by Neil Rowland
“We’ve no reason to doubt Pixie, our Miss ‘Head and shoulders’!” Abrams had a cocky way of talking from the back of his throat, as if he could spit at the world to prove his superiority. “She’s not one of the ditzy chicks!”
“Pixie Wright wasn’t the chick who identified him... although she didn’t or wouldn’t contradict Olivia’s account either,” his sidekick recalled.
“Why should we disbelieve her? It shows that Pitt is still in play. They said he was dressed for work, like the day he was expelled. Do you think he’s working for a different company? He must have found another position.”
“Anything’s possible. He wants to fuck us from behind this time. That would confirm the rumours...and his footprint on trades...his thinking is unmistakeable.”
“You’re paranoid as fucking Hitler. The old geezer has the information and contacts to take him out,” Spence bragged; as if he had the boss’ ear.
“Anyhow, the old Sep will be furious to learn about this,” Abrams considered.
“How long has it been since Clive disappeared?”
“Shows he hasn’t left the country, or anything more drastic,” Abrams joked. “Nothing would surprise me in regard to Pitt.”
“Why wasn’t he eliminated already?” said Spence. “Y’know, that’s the rumour.”
“A guy like that is usually disappeared...eventually,” Abrams agreed. “Nobody lick’s Sep’s bollocks, only Sep. He was a particularly self-opinionated, arrogant provincial dick, I think we all agree. Didn’t get a proper upbringing.”
“Oh, totally...totally pompous and self righteous dick...in the known financial universe. As an associate he was leading a charmed life...because he was a key-holding prick face...he had them over a barrel on the deal.,, He had the inside track and a seat in the main room...before he fucked it up.”
“Smug dick stuck in the air. Why let some oik loose on high worth stiffs? Trouble was for Sir Sep, that Clive knew stuff here. They let him too deep. Where did he store all that info? In technical terms he was going places we couldn’t fucking dream about. That’s the problem, he was the code sorcerer...and he kept us away from the black magic. Maybe he’s being protected.”
“Would anyone wish to touch that northern dick now?”
“You reckon he’s diced meat?”
“Yes, I do mate. They’ll rip off his balls and stuff them in his mouth.”
“It annoys me to think he’s doing toy time for a rival. What do you think? The idea of Clive still playing and dashing around the globe...makes me want to fucking puke.”
“I reckon he put the frighteners on our ditzy chick ‘secretaries’ to give us a warning. That’s the type of pomposity you expect from an arrogant northern pleb... here on a scholarship from his fucking little grammar school.”
At this point their voices dropped off; as if they had caught a sound and were listening out for something.
“Hey, Abrams, do you smell alcohol...whiskey? Isn’t it?”
There was a humming pause. “D’you know, I think I can...I’d swear by your big spunky balls that I can smell whiskey.”
“Who’s the fucking dipso at Winchurch’s, then?”
“That you around there, Mike? Mikey D? You big dicked fuck...what are you pulling?” Abrams guffawed. “You trying to scare the shit out of us? We’re talking about Pitt again, you shitfaced bastard.”
“Now he’s trying to grope our females in the street!”
Laughing violently and derisively the young men left. But Clive was amazed by the conversation overheard.
Hard to explain this by saying Abrams and Spence were taking a vicious stunt further. They left him with the impression that his situation had radically altered. The idea of moving or shifting in time was not far fetched. There had been a kind of earthquake under his professional life. He’d achieved a different outcome. Clearly he had not gone back a year. Instead he had jumped forward in time, or perhaps lost a whole year, as warned by that sinister fruit in the limo.
Yes, he may have suffered this involuntary gap year. Or at least that potent idea had been suggested to him. There was as yet only flimsy evidence to establish this (only hearsay) but he’d suffered an ominous, threatening alteration. Had he really met that dark gentleman, that evil force in the universe, that we choose to call, among other tags, “the devil”? Or more likely it was a powerful individual who had a stake in wrecking his reputation? In destroying his position at Winchurch & Bros and trying to blow him away?
Pitt began to rummage the interior of the locker (his old locker), none of which pertained to him. Yet he found a selection of items to confirm that twelve months (a significant period of time) must have elapsed. In the pockets of that comedian’s jacket there was a dry cleaning ticket, bus tickets, a stub for an Aerosmith reunion gig, a receipt for flowers and a badminton club league table. In the bottom of the compartment he found a commuter style fish ‘n’ chip newspaper. Sure enough it displayed the same date, only exactly a year ahead.
Clive scanned the pages obsessively, from a blind impulse and rising panic, not out of curiosity. Many of the columns were taken up with ecological stories - droughts, mass exodus and movement. All the usual cheery Armageddon snippets that we try to stash under our Afghanistan rug. The topic of these news reports had not changed, yet he got a sense of intensification after an interim, like a tropical sun going behind a cloud to emerge with greater intensity.
He skimmed through pages of scandal and gossip in growing panic. Did he fear there was an article about himself? Was he going to read about himself? Get a distorted summary of the strange disaster that had befallen him? There was a new Home Secretary in place, after the previous occupant spent more time with family. There was a change of manager at the football club he supported.
