David Hayden
The Ashtray
A balloon in the shape of a black axe drifted through the air past the Union Chapel clock. On the upper deck I was alone in following its eastward progress. As the bus approached the Green, I fully expected to see the axe embed itself, with a cartoon shudder, in the trunk of a tree, or decapitate Sir Hugh Myddleton, forgotten pioneer of clean water. When I regained sight of the balloon it was slightly further away and continuing its rapid flight towards the City of London
.……..I turned over in bed and looked at the clock. ‘The shop will open in ten minutes.’
.……..I never slept through opening hour, even on a day off.
.……..The phone rang. It was Travis. At first, I couldn’t understand what he was saying but I knew that he wasn’t going to make it to work on time.
.……..‘Raging. Got home. Couldn’t get in. Fi wouldn’t let me. Slept on the doorstep, the bins. Bag’s in the Welly.’
.……..‘The pub?’
.……..‘No. In the Duke’s living room.’
.……..He was, I realised, trying to make a joke. ‘Your bag?’
.……..‘M’keys. Keys. Shop keys inside.’ That was enough.
.……..‘You’ll be in later.’
.……..I dressed quickly and ran down the street, looking over my shoulder in case a bus should appear. I nearly collided with a young boy standing outside the bookies smoking a cigarette.
.……..‘Muppet.’
.……..‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Animal.’
.……..‘Yeh, right,’ he said, sounding, for once, like a child. The early shift was standing outside under the canopy. ‘Where’s Travis?’ Melanie asked.
.……..‘He just woke up on the floor outside his house. He’s on his way.’
.……..I entered, switched off the alarm, started the computer, distributed the till trays, turned on the music and opened the door. A solitary customer walked in. This was Mary Sheen. Mary came in every other day and bought two, three, six, fourteen books; was chatty, if a little excitable; was polite and accessible. The next day she returned, beehive hair swathed in a dirty red headscarf, wearing bubble sunglasses that covered much of her face. In a plastic bag she carried all the previous day’s books together with some others; yellowed paperbacks, book club editions and greasy library books. She never had the receipt but always wanted a cash refund. We gave her vouchers that she never redeemed; at least with us.
.……..Mary approached Simon at the till, audibly spooling backwards and forwards over reasons past and present, touching her hair, her sunglasses, retouching her hair. Si pulled his straggly beard and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his cardigan.
.……..‘I’ve never. I’ve never. I’ve never. In the garden under the fig tree… These. These,’ she said placing the books on the counter and prodding them with a bandaged finger.
.……..‘The Mallen Streak, Our Bodies, Ourselves, Pendennis, The Street of Crocodiles… Kafka’s… Microwave Gourmet.’ Simon lingered actorishly over each syllable. I signalled for him to cut it out and he threw me a sulky look.
.……..Mary left and Travis arrived to the sound of a minor orchestra sawing and wheezing through the climactic moments of Debussy’s La Mer. Small, slight and immaculately decked out in chocolate corduroy – jacket, waistcoat, trousers and tie – there was little sign that he hadn’t spent the morning with his valet. I followed him silently up to the staff room.
.……..‘Where’s the bag? The keys?’
.……..‘They’re still at the Wellington.’
.……..‘Off you go, then.’
.……..‘Not exactly. They told me that I was no longer welcome. That you should come.’
.……..‘How did – do – they know about me? Who are “they”?’
.……..‘He.’
.……..‘Who is “He”?’
.……..‘The Guv’nor – that sort of thing.’
.……..‘Balls.’.……
.…….‘He’s expecting you this morning.’
.……..‘What did you do exactly?’
.……..‘Not sure – exactly – I broke some kind of coffee table. It was glass.’.
……..‘How did you do that?’
.……..‘I dropped – I threw – an ashtray, when a charmless bargirl informed me that three bottles of wine were more than sufficient for my evening’s refreshment.’
.……..‘Why do you talk that way, Travis? You know it just makes people want to punch you – it makes me want to punch you.’
