by Tom Fletcher
‘Yes. Oh, yes please. That would be good. Are you on your break?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But it’s OK. Let’s go to the kitchen.’
The kitchen that adjoined the main space of the call centre was a greyish, grimy little box lined with chipped tiles and lit by a strip-light that buzzed like a huge insect. We drank tea from other people’s mugs that were heavily stained and had faded phrases printed on the side. Hers said something like ‘I’ll wake up sober, but you’ll always be ugly’, and mine said, simply, ‘You underestimate the power of the Dark Side’. Some ancient Star Wars mug.
‘I just had a sad call,’ the girl said to me. ‘Reminded me of my mum.’
‘Why? Is she dea— I mean, is she, um, why did it remind you of your mum?’
‘It was somebody ringing up to close their mother’s account down, because she’d died. And yeah – my mum’s dead too.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. It was hot there in the kitchen, and I felt red-faced and sweaty with the heat, with embarrassment, with nerves.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, smiling. ‘It was a while ago. It’s just sometimes you get a call that brings it all back. When they’re crying and stuff, over the phone. I remember doing that too. I was probably speaking to somebody in this building at the time. It’s weird to think about it like that.’
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Jennifer,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I should have started with that really.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m Jack.’
‘Nice to meet you, Jack.’ She shook my hand over the table and smiled a brilliant smile. Her teeth were small and bright.
‘Nice to meet you too.’
‘I’m not going to be here much longer,’ she said. ‘Handed my notice in a few days ago.’
‘Lucky thing,’ I said.
‘Well, I’ve inherited a lot.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and looked down at the table. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Stop saying sorry!’ she said. ‘I mean, I inherited the money and the house a while ago. I just kept on working because I thought it was what I should do. But then I started thinking, you know, may as well attempt to live the kind of life I want to live. Since I’ve got the opportunity. It’s more than most people ever get.’
‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘And what kind of life is that?’
‘I studied design at university. And I’d love to have my own studio, you know, somewhere to study and think and draw.’
She fell silent.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I never had time to keep it up, what with working and looking after mum. Although I did make my own clothes. I lived with her, see, and looked after her. We had a carer, but only for when I was at work. I didn’t mind, but I’d like to get back into it. The drawing and things. And I’d like an interesting house. A project, you know. And to grow my own vegetables, to raise my own poultry and livestock.’ She sipped from her mug. ‘I don’t have much faith in the systems that govern this country. Or this world. I want to be self-sufficient. Only then will I feel safe.’
‘That sounds like a good plan,’ I said. ‘That sounds like a really good plan.’ We both went quiet for a moment and she looked at the table and I looked at her. ‘Must have been hard,’ I said, ‘looking after your mother. What was it she had?’
‘Brain tumour. Yeah, it was difficult. Distressing. I mean apart from the bodily stuff. She didn’t understand how one day was different to the one that went before, or how time changes things. She would get me mixed up with the me I was years ago, when I was a little girl. Are you sure you don’t mind me talking about this?’
‘I don’t mind, if you don’t.’
‘Thank you. I wouldn’t mind, actually. I don’t really have many friends is the truth. She wouldn’t speak much, apart from tapping the side of her head and saying “There’s something in here. Something in here with me. How am I ever going to look after you now?” She used to think I was a little girl. Didn’t see that things had turned around.’ She shook her head and drummed on the tatty table with her fingers as if to distract herself.
The door swung open and Kenny entered the room. My body tensed as those empty eyes of his rolled over me. Had he seen me in the alley?
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s all this? Having a meeting, are we? A nice little chat?’ He spoke in a complete monotone. In the flat, colourless light, I saw that he was incredibly thin. The light gleamed from his flat, greasy hair. I could smell something rancid on his breath, even though he was still standing by the door.
‘We’re on our breaks,’ I said.
‘We all know that’s not true. What’s wrong this time, Jennifer?’ He looked her up and down as he spoke, and the way his eyes roved so slowly across her body unnerved me, let alone Jennifer.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing is wrong, thank you, Kenny.’
