SUCK IT AND SEE
By
Bruce Jones
Copyright 2011 Bruce Jones
Smashwords Edition
Discover more about the author at his website, http://www.brucejones.me
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For Jessica
Part 1
All At Sea
Prologue
No. 14 Arouse an eager lust in your customer by conveying your enthusiasm
in an electrifying and winning way.
That’s what the manual said anyway. Or something like it. God, he wished he had the manual with him.
“Look, Mr Limpdick.”
And why was she staring at him like that, it was most unnerving.
“Lampwick, but please, call me Scott, Jane.”
“Alright, Mr Lampwick. What I really want to know is how much it’s going to cost me?”
Nigel perched uncomfortably on the edge of the beige, leatherette sofa wringing his sweaty hands. What was he doing here? What was he doing full stop? That would be a start; to get that much straight.
No. 13 Take your time with your patter. Do not be rushed into discussing
price until you detect in your customer a fervent desire.
“Ah…” Nigel cleared his throat. “Well… Jane.” He rummaged in the plastic briefcase balanced on the seat next to him, “where are we now…,” and fished out a chunky calculator. “Let’s see,” he said, trying to give the appearance of skilful application as he bashed away uselessly at the buttons. “Um, how does seven grand grab you?”
Oh dear. Perhaps it was the pained, wincing look on his face, but Nigel suspected as the words tumbled out of his mouth that he needed to work on the electrifying and winning aspects of his performance.
And yes, okay, he had been found wanting in the enthusiasm department, the killer combination of nerves and a countenance like a hungry, begging dog just not really getting him to where he wanted to be.
And if we are marking the exam papers and giving feedback, he had allowed himself to be rushed; bamboozled even. Fifteen lousy minutes he’d been in her house and already his tired, pathetic presentation was lying in metaphorical tatters on the lilac-swirl shagpile.
And hadn’t the manual said something about getting the customer to call you by your first name? Peregrine seemed too posh in the circumstances. Scott was much more fitting. More fitting than Nigel anyway. Christ, the last thing he wanted was the mad old hag knowing his real name.
But using the customer’s first name; that probably wasn’t in the manual. Oh how Nigel wished he had read the manual. Given the chance he would read it right now; read it out loud if that would help.
No. 9 In negotiations, be calm and assured. Control. You are in charge.
Firmness is the key. But remember, the customer is always right.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” snorted Jane.
“Five thousand then?” countered Nigel meekly, ever hopeful.
“Don’t be silly,” said Jane firmly, rising from the sofa opposite Nigel, teapot raised. “More tea?”
“No, I’m fine thanks,” said Nigel, feeling far from fine. He slid the cup from his slimy fingers onto the narrow coffee table in front of him, nudging aside the plate of stale-looking Rover biscuits.
Jane put down the teapot and brazenly came over, shoved his cheap case and its scrappy contents roughly onto the floor and sat down next to him. Right next to him. Uncomfortably close for Nigel’s liking. So close in fact that he had the misfortune to get a proper look at her face. The pungent waft of her toxic perfume raced up his nostrils and reached in to grab him by the throat, but it was the advancement of her hand up his leg that had him gasping for breath.
“Four thousand then?” said Nigel, struggling to keep things within the vague and rapidly fading arena of the professional. “What do you think, not a bad price, hmm?”
He knew he should have been suspicious when she had answered the door to him in the middle of the day sporting a barely thigh-length, silk kimono and what he had imagined at the time to be tights, but could now quite clearly see to be stockings and suspenders.
“I was hoping we could come to some sort of arrangement,” said Jane lasciviously, tousling his mousy brown hair.
“Fuck a duck,” said Nigel, backing away. He was finding the rightness of her position as a customer difficult to grapple with. “I can’t do that, my boss would kill me.”
“Forget the windows, I was never very interested anyway,” said Jane, grabbing his tie.
“My thoughts exactly,” gasped Nigel.
The kimono burst over Jane’s stocky shoulders and a pair of large, dopey breasts sprung loose and came bounding towards Nigel’s boyish face like a soft and heavy St Bernard. And freed from the constraints of the gown, layers of rubbery, mottled stomach-flesh came slithering after the lazy lobes like a lava flow, as Jane attempted to smoulder… and … and began – bloody hell – as she began to clamber onto a goggle-eyed and reeling Nigel.
Her left breast caught his right cheek a glancing blow. “Mercy,” he pleaded, “I’m allergic to fish.”
“The house has been so quiet since the children left home for college,” said Jane, ignoring him. “So few nice young boys visit these days,” she sighed dreamily.
“What about your husband?” Nigel enquired urgently, employing his best tennis shots to swat away her volleying hands.
“Not much action there since the colostomy bag was fitted a couple of years ago,” said Jane, matter of fact, “and his doctor says his medication won’t mix with Viagra.” Timing the moment of her advance with precision, she made a determined snatch for Nigel’s zip.
“Oh my God,” he shouted, nearly swallowing his own tongue in fright. “Stop. Absolutely no way.” He wriggled and squirmed but it was no good. She was a fair old weight and she had cleverly managed to pinion his legs beneath her as she moved in for the kill.
Nigel was desperate. He knew his number was up. One last chance. Time for some control; violence was called for. Deep breath. He clenched all his muscles, holding his torso stiff as a board. “That’s the spirit,” said Jane.
Suddenly, Nigel let his body go unexpectedly limp. Sort of like as if he had had a heart attack and died. The release of pressure pushing against Jane's lumpish thighs caught her off guard. She relaxed for a split second, perhaps indulging a fantasy in the darkest abyss of her befuddled head that he had given in to lust and her beguiling charms. Who knows. Nigel certainly didn’t dwell on it. Summoning strength, he shoved her with all his might.
Startled, Jane tumbled off him. Her hefty buttocks rasped on the leatherette sofa like a fart passing through a tuba, and then she briefly took to the air. Her chicken wings flapped wildly but to no avail; her heavy bottom wouldn’t fly and she bounced off the biscuit plate and landed hard in a crumbly mess on the carpet.
Nigel fought the hyperventilation - he was absolutely, totally, utterly, positively certain that none of this was in the manual - and braced himself for the recriminations.
Without a word, Jane climbed back off her arse, squatted on her stack-heeled haunches and nonchalantly brushed bits of biscuit out of her bum-crack. Nigel had a nasty feeling that the biscuits were going back in the tin later and was pleased with himself for having resisted the chocolate bourbons; he dared not hazard a guess at quite how many times she had been through this routine before. Jane scratched her chin with a gaudy nail and rocked back and forth taking the measure of him, nodding to herself. Contemplating. Her breasts bobbed defiantly southwards in rough time with the movements of her head. “How much for the bathroom skylight?” she said coolly.
