The Gun Seller

He flinched. Visibly.

Well of course it was visibly. Because I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise. What I mean is, it was a big flinch, almost a jump. Big enough, certainly, to satisfy the square leg umpire.

He looked down at his braces and scraped at one of the brass adjusters with his fingernail.

‘At that stage. I see.’ Then he looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Philip, ‘but I feel as if I should ask you for your real name, before we go any further. I mean, if you’re not Arthur Collins, you know…’He trailed off, desperate and panicky, but not wanting to show it. Not in front of me, anyway.

‘My name is Lang,’ I said. ‘Thomas Lang. And let me say first of all that I absolutely realise how much of a shock this will be to you.’

He waved away my attempt at an apology, and sat there for a moment, chewing his knuckle while he thought about what he was going to do next.

He was still sitting like that five minutes later, when the door opened, and a girl in a stripy shirt, presumably Jane, stood there with a tea-towel and Ro

The two women paused in the doorway, eyes flitting here and there, while Philip and I got to our feet and did our own lot of flitting. If you’d been a film director, you’d have had a heck of a job deciding where to put the camera. The tableau stayed as it was, with all of us writhing in the same social hell, until Ro

‘Darling,’ she said.

Philip, the poor dope, took a step forward at this.

But Ro

By the time he’d finished, and turned back to us, Ro

After a while, Ro

‘Philip… what can I say?’ she said, which was about all she could say.

Philip scratched the back of his neck, blushed a little, and then got back to the coffee stain on his shirt cuff. He was an Englishman, all right.

‘Leave that for a moment, Jane, will you?’ he said, without looking up. This was music to Jane’s ears, and she was out of the door in a second. Philip tried a gallant laugh.

‘So,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘So.’ I laughed too, just as awkwardly. ‘I guess that’s about it, really. I’m sorry, Philip. You know…’ We stood like that, the three of us, for another age, waiting for someone to whisper the next line from the prompt corner. Then Ro

I took a deep breath.

‘Philip, by the way,’ I said, unhooking myself from Ro

Philip looked as if I’d just hit him with a building.

‘A favour?’ he said, and I could tell that he was weighing up the pros and cons of getting very cross.

Ro

‘Thomas, don’t do this,’ she said. Philip looked at her and frowned very slightly, but she didn’t pay any attention. ‘You promised not to do this,’ she whispered.

It was beautifully judged.

Philip sniffed the air and found it, if not sweet, certainly less sour than it had been, because within thirty seconds of us telling him that we were the only happy couple in the room, it now looked as if Ro

‘What kind of favour?’ he asked, folding his arms across his chest.

‘Thomas, I said no.’ Ro

I half-turned, speaking to her, but looking at the door, as if we’d had this argument a few times before.

‘Look, he can say no, can’t he?’ I said. ‘I mean, Christ, I’m only asking.’

Ro

‘You’re not to take advantage of him, Thomas,’ said Ro

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said, hanging my head.

‘What kind of favour?’ said Philip again, and I sensed the hope rising in him.

Ro

‘No, don’t, Philip,’ she said. ‘Don’t do this. We’ll go, we’ll let you…’

‘Look,’ I said, still with my head down, ‘I may not get a chance like this ever again. I have to ask him. This is my job, remember? Asking people.’ I was starting to get sarcastic and nasty, and Philip was loving every second of it.

‘Please don’t listen, Philip, I’m sorry…’ Ro

‘No, that’s all right,’ said Philip. He looked back at me, taking his time, thinking that all he had to do now was not make a mistake. ‘What is your job, Thomas, by the way?’

That was nice, the Thomas. A sweet, friendly, rock-solid way to address the man who’s just stolen your fiancйe.

‘He’s a journalist,’ said Ro

‘You’re a journalist, and you want to ask me something?’ said Philip. ‘Well, fire away.’ Philip was smiling now. Gracious in defeat. A gentleman.

‘Thomas, if you ask him, at a time like this, after what we agreed…’ She let it hang in the air. Philip wanted her to finish it.

‘What?’ I said, with a load of truculence.

Ro

‘Doing a piece on the breakdown of the nation-state,’ I said wearily, almost drunkenly. The few journalists I’ve spoken to in my life all seemed to have this in common: an attitude of perpetual exhaustion, brought on by dealing with people who just aren’t quite as fantastic as they are. I was trying to duplicate it now, and it seemed to be coming out pretty well. ‘Economic supremacy of multinationals over governments,’ I slurred, as if every dolt in the land ought to know by now that this was the hot issue.