Clovenhoof (26 page)

He looked around the table, and was met with faces that reflected a range of emotions that ranged from earnest approval through total bafflement to desperation to be out of there.

“So,” Michael said, “if we just reach approval on these two, then I think we’re done for the day. Let’s have a show of hands.”

There was a scramble of eager raised hands and then everyone sighed with relief and dispersed as rapidly as they could. Satan wandered around the table staring at the notes and plans and decided that he’d started something big. He wasn’t sure what it was, and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen.

Dave finished typing on his computer and looked at Clovenhoof.

“Well, that should be enough info. Let’s see what we’ve got for you.”

Dave went to a filing cabinet, pulled out half a dozen sheets of paper, all headed with job titles and reference numbers.

“I’ve got some posts we could slot you straight into.”

“Okay.”

“Now, you’ve a lot of experience and many... fine qualities, but without qualifications, your options are limited.”

“I understand.”

“They all pay minimum wage.”

“Is that a lot?”

“Er, no,” said Dave. “It’s the smallest amount anyone’s allowed to be paid. Most of these are sanitation and cleaning roles.”

“What’s that?”

“Cleaning toilets mainly.”

“What? Other people’s toilets? No, I don’t think so.”

“What about this? Stock taking at a warehouse in Erdington.”

“Yes?”

“You’ll be working alone. Won’t have other people to contend with very much. Simple steady work.”

“Stocktaking is counting stuff.”

“Is that a problem?”

Angels, even ex-angels, were good with numbers. Numbers and lists. Salvation and damnation.

“I can count,” said Clovenhoof. “What about these jobs?”

He pulled at the papers already resting on Dave’s desk. He could see higher rates of pay and there was one with very reasonable hours. He craned his neck to have a look.

“I’m afraid you’d not be suitable for these,” said Dave, drawing them away. “School jobs are a bit out of your league. For the time being. Why not give the warehouse job a try?”

“Yes. It sounds thrilling,” smiled Clovenhoof.

“Tina over there can sort you out with a start date. Tina!”

“Thanks,” said Clovenhoof and took the sheet over to a familiar-looking woman sitting at her desk in a wheelchair.

“Job reference number?” said Tina, without looking up.

Clovenhoof looked at the paper. Angels (even ex-angels) were good with numbers. And Clovenhoof had an excellent memory.

Clovenhoof signed in at reception of St Michael’s C of E Primary School and they gave him a clip-on visitor’s badge with his name on and he felt instantly proud and nervous. This was it. A job. His first new job in millennia. Such a thing came with responsibility. He had to make the right impression.

The security doors clicked open and a tiny blonde woman in a roll-neck top stepped through.

“Mr Clovenhoof?”

He stood, towering over her, and shook her hand politely.

“I’m Mrs Well-Dunn. Carol. Do you want to come through?”

He followed her into the school proper and along a corridor lined with display boards of children’s work. The appalling spelling and inaccurate drawings made him smile.

“You’re standing in for my regular LSA who’s not at all well,” said Mrs Well-Dunn. “You’ll be with me and my year twos.”

“Year two?”

“Age six and seven.”

“I imagine you’re brilliant with them,” said Clovenhoof, who had been reaching for something positive to say.

“Thank you.”

“Because you’re so short, you’d only have to bend down a little to be on their level.”

She stopped and looked at him and then laughed.

“You’ll need that sense of humour with this lot,” she said.

“Oh, I’m sure your students are darlings.”

“Of course they are. But they are also children.”

She led the way into a classroom. Thirty little figures in bright blue jumpers sat at low tables with colouring crayons in hand, chatting as they worked.

And you’ll be working with Spartacus,” said Mrs Well-Dunn.

Clovenhoof looked across the sea of ponytails and spiky haircuts to where a boy sat, slightly apart from the rest.

“Spartacus?” said Clovenhoof.

“Spartacus Wilson. He’s statemented.”

“Is that a word?”

