253

by Geoff Ryman

  Inside information

  Owner of four businesses around Kennington Road near Lambeth North. The locksmith, chemist’s and police uniform supplier are in difficulty. His dry cleaning shop was doing well. Now that’s in trouble.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Sanjay is resting but not asleep. He takes advantage of the tube to close his eyes. He thinks of his businesses.

  Another dry cleaning shop has opened on the parade. It’s part of a large chain. The manager, a Punjabi, offers swingeing discounts. ‘Your second item free. Half price discount for all items brought in before 9.00 AM.’

  Such pricing is not sustainable. It’s an attempt to drive Sanjay out of business, backed up by the stability of the chain. They are relying on his other losses to pull him down. Whenever they pass on the street, the Punjabi, sleek with his mobile phone, grins at Sanjay.

  So Sanjay washes his own windows, hoovers his own floors and racks his brains. He sees the faces of the staff he might have to let go, in the security shop or pharmacy.

  Can he offer customers something else? Loyalty vouchers? Personal delivery? He sees himself carrying hangers in plastic bags, running up office2 stairs.

  Then falling.

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  Another helpful and informative 253 footnote

  2. Mr Kumar escapes the crash, only to go to the end of the line in the way that his subconscious foresees. On April 15th, 1996, he was running up the stairs in the Office of Publicity Procurement, delivering two pressed pairs of trousers. He seemed merely to lose his footing on the polished black stone steps. As he slid down onto the landing between floors he began to feel a rending pain across his chest. He lay on the landing for nearly fifteen minutes before being noticed. His chemists shop had by then closed. Sarf London Security followed shortly.

  192

  MR JAMES WHITTHEAD

  Outward appearance

  Plump, bullish man in a white shirt and smart, patterned black-and-white suit. Crumpled in a heap, fast asleep. Starts to snore.

  Inside information

  Meet the contented man: the Branch Manager of the Kennington Building Society. Considers himself a kindly, hands-on manager. Recently had to let someone go. Carol (what a terrible name for a man!) really wasn’t suited to finance. He kept doodling on documents. James protected Carol until he found a job in the Health Advice Centre in the Cut.

  James looks older than his 35 years, which has so far been a help in his career. Still plays midfield in the branch football team. Everything in his life, from his wife to his two beautiful young children, is as he would wish…except for his espresso coffee machine.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Making the same noises as the coffee machine that haunts him. Snort, gurgle, steam. He inherited it from Carol. It was a beautiful present, gleaming and metallic. Maybe a little lime-caked inside.

  It went proudly into Jim’s office, dribbling out small, cold cups tasting slightly of de-scaler. Then the Building Society Interest Group visited. James proudly turned on the machine.

  It produced steam in a mounting, volcanic rush, but no coffee. It began to whistle. His important guests stirred uneasily. To his horror, James heard the thing begin to creak. He pulled it out at the plug just before it exploded.

  James snorts loudly and stops. He blinks and wakes up.

  Surely Carol wouldn’t have given it to him deliberately?

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  193

  MISS LORRAINE HANT

  Outward appearance

  Young, long blonde hair, freckles, layers of blue clothes, jeans, trainers. Gazes at the row next to her as it snores, yawns or twiddles.

  Inside information

  A policeman’s only daughter. His stories have made Lorraine distrustful of black people, dance music, clubs, etc. Does church work on Sundays, where she met her fiancé Dominic.

  Temporarily works in a warehouse for a minimum-staff retail chain. She counts the sheets, the pillow cases, the toy trucks, as they arrive. It will do until she is married.

  Yesterday in the lunchroom, the conversation turned to crime. Lorraine told them what her father said about single mums and the decay of the black family. ‘In some areas, people just aren’t very nice,’ she said.

  ‘Well bugger off somewhere where nice people are,’ said Jennette, a black woman of whom Lorraine has always been afraid.

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ said Lorraine, and they all roared.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Is there some kind of virus that makes people act alike? She can’t explain why nobody likes her at work. It was spooky the way they all laughed at her.

  She has watched the twiddle, the yawn, and the snooze spread down the row like a disease. She tries tapping her foot. Involuntarily, the foot across from her jerks. Lorraine gasps. The man next to her gasps and wakes up. Experimentally, Lorraine whistles George Michael. As if annoyed, the black man across from her starts whistling too.

  So that was it. People follow each other, don’t like anybody different. Not like her and Daddy.

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  194

  MRS MARY WALLIS

  Outward appearance

  Well-turned-out older black lady. Shawl with sequins in zig-zag patterns. Examines items from her bag: a clock, a wooden frame the size of a pocket calculator, something with a wooden handle and a long metal prong.3

  Inside information

  Lives on a Hercules Road estate. Friend of Paule Wright’s. Has invested some of her husband’s redundancy money in a small antiques business. Returning from Camden Passage’s Wednesday morning market.