“Frosted glass?”
“Yeah.”
“Ahh?” How the hell should I know thought Nigel, before remembering that he was supposed to know these things. “Eight hundred,” he rallied.
“Five hundred,” Jane flashed back.
“Seven hundred and fifty, and that’s my final offer,” said Nigel, wagging his finger (rather assertively he thought) and swallowing hard.
“Six hundred.”
Get out of here thought Nigel, I don’t have to take this shit. I can’t possibly. “Okay fine,” he said quickly, terrified lest she should change her mind.
Jane grimaced like an ape, forcing her thick, pasted lips harshly back at the corners. Instinctively, Nigel recoiled, raising his arms to protect his head. Jane’s hand shot up and in one swift movement, plucked the red smeared teeth out of her mouth. A bloated tongue darted to catch the dribble, bubbling and sloshing from her gaping gob. But that was not the worst of it. Not by a long chalk. She was burbling at him dementedly. He could scarcely believe his ears.
Through a shower of spray and with some deliberation, she emphatically repeated her terrifying closing-pitch to clinch the deal. “And a blow-job.”
Oh no. No way. Anything but that. Nigel regarded her with horror.
Firmness was the key.
Chapter 1
Friday
Turning up for an interview with a steaming hangover, sporting clothes that one had slept in was none too clever. Scuffed brogues with vomit speckles on the toecaps were perhaps not the wisest attire either. As for turning up for the interview six hours after one was supposed to be there...
Even Nigel knew these things.
Which is how he came to take the executive decision at three o’clock in the afternoon after the night before, that he would skip his appointment of ten-thirty that morning with the careers adviser at the job centre.
More or less.
The telephone exploded somewhere above Nigel’s right ear.
“Wassat!” Startled, his legs jerked and kicked over the table that he was lying partially beneath, dislodging the phone from its cradle in the wall. Mercifully, this stopped the horrid ringing noise. Not mercifully, the now swinging receiver smacked Nigel in the mouth when he sat up, made to grab it and missed.
“Yeah,” he said groggily when he caught the phone, just before it clocked him a second time.
“Mr Hines?” a sprightly voice enquired.
Nigel sensed that deep thought of the kind required to respond to trick questions like that was going to be a challenge.
“Christine Walker. Hackney job search team co-ordinator speaking.”
“Mmm.” He checked about his body and was pleased to learn that all his limbs were attached where he had grown accustomed to finding them. And bit of a result, his wallet was still in his pocket and so were his front door keys. He, or someone anyway, had even managed to shut the door to the street. That must have been just before he collided with the table in the hallway, which in turn must have been just immediately before he spent the remainder of the night, face down on the floor in a coma.
“We had an appointment this morning,” said Christine. She sounded a bit put out.
“What happened?”
_______________
Three days earlier
Scott Lampwick leaned back in his creaking swivel-chair, toyed absently with his greasy ponytail and chomped on a blob of bubblegum. “You’ve been with us what, two months now Neegel?”
“Three actually.”
Scott paused a while to work up an extravagant bubble. “Like, not everyone can be as good a salesman as me,” he said when it burst. “I know, I know. ‘S cool. I mean, how many guys d’ you know who win the Hemel Hempstead and environs platinum shield two years in a row, eh?”
“Um, well not many, that’s for sure,” said Nigel uneasily, whilst Scott plucked bits of gum from his stubbly face.
“We’re talking mega-sales. Yes sir, and just don’t get me started on soffits and fascia boards.”
“I won’t.”
Because, you see, if there was anything Scott Lampwick didn’t know about flogging window products – ‘yeah suspend your disbelief a moment Neegel and just pretend okay’ – then it was not worth knowing.
“But for mere mortals like you Neegel, there’s the manual.”
“The manual. Of course. Oh yes.”
Scott knitted his brow, stared across his Formica desk, across the plastic weave, seventies-fag-packet-style carpet, across the six-foot portacabin, which in fact constituted his, the area sales director for Hertfordshire South (including Hemel Hempstead and Harpenden), executive office suite and let out a deep sigh.
“So Neegel, what we gonna do…?”
The strange, grating twang emanating from Scott’s gob was actually a pathetic attempt at an American accent, but with a mouthful of gum it was almost impossible to hear what the hell he was saying. Nigel screwed up his face in concentration, trying to figure out the ugly drawl and in doing so, upset Scott’s train of thought.
“Sorry pal, forgetting myself, want some?” Scott extracted a half-conquered pack of cherry-flavoured Bubble Yum from the bowels of his copious trousers.
“Eh?” Nigel started suddenly as the packet was thrust at him. “No thanks.” Don’t know where it’s been. Or rather, he was painfully aware of exactly where it had been.
“’S cool,” shrugged Scott. “I mean it’s not. But hey; it figures. Ya know where I’m about from?” He cocked a pistol finger at Nigel by way of enquiry and drew back his Magnum Force thumb. “Capichioprondo?”
Nigel frowned.
“Capichioprondo,” repeated Scott impatiently. “Comprehendomundo. Unnerstan?”
“Oh,” said Nigel, not unnerstaning. Just get on with it, you fat tosser.
“Sally was the one who insisted on us hiring you, shit knows why.”
“Does he?”
“Say?”
Nigel was tempted to ask if ‘Shit’ worked in the accounts department. “I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“Sheesh! and what you got that I ain’t then kiddo?”
You mean apart from an absence of facial warts or quietly aggressive B.O, thought Nigel. Sally was the mad for it slag in the typing pool who had the misfortune to be Scott’s personal assistant. She was passably attractive and desperate for adventure but not so desperate ever to seek it beneath Scott’s fifty-inch waist, which always seemed to make him rather cross.
“Should never have let you within five miles of Glastonbury Glass. No sirreee. Look at you, with your posh vowels, your neat haircut, your fancy suit. It don’t add up to shit in the beans in a row of ducks and what have you stakes, cappacunio?” Scott explained lucidly, whilst he drummed his knuckles on his desk. “Fact is, I don’t care if Sally thinks the sun shines out of it frat boy, she’ll have to have another think when she realises you ain’t shaping up to glass.”
This wasn’t sounding very promising to Nigel, and what was even more dangerous, Scott seemed to be enjoying himself.
“I’ve been in this game for twenty years now and your sales figures are without doubt, the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Surely, there must have been someone worse,” protested Nigel, trying to keep things light but respectful, and with a touch of self-deprecating mateyness thrown in for good measure.
