Half Plus Seven

by Dan Tyte

  So, it seemed, were Russell Stevens’. One evening after winning a game of table tennis and reciting a passage from The Jungle Book I’d committed to memory, Geoff called me over to one side. He told me this was to be my last night as a scout. Allegations had been made regarding the spiking of Badger’s drink. A cup of lemon squash laced with shampoo. I was out on my ear. No ifs. No buts. No chance of appeal. I knew what had happened. The little cunt had grassed me up for a crime I didn’t commit. And now I was on the scoutheap.

  Stevens had a clear run to the top. In the lunch queue, I’d overhear tales of him picking up crab football trophies. Of him winning capital cities of the world quizzes. Of him making Badger laugh. I sat patiently. I bided my time. I twiddled my thumbs with vengeful intent.

  But there was no need to put my masterplan into action. Six weeks later the stupid fuck set fire to the scout hut. The victim of a roaring campfire and a strong wind. With just one gale, exuberant ‘Kum-Ba-Yah-ing’ and marshmallow-toasting turned to cries of woe and scorched canvas. Now we were both on the outside looking in.

  I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years until today. He was sat opposite me in the waiting room of the genito-urinary health clinic; in laymen’s terms, the knob doctors. When faced with a ghost of Christmas past on the streets, I had my technique down pat:

  Step 1: Spot ex-classmate/housemate/girlfriend’s friend from distance. My excellent eyesight, even under the duress of alcohol, made this a thirty-pace affair.

  Step 2: Drop gaze to the floor. Adopt confident stride.

  Step 3: Reach in inside pocket for Flakberry. Hold to ear.

  Step 4: Appear animated, pepper one-way conversation with phrases like ‘two-way dialogue’, ‘synergy’ and ‘multi-platform approach’.

  Step 5: Return gaze to 90 degrees ahead, approximately ten paces before impact.

  Step 6: Make a ‘Oh my God, it’s YOU! How the hell are you? Would love to stop and chat but can’t’ face. Point to phone. Make the universal hand gesture for telephone with hand not currently holding a telephone.

  It was difficult, nigh on impossible, to adopt the same strategy when sat immediately opposite your subject in a clinical room with the stench of venereal disease hanging in the air. I clocked Stevens and he had clocked me. After the usual cursory glance common in public situations, I’d caught him looking my way again, just to make sure. I shot him a confirmatory look with some self-satisfaction. I was wearing a high-quality three-piece hand-made Italian suit. He was wearing tracksuit bottoms underneath a gut that hung so low it was a wonder he could see his dick to stick it in anything in the first place. My smugness lasted for just a second: we were in the STI clinic. Cock rot was a great leveller.

  On the bus across town, Dr Carter’s referral note had hidden like a filthy secret in my inside pocket, brushing up against commuters on their way to their day jobs and their desks. I was off to show my dick to a white coat. Again. At least now I was in the right place. Yes, the problem would be sorted, the weight would be lifted. Less need to bag the boy up when on manoeuvres then. More skin on skin, less skin on bin bag.

  My eyes, doing all they could to avoid Stevens, scanned the space around me. It had the look, if not the feel, of a low budget airline departure lounge. The frequent flyers dotted liberally on the rows of frayed seats wore the air of an unforced error: leaving the bar and coming in here too soon. Or leaving the bar and coming into something quite different too soon. The administration in our municipality clubbed men and women together in the same waiting area, leaving most of the blokes with faces as red as their privates.

  Stage-left a brunette entered our Heartbreak Hotel of sexual liaisons gone gammy. Ripped denim clung to her long legs. She wore a cropped t-shirt splashed with the name of a band I’ve never heard of: The Nobodies. Cute. Her walk was pure unadulterated dirty sex. She picked up a magazine from the table and sauntered to a seat. She was close enough for me to catch her eye. ‘EXCLUSIVE: Coma Baby Saved,’ read a headline splashed on the front page. Like all of the best – and all of the worst – women, she looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. Not one. I couldn’t catch her eye but I could undress her with mine. Peeling off the rock tee, ripping off the ripped jeans, down to the good stuff, the tight pink triangle of panty which hid… a FUCKING STI. Jesus, man, did I have no shame? If bad breath was a turn-off, what the fuck was crabs?

