The days passed with clattering monotony. It was physically tiring, and dangerous if you lost concentration with the weight of the metal and the moving parts of the plant and ever-present attention of the digger drivers. Each member of the team had their little idiosyncrasies. They were working men without educational qualifications but they each knew their job well and would not suffer fools gladly so Joe and Alec as the junior, least skilled, new members of the team were under constant watch. The motor shovel driver who watched the waste fly off the end of Joe’s conveyor in particular had a secondary job of making sure the labourers got all the metal off the belt as well as removing the pile at regular intervals. He was an entertaining Irishman of about thirty years old called Sean who was always ready with a smile and a joke, the craic as he called it.
There were few secrets between the team spending days on end, as they did, in each other’s company. They did not get to speak much and when they did pithiness was highly regarded. Sean sometimes disappeared at lunchtime and for periods around the longer break when he came rushing back in a fluster. Once when he returned just before the end of the lunch break, Bob the big shovel driver said, “How are you getting along with the young woman at the end of the site then, Sean?” Joe had not noticed where Sean had been going in his absences, but the expectant silence showed that the older workers had, and wanted some entertainment.
Sean smiled, “To be sure I saw this lovely Coleen at the end of her garden and I popped over to say hello and ask for some hot water for me cup o’ tea. She turned out to be most eager to help,” he winked at the group. The established workers regarded him enviously. They did not know the truth of his escapades but even the perception of adventure was to be envied.
Friday was payday. The manager would come into the lunch cabin at the afternoon break and ceremoniously hand out small cellophane envelopes with cash money and a payslip enclosed. Each worker would open his envelope, read the statement to check he was getting what was expected and count the cash. The first Friday, the quiet digger driver, blond tattooed Wayne, who did not say very much at all but sat glumly twitching his knee during most breaks, read his payslip and complained he had an unexpected stoppage in his wages.
“What’s this then, Eric?” he complained to the manager still standing by the doorway, his clean shirt and jeans demarking him as a level above the workers. He showed the payslip to Eric who was clearly expecting the charge.
“Last Thursday morning, Wayne. That hangover. You were seen sleeping it off in the weeds hollow over yonder. Only yoursel’ to blame.” Eric and Wayne had a silent standoff for few moments before Wayne backed down, reclaimed his pay envelope and sat back in his space, knee twitching more than ever. Eric left the cabin and returned to his office, job done.
“No good complaining, Wayne. You were seen,” said Bob in the ensuing quiet.
“Fuck it,” Wayne said. “And fuck this tax too. Who needs it – me or the government?”
“Death and taxes is all you can be sure about, Wayne,” Bob replied. “Only young students get to pay no tax.”
“What! Joe you got no tax to pay?” Wayne was evidently startled to understand that in practice, temporary student workers did not reach the tax threshold so no taxes were deducted from their weekly pay packet. In his anger he computed this to be that students got special treatment from the government rather than the pure maths of the individual allowance for all workers.
Joe checked his first pay envelope. The folding new twenty pound notes were impressive. He had never received a real pay packet before, delivered on a Friday afternoon so it could be taken home to pay the bills for workers before they enjoyed their Friday night out at the public house. Joe took out his payslip. There had been no tax deductions. Guilty as charged. Wayne could see from the look on Joe’s face he had paid no tax.
“That’s not right,” Wayne stated. “You can give me my share of tax back. Give me twenty quid.” Wayne started to get up. Joe was up faster and headed out the door.
“On yer toes, Wayne! Can’t get his tax ’less you catch him,” Bob was sitting laughing as Wayne charged after Joe who was much faster and twisted and turned in the dust outside like a hare coursing from an old hound. Wayne gave up after a twenty-yards run, laughed it off and lit a cigarette. “Bloody students,” was all he said.
