How to Rob a Bank

Positioned alongside the aerial, he stretched to cut its cable and set it free.

‘I’m just going to let it fall, so mind yourself,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you getting squashed. There’d be a terrible mess to clean up.’

He stretched to get at the white cord.

‘Oops,’ he said.

The ladder strained with metallic groans. Dad swore.

And, very slowly but with unceasing inevitability, he lost his balance.

He managed to fall head first, knocking the aerial to one side and slipping quickly on his belly down the damp tiles. I jumped from the ladder and briefly stood with my arms out underneath the gutter, as he slid down the slate, at the point where he might land.

He screamed swearwords as his arms, head, chest and legs slipped into empty air.

I braced myself to be struck by Dad’s heavy body. He jolted to a stop. The turn-up of his right jean had caught on a nail. His body swung inwards and smacked against my sister’s bedroom window. The glass wobbled but didn’t break and Dad hung face down from the guttering.

He swore once more.

Rita appeared at her window, screamed and pulled the curtains together.

Standing under my father’s reddening face, a gap of about three metres separating his head from mine, I asked if he were okay.

‘Does it look like I’m okay? Get your mother!’ he hissed. ‘Quickly, Dylan!’

But Mum was already outside, standing next to Rita and holding Rita’s hand.

‘What should we do?’ she asked.

Dad dropped a centimetre as his denim ripped.

Spit rained as he replied.

‘Move the ladder, for Christ’s sake!’

I moved the ladder. Its legs scraped along the ground.

Upside down, he told me to grip its base.

He managed to get his hands on the sides of the ladder. As he did, the denim tore free and he swung one hundred and eighty degrees. The ladder shifted slightly, but heroically I held it from falling. Dad’s legs swept past the top of my head and his feet found a rung. They struck the ladder with a metallic clang.

He was safe.

I stepped out of the way as he climbed down. His face was as red as an Arsenal shirt.

‘You okay?’ asked Mum. ‘You were swearing ever so much … the neighbours …’

He patted my back.

‘Good job, son,’ he said. ‘What a team. Sorry about the swearing.’

‘The aerial’s still just hanging there,’ said Rita.

Dad ignored her.

We went back to the sofa. Dad brought through a beer from the kitchen. A length of denim trailed from his right leg like a snake had its fangs caught in his ankle. He offered me a beer, but I turned it down. It’s best your parents don’t think you drink.

‘Close shave, Dylan,’ he said. ‘Close shave. Should get these bad boys framed.’ (He meant his jeans.) ‘Put them on the wall like footballers do their shirts. I could’ve died out there. Funny how life turns on insignificant details. Like the type of trousers you’re wearing. There’s a film in that. The Right Trousers.’

He pulled open his beer can. Foam rose and he took the can to his mouth quickly, his eyes rolling.

‘Let’s watch something,’ he said, when he’d finished gulping. ‘Take our minds off things.’

As he’d just escaped death, I couldn’t say no.

Office Space was funny. In a not-laughing-out-loud, grown-up comedy way. The main character, Peter, gets hypnotised to cope with work stress. But the hypnotist dies of a heart attack before breaking Peter’s trance. As a consequence of his altered state, Peter doesn’t care about anything and goes through his days only doing stuff that makes him happy. (A bit like Rita.) He gets promoted at work. He gets a sexy girlfriend (young Jennifer Aniston). I guess there’s a life lesson there, but, anyway, although it’s never made entirely clear, the main character and his friends essentially work for a bank. And what do you do when you work for a bank? You conspire to rob the bank.

‘Are there loads of films about robbing banks?’ I dare to ask Dad.

‘It’s a whole genre,’ he says, without turning from the screen. ‘The heist. It’s human nature to want something without having to work for it. Like you and your GCSEs.’

As the end credits rolled Dad asked if I fancied another film. The night was yet young. Rita was out drinking. Mum was exercising. We could easily fit another movie in.

I grunted something noncommittal thinking, Fine as long as it was nothing with Emma Stone.

As he scrolled through the options, I thought about Office Space. Or, more particularly, Peter’s plan for stealing money. Even though the film was set in 1999, before Chelsea or Man City won stuff, Peter didn’t use a gun or a note. He used computer code, programmed to take tiny amounts from all the financial transactions managed by the company’s servers. The money taken at each calculation would be too small to be noticed. However, because of the huge amount of transactions, the amount of ‘stolen’ cash would soon grow. This was a film and fictional thieves can’t get away with breaking the law, so it turns out the code is faulty. Loads of money is taken over a single weekend and the three robbers are screwed, but—

Dad asked if I preferred the Coen brothers or Wes Anderson. But what if a code like the one in Office Space actually existed? What if it could be bought online, on the dark Web, for example? Wouldn’t that be an easy and effective way of robbing a bank? Isn’t everything electronic these days? You wouldn’t even need a balaclava or ski mask.

‘Do you think it would work?’

‘What?’

‘A computer code? To rob a bank?’

‘Can’t see why not. If they can download pictures of naked celebs from the naked celebs’ phones, they can install shady code on a cash machine. Probably happens all the time.’

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Hmm.’

Because he was right.

Mum appeared. She was wearing sports clothes, but was also completely sweat-free. In her right hand was half a glass of white wine.

‘Can I get my boys anything?’ she said. ‘Are you about to watch something? Shove up, let us join. What a day!’

She forced herself down on to the sofa, a sofa designed for two, a sofa on which I was now squashed between Mum and Dad.

Plan: I’d pretend to need a slash but wouldn’t return. In my bedroom, I’d get on the computer and search the dark Web for code to rob banks. Here was a path forward, and it made me feel light-headed like I’d had a glass or two of Mum’s wine.