“Ever,” said Scott. “In fact, let’s not dignify them by calling them sales figures. Ya sold zip.”
“I did sell something. You’re forgetting the skylight I sold to Jane Templeton last Wednesday,” said Nigel indignantly. He knew he was crap, but fair’s fair.
“Oh, I’m not forgetting that.” Scott lent forward and picked up an invoice from the desk with his sausagey fingers. “Six hundred quid. Very impressive for a piece of glass that’ll cost us six fifty to install,” he sneered.
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” said Nigel.
“I think there is,” said Scott. “You were so overcome at having managed to land a sale, you left without even getting a cheque out of her for the dosh, you sap.”
“An easy enough mistake,” said Nigel. In the circumstances.
Scott’s voice rose in a crescendo of petulant, John McEnroe rage. “You did read the sales manual which I gave you, didn’t you?”
Are you out of your mind, thought Nigel, of course I didn’t read your tedious bollocks manual. “Ah, most of it, I think, “ said Nigel.
“Which bits did you sort of skip over?”
“I read it all, naturally.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“It’s just… well… I was so eager to get into it and the job, that I may have… skimmed some of it to get a feel for the whole thing.”
“How much can you actually remember now. What have you actually learned?” Scott reached up to a shelf above his desk and pulled down a lever-arch file. Seemingly in a daze, he reverentially stroked the cover. “You know I wrote this baby, don’t you?”
Didn’t strike me as the sort who could even hold a pen thought Nigel. “They don’t call you maestro for nothing.” Actually they don’t call you maestro at all. Sally had confided to Nigel that everyone called Scott, ‘peanut dick’.
Scott looked dumb, and looks were not deceiving, because Scott did dumb very well indeed, but even he knew when someone was taking the piss. He smiled his best, ‘Godfather-kiss-of-death-before-you-have-your-penis-cut-off-and-shoved-in-your-mouth-and-end-up-dead-in-bed-with-a-horse’s-head’ smile.
Nigel wondered if Scott had been overdoing the prescription drugs again. Sally had mentioned something about the medication that he needed for his haemorrhoids.
“You think you’re smart don’t you,” said Scott, rising from the chair.
Ah right, thought Nigel, know this moment well. Been there, done that, bought the postcard a few times before. Quite a few actually. Game’s up. “Look, if you’re going to fire me, let’s get on with it. Just give me my severance pay and I’ll be off.”
“Severance pay. Severance pay did you say?” Scott roared with laughter. “You work on commission only, you chump. Severance pay, goddamnit.”
In for a penny thought Nigel. “What about the skylight, you’ll get the money, Mrs Templeton was… quite obliging.”
“Tell you what, you collect it and then you can fit the window yourself too.”
The thought of it made Nigel wince. It just wasn’t worth it on so many levels. He got up to leave, convinced that Scott might wet himself if he stayed any longer. He wasn’t in the least bit sorry about losing the job. He had never really wanted the stupid job in the first place, but he had gone along with it at the insistence of the job- centre careers adviser, hoping that this might just be the one; the one to make an impact on him. Something where he might finally make his mark. But it had been a familiar story, silly to think otherwise in fact. He had realised sort of immediately that it was not the one, not even close to the one, and it was no kind of something for making marks at either. Rather, it was the same old dead-end dog shit as every other job he had tried and failed at. And now he was having it rubbed in his face by Scott of all people and he felt crushed by the empty pointlessness of it all.
“Hey boy, hold up a minute” called Scott, “c’mere,” he beckoned. “It gives me no pleasure to cut a young man down off his prime horse,” lied Scott. “Here, show you summet.” Nigel crossed the room to where Scott was standing and pointing out the window across a muddy road.
“What?”
“There,” said Scott, jabbing his outstretched hand. Nigel squinted through the murky plastic.
“Ain’t she a beaut?”
“Who? said Nigel.
“Yeah, I know you’re impressed. Every guy with a todger in his trousers wants a top of the range Vauxovergeot, three-litre, five-door Commodeo. Tiptronous stick shift double cam over manifest quadraxle with a six CD changer in the boot and RDS. Maxes out at 139mph, does nought to sixty in a whisker under, blah blah…” That’s what Nigel heard anyway as he registered the navy-blue, family saloon-car that Scott appeared to be getting all stirred-up about.
“That’s the mark of success see boy, and some of us got it, meaning me, and some of us ain’t…” said Scott smugly, patting Nigel on the shoulder.
Nigel was incredulous.
“I always like to do this when I show folks the door. Kinda goodwill gesture. Show ‘em what could have been if they had managed to enter the winner’s enclosure. Give ‘em a glimpse of the pantheon of valour.” Nigel was none the wiser, but Scott wasn’t finished yet. “Saw the look on your face, ya see. My experience, it’s always you college guys that take it the hardest as a world of opportunity is closed off. Learn from this, ‘kay. Your college educashun don’t mean shit. But that’s dandy. Cos now youse a graduate soldja from the Lampwick academy of life. You work hard, one day, you’ll come close to this too. That’s my gift to you.”
I can see why they call you peanut dick thought Nigel.
_______________
Friday again
Nigel stared numbly into space as he struggled to cope with the throbbing pain inside his skull.
“Mr Hines, are you there. What happened?”
“I can’t recall,” said Nigel truthfully, rubbing his eyes.
Christine said nothing. Nigel knew she was waiting for an explanation; what pathetic, half-arsed excuse did he have to offer her on this occasion? They hadn’t met before of course, but Nigel had encountered a goodly number of Christines over the last few years. He’d also sat in a fair few job centres witnessing other people witlessly trying to scam the likes of Christine with Jackanory tales to cover all manner of weakness and failure.
“Ms Walker,” began Nigel, pulling himself together and gripping the telephone hard to maintain his balance as he sat on the floor.
“Christine. Call me Chris,” she chirped.
Nigel couldn’t remember when patronising, over-familiarity had ever helped to advance things, but he was in no position to press the point. “Chris,” he allowed, “I’m really sorry. Were we due to meet this morning? Damn, I knew there was something.”
Christine waited patiently.
“I had a job interview this morning.”
“Oh yes. Where?”
“Manchester. Just got back when you rang actually. Went up last night. Stayed with a friend. You know, overnight.”
“Manchester,” said Christine, clearly sceptical. “Who with?”
“Um…” Nigel scanned the hallway for inspiration. “Raleigh,” he said, spying his rusty bike pushed against the opposite wall at the bottom of the stairs.
“Aren’t Raleigh based in Nottingham?” said Christine. Yep, definitely suspicious, no question.
“It was a job in sales in a regional office.” Phew, should be safe now; but hang on, look out.
