Norbert

Chapter 1

When Needs Must

A few weeks ago I fell victim to the worst kind of love. You may stumble over the pronunciation, but they call it unrequited. It means she can never love me back, except in my dreams. Medication isn’t working, so the only way to even partially relieve the constant sorrow is to make the most of a forthcoming opportunity. To do this, I must first commit a crime.

I might also have to do the time, especially as one or two mildly irritating problems have arisen. Brundy public library doesn’t stock a single book on burglary, and when it came to gleaning information on how to case the joint, Auntie’s cookbook was of no help at all. I don’t even know if proper burglars purchase the tools of their trade or steal them. I mean, what if B&Q inform the police every time they sell a jemmy or acetylene torch? A lovesick first time thief planning a daring robbery in the dead of night needs to know these things.

 Determined to plough ahead, I catch the 32 to Macarbrough and shop where I think a burglar wouldn’t. Furthermore, to blend in and not draw attention I dress the part. Strolling round an outdoor megastore on a hot Saturday in June wearing a fleece and bobble hat isn’t, however, the smartest of moves. I stand out like an Eskimo in sealskins at a Caribbean beach barbecue.

I dawdle down tightly packed aisles of waterproof jackets and snug microfleeces, comforted by the fresh aroma of new clothes. The empty sleeves cling longingly as I brush past, imploring me to linger and buy. I pause occasionally out of curiosity to check a label, but everything is too big, out of my pocket money range and made in China. No wonder they’re so expensive!

After circling like a hungry shark for a minute, a sales assistant hones in. ‘Hi there, young hiker,’ he says, with a supercilious grin. ‘Would you like my help in choosing a summer wardrobe?’ The cheeky left-handed grannytickler’s ID badge identifies him as Louie. 

Obviously, I have a cover story. ‘Actually, I am about to embark upon my first field trip with the Macarbrough Bushwhackers. I need to see in the dark and use both hands.’

He raises an eyebrow in suspicion. ‘To do what, exactly?’

See, I’ve already been rumbled. I might as well be wearing a mask and carrying a swag bag over my shoulder. I try to sound confident. ‘Campfire chores and stuff.’

‘In that case, a headtorch would be the illumination of choice.’ He looks abstractedly at the ceiling whilst stroking his fashionably trimmed stubble. ‘Torches, torches, torches, now let me think.’

Phew, that was a close shave!

Talking of which, I am envious of his manly whiskers (downy peach fuzz is the most I can manage), but the rest of him tells a different story.

Okay, every member of staff is wearing a lurid pink T-shirt with GO CAMPING emblazoned across the back, but Louie is the only one in matching trousers and nail varnish. I have to ask. 

‘Excuse me, but do you play cricket by any chance?’

He snootily examines his manicure. ‘I just happen to be in Macarbrough’s first eleven.’

Very near the top would be my guess.

Louie lifts a laminated floor plan, attached to a lanyard round his neck, and studies it intently, twisting it in his hands and gazing round in an apparent attempt to get his bearings. Still mystified, he lifts a compass, also dangling from a cord, and places it on the map, but instead of standing still and swivelling the housing he does a couple of dainty pirouettes, like it’s him that’s magnetized.

‘East-south-northish is the direction we require. Follow me.’

 Pillars with full-length mirrors attached front and back impede our progress. Louie pauses momentarily in front of one to flick at his hair. Caught unawares, I veer abruptly to the right and am broadsided by a big woman carrying an armful of clothes. I bounce off her and take out a rack of reduced-price winter underwear.

The padded fleece protects my frail body from injury, but because I bruise easily I will be black and blue come morning. I always am after a beating.

My assailant drapes her burden over an adjacent rack and helps me to my feet. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.’

I also apologise and help her right the rack. Just as we have replaced the last spilled garment, a voice booms out over the tannoy. ‘Could the bizarre-looking wee chap in the bobble hat please jump up and down and wave your arms in the air? I appear to have lost you.’