Luckily he couldn’t spot anything about himself. He supposed that it was very unlikely to get the information in that basic analogue manner. Was it really true that he’d stepped out of the world and then been pushed back again? He felt like a passenger of a ship who’d missed his sailing and tried to race on to the next port.
His likely predicament began to oppress. He’d taken a short journey into the future, with an effective loss of memory, to find circumstances thoroughly changed. He had gone through a black hole, an information wormhole, suffered a temporary annihilation. This was an explanation for his peculiar encounters and sensations of that day.
For he then did not simply vanish into thin air, he was (apparently) very much present, making decisions, locked in a pattern of behaviour. During that lost year he was without the ability to judge his actions, or to retain memories. Certainly that didn’t imply that the year had not happened.
Hopefully nothing too serious or damaging had passed during those absent twelve months. But he wouldn’t like to bet on that prospect, in either a private or professional capacity.
5
The east London streets looked unchanged; only with an added heat shimmer dancing over surfaces. The City had evolved over centuries, absorbed social and political change, been destroyed by wars and bombs, by leaps and increments. Yet all the usual sights and scenes were made strange to Pitt, dislocated in his mind, due to an interruption of twelve months, this blind spot seared into his brain.
There was a newly finished building across the road, born to the world, that he remembered under construction; a hive of industry, surrounded by cranes and platforms, and filled with hard-hatted construction workers.
Should he return to his desk and try to explain his predicament? Could they not believe his experience of disorientation, even amnesia? Such characteristic boldness might have ended his confusion. But a sense of danger and of unanswered questions restrained him. Going back to work would be like bursting into a meeting without a brief on any of the participants. The ironic and hostile attitude of Martin and Jonny implied that a blind reunion wouldn’t
be smart.
Clive remained unnerved by his limousine meeting with that big shot. He wanted to return to his family and seek out human company. After the death of his father, just a couple of years back, his wife and son had become more important. Both his parents had now passed away. He couldn’t be so naïve as to surrender to his enemies. For all he knew these might include his boss and, he thought, trying to interpret past actions, disgruntled former clients.
Pixie Wright had referred to death threats. Should he take that idea seriously? That his life was imminently at risk? Why did he instantly trust her judgement, when she’d warned him? Returning to the Winchurch building, mentally in the dark, he’d risked advancing the end game; whatever the game might be. So he’d been mistaken to think that his job, his career, was a place of sanctuary for him; not to talk about having a job for life; exciting and well rewarded. On the contrary, it might be the very source of that danger. He was excluded from the company, despite his previous position: all the signs indicated this negative switch around. Pitt was a radiation leak to the firm, as the financial world order had entirely changed in his absence.
During the hours that followed Pitt wandered the City streets, torturing his memory, through blank light and empty shadows. For the first time since he had relocated to London as an eager graduate, he felt alienated in the glinting money canyons of the City. He was locked out from his career, suddenly an exile or even an outlaw in this town, without any mental purchase on why or how: reduced to tramping the arteries from Lime Street to Liverpool Street, as if he was on a temporary contract or even hired by the hour. But these aimless exertions gave no extra insight. This fretful wandering merely baffled him. He was encouraged to indulge destructive emotions. In this suffocating dusty heat he merely worked himself into a molten sweat.
He surely had a wild, dishevelled, bloodshot look to match his internal turmoil. But he tried to keep as calm as possible, keeping his fight or flight responses in check. He thought this could even be a question of survival. He was determined to protect himself, by staying sane, to face any new challenge or threat that came along. These were the type of character traits and skill sets that Winchurch Bros had sought; and which training and development policies had promoted for senior staff.
Clive reached a resolution - a decision. The next step was to see his wife. There might be some value in talking to his wife. They had been together for five years now. They had a four year old boy. They were extremely happy together. They were a happy little family. God he had to see his boy again. How could he begin to explain this to Noreen? How would she react? She might know more about this affair, as her head was still in the right place. Clive was still very much in love with Noreen; she would stick by him - she was a cracking right-on girl.
Presumably she’d be able to describe the missing experiences and consequences to him. No doubt, as far as Noreen was concerned, he’d been an active agent over the past year, living and breathing; very much present and responsible for his behaviour. The reaction of family and friends would depend on exactly what had happened to him. What had he been doing in all that time? He’d lost his job, fallen out with former colleagues and alienated his employer - what more?
This was big enough. Could there be more? On the other hand, if his dismissal from Winchurch Brothers was just about a personality clash, or an ethical difference of opinion, then there was no shame attached. He’d lost that prestigious position and, during the period of his employment, he’d surely made millions for Winchurch (and hefty bonuses for himself).
Pixie, and other former colleagues, implied that he might have another job, as a whole year had gone by. For all he knew, at that very moment, he was employed by a different, rival organisation. He could have been poached by a competitor, tapped up by a bigger player. Then he’d have an office to go to and an even better career. Perhaps that was why the boss, Sep Winchurch, was angry with him. If there was anything in that positive spin, then Pitt didn’t need to worry. His gorgeous wife wouldn’t be upset, worried or even frustrated by his behaviour. The security of his family would be assured, along with the global financial system. Then everything would come up smelling like an oligarch’s girlfriend.
