If it is your life (25 page)

One’s toes, there is a good fellow.

I dried them with the paper towels which were not ideal, but so what man so what. It wouldnt be my fault if matters turned sour, were the world of work and sweat to look unfavourably upon one. Responsibility was mine!

The skin was damp when I pulled on the new socks but they felt so damn comfortable that I thought of wearing them alone. I could tie together the laces of the boots and carry them round my neck.

Ah but the trusty old socks, boo hoo, they were finished now, the time had come to bid farewell. They had been through thick and thin together them two but I had to make the hard decision. Farewell old fellows. I stuffed them behind the pipe behind the lavatory bowl. Hey! Maybe I could wash the bollocks? Now that was a thing. The washhand basin in the public area. Could
I risk it but that was the question, if somebody came in, they would think – well, I do not know what they would think. Ach, ye only live twice. No doubt they would phone the trusty old bobbies; that is what foreigners do, given it was me that was the foreigner.

The washhand basin was a bad idea if not out the question. I checked the cisterns in the cubicle. This was the place for a wash. The water from there is used to flush the bowl but is good clean water. Not clean enough for drinking except if you boil it but good enough for the genitalia. If the cistern is the right height from the floor – roughly hip height – then you can even dip them, just depending. Not today though, too risky. An intuition was strong upon me and I sensed a need: caution. Mondays are quiet but one may feel ‘a presence’ on such a day. Maybe it is in-store training and you are the Guinea Pig. You dont know you are, you are just a customer browsing about and doing what you do but all the time you are being surveilled, unbeknownst, a crowd of store employees are observing your every movement.

So dont tempt the luck. This is the essence of the human condition, we always fucking tempt the luck. Why not leave? There is a time to walk away. It isnt quitting it is walking away; to walk away is not to quit. It is a different thing. I was clean enough, just leave it at that

The mensroom had been a hundred per cent spotless when I entered, it was spotless when I left, even more spotless given the soapy-water spillage. Also myself; theretofore I was a soiled creature, now I was
wholesomely clean, 95 per cent at least, the genitalia would have made it a hundred per cent and nobody can improve on a hundred per cent, not even God.

Some would argue that I am the property of – and thus belong to – ‘my’ Maker but I dont accept that He is my Maker, even if He does exist and whether or not I believe in that ‘existence’. I reserve that right and regard it as inviolable.

I respect the intellectual property of others but not beyond the point of reason, and reason is the product of common humanity. Thus far and no more. I would be damned if it went further. How far do people go anyway? And what about ‘damnation’? I cannot believe in ‘damnation’. It is a weird idea. Where would it happen? Christians have all these ‘places’. Especially Catholics. Purgatory. Imagine purgatory! All these unbaptized weans floating around. You would be dodging them all the time. It would be like a huge meteorite shattered in space and all these lumps of rock and dust flying about while you are hoofing it along the street. How the heck could you keep out its way? Not all of it. You would get hit by something, even if you crawled. At least one wee particle of rock. So maybe that was the damnation bit, if that was you for eternity having to dodge about the place avoiding bits of rubble or whatever, flying weans.

The gratuities plate was empty! It was next to the entrance cubicle. That was where mensroom attendants kept them but I hadnt seen it when I skipped through.

Empty. What do we say about that? There is nothing as empty as an empty gratuities plate.

The public are a miserly bunch of scallywags. Some might argue that people do a job and deserve a wage and shouldnt have to exist on gratuities.

Tips is another word. You have to get tipped.

The attendant fellow did his job, he deserved a pay. If you do a job you deserve a pay. That is what I think too. But if people dont get enough of a pay, if your boss doesnt pay you enough, if he is a sneaky bastard, you have got to get money somewhere. If you dont have any you die or get put in prison.

Unless somebody stole the gratuities. That is so unfair. That is one thing people should not do is thieve a guy’s gratuities.