  The metal prong is a device for firing pills down horses’ throats. The wooden frame is for storing playing cards. The train eases into Lambeth North; Mary puts away her acquisitions.

  What she is doing or thinking

  She sees Paule on the platform and calls. Paule freezes and almost walks on. She doesn’t want to be seen. Has she got a boyfriend? ‘What you doing out this hour of the morning?’ Mary teases and instantly regrets it. Paule’s had to be taking up cleaning again. Mary tries to change the subject to Charley, but that’s a bit sensitive too since he’s been fired.

  Mary feels terrible, and gossips about neighbours. Outside on the street, she makes excuses, and darts off towards the Cypriot bakery. Oh Mary, love, you got to watch your mouth.

  Then she thinks: I could have told her about my antiques. I could have asked her to join me. I need someone to help run my stall when I get it going. Still feeling remorseful, Mary turns and runs after her friend.

  ‘Paule!’ she calls. ‘Paule. I got an idea!’

  Paule walks on, pretending not to hear.

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  Another helpful and informative 253 footnote

  3. 120 years into the future, this same antique article of animal husbandry will be lovingly preserved by a family of Restorers, a virally-selected working group. See the author’s description of this future time, The Child Garden.

  195

  MISS HARRIET ZINOVSKY

  Outward appearance

  Slightly plump businesswoman in brown trouser suit and long overcoat. Keeps rubbing her thumb and fingers together.

  Inside information

  Miss Zinovsky has a Russian father and an Israeli mother. She speaks three languages and has a first in Organic Chemistry from Cambridge. She is 23, but older people, particularly academics, feel comfortable around her. Recently began her first job at the Science Museum in Kensington.

  Harriet organizes interactive exhibits. By interactive she means people get to touch real things. She calls it RR—Real Reality. Her current project is Fakes: children get to touch real fur and fake fur, costume and real jewellery. She is on her way to a leather warehouse in the Elephant and Castle.

  What she is doing or thinking

  Remembering her first vi
sit. The warehouse smelled like a cross between an abattoir and a jar of vanilla sugar. Pale bales of leather, all undyed, were in shaggy rolls like giant pastry. You could tell what country the skins came from by the scars. From Western countries, there were close stitch marks around cuts. From others, there were fat ribbons of scar tissue.

  Is she going mad? She remembers that one of the skins had a tattoo. It’s possible that people tattoo the skins of sheep somewhere in the world. But a rose and a banner with the name Maria?

  Harriet has a nightmare vision of a third world so poor that it has started to sell human skin for leather. She shakes herself. It must be false memory syndrome.

  It isn’t. She goes on to the Elephant.

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  196

  TONY ‘PEEWEE’ HATCHET

  Outward appearance

  Tiny, older man in T-shirt and sneakers. Continually massages a salt-and-pepper beard.

  Inside information

  Film editor for LWT and director of an educational film version of Beowulf. It is his final effort to be taken seriously as a film maker.

  What he is doing or thinking

  That he’s accidentally made the sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. OK, it was low budget and had some bad luck.

  The flooded quarry looked perfect for Grendel’s lair. Beowulf needed to stride boldly into the waters. Unfortunately, the waters were only three feet deep. In one shot, Beowulf dives in and doesn’t sink. In the second, he wades in already dripping wet.

  Then there were the horses. Well, ponies. They refused to ride up a hill. Then Beowulf made a John Wayne noise: ‘Yeee-ha!’ The ponies bolted. Their bareback riders dropped spears, scattered shields, and fell off, swearing, ‘Whose fucking bright idea was this?’

  The flame thrower for the dragon didn’t work. Peewee doused Beowulf’s shield with petrol and flicked matches at it. The rushes show vapour trails of matches. The shield never caught.

  Beowulf’s funeral pyre did. Halfway through the scene, the corpse jumps up screaming. They had no more wood for a retake. Saxon warriors wore wristwatches and spectacles. Mobile phones rang during undubbed dialogue.

  There is not a single saveable shot.

  All his life, Peewee has aimed at dignity. All his life, people have clutched their sides. He is unfailingly funny. His soul aches.

  OK, he tells the universe, next time I make a comedy.

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  197

  MR JIM HAIGH

  Outward appearance

  Young, with floppy hair shaved at the sides, blue jeans, blue-tartan shirt, big new soft boots.

  Inside information

  Administrative gopher for Nexus Productions.

  Jim is not ambitious. All he wants is a regular job that will give him enough money to buy some clothes, some dope, some free time. He keeps trying to plan a trip to India. He doesn’t remember much about the last one.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Fuming about a woman at work, Anita. Jim tries to be friendly with everyone. He was pleased when Anita suddenly said, ‘Jim, you go home by Dillons don’t you? Do you think you could pick up a book for me?’ He thought she was asking as a friend, and was happy to help. He went to Dillons and bought the book with his own money.