  I needed to get the fuck in to see that doctor and the fuck out of here.

  My earphones played loud on the way back to the office. Anything to take my mind off the doctor’s hand, the cue tip and delicate end of my… anyway, enough of that. ‘Oh, Mama, can this really be the end?’ I hope not, I still had six smokes left in my back pocket. I decided to make it five en route to Morgan & Schwarz from the bus stop. The nicotine would be needed for an afternoon of conference calls and social strategies. I stopped my steps short of the front entrance and hung to the side of the building to draw a drag and mentally prepare myself for the working world.

  One of my boozing buddies was slumped next to a bin in the alleyway I used as my drinking dressing room. Less gold star on the door, more stench of star anise from the adjoining Chinese joints. It was difficult to make out exactly which of them; a dozing down-and-out looked like a dozing down-and-out. Probably dreaming of the finer things in life: freedom, camaraderie, a cold drink. La dolce vita.

  The horn of a passing car honked him awake. The resigned realisation that he had once again used a trash can for a pillow was visible even from where I stood. Like a short-sighted granddad grabbing for his glasses at first light, he rubbed his eyes and reached for a flagon of what I could only assume was booze. He didn’t look like a Mountain Dew kind of guy. He shook the broken bones and plastic sheeting off and disappeared around the side of the industrial bin. Ten seconds or so later a trickle of piss swam across the debris like a concrete jungle waterfall. In its own little way, it was beautiful.

  What happened next wasn’t. He re-emerged, rubbed his hands on his street-soiled trousers, and pushed open the bin. Feeding time at the zoo. I needed a drink as much as any of these poor fuckers. But I did it with a tailor-made suit in my Berghaus rucksack, from a bottle hidden in the bottom drawer of my well-paid desk job. Even the mouthwash I swallowed was the leading brand. I was a lipstick lush. I hung my head in shame. My eyes caught my 200 note brogues, not helping the scene.

  Sated for now, he clocked me from across the road. A piece of Char Sui pork clung to his face. A sad, ravaged face. It was that one. Him. His crucified eyes clung to me. In my current get-up I felt like a Jew at Calgary. His downfall was my doing and the doing of those like me. But surely he didn’t recognise me? I was Clark Kent. Back up to The Daily Planet for a quick change before saving the day.

  My foe today wasn’t the Green Goblin or Lex Luther. It was Christy. Our buddy session had started off on the wrong foot.

  ‘Where the fuck do you get off asking me questions like that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I…’ One of the strip lights above us flickered. It gave the scene the ambience of watching the shine of late night TV when drunk, which, I’ll level with you, was where I’d much rather be right now.

  ‘What business of yours is it who I’m sleeping with or not sleeping with?!’

  As you’re just about figuring out, I’d made a grave error of judgment. The error wasn’t in the thinking but the saying. The blurting out. Once, after a particularly trying three hour car journey with Miles when all I’d wanted to do was snort drugs and cane smokes, I’d asked a South African client I’d just been introduced to if she’d been over here long enough ‘not to be racist anymore’. Only a major smarm offensive from Mr Big Dick had saved the account, and with it, probably my job. In fairness to me, this morning I had endured a cotton bud down my Jap’s eye and a stare-down from a suspicious tramp. It had just slipped out.

  ‘I really meant nothing by it, Chris…’

  ‘Don’t call me “Chris”.’

  ‘Christy… I meant n
othing by it. It’s just, I know what he’s like and I know he was trying to make inroads…’

  ‘Inroads? I’m not a fucking service station.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re a dick, Bill.’

  I was a dick. What the fuck was I thinking? I’d been wound up by Trent over the past week. He’d been sending me regular emails about his new ‘piece of ass’ and I knew Christy was in his sights. ‘All in the game’, he’d said. Well, typed. He’d said I knew the girl and would never guess who she was. So I didn’t guess. He wanted me to guess. I guessed Pete. He told me to guess again. I didn’t. Or rather I did, out loud, to my guess, Christy, about 30 seconds ago.

