When Gil was a kid, his father would pick him up on alternate weekends. A painter and decorator with his own modest company, his father owned a stubby little van that was thick with plaster dust, its smell sharp and dry with paint and turpentine. His overalls would be stuffed in the footwell of the passenger seat and the ladder would be angled over the seat, forcing Gil to crouch to fit in. He'd resented it at the time: the van, the smell, that desperate, over-eager smile, all come to drag him away from his comfortable home in the well-manicured suburbs.
When he was a little older and the school holidays were feeling shorter than they used to, his father would sometimes take him with him to sites he was working on, and to Gil's embarrassment, he'd call him his mate, and pretend he was one of the lads he employed. Even then, Gil felt like a fraud. He would try to maintain the complex illusion he knew what he was doing, but the swagger, the surly insolence, and the estuary vowels were all a front. He got the impression his father was proud of him – he'd laugh and ruffle his hair as they walked back to his van – but Gil never felt he deserved it, and when he saw his mother's face when he got back home, he remembered how he didn't want to deserve it either.
On Mendell Road, Gil worked briskly and without complaint, shifting his set of steps along with him as he progressed, leaving a trail of cones, demarcating his work. Later, as he was stringing up yellow and black tape to secure the area, he watched as a man in a neatly-tailored suit veered towards the glistening hoardings, distracted by his phone.
Instinctively, Gil called out to him.
'Watch what you're doing,' he said. 'Wet paint.'
The man glanced back, his course corrected absently as though he didn't quite take the warning seriously. He didn't seem to see Gil at all, seeing only another scruffy workman in a hardhat and boots, but Gil was appalled to recognise him, having drawn his attention. It was Mark Jefferson, who used to work in the finance department at Muirhouse. They'd been in the same meetings, the same presentations, the same awkward conference parties and bland hotels, but if Jefferson recognised Gil, he made no indication. Gil stared after him as he folded into the crowds and disappeared.
*
'If you ask me,' said Graham, of whom no one had asked anything at all, 'they should ship them all off to an island somewhere. Only real way to be sure.'
He glanced up over the top of his copy of The Sun and nodded towards Gil.
'No offence,' he added.
'None taken,' Gil said. 'Just make sure you get me something with a sea view. Or a penthouse. I'll have one of those.'
There was a murmur of amusement in the hut, but Graham frowned. He was the oldest of the labourers, salt and pepper hair trimmed to an even fuzz over his scalp and chins. He didn't really have a face suited to smiling, so the frown was hard to judge.
'I'm not joking,' he said.
'To be clear,' Miro said, 'would this be the same island where you want to put all the gays? Or would that be nearby?' He grinned, his façade of innocence falling with a clang. 'And where would you put all the gay werewolves? Would they get dual passports?'
Graham scowled unambiguously and clambered to his feet, slapping the paper down on his chair.
'Fuck you, you gobby gypsy cunt,' he said. He jammed a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and barged out the door, sparking the lighter he held in his fist.
Miro sat back in his chair, beaming. He was a stocky figure, a wide-eyed face beneath spiky black hair. His grey sweatshirt was printed with the album sleeve of The Sex Pistol's God Save The Queen. He only wore it because he knew it pissed Graham off.
'You know, on second thoughts,' Miro said, 'if gypsies get their own island too, I might see if I can sign up. Although my mother would never speak to me again. When it comes to gypsies, she's worse than he is.'
On the other side of the room, Otto bobbed his head in agreement. He was slimmer than Miro. His patchy hair shaved tight so it looked like the shadows of continents mapped on a tall, distorted globe.
'Well they are all thieves,' he said, studying the tea swirling in his plastic cup.
'Otto.'
'I'm not joking either,' he said. 'Where I come from, they're all thieves. You see them coming into town, you lock your door. Don't give me a look like that. You don't have them here. But everyone has someone to lock the doors to. What do you have here? Scousers? The Irish, am I right?'
'Romanians,' Gil said.
'Fuck right off,' said Otto. He aimed a kick at Gil's shin, but Gil shifted out of the way.
