did you see them give me money?’

I thought about this. ‘All three times,’ I said.

‘And during the period that I was beyond your range of vision, what do you think I was doing then?’

‘You were circling the block.’

‘I was begging,’ he said. ‘And I was being given money. If you’d sat in another restaurant anywhere on the block, or in a pub, or in a shop and watched me go by you’d have seen the very same thing. You’d have seen me beg someone for money and them give it to me.

‘They can’t all have given you money,’ I said.

He raised a pierced eyebrow. ‘That is hardly a conclusion based on the evidence of your own observation, now, is it?’

I shook my head. ‘Then you’re telling me that all day long people give you money. More and more and more money?’

‘More and more and more,’ he said.

‘That’s incredible.’

He shrugged and made to push past once more.

I stopped him. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is, what do you do with all this money? Have you got a big expensive car or something?’

‘Have you ever seen me in a big expensive car?’

‘No, I’ve only seen you begging money and being given money.

‘Well, you can ask anyone in Brighton if they’ve seen me in a big expensive car, and each of them will say, no, they’ve only seen me begging and being given money.’

‘You put it all in the bank then.’

‘Have you ever seen me do that?’

‘Well, no. All right. You hoard it then.’

‘Seen me do that either?’

‘No, but you can’t carry it all on you. You’d end up having to have a Securicor truck driving along behind you.’

‘That’s a pretty stupid remark, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I’m sorry. Ah, hang about,’ I said, ‘you spend it, you spend exactly the amount you earn each day. On really expensive food and wine, perhaps.’

‘Have you ever seen me go into a shop?’ he asked. ‘No, but my experience of you is based only upon limited observation. Someone must have seen you go into a shop.’

‘They haven’t,’ he said. ‘Ask anyone, anyone at all. Ask this bloke here.’ He indicated a gentleman heading out way.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to the gentleman, ‘but have you ever seen this chap before?’

The gentleman looked at me in a most suspicious manner, put his hand into his pocket, produced a fifty-pence piece and handed it to the beggar. The beggar said, ‘Thanks,’ grinned and made as to move off once again.

‘Hold it!’ I told him. ‘All right. That fifty pence, what are you going to do with it?’

‘What fifty pence is that?’

‘The one that gentleman just gave you.

‘I don’t have no fifty pence,’ he held up his hands. ‘You can search me, if you want.’

‘No thanks, but I just saw him give it to you.’

‘And I don’t have it any more.’

‘So what have you done with it.’

He opened his mouth and pointed down his throat. ‘It’s gone.’

‘You’ve eaten it?’ I stepped back in amazement. ‘You eat the money?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Is your surname Crombie?’ I asked him.

‘No. But you’re holding me up from my work. Please let me pass.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not until you’ve told me all of the truth. I don’t believe you exist on a diet of small change.’

‘Oh I do,’ he said and then in a very dark tone. ‘But you wouldn’t want to know why.’

‘Oh yes I would.’

A sinister gleam came into his eyes. ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Why do you think it is that every country in the world except Switzerland is in debt?’

I shrugged. ‘Countries owe money, they have national debts.’

‘So where has all the money gone to?’

‘It was borrowed and spent.’

He shook his dreadlocks. ‘If it was spent then someone else must have the money, but they don’t. The whole world (except for Switzerland), is in recession, more and more money vanishes away, but no—one ever knows where it really goes to.’

‘And where does it go?’

‘It goes to me. Me and other special ones like me. We’re all over the world. We go around in circles collecting money. But the money never leaves the circle.’

‘So where does it go?’

‘In here,’ he pointed down his throat again and this time as I looked I could see that it wasn’t a throat at all, it was a great black endless void. ‘I am one of the financial black holes of the world,’ he continued, ‘a monetary vortex that sucks cash in. Where to? Even I don’t know that. To the past, to the future, to somewhere it is needed more?’

I was rattled, I kid you not. And I didn’t really know quite what to say next. I managed, ‘Why not Switzerland?’

‘They don’t allow begging in Switzerland,’ he said and then pushed right past me and made off along the street.

I never saw him again after that, although I kept an eye out. My last recollection is of him marching off around the next corner, pausing only to ask a passer-by for money, which they pressed into his hand.

 

Litany returned from the bathroom, she wore a colourful bikini top and a short skirt. ‘Go and have a wash,’ she said. ‘Then let’s go out for a walk.’

We strolled arm in arm along the promenade. I felt great. Although I now had nagging doubts. Such as, what class of locomotive was Litany? Was she out for what I could give her? I didn’t know, but I intended to watch her closely to see what, if anything, she had in mind.

The sea was so blue that I had to part my hair on the right-hand side and pull my jeans pockets inside out.

‘Stop doing that,’ said Litany. ‘Say a poem in your head or something.’

I said a poem in my head. It was a dark one about a devil-possessed matchbox. I was just into the last verse when this young chap in dreadlocks, studied-raggedness and bare feet came up and asked me if I had any small change.

I gave him a head-butt. ‘That will teach you to suck in the world’s money, you bastard,’ I told him.

Litany stared at me in horror.

‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ I said, helping the fellow to his feet. ‘An awful mistake, I, er, I thought you were my brother.’

The young man stood there looking dazed.

‘Give him some money,’ said Litany.

‘Certainly not, he’ll eat it.’

‘What?’

‘Oh I’m sorry. Sorry.’ I dug into a pocket of my leather jacket and found a pound coin. ‘Sorry, friend,’ I said, handing it over. He grinned, winked and made off at the trot as if bound upon some important mission.