“That was quick, you only lost your job two days ago.”
Bastard. “A friend told me about it yesterday morning.”
“My appointments book says you phoned here about reinstating your benefits yesterday morning at eleven-thirty.”
“It was just after that that my friend phoned. Out of the blue.”
“You managed to fix up to see them pretty fast.”
“Keen as ketchup me. Strike when it’s hot, you know.”
“How did you get on?”
“Pardon me?”
“At the interview?”
Yes I knew perfectly well what you were asking, just give me a break, will you.
“Wasted journey. Job had already been filled.” That should do it.
“That was rather mean of them, to drag you all the way up there for nothing, especially having told you, literally hours before, to come and see them.”
“Shit happens. On to the next one anyway I say,” said Nigel, desperately trying to plant the seeds of a change of subject.
“Who did you see, who interviewed you?”
“Can’t remember the name just off.”
“Someone in area sales management though, I suspect,” said Christine.
“Yes, probably.”
“I’ll give them a ring. Reputable company like Raleigh ought to know it can’t treat people like that, however lowly.” Steady with the ‘lowly’ thought Nigel, but more immediately than that, Shitting hell!
“No, please don’t.” God this woman was irrepressible. She must have been dealing with disingenuous idlers like him for years. Surely she of all people could see that he was lying hopelessly, irredeemably, just like everyone else she must meet every bloody day. Perhaps she just couldn’t allow herself to lose her faith. Well, if that’s the way it has to be thought Nigel, delusion will suit me fine; whatever gets me through. One last try before my head explodes.
“Look. Let me be honest. I didn’t want to say anything, but the whole business upset me rather.” Pausing
for
effect.
“I just want to forget it. Move on. The thought that someone, anyone, might just give me a chance, well it’s all that keeps me going frankly Christine.” Time for the waterworks. The quavering voice was too difficult, it sounded fucked with the hangover anyway. Had to be the full banana.
“WHAAHAhhaaa,” he roared. Silence. Again then. “Whaaaooorarara,” come on, come on, you heartless witch, “sniff, sniff, blubb.”
“Let’s capitalise on that spirit,” said Christine at last.
Hurrah. Home and dry thought Nigel, breathing a sigh of relief. But he should have read the danger signs. He cursed himself for relaxing; for allowing himself to be lulled. What an amateur.
Here fishy, fishy. “It’s just after three. I’ve got a free slot at four-fifteen. Come round now and let’s see if we can’t get you fixed with something else.”
“Shit.”
_______________
Careers adviser. There’s another job I couldn’t do thought Nigel, staring blankly whilst Christine ploughed through his CV.
Careers adviser: part social worker (couldn’t possibly, the triumph of hope over bitter experience, far too depressing); part mental institution visitor (not sick people, no way); and part missionary bounty-hunter (lots of hard, hectoring work and no small measure of great, personal risk), the whole thing wrapped in the thickest most zealous skin imaginable. Not a million miles different from a born again Christian.
Besides, Nigel didn’t own any oversized mohair sweaters or any tubular-plastic earrings (à la Kylie Minogue in Neighbours circa 1988) and nor did he have the capacity to lift his arms above his head whilst they were weighed down with enough stainless-steel bangles to make a wind mobile for the garden.
She’d seemed complaisant enough anyway, when he’d finally arrived forty-five minutes late. On another day, he might have been disappointed that he hadn’t timed his lateness rather better so that she’d already left for the day, but today he was just glad to be holding himself together.
As soon as he had come off the phone to Christine, he went and tried to poach the alcohol out of his brain by taking the hottest shower he could stand. It didn’t take long for the scalding spray to make him feel decidedly faint and in need of a lie down. Two pints of water and a couple of Anadin later on an empty stomach and then a wave of nausea and a couple of Anadin and two pints of water came ricocheting off his gut and – just – into the bog.
Twenty minutes later, he sat at the grubby kitchen table of his tiny flat, nursing a can of coke and cautiously nibbling the corner of a piece of dry toast.
More delaying tactics. Phone someone.
Simon: out, showing someone round a house.
Derek: out, accusing some vicar of lying in his insurance claim for damage to the church roof.
Phoebe: out on call (shouldn’t really phone her anyway, she’d told him before to fuck off whilst she was working; always seemed to have some sodding patient or other with her).
Charlotte: out; always was. Where is she? Out. At work, but resolutely out. Nigel nosy bastard.
Usual story then.
It surprised Nigel; surely he couldn’t have been the only one unfit for work after last night – not of course that he had any work to go to, but he wouldn’t have made it anyway. And not that alcohol had much to do with his fitness for work or otherwise either.
Bernard then, good old dependable Bernard.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Come on Bernard, you’re an accountant, you haven’t got anywhere interesting to go, answer the bloody phone.
“Bernard Openshaw’s office,” said a female voice.
“Hi Tracey, it’s Nigel Hines. Bernard about?”
“He was at his desk a few moments ago.” Big fucking surprise. “Let me just check.” Charming tinkle of electronic Vivaldi while one is on hold.
“Nigel?” It was Tracey again. “He told me to tell you he’s out.”
“What do you mean, ‘he told me to tell you?’” Nigel was mildly put out.
“‘S what he said,” said Tracey, matter of fact.
“He’s sitting there?”
“Yep.”
“Not with anyone?”
“Nope.” She sounded as if she was getting a little bored with the fatuity of his questions.
“I expect he’s busy,” reasoned Nigel, “trying to get something finished.”
“Couldn’t rightly say, but not overly I don’t think. Between you and me, he was a touch twatted when he came in this morning.”
“Stuff to catch up on then, that’ll be it.”
“Doubt it.”
Thanks a bunch thought Nigel. What’s eating him up? God, I wonder what we did to him last night that’s got him so annoyed? More so than usual that is. He resolved to try again later.
Christine finished reading Nigel’s CV, set it down delicately on the desk in front of her and smoothed it flat with the palms of her ham-sized hands; back and forth, back and forth.
Could use your help with the ironing thought Nigel.
She cleared her throat as she dislodged her half-moon spectacles from her nose and allowed them to bungee jump on their neck chain onto her mountainous chest. “You’ve had quite a few false starts,” she began.
Not a bad way of putting fifteen different jobs in three years thought Nigel.
“Your skills base seems rather under-utilised at the moment.”
She’s read my CV, what skills could she possibly be talking about? “I couldn’t agree more,” said Nigel affably.
“I think we ought to try and get you started in… well, had you perhaps thought about a career instead of all these dead-end jobs?”
