London and the South-East

by David Szalay

  ‘And,’ he is saying, ‘what do you think you would do in the event of some sort of mechanical problem?’ He leaves a pause before adding, ‘What would you do in a situation like that?’ He asks the question, and waits for the answer, with his eyes fixed on Paul’s application form. They are in the underground staff canteen of the town hall – which is emptying as the lunch hour ends – sitting at a round table, each with a plastic cup of coffee in front of him. Paul clears his throat. ‘Mechanical problem?’ he says. Apparently engrossed in the application form, Woburn nods. The interview has not been going well. Paul wonders, in particular, whether he should have dressed differently. He spent hours – literally hours – deciding what to wear. In the end, he went for jeans, green jumper, suit jacket and hiking boots – only to jog back to the house from the end of the road, and change into a full suit. It would look bad, he had thought, to show up not in a suit if that was what was expected – worse than the other way round. Now, though, he is not so sure. His suit seemed to have an instantly unsettling effect on Woburn, and seeing this – and seeing also how Woburn himself was dressed – he had realised, too late, already shaking his interviewer’s soft hand, that it was probably not appropriate. He was applying for a job as a gardener, for fuck’s sake, not deputy manager of the finance directorate. Downstairs, they did not speak while they waited, standing side by side, for the machine to dribble coffee into their plastic beakers. Woburn, in particular, seemed intent on not looking at Paul, as though this in itself would constitute some sort of insult, as though half his face were a loud mulberry birthmark.

  When they were sitting down, still refusing to look him in the eye, Woburn said, shuffling the mass of papers in his hands, ‘So, er, what, er, what is it that interests you about this job?’

  Paul said, ‘Um.’ He took a sip of coffee, though it was still too hot, and for an infinitesimal moment, Woburn looked at him. ‘Well, I’ve always been interested in gardening,’ Paul said. ‘I worked as a gardener for a few years before I went into … went into, you know …’ Woburn nodded – the CV had Paul working as a ‘private gardener’ from 1987 to 1991. ‘And now,’ Paul said, already losing momentum, ‘now I just want, you know …’ He stopped, and again Woburn looked at him, this time for a whole second. ‘You know, I was just getting tired of sales. Being stuck in an office all day. I love the outdoors. You know. And.’ He left this ‘and’ hanging as he took another sip of coffee. Then simply said, as if everything had been explained, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay,’ Woburn said nervously. ‘But what, um, what was it that attracted you about this job in particular?’

  ‘About this job?’

  Woburn nodded, and made a sort of affirmative murmur – ‘Hn.’

  Wasn’t that the same question, Paul thought, the one he had just answered? ‘Well, I just said. Um. I want to get back into gardening. That’s it really.’ He had not thought his motives would be an issue. (They never were in sales – there, no one ever even pretended that anything other than money played a part, and questions such as these were unnecessary.) Woburn was obviously not satisfied with his answer, but seemed slightly intimidated – or perhaps just indifferent – and nodded, still leafing through papers. ‘So your previous experience …’ he said vaguely.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A few years … From eighty-seven to ninety-one?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Um. Perhaps you could tell me a bit more about that?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Paul had spent the previous five days preparing this, and had it down pat. He had worked, he said, for a firm in London, Alfred Gold Ltd – ‘I don’t think it exists any more, actually’ – doing ‘all sorts of things’, mostly ‘in the London area’, including some ‘quite complex plantings’ and ‘sizeable hard-landscaping commissions’. Woburn nodded, seemingly impressed. The firm had prospered in the late eighties, but then the property market slump – so Paul said – had hit it hard, and he had had to look for work elsewhere. So it had never been his intention to leave ‘the horticultural sector’. (He said the pompous phrase with a wry smile, which Woburn, however, did not see.) Economic imperatives had forced him out. He said that he had always intended to take it up again, and ended by saying, once more with a wry smile, ‘Better late than never, I suppose.’

  Woburn looked up at this and smiled milkily himself, and Paul felt, for a moment, that he might have turned things round.

  Then Woburn said, ‘What sort of equipment have you used in the past?’

