STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Two                                                                                                         Part fie


          There was nothing left to be read on the sign at the top of the steps on the pavement.  It had been faded by the sun and warped by the rain for over fifty years.  At the bottom of the steps the three golden balls still hung over the shop door.  The door dinged open and shut.  Joe stood alone, his eyes adjusted to the gloom.  The pawn shop was dark and poky and secretive below street level.  There were cupboards all around the walls, some glass fronted and some not, some of them were padlocked, all of them were dingy with age and neglect.  Joe looked at the old and battered shoes, caps and hats, cameras and transistors, all of them dejected and forsaken. Each item sat quietly beneath its layers of grey dust and tried to forget its former glory and lost pride.  Under the glass topped counter there was a show of tinny trinkets and cheap jewellery, all thrown together in a mangled scrappy mess.
              Joe put a string of pearls on the counter.  Their creamy whiteness gleamed in the dull light.  The necklace had a gold clasp and the fine pearls started off small at each end and grew steadily and neatly larger until they were full and gorgeous in the middle.  They had been his grandmother's.  She used to tell  him stories of the seas.  One story for each pearl, stories of mermaids and seahorses and many coloured fish and secret caves and swaying plants and coral like jewels.  After each story his granny would put the pearls under his pillow so that his dreaming sleep would be deep in the silence of the ocean.  When she died Joe had stolen the pearls from her jewellery box and had always kept them safe on a bed of cotton wool inside a scratched tobacco tin.
              The pawnbroker's footsteps shuffled from the back room up to the counter.  His grim mouth closed tight and his breath labouring through the thick hairs in his nostrils.  Joe looked down at the small, frail man whose slippers were too big and whose badly fitting suit was all crumpled.  His face was sallow and his hair and whiskers were grey.  He had a long nose and sad, brown, spaniel eyes.
" Hello Shylock!" said Joe
" That's not my name " said the old man, weary of the old joke.  He screwed an eye piece deep into his eye socket and picked up the necklace,    
" Samuel is my name."  The pearls left a pattern in the thick dust that covered the counter top.
" They're real.  Must be worth well over a ton." said Joe.  The old jew shook his head.
" They're good imitations.  I'll give you fifteen pounds."
Joe remembered his granny, her terrible colour taste, her rotten teeth and her foul perfume.  Of course they were imitations.  But her stories were still real.  "O.K." said Joe.
"Will you come back for them or should I sell them?"
" I'll come back."
Mr. Samuels filled in a ticket and pushed it towards him with the money.
"You're crazy." he said
"I know." said Joe.  This admission rang through his head like something sad and confused.  He had never felt crazy before and it was not because he was pawning his grandmother's pearls, it was everything else.


                The betting shop was seedy and smokey.  The floor was already full of fag ash and the paintwork wa yellow with nicotine.  Many devoted clients, all poor and ruined, stood around waiting.  Joe filled out his betting slip and took it to the counter.  He waited for the race.  Eventually it came up on T.V. high up on a corner shelf. The jockeys were dressed in loud colours, they gripped their sleek horses with knocked knees, pushed their backsides into the air and whacked their mounts with thin whips.  The horses held their noses forward and their heads low as their hooves galloped and the wet turf flew.  The commentator gabbled and then stopped.  And suddenly all but five pounds of granny's  pearls was lost many miles away northwards in a place called Doncaster, on a no good nag called Skinny Ginny.


                The Drake's head was throbbing with the hum of a hundred conversations frequently broken by raucous laughter.  The dart board and the pool table were in use.  The juke box pounded and the fruit machines jangled.  The paintwork was stained and faded, the floor was worn, the woodwork chipped and scratched.  It was a place of mindless drinking and thoughtless laughter for street con men, marketeers, old hags and young tarts, their souls full of spit, their minds full of sawdust.  But Annie always shone.  Regulars would wander in casually as if they were passing with nothing better to do, but their eyes like their livers were always too hungry and their coins always too ready.  Annie served them efficiently.  Their drinks came fast, their money rang into the till and their change put back on the bar to wait for a while before it went back into the till for another drink.
                 A young barman was washing glasses.  Annie left him behind the bar to serve while she nipped out to collect the empties.  Joe watched her.  She was dressed to seduce in a tight dress and stiletto heels.  Most succumbed to her sex appeal, it oozed and it lingered.  Annie loved life.  She enjoyed her widowhood and the business it had left her with.  She pecked Joe on the cheek on her way back to the bar,
" What are you looking at?"
" You!" he said.  He settled himself on a stool and she served him with a pint.
" So what's this thing with Jason?" she asked.
"Ah ha!" Joe said, tapping his nose secretively.  " Is Maria about?"
"No, of course not.  She never stays after she's cleaned up.  Why?"
Joe did not know why he had asked, but he felt easier knowing that she was not around.
" She's probably in church confessing for all the things she hasn't done yet." said Annie.  Joe laughed at the joke but the thought disturbed him.
" Do us a meat pie luv?" he said
               The microwaved pastry was burning hot and soggy, the filling was lukewarm and the meat was not meat but gristle.  Joe chewed on a piece over and over, while his mind worked in the same way on his next move to solve his money problem.  Neither the gristle or the money problem would budge.
               The soft sarcastic tones of Jason Donaldson whispered behind Joe's ear  " Still got an appetite then!"  Jason's words took his appetite away.  Joe swallowed hard and pushed the rest of the pie away.  "Very well done my son, very well done." said Jason heaving his horrible mass onto a bar stool next to Joe and leaning close "I've got another one for you."
"Already !"
" That was Friday and tomorrow, very early in the morning is Sunday.  It's another week my son.  Another week, another job.  Here's the details."
He handed Joe a crumpled up brown paper bag which Joe put in his jacket.  Jason was served with a triple vodka.  " So how are you finding it all Joey boy?"
" I wish it paid more." said Joe flatly.  Jason knocked back his vodka and stood up to go.
" I'll give you something for this one." he said pressing two old pennies, black with age and grime, into Joe's palm, " For the poor sod's eyes, for the ferryman"