Toeing the Line

by Leigh Barker

By nine forty-five, the boys were hard at work in the brightly lit workshop. Smiffy and Gonk reading the newspaper, and Buckshot studying a man’s mag, for tips—apparently.

  Nick leaned on the bench and waited for the kettle to boil for a nice pot of tea, it being more than an hour since last he’d had a break, and watched Luigi sawing a piece of metal with long slow cuts that jammed on every other stroke.

  There is wonder in watching a master at work.

  Eventually the saw blade snagged and snapped, as it was always going to. Luigi spun the vice handle and lifted the piece of metal up to the light and then held it out in front of his eye as if checking an arrow for straightness. It seemed to meet his exacting level of perfection, as he grunted, dropped it into his toolbox, took a small dustpan and brush off its allocated hook, and swept the bench clean, dumping the metal filings into a stainless-steel bin. Satisfied all was as it should be, he took the toolbox and the freshly sawn metal thing out of the workshop to apply it to whatever potential death trap it was destined for.

  Nick watched him go, poured the boiling water into the chipped teapot, snicked the lid into place, and strolled over to his locker. He opened it and took out a square of newspaper and a tube of paper glue.

  Everyone else stopped what they weren’t doing and watched him cross to Luigi’s pristine workbench, open the carefully folded copy of the Times newspaper and flick through to the puzzles page. He smoothed out the square of newspaper and laid it carefully onto the open page, picked up Luigi’s nail scissors and clipped one edge, just because he could. Finally he turned the square over, applied the paper glue and carefully pasted it onto the page, then refolded the newspaper and put it back in its place, before strolling over to complete the tea ceremony.

  Smiffy looked from him to Luigi’s bench and back again. He wanted to ask, hell, they all wanted to ask, but no answer would be forthcoming; that he knew.

  Any questions, fruitless as they would be, would have to wait because Buckshot glanced out of the window and stood up quickly. “Badger approaching from starboard.”

  Gonk and Smiffy put down their newspapers, stood up, and went to the benches to pretend to work, as real work would have been unnecessary exertion. Nick sat down on Luigi’s green chair with his mug of tea, picked up Smiffy’s newspaper, and turned to the sports section.

  The personnel door banged open dramatically, and Badger stepped in, his white overalls now topped off with an equally white hard hat. He squinted at the boys working away at their benches, sawing, filing, screwing things into other things, and generally not doing much.

  “You must think I’m stupid,” he said.

  Nick lowered the newspaper and opened his mouth to say it, but decided to drink his tea instead. Some lines are just too easy.

  “Right,” Badger said, clapping his hands together for effect. “Def Con 1, ladies and gentlemen.”

  “What’s the matter, you lost your glasses up Bradbury’s arse?” Nick asked.

  “My therapist says I’m not to rise to your baiting,” Badger said haughtily.

  “Therapist?” Nick said. “You mean the barman at the bloody Gay Ferret.”

  “I don’t have time to bandy words with you. The line is down, so it’s all hands to the pumps.”

  “Please may I be excused?” Nick asked. “I’m working on an important job.”

  Badger eyed him suspiciously. “What job? Choosing your horses?”

  “No, I’m making a wrought-iron gate for me mom,” Nick said, pointing at the intricately woven and decorated gate leaning against the wall next to his bench.

  Badger crossed to the gate and examined it carefully, turning it this way and that and nodding as he examined the little roses seamlessly welded onto the cross members. “Very nice,” he said, leaned it back against the bench, and turned slowly. “You think you could make one of these for me?”

  “Yeah, course,” Nick said. “Fifty should cover it.”

  Badger looked back at the gate and nodded. “Okay.” He nodded again, deal done. “But come on, Nick, help me out. The track is down, and Bradbury is doing his nut.”

  Nick folded his paper with a sigh, finished off his tea, and stood up stiffly. It had been a long day.