A Spot Of Bother

64

Jamie stopped at an all-night petrol station on the way home from Tony’s flat and bought a packet of Silk Cut, a Twix, a Cadbury’s Boost and a Yorkie. By the time he fell asleep he’d eaten all the chocolate and smoked eleven of the cigarettes.

When he woke the following morning someone had folded a wire coat hanger into the space between his brain and his skull. He was late, too, and had no time for a shower. He dressed, threw back an instant coffee with two ibuprofens, then ran for the tube.

He was sitting on the tube when he remembered that he hadn’t rung Katie back. When he got out at the far end he took his mobile out of his pocket but couldn’t quite face it. He would ring this evening.

He got into the office and realized he should have made the call.

This couldn’t go on.

It was bigger than Tony. He was at a crossroads. What he did over the next few days would set the course for the rest of his life.

He wanted people to like him. And people did like him. Or they used to. But it wasn’t so easy anymore. It wasn’t automatic. He was beginning to lose the benefit of everyone’s doubt. His own included.

If he wasn’t careful he’d turn into one of those men who cared more about furniture than human beings. He’d end up living with someone else who cared more about furniture than human beings and they’d lead a life which looked perfectly normal from the outside but was, in truth, a kind of living death that left your heart looking like a raisin.

Or worse, he’d lurch from one sordid liaison to the next, grow hugely fat because no one gave a shit about what he looked like, then get some hideous disease as a result of being fat and die a long, lingering death in a hospital ward full of senile old men who smelled of urine and cabbage and howled in the night.

He got stuck into typing up the particulars for Jack Riley’s three new builds in West Hampstead. Doubtless including some typing error or a mislabeled photograph so that Riley could storm into the office asking for someone’s arse to be kicked.

Last time round Jamie had added the phrase “property guaranteed to depreciate between signing and closing,” printed the details out to amuse Shona, then had to snatch it back when he saw Riley standing in reception talking to Stuart.

Bedroom One. 4.88m (16´0Ë�) max x 3.40m (11´2Ë�) max. Two sliding-sash windows to front. Stripped wooden floor. Telephone point…

He wondered sometimes why in God’s name he did this job.

He rubbed his eyes.

He had to stop moaning. He was going to be a good person. And good people didn’t moan. Children were dying in Africa. Jack Riley didn’t matter in the greater scheme of things. Some people didn’t even have a job.

Just knuckle down.

He pasted in the photographs of the interior.

Giles was doing the pen thing over on the facing desk. Bouncing it between his thumb and forefinger then throwing it up into the air and letting it twirl an even number of times before catching it by the handle end. Like Jamie used to do with penknives. When he was nine.

And maybe if it was someone else, Josh, or Shona, or Michael, it wouldn’t have mattered. But it was Giles. Who wore a cravat. And took the foil off a Penguin, folded it in half, then rewrapped the bottom of the bar in the now-double-thickness foil forming a kind of silver paper cornet to prevent his fingers getting chocolatey so that you wanted to put a bullet through his head. And he was making the noise, too, every time the pen fell back into his hand. That little clop noise with his tongue. Like when you were doing a horse for children. But only one clop at a time.

Jamie filled in a couple of Terms of Business and printed out three Property Fact Finds.

He didn’t blame Tony. Christ, he’d made a total arse of himself. Tony was right to slam the door in his face.

How the hell could you ask someone to love you when you didn’t even like yourself?

He typed up the accompanying letters, put everything into envelopes and returned a string of phone calls from the previous day.

At half past twelve he went out and got a sandwich for lunch and ate it sitting in the park in the rain under Karen’s umbrella, thankful for the relative peace and quiet.

His head was still aching. Back at the office he cadged two ibuprofen from Shona then spent a large part of the afternoon mesmerized by the way the clouds moved very interestingly past the little window on the stairs, wanting desperately to be on the sofa at home with a large mug of proper tea and a packet of biscuits.

