Think Yourself Lucky (3 page)

"Let's not spoil the birthday," David's father said.

"I didn't mean to," David said, though he wasn't sure that the remark had been aimed at him.

"You haven't," his mother said, knuckling the corners of her eyes. "Thank you for a lovely meal."

At least they weren't doggedly offering to pay, which would be worse than a rebuke. Once when he'd taken them out for dinner they'd ended the occasion by insisting, before he'd learned not to question their work too closely if at all. He was relieved to see Stephanie approaching with cappuccinos and grappa on a tray. "And thank you just as much, Stephanie," his mother said loud enough to be heard in the office.

"We'll have you both over very soon," David's father told him once they'd all finished their drinks. "We promise not to bring up work."

Mick emerged from the office as David's parents left the restaurant. He was clearly less than pleased that David lingered when he'd paid. "I'll wait for Steph if you don't mind," David said.

The manager's face sagged, especially the mouth. "Not been saying she's not safe with me, has she?"

"She'd have no reason, would she?" Having taken the silence for a denial, David said "We'll be going back to her place or mine, that's all."

"Lucky you." With no enthusiasm Mick said "Get you anything?"

"I'm fine unless you've something I could read."

Might this sound like a gibe about literacy? The manager hunched one shoulder and then the other as he lurched into the office, to reappear with Liverpool's daily newspaper. "Here's our news," he said, thrusting the jumble of pages at David. "If it's not beneath you lot from across the river."

David might have pointed out that the paper reported stories from his side of the Mersey as well. It was turned inside out with the football pages uppermost instead of at the rear, and the rest of it wasn't even in order. David set about putting it right, glancing at stories as he did. Football, football, monstrous interest rates on loans, police raids on cannabis farms, care homes shutting down for lack of funds... All at once a story caught his eye, or rather the photograph that illustrated it did.

MAN DIES IN LIFT. While his face was no larger than a picture in a passport, his obesity was plain. His name was wholly unfamiliar, but something didn't seem to be. It must be the struggle to place him that was turning David dizzy; he felt as if the contents of his skull were drifting loose. He raised his head to gaze at the empty restaurant, which hemmed him in with squares and rectangles checked blue and white. Just now it looked like a parody of domestic life or else of travelling abroad. His head wavered drunkenly, and then he shoved back his chair and dashed for the Gents, where the black tiles on every side gave him the impression that his vision was deserting him. He stumbled into the nearest cubicle, where he just had time to flush the toilet before falling to his knees and heaving up his dinner. He had to flush again to cover up his sounds. Stephanie mustn't think it was the fault of her cooking, even if he had no idea what was wrong with him.

'What's stopping us now?"

"You just did."

I may as well not have answered him. He's simply complaining, not inviting anybody else to speak. The train had almost shut its doors when he waddled along the platform and gave the nearest one a flabby thump. If I were the driver I'd have put on all the speed I could and never mind how close the late commuter might be—the later the better. When the doors flinched away from the puffy puffing character, who is bagged in a track suit that I'm sure has never ventured anywhere near a track or any other exercise, he dumped himself on the seat across the aisle from me. The seat opposite him is occupied as well, not just by his feet in fat trainers that must have started out white but by a plastic bag that smells of its hot contents. "Are we off yet?" he asks nobody except himself. "Always being held up. Third time this week, which."

He doesn't even make the sentence sound as if it isn't finished. He's using the last word like an overgrown full stop, leaving it to lie there like a block of verbal lead. He finds the floor with his feet while he rummages in the bag for a hamburger. The polystyrene bivalve squeals as he opens it, releasing more of the greasy stench. Chomping on the burger shuts him up, but only until he clears his mouth enough to mumble. "Too hot in here. What are they playing at? Can't hardly breathe. No air down here as it is, which."

The train has gone underground with a roar the tunnel traps around the carriage. Windows someone opened to tone down the fierce heat let in more of the noise. "Too loud and all," the muncher moans through another mouthful. "God, what a racket. Won't let you think, which."

"Do you go in for much of that? I was assuming you just talk."