  ‘Equipment? Er. What sort of equipment? Pretty much what you’d expect, I think.’ Apparently at ease, Paul drank the dregs of his coffee.

  ‘But specifically …’

  ‘Oh …’ It was odd – his mind seemed totally empty. ‘Just the usual stuff.’ Suddenly, he remembered some words, and said them. ‘Lawnmowers. Strimmers.’ He shrugged. ‘Um. Maybe if you could give me an example of what …’

  ‘What sort of strimmers have you used?’

  Without hesitation, Paul said, ‘Different ones.’ He tried his coffee cup again – it was empty. Woburn was waiting for him to say more. ‘I can’t remember exactly,’ he conceded after a few moments. ‘It was quite a long time ago.’

  ‘Sure. But what sort of power were they?’

  ‘Oh, quite powerful.’ He almost reached for his empty cup, but caught himself in time.

  ‘Like … what …?’

  Paul stuck out his lower lip and shook his head.

  ‘What sort of wattage?’ Woburn said, looking at his papers.

  ‘I’m sorry. I really can’t remember.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Woburn wrote something down. ‘Have you used a triple mower before?’

  ‘Um. I don’t think so.’

  Woburn nodded, and wrote. ‘What would you say,’ he said, still writing, ‘was the most important factor in prioritising your workload?’

  For fuck’s sake, Paul thought, shifting in his seat, literally scratching his head. It was obvious that – though phrased as if it were – this was not a matter of opinion. Woburn was looking for something specific. That Paul did not know what this was was already evident – if he did, he would simply have said it. ‘Um,’ he said. And then, unable to keep a slight interrogative twinge out of his voice, ‘The, the weather conditions?’

  This evidently was the answer – the nature of Woburn’s nod said as much – so there was something sinister about the lack of follow-up questions. Woburn said, ‘Are you familiar at all with the relevant health and safety procedures?’

  Picking up his empty cup, Paul said, ‘Yeah – yeah, that should be fine.’

  ‘Okay. And what do you think you would do in the event of some sort of mechanical problem? What would you do in a situation like that?’

  ‘Mechanical problem?’

  ‘Say with a piece of plant.’

  ‘Plant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mechanical problem with a plant?’

  Woburn nods, his eyes on the form that he is slowly filling in, ticking boxes – or not – as Paul struggles with his questions.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand,’ Paul says. He shakes his head, squinting. ‘Mechanical problem with a plant?’

  ‘With a piece of plant. A lawnmower, for instance.’ There is a tiny edge of impatience in Woburn’s voice.

  ‘Oh, plant, yeah.’ Paul laughs. ‘Sorry. Um. Well. If there was a mechanical problem …’ He wonders what to say. ‘I would inform my supervisor?’

  At first Woburn says nothing. Then, ‘You wouldn’t attempt to repair the problem yourself?’

  For some reason – perhaps something odd in Woburn’s tone – Paul thinks that this is a trick question, that he is being set up to say that he would, only to be told that it is against the health and safety procedures. This would obviously undermine his earlier suggestion that he was familiar with them – thus, of course, undermining everything that he has said. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not?’r />
  ‘Well …’ He is hesitant, terribly unsure now.

  ‘You wouldn’t even perform a preliminary investigation?’ Woburn says. Paul is uneasily silent. ‘To establish whether it is a minor difficulty before referring it to the workshop?’ He seems to be quoting from something.

  ‘I suppose, I would, yes,’ Paul says. ‘I mean, I thought you meant, once I had established that. Yes.’

  He tries to see what Woburn is writing on the form, but Woburn is left-handed and writes with his wrist wrapped secretively around the pen. ‘Would you say you were physically fit?’

  ‘Quite. Yes. Quite.’

  Woburn seems unconvinced. He does not even nod. ‘I’m going to read you a list of things,’ he says. ‘I want you to tell me, in each case, whether you think they’d present a problem for you.’

  ‘Sure.’ Paul clears his throat.

  ‘Walking,’ Woburn says.

  ‘Walking?’

  ‘Up to ten miles a day.’

  ‘Fine. No problem.’

