If You Liked School, You'll Love Work Page 7

  Surprise, surprise. — So this is what all this is abaht, you and some farking trouser –

  — I’ve said my piece, she says, all cool, but she can’t keep the smugness out of her voice. — Be there at the airport to meet your daughter.

  — Trees … I’m pleading now, — Terry …

  Then she only goes and puts the farking blower down on me!

  I dial her number again but it’s only the flamin voicemail, — Neither Teresa nor Emily …

  — Farking cow, I spit and head downstairs to the bar. Knockout blow to Hardwick, Baker left KO’d on the canvas. It don’t bare thinking about. I pour myself a double Scotch. Cynth’s in and she’s watching me. — Bit early, isn’t it?

  — Been a funny old morning, I tell her, heading down to the cellar, leaving her standing there, hands on hips like a big, shapely vase. It’s always nice and cool down here, just the place to go when you wanna charge the old calmness and serenity batteries. Suddenly, I hear a rustling sound and I see a big furry rat; long-haired cunt, marching across the floor. He vanishes behind a stack of beer on pallets. I pick up the brush. Then I hear the tinkle on the mobile: another flaming text message coming in. Bleedin hell, it’s only from Seph, this farking hairy little Greek gel I was nailing last summer. Telling me that she’s only here on Friday for two weeks. How farking complicated can life get?

  Old Roland seems to have scarpered. So down here in the cellar I’m taking stock of my life. It’s all here in the barrels and the stacked pallets of bottles: piss. My assets all converted into a supply of alcohol to sell for profit. Disinhibition, good times and hope; that’s what I peddle. How many birds have I nailed through them over-imbibing that most glorious of drugs? Too many to count.

  I shake off my thoughts and get upstairs. Cynth comes over and sidles up to me. I know by her look what she’s got on her mind and she opens her mouth to confirm that I ain’t wrong. — When we gonna see each other then?

  — Tonight round mine. Eleven forty-five, I say, but it comes out all wrong, as I ain’t making much eye contact, I’m warily checking the bar for strangers.

  Nothing will alienate skirt quicker than your distraction. You gotta at least provide the illusion of the old undivided. — Anything wrong? she asks.

  — Nah … well, yeah, I come clean. My gut’s still blistering from that phone call with Trees, even if Seph’s text just proved that you just have to tough out the bad till the good comes round the corner, which it always does. Didn’t take very long in this case. I should be chuffed, but there are practical affairs to put right. — The ex is only sending the bleedin kid over tomorrow, ain’t she. I mean, what am I gonna do with a young teenage gel here? I look around the boozer, then nod upstairs. — You know the flat, it’s tiny.

  Cynth rolls down her bottom lip. — You got a spare room.

  — Yeah, but it ain’t got no bed and it’s got all my gear in it.

  — I’ve got a fold-down bed; you can have that. When I come up to yours later we’ll go through your stuff and sort it out, she cheerfully volunteers. — How old is she?

  Good sort, Cynth. I’m looking at those stiff red lips of hers and she’s got me all ears now. — Thirteen. Going through the narky little cow stage by all accounts.

  — And she’s gonna be here most of the school holidays?

  — The ex ain’t said but I believe that to be the case, yes.

  Cynth seems to think about that one. She never had no kids but I think she always wanted them. No luck with the geezers though; told me once that her first fellah was a cunt, a proper tightwad, who didn’t want no breadsnapper around. Number 2’s been shooting blanks for years and is now any roads settled into a golfing life. She seems too bleedin keen on the idea of Em being here though. But it don’t half get ya thinking; if these two hit it off, it gives me a bit of time to be indulging in some extra-curricular activity with a certain young lady from Greece.

  Interesting gel, young Seph. We met the other winter when she was over here. To be honest, a bird with a tash don’t do nuffink for me, but after a few Jack Daniel’s she could have been farking Taliban for all I cared. Bottled her up a few times last summer, then again in November over there when Chels was at Olympiakos in the Champions League. Made some of the geezers pretty green that day, swanning round Athens with a young thing like that on me arm, tash or no bleedin tash. Lovely long black hair; all the way down to her arse. Even them big Nana Mouskouri glasses couldn’t keep the old fellah down. In fact, you get to a certain age and that thing starts to appeal. That’s what happens when you’ve watched too many stag vids and seen too many facials.