I quite fancied that job because you were out the way and had your own little cubby-hole. You could have your radio and your kettle and your microwave. That would be you. You wouldnt have to come out, you could just stay in there and not be bothered by fools and vagabonds. That would suit me, not having to cope with the brickbats of life. I bet you it suited a lot of guys. Although usually it was women did these jobs. Mensroom attendants. But it would suit a lot of women too, especially ones with abusive husbands, just getting away and being on their own. You could imagine the abusive husbands but if their wives were mensroom attendants. What sort of mischief are you getting up to! Bump, and they would get battered again. So if you were a woman you would want to stay in your cubby-hole forever, for the rest of
your life and beyond, hiding away from the entire world with your knitting and your darning, just getting on with things now you have peace; and you could do your work there, whatever it was, rearing the next generation, that is what women do.

What do men do? I dont fucking know. Mind you, I would like to have been first person on that gratuities plate. Just laying the first coin. It reveals an honest bond between producer and consumer if it is possible to use that kind of language in the circumstances. Except if you have no cash. What do you do then? There is nothing you can do except leave a slip of paper to explain that you have no money and sincere apologies. I had a sandwich in my pocket.

But I was amazed at how good I looked on the way back out the door. There was a huge mirror at the exit. In some mirrors you look so good you want to steal them. That happens with me. This was such a mirror mirror on the wall. That was that shave, the best of them all, and the general clean and tidy-up. Even my feet, if I took off the socks and held up my feet man they would fucking sparkle. A bright red, but that bright red is a healthy red. Sparkly feet, that is what they looked like.

Except my toenails were of an extraordinary size and breadth. One time I was sleeping with a lady and during the night one of my big toes stabbed her on the leg. It gashed her and the wound bled. These are the kind of toenails I am talking about, real raggedy fuckers.

Maybe the woman at the job Agency would loan me her scissors. She would have scissors. Most women have
scissors. They prepare for emergencies. I dont know one guy that keeps scissors except on the edge of a complicated knife. Women are different. Viva. She was a sexy-looking dame and I liked her. Maybe the same age as me. She had that English accent that once heralded doom for the rest of the world. I knew she would repent of that authoritative position and become as putty in my hands.

I will not say I was looking forward to seeing her. Women don frosty exteriors to keep you at bay. As a man you hope to break through the barrier. You quite fancy the battle but at the same time you think, Oh not again.

If you were married it would be different.

There were steps up to the entrance lobby. I could not remember them from the last time. But they must have been there, and were definitely there now. I walked up and into the lobby and along, and tapped the door into Reception firmly, but no one answered. I saw a sign that said ENTER. So I did. I was disappointed to find a different person at work behind the desk. A woman of indeterminate age, except older by a long chalk. I stated my business, that my presence had been sought by an indeterminate bureaucratic structure pertaining to officialdom. She scanned the diary entries for the morning, hitting a button below her desk in the process.

They all have these buttons, especially for use in emergencies. They think we dont know! Almost at once a door opened and my woman came out to get me, came out to get me.

I smiled. Yet I was disappointed, which was unexpected.

She was surprised to see me. Now that too was unexpected. At this point I realized I was not who she thought. She had my name and details and now here was I in person. I had emerged from the brackets. She recognized my person but not as a function of my clerical position, and I refer here to office rather than pastoral matters.

This was becoming a tricky encounter. She was studying me, not in a direct confrontational manner but I could see that my presence engulfed her. Or was it the other way about? No, how could it have been? But maybe. Bureaucrat women exercise a control on your very life spirit. You expect the dead hand from a male but when a women does it you are doubly dead. Really, that is what I believe. But it is also contradictory. You get left in that limbolular position. You want to improve, you want to do your best, you want to impress and stand up for yourself, and show that you can do it too; you can be a proper person and enter into your rightful station within society.

You do want to improve yourself. I did and would, if given the opportunity. All I needed was a chance! I think she appreciated that.

