I stood at the south end of the Greenwich foot tunnel, under the Thames, at two a.m. in the bleedin’ morning, shivering and not just with the night chill. Water dripped amongst the shadows, reminding me of
the millions of gallons just above my head.

A dark shape appeared at the north end, moving towards me. It looked too big to be a man and I swear I could see two black shapes behind its head like giant bat’s wings.

This, I’d been told, was my nemesis and, in order to save everything I cared about, I had to face it.

#

And to think it only started yesterday, just after a fairly normal event, namely a well narked Big Trev storming past the bar into his office then slamming the door. I poured a triple Bushmills, dropped in two ice cubes and took it to him.

“Cheers Tony,” he said, taking a long swallow. “Bloody ‘ell, but it’s tough making a decent living these days.”

This statement should have concerned me, seeing as how I made my living from him–bar-tending, managing accounts, arranging women and the such. But I’d heard him whinge like this hundreds of times before, and put up with it because he never made me do the nasty persuasion work and, well, because me and him went back a long way.

“I tell you, bruv,” he went on, “I’m getting too old for all this unpleasantness.”

“You’re the same age as Sheringham, boss, and he’s still sticking ‘em in the back of the net.”

His big face opened up like a kid’s on Christmas day. “Speaking of footy,” he said, “I got an executive box at the Valley next Saturday; interested?”

I accepted his offer, appreciating that he liked to occasionally make up for my missing family, not to say social life, by taking me to films, fights and footy. Then, after listening to the details of how he and the boys had persuaded the owner of a new fancy restaurant on our Rotherhithe patch to take out damage limitation insurance against Big Trev’s damage-causing activities, I went back to the bar.

And that’s when my nice, cozy, life changed forever.

Being late afternoon, the place was near to empty, so I had plenty of time to take a shufty at the two newcomers. Later, I would see the sketch pads under their arms and realize they was students. But at first, all I saw was her black, shoulder-length, hair, terrific figure and fearsome intelligence. She took in everything, including me who, at that very moment, felt as if Bow bleedin’ Bells was clanging round his ears.

The bloke accompanying her sat down and she came to the bar. “Two pints of lager, please,” she said, and the quality of her voice almost undone me completely.

See, the kinds of girls I procured for Trev tended to slouch somewhat, on account of supporting the general burden of their lousy lives. And they wouldn’t look you in the eye unless you paid them to, since any hired help knew that such frankness could only lead to the emotional heebie-jeebies. But this girl was well direct, and her crisp, clear accent sent shivers through the hairs on my arms.

“You from the college?” I said, pouring the drinks.

“How can you tell?”

“You ain’t got that cynical, world-weary tone to your voice like most of our customers,” I said, not mentioning that I’d just noticed their sketch pads. “Which means you must still believe in the wholesome power of learning.”

Her smile was only a touch sceptical. “Are you the owner here?” she said.

“No, it belongs to a mate of mine. Well, he’s more like my substitute dad, really, even if he is only ten years older. My real folks abandoned me when I was a baby and my foster parents are both dead now, so . . . ”

Now, this may not have sounded too much like a life-changing speech to her but, believe me, when I heard all them honest words skipping out of my mouth like a crocodile of cute little school kids–from me, renowned for keeping schtum unless with trusted colleagues–-I knew I was well and truly kippered.

She took the drinks back to their table and I watched out the corners of my eyes, especially how she reacted to him, and concluded, with relief, that they was just friends, not an item.

Half an hour later, I told Trev I needed the rest of the day off, called in our part-time barman, then stepped into a cab.

One benefit of being in the damage limitation/causing business was that Trev had more contacts than the government or even Hello! magazine.

About three miles from our Deptford pub, at a tatty business estate, I paid the driver then pushed open the door of Mokni Enterprises, summoning my most innocent smile for the receptionist. “I’m here to see Richard
Moss,” I said, “name’s Professor Anthony Smith.”

She spoke into her mouthpiece, listened to the reply, then pointed at a door to her left, confirming my suspicion that ‘professor’ would get me through, even though I was only a professor of plonk, if truth be told.

Inside his office, Moss rose from behind his desk, offered a hand, which I shook then sat.

“I’m not a professor,” I said, “I work for Big Trev; name’s Tony.”

He put a hand instinctively to his heart, said, “But I paid him–”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I ain’t here for money. It’s actually about a bleedin’ girl. Love at first sight, if you must know, and I need to do something about it, sharpish.”

He shrugged Gallic-style, already well cocky with my non-contractually based visit. “Why don’t you just ask her out?” he said.

I sighed. Moss was the well-educated type so he would never understand but, because I needed his help, I explained anyway.

