London and the South-East

11

VAGUELY PAUL REMEMBERS kissing his mother, shaking hands warmly with his father in the hall.

The next morning he wakes very early. It is only just starting to get light outside, and Heather and the children are still asleep. The silence is so strong, so settled that the house itself seems to be asleep. He feels strangely clear-headed, though shivery and fragile, and wonders what time he went to bed. It cannot have been later than eight or nine. Perhaps earlier. He does not remember Heather’s parents leaving. What he does remember, suddenly, sharply, standing amidst the piled-up, encrusted wreckage of the kitchen, is his own performance, and from that his mind instantly flinches. Did he …? Surely not. Yes. Yes. Searching the lounge for cigarettes, assailed by an urgent need to atone, he knows that he will have to do something. Private sorrow, even sincere words, will not be enough. Something will have to be done. Of course, he has been in this situation before. Innumerable times. It is almost a weekly event — the grey-faced penitent in his terrycloth dressing gown, engaged in psychic self-flagellation. That is easy — essentially painless. Nothing more, in fact, than self-indulgence, self-pity. No, that will not be enough … And how many times has he said that! How many times has he said solemnly to himself, ‘That will not be enough’? It is simply part of the hypocritical show, a well-established element of the snivelling self-disgust, something which he quickly permits himself to forget, usually by mid-afternoon, as soon as the physical pain recedes, and even in the worst, the grimmest cases, within twenty-four hours. It is not easy, therefore, for him to take these feelings seriously. Their very familiarity is deeply demoralising and, like the ashy half-cigarette he is smoking, makes him feel significantly worse. That he is not actually in physical pain, and yet still has such feelings is, however, a positive sign. So perhaps is his unusually intense and moody awareness of his failure to follow through on previous occasions.

He is impatient for it to be light outside, so that he can leave the house. He does not want to be there when Heather wakes up. A soft greyness is in possession of the street when he sneaks upstairs to dress. He takes some clothes — whatever is to hand — and puts them on downstairs.

Outside the uncertain grey has hardened into daylight — white and flat, cloud-light — and unsurprisingly, the streets are empty. They are sound asleep.

The Hove seafront is prosaic — modest blocks of flats peep over the weathered line of locked swimming huts to the waves, the pebbled shore. Pausing for a lone lorry to sweep past towards Brighton, Paul crosses the road and goes down the brick steps to the beach. It is only now that he smells the sea — wet wool, salt, sodden wood, mussel shells. The beach rises in a steep hump. There are bald patches of sand further down. The air is cold, and the sky, though still clear over the Channel, is starting to cloud over, as it often does in the morning. Orange buoys are dark dots on the tinfoil water. He stands there, his hands in his pockets, while the wind inflates his jacket and flutters his trouser legs. The waves fall lazily, unhurriedly, each looking for a moment like an imperfect barrel of green glass until it falls and expends itself in a sigh of the shifting flints and shingles. Hugging the wall of the esplanade, making slow progress over the pebbles underfoot, he starts to walk towards Brighton, and its grander line of seafront wedding cakes.

*

He opens the front door with trepidation. Heather, he hears, is in the kitchen, doing the washing-up. He is tired, and the boots are hurting his feet. He sits down on the second carpeted step and eases them off, then hovers indecisively in the hall for a few moments, holding in one hand the milk he has bought, and in the other the cigarettes. When he finally goes into the kitchen — she ignores him. He puts the milk down on the table, and taking a tea towel, without saying anything, starts to dry the things that she has washed. This goes on for some time, the only sound the sloshing of the water in the sink. It goes on, in fact, until the washing-up is finished, almost an hour later. At which point, Heather pulls off the pink rubber gloves and, still without having spoken to him, walks out. ‘Heather,’ he says. She immediately turns in the doorway. She is wearing her dressing gown and slippers, her hair a Sunday-morning mess. ‘What?’

‘You all right?’

She seems undecided how to respond, and hesitates. Then she says, ‘I think we need to talk, Paul.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘I’m going to have a bath.’

‘Okay.’

She goes upstairs, and full of foreboding, he refills the kettle.

