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‘It’ll be fine,’ I said because that’s what you say when bad things have happened. ‘Your mum and dad will work something out.’
(They had money, after all.)
‘Yeah,’ said Beth. ‘And it’s sunny out and the end of the summer is, like, weeks away and we’ve got sick views and I can always buy new clothes, so …’
But her heart wasn’t in her words.
I watched them fade from the rec, a panting Harry following like a squire to his knight. Why’d I mention her phone? How was that any help? The word on the street was that faulty wiring was the cause of the fire but my scented candle had so burnt down Beth’s house. I mean, the wick was still smoking when I’d thrown it in the bin. It was the cause of the fire, for sure. So sure that I’d spent the time between being picked up from the blazing home (a crowd had formed outside pointing at the flames licking up from the windows) and seeing Beth in the park expecting a knock at the door from the police or, worse, Beth’s angry dad. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even focus on Football Manager.
I’d destroyed Beth’s house and everything in it.
(But if she’d lost all her possessions, what was in the bags? I bet Harry was sucking up and, like, offering to lend her towels and all sorts.)
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Does Robbing a Bank Suit Your Needs? (#ulink_a18ce791-5dfe-5990-894c-64b26a2b8764)
On the way home from the rec I stopped at the corner shop to buy a Lion Bar in the desperate hope that sugar would make things better. I told myself the whole faulty wiring thing was reason to be happy, even if it weren’t true. It’s a post-fact world, I thought. I still felt supernova guilty, but at least I wasn’t going to prison. Prison would be bad for a boy of my imagination and size. And, anyway, houses have insurance, Mum said, and Beth’s family would be able to claim expensive things had been destroyed, so—
‘It’s not all bad,’ Mum had said last night, sipping wine. ‘Remember the time we were broken into and you claimed for a Blu-ray, Kay?’
Dad did not remember.
‘Must have been another husband,’ he’d said from the sofa.
Stepping from the corner shop, my world focused on unwrapping the Lion Bar, I heard a voice.
‘Buy us a …’ it began.
It was a voice wavering from high to low, a voice unsure whether to commit to adulthood. It was Dave’s voice. Dave Royston. The biggest melt in the neighbourhood. He hung about on the corner, smoking cigarettes and thinking he was a gangster. His cronies, Adam and Ben, like gophers on alert, stood at either shoulder. I don’t think I’d ever heard Adam or Ben speak, only their high-pitched laughter like hyenas on helium.
I took a bite from the Lion Bar. If I should die, it wouldn’t be on an empty stomach.
It tasted of heaven and caramel.
‘Dylan!’ he said. ‘You gay! What you doing? Buying poetry?’
I stepped to the side. He did the same to stop me passing.
‘No,’ I said quietly, chewing. ‘They don’t sell poetry here.’
‘Give us your Lion Bar. Nobody eats chocolate on this corner without my say.’
He snatched the Lion Bar from my hand. I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it, only hoping there was a terrible disease in my saliva that would make his testicles fall off. He took a bite and chewed with his mouth open. His privates weren’t obviously affected.
‘Just saw your girlfriend. In the rec. High-rise Beth. Shame. I thought they were loaded.’
‘What?’
Dave laughed and it sounded like a theremin.
‘You don’t know? Her, her mum, her dad, all moving to a tiny flat in one of the high-rises. Serves her right. Llama’s a bitch.’
‘Karma,’ I said, dropping a shoulder left, then moving right. My winger’s feint deceived Dave and I pushed past Ben.
The high-rise? That couldn’t be right. Beth’s family had money. They had a cinema room, even though the screen had yet to be fitted and it had burnt down. The high-rises towered over the east of town like huge, broken teeth. She couldn’t be living there. No way. She looked like a movie star, I mean, and she’d said they’d moved somewhere with a nice view. She couldn’t have meant there.
If this had been a film, I might have fallen to my knees and lifted my fists to the sky and shouted ‘Noooo!’
What had I done?
Dad’s van, white and with Thomas and Son, Plumbers etc. on the side, was parked outside our house.
Dad was in the front room.
‘I came home early to spend time with my favourite son. Where’ve you been? What d’you want to do?’
