He was washing dog-shit from the pavement. When I reached him I stood silently by for a moment or two, watching the accurate torrent crumbling the foul then sending it streaming down over the edge of the kerb.
The pavement cleansed and darkened, Pa turned the hose on to his car, rinsing off the dust and the massive patches of brown and white goose-crap that had exploded on the roof and front windscreen. Then he turned off the tap at the front of the house and energetically looped the green hose around it. He looked at me with his one straight eye, said, ‘Come in’, and marched me into the kitchen, where he began making two coffees. ‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘you may be wondering how Paddy Browne’s review meeting went today.’
I accepted the coffee he offered me and followed him into the living-room. A toolbox and electrical equipment lay by the broken french windows. Pa got down on to his knees and started playing with a volt-meter.
‘Well?’ I said. ‘How did it go? What did Paddy Browne have to say?’
Momentarily distracted by his work, he took a few seconds to reply. ‘Browne? Browne said nothing,’ he said. ‘I haven’t spoken to Browne.’
I looked into the garden. The pear tree in blossom there reappeared indoors, adrift in the spotless glass of the coffee table.
My father stood up and raised his eye-patch to his forehead in order better to examine the volt-meter. ‘Johnny, there was no review meeting. They fired me.’
I said, ‘What?’
‘They canned me, son. They gave me the bullet. Hold this,’ he said, passing me a Philips screwdriver. He looked up and saw my face. He laughed. ‘Don’t look so shocked, boy. It happens, you know.’
‘But, Pa,’ I said, ‘I don’t understand. They can’t do this, not after all your years of service.’
‘Well, Johnny, they just did.’ He concentrated on inserting a screw into the windowframe. ‘Fifteen minutes. They gave me fifteen minutes to clear my desk. I give them twenty-six years and they give me quarter of an hour.’ He reached up and took back the screwdriver.
I could not believe it; most of all, I could not believe how robustly Pa, who only last night had been unable to climb out of his own bath, was taking it. ‘What are you going to do?’ I said.
‘You know who else they sacked?’ Pa said, standing up. ‘Merv. They sacked Merv.’ He wiped his face. ‘They’re going to pay for this,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been in this business for a quarter of a century for nothing. I know my rights, and I’m going to sue them. Unfair dismissal,’ Pa said. ‘I wasn’t consulted,’ he said, pointing his screwdriver at his heart. ‘Nobody asked me anything – me, a man of my seniority. No warning, no nothing. They just went ahead and fired me like a nobody.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s terrible,’ I said.
‘It isn’t right, Johnny. I should have a say in what happens to me, I’ve earned it with my own sweat. I’ve given nearly half my life to the Network.’
I said nothing. Pa said, ‘And they’re telling me it’s redundancy. Johnny, there’s no way that my job is redundant. What are they trying to say, that there’s no need for a Network manager? That there’s nowhere else they can fit me in? I’m a railway man through and through, John, I worked my way up from the bottom, there isn’t a job in that organization that I can’t do.’
‘Take them to court, Pa,’ I said proudly. ‘Show them that they can’t treat you like this.’
‘It’s these outsiders that Paddy Browne brought in. Corporate advisers, or whatever they are. Browne’s trying to palm the responsibility off on to them. The Network’s merely following their recommendations, he says. Here,’ Pa said, handing over the letter of dismissal. ‘But what I say, Johnny, is that these people have to work with the information they’re given. And who was giving them the information? Browne. Browne was. Whereas me, I didn’t even get to meet these people. I don’t even know who they are. I wasn’t consulted,’ Pa said again. ‘I wasn’t consulted once.’