Cheeky sod. “I’ve been accumulating variegated life experiences – quite deliberately in fact – to enhance my base-line capabilities, its all part of my career.”
“I see.” Christine pursed her lips tightly as if she’d just bitten into a particularly sore mouth ulcer. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but how does working in five different burger bars contribute to your, ‘base-line capabilities’ was it?”
FUCK OFF HITLER!
“I’ve been readying myself.” Honestly, whom am I trying to kid?
“For what exactly?”
Yes alright, so you’ve spotted it. I’m just a lazy, idle twat. What’s the use of pretending. Nigel shrugged his shoulders for want of anything better to say.
“What are you interested in?”
Now there’s a question. “Can I be completely candid with you Christian?” Fat chance.
“It’s Christine. Mmm, please do.”
Truthfully, and no matter how one tried to dress it up, Nigel’s interests amounted to wine, women and song. (Well alright, not wine exactly, but going on the lash was an interest of sorts). There didn’t seem to be too many opportunities – not legal ones anyway – involving the women part of the equation; highly-paid executive positions judging string-bikini competitions in California with fellatio fringe-benefits just never seemed to make it to the Hackney job centre for some reason. And as for the music; well when Daltrey and Townsend wanted a replacement drummer for their popular beat-combo, I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes or anything Zak, but it wasn’t really a level playing field now was it, the job wasn’t even put up on the board.
“I’ve always been drawn to the leisure industry,” said Nigel.
Christine visibly sharpened like a TV finding its focus. “There’s certainly plenty of experience here,” she said, indicating his CV with tangible wonder. “There’s catering, (bar work and burger joints), sports management, (steady Christine, thought Nigel, I was a pool attendant at East Ham leisure centre), and I see you’ve worked in music promotion.” The best job I’ve ever had Nigel reminisced. A Saturday sales assistant at HMV in Oxford Street. Sadly, he had experienced a conflict between the wine and women bits of the interests’ triumvirate, the wine particularly, and Nigel and his marketing responsibilities parted company after about four weeks of gross liberty taking on his part.
Nigel let out a deep sigh. Could she not see he’d travelled down this road many, many times before?
“But I can see you’ve travelled down this road many, many times before,” agonised Christine. She seemed momentarily at a loss. Such pain. Nigel wanted to tell her not to stress herself on his behalf. Really, he wasn’t worth it. “Let’s have a look, where do your strengths lie,” she said earnestly, replacing her specs for another fruitless rummage through Nigel’s résumé.
Eee Gods, not the ‘A’ Levels. Okay, ‘A’Level. Geography. Actually, there were others, but they don’t really count, thought Nigel. I seem to have been awarded grades denominated in letters of the alphabet that nobody has ever heard of. It was fortunate for him that no one was ever allowed to fail anything anymore.
“You’re a graduate,” said Christine, generously passing over the front page. “What lead you to study brickwork and dance at the University of South East Central Hull and Humberside?”
Oxford and Cambridge were fighting amongst themselves to give Nigel a scholarship to read for a Masters in Chemistry and he thought bollocks to this, West Humber Tech (for it had since sold out and changed its good name) gets my vote over you tossers any day of the week.
“It was the only course available at the only frigging place that would have me, why do you think?” said Nigel, a tad exasperated and perhaps allowing it to show. Well really.
“Okay,” said Christine, measured, sitting back and pushing up her sleeves, like a vet preparing to shove her forearm right up a horse’s back passage. “Personally, I think you’ve been looking in the wrong place. I suspect that the leisure industry is not really your natural home.”
Difficult to argue with that thought Nigel.
“How about something in construction?”
“You mean building on the brickwork so to speak?”
“Mmm, mmm, that’s right, yes,” said Christine nodding so vigorously, Nigel worried that her head might come off her shoulders.
“I’m afraid I didn’t actually learn anything about brick-building on the course.”
“Dance then?” Christine reached for her Rolodex and twirled through it.
Hang about, isn’t dance leisure?
“I‘m sure Tottenham Hale Studios are looking for a step-class instructor.” Ah well that explains it. Health club type thing. Not leisure at all. Just another form of expensive middle-class torture. Lowered our sights from a career rather quickly though haven’t we, thought Nigel. Christ, she must have me marked down as a right basket case.
“I can’t actually… you know,” said Nigel shamefacedly.
“Dance?”
He nodded defensively, shrinking into his chair.
“What did your course entail then?”
You really don’t want to know that thought Nigel, and even if you do, I’m certainly not the man to tell you. “It’s best described as an examination of the synthesis of human exhibitionist and artistic expression in all its physical manifestations through the poetic medium of the manual labour patterns of the working-classes,” droned Nigel. “There was a strong media element where we studied, diagnostically, the chimney-sweep character Bert, played by Dick Van Dyke, in Mary Poppins. In other words, he had no idea, but he felt rather pleased with what he felt to be a pretty inventive explanation.
Christine’s enthusiasm was revivified. “Wow. You learn something new everyday.” Her face was a picture of studied seriousness. “What I sense is that you would benefit from the security of an institutional environment.”
Rather reached the same conclusion about you, you mad bitch thought Nigel.
“Put some structure behind your creative impulses.”
“What did you have in mind?” asked Nigel, fearing the worst.
“The army is always looking for people like you.”
People like what; no-hopers who can’t even sell double-glazing to gagging for it bored housewives? “How can I put this? And I don’t want to sound ungrateful for your efforts or resistant to change, but absolutely no way. Sorry.”
“It’s either that or the Foreign Office are looking for a librarian,” said Christine, grimly determined.
“I’m not going to be a bloody librarian. What kind of dullard do you take me for?”
“There’s nothing else for you.”
“Oh well,” said Nigel rising to leave. “Another day perhaps.”
“Mr Hines,” said Christine, suddenly very businesslike. “I don’t think you understand. There is nothing else. It’s the army or the F.O. library,” she said icily before pausing momentarily to allow it to sink in. Then, like the true pro she was, she delivered her delicious coup de grâce, “…or I shall have to report that you have made yourself unavailable for work.”
Nigel painfully wriggled the raw anus of his predicament on the razor horns of his dilemma. “But…but…but… but...” He could have gone on, but he wasn’t about to be given the chance.
“What’s it to be?”
Chapter 2
“Bugger-smuggler.”
“No way.”
“Cock-throbin then, although I have to say, throb-Goblin is still my favourite.”
“It sounds too…too sordid. Trust me, honestly.”
“Dong-master it is then.”
“I reckon so.”
“Oh Tony, stuff your dong-master up my fish-prison.”