I don’t imagine he hears me. I suspect he mostly hears himself, and he's his own best audience as well, though maybe he was hoping somebody would take the hint and shut the windows to save him from standing up. He plainly has no plans along those lines, since his feet are back on the upholstery. His eyes are as dull as the dough of a bun, and the rest of his face is more evidence of what he eats—it has the texture of an uncooked burger and isn't much less round. I don't know if I'm smelling the food in his hand or in his mouth, if not both. The train is coming to a station, and I wonder if it's his, but he's stirring only to plant his feet further apart, presumably in case anyone thinks of sitting opposite. "Conway Park," he says a good deal less distinctly than the recorded announcement overhead. "No use to me. They don't sell my style of shoes in Birkenhead, which. Every sod's but mine."

"Which style is that? I can't say I'd noticed you had any, Mr Meatface."

I needn't have bothered asking. I can tell he'll be keeping up his commentary all the way to his destination. He's like a child who can't stop babbling, even while he takes another big-mouthed bite. "It's the arches," he complains, and a half-chewed chunk of burger lands on the seat he's facing. "Doctor says I've got to have the shoes to fit, which. Pity his lot can't pay for them if he says they're for my health."

Apparently talking isn't enough any longer, and it's time for a demonstration. He plants the carton on the other seat he's opposite and sets about untying the knot on his left trainer. The mammoth task involves hauling the leg towards him with his hands behind the knee and straining his top half forwards over his stomach. "Give it up, you bugger," he snarls. "Don't go messing me about. Just come here, you bastard. Bloody come here."

He's forgotten to say which for once. Eventually he captures both ends of the shoelace and gasps as he gives them a hearty tug. He treads on the shoe while he releases the foot along with an extra smell that the draught from the open windows can't disperse. "Ah, that's it," he moans, pressing his foot in its discoloured chunky sock against the seat opposite and wriggling his sluggish toes. "Next best thing to a rub off the wife, which. She could do it for a living, her. Don't like to think how she'd leave the house if she ever got a job."

I can't tell whether he's thinking about the state of the place or saying she's confined there, not that I want to know. Once his foot has finished squirming like an animal in a sack he stuffs it back into the trainer, puffing out more of the stale sweaty stink as he hauls at the tongue of the shoe with both hands. "Get in, you little," he pants. "Get where you're bloody told, which. Get right in."

"Need a hand, Mr Meatface? I've two here that want to go to work."

He's too busy gasping and sweating and tugging at his shoe to hear me. At last he triumphs over the trainer and succeeds in tying a sloppy knot. The impromptu pedicure has taken us past one underground station, and I wonder how many the other foot may call for. He seems to think he's made enough effort, however, and slumps back to dig in his bag for a packet of crisps, which don't prevent him from talking. "Here's the shops," he announces as the train halts at the first station under Liverpool. "Hordes of shoes, which. No time to look. I'm everybody's servant, me."

The crunching of crisps is as loud as his voice. Both seem to need him to keep his mouth open as much as he can, expelling a smell of cheese and onion to join the other aromas he's bestowed on the carriage, not to mention spraying the floor and the seats with crumbs and larger fragments. "Next one for me," he proclaims at the second stop. "Wife's sister coming up from London, which. Can't get the train to us herself. Wants meeting and her bags carried, and the wife's too feeble to help."

"I thought you said she couldn't leave the house."

He's already waddling to the doors as the train moves off. He has left more than his mark—footprints on the other seats, the empty plastic bag, the crisp packet unfurling like an artificial flower and surrounded by a generous distribution of its contents, the carton gaping to display the remains of the hamburger and bun still glistening from his last bite, the various smells he donated to the train. "Let's get her done with," he says, only to protest when the carriage lurches. "Watch how you're driving, you. Some of us are standing up here, which."

He continues muttering until we arrive at Lime Street, where the trains from London terminate. He plops onto the platform and plods towards the lift. By the time the train worms its way into the dark we're alone down here. The corridor leading to the lift is tiled as white as a morgue and full of his plump footsteps, not to mention the smells in his wake. I wait for him to reach the end and thumb the button. "Get yourself down here," he exhorts the lift. "Some of us need the lav before the train comes, which."

