Time Rep

by Peter Ward

  Geoff sprung to his feet and flung the front door open, smiling. Zoë stood right in front of him. They hadn’t met up for a quite a few weeks, and seeing her again made him forget the world around him for a moment, so much so that he failed to notice that he’d just scared the living daylights out of her.

  “Jesus Christ—you startled me Geoff,” She laughed, pressing her hand to her chest.

  “Oh, Sorry,” Geoff said, “I’m, err … I was just leaving. Posting a letter, funnily enough.” He held up the letter as if he somehow needed to prove it.

  “How you keeping?” she said. “Found another job yet?”

  It was like asking a fridge if it had taken up tennis.

  “No, nothing,” Geoff replied, “but I’m applying for one today. That’s what this letter is.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Holiday rep.”

  “Holiday rep?”

  “I think so. The advert wasn’t very specific.”

  “Sounds lovely. I’d love to be a holiday rep. All that traveling, meeting new people. You can take me with you if you get it!”

  Geoff smirked in embarrassment.

  “That letter is for you, by the way,” Zoë said, pointing down at the envelope she’d just delivered. “Don’t see many addressed to you these days …”

  “For me?” He picked it up. That was unusual. He hadn’t received any mail for weeks.

  “Applied for any other jobs recently? Maybe it’s an acceptance letter.”

  “Nah—It’s probably just another letter from the bank asking me if I’m still alive.” He held the envelope in between his teeth, put his coat on, and stepped outside, closing the door behind him with a click.

  Zoë laughed. “Seriously,” she said, “aren’t you going to open it and see who it’s from?”

  “I was being serious,” Geoff said, stuffing the letter in his coat pocket. Since reaching his overdraft limit a while ago, Geoff hadn’t been near a cash machine in months. The banks were nervous—after all, they were normally so careful about who they lent money to, so it was only natural that they wanted to make sure he was OK.

  Zoë followed Geoff up the garden path and out onto the street, sifting through a few more letters. She was walking in the opposite direction to the postbox, so they went their separate ways, making a vague promise to meet up again at some point in the future. Geoff hoped it was sooner rather than later.

  He had barely walked a few footsteps when a thick spray of soapy water splashed across his feet. This could only mean one thing: Darren Bell, his next-door neighbor, was washing his car, probably for the third time this week. Geoff looked round in the direction the water had come from—sure enough, Darren was standing in his front garden, bare-chested, sunglasses resting on top of his head, dripping bucket in his hand.

  When Darren had moved in last year, Geoff and Tim knew instinctively to avoid him, just as a child knows instinctively to avoid jumping off a cliff. He played music that sounded like a cement mixer through the adjoining wall, drove a car with blacked out windows, and dropped so many consonants when he spoke it was like talking to someone with a golf ball in their mouth. He was a man obsessed with appearances too, and someone who was quick to judge others if they didn’t conform to his idea of how someone should look. He went to the gym twice a day, wore fake tan, had his hair cut more than once a month, and basically looked as though he was on permanent standby to appear on a reality-TV show.

  “Sorry Stamp!” Darren called out, resting the bucket down by his feet. “Didn’t see you there!” The smile on his face suggested that that was probably a lie, as did the fact that he’d thrown the water in the opposite direction to his car.

  “Give me a break,” Geoff said, shaking his shoes dry. “You were trying to soak me on purpose!”

  Darren shrugged his shoulders as if this was somehow sufficient enough to resolve the matter.

  “Saw you talking to Zoë,” he smirked, stepping back from his car to admire the gleaming bodywork. “You like her don’t you?”

  “You saw me talking to Zoë, but you didn’t see me walking past your driveway?”

  “Don’t know why you bother with that girl,” Darren said, picking up a bright yellow sponge by his feet. “She’s way out of your league. Do you honestly think a hot babe like that has any interest in a jobless waster like you?” He tossed the sponge into the bucket with a casual indifference that suggested he had been practicing.

  “I am not a ‘jobless waster,’” Geoff snapped.

  “Oh? You got a job, have you?” Darren said, flicking his sunglasses down over his eyes.

  Geoff pretended not to hear.

  “What?” He said.

  “Course you haven’t,” Darren said. “You can’t start looking for work until you’ve completed Sonic Bollocks or whatever the fuck game it is you’re playing at the moment.”

  “Actually, I’m applying for a job today,” Geoff said, holding up the letter he was about to post.

  “And what job is that?” Darren said. “Bed tester? House sitter? Pajama model?”

  “Look, what’s your problem?” Geoff said. “Why do always have to be such a prick?”

  “I just can’t stand the fact that my taxes go towards paying for your existence,” Darren said. “All you do is sit in that house and play your stupid computer games. Don’t you want to do something with your life? Get a proper job?”

  “Getting a proper job and doing something with your life are two completely different things,” Geoff said. He stepped over the puddle of water and walked away triumphantly, although he wasn’t quite sure if what he’d just said sounded good or not.