‘You shouldn’t be horrid to the homeless,’ said Litany.

‘It was a mistake. I’m sorry.’

‘Well, I think you should make amends.’

‘I just did. I gave him a pound.’

‘You should do more than that.’

‘Well, he’s gone now, so I can’t.’

‘He hasn’t gone.’

‘Who he?’

‘There’s a chap over there, sitting by the entrance to the pier. Chap with the dog. See him?’

‘Bloke with the dreadlocks and the big boots?’

‘That’s the one. Give him something.’

‘But I didn’t head-butt him. And I don’t have any more change.’

‘Then this would be as good a time as any for you to use your gift.’

An alarm bell rang in my brain. ‘Oh yes?’ I said suspiciously. ‘What do you have in mind? Do you want me to channel some more money into your bank account so you can write him a cheque?’

‘Of course not, I want you to give it to him directly.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Hm, well, I don’t know.’

‘What harm could it do? Give it a try.’

‘But I don’t know how to do it, what actions to make.’

Litany smiled that smile again. ‘I’ve been thinking about this,’ she said, ‘and I reckon you couldn’t do it if you were thinking consciously about it. It wouldn’t work. It has to be an unthinking, subconscious, almost reflex action. You’d have to set yourself the task, i.e. “give this poor man lots of money”, then clear your head of all conscious thought and let things happen naturally.’

‘Sounds about as unlikely as anything else.’

‘But it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.’

‘I suppose not.’

She kissed me on the cheek. ‘Go on, to make amends for your bad behaviour. Make me proud of you.’

‘Proud, eh?’

‘Proud.’ She kissed me again, on the mouth this time, a real deep lingerer.

‘Right then,’ I said. ‘Let’s make the beggar-man a millionaire.’

And I almost believed it myself.

I set the thought in my head and then promptly forgot it, because another thought had entered, this one with blond hair and no clothes on. I mentally replayed the events of a few hours before and my hand strayed unconsciously toward my groin and twiddled near my belt buckle.

‘Oh look,’ said Litany. ‘Something’s happening.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it.’

‘What?’

‘What?’

‘He’s getting up, the chap with the dog.’

And he was, he yawned and stretched then packed up his bed roll.

‘Is he going to get rich at once, do you think?’

As if! ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ I told her, ‘if I can make it work at all. It’s a chain of events, starting small then growing bigger to produce the huge event. The money wouldn’t just drop from the sky.’

‘Shame,’ said Litany. ‘So what do you think might happen next?’

‘Well, perhaps he’s going off now to apply for a job and he’ll be given it, be successful at it and five years from now he’ll be rich.’

Litany made the face that says, I don’t find that very convincing.

I just shrugged.

The beggar slung his bed roll across his shoulders. Stretched again and then without any warning at all, struck down the nearest passer-by, a young man with a briefcase, snatched the briefcase and ran off, his dog at his heels.

Litany turned and smacked me right in the face. ‘You bastard!’ she said. ‘You did that.’

‘What?’

‘You caused him to hit an innocent passer-by and steal his briefcase.’

‘I never did.’

‘You did it just to spite me.’

‘Spite you?’ I shook my head, which now hurt again. I really would never understand women. ‘How do you figure that out?’

‘You wanted to make a fool of me.’

‘I didn’t. I didn’t. I just tried to help him, like you asked me. I didn’t know he’d do that. Anyway he stole a briefcase, that’s not going to make him rich, is it? Perhaps he’ll get arrested and serve time in prison and write a bestselling book about his experiences. I don’t know. I did it with the best of intentions, to bring happiness, not to harm any innocent people.’

A crowd was already beginning to form about the young man. Litany pushed her way through it to help him up. The young man scowled at her, thrust her aside and stumbled off in pursuit of the thief.

‘Didn’t need any help, eh?’ I said.

Litany stroked the shoulder the young man had pushed and examined her fingertips. ‘He was full of rage,’ she said. ‘But also he was full of fear. And there was something there, something evil.’

‘You really can sense these things, can’t you?’

‘I always have. Ever since I was little. But there was something sinister about that young man.’ She shuddered. ‘Something very wrong.

And there was. Although the truth would not emerge until sometime later. I had said that I did what I did with the best of intentions, to bring happiness, not to harm any innocent people. Three weeks after the incident the young man’s body was found floating in the sea. He had been cruelly tortured before having his throat cut. The police identified him as Piers Britain, notorious child pornographer and drug courier for the mob. The ‘word on the street’ was that he had been carrying a briefcase containing nearly one million pounds in used notes that was to be used for the purchase of crack-cocaine for sale to minors, and that the money had mysteriously ‘gone astray.

The above appeared as front page news in The Skelington Bay Mercury. Inside the same issue was a much smaller item which read to the effect that the local children’s home had been saved from closure by a gift from an anonymous benefactor. Three-quarters of a million pounds in cash, it was. The anonymous benefactor was described as a young man with dreadlocks and a dog.

Normally you might have expected the children’s home article to have merited a bit more prominence. But, as it happened, it was rather lost amongst numerous other such articles. One about a building project to house the homeless being financed by a similar gift, and one about a drug rehabilitation centre being financed by another similar gift and one about the maternity hospital and the hospice and the day-care centre and the crèche. Then there was the cats’ home and the dogs’ home and the donkey sanctuary and the wild-life park. Many, many millions of pounds were involved, being handed out willy-nilly to the needy.

It was as if the entire nation had woken up one morning and decided to get its priorities right.

And that was just how I intended it to be, but things didn’t work out as I planned.