Short Ride on a Fast Machine Read online

  Magnus McGrandle was born in 1975. He works as a television journalist and lives in London with his wife and two children. This is his first novel.

  First published in Great Britain by

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  Dochcarty Road

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9UG

  Scotland

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © Magnus McGrandle 2017

  Editor: K.A. Farrell

  The moral right of Magnus McGrandle to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-910985-68-7

  ISBNe: 978-1-910985-69-4

  Cover design by Mark Ecob

  Ebook compilation by Iolaire Typography Ltd, Newtonmore

  For my father, Leith

  Contents

  Title

  Part 1

  Sam Black

  1: A Calling Card

  2: Mr Bembo, at Home

  3: Backgammon

  4: The Black Goddess

  5: The Incident with the Porsche Cayenne

  6: Sorensen

  7: On the Plane to Norway

  8: Fish

  9: The Game

  10: Luxury items

  11: Balwant Singh

  12: Tyrifjorden

  13: Kongsberg

  14: Black Metal (part one)

  15: Leibniz

  16: Black Metal (part two)

  17: Hammocks

  18: The Sorensen Directions

  19: Saddam Hussein

  20: The Hut

  21: Aquavit

  22: Kelly Zimmerman

  23: Kirsberry

  24: The owl

  Part 2

  Marta Olsen

  Anna Vig

  Jon Sorensen

  Pushpendra Singh Poyntz

  Mashtots Hambartzumian

  Part 3

  Sam Black

  24: Pepe’s Pizzas

  23: Abdoujaparov

  22: A Discussion About the Owl

  21: On Poyntz’s Sofa

  20: Greek Dreams

  19: at the Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park (part one)

  18: Lanzafuckingrote

  17: Riddles

  16: Rollapaluza

  15: Trust

  14: Eggs

  13: At the Church of St Anne’s, Limehouse

  12: Household Gods

  11: Another Incident with the Porsche Cayenne

  10: Gris-gris

  9: At the Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park (part two)

  8: Bryster

  7: Possibilities

  6: At the Golden Syrup Factory, Silvertown

  5: Messages

  4: Leibniz Undone

  3: Short Ride on a Fast Machine

  2: The Black Goddess

  1: Zipp Wheels/Tigers

  Part 1

  Sam Black

  1

  A Calling Card

  To begin with I thought everything that happened was connected with my visit to Mr Bembo, the Oracle of Stepney Green, and that the whole business with Sorensen and the journey I made to Norway with my best friend Poyntz were just minor detours on the path towards truth, which the great soothsayer had set me upon. He was, on the face of it, a shaman of rare talent, and if a man’s character is his fate then Mr Bembo had the measure of my character and the measure of my fate. Later, I wondered what had originally drawn me to his calling card, which was absurd and which dropped through my letterbox the day after Poyntz finally beat me at backgammon, breaking my winning streak. After all, this God Gifted Spiritual Healer and Clairvoyant with Spiritual Power from his Ancestral Masters Spirit, 25 Years’ Experience boasted that:

  No matter how difficult your problems is Mr Bembo can solve it from one visit: for instance, love problem, business transaction, sexual problem, exams, and court cases. He can improve your life by making you confident, make your marriage life better, give you good luck, and remove back magic. He can eliminate bad habits and many more.

  I was twenty-one years old and had no marriage, business, legal proceedings or examinations to speak of and regarding love, well, the episode with Kelly Zimmerman was in the past. I had known bad luck and sometimes lacked confidence but I required no back magic to be removed, or black magic for that matter. I had some bad habits but none which I particularly wanted to be rid of. And sexually I was fully functional, at least in the anatomical sense. I did, however, have a weakness for mumbo-jumbo and I’d been a little on the jittery side since Yelena Zykov had been run over by a truck a month or so previously. I felt a little vulnerable and was looking for clarity. I was also bored, waiting on a delivery that afternoon of a pair of new wheels for my bicycle, a Pinarello which was – sad to admit – the real love of my life.

  So I called up Mr Bembo and made an appointment.

  2

  Mr Bembo, at Home

  My consultation with the witch doctor would last precisely forty-two minutes and would cost me thirty-three pounds and nineteen pence, all the money I had in my pocket. Mr Bembo had asked for much more – one hundred and fifty – and in return he’d ensure that I’d never fall off my bike and if I did, no harm would come to me.

  I can make this happen, he said. For just one hundred and fifty English pounds.

  I put three tenners on the table plus the loose change. He counted the money and pronounced it a reasonable start and said that afterwards we would go to the cash machine around the corner and that there would be no funny business. He asked for my mobile phone as insurance against non-payment of dues. I insisted it be left on the table because I was expecting a call from Fat Barry.

  Ok, he said, eyeing the phone. We have made a little deal. Now tell me about yourself.

  So I told him. Not much. Just a little. A few important details. My name: Sam Black. My job: bicycle messenger. My bicycle: Pinarello Montello, 1989, Columbus SLX tubing, chrome forks, Campagnolo groupset, Alex soon-to-be Mavic wheels and multi-coloured paintwork in the spumoni style, spumoni being an Italian pudding of Neapolitan origin.

