Blue Collar (24 page)

At this moment, Gordon came over and leaned in.

‘Here, what’s this Robbie’s saying about matey boy trying to stitch you up?’ he asked.

‘Tel’s split up with Charley,’ Jason replied for me, positively first with the news today.

‘Have ya?’

‘Oh. Oh right. Well, that’s the main thing, I guess. So what’s with Gladys? He out to start trouble, then, is he?’ Gordon
replied.

‘No, you know him,’ my official spokesman continued. ‘He’s just looking to make us look like arseholes, only this ain’t the
time, so I say we don’t give the bastard nothing.’

Gordon thought about this and nodded in agreement.

‘You all right today, Tel? You want to go home?’ he asked.

‘Nah, don’t do that,’ Jason interrupted. ‘Worse thing he could do.’

‘Yeah, I’ll be OK. Get me head down and lay some bricks.

That’s what I need,’ I told him.

‘All right,’ Gordon agreed. ‘There’s a couple of table lifts and chimneys loaded out if you want to get away from the lads.
As long as you promise not to chuck yourself off the side,’ he laughed, then stopped when he saw that I wasn’t.

‘Don’t worry, Gord, I ain’t going to do myself in. I dumped her, remember?’ I told him.

‘That’s true,’ Gordon agreed.

CT hadn’t approached when I’d climbed out of the van and neither had he followed me up here. Instead, he was filming the lads
who were starting an oversite on the far side of the estate. I wasn’t sure how much he was going to get out of them this morning
seeing as Jason had them closing ranks on him like a well-drilled detachment of teenage girls. I hoped they wouldn’t make
their needle too obvious, as I’d tried to leave Charley on the best possible terms so that she’d think fondly of me whenever
she glimpsed St Paul’s, not hock one out and curse my name over the lads’ treatment of her friend. Not that there was anything
I could do about it if they decided to go that way. Blokes being what they are generally as a rule can’t be talked out of
blanking, threatening, smacking, burgling, firebombing or, most disastrous of all, having a quiet word with, a third party
once they get it into their heads that they’re doing their mate a favour. I just had to keep my fingers crossed and try to
set an example.

Not today, though.

Not so soon afterwards.

I simply couldn’t face it.

That’s why I quite liked finishing off chimneys.

A lot of brickwork, such as when you’re just running in a big long featureless wall, can be pretty straightforward. There’s
still a skill to it, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re a time-served trowel, you can easily switch on to autopilot and either
lose yourself in your thoughts, have a natter with your mates or listen to the radio. The corners are already built, you’re
simply laying to the line, so there’s not much to distract yourself with. But chimneys are different. There’s a little bit
more to them. You have to keep an eye on your measurements and your levels as you’re taking them up. They have to be sturdy
enough to independently withstand thirty or forty lashing British winters. The flues inside have to be set with heat resistant
muck and sit flush. And they usually have to be finished off with a little ornate flourish of brickwork, usually involving
a couple of different types of brick, more often than not flettons and either engineering bricks or Staffordshire blues.

So a table lift and chimney represented a good morning’s work and enough of a challenge to focus my mind away from the events
of the weekend.

At least, until I came to the smooth muck flaunching around the chimney pot.

‘Hey, Terry, how are you?’ he asked, hanging on to the van’s roof as he looked through the open window at me.

I thought better of telling him that I was ‘absolutely fucking fantastic’ and settled instead for downplaying it with an ‘OK’.

‘I heard about what happened with you and Charley at the weekend and I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry,’ he explained,
also looking across at Jason and the mess him and his cheese Sandrich were making all over the driver’s seat to share his
sincerity around.

‘Yeah,’ I thought to nod, then added, ‘Thanks.’

‘I just want you to know that whatever’s happened between Charley and you, as unfortunate as it is, I hope it doesn’t affect
us,’ he went on, presumably trying to salvage his shooting schedule in the face of the lads’ change of attitude towards him
and his crew.

‘Yeah, you say that now,’ Jason butted in on my behalf before I had a chance to answer, ‘but how do we know how you’re putting
this programme together or what the voiceover’s going to say until we see it? You could be making old Tel out to be a right
cunt for all we know and we wouldn’t know jack shit about it until it came on the telly for everyone to see and then what
if we didn’t like it? Tough shit all round.’

CT looked gobsmacked at the very suggestion and asked us if that’s what we thought of him.

Once again, before I could get in between the two of them, Jason was speaking up on behalf of the silent thoughts I’d hoped
to keep silent.