Giles started doing the pen thing again at 2:39 and was still doing it at 2:47.

Did Tony have someone with him? Well, Jamie couldn’t really complain. Only the poisoned prawns stopped him shagging Mike. Why the hell shouldn’t Tony have someone there?

That was what it meant, didn’t it. Being good. You didn’t have to sink wells in Burkina Faso. You didn’t have to give away your coffee table. You just had to see things from other people’s point of view. Remember they were human.

Like Giles fucking Mynott didn’t.

Clop. Clop. Clop.

Jamie needed a pee.

He got off his stool and turned round and bumped into Josh who was carrying a cup of startlingly hot coffee back to his desk.

Jamie heard himself saying, very loudly, “You. Total. Fucking. Moron.”

The office went very quiet.

Stuart walked over. It was like watching the headmaster coming across the playground after he’d torn Sharon Parker’s blazer.

“Are you all right, Jamie?”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Stuart was doing his Mr. Spock impression, giving absolutely no indication of what he was thinking.

“My sister has just canceled her wedding,” said Jamie. “My father’s having a nervous breakdown and my mother’s leaving him for someone else.”

Stuart softened. “Perhaps you should take the rest of the afternoon off.”

“Yes. Thank you. I will. Thanks. Sorry.”

He sat on the tube knowing he was going to hell. The only way to reduce the hot forks when he got there was to ring Katie and Mum as soon as he got home.

An old man with a withered hand was sitting opposite him. He was wearing a yellow mac and carrying a greasy satchel of papers and looking directly at Jamie and muttering to himself. Jamie was very relieved when he got off at Swiss Cottage.

Ringing Mum was going to be tricky. Was he meant to know about her leaving Dad? Was Katie even meant to know? She could have overheard a conversation and jumped to conclusions. Which she was prone to do

He’d ring Katie first.

When he got home, however, there was a message on the machine.

He pressed PLAY and took off his jacket.

He thought, at first, that it was a prank call. Or a lunatic dialing a wrong number. A woman was hyperventilating into the phone.

Then the woman was saying his name, “Jamie…? Jamie…?” and he realized that it was his mother and he had to sit down very quickly on the arm of the sofa.

“Jamie…? Are you there…? Something dreadful has happened to your father. Jamie…? Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.”

The message clicked off.

Everything was very quiet and very still. Then he threw himself across the room, knocking the phone to the carpet.

His parents’ number. What the fuck was their number? Jesus, he must have dialed it seven thousand times. Zero one seven three three…Two four two…? Two two four…? Two four four…? Christ.

He was halfway through ringing Directory Inquiries when the number came back to him. He rang it. He counted the rings. Forty. No answer.

He rang Katie.

Answerphone.

“Katie. This is Jamie. Shit. You’re not in. Bugger. Listen. I’ve just had this scary call from Mum. Ring me, OK? No. Don’t ring me. I’m going up to Peterborough. Actually, maybe you’re there already. I’ll talk to you later. I’m going now.”

Something dreadful? Why were old people always so fucking vague?

He ran upstairs and grabbed the car keys and ran down again and had to lean against the wall in the hallway for a few seconds to stop himself passing out, and it occurred to him that in some obscure way he had caused this, by not ringing Katie back, by standing Ryan up, by not loving Tony, by not telling Stuart the whole truth.

By the time he crossed the M25, however, he was feeling surprisingly good.

He had always rather liked emergencies. Other people’s, at any rate. They put your own problems into perspective. It was like being on a ferry. You didn’t have to think about what you had to do or where you had to go for the next few hours. It was all laid out for you.

Like they said. No one committed suicide in wartime.

He was going to talk to his father. Properly. About everything.

Jamie had always blamed him for their lack of communication. Always thought of his father as a dried-up old stick. It was cowardice. He could see that now. And laziness. Just wanting his own prejudices confirmed.

Baldock, Biggleswade, Sandy…

Another forty minutes and he’d be there.