  Yesterday, when he gave it to Anita, she didn’t even look back around from her desk. He told her the price, and she said, ‘Well, claim it from expenses.’

  He was so surprised, he just walked away. His own boss refused as it’s not out of his budget, and Anita’s boss said she knew nothing about it.

  Anita was too important to do her own shopping. She tricked him into being her gopher, and she plainly won’t pay him the money unless he nags her. He remembers as he walked away that she smiled with satisfaction.

  Being nice doesn’t work. Did he ever think it did? He prods the numb spot in his soul that doesn’t want anything and fears for his future.

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  198

  MRS BEVERLY TOMPSET

  Outward appearance

  Worn, middle-aged woman, bright red hair, green overcoat, black jeans, loafers. Reading The English Verb. The lettering is 3-D and emerges from the distance, like the opening of Star Wars. LTP, it says, as if that were something thrilling.

  Inside information

  Lecturer in commercial sociology at Bruenwalt International. Her foreign students tend to speak textbook English. They cannot fathom English verbs, which are modified out of recognition by prepositions. ‘To beat’ is different from ‘to beat up’. Beverly is yet to find a textbook that adequately explains this.

  What she is doing or thinking

  She is thinking of Attila, the homeless Big Issue salesman outside Waterloo. She wants him to lecture her students on English. He’s a Cossack but his English is flawlessly American and colloquial. Perhaps he could explain prepositional verbs to them. As it happens, there is a lad on the course from the old Soviet Republics. Beverly is sure that it would be a relief for Attila to talk to someone from home.

  She thinks of her lovely, plump, pallid husband. How can she explain to him or herself that she is in love with a wild Cossack who worked many years on American merchant vessels? Beverly has spent her life banishing romance, all that novelettish stuff. She can banish it again.

  But for now, surely it’s all right to dream a little bit of being swept up in firm, brown, young arms? She lowers the book and sighs.

  In the meantime, she can at least get him work. Again, she lifts up The English Verb.

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  199

  MR STAN GRAY

  Outward appearance

  Carefully groomed older man, wavy silver hair, computer-salesman grey suit, rotund tummy. Sits frozen with a smile pressed so tightly that it’s almost a frown.

  Inside information

  Owner of Buntleys Coachworks and Pru Waverly’s boss. He may just have successfully framed one of his employees for murder.

  What he is doing or thinking

  Would it have happened at all without Andy? He came up with the idea for the joke, a tape of two women planning to kill another and played so that Pru would think it was a real crossed line. Stan’s ears pricked up at the word murder. ‘I’ll go along with it,’ Stan said. ‘If you supply the tape.’

  Stan wouldn’t have gone ahead if the tape hadn’t made plain it was a woman who would be killed. One of the women talking on the tape was Andy’s wife.

  Stan had two days to steal Andy’s things: a cigarette lighter with his initials engraved on it, and the 27-inch waist Y-fronts from his workout bag.

  They’ll be found under the sofa and behind Stan’s own bed on which his wife will lie still, after lunchtime today when he nips home with wire and tape. After he rings the police tonight.

  Will he be able to weep for the cameras? Will he hell. He lies about sexual or drinking binges. He’s found, our Stan, that he can do anything necessary.

  And Andy, or his wife, or both, will go down. Stan allows himself to grin.

  On the platform he is able to say, lightly, ‘Hello, Pru.’

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  200

  MRS ROSEMARY OLIVER

  Outward appearance

  Striking woman, early thirties. Mediterranean complexion, fragile face. Short tousled black hair. Blue, tousled, furry jacket. Legs as thin as wrists, and elbows thicker than her hands, huddle in the seat as if cold, or crowded by the huge man next to her. Her thinness makes her look tall: her feet reach the floor only on tiptoe. She smiles.

  Inside information

  A professional key-cutter and full-time anorexic. Works at Stanley’s Key Bar on the Cut. Her workmates are all male, and bully her, they think, for her own good. She has just had her day of vengeance.

  What she is doing or thinking

  So she hates eating. That’s her business. They kee
p dumping food on her desk—oh Jesus!—greasy hamburgers, or lumpy health food Spinach and Vegetarian Cheese Pasties, or pink cheap cakes.

  So. Yesterday, she bought some HobNob biscuits, which look like a kind of pressed sawdust floor tile. Then she melted chocolate Ex-Lax on the little one-ring cooker. See how domestic I am? Pour liberally over biscuits and let cool and harden in fridge for half an hour. It was like being on one of those nightmarish cooking programmes.

  When her workmates were tucking into their laxative biscuits with afternoon tea, she took out her brand new crusher. Rosemary shot garlic over her colleagues. ‘Isn’t it delicious?’ she cooed.

  She’s been thinking of new recipes all night. Salt instead of sugar icing. Steak and kidney pies lurking under a smothering of Bird’s custard. Used coffee-ground pasties.