slip. The sign on his door neglects the ‘B’, and merely reads,
The Agency
C. James Proprietor
Tarnished silver lettering on heavy oak, and a window. It could be the door to a funeral parlour, or a gambling den, or any number of things, and that’s the point. The shell crumbles in his palm. Like a hooker giving a hand job, it’s a well-practised technique, just without the constant AIDS testing. Maybe the odd splinter, but hell, that won’t shut down his immune system. He kicks the pieces towards the bin.
Leaning back in his chair, Cagney places both feet up on the desk in front of him, and listens to the noises outside his window, with eyes closed. The bottle bank swallows tengreen Merlots, fed by a ruddy old major in wellingtons and a tweed jacket with elbow patches as red as the veins in his cheeks. You can’t sleep in Kew for the sound of recycling. ‘Luxury’ family saloons purr up, and uniform beige court shoes and black city loafers dive out of passenger seats and hit the ground running, as a tube lazes graciously into the station.
The butchers fire up the rotisserie chicken at 9 o’clock every morning, and the smell drifts through Cagney’s window with the warm air, mixed with the plastic croissant and coffee smells seeping out of Starbucks. Just the thought of hot food before midday makes him retch. He forces himself to stomach it for five seconds, before spinning round and slamming the window shut with a force that makes the flower seller across the road drop his bucket of tulips and exclaim, ‘Prick!’
Cagney hears it.
The flower seller used to be big-boned, voluptuous, heavy on the eye: a fat, fat man. He was reassuringly huge, pleasantly swollen, with a stomach that children could bounce on, and flesh concertinas where his neck should have been. Cagney hasn’t spoken to him in the ten years he’s sold his flowers opposite the office. The flower seller had obviously stopped eating sometime last year, and Cagney noted the slow but steady loosening of his shirt buttons, and his neck suddenly appeared one day, unexpectedly, like a highland fling from an old set of bagpipes that you thought were broken. It was then that he lost Cagney’s respect, and just when Cagney had been working up to saying ‘good morning’. If he liked his food – and he obviously had liked Ethiopia’s share of food and never mind about the famine – why deny it? He had been sturdy before, big and fat and happy – and that made him worth something, in the Cagney James pamphlet on life. A kindred spirit that almost got ahello. The fat flower seller of Kew, as much a part of the village as the gardens themselves, and the ever-increasing quota of camera jockeys from April to October. American tourists felt they knew him on sight, from the slide shows back home entitled ‘Our Trip to Europe’. Now the man’s friends have trouble recognising him from three feet. Cagney is pretty sure it has hurt his pocket as well. Japs don’t feel the need to stop and chat to him, his new slimmer frame and loose skin so much less charming, or snapshot friendly. He is threatening now; he looks so average that you have to wonder what nastiness is on his mind instead of sausage and chips. It suggests to Cagney that although the body may now be ‘healthy’, he has lost another friend to the new century. Yes, he was a friend. If Cagney had ever actually needed to buy flowers, that’s where he would have got them, but not now. And all for what? For a woman, probably.
‘Poor bastard.’ He swears loudly, alone in his office.
Cagney indulges his demons. He gives them their head, and lets them breathe. He smokes Marlboro Reds, but without passion. They are a habit, not a crutch. He drinks whiskey, mostly Jack Daniel’s, but he doesn’t mind which brand if it’s on sale. Straight, no ice. There is no desire he feels the need to suppress. He doesn’t feel lust any more, trickling its fingers down his spine.
He’s not hurting anybody
The Agency
C. James Proprietor
Tarnished silver lettering on heavy oak, and a window. It could be the door to a funeral parlour, or a gambling den, or any number of things, and that’s the point. The shell crumbles in his palm. Like a hooker giving a hand job, it’s a well-practised technique, just without the constant AIDS testing. Maybe the odd splinter, but hell, that won’t shut down his immune system. He kicks the pieces towards the bin.
Leaning back in his chair, Cagney places both feet up on the desk in front of him, and listens to the noises outside his window, with eyes closed. The bottle bank swallows tengreen Merlots, fed by a ruddy old major in wellingtons and a tweed jacket with elbow patches as red as the veins in his cheeks. You can’t sleep in Kew for the sound of recycling. ‘Luxury’ family saloons purr up, and uniform beige court shoes and black city loafers dive out of passenger seats and hit the ground running, as a tube lazes graciously into the station.
The butchers fire up the rotisserie chicken at 9 o’clock every morning, and the smell drifts through Cagney’s window with the warm air, mixed with the plastic croissant and coffee smells seeping out of Starbucks. Just the thought of hot food before midday makes him retch. He forces himself to stomach it for five seconds, before spinning round and slamming the window shut with a force that makes the flower seller across the road drop his bucket of tulips and exclaim, ‘Prick!’
Cagney hears it.
The flower seller used to be big-boned, voluptuous, heavy on the eye: a fat, fat man. He was reassuringly huge, pleasantly swollen, with a stomach that children could bounce on, and flesh concertinas where his neck should have been. Cagney hasn’t spoken to him in the ten years he’s sold his flowers opposite the office. The flower seller had obviously stopped eating sometime last year, and Cagney noted the slow but steady loosening of his shirt buttons, and his neck suddenly appeared one day, unexpectedly, like a highland fling from an old set of bagpipes that you thought were broken. It was then that he lost Cagney’s respect, and just when Cagney had been working up to saying ‘good morning’. If he liked his food – and he obviously had liked Ethiopia’s share of food and never mind about the famine – why deny it? He had been sturdy before, big and fat and happy – and that made him worth something, in the Cagney James pamphlet on life. A kindred spirit that almost got ahello. The fat flower seller of Kew, as much a part of the village as the gardens themselves, and the ever-increasing quota of camera jockeys from April to October. American tourists felt they knew him on sight, from the slide shows back home entitled ‘Our Trip to Europe’. Now the man’s friends have trouble recognising him from three feet. Cagney is pretty sure it has hurt his pocket as well. Japs don’t feel the need to stop and chat to him, his new slimmer frame and loose skin so much less charming, or snapshot friendly. He is threatening now; he looks so average that you have to wonder what nastiness is on his mind instead of sausage and chips. It suggests to Cagney that although the body may now be ‘healthy’, he has lost another friend to the new century. Yes, he was a friend. If Cagney had ever actually needed to buy flowers, that’s where he would have got them, but not now. And all for what? For a woman, probably.
‘Poor bastard.’ He swears loudly, alone in his office.
Cagney indulges his demons. He gives them their head, and lets them breathe. He smokes Marlboro Reds, but without passion. They are a habit, not a crutch. He drinks whiskey, mostly Jack Daniel’s, but he doesn’t mind which brand if it’s on sale. Straight, no ice. There is no desire he feels the need to suppress. He doesn’t feel lust any more, trickling its fingers down his spine.
He’s not hurting anybody
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