I told Dad I didn’t want to do anything. I told him I’d bumped into Beth. I told him I had a headache. Dad’s tone changed gears, shifting down to compassion.
‘What was she up to?’
‘Walking. Probably to the high-rise. Because an idiot burnt down her house.’
Dad’s eyes grew warm. He stretched a hand to my shoulder. It didn’t reach.
‘That’s a lesson about insurance,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard they had no insurance, right? You’ve got to have insurance. We live in an insured world. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? Remember this, son. Insurance.’
How did everyone know everything but me? I should check Facebook more often.
I later found out, on Facebook, that Beth’s dad wasn’t a successful builder after all. He’d spent the family’s money, inherited, building the house I’d destroyed. He’d planned to sell it at a profit, but it turned out nobody wanted to live in a mini version of the White House, not in England anyway. So the family occupied the building as Beth’s dad continued to lower and lower the asking price, until –
‘Do we have insurance?’ I asked.
Dad smiled. ‘We do now.’
I felt the weight of the high-rise across my shoulders. I couldn’t forget Beth’s face as she trudged across the rec. Like your favourite teacher, not angry but disappointed. A deflated Emma Stone. And all because of me.
‘Shall we watch a film?’ I said.
At least I could make him happy.
Dad knew just the thing, he always does: something to take our minds off fires and insurance. He’d recorded it the night before and although it was full of swearwords and violence, it was a straight-up classic. Something I needed to watch for sure.
‘Your English teacher can bang on about Shakespeare and Wordsworth as much as she likes,’ he said. ‘But some films are as important a part of your education.’
‘What’s it called?’ I asked, settling into the sofa next to his warmth. He was still in the bleach-blanched tracksuit bottoms that he’d worn to work. At least he’d taken his boiler suit off. ‘Dog Day Afternoon. It’s based on a true story. I know they all say that, but this one really is. You won’t believe it, but it’s true. And it has Al Pacino before he became a diva.’
We watched the film. And that afternoon, and for the first time ever, Dad changed my life.
Dog Day Afternoon: definitely in my top-ten bank robbery films, maybe even top five. And especially important for being the film that decided how I’d make everything better:
BANK ROBBERY.
I’d rob a bank and I’d make good. I wasn’t sure how much money nice houses cost or suburban banks held, but at the very least we could go shopping and replace all Beth’s stuff. And maybe even pay for her to live somewhere nicer than the high-rise. I’d probably still have enough left over to buy a sports car (and a chauffeur to drive it) and there’d be cash too for Dad to stop work for six months and write the screenplay he always said he had in him when he’d drunk too much. Mum could buy a share in a vineyard or something. I wouldn’t give any money to Rita because she didn’t deserve it.
So long, History coursework and your ‘Why did the USA become involved in Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s?’ (30 marks). Hello, master criminal and ‘What’s the most effective way of robbing a bank?’ (£1,000,000).
Best get Googling.
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There’s Such a Thing as Being Over-prepared (#ulink_5411e21a-826d-53c8-8880-6e15b9e782d9)
As with any skilled occupation, robbing a bank requires specialist equipment. The type of specialist equipment not easily obtained by fifteen-year-olds. Specialist equipment like guns, for example. In the night following Dog Day Afternoon, I lay in bed and my blind eyes stared through the darkness and I felt guilty and I thought about stuff.
I thought about using a stun gun. Obviously an actual gun was a non-starter. I mean, I’m an idiot but not that much of an idiot. Could you convince a bank worker to hand over cash in exchange for not being Tasered? And was I mean enough to do that?
I was pretty sure you could buy one online. Not Amazon (unless you lived in the States) but from a dodgier part of the internet: the place Palace buy their centre backs, the dark Web. It’s like Amazon but with illegal stuff and a slightly higher chance of getting arrested.
