Fat Tuesday Read online

  I spotted John Ellis and my heart skipped a beat. He was on his way back up the footpath carrying his skateboard.

  I sat for half-an-hour watching, before heading down. I walked towards the main entrance looking out for people I knew, but even those in my class hardly noticed me. When you’re playing, you don’t notice people. There were two lots of football nets up at the goals behind the centre. Wayne and me would have just taken a ball and played on the back of them.

  The door was open, people running in and out. The smell of ointment from the football changing rooms hit me as I walked in. A few footballers side-stepped me and ran out, their studs rattling on the pavement as they made for the pitch. Everyone seemed to be into something. I wished I had been here at the start.

  “Hi!” A lady in purple jogging bottoms bounced towards me. Her blonde hair was held back with a thick red band across her forehead and she had big round glasses on that made her brown eyes look like flattened conkers. “Now, I know you! You’re Spencer! How are you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Right then! What can we put you down for?”

  I signed up for five-a-side, which was due to start soon. I was really nervous, but I’d be okay once I started playing.

  I walked out of the building and along towards the corner, where they were coming down the path on skateboards. To my right there were five-a-side goals – with nets! With nets! I couldn’t believe it. Imagine hitting one straight into the top corner. I spotted John Ellis talking to a few lads, all a lot taller than him, and miles taller than me, but they had football boots on. I sat on the kerb and put mine on and pushed my socks down a bit and trotted over. I took a deep breath and tapped John on the side. “Hey, I think I’m playing in –”

  A lad turned around. “Hey what, pip? You think what?” He was huge and even had stubble. He must have been at least twenty-five. Long dark hair covered one side of his face. He had a black and blue striped strip on.

  The rest turned to look at me.

  I tilted my head up at John, who looked tiny compared to these lads. “What’s up? I think I’m in your team for the five-a-side.” I went to walk towards him, but one of the older lads heel-slapped me in the forehead and I went flying. It was okay. It was to be expected. All younger lads get heel-slapped. It meant nothing. As I pushed myself up and staggered forward, I heard my name.

  The longhaired one shoved me into the middle. “So you’re Hargreaves? Little Tommy reckons you’re minted. Proper toff.”

  All the faces were looking down and laughing. I made a lunge towards John, but he pushed me back in.

  “He’s fucking loaded. Our Stevey reckons he gets shagged off all the nannies.”

  “Is that right? You get shagged off the nannies?”

  “Nanny shagger!”

  “His fatha shags the nannies. Even the old ones! I bet he fuckin shags you. Does he? Eh?”

  “Nanny shagger!”

  “Nanny shagger!”

  “Nanny shagger!”

  “Where’s y’mother Nanny shagger?”

  “Spoilt fucker!”

  It got blurred. I couldn’t see anyone. I kept getting to my feet and bouncing off them. I crawled to one side, but they kicked me back into the middle. I got my temper up and tried not to cry. I ran at them hard, but it made it worse and they took my arms and legs and started giving me the bumps, throwing me so high I could see rooftops.

  “Break it up! Stop that right now!”

  I was lying face down. My shirt had been torn off. I stumbled to my feet and pulled my shorts up. Everyone was watching. The woman took my hand, but I broke free and started to run.

  “Spencer, come back!” she shouted. “It’s best if you stay, really!”

  Head down, I ran past the skateboarders.

  I reached the top, holding it in, and kept on running.

  * * *

  I sat in the bay window, looking out over the park. The others were due back soon.

  I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life living a lie, but how could I free myself of my past? If I told them too soon, before we’d been through enough together, it wouldn’t work out. They’d see me as a different breed to them, but I’m not. I detest everything my father stood for. Money, power, social standing. Means fuck all to me. He discriminated against the working-class like they were a different species. He couldn’t see people as individuals. And what did he have in the end that they didn’t? A shit load of money, no friends and a son who hated him. He died a lonely man. Got what he deserved if you ask me.

  I just didn’t want to go the same way. I wanted a chance to live my life the way I wanted to. To have people want to be in my company for a laugh. To have people want to be with me or be away from me for any reason apart from money. I’m not saying I’m working-class, or any class. I just wanted to start at the bottom, like everyone else. Live my life and settle in where I fit, not where some fucker chooses to put me.

  The more time I spend with the others and the more things we do together, the stronger our relationships will become. The one thing that has bonded us all from the very start is the will to make extra cash. I needed to do something that would detach me from my past and make them believe that I’m the same as them.

  After the robbery there would be no turning back. We’d be in too deep and my commitment to them could never be questioned. The robbery: bottle, togetherness, eclipsing anything any of us had ever done before. It wouldn’t matter how any of us had got to that stage, we’d just be there – together. No looking back.

  I’m sure it was Gregg at the door when I was talking to Buckley. What if he tried to fuck everything up for me, without giving me a chance? If he was on the level why didn’t he stay in the flat and confront me straight away? There’s only one reason and that’s to get the others against me before I’d had a chance to explain.

