The Confession Club

Upstairs By the time Elliot Ransome reached the top of the stairs, Mick Doran had got the landlord to send up three bowls of chips nobody had ordered. One was balanced on a beer mat at the end of the long table, leaking vinegar onto the wood. Mick was trying to persuade Victor Aldridge that the landlord had misunderstood him and supplied a vegetable course. ‘Potatoes aren't vegetables,’ Victor said. He picked out another chip anyway, examined a dark edge and ate it. ‘Christ, Victor. You want me to fetch you a dictionary with your dinner?’ ‘I want you to stop ordering things for me.’ ‘Then don't eat them. I've never made you eat a thing.’ Victor, who had already eaten several, pushed the bowl a little farther towards himself. Mick looked up as Elliot came in and spread his hands in vindication. ‘There he is. A man who understands hospitality.’ ‘You appear to have confused it with theft,’ Elliot said. ‘Has anybody asked you to pay for these?’ ‘They're going on the room.’ ‘Then I withdraw the accusation.’ Mick drew back the chair beside him with his foot. Elliot took the place, setting his coat over the back rather than on the hook by the door. The room was warm without being stuffy, an achievement the pub managed only in autumn, when the windows could be opened a finger's width and the heating hadn't yet started its annual fight with the radiators. Somebody downstairs had put a football match on the television. Each time the crowd rose in volume, a thin cheer made it up through the floorboards. They'd used this room for nearly twelve years. The pub had changed managers twice, once changed owners, and for three unpleasant months offered a menu on stiff boards that seemed to have been made for a restaurant with better lighting. The seven had outlasted all of it. The landlord understood that they wanted the room, drinks brought when necessary, and nobody coming up to ask whether everything was all right. Mick had negotiated the original arrangement. Nobody had improved upon it. Sylvia Merton was at the other end of the table, examining a piece of paper Graham Penner had brought with him. She had her reading glasses halfway down her nose. Graham pointed to a figure, waited while she considered it and received the paper back with a correction in the margin. They'd known one another for years before the rest of them met. Even now they sometimes had whole conversations consisting of two words and a look that Elliot couldn't read, though he enjoyed trying. ‘Do you two ever come here without work?’ Mick asked them. ‘We were here first,’ Graham said. ‘That's not what I asked.’ ‘It's close enough.’ Nadine Straker had left a chair between herself and Victor, a decision Elliot understood. At forty-eight she was younger than most of the company and considerably less interested in being reminded of it. She wore an expensive dark green jacket over a plain blouse, with a narrow watch that would have bought a decent used car. There was a faint mark from a pen along the side of her forefinger. She noticed Elliot looking at it and wiped it against a napkin without checking whether anything had come off. Callum Rusk occupied the chair nearest the window. His shoulders nearly filled it, though he wasn't particularly large compared with men Elliot had encountered in his profession. It was the way Callum seemed to have settled all arguments with his own body some years ago and no longer expected anybody to restart them. A small patch of grey showed in the beard he usually kept short. He was listening to Mick and Victor with the patience of someone waiting for an especially good part of a story, and when Mick suggested the chips be put to a vote, Callum gave a quiet laugh. ‘You'd vote for them if they were cold,’ Sylvia said. ‘They are cold,’ Callum replied. Mick examined one between finger and thumb, then put it in his mouth. ‘That's the thing about a chip. It doesn't know when it's finished.’ ‘I'm going to order something else,’ Victor announced. ‘For yourself?’ said Nadine. ‘Progress.’ Victor looked around the table, decided they were enjoying themselves at his expense and permitted it to continue. He liked an audience and was rarely particular about the terms on which he kept one. Elliot ordered whisky when the young man from downstairs appeared. The young man couldn't have been older than twenty and had the apprehensive look of somebody sent upstairs with instructions that made the job sound more difficult than it was. He wrote the order on the back of an old receipt. Graham asked for a glass of water and then, as the boy turned, specified that he wanted it without ice. ‘You don't need to give him a drawing,’ Sylvia told him. ‘I've seen their ice machine.’ ‘Have you taken it apart?’ ‘It wouldn't have been necessary.’ The young man looked between them, uncertain whether to record the last remark. Elliot took the receipt pad from his fingers, turned it the right way round and handed it back. ‘Two more of whatever Mr Doran's having. That'll keep him occupied.’ Mick gave him a pleased look. The boy went downstairs carrying an order he'd had to write twice. Elliot had seen him take one nervous glance at Victor's watch, apparently trying to decide whether it made the man important. They didn't always arrive at the same time. In some months there were late calls, a postponed meal, an appointment that couldn't be moved. Nobody was obliged to explain his absence beyond ordinary courtesy. The work that supported their lives was mostly separate and sometimes incompatible. Victor had employed Callum once or twice, and Mick had used Graham on jobs that required a particular skill, but the seven weren't a firm and had never tried to become one. Elliot liked the arrangement. He had enough employers. He didn't need six more of them over dinner. Victor was halfway through an account of a property dispute in which, according to Victor, everyone except him had behaved with astonishing greed. ‘And what did you want?’ Nadine asked. ‘What I was owed.’ ‘There you are, then.’ ‘That's not greed. That's business.’ ‘You should have said. I've been using the wrong word all these years.’ Callum's laugh came again. It wasn't especially loud, but Mick heard it and took the opportunity to improve the story by asking Victor what sort of property had been disputed. ‘A garage,’ Victor said. ‘One garage?’ Mick had got hold of an empty beer mat and was turning it around in his fingers. ‘A group of garages.’ ‘How many in the group?’ ‘Enough for it to matter.’ ‘Seven, then,’ Mick said, having decided that any figure Victor refused to supply was worth guessing at. ‘Do they all have roofs?’ Victor began explaining why a garage without a roof was still included in a freehold title, at which point Mick asked if he could park a boat in one. Graham objected to the way both of them were using the word access. Elliot contributed nothing. He'd spent most of the day driving between people who were unwilling to say anything useful over the telephone, and the eventual fee scarcely justified the petrol. He was content to let Mick ask questions. On some evenings he arrived to find two members already quarrelling; on others they managed half a meal before Victor found something to object to. Either way, he generally stayed longer than he'd intended. Nadine waited until Victor was receiving an explanation from Graham about the difference between a garage and a lock-up. Then she asked whether anybody had ever been charged for something that hadn't happened. ‘Frequently,’ said Mick. ‘I'm asking seriously.’ ‘So am I. My solicitor does it once a month.’ She took a crisp from a bowl, found it broken and put it down again. ‘A supplier of mine got himself into trouble last year. A proper mess. The kind where the first three people telling you they can sort it out turn out to be part of what's wrong.’ ‘Sounds like one of yours,’ Victor said. ‘It was mine by the time the bills arrived. That's the point.’ Nadine gave them the beginning without names. She had paid for a large consignment that was supposed to move through a private storage arrangement and into the hands of people who already had customers waiting. The intermediary responsible had been picked up in an unrelated investigation. His other interests promptly went into a state of panic, each insisting that he owned, held or was owed a different portion of the consignment. ‘You must have had terms,’ Sylvia said. ‘Of course I had terms. Everybody had terms. We had so many terms we could have wallpapered a hotel. None of them made anybody let go of anything.’ ‘And where were your goods?’ ‘In somebody else's building, behind somebody else's legal problem.’ Victor asked why she hadn't simply taken what belonged to her. Nadine told him that taking possession of something wasn't much use if the people expecting delivery refused to accept it afterwards. He began to disagree, then stopped when she mentioned the number of separate parties involved. He had spent enough of his life collecting debts to recognise a problem that became more expensive each time another person opened his mouth. Elliot watched her while the others questioned the story. Nadine was enjoying the attention, although she seemed faintly irritated by the memory. She liked doing well more than she liked boasting about it; the two were often mistaken for one another. The previous year she'd turned down a proposal that sounded lucrative but would have put her dependent on a man she regarded as an idiot. When Elliot had asked whether the loss bothered her, she'd said it was cheaper than employing him. ‘How much were you looking at?’ he asked now. She gave him a figure that made Mick sit straighter. ‘You paid that?’ he said. ‘I stood to lose that. There's a difference.’ ‘I'd have had words with somebody.’ ‘You would have had plenty of words. They'd have been delighted to hear them while they kept my money.’ ‘Did the storage company release the consignment in the end?’ Graham asked. He had been quiet through most of the account. ‘Within the week.’ ‘After the intermediary came out?’ ‘He hadn't come out. He wasn't remotely involved by then.’ Nadine looked from Graham to Victor. ‘I'd have been happy to thank the man if he'd done the work, but he was still being questioned about three different businesses, none of them mine.’ Graham had stopped treating this as a story told over drinks. Elliot recognised the change because Graham was leaving the pauses where they belonged, without correcting anyone or making a joke. ‘Who arranged it?’ ‘Apparently there'd been a settlement.’ ‘With whom?’ Sylvia asked. ‘That's what I wanted to know.’ Nadine ate a different crisp. ‘One day I was being told three people had first claim on something I'd bought. The next there were credits where I expected demands, the warehouse was prepared to release everything, and the transport people suddenly remembered they were supposed to answer the telephone.’ ‘Somebody paid,’ Victor said. ‘Somebody always pays.’ ‘Then what's the mystery?’ ‘It wasn't me. It wasn't my supplier. None of the people who'd been shouting at me admitted spending a penny. Someone else picked up the bill.’ Mick considered this. ‘I'd send them a thank-you card.’ ‘I tried. Nobody would give me an address.’ ‘You ought to have been pleased,’ said Victor. ‘I was pleased. I was also curious. It cost a lot of money to sort out, and I've never found anyone who admits wanting it sorted.’ ‘Perhaps they were being charitable,’ Mick said. Nadine looked at him over her glass. ‘Have you met anybody charitable in this room?’ ‘I'm charitable to Victor every bloody month.’ ‘It's a burden on all of us,’ Sylvia said. A fresh round arrived. Victor disputed the number of bottles and the boy explained, with remarkable courage, that there were exactly as many as ordered. The argument ended when Callum reached past Victor and moved a bottle to the table's middle, where everybody could see it. ‘There,’ Callum said. ‘All accounted for.’ ‘You could have let me finish,’ Victor told him. ‘You were finished.’ Victor glared for a moment, then grinned. He enjoyed being challenged by people he believed understood the limits. Graham had kept his attention on Nadine. He asked if the settlement had involved a direct payment or if the various parties had simply withdrawn their demands. ‘Both, as far as I could tell.’ ‘That's unusual.’ ‘So was the amount.’ ‘It isn't the amount.’ ‘Well, forgive me for noticing it.’ Sylvia laid a hand briefly on Graham's sleeve. ‘You'll have to ask her another time. She's not brought the paperwork for your amusement.’ ‘I wasn't asking for paperwork.’ ‘You will be.’ She said it with a familiarity that took the sting away. Graham accepted the prediction and returned to his water. Elliot saw Nadine glance once at the old man, an appraisal lasting no longer than the time it took Mick to begin another story. Mick had once arranged a job in which the person supposed to keep an exit clear had instead used it to park an enormous refrigerated van. Every time he reached the van in his account, its length increased. By the time it blocked a whole street, Victor accused him of confusing the vehicle with a railway carriage. ‘It was a fish van,’ Mick said. ‘I remember because one of the lads opened it and the smell followed him all the way home.’ ‘Did he take anything?’ Elliot asked. ‘Three boxes of prawns. His missus made him leave them on the pavement.’ Nadine said, ‘You employ some extraordinary talent.’ ‘Not everybody has the luxury of choosing from accountants,’ Mick replied. He told the rest of the story while using chips to demonstrate where the van had been parked. Graham corrected his understanding of which side of a door a hinge ought to be on. Sylvia asked how long his crew had taken to realise the van belonged to someone working in the same building. Mick admitted he'd never established that. The whole thing had turned into an argument with a delivery company over frozen fish. Callum enjoyed this more than anyone. He had heard the broad outlines before and still asked two questions that made Mick backtrack and tell the best part again. With Callum, Elliot had always found it difficult to separate amusement from attention. The man could listen for an hour and remember a remark everybody else had forgotten, usually to use it later for a joke at the speaker's expense. Tonight he said little beyond that. He didn't need to. Mick was in excellent form. There had been a time, after their first job together, when Elliot expected the gatherings to peter out. Seven people brought together for one extraordinary undertaking could hardly be expected to want regular company afterwards. They'd survived it, been paid and returned to their respective businesses. Three months later Mick had called around suggesting a drink, and when the first evening turned into an argument about who'd done the most during the extraction he suggested they meet again to finish it. A few of them had claimed to be too busy. All seven turned up. Their stories had acquired habits. Victor wanted to know how much people were paid. Graham wanted to know who'd checked the work. Nadine wanted to know what happened to the money afterwards. Sylvia was interested in the agreements made by people who thought they were the ones in charge. Mick wanted somebody, preferably somebody large, to end up looking ridiculous. Callum often preferred the bits everybody else considered too ordinary to mention. Elliot enjoyed hearing the bits other people usually left out, particularly when a mistake had looked perfectly sensible until somebody came to collect the consequences. He wasn't about to discuss his own clients in detail, and he assumed the others had similar limits. Still, it was pleasant to tell a story without explaining why the people involved hadn't simply called the police. Sylvia had turned the page Graham brought with him into a coaster. He rescued it from under her glass, held it up to the light and declared it ruined. ‘It's a photocopy,’ she said. ‘It's an original photocopy, with your correction on it.’ Graham tried to flatten the damp corner against the table. ‘I can write the same thing on another one. I might even get it wrong again, if you'd prefer.’ ‘You couldn't do it on purpose. That's the difficulty.’ Mick held out his hand for the paper. Graham folded it in quarters and put it into his pocket. Across the table Victor wanted to know whether anyone else intended to eat, because if they weren't ordering a meal he'd have the landlord bring up something decent. Nadine said she'd already eaten. Elliot was considering another drink. Graham leaned towards Nadine while the others were arguing about food. ‘The settlement,’ he said. ‘You genuinely don't know who authorised it?’ ‘No. Why?’ He took a moment to choose his words. ‘I've come across an arrangement that might have worked rather like it. Different business. I could be wrong.’ ‘You usually tell people when you could be wrong?’ ‘Only when I am.’ She laughed despite herself. ‘Talk to me next week. I'll have somebody look out the details.’ ‘I'm not asking you to do anything.’ ‘I know. You wouldn't ask until you'd checked twice.’ Graham seemed satisfied. Sylvia, beside him, had heard enough to be curious but didn't interrupt. Mick was now negotiating with the landlord by telephone, loudly assuring him that seven people did not constitute a banquet, whatever the kitchen might think. Elliot looked around the table as the argument rolled on. Nadine had begun telling Sylvia about a holiday she'd cut short because a member of staff had failed to understand a simple instruction. Victor was still finishing the chips he hadn't wanted. Callum listened to Mick's half of the telephone call with a widening smile. Graham was searching his coat for a pen to record something before he forgot it. The football crowd roared downstairs. Somebody must have scored. Mick cupped the receiver and asked who wanted steak pie. ‘Depends whose steak,’ Nadine said. ‘I'm putting you down for one.’ ‘You'll be eating it.’ He went back to the call. Elliot reached for the menu, which still had the old owners' name crossed out at the bottom, and ordered a pie of his own. They stayed later than they'd intended, as usual.