Half Plus Seven (17 page)

‘Oh, and before you skip to the beat, there is one last thing everybody. We have had a few reports of over-familiarity with our female enablers from some of the diners. I've got to stress, guys, that these are isolated incidents. Let's keep on keeping on, yeah? Now get out there and spread the love!'

Carol visibly shrunk into her Berghaus like a fleeced turtle. I couldn't help thinking Nick had chosen the wrong call to action to send us out shovelling soup to sozzled sex pests. At least I'd know the audience.

We filed out of the temporary hut, modern day Nightingales against the urban darkness and all its broken baggage. The SoupMobile Station was situated behind one of the shopping district's many department stores. By daylight, thousands upon thousands of desensitised dummies traipsed the concrete paths, driven by the desire for designer names, digital goods and deep fried doughnuts. Water features and plastic trees made them feel calm. Shops had become the new cathedrals. In 2436, East Asian tourists would be snap-happy outside the remains of an Abercrombie and Fitch, while futuristic hustlers, dressed up in plastic six-packs and prep wear, vied for their space dollars.

It was a different story at dusk. While the shoppers and store workers swarmed out to the suburbs to play with their new answer to life's problems, the underfed underbelly came out of the corners to pick on the bones of the day's trade. Half-bitten burgers, dropped purses, binned receipts ready to become part of a return scam: the cyclical nature of the shopping centre's eco-system would have pleased even the world's best botanist. But there were only ever so many bones to go around. Which was where the SoupMobile Station came in. A twice-weekly drop-in dispensary offering the feral food, first aid and a sense of family. All paid for by the commercial property fund behind the retail outlets. A raging corporate social responsibility hard-on, written off against tax. It had been Miles' idea and we'd all kicked ourselves when he had it. Why didn't we come up with that? That's why he was the boss, we'd supposed. It had opened three years ago in a blaze of back-patting publicity. Morgan & Schwarz even arranged for the social justice minister to serve the first soup for a photo opportunity. ‘
Make sure the tramp is black,'
said the brief.

Problem was, the bottom had fallen out of the commercial property game since the recession. The fund was pulling out and the place was going to close down. No more free soup for the smackheads. Time to get there before it closed. In fuck knows how many years of working for Morgan & Schwarz, tonight was the first time I'd ever gone near the place. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It reeked of piss and pea and ham soup. Sure, I was used to hanging out with society's scrotum scratchers, but always in an altered state of consciousness. Smelling the city through a sober nose was, well, sobering.

‘So this is your first time here, isn't it? I don't believe I've seen you before.' I was being addressed by a ruddy septagerian dressed in entirely in tweed.

‘Yes, yes it is. You could say I was a volunteer virgin.' Fucking hell, I was turning into Pete. Carol blushed at the subverted sexual side to my response and moved things along.

‘Derek, this is Bill. Bill's a colleague of mine.'

Derek's sunken eyes lit up.

‘Another truth-bender are you, son? Ahaaa, ha ha…' The laugh emanated from deep inside his overhanging belly and he playfully punched me in the arm. Every sinew of my soul wanted to punch him in the face. My fists clenched. Remember the rules, Billy boy. Moses wouldn't deck a red-faced pensioner, would he? Moses was a red-faced pensioner. I took a deep breath, or as deep a breath as my laconic lungs would allow.

‘Something like that, Derek. Right, let's go and save the world, shall we?'

‘Bill, Bill, Bill…?' Derek was shaking me by the shoulder.

‘Uhhh….'

‘We run a clean ship here, Bill, you hear me? We wash up as we go and we wipe down soup splats as and when. You with me?'

‘Uhhh… I'm sorry Derek. I kind of drifted off a little there.' In the short period I'd been off the hooch, this had been happening a bit. Hallucinatory holidays to the inner depths of the imagination. If the booze couldn't give me a break from reality, then it seemed my brain would.

