BLACK STATIC #42

by Andy Cox

  They sacked him, of course – but not immediately. First, he was put on a performance plan to develop the weaker areas of his skill-set. This meant a month of filing. Then he was transferred to the call centre. He missed his targets. Finally, he found himself on reception, until someone complained about his doughnuts and sneezing. We never saw him again.

  That’s when big George took over, sleek and dapper in his waistcoat. He sorted things out straight away: he streamlined processes, ditched the acknowledgement letters, gave us clear and simple goals. He achieved all this without seeming to do anything. I found myself doing proper work again. By the end of the week the wall had gone.

  George was my boss for three, four months, before he got promoted and moved to another floor – doing something in Data Analysis. He was promoted again, during a restructuring project. I hardly saw him, except to say hello on the stairs or in the lift. He wasn’t stuck up, he’d stop and chat. He always looked taller than I remembered. Then he got that smart job at Anderson and Wick.

  No one heard from Neil. Although we liked him, he wasn’t friends with any of us. There were tales, of course. You expect that. Someone said he was a guide at the Museum of Science of Industry, explaining steam engines and shuttle looms to kids. I could imagine him doing that. John Wagstaff claimed to have seen him behind a till in BHS, searching for the price tag on a girdle, but that probably tells you more about Wagstaff than it does Neil. There were even rumours that Neil had topped himself. (I found nothing on the web.)

  Later, I was told that he was working on the trams as an inspector. He’d been spotted on the Bury line, sneezing and scrutinising. I travelled the Bury line almost every day (still do) but I never saw him. After a while we all forgot about him. That’s how it is: when someone leaves the office, or even your team, they’re as good as dead.

  ***

  Everything changed for me about a week ago. It was the usual morning crowd. You get to know the faces. The little man with his tatty carrier bag and tiny feet. The woman whose make-up gets a little more garish every day. The office juniors in pointy shoes. Earphoned nodders, dozers, texters. I was groggy with flu and booze. The back pages showed a tattooed footballer holding his head in shame or despair: wazza’s cup woe. The windows were fogged up and there was a smell of sweat and damp anoraks. I had my book out but I wasn’t in the mood for reading. I was content just to sit, think, and look at people. The tram pushed on towards Manchester, the carriages filling up till there was barely room to take your hand out of your pocket to scratch your nose.

  At Bowker Vale the inspectors got on, prompting desultory groans and mutterings. I heard him before I saw him. A sneeze – the sneeze: it sounded like ha-russia – followed by Gesundheit. It was Neil. It had to be. Then, squeezing through the crowd, his eyes dancing from ticket to ticket, he was there in front of me.

  “Tickets and passes, please. Tickets and passes. Thanker you.” I wanted to speak but nothing came out. He looked straight at me. No sign of recognition. He didn’t know me. Or want to know me. He inspected my Monthly Rider, handed it back, Thanker you kindly sir, and carried on down the carriage. “Tickets. Passes. Ha-russia. Gesundheit. Thank you kindly. Have your tickets and passes ready. Tickets and passes.”

  ***

  It’s funny how these characters from the past seem to show up in clusters. There must be a word for that. Not déjà vu but something similar. That very same day, on my lunch break, I had another meeting with my past. I was walking round Piccadilly Gardens – except there are no gardens in Piccadilly, just concrete and litter and seedy loiterers – I was taking a stroll, eating my butty, kids jumping in and out of the fountains, when I saw George Crease striding towards me. It couldn’t be anyone else. Not at that height. It was George all right. I thought about avoiding him – avoiding the chitchat – but I stopped anyway.

  “Hello George,” I said. “How you doing?” He was looking very dapper, very much the city gent. Obviously doing well, like we all said he would. He’d left our place a few years back to join Atkinson and Wick as Assistant Regional Coordinator of something. He stopped and inspected me. I was conscious of the butty in my hand, the mayo on my fingers. He hadn’t changed, except he was wearing a tie, knitted silk by the looks of it, expensive.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Am I supposed to know you?” One of his jokes, I thought. He had some funny ways: deadpan. But instead of playing along I just explained who I was, who he was, and generally talked myself into embarrassment. I felt shabby in my duffle coat and desert boots.

  “You’ve got the wrong person,” he said and marched away, towards the station, seeming to grow an inch with each stride.

