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man,’ Steranko said. ‘You just keep quiet and get us there in one piece and we won’t piss on your seats OK?’
    The driver stopped the cab on the spot, brick-walled it then and there.
    ‘Right! Out!’
    ‘Forget it.’
    ‘Get out you filth.’
    ‘Fuck you.’
    ‘Out!’ He turned round uncomfortably in the front seat as he said this and opened the door on Steranko’s side.
    ‘Let’s get out,’ I said.
    ‘Jesus.’ We got out. The guy wanted the money for the journey so far.
    ‘One ninety,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s on the clock.’
    ‘You must be fucking kidding,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, fuck you scumbag,’ said Steranko. (We’d seen ‘Mean Streets’ a couple of days previously.) We walked off.
    ‘Oi!’
    We stopped and looked round. He was standing there with a jemmy in one hand. He didn’t need anything in the other. We stood still as the trees shaking slightly in the breeze. In the cab
his radio cleared its throat and crackled out into the night.
    ‘Now you slags give me my money.’
    The money was the least of our worries now but handing it over involved getting near him. Steranko gave him two quid at arm’s length. The jemmy remained where it was, carving out a hook of
sky over his shoulder.
    ‘You cunts,’ he said and walked back to the car, arms at his side.
    ‘Hey!’ said Steranko as the guy was getting back into the cab . . . ‘Keep the change.’
    I was already running.

056
    Moving my stuff in to the new flat took less time than the paperwork: signing the lease, filling out a claim for housing benefit, applying for exemption from rates, registering
the rent – all the fraying strands of state support had to be twisted, tugged and woven together in a secure financial safety net.
    The flat was on the top floor of a five-storey block, protected from the outside world by a security door which was rarely closed – someone had ripped off the self-closing hinges. The area
just outside reeked of drains, a damp, heavy smell that made you think of typhoid and cholera epidemics. On the stairways and landings the smell was a mixture of animal shit and piss. On hot days
you made your way up and down the stairs through buzzing flags of flies. The flat itself was fine: spacious, light, and smelling like the previous tenant was decomposing beneath the floorboards.
The living-room was covered in that slightly faded wallpaper associated with cases of suspected child abuse.
    I spent my first morning there doing a bit of home improvement. I woke up early, full of anticipated achievement and in such good spirits that I gromphed down a breakfast at. Goya’s, the
faded fry-up cafe on Acre Lane. On the way back I bumped into Freddie and asked if he wanted to help.
    ‘I’d love to but you know how I am with things like that. I get toolbox envy, the fear that your toolbox is much smaller than other men’s. It’s quite a common worry
apparently – more men than you might think suffer from it – Fear of DIYing.’
    ‘I know what you mean. I’m not that well equipped myself,’ I said. A few petrified paintbrushes sculpted in a jar of turps, a roller you could make pastry with and an
assortment of screwdrivers, bent nails, and inappropriate hammers were all I had in that department.
    Steranko, on the other hand, had all sorts of tools and accessories scattered around his studio and I dropped in to borrow his drill and anything else that looked as if it might come in useful.
Back home half an hour later I realised that the drill wouldn’t reach from the socket without an extension lead so I headed back to Steranko’s, slightly frustrated but still looking
forward to the labour ahead.
    Extension lead in hand, I stopped off at the DIY shop. I hovered around waiting for my turn and then realised that the guy behind the counter – a big white bloke with a triple chin –
had been waiting for me to say what I wanted. He didn’t say ‘next please’ or ‘can I help’; he just leant