‘Their ETA is in approximately 30 minutes so we need to man our stations. You know what they say: fail to prepare, prepare to fail.'

‘Right.'

Derek's air of order and pomposity clearly marked him out as an ex-military man. Never a private elbow deep in the mud and the blood of the trenches, but a paperwork man, a second signatory, a minute taker and motion-passed man. His small eyes looked at me with a sympathy usually reserved for retards.

‘First things first, time to don the appropriate attire.'

‘You wouldn't want to get broth on your tweed would you?' My attempt at humour was ignored.

‘Certainly not. Here…' He handed me a white apron, a plastic hair net and some blue gloves. I put them on very slowly.

I forced a smile through gritted teeth.

‘Start buttering the rolls, will you?'

‘Got it.' I located a value pack of 100 white rolls and an industrial-sized tub of margarine.

‘Do about forty to start with. That should be sufficient. The rest can be done as and when.'

‘Sure.'

I lost myself for a few minutes in the reassuring monotony of the task. Cut, spread, fold, cut, spread, fold. And repeat. Disappointed faces danced through my mind: Mum, Miles, Carol, Connie, Craig, Dr Taylor, Pete, Barry, the German, my Dad, Christy.

Christy.

I needed to – to borrow a phrase from that twat Nick – ‘turn those frowns upside down'. And not just through the old friend of self-deprecation. Because where did that get you in the end? Where did anything get you? How did my particular set of circumstances throw me here, to a fucking soup kitchen with a retired bastard brigadier? Satan moved in mysterious ways.

A bell rang an overly jolly chime and the hungry hordes started swarming in.

‘Right, Bill,' he was barking at me now, ‘remember what I said; two scoops of soup into the pot, and one roll. We're very clear on that. Just one roll. Remember.' I didn't remember he'd said this before but perhaps I'd blocked out his huff and bluster. Two scoops, one roll. I could cope with that.

Carol had directed the manky mass into an orderly queue with relative ease and an unfussy efficiency. The bums seemed to move as one whole bearded, tracksuited organism. The supplicating nature of the needy addicts was instantly evident. Whether the hit was methadone or minestrone, it didn't matter. What mattered was that it was coming and things would be better, if only for a while. There were probably about forty or fifty of them in total, mostly male, mostly white, of indistinguishable age and undeniable sadness. They passed through the SoupMobile Station quietly, with eyes averted and thank yous mumbled.

I quickly got into the menial monotony of meal-time. Two scoops, one roll, serve. Two scoops, one roll, serve. And repeat. In another life, I reckon I could well have been happy as a fast food operative. In the new, cold, sober light of day, it seemed somehow more noble than pedalling propaganda for pay. Didn't it? Of course, I'd expect to start on the bottom rung of the ladder, learning the till keys, the knack to salting the French fries, the secret to the perfect shake, the leading questions to ask to tempt the customer to super size.
My name is Bill. How can I help you today?
I'd relish the opportunity to expand my horizons by working alongside minority ethnics. Every day could be a cultural exchange. In a matter of months, I'd be eyeing up the next star on my badge. In the fast food world, first you get the supervisor role, then you get the pussy. There'd be a husky-voiced hussy on the drive-thru. A one-GCSEd goer. I'd lean on the boss to give her a rota which fitted in around childcare arrangements. Let her listen to commercial radio stations in the staff room. Our hands would touch as I dropped BBQ sauce in her brown bag. We'd both know what she really wanted.

‘What have you got today? Not that horrible muck we had last week, is it? I bleeding hope not.' My mental meandering had been stopped short again, but this time by what could best be described as a fathoming homeless.

‘Erm, well I wasn't here last week but I'm assuming there's some menu rotation…'

He sneered back at me. Some snot dribbled out of his nose and swam through the patchy bristles on his red face. His tongue poked out, lizard-like, to taste the treasure. Perhaps a life of food servitude wouldn't have been all that.

‘What's going on over here then, chaps?' The brigadier had smelt blood and left his station to investigate and be a patronising band-aid.