He's started to repeat himself before the lift settles into view beyond the midget window. As the doors crawl open I move close to him, and I'm behind him in the lift when he pushes the Up button. His moist thumbprint shrinks on the plastic as the metal cell creeps upwards. I don't know whether he can see my blurred reflection in the window of the door ahead of him, but he shakes his head as if he's trying to get rid of an unwelcome impression. His cheeks haven’t finished wobbling when he swings ponderously around and finds me at his back. He clutches his chest, and his shoulders slam against the wall so hard that the lift shakes. "Sweet Jesus," he gasps. "Where did you come from? Trying to give me a heart attack?"

"I think you've been working on that all by yourself, Mr Meatface. And you didn't say which."

"What are you blabbering about?" He chokes as if he's rediscovered a lump of hamburger, and then he sucks in an open-mouthed breath. "Watch out what you're doing," he protests. "You'll have us stopped if you're not careful, which."

I've moved to stand with my back against the controls, but I haven't touched them; I'm only making sure he can't. "What would you like to talk about now? Any subjects you think you haven't done justice to?"

"Are you mad or what, you? What are you on about justice?"

"That doesn't even make sense, and you forgot your favourite word again. Take your time. You've got all of it that's left. Call that justice if you like."

"I'll be calling someone all right if you keep on." His face is mottled grey and pink and red, more like his choice of food than ever. "Leave them buttons," he pants, "which."

"You had a lot more to say for yourself on the train, I must say. But you never talked about your crisps or your hamburger."

"Them's your problem, are they?" He's managed to regain some sense of his own rightness. "Want to mind your business, you," he says, "which. Think you're a cleaner?"

"You could say that. Say I'm cleaning up the world."

He doesn’t understand, or else he doesn't want to. "Well, if you've finished talking," I say, "how long do you think you can hold your breath?"

"Long enough, which." Whatever this is supposed to mean seems to desert him, and he demands "Who says I've got to?"

"Who else is here?" I enquire and bring the lift to a shuddering halt halfway up the shaft. "How long now?"

"What've you done?" He flaps his floppy hands at the controls behind me, where the emergency phone is housed as well. "Get away from there," he gasps. "Get it going, which."

"Make your mind up, Mr Meatface. How's your breathing now?"

He gapes like a stranded fish. He looks as if he's searching for a breath before he manages to find one. "Help," he yells, "I'm in the lift. It's been stopped. Someone come and fix it, which."

I doubt anyone can hear him. He's still using too many words, and the last ones trail off, robbed of breath. I can't stand the sight of his open mouth, especially the fat greyish tongue coated with scraps of his recent snacks. "Help," he bellows before he has summoned enough breath, and then starts to cough. This turns his face even more fiercely piebald but seems unlikely to achieve enough, and so I plant my hands over his nose and mouth.

I have to brace my heels against the metal wall to pin him where he is. His thick lips squirm against my palm, rubbing crumbs on my skin. My other hand flattens his nose, which puts me in mind of a slimy snail with a shell that's close to cracking. I've covered his right eye, but the eyeball struggles under my fingers while the left eye bulges and reddens and rolls about as though it's desperate to escape. His fat wet hands tear at my sleeves and perform other antics in a bid to reach more of me. If it weren't for all this I'd be in danger of losing interest before I'm anywhere near finished. At last his hands twitch and droop, and a flabby shudder passes through him, and the tedious task is over. His swollen eyes grow dead as marbles while his body turns flaccid and seems to expand as it slithers down the wall to slump in a heap on the floor. I send the lift to the concourse level, where nobody is waiting outside or coming down the passage that leads to the main station. "Someone's passed out in the lift," I call as I leave the passage, and then I'm lost in the crowd.

"Is there anyone here who doesn't believe they're a writer?" Darius Hall said.

As David thought of raising a hand a woman called "We wouldn't be here if we didn't."

"So let the world know who you are." Hall's roomy bronzed small-featured face stayed bland as he said "Any other questions, anybody? Anything at all."