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... continued from previous chapter

Stephen was late. Of course he was.

I waved him over to my table. From the second we made eye contact across the restaurant it was visible in his faded face. The bastard was anything but grateful.

He hunched in the seat across from me, throwing smirks over his shoulders like a tearaway called to the headteacher's office.

Pizza Express? Stephen sneered. Please. You wanna talk about my career or we plannin' a berfday party for some eight-year-olds? I ain't one to hang up on formalities like, but this is seriously depressing. Even the Sex Pistols had a sense of pageantry, innit? They signed with A&M at Buckinum Palace.

I smiled coolly and remained engaged in the positive frame of mind fostered by Tomasz' consultation. If I was going to sell Stephen's redemption to the public, I had to be the first person to embrace the scheme. Take the medicine I was peddling and prove it posed no risk of serious side effects.

Let's begin with a drink, I said. Too early for a pint?

Never, Stephen said.

My server was watching like a hawk when I held up two fingers. She pulled a pair of Newcastles and brought them over with a Pizza Express employment application.

Stephen slurped the head on his pint and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He pointed at the blank form.

Naw naw love, he cooed. Doan' stoop to this. I can finka other jobs you're better suited for, if yooze needin' cash.

He lifted his glass, locked his creepy stare on me and tickled the foam with the tip of his tongue, lapping at the brown ale through a white crater.

The palm of my hand itched with the impulse to ram splinters of tempered glass through the roof of his mouth.

Stephen, I said. You could submit this application today and there's every chance you wouldn't be recognised. They'd hire you as Stephen, the nametag on your uniform would read Stephen. The kids working here might even like you. None of them were alive when you were actually famous. How long then, before some mum comes in and identifies you? She'll take a picture, post it online and then the whole world's going to know Sir Peanut Majestic is throwing dough at the Euston Road Pizza Express. And what happens next? Stephen's going to be out of a job.

I took a long draught of my pint and put the glass down on the application.

And the Pistols never set foot on palace grounds, I said. Malcolm McLaren staged that event in the road outside the gates. The band released one album and within a year they were finished, but you can't blame them. They were only kids. They didn't have adult responsibilities like fatherhood to keep them grounded. Not like you Stephen.

Stephen's red eyes wobbled and welled up. He bunched one hand over his mouth like he was pressing a dressing against a fatal wound, smug expression crumbling as he considered the bleak landscape of tomorrow.

I concealed my surprise at finding human traces beneath the disgusting husk of innuendo and misogyny that was Sir Peanut. Intrigued, I kept twisting.

McLaren engineered the Pistols for the sole purpose of provoking the public and making money, I said. Cancel culture didn't exist in those days, you could be absolutely vile in the seventies. But we're in the twenty-twenties now. There's nothing edgy or punk about using the N-word on Twitter, is there?

Stephen slammed his fists upon the tabletop and he gasped.

I spelt it g-g-a, not g-g-e-r and I weren't bein' racist, he whispered. I was quotin' bloody Kanye furfucksake.

I reached across the table and softly tapped the back of one of his hands like a child choosing a hidden prize.

This is not about spelling, I said. And I know for a fact Kanye West doesn't follow Tottenham. You weren't discussing the man's music, you were hurling racial abuse at a Spurs supporter. White as you are babe? Invoking that word is like shooting yourself squarely in the head, there's no possible way to do it safely and you were a fool to think otherwise.

Stephen shook his head. Slugged down the rest of his ale and straightened up in his chair.

Wish you'd quit callin' me Stephen, he moaned. Susan always calls me Sir P. Treats my brand with respeck-like.

There, I said. That's the first thing I want to address. At this moment in time the world really fucking hates everything about Sir P. Remember "The Matrix"? How the scary man tells Neo to choose between a life with a future and one without? You're at that juncture now, IRL. This meeting is that scene and I'm the goon in the suit. If you want to have any chance at redemption, you've got to leave Sir P behind and come out to the world as a very sorry Stephen. It's like witness protection. Creating distance between yourself and your old persona is not enough. You must exterminate Sir P with extreme prejudice. Set fire to the corpse and walk away.

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Stephen flipped back the hood of his sweatshirt, bowed his head and scrubbed his fingertips over the salt-and-pepper stubble on his scalp. His bulging eyes rolled, tracking a flight of phantoms in the air. Then his plastic accent slipped out of place and I could hear it in his voice. Authentic, unalloyed fear.

Just how am I supposed to manage that? he squeaked. Starting over?

I pushed the Pizza Express application aside and dropped my contract and a fountain pen in front of him.

Sir Peanut Majestic is going to die tonight, I said. On Monday we'll hold a press conference to introduce Stephen to the world. He's going to be a different animal, new and improved. Stephen's going to drop this bullshit attitude and tragic rapper affectation. He's going to rehab. And if he's demonstrably contrite he'll have damn good odds of launching a new career.

Stephen looked bewildered. I could smell smoke coming from the shorted circuits that prevented him from grasping my proposition. The more he protested, the posher he sounded.

It took me years to craft that persona, he said. I've seen Susan rescue clients from worse predicaments. Perhaps I should be speaking with her.

You're too toxic for Susan to touch, I said. Associating with you would poison her professionally.

Aren't you concerned I might harm your career? he asked.