.……..‘I regret losing my sang froid…’
.……..‘As they say in Eastbourne…’
.……..‘… and I’ll happily pay for the damages.’ ‘But only if they’ll take payment in corduroy.’ He stopped for a moment.
.……..‘When I offered to pay, the girl asked me who my people were and I couldn’t bear the thought of my parents coming all the way up from the coast to talk to some pub-owning goon about his fragile furniture, so I mentioned your name, and that’s when it sort of turned into an appointment.’
.……..‘With the Guv’nor.’ ‘Mister Guv’nor.’
.……..There is a neighbourhood, if you live there you’ll have heard of it, that is north of a shabby junction with a jumpers’ bridge and a nearby hospital, and south of a better address that signals prosperity to those who need to know; estate agents, journalists and burglars. This is where I headed.
.……..People remember The Wellington even as they forget what they did there. The outside is painted a drab purple, partially hidden with baskets of the kinds of flowers that look fake but are real. The interior is dark and comfortable with sofas, more flowers, and bunches of tiny white lights swagged glintingly against the mirror behind the bar. They serve good food and wine and, most importantly to its clientele, there are no fruit machines or televisions.
.……..I rapped on the door and waited. I knocked again and sat down to wait on a bench, checking the plank first for food or bird shit. Up above, threads of white drifted around a yolk-like sun. I imagined stirring it with a wooden spoon.
.……..‘I won’t have words put into my mouth Mr Tobin.’
.…….‘I’m sorry.’
.……..‘The ashtray is my property and I expect you to return it to me by closing time tonight. You will not enjoy the consequences if this restoration does not…’ he bit his lip, ‘… eventuate.’
.……..Mr Wellesley’s head returned to its proper size, and he departed. I followed him a moment later, but there was no trace of him. The woman wasn’t downstairs, but the door was open, and I followed the wavering sunlight into the street.
.……..I felt a little faint and realised that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I bought some warm brown water and a misshapen bread roll, under the mistaken belief that they were to be coffee and a croissant. Standing outside the tube station I chewed until I could stand it no longer, threw the breaden lump into a bin, which hissed and rustled for a moment, before a rat’s head appeared at its lip. I turned and hastened to the ticket barrier.
.……..The tube, most of all the Northern line, is an assault on the senses, planned by people who hate humanity, and by the time I reached Angel I was crushed and smeared and the sense of the magnitude of my trouble had waxed into a livid emotion just short of terror. The shop was beginning the mid-morning rush, but Travis wasn’t around.
.……..‘Where is he?’
.……..Simon swivelled on his heels wordlessly, his open arms and twitching hands indicating that Travis had gone.
.……..‘You probably walked past him on the Green,’ he said finally.
.……..Travis was reclining on the grass next to the war memorial, known to the disrespectful as the Desert Doughnut, talking loudly into his mobile.
.……..‘I can’t say that it won’t happen again, but I can promise that each and every time in the future I will be sorry. Perhaps even more sorry each time in a rising wave of contrition. That’s worth sticking around for, surely? As for the offending object – that is your free gift to keep. Have a lovely day. I know I am.’
.……..I could still hear her voice as he ended the call. ‘How may I help you?’
.……..‘The ashtray.’
.…….‘Fi has it.’
.……..‘It belongs to Mr Wellesley. He wants it back by tonight or he’ll…’
.……‘Perpetrate the unnameable, diligently and repeatedly on your fragile form? Which is largely – in fact, entirely – your problem.’
.……..‘Except that I will call my uncle, and his special friends will very quickly make it your problem.’
.……..‘Why don’t you speak to him now and let them deal with Mr Wellesley.’
.…….‘Because they no longer do war. But they might well do you.’
.……..‘Fi will give – or has given – the ashtray to her friend Jo who has a stall at Spitalfields market.’
.……..‘Call her now.’
.……..‘No… No, I don’t think I will.’
