Trilogy: The First Three Books in the Amber For Go Series

by Paul Harris

  Chapter Two

  Villiers Street

  I’m sure that the woman at the jobcentre was laughing behind her hand when she phoned through to the cleaning agency to let them know that she was sending a young man along to them for an interview. After she put the telephone down, she handed me the address and winked.

  It was a hard place to find. The address that she had given me was detailed enough but there were no numbers on the doors and no signs to indicate which company inhabited which warehouse. I wondered around the wild shrubbery and the derelict carpark, scrap of paper in hand, until someone called me.

  “You!” he shouted, and his dog barked.

  I stopped and shot my arms into the air. “Ja!”

  “Don’t be funny, son. What you doing skulking around here?”

  I handed him the piece of paper. He took off his peaked cap and span it on his index finger then put it back on his head and began scratching his chin. I was becoming impatient and had to remind myself that I was on a mission, and was turning over a new leaf. His German Shepherd was rubbing itself against the old man’s leg as if it was preparing to mount him. They both eyed me suspiciously.

  “There!” He gave me the piece of paper back. “Side door. Top bell.” He span on his heels and marched off, his four-legged friend limping raggedly behind him.

  I pressed the buzzer and a girl with a squeaky voice answered. I told her I was Paul Newman and she released the lock on the door. It was colder inside the building than it was outside. The walls were bare and damp, deep cracks webbed the plaster. A wrought iron spiral staircase stood erect and proud in one corner. I crossed the concrete floor and began to climb it.

  At the top, I was greeted by a strikingly attractive young lady, sitting behind a reception desk, and combing her long shiny black hair. My chest was heaving from the climb up the stairs.

  “Mr. Newman?” she pouted.

  “Yeah.” She leant over the desk and took the card from me that they’d given me at the jobcentre. I peeked at her name badge and couldn’t help noticing the enormity of her breasts. They were resting on the switchboard and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. “Do they ever dial a wrong number?”

  “Ha ha ha,” she responded sarcastically before writing an address down on a slip of paper and handing it to me. “Go to the Hotel Falstaff. There’s the address. Ask for Mrs. Geedle.” She dismissed me with a smile that reeked of insincerity and I wondered why she couldn’t have told me that over the phone whilst I was still at the jobcentre.

  I took the address from her and began to slowly make my way back to the staircase. I paused on the top step and in a moment of wild abandon decided to chance my arm. “Fancy going out at the weekend?”

  She didn’t even look up from her magazine. I paused but there was no answer forthcoming. As I dropped onto the next step there was a rustle of paper. “Can do,” she eventually replied.

  I was staggered. Had I heard her correctly? I would plough on regardless. “I’ll call you here then.”

  “Can’t wait,” she sniffed. It was hard to tell whether she was being sarcastic or just sincere but shy. It didn’t matter; she’d be getting the call anyway.

  “Bye, Marilyn,” I winked.

  The hotel was at the bottom of Kingsway so I got off the tube at Holborn and walked the rest of the way. It was an incredible place. I’d never been to a hotel like that before. There was a porter in a dark green uniform outside carrying suitcases and bundling rich old ladies through the revolving doors. I made to follow them but he stopped me.

  “What?” I asked indignantly.

  “I take it you’re not a guest?”

  “I might be,” I countered pointlessly.

  “But you’re not. What do you want?”

  “I need to see someone called Mrs. Geedle. You know where to find her?”

  “You need the door around the back. The tradesmen’s entrance,” he sneered. “First right, then right again.”

  The front of a hotel and the back of a hotel are two totally different worlds. They shove all the crap around the back out of sight. It stunk in there, like a million soaking nappies. You couldn’t see the hand in front of your face for steam. Condensation ran down the whitewashed walls and dripped off over-head pipes onto your face.

