Fat Tuesday Read online

  Acknowledgements

  Karen Davison

  Harvey Thornton

  Julie Drummond-Milne

  Raymond Chalmers

  John Thornton

  Tom Chalmers

  Keirsten Clark

  Paperbooks Publishing Ltd

  Unit 11, 63 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5NP

  www.paperbooks.co.uk

  Contents © Gary Davison 2008

  The right of Gary Davison to be identified as the author of

  this work has be asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

  ISBN: 978-1-9062310-1-9

  All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.

  Set in Times

  Printed by J. H. Haynes and Co. Ltd., Sparkford.

  Cover designed by Chris Gooch – Bene Imprimatur Ltd

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  To Karen

  Contents

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  Part 2

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Part Three

  18

  19

  20

  Part Four

  21

  22

  23

  25

  Part One

  1

  Gregg’s a huge kid. A bear. He’s got to be over six feet and everything’s in proportion: fat face, fat arms, fat belly, fat legs. He’s got mousy hair that he occasionally gets cut to the bone, making his face look even fatter. I remember the first time I met him in the Traveller’s Rest hostel. I’d only been backpacking for a week or so and I hadn’t made any friends, and he came straight over to me in the kitchen trying to sell me a microwave meal. Honestly, I hate ravioli, but before I knew what was happening the meal was in the mic and I was a couple of dollars lighter.

  That same night I started at Vasey supermarket as a shelf packer and Gregg was there with a South African lad called Cam, and we teamed up straight away. Soon after, he let me in on the scam he had going. He had one of the delivery drivers squared up to damage food that was meant for the home deliveries and he sold it to the other backpackers in the hostel for cheaps. Over time he had fine-tuned his operation and now had a decent order list that he tried to meet.

  At first, I just helped smuggle the gear out, which wasn’t difficult because most of it would have been binned anyway, then people got to know me in the hostel and I began delivering the food and collecting the cash while Gregg expanded his customer base to other hostels down the road.

  A few weeks later, a girl I’d met on the Melbourne-to-Sydney bus started the night shift at Vaseys. Amber’s about five-nine, shoulder-length brown hair, real bonny face and if she’d given me any encouragement I would have got stuck straight into her, but she didn’t. I knew from the start that if I was going to get anywhere with her, it would take a lot of groundwork. Too much groundwork. That aside, she was a sound laugh and like me, unable to resist being in Gregg’s company.

  Within weeks, Gregg, Cam, Amber and me had moved into a flat around the corner from the Traveller’s Rest. The delivery scam was working well and Amber and Cam were on board in the same capacity as me. We pooled all our money and were living like kings. Gregg incessantly looked for opportunities to expand our operation and every night was an open floor. We felt we were maximising our opportunities at the supermarket, so we tended to concentrate on our afternoon jobs.

  From eleven until four, I worked at Ralf’s Autos as a general dogsbody, emptying the rubbish, topping up the fridges and making sure the lids were down on the newspaper racks outside. If I found myself with nothing to do, I helped the lads in the carwash.

  The owner’s son was called Craig. He was nineteen, a year younger than me, and into weightlifting; with his square chin and shaven head he looked well handy.

  Craig hated his father because he didn’t get paid much for working around the garage.

  One afternoon, we were sitting on the wall taking our break, when I noticed a pattern with the customers. They would pull in, get out of their cars, look at the colour on the main fuel box, feel for the handle and fill up. Nearly every customer did this. We had another smoke and I counted eleven out of fifteen following the same agitated procedure: come on come on, things to do. Think about it. When you pull into a garage you’re in a hurry, you want to fill up and get out, no hanging about, there’s nothing to see. Garages are so uninteresting you’ll wait until the very last second and risk conking out before doing the blasted deed of refuelling. In a garage you’re not concentrating on what you’re doing.

  Craig was laying the mother of moans on me about how he never got paid a nut for working last weekend, or the one before that, or the one before that… how he would gladly top the old fucker if he thought he could get away with it.

  With this in mind, I casually said, “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  He straightened up, chin out, looking for the catch. “A proposition?”

  “A proposition.”

  Repeating the word confused him even more, so I bowled straight in. I asked him how far a car would get if it was filled with the wrong juice. Two-kilometres max – less if it’s a fuel injection, he reckoned. This was the plan. Once we selected the victim, I would switch the nozzle over on the diesel. When they pulled out, Craig would be right behind them in the recovery truck, which he uses to get to work and back every day anyway, and follow them until they break down. Then he would offer to tow them to another nearby garage and as a good turn only charge them $150.

  Five minutes passed and he was still staring at me.

  You can never tell with these Aussie weightlifters what’s coming next, and I was suggesting we fuck with his father’s business here so he could’ve been contemplating sticking one on me.

  I was just about to ease off the wall and leg it, when he offered me a smoke.

  After blowing a few smoke rings, he said, “What if they’re in the NRMA or something?”

  “As long as the victim’s a woman, the embarrassment factor should swing it. In the city centre? Massive traffic jam? They’ll jump at it. Guaranteed.”