‘Well, this gentlemen here was wondering what the choice was tonight…' I said.

‘Was he now? What we have tonight, as we do every night the SoupMobile Station is in operation, are foods that are rich in the essential vitamins and minerals these young boys and girls need. You don't need me to tell you it's tough out there on the streets,' he paused at this point and looked me in the eye, ‘or maybe you do, but our emphasis is nourishing the mind, body and soul for the long, cold, lonely nights.'

‘But what fucking food have you got?' the hungry one piped up.

‘Manners, young man, manners cost nothing. Just like this food to you. We have a tomato soup. A food stuff rich in vitamin C, essential to ward off scurvy and the like. Not to mention some brown rolls over there for a good bit of roughage.'

‘But I hate tomatoes.' He was at it again. Derek tightened up like a school teacher about to hand out a beating to his favourite repugnant punch-bug.

‘It is not about what you LIKE, my dear boy, but about what your body LIKES. Do you understand?'

‘What about if you liven it up with a bit of seasoning, you know, spice it up with some pepper?' I somehow felt it was my turn to step in and mediate. The NATO of the SoupMobile Station. Fucking hell, it felt a change to be the least fucked up person in the argument.

‘There is no pepper, Bill. No salt, no pepper, just vitamin-enriched healthy soup,' said Derek.

‘Christ, I know they're homeless, but they're not animals. I'm going for a fag break…'

‘You don't get “fag breaks” here, Bill.' Derek did inverted commas in the air with his wiry fingers.

‘Well, I'm not being paid, am I?'

‘No…'

‘So then I'm taking a cigarette break. Thanks very much and I'll see you in 10 minutes.' A collective groan came up from the remaining queue. I undid the apron, threw the gloves on the floor and stormed out of there. Derek gave me a ‘You've won the battle but not the war' kind of look. Fuck you, Derek, this'll be your Bay of Pigs.

I stepped off the SoupMobile Station, reached into my pocket and realised I didn't smoke anymore.

Fuck you, Rule Number 4.

Ah, one wouldn't hurt, would it?

Baby steps, Bill, baby steps.

Outside the safe confines of the ex-burger van I felt a little like a honeymooner who'd escaped the security of a shark cage midway through a 14-day break in Sharm El Shiekh, figuring that now everyone had enjoyed the big day, getting out early was better than a lifetime of limp sex and white lies. The scene before me was an uneasy mix of feeding time at the zoo and mid-morning break at a special school. Now, where was the damaged kid with the cigarettes? Looking around you'd have to say it could have been any of them. I picked out my benefactor, got ready to drop my aitches and approached for a nicotine hit.

‘Why should I?' Christ, I'd picked an existentialist.

‘Out of the milk of human kindness?'

‘I ain't got none of that, mate.'

‘Because I've just served you some soup?'

‘If it wasn't you it would have been someone else…' Although relatively minor, the decision to negotiate with this particular bum looked like the latest in a long line of bad decisions.

‘Okay, it's like that, is it? Well how's about this, pal? It was my idea to set this place up over three years ago to help people like you get some hot food in their stomachs. Surely that's got to be worth a smoke?' Okay, I'd used some artistic licence. And the kitchen was technically on its way out. But nicotine was on the line here.

‘You set this place up?' He emphasised his first word a little too much.

‘Yes.'

‘Personally?'

‘It was my idea.'

‘So why have I never seen you here before then?'

‘I'm more of a behind the scenes kind of guy.'

‘So what's this then?
Undercover Boss
?'

‘How do you even know TV programmes? You're homeless.'

‘Don't judge me just because I'm taking your handouts. I'm a lot smarter than you think.'

‘Right…'

‘You know who else set up a soup kitchen? Al Capone, that's who.' Fucking hell, I was arguing with some trivia tramp for a cigarette. Not drugs. A CIGARETTE. We picked our own battles, I suppose.