  People of varied ethnicities rushed frantically from here to there, carrying bundles in their arms. It reminded me of a grim Dickensian fog-filled street, urchins racing about from pocket to pocket, seemingly random movements but all with dire purpose. I asked for Geedle again and was ushered into the laundry lift and taken to the third floor.

  She was a monster in a floral frock and rows of plastic pearls; short, tight, greying hair; legs clad in yellow woollen stockings and capped with sensible black brogues. Fingers like battered sausages clutched the receiver of an internal telephone.

  I rustled up a smile. “Hi, I’ve been sent by….”

  She held up a hand to cut me short and barked something incomprehensible into the telephone. I imagined someone at the other end flinching and clutching his chest in abject horror. I sat on the edge of her desk. She coughed and shooed me off it. After snapping some more instructions down the phone, she stood up with a notebook in her hand. She walked around me, looking me up and down.

  “About time you got here!”

  “Are you Scottish?

  She ignored my naïve attempt to break the ice and marched out of the little office, beckoning me to follow her. She took me to a broom cupboard and loaded me up with dusters, sponges, polishes, and spray cans, and then led me to the gents’ toilets. There was a man in there relieving himself in the urinal but she didn’t bat an eyelid. He zipped it up before he’d completely finished and I’m sure he caught something in his zip. The tear in his eye as he bustled past me was testament to that.

  “You see this?” she said, taking a tin of polish from the heap in my arms. “This is for the brass fittings. Apply with a cloth.” She took one from me. “Polish them all. They should shine. They will shine!”

  “You mean those brass pipes in the urinals?” I asked, uneasily.

  “Obviously!”

  “The one’s everybody’s being pissing over?”

  “And this,” she took a spray can from me, “this is for the lavatory seats.”

  My enthusiasm was waning rapidly, and she went on. “The mop and bucket in the corner are for the floor, of course. I don’t know what it’s doing in here. I will find out who left it in here. It doesn’t belong in here. Take it back to the cupboard when you’re finished.” She began rummaging. “This is for the mirrors. This for the porcelain. Clear any debris from the urinals or the pans. Cigarette butts, condoms, and so forth. Okay? Clear, are we?”

  “Do I get any gloves or anything?”

  “You get them from the cleaning agency. You ought to have got them before you came today.” With that she turned to leave, and then paused. “There are two toilet blocks on each floor, one for each of the sexes. There are eight floors. They all need to be nice and sparkly by the end of the day. We’ll find you something else nice to do tomorrow.” She coughed, and then added, doubtfully, “If I decide to have you back. Come to me at five and I’ll sign your timesheet.”

  She left me alone with my new job, but as I was muttering something under my breath to the effect that no nation on Earth turns out old battle-axes like the Scots do, she popped her head back through the door. “Oh, and make sure you announce yourself when entering the ladies’.”

  I leant against one of the washbasins and lit a cigarette. I gazed at the smoke as it drifted blue into the chlorine filled air and pondered that I might possibly be missing my vocation. My indignation was rising; I hurled the cigarette butt into one of the urinals and began mopping the floor, ever so slowly.

  I spent the afternoon hiding in various cubicles. The ladies’ were nicest; they smelled of perfume, roses and vodka. I sat with my mop and my bucket and the rest of my paraphernalia and listened to the old bags pissing and fa
rting.

  The one good thing I could say about this job was that the staff canteen was excellent. The food was free and was the same stuff that the punters got served; leftovers probably but, still, it was good enough for me. It was deep in the depths of the basement, hidden well away from hotel life. Here, the staff could relax, though only for half-hour periods. Out came the cigarettes and playing cards, bad language and sexual innuendo.

  Geedle held court at a table in the corner with the usual array of arse-lickers that you get in any work place. I sat with a couple of porters from the laundry. You wouldn’t believe what they found in the dirty sheets in that place.

  “It seems that the more money you got,” said George, “the more twisted you get.”