  I raced down the stairs, across the road and into the park. He was always first back from the afternoon jobs. If he had anything to say, let him say it to me first. Why should I be the one to make way? He’ll think because he’s bigger, a few stone heavier, that I couldn’t handle him. I could handle him all right. If it came to that – I could handle him.

  Gregg sauntered along the footpath, munching on something in a paper bag. “What the fuck you doing out here?” He cuffed me round the head and we made for the flat.

  The others came in and nothing was said.

  We went through the plan to get into Jeff’s office, then got ready for work.

  6

  We arrived early for work, clocked in, and made for the smoking room. This was my first night back since the weirdo had been taking photos of me and I was keeping an eye out for him. Maybe he wasn’t connected to home. I doubted it, but what if he was just a perv and took a shine to the way I was stacking those tins? Or from the benefits office, mistaken identity? It’s possible. Christ, it says something when you hope that a stranger photographing you is a nonce rather than to be connected to home.

  We started our shift and I pushed the fresh supplies though the double doors and into the fruit and veg section. After unloading the trolley, I headed back into the warehouse, carried on past the frozen section and stood with my back to the rear wall of the fish, meat and deli counters. To my right was the smoking room and staff room. Jeff’s office was straight in front of me. There were cameras pointed at the stored foods and entrance to the delivery yard. I was just about to walk over and try Jeff’s door when he stepped out. He pulled the door closed behind him, waved at the security camera and headed out the service yard door.

  I returned to the shopfloor, went over to aisle 18 and knelt down next to Gregg. “He doesn’t lock it.”

  “Fucking hell, Spence,” he said falling back. “I’d just opened the safe.”

  I started packing. “Much in?”

  “Chocker, obviously.”

  “I’ve just been out back next to Jeff’s office. He definitely didn’t lock his door, just walked straight out.”

>   “What about the cameras?”

  “All pointing at the exits and the food. I’ll see you at bait-time.”

  The next couple of hours flew by as I kept a watch on the comings and goings to the warehouse. I reckon midnight would be the best time to rob the place because most of the staff clock off then. We could mingle with them on our way to the secure door and when we came out there’d be hardly anyone around.

  Cam knelt down next to me and started babbling on about roast chickens and how they ran out an hour before they did last night and that one old dear was going to put an official complaint in. He was talking so fast I could hardly understand him. I slowed him down by saying things like, really and life on the edge and the world of chickens is most fascinating, Mr Brazelle. When he eventually stopped bombarding me with jumbled sentences, he stood up and said, “Look, I need a word.”

  I leant back on my honkers. “What about?”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Can we… in private, I mean.”

  I finished unpacking the tray in front of me.

  I ripped open the last tray on the trolley and took my time filling the shelf.

  Cam patiently waited.

  I’ll tell you what I think. It was Cam who overheard my conversation to Buckley. If he hadn’t, why come and see me when I might not even remember he’d tried it on? He was going to blackmail me to safeguard his secret.

  I led the way to the warehouse.

  By the time we reached the service yard door I was seething. He felt too close to my back when I opened the door and I discretely picked up the metal shutter handle and walked out into the warm air

  I spun around, keeping one hand behind my back. “So what’s up?”

  He pulled his hairnet off and ruffled his hair. “Look, Spence, about the other day.”

  “What about it?”

  He hesitated, then felt for his smokes and offered me one. “I just need to know where I stand. After the acid party. I’ll understand if you think I’m disgusting, but I’m through with denying it.” He took a massive draw, nervously touching at his face and hair.. His eyes filled up and he turned away and booted the plastic bin.

  “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Cam,” I said, laying the handle down. “Obviously I’m not into it, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Straight up, nothing’s changed as far as I’m concerned.”

  He stood with his back to me, hands spread-eagled on the wall.

  He composed himself, then sat on the metal step and had another smoke.

  I told him we were mates, no matter what.

  He relaxed and confided in me some more, mostly about back home in South Africa and how he thought one of his brothers was gay too. And that his best mate had been a lesbian, which was a great smokescreen for them both. His father, he said, would probably kill himself rather than live with the shame. He said I was the first straight person he had tried to tap up – and I would be the last.

  I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, even in jest.

  We had another smoke.

  I told him that I fancied Amber.

  “You don’t say.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yip.”

  “She doesn’t fancy me though, does she?”

  He shrugged. “Hard to say with Amber, but you two have been real tight since the acid party.”

  The door creaked open and Gregg’s fat face appeared. “What the fuck you doing! We shouldn’t be seen together like this! Or even talk to each other in public!”

  “Talk about me shitting myself,” Cam said, flicking his smoke away and pulling his hairnet on. We went back inside.

  Gregg and I casually walked over to Jeff’s door, checked both ways and ducked inside.

  We could hardly see a thing and I was beginning to think it was a waste of time when Gregg switched the light on. I instinctively crouched down, saying, “What the fuck you doing?”