  The next day, after our break, and after some ridiculous what ifs from Craig, we were ready to go. A petite brunette, mid-twenties, wearing huge black sunglasses and driving a black BMW convertible was next in line. I strolled over and wiped the side of the petrol tank. Turning my back to the camera, I casually switched the pumps over and waved a car out ahead of me before walking towards the carwash. The brunette picked up the nozzle and kept her eye on the litres. After paying, she strutted across the forecourt, dropped her shades down and stepped into her car. Craig pulled out right behind her.

  Half-an-hour later I thought, he’s stuck in traffic.

  An hour, crashed and burned, it’s come on top, we’re fucked.

  By the time he got back I was all for jacking in and trying for full-time at the supermarket. Craig headed towards me, wa
lking like he had shit his pants. The closer he got, the more convinced I was that he had actually filled them to the brim. Either that or someone had taken a Stanley knife to his groin – go on son, let ’em have it!

  “Nearly perfect,” he said, talking out the side of his mouth.

  “Nearly?”

  “She broke down about half a mile away and I was right up her arse. And what an arse.”

  “Wasn’t it just.”

  “Like you said, she was embarrassed, didn’t bat an eye at the $150 charge.”

  “Nice one.”

  “Drops her off at that Prestige Performance garage, then she pulls out the cheque book.”

  “Shit!” I flicked my smoke onto the road and started pacing. “Cheques are no good, it’s a trace back to us.”

  “I wrote her guarantee number on the back.”

  I felt sorry for Craig. He thought he had done well, and he had. “It’s not a problem,” I said. “At least it works. We’ll cash this one, but in future go via George Street and ask them if they have the money. If they don’t, take them to the cashpoint. Say you’ll only accept a cheque with a guarantee card but you’ll have to charge full price, two-eighty.”

  Craig’s father was in bad health and the set days he was at the hospital we planned to do the scam. Today, we decided to only try a couple more to see if there were any comebacks.

  By four o’clock, I wished we’d been doing them every half-hour it was working so well. But, like Craig pointed out, the comebacks probably wouldn’t happen the same day.

  We split the three hundred and I raced back to the flat to tell the others.

  Gregg was clattering dishes in the kitchen and Amber and Cam were watching the news.

  Cam and Amber had been spending a lot of time together since we moved into the flat and it was pissing me off. I know it shouldn’t and as a mate I should be happy and all that, but I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, Cam’s a good looking kid, blond hair in a set of curtains, slim, bony face that I know the birds go for, but – well, I saw her first, didn’t I? I thought we had a connection, a little something that might take off much later. Anyway, I thought we were all meant to be mates, not getting it on.

  Yesterday I had that thought. You know the one where you imagine that if the people in the room could see inside your head they’d be disgusted at what you were thinking? But I couldn’t help it. And he’s really started to grind on me, Amber look at this, Amber listen to this, fuck’s sakes. I know it’s blatant jealousy, but how do you stop it? You can’t. You can pretend you’re not bothered, but when someone close to you gives you the hump you can’t ignore it because it’s there every day right in your face.

  “Evening, all,” I said.

  “Evening, back street guy,” Cam said.

  Amber leant back and lifted her hand up. “Hi, Spence.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  Gregg emerged from the kitchen, teatowel in hand, white hairy belly poking out the bottom of his t-shirt. “Well, then? Did you give it a go?”

  “Shit, I forgot,” Cam said, kneeling up on the sofa.

  “There were a few teething problems,” I said, setting my bag down. “And Craig’s arse was twitching like fuck…” I spread the notes into a fan. “But… sweet as!” Gregg dived on top of me and the other two completed the pile on. I had made nearly a week’s wages in one day. In three days I’d equal roughly what we make off the delivery scam. I swear we were hysterical, rolling around the floor, piling on whoever was left on the bottom. This was a major breakthrough. Fucking major!

  The doorbell interrupted our celebrations. We froze, entangled on the floor. Gregg crept over to the window. I don’t know why we were so stunned, probably because we never got any visitors, apart from takeaway delivery drivers. Gregg gripped the flaky windowsill and peered down. My arm was still around Amber’s waist. The three of us stirred and she swiftly removed it.

  “Who is it?” I whispered.

  Gregg held his hand up.

  “It’s okay, he’s gone,” he sighed. “Fat bloke, big ginger beard, suit jacket. I think it might have been a tax inspector.”

  “Why do we have to hide from a tax inspector?” I asked.

  “Because I’m claiming I live here alone, that way we get a twenty-five percent rebate on the rates.” Gregg had a grin from ear to ear as he watched me gather the notes up and drop them into the tin. “That’s a tremendous day’s work, Spence. You didn’t even have to do that much graft. Not like me, running around like a nutter.”

  I sat in the bay window looking out over the treetops into the park. I got thinking about different stuff and, well, the truth is, if I’m being honest, what I really needed was a girl. Trouble is, I got on so well with Amber, and… and… I’m fucked if I know. I’m not in love with her or anything. Christ, we’d only been mates seven weeks or something, it’s just… there’s something there and each day I’m watching it slip further away.