Charlotte leaned over the table and smiled into Nigel’s languid face, her pretty, red lips parting slightly as her mouth approached his. “Fist-bucket, not fish-prison, she’d never say that. She might be masquerading as working-class but she’s not common.”
“Pardon me for not spotting the difference, I’m sure.”
She slapped him across the face, playful but hard. “Get outta here. Fist-bucket is passionate, urgent. Fish-prison is just pathetic.”
“Bit like me,” said Nigel morosely. Gingerly, he rubbed the throbbing welt on his cheek. “God Charlotte, what am I going to do?”
Charlotte let out a deep sigh. “Here we go again.”
“Again, again, again,” sang Derek as he fingered the wispy moustache he’d been nurturing ever since he had seen Sean Connery coolly sporting one in Highlander.
“I wasn’t aware that Status Quo had recruited any balding loss-adjusters were you Phoebe?” said Nigel, as Derek filled his ample gob from a large plate of poppadoms.
Phoebe pushed aside the short curtain of brown hair bobbing in front of her eyes. “You should go easy on those you know Derek, man of your age can never be too careful with his weight.”
“ Yes, thank you doctor. Christ. I’ll just eat lesbian food like salad shall I?”
“How is salad lesbian food?’ asked Charlotte.
“No meat, my dear,” said Derek.
“I’m only trying to help,” said Phoebe. Her boyish round face was earnest and yet soft as she stared meaningfully at Derek’s pringle-jumpered belly and gently rested her hand on his arm.
A sitar version of Dancing Queen by Abba permeated the silence that descended upon the restaurant table briefly as Derek was caught suddenly unawares by the intimacy of the moment. Then Nigel and Phoebe burst out laughing and his face coloured purple. “Bollocks to the lot of you.”
“Sounds rather harsh,” said a man with a shock of wavy blond hair sauntering back to the table. He had a strong aquiline nose and a chiselled physique, but the mincing gate of a go-go dancer which meant that his handsome features were rather wasted on the girls.
“Where have you been, Simon?” asked Charlotte as he sat down next to Phoebe.
“Trying to coax Bernard out of the gents.”
“Thought you were a past–master at coaxing things out in the gents,” said Derek, “must be losing your touch.”
“You might be right ducky,” said Simon, effecting a camp voice. “Bernard’s having a right old sulk.”
“Maybe I should go?” said Phoebe, folding her napkin into a neat square as if she were giving it hospital corners.
“Never mind him. I need sorting out,” insisted Nigel. “And I’m still not convinced about dong-master, he’s much too smiley and insincere.”
“Eh?” said Simon.
“Which do you reckon is better,” said Charlotte: “‘Darling, I need you in the Cabinet War Room, take me now with your throb-goblin up the fish-prison;’ or, ‘on your knees Prime Minister, I demand you ram your dong-master up my fist-bucket before John Prescott arrives?’”
“What’s a dong-master?” asked Simon.
“Yes,” shouted Nigel, triumphantly punching the air. “You see, I told you it was too obscure.”
“And like throb-goblin is any better, is it?” said Simon.
Charlotte stuck her tongue out at Nigel and made a, ‘ner-ner, ner-ner’ sound.
“Guys. What on earth are you talking about?”
Charlotte explained. “The Blairs of course. Sex in Downing Street. Buttocks forward not back.”
“But Blair hasn’t been near Downing Street for donkeys years, not since he became ordained in fact.”
“I know, but Nigel was saying, wondering really, how if he was Prime Minister and I was his wife, whether he would find it erotic if I was to insist on a servicing from his ‘Prime Minister’. You know, a sort of power thing.”
“Give me your ‘First Load of the Treasury,’” said Simon.
“Exactly. And we both reckoned you would soon get bored of that, particularly by the third term and you would look for the more usual alternatives.”
“Dong-master and fish-bucket are more usual alternatives are they?” said Phoebe.
“It’s not fish-bucket, it’s fist-bucket and fish-prison,” said Nigel. “Apparently.”
“Or more precisely, Nigel’s in danger of having his benefits cut unless he gets off his bum and finds a job,” said Charlotte.
“Is that how the subject of Prime Minister came up,” smirked Simon.
“Why ever not?” said Nigel indignantly.
“What, apart from the fact that you’re uncouth, unused to hard work and unemployed?” asked Charlotte.
“And probably unemployable,” added Simon.
Charlotte sniggered. “Aside from all that, quite a catch. A real electoral asset. Pity Fiona Bruce is riding so high in the polls really.”
“Oh Charlotte, must you judge everything by appearances?” laughed Phoebe.
“God, I do hope so. You will pull me up if I stop being shallow, won’t you. Promise.”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Simon reassured her.
Nigel’s mood was blackening by the minute with all this casual talk about how downright bollocks he was at everything, even if it was all right on the metal.
“Anyway, about Bernard,” said Charlotte, changing the subject, “bit of a worry.”
Phoebe looked accusingly at Nigel.
“I said I was sorry.”
Bernard had shown rather less equanimity in the face of Nigel’s fulsome apology. He’d been rather prickly in truth, metaphorically throwing his toys out of his pram and not metaphorically throwing his glass of water all over Nigel before storming off to the toilet in a huff.
“I’d have been pretty pissed off if you’d puked all over my legs,” added Charlotte.
“Eugghh, and you had fishnet tights on that night, at least Bernard had his pinstripes for protection,” said Phoebe.
“I’ve never found pinstripes to be any kind of protection,” said Simon.
“Eughhh and double eughhh,” cried Phoebe.
“Your bottom-burglar tales are off limits while we’re eating, if it’s all the same to you, Simon,” said Charlotte.
“Oh children please.” Derek sighed. “They don’t behave like this in the Punjab you know.” Derek glanced over at a bored-looking waiter and gave a mournful, pitying shrug that suggested that he really wasn’t with this lot of philistines.
“I offered to pay for his dry cleaning, what more does he want?” Nigel appealed to Simon as a kindred spirit, but unfortunately for Nigel, Simon was not in the mood for blokish solidarity and was being his usual girlie self; he pursed his lips and exchanged tormented looks with Charlotte and Phoebe instead.
“What?” said Nigel. “Bloody what. Tell me?”
“I think it’s about rather more than that somehow,” said Phoebe.
“Oh doctor, this doesn’t all stem from repressed sexuality and his not getting on with his father does it?” Nigel pretended to swoon across her lap. “I’ve been having these hot flushes doctor and I was wondering if it might be, you know, the change?”
“Get up bogface.” Phoebe shoved him off her lap so roughly, that he nearly fell on the floor.
“Go on,” pleaded Simon. “Can’t trust us darling, who can you?”
“Oh please Phoebe,” said Charlotte excitedly.
