The Desert Run Read online

  “But why would they do that? I mean, surely they’re looking for the best candidate?”

  “I dunno. Maybe his dad goes to the same golf club? Maybe he’s gay and they’re fucking each other? You wait. The VP guy is supposed to be in on all our individual interviews this afternoon. I bet you he doesn’t even bother with the rest of us.” Mo stopped and took another bite.

  “But why would they bother with the interviews if they already know they want him?”

  Mo looked at me like I was a bit slow.

  “It’s the law, innit? They have to show they’re equal opportunity employers. Why do you think I’m here?”

  Now I frowned at him, not following.

  “Dark skin? Foreign-sounding name? I tick the ethnic minority box. Oh, yeah. I get a lot of lunches like this. No job offers, though. That all you’re eating?”

  “What?”

  “You might as well have a decent lunch is all. Since that’s all you’re getting out of this.”

  Behind Mo, I noticed Helen was standing alone, balancing a plate of sandwiches and looking about for somewhere to stand and eat them. I wasn’t prepared to give up yet on this job, so I excused myself from Mo and went and asked her some of my pre-prepared questions about the company. Soon, a couple of the other candidates joined us, and we spent the rest of the lunch competing to try and ask the most intelligent questions. I nearly forgot what Mo had said. But at one point I did notice that Pete and the VP both seemed to have disappeared.

  The afternoon was set aside for the individual interviews and presentations. We were given half-hour time slots each, and told we could go away and come back in time for our slot if we wanted. The first to go in was Pete. I was last, so I went out for a walk to go through my presentation a few more times in my head. I came back at quarter to five, ready for my interview at last, and sweated for ten minutes until I got called in. Inside, there was a desk with three chairs, Helen was in one, the HR guy in another.

  “I’m afraid Mr Oliver has been called away,” she said, meaning the VP. “Something very urgent has come up which needs his immediate attention. But if you’d like to give us your presentation now that would be great.” She smiled at me like she really didn’t know this was all a giant waste of our time.

  I still gave it my best shot. The presentation, and then the questions that followed. But I knew, and I realised Helen knew too. And the HR guy who kept looking at his watch like he’d had a really hard day doing fuck all. We all knew there was never any job in the first place. For them I was just an interesting day with free sandwiches for lunch. For me I’d thrown away my fragile grip on getting by for nothing.

  12

  “Hey mate, you look like you need to get pissed!”

  This was right after I’d finished the interview. I was walking down the street, trying to decide whether I should keep walking all the way home or wait for a bus which I probably couldn’t afford now. I turned around, and it was Mo, standing there.

  “I saw you from the window,” he explained, pointing to the pub I’d just walked past. “I’m drowning my sorrows. You wanna join me for one?” I guessed he wanted to tell me he’d been right all along, but that was OK with me. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the flat and face my messed up life. I followed Mo back into the pub and sat down in a little window booth while he went to the bar.

  “So, how many did you get for your interview?” he asked, putting a pint of Stella in front of each of us.

  “Just the woman and the HR guy.”

  “Told you, man.”

  I didn’t reply at first.

  “You never know,” I said at last. “They might not just give it to Pete.”

  “I love your optimism. I’ve signed up for the company blog. Just so I can see it announced in a few weeks that Peter whatever his name has joined the management training scheme.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while. I still hadn’t touched my pint.

  “You know, I pretty much lost my job to come to this interview?”

  “What job?”

  “Petrol station attendant.”

  “That sucks.”

  I didn’t know if he meant my losing the job sucked, or just the job itself. I didn’t bother trying to clarify.

  “Say, do you really like rollerblading on the seafront? I can’t see you doing that.”

  I smiled weakly. “No. I just couldn’t think of anything else to say. It was either that or say I like to get stoned and play Call of Duty on the Xbox.”

  Mo laughed. “I wish you had, would’ve been funny.”

  We both drank from our pints. I was clearly playing catch-up since Mo already had two empty glasses in front of him. Maybe it was this, or maybe he was just a really easy guy to talk to, but suddenly I thought how odd it was that I’d just mentioned getting stoned to a stranger. I never did that. I never brought up the subject of drugs. It wasn’t just that it was illegal. It was that some people disapproved, and you never could tell with people at first. But with Mo I’d just come out and said it. And he seemed totally cool with it. But it got me thinking in the background of whatever we were talking about. I guess that’s part of what happened next.

  “So, you live around here?” I said a while later. It must have been a while because there were quite a few empty pint glasses on the table now. By then, an idea had started to form in my mind. A crazy idea, but I couldn’t shake it.

  “Nah. I’m down from London. I’ve got an off-peak ticket, so I’ve got to hang around a bit.” I nodded. Whenever I got the train home to see Dad I did the same thing to save money.

  “And where are you from? Originally, I mean.” I know you’re not meant to ask questions like that, but like I say, I had this idea.

  “London.”

  “No, like your parents and that?”

  Mo looked at me like he was wondering if he’d misjudged me.

  “Morocco. Well, my mum’s Moroccan. Dad’s from south London.”