  I might suggest a waxing.

  — Penny for em? Cynth asks, and I’m looking at that great expanse of doughy gut between the bottom of her top and the top of her shorts. Plenty of the old cellulite in the mix, but it’s funny how it don’t look half as bad on tanned skin.

  I pinch a fold of belly lightly between forefinger and thumb. — I do believe that you are losing weight, gel, I tell her.

  She puts her hands on her hips and does a little swivel, giving herself the once-over in the bar mirror. — You really think so?

  — I believe that to be the case.

  — It ain’t what the scales say, she goes, spinning round and looking at that fat arse. Rodj sees this from the bar of the public, raises his brow and gets back over to pulling pints for two old geezers that’ve come in with their wives. Looks very guilty n all. I’m wondering whether he and Bert have had words.

  — Bathroom scales, I scoff. — Always bleedin farked, ain’t they. Can’t rely on em, can ya, I tell her, taking a slice of pizza from the glass display case and sticking it into the microwave. — You need fattening up, you do.

  — You’re so sweet, Mikey. You know, when I was with Ben I was never good enough for him. He always used to moan about my weight … and Thomas, he doesn’t even see me as a woman …

  I move over and pin her against the bar. — Some geezers don’t know when they’re on a good thing. I tug down the zip of her shorts and slip my hands in and start touching her bush lightly.

  — Michael …

  — You’re a naughty gel. No knickers, I say, thinking, bleedin hell, no prizes for guessing what she was after all along!

  — Stop, Michael, somebody might come, she gasps as I pull up her top to expose those big tits, flopping away without a bleedin bra in sight.

  — I believe that to be the case, I murmur, as she pulls the top back down before Rodj comes round.

  3.

  EM

  WAITING AROUND AT the airport the next day, I feel well farked. Fucking armies of holidaymakers; old cahnts in the mood for winter sun for the old bones, sly-looking husbands ready to team up with like minds and bodyswerve their miserable fat cows and screaming kids, and young uns and some not so young on the hunt for a good drink and a rattling opportunity.

  After cleaning out my gaff the other night, Cynth and I nailed another couple of bottles of red and then did some tequila slammers. Farking suicide mission. Any roads, I humped her a couple of times then cooked up some steak, onions, mushrooms and McCain’s oven chips, the low-fat ones.

  Got up the next day still drunk and left a decidedly sheepish Rodj running the show. — Gonna be a recurrent theme, mate, I tell him. — I’ll have to be leanin on ya a bit. All hands on deck.

  — Yeah, well, I know you wanna spend time with Em. Don’t worry about it, he says.

  — You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

  Poor Rodj. Don’t think he’s even had the satisfaction of properly nailing Marce but he’s certainly got someone on the warpath! Apparently Bert’s been spotted in various boozers making threats about a certain party! Smarmy git though he might well be, what the likes of Rodj forget is the adage about the construction of omelettes requiring certain eggs getting well smashed. And when things start getting cracked, that’s when his sort start getting nervy.

  On the way to the airport I bell Seph. She’s a goer
but a bit of a loose cannon and you got to watch her. Her old man is the chief of police on this small island, which is only a short hop from Piraeus, the old port of Athens. ‘My father is the chief of police for thee whole island!’ she boasts all the time. Wouldn’t mess with her over there cause the old man sounds like a proper cunt; the sort who’s probably fitted up more geezers than C&A’s.

  She’s on my turf now though, or soon will be. Hopefully I’ll be on her turf soon n all. Normally I enjoy a bit of rug-munching (a gentleman’s sport long before the old bulldykes muscled their way into the picture) but she’s got a flaming Axminster down there. Thought I’d come face to face with Dr Livingstone at one point, before necessity compelled me to come up for air.

