Her Living Image (25 page)

Socially, the Architects’ Department was a dismal place. He accompanied them dutifully to the pub at lunch time, and regularly consumed steak sandwich, chips, and two pints of bitter
– but he found their company stolid and boring. And the building he had to work in was hateful: a sixties-inspired civic centre, eighteen storeys high and shedding a shower of facing bricks
every time the wind blew. They had never had the scaffolding down from it since it was completed. Inside it was cheaply futuristic, with inadequate sound-proofing, hideous pegboard ceilings, and
open-plan offices littered with little barricades of filing cabinets, boxes, and plants, behind which people screened themselves in a primitive attempt to gain working privacy. He found it grimly
amusing to regard the civic centre as the fruit of centuries of architectural learning and experience – combining as it did an unsafe exterior with maximum interior ugliness and discomfort to
users. Those on the higher floors with insufficient kudos to obtain more than one filing cabinet as shelter became neurotically insecure, and the absentee rate on the top floor was a standing joke.
The panoramic views of the town (it hardly deserved the name of town any more; it had had an identity a hundred years ago maybe, but now was simply absorbed into the uglier side of the city’s
sprawl) were appalling. There were vacant vandalized industrial sites interspersed with mean little terraces and the scars left by demolition; flattened blighted acres of car park. On the skyline
to the east, like a half-forgotten dream, the outline of the hills. To the west, the assorted and affluent skyscrapers of the city centre gleamed smugly. Millside’s ugly civic centre stood
forlornly single, pinned to the sky with its scaffolding, in deformed imitation of its city centre cousins. Looking down from its windows Alan felt that its growth from the squalid devastated land
around it was as fitting as a blackhead on dirty skin.

The floor containing self-service cafeteria and bar had never been opened, due to problems which had arisen in the construction of the kitchens. It was only by chance that Alan discovered the
temporary canteen for council employees. No one from Architects’ ever descended to lunch there. It was a ramshackle wooden annexe, tacked on to the side of an old primary school which was now
being used as a records store. It was a five-minute walk from the office, along dark terraced streets. Alan went in out of curiosity, and found himself enjoying the school-dinners atmosphere and
the cheery buxom ladies who waved ladles and offered “A touch of carrots, love? A nice bit of stew?” and seemed to have running jokes going with (or know the favourite dinners of)
everyone in the queue. It was good to feel wooden boards under the feet, and a cold draught down your neck.

He sat alone at first, sizing up the people around him. The square tables dotted round the room seated four, and most people came in with others whom they seemed to know. He sorted them into
three categories: the longest serving council employees, who had got into the habit of eating here in their youth and never got out of it; the lower salaried ranks (you could get a three-course
meal for under a pound); and those who ate here for convenience or from principles. Convenience because it was quick, principles because it wasn’t exclusive. There was a serious dearth of
attractive young women, most of whom (he supposed) were on diets and didn’t bother with lunch, and of people (young men he meant) in his kind of position. Presumably they were all busy
licking superiors’ arses and chewing leathery steak sandwiches in pubs. He enjoyed the half-hour or so that he spent there, anonymously eavesdropping and fantasizing, outside the earnest
claustrophobia of Architects’. Soon the dinner ladies hailed him as a regular, and didn’t need to be told that he liked custard on apple but not on cherry pie. Alan had been, since his
youth, a favourite with cleaners and dinner ladies, upon whom he exercised an almost nauseating degree of charm.

When he had become familiar with the regulars at the tables, and concocted backgrounds and occupations for most, a youngish and not unattractive woman started to frequent the canteen. She was
often ridiculously dressed, with muddy wellingtons and baggy waterproof boilersuit, and several shapeless jumpers underneath. He watched with interest as she peeled them off. She was transparently
thin. Her mouse-blonde hair was cut too short, in one of those butch feminist cuts. Alan took the trouble to imagine her with long silky strands framing her face and brushing her shoulders.

She attracted attention (not his alone) because there were so few women worth looking at in the place. Also, she always stripped off (though she didn’t put all the layers on again at
the end, he noticed). And then she ate a remarkable quantity: soup and roll, meat and three veg, and apple pie and custard, at speed and without embarrassment. She usually sat alone. There was a
washed-out looking woman in her forties (a terribly dependable personal secretary, Alan had decided) who came in a couple of times a week, and the girl sat with her on those days.