  George was a little old West Indian man with a prune wrinkled face and seventies dress sense. When he smiled, his gold teeth glinted in the fluorescent strip lighting. He smiled a lot. He told me he came out of Tottenham and that the boy he worked with did too. They caught the Victoria Line into Kings Cross every morning together and then back again at night.

  He was about to expand on his former comment, and I was eager in my anticipation to hear more, when he was interrupted by a booming, grating bellow in a floral pink frock.

  “Sorry to disturb your lunch, Gentlemen,” said Geedle, patronisingly.

  “No worries, Sister,” said George, somewhat disrespectfully, I thought, holding up the palm of his hand as if in a gesture of peace and harmony.

  Geedle seemed to grimace, but then let it go, placing her hand gently on my shoulder, almost paternalistically. “Paul,” she said to me, “do you think you could wear trousers tomorrow when you come back? Yes,” she announced, proudly, “you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve phoned the agency and asked them to send you back again. You’ll probably be here until the middle of next week sometime. Well done!” She seemed very pleased with herself.

  “Unlucky!” muttered George’s mate under his breath. Geedle eyed him malevolently.

  “Paul?” queried George. “You said your name was Rodney?” He looked very distrusting and rather disappointed that he thought I’d misled him.

  “It’s a long story,” I offered, timidly.

  “Well, I’m sure we’d all like to hear it,” chipped in Geedle.

  “It’s nothing. Really. I just told the girl at the agency my name was Paul Newman.”

  “Why?” asked George’s boy.

  “Why? It was just a joke. It went wrong. She must have believed me and put it down on my forms. Perhaps, she’s never heard of Paul Newman.”

  “Neither have I,” said George’s boy, “who is he?”

  Sometimes you make a spur of the moment remark; totally meaningless, and harmless too, maybe not as humorous as you initially thought, and perhaps a little ill-conceived, but just a remark; and the next thing you know, you’re in a courtroom situation, with a judge, a jury and an idiot laundry boy cross-examining you.

  “Don’t seem a very funny joke,” mused George, rubbing his chin for effect.

  “So what is your name?” asked the boy.

  “Rodney!” I glared.

  “So, who’s Paul Newman?”

  I tried to spell it out to him. “It don’t fucking matter!”

  “Really!” gasped Geedle as if she’d never heard anyone utter a profanity before.

  I was on a roll. “And what are you talking about? Trousers? As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to jeans. They’re considered inappropriate.”

  “But, I’m only cleaning the shithouses!”

  The boy spluttered into his plastic beaker, firing strawberry milkshake up his nostrils and all over his chin.

  After the five-foot-two security guard had deposited me among the huge steel bins outside the back door, I made my way to a call box and phoned Marilyn. She thought that I was calling to ask her out on a date and seemed quite disappointed when I told her that I’d been sacked already.

  “It’s your attitude, isn’t it? I don’t know what we’re going to do with you.”

  Having suffered enough patronisation for one day, I changed the subject and decided to cut my losses and ask her out anyway.

  As she was from North London, we came to a compromise on the travelling and arranged to meet at the Prince of Wales near Charing Cross Station on Friday night. When I got there, she was standing outside, repeatedly looking at her watch, and stamping her feet on the narrow pavement to keep the blood circulating. Passers-by jostled her, this way and that, making their frenzied ways to and from Embankment Station at the bottom of the hill.

  “You’re late!” she said.

  “Only half an hour,” I shrugged, and led her through the door. She scowled. She had a fierce little scowl on her. In hindsight, this should have been warning enough. She chose a table near the window and sat down. The air was thick with cigar smoke wafting over from a party of men at a neighbouring table. She attempted to fan it away with a beer mat. I made a mental note that she didn’t like smoke. Hopefully, it was only cigar smoke that she objected to. I ordered the drinks and took them over to her.

  “So?” I smiled.

  “So?” she repeated, sounding bored already.