Several times a day Alec would leave the big heavy puddles of flat steel collected from the blast furnace floors on the belt with a sideways glace at Joe on the second belt. They would fall with a weighty thud from Alec’s belt on to Joe’s leaving Joe with the decision to stop the belt to the irritation of all or to prise them up and off the belt in motion. Sean watched, sitting in the big motor shovel beyond Joe’s belt, noting Alec’s sly evasion of the heavier metal pieces. Alec’s behaviour was weak and would have to be tackled at some point, but students had it good and Sean had no problem with Joe working extra for his tax-free cash.
One particularly large piece trundled up Joe’s belt overhanging the dark grey rubber edges of the conveyor ominously. Joe could not lift it as it passed him by. Should he press the stop button? He couldn’t let it drop over the end into the waste; it would probably be worth his salary for the day on its own, plus Sean would see. He jumped up from his platform on to the moving belt behind the huge flat piece of steel. As the conveyor continued up to the drop he squatted, inserted the fingers of both hands under the far edge and lifted it upright by thrusting with his legs. He then rolled it over the edge and raced back down the moving belt to jump off on to his platform, all without stopping the belt. Sean watched in surprise as Joe’s helmeted head appeared over the top of the moving conveyor as he rolled the chunk over the edge and then ran back down the chuntering black rubber belt.
Joe started using this method for all the large pieces Alec left on the belt for him. The other workers passed the story round that Joe was using this athletic trick to both catch the heavy pieces Alec left behind and avoid stopping the plant. They made a point of pausing to watch in their various machines and look on enviously at Joe’s physical prowess. Alec felt the disapproving stares of these fellow workers, his father’s friends, as he shirked his job and Joe handled it for him without complaint. This was a good lesson for Alec.
Sean felt obligated to take Joe to task at a tea break, “That trick jumping on t’ belt, Joe. If t’ Site Inspector sees yer doing that he’ll throw the book at us. Health and Safety ’n’ all.” The other experienced workers nodded sagely.
“Inspector hasn’t seen me yet, Sean, and he won’t do,” replied Joe brightly. The experienced workers liked his attitude and silently backed him against Sean’s siding with authority. Sean was not committed to this stance and backed off, having said his piece.
“Suit yerself, Joe. You all heard me tell him if anything untowards ‘appens.” Sean took in the group in the cabin with a roundhouse glance.
The next time a large metal piece hunkered up the belt, Sean was waiting with his big motor shovel parked facing the end of Joe’s conveyor, bucket stationary halfway up in the air waiting for enough waste to accumulate for him to take away. Joe hopped on the moving belt again and levered the piece up as normal. He waited longer than usual to roll it off so Sean could see him rising towards the end of the conveyor twenty feet in the air. Sean was staring as Joe rolled the piece off at the very last second and expected Joe to beetle back down the belt. Instead Joe rose to the very pinnacle of the top roller and as he went over the edge he thrust out into space with powerful leg muscles, landing on the metal plate on the top edge of the large bucket of Sean’s motor shovel. He compressed down on to his knees and then used the recoil to spring on up and forward, landing on the top step giving access to Sean’s cab.
“Hello there, Sean! ’Tis a foin day today to be shore!” He grinned and leapt backwards again off the digger step to the ground below, then ran round back to his position on the plant. Sean just stared after him, speechless fo
r once. He would tell that story many times again in the future, that was for sure.
A month on and Wayne started coming to work wearing a woman’s dress. The first morning he walked straight from his old car to his digger and worked alone through his morning break. Lunchtime he took his usual place in the cabin and ate silently from his Tupperware lunch box. Joe and Alec were saying nothing, not looking at Wayne. The experienced workers were taking much more interest, egging each other on to see who would be first to remark.
Sean was smiling more than usual. Bob was the informal shop steward and waved a corned beef sandwich in Wayne’s general direction, “Hey up, Wayne, what’s up with yer new togs?” he asked with stony-faced concern.
“Nowt to bother with,” Wayne said staring into his lap. “Just to keep dust off. Fed up messing up my work togs in all this bloody dust. Can’t afford overalls, this’ll have to do.”