  ‘Okay …’ There is no doubting the scepticism in Woburn’s voice. ‘Digging,’ he says. ‘For example, bedding. Or graves.’

  ‘Graves?’

  ‘Or bedding.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a problem.’

  In the same sceptical tone, Woburn says, ‘Okay.’ He presses on: ‘Spraying. For example, carrying twenty litres of pesticides.’ And he looks at Paul, looks him in the face, as if defying him to say that he would be able to do that without difficulty.

  ‘In a kind of backpack?’ Paul says. ‘Sure. That would be okay.’

  ‘Lifting small plant and machinery. For example, hedge trimmers, mower boxes, bags of fertiliser, tree branches’ – he seems to emphasise that – ‘et cetera.’

  Paul nods. ‘M-hm.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have any problem with those sorts of activities?’

  ‘No.’

  Once more, Woburn pauses pointedly. And Paul thinks that he detects a snide amusement in his voice – is sure that he sees a mocking smile quiver on his dainty mouth – when he says, ‘Climbing trees.’ He looks up for a moment. ‘Climbing trees with ladder or hoist.’

  Paul nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says.

  ‘Yes?’ Woburn’s eyebrows – which are still dark despite the white mop – have actually ascended.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Okay. Do you do regular physical exercise?’ Woburn says, offhand, writing something down. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘I don’t mind. Yes I do.’

  He is looking quickly through Paul’s CV. ‘And you don’t have a driving licence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’ For a few moments he says nothing, scanning the CV, one hand loosely holding his turquoise tie. ‘And your date of birth is 12th of June ’65? That is right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Woburn nods. He seems to suspect Paul of being a man well into his forties trying to pass himself off as thirty-nine. ‘Okay,’ he says with an insincere smile on his soft pink face. ‘Well, thank you very much for coming in.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  They stand up. Woburn’s handshake is limp. He starts to follow Paul upstairs, so Paul says, ‘It’s okay, thanks. I can find my own way out.’

  ‘No, I have to meet someone else in reception.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  The awkward silence in which they walk slowly up the stairs does not suggest that the interview has been a success.

  ‘Bye,’ Paul says.

  ‘Yes, bye,’ says Woburn.

  A young man is waiting there. His head is a mass of bright piercings – nose, ears, eyebrows, lip, tongue. He is dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie and sturdy trainers. ‘Michael Fry?’ Woburn says.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  They shake hands.

  (And months later Paul happens to see Michael Fry in Hove Park, on a ride-on mower, smoking what appears to be a spliff as it drones slowly over the lawn.)

  It never occurred to Paul that he might not be able to work as a gardener. Even after such an obviously unsatisfactory interview, it is a shock to him. And having allowed himself to become infatuated with an idea of professional horticulture, he is uninterested in anything else. In desperation, he applies for a job at the Wyevale Garden Centre – thus violating his own ban on the retail sector in the interests of spending the day among plastic sacks of compost and terracotta planters. He does not even get an interview. And for several days after that he does nothing – spends much of the time in bed, or asleep on the couch under lingering blue veils of cigarette smoke, Heather increasingly freaked by his lapse into total inertia. And it is then, in mid-January, that he flirts one dark afternoon with the idea of becoming a tramp. It seems to him, as he lies on the couch, nothing more than a logical extension of his failed plan to become a gardener, inasmuch as that had grown out of a wish to secede from sales, money, status. Well, if he wished to secede, why not do it properly? And lying on his back in the dim room, he experiences a surge of dark, fizzing excitement, a sudden twinkling sense of freedom. Part of the appeal, of course, is simply that it is possible – always possible. All he has to do is walk out. And stay out. He can transform everything, his whole life, as simply as that. He will relinquish all his possessions except for the clothes he is wearing, and wander the streets, seeking wisdom … His mind sparkles with excitement at the thought of this. He has recently started to take an interest in ascetic and anti-materialist figures – St Francis of Assisi, Sundar Singh, Michael Landy, men who embody notions of success specifically opposed to the piling-up of pelf – and as he muses on his, perhaps quixotic, understanding of their tenets (essentially, that it is only by possessing nothing, nothing, that we can hope to see, to understand, who and what we are), the idea of simply walking away from the burden of his material and financial problems seems irresistible. Why not? Why not just walk out – and stay out? And with a sudden energetic movement, he sits up.