I looked at the letter. Pressing business needs, it said, necessitated a radical restructuring of the Network. An independent external report recommended severe cost-cutting. Unfortunately, this unavoidably entailed a degree of decruitment …
Pa gave me another piece of paper. It was headed, in his writing, PLAN OF ACTION. ‘You see, I’ve got a battle plan. I’m not going to rush into anything without first having thought it through. If you’re going to take on an outfit like the Network, you’ve got to have a strategy. It’s no good just charging in head-first; you’ve got to do it step by step.’ He rolled his sleeves down and began to button them at the wrist. ‘They’re going to find out, with a nasty shock, exactly who it is they’re dealing with here.’ He said, ‘If they think that I’m just some pushover who’ll gratefully pocket his severance money and go away, they’re sorely mistaken.’
I studied the plan.
GOALS? REINSTATEMENT. STRATEGY? UNFAIR DISMISSAL PROCEEDINGS/NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT THEREOF. COST-EFFICIENCY? GOOD. TIME-EFFICIENCY? ADEQUATE. DOWNSIDE? TIME, MODERATE EXPENDITURE. ALTERNATIVE? COMPENSATION. TIMETABLE? 1. SEE LAWYER. 2. ISSUE PROCEEDINGS. 3. CO-ORDINATE WITH UNION ACTION. 4. ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO SUE.
So this was Pa’s quick response to the problem. Mark Q. Fincham would have been proud of him.
I saw him waiting for a reaction. ‘This is great,’ I said. ‘But do you really want to be reinstated? Don’t you just want to take the money and run?’
‘No,’ Pa said emphatically. ‘I’m not interested in the money; I’m interested in my job.’
Hiding my doubt, I said nothing to this.
‘You wait and see,’ he said. ‘I’m going to make them take me back.’
I changed the subject. ‘No sign of the dog, I suppose?’ I said.
‘Nope,’ Pa said, checking the sliding door he had fixed. ‘But she’ll be back. She knows her way home. You can drop a dog a hundred miles away and still it’ll make it back.’ He pushed at the sliding door and bent at the knees. ‘Don’t you worry about Trusty, she’ll be fine.’ He caught my eye and slowly straightened, groaning cheerfully. ‘I tell you what. If you’re concerned about it, why don’t the two of us go down to the dogs’ home tomorrow, to see if she’s turned up there? OK? Meet me here at ten.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘You’re looking a bit down in the mouth,’ Pa said. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m just a little …’ I shrugged.
‘What’s the matter? Is it Rosie? Is something wrong at home?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.’
‘Are you sure? Johnny?’
‘Sure I’m sure,’ I said, laughing. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’
‘Just as long as you’re not worrying about me,’ Pa said, as he resumed his work on the door. ‘You just think about yourself. At your stage of life you’ve got to look out for number one. Concentrate on your chairs. You finished them yet?’ I nodded without enthusiasm. ‘That’s great,’ my father said. ‘Did you know that I’ve got about twenty of the guys coming to the exhibition? Now that half of them have been laid off, they won’t have any excuse not to come. And with their golden handshakes, they may even be able to buy something. No cloud without a silver lining, eh, Johnny?’
I could just see it: twenty awkward, brown-suited ex-middle-managers turning up at Devonshire’s with my father at their head, all searching for a nonexistent exhibition. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Why don’t you come around tonight for a bite to eat?’ Pa said. ‘Bring Rosie, too. She can bring Steve if she wants. I’ll cook some steaks.’
‘I don’t think I can, Pa,’ I said untruthfully. ‘I’m seeing Angela.’
‘Well, tell her to come, too. She’s always welcome, you know that. Besides, I haven’t seen her for ages. How is she?’
I said, Good. Pa said, ‘I’ll leave it up to you. If you two want to come by, come by. If not, that’s fine too.’
&n
bsp; I did not go straight back to the flat. It was a hot day and I had nothing to do, so I decided instead to stroll around the neighbourhood in case there was any sign of Trusty. I did not share Pa’s faith in her homing instinct. I knew that dog. She didn’t know her ass from her elbow.