Gradually Alan got to know some people from other departments, and found himself on nodding terms with a few of the canteen regulars. There was an overfriendly man called Robinson, a planner,
who started to eat there because, as he told Alan repeatedly, the old ulcer was playing him up. He was regretful about his inability to go to the pub and not drink; “I miss the company
– but Christ, I couldn’t do it – any more than I could disappoint a lady, eh, eh?” He had an embarrassingly loud voice. He took to sitting at Alan’s table and
complaining loudly about the food and the lack of personable women, and describing the reactions and dimensions of his ulcer. He was such obnoxious company that he drove Alan to lunching at erratic
times, in attempts to avoid him. When Alan came in one day, he saw that Robinson was already there – not sitting predatorily alone, but astonishingly accompanied by the boilersuit blonde.
Alan sat himself at a distance, where he could watch them and eat in peace. They were arguing. He had not known that Robinson knew her. He noticed that the woman was unusually smart in a silky
white blouse and green waistcoat. He wondered again what she did. She was giving Robinson a rough time.

As Alan went across to get some coffee Robinson bellowed at him – “Two more, you anti-social bugger!”

Alan filled two extra cups and took the tray over to join them.

“I thought you were having a private conversation.”

“No,” no said Robinson hastily – “just work – it’s all work here, eh?”

The girl stirred her coffee and ignored him. Alan sat down and Robinson introduced them hurriedly. It was obvious that Alan had been summoned because Robinson was losing the argument. The
girl’s name was Caro something, and she was in Landscape Design.

“Ah!” Alan smiled his direct and charming smile at her. “That explains it.”

She looked up at him coldly. “What?”

“The clothes – the Worzel Gummidge outfit. I thought you must be in Parks and Gardens, but then you looked too elegant today.”

She looked at him steadily for a moment, then flushed bright red.

“Wouldn’t you think – wouldn’t you think I was rather rude, if I suddenly started comm–commenting on your appearance?”

Robinson began to laugh.

“I didn’t mean to be rude –” said Alan.

“Yes you did,” she said quietly and fiercely. “You wouldn’t dream of speaking like that to a man, patronizing him about his appearance.”

“Have to watch your step here, old boy,” said Robinson joyfully. “You’re speaking to one of the original bra-burners. She won’t stand for any of your male
chauvinist piggery. Isn’t that what it’s called?” He appealed to Caro. She looked at him with such contempt that Alan felt almost sorry for the man. But he was irritated by the
way she classed him with Robinson.

“I wasn’t patronizing you, as a matter of fact,” he persisted. “I’ve spent a large number of lunch hours working out the occupations of the people in this room,
on the evidence of their clothing. Men and women.”

She looked at him and raised her eyebrows briefly, in acceptance of the statement. Then she turned to Robinson. “You will be there tomorrow, then ? Do you want me to call for you? At
nine-thirty?”

“No, no,” muttered Robinson like a naughty schoolboy who’s been caught out. “I’ll be there.”

“Good. Bring some boots. It’s very muddy.” She nodded briefly at both of them, picked up her tray and left. Alan noticed that she had thin, rather fragile-looking legs, and
was wearing cream-coloured stockings. She moved well, with a long flowing stride.

“You may look,” murmured Robinson insinuatingly, “but that’s as close as you’ll get. She’s a les – lives with a load of other women.” He sat
back in his chair, expansive and relieved now she had gone. “Not my type anyway. Too skinny – not enough on top, eh, eh?”

Alan avoided replying by swallowing his coffee very slowly. Robinson was a nauseating jerk. He was embarrassed that Robinson had noticed him looking at her legs. He made his voice matey and
conspiratorial.

“Well what are you up to then, young Robinson, meeting a man-hater at nine-thirty for a muddy tryst?”

Robinson humphed. “I wish she’d get off my back. It’s the new park site – she’s got some beef about the contractors not finishing off the earth moving properly.
Well they’ve started some demolition work for us, over that side – and now she’s going overboard about the thaw and her bloody planting season. I’ve got to be dragged along
to look at some mess they’ve left, so she can persuade me to send them back. What she needs is a good fuck, in my opinion; that’d give her something else to think about.
Bah.”

They stood up.

“Why d’you call her a les?” Alan asked casually.

“You are interested aren’t you!” Robinson nudged him so that his cup slid off the saucer and spilt coffee dregs over the tray and his jacket.

“Sorry old man. Keep your pecker up, eh, eh!” Robinson departed. Alan told himself that the coffee dregs were divine retribution for the complicity in which he placed himself
with Robinson.