“He’s clearly ADHD. There are obvious signs of ASD. His IEP also has him as mildly dyspraxic.”

“He has stomach ache?”

“But his statement is for his ODD.”

“He’s odd?”

The teacher smiled.

“Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Mr Clovenhoof.”

“Right...”

“Go over and say hello while I take the register.”

Clovenhoof wove his way through the tables and sat down next to the boy on one of the tiny classroom chairs.

“Hello.”

The boy ignored him completely and continued with his drawing.

“I said hello, Spartacus,” said Clovenhoof.

The boy didn’t look up but did the physical equivalent of a sigh.

“I’m Mr Clovenhoof.”

Spartacus turned his head slowly and looked at Clovenhoof as though he was a piece of Cubist artwork. He held Clovenhoof’s gaze for a long time and then, deciding that Cubism wasn’t to his tastes, went back to his colouring.

Clovenhoof looked to Mrs Well-Dunn for help or guidance but she was busying logging onto a computer and handing out letters whilst simultaneously drinking a cup of coffee and explaining to the class that they would be putting on an assembly for the whole school later that week.

Clovenhoof scooched his chair nearer to Spartacus and tried again.

“What are you drawing there?”

“Picture,” said Spartacus.

Contact! thought Clovenhoof.

“You’re using a lot of red and black. And are these eyes?”

Spartacus shrugged.

“What’s it meant to be?” asked Clovenhoof.

“Your mum,” said Spartacus without a pause.

“You don’t know my mum.”

“Everyone knows your mum.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Your mum smells of cat food.”

“I think you’re mistaken, young m-”

“Your mum works in the kebab shop. She doesn’t sell any. She just eats them.”

Clovenhoof tried to keep his voice low and even.

“Now, listen h-”

“Your mum gets bullied at bingo.”

Clovenhoof clenched his fists.

“If you don’t shut up now, I’ll...”

“Getting on all right, Mr C?” called Mrs Well-Dunn from across the room.

Clovenhoof tried to give her a reassuring smile but it was a broken and crooked thing.

“Famously,” he said.

Very quickly, Clovenhoof worked out what his job was meant to be. It was to be a buffer between the boy Spartacus and the rest of the world so that Mrs Well-Dunn could get on with her job of teaching the other students.

While Mrs Well-Dunn did her best to improve the numeracy and literacy of the little Fabians, Kenzies, Chardonnays and Aramintas that made up her year two class, Clovenhoof did his best to corral the uncontainable spirit of the boy and verbally head him off at the pass whenever he decided that, like his namesake, he should rise up and lead a rebellion against his masters.

By the end of the day, Cloven was wishing that Spartacus, again like his namesake, had been crucified and left to die on an Italian roadside.

“Tomorrow,” said Mrs Well-Dunn to the class as they put on their coats to go home, “we’ll be breaking into groups to prepare for next week’s assembly. Some of us will be in the choir. The rest will be preparing our dramatic presentation of the one of the stories of Jesus. Mr Clovenhoof?”

“Yes?” said Clovenhoof, looking up.

“Could you lead the drama group to start off with while I have a quick chat with the new choirmaster?”

“Of course.”

Spartacus picked up his lunch box and homework bag.

“Mr Clovenhoof?” said Spartacus.

“Yes?”

“Your mum’s so fat she appears on Google Earth.”

And with that, he was gone for the day.

Clovenhoof downed his first Lambrini at the bar of the Boldmere Oak while Lennox the barman poured his second.

“Are we allowed to punch children?” he asked.

“Sadly not,” said Lennox.

“What if no one’s looking?”

“Seven thirty, mate.”

Clovenhoof dug deep in his pockets for change but only came up with three pound twelve and a red crayon.

“Can I owe you? I get paid on Friday.”

“Dunno, mate. ‘Neither a borrower or a lender be.’ Shakespeare said that.”

“‘What a piece of work is man.’ He said that too.”

Lennox gave him a shrewd and penetrating look.