  I’m waiting at the arrivals gate and then Em sees me and her face lights up for a second before she remembers she’s a teenager and I’m her old man and she just gives me an awkward pat on the shoulder instead of a hug. And it hurts, cause I wanted to wrap my arms round her and say ‘How’s my little gel then’ but I ain’t said that to her, ain’t had that sort of thing with her for bleedin years and I know that I’ve missed so much, so bleedin much, and I’ll never have it again.

  Gor blimey if there ain’t bloody tears welling up in my eyes so I pull down the shades from the top of my head and point to the exit.

  — Good flight? I ask, managing to keep my voice even.

  — A plane’s a plane, she shrugs back, not even noticing that her old man’s all choked up.

  — Yeah. You ain’t wrong.

  So we get to the car and I start rabbiting on, shit really, just trying to fill in time. How’s school and all that bleedin malarkey.

  — I hate school, she says as she sits with her knees up, picking at the skin round her fingers.

  — Don’t be like that, I tell her. — My old man, your grandad, he used to say to me, ‘If you like school you’ll love work then live happily ever after.’

  She don’t say nothing to that, just sort of rolls her eyes.

  I try to explain: — What I mean is that it’s your start in life, so you gotta go in with the right attitude. You get out what you put in, don’tcha?

  She just shrugs and don’t say nothing. And I suppose she’s right to be a sceptic n all. The stuff about the old man, he said nothing of the kind, I just made that up. Churchillian-style motivational speech, that sort of thing. Reality was, the old boy didn’t give a monkey’s about what I got up to at school. Yeah, she’s right, school was a load of bleedin bollocks. My teachers were all sneaky, poncey fuckers, every one of them. Well, except that Miss Johns in English; the way she’d bend over you to correct your work and them tits in that tight top and that hair cascading down in your face and the bleedin perfume … farkin well shouldn’t have been allowed. No wonder I grew up not bein able to keep my hands off skirt; damaged I was, well and truly bleedin damaged by the educational system! Should get a farking claim in! Good solicitor, that’s what I need, a decent brief, like the geezer wot sprung us all and got the compensation when the Old Bill, bless em, made another farking cock-up.

  Thing was, though, the likes of Miss Johns was different. Encouraged you, didn’t they. Didn’t think they had all the questions and answers, honesty lies.

  — Mum told me that you got put in jail for fighting at a football match once, when I was a baby, she says.

  What the fuck is that dopey old slag saying to the gel?

  This rookie scraper has evidently been trained in the Hardwick school of low blows.

  — I got arrested because I was near to where it was all going off and the Old Bill was grabbing anybody, but I never got put in no jail, well, remand, yeah, but I wasn’t convicted. The case was dropped; I got compensation cause they was proved to be in the wrong. That’s how I got this place, and that’s how you and mum got the house, I tell her, and that’s as about as much as I want to say on that subject and I move sharply on. — So how’s things with ya then, you got a boyfriend at that school?

  I’m only joking, pulling her leg, but she turns to me all seriously and says, — I don’t really like the boys at school. It may be because I’m still too young, or maybe because they’re too immature, but I think I’ve got a bit of virginity left in me yet.

  Shit … that hurt …

  Farkin hell, I feel like I’m about ten years old and I’ve been told off by my big sister. Then she suddenly looks at me all weird. — You used to see other women. Before you left me and Mum.

  I feel my face going all cold and tingly. That way you do when there’s a few of you in a boozer and a big mob of tasty-looking geezers comes in. You’re fronting it but your bottle’s well shaky. Nobody’s saying nothing but you’re just waiting for it to kick off and for some cunt to ram a flaming glass in your face. What’s farking well going on here? — Who told you that? I ask, as if I don’t bleedin well know.

  — It’s true but, ain’t it? she says, sounding like somebody else. That flaming Hardwick gene.

  Well on the ropes here. Think calmness and serenity. Use the experience, keep ducking and diving.

  — Look, one thing you’re gonna realise in life is that there’s more than one reason why people do things. Sometimes there’s a lot of them. It takes more than one person to change things, like in a relationship.

  She seems to think about this, then she goes, — These women, when you were lying in bed with them, then her voice goes harsher, — shagging them, did you ever think about me and Mum at home?

