A Man Melting

by Craig Cliff

  In Madrid, Rosa had worked in the wing of the Reina Sofia which housed Guernica, though she was still a few years of Gargallos and Mirós away from keeping watch over Picasso’s famous mural. She’d needed a certain amount of English in her job, as did Bembe at the Spanish Treasury, but both felt that in learning English at school they had been given a box of crayons but were now allowed to use only blue-violet and forest green.

  Way back when Bembe had made his first move on Rosa, she had teased him for looking Scottish. Though his hair was a shade lighter than the average Madrileño, his cheeks flecked with freckles, he was unlikely to have made the cut as an extra in Braveheart. But even when the joke was forgotten, they continued to discuss spending a year in Britain to revive their flagging English. When a security guard began paying Rosa an unnatural amount of attention, it was the final push they needed to stop talking about it and book plane tickets.

  Their choice of Edinburgh was nothing to do with Bembe’s appearance, at least as far as he was concerned. It was the fact that everyone said the people were friendlier there than in London (it never occurred to him that an excess of friendliness would be a problem) and he could still work in finance and Rosa in one of the many museums in the Scottish capital.

  But the job hunt was full of frustrations. They only wanted to stay for one year — real life could only be put on hold for so long — but all of the jobs they circled were permanent. No one seemed willing to bend the rules.

  When Bembe spoke to recruitment firms, explained his skills and the type of job he was after, they were always enthusiastic — until he raised the twelve months.

  ‘That’ll mean you’re after temporary roles,’ Barbara from Books Recruitment had said.

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Okay. Well, you can still come in for an interview. But you’ll be seeing Lindsey, she’s our temporary person. She’s just come back from Spain, actually.’

  Bembe didn’t know the expression to fob off back then, but when he learnt it, he thought of this phone conver-sation.

  Looking back, he was sure he had mentioned Rosa at his first meeting with Lindsey. How she was waitressing at an Italian restaurant (compounding the insult of working in hospitality with the hassle of national confusion). He had made a point of using plural pronouns. ‘We live in the West End.’ ‘We want to stay for one year.’

  He had been in Edinburgh for six weeks by this time, but English still felt like wearing a stranger’s suit. His subconscious, however, seemed to be adapting more quickly. His dreams all seemed to revolve around Spanish–English puns.

  A team of archers firing grains of rice (arroz).

  A horse and cart, except the cart has been replaced with a giant letter (carta) from his grandmother.

  A line of coy, blushing women, all clearly pregnant (embarazada).

  And when he laid eyes on Lindsey that first time, the word octopus had popped into his head. She had only two arms and two legs; perhaps it was not an octopus he was thinking of, but that was the word — in English — conjured up by her skinny limbs. The Spanish, pulpo, did not seem to fit. Perhaps it was more to do with the sound of the word.

  Octopus.

  While talking Lindsey through his CV at this first meeting, he stressed the fact that, although he was not technically a fully qualified accountant, his honours degree was in accountancy, and he had worked extensively on the Spanish government’s transition to International Financial Reporting Standards. After saying this in full the first time, he mimicked the other recruiters he had spoken to and said, ‘I.F.R.S.’

  Lindsey nodded vigorously throughout his speech but, when he said Eye-Eff-Are-Ess for the tenth time, she looked up from her notes and said, ‘Eiffel Rest? Can you spell that?’

  He should have known things would not turn out well.

  Then there was the phone call three days later. He had been sitting in his dressing gown, eating a bowl of Fruit ’n Fibre and watching Bargain Hunt when the phone rang.

  After a long, lopsided exchange of pleasantries, Lindsey asked, ‘Are you prepared to work in the Gyle?’

  ‘Yes. Are there buses?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘I think you’re perfect for this role. I don’t have all the details, but they are asking for someone with previous accounts experience.’ She slowed these words down, as if she was reading, or was worried about Bembe’s comprehension. ‘Office experience … Sounds perfect.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What was the minimum amount you were prepared to work for, Bembe?’

  ‘I would like ten to fifteen pounds an hour, but I want to be in work.’

  ‘I will get back to you, Bembe.’

  She said his name with relish, as if she was trying to impress a waiter at a Spanish restaurant. I’ll have the Bemmmm-beh, por favor.

  The next day, during Bargain Hunt again, Lindsey rang. ‘I’m so sorry, Bembe, but I forgot to take a copy of your passport when you came in last week, Bembe.’ He cringed at the second occurrence of his name. ‘Is it at all possible you could pop in to the office again today?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I can be there in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Oh. I was about to pop out to lunch, but if you give your passport to the receptionist, she can take a copy.’

  ‘Do I have the job?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m still trying to get a hold of Trish, the woman at Lincoln Hammond, but she’s flat out with end-of-the-month today. She’s promised to look at your CV and get back to me by tomorrow morning.’

  Tomorrow morning came and went. Then Bargain Hunt. No calls.

  At four o’clock, while Rosa was home during the break between lunch and dinner shifts at Roma Roma Roma — just why the word needed to be repeated three times, Bembe was not sure — he finally got a call from Lindsey.