Getting a stun gun delivered to your own house would be a mistake of course, but as Dave Royston lived round the corner I’d just use his address. It would be amateur-level easy to intercept Brian the German postman or somehow get to the package before Dave, which is exactly what I did two years ago when buying bangers off eBay (fireworks, not sausages). And if it all went wrong? Well, Dave saw himself as a gangster. He’d get his mugshot on the news and everything. I could just imagine the scene …
The suburban road, all drawn curtains and tired trees, quiet except for the slam of car doors as commuters climbed into Ford Fiestas and Nissan Micras. Suddenly the roar of sirens would break that silence as police transit vans pulled up outside Dave’s house. People dressed like video-game police would pour out of the vans, their guns bouncing against their chests as they thrust forward, up the crazy paving of Dave’s front path. The SWAT team would rush Dave’s door and, the next thing you know, Dave is face down on the tarmac with the lead SWAT guy telling him, ‘No one moves around here without my say-so.’
Would I feel sorry for Dave if he were arrested because of a stun gun I’d ordered? Probably not. He had stolen my Lion Bar.
Still, as much as all this would be funny, the sad truth is that only idiots rob banks with guns, even stun guns. I’d done the research like I’d planned my History coursework. On my iPhone, in the toilet, I’d googled ‘armed robbery’. I’d discovered the moment you take a gun to the party, even if it’s a stun gun, the sentences imposed by judges jump higher than a frog full of helium. And the truth is I wouldn’t feel great waving guns around, even if the worse they could do was stun.
The room was thick with steam and thinking. And was a bit stinky TBH.
I don’t need a Taser, I thought. No. I’d use a better weapon to hold up a bank: MY BRAIN!
(But not literally. You know what I mean.)
In Out of Sight, a 1998 film, George Clooney robs a bank using nothing. No accomplices, no guns, nothing. All he does is enter one of those air-conditioned Hollywood banks with old-style ringing phones and tidy desks and he spots a stranger chatting with a bank manager at some polite table. The stranger has a leather briefcase on the floor. Clooney approaches a teller (the American who gives out the cash) and tells them he has an accomplice. He points at the stranger who, for all Clooney knows is chatting about the weather, and says the guy has a handgun in his briefcase and should Clooney give the signal, he’ll pull it out and shoot the bank manager. Of course, it being George Clooney, the teller believes him and hands over an envelope bursting with dollars.
I’m no George Clooney, but, like Clooney, I’m able to walk and talk, most of the time anyway, and that’s all it took for Clooney’s character to rob the bank.
FYI Clooney eventually gets caught. How? His getaway car has a flat battery. As Mr Stones, the coach of the U13 football team used to say: ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ Mr Stones didn’t say much else, apart from ‘It’s the taking part that counts.’
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Ensure Your Target Ticks All the Boxes (#ulink_a3f09432-0bbd-5810-a71f-d6b9b18f3895)
Location, location, location. The fewer associations you have with your target, the better. Unlike George Clooney, I couldn’t drive. And my parents would notice if I were off catching planes and trains. So, like at school, my geography was limited.
I went on Google Maps, centred my location, and searched for ‘post office’, thinking that a post office would possess less security than a bank. You normally get a Perspex screen and Google says there’s usually a panic button under the counter but what you don’t get are armed guards and drooling Rottweilers. What I had in mind was a Postman Pat-style set-up, with an elderly woman who sits next to a container of lollipops and knits all day. She’d call me ‘sonny’ and offer no physical objection to the robbery. I’d simply be another example of the rotten state of modern youth. Like Al Pacino says in Dog Day Afternoon, these places have insurance. Nobody would be losing out. Granny would have a new story for her bingo friends. Broken Britain. Who cares?
Outside, the rain fell without break from low clouds the colour of failure. Bad weather is a constant during school holidays. When we grow up and get jobs, we’ll be sitting in our offices and it’ll be sweltering outside, guaranteed. Global warming.
Dad was on the sofa watching a Western and scratching himself. He was meant to be unblocking the drain of a house belonging to the parents of a rich kid in the year above, but he couldn’t do much when it was raining. He said this whenever there was the slightest suggestion of moisture in the air, whether the job was inside or out. Either way, it was a pretty lame excuse when you’re a plumber and getting wet was pretty much first on the list of things you’d expect to happen during the working day.
‘Want to join me?’ he said, patting the cushions with the hand that had recently been down his jogging bottoms. ‘It’s only just started. Mum won’t be back for ages. How’s the job search going?’
