by Martin Bryce
and the bloodshot eyes behind the heavy bifocals were showing concern. ‘You’ll miss the afternoon tea break,’ she said. ‘They’ve fixed the heating. You look awful.’
Oh for Christ’s sake, I thought, it’s all relative. Take a look in the mirror.
The main topic of conversation during tea break was why Elsie was still unconscious after her operation and how her husband was suing the doctor. As I didn’t know who Elsie was and as all the biscuits had been eaten before I got there, I thought I’d call Madame Moineau. I was out of prepay on the mobile so I used the payphone in the canteen. By the end of tea break I’d lost three pounds forty pee in the bloody thing.
‘Hasn’t worked for weeks, mate,’ Harry remarked helpfully as he and his mate, Chalky sauntered past on their way back to the warehouse. ‘Fucking poofs.’ They were both laughing as the lift doors closed. The rest of the afternoon was unremarkable apart from the hunger pains. There were only two more visitors to the grotto and both were terrified of me. The second one’s screams were so ear shattering that I went home with a headache.
Before descending into the bowels of the Central Line I called Madame Moineau and got through at last. I asked her to put aside the boots I’d admired a couple of days earlier; there was a smile on my face as I allowed myself to imagine how it was going to feel as I pulled them on for the first time. Madame Moineau said she’d love to, but if only I’d called a couple of hours earlier, before she’d sold them to a member of an amateur pantomime club who would be playing Puss-in-Boots in January.
On the tube home I wrote letters to the old trout and the bloody old Admiral. I explained to both that as I was deeply committed to Scent, and as the first night was the day after Boxing Day, I would not be home for Christmas itself, but I would be down on the twenty-eighth. I told them both about Rowena and posted both letters in the box outside the Black Cat. It was as I was tucking into the shepherd’s pie, mushy peas and chips, that it dawned on me that I might have put the letters into the wrong envelopes. The thought took the edge off my appetite and made the subsequent walk home in the heavy drizzle an even more miserable experience.
There was temporary lighting hanging from various parts of Higginbottom Manor. The rewiring was well underway, the plumbing was sorted and the charred cupboards had been removed from the kitchen, as well as the burnt plaster from one wall to head height. In the living room the H’s were making an effort to dress the tree. Mr Happy said he wanted a word and then struggled to find it. Eventually, he must have had a flash of inspiration because he pointed to the stain on the ceiling left by the previous night’s damp patch.
‘Had a go at t’plumber about that.’
‘Oh, really,’ I said, trying to sound unconcerned.
‘Aye, this morning. She said there aren’t any pipes just there.’
‘How mysterious.’
‘So we ‘ad a look in your room.’
‘Stroke of genius.’
‘There’s a damp patch on the floorboards, just there.’ He jabbed the air for emphasis.
‘There is?’
‘Aye. T’plumber reckons your bloody cat peed on t’floor.’
‘Cloudesley!? Never.’ An awkward silence followed as I stalled for time. H’s hand and arm were turning ghostly white as they drained of blood. ‘Aha!’ I exclaimed. My enthusiasm to deliver the explanation was too much for Madam qui rit; she jumped and dropped a box of glass decorations onto the floor where they shattered into a thousand glistening shards. ‘Aha, he was locked in the linen cupboard at the time,’ I said brightly. ‘You remember, Mrs H.’ Mrs H obviously did. She sniffed, sat down, took a hanky from the sleeve of her cardy and dabbed her eyes. The look on Mr Higginbottom’s face was that of a man whose sole experience of life was being beaten by it, but there was also a substrate of pain as he struggled to unlock his arm and lower it again.
‘What’s in them bags?’ he asked as he rolled his shoulder and grimaced.
None of your business is what I wanted to say, but instead I replied, ‘Since you asked, it’s my Santa suit.’
‘Aye, well, speaking of Christmas, what’re your plans?’
I didn’t think this was any of his business either. ‘I’ll be here until December the twenty-eighth. After that I’ll be visiting my people.’
The H’s looked at each other, defeat sitting heavily on their weary shoulders as usual. ‘We were ‘oping to ‘ave your room over Christmas.’
‘Oh?’
‘Aye. T’wife’s widowed sister… she’s coming to stay… arriving Christmas Eve,’
‘Well there’s always the sofa.’
‘That’s reet gentlemanly of thee.’
‘For her.’
The budgie whistled a version of Land of Hope and Glory as I left the room and as I climbed the creaking stairs a thought occurred to me. How did the Bull know about the disappearing boxes, and so quickly? Perhaps Harry had told him, but he hadn’t known about the boxes that had disappeared downwards containing the twenty-four dozen sets of coloured felt tips. Curious.
There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.
As I knew nothing, I dismissed the thought and washed the beard, I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt very tired. I put some coins into the gas meter, lit the fire and hung the beard in front of it to dry, remembering first to put a newspaper under it to catch any drips. I lay on the bed with Don Quixote and fell asleep over the line, Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
SCENE 4
Six-thirty on a winter morning is not a good time for me.
The odd couple were still asleep as I crept downstairs. The whippet gave me a furtive glance through the banisters at the top of the stairs. Cloudesley shot off again to his secret hideaway as I trudged in the opposite direction through the drizzle which had been falling all night
I arrived at Harridges at eight twenty-nine and was about to clock in, on time, when the Bull accosted me.
