Delivery chapter 1...
DELIVERY
By George H
“Mick, when are you going to outgrow football and Millwall? When are you going to settle down and get married?”
“Settle down and get married? Well, getting married you’re restricted. You can’t travel away with the team you love, like, you know.” Deep breath. “I was going to get married, but I knocked it on the head, all over Millwall.”
“Were you going to get married to Lorraine?”
“That’s correct. We were arguing; she liked Chelsea, I’m a fanatic Millwall supporter. I just couldn’t go through with it and ended up sodding off up north to watch Millwall. And left her waiting.”
“On your wedding day?”
“On the verge of a wedding day, yeah, because we were going to get the licence out, get there, and do it. She was preparing it and I didn’t turn up.”
“You went to watch Millwall instead?”
“I went to watch Millwall.”
“No greater love hath any man.”
“This is it.”
Interview with Millwall fan Mick Harris on BBC Panorama documentary ‘F Troop, Treatment and the Half-Way Line’, aired November 14th, 1977
Saturday morning, August 15th, 2015
One
DEAN’S late, lost, and never going to make it to the church on time.
As always, it’s his own sweet fault. He’s over-promised, over-committed, under-prepared, and now he’s surrounded by twenty-five boxes of premium grade flowers, all wilting in the heat of the Transit he’s been sweating in since 7am. Above his steering wheel is a list of destinations Alexander the Great would think was pushing it. To his right, a Samsung scolds him with texts and voicemails encouraging him to ‘get a fucking wriggle on’. And through the windscreen and past the exhaust fumes lie choices, choices dead ahead. Turn left for the hoity-toity florist down the King’s Road who only texts in capitals. Turn right for the church wedding, the school, the offices, the care home and the funeral parlour, a figurative map of life’s checkpoints who are all expecting tulips, chrysanthemums or roses. Remain on the straight and narrow and thrust into the tunnel for his hold-your-knackers-and-hope meeting at the Millennium Dome. Or fuck it, pull a U-turn and head to where he really wants to be right now; the one place where you can forget flowers, forget drops, forget your many money worries, and forget your girlfriend’s mad at you and you really don’t know why.
Dean’s at a crossroads. Literally, and metaphorically. And whatever decision he makes, something’s going to have to give.
FIGHTING fate, he puts his foot down. Speed and daring get him fifty yards and then it’s traffic, traffic everywhere and yet another standstill. Nothing looks familiar. Old routes carved up into cycle superhighways, low emission zones and temporary traffic lights… London’s freeways gentrified to cleanse the likes of him out of this, the city of his birth. And it’s not as if it’s easy starting a flower delivery business like his. You’ve got congestion charges, the war on diesel drinkers, Mickey’s wholesale price hikes… and that’s before the wave after wave of imported Uber drivers undercutting him on price and on the inside lane. The message is clear: if you’re not a progressive, middle-class Brompton bike wanker the roads are no longer yours.
No wonder he’s lost.
IGNORING the sat nav, Dean trusts instinct instead. He squirms into a gap, competes with big-helmeted motorcyclists and Mondeo men for pole position towards the egg-like dome. His phone goes. Millwall’s 2004 FA Cup final song blares out. A mock opera singer launches into a pie-and-mash rip-off of Dean Martin’s Volare:
“Wisey, Wilkins, Denzil, Cahill and Ward…”
Against his better judgement, he answers the call.
“Dean Sullivan Floral Deliveries? No bloom too big no drop too difficult…”
“Dean – it’s Debbie. These daffodils you’ve just dropped off for us. Someone’s just told me they’re roses.”
“Don’t worry Debs, they might look like roses…”
“Also the address on the box is wrong. It’s for someone down the King’s Road. Victoria something-”
“Sorry, call you back in a bit.”
Dean goes for the power button, but there’s a text.
It’s Gemma.
So she’s speaking to him at least…
“We have to leave by 6.30pm — mum’s putting the lamb in early.”
Dean spits out a dreadful oath. How could he forget? Four courses of sheer domestic misery topped with an austerity lecture from Liz, a woman on a pension that’d make Bill Gates blush.
“She’s got some new build brochures she wants to show us.”
Yeah, he’ll buy a house. He’ll buy a house and pray a tornado lifts it up and slams it on Liz’s head like in The Wizard of Oz. But raising a deposit’s as likely as him reaching LITTLE MISS ALL CAPS down the King’s Road.
Dean reaches for a cigarette, cure for all ills. He tosses the phone onto the passenger seat and concentrates on destination one, the dome. Get there, sweet talk Jonathan Stork, watch the world fall into place.
THE WORLD has other ideas. Overcrowding sends Dean towards the dreaded suburbs until he handbrake-turns into another packed tunnel, watching precious minutes ebb away. He thinks about Jonathan Stork, the dome’s corporate hospitality Oberführer, and wonders if he can talk this unknown adversary into buying regular deliveries of premium-price flowers. He thinks about Mickey and his likely reaction when Dean tells him he missed a wedding drop for the third time in a month. He thinks about Gemma – no kiss on the text message, no kiss goodbye this morning. Most of all, he thinks about blue plastic seats and angry men and goalkeepers who don’t come for dangerous corner kicks.
The traffic clears. Dean accelerates out of the tunnel and into the sunlight, triggering a cacophony of beeps and beeps and beeps. He plonks the Samsung against the dashboard, driving all the while.
“Mum’s asked if you can pick up a Black Forest Gateaux.”
No kiss again.
“Sandra’s checked on Google. There’s no such things as red daffodils.”
Fuck sake.
“FORGET IT. I’LL USE UBER NEXT TIME.”