Phoebe grinned at them indulgently; she seemed to be wavering. They all knew she wanted to spill the beans really, and being a doctor, she was absolutely hopeless at keeping secrets, but just then Bernard slunk back to his seat next to Charlotte and a stony silence returned with him.
“Sorry for interrupting, shall I just go again, so you can carry on talking about me,” said Bernard.
“Bernard,” said Derek indulgently. “Grow up can’t you?”
“We weren’t talking about you,” said Phoebe. Her voice was kind and soothing, as if she was addressing a four year-old with grazed knees who had just fallen off his bike. She reached across the table and touched his hand reassuringly.
“Hadn’t quite got round to it,” said Simon caustically.
“You okay, we were wondering where you’d got to?” said Charlotte.
“There was a queue,” said Bernard morosely, resuming his rogan josh.
Simon stifled a snigger.
Nigel was prepared to be contrite. On the whole it was difficult not to enjoy teasing Bernard as he made it so easy for them all. Yet right now he was beginning to feel that Bernard’s cloying self-pity trip had had more than sufficient time to run its course. “Look Bern, I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Nigel.
“Nothing,” said Bernard.
“I was on the point of explaining what happened that night. Nigel sure as hell can’t remember,” said Phoebe.
“Yes, go on Phoebe,” said Simon, “I’m intrigued, I left early.”
“No, let’s just drop it okay,” said Bernard. About time too thought Nigel.
“Phoebe, you have to tell us now,” urged Charlotte.
Oh bloody hell Charlotte.
“No,” Bernard almost shouted. His voice was all quivery, he sounded a bit close to the edge.
“Maybe it’s not such a good idea,” said Phoebe.
Simon wasn’t about to let a trembling lip stand in the way of a good story. “Go on, just cos Bernard’s been overdoing it at assertiveness training this week.”
Neither was Derek “Exactly. Come on ol’ girl, do tell.”
“Please,” implored Bernard.
Phoebe glared round the group, silently urging them to drop it. Nigel and Charlotte exchanged wondering glances. Nigel was buggered if her knew what all the fuss was about and shrugged questioningly at Phoebe.
“Please. I’m fine. It was just humiliating that’s all. The sick and everything,” said Bernard, peering down at the remnants of his food and managing to put the others off the remainder of theirs in the process.
“Pathetic if you ask me,” mumbled Derek nastily.
“Alright, alright,” said Nigel wading in to the rescue. Simon would play ball but Derek needed a little encouragement. “Fuck off Derek now, ok.”
Derek shrugged, easy come easy go, probably because he knew there would be plenty of other opportunities to humiliate his little brother.
“Like I say, no offence eh,” said Nigel
“None taken,” said Bernard quickly, forcing a smile. He looked mightily relieved.
“Hooray,” clapped Charlotte. Leaning across the table, she pecked Bernard on the cheek. It was as if she’d flicked his secret, crimson face-switch to the ‘on’ position and the dimmer knob wasn’t working properly; no doubt only one of Bernard’s knobs could be in action at any one time.
“All friends again,” said Charlotte.
Poor Bernard thought Nigel, friends was the last thing he would be hoping for.
Not surprising really.
She was so beautiful.
Suddenly, Nigel became aware that he was being watched. A slender finger hovered over her glass and slowly traced its wet rim in a circle, while her piercing, emerald-green eyes shone roguishly at him across the dim intimacy of the candle-lit table. Christ, he must have been staring at her. It was too much, too intense. He felt self-conscious and foolish, and quickly turned away. Don’t be silly Nigel, not in your league, that’s for certain. He hazarded a glance back and instantly regretted it because her eyes were still bloody there. She raised an eyebrow and Nigel felt a tremor run the length of his spine. Now he really was letting his imagination get the better of him.
“I’m with them over there,” a posh voice boomed across the restaurant. A tall, aristocratic man confidently bounded over to them. He was either a fellow or a chap by the looks of him, but definitely not a mate or a bloke. A waiter was nearly breaking into a run behind him to keep up with his stride as he shed his overcoat into the waiter’s arms. Charlotte turned to greet him, her face alight with pleasure.
“Darling, so sorry I’m late. Con’ call just went on and on.” He leaned down and taking her head in his hands kissed her on the forehead.
“Oh, I know what you mean, bane of my life,” bellowed Derek.
“You’re here now that’s the main thing,” said Charlotte suddenly coy. “It was really difficult to get reservations. You wouldn’t believe the strings I had to pull.” The chap grunted at the surroundings. It wasn’t clear whether the grunt constituted approval or otherwise.
Derek at any rate wasn’t about to give him a chance to articulate whatever was on his mind. “We haven’t had the pleasure. Derek Openshaw. In the City too. Insurance actually,” he said, grabbing Philip’s hand and producing a grey business card.
The fellow sized Derek up with a look of utter disdain. “Philip Caldwell,” he said coldly, discarding Derek’s hand as if it was fashioned out of excrement, before turning quickly away to seek reluctant sanctuary in the enforced acknowledgement of the rest of the table.
Charlotte made the introductions. None of them had met Philip before, but Nigel had already decided he was a tosser.
“Table’s rather small,” said Philip brashly, “thought the place was supposed to be up and coming.”
Charlotte laughed nervously. “It’s charmingly petite.”
“Where’s the waiter?” shouted Derek in his best, halcyon days of the Raj voice, and quite unnecessarily as the waiter was standing right by Philip.
“We put a chair on the end of the table here for you sir,” said the waiter, indicating a space at the head of the table between Charlotte and Bernard.
“That’s no good. You’ll have to find us a bigger table,” said Philip.
Now Nigel knew he was a tosser.
“Quite, quite,” said Derek with pronounced insult. Nigel already knew all about Derek.
“Sorry sir. Restaurant full up,” said the waiter.
Charlotte squirmed. “It’s alright Philip. Please, sit here. It’ll be okay.” Her face pleaded with him not to make a scene, effecting to melt his resolve. “Please.”
“You can sit here, I’ve got to go,” said Bernard.
“Oh Bernard no, please stay,” said Charlotte, apparently genuinely upset. Her friends’ approval of her new beau was clearly important to her. But Nigel guessed what Bernard was about; he recognised the symptoms of his distress: the leaping, churning stomach and the lump in the throat; the empty, gasping lungs fit to burst if you don’t get out of there and run like hell, there and then; the world collapsing at your feet. The desolation. He knew it so well, because he felt it too.
“I’ve got some work I need to get done for tomorrow.”