  ***

  The meeting put a dampener on my day. I wished I’d ignored him. I knocked off work as early as possible – Bagshawe gave me daggers as I left – and had a few drinks in the Squirrel. Blanked by two former managers in one day – I felt soiled. I admit I overdid it in the Squirrel that night. Old Empire on draft: 5.2%. But you need to cut loose every now and then. It’s healthy.

  ***

  The next day, well I was feeling rough, but not rough enough to skip work. So I was on the tram again, same as usual. Coughs and sniffles, wet hair and aftershave. I tried to read my book, Oblomov, but the words didn’t stick. Lately I had grown impatient with reading. I was only a third of the way through. What was the point of martyring my eyes? I would never make it to the end. I scanned the headlines on the freesheets, listened to a conversation about cottage pie, dozed. Pulling into Besses o’ th’ Barn, I was woken by a vile thud, as though something had burst inside my brain. I flinched. Kids throwing stones, I thought. The tram jolted, stopped: a woman and her bag swayed into me and we both said sorry. There was excitement and confusion, the heat of not knowing. The tram had hit something, probably a person. The thrill faded when we found out there was a body on the track. Now it was an inconvenience. We were marched off – the tram had just about reached the platform – and we all turned and ducked to look. I didn’t see anything, it was all curtained off. We had to wait for a replacement bus. We travelled along roads I had never seen before and would never see again. Everyone became quite jolly. We had been part of something unusual and interesting. We might read about it in the papers. I imagined myself being interviewed for telly. We would be late for work, but death, even if it belongs to a stranger, is the best excuse going.

  Unless your boss is Joyce Bagshawe. I had seen nothing – no bones, no blood – yet my nerves were frazzled. Joyce called me in for a meeting. I explained about the delay: the violent noise, the suicide, the replacement bus. She didn’t seem interested.

  “Did you know the individual concerned?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, “of course not. If I did I wouldn’t be here. I’d be grief stricken. Or in shock. As it is, I think I am in shock.”

  “If you are in shock, which I doubt, then you should go home and take the day off as sick leave. You know the policy.”

  I wasn’t going to waste a sickie doing that, so I stayed. Joyce insisted that I make up the hours. By the time four o’clock came round, I was itching to escape. I finally left at five, but it felt more like seven. That night I skipped the city centre pubs and went straight home. The trams were up and running again. At Besses I looked for signs of the tragedy. Nothing.

  Back home, in Radcliffe, I dozed on the sofa and ate crisps. The local news came on the telly. A man threw himself under a tram today at Besses o’ th’ Barn tram stop. The man has been named by Greater Manchester Police as George Crease, 38, from Whitefield… The presenter, a curious man with small features squashed into the lower half of his face, told me that George had left a wife, Jasmine, who was five months pregnant, and two sons, Edwin and Nathaniel.

  I retreated to my bed with a bottle of White Shark.

  ***

  Wednesday. I wasn’t going into work. I was on annual leave – I’d booked it a while back. I was meeting a friend, Paul Fernhurst, in town. We used to work tog
ether in a furniture warehouse in Sharston. Grim job – dull, strenuous, poor pay – but we had some cracking nights out in Northenden: the Spreadeagle, the Farmer’s. Paul became a paramedic, married with two kids, so it wasn’t always easy to meet up. That’s why I was back on the tram again. If I hadn’t been meeting Paul, I would have stayed put in Radcliffe and made for the Squirrel.

  Rush hour had finished. The commuters were at work. It’s a nice feeling, riding an empty tram midday when others are at work. At Bowker Vale three or four inspectors got on. Ahrsharrh. Gesundheit. I wasn’t surprised to see Neil standing at the end of the carriage, mopping his nose. Tickets and passes, please, tickets and passes. He walked towards me. I was going to say something this time.

  “Hello Neil. Not seen you for a while.”

  “You saw me yesterday, Martin. Ticket or pass, please.”

  I handed him my Monthly Rider. He turned it over in his hand.

  “These are good value,” he said, giving back the card.

  “Shocking about George,” I said. “At Besses. The accident.”

  “Hardly an accident.” He smiled and scratched his head, as he used to do when composing an acknowledgement letter. He still had that boyish warmth in his eyes, but he had become less dreamy, more assertive. Not surprising, really: a ticket inspector needs a bit of iron.

