Easy Pickings

CW - couple of swears

Marcus

We met on an online forum where she went by the name of Smokie Ise. ‘Call me Isa if you want,’ she said, although I suspected this wasn’t her real name.

‘So… you a sixty a day girl or what?’

She replied with a ROFL and a series of sideways tear-stream laughing emojis. ‘It’s in the avatar, gonk, the way the shadow's done around the eye…’

Guess I knew as little about women’s make-up as I did the way they thought. But the upshot was, at the end of the day I liked her, and I had been widowed a while.

Alice

I’ve always been one for lists as my best friend, Chloe will testify. Books, records, films; over the years I’ve gathered a fair secondhand collection, and have a notebook for each, titles catalogued alphabetically along with their publication and release dates, where bought or acquired, plus additional information and musings. Makes things a whole lot easier when deciding what to listen to, read or watch. Did the same with my men some years back, although suffice to say, I haven’t added to this particular list in a while.

‘Surprised you don’t look some of them up,’ Chloe said, with the emphasis so strongly on ‘them’ I could almost picture the snide italics. ‘Start a new list about what they’re all doing now. Or better still, take a leaf out of Earl’s book…’

‘Earl…?’

‘Yeah, you know, My Name is Earl…’

‘What, you mean that guy from the TV show who goes out of his way to make amends to all those people he’s wronged in the past?’

‘You got it… Or have you?’

The silence hung between us like my curtain of pastel-rose hair with my head tilted sideways as, excited by what she might find, she rummaged around in my drawers and rooted my shelves.

Marcus

I was excited when she requested my email. Chatting on the movie group was great, but no one had asked for it before so this was one heck of a leap. Seemed her name really was Isa. I B Penitent did suggest it, and she didn’t live far from me either. A fifty-mile drive, that’s all, and from a town not far from the place I grew up in. Not that I liked to assume. I’d been burnt in the past rushing into things, so best play it cool. Slowly, slowly catchy… Ha! My darling Julie would have approved; she was always telling me to have patience, and I’d found I was taking her advice more and more since her death. Or maybe it was just a symptom of age, this putting on the brakes as one begins to fear for one’s own mortality, like it might just help slow down time, give you more of it, except, by much the same token, ‘carpe diem’ did spring to mind as well.

Alice

‘Look, here it is. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!’ Having rifled through the pages, Chloe pushed the notebook towards me, held open at the M’s. ‘Marcus Fitzroy, Euphoria Club, September 1995, Snog Most Profitable.’

‘Oh God,’ I squeezed my eyes tight and groaned. ‘I was just a kid then.’

‘Old enough to know right from wrong though, hey?’

‘I was drunk. Showing off. It was all just a bit of a lark.’

‘But did you ever think of what became of him, how he got home that night or anything? Bet you didn’t. You always were top heifer in the selfish cow stakes before Lee took the title from you. Karma, right?’

‘Yeah, whatever. Thanks a bunch, Chlo.’

Did she really have to mention my ex?

‘Not too late to make amends though, is it?’

That glint in her eye! Queen Selfish I may have been once upon a time, but she was still the crowned head of stirrers - and there she was, looking Marcus Fitzroy up online before I could even begin to object.

Marcus

For the next few weeks, the emails were fairly sporadic and we mainly talked about film, although I did find out she was single, and that she’d had a bad time with her ex with whom she’d had one child, a son now grown up. Not a penny paid in maintenance, never mind any practical or emotional support, he’d walked out when the boy was three, and had, as a result of his drinking and gambling, left her in so much debt it wasn’t until her parents died and she’d received her small inheritance that she’d finally managed to pay it all off. She no longer trusted easily, she told me, wasn’t the same come-what-may, free-spirited individual who had so often acted on impulse in her youth.

‘Slowly, slowly,’ I heard Julie remind me. ‘Adhere to the limits, don’t take your foot off the brake.’ Still, apart from her unfortunate history, it seemed that Isa and I had much in common, so where was the harm in easing up slightly? Then, on the very day I’d decided to take the bull by the horns and suggest that we meet, the email arrived which told me I had money.

Alice

‘So, you sent it then? Finally.’

Chloe, as sarcastic as ever, rolled her eyes as she spoke. But did I really need to explain the delay? I might have been an idiot in the past, but no way did I take people at face value these days, and especially online. Firstly, I had to be sure Marcus was who he said he was – and the same Marcus whose name was in my notebook – and secondly, I had to be sure he was a good guy, for if he’d been anything like Lee, both my shame and my need to atone would have been swept clean away. But no, he was genuine alright, a trusting soul too, didn’t even click when I’d dropped all those hints with my invented names. Or maybe he’d forgotten all about me, or the track that was playing when I did what I did. Smokie featuring Roy Chubby Brown, such a hit in the clubs back then with everyone chanting…

Marcus

‘Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?’ They were the first words which sprang from my mouth once I’d clicked on my PayPal to check where the money had come from. £400 received and a note attached which read ‘Marcus, I am so sorry. I expect this is about the amount I owe you – with added (or should that be additional?) interest – your very humble and apologetic friend, Alice.’

