Felix was also normal in the sense that he was not ‘reformed’. Unlike Roy. No one knew exactly what Roy had reformed from, but he bore all the hallmarks of someone with a ‘past’, including a number of misspelt tattoos on his arms and hands and one very nasty scar that ran from the corner of his right eye to the centre of his shaved head. Roy wore jeans, was the proud owner of a gold sovereign necklace and a gold sovereign ring. And he smoked. At team meetings he took the chair next to Thelma.
Felix was also normal in the sense that he was not cynical and foul-mouthed like Neville. Or posh and old like Marjorie. Or militant and right on like Mo. Normal in that he was not the boss, unlike Bernard, who was timid, useless and not far from retirement. Having been kicked upstairs to keep him away from the clients and the problems, then left at senior grade to keep him away from the policy decisions and the power, Bernard had sat for nearly twenty years in the same seat, putting his signature on unimportant documents, ordering stationery and drawing up rotas to ensure the smooth running of the lottery syndicate and the coffee fund. Bernard was the only person in the building who knew how to replace the toner in the photocopier, a knowledge he refused to share with anyone and a task he prioritized above all others, even if there were half a dozen seriously abused children in reception waiting for emergency accommodation, hi the absence of Bernard as a leader (even when he was physically present), it was not unusual for the team to look to Felix for support, calmness and consent. But mainly they looked for normality. Twelve years ago, when he joined the office, this was a role he would have resisted, thinking himself far too young and enthusiastic to be relied upon for cool judgement and sound advice. But staff had come and gone - sacked, retired, transferred, retired ill, expired - and with the exception of Bernard, who didn’t count, Felix was now the senior figure. Not the oldest; both Neville and Thelma could pip him on that front, and of course Marjorie, and maybe Roy as well, though his age was as much a mystery as his background. But the sanest, nevertheless. The steady one. The person capable of seeing an argument from both sides, taking a middle line, being rational in the face of extreme circumstances, exhibiting common sense. A safe, measured and practical man.
On this particular Monday morning, Felix was last to arrive at the meeting. He’d been phoning the magistrates’ court for information about a boy on his caseload arrested over the weekend, and had been on hold for more than ten minutes, staring out of the window. Social Services were located on the top floor of Prospect House, the highest point on the skyline, although the fact that the block in question was only five storeys high spoke volumes, as did the allocation of its penthouse suite to practitioners of one of the world’s least glamorous professions. And if the building had failed as a landmark and a beacon of civic pride, it had also failed in its other function - as a roundabout. Planners had once intended it as the central hub of a traffic system through which all parts of the town would be connected. But residents objected to the proposed link road, and had gone as far as to pitch tents on the area of adjoining wasteland, a tatty, rubbish-strewn wilderness known locally as the Strawberry Field. Part of their campaign involved two monstrous lies. The first was a claim that the Strawberry Field was mentioned in the Domesday Book. It wasn’t, but nobody had bothered to check. The second was to portray the field as a refuge for indigenous wild flowers and endangered wildlife, a kind of safe haven for flora and fauna, the last remnant of Eden holding out against rampant commercialism and urban sprawl. True, the odd dandelion had found a toehold there, and one summer Felix had watched a rotation of blowflies operating within the air space of a dead cat. But apart from that, it was tosh. Certainly no strawberry had ever been plucked there in a hundred years. And for the planning department, whose offices on the third floor of Prospect House overlooked the said nature reserve, it was very irritating tosh. The case went to appeal, but by this time the campaigners had attracted the free support of an environment-friendly public relations company whose slogan, ‘Strawberry Field Forever’, was the clincher. Peevish in defeat, the planners went ahead with the other three-quarters of the roundabout, ‘the Horseshoe’, which now acted as a kind of fortification to the main entrance of their building. Those approaching by car were repelled by a series of barriers and checkpoints and shunted into an overflow car park on the opposite side of the road. Those approaching on foot could either take their chances with the traffic or risk their life in the dark and piss-stained subway. Or they could tramp through the dust, dirt and dog shit of their beloved Strawberry Field and wait in reception until they were called. In winter, it was not an exaggeration to say the majority of Felix’s clients would arrive looking like the losing finalists in a mud-wrestling competition. A carpet of broadsheet newspapers - newly laid by Bernard each morning -covered every inch of the floor.
Bernard wasn’t present at the meeting.
‘He’s had to stay at home,’ said Neville.
‘Why? Is he ill?’ asked Thelma, always keen to sympathize with a fellow sufferer.
‘No, he’s having some cushion covers fitted.’
There was a loud tutting noise from the direction of Mo. ‘Is that true?’
‘Well, at least you can’t accuse him of malingering. I mean, if he’d phoned up -with malaria or some other foreign-sounding disease, then he’d probably be lying. But soft furnishings - it’s not exactly an excuse, is it?’