“She’s middle-class, posh,” I said, “whereas I obviously ain’t. And for the likes of me to get together with the likes of her is rarer than inter-racial marriages in this country.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, launching into a predictable speech about how we no longer lived in the Middle Ages, that the class system was dead, and how he had lots of, um, working class friends.

“I need to go through your process,” I said, when he’d finally finished. “And if you refuse, I’ll alter Big Trev’s accounts to show you ain’t made your loan repayments for the past three months, even though you ‘ave.”

I let him think about that for a few seconds before softening the blow a little. “Look, no one knows I’m here, so no one’s going to be any the wiser if it all goes ‘orribly wrong, are they?”

“But the full process hasn’t been tried on a live subject yet,” he said. “All the testing so far’s been through computer models.”

“Well, now you have a willing, silent, volunteer, don’t you?”

Once more, I surprised myself with how serious I sounded. Then again, Trev had always said when I found the right girl, I’d lose my cool faster than a Cornetto in a microwave.

“You do realise, Tony,” said Moss, “that there’s a considerable risk of side effects.”

“What, like me developing a permanent stiff upper lip?”

“Seriously . . . ” he said, but I knew I already had him. Thing was, he stood to make millions from his invention, and having a no-strings guinea pig to test it on was a sure-fire cure for any morality still lurking around his business plan. Yes, in our spray-on-tan, pills-for-everything world, what wouldn’t all those new celebrities-the ones famous just for being famous but never taken quite as seriously as they’d like by the kosher A- listers, due to the unfortunate fact they tended to sound like village idiots
and wouldn’t know which way to tip their soup bowl in nice company-have given for instant posh?

“Let’s do it,” I said.

#

Well, there was various drugs involved, not to mention being hypnotised, and last but not least, Moss’s trump card: ‘intelligent’ blood. A pint of my best claret was removed, then replaced by a drop of his bio-engineered red stuff. Apparently, he’d based the process on homeopathic principles, which it was fair to say most of the scientific world reckoned was about as genuine as a lap dancer’s gazebos. But Moss believed the point was that homeopathy worked when someone was desperate enough for it to.

Basically, he said, human traits and characteristics are recorded by the blood in what he called, the ‘neo-electrical’ radiation of the plasma. He’d managed to reverse the process by setting up a huge database of character types and then re-programming this neo-electrical radiation with pretty much any kind of person you wanted to be. Once the souped-up pint was put back in the bloodstream, it totally infected the rest of your blood, which, not expecting anything new to come along, was wide open to it. Then, before you knew it, even your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Or, in my case, even my own Big Trev.

Less than five hours after entering Mokni Enterprises, I came round to find Moss looking apprehensive. I opened my mouth, intending to say, “Bloody Norah, me ‘ead ‘urts!”, but instead what emerged was, “Good
grief, I have one almighty headache!”

Moss grinned with relief. “Do you think I’ll put Professor Higgins out of a job?”

I stood up and made for the door, with the idea of saying, “See yer,” but actually yelling, “Ta-ta!”

I strode outside, head held high, shoulders back, feeling strangely confident, if not unusually visible.

I took the train to Deptford, then headed back to my gaff. It’s strange, but somehow the very act of walking with a straight back for a change seemed to alter my perception.

At home, I flicked through my wardrobe looking for suitable gear to match my new personality, but my racks gave off about as much sophistication as Epping Forest on a Bank Holiday weekend. Nevertheless, after
some diligent rummaging, I managed to find a decent red and white striped blazer with white trousers I’d once filched from an up-market tailor we’d done a favour for. Oddly enough, when I clocked meself in the mirror, instead of thinking, “What a tosspot,” I reckoned I looked quite a catch.

So, dressed like a happy ponce, I left me–sorry, my–-gaff–-sorry, apartment–-and headed off into the night to woo my bird–-sorry, lady.

I reckoned that although she was posh, she was also, for the time being at least, a student who wanted to fit in. She’d come in to our seedy bar and ordered lager, not bleedin’ Pimms and lemonade, hadn’t she? And there were only three pubs near her college she might be in that night that didn’t have ‘Gastro’ as their first name.

In fact, I struck lucky first time, at the Wyndham Arms, a large, blary, boozer full of crimson upholstery a similar shade to most of the regulars’ faces. Fruit machines flashed a hundred different colours over the walls and a fug of cheap chicken odour filled in the awkward spaces between punters.

I scanned through the gloom, and my heart did a hop, skip and soddin’ jump when I caught sight of her black hair shining with what I hoped was rude health and not corn oil fumes. She was sat with another girl and two blokes at a corner table, and suddenly I realized I didn’t have a strategy. So, biding my time, I went to the bar, taking a fiver out of my pocket.

