Gone

The city is on holiday and has little need for couriers, so I spent too much time last week sitting around waiting for work, albeit sometimes in picturesque spots.

Last Friday a man came out of a building and told me to move my bike, which I'd briefly leant against the wall before cycling off. I told him I'd been about to leave, but since he'd asked me rudely I now fancied sticking around. I goaded him for a long five minutes, reaching for my map and saying "I'll just check where I'm going next. I know the way, but I just want to make sure". I found it very amusing, and he obviously didn't.

My first job that day had been to take jewellery from a well-known luxury store on New Bond Street to a sheikh's wife, care of a florist. I picked something up from the House of Commons, and then was sent to a theatre company in Covent Garden. I was told they'd booked a motorbike, but I should see if I could fit the package in my bag. The rather posh man who greeted me said "Oh, are you here for the dog?" What? It was a stuffed dog mounted onto a metal base; a dog on wheels.

After a while joking about the dog, the man asked me "Is this your full-time job?", in a tone that suggested he thought it odd that I was a courier, and that I might have a story behind me. This was the first time I'd been asked a personal question by anyone in all the offices I've visited. I told him I'd once been an English PhD student, and wasn't sure how I'd made the progression. He said he felt it rather a good one. I felt charmed by his attention and agreed to take the dog, its head sticking out the top of my bag, even though I knew it needed a bike or a car. I joked that passers-by would report me to the RSPCA.

I struggled up to Camden, where the man to whom I gave the dog shouted at me, saying it was a valuable theatrical prop. Apparently it moved around and barked and, he said somewhat unbelievably, had cost £10,000. He said I shouldn't have taken it. I realised this myself, the moment I got on my bike, but it was too late to go back. Oh well, I've heard worse stories: one courier told me he once had to deliver to a hospital a human foot wrapped in ice; another took a sack of frozen prawns which defrosted enroute.

After my last delivery that evening, outside my firm's offices I chanced upon a courier I'm becoming friends with, and we agreed to meet a little while later outside the Foundry pub in Old Street, where couriers gather. Foolishly, I called in at the Gutshot on the way. My friend in Scotland had paid £500 into my bank account that afternoon, money I'd sent him via Neteller. I deposited first £50, then another £100, and then £50 more, and lost it in under half an hour. I was smoking outside when my courier pal saw me and stopped. He said he'd never noticed the Gutshot before. I told him what I'd done, and he was incredulous. "How long would it take you to earn that much money?" Almost a week.

I didn't stay long at the Foundry, soon joining my friends at a gallery launch on Redchurch Street. One friend told me I was looking good, and had lost enough weight to be able to find a girlfriend. In an attempt to boost my confidence, he asked a few women he knew what score they'd give me out of ten for attractiveness. One said four and the other five - oh well, I didn't like them much either. I found my friend's behaviour embarassing, and took it as an attempt to humiliate me. He said that was just my negative interpretation: he was just trying to get me talking.

I was aware I was in an environment where I couldn't indulge any of my vices. I wasn't gambling, bingeing on food, ogling naked women, or numbing myself on the Net. Since I'm still sober, I didn't have my traditional recourse to alcohol, either. I felt very raw and open. When the crowd moved onto a pub, I made my excuses and left. As I waved goodbye, I was fleetingly aware that, actually, I was happy there with my friends, I was secure, and I really shouldn't be leaving, because I knew what I was going to do next. But I didn't listen.

I cycled to the Internet cafe in Stoke Newington and started playing poker again, except I wasn't playing poker. I was giving away money as quickly as I could. I set up new accounts to get past my deposit limits, and the £300 was soon gone, though I didn't play higher than $1/$2. I didn't win a single hand of any consequence, never had a read on any player, and never folded anything.

In less than a couple of hours I was on the street, stunned: "Have I really done this?" The money I needed as a deposit for my flat - the non-existent flat, the impossible-to-find flat - now all gone. And the ride home to Camden and the night spent sleeping between two duvets on my friend's floor.