  Within ten minutes, Geoff had posted his letter, bought a bar of chocolate from the corner shop and returned back to the house, going the opposite way round the block to avoid Darren. Tim was in the kitchen eating some cornflakes, examining a batch of papers he had sprawled across the kitchen table.

  “How’d it go?” he said, not taking his eyes off his work.

  “How’d it go?” Geoff replied. “I went out to post a letter, not run a marathon. Does posting a letter really warrant a ‘how’d it go?’”

  Tim rested his spoon on the table and looked up.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing.” Geoff sighed, sitting down next to Tim. “Saw Darren this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  “Listen—do you think Zoë is out of my league?”

  “You saw Zoë?”

  “Yeah, she had a letter for me.”

  “A letter?” Tim said, raising an eyebrow. “For you? Who was it from?”

  “Don’t know,” Geoff said, taking the envelope out of his coat pocket. “Let’s find out, shall we?” He tore it open and pulled out a single, crisp sheet of paper. The paper felt thick and expensive with a soft grain to it that almost caressed the tips of his fingers.

  Geoff looked at the letter in silence.

  “Well?” Tim said, leaning over to read it as well.

  “Dear Mr. Stamp,” Geoff read aloud, his voice trembling slightly. “T-thank you for applying for the position of holiday representative. I-I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected to attend an interview, which will take place at five o’clock this afternoon at our London office—please see the enclosed map. We look forward to seeing you. Y-yours sincerely, Ruth Ashmore …”

  The letter was written in very bad handwriting as if the person writing it had nothing to lean on. Geoff looked in the envelope again. At the bottom was a small map. He took it out and laid it flat on the table. It showed a very small area of Westminster in Central London with a red arrow pointing to a building off one of the main roads.

  Geoff was more confused than the time he’d tried to work out why the words “flammable” and “inflammable” meant the same thing. How on earth had these people managed to reply to him before he’d even sent his application? He scratched his head in stereotypical
puzzlement, thankful that at least his hand-eye coordination had improved.

  “Err … That’s my head,” Tim said.

  Two

  “I’m here for a job interview,” Geoff said to the receptionist. She was quite pretty, maybe in her early thirties, with a thin face, high cheekbones, and eyelashes that could double as window canopies.

  “You must be Geoffrey Stamp,” she said, looking him up and down. There was a slight look of uncertainty in her eyes as if she was inspecting a vegetable to see if it had gone off.

  “Er … that’s right,” he replied, suddenly conscious of his appearance. The receptionist was dressed immaculately in a dark trouser suit and pale cream blouse, her shoulder-length hair so even it was probably cut using a spirit level. In contrast, Geoff looked like he’d turned up in the clothes he’d just slept in. Which he had.

  The receptionist picked up a phone and began to dial a number.

  “Please, have a seat,” she smiled, resting the phone against her shoulder and pointing across the room to a row of black leather chairs. “We’ll be ready for you in a moment.”

  The place was empty. Geoff eased himself into the nearest seat and stared up at a very high frosted glass ceiling. Looking around, he noticed that the whole lobby was made out of frosted glass: the floor was frosted glass, the walls were frosted glass, even the tables were made out of the stuff. In fact, so many things were made out of frosted glass that the words “frosted glass” began to lose all meaning in his inner monologue.

  “Geoffrey Stamp’s here for his interview,” the receptionist whispered into the frosted glass phone. “Just give me a few moments to run a quick test and then I’ll bring him up.” She hung up.

  Suddenly, the whole room flashed green for a moment. If Geoff had blinked at that second, he would have missed it. What was that about?

  “Excellent,” the receptionist said, pushing her chair out from behind her desk. She stood up. “Please, follow me.”

  A panel clicked open at the far end of the room and slid across with a quiet hiss to reveal a brightly lit elevator.

  Geoff got to his feet.

  “I’m Ruth,” the receptionist said, leading him towards the lift. “I’m the one who sent you the letter.” Her high heels click-clacked on the frosted glass floor as she walked, the sound echoing all around the lobby as though a troupe of tap dancers had just arrived to practice a routine.

  “Frosted glass.” Geoff said.

  There wasn’t much to say about the elevator—it was quite large inside with brushed metal walls and a white tiled floor. The ceiling was made up of four grilled panels—the sort you could push to one side and climb through if you found yourself in an action movie, and the air smelled slightly stale. All very standard elevator stuff. But then Geoff noticed something strange—there were no buttons. No floor numbers. No alarm. In fact, this thing had less features than a Toyota Prius. What sort of elevator was this?

  “Please state your destination,” a synthesized female voice said.

  “Top floor,” Ruth replied.

  The doors closed, and the elevator began to move.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Geoff said, feeling the stubble around his chin. If he’d actually wanted this job, he might have bothered shaving.

  Ruth turned to face him.

  “If it’s about how we knew you were going to apply for the job before you sent in your application, you’ll find out if we hire you.”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to ask actually,” Geoff lied. He didn’t like to be predictable. Now he just needed to think of something else to ask quickly.