‘Oh, come off it, Top Cat, you TV people are all the same. Everyone’s best mate when you want to get your pictures, then right
stitch-up merchants once you’ve got what you need,’ Jason said through a mouthful of Hovis and Red Leicester. ‘I’ve seen those
documentaries on the telly with old Paul Daniels and Noel Edmonds and Robbie Williams and you always make them look like right
wankers,’ he pointed out.

Me and CT glanced at each other and the names on Jason’s list and for the briefest of moments were of one mind, before CT
assured us we had nothing to worry about on that score.

‘I’m not here to do a hatchet job on anyone,’ he promised us both. ‘That’s not even the style of documentary we’re making.
It’s a seven o’clock family spot. We’re just looking to make a fun and factual day-in-the-life show. We’re not out to make
anyone look bad.’ CT then turned and spoke to me directly. ‘You don’t think I’m trying to portray you badly, do you, Terry?’

I didn’t know what to think. Not any more. Events were out of my hands and in the laps of everyone else. If CT was going to
stitch me up, then he was going to stitch me up. If the lads were going to get arsey with him, then they were going to get
arsey with him. And if Charley was going to hate me, then she was going to hate me. There was nothing I could do about any
of it any more, not least of all because I simply didn’t have the energy to. I’d finally chucked in the towel.

‘CT, I just want to come to work, get my head down and lay some bricks. And that’s all I want to do,’ I almost pleaded with
him.

CT weighed this up for a moment, then let out a long sigh.

‘OK,’ he accepted. ‘You have to do what’s right for you. I know it can’t be easy having us here so, look, we won’t get under
your feet or make things difficult for you. We’ll just let you get on with your job if you like,’ he assured me.

As it turned out, he was as good as his word.

26 Laying bricks

A week earlier, it had been six months exactly since my last glimpse of Charley. It had been in St Paul’s in the Whispering
Gallery. She’d slipped through the doors to the stairs without looking back. She’d been wearing her blue suede jacket, her
black cotton trousers and her knee-high heeled boots underneath; her hair had been untied, she’d worn a pale pink lip gloss
and, most memorably of all, just the tiniest dab of Allure that I could still smell whenever I closed my eyes. I couldn’t
remember what I’d been wearing that day. I was pretty sure it wasn’t my donkey jacket, hard hat and half a bottle of Brut,
even though that was what my prankster memory was desperately trying to convince me I’d gone in, but it didn’t really matter.
All that mattered was that single point in time, because that was the last time I’d seen Charley.

And as if to complete the symmetry, in just under two weeks’ time it would be a year to the day since I’d first met her. What
she’d been wearing or smelling like that evening, I had no idea. I could only speak for the next morning when I’d first encountered
her wearing nothing but a smile and a generous stench of champagne, but I circled that particular Saturday night in my mind
all the same. Just so I could mark it with a few sad thoughts when it came around.

Despite these mental etchings, I’d managed to work alongside CT for much of the winter without Charley cropping up in the
conversation. In fact, she’d been rather conspicuous by her absence and there had been times when it had been almost torturous
not asking him how she was, if she was happy, how her Rocket Sauce campaign was getting along and if she’d moved on and was
seeing anyone new. Anyone I might know, like a cunty four-eyed ex who’d been hanging around like a bad smell for years? Incredibly,
I managed not to ask him any of these questions somehow, though by New Year’s my tongue felt like an old bit of boot leather.

Still, it had actually turned out quite good to work with CT, to know that he was seeing Charley on a regular basis and that
stories of me were possibly filtering back to her, so I stayed on my best behaviour, put my best foot forward and entertained
myself with silly scenes in my head in which CT told a rapt Charley every detail of my working week over couscous and baby
otter’s cheese.

‘…and he had grapes in his sandwich box the other day. He even offered me one. He’s eating a lot more fruit these days and
cutting down on the crisps and sausage rolls and has even switched to wholemeal bread. He says it’s better for his bowels.’

‘Wow, that’s great. That’s really good that he’s looking after himself. I was worried he might go to pieces after we split
up, but he’s obviously made of stronger stuff and really getting on with his life, isn’t he?’

‘He certainly is.’

Then Simone and Lis, who’d be at the same dinner party (Hugo’s dead or in prison for downloading kiddy porn at this point
– hey, it’s my fantasy!), would lay a comforting hand on each of Charley’s shoulders and admit that they’d been wrong about
me all along.

‘He was actually a great bloke, wasn’t he?’

‘And a great catch too.’

‘Why did we all think he wasn’t as good as us?’

‘I don’t know, because he was.’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘I feel really bad about it now.’

‘Me too.’

‘Do you think there’s still time?’

‘To get him back, you mean?’

‘Yeah, to get him back.’

‘If that’s what you want in your heart of hearts, poppet, then you have to go for it.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. You can’t go on crying yourself to sleep in that big old empty bed of yours every night and living a life of celibacy.’