.……..‘Then give me her number.’
.……..‘She never answers calls from people she doesn’t know.’.
……..‘But she does know me.’
.……..‘Tangentially… and, in any case, you’re not a number that she knows.’.
……..‘Give it to me anyway.’
.……..‘Manners.’
.……..I rang Fi and she picked up straight away. ‘Who is it?’
.……..‘Declan. Travis’s boss.’
.……..‘Why are you calling me? I don’t like you calling me.’
.……..‘The ashtray that Travis stole. I need to return it to the pub.’.
……..‘Well, you can’t. Jo has it.’
.……..‘Already?’
.……..‘Jo has it. I’m sure she’ll sell it today. Filthy object. Talisman of death and all that.’
.……..‘Where’s her stall?’
.……..‘It’s there somewhere.’
.……..‘What does she look like?’
.……..‘Crafty, metropolitan-type. She blends into the crowd down there, as we all do to some extent. She might have a Tago Mago t-shirt on display. She might not.’
.……..‘Thanks.’
.……..‘I don’t think so.’
.……..‘Aren’t you the favoured one,’ said Travis.
.……..An old man had been watching us for some time, waiting for his moment to join the conversation. ‘I used to see Tommy Cooper play here when it was the Music Hall…’
.……..‘Fascinating,’ said Travis.
.……..‘Charlie Chaplin was on stage here with the Fred Carno Troupe…’ ‘I know,’ I said.
.……..‘All the greats played here. Tommy Cooper, Charlie Chaplin…Tommy Cooper.’
.……..‘With respect, that’s only two of “the greats”,’ said Travis. I ran to get the bus.
.……..The 38 moved at backwards walking pace up the Essex Road, detained, it transpired, by a cyclist who had been knocked out by a dead pigeon that had fallen from the sky, headless and spouting. I walked from Hackney via Broadway Market, down Brick Lane, via Fournier Street and over to the old market. It was a stupid route for someone in a hurry, but I couldn’t face the tube again and, besides, I felt the need to pass the kebab shop with the blackboard outside that read: ‘DO YOU FEEL LIKE MEAT? Meze – various, Kofte etc., whatever you like basically. Rice pudding £1.30.’
.……..Past the red and white checked tablecloths, the crusty bottles of brown sauce and tomato ketchup, the smoking lamb, the curly fries and the bottles of beer, the stalls began. LPs, books, vintage suits, handmade frocks, awkward earrings, wooden toys, bakery barrows, pre-war Belgian rotary telephones, tiny ceramic pet accessories, Picture Post magazines, 1960s airline holdalls, bicycle bells, music hall posters, spices and herbs, knitting and embroidery accessories, African drums, Toby jugs, garden gnomes and horse brasses, Victorian postcards, snow shakers; one with a scene of Ridley Road Market the morning after, with piles of cardboard, flower stalks, doe-eyed snapper heads, exploded cauliflowers; and one with a forest clearing and hundreds of little turds that could spin free in a wild storm around the central figure of you.
.……..I found a stall selling old pub ashtrays run by a fin-headed man wearing a Tago Mago t-shirt.
.……..‘Do you know a woman called Jo?’.
……..‘Yes. I do.’
.……..‘That has a stall here?’
.……..‘No. She doesn’t. Not the Jo I know.’
.……..‘Do you know a Jo who has a stall here?’
.……..‘No. No Jo.’
.……..‘Do you have an early ’70s Double Diamond promotional ashtray?’
.……..‘I do, but I took it off sale. It has a crack in it. You can’t see it to begin with, but the more you look at it the more cracked it seems.’
.……..He stared silently at me without blinking. ‘Thank you.’
.……..I walked away and straight into a woman carrying a large take-out box stamped with the word Lalibela.
.……..‘Jo? Do you know Jo?’
.……..‘Yes. This is for Jo. Her stall is over there. Why don’t you give this to her?’ She said implausibly and handed me the warm, fragrant box.