  I knew it. You could tell from his features. He looked just like the people we’d seen out there the summer before.

  “Cool. So what, were you born there or over here?”

  “I was born there. We lived there until I was twelve. Then Dad moved us to the UK.”

  “That must be weird,” I said, and when he didn’t answer, I went on.

  “So, do you still have friends out there? Family? People you keep in touch with?”

  “Yeah. Some. Why are you so interested?” He was looking at me like I’d annoyed him, but he wasn’t really sure what to make of me. I decided to roll back a bit.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just I went to Morocco the other summer, on holiday.”

  “Oh, right.” This satisfied him a little, so I pressed on.

  “Must be annoying, huh? Living somewhere with such great dope when you’re too young to smoke it, and then moving here?” I gave him a big smile to show I didn’t mean anything by this, I was just making conversation. But all the same, I saw the curious look on his face go deeper.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said slowly. “I mean you can still get it here if you want to. It doesn’t really bother me either way. I’m not really into it.”

  “Oh, me neither,” I said quickly, then added as casually as I could. “Listen. This is going to sound a bit weird, but...” I paused, just long enough to question whether I was mad to bring this up, but not long enough to stop completely.

  “A mate of mine has this crazy idea that he’s going to drive down to Morocco and buy a load of dope to bring back. I was wondering if you might know, you know, where to go, how someone would get hold of it in the first place?”

  “Fucking hell, Jake, what kind of a question is that?”

  I panicked. I couldn’t believe the words had actually come out of my mouth.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m just... You know, I’ve got this mate who’s always going on about it. I thought if you grew up there, maybe you’d know someone...” It was the bee
r talking. That and the release of the pressure from the interview.

  “You say some fucking random stuff don’t you?” He laughed at me and I felt an idiot. But rather than continue to be annoyed, Mo seemed suddenly interested. He leaned forward so we wouldn’t be overheard.

  “So how much does he want to bring back?”

  I looked back at Mo. All the suspicion from his face had gone. He was smiling now, enjoying the turn of the conversation.

  “Come on? How much?” he said again.

  “I don’t know, exactly. He’s got this idea to bring in enough to pay off all our debts, maybe a hundred kilos.”

  Mo whistled and leaned back again in his chair.

  “He’ll never do it,” I said quickly. “But I was just wondering, you know.” I shut up, feeling suddenly stupid, Mo looked thoughtful.

  “It’s easy enough to get a little bit,” he said, a moment later. “But I don’t know about a big load like that. Don’t you know anyone there who can help you?”

  “No. That’s the thing. How do we... my mate, I mean, how does he know who to trust? That’s why it’s such a crazy idea.”

  And then, just like that, Mo solved the problem.

  “I reckon my cousin could sort him out. He lives near Marrakech. He knows people who... You’d have to give him a cut or whatever. But that’s OK, isn’t it?”

  I blinked a couple of times before answering this. Through the fuzz of the beer, this was actually happening.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” And for a moment, I wasn’t listening to Mo anymore. I suddenly realised that this was it. The good feeling I’d had all along about that stupid job, it hadn’t been about the job at all. It was this. This contact with Mo had been the good fortune I’d sensed. I felt a little sick at the implication.

  “I’ll text him now. See what he says.” Mo leaned to one side to dig his phone from the pocket of his suit trousers. He keyed in a code and popped open his messenger screen. I couldn’t read the screen from where I was sitting, but I could see they sent lots of messages back and forth.

  “Woah , what are you going to say?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

  Mo shrugged. “I’ll just ask him. It’s alright. It’s WhatsApp, it’s encryted innit?”

  I sat back and watched as Mo typed something into the message box and added a smiley face at the end. Then he hit send, and I imagined who might be about to receive it.

  “So, what’s he like, your cousin?” I asked.

  “He’s alright. We grew up together, before I moved over here. He’s a motorbike mechanic, you know, scooters and that. You must have seen them everywhere?”

  I had. I tried to imagine a young Moroccan man reaching for his phone in a filthy street garage somewhere, perhaps wiping his greasy hands on a rag before picking it up. I saw a workshop, nothing more than a front room, really, open to the traffic on one side, a few tools lying around a dismantled scooter, a radio blaring Arabic music. A topless calendar on the wall, the face of the model veiled. Mo’s phone screen lit up. A reply was here already and this time I saw it. Just one word.

  “What?!”

  Mo frowned and his fingers bashed out another message. This time I leant in so I could see.

  “Just asking! Do you know anyone who could help?”

  There was no delay this time.

  “Probably, but it’s a stupid idea.”

  Mo shrugged at me and texted back.

  “I’m not doing it. Asking for a friend. Would be a cut for you, though.”

  A minute of silence later, and then:

  “How much do you want?”

  Mo looked at me for confirmation, and I shrugged.

  “Go for it,” I said. “A hundred kilos.”

  The corners of Mo’s eyes crinkled with the fun of it.

  “That’s a lot of fucking dope!” He said. He typed it in, though.

  “What?” came back again pretty quickly, then a second message.

  “You serious about this?”

  “I’m seriously asking,” Mo typed back.