‘You don’t know what I’d do for a chance to take a nice girl like you out,’ he said. ‘You’re a lovely-looking girl, you are, Jenny. Can I call you Jenny?’
‘It’s Jennifer,’ she said.
‘Lovely-looking, you are. Probably won’t want to go on a date with old Kenny Hicks though, eh? Looks like it’ll just be Kenny alone again tonight.’ His gaze slid off her and across the table until it was resting on me and he licked his lips. ‘Have a good time the other night, Jackie boy?’
‘What?’ I tried to say, but it was just a croak. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know,’ he said. ‘The other night, out in town. We saw each other, didn’t we?’
Blast. Blast blast blast. He had seen me there in that alley and he must have known that I’d seen him doing whatever he was doing; if he did have anything to hide, he’d try to—
‘Across the bar,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘That was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh! Oh, yeah. That was me. Ha ha. Yes. That was me, alright.’
Kenny sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m just not that memorable, am I? But anyway. It’s nice to have a catchup.’ He looked back at Jennifer again. ‘Nothing like a good chinwag with a couple of friends. If I were you, though, I’d be getting back to your desks before I have to report you for taking the piss.’
‘We’ll have to go out for a drink after work then, Jack,’ Jennifer said. ‘I’ll email you my number, yeah?’
I looked at her blankly for a moment, amazed, as my brain spluttered and spat. ‘That would be great,’ I managed, eventually.
‘Good,’ she said. She smiled a beautiful smile at me and stood up. Kenny offered her one of his skin-splitting grins as she left the room, but the moment she’d gone it disappeared from his face as suddenly as if it had fallen off, and his blank gaze turned to me. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me, and I felt like I was in a room with an inanimate – yet homicidal – mannequin.
I stood and walked over to the door, past him, and as I did so he said something very quietly. ‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘I saw you.’
I turned to look at him, but his mouth had closed again and his small eyes gave nothing away. They might as well have just been painted on. I hurried out on to the call-centre floor.
FRANCIS
Somebody knocks at my bedroom door. I look at it blankly for a moment.
‘Come in,’ I say. It feels like I am just waking up. But I’ve been awake for hours.
‘Hi, Francis,’ Erin says. She opens the door and sticks her head round. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I say.
‘You’re not, are you?’
‘I’m OK,’ I say.
‘I brought you a cup of tea.’
‘Thank you.’
She smiles. Her mouth a soft curve through the shock of red hair hanging over her face. Erin loves Blade Runner, No Country For Old Men, The Virgin Suicides. She reads a lot. She likes Thomas Pynchon and Dave Eggers and also Anne Rice. She listens to everything. Hundreds of bands and artists that I’ve never heard of. Sometimes I can make out Grandaddy or Björk. She is scared of
not enjoying music when she’s older. She is afraid of ghosts. She is also scared of her dreams of whales. In her dreams, all kinds of whales swim through dark murky water. Moaning. Erin is afraid of their sheer size and their sadness. And the chance that they might just swallow her by mistake.
‘How are your parents?’ she asks.
‘My dad’s ill,’ I say. ‘Throat cancer. That’s why they wanted me to go back.’
‘Francis,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s operable. I don’t know why I’m being so miserable.’
‘You don’t have to justify it. It’s understandable,’ she says.
‘It feels good to be back here, though. Surrounded by people again. Feels a bit more alive, you know. A bit further away from dying. It feels safer. I know that sounds stupid.’
‘It does sound a bit stupid.’
‘Are you working today?’ I say.
‘No, are you?’ she says.
‘No. Thank fuck. You want to play Mario Kart?’
‘I think that would be amazing,’ she says. ‘In fact, I’ve got an unopened box of Jaffa Cakes in my cupboard. As long as Graham hasn’t found them. The way that boy eats. I don’t know.’
‘Jaffa Cakes?’
‘Jaffa Cakes.’
‘Today’s turning out, you know. It’s getting better, anyway.’
‘Too right.’
‘Have you asked Taylor out yet?’
‘Don’t you start on that, Francis. Don’t you start.’
‘Before we go downstairs, Erin. Have you got any stories you could tell me?’