.……..‘Jo. Your lunch.’
.……..‘Better late. It improves your appetite.’ ‘Declan.’
.……..‘Hi, Declan.’
.……..I must have looked hungry as well as harmless, because she added, ‘Would you like to join me?’
.……..She cleared a pile of tie-dyed neckerchiefs and broke open the box. A pillar of steam rose revealing a vast Ethiopian feast.
.……..‘Do you have an ashtray for sale? A Double Diamond ashtray?’.
……..‘Not anymore. I sold it to Steve who runs the ashtray stall.’
.……..‘He told me he didn’t know you?’
.……..‘He doesn’t know my real name – just my stall name. He’s almost certainly not called Steve.’
.……..I should have jumped up after Steve, but I was instantly possessed of the conviction that Jo was an essential being, necessary to any worthwhile version of my present and future, and who, in any case, was looking at me, straight back at me, like I was being held imperfectly and perhaps tenderly at only the slightest of distances.
.……..I took her card and we kissed, which was ridiculous, so I laughed in the middle of the kiss and then it was over.
.……..I ran to Steve’s stall. ‘The cracked ashtray.’
.……..‘I sold it. I threw it away.’.
……..‘What?’
.……..‘I sold it. There. There he goes.’
.……..A tall man with a red t-shirt, extremely tight coffee-check trousers and a frothy cloud of ginger hair was striding out of the market with the ashtray under his arm. I made to follow him, but Steve grabbed my wrist so hard that I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even feel my hand.
.……..‘You know, dozens of these are for sale on the streets around Brick Lane. Dead cheap. Ex-mercenaries, little guys sell them wrapped in bloodstained magazines with the ash and butts and phlegm still inside. They tap their machetes on the pavement as you pass by. Feeling their scars. Giving them away.’
.……..‘Leave me alone.’
.……..I broke free and walked into the emulsifying crowd. I was as weak as a baby fish unaccountably lying twitching on a riverbank. The people pulsed together, strained and pushed me out onto the pavement. I saw the man with the ashtray running towards Whitechapel, his head waving from side to side like a stalk of red broccoli.
.……..I was soon in a street I’d never been in before, with barrows piled with yam, ginger, peppers and hair oil. There was a video shop with a large poster in the window that must have blocked out most of the light to the interior. It was for a film in which three friends search the grassy lots, empty warehouses and storefront churches of west side Chicago for a ghost who has an important message for the world and, of course, one of them is the ghost.
.……..There was a red glint at the top of the street heading left to Bethnal Green. On the corner, the children bared their teeth and snarled as I passed. I looked down at my wrist, which was a swirl of purple, yellow and green like a failed ice cream experiment. I narrowly avoided colliding with a man carrying a large white radish before caroming into another with a crudely turned table leg. He smiled and I could see that his teeth were black and broken stumps. I turned again and again – following. I wasn’t losing him, but I wasn’t gaining either. My boots gripped the street which pushed back, sending me beyond the people to the silent estates further north. There was a derelict pub being turned into flats, but there was no one working. A man-high mound of white rubble was piled outside, like a heap of mashed potato. The ginger-cloud man ran to the top and turned around, holding the ashtray high above his head. It caught the light, becoming, for a moment, a golden disc, a minor sun. He reappeared out of the dazzle, far in the distance.
.……..My heart had slowed down to one huge timpani boom every twenty seconds or so; sinuses rubbed together like glass paper; throat scorched by the fumes pressed up from my overdriven lungs. Each step left the damp outline of a foot on the street. We were chasing down the long stretch from Dalston to Stoke Newington. I could see him ahead pacing fresh, clean and comfortable. We turned into Church Street passing Conrad’s lodgings, Defoe’s birthplace and Poe’s school. A crouching man was robbing a woman at knifepoint outside Clissold Park. Or maybe he had one leg very much longer than the other.