Dean’s about to ring the Chelsea parasite and tell her to stick her £32.50 when something darts into his peripheral vision. He raises his head, sees a car boot imminent, jams the brakes with both feet, prays. There’s a screech, and then a single delicious moment where he thinks he’s already dead and won’t have to go to the dinner party. Then, bit by bit, he unclenches his face, his shoulders, his legs, his arms. He opens his eyes and he’s finished an inch short, close enough to see the old dear’s shocked face in her rear-view mirror.
Thank fuck for that.
Not today.
It’s Millwall Coventry.
First home game of the season.
Come on you Lions.
HEART RACING, Dean lands himself in more traffic and more aggravation. Stop start, stop start. The big white dome miles out of reach. He throws a Lucky Strike fag butt out the window and twists the radio knob.
“Big game today for Millwall after an excellent start against Shrewsbury last weekend.
Can they maintain momentum against a buoyant Coventry…”
He inches the van forward.
“…today’s likely line-up for the Lions. In goal: David Forde.”
Thank fuck, no Jordan Archer.
“Shaun Cummings at right back…”
He bangs his fist on the dashboard.
“Just under three hours until kick off against the Sky Blues…”
It’s like torture. He spots a gap. A violent jerk of the steering wheel and he’s left and into an empty lane. A car horn roars behind him. He hits twenty, thirty, forty… and he’s away and going like a good’un until he sees the rear end of a double decker dead ahead, stopped so it can let on dozens of Italian tourists and dawdling pensioners and who knows what else.
“Leading the line, Lee Gregory…”
Dean winds down the window, sparks another cancer stick. He coughs, he chokes, his eyes water. He looks at the dashboard and the list again. He inhales another lungful. He spots a man in a blue uniform in the wing mirror.
His phone buzzes.
“She says she’d prefer a freshly-baked gateaux, but frozen if that’s not possible.”
The radio commentators rattle through the expected first eleven. Dean could recite it by rote, plus the subs and when they’ll come on. Millwall manager Neil Harris is predictable, his tactics prehistoric. But Neil Harris is a legend.
The uniform gets closer.
It’s a traffic warden.
Dean throws the cigarette out, touches the accelerator, gets ready. The bus stays static.
The warden shakes his head and reaches into his satchel and pulls out… a digital camera.
Dean revs the van and beeps the horn. The dipshits are still piling onto the bus, oblivious. One woman’s got seven kids and still can’t fold a pram. Exhaust fumes thicken.
Dean revs it again and the van engine shakes, sending pulses up through his arms. He spurts forward a metre; the clutch holds him back. The lights change. Nothing moves.
The warden comes level. The camera obscures the bastard’s face.
“Alright mate…” says Dean
The camera comes down and there’s a smirk of authority, the same self-satisfied grin they all have.
“You can’t park here Sir.”
“I’m not parked.”
“Your vehicle isn’t moving.”
“That’s because of the traffic.” Dean points at the RouteMaster’s back-end. “I’m not parked. I’m in traffic. Look at the road.”
The warden’s lips purse.
“Come on mate-”
“No traffic in this picture.” He turns the camera. The prick’s taken it so Dean’s van fills the frame and you can’t see the other cars or the bus. It could look like he’s unloading. It’s definitely a bus lane.
The warden reaches for his bag.
“You’re not ticketing me.”
The warden shakes his shiny head in amusement, no longer listening. His machine clicks into life. There’s a buzzing noise and a flash of yellow emerges from the end of the handheld. The warden’s brown and pink eczema-scarred fist makes for the clear glass.
“If that ticket lands on my windscreen…”
The warden pauses and looks Dean right in the face.
“I promise you. Do. Not. Do. It.”
The warden sticks the ticket down.
Dean stops himself. He closes his eyes and breathes in and concentrates on the feel of his breath by his stubble and the edge of his nostrils, just like Gemma’s taught him. He tells himself it’s only a £60 fine, and he’s maturing, and he’s got to buy a Black Forest Gateaux – not a frozen one, a freshly-baked one. He inhales for four seconds. He exhales for four more.
He’s OK. He’s zen.
But when Dean opens his eyes the warden has his tongue between his teeth and is slowly, ever-so-slowly pushing his index finger all around the edges of the ticket so it sticks fast on the windscreen. The warden smiles, steps back from the van and goes for the camera again.
Dean’s phone vibrates.
“You know you could apologise for this morning...”
No kiss.
And then the warden tuts.
Dean yanks the handle and kicks the door open, thinking ‘just grab the camera’. But he wobbles to get out and the van door rebounds and whacks him in the shin and its excruciating and that’s it, the whole thing’s settled. Dean’s foot hits the pavement, and there’s a mild look of disdain in the warden’s face. It stays there as Dean advances, the expression frozen right until the moment Dean’s right-cross lands, straight, right on the button. The warden falls backwards and bounces back up onto his arse in the same movement. Dean’s foot goes into his side, but it’s not a great kick, more like a Jordan Archer clearance, all instep rather than the meaty top of his Stan Smith trainer.
The ticket machine skids across the pavement. The warden bunches up. Dean looks down, sees what he’s done.
A car horn hoots.
From somewhere: “Go on son, give him a-fucking-nother-one.”
From somewhere else: “Feed him the ticket, feed him the ticket, feed him the ticket!”
Dean nods. In for a penny…
He strides back to the windscreen, fingernails scrabbling at the ticket’s edges, only getting half because it’s stuck down good. There’s more beeps and shouts from the other vehicles. The bus has gone.
Dean strides to the warden, rubs the sticky ticket all over his face, pushing it into his ears and up his nose. The warden wails. Dean grabs him by the collar, lifts him up, pulls his face around.
When he pushes the yellow plastic into the bloody mouth, the warden’s eyes open as wide as the Blackwall Tunnel.
++ What do you think? Drop me a note or leave a comment below.
And if you like my writing, consider subscribing...