“Friday, yeah?”

“Friday,” said Clovenhoof and made off with the drinks to where Ben waited.

“Thanks,” said Ben, slurping deeply. “So here’s to your first day at work.”

“Yeah. Might be my last.”

“Work proving a little harder than you expected?”

“It’s not the work. It’s the...” He held his tongue, remembering that, officially, he was working at a machine parts warehouse. “It’s another employee. I’m having problems with a colleague.”

“Have you fallen out with your boss?”

“No. He’s meant to be doing what
I
tell
him
.”

“You’re being bullied by an underling.”

“Well, no. No. It’s not like that. It’s... yes, it’s exactly that. I’m being bullied.”

Ben chuckled and tried to hide it with a gulp of cider and black but just made a noise like a drowning hippo.

“It’s not funny,” said Clovenhoof.

“It’s not,” said Ben, wiping purple juice from his chops. “I just can’t see you being the victim.”

“This guy’s a little shit.”

“Jeremy. First of all, you’ve got to rise above it.”

“Rise above it?”

“Yes. Whatever jibes, whatever insults he’s flinging at you, ignore them.”

“But he’s so irritating and I’ve spent all afternoon thinking up snappy comebacks.”

“Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. Anger leads to suffering.”

“What a load of twaddle.”

“I know this from experience, Jeremy. I had a neighbour I fell out with. A really bitter old sod. I let him get under my skin and...”

“And?”

“And it didn’t end well.”

Ben sighed deeply.

“I got my itemised credit card bill through today,” he said.

“Oh, yes?”

“Sex dolls.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Someone used my card to buy a latex sex doll. Two thousand pounds it cost!”

“Wow. It must have been pretty top notch.”

“It was. I mean, I assume it was. I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“And then this bastard used my card number to pay for some supermarket groceries, stereo equipment and clothes. All on line. What is a bolo tie anyway?”

“No idea,” said Clovenhoof, glad he’d opted for an alternative outfit that evening.

He hadn’t lied to Ben. He had spent the whole afternoon thinking of witty insults to use on Spartacus. It seemed a shame not to use them but Clovenhoof chose to follow Ben’s advice for the time being. Besides, having been given the name Spartacus, the boy deserved at least a little sympathy.

After registration, Clovenhoof and his little drama group went into one of the school’s two small halls, the other year two students going into the second hall behind a partition screen.

“Right, sit down you lot,” he said.

Four of the children sat down in front of Clovenhoof.

Two girls, Pixie and Mercedes, were too busy comparing scrunchies to listen, Kenzie Kelly was running around pretending to be a fighter jet and making ‘budda budda’ gun noises and Spartacus Wilson was diligently and forcibly trying to break into the PE cupboard.

“Girls, sit down,” said Clovenhoof. “Kenzie, stop strafing the chairs and land over here. Spartacus, come sit down.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” called Spartacus.

“Yes, I am,” said Clovenhoof.

“You can’t tell me what to do. It’s a free country.”

“Since when?”

But the girls were seated now and Kenzie was taxiing to the terminal so Clovenhoof decided to ignore Spartacus for the time being.

“Right, let’s see what our assembly is on.”

He looked at the notes and book Mrs Well-Dunn had given him.

“Ah, the parable of the prodigal son.”

“What’s that?” said Mercedes Jones.

“It’s a story Jesus told,” said Araminta Dowling.

“Is it a true story?” asked Herbie Gates.

“What do you think?” said Clovenhoof. “The guy who told it was an illiterate carpenter and was making it up as he went along and the bloke who wrote it down didn’t even write it down until fifty years after Jesus died, had never met Jesus and didn’t know anyone who had. Chances of it being true...”

Clovenhoof made a seesaw motion with his hand.

“Still,” he said. “At least it’s short, morally bonkers and features the mindless killing of farm animals.”

“Killing?” said Spartacus who was trying to pick the PE cupboard lock with a pencil.