Sweet Sorrow(33)

After a few weeks, I was only handing out scratch cards if specifically reminded by the customer, at which point I would slap my forehead in a pantomime of forgetfulness. The unclaimed cards I’d palm stiffly into my pocket like an amateur conjurer and then, in an extra flourish of squalid paranoia, into my underpants while holding my breath in the fetid customer toilet. Once a week, I’d take the stack of cards to Martin Harper’s house, where we’d close the door to the den, put on loud music and scratch away like old gangsters counting our haul, which, in our most audacious week, came to ￡70, thirty-six champagne flutes and twenty-four highball tumblers.

There was, of course, no justification for any of this, beyond a vague, unexamined sense that someone needed to teach petrol a lesson. Yes, I was being paid off the books but Mike was always perfectly affable and decent to me. On the other hand, Mike wouldn’t be losing a penny or a single customer, the vast majority of whom left the station none the wiser. Who was the victim? This was a game of chance and who was to say that they had any more right to good fortune or glassware than I did? Philosophically speaking, the money didn’t even exist until the foil was scraped away, so the customers were losing nothing but the possibility of gain, rather than the gain itself. Like the falling tree in the forest or the cat in its closed box, these mental gymnastics made my head spin but were necessary if I was to convince myself the crime was victimless, and this was how I passed many of the guilty hours between three and four and five in the morning.

Perhaps I’d have felt better if I’d been using the cash to help sustain the family, a dutiful and noble son, but this was only partly the case. Dad had been signing on since bankruptcy and the arrival of a bill or a request for a new pair of shoes could easily send him spinning into panic and gloom. I sometimes pictured myself handing him a roll of banknotes – there you go, Dad, just chipping in – but was unable to finish the scene without indignity or embarrassment on both our parts. My contribution had to be secret. If Dad gave me cash to buy groceries or takeaway, I would pay and return the money to his wallet, and this gave me a terrific, self-congratulatory sense of piety, like a sort of sneaky Jesus.

But the pleasure was fleeting, and for the most part I spent the money on booze, computer games, trainers; protection from the humiliation of ‘I can’t afford it’. Stealing stopped me feeling poor and for all my guilt and worry there was a swagger to it too. I could buy my round and any excess cash was rolled tightly and stashed in the hollow tubing of the bunk bed, like tools for an escape hidden in a cell.

On that particular Friday night, I left Fran and looped round the ring road, changed into my green nylon tabard, chatted to my co-worker Marjorie and took her place at the till. Six until seven thirty were the busiest hours, then a lull broken only by the gang of kids from the estate down the road bundling through the doors to grab confectionery from the shelves: not shoplifting, more a brazen smash and grab. I went into my speech – please don’t do that. Put it back, please. You have to pay for that – and they bundled out and stood at the forecourt window, cramming chocolate and crisps into their mouths and laughing, while I pretended to call the police.

Then another lull. I took the play script from my bag and stared for some time at the cover. Turning the page felt like opening an exam paper for a language I didn’t speak, a meaty, strange language with weird grammar. I looked at the cast list, found Sampson some way down, then turned to Act I, Scene I. Two households, both alike in dignity.

I closed the script, went to the confectionery rack, stood in the camera’s blind spot and quickly ate a Twix.

I read FHM.

At ten minutes before nine, a battered VW pulled up. Harper stepped out of his brother’s car, checked left and right. I hid the play beneath the counter and slipped into character. The following performance was carried out with deadpan sobriety, as if in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello.’

‘How are you?’

‘I am good.’

‘My brother has won some money on the scratch cards. Can I please cash them in here please?’

‘Certainly! May I see the cards?’

‘Yes. Here are the cards.’

I inspected them with professional care and took the cash from the till. A smirk played around Harper’s lips and with a wink he folded the money, walked back to his brother’s car and drove away. A queasy, anxious period of time followed as I sat listening for the sound of sirens, imagining a squad of police cars sweeping onto the forecourt, the click of the cuffs, a large hand protecting my head as I was folded into the backseat.

But nothing happened, and I sometimes wondered – was this the perfect crime? As far as I could tell, the scam had only one flaw; each ten-pound cash prize could generate enough glassware to stock a small bar. To begin with I’d been smuggling the surplus home in my rucksack, until all available cupboard space was crammed with more garage glasses than we could ever hope to use. They were not something to hand down through the generations; moulded like a pineapple hand-grenade, the ‘crystal’ was of such low quality that it would shatter with an alarming pop if used for anything as unconventional as, say, a cold drink, turning the enjoyment of a chilled beer on a warm day into a kind of Russian roulette. Still I brought them home until the day I found my father on his hands and knees, sweeping up the shrapnel with a dustpan and brush. ‘I swear, next time it’ll take my face off. Don’t bring any more home now, Charlie, please?’