The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,5

or some other junk. He might have a Superman One. I'd love to just check.'

'And rip him off. Offer him 50p for it, say you want it back for sentimental reasons. And then flog it for a couple of hundred grand. Something like that?'

'Er, yeah.' Harvey didn't like it when people he considered intellectually inferior to himself read his mind. 'Something like that.' And he laughed, but without much enthusiasm.

'Well, why don't you just ring him then? If his mum still lives in Cornwall why not just get her number from the directory and ring her up. For all you know he committed suicide as a result of your cruelty and you've been dreaming of ripping him off all these years for nothing.'

This was so outrageously over the top that Harvey snorted with laughter and Josh was forced to join him. 'It might happen,' he said, trying to remain angry. 'Anything might have happened in twenty years, you don't know.'

'Yeah, he might have had twenty years of therapy and be ready to forgive me. Maybe he'll even give me the comic to prove he's cured.'

'So why don't you, you bloody git?'

'Why don't I ring him?' Harvey was sniggering in anticipation. 'I'll tell you why, shall I? I don't ring him because I can't remember his fucking name. All I know is that he was Bleeder the odd boy.' He laughed so loud he caused heads to turn in the pub and drowned out Josh's spluttery cackle. 'Oh Jesus,' Harvey said, 'I really ought to remember his name, after what we put him through.'

Chapter Three

On the journey down from London, Harvey again tried to remember his name. He could see the pale, unhappy face before him but all he could think of was the odd boy. Bleeder the odd boy. It brought a vague and, in truth, fleeting feeling of guilt that he couldn't come up with any more than that. In the carriage of the 10.05 from Paddington to Penzance he prepared with what he considered military precision (but what was actually closer to civilian sloth). Lounging with a pen in one hand and a fake-leopard-skin-covered writing pad – one pound for two from Quidbusters, Lewisham – in the other, he planned his past. Josh's suggestion of lying had impressed him and, once he had decided to attend the reunion, he had spent some time toying with mysterious women friends, unexpected side careers, and even, for a dangerous moment, MI5. However, he had settled, as Josh had suggested, on a sense of heightened reality. Nothing too unlikely, just a mention of other departments at the shop; buying trips – actually to Bristol and Manchester – extended, more by implication than direct statement, to include New York and Vancouver; Josh multiplying, splitting amoeba-like into a multitude of assistants; hints about cars, property. Harvey jingled the keys in his pocket and thought for a while about the house in Hampstead they might belong to. He really could picture it: nothing too flashy, one of those cottagey jobs up by the park. Was he married? No, that was too much. But he was involved. Kind of in love: who wouldn't love her? But he wasn't sure he was ready. How do you ever know for sure? That was his problem. He actually chuckled out loud at the trickiness of the situation: how could a man in his position ever be really sure someone better wouldn't come along? She wanted kids, but, you know, he wanted to wait until he could see something of them, and that meant waiting till the pressure was off, and that could be a long wait. As the train entered a tunnel he found his own reflection looking back at him in the window. He saw the shaved head – where once dark hair had been tied back in a ponytail – shaved, not to look like David Beckham so much as to stop him looking like his dad as it fell out of its own accord. He saw the stomach bulge underneath the black T-shirt with StanTheManLee written across it in green. He did the sigh. It was hard when people only saw you once every few years. How could that be anything but a punishment? The only consolation was that it was mutual. He thought for a moment about old Rob's battle with cancer and then hated it when he found himself smiling. Shit, that was not how he'd meant to end up. And that was the