  “The tragedy…”

  “I’m not sure I’d call it that either, Martin.”

  “It’s terrible…”

  “Terrible? Not for George. Think of Jasmine – she’s still here. Think of the men and women who had to clean up his mess – they endure. Think of the commuters made late for their jobs.”

  “I was one of those commuters.”

  “Exactly. And how did you feel? What was the outcome, the impact?”

  “Bagshawe laid into me. My boss.”

  “See. You prove my point. Don’t feel bad for George. Think of those left behind. The pain continues. Ah-rusher. Gesundheit.”

  “He must’ve been pretty desperate,” I said. “He didn’t seem the type.”

  “We are all the type when it comes to death.”

  “But doing away with himself… He was doing well. Married. Two kids. His wife was pregnant.”

  “I believe the incident was handled in a most professional manner. A normal service was soon up and running again. It’s been nice chatting, Martin, but I have work to do. Fare-evaders steal from us all. I hope you enjoy your afternoon.”

  I met Paul in the Rising Sun on Lincoln Square: we had a few beers, a pub lunch. A mate of his turned up later, some berk called Darryl in shiny trousers. We ended up on Deansgate, in an empty bar with industrial trimmings – pulleys, girders – where glamorous staff served us costly Spanish beer. Darryl wanted to go to a strip-club – Teasers or Tossers or something. It wasn’t for me. I left them to it. I had a pint in the Hare and Hounds, got the tram home. It’s a bit hazy. I was quite sauced. I remember the carriage being too bright and the outside world too dark, with sudden hollows where the buildings ended. I was a fly in a long yellow tube. My ears were full of noise. No one spoke to me.

  ***

  The next day, well, I really did feel rough. So I phoned in ill. I couldn’t face going to work. Bagshawe didn’t sound too happy, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. I was ill. I sounded ill. Normally, when I pulled a sickie, I tried to make the most of it. But I wasn’t in the mood. I stayed in bed with Oblomov and dozed and read until dark: that’s when I got up and made myself a fried egg sandwich. Then I went back to bed and listened to people arguing on radio.

  I spent most of the weekend in bed, wishing I could start my life again from scratch: but I couldn’t because I knew that every coming moment is tainted with what you’ve been and what you’ve done.

  ***

  Monday. After a weekend of sleep and no booze, I was feeling stronger, if hungry, and my mood had improved. I wanted to do something constructive, but I had to go to work. I couldn’t pull another sickie, not after Friday. I didn’t have the nerve. So I got back on the tram. Going to work had seemed an easier challenge than speaking to Joyce. I changed my mind when I entered the carriage and took my place beside the humans. All those moist openings. I did not want to be near them. The air I breathed came from noses, mouths, anuses: cheese and excreta. I breathed in their weekends, their private hours: the barbecued sausages and jugs of gravy, the churned soil of gardens, the knotted sacs of dog shit. I tasted their toast and dandruff, coffee and toothpaste. I heard their chatter and heard the sound of metal on skin, an old man sobbing, a daughter shouting No. There were gassy whispers in my gut. The woman opposite me was wearing a pea green jacket with dirty cuffs: the more I looked at her, the more dirt I saw.

  At Heaton Park the inspectors got on. I thought of Neil with his facts and sneezes. I expected to hear Gesundheit and see that moist nose. There would be no small talk today. I would ignore him. I would remain in my own bubble of unpleasantness.

  Tickets and passes – please have your tickets and passes ready for inspection. It wasn’t Neil’s nose that I saw coming towards me, but the trim, suited immensity of George Crease. Genial and authoritative, he worked his way through the commuters, checking their tickets, deftly shifting his weight as the tram moved off. There was no mistaking him: it was George. He even wore a waistcoat, grey with a green check, under his company suit.

  “Hello Martin, how are you doing?” he asked. “It’s been a while.” He wasn’t at all like the George who had disowned me in Piccadilly Gardens. Or the George who had thrown himself under the 8.15 to Manchester.

  “Not bad. Muddling along.” What do you say to a dead man? What’s the etiquette? I didn’t know. I glanced at my fellow travellers: no one was giving me strange looks. Perhaps this George was real. The woman with soiled cuffs was doing her lipstick, painting her youth back on.