  I didn’t tell him everything about the bike. But I did tell him that a fellow courier of mine had been killed in an accident recently and that I was feeling spooked by the roads. I didn’t say that the ghost of Yelena Zykov – aka the Black Goddess – was supposedly riding the streets of London. I didn’t tell him this because I didn’t like revealing my superstitions to anyone, not even a witch doctor.

  I told him I was considering quitting my job as a courier for a more sedate existence (although riding bicycles was the only thing I knew) and I told him I’d just lost at backgammon for the first time in three months. He said, backgammon? What is this thing you call backgammon?

  Backgammon, I said. It’s a board game. A bit like chess.

  Ah, he said. Chess. A game of pure luck.

  After this he went into his kitchen and I went outside onto his balcony, eight floors up a block of flats that overlooked the Isle of Dogs. I smoked a cigarette and took in the view. It was a beautiful, still day, the first of September.

  When I went back inside Mr Bembo was still in the kitchen and I could smell something burning, like incense, but a bitter, unusual smell. I picked up my phone from the table, put it back in my pocket and examined Mr Bembo’s qualifications. They hung in gilt frames on his living room wall, degrees from the universities of Oxford, Yale, Paris-Sorbon
ne and Bulawayo. All his degrees were in Human Sciences.

  When he returned he had changed into some robes and was carrying a tiny cloth bag. The consultation is over, he said. But for free, Samuel, I will tell you this: beware of cars, and avoid riding your bicycle on the streets.

  It was problematic advice for a courier. I asked him if there was anything else I should know and he said I was to avoid yellow cars in particular. He also said I would meet an old man who would determine my fortune, a man with money and large hands.

  This man would turn out to be Sorensen.

  Then Mr Bembo held up the cloth bag, which he called the gris-gris. For the extra money, he said, you can keep the gris-gris. It is a lucky bag. It is a talisman. It will save you from motor vehicles. It will make them slow down when they see you. It will make them stop when they are near you. It will protect your body from injury.

  I asked him what was inside the gris-gris.

  Herbs, he said, and other things. He told me to keep it on my person at all times or else it wouldn’t work. Then he announced it was time to go to the cash machine. There is one in the convenience store next to the chicken shop, he said.

  But in the pissy metal lift on our way down things fell apart. I told him my phone was staying in my pocket. He said I owed him three hundred. I told him he’d said one fifty. He said my situation was more serious than he’d thought. He added that I was in grave danger, especially from yellow cars.

  I unlocked my Pinarello and wheeled her as I walked with Mr Bembo to the cash machine. I considered how much I really needed that gris-gris and concluded I needed it a lot. I didn’t believe in everything Mr Bembo said but I was worried about believing in nothing. So I took one twenty out of the machine and gave it to him. You owe me three pounds and nineteen pence, I said. Now please can I have the voodoo bag?

  But he insisted on three hundred. Three hundred, he said, and your problems will be solved. Then he started to play the game proper. He said he had seen my accident and that it was not pleasant to look at. He said he had seen me lying on the ground and that he had seen my bicycle in many parts. He said he had heard the sound of sirens and the sound of screaming too. None of it, he said, was nice.

  I was worried my bank would get lockjaw but it was the first of the month: payday. I took a further one fifty from the cash machine, counted the notes, and handed them over. He took the gris-gris from a pocket inside his robes and passed it to me in exchange. I stuffed it into the bottom of my courier bag and asked him whether he did not want to double-check the money.

  Of course! he said, friendly now. You are a good businessman like me.

  So he started to count the whole lot, two hundred and seventy in tens, and as he counted aloud, I got onto my Pinarello and clipped in. One hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty. I set my wheels in the direction of the main road. One hundred and sixty, one hundred and seventy. I rolled on the wheels, a perfect track stand. Two hundred and twenty, two hundred and thirty. I reversed maybe a quarter revolution. Two hundred and forty. Two hundred and fifty. Two hundred and sixty. Two hundred and ––.

  I didn’t let him get right to the end. That would have been too risky. But I still managed to take the whole lot, swiped out of his hands and into mine in a moment of beautiful synchronicity: left arm swinging in to collect the cash, right arm on the handlebars directing the getaway and helping my legs with the pushing and the pulling. The crazy mountebank ran after me for as long as he could, puffing and yelling, shouting the words big cunt, and while I was looking back at him I almost collided with a yellow Honda Civic that was coming the other way. But it braked sharply and somehow I managed to swerve past it and I didn’t stop until I got home, where my new wheels were waiting for me. The cash I put in a sock and half-hid. I made a promise to myself not to spend it. The voodoo bag smelt so bad I put it under the sink in an empty jam jar, lid on. And everything else was absolutely fine until the following morning when, riding into work past the junction where the second-hand Merc dealership comes eye-to-eye with the pink and black lap dancing club, I was hit by the Porsche Cayenne and flung high into the air.