The talk takes place a little later, when Mike and Joan — who spent the night in a hotel in Brighton — take the children to McDonald’s for lunch.

At first, they seem to misunderstand each other. Paul assumes that the primary topic will be his offensive stunt of the previous day, his successful attempt to spoil Christmas, but, while Heather is angry about that, her main worry — and it makes sense to him as soon as he thinks about it — is the fact that he no longer has a job.

She is, he thinks, surprisingly sympathetic. However, when she asks him — her eyes serious, worried, yet full of a desire to understand, to take his side — why exactly he lost his job, he finds himself unable to tell her the truth. He says that the new job — the one he has been talking about for weeks — ‘unfortunately fell through’ (‘I thought it sounded too good to be true,’ she sighs), and that he was sacked from his old job for not making target on the publication. She looks at him — he looks wretched — and says, ‘Everything’s going to be fine. It is. I know you’ll find another job. And you’re brilliant at what you do.’ She says that they are ‘in this together’, and even that she will do a few more hours a week at Gumley Rhodes.

Her mood suddenly shifts, however, when he says that he does not want another job in sales.

She says, ‘But you always said one of the best things about your work is you can always find another job, just like that. Just walk in somewhere and start working.’

‘Yeah, I know …’

‘So you should just do that then.’

Her tone suggests that this should be the final word. For a few moments, he says nothing. And he might, at this point, have simply nodded, and said, ‘Yeah. Okay.’ It is what she expects, and her implicit scorn for the idea that he should do anything other than sales seemingly having worked, she is about to stand up and ask him if he wants some tea, when he shakes his head.

She stays on the sofa. ‘Why not?’ Her voice is quiet. The tone of the question, though, throws the onus on him entirely to justify himself, makes it more or less impossible for him simply to say, ‘I don’t want to.’ So first he hesitates, and lights a cigarette, and looks at her. Her face is very still. ‘I just don’t want to,’ he says.

‘Paul,’ she says, ‘the January rent is due in about a week.’

‘I know. I’ve got money for that.’

‘You’ve got money for that?’

‘Yes …’

‘What money?’

‘There’s … I’ve got … An old savings account.’

For a moment, she seems flustered by the existence of this deus ex machina, this ‘old savings account’, and she stares at him. ‘How much have you got in it?’ she says. She seems suspicious, displeased.

‘Enough for the January rent.’ Though he is not even sure there is that much.

‘And after that? What’s going to happen after that?’

‘I’ll get another job.’ His voice, however, is limp and uninspiring — low on steely will.

Hers is not. ‘What other job?’

‘I don’t know …’

‘Pau-aul! This is ridiculous.’

‘What?’

‘This.’

‘Heather,’ he says.

‘How can you be so selfish?’ She seems furious suddenly. ‘You can’t just do what you want. Selfish! What about me? What about the children? You’re not on your own. You can’t just do what you want as if other people don’t exist.’

‘What are you talking about? I’m not saying I’m not going to work.’

‘So what are you going to do? And don’t say “I don’t know”!’

‘I don’t know. You’re worried I won’t be able to pay the rent. I know —’

‘Not just the rent! The council tax, the bills …’

‘I’ll pay them.’

‘How?’

‘Well, the January rent’s covered —’

‘I hope so.’

‘Yes.’

‘Because it’s due in about a week.’

‘It’s covered. I told you.’

‘I hope so.’

‘It is,’ he says impatiently. ‘And I’ll start looking for another job straight away.’

‘WHAT job?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.’ He is well aware that this is not a satisfactory answer. ‘Anything, initially.’

‘You haven’t really thought about it?’ She wails the words. ‘Paul,’ she says, as if imploring him, ‘I don’t understand. Really.’

‘What don’t you understand?’

She does not understand why he would want to leave sales.