  ‘Bembe, how are you?’

  ‘I am okay. How are you?’

  ‘I’m good thanks, Bembe. That’s a fantastic name, by the way. What does it mean?’

  Rosa laughed as he rolled his eyes. She kissed him on the cheek and returned to work.

  ‘It is the Spanish version of Barnaby, I believe.’ He let out a sigh, not worried if it was audible on the other end of the line or not. He just wanted her to get to the point.

  ‘Wow. I just love Spain. I had such a good time there this summer just gone.’

  ‘—’

  ‘The language, the food, the people.’

  ‘—’

  ‘Hey, so Lincoln Hammond want you to start tomorrow, is that okay?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Is that too short a notice?’

  ‘No. It is at the Gyle?’

  ‘Actually, it’s in the city. Lothian Road, I think. I have a bunch of information which I will email you.’

  ‘Okay. And the pay?’

  ‘I think it is eight.’

  He sighed. ‘Eight is okay. I want to work.’

  Lindsey rang him at quarter past eight the next morning, just as he was leaving for work, to check if he was still going in. She rang his cellphone again at ten to five to see how his first day had gone. He couldn’t say much other than ‘Good’ as he was surrounded by his new colleagues. In truth, he had been handed a pile of papers the height of his humerus and shown how to sort and file them. After finishing that lot, he was handed someone else’s backed-up filing.

  When Lindsey rang the next afternoon, he got up from his seat and walked through the fire door into the privacy of the stairwell.

  ‘I have only done filing,’ he told Lindsey.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘And yesterday.’

  ‘Oh. Have you spoken to Trish?’

  ‘There is no Trish on this floor. My supervisor, his name is Laird.’

  He was sure she said, ‘Layered?’ back to him, but did not know whether it was worth clarifying or even if he was able to.

  ‘Have they,’ Lindsey continued, ‘told you what else you will be doing?’

  ‘I do not even have a com
puter log-in. I only do filing for the whole office.’

  ‘Well, that certainly isn’t the impression Trish gave me.’

  He didn’t know where to direct his anger: at this phantom Trish or the still-chirpy Lindsey.

  ‘Listen. Leave it to me, Bembe. I will sort this out.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are you going to go in tomorrow?’

  The thought of not turning up had never occurred to him. He wondered about the kind of person who could do this.

  ‘I will work until you find me a better job.’

  Job. It was already his least favourite word in the entire language. He had to work hard to pronounce the ‘jay’ sound, rather than the Spanish jota. I want a hob. Jobs were now the bane of his existence. Not having one or having a mind-numbing one, he didn’t know which was worse. He wanted to stand up in the middle of his filing, in the middle of his cubicled, reticulated, browbeaten floor, and scream: I am better than this! I have experience. I have degrees. A high school kid could do this. Look at these paper cuts!

  If only he could be sure the words would come out.

  Back home he spoke his mind like everyone else. Even in accountancy, the realm of the introvert, and in government, the realm of the light-stepper, it was common to have a blazing row over which diaries the team was getting for the upcoming year.

  But this was not Spain.

  In this office, and in this language, he was no better than a child. He wondered how fluent he had really been back in university when he spent a semester in Toronto. What must the Canadians have thought of his misplaced confidence?

  He lasted another week at Lincoln Hammond, during which his role increased to include: removing items from files, photocopying them and refiling the original; sending faxes as and when needed; and transferring the files from the last financial year into the storage room one floor down. Still no computer access. Still no accounting.

  Lindsey rang him twice during the week. Both times she apologised for not being able to get in touch with Trish, who had been sick, apparently, and begged Bembe to stick it out until it could all be sorted.

  The longest part of these phone calls, as with any call with Lindsey, was the end. He would say, ‘Okay,’ with finality, and she would say, ‘Okay,’ with a rising inflection — not quite like a question, more like a surprise — after which she would say, ‘Have a nice evening,’ or ‘Enjoy your walk home,’ or some such platitude, and then he would say, ‘Okay,’ or return the platitude with, ‘And you too,’ and she would say, ‘Okay,’ this time with a dropping inflection, as if the word was deflating, and he would say, ‘Bye,’ and she would say, ‘Goodbye, Bembe,’ and then, ‘Bye,’ and then ‘Bye,’ again, holding the syllable as he pulled the phone away from his ear so that it sounded as if she was falling down a well. She would still be holding this final Byeeeee when he pushed the button to ring off. He imagined her walking around the rest of the day eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ing. Eeeeeeee-ing as she rode the bus. Eeeeeeee-ing as she brushed her teeth. Eee-eee-eee-ing as she slept. The only thing that would stop her eeeeeeeee-ing was dialling his number again and hearing him say, ‘Hello, this is Bembe.’

  He should not have been surprised, he really shouldn’t, when she started stalking him.

  It began the next week, when Lindsey rang to inform him that she had finally caught up with Trish, who was actually from the London branch and was the Lincoln Hammond HR manager for the whole of the UK, and that she was very shocked to hear how Bembe was being used.

  ‘She will be ringing Laird in the morning’ (when Lindsey said this, it still sounded like she was saying Layered) ‘and will straighten all this out. They do not want to be paying someone eight pounds an hour just to file.’