“Fair enough,” Bob replied. “Hope it doesn’t come on to rain or tha’ll be wearing nappies next.”
Wayne wore the same dress to work the next two days and the team got used to it. The afternoon of the second day Joe was focussed on the never-ending stream of waste coming up his conveyor when the sacred plant stopped. He hadn’t pressed his red button. He looked across to Alec who shrugged. He hadn’t pressed his button either. Out of the silence a new sound emerged. Sirens. More than one. Wayne’s digger shot into view bouncing with unnatural speed past the manager’s cabin moving right to left into the depths of the reclamation site. Behind bounded two police cars kicking up dust, lights and sirens disturbing the peace now the clanking plant was silenced. Wayne’s digger pulled to a halt and he jumped out, he gathered up his skirts and raced for the boundary fence. Four policemen got out and gave chase. Wayne jumped the fence and was off through the distant gardens on his toes. The police followed with considered exasperation, clambering Keystone-cops style then disappearing after Wayne.
Bob called an unscheduled tea break to mark the event. “That explains the dress then,” he said. “Not much of a disguise if you ask me.” They all nodded in sage agreement, drank their tea and carried on.
The anxiety about the A star grades required for Joe, Charlotte and Christopher started to build seriously a week before the results were announced. All three were targeted to meet expectations but there was no chance to slip or they would not meet their Cambridge offers. For Joe and Charlotte this was the latest of many generations of such tests but each time there was the frisson of anxiety over pass or fail and they had no real alternate plans for fail as their future Gayan plans hinged on their moving to Cambridge.
On the Thursday in question Joe was picked up for work as usual by Mick and Alec. He was paying them twenty pounds a week towards travel costs, which suited Mick as the petrol money helped and Joe lived directly en route for their journey to work. It cost them nothing but the three were actually getting along fine now. Bound together by the unremitting harshness of the work, through hot dusty days where they needed to wear a cloth breathing mask and pores clogged when they needed to sweat, or pouring rain that turned the conveyor waste to aromatic hot sludge and clogged their jeans, the fact was that they were a team in which they all needed to participate equally. Alec had warmed to Joe, he even invited him to join him for a gang fight at an out-of-the-way public house suggesting he could do with Joe’s strength and that Joe would enjoy it. Joe had politely declined. Mick and Alec had no idea it was A level results day and Joe was sensitive enough to not mention it.
The plan was that Joe’s mother would go to school to get his results mid-morning. He would call her at his lunch break to find out if he had made it. Charlotte and Christopher were able to go to school with most of the other students and parents so they would know before him. It was a fine day, which meant the usual dust and muck through the morning’s work. Morning break was too early for Mum to have got his results yet. He had to sit tight and wait. At lunch break Joe went to the lunch cabin like a dead man walking. Eager to find his results, curiously unwilling to face the moment. Horns of the dilemma. The others were with him, except Sean who was quickly visiting his woman friend at her house butting on to the reclamation site. They all tucked into their food, the work gave them a very hearty appetite and thirst. Joe ate his food then made the call to his mother.
“Hi Mum, it’s me,” he said, fatuously. He had not thought what to say for all his thoughts. Sean pulled up in his digger and jumped off to join them, beaming through his ruddy tan.
“Hello Joe,” she said brightly. “It’s good news. Three A stars in your main subjects. You made it! You are in! Well done!”
Joe grinned brightly. His overcast mood of the morning lifted like sun at the edge of a cloudbank. He was suddenly very pleased. “Thanks, Mum. What about Charlotte and Chris?”
“They made it too, dear. I think Chris had an issue with one of his grades but he talked to them and it’s not an obstacle.”
“Great news!” Joe called down the phone. “Be seeing you later. Normal time.”
“Bye, dear.”
Joe ended the call and looked around. The team were all looking at him expectantly, unknowing.
