Folk'd Page 7

  But she wouldn't. You know what she'd do. Where she'd go...

  "Listen, um," Ellie said. It wasn't a good um, the way she said it. Danny frowned. "I think we should maybe have a chat tonight, when the wee fella's asleep."

  "What about?"

  "Just...um, things."

  Double um. Fuck, this was getting worse by the minute. What was she...no. No, surely he couldn't be the only one stopping from delivering bad news over the phone? She wasn't going to tell him...

  "Things about...us?" he asked. He had to. She didn't reply, but that was as good as an answer, wasn't it?

  There was a soft bump in the background from her end, and the sound of Luke's little crying engine bub-blub-waahing its way up to full throttle. "I'd better go," Ellie said.

  "Wait, I want-"

  "I have to go," she repeated. "I'll talk to y-"

  And he was forced to hold the phone away from his ear, almost dropping it to the ground altogether, as an eardrum-piercing squeal rent through. He saw a few of his fellow common room patrons flinch, such was the noise level.

  His first panicked thought was that Luke had hurt himself badly and that the squeal had come from his son, but another moment's consideration had dismissed that - it had clearly been some kind of electronic feedback; nothing sounding like that could have come from any throat he'd ever heard.

  He brought the phone back to his ear, comically carefully, as if it were a live grenade. The call had ended. Ellie must have hung up or been cut off as the interference came through; well, she'd said she would have to go anyway, hadn't she, with the wee fella crying?

  Ellie was still at the stage of picking Luke up every time his big bottom lip so much as threatened to curl, something which anyone with parenting experience they'd met had informed them gravely all but guaranteed their son would grow up to be worse than Hitler and Stalin rolled into one.

  For a moment he considered ringing back. It was, he supposed, a little ironic of him to be so affronted at the notion of her keeping something from him until she saw him tonight in person; but he couldn't have done anything about yes you could you could have been better at your fucking job his news, could he?

  Wonderful day so far. Nothing like a potential break-up conversation with your girlfriend that evening for taking your mind off getting the sack that morning.

  Cal was at the sandwich machine when Danny walked up. He stepped aside. "What ya after?"

  "Oh I dunno," Danny said breezily, picking through the shrapnel he'd dug out from his pocket. "Does it dispense cyanide pills? Sawn-off shotguns?"

  "I think they're still waitin on them being restocked."

  "Oh. Big demand on them, is there?"

  Cal's eyebrows arched. "In this place?”

  He picked out a sandwich that looked as if the butter spread across its bread had been churned pre-WWII. As he popped the coins into the slot, he glanced across at Cal.

  "They sacked me today," he said, in a conversational tone.

  Cal stamped his foot and pointed a finger straight up in the air. "The swine! They shall rue the day…!"

  "Cal...I'm serious. They're not renewing my contract."

  Withnail melted away rather sheepishly. "Nah…? You‘re not serious?" Cal said, shocked.

  He stuck an arm inside the machine, feeling vaguely like that dickhead off All Creatures Great and Small and expecting to pull out a bloodied and confused calf; there'd probably be better eating on one, come to think of it. "Yep."

  “But they can’t sack you…” Cal said, in what was clearly a light bulb above the head moment. “You could take them to court! Claim discrimination!”

  “Discrimination,” Danny repeated doubtfully.

  “You can say they sacked ye cos of your disability!”

  Danny sighed. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “Cal,” he said patiently, “as I’ve told ya before mate, synaesthesia is not a disability.”

  Now it was Cal’s turn to look doubtful. “Hearin colours and smellin days of the week? Not a disability?” he said, in what he probably assumed was a kindly tone. “I dunno. It always sounded like a bit of a fuckin’ Christy Brown job to me, man. Sorta My Left Brain ‘stead of My Left Foot.”

  It was time for the speech. Danny practically had it memorised by now. “It’s a neurological condition. When my brain is stimulated by a sense, it can - sometimes - cross-associate it with another sense. It’s harmless, trust me. Sometimes it’s even useful.”

  Cal didn‘t try particularly hard to disguise his scepticism. “Like when?”

  Danny rhymed off a series of numbers. By the end, Cal’s jaw was hanging down so far he felt like reaching across and tying it back on with string.

  “Man…those are my…how did you…”

  “Relax, lad,” Danny assured him. “You left them on a bit of paper sitting on your desk when you rang the bank. I stuck it back in your pedestal. And even if I wanted to commit identity fraud, I’d have picked someone with more than twenty-eight quid in their account and a credit rating that states that if they ever apply for a card again, they’re to be shot on the spot.”