.……..The ginger afro man steadied his rhythm, swung back the ashtray and made full contact with the robber’s face, whose head flew off, long streaming crimson ribbons fluttering behind, before falling into old St Mary’s churchyard. The woman waved, looked embarrassed and called thanks, as he swept on. I was relieved to see that the ashtray had not broken.
.……..He skipped into the air, landed on an ancient BMW and walked along the roofs of the cars to cross Green Lanes. I followed and, never having stepped onto a car, was surprised at how slippery they are. I put my hand over my face as we approached the cheese shop at Highbury Barn. The circus camped on Highbury Fields swam past and we were running up the Holloway Road. A cold, dirty rain started to fall, bringing the perfume of urine off the street and the pursued began to slow down.
.……..Edmund Spenser was staring into the street from behind the pigeon netting at the top of the library. I followed his declining line of sight across the road to an unregistered charity for homeless donkeys. Francis Bacon stood on the other side – asleep. The Jamaican café next door commanded my attention. I was still starving and thought that maybe I could run in, quickly grab a patty, pay and run out, but I couldn’t take the risk. Every few steps there was another takeaway or café – Turkish, Colombian, Indian, Polish – that added to my hunger torment. There were bars and pubs, two universities made from a shared ensemble of silver blocks, a theatrical costumier and an abandoned hospital. An old man span past on a skateboard, being chased by a boozy wasp. The road sloped up past the Nag’s Head Shopping Centre, the cinema that looked like an art deco urinal, and a row of squats with the words ‘Resist’ and ‘Autonomy’ painted neatly on their front-door lintels. I wondered if there was another nobody living there, writing a diary.
.……..Past the Fivehounds pub, the stone tower and spike-encrusted spikes of St John the Evangelist appeared – a gothic wonder with its own dank climate – opposed quickly by St Gabriel’s; a modern brick church, which stands with its back to the road. Light was falling out of the world as the sun departed and the day was ending. He began to jump high into the air, coming down on the paving stones, making them buckle and splinter. I thought that he might leap the black dolmen of the Archway Tower, or perhaps reach the cleaning platform that hung askew high up on the facing side, but instead he slowed to a halt. By the time I reached him he had turned around and was smiling. He reached out to me and, at first, I thought his hands were empty but then I glanced down and saw the ashtray; a crack glittered at its centre. Looking up I expected him to have gone but he stood, copper freckles glittering, his body steaming like a wild horse in a cold dawn.
.……..‘I have to return the ashtray now.’
.……..‘You’d better,’ he said.
.……..The benches were piled onto the tables outside the Wellington and secured with chains, but the lights still glowed inside, and a low hum carried outside, punctuated with the genial chinking of glasses. I walked in and the man behind the bar said: ‘Time gone, mate.’ He took a cue from someone I couldn’t see to his left and said: ‘Mr Wellesley’s expecting you. Not upstairs. He’s in the kitchen.’
.……..In a snug on the way I saw a man with a halo of ginger hair sitting alone with a small amber glass and a book in front of him. Out of long habit I strained to read the cover: a stooped bald man walked through a black and acid-green street; the title was Tango by Henry Cohen. I stepped through a swing door and into brilliant white light. A teenage kitchen porter with a waxen face was finishing the clear down.
.……..‘Mr Wellesley. Your ashtray.’
.……..I walked towards him. He seemed perfect, like a thing remembered. As I handed over the ashtray it broke in half.
.……..‘Ne’er mind. It’s only an ashtray,’ he said.
.……..I breathed out heavily, then in again, and a weight lifted from my chest.
.……..A single word escaped me. ‘Bastard.’
.……..And that’s when they took me outside.
—
David Hayden was born in Ireland and lives in England. His writing has appeared in A Public Space, Zoetrope All-Story, The Dublin Review, AGNI, New York Tyrant and The Georgia Review. He is the author of three collections of short stories Darker With the Lights On (Carcanet/Transit), Unstories and Six Cities, and a novel titled All Our Love.
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