  “Think about it,” he said, leaning against the desk. “There’s no window, at best someone might see light under the door, but I doubt it. So there’s no need to be in the dark, is there?”

  “Suppose not.”

  The office was small, with a desk and filing cabinet, drawing board, and a door in the far corner.

  “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Boxes of nails and screws and other shite he hoards, and a few power tools.”

  I sat in the swivel chair and began looking through the paperwork in his in-out tray, then flicked open his desk diary; crafty bugger was picking supplies up at eight-thirty on two mornings and last thing on Friday – nice way to get on flexitime.

  “Look at this,” Gregg said, pulling a construction drawing from the bottom of the pile. “The CCTV room is next to the manager’s office, first on the right as we go in. And the safe room’s next door.”

  We rummaged through the plans and I pulled an electrical drawing out. Written inside the CCTV room were the numbers 4548. Gregg scribbled it on the palm of his hand and we went back out onto the shopfloor.

  We finished the shift and resisted talking about our discovery until we were heading through the park towards the flat. We all agreed that the numbers must mean something, but if the doors were opened with a key, then we were no closer to finding a way into the surveillance room.

  It was three in the morning. Cam knocked up, Gregg got the beers, and Amber changed into her tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirt.

  As the drink and smoke kicked in and we got the customary bang on the floor from Mike downstairs, we threw around some figures on what we could expect to pocket. We didn’t know exactly when Securityinc collected, but we guessed every two days. If timed right, the Sunday of a long weekend would be a whopper payout.

  “Half a mil,” Gregg said, stretching to the ceiling. “Easy.”

  “A quarter,” I said.

  “Ten years minimum,” Cam said.

  Amber had been told that getting trained to work on the tills would be no bother and to ask Aileen on the next shift. We eventually went to bed with more problems to solve. How often did Securityinc call?

  Electronic pad or keys? Who cashed up? And who had access to the safe?

  7

  A week after we had been in Jeff’s office, Amber had completed her training and was on till duty. Until she managed to get a look in the back rooms, our escape plan was the only thing we could work on.

  To carry the cash across the shopfloor, Gregg came up with the idea of changing into our normal clothes in the safe room and strolling out the main entrance. Far too risky, I said – whether in the secure area or on the shopfloor, being shelf packers was our best cover.

  “Agreed,” he said. “But all it takes is one person to ask what’s in the bags and we’re fucked.” He stood at the fireplace massaging his temples. “Picture this. Quarter-past-twelve, bags loaded. We check the coast’s clear and make a move, yeah?” We nodded. “We’ve got no chance of making it out.”

  I frowned. “How do you get that?”

  “If we can’t make it out,” Cam said, “we can’t do it.”

  “Think about it. The front entrance is a no-no, because of the cashiers and cigarette kiosk, so it’s got to be the back way, yeah?” I nodded. “We turn right, up aisle 24 and into Beers and Wine – Jason stands there nearly all the time.”

  He had a point, the security guard stood at the start of Beers and Wine, and Toiletries (alcohol and razors were stolen most often); from there he could see along the crossing aisle, the deli, and the secure area. We either had to pass the security guard and the deli counters to go out the back, or the cashiers to go out the front.

  “There’s only one route as far as I can see,” Amber said, standing up and pointing at the construction drawing. “Out the mirrored door, then we turn right up aisle 24. That way we miss the cashiers and everyone at the bottom of the store. Once we reach the crossover aisle, turn left and go along,” she nodded her head counting the aisles, “to aisle 16.”

  “Why 16
?” I asked.

  “Because we’ll miss the deli counters where at least one supervisor will be and we’ll be directly in front of the warehouse doors.”

  “Sounds good, but getting past Jason’s going to be tricky.”

  “Rather him that the cashiers and supervisors though, Spence.”

  Gregg was unusually quiet.

  “Come on then, what do you think?”

  He slowly pushed himself up. “A human wallet,” he said, looking well smug. “Spence and me get in and get the coin, yeah?” We nodded. “Inside the bag we have a set of maintenance overalls, same as the ones worn by the call-out company. Matching cap, the works, yeah? I’ll slip these on, Spence stuffs as much cash on me as possible, thus lightening the load of the tool bag so it looks less conspicuous.”

  “Less conspicuous!” Cam scoffed. “Than you in overalls stuffed full of money! This is a wind up, right?”

  “Spence goes out first and stays in front until we reach the crossover aisle. If Jason’s there, Spence keeps him busy. Same again when we get to the top of 16. Spence checks first, if the coast’s clear, we’re straight into the warehouse, out the door, along the bottom road, avoiding the camera on Hart Street.”

  Gregg’s imagination and resourcefulness was something I greatly admired, but his plan was ridiculous. We agreed that the safest escape route was up aisle 16, so we needed to distract the security guard, keep an eye out for supervisors and pray for some luck. Fuck’s sakes, who were we kidding? Dressing up and distracting security guards – absolute fucking joke. Without a look in the back rooms and a realistic escape plan this was never going to happen.