After a few minutes, I noticed something wasn’t right: I hadn’t been served.

I looked along the bar to see a bloke with the solid look of manager about him, and wondered why he hadn’t clocked me. I raised my arm, intending to follow the correct etiquette for such an occasion, which was to
say, “Excuse me, mate,” but what I actually said, to my horror, was, “I say: chappie!”

His head turned slowly, expression carrying exactly the understated hint of contempt mine would have if I’d been hailed by a twatty toff in our bar.

He walked over and said, “Yes, sir,” with a masterfully light touch of sarcasm on the ’sir’.

I fought the urge to ask for a G and T, aware, even in my upper class daze, that such a girlie drink wouldn’t impress her. “A pint of your best lager, my good man,” I said.

As it happened, I needn’t have worried about concocting a strategy because my feet apparently had one of their own, taking me directly over to her table, and, while the now strictly inner Tony screamed silently, “No,
no, Gawd, no!”, outer Anthony cheerily bellowed, “Mind if I join you guys?” then sat without waiting for a reply.

“Do we know you?” said the burke who’d been with her earlier that day.

Before I could answer, she said, “Aren’t you the barman at that pub opposite the college?”

“Yes, but in another life,” said Anthony, and for the next five minutes or so there was just no stopping his stream of snobby unselfconsciousness gushing past my normal dickhead filter, resulting in such tasty, not to say loud, comments as: “Do you think they get a discount on shell suits round here? . . . I’ve heard if you sit here long enough some brickie will put a ferret down your trousers for sport! . . . Have you noticed how all the women look like giant stern potatoes? . . . At least you chaps can bugger off to a better life once you finish college, not like these poor souls stuck with all this utter naffness until they croak . . . ”

Not surprisingly, the others didn’t say too much during my political broadcast on behalf of the Uponesownarse Party. With a huge effort, I managed finally to haul my outer toff to his feet then get him out of there before the locals decided to close the wealth gap a little by lynching one of them arrogant Tim boys.

Fortunately, toffs never look back.

#

Around eleven the next morning, I let myself into the bar, noting the slice of yellow light under Big Trev’s door. I didn’t go in but he must have heard me thumping about and came into the bar.

“All right, Tone?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you Trevor; and your good self?”

I moved behind the counter to wash glasses.

“Nice jacket,” he said, “didn’t know you ‘ad anything that classy; bit poofy though.”

“Be that as it may,” I said, “I think it’s time I stopped dressing like some South London hoodlum with less taste than an autistic camel.”

I expected him to look right humpy, camels notwithstanding. But if anything, he just seemed concerned. “Where exactly did you go yesterday?” he said.

And that’s when it hit, all the current confusion of me. I turned away, pretending to check the change in the till but actually taking a mo to wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I paid Mr. Moss a visit, if you must
know,” I said. “Splendid fellow who, with only a teensy bit of persuasion, agreed to help me with my problem.”

“And what problem would that be, exactly?”

“I formed a strong affection for a girl who visited here yesterday. But I didn’t have cause to believe she’d like me as I was.”

“I see. . . . So you got Moss to use his process to posh over your cockney demeanor.  And did it work?”

I shook my head. “In common parlance, I made a right tit of myself.”

Although I kept my back turned, I guessed he could see my face in the mirror.

“Is that right?” he said. “Tell you what: I’ll make a few phone calls and we’ll see if there’s a way to fix all this unfortunate-ness.”

I smiled gratefully but decided to keep my gilt-edged gob shut for once. While he made the calls in his office, I sliced lemons, primped ice cubes and generally felt right miserable about my present lot.

About half an hour later, he returned to the bar and slapped a post-it note on the counter. “‘ere,” he said, “take the rest of the day off and go see this head doctor bloke.”

I picked up the note. “A psychiatrist?”

“Yes, and one who owes me a favour. I covered his arse once, after he’d had too much booze in the Greenwich club and boinked one of our waitresses-a fact which might have had considerable repercussions on ‘is business, marriage and general standing in that poncey community what you recently tried unsuccessfully to gate-crash.”

“But I am not mentally unstable, I’ll have you know.”

Trev rarely touched other people, mainly on account of his belief that a man in his position should maintain a healthy distance, but he reached over the counter then to squeeze my arm in an affectionate, if somewhat
bruise-inducing, grip. “Just go see the doc, willya?” he said.

The doc turned out to be a mysterious kind of bloke, not only properly scientific but also into something called psychic manifestation which, apparently, was all about actualizing our fears so as to deal with them. After listening to me burble on for about an hour, in my hoity-toity lingo, he said I needed to face my nemesis, whatever that turned out to be, and suggested a face-off in the tunnel.