  3

  Backgammon

  Did it all start then with Mr Bembo? Or was it the night before, in that sixth and final game at the Montmorency? I remember Poyntz hunched over the backgammon set, shoulders tense, elbows on table, hands clasped tight, fingers entwined and thumbs to lips as if in holy prayer. Nestled between his little fingers were the dice.

  The sixth game had reached its climax after four turns of the doubling cube. In order to win the session, Poyntz required a double six or a double five on his final throw. All I needed was the minimum, a two and a one. But it was his turn to roll, not mine.

  The Montmorency was a fringe operation which ran on a handful of regulars, which more-or-less included Poyntz and I. It was painted orange and had a door on the side that, in the old-fashioned way, sometimes opened when you knocked after closing time. That night the bar was bare, with only a few of the usual Hibernians there. I fetched the drinks while Poyntz rolled out the board, a square of worn black velvet with twelve tri-angles embroidered on each side. We found our corner and started a new session: six games. The first I won easily. I gammoned him on the second and third. Five up after three, I doubled on the fourth: he redoubled, I redoubled back, he resigned. The fifth game was trickier but I still took it by half a dozen pips.

  A brief history of the Game that year: I was whipping his ass. Poyntz hadn’t won a single session since June and he was down by at least three hundred quid. I was starting to think of new challenges, namely Salowitz, a wily Czech who rode for London Wheels and had a fierce reputation at the board. Twice in the past we’d played, twice he’d thrashed me. Both times I’d insisted no betting.

  It was when he took on Salowitz in that game at the Crown that I first came across Poyntz. He was this tall, thin Indian guy with an earring and a crewcut who’d just that week started out at Rapid Couriers. He must have played backgammon before – he knew the rules – but he can’t have played much and certainly never for money because he agreed to Salowitz’s crazy stake: a pound-a-pip with doubles. It was a rudimentary hustle. I remember locking up my Pinarello and seeing the crowd inside, gathered round the game, doing the maths. The stake had been doubled and redoubled twice and Poyntz had two of his men out of play. If he’d been lucky he might have got Salowitz on the way back in but Salowitz bore off clean, winning the gammon by forty or so pips. With all the doubles it was a finger-singeing sum: nearly seven hundred quid. Poyntz asked to pay his debt in instalments but Salowitz refused. The following day Poyntz called his controller at Rapid and told him he’d smashed up his leg: pothole, fractured tibia, eight to ten weeks.

  Getting knocked off is part of a courier’s job, which gives us some leeway in faking injury. But earlier that year a couple of messengers had pulled a ruse and been discovered. Denied time off by their controller, they dreamt up a pair of two-week-long injuries and flew to Ibiza. When they returned to the office, tanned and skint, they were promptly given the boot. In the same vein Rapid’s controller instantly demanded evidence of Poyntz’s fractured tibia. When Poyntz stalled he was sacked.

  Riders come and go and I assumed it was the same with Poyntz but two or three weeks later Joe Guzzman rolled up while I was waiting at some lights and asked if I remembered the dude fleeced by Salowitz.

  I nodded my head. Guzz said he’d bumped into him a couple of nights back, riding up Liverpool Road, working. Nights were much more lucrative than days if you didn’t mind stashing drugs down your pants and dealing with the dealers. The parties could be fun. But you couldn’t ride round the clock so couriers who needed urgent cash often cooked up injuries to keep their contract, worked nights to make some quick money, then returned to days when they were done.

  All that money he lost playing backgammon, I said.

  Yep, Guzz replied. D’you know him?

  No.

  He was asking after you.


  Me? I said. Are you sure?

  Yep.

  Do you know why? I asked.

  Dunno. He just said he wanted to get in touch.

  Same guy? I asked. Rides a Bianchi?

  Same guy, he replied. Rides a Bianchi.

  Sure enough the following day Poyntz walked into the offices of Zenith Couriers and asked my boss Fat Barry for a job. Fat Barry, rightly or wrongly, regarded Zenith’s messengers as the crème de la crème of the London courier scene. I don’t take Rapid’s cast-offs, he told Poyntz. Especially those with dodgy injuries.

  But Poyntz had his answer in a large brown envelope which he passed to Fat Barry. Inside were a pair of pristine X-rays, feasibly dated, with the name PUSHPENDRA SINGH POYNTZ white-typed into the corners. Poyntz explained how he’d made a quick recovery. Fat Barry looked at the sheets and then back at Poyntz. This is definitely you? he asked.

  Yeah, Poyntz replied. It’s me.

  You got a passport?

  Poyntz laughed. I’m British, mate. Born and bred in Brum.

  Don’t mate me, said Fat Barry, who liked to call the shots. You’ll have to prove this is you. I run a legit operation here, I can assure you.

  I’m quick, said Poyntz.

  Quick, repeated Fat Barry, shifting some bulk around his high-backed leather chair. Quick’s good, he said, but you need to be above board as well. We run some very important clients here and I don’t want my riders fucking me about.

  Just look at the X-rays, said Poyntz.

  Fat Barry held the sheets up to the light. They’re kosher are they?

  Totally.

  And why didn’t you show them to Rapid?

  Poyntz shrugged. I wasn’t given the chance, he said.