Still grinning, Miro picked up the paper Graham had left behind and refolded it to the front page. There was another blurry picture of a monster. It still surprised Gil how few decent photographs there seemed to be of the event; most were low resolution mobile phone shots, or unspecific security footage. The most famous one was the businessman in the empty tube car, slumped on his seat, his now-enormous head awkwardly jammed against the partition beside him. His stockbroker suit was in tatters, unable to contain the new bulk of him. He was all teeth and snout and tail; there were outcrops of bristly fur punching through the remains of his silk shirt and bear-claws breaching the perfect uppers of his patent leather shoes.
The Sun had gone with something else for their front page. Uncharacteristically avoiding the celebrity angle and opting for the political instead, they'd chosen the picture of the former Labour MP Kevin Wilkes splayed out and transformed on the floor of the House of Commons. The picture was too grainy to make out many details, snapped by some fleeing backbencher with his smartphone.
The headline was typically flippant: 'Animal House' it read. The subtitle was more portentous. In stark bold letters it promised: 'It will happen again'.
'Inevitable, it says here,' Miro said.
Gil snorted.
'Bullshit,' he said.
'Well, I guess we'll find out tomorrow.' Miro turned the page and a photograph of Chrissy Linderman stared back. Blonde curls, big chinned, a look of dangerous defiance in her eyes. Gil turned away. For a moment, he felt as though she was looking straight at him from the page.
'Bullshit,' he said again. 'And tomorrow doesn't mean anything. Why would it happen at the same time? Like it keeps a diary. Makes no fucking sense.'
Otto nodded.
'But this time the moon is full,' he said.
'The moon's got nothing do with it either,' Gil said. 'You know why they call it Lunar Proximity Syndrome? Because they don't know what else to blame. No other reason. It's as if when science doesn't fit, people turn to the movies for an explanation instead. It's bullshit.'
There was a pause, the clock ticked closer towards quarter-past.
'So are you working tomorrow?' Miro said, his face all-innocent again.
Gil scowled at him.
'Grisham thinks it best I stay at home,' he said.
'What you going to do? Lock yourself in a cage somewhere?'
'Nah, mate,' Gil said. 'I'm gonna sit in my Y-fronts and jack off to Loose Women.'
Miro looked at him, perfectly deadpan.
'Never let it be said that you English have no class.'
Gil raised his tea. 'Amen,' he said.
*
'Ho, wolfman!' The voice was a high-pitched whine but it was the accompanying whistle that made Gil look up. He straightened, and leaned on the yard brush.
Three of the apprentices were standing near the hut. The one in the middle was thin and pasty white, his clothes hanging off him to the extent they almost pooled on the floor at his feet. He wore a trucker's cap backwards on his head but it mostly served to emphasise how narrow his features were. But he was smirking through his glistening acne at Gil, an electric sparkle in the pits of his eyes.
'Alright,' Gil said.
'You feeling yourself, wolfman?' Ollie's hand cupped his groin, his laugh a reedy, grating sound. His friends laughed with him. Troy on one side, Benny on the other, they sounded like a tone-deaf a cappella trio.
'Doing good, Ollie,' Gil said. 'Doing good.'
'Valuable work you're up to there, man,' Troy said. Nearly twice the size of Ollie, Troy looked as though he had been hastily built with a surplus of something denser and thicker than the concrete foundations they stood on.
'Well he's got that expensive education, hasn't he?' Ollie said. 'Degrees and shit. So Grisham only sets him to work on the best there is. He's earnt it, man.'
'University of cleaning shit up?'
'Must have been crap at it,' Benny said, dropping his sandwich wrapper at his feet. 'He keeps missing bits.' Benny was lanky and gym-lean, his features tense and wired. He was the sort of kid who wore his athleticism as though it might be a weapon.
Troy grinned and threw the plastic Coke bottle he'd been drinking from so it spun across the site.
'Go on, boy,' he said, 'fetch.'
Laughing and whooping, they set off back across the site and Benny threw his head back and howled, which only set Troy off again. They hadn't got far when Ollie broke away, and swaggered back to Gil.