‘You were late yesterday,’ he snarled through yellowing teeth.
‘No, well actually I…’
‘I don’t want to know,’ he barked grabbing my card and holding it up for me to see. ‘It’s all here in black and white, lad! Don’t lie to me… heard it all before… Guards… thirty years,’ and so on. I eventually clocked in at eight thirty-two, losing another half hour’s pay. I was beginning to dislike the man.
I reported to the warehouse where Harry showed me another pallet full of boxes. I told him that I’d given away very little of yesterday’s stock and didn’t need any replenishment.
‘In that case,’ he began, ‘you’d better put them back where they come from.’ He pointed to a stack about twenty feet high in a far corner.
‘On the top?’
He nodded.
‘Well how did they get down here?’
‘Chalky, with ‘is fork lift.’
‘Well perhaps Chalky…’
‘Nah, mate, Chalky’s gone to breakfast.’
‘Could I borrow the fork…?’
Harry’s sharp intake of breath and slow shake of the head indicated that this would not be wise.
‘Tell you what. I’ll ‘ave a word with ‘im when ‘e gets back, bit of a favour, if you know what I mean.’ I thought I did. ‘See if ‘e’s prepared to put them back for you.’
‘That would be great,’ I said.
‘But you’ll have to sign them out,’ he added as he handed me a pen and the stock control card. ‘It’s ‘ow the system works,’ he explained having seen my puzzled look. ‘I’ll sign ‘em back in for you after Chalky’s finished.’ I thought he was being very decent about it.
‘Well then, if there’s nothing left to do,’ I began, but Harry was ahead of me there as well. He thrust a large broom at me telling me it was part of my duty to sweep the floor if my other work finished early. He went back to his tea and paper.
It was a quarter to ten before I finished
sweeping. I went to the Café Bar machine to make a cup of tea, but Harry’s sharp intake of breath and slowly shaking head told me all I needed to know.
‘For warehouse staff only, that is,’ he pointed out, all without lifting his eyes from the paper.
‘But that’s what I appear to be half the time,’ I argued, miffed.
Harry snorted, ‘Nah, mate. You ‘ave to go to the canteen.’ Then he confused me by holding up two fingers I knew the staff canteen was on the fifth floor.
Journeying to the canteen, I made a brief detour to men’s toiletries to confirm the lunch date with Rowena, but when I arrived I was told that she’d just popped to the loo. I waited for a couple of minutes before her colleague said she’d tell her I’d called by.
Some National Front leaflets had been left in the Gents. They were advertising a rally against what my old Headmaster used to refer to as ‘Staff privileges’. I stripped and applied my make-up and taking advantage of the plentiful hot water, washed and treated my feet. I took a chance on the heating behaving itself and dressed sensibly. I also decided that I would not actually wear the boots anymore, but place them casually by the throne instead. If anybody asked about it I would explain it away as gout. Thank goodness, I thought as I took the nice dry beard from the bag. Then I dropped it into the bowl where I’d washed my feet. I wrung it as dry as I could and several more bare patches appeared.
I wore my suede shoes to the canteen where I asked the lady behind the counter to pop the beard into one of their ovens to dry while I had my cup of tea. The thing was still damp, but warm, when I eventually put it on.
I noticed that a new security guard had been stationed on the floor as I shoved the shoes under the throne. I nodded to him and he came over for a chat. He had, it seemed, been transferred from electrical and even called me ‘sir’, something no one, but Marvin the previous day, had done since my time in the Navy. I asked whether the Tonka freak was unwell.
‘Not exactly, sir.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s a bit delicate and I shouldn’t really be saying this.’ He looked over his shoulder conspiratorially. ‘It was Mr Brimstone from ladies lingerie.’
‘What was?’
‘Caught him.’
‘Caught him?’
‘Last night. Had a large yellow earthmover under his coat as he left the store.’
‘No!’
‘Been watching him for weeks; couldn’t understand how he was doing it.’
‘Doing what?’
‘There was one a week going missing, sometimes two.’
‘No!’
‘Yeah, he’d been taking them out in bits, a few each night, and reassembling them at home.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Wish I was, sir. He had thirty two vehicles all around the house. But, like most of them, he got careless; usually happens.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Trouble is,’ he whispered and looked round again, ’it’ll be doubly hard on him.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Was in the Transport Police for thirty years, wasn’t he! The name’s Brian, by the way,’ he added, offering me his hand. He gave me a moment to absorb this shocking news before asking why I wasn’t wearing the regulation boots.
‘Don’t fit.’
‘There’s nothing worse than ill-fitting boots,’ he observed. And he should know, having been in the Nottingham Fire Brigade for thirty years – give, or take. ‘What size?’
‘Nine and a half,’ I replied.
‘I may have an old pair of Fireman’s boots at home,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look; if I have you’re welcome to them,’ he offered. The first of the day’s visitors was approaching as he went back to his post.
A surly youth appeared, hands stuffed in pockets and chewing gum exaggeratedly. He told me he didn’t believe in Santa, and did I want to fight? He caught Brian’s attention immediately. My jolly, ‘hohohos,’ just seemed to antagonise him, so I gave him a cheap magnifying glass. He threw it