  “How about you?” I asked. I thought it rude to ask about his suicide. (So, George, what was it like down there, under the wheels? Did it hurt? Did it take long? Did your life flash before your eyes as they say it does?)

  “Oh not too bad – travelling the world.” This, I realised, was a joke, although my realisation came too late for my laugh to sound genuine.

  “I thought you were with Anderson and Wick,” I said. The woman had put away her lipstick and was brushing her thick yellow hair. “Assistant Regional Coordinator…”

  “For a short while, yes. It was a good job, good money. You have to try these things, don’t you, when they’re offered? But it wasn’t for me. I knew pretty soon that I had to move on again. Life’s too short, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, mine hasn’t ended yet.”

  “An old work colleague tipped me off about the trams. It wasn’t something I’d ever considered. Turned out to be the best move I’ve ever made. I’ve only just started, really. A novice. You should try it.” He reached inside his jacket, handed me a leaflet. “We’re always recruiting.”

  “I’ll have a look.” My confidence was growing, so I said: “I saw you the other day in Piccadilly.”

  “Did you? It’s possible. You’re seeing me now. Anyway, must dash. Work to do. Have a think about the job.”

  George had lost none of his charm. He carried on down the carriage, checking passes and tickets, cheerfully fielding quips about his height and showing off his waistcoat. I looked at my fellow commuters: they ignored me.

  ***

  I’d been speaking to a dead man. A dead man who used to manage me. This was a new low: a daytime vision. I couldn’t go into work, not if I was seeing dead managers and listening to their careers advice. I was ill. I got off the tram at Victoria. I phoned in sick from the public lavatory, standing in a cubicle, reading the obscene invitations. The smell of excrement made me feel queasy. Bagshawe sounded disinterested. She hung up before I could finish my excuse. I got back on the tram. It would be foolish to loiter in town, I might be spotted. Besides, I was half hoping to see Neil or George. I knew this was stupid.
Neil was a disgraced administrator, George was dead. I could find better friends. Bowker Vale, Heaton Park, Prestwich, Besses, Whitefield, Radcliffe. My ex-managers did not appear. I went home and slept until evening.

  ***

  In the morning I phoned in ill again. I upgraded my stomach bug to an ulcer.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Martin. Have you seen a doctor?” asked Bagshawe.

  “Not yet. But I think I will. The pain is getting worse.”

  “It would be wise to consult your GP.”

  “Yes, I’ll make an appointment.”

  “Send me the sickness certificate, if you get one.”

  She hung up. I wasn’t registered with a doctor.

  ***

  I spent the next few days riding the trams, on the Bury line, looking for George and Neil, but I didn’t see them. I did not care about being seen by people from office. None of the inspectors said Gesundheit, none wore a natty waistcoat. Occasionally, I got off the tram and sat on a bench, trying to consolidate my thoughts. One afternoon, when the low sun flashed between the trees, and the wind blew the remnants of an Evening News along the platform, I saw Neil at the ticket machine. He looked like Neil from the back, but when he turned round, his face belonged to a stranger. And at Besses, waiting for the Manchester tram, I thought I saw George in the approaching cab, but a smear of light passed over the window and the face was wiped away, replaced by a moustachioed imposter. I began to note down tram numbers in a notebook. I needed to stay informed.

  I did not have a doctor in Radcliffe. I was registered with a Dr Salathiel in Urmston, where I used to live. I wasn’t going all the way over there only to be told I didn’t have an ulcer, I knew that already. I devised my own certificate. It took me all night. It was a work of art, with an intricate border of vine leaves and coiled serpents, aristocratic calligraphy, and an imposing medical crest featuring a scalpel, a stethoscope, a palmful of pills and a hospital bed. I couldn’t find a quote from Hippocrates to use as a motto. (I didn’t have the internet at home, only at work.) So I made one up: Health – don’t leave home without it. The explanatory text was carefully composed, like one of Neil’s acknowledgement letters, and gave a meticulous account of my condition. I signed myself off for a period of infinity or not less than three months. I made two photocopies of the certificate at the local library. One I sent to HR, the other to Miss Joyce Bagshawe. Even she would have to appreciate the quality.