  Bembe, standing in the stairwell as usual, held the cellphone away from his ear and looked at it for a moment, as if this would explain what he was hearing. Here he was thinking the issue was that his skills, his talents, were being wasted. But no, it was that Lincoln Hammond might be overpaying him.

  When he bought the handset back to his ear, Lindsey was talking about getting together for a coffee or maybe lunch to make this up to him. Perhaps he was not forgotten, after all.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow I am busy,’ he replied. It was not an out-and-out lie. He was in the habit of walking home for lunch. The fifteen-minute walk there and back was punctuated by the second half of Bargain Hunt and a chance to check his emails while eating whatever leftovers Rosa had brought home from Roma Roma Roma the night before. Without that time away from the office, the time to unwind, he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself from chucking the job in a run of rage-induced broken English which would end up being entirely in Spanish, though not the sort you would use in front of your abuela.

  ‘Maybe Wednesday?’

  ‘I really do not see the point,’ Bembe said. ‘I do not blame you. I know you have been ringing this Trish. I know they say they want someone with accounting skills —’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘— so you really do not need to make anything up to me.’

  ‘But I like to meet up with all my clients from time to time —’

  Bembe was almost certain he was Lindsey’s only client currently in work, if not the first person she had ever placed. He felt he was setting an important precedent for every unfortunate soul who followed his path by standing firm and not going to lunch with Lindsey.

  She sounded confused when he told her he would rather not.

  ‘Perhaps next week?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded.

  Bembe hung up on her first Bye.

  That night he and Rosa agreed to talk about their respective jobs at the same time in order to get all the complaining and venting over and done with in half the time, leaving the rest of the evening to talk about other things. To his surprise, he ran out of gripes before Rosa. While she was still in the middle of a story about what the dessert chef had done with a wooden spoon, he placed a finger over her lips, and told her with his eyes that complaint time was over.

  The next morning there was a printout on Bembe’s workstation with a username and a phone number to ring to get a password.

  ‘Does this mean I get to use this?’ he asked no one in particular, pointing at the computer. The three other people in his pod all shrugged and returned to their spreadsheets.

  While he was on the phone to IT, the supervisor above his podmates but below Laird left a pile of papers on his desk. More filing, he thought, but then discovered a Post-it with a network file path on it.

  He didn’t know what he was going to say when Lindsey next called him. If he said he now had computer access, she would think it was because of her. But this must have been arranged long before Trish had spoken to Laird. He realised it shouldn’t be this way: that he thought of managing Lindsey before he thought of managing himself. She had become such a big part of his life, yet he’d only met her in person that one time and still thought of an octopus every time he spoke to her on the phone. An octopus with its limbs tangled and tied in knots.

  He almost didn’t recognise her standing outside the Lincoln Hammond offices the next day as he headed home for lunch. In fact, he only realised it was Lindsey after walking straight past her. She had her hands dug down into the pockets of her black overcoat, a slim leather folio resting between her arm and her side. He kept walking down Lothian Road without turning in case it was her — looking back would acknowledge her presence and compound the snub. But as he continued walking, he became convinced it had been Lindsey. Even in her thick coat, she could not hide those skinny arms.

  Lincoln Hammond was a large company and probably had need for many temps across its six floors. These firms tended to deal with a recruitment firm of choice. It made sense for Lindsey to be there, either to drum up business or discuss existing roles. Perhaps even his position. Yes, she was definitely there for a meeting. That would explain the folio. But why was she waiting outsi
de like that? Jiggling in the cold. It was strange, but not strange enough to concern him as he reheated a bowl of tortellini and caught the Blue team’s items being auctioned on television.

  When she was jiggling out on the footpath again the next lunchtime, that was a cause for concern. Again, he kept walking. Again, she didn’t appear to have seen him.

  He told Rosa about it that night. Together they ran through his options if it happened again: confront Lindsey; avoid Lindsey then report her to her superiors; go to lunch with Lindsey and string her along so that he got a much, much better job. They both laughed at this, but it was not normal couple laughter. It was as if they were both laughing for the other’s sake.

  The next morning Bembe could not concentrate for all the thoughts he spent on La Problema de Lindsey. At half-ten his cellphone began to ring. The caller ID said it was Lindsey. He answered at the last moment before his message service picked up, halfway to the fire doors.

  ‘Bembe, how goes it?’

  Oh God, he thought, she is stalking me.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How are you placed for lunch today? Say, one o’clock? I can come to you.’

  ‘No. I am uncomfortable.’

  ‘I’m sorry? Are you unwell?’

  ‘No. I do not want to go to lunch.’

  ‘Okay, no problems. Just wanted to talk about a role we’ve had come in.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘—’

  The dead air was not completely dead. He could hear the sibilant sound of a hand being moved over the receiver and, through that, a loud but indecipherable female voice that did not belong to Lindsey.

  ‘Bembe? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, can I call you back?’

  She hung up.

  The sudden end, the lack of platitudes and desperate byeeeees, took him a moment to get over.