So I walked around the blocks that embodied the Rockportian dream of order, an undilapidated world of immaculate gardens, freshly painted frontages, upkeep and more upkeep, and kept a look-out. It was clear, from posters newly displayed on the windows of houses, that I was not the only one being vigilant. The posters, depicting a large eye peeled open against an orange backdrop, were the sign of the neighbourhood watch scheme and, judging by the number of eyes that stared unblinkingly down on the street, the whole community was on red alert, as though wild beasts and not harmless pets roamed abroad and these flawless, peaceful streets were sinister as jungles.
There was no sign of Trusty anywhere, of those black and brown ears dangling in front of the sturdy, stumpy little body with the raised white-tipped tail, whippy as a car aerial, the sad, red-rimmed, sagging eyes, the neatly tailored rows of nipples. I tried the gardens, I tried the streets, I tried the field where she had been jumped on that first time by that police dog and where I had played my first games of football. There were still youngsters out on that grass today, still using jerseys as goalposts and still arguing furiously, as I had at their age, about the height of the nonexistent crossbar which connected the nonexistent uprights.
14
For no apparent reason, the train has stopped in some cutting in the middle of nowhere. All that is visible is a steep, grassy upslope topped by the blue slat of the sky.
The old lady says, ‘We’re not there already, are we?’
‘No, madam, we’re not,’ the man says. ‘The non-stop express,’ he says, ‘has stopped.’ He stands up, opens the window and fruitlessly cranes his head outside. ‘The very least they could do is tell us what the problem is. But of course they don’t. They just leave us here to rot in ignorance in their stinking carriages. I mean, just look at the state of this seat, look at all this dirt. When was the last time they washed these things?’
The carriage door opens. It’s the conductor.
My fellow traveller does not miss his chance. ‘Excuse me,’ he says loudly, ‘what’s the reason for this delay? How long are we going to be sitting here for?’
The conductor shrugs. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a red light, that’s all I can tell you. It could be anything.’ He takes my ticket, a weekend return to Waterville, and stamps it.
‘Well, why don’t you find out? Or is that asking too much?’
The conductor looks the man in the eye. ‘Listen, pal, I’ve told you what I know, all right? There’s going to be an announcement soon, OK?’ He turns and walks away.
I get up before the man can speak to me again and leave for the smoking compartment. I light a cigarette, blowing the smoke through a window.
When I got back to the trashed flat from Pa’s on Monday afternoon, the answering machine was waiting for me with five red winks, one wink for every message. The first message was from Steve. ‘Uh, hello, it’s me. I’m down at the police station. I’ll be here for a bit yet. I …’ Steve stopped talking evidently because he was being spoken to. ‘OK,’ I heard him say. Then he said, ‘Hello? I–’ and was cut off. He had run out of coins. Typical. He couldn’t even make a telephone call without screwing up.
Then I thought, Police station? Steve had been arrested?
I became aware that Simon Devonshire’s voice was speaking. ‘John, I’m ringing about the chairs, which I received this afternoon. I think we’ve got a problem. Could you get back to me straight away?’ The next message was his, too, as was the next. ‘John, get back to me on this, urgently,’ Devonshire repeated abruptly. ‘I mean it.’
The last message was from Angela. ‘John, this is me. Sorry about last night, I couldn’t … I’ll explain later.’ She paused, allowing in background noise; she was ringing from a callbox. ‘We need to talk.’ Again there was a commotion. ‘I’ll ring you. Bye.’
For a second I felt a strong relief: she was fine, thank God. Then there was anxiety. Why had she sounded so shifty? Since when did we need to talk?
I called her at work. This time I got through.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘I’ve been working, Johnny. It’s been awful.’
‘Well, why didn’t you call me? I waited for you all of last night.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Angela said. ‘I was in a meeting the whole time. I’m sorry, Johnny’
I said flatly, ‘I don’t understand it, Angela. I don’t understand why you couldn’t make one simple call. It just doesn’t make sense.’ I waited for her to respond. She didn’t. I said, ‘What the hell is this job, anyway, that you’re working on it for the whole of a Sunday night?’