Sean’s high spirits had cooled, become enquiring, “What’s up, Joe?” he asked for all of them.
“My A level results just came through,” he said.
“And how did you do?” Sean asked, his tone inadvertently lowered a degree.
“Good,” said Joe, “I got my As I needed for my university place.”
“Where is that?” asked Sean, no longer beaming.
“Cambridge University, studying Natural Sciences,” Joe responded.
“That’s great, Joe,” Sean replied quietly. The others shared a look, excluded Joe. He was leaving the team. Moving on. Different to when Wayne had moved on to the Big House pursued out of their world by police officers, but leaving just the same. He was no longer part of their world.
Alec was wearing his customary one-sided slight sneer at the thought Joe was no longer central to the comradeship of the reclamation site team. The sneer slowly straightened as it dawned that he was going to be spending the thick end of the next five decades toiling to meet the onerous demands of the reclamation plant contraption and its perpetual conveyor of trash.
NINE
Doctor McGregor was more excited than he had been for a very long time. It was the last Thursday of September, first day of residence for Queens’ College Michaelmas term. The freshers would be arriving today. Always a time of renewal and fresh beginnings, belying the turn of the seasons from summer to autumn. Doctor McGregor enjoyed his work teaching undergraduates at Queens’ College alongside his marine zoology research for Cambridge University. This provided the perfect cover for his Gayan role as Guide of Dawn where his main mission was to secretly tutor and develop Professor Kitteridge, head of the Astrophysics department, in their discoveries of the nature of the Universe. It was a lot to do but he had little by way of social life outside his overt and covert teaching and he liked to be busy. He enjoyed his life and he loved this place and time. On top of that Keeran and Amily, Pointers of Dawn, were joining up with him today as fresher students Joe and Charlotte. He did not miss the presence of Gayan colleagues mostly but the two new arrivals would be a very welcome boost. Most of the time that he had lived here he had operated alone, away from other Gayans, who were few in number on Earth, or spread very thinly in any case. This was no big issue, he lived just like his other colleagues, but it made him feel special that day that two of his closest Gayan colleagues were joining him again here. They, of course, were in the healthy fullness of life as young adults, he was at the other end of his career. In fact, Queens’ College kept him on beyond normal retirement age as he was still so full of enthusiasm and energy. Gayan souls tended to be hard on earthly bodies, they burned through their bodies faster, aged more quickly, but retained their wits and energy.
Doctor McGregor live
d alone, except for his very clever cat, Tabitha, in a modest but elegant Victorian terrace home half a mile from Queens’ across Sheep’s Green south and west of the college where the upper Cam river led upstream towards Grantchester. Most Gayans working embedded in society on Earth tended to live alone as earthly relationships complicated their missions and led to unfair circumstances arising for their earthly partners. Gayan travellers could disappear off-world at a moment’s notice and were expected to prioritise their mission over their relationships with local people. It was breakfast time and he was preparing his own honey-flavoured porridge and opening a foil packet of high-end cat food for Tabitha that cost more than his own breakfast. Tabitha was a silver tabby, with striking stripes of black over bars of silver shining through olive fur. She twisting lithely between his ankles, stretched tall with tail vertical and back arched. She was talking to him in broad-ranging feline calls, presumably about her exciting night patrolling the neighbourhood that had just ended, as well as her demands to be fed right now. He was far and away the most experienced zoologist on planet Earth at this moment but cat-speak was still impenetrable in the detail.
There was a chill in the air despite the bright start to the day so Doctor McGregor donned his olive raincoat and plaid scarf from the stand by the front door before setting off to Queens’ College. Tabitha high-stepped it out of the kitchen licking her whiskers in satisfaction heading for the cat flap cut low down out of the door. She stopped, bared her teeth and hissed at the flap. Doctor McGregor looked hard towards the door, saw nothing and passed it off as Tabitha getting spooked by some kind of soul activity in the street outside.
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