As I pass the living room, Eva pops her head up from the duvet, where she’s been enjoying a lie-in before a late shift. She reaches onto the floor and picks up a string of retractable plastic frankfurters. ‘Press button to extend sausage, and again to bring back sausage,’ she briefs me while Doodle bounds onto the sofa bed to be kitted out. She clips the lead onto his collar, kisses him on the nose and wrinkles hers.
I take the string of sausages from her. ‘I think we should give your dog a shower later. Or try and fit him into the bath.’
‘Not my dog,’ she says, retreating under the duvet. ‘New rule on website– problem pet no longer my problem when owner on holiday.’
As soon as we are over the doorstep, Doodle strains at his lead. I press a button on the handle and the sausages shoot out by a metre or so. Embracing his freedom, he sets off at full pelt, pulling me along with him. After a few hundred yards, his tongue is hanging out and I’m making more noise than a twenty-five-year-old should when taking mild exercise. I soon forget any ideas about scanning the pavement for cracks and try not to cartwheel into the gutter. At the top of my road Joe is busy with the tail end of the commuting public, his stool on hand to help out less abled customers. Doodle speeds up as Joe holds a croissant out to a customer. Before the exchange can be made, the dog rears up and knocks it to the ground. He promptly grabs it with his teeth, jerking the lead out of my hand.
‘Whoa, horsey!’ says Joe, instinctively reaching to snatch it back. But Doodle backs up and knocks into the stool which topples onto the pavement. I can’t stop to retrieve it as he starts to make off with the whole croissant in his mouth. Managing to grab the lead again, I cling on for dear life as he careers around the corner and onto Uxbridge Road where he runs slap bang into a woman with an armful of carrier bags. Her goods spill all over the pavement. Doodle immediately drops the croissant and puts his jaws around a French stick. A dream trade.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. My dog is untrained and possibly untrainable. He’s not even my dog,’ I stutter. ‘Oi, dogs don’t eat bread!’ I shout at Doodle, yanking him away from the baguette, apologising again as I hand her a tin of tomatoes and a cauliflower.
Back at the van, I say sorry to Joe while Doodle barks at our legs, no doubt hopeful of landing another tasty pastry. I tell him to button it, casting an apologetic glance at Funky Two Dunks. Joe passes over her weak green tea, wishes her a nice day and starts to put lids on his containers. ‘I’m wrapping up now while it’s quiet. Let me fix you a coffee?’
‘I’ve no money on me. I only came out for a …’
‘… minor traffic collision?’ He bends down and pats the dog’s head. ‘Hey, big fella, why don’t I make you a doggychino?’ Doodle folds his head into the barista’s hand, looking at him with the ultimate puppy dog eyes.
‘He doesn’t deserve a coffee,’ I say.
‘But I think you do,’ Joe replies.
In the hall, I unclip the sausages from Doodle’s collar, telling him to sit. When he doesn’t do as he’s told I say it more sternly and push at his backside. He stays standing but licks my sleeve. ‘I’m going to ignore that. But I’m not going to overlook your naughtiness this morning. There will be zero treats from me today and while I’m out I want you to think about your bad behaviour and how you are going to make up for it.’ He lies down at my feet, puts his head on my shoe and shuts his eyes. ‘That’s your plan? You are the worst,’ I say, retreating into my bedroom to change for my first ever consultancy meeting.
On the way to the station, I post the video of the knitting heist, which instantly picks up some traction. When the train comes, I take a seat and flick through theLondon Gazette. Aurora Storyalis is as prolific as ever– her latest column lays into suburban gangsters who deal in the illegal organ trade. The journalist campaigns against exploitation and has a particular interest in the commercialisation of the body. Last year, she went undercover into a tattoo parlour in Balham to investigate claims of blood poisoning. Despite uncovering some dodgy practices, she was later inspired to have a tattoo herself at a more upmarket place. The brand on her upper arm reads,‘Survivor’.
Aurora’s tagline is ‘I’m all about the story’, although if she dropped the ‘s’ at the front of that word I think we’d be closer to her politics. Next to Aurora’s column, the author of the problem page posts her penultimate article. Below it, the editor says he’s looking for a successor– a suitably qualified candidate with a following on social media. When my train pulls into Holland Park, I send him my video of Doodle destroying the knitting in his inimitable comic fashion. Within the text of the tweet I write: ‘Ask Daisy and Doodle to unravel London’s anxiety.’
Vince’s street is wide and leafy, with expensive-looking properties as far as the eye can see. His large, terraced house has a smart blue door and a fist-shaped knocker. As I lift my hand to announce my arrival, it swings open to reveal the actor. A thick towelling dressing gown doesn’t begin to cover his long, hairy legs. How much testosterone does it take to produce that much body hair? His chin is covered in stubble, and he looks wrecked.
I cautiously follow him down the hall into a large kitchen-diner, checking out the available exits in case I need to get out fast. The room is full of light, with a whitewashed wood floor, high ceiling and large windows.
‘First things first– a drink.’
I’m about to ask for a cup of tea when he walks to a liquor cabinet and produces a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. After pouring two fingers of the golden liquid into a crystal glass, he strides over to the fridge. I have never seen one that size before– my dad would have called it a ‘Smeg for the smug’. He pops the glass into a cubbyhole in the door and ice clatters in. ‘I’d invite you to join me but you’re the doctor and I’m the patient and only one of us is permitted to drink themselves into a coma.’
I cringe, starting to think I’m in over my head. ‘Vince, I’m not a therapist. I do have some qualifications, but I’ve never worked as a medical professional.’
‘Ah, well then you’re in good company because I’m not qualified to do anything. Unless dying on stage is a qualification. I’ve gotten rave reviews for that. Did you catch them?’ He clutches the glass tightly, like it’s holding him up, and sighs. And I sigh inside. I either need to get a grip of this session or get the hell out of here. I think back to my graduation day where I was awarded my first. That wasn’t an accident. Perhaps I will start with what I know, and we can take it from there.
‘Any chance of a cuppa?’
‘Sure.’ He pulls a tea bag from a caddy in the shape of a London bus and pops it into a cup. Then he fills it with boiling water from his hot tap, before pulling out a chair for me and then one for himself. Sitting down, he rests his head in his arms. I sit too. The tea is strong and black and makes me wince. Raising his head to the window, he squints, as though the light is painful. Then he knocks back the contents of his glass.
‘Another, I think.’
‘Mr Marino, have you had anything to eat? I could make you some scrambled eggs?’
‘Do I look like the kind of man who needs a nurse? Maybe I am. There’s a slang phrase, in gaming communities, I think– “reset character”. I reset mine, in front of the woman in seat thirteen of the third row.’ I make the sign of the cross at his reference to a seat I would never, ever book, while he picks up a file and thrusts it towards me. ‘I pay a PA to keep all my cuttings. It’s hubris I admit, although I’ve been brought down to size with them now. Read all about it if you want to. I’ll pass on the eggs though.’ He leans back and folds his arms, allowing me to leaf through a file stuffed with photocopied news, reviews and gossip columns. The sheets on the top all tell the same story.
‘Well, I guess bad publicity is …’
He bangs his glass on the table. ‘I fluffed the most important line of my one-man play in front of a thousand menopausal women who could have been at home watching a rerun ofMidsomer Murdersand reset not just my character, but my reputation, my career, and my life so please don’t tell me this is better than no publicity.’
‘Your audience wasn’t just old women,’ I say, in an attempt to calm him down. ‘I came to your play.’
Mercurial as the roles he plays, he changes direction. ‘Do you like nachos?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