  I felt confused, stumped even; situations such as this rarely arose. I began to wonder when the last time would have been that I had to converse with a female, socially, whilst still sober. I couldn’t remember one. “So?” I repeated, trying to buy more time, waiting for inspiration, willing the words to flow.

  We sat in silence for a little longer, and then she began to laugh. She shook her head at me, her tongue between her lips.

  “I’m not very good at this,” I said, “am I?”

  “Nope,” she smiled.

  “I haven’t had much experience, to be honest. I’m just a little bit rusty.”

  “Really? You surprise me.”

  Again, I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not, but as I seemed to be making some sort of progress, I continued: “The shagging and all that side of it, yeah, but all this preliminary mumbo-jumbo, nah! It’s not really my cup of tea.”

  She stopped smiling and looked away, craned her neck right around and looked at the cigar smokers, as if something had caught her attention over there.

  Suddenly, I felt really hot and the smoke was making my eyes begin to water. I undid the top button of my polo shirt. “Oh,” I faltered, “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…well…”

  She looked at me, no longer smiling, waiting, like an angry parent, for my explanation.

  “I’m just too damned sober,” I whispered. Then, I smiled in the hope that she’d smile too. She didn’t. She gazed, resignedly, out of the window at a street trader on the opposite side of the road as he dismantled his stall for the evening.

  I found myself fidgeting with a beermat, tearing the corners off it, tapping it against the half-filled ashtray, peeling the “Foster’s” logo off it and, finally, tearing it to shreds and dropping the pieces, one by one, into my empty glass.

  I asked her if we were going to stay for another drink, assuming that she would say no anyway and I’d be able to excuse myself from the situation. But as I looked at her, I realized she was far away. She was scanning the busy street outside and when someone caught her attention or her imagination, she followed them as far as she possibly could, and, when she lost them, she would pick up somebody else going in the opposite direction.

  The ebbing light of the setting sun was slightly stained by the curved glazing as it played around the features of her face, lighting her lips, brightening her eye, and then painting a shadow on her neck as she sipped the last of her wine.

  I cleared my throat and moved a little nearer to her. She smelled like summer, and from that day on, that smell would always remind me of summer evenings.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  She pursed her lips but said nothing.

  “But I do like you, you know,” I continued, failing still to provoke a response. I sighed and
picked up another beermat, twirled it between my fingers, put it down again, then stood up.

  At last, she smiled again. “Where we going?” she enquired, ever so pleasantly.

  I shrugged. “I thought I’d upset you.”

  “With your jabbering nonsense?”

  “With my jabbering nonsense,” I confirmed.

  “You know something,” she said quite tenderly, “you’re a half-wit.”

  “I know that. I do know that.”

  “Do you want to have another?”

  “I’m not sure. You?”

  “Perhaps, if you get less sober?” she laughed.

  I got more drinks and sat down again. It was dark out now. The cigar smokers had gone and the bar was filling up with a younger, more boisterous crowd.

  “You know I’m not going to be able to place you again after what happened at the hotel?”

  “I know. It’s not a problem. I don’t think I’m cut out for that line of work anyway.”

  “So what will you do?”

  I shrugged.

  “You signing on?”

  I nodded.

  “Tut!”

  “Well I’m not going to sign off for a job cleaning toilets, am I?”

  “Is that why you lied about your name?”

  I was exasperated. “It wasn’t a lie, it was supposed to be a joke, not a very funny one in hindsight, I admit.”

  She laughed. “I know.” Then, after a pause, she added, “Look, I need to go soon.”

  “Oh.” I felt deflated again.

  “No, no, it’s genuine. Really. I’m glad I came to meet you.” Her eyes bore into mine and she seemed to be waiting for a response.

  I stared back and we sat in silence for several minutes but I couldn’t think of anything more to say.

  She finally broke the deadlock. “Well?”

  “Me too,” I offered.

  “And?”

  I was confused again. She could see that and tried to help me out. “Do you like Chinese food?”