  “You okay, Spence?” Amber said, kneeling in front of me. “You’re not worried about any problems after today, are you?”

  “Nah, it went spot on. We’re keeping the reg numbers of the cars so we don’t do anyone twice, so it should be sweet.”

  She stood up, using my knee for leverage and I got a waft of blackcurrant from her lips. Her lips are perfect and her mouth wide, like Julia Roberts, and she’s constantly glossing up with juicy tubes. Whenever she settles down on the sofa or you stop and talk to her at work, the juicy tube comes out and she glosses up and pouts. Today’s flavour was blackcurrant and I could almost feel her kissing me.

  Fuck’s sakes, I wish I could get my head round this. I’ve waited so long to have real friends, and here I am wishing the worst on one of them and leching over the other.

  Gregg had been pacing around the flat and was now hovering behind my chair. I asked him what was up and he nodded towards his room. I followed him over.

  He unravelled a roll of paper about a metre long onto his bed, weighing each corner down with shoes and his bedside clock. He stood in front of the bed, towering over me, and said, “This is strictly between you and me.”

  I nodded and he stepped aside.

  It was a construction drawing of the supermarket. “What the fuck? Where did you get this?”

  “Nicked it off Jeff, the maintenance bloke.”

  The robbery of a supermarket was something you heard about on the news or saw in a film, or fantasised about when you were twenty-year-old scamsters like us. Looking at the drawing made it feel too real. I knew how Gregg operated and if I gave this the green light, we’d be on the brink of doing it within a week.

  “Hey,” Gregg said. “Don’t worry, we’re only exploring the possibilities like we said.”

  For the first time, he was looking for approval and he had turned to me. Not Cam. Me. Fuck Cam, he was moving in on Amber and if I got my way he’d be out the door.

  “One thing,” I said, straightening up. “Whatever we do about this from now on, we do together. No gathering information, maps or fuck all else, unless we both agree. That way, if we do decide to go ahead neither can blame the other for making a mistake.”

  I sounded like I knew what I was on about, but I just didn’t want this getting out of hand. Gregg was a dreamer and this would probably never come off, but I didn’t want us getting nicked in the meantime because he went delving in without any real thought about what he was doing.

  Gregg’s so thick-skinned that if you catch the fucker out, he’ll just smile or half-laugh and walk away, and it feels like he’s lugged an arm over your shoulders and said, “you know it makes sense.”

  “Agreed,” he said, smiling.

  We shook on it and he kept hold of my hand and yanked me towards him.

  I pointed at the damp coming through the walls in the corner of the room. “You want to get onto the landlord about that.”

  “Already have. I’m withholding half of next month’s rent if it’s not sorted.”

  Cam poked his head in
. “What you two lovers up to?”

  “You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?” Gregg said. “Listening to that eighties shite.”

  Cam gave him the finger and returned to the living room. I went to get dressed for work.

  2

  That night at work I couldn’t stop thinking about the robbery. Apart from the secure area, we had access to the whole of the supermarket, and even if we got caught there, as employees an excuse for accidentally being out of bounds wouldn’t be hard to find. With careful planning and Gregg’s ability to get just about any information we needed, we could pull it off. Imagine the buzz walking out of here with all that cash…

  I stood up. What the fuck was I thinking? If we got caught we’d get sent down for years. It wasn’t the money. You see, the problem is, I’m holding back on the others. I don’t want to, but I have to.

  Eight weeks ago my father died, leaving me everything. A week later I was off backpacking. I know that looks callous, but I’d been planning it for years to escape him and the stigma he had drowned us in. My father had no real friends, only arse-lickers who worked for him, and I was destined to be his heir, but I’d fought against it my whole life.

  Back home in Newcastle, I’d always been discriminated against for being the little rich kid. Even at twenty I’m still the little rich kid back there, except now I’m seriously loaded. My mother, I’m told, was working-class, which is where the main differences were between my father and me. He detested the working-class, yet he married one of them and half-raised his kid as working-class, then decided to play God and try and change things when my mother went. He was a nasty bastard, my father – not physically – but he knew how to hurt you.

  Anyway, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and his death was imminent, I had a choice. Stay in Newcastle, learn the ropes in the finance world, take over his company and be worshipped by pricks only after my money, or fuck off and start afresh, on my own, see what the world has to offer, make new friends and see where it leads me.

  I didn’t want to be a sneaky fucker and go behind people’s back, but how could I tell my new mates that I was loaded and I came from that background and still keep things going the way they were? Pulling together and making extra coin is what we’re all about. If I tell them I’m not skint like them it’ll spoil all that and believe me, no matter what they say, like everyone I’ve met before, they’ll look at me differently, and I’ll never be accepted as the same as them. AND I AM. I’m my mother’s son, not that bastard’s. So until we’ve been through enough for them not to care, I’m keeping shtum.