‘Afraid not, Francis. Not at the moment.’
Erin writes small story-like things that she’ll memorize and recite to her friends. She doesn’t want to do anything with them. Jack tells her to try and get published. But she’s not interested in that. She’s interested in the oral tradition, she says. Camp-fire stuff. And then Graham makes some sort of joke about blow-jobs.
‘Oh well,’ I say. ‘You can’t force these things, I guess.’
‘You’re dead right,’ she says.
Mario Kart – the racing video game – is probably the thing that unites the five of us. Me, Erin, Jack, Taylor and Graham. As a house. It’s one thing we all enjoy. Have in common. I think that, really, the most accurate description of somebody is a list of what they like. The things they’ve chosen. People are just accumulations of likes and dislikes. So if you drew a Venn diagram of all the things that we – the five of us – like, the area in which all of our circles overlap would contain one thing: Mario Kart.
I turn the console on and flash through the menu screens. I select my character. Erin comes back into the room with the Jaffa Cakes. And fresh cups of tea.
Amazing.
Graham emerges from his bedroom about half an hour later and joins in. I don’t know what he does in there. Probably just watches pornography. Graham likes American remakes of Japanese horror films. He considers the originals to be boring. He likes Scary Movie a lot, and all of the sequels. He likes most films that are adaptations of other things or other films. He loves listening to the Kaiser Chiefs and other bands that make that kind of anthemic, fist-in-the-air pop-rock. He is afraid of ugliness and bird flu and any kind of physical deformity. I think that deep down he is intensely scared of women.
We are still playing Mario Kart later, when both Taylor and Jack are back from work. Pretty soon we are all playing. One person has to sit out because we only have four controllers. But they then replace whoever loses that particular race.
Nobody asks for any detail on my visit home. And I’m glad. I guess they can tell I’m distracting myself from something.
Graham ends up playing as Princess Peach. A character wearing a crown and a huge pink dress, and driving a pink car.
‘It’s like one of those cars you see covered in Playboy stickers,’ he says, concentrating on the screen.
‘It’s not really like that,’ I say. I’m in first place.
‘It is a bit like that,’ he says. ‘You know those cars, though? I’m always disappointed when I see the drivers. They’re never that attractive. I always expect them to be incredibly hot, but they’re just not.’
‘You know, Graham,’ says Taylor, who is sitting out, ‘there’s this idea that you shouldn’t just judge people on the way they look. The idea that personalities can be as attractive as faces or bodies. Have you ever thought about it?’
‘I have heard such things said,’ Graham says, ‘but I’m not convinced.’
‘Is that why you spend so much time on your own appearance?’ asks Erin – in second place and accelerating – with a smile.
‘I’m going for the rugged look,’ Graham says. ‘You know that. Yeah, but anyway. Appearances matter, Taylor, whether you like it or not. Just because you look like Nick Cave.’
‘Nick Cave is hot,’ Erin says.
Me, Jack and Graham just stay quiet. In an effort to keep the uncomfortable silence going for as long as possible. All five of us are staring at the screen now. Jack is in last place, as ever. Erin and I are neck and neck on the long bridge that precedes the finish line. Just as we’re about to make the other side, though, she sideswipes me into the river below. I hang my head. Erin wins.
I look at Taylor. He is looking at Erin.
I guess appearances do matter more than anything if the world is full of people like Graham.
‘Who wants a cup of tea?’ I ask. ‘Everybody? Jack and, um, Graham, can you give me a hand carrying them up please? Thank you.’
I try to give Taylor a meaningful look as we leave the room.
‘I think I’ve met someone,’ Jack says. In the kitchen. He leans against the washing machine. Above which a big Barton Fink poster has been stuck to the wall. ‘I mean I really do.’
‘Is she hot?’ Graham asks.
‘Yes, yes she is, actually,’ Jack says. In the voice of Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords. Saying yes like yis. It’s a good impression. It makes me laugh so much I spill the sugar all over the worktop.
‘What’s her name?’ I ask.
‘Jennifer,’ Jack says.