'Hey, wolfman,' Ollie said. 'Check it.'
He glanced around him to confirm they weren't being observed, then fished in the back of his work trousers and pulled out a short-bladed hunting knife, blade bright and serrated.
'Tomorrow,' he said. 'When the moon comes out and all you freaks turn into whateverthefuck, me and my boys are heading out and we're going to cut ourselves a wolfskin.'
He turned the blade so it grinned toothily in the light.
'Swick! Swick! How's that sound to you?'
'Guess you'd better hope they don't wake up this time,' Gil said. 'You might need bigger balls starting a fight with something that could fight back.'
Ollie blinked, dead eyes, humour gone. The knife dipped in his hand, point-down towards Gil's crotch.
'Oh,' he said. 'I'll take their balls and all.'
'Well if that's your thing, I guess.'
'What did you say to me?'
'I said fuck off, Ollie,' Gil said. 'Haven't you got a wall to build?'
Ollie froze, his stare dull and empty, the knife unwavering in his hand. Gil wondered how quickly he could move the broom. He could probably knock the boy's legs out from under him if he was fast enough. He wondered where the knife would land—
Grisham's voice called Ollie's name from across the yard and, as though he'd been in a trance, Ollie pocketed the knife and backed away, his lip curling.
'Coming for you first, wolfman,' he said.
Gil didn't say anything. He kept a hold of the broom a long while after the boy had gone.
*
Gil was about to leave for the day when Grisham called him over.
'Decent work today on the hoardings,' he said, although to Gil it sounded like he wasn't comfortable with the compliment. It wasn't work that could easily be done wrong, it didn't need any validation and they both knew it.
'Any word back from that job you went for?'
Gil winced, glancing away, and Grisham sucked his teeth and shook his head.
'Shame,' he said. 'Well you're off for a few days, but when you're back, I was thinking I might hand you over to Hamley if you're keen? He's working on the Yarrow Road offices at the moment. Said he was looking for some new lads.'
Gil frowned. Hamley was a contractor: a painter and decorator with his own boys. Gil had seen them around on the last site he'd worked, but he hadn't really spoken to them, just a brief nod as he passed them, lined up in their whites, finishing their morning coffees.
'You're too old for an apprenticeship,' Grisham said, 'but Hamley said he'd be up for trying to get you some on-the-job training, if you're interested?'
'He did?' Gil frowned. Bulky, thuggish, forearms spiderwebbed with home-made tattoos, Hamley didn't quite fit Gil's idea of a philanthropist.
Grisham shrugged.
'He knew your old man,' he said. 'They used to work together. Went back years, they did. When Hamley realised who you were and, you know, what you were… Well, he was right put out. Said he wants to do good by your dad, you know? Said your dad was always good to him and he wouldn't be where he was without him. So he wants to pay that back in some way.'
Grisham spread his hands. 'And seeing as you're not getting anything else in those interviews you go and do, I figured… '
'If this has anything to do with that thing with Ollie—'
'Nothing to do with Ollie. The lad's a punk but he'll straighten out in time, they usually do.' Grisham scratched the back of his head. 'This is me playing nice. Pays in this trade to realise when people are doing you a favour and not be a complete tit about it.'
Gil lowered his head. He knew this sort of talk didn't come easy to Grisham. He'd known him for two years now and it was most he'd ever heard him say.
'Cheers,' Gil said.
'And as I was saying,' Grisham said, 'you did an alright job with the hoardings, so it kind of makes sense. I mean your dad was a craftsman. One of the best I knew. Really good he was. Maybe he passed some of it on to you? Would be a crying shame if his skills died with him, wouldn't it?'
Gil's smile stiffened.
'I suppose you're right,' he said.
Grisham nodded and turned away.
'So next Monday,' he said. 'Go to Yarrow Road and look up Hamley. I'll have a word with the agency, they'll shuffle the paperwork. Hamley'll show you what's what. Be on time mind, he doesn't like any fucking about, that one.'