You don't seem to understand my role in this ecosystem, I said. Disaster is my niche. I'm the Red Cross after an earthquake. I'm the ten-foot pole no one else would dare lift to touch someone like you. I can't un-fuck your past but I can put legs under whatever's left. Get you limping toward some kind of outcome.

I looked at my watch. Stood up and said:

Red pill blue pill, I don't care. I only came here as a favour to Susan but I have other clients who need my time. It's not as if I spend my days lurking outside the Priory handing my business card to train wrecks. Good luck to you Stephen. You're welcome to keep that pen.

Wait, Stephen said. Please.

He flipped through my contract and scratched his signature beside each candy-coloured sticker.

I tucked the document into my coat and texted Tomasz.

You're going to take a ride with my associate, I said. Mouth shut, ears open. No arguments, no questions. If you can't follow instructions from me or my team, I will tweet to tell the world you've fallen from the final rung of representation, and you'll be free to navigate the realm of outer darkness on your own.

For the first time Stephen was mute. He solemnly capped the fountain pen and gripped it in both hands as if battling the urge to snap it in half.

I pointed toward the door.

Go outside. Wait for a handsome Pole with stunning eyes, I said. He's going to talk a lot about Jesus but the main thing is he's pulled some strings with his church and now you've got a bed in a Salvation Army rehab. That's where you're going after the press conference on Monday. That's how we're going to start your comeback. He wants to tell you his story and you're going to tell him yours. I don't get paid enough to hear about sad shit like that.

Stephen departed in silence. The swagger and surety he displayed entering the restaurant was absent as he made his way out. He held the door for a young couple and side-stepped, drawing the droopy crotch of his ridiculous tracksuit into a taut arch. So much for Sir Peanut the hardman.

In a corner booth Majid was filming everything from a nylon backpack with a hole cut in the bottom. I waved for him to move up to the windows and get footage of Tomasz meeting Stephen. The sound recorder in my purse captured the audio from our sit-down, and the cameras we installed in Tomasz' car that morning would pick up the next phase of Stephen's painful personal journey.

My server brought the check and cleared the empty glasses. She puzzled over the Pizza Express application.

Our hiring is done entirely online, she said. Where did you find this?

Corporate sent me, I said. That man claims to have a visual impairment aggravated by computer screens and he threatened to sue Pizza Express over exclusionary hiring practices. A look into his background proves he's a convicted benefits cheat. My colleague came to document his refusal to take this dummied-up paper application. He didn't want a job, he was angling for a payout.

Majid turned from the window and gave me a thumbs-up. I crumpled the bogus application and put it on the server's tray with a fifty-pound note.

Please keep the change, I said. I appreciate your help in calling that man's bluff. I'm sure I can count on your discretion.

Riding home in Majid's car a dark and dense atmosphere compressed my lungs. The fabrication I spun to the server about being from corporate fell out of my mouth without any planning and that was cause for alarm. I had not slept more than three hours in the last twenty-four and some of my old behaviours were rising up. Growing stronger and fighting for dominance.

Like roaches scampering from electric light, my hands plunged into my coat pockets and probed the corners of my purse, searching for the tufted top of Maddasyn's Troll-doll keychain and the stash of Oxys she kept hidden inside its head.

I threw that bug-eyed doll into the Chicago River before I surrendered to U.S. Immigration. The event remained clear in my mind, a cognitively verifiable instance of non-fiction. But I was powerless to stop myself from searching for the troll a second time. I arched my back away from the car seat. Ran my hands over my ass and patted my trouser pockets until Majid clocked my distressed energy with a sideways glance.

I hooked my fingers together. Trapped them in my lap and calmed myself with several deep breaths.

At the next traffic light I opened my eyes. In the mirror on the passenger side I saw myself chewing through my thumbnail.

More than a year had passed since I put a stop to that habit. Unhesitating follow-through was the key to my negative reinforcement but I had never punished myself in front of Majid.

I touched his arm and struggled to speak in a confident tone.

I'm going to be sick, I said. Ale on an empty stomach, pull over. I'll walk home from here, I need the air.

In an alley reeking of urine, food waste and fryer oil I turned my back to the street and undertook a self-corrective course of action, striking myself five times on the left cheek, then five times on the right.

I sucked air through my teeth, stiffened my neck and delivered ten strikes to each cheek, leaning forward when the tears came to keep my coat and blouse free of makeup stains.

Midway through the closing round of fifteen blows my wristwatch clasp popped open. The momentum of my backswing sent the timepiece flying but I was bound to continue, as breaking the sequence of slaps would require me to start over at five a side. And it wasn't a real Tissot but a counterfeit I bought from Zahir. He threw in the faux Montblanc fountain pen at no charge.

My ears were ringing when I wiped my eyes and stooped to retrieve my forty-pound knock-off Swiss Cera. I buckled it onto my wrist and wiped the scratched plastic crystal with a throbbing hand. Spit blood onto the brick wall and tasted burning cannabis in the greasy air.

Two men in check trousers and chef's whites squatted upon plastic dairy crates smoking a joint, watching my meltdown from behind a rusty skip.

My inflamed cheeks hung heavy like clay. I forced myself to smile.

I'm fine, I said. Death in the family, you know? Fucking cancer.

I turned away before I could see my lie reflected in the face of someone who knew better.

Back on the pavement I took a long steady breath and silently reminded myself that I had nothing to worry about.

Everything was happening just as I had planned.

to be continued ...