The Adventures of Locksley & Harper

Chapter 1: Harper & Sons

On the corner of Blakeley Street and Tottledown Road stood a narrow, bottle-green building with a crooked chimney, and windows that no amount of washing could ever make properly clean. Passers-by might peer in through the smudgy glass and see a curious display: dozens of unfolded maps lying scattered across a broad wooden table; a battered old globe; a framed pen-and-ink drawing of a giant squid; mounds of paperbacks arranged in improbable combinations: pulp detective novels next to recipe books, Jules Verne alongside a picture book about chimps. The sign above the door - which needed a new coat of paint, for the letters were peeling badly - read Harper and Sons Books.

Sitting behind the counter was a young man wearing two jumpers and a pair of enormous fluffy slippers. He had a pallid complexion that suggested a life lived indoors, and a mop of curly brown hair that made it difficult to believe he was twenty-five. His expression was one of sheer misery. Leaning against the counter, trying and failing to improve the situation, was a different sort of man: tall and wiry, wearing a black t-shirt that revealed tattoos covering his light brown skin from shoulder to wrist. The two men were engrossed in reading, and rereading, a postcard. On one side was a picture of a gleaming white temple, surrounded by lush jungle and a lake the colour of an uncut emerald. On the other was a message that said far too much in too few words:

Neal,

I said I'd send you a postcard, so here it is. Sri Lanka is beautiful. I've filled one of my sketchbooks since coming out here, but I suppose it's easy to get things done when you're by yourself. Hope you're ok. Mum says she saw you in the kebab shop on the high street last week and you were crying all over your doner.

Millie

'I thought you hated doner kebabs,' said the taller man, whose name was Bez. 'I thought you said that they were a horrifying meat experiment that no amount of chilli or garlic sauce could redeem.'

'I did say that.'

'So this bit about you crying-'

'The kebab bit really isn't what I want to talk about, amazingly.'

Neal Harper turned over the postcard and looked at the picture again, imagining Millie sitting on one of the benches by the lake, tracing the shape of the temple with her pencil, picking up a flower to press between the pages of her sketchbook. The sun would be turning her mousy hair golden, revealing her freckles. It's easy to get things done when you're by yourself. A strangled sound came from the back of his throat.

'Right - no - stop that,' said Bez, rounding the counter and grabbing Neal by the shoulders. 'It's the middle of the day, pull yourself together.' He hoisted Neal to his feet. 'There will be a time for shedding manly tears. And that time will be after six to seven pints and a whiskey chaser for us both in the Camel and Compass.'

Neal stared at him. 'It's the middle of the day. I can't just shut up the shop to go drinking.'

'I never said that, did I? No. You're going to shut the shop for an hour and we're going to go for a run. Clear your head. The drinking will come afterwards.'

*

It was a bitterly cold November day. The sky was grey and heavy, and as the two men slowly made their way through the common, an icy wind bit at their cheeks and hands. Neal wasn't much of a runner; his legs soon began to ache and a low, queasy feeling filled his stomach. Bez, on the other hand, looked like a puppy let off the leash, bouncing along the dirt track in his hi-top trainers and beaming at everyone who passed them.

They made a lap of the common, skirting the field and the pond. Neal found he couldn't run and talk at the same time, so he just chugged along, his breath clouding in front of him, while Bez kept up a constant stream of chatter at his side. Comic books he thought Neal should read; the annoying clients at the tattoo studio where he worked; the amazing clients who loved his designs; a documentary he saw once about stingrays; the kinds of creatures that might leave in the deepest parts of the ocean... Neal stopped listening after a while. He stopped thinking, too, and was aware only of the ache in his legs and his ribs, and the sludgy feeling in his mouth. Despite the cold, the common was busy: on the field, a five-a-side game was resuming after half time; parents pushed bundled-up children on the swings; a group of teenagers chatted on the benches by the pond. The sun was a bleached, pale smudge, already low in the sky.

'Stop at the caff?' Bez pointed at a white building near where the main road bordered the park. It had red plastic chairs outside and a sign showing at least fifty different kinds of ice cream, and Neal immediately knew that there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to sit in one of those plastic chairs and be brought something intensely calorific and sugary enough to bring on palpitations.

Bez darted ahead to get their drinks, leaving Neal to stumble his way through the final twenty yards solo. He collapsed, relieved, at a table next to a family whose enormous labrador immediately started nosing at his crotch, only to be yanked back, awkwardly, by its embarrassed owners.

He stared out across the common. It hadn't changed much in twenty-five years. They'd remodelled the playground, replaced the old wooden climbing frame with its rope ladders and splintery monkey bars for a gleaming steel construction with electric blue and yellow flooring that, in spite of its popularity with anyone under the age of ten, made Neal feel irrationally cross. The field was more crowded now, with different activities fighting for space; at weekends eight different football teams had rostered matches, and there were always fitness classes taking place, with guys in camo gear screaming instructions at lycra-clad exercise junkies, or personal trainers putting masochists through their paces. One of these classes was taking place now, and Neal watched idly while he waited for Bez.

The trainer, a tall and heavily built man with a shock of white-blond hair, held up a set of boxing pads and shifted slightly on the balls of his feet as he spoke to his client. Opposite him stood a dark-haired woman dressed in a black t-shirt and leggings, adjusting her gloves. She nodded to the trainer, and began to hit the pads as he moved them, gently at first, working through a flowing series of jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts. After a minute, her trainer shifted his footwork so that the two began to circle one another, and she continued to bob and weave fluidly, ducking as he occasionally swiped one pad over her head, or leaning from side to side, dodging his mock-blows. Warmed up, she started to hit the pads with more force, and Neal noticed that, although she was small, she was lean and surprisingly muscular.

'Now that's the kind of girl that I need in my life. Fleet of foot. Fearsome in combat.' Bez handed him a see-through cup of juice the colour of rust and gave a low, appreciative whistle that made Neal wince.

Sidestepping her coach's last swipe, the woman in black dropped her gloves and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. As she did, she glanced over at the cafe and saw the two men watching her. Neal immediately became very interested in his cup of rust; Bez grinned and waved. The woman snorted and spat on the ground.

'Charming,' said Bez. 'Earthy.'

Neal ignored him and sniffed his juice suspiciously. 'What is this?'

'They've started doing detox smoothies. It's good for you.' He caught Neal's eye. 'Don't ask what's in it.'

'Let's head back,' said Neal. 'My head's been cleared. It's impossible to think about Millie while running to the point of complete exhaustion. Well done.'

Shivering slightly as the sun dipped behind the clouds, they headed back the way they'd come. On the field, the woman in black began another circuit. Neal glanced back only once, and imagined he caught her eye as she boxed, her nimble silhouette darting this way and that against the darkening sky.

*