  Cal seemed to take a few moments to come to terms with this. Danny sympathised; having someone rattle off your bank account number, sort code, national insurance number and passwords could be a bit disconcerting. The number thing was good for a laugh and it impressed people, but since he’d been able to do it his whole life he didn’t find it remarkable in the slightest. Numbers were coloured in his mind; 2 was dark blue, 9 was red, 5 was yellow, and so on. Somehow it just made recalling them simple.

  "Well…” Cal said, visibly trying to move on, “we'll have to have a leaving do for you, man. When's your last day?"

  "Friday week. Or tomorrow. I haven't decided yet. But Cal, listen...I really don't want a leaving do. Honestly, I struggle to express to you how much I don't want a leaving do. Words fail me."

  Seeing Cal's questioningly innocent expression, he sighed and elaborated. "Look," he said, as kindly as he could. "You and Alice, you're alright. But, not to put too fine a point on it, I despise pretty much everyone else in here. So the thought of being surrounded by them and having to listen to them talk a lot of oul shit about how much they're going to miss me fills me with what I can only describe as horrified bile."

  Cal considered this. "Fair enough," he said. "But..." and, bless him, Danny could see the fella was actually struggling to say this in an acceptable way, "well...it's not gonna the same without ya."

  Danny sat back at his lunch desk, ripping open the sandwich and thereby making it depreciate in its potential Antiques Roadshow value by ruining the original packaging. Cal sat opposite him. "Wise up," Danny said, not unkindly. "Okay, so I won't be there to run interference between you two star-crossed lovers any more, but I'm sure you'll cope."

  Cal flushed so hotly at that Danny almost burst out laughing. "It's not that..." he said. "It's..." he shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I sorta like working here. All right, the pay is shit, the bosses are wankers, I know all that."

  Danny nodded, knowing it was true, knowing why. Cal lived in a student house with eight other fellas. As a group they had won some sort of competition in the first year of university - he'd told Danny what the compeition was numerous times but Danny always forgot almost instantly; it was some beer thing or other - and landed an absolutely amazing house, newly built, rent free for the first year and reduced rate thereafter until all of them left uni. So naturally all were hellbent on extending their degrees by fair means or foul.

  Danny had been to the house only once, just before the Lircom Christmas do last year. When he'd walked in through the doors he appreciated what those first Conquistadors must have felt taking the virgin steps onto the Americas. It was a hedonistic paradise of soft drugs, Xbox Live tournaments and girls disappearing into rooms. Most nights of the week randoms would fill its hallways.

  He’d looked around, remembering back to his own student days, when he’d lived in an almost identical setup. The
memories came flooding – or in some cases, oozing – back. He’d left early, making some excuse about the wee fella not being well, unable to stand there for a moment longer watching these fuckers drift about in this palace and not give in to the urge to grab one of them, all of them, by the shoulders and scream DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT HERE? DO YOU APPRECIATE IT? DO YOU?

  Cal was still trying to formulate his sentence. "You'll be alright," he said lamely. "I know you will, man. Don't let the bastards get ya down and all that."

  Danny took a bite of the sandwich.

  Danny very carefully set the sandwich back down again.

  With some considerable effort of will, Danny swallowed.

  "Cheers," he told Cal, rising from his seat, his voice slightly strained. "I'm gonna get something to wash the taste of that away. Nice warm glass of piss, maybe."

  He passed Alice on the way out, but confined himself to a nod and headed on. No doubt Cal would fill her in on his departure. Weird, actually. From what he knew of Alice, she’d never been to Sodom (aka Cal’s house). She wasn’t the sort. So why Cal was so interested in her and she in him…well, another one of those complexities of love, he supposed.

  Some people just didn’t realise the grass always looked greener on the other side.

  This time, the irony bypassed him entirely.

  ***

  Naturally, there wasn’t a seat to be had on the bus. Danny resigned himself to a standing berth, and reached up for one of those handhold things that hung down and left you looking like a Thunderbirds puppet with learning difficulties once the bus picked up any speed round corners. Although from the looks of things the chances of them picking up speed were minimal - the road was clogged, or “chockerblok” as the taxi men would have it. Those loveable ruffians.

  To pass the time, and to distract himself from stray thoughts of strangling a small girl who seemed determined to pass the journey time by singing one of those fuckin’ high school wanker party songs at a pitch that by all rights should have shattered every window on the vehicle, he decided to bite the bullet and phone home. He could cover for it by asking Ellie if she needed anything from the shop - bread, milk, new life?

  Bmmm-bmmmm. Bmmm-bmmmm. Bmmm-bmmmm…

  EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  “Jesus fuck!”