So, there I was, watching that dark shape at the other end move towards me, knowing for sure this was my deepest, darkest, fear. Every common sense nerve in me shrieked to just turn and run up the spiral steps, out into the safety of Greenwich. But I forced myself to watch the hulking thing
draw steadily closer.

Half way, and I swear it weren’t human. The black wing-things flapped against the curving walls and the main bulk was black as nothingness. I wanted to be brave but at about fifty yards distance, I just closed my eyes and waited for it to do its worst.

Heavy footsteps drew near and when they stopped, I swear my heart nearly burst in sheer terror.

“Tone, it’s me.”

“Wah!”

“It’s all right, mate. Calm down. The doc said you might be spooked. Come on, let’s get out of ‘ere.”

Utterly shocked at the sight of Trev, I followed him, all meek and mild, up the spiral stairs. The sight of the two halves of his raincoat throwing winged shadows on the walls made me feel a right plonker. He led me to
his club in Greenwich proper, then into a private room where he ordered a bottle of whisky.

I knocked back half a glass, my nerves a little calmer for it, then said, “Cheers, mate-blimey, I’m talking normal again.”

“The doc said you would, once you’d faced your neme-whatsit.”

“But I didn’t; I mean, you-”

“Listen, I rang Moss too and with a bit of persuasion he fessed up that he didn’t actually do nothing to you. The process is untested and he didn’t want to nark me by offing my right hand geezer.”

“So, ‘ow the ‘ell did I become so posh?”

“I asked the doc that self same question. Which was when he asked me a few hisself, chiefly about your parents, as it happens.”

“But you always said no one knows who they were.”

“Yeah, but a while back I did a bit of digging. Couldn’t get their names but did find out they was something pretty close to bleedin’ nobility. Seems even the landed gentry don’t always want to keep their sprogs.
Anyway, who knows, maybe some of that uppity nature is still swilling around yer blood stream.”

I refilled my glass. “So, why didn’t you tell me?”

“That was another of the doc’s questions. Let’s just say I see you as family and leave it at that, shall we?”

One of the things I liked about Trev was his impatience with all that emotional malarkey, as he often referred to his wife’s desire for him to share more of his feelings. And right then, I didn’t want to do anything but
drink and enjoy feeling like meself again anyway. Later, I could try to figure out what had actually gone on over the past few right iffy days, like why Trev had entered the tunnel from the wrong side of the river.

#

A few nights later, the door of the bar opened and my heart thumped like a monkey in a sack.

“What can I get you, miss?” I said, dead-pan, despite all the malarkey going on in me emotions.

She looked me right in the eyes and said, also deadpan, but posh of course, “A pint of lager, please.”

“Tell you what–why don’t I pour you a glass of this very nice Merlot we keep under the bar for special occasions.”

“That would be something of a relief,” she said, smiling. “I’m pleased you’re looking yourself again.”

“Yeah, well, sorry about the other night. I had some issues.”

“Actually, I thought it was brilliant, what you did in the Wyndham.”

“Really?”

“It must have taken a lot of guts. When John and I came in here the other day, I can see now that I was acting like I owned the place. It’s just my up-bringing, but I deserved it when you turned up, dressed like an up-
per class pimp and talked all that classist drivel . . . it made me realize I’m a phoney because I can always go home to my parents’ big house in Sevenoaks and pig out on good wine and roast-fucking-pheasant whenever I need a break.”

I didn’t think she was disrespectful. I thought she had passion and honesty, and sounded touchingly unnatural when she used a word like ‘fucking’, but I kept it zipped at this delicate stage.

“The only thing I don’t understand,” she said, “is why you did it.”

So, there it was: I could slide into an easy lie or bury my lack of honesty by fessing up.

“I did it for you,” I said.

She held my gaze and I held hers. Neither of us smiled to comfy-up the situation, or did that raised eyebrow thing. We just clocked each other and - without any of the usual bullshit to soften the truth - I saw that her parents would hate me, that I might have to give up the geezer life and get a proper job, and, most of all, that she saw me as someone with guts, so guts was what I’d need forever from then on.

Oh, yes, forget that dark tunnel under the water, this was my real nemesis.

“I’d be right honored,” I said, “if you’d accept an invitation to dine with me.”

She nodded. “I would be right honored to accept.”

Which made me feel totally manly for the first time in my life, truth be told. But there was pain, too, since I knew who I most had to thank for it, and it would take the rest of me lifetime, no doubt, to work out what ex actly went on under the river that night.