away off the topic as well as he could.
But Nancy had also remained persistent, and it soon became that the only way to avoid talking about getting married was to avoid speaking with Nancy and eventually to avoid seeing Nancy, which was pretty difficult, for two people living together in a single bedroom flat.
Then Thomas had appeared on the scene. Frank had initially become sure that Nancy was seeing someone else. How else to explain that some weirdo kept sending in flowers every day
“Hey, what’s with all these flowers; the flat’s like a fucking undertaker’s,” Frank complained to Nancy.
“None of your business,” she had tersely replied; which was partly correct because even though they shared the rent, the lease of the flat was in her name. And even though Frank was relieved that Nancy was no more discussing marriage, the flowers still kept him freaked; like they forebode someone’s funeral.
Frank came in one night to hear moaning noises from the room which he used to share with Nancy before the living room couch became more comfortable for him.
The bedroom door was open, and on the bed, he found Nancy with one of his friends, Thomas Pawney; both of them naked. Angry from both the effrontery and the betrayals, Frank hauled Thomas naked out of the flat. Nancy had also done the expected and thrown Frank’s stuff out of her flat that very night.
Looking back, Frank thought that was the best thing that happened to him and Nancy. He remembered sleeping on the buses that night. Well, there wasn’t really much sleep. He just got himself on whichever bus was going the furthest distance and tried to get some sleep during the journeys. And at the terminus, he changed into another going the other way and got a bit more sleep on the way. That was how that night had passed.
Jay Winch had been a lucky find the next day. Jay, a software guy, was going off to do some better-paying gig in Chicago or wherever and needed someone to mind his flat for a couple of years. So with no reference and without a deposit, Frank had quite impossibly found himself the proud tenant of a two-bedroom flat in Hackney. The next day he called Nancy and quite maliciously told her how much he wished her and Thomas Pawney a miserable lifetime and a house full of retarded children together.
But somehow and quite impossibly Nancy Hughes had shown up at a rave party at Dalston a few weeks back, without her Thomas Pawney. Nancy had come along with two plump Scottish girls on a suicide mission from Glasgow, and who had spent the entire night knocking down Vodka shots, and the rest of the early morning vomiting them up on the sidewalk.
“What happened to Thomas Pawney?” Frank found a minute to ask Nancy during the night.
“Not my type, he wanted to marry me,” Nancy told Frank; leaving him with the conviction that most women are mad?
“Thought that was what you wanted,” Frank reminded her.
“Yes with you maybe; not with Thomas Pawney. I don’t love him”, she ruefully smiled. Being afraid of what was coming up Frank took off but not quickly enough to prevent Nancy from getting his phone number. He now ruefully regretted he had not given her a wrong number.
And so, there on my phone was Nancy for the umpteenth time in a month asking him to return her call.
Lester was watching the television with Maureen since no other customer was yet about. They were watching a football match between Liverpool FC and Arsenal. Lester normally looked to Frank as a hopeless case in his plaid apron, but today Lester really did strike him differently and invoked respect. At least Lester had a job going for him.
“You done guv?” Lester asked. Frank gave him the OK sign, took out the money from his wallet, and bailed himself from the Hard Luck Cafe.
CHAPTER 4
Frank found Eagle Detective Training Institute on the second floor of the mall at Elephant and Castle. It was a sparsely furnished small office, with only one desk, behind which he found Mandy seated, quite engrossed with her OK magazine. An ornately framed black and white portrait of a distinguished-looking gentleman with handlebar mustache supervised his discussion with the giggly Mandy, who was the o.
“I called you about one hour ago about the detective course,” Frank explained to her.
“Yes, you did. It is, of course, a home study course, and it normally costs four hundred pounds, but you can buy for only two hundred and forty-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence at the discount price if you buy today. “, Mandy went straight to business.
“That’s a lot of money, is there an installment payment option?” Frank asked.
“No, unfortunately. It’s a bargain though, and there is a certificate inside the package. After you are done with your studying you just print your name on the certificate put it in a frame and hang it in your office to prove that you are a real detective”, Mandy actually failed to see how ridiculous she sounded. She went into a store behind the office, came out with a box which she placed on the table in front of Frank.
“Heck, I can’t read all this,” Frank told her. Mandy shrugged her shoulder.
“In any case for ninety-nine pounds extra you could purchase the entire courses recorded on CDs and listen to be trained as a detective,” she advised.
“That sounds better. Okay, I will just have the CDs then.” Frank happily offered. Mandy firmly shook her head.
“No, the CDs must be bought together with the books, not alone. Don’t be lazy with your studies; it is not easy to become a detective you know.” she playfully scolded.
“That’s a lot of money,” Frank scratched his head thoughtfully.
“Well, the advertisement did say that you could actually earn a hundred quid per hour as a private detective so this is cheap. You get all your money back in four hours.” Mandy shrugged and giggled some more.
The man in the portrait appeared to glare at him with much disapproval. Frank handed his bank card to Mandy for payment. Mandy was glad to pass Frank’s card through a processing machine which dutifully deducted three hundred and forty pounds from his bank account. Mandy cheerfully wrote him a receipt.
“Who is the bloke in the picture? Is that the owner of this business? Out of curiosity, he pointed to the portrait.
“I don’t know; I met him here,” Mandy replied, returning to reading her OK Magazine.
Frank left Eagle Detective Training. He checked his phone again and found that he had another missed call. He called his voicemail; Nancy had left another message. Frank grimaced.
Lugging the parcel home took all the energy out of him. Nevertheless, back at home, he ripped open the seal of one of the boxes. He popped one of the CDs into a portable player. It was topic number two of the detective course and the title from the cover said: Tracing Missing Persons. Frank thought this could be the most interesting part of the entire course. He grimaced at the badly recorded voice of the instructor, who had obviously been reading from the course notes. He sat on the couch to listen nonetheless and was soon lulled to sleep.
When he woke up, it was around six o’clock in the evening. Taking a quick shower, he decided to visit his girlfriend. He took a bus for Stratford Station, and at the station, exit bought a bunch of flowers, and walked up to a nearby block of flats. He took the lift to the second floor and pressed the bell at the