What do you mean, foreign? Mo wanted to know. ‘Do you mean that in a pejorative sense?’
Neville, always one for throwing out the bait, was just about to start reeling in his catch when Roy walked in and sat down next to Thelma, who inched away from him. A waft of stale cigarettes had followed Roy across the room and, as it rejoined him, Thelma lifted the silk scarf from around her neck and tied it as a mask over her mouth and nose. Trying to help, Marjorie pulled back the zebra blind and slid open a window. Shrinking from the light, Thelma dived for her bag and slotted a pair of heavy, black sunglasses on to her head.
‘Summat I said?’ asked Roy.
Thelma waved her hand, silently absolving him from all blame, but at the same time pulled up the collar and lapels of her mac, raised the scarf and withdrew her hands into her sleeves.
‘Did he ask me to chair?’ asked Felix.
Neville nodded and passed him the agenda on a flimsy sheet of fax paper. In a previous meeting, again with Bernard absent, Felix had made the big mistake of asking for a volunteer to take the minutes. Roy, who could almost certainly read but in all probability couldn’t write, had performed some well-rehearsed gesture with his face, implying that on this particular occasion he might give it a miss. Thelma had taken one look at the pen and, having correctly deduced that it contained what to her would have been a lethal dose of venom in the form of blue ink, not to mention trace elements of precious metals, declined. Marjorie suffered from carpal-tunnel problems and was awaiting surgery on her wrists. Neville said, ‘No,’ point blank, and, taking this as a challenge, Mo had also refused. This time, with a pained expression on his face, Felix began with Mo and offered her the pen. It was reverse psychology, of a sort. It implied she was his first choice, that she’d be doing him a great favour and that she was the only one remotely responsible enough for such a demanding task. It was also completely transparent. She tutted again but took the pen, and with that the working week had begun.
There were apologies from Bernard, given by Neville, in what was actually a passable imitation of his boss’s voice. There were no matters arising, which meant that the main business of the meeting could take place, namely the doling out of new cases. A pile of eight or nine blue folders sat on top of the front table, some of them three or four inches thick, with the client’s name written in black marker pen along the spine. The distribution of new files took place every Monday apart from bank holidays. Neville, like some self-appointed master of ceremonies, would begin the process by giving a brief synopsis of the case in a vocabulary not generally heard in a modern social work department. This was follo
wed by a sort of arcane bidding procedure or secret auction, at which Roy was an expert, using a technique he could well have learned in some of the more notorious local boozers as a way of declaring his interest in a second-hand video recorder or a case of whisky. On this occasion, with two barely appreciable nods of the head, he accepted the case of a young mother whose husband had recently been sent to prison and an elderly man in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s.
‘And your next starter for ten,’ announced Neville. ‘Matthew Coyne. Who wants this little runt?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t use that word, Neville. Some of us find it offensive,’ said Mo.
‘Now let’s see. History of self-harm, previous for theft, TWOC, arson. Glue-sniffer as well - a bit 1970s, mat, wouldn’t you say? Parents locked in custody dispute - can’t bear to be without him. Mo, was that a bid from you? No? Thelma?’
‘No, not solvents.’
‘Marjorie?’
‘What’s the address?’
‘Givens Lane.’
‘Oh, just across the road from my bowling dub. Yes, I’ll take him.’
‘I didn’t know you played skittles?’
‘Crown green. Ladies’ vice-captain.’
‘Super, Marjorie. Right, next up…’
And so it went on. Felix took the last blue folder with the name Moffat on the side, the case of an eleven-year-old girl, Ruby, excluded from school after exhibiting a range of peculiar habits and behaviour, including extreme arachnophobia. This left a single sheet of paper on the table, handwritten and folded in half.
‘So, spider-woman goes to Felix. Oh, yes, and someone had pushed this through the letter box this morning. Some lost soul trying to trace her natural parents. Adopted at birth, blah de blah de blah. Any takers?’
Most people were already on their feet by now, picking up files and bags and getting ready to leave.
‘Come on, who wants to tell her that her records will have been shredded by now and recycled as bog roll?’
‘What’s her name?’ said Mo, still taking notes.
‘Can’t make it out. Lawton or Lawrence, I think Abbie Lawrence.’
‘What was that name again?’ said Felix.
‘Lawrence, it looks like. Abbie.’
‘Er… I’ll take it. Er, if no one else wants it. Her, I mean. Shouldn’t be too much work and I’m not stretched at the moment. Thanks.’
He was still staring at the handwriting when Mo asked him if the meeting was officially closed.
‘What? Oh, yes. Any other business?’
But everyone else had left the room. Mo drew a double line across the bottom of the writing pad and handed it back to him on the way out.
