‘Closing down, see,’ the taller lad said. ‘Only way out of this town is to be a singer. Yea, that’s the ticket.’
‘I write the songs, he sings them,’ volunteered his mate. ‘Yea, he can sing.’
The taller lad hit a high note, in tune but with sobering words, a lament for a trackless future, as Nigel bawled from behind the counter, ‘Leave it out, mate. This ain’t Britain’s Got Talent.’
The left-behind Lancashire town abounded in nicotine-stained pubs, neon-lit chippies and a couple of all-night clubs, one of which was the three lads’ destination.
‘It’ll be wicked tonight – great band, great craic – but you need to be tanked to enjoy it,’ the singer called over his shoulder as they tipped out into the drizzle with tinnies and bags of chips in hand.
Every morning Sami started at seven, cleaning the floor and frying range, refreshing the oil, peeling potatoes and logging deliveries of frozen fish, burgers and spicy wedges. He handled lunches alone but come the evening Nigel took charge, dragging himself in from the pub with the heavy step of the condemned. He always reeked of cigarette smoke.
Yet Sami was no zero-hours automaton like those trapped in the town’s warehouses and call centres. He knew his luck and moved like a dancer while he worked, from cutting board to microwave, between chip pan and till. He mixed batter with cold water, added a teaspoon of baking powder and listened to the fizz of the fish as it hit the sizzling palm fat. Sometimes he helped to clear the few melamine tables with Floriana, the Romanian waitress who worked weekends. On Saturday nights after closing, when the neon lights had been switched off, he liked to sit and listen to her complain about her aching feet and Bulgarian boyfriend. At the same time his eyes were always on the door, fearful of an immigration raid, detention and removal from the UK. More than once Nigel had threatened him with the sack.
The Blue Nile differed little from a thousand other Lancashire takeaways, except in one peculiar aspect. Its owner, who lived upstairs, was a recluse. It was more than a decade since he’d last been spotted at the Britannia. He stayed indoors, relying on Nigel – his nephew – to run errands and do his weekly shop.
It also fell to Nigel to cash up at the end of the day. He hated lugging the takings upstairs, and the obligation to stay and listen to the ‘right scally’ grumble about falling profits and soggy chips. ‘But there’s nowt to do about it,’ Nigel moaned, irritated yet accepting of his lot. ‘You don’t bite the fooker that feeds you.’
One Saturday, Nigel called in sick. On the phone he told Sami to cover for him, even if it meant leaving Floriana alone to clean up at closing time. To get ahead Sami pre-cooked extra cod and haddock. He deep-fried a mountain of chips and nuked two dozen servings of frozen chicken wings. He managed to keep up with orders until the last plastered punter staggered away into the night.
Sami had never met the uncle. He had never seen him leave the flat. As a result a kind of lore had grown up around the old man, about his moods and bloody-mindedness, all of which Nigel did his best to embellish. He owned half a dozen chippies and kebab shops in the north-west, said Nigel. He bought only British fish and New Zealand lamb. He was a bastard landlord who hassled incomers even though his eateries and tenements wouldn’t survive without them. He was also a ‘totally mental’ hobbyist.
At the till Sami sorted the grimy notes, bagging them with the loose change, then – with a nod to Floriana – limped around to the side door. He stood there for a moment, pressing the thick envelope against his chest, looking up and down the empty street. He could be gone in an instant, he realised. He could swing by his room, grab his few possessions and catch a night bus to Blackburn. By morning he’d be in Leeds or Bradford. He’d never be found. He jabbed the intercom button and was buzzed up to the flat.
Alongside the stairs rose a line of framed movie posters: The Dam Busters, Sink the Bismarck, Battle of Britain. On the landing Sami stepped over a mechanical bulldog and around a battered pre-war globe ringed with pink-coloured colonies. A three-carriage Hornby model railway steamed around the edge of the sitting room, along a hip-height track and through miniature English villages. Tiny apple orchards, rustic pubs and rose-wrapped cottages spread across shelves. Cheery figurines played cricket on a table-top village green. A toy ferris wheel turned in a make-believe fairground. A model station master signalled to the locomotive, motioning it around and around the closed circuit. Rain beat against the real window.
‘Who the fook are you?’
Sami hadn’t noticed the man – Nigel’s uncle – in the clutter. He sat sunk in a deep discoloured armchair; white, wispy-haired and wearing a particularly patriotic jumper that blended in with the flat’s tatty chaos.
Sami introduced himself, explaining that Nigel was unwell. He gestured with the envelope and asked, ‘Where do I put the money, boss?’ He couldn’t spot a single uncluttered surface.
Nigel’s uncle levered himself to his feet and snatched the envelope. ‘So you’re the one,’ he said, an account ledger falling onto the carpeted floor. On the walls portraits of Churchill and Thatcher – clipped from the Daily Mail – were decked in Union Jack bunting. Queen Elizabeth statuettes waved from another time. At least five empty beer bottles lay around his slippers or under the chair.
The man was seventy-something; oily-eyed, large-gutted, heavy-limbed and obviously a bachelor. As he collapsed back into the armchair he brushed by a pair of Airfix Spitfires suspended in an unending victory roll above a model church steeple. Sami couldn’t take his eyes off the display.
‘You like it, lad?’
‘Lot of work, boss.’
‘Oh aye yea, hundreds of hours. Hundreds. You speak English?’
‘Of course.’
‘Many of your sort don’t. That’s why I ask,’ he said then instructed: ‘Sit.’
‘I need to close up the shop.’
‘Take the load off your feet, lad,’ he went on and, as Sami hesitated, he insisted, ‘Who pays the brass round here?’ When Sami balanced on the edge of the chair, he passed him a bottle. ‘Where you from?’
‘Africa,’ replied Sami. He was wary of saying more. He wanted to leave yet at the same time there was something intriguing – even intoxicating – about the overheated flat and its locked-in-aspic world. ‘Boss, I have to get back to work,’ he repeated.
‘You know if they nab you it’s a fookin fine for me,’ threatened the uncle.
Sami yielded and sat back. He accepted the beer and pretended to listen, as Nigel had instructed. It did feel good not to stand. Between thirsty gulps, the old man droned on about the economy, the weather and the ‘ever-expanding population of mosques’. Sami picked at the moist label with his thumbnail while staring at the circling train and nostalgic scenes. He took in a miniature theme park with jousting knights and a turreted castle.
‘Mark my words, one day immigrants will build a shanty town down New Cheap Street and English kids will go to a madrasa rather than Sunday School.’
Then he paused, realising that Sami was paying no attention. ‘You do like it,’ said the old man, following his eyes. ‘Nigel thinks it’s total shite.’
Now he began talking instead about the layout. He was back on his feet, unsteady but animated, explaining that this was Hoole and that was Croston, idealised notions of the villages where he’d grown up. Here was the Crown where he’d had his first drink. There was the bicycle shed behind which he’d had his first kiss.