  “Sorry,” Ruth said, shifting her weight back from one foot to the other. “That’s what all the other applicants have asked me.”

  “Other applicants? How many people have you interviewed?”

  “Nineteen—you’re the last person we’re seeing.” She buttoned her suit jacket and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “Here we are. Top floor.”

  The lift doors opened onto a huge empty room overlooking London, with tall windows stretching from floor to ceiling everywhere you looked. It was like walking into a large open plan office, except there was no furniture, no filing cabinets, and no overpriced vending machines that only sold flapjacks. A few cables were coiled round on the floor next to the elevator doors, a couple of ladders were leaning against a nearby wall, and few pots of paint were stacked next to a bare, concrete pillar. Either these people had just moved in, or they’d seriously misjudged the amount of floor space they needed.

  In the far corner of the room, an old man was sitting at a large oak desk, back to the window, head buried in paperwork. Behind him, the scenery was spectacular, offering a panoramic view of both Big Ben and the London Eye—great if you wanted to know the time whilst pulling faces at tourists.

  “Mr. Knight over there will be interviewing you,” Ruth whispered, leading Geoff across the room. She seemed to be walking a little slower than she was downstairs as if she was somehow hesitant.

  “Something the matter?” Geoff said.

  “No, nothing,” Ruth said, quickening her pace. “Just …”

  Before Ruth could say anything more, the man in the corner looked up.

  “Ah!” He bellowed. “This must be our final interviewee!” His voice echoed across the floor like an overly boisterous uncle cheering at the wrong point during a wedding speech.

  “Yes,” Ruth called out. “This is Geoffrey Stamp.”

  “Excellent!” Mr. Knight said, pouncing out of his seat and rushing over to meet them. He was tall and seemed quite agile for a man of his age, his long strides carrying him towards them at an impressive pace. His thick white hair was combed into a side parting, and he had deep wrinkles around his eyes that suggested he smiled a lot. Dressed in a brown three-piece tweed suit with shiny brown shoes and a yellow silk tie, Geoff guessed this man to be in his seventies.

  “You’ll have to excuse all this empty space,” he said, giving Geoff a firm handshake. “We’ve only just moved in. Please—have a seat.”

  Ruth turned to leave.

  “Good luck,” she said over her shoulder, and left.

  Geoff made his way over to the desk and sat down in a rather comfortable leather chair.

  “Right, let’s get on with this,” Mr. Knight said, sitting down on the other side of the desk. He straightened his tie, pushed his work to one side, and placed a single piece of paper in front of him. Geoff recognized the coffee stain in the top corner—this was the letter he’d sent them only a few hours ago.

  “‘Dear Sir/Madam,’” Mr. Knight read aloud, “‘I am writing to apply for the job you advertised in the paper. My name is Geoffrey Stamp. Yours sincerely, Geoffrey Stamp.’”

  “How did you get that letter so quickly?” Geoff asked.

  “This has to be the worst application I’ve ever read,” Mr. Knight said, ignoring Geoff’s question. “It doesn’t tell me anything about you. Your hobbies, previous work, it’s useless.” He screwed up the letter and tossed it over his shoulder.

  “But no matter,” he said, pulling a clipboard and pen out from one of his desk drawers. “You’re here now, so perhaps we can find out more about you. Your hobbies, for instance.”

  “I don’t really have any hobbies.”

  “You must have a hobby. Football? Reading? What do you do in your spare time?”

  Geoff thought hard.

  “At the moment I’m trying to complete Space Commando.”

  “Space Commando?”

  “It’s a computer game.”

  “So you like to play games?”

  “Computer games.”

  “And nothing else?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “You mean to tell me you have no other hobbies besides playing on your computer?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “What about going out?”

  �
�Did you just say ‘excellent’?”

  “Never mind that now. How often do you go out?”

  “Not very often.”

  “How ‘not very often’?”

  “I don’t know—I’d say today is first day I’ve been out this month.”

  “It’s the first of September,” Mr. Knight said, checking his watch. “This is the first day I’ve been out this month.”

  “It’s September?”

  Mr. Knight glanced down at his clipboard and made a note. “So you don’t go clubbing?”

  “No.”

  “Shopping?”

  “No.”

  “Walking?”

  “No.”

  “So if you don’t go out, what do you do with your friends?”

  “I’ve lost touch with most of my friends. The only person I see nowadays is the bloke I live with.”

  “No one else?”

  “Well, there’s Zoë, the girl who delivers the post. And the guy who lives next door …”

  “I see.”

  “But he’s just a guy.”

  “So the only people you see are your flatmate, your postman, and your neighbor.”

  “I suppose …”

  “No friends … excellent,” Mr. Knight muttered under his breath. He made another, much longer note.

  “Is there something wrong?” Geoffrey said, trying to peek over the top of the clipboard. “I keep saying bad things, and you keep saying ‘excellent.’”