Whatever the truth, he had to return home at some stage. Pitt couldn’t torture himself by hammering out the paving stones, exhausting his ideas about the square mile. Hopefully the missus would have some explanation for this nightmare; a thread out of this dreadful day he was barely aware of leaving or entering. She’d be able to refocus and re-place him.
At least he knew the way home, even while his memory was wrecked. That would have spoiled this devil guy’s sense of fun. Clive hadn’t lost his senses or instincts. Perhaps that was illogical, yet anyway he had some route back. He knew all his faculties were intact; his earlier memories, life’s overwhelming store of information. Everything was at his fingertips bar the year in question, which had somehow been encrypted for security reasons. He had lost the password to his life, but who wanted to engineer this, to control his life, his ideas, and his movements?
Clive found himself going down the Bank tube station. He was into the typical daily throng and there was nothing untoward in that aspect. Normally, before, he had a yearly pass to cover his daily commute. Noreen and he gave up their City apartment after the birth of their son. Unfortunately he had to pay for a ticket that evening, because the travel pass was of course out of date.
On this hot evening it wasn’t a false note to go without a suit jacket. Still, he knew that it was lost, along with many other possessions, and that was humiliating and infuriating. It wasn’t so much the wasted fittings at his favourite tailor shop behind the Royal Academy of Arts. Not surprisingly it was the feeling of being divided or incomplete. Without the jacket and a briefcase he was stripped of status and felt like a pariah. Was the loss of personal items any accident? Where had he mislaid these possessions? What was going on with his head, that he didn’t have a clue where?
It was obvious that other commuters thought that he was out of sorts. Something really awful had happened to him; or he had seen it or witnessed it. He’d habitually worn his self-confidence and prestigious job lightly. He was able to glide through his commute, protected by his assured status, absorbed and buoyed by his powerful work. The sense of being professionally finished now shattered his public confidence. His volatile demeanour betrayed this fact. He began to shuffle with the moving crowd on the concourse, to hide within the stampeding current.
Clive took a descending elevator, keeping tightly to the right side, an alien surrounded by aliens. Bemusedly he studied alternating electronic advertisements. There was a big new American show in town, straight from Broadway, that Noreen would have enjoyed. Most of these advertised events and products were familiar to him, despite a superficial change of imagery and message. He drew attention to himself with his paranoid look, which was a disconcerting sight for people passing on the ascending escalator. Nothing could be taken for granted or looked at in the same way. The whole world of signs, machines, noise and people, was threatening, as if he was about to be chewed and discarded.
On the subterranean platform commuters stood about in typical restless postures. He was highly aware of people’s tension within that heated crush: checking of watches, pacing, mutterings and peering into tunnel abysses. Until the tube train, building compressed tension, burst and clattered into the station, with a metallic shriek like a dinosaur. This train was a new model he hadn’t seen before, with different colours and design. Sliding doors hissed back. There was hasty exiting and entering. Pitt squeezed among the influx. He tottered into a space before the vehicle lurched back into that abyss. This was a place where people generally didn’t wander but trusted in the dark.
Clive found himself participating in the familiar game of eyeball footsie. Sometimes he brought his reader or tablet with him, but that was either left in a desk drawer (at his previous or present employe
r’s) along with other possessions; mislaid with his jacket and cases. He felt that he was completely cut off or, conversely, buried up to his neck. God only knew where his briefcase was at this moment, or his essential communication gadgets.
He stared deeply into space, disconsolate; unconnected. He struggled to compose his strong, if bony features; his breathing, the perspiration. He realised that nobody wanted to look in his direction. They were even less enthusiastic than on a normal day. If he was not invisible then he may as well be.
The train left those sooty tunnels behind and emerged into the open air, and the harsh light. They rattled between stations, with fizzes of electricity, as if the wheels ran on the gums of a dragon. They were carried deeper into outlying countryside, dusty and scorched, all the way towards the end of the line, where Pitt lived.
During this stage of the journey school kids hopped aboard, unruly and loud, after another testing day in roasting classrooms. Their demonic laughter and jostling energy took over the carriage, like a giant skateboard, until they got off again and restored semi-rural silence. Strangely he preferred the noise of these anarchic kids to the City’s indecipherable clamour.
He felt he was suffocating, locked into his own mind; he could kill himself. But he wouldn’t listen to negative voices. Clive had never considered killing himself. He refused to give in to such weakness, despite intense pressure. It was the intention of his enemies to make him despair. They wanted him to believe there was no point to (his) life. He felt their influence, whoever they were, even if he was entirely confused, as he felt the effects of institutions behind the individual.
The train clattered into his regular station; with its familiar Victorian canopies and pots of geraniums. On the narrow platform an elderly lady blocked his path with a trolley, frustrating his attempts to pass. Despite such aggravation he maintained his patience and nerve, to get through to the ticket office. Without considering his actions he set off into an adjoining car park, along with other commuters. A march out to the motor was normal at the end of a working day.