She returned behind her desk and I sat opposite. She was tapping the keyboard before having settled on the chair. My details would have appeared on the screen. The thought pleased me. I lowered my gaze modestly. But it was enough. She glanced up from the keyboard. The
power of my fancy had entered her inner psyche. What a smile she gave me! Was it a smile? Yes, and I would say glorious. If smile it was then that is the word. What is that exchelsis stuff or does that only apply to celestial creatures? This woman was just really I dont know man I would say beautiful or even better than that, and a slightly peculiar thing about all this was how the smile, if smile it was, occurred at an early stage in these proceedings, or is that relating to wish-fulfilment? I had hoped to make her smile. Was she doing it of her own volition? I had to look twice, and a third time. Seeing her smile made me look over my shoulder before allowing myself the luxury of smiling back. Luxury is the wrong word because I did it in a furtive way, and furtive things are not a luxury. Luxury is out in the open. Who smiles out in the open? People who smile out in the open are the ones we should all try to be. Yet she smiled to see me, she did, she was overpowered by the vision, this wonderful-looking guy with the clean feet and the new shave. Lips and her nipples, lips and nipples, hands and satiny breasts. No wonder you shiver. I could feel her beneath me now raising herself; and me raising myself onto my elbows; her gaze upwards studying me and me smiling down at her, moving slowly man I had to relax, relax. Especially here, especially with her, here with her, and how my life had been. This was not the past.

Although there was something. Yes I liked her; but this was more than that. And from a recent occasion. It was not the first time I had been in her presence. Not at all, otherwise I would not have been anticipating
actions and reactions. Yes I liked her but there was a subtlety here that demanded of acquaintance. Of acquaintance?

Was this déjà vu? No. I had been here before. When was I last here?

But I knew I had been here before.

Because I expected to see her. I had been here before and had been expecting to see her.

Now I was remembering. It was no comfort. If I thought it might have been I was wrong. Not badly wrong. It was only a thought after all. Not even a thought, more the glimmer of one.

And then the short-term memory, or memory span. Why in Heaven’s name was she working in this Godforsaken den of bureaucracy? Maybe over late-night supper and a nightcap I could ask her and she could relax and explain herself. There was a place I knew, located less than two miles from the Agency; I could stretch to two cartons of soup and tea. But even her smile. What was it about her smile? that way people smile; men or women.

Because they know something. They know something you dont know. That is the fucking truth, horrific truth. That is how people smile, they are putting one over you, over on you.

Here was this woman, Clerical Officer, not to beat about the bush, and I was to have done something. I should have. What should I have done? My mind clenched in its effort to recall.

Something.

What the hell was it? Was I to have returned to this very Agency and forgotten? This struck the chord. Last Tuesday. My God. That is the horrific truth I had to face. No wonder officialdom had sought my presence. My memory had let me down again and quite badly this time, not short term but mid term. Although I was too young for Alzheimer’s. As far as I know. Plus that other thing that relates to the effects of heavy intoxicants, the one with the Russian name, what the fuck do you call it – Kolnikovs or something. Probably it had to do with vitamins. I didnt eat enough fruit and vegetables. That was a simple fact of my life. An old guy I knew swore by used tea-bags; for some reason he regarded ‘recycled tea-bags’ as a close relative of fruit and vegetables. If you said to him, Have you had your daily apple yet? He would point at the used tea-bag and say, No, but I am going to eh ah …

He ended the sentence with a meaningful nod of the head.

But an interesting snippet arises here: a side of me that was not surprised by what had and was happening. I was not surprised. Why not? Because there was the vague expection of bad news. Me. I was expecting it. I now realized that and it explains my sense of disappointment at finding the woman in the office when at the same time it was my wildest hope.

Because she was the very woman. It was her! I had given it to her, the contract, bond or promise! I said that I would come along for a job interview and forgot
all about the damn thing – life had intervened. It was she to whom I had rendered the promise, for Tuesday last.

Although I would not go so far as ‘promise’. I would not call it an actual promise. I know when I promise and that was not a promise. I just said it. I shall come for the interview. That is what I told her. I did tell her that. So it was an interview! Yes!