  I ain’t havin this. I slow down and pull up by the side of the road. I draw a big breath. — Look, I’m your dad and we’re gonna be staying together for a bit. You got to give me some respect; I respect you, you respect me.

  I don’t believe it! Mickey Baker is throwing in the towel! His corner are saying that their boy has taken enough punishment!

  — Whatever, she says, now all distracted, like her mind’s on sumfink else. She opens up a magazine she’s been carrying. It’s one of them celebrity gossip shit-sheets that kids and thick cunts read. The so-called celebs are mostly Luton reserves level; there’s some fat munter who once had a hit record and is now bloating for England and ramming Colombia’s harvest up her hooter since her fella scarpered with a fitter bird. I worry about Em’s choice of reading: the sort of thing a Hardwick might read. More interesting to her, evidently, than her old fellah, whom she ain’t spent any proper time with in months.

  I’m fuming cause I don’t know this kid at all. She’s been poisoned against me, by parties who shall remain nameless, and I’ve got my work cut out here. This ain’t my little gel. This is a weird kid whom I don’t recognise; all tall and skinny and dressed funny and comin out with all sorts of daft stuff.

  — That’s what they call the Red Mountain, I point out the window, — Montana Colorada. Past them you got the Dunas de Corralejo, which has a wealth of coastal vegetation that is totally unique to this part of the world, I explain with enthusiasm. I’m thinking that they must teach them shit like that at school: the environment n all that for fack sakes.

  She ain’t giving a toss.

  — All volcanic, this is, I hear my voice tailing off in an apology as I look over to the Isle of Lobos. There seems to be some clouds over there, hope they ain’t headed this way. — We can take a trip over there, I suggest, — in a glass-bottomed boat. Fancy that, do ya?

  — Yeah, she says, briefly looking up from her mag as we head up General Franco Avenue.

  She ain’t flaming interested, but what can you do? We drive home and I take her down to the Herefordshire and intro her to Cynth, Rodj and the likes. She takes her stuff upstairs to the flat, and when she comes down a bit later, she’s got a book in her hand. That puts me in a more cheerful frame of mind. Better than reading those junk mags.

  Now Cynth’s goin all strange and saying to Em, — When I was young I really liked smoothing out silver paper. You know, different-coloured sort of metallic paper. Kids probably don’t do that any more, she says looking at Em who’s now reading h
er book, Philip K. Dick. Funny, I always liked science fiction when I was her age. Arthur C. Clarke. Brian Aldiss; ‘The Failed Men’. Skinny geezers wot buried themselves in fields for years. Intelligent sorts, kind of lizard-like with big heads, but who’d just given up. Couldn’t be arsed no more. So they dug themselves into the dirt in their millions and hibernated, till some cunt came along and ploughed them all up. But they still just lay there in their muck, not giving a monkey’s. That shat me right up as a kid. Cause you gotta be bothered.

  Yeah, there was loads of them geezers, Harry Harrison, the one what wrote about Mars and Isaac Asimov, the robot geezer. And that chap what wrote about all them plants taking over. Yeah, sci-fi: mad for it I was. Then I stopped. Dunno why. Well, skirt, I suppose; in a contest between the imagination and the hormones, there was only gonna be one winner.

  — Did you do that when you were a kid, Michael, smooth out silver paper? Cynth’s rabbiting on.

  — Yeah, I tell her. Smooth out silver paper. What the fuck is she on about?

  Cynth made the effort, I’ll give her that, but Em ain’t responding to none of my jokes, she just sits with a long face all day. All night she’s buried in that book as I’m playing arrows with Vince and Rodj. — What about that last night? Vince goes.

  — What? I say, looking at Rodj, half expecting to hear something about him and Bert!

  — Geezer shot dead. He throws down the paper in front of me.

  My Spanish ain’t great shakes but I can make out that a British holidaymaker was shot dead outside the Duke of York pub over in Lanzarote. A parky little chill comes over me and for some reason I think back to them two geezers what was in the boozer the other night. A funny pair, right enough. Proper shit me up, they did: that cunt going on about people vanishing. They didn’t do a very good job of making anybody disappear, by all accounts. Police found him right there in the house. I’m trying to remember what it was they called the geezer they was jawing about.