CATCH 51

The chance discovery of a banknote inside a classic book leads a young man to a dilemma on the riverside, in a tale about loyalty, love and pop culture.

Before I became an 'ad man', I used to know a musician named Finn Barber. He'd had a minor hit early on in his career in some rockabilly outfit but now toured the UK and Europe in a twelve-piece rhythm & blues band playing lead guitar. Seven or eight years older than me, he had an uncanny knack for finding the zeitgeist, the moment. He was an unlikely champion for Drum & Bass and an early advocate for ecstasy; passions he shared freely alongside real-ale and the novels of Raymond Chandler.

Once in a very spur of the moment way, Finn shouted down at me from his window and invited me up to his flat to hear a new record he feverishly exclaimed was the best single produced since Tubeway Army's Are 'Friends' Electric.

'You're going to love this Guy, trust me.'

I waited for the record-player's needle, already certain Finn had something new and seismic that was sure to blow my mind.

He played Suede's Animal Nitrate three more times to make his point, then suddenly announced he was going for a shower and then getting changed to go out.

'Help yourself to a drink and make yourself at home, I'll be ten minutes.'

He shared his apartment with his French girlfriend, Sophie. They'd been together years judging by the collection of photo-booth strips pinned to the kitchen wall. I took a can of Stella from the fridge and went back to the lounge. The room was pleasantly unfashioned I recall, like a long dining table laid out with mismatched china plates and cutlery.

A Moroccan rug lay across the bare wooden floor with a saggy brown corduroy sofa which appeared to have put up more than its fair share of bassists and saxophone-players over its long years. An Art Deco lamp with a green globe perched itself on a tall and elegant glass and chrome table scattered with old Time Out magazines, blue Rizla papers and video-cassette rentals, seemingly screened on a tiny portable TV next to the stereo. Two guitars hung like paintings above it with a framed film poster of Alex Cox's 'Sid & Nancy'.

An overcrowded bookcase was the only item in the room that seemed to be in any random order, there was a philosophy and modern art section that I took it be hers and a crime-fiction shelf that started with Sherlock Holmes and ended with Philip K Dick.

I don't know why but the spine of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 caught my eye on the shelf above. Pulling it out, I glanced at the reviews on back cover before reading the green ink inscription at the front. 'To F, in case you ever get caught! Love E xx'

I wish I'd put the book back but I didn't, I flicked through the thick tome like a phone-directory and in the middle page, found a clean fresh Fifty Pound note winking at me.

'Have you ever read Joseph Heller's Catch 22?' I eventually found the courage to ask Finn outside the riverside pub we often drank in.

He pondered my question for a few nervous seconds and then shook his head. 'No, I don't think I have. I saw the film once , it's not very good, although I seem to remember Orson Welles is in it. Why do you ask?'

'I studied if for A'Level, it's a good book.'

Finn seemed to approve my recommendation and convinced me he knew nothing of the money inside it or anything about F and E. It was a worn old paperback he'd probably picked up in a jumble-sale or a copy one of his guests had left behind. We all had a Catch 22 or something like it on a shelf at home, a story recommended but never read.

'Did Heller write anything else after that?' He inquired.

'I'm not sure, I think he was a bit of a one-hit wonder.' I said as I took our empty glasses and suddenly realised how crass my answer might have sounded to him. 'Can I get you another Finn?'

I was ready to come clean about the book after I came back, a voice in my head was nagging me to tell Finn the truth.

'No, it's my round, you got the first two.' Finn got up from his seat and when he returned some while later with our pints, Sophie was at his side.

'Finn's been telling me all about Catch 22, it means it's a dilemma, is that right?'

'Yes, an impossible situation where there's no way out.'

'No way out?' Sophie repeated as she tilted her glass of red wine to her lips. 'There's always a way.' She announced, as if I were her only audience.

She was very attractive in that confident European way and quickly made me feel less so around her. Slim and elegant, like that chrome and glass table-stand back at the flat, she had a glow about her, which instantly drew me in.

She worked in fashion, Finn had told me, regularly flying to Paris and Milan. They'd met at art school, I remembered, were just like 'Simone de Beauvoir and Paul Satre.' she said.

'Right Fig, we better go soon or we'll miss the boat.'

'Fig?' I questioned.

'All my close friends call me Fig.' Sophie casually explained. 'It's a name my Papa gave me when I was little girl growing up in the Provence.'

'Fig's from quite an aristocratic family, aren't you? She grew up in a chateau, not like me and you.'

'Don't listen to him.' She protested in mild amusement.

'Why Fig?' I asked.

Sophie glanced at the Roman numerals on the small rectangular face of her wristwatch, it looked expensive and valuable like her and I couldn't help think that together, the pair of them appeared as mismatched as silver fish-knife and a wooden spoon.

'In France we had a huge fig tree in the garden that bore wonderful fruit every summer. When I was small, my parents told me that I was always picking them off the leaves, even though the only figs I could reach at that age hadn't ripened and made me feel sick when I ate them. It seems I didn't learn.'

I liked her story and that vague, dreamy cut-glass accent of hers that seemed to go straight for my heart. Was I a fig to her? I wondered, an unripened fruit waiting to be picked off and devoured.

'Did you remember to buy a card for Eleanor, Fig? Perhaps I should sign it too.'

'I've already signed it from both of us Finn, I'm afraid the envelope's sealed.'

I sneaked the corner of a small red envelope tucked into her handbag. Could F be Fig and the mysterious Eleanor, E? 'To F, in case you ever get caught! Love E, kiss-kiss.'

'Why doesn't your young friend come with us if he likes, I'm sure we can get him aboard. We're going on a river boat, it's a birthday party for someone I work with, it might be fun for you.'

I wanted to accept her invite but found myself looking at Finn for his approval, I felt it was his call but his thoughts were hidden behind a pair of black plastic Ray-Bans, the ones he always wore whether it was day or night, sunny or grey.

'I'm sorry Guy but Fig didn't get back from Italy until yesterday and I'm travelling up to Liverpool on Sunday with the band, you understand, don't you?'

'Of course.' I pretended. 'I understand Finn, I'd just be a gooseberry anyway.'

My farewell to Sophie felt strangely platonic rather than the passionate embrace I'd foreseen but I had a strong hunch that I'd see her again. I was wrong of course, that Friday evening on the River was the last time I saw Fig again.

I heard about the tragedy on the radio the next day. The pleasure boat where the party was held had been hit by a Thames dredger, causing the boat to break-up and sink shortly after the collision. Many of the young party-goers were trapped below decks or drowned waiting to be rescued from the water. Of the 131 people counted for, 51 died that summer's night on The Marchioness, as I slept soundly through their screams and shouts for help.

A week passed before I read that the body of a French heiress had been found near Blackfriars Bridge. 'Aged 29, she worked in fashion and was unmarried.' the paper ambiguously reported. It turned out Fig had quarreled with Finn after they left me and for whatever the reason, boarded the boat on her own.

About a month later, I was relieved to find my old friend sitting outside the same pub on the riverbank. Up close, he looked a broken man and I'm not sure he noticed or heard me when I told him how very sorry I was about Fig. I'd lied that evening too, I told him but it didn't matter then or now.

'I meant to tell you, I've never read Catch 22 either Finn.'

"It was an impossible situation, there was no way out for her, none at all." I heard Finn repeat again and again, like a scratched record left spinning on an abandoned deck.

Catch 51 is written by Tim Synge of Old Coves