  There was a longer pause this time. I tried to image Mo’s cousin thinking hard before he replied.

  “OK. I can probably sort something.”

  Mo looked at me with a huge grin. “Come on, mate. You definitely owe me another drink for that.”

  I slipped off my stool, floated unsteadily to the bar and got our fifth pints in. Or it might have been sixth by then.

  13

  I got to the flat just after midnight, still in my suit and pissed as hell. And if I’d started drinking to forget my sorrows, it certainly worked. I’d forgotten all about the interview, and with the booze, I’d forgotten all the reasons I thought Ben’s dope plan was ridiculous. Now it was a great idea, and best of all, I was suddenly the one who made it all possible. Just like that, I had a contact, thousands of miles away, who could actually set us up with the dope.

  I knocked on Ben’s door. It was one in the morning by then and even through my drunkenness, I realised he was asleep. But I had to tell him the news, right then, so I kept knocking until he opened it, standing there with a towel wrapped around his waist. Looking sleepy and annoyed.

  “Ben,” I slurred. “I’ve got a contact to get the dope!”

  He stared at me, and either he was swaying slightly—along with the whole doorway—or more likely I was.

  “Who?”

  “I met a guy. He’s called Mo. He grew up in Morocco, and his cousin knows people who can get it. They can get as much as we need.”

  At this, Ben stepped outside his door and pulled it closed behind him.

  “What are you talking about?” He asked.

  “I met a guy. At the interview.”

  “What? How did you get talking about that at a job interview?”

  “It was in the pub afterwards.” I beamed triumphantly. I had to put my hand on his doorframe to stay standing. Ben stared at me. I could see he was still angry about me waking him up, but also that he was interested. I knew he would be.

  “We need to talk about this in the morning.”

  “No no no no. It’s alright. I can show you him. Mo texted me a photo. He’s called Ahmed. He fixes motorbikes. You remember we saw them everywhere when we were there? We can have a joint as well.” I’d already scouted around downstairs for Ben’s stash, but he’d taken it upstairs with him, and now I tried to push past into his room.

  “No, mate.” He blocked me with his body. “Let’s look tomorrow.”

  I shook my head and tried to say it was alright, we should look now, but he blocked my entrance into his room again. I didn’t understand, I kept trying to push past.

  “Jake.”

  “Come on, mate. Let’s have a smoke, and I’ll show you.”

  “Jake... I’m not alone.”

  Even in my drunken state, this caused me to pause.

  “What?”

  “I’ve got someone in there.”

  “What? Like a girl?”

  “Yeah, like a girl. So we’ll talk about this tomorrow?”

  “Oh, right.” I felt deflated but not defeated. “Can I just get a joint, then?”

  “Fucking hell, Jake.” Ben shook his head in annoyance. But he sorted me out. He told me to wait in the hallway and he went back into his room to get his stash. As the door opened, I saw the end of his bed: there was a pair of feet there half poking out the end of his duvet. I tried to crane my neck to see higher up the legs, but then Ben came back, plastic bag in hand.

  “Who is it?” I asked, grinning and pointing. “Anyone I know?”

  “No. Now fuck off, will you? We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  And then, just as I was I stumbling away down the hall he called me back.

  “Jake!”

  I turned round.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well done mate. Nice one.” He gave me a grin and then retreated back into his room, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.

  The next morning, I woke up feeling cold, c
lammy, dehydrated and needing a piss—pretty much my standard hangover. I staggered between the bathroom and my bed a few times, and by midmorning, I felt OK to get up. I came downstairs and found Ben sitting, looking on the Internet. He was alone; I was too late to get a look at the girl he’d pulled.

  “Dude,” he said as I walked in. “You were pretty far gone last night!”

  I ignored this and dropped into a chair beside him.

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t know you had someone in there.”

  Ben waved this away with his hand.

  “That’s alright. You did me a favour. After you woke me up, we had another go.” He grinned at me again and moved the conversation on. “So, come on. Tell me about this contact you’ve made.”

  I told Ben all about what had happened. In the relative harshness of the morning after, it sounded a bit less brilliant to me, but Ben seemed impressed. More than impressed, really. He thought it was fantastic. And the more we talked it through, the more plausible it all became to me too.

  The summer we went to Morocco on holiday, we’d been terrified that when we bought any dope from the guys on the streets, we’d actually be buying from an undercover cop, out to catch tourists. We had a guidebook that said this could happen, and that if it did, you could be facing ten years in prison. Everyone we talked to said this was bullshit, that the chances of getting caught were tiny, but the idea of ten years in prison does kind of play on the mind. But using Mo’s cousin, and the chance way it had come about, Ben decided it almost totally got around the problem of being unlucky and trying to buy from undercover cops.

  “It’s the randomness of it that’s so awesome,” he said, after I’d been through it several times.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, not really believing it again, now I was sober.

  “There’s no way this guy can be working undercover. It just wouldn’t make sense. Working in a motorbike garage, waiting for his cousin to text him because some random English guy wants some help buying a hundred kilos of dope. It’s totally random.”