Oh no! Not the Blogosphere!

At the sound of the doorbell, Harvey leapt behind the chair and pulled his legs in tight. It had to be John Rawlins or, more likely, one of his ‘bailiffs’ come to collect payment for the doorstep loan that he had taken out two months ago. He had known at the time that it was a bad idea, but what choice had he had? Mother had needed the operation and she had finally used up all his patience and worn him down to such an extent that he would have done anything to shut her up. Well, almost anything; one thought had crept into his mind unbidden, but he had dismissed it almost immediately. He knew she was in pain, but did she have to tell him about it all the time? Actually, it wasn’t even that she told him of it a hundred times a day that got him down: he could handle that - just. No what really dragged him down was that every time she told him of her pain, she would end the bulletin with a confident assertion as to how a good son would have the wherewithal to help his mother when she needed him. That was what she always did: complain about her lot and then turn it round to make it his fault. Well no, perhaps he wasn’t a good son, but the fact was that he had nothing to be good with: even the house was hers. When Rawlins’ men had come last month, he hadn’t been ready with the money. The only course available to him at the time had been to launch into a detailed explanation of the nature of his difficulty in the hope that it would appeal to their better natures. The silence they maintained during the course of this explanation had worked upon his nerves until at last, perceiving that he was wasting his time and theirs, he had stopped and simply asked them point-blank: ‘would it be alright for you to come back tomorrow?’ In return they had quickly disavowed him of any impression that it was alright, by taking it in turns to punch him the stomach while the other held him down in a chair. They had left Harvey in no doubt whatsoever that if the money was not forthcoming the next day - with an extra day’s interest – then they wouldn’t ‘go so easy’ and would ‘leave off the tickling’ in favour of something more ‘thought provoking’. What was more, they had also explained with admirable eloquence, that now Harvey had let them down, and by implication, Mr. Rawlins too, he was marked out as a bad payer for whom a special circle of Hell was all prepared. When they called again the next day, the money had been there and, apparent from some ‘good natured’ jostling, Harvey had been spared further unpleasantness. A month had passed since then and their next visit was drawing near. Harvey had planned to be out as there was no way he could repeat the superhuman efforts of the previous month to gather the money together, but it seemed they had pre-empted him. He looked around in desperation at his paltry surroundings too see if there was anything of value to offer them, but he already knew the answer: he knew the value of each and every item to a fence or pawnbroker as well as he knew his own name and it wouldn’t be enough, not by a country mile, not even with what cash he did have. He curled up in despair, as though kissing his kneecaps goodbye, and waited for the inevitable assault on his door and the threats through the letterbox, but nothing happened. Patience was not one of Rawlins’ virtues, Harvey knew: he had worked for the man for a time, he still did really. Once you got onto Rawlins’ payroll, there was only one way out and it didn’t require a pension scheme. He edged his head slowly around the chair, like a child watching Dr. Who, in an unsuccessful attempt to observe the caller unseen. Everything outside seemed still, so he scuttled across to the window on all fours and peeped warily above the sill, utilising the space between it and the grubby net curtains. Standing at the door Harvey saw a tall, slight man who consisted entirely of just three colours. His top hat, tailed three-piece suit and livid lips all shared the same shocking shade of raspberry; his gloves, hair, waxed moustache and goatee all matched the glossy black perfection of his patent leather shoes and of his face and his shirt, the latter was only slightly more pale than the former. He stood at Harvey’s door with the imperturbable stillness of a photograph, like a living ‘Autochrome Lumière’ of a carpet bagging snake oil seller from the American West. He most certainly didn’t give Harvey the impression that he was one of Rawlins’ goons.