  He is upstairs, sitting on the edge of the bed to tie his bootlaces, when it starts to rain. He has slept outside twice in the past. Once as a student, when he and some friends went to Amsterdam for the weekend, and too tired and stoned to sort out somewhere to stay, had simply lain down on the floor of the station, where Dutch policemen kept prodding them with their steel-toed footwear. It had been a sort of torture – especially as they had spent the previous night on a coach, and partly on a ferry, watching with itchy, exhaustion-fogged eyes as obese truck drivers ate roast dinners in the seesawing ship’s hot canteen. When dawn started to seep through, they were back on the coach, moving slowly north through a flat agricultural landscape. So by the time they lay down on the stone floor of Centraal, they had been up for forty hours. Yes, a memorably bad night. But not as bad as the other one. It was not so much the discomfort that made this one undoubtedly worse – it was how he had felt in the morning. It was very cold, and he had woken many times during the night – possibly every five or ten minutes – instinctively pressing himself further into the soft rubbish that kept him slightly warm. When he woke for the last time, it was daylight and he had never felt so cold. He did not understand why he was there. A refuse truck was approaching along the street – a street of the blind backs of buildings. He could hear the coarse shouts of the men, and the hissing and crunching of the machine’s operation. Never has he embarked on a day more unhappily, and with less hope, than he did then.

  And as if to underline this, he imagines – framing the horrors to himself with the energy of a medieval painter depicting hell – what would happen if he were to walk out, and stay out. What would he do? Wander around. Shelter from the rain somewhere – a bus stop, the station, under some trees. And as night fell, and the temperature dropped? What then? A bench? A doorway? And in the morning? He would want coffee, food. He would be hungry. Would he sit outside Churchill Square, then, with a cardboard face, an angry plea
written clumsily across it? What other options were there? Still, the idea of passing each day in meditative inaction, watching the busy legs stride past, amassing a few quid for a bun, a sausage roll, a cup of tea, is not without appeal. (He thinks of the Buddha, sitting under his tree, waiting for wisdom.) Perhaps it would be possible to find a bed in a hostel somewhere … But, of course, it would be far, far more vicious and desperate than that. A pitch outside Churchill Square, he knows, is highly prized – as is any prime stretch of pavement. (And in winter the places where warm air pours out of office buildings.) It is not possible simply to show up with your cardboard announcement and start soliciting coins. Someone else would already be in possession of that spot, and almost certainly prepared to fight for it. It would, after all, be the only thing they were in possession of, apart from the filthy togs they were standing up in. And the strangled shouts of fighting tramps speak of a life in which the mundane material struggle, though simplified, is not in any way eluded.

  And there is another problem. He knows that he would not be able to walk out on Heather and the children. In this there seems to be little positive volition on his part. He even finds it slightly shameful. And thinking about it, he experiences one of his periodic storms of jealousy and ill-will towards the man who did walk out, and stay out – though presumably never homeless – Dr John Hall. Still a potent absence after so many years. He can never be forgotten, of course – through the children he maintains his profile in the household; literally maintains it in Oli’s high forehead, in Marie’s wide inelegant mouth and curly black hair. It troubles Paul sometimes, this ineradicability of Dr John Hall.

  He knows little of him, or of Heather’s life with him. What he does know is that in her early twenties Heather was a healthcare assistant at the West Middlesex Hospital in Isleworth. This hospital job was, he thinks, her father’s idea; and it was there that she met John Hall. When he finished his internship and said that he was moving to Brighton, where he had a job lined up, she went with him. They lived in a flat on the top floor of a shabby Victorian villa (Paul has seen it from the outside) on a steep street near the station. They went on holiday to Turkey one summer, and Italy the next, on that occasion with another doctor from the surgery and his wife. They had a second-hand car – it was then, Paul knows, that Heather learned to drive. She did some secretarial work. He knows that they moved house once or twice, once while Heather was pregnant with Marie. Oliver was named after John Hall’s father.