  ‘You don’t seem to get that this is meant to be about work. I mean, I barely even know you and you’re making really offensive presumptions about me.’

  ‘Look, Christy, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking before I spoke.’

  ‘Don’t even think those things.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Last time this was about our dead fucking parents and this time it’s about someone I wouldn’t be caught dead fucking.’

  We both laughed at this. The tea, which I’d been clinging onto as a lone ally during my dressing-down, washed down the wrong hole.

  ‘Pppphheww.’ I spluttered all over the minimal white table, flecks of brown like a lost school of fish against its unwelcoming backdrop.

  ‘Bill, are you okay?’

  I coughed up some smoker’s phlegm. It mixed with the tea to make the worst kind of smoothie imaginable. I finished with a sneeze. There was the suggestion of a fart. Oh Christ. This made her laugh again.

  ‘Smooth,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  Her face, which just 30 seconds ago was as red as her hair, was calming now.

  ‘I hope that wasn’t constructed purely to stop me being mad with you.’

  ‘If my body was capable of such involuntary action to save my skin, then I salute it.’

  ‘To reiterate, you are a total dick for asking me something like that.’

  ‘I know, I know, I know. It’s just that I really…’ Like you? That’s what I should be saying next. Like you. ‘…shouldn’t be saying this, but the last girl…’

  ‘Dina?’

  ‘Yes, Dina. Well, part of the reason she left Morgan & Schwarz and now doesn’t cut her armpit hair and follows the teachings of a delusional cult leader is…’

  ‘Trent?’ she offered.

  ‘Trent,’ I confirmed.

  I broke the rules of the game. I wasn’t sure what the rules of the game were but I knew grassing up Trent was not in the rules of the game. At least I left the date rape drug out of it. Fuck Trent anyway.

  ‘So fucking what, Bill? So what if Trent did her rodeo style in the think tank room while Carol jiggled for tips?’

  ‘You’re right.’ It was best to concede. I could see Carol through the venetian blinds. She was wearing a beige turtleneck, stood waiting at the photocopier. I don’t think she’d ever ‘jiggled’ in her whole life.

  ‘You know who you remind me of?’ she said.

  James Dean. Kurt Cobain.

  ‘No?’

  A young Marlon Brando, before the booze, drugs and delusion set in. Lord Byron. I tried my best powers of suggestion. Where was Sister Gina when you needed her?

  ‘My dad.’

  If I’d have had tea in my gob it would have joined the little snotty brown fishes all over the table.

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Erm…’ I swallowed hard. She continued.

  ‘He was always worrying about me and boys. Always asking me not to see so and so, telling so and so never to call the house again, forcing me to stay in my room and not go to the park or the cinema or ice skating.’

  ‘Well, he was your dad.’

  ‘He is my dad.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’

  ‘I never said that.’ I resisted the teenage urge to ask if she liked me. Her big black eyes were now playful, teasing almost, showing she did like me. Just not in the way I’d hoped. More errant parent than Errol Flynn.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘enough of that for one day. Are you making an appearance at Jill’s birthday thing on Friday?’ Jill had reached the grand old age of forty. Not being one to stand on ceremony, or go a couple of breaths without telling you to go fuck yourself, Jill hadn’t gone to the trouble of sending out special invites for the poignant occasion, rather she’d announced plans in the Morgan & Schwarz Monday morning meeting.

  ‘Because you’ll all see it on fucking Facebook or something like that, yes I am forty on Friday, and yes I do expect you all to come and get pissed with me. Maybe have some food too. I imagine you’ll all chip in for me. And if you don’t want to, well you can just fuck off.’ Miles, leading the meeting, found it difficult to tell if Jill’s menace was mirth or madness, so shuffled a few papers, coughed and moved on. It was her birthday after all.