After my half-hearted application to McDonald’s, Mum and Dad had got it into their heads I was actually applying for jobs, and not only this but having a part-time summer job was, like, the best idea ever.
The edges of my mouth curled downwards. Crazy sounds like someone was breaking up furniture with a pig came from the TV. In a darkened bedroom, a man was hugging a woman. He was wearing a cowboy hat.
‘We can fast-forward the rude bits,’ Dad said, his hands searching for the remote controls as the cowboy grunted. ‘It’s violent and sweary. You’d like it. It’s not all cuddles.’ He paused. ‘Like life really.’
Upstairs, Rita’s movements rolled through the house like teenage thunder. And even though you could hear the rain drumming on the roof, I told Dad I had to go out.
‘To do what?’
‘Homework,’ I said. I looked to the TV. ‘With a girl. And then jobs. You know.’
The naughty cowboy meant I could leave without feeling guilty. Because I was only a kid. The film would corrupt my morals.
The front door was open as I shouted through to Dad, ‘It’s holiday coursework.’
‘Wear a jacket,’ said Dad, defeated by the c-word.
So, with the pre-prepared threatening note in my back pocket, I took a bus to the target, Krazy Prices. I found the old Arsenal shirt Nan had bought me for Xmas. At the time, Dad had said her confusion was a warning sign of dementia, but I honestly think she didn’t know the difference between Palace and Arsenal.
‘They both play in London, don’t they?’ she’d said, biting her false teeth into a mince pie. ‘Don’t be such a fusspot.’
They have CCTV on buses. They have CCTV everywhere, but they have it particularly on buses. If you’re lucky, you might sit on one with its own display and get to stare at people without looking weird. They use these bus images for missing kids: Charlton teenager last seen on the 53. And there’s a grainy black-and-white screen grab that could be anyone with a face, but looks like a ghost, which it kind of is.
My thinking – if the police were to bother searching the bus CCTV for the ballsy teenager who’d emptied a local post office of all its cash, they’d see a kid with an Arsenal shirt and a baseball cap, two things I never wear.
It took three goes with my Oyster but the driver had the Daily Mail open on her lap and didn’t turn her head when I stepped on. The bus smelt of fried chicken. The bottom deck was full of mums with prams and grannies with wheeled shopping baskets, so I climbed upstairs.
I took a seat in the middle. Screwed into the ceiling above the front window was a black hemisphere. Through its glass you could just about make out a camera. I pulled down my cap and dug my chin into my chest. I thought about the post office. About the note. As long as I believed all would be fine, all would be fine.
Rain smudged the windows, bending the vague shapes of the outside world out of focus. I stared at nothing and tried to think positive thoughts.
The rain’s intensity faded as the bus dropped me off only a few metres away from the post office. Krazy Prices looked to be a counter at the back of a corner shop. The Guardian sponsored its awning: a middle-class neighbourhood. I checked for the note in my back pocket, the key to today’s successful robbery. After confirming it was there, I took a deep breath, which tightened my chest even more, and stepped forward to push through the entrance.
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Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will Go Wrong (#ulink_008c830e-0b3f-5b40-8a1b-2bd7a61c211f)
An old-fashioned bell rang and the door almost hit an old man waiting at the back of a queue that ran for six bodies to the counter. Alongside a Perspex-protected screen was the unprotected newsagent’s counter, at which nobody queued. A woman in a sari sat on a stool and watched a tiny television playing loudly.
The line for the post desk stood tightly between a greeting cards stand and a magazine display. Close enough to the old man’s cream jacket to smell his Old Spice, my eyes darted around the space, searching for a camera. I couldn’t see one, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Like God. And farts.
Water dripped from my cap’s brim. The bright red of the Arsenal shirt had turned burgundy. With my empty stomach rumbling, I wondered whether I shouldn’t give it up and go home for food. I had 8p in my pocket. Maybe the bored-looking woman would pity me and sell a single boiled sweet for a stack of coppers?
The queue moved forward. A man with a huge beard walked through to the door, saying ‘Excuse me’ over and over as he left. What would happen when the note was read? The question didn’t make my chest feel less tight, but it did force my hand to my back pocket.