From the office he shared with Neville, Felix could look across the partial circuit of the roundabout and into the heart of the town. Holding the telephone receiver to his ear, he peered intently towards the pedestrianized precinct about a quarter of a mile away. Eventually a smallish woman with black shoulder-length hair, wearing a summer dress and carrying a clipboard, strolled into view between the Northern Building Society and the latest charity shop. Felix hit the speed-dial button on the phone, and even at that distance could see the woman reach into her pocket and lift the mobile to her ear.
‘It’s me,’ said Felix.
Abbie raised her head towards the office block and waved with her free hand. ‘Hi. Can you see me? I can see you.’
‘Never mind hide-and-seek. What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
Abbie began to wander in a small, slow circle around a manhole cover in one of the paving stones, looking at the floor.
‘Oh, got my note, did you? That was quick.’
‘Of course I got your note. What do you think we do with things that come through the letter box - put them straight in the bin?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was a bit impulsive.’
That’s one word for it. Bloody stupid, more like. Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? I could have…’
‘Could have what?’
‘I could have… It was just bloody stupid, that’s all. Not to mention embarrassing.’
‘Did they twig it was me?’
‘No, thank God. But only because I dived in and…’
‘So what’s the problem, then?’
Now she turned around and faced him, staring directly up towards the window where he stood.
‘It’s just very irregular,’ he said.
Suddenly he could visualize her expression, the narrowing of the eyes and the tightening of the mouth, and the way that her head, when she was annoyed, moved forward slightly on her neck, like a teacher talking to a child. Two men carrying a huge rectangle of glass passed in front of her but it didn’t deflect her stare. Felix took a small step backwards, away from the light.
‘Irregular, is it? And embarrassing? Well, I’m so sorry. How foolish of me, coming to Social Services with my personal problems and people finding out I’m adopted. What a scandal.’
With his finger, Felix pushed a thick notepad into the hole punch on his desk, and through the heel of his hand felt the hollow blade biting down into several layers of clean white paper.
‘I thought you said you were going to help me with this,’ she added, after a pause.
There was another silence as Felix straightened a metal paperclip into a single length of wire.
‘I did. I mean, I will. But you’ve got to admit it’s a bit… weird.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for one thing, it’s not every day that a social worker hears his wife’s name being bandied about in a team meeting and for another it’s probably illegal.’
‘What’s illegal about a woman wanting to find her parents?’
‘No, I mean her husband taking the case.’
‘So you’re my social worker, are you?’
Tes. No. Well, technically speaking…’
The door opened and Neville walked in carrying a roll of steaming newspaper.
‘Wouldn’t you know it? They were dean out of the fillets of poached sea bass with salmon mousseline and remoulade sauce, so it’s jumbo haddock and chips again, with a buttered teacake to soak up the lard. Tell the ambulance to stand by.’
He pulled open a drawer in his filing cabinet and from it produced a handful of cutlery, a cruet set in the shape of a monk and a nun with holes in their halos, a small bottle of malt vinegar and two china plates, which he wiped with the sleeve of his jacket. Felix put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Just talking to Abbie.’
‘Who, that Lawrence woman? You’re quick off the mark.’
‘No, er, I mean my wife.’
‘Oh, fine. Don’t mind me, squire.’
Neville opened a Victim Support leaflet and spread it across his lap as a napkin, then unravelled the bundle of newspaper. Two enormous battered fish flopped from the greaseproof paper, followed by an avalanche of chips, which he guided with his finger on to the plates.
‘So are you or aren’t you?’ said Abbie, in Felix’s ear.
‘Shall we talk about it later?’
‘Just give me a yes or a no,’ she said.
She was still looking up at him. For a moment, he imagined she could project herself through clouds and space, put an image of her face on the surface of a faraway planet. So that even as he stepped from the spaceship - the first man on Mars - she was right there, waiting for him in the red dust. And when he gazed back towards his home planet, it was her face that played on the visor of his helmet, her face in his eyes.
‘Yes.’
‘Fine. And there’s nothing in the house for tea, so can you call at the chippy on the way home.’
‘Yes.’
‘And are you going to the crazy golf with Jed tonight?’
‘The driving range. Yes.’
‘OK. Well, see you later.’
She waved and walked out of sight. Neville pushed a plate of food in front of him.
‘Marital disharmony?’
; ‘Not really,’ he said, and was just about to fork a chunk of fish into his mouth when the phone rang. He let his voice-mail pick up the message, and when he played it back after lunch, it was Abbie again, phoning to say thanks.
The Driving Range
Balls. Two pounds fifty for sixty-five or a hundred for three quid. The man inserts his token and places his wire basket under the vent near the base of the machine. The machine rumbles and chums and grinds. Balls are dispensed. Failure to position the wire basket correctly during the dispensing of balls results in an unstoppable outpouring of sixty-five or a hundred balls onto a wide section of the floor. The retrieval of runaway balls across a polished linoleum surface can be a time-consuming exercise, although the main expense is in terms of pride.
The White Stuff Page 3