She was silent. She began to say something then stopped.
I felt a pang of nausea. She was hiding something from me. I loved her and she was lying to me.
I said, ‘What did you mean when you said in your message that we needed to talk?’
She hesitated. ‘Well, we haven’t been seeing much of each other recently and I thought that, well, you know, we should meet.’
‘Well, I’ve been ready to meet for the last month. You’ve just never been around.’
Angela sighed. ‘I know, I know, it’s my fault.’
There was a pause. I said, ‘Look, never mind. Why don’t I meet you at your place tonight? I’ll cook some pasta and maybe you could get a bottle of wine. We’ll have an evening in, just the two of us.’
‘Darling, I can’t make it tonight. I’m going to some thing with clients. And then from tomorrow I’m away for three days.’
I was too hurt to say anything.
Angela said, ‘My darling, I’m so sorry. I was thinking that we might see each other on Monday.’
‘What, next week? That’s seven days away, for Christ’s sake. Are you saying that you can’t fit me in in the next seven days? Is that what you’re saying? Angela, what the hell is going on? Are you seeing somebody? Is that it?’
‘Don’t be like that, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve got an idea: why don’t we meet tomorrow lunchtime. I’ve got half an hour. We’ll have a sandwich at the gym. OK? Meet me there at one o’clock. OK? Johnny?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and I hung up abruptly. I waited for her to call back, but she didn’t.
Devonshire did, though, and as soon as I heard his voice I hung up.
I picked up my cigarettes and went out. I didn’t want to be around when he rang back again.
I decided to go to the police station, which was only a five-minute walk from the flat, to see what kind of a mess Steve had got himself into now. A worrying thought had occurred to me. Maybe it was Steve, finally pushed over the edge, who had smashed up the flat. Maybe Steve had hurt Rosie.
I spoke to the officer at the reception desk. ‘I’m looking for Stephen Manus,’ I said. ‘The name is Breeze. I live with him. He rang me from here.’
The policeman looked at his paper and scratched his goatee thoughtfully. ‘I’ll check,’ he said finally.
I waited standing up. Moments later a door opened and a group of bedraggled men emerged. They were, I saw, Rockport United supporters, almost certainly the ones who had rioted after the game. Judging by their sheepish demeanour, red eyes and dirty T-shirts, these men had spent a night and a day in the cells and their indocility was well and truly exhausted. I moved aside from the reception window as they obediently scribbled forms, their signatures ornate and unintelligible, like the signatures of children.
The receptionist returned. ‘We’ve tracked Mr. Manus down, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s helping us with our enquiries at the moment. You’ll have to wait a few minutes until his interview is over.’ He looked at the United fans, who had remained uncertainly in the lobby. ‘All right, lads, you can go home now.’ They trailed out.
‘What a bunch of losers,’ he said.
I sat down on a hard bench and lit a cigarette. Helping the police with their enquiries. Shit. Everybody knew what that meant.
‘Johnny.’
I looked up. From a door to my left, Steve had come in. A brown stitched-up gash ran diagonally from his eyebrow to his hairline.
‘Jesus, Steve, what’s happened? Are you all right?’
He took a cigarette from me. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Why are you here? What have you done?’
‘I haven’t done anything. I’m a witness,’ he said, pronouncing the word with solemn emphasis. Seeing my confusion, he began to speak quickly, grinning in his excitement. ‘I went out on Sunday evening to get some milk, right? So, anyway, I’m coming back and about twenty yards from home I see this bloke running out of one of the houses on the street, number 6 I think it was, and he’s carrying a hi-fi or something. I don’t know why, but I can tell immediately that he’s a burglar, so I approach him and, well, I jump on him just as he tries to get into his car.’ Steve tapped his cigarette. ‘I thought, you know, that I might, you know – make a citizen’s arrest.’
‘A citizen’s arrest?’
The Breezes Page 13