‘He’s over here,’ the woman bawls, saving me the embarrassment of having to comply.

Louie arrives, looking miffed. ‘Was I going too fast for you?’

The woman won’t let me get a word in. ‘It’s my fault entirely. I was heading for the changing rooms when some idiot came straight at me, not looking where she was going. I had to swerve at the last second to avoid a head-on collision. This strange child just appeared from nowhere.’

I am up to here (barely five feet) with correcting people about my age, but before I can protest Louie starts swishing coat hangers around and having a paddy, at which point the woman picks up her bundle and wanders off.

‘I do so hate it when customers place garments back in the wrong order,’ he rants. ‘Putting the smalls amongst the extra larges is bad enough, but what moron can’t tell a thermal vest from a long john? Give me strength!’

 After he’s separated the vests from the pants, he sorts them according to size, easily done as each coat hanger has a different coloured plastic cube fitted just below the loop, bearing the letters S, M, L or XL. Contrarily, he arranges them in alphabetical order.

‘Right, are you ready? Are you sure your little legs can keep up?’

‘Perhaps we should rope up, like they do in the mountains?’

He looks me up and down, pityingly. ‘No offence, but the very thought of being physically attached to you...’

He marches on past a rack of trousers with more zips and pockets than a punk’s wedding suit, followed by a display of mannequins kitted out in exceedingly tight Lycra skiwear. The female model is holding a sign: We also stock this range in black PVC, available with a nod and a wink under the counter.

We pass through a gap into an adjacent section of similar size, jiggle through caravan accessories, whiz past trekking poles and halt just beyond sleeping bags.

I point. ‘Excuse me, but there is somebody in that one.’

A figure is fast asleep in a two-season Mummy laid out on a lawn of synthetic grass. Louie raises a whistle (also hanging from a cord round his neck) and blows a shrill blast. Within seconds two burly security men arrive, navigating swiftly and unerringly by GPS. They haul the man out and drag him away. From the smell I assume he has wandered in off the street to sleep off a turpentine hangover.

‘Sorry about that, but we do have an occasional problem with riffraff.’

Louie spies a gangly junior assistant rummaging intently through a nearby trouser rack. He calls him over and points to the noxious bag. ‘Put this in the sale at 25% discount.’

Jerome, as he is labelled, is strapped into a harness from which dangles an assortment of karabiners and a bag of chalk. He is wearing fingerless gloves and a thick lump of foam padding strapped to his head. Gingerly, he picks up the bag. ‘Where do we keep camouflage trousers?’ he asks Louie. ‘I can’t find them.’

‘Which proves their effectiveness.’

 Jerome’s bottom lip begins to judder. I am no stranger to bullying, so I step in. ‘I assume you have a climbing wall here?’

‘No,’ he squeaks. ‘I’m the high shelf stacker.’

Louie moves blithely on a few paces and plucks a box from a display. ‘This model is top of the range. The first choice of all the country’s leading troglodytes.’

Believing that a troglodyte is some kind of pervert with a rectal fixation, I plump for a cheaper model and a set of batteries (not included, the thieving magpies).

‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ Louie inquires. ‘A stick, perhaps, to help you whack the bushes?’

I am no stranger to sarcasm either. ‘No, that’s all, thanks.’

Alone again, I wander aimlessly in search of the payment tills, passing the woman from earlier, standing in front of a pillar, wagging a finger and berating herself; the silly pigeon.

The heat is making me feel dizzy and sick. Sweat is seeping out of my woolly hat and trickling down my face and neck. I collapse into a chair beside a wooden box stuffed with an assortment of woollen socks. The wall facing me is disguised as a crag of rock with countless small ledges, each displaying an item of footwear. A rugged outdoor type, who is about to try on a pair of leather walking boots, picks out a red sock and then delves ever deeper, searching for its companion. The disturbance releases an odour that sends me running to the washroom with a hand clamped over my mouth. On the way I pass a garden trampoline in the sale, 50% off. If it wasn’t for the nausea, I might have been tempted to jump on the offer.