Bernard, work to do? Not if he had found the time to come out. He would have finished it first. No, that was twenty-four carat horseshit. Nigel folded his napkin on the table in front of him. Nonetheless, I’m with you on this one Bern he thought.
“I’ll give you a lift Bernard,” said Phoebe, rising from her chair and opening her purse.
You can’t do that Nigel wanted to say.
There was a definite touch of alarm about Charlotte now alright.
“I’m on call at six tomorrow morning,” Phoebe explained.
What? Oh Great.
Just super.
Might as well have said I’m off to roast my legs to feed the starving in Africa.
Phoebe cast a twenty-pound note on the table and Bernard hastily did likewise. “I am sorry to be rushing off like this Philip, but it is so nice to have met you.” Kisses all round and just like that she and Bernard were fucking bloody, bloody fucking gone.
Nigel pushed his seat back, scraping the chair legs noisily over the parquet flooring. Charlotte’s eyes darted at him. “Nigel, not you too.” Her voice was tremulous. There was no mystery in that stare now. Just an unequivocal, brazen challenge, bold as brass, to sit the fuck back down.
Come on, how can I possibly stay here? “Me?” he said, as if there was anyone else there called Nigel. He hadn’t got a job to get up early for so what was his excuse for pissing off? Other than his interview for a job in the Foreign Office library at... hang-buggering on, at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Bonza cast iron excuse. Where’s my coat?
But wait just a minute: Was that a tear forming in her lovely eye; a single, salty droplet blooming and glistening at her eyelash? It’s late and her eyes are tired, that’ll be it, that and the lighting, it’s a strain, Nigel convinced himself; and it is smoky in here. But if it cascades down her cheek, the game is up and I’ll just have to grab hold of her, which will mean a nasty spat with Philip, terminal embarrassment and then probably jail as I shall probably have to kill everyone in the restaurant to avoid eternal humiliation forever after. That’s probably better than the acid sting of rejection, dying here and now publicly in the caustic outrage of Charlotte’s contemptuous laughter, that I could presume such a monstrous liberty over a speck of dust trapped in her eye.
“Toilet,” said Nigel. Just. “Back in a jiffy.”
He passed behind Charlotte on the way to the gents and impulsively allowed his hand to linger on her shoulder a moment; long enough for her to reach out her warm fingers to feather his wrist: perhaps in thanks. Perhaps. But there was no time to reason it out. Overwhelmed, he broke into a run.
“I’d avoid the prawns Philip if I were you,” Nigel heard Simon say as he dashed to the bogs.
Philip nodded stoically - (He seemed grateful for the tip off, Derek would tell Nigel later, even if it had come from a despicable poof) - and turned to the waiter. “What English food do you have?”
_______________
Simon examined a fat cigar as if he knew what he was doing whilst Nigel thoughtfully twirled a brandy bowl in his cupped palm.
They were sat in the rather convivial surroundings of the Reform Club, a pair of old gents in high-backed, studded-leather chairs, a crackling fire the only witness to the grave and portentous matters of state being examined under wisdom’s microscope.
“He must be giving her one, she’s been seeing him for at least three months now,” said Simon.
“You shouldn’t judge everyone by your own standards,” said Nigel, sickened by the shrewd and compelling logic of Simon’s indubitable line of argument.
Simon relaxed lower in his chair and smiled knowingly. “Let’s ask her when she comes back from the ladies.”
“You can’t do that,” said Nigel, hoping to goad Simon into asking.
“Philip’s good husband material though, don’t you think?”
“For whom, for Bernard, perhaps? He behaved like an old woman this evening.”
“Did rather. I wonder what all that was about? I do worry about him sometimes, poor sweet, sweet boy.” Simon spun the dark liquor round the bulb of his glass, examining its depths as if searching for hidden truths. “Do you think he enjoys being an accountant?” he said at last.
“Does anybody?”
“You wouldn’t have thought so. It sounds crap from the word go, doesn’t it?” said Simon through a puff of smoke. “On the other hand, some people can be forgiven for having dreadful careers, because they’ve got the sort of jobs that sound exciting until you start doing them and discover what they actually entail.”
“Like investment banking,” said Nigel, happening to mention Philip’s job as a matter of utter coincidence.
“I reckon he enjoys it.”
“You must be joking. He was only with us an hour, if that, and then he had to go back to the office.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. He probably prefers to spend his time with other high-fliers, rather than with a bunch of ordinarys like us. He only came along in the first place to please Charlie. We were duty.”
In his heart of hearts, Nigel knew that Simon was on the money but he refused to allow himself to acknowledge it; to do so would have closed too many avenues for him. “Derek seemed smitten at any rate.” Derek had left at the same time as Philip, spouting importantly and rather implausibly about a five a.m. breakfast meeting.
“Anyhow,” added Simon, “I didn’t say I understood, but I do think Philip was into his work which I’d ask you not to knock by the way. Bozos like Phil are my best clients. They use their fat bonuses to buy pads in places you and I couldn’t possibly afford.”
“Small penis,” if you ask me said Nigel.
“You’re just embittered at the thought of all the lovely, lovely money he must be earning, wheeling and dealing.”
“Bollocks,” said Nigel. So what if I am.
Simon wasn’t finished. “Bears pretty pathetic comparison, your putative career as a dullard librarian.”
“Sod off.”
Still not finished. “No wonder he’s shagging Charlotte. Given the choice, I’d shag him over you too. If you see what I mean.”
Nigel was nearly speechless.
But unfortunately, not nearly enough.
“Philip is not shagging Charlotte,” he shouted. Really loud.
What a pity Charlotte chose precisely that moment to come back from the ladies. She glared at Nigel so contemptuously, he felt himself shrinking into his chair. “I thought that you were my friend,” she said witheringly
Nigel mouthed like a fish, but she flounced off before he managed to say another word. Angrily, he turned on Simon. “Now look what you made me do.”
“Oh simmer and chill. Honestly. I don’t know what you’re getting so batey about matey, anyone would think you wanted her for yourself.”
“No.” He stood up all of a dither.
“So why the jealous cat act? She is your friend isn’t she? I would have thought that you of all people would have wanted to see her happy.”
“Course I do.”
“Happy and settled.”
Nigel thrust his hands sullenly into his pockets and pondered the shape of his feet.
“Well?” persisted the headmaster.
“I do. Just care that she’s doing the right thing. What’s wrong with that?” Nothing actually, save for the fact that it was the biggest load of hairy cack that Nigel had ever heard. He felt the need for some covering fire. “Sure he – Philip…,” frot face, “… seems okay…,” weaselly wanker, Nigel was trying to be as neutral as he could, “… basically decent no doubt…,” complete cu…