Sawn-Off Tales (7 page)

Smack

M
Y TOLERANCE WAS
down to one bar so I told this tosser where he could stick his complaint and Reg, who was call-monitoring, curled his finger at me to come over. He asked me to roll up my sleeve and then gripped my forearm in his hands and gave me a really hard Chinese-burn.

‘Ow,' I said, more in surprise than anything else. The people around him carried on with their calls.

Later, when he heard me getting chatty with a female caller, he got out a plastic ruler and waited for me to offer my hand. ‘Reg,' I said, ‘no,' but he whacked me on the thigh.

From then on I ignored him. But the team-leader laid down the law. People like Reg paid the company a lot of money to come in and do their thing and if I didn't like it I knew where the off-switch was.

 

 

End of Line

I
GOT THESE
shoes from Aldi. Nine ninety-nine. Since the move to operations the quality of my appearance, which before was a pin in the hinge of my closing a contract, was not so vital.

But Andy wasn't happy. ‘New shoes?'

I stuck out my foot and turned the heel. ‘Yes.'

‘Listen, I don't want to get all bottom-line but, those colours, it's like, Rover, your cornflakes are ready. Not very Waterson and Piper. You used to wear the sort of shoe that a pimp would lick.'

‘I'm Operations now.'

‘Still.'

‘It's my doctor. She says I should wear bright things. For my health.'

I moved my desk in front of reception and sat with my feet up so all the visitors could see my shoes. Funny, but since I made up the stuff about bright colours it actually seemed to be working. I felt cheerful for the first time in ages.

 

 

Server Farmer

I
T WAS THE
three a.m. walk round and I had finished checking the data feeds when I looked back at the servers squatting in the dim aquarium light. They seemed to be mocking me with their beady glittering eyes. These Daleks belonged to all kinds of companies — a nuclear plant, the Benefit Agency, a vehicle breakdown company. I imagined them swapping stories when I'd gone — about caesium spills, dodgy claims, flat batteries in howling gales. I knew for certain that they talked about me.

A spangled map showed the live server connections and when I flipped the switches a thousand winking stars went out. I sensed a body go limp, thought I heard a sigh as the last breath of data escaped. Sirens howled, lights flashed, Doc Marten'd feet pounded down the corridor.

I knew what it was like to kill and I had to have more.

 

 

Kick inside

M
Y
GP WAS
sceptical, but I insisted, you have to nowadays, and a week later the consultant was inserting a tube with a camera on the end into my bowel. Pink folds of glistening skin moved past like rippling sand. ‘That's normal tissue,' he said. ‘but I'll explore further.' The screen went dark then there she was, Sheila, my dead wife, pressing a panel of buttons on a small control box, a faint smile on her face. She knew we could see her, knew that the snaking black tube was capturing her image.

‘I see,' the consultant said.

‘She's been there for months,' I told him. ‘She controls me. She makes me eat Battenburg cake.'

There's no treatment apparently. But they gave me a print-out of the screen. That's it on the fridge door. She's making me tell you this, I wasn't going to bother.

 

 

Pop-Tarts

T
HE LANDLORD WAS
known as ‘Pop-Tarts' and for some reason this worried me. I asked him right away about Deborah and he laughed and shook his large bulbous head.

‘Deborah? Which story did she spin you?' Something went
Ker-ching!
and I followed his eyes to a row of mahogany-coloured rectangles poking out of a monstrous aluminium toaster.

‘She was only fifteen,' I told him.

‘They come and go. Transients. See that?' Grey sheets of smoke billowed out of the gleaming toaster. ‘Proof I do breakfast. Means I get to be a boarding house, do the homeless.' He chuckled, showing stumpy brown teeth. ‘There's money in street people.'

‘Was Debbie . . .'

‘She was different. It's mainly druggies and alchies come through here. Where is the noble tramp, the gentleman of the road?' He flipped the scorched pastries onto a plate and incandescent red globules oozed out. ‘Who'd have kids, eh?'

 

 

The Funny Way I Feel Inside

I
RESTED MY
forehead against the cold chromium rail in front so I could hear what the cute pixie girl was saying.

‘I could never go out with a boy who didn't love, love, love the sound of rain,' she told her mate. ‘That's a real deal-breaker for me.'

Later that week it was really hammering down so I followed her into a bus-shelter. I threw my head back and closed my eyes. I stretched my fingers like a pianist. I hummed and rolled my head from side to side.

But when I opened my eyes she'd gone.

I stayed there listening to the pulsing of the drops. If there was ever an overrated sound, it's the sound of rain. It's not even actually the sound of rain. Rain itself doesn't make a sound. What you hear is a much more complex phenomenon, more intricate than she could ever imagine.

 

 

The Heartless Chain

S
OMEONE SUCKED THE
soul out of Palouki's bar. We'd gone back there to rekindle the love in our marriage, but Helen wasn't impressed, believing the place had been gobbled up by some heartless chain. I deduced that old Palouki had passed it on to his son. I knew I was right, as was usually the case, but I didn't push it; the job was to rekindle.

When our food arrived a photographer appeared and asked if he could take some pictures for outside the restaurant. Helen laughed girlishly, threw her arms about me and waited for the flash.

But the photographer was focussing on our plate of meze.

‘The pictures fade fast,' he explained. ‘Since the old man retired, his son wants everything so-so.'

I winked at Helen, but she began to cry. ‘Just imagine it. Our special dinner, outside for all to see. How many people can say that?'

 

 

The Man Whose Head Expanded

I
MAGINE YOUR MIND
has left your body and is hovering in front of you. Can you see it? A clump of steam, straining on the end of a silver thread? Feels OK, doesn't it? But soon the thread will snap and it will float away. Hopefully you'll have thought ahead and closed the window tight, but it will bat against the walls like a trapped bluebottle, trying to escape.

Ask it what it wants.

It will say, ‘To be free. To go where the other minds live.'

Open the window and follow it.

That's how I got here. It's a bit dull, actually. Sometimes I'm allowed to float outside on a silver string, but usually I just keep things tidy, and maintain the diary of appointments. Practical stuff really, grunt work, whilst my mind thinks long clear unbroken thoughts that go on forever, something it longed to do for years.