He glanced up at Gil again.
'You look like your dad, you know,' he said. 'You might take after him yet.'
*
About halfway down Brook Street, Gil realised he wanted to get drunk.
Autopilot had set him on a course back to his flat out past the bus station, but now, surrounded by the tide of early evening pedestrian traffic, he stopped in the middle of the pavement to give the thought more room. He dug out his pack of Reds and lit one.
It was Thursday and almost everyone without LPS would be working the next morning. If this was his last day as a human, as the papers were keen to imply, he wondered how he should spend it.
He dug out his phone and paged through his contacts. He'd seen his mother a few weekends back, one of those awkward Sunday dinners where he'd sat at the end of the table feeling like he was intruding while his half-brothers – ten and fourteen, and smug with it – had screamed and thrown vegetables at each other.
Her mobile phone was off so he tried the house number and got the answer machine. It was Geoff's voice and the recording made him sound even more nasal. None of the family were in right now, his message said, and the way he said 'family' sounded pointed and exclusive. Gil hung up without leaving a message.
Geoff was in plastics, but not in the way Gil's father was in paint. Geoff's job came with a new BMW every six months and a company card to cover the fuel. Gil had been nine when his mother had remarried and he and Geoff had ground away at each other until they no longer got in each other's way.
'What's he like?' his real dad had asked when he picked him up one weekend.
Gil had shrugged. 'He's alright,' he said.
It was supposed to be non-committal, but he noticed how his dad couldn't look at him, concentrating too fiercely on the road, as though it might suddenly convulse and throw them off at any moment.
'I mean, he's a dick, obviously,' Gil had added, but it was too little, too late to salvage anything more than a brief smile.
'Sure he is,' his dad said.
Geoff wasn't really a dick. He was a good man, Gil had eventually concluded. He had no idea how to talk to the son he had acquired, but he treated Gil's mother with a respect she wasn't used to. She was happy with her new family, she was doing it right this time, and Gil had no wish to get in the way.
He put his phone away. New plan: he could just go to The Volunteer and get hammered. He tossed the cigarette to the drain and cut down the alley beside the newsagents, crossing through the car park and slipping back out onto the main drag.
'Gil.' The voice came from one of the side streets and so
unded familiar enough to make Gil stop to hunt down its source.
A figure was jogging towards him, a slim man in a long tweed coat and a flat-cap. It was only when he said Gil's name again that he realised who it was.
'Toben?' he said. 'Jesus, I almost didn't recognise you. Where's the rest of you?'
Toben grinned and stuck out an elegantly gloved hand. Gil shook it awkwardly.
'Tash's got me on a diet,' Toben said, thumping his stomach. 'Plus I'm hitting the gym these days. Since that thing happened, everyone's working on their cardio, just in case you all go crazy again. Give us a head start.'
Gil blinked, which made Toben bark with laughter.
'I'm screwing with you,' he said. 'Jesus, were you always so sensitive? How are you doing? You're a hard man to get hold of, I tried calling, emailing but…?'
Gil looked at the floor.
'Oh,' he said, 'you know. I got a new phone.' After he got out of quarantine he'd cut himself off from most of his colleagues at Muirhouse. He didn't know which of them had given his name to the authorities; it could have been anyone, maybe even someone who'd witnessed him stumbling home in ragged clothes. He still remembered the knock at the door, the black van, the dull sinking feeling he'd been betrayed.
Toben looked oblivious.
'Off the grid, huh?' he said. 'Yeah, I get that. Well, I caught you. I win. Prize is that I get to buy you a pint. Does that sound good to you?'
He glanced down at Gil's clothes, his expression critical enough to make Gil feel his cheeks turn pink like he'd been caught red-handed in fancy dress.
'Well,' he said. 'I was heading to The Volunteer—'
'The Volunteer?' Toben pantomimed his disgust with a spluttering noise. 'The were-bar? Fuck that. We're going to The Bank. They got cocktails and I'm getting you a cocktail.'
'Toben.'
You Will Grow Into Them Page 12