‘I know, but what if he’s not interested?’

‘He will be. If he really is as great as he sounds – and from what CT tells us, he certainly seems like it, what with the
fruit and wholemeal bread and bowels and everything – then he’ll take you back in a shot. He’d be a fool not to.’

‘Then goddammit, I’m going to do it.’

‘Good for you.’

‘That’s fantastic.’

‘We’re all right behind you.’

‘It’s the right thing to do.’

‘Absolutely. Also, we were wrong about these lentil things.

They’re actually really horrible, aren’t they?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to say anything before but…’

Then, just before Christmas, CT and his crew packed away their equipment, thanked us for making them feel most welcome and
said their goodbyes. They’d got all the footage they needed, so that all there was left to do was knock the programme into
some sort of shape in a nice warm cutting room somewhere in the BBC. Well, I couldn’t blame them for that; January on the
site’s not the funkiest time of year.

‘Actually really posh. And really short,’ were a couple of the lesser career-finishing rumours we’d start for chuckles.

I always made a point of saying hello to CT whenever he was in. I’d have a bit of a chat with him, help him with anything
he needed help with and share my flask with him if he fancied a cuppa. I even showed him how to lay bricks one quiet Friday
afternoon and there are probably still two or three hundred bricks on the estate that were laid by him, Barrie, Neil and Elaine
when they put down their cameras, booms and clipboards and became brickies for a day. But by and large it was a pretty uneventful
six months. All I really did for most of it was lay bricks, go home, have my dinner and have a few pints at the weekend. Usually
with Jason. And usually in the Lamb.

Jason reckoned I needed to get myself back out there. ‘Get back on the horse, chat up a few birds, have a few laughs and get
some shags under your belt,’ he advised, which, well-intentioned nonsense though it was, was still nonsense, even by Jason’s
standards. I was in no fit shape to be chatting up or shagging anyone, especially some of the Michelin women who got in the
Lamb on a Friday night and whose arrival would elicit a flurry of elbows to the ribs. No, what I really needed was time.
Time to forget. Time to move forward. Time to heal.

So time’s what I got.

Unfortunately, the thing about time is that it takes time. Days, weeks and months can drift by with no discernible effect.
All you really notice is time itself. The dates in the calendar and anniversaries that come along. It’s a hard thing to tell
if you’re missing the person you’re trying to get over less and less with each passing day because, as a rule, you’re not.
You care about them just as much as you did when you last saw them, only you’re not able to express any of this emotion as
you don’t ever see them, so it stays where it is, hanging over your head like a big cloud and pissing in your beer whenever
it’s Miller Time for everyone else.

And the regrets?

Jesus, don’t get me started. That fucking eggs Benedict incident haunted me for weeks on end after we first split up. I would
lie awake at night cringing over memories of me turning my nose up at what is essentially eggs on toast, kicking up an enormous
hoohah and making myself look like a right Prince Charles. I mean, what was I thinking?

And as for going straight home in a big boo after the demo instead of meeting them in the Workers’ Social, how could I have
thrown away a night with Charley so easily? It almost made me want to weep.

But you know the thing I regretted the most? Or at least, the thing I regretted most often. It was that final kiss we never
had in the Whispering Gallery when we came to say our goodbyes. It killed me that I hadn’t just bundled her up into my arms,
held her tightly and pressed my lips to hers one last time. Why hadn’t I done that, for God’s sake? Why had I dithered while
Rome had burned? There had been nothing more to say, nothing more to do; a kiss, a cuddle and an embrace? It would’ve been
the most natural thing in the world to do. God, how many nights had I lain awake beating myself up over that lost kiss? Almost
feeling it. Almost tasting it. I would’ve given anything to have had the chance for that one last kiss again. Anything. But
the kiss was gone. I’d bottled it. Just as I’d bottled everything. What was wrong with me?

You know, thinking back on it, I’d almost bottled our whole relationship that first morning after the night before, playing
it cool on the doorstep like Mr D’Arcy with the horn for his lordship’s wife instead of simply asking Charley out, so I guess
it was fitting that I’d bottled something at the last too. How d’you like that for symmetry?

Only that first time I’d received a reprieve in the shape of a second chance when I’d walked off with her mobile phone. I’m
generally better the second time around. I rarely make the same mistakes twice and I know I wouldn’t if I got another chance
with Charley. Because I’ve seen what life’s like without her and I have to say it’s not a patch on what it’s like with her.

There was only one problem.

There was no reprieve.

There was no second chance.

What was done was done.

The bricks were laid. The muck had dried. And Charley was on the other side of the wall.

She was gone.