‘What’s she into?’ I say.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says.
‘What if you find out that she likes the Foo Fighters and Woody Allen films?’ I say. Jack hates the Foo Fighters and Woody Allen films.
‘It won’t matter,’ he says. ‘I really like her.’
He seems serious, so I let it drop. Even though really I wonder how he can think that he likes her so much when he doesn’t even really know her. I put sugar in Graham’s tea. And Taylor’s.
‘You put the sugar in before the milk?’ Graham asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘You’re such a fucking freak,’ he says.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But at least I’m not a dick. At least I’m not branded head to fucking toe. At least I haven’t sold my skin to a thousand different corporations, like you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your clothes,’ I say. ‘Your label-hunting tendencies. Your brand loyalty.’
‘Nothing wrong with buying quality,’ he says, sniffing.
‘There is if it’s overpriced tat and unethically produced,’ I say.
‘If it’s tat, why would it be overpriced?’ he says. ‘If it’s sweatshop, why’s it all so fucking expensive?’
‘To trick gullible people into thinking it’s good,’ I say. ‘Not to mention profit! You give them money in order to display their name. They fuck you over every which way.’
‘Well, it’s my money,’ he says. ‘I’ll spend it how I want.’
‘See,’ I say. ‘This is the great illusion. “I’ve worked all my life for this money and I’m going to spend it how I like”, etc. That’s the myth. That because you can afford something you are entitled to it. That’s why there are so many fucking cars in the world. That’s why there are so many nuclear weapons. That’s why there are sweatshops, rising
sea-levels, snuff movies.’
Graham sticks his middle finger up at me. ‘Swivel,’ he says.
‘They own you,’ I say. ‘Body and soul.’
Graham unzips his flies and shows me his bollocks. I open his cupboard and put as much of his food onto the worktop as I can before he stops me. That is my revenge. He hates it when I do that.
‘Anyway,’ Jack says, glancing briefly at Graham’s still-exposed testicles. ‘Jennifer was upset. Her mum died recently. A few months ago, I think. And she had a call that reminded her of it.’
‘It was cancer, was it?’ I ask. ‘I mean, it was probably cancer, wasn’t it?’
‘It was,’ Jack says. ‘Brain tumour. How did you know?’
‘Always is,’ I say. Toast can cause cancer. Plastic bottles. Red meat. Tissue damage. The sun. The situation is hopeless. It comes from nothing. Maybe I could talk to Jennifer about it. She might understand. Erin’s good to talk to. And so are Jack and Taylor. But none of them know what it’s like to think about it all the time.
‘Kenny Hicks came in though,’ Jack continues, ‘and we had to get back on the phones. He’s such a pervert, he is. One day somebody’s going to knock seven bells out of him. You can see it coming.’
‘Deserves everything he gets,’ Graham says. He finally zips himself back up. ‘There are some people in this world that I’d properly go to town on if it wouldn’t land me in prison.’
‘You know Morgana le Fay, from the King Arthur legends?’ Jack says. ‘Well, that was who I thought of when I saw Jennifer. And Morgana – she was supposed to be able to inspire profound change. And guide in times of intense emotion, like anger or lust. Also she was very good at sex, apparently.’
‘Well, she wasn’t though, was she?’ Graham says. ‘Because she wasn’t real, was she? This Jennifer bird isn’t Morgana le Fay, Jack. You’re just getting excited.’
Jack comes over to the side to pick up a couple of mugs. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know.’
Jack loves myths. And legends. And folklore. And all that kind of stuff. He reads a lot of history. Sometimes he talks like a book. He writes articles for local papers and magazines. About nearby haunted houses. Or the origin stories that gather around unusual features of the landscape. He’s even had one or two short pieces published in the Fortean Times. He loves the Narnia books, especially the ones where some kid discovers another world – The Magician’s Nephew, or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But he doesn’t like the film adaptations. As far as films go, he likes documentaries – Grizzly Man, Touching the Void. He listens to Fleetwood Mac, Sigur Rós, R.E.M. He is scared, above all things, of the world being no more than it appears to be.