A few days later, she was sitting alone at a table near the till, surrounded by her heaps of discarded clothing.

“May I?” He sat opposite her on impulse. She looked up, nodded, and continued to eat.

“You must work out on site a lot,” he said, indicating the clothes.

She swallowed her mouthful.

“A–At the moment – I’m doing someone else’s job really.” She took another mouthful and he waited then saw that she needed prompting.

“What’s that?”

“Oh – we got one of these Manpower Services schemes through, to do canal reclamation – so we appointed a Project Officer to look after them. It’s a shame, he’s
been ill on and off since the thing started, and he’s a nice bloke –”
She took another mouthful.

Alan wondered if she was in a hurry, or just very hungry. He noticed that although she wasn’t wearing any make-up the skin around her eyes was dark and purplish, and that her eyelids
were full, almost puffy. She looked as if she might have been crying. “So what have you done?”

“Well, we haven’t replaced him. They look after themselves pretty well, but I do about three mornings a week with them at the moment.”

“On canal reclamation, you said?”

She nodded.

“Where are you working?”

“We’re on the stretch between Gorst’s Mill and Bailey Hill Railway Station. D’you know where that is?”

Alan nodded. It was close by. “Isn’t there going to be a new park round that area?” he asked. “Robinson was saying something about it.”

“Yes.”

There was a silence.

“D’you only come in here when you’ve been working outside, then?” asked Alan, realizing that he had only seen her the once in office clothing.

“Usually. It makes me hungry. I don’t get hungry in the office.” She finished her potatoes and turned immediately to the apple pie and custard. The conversation was
beginning to feel like an inquisition. Alan concentrated on his food, and there was another silence. At last she said, “Are you new in Architects’?” and they talked briefly about
Lark and Clarkson, and the frustrations of working for the Council. She excused herself as soon as she had finished her food. After she had returned her tray she came back to pick up her boilersuit
and jumpers, and smiled at Alan as she left.

Alan didn’t have lunch in the canteen for a week or so after that. He had various lunch-time meetings, and spent quite a bit of time on site at a partially built clinic where unforeseen
drainage problems were developing. It was a messy job – he had been given it half done and each time one problem was solved another seemed to arise. On the one day when he was heading for the
canteen he recognized Robinson entering the building, so he turned back around the corner and went to a pub instead.

He had to call in at an estate management office near Bailey Hill Railway Station, at the end of the week, and found himself leaving there at eleven forty-five. It was a stupid time –
too early to go for lunch, but not a long enough stretch to do anything useful in the office. The sun was shining weakly, for the first time that year, it seemed. On the spur of the moment he cut
across the railway car park, over the footbridge, crossing both railway and canal, and down on to the canal towpath. He started to
walk in the direction of Gorst’s Mill. The surface of
the canal was clean and silky smooth; the bordering flagstones had been uncovered and a red ash path laid beside them. Small straight saplings had been planted in the mound of raw mud that ran
parallel with, and to the right of, the path. He ran up the mound to look over the landscape on the other side. It was behind a tall wire-mesh fence. There was an expanse of featureless muddy
ground, running away to a bare hill, some distance to his left. Much nearer, the ground was staked out, and some digging had been done, on what was obviously intended to be the foundations of a
fairly large building. Behind the digging rose another naked hill, lopsided in shape. It all looked rather arbitrary and silly. There was a group of people up ahead, clustered around a lock beyond
a bend in the canal. He ran down and walked on quickly, slowing as he came within sight of the lock. The narrow space to the right of the path opened out into a sloping area where two stark new
picnic tables stood. There were several people standing around the tables, and another group, who were laughing and shouting, on the bridge over the disused lock. The lock had been blocked up.
Water cascaded in a steep waterfall from the higher level to the lower, under the near side of the bridge. Three large steps had been built to break the force of the falling water, and low iron
railings ran across the edge of the lowest step. The railings were clogged with plastic bags, bits of wood, a tyre, clumps of weed; a mass of rubbish which blocked the whole lower step. Alan saw
that Caro was in the centre of the group on the bridge. She said something and there was a burst of laughter. She was holding up a coil of heavy rope and demonstrating something – then she
began to wind the rope around the waist of a tall boy, amidst cheers and wolf-whistles. Alan watched her fasten the rope and hand the coil to two others. The boy started to climb down the side of
the waterfall steps. She spoke to them again, then ran down over the bridge towards the picnic tables. Alan moved forward quickly.