The surname on the email was Cartwright which left me none the wiser until it dawned on me. Smokie featuring Roy Chubby Brown, The Euphoria Club mid-nineties, and that girl in the shiny gold dress who’d draped herself around me declaring the song to be hers, and ‘by fuck’ I’d soon know who Alice was once she’d taken me to Wonderland. It didn’t even register how often her hands had wandered into my back pockets while she was kissing me until well after she and the guy she’d come in with – a former workmate of mine who’d introduced us – had vanished.

Alice

‘Feel better now, then?’

I could feel Chloe’s breath on my neck as she spoke.

‘Can’t believe you wrote what you did though – ‘with additional interest’ – like you’ll ever hear from him again. Unless, of course, he’s even slower on the uptake than I thought. And talking of slow, you not bought that new book yet? You’re bound to need one if you’re going to start a new list. Alice Cartwright, My Misdemeanors and Atonements: Marcus Fitzroy, 1995 to 2024, tick.’

‘Very funny, Chlo, there are no more.’

‘Hmm, I’m sure I can think of some.’

I wasn’t listening though, I was scrolling my emails, my I B Penitent ones, finger hovering above the word ‘compose’. But no…That awful song had extra meaning now, for really, who the fuck was I to this dude? And if he hadn’t hated me before, he was bound to now.

‘Ball’s in his court. Right, Alice?’

‘Yeah, whatever. Salved my conscience anyhow.’

Marcus

I B Penitent indeed. And ISA! I could have replied with a string of those same laughing face emojis as she’d sent me all those weeks ago, for when the pennies - all forty-thousand of them - finally dropped, that’s exactly how I’d felt. For little did this one-time sneak-thief know that if it hadn’t been for her, I would never have met my Julie. For she’d been the one to come to my rescue that night, trusting me enough to lend me the taxi fare home, to where I lived at the time, twenty miles out of town. And I’d only begged her for a couple of coins so I could call my dad.

‘At two in the morning? Come on, pal. If you were your dad, would you want to be hauled out of bed at this time of night to take a forty-mile round drive?’

She’d admitted later that lending me the fare was primarily an excuse to see me again, and we’d met up the very next day, when thanks to Dad, whose scolding hadn't been half as harsh as I'd imagined it would be, I’d been able to pay her back.

It was a fortuitous move on both our parts stopping off at the newsagents en route to the free museum, for I’d never have thought of buying a lottery ticket otherwise. ‘You’ve had bad luck,’ she said, ‘You’ve lost an entire week’s wages, so something’s bound to come good to balance it out. Fifty pence each and we’ll split if we win.’

Okay, so we didn’t hit the jackpot, but our birthday numbers combined with the date and month on which we met, did give us five and the bonus ball, a small fortune really, which later helped towards buying our little house at the coast and the setting up of our seaside café. We dealt in movie rentals too back in the day, which was when I first discovered my love of film, a passion which helped keep me sane in those dark, dark days following Julie’s passing.

It's been four years now since my beloved was taken from me – a victim of the pandemic – but I’ll never forget the text she sent when she felt she might be breathing her last, her giving me her blessing to find someone new. ‘Take your time, Marcus, don’t fall in haste, but don’t you worry, it’s been proven before that there’s more between heaven and earth, so take comfort in the knowledge that I’m with you, and will send you a sign so you know when and where to look. Just remember those lucky numbers!’

I didn’t want to believe it then, couldn’t imagine life without her. But now…?

It was only fair, I thought, that Alice and I share the money she’d sent. Perhaps I was being naïve - desperate even in seeking someone to love - but she did come across as genuine in every way that mattered, and it was obvious she wasn’t the silly drunken girl who’d robbed me all those years ago, egged on, no doubt, by that no-good shyster Lee, who when we worked on the bins, had proven time and again he couldn’t be trusted. A quick search of his name and I’d found out all sorts, including his ending up in jail for defrauding pensioners. Nothing, I'm glad to say, thrown up about her. We could go for a meal, and take in a movie, providing she was up for it. We could even go for a drive, although – and Julie would be proud of me here – I wouldn’t go crazy. I’d be watching those limits carefully, keeping my foot near the brake at all times, and my cards – my plastic ones at least - even closer to my chest… But maybe, just maybe, I’d wait. She’d mail again. She would now, wouldn’t she…?