  Another horrendous electronic squeal ripped forth from the phone. Though Danny was concerned only with the sanctity of his own hearing, had he been able to glance up, he would have seen every single passenger on the bus clap their hands over their ears. In an impressive feat of self-control the driver managed to confine his automatic reaction to simply a wince, keeping his hands on the wheel, although he did indulge himself in a truly withering look in the rear-view mirror in Danny’s general direction when the opportunity presented itself.

  Danny saw none of this. His finger was repeatedly jabbing the ‘end call’ button on his mobile to kill the noise; he could have sworn it took him about five attempts to actually end the fucking call. Tinnitus sang loudly in both his ears, sending needles into his brain. The silence when the phone eventually did cut out was absolute; even the bus’ engine seemed to have taken a break, allowing everyone to get in some really juicy hate-filled looks in his direction which now he was fully aware of.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled in everyone’s direction. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this thing…I’m sorry.”

  This seemed to mollify no-one. On the plus side though, the little girl was curled up in her mother’s arms, sobbing mightily about the bad bad noise and how much it had hurt her poor wee ears. This cheered him somewhat, but it was with some relief that he stepped off a few stops later, leaving the lingering hostility of the bus passengers (and driver, he noted) behind.

  Ah well. Fuck the bus driver. If Beelzebub and his halls of Hell really existed, and if the jobs we held in life had an infernal ranking system to determine the length of time we spent with red-hot pokers lodged firmly up our crinkly eyes, then Bus Driver would be second only to Concentration Camp Guard.

  More importantly, was his phone fucked? That really would be the cherry on the slagpile. Danny glanced upwards at the heavens he’d been staring up in wonderment at only the night before. What’s next on the inexorable merry-go-round of fun, God? Resurrect my beloved childhood pet and have it eat my granny in a murder-suicide pact?

  No, fuck it. He wasn’t gonna give in to the temptation for self-pity. The key was to seem in control of the situation. So he’d be in, all business, do the necessary with the wee fella and package him off to sleep, and then break the news to Ellie and lay out his carefully structured plans in terms of employment, which was:

  Take next week off, take the gamble, and use the time to hit every single recruitment agency in town. Distribute his CV to so many potential employers that it would be inevitable he’d score a success, no matter what it was; Jesus, he’d stuck near a year at Lircom after all - if his next job was down a fuckin’ salt mine he could consider himself on an upwardly mobile career path. Move smoothly from Lircom to his next job with nary a break in wages, bills continuing to be paid. He might even get a payrise out of it. He might even land a job he didn’t despise out of it - unlikely, yes, but possible. His step quickened. And if after all that she…she…

  Well.

  Well, he’d…

  He paused at the gate. Something flagged for his attention, dimly, but he ignored it and kept his gaze on the front door ahead. Normally he could see her moving around in the front room, often she’d have the door opened with the wee fella in her arms waiting for Daddy to arrive home (half the time for the cuteness of it, half the time because she couldn’t wait another minute to get rid of him for a while), but not today it seemed.

  Trying to stride into the house with as much manly purpose as possible, he succeeded only in almost knackering his shoulder. The door was locked. She kept it locked at his insistence, given the rare but occasional daylight break-ins in the area, but she always unlocked before he was due home. He felt a wave of annoyance but forced it down - this wasn’t the time and today wasn’t the day for little dopey things to bog things down; he’d learned that from this morning.

  Fishing in his pockets turned up four different chocolate bar wrappers, a bus pass that expired three years ago, and a AAA battery all before his fingers found the keyring. He turned the key in the lock and walked inside, wrinkling his nose. Luke had been busy, recently by the smell of it. Maybe that explained the absence of a greeting.

  “Ellie?” he called, unshouldering his jacket and hanging it over the banister. No, wait. She’d kill him for that, it was a pet peeve. He took a few steps beyond, opened the under stairs cupboard, hung the jacket up in there and felt proud of himself for doing so.

  “Ellie?” he ducked his head into the living room. The television was on. Brightly coloured things were capering about and singing brightly coloured songs. Maybe it wasn’t pokers that bus drivers were meant to endure in the ninth circle of Hades after all.

  The kitchen was empty, but the kettle was just finished boiling. A tin of formula milk sat. The microwave suddenly bee-beeped for attention, announcing that the steriliser inside had finished its cycle. And as he cocked his head to the side and listened, he detected the low gurgle of water running from upstairs. Of course. Bath time. With the bathroom door closed and the water running, most noises were muffled throughout the house.

  He made as if to go to the stairs, then checked himself, looking at the equipment before him, an opportunity for further proactivity points presenting itself.