  ‘Oh, that?’ I said to Christy. ‘Well, it doesn’t sound like we have a choice, does it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be the one to piss Jill off on her birthday’, she replied. We both raised our eyebrows in a ‘what’s Jill like?’ kind of way.

  ‘Anyway, thanks for the buddying, Bill. I’ve gotta fly.’ She bounced out of her chair, red hair and bare arms blurring towards the door. She opened it, turned back and said:

  ‘Oh, and Bill, if you ever, ever, EVER, ask me anything like that again, I’ll cut your fucking balls off. Kaybye.’

  There was a time on work’s nights out when I’d carefully

  co-ordinate my wardrobe to appear sharp, scrubbed up well and, if drunk, at least smooth. The nature of the industry meant there was generally an intern or a grad – who thought PR was all cocktails and celebs – to take advantage of if Trent didn’t get there first. Fast forward to this Friday and my aim would be not to dress like Christy’s dad. Her fucking dad. Being compared to the runaway father of the girl you’re trying to lay, now that was a new BENCHMARK. Jeez, the one flicker of light in my shitfucksoullessjobnolovemeaninglesssexdeaddadcuntynewdad

  shithousewithaholeinthefuckingbathroomthroughtotheFUCKING

  KITCHEN existence had been Christy.

  I was off to get very drunk or very high or very both. Kaybye.

  Chapter 14

  ‘I’ll give you each an animal and I want you to come up with an idea inspired by it,’ Miles said, in full PT Barnum mode. There was a consensual silence across the room.

  ‘Carol, you’re a lion.’ She thought for a moment, ignoring the ridiculousness of the statement, before the small eyes behind her thick rectangular specs lit up.

  ‘We could focus on the role females have in raising their young and running the household. We could run stories which made them feel responsibility for ensuring their pride got all their vitamins.’

  ‘Like lionesses?’

  ‘Like lionesses.’

  ‘Love it,’ said Miles. Carol looked relieved and then vaguely self-satisfied. The wheel of fortune spun again.

  ‘Pete, you’re a tiger.’

  ‘How kind of you to notice, Miles.’ It was a shame Pete never got close to procreation. His comedy repertoire was perfectly pitched at embarrassing offspring. Sadly, the result of the Brief Encounters after-party was a phone number one digit too short. And she had loved cock by all accounts.

  Miles wasn’t in the mood for him.

  ‘Pete…’

  ‘Okay, okay, bear with me.’ His emphasis of the word ‘bear’ went unacknowledged.

  ‘What about a feature on the health benefits of the product? We could call it ‘How Vit-Drink can give you your stripes.’ Pete leaned back in his chair.

  ‘Good, Pete.’ Miles, though orchestrating the affair, was following the rule of never dismissing an idea. It could be very damaging to confidence and Morgan & Schwarz was a finely balanced and highly combustible collection of egos.

  ‘Next up: Bill, you�
�re an elephant.’

  ‘Is that because he never forgets?’ said Jill, apropos of nothing. My short-term memory bore all the hallmarks of an early onset of dementia.

  ‘No, it’s because I’ve got a long trunk.’ The room recoiled. We often made bawdy comments at inappropriate moments. I was trying to join in and be a team player. It was a stroke of luck Christy wasn’t there though. That quip was verging on a dad-joke. That fire didn’t need fuelling.

  Chais and skinny lattes were raised and sipped and slurped as I scratched around my head for an idea. The gerbil which spun my cerebral wheel was yet to get going after last night’s alcoholic misadventures. I’d been sick in my hand at my desk about 30 minutes previous and had been sure that Jill had seen me. She pierced me with a callous stare and head shake that said, ‘I can’t believe you’re worth the same pay cheque as me.’ Truth was, I was on more. Miles had left some confidential papers on the photocopier last month – very unlike him. I struggled to believe it too. I felt like shit, and a shit. Not a good time, Bill. Come on. Buck up, you fuck.

  ‘They could brand up an elephant and walk him down the High Street handing out bottles of the stuff to kids and old folks?’ My intonation implied I wasn’t entirely sure.