He does not fully understand it himself. It is a job that has served him well, more or less, on and off, for over fifteen years. It is all he knows, the only thing on his CV, aside from a lower second in English language and literature from the University of East Anglia. He is a salesman — ‘a man is his job’. And it is his job. Yes, he is tired of it. And yes, there is the hypocrisy of being an advertising salesman whose interior monologue increasingly fulminates against advertising whenever he sees it. And yes, lately he has not been doing well. Lawrence had been losing patience with him. And not without reason. These ups and downs, though, are simply part of what it is. He knows that he could walk into any of the major commission-only outfits — Silverman, for instance, or Oliver Burke Clarke — and, as Heather said, just start working. Sit down at a desk and pick up the phone. The new scenery would probably freshen him up, and the sales would be there. He would make money. So why not? Why is there such an immovable bar of opposition to it in his mind? And there is. He himself is surprised at the strength of it.

It has been there since his afternoon in the Albert, when it occurred to him that he was able to leave sales. He had simply to walk out. And stay out. The immediate sense of freedom had been overwhelming. It was something intensely felt, and utterly unthought-through — something thus not unusual in the throes of drunkenness. What was unusual was his endorsement of the idea when he was next sober. And even now, when it is hopelessly occluded with practical problems, he feels that whatever else he might do, he must not ignore it and professionally pick up a phone. Faced with Heather’s intransigence, however, he might well have done so, were it not for the fact that only that morning, sitting in the lounge, he had seen — or thought he had — that no process of self-improvement he might initiate would have any hope of success, would fail like all its predecessors, unless it involved him leaving sales. His way of life — he had thought, using an overlooked wine glass as an ashtray — was embedded in sales. ‘A man is his job.’ It forms his way of thinking, of living. If he quit sales, it seemed to him, everything else would become unfixed, malleable, able to be re-formed in a more satisfactory way — an idea which seemed to bring moral and intellectual respectability to the beery rapture of the Albert.

He is unable, or unwilling, to explain this to Heather. ‘I just can’t do it any more,’ is all he says, slumped, his head nodded forward, as if he were pushing onto his posture the unwelcome weight of explanation.

‘But I thought you liked it.’

It has been years since they have spoken seriously about his work. He sees that now. ‘I used to,’ he says. ‘I suppose. Not any more.’

‘And do you think I like working at Gumley Rhodes?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think I like it?’

‘I’m going to get another job. I don’t see what the problem is. Why is that a problem?’

‘What other job? What job?’

That is the question.

And he does not have an answer for her. He has not thought about it himself. He had been too taken up with maintaining last week’s masquerade. He offers her this — if he has not found another job ‘soon’ … ‘What do you mean “soon”?’

‘I mean, you know, soon.’ This does not seem to satisfy her. ‘A few weeks,’ he says.

‘In a few weeks! In a few weeks it’ll be almost February!’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about the February rent?’

He finds it extremely stressful to think so far ahead. He screws his face up, and puts a dry hand over his eyes. ‘We’re going to have to borrow money for that anyway,’ he says. ‘Whatever I do. Even if I started a new sales job the first week of January I wouldn’t have enough money by then. Unless you can pay it. I’ll pay you back, obviously.’

‘No, I can’t.’ She sounds upset, aghast.

He does not want to open his eyes. He says, ‘We’ll have to mortgage the car.’

Turning, then, to specific jobs he might do — what is there? He looks through the jobs section of a week-old paper, the Argus. Estate agent? No. One of the things that he is sure of is no sales, not in any form. He does not even want to work in a shop, the whole retail sector is out — no sales in any form. He does not want to mingle professionally with the money-spending public. Any non-sales but phone-based work — call centres, principally — he also excludes. It is thus a dispiriting experience to leaf through the jobs pages of the Argus; his no sales and no phones policies put a line through many of the jobs on offer, and his lack of any non-sales skills does for most of the others. There seems to be a number of openings for chefs, for instance. Not much use to him. Nor the vacancies for prison officers, driving instructors, typists, database analyst developers, dental nurses, roadside patrol mechanics or financial consultants. This last he looks at more closely, but it is not for him. Not only does it turn out to be a straightforward sales job — a ‘target-driven environment’, as the text of the ad delicately puts it — but it requires him to have ‘plenty of drive and a proven track record in selling financial products’, to be ‘a great communicator and relationship-builder’, and to hold ‘qualifications FPC 1–3 or equivalent’.

More or less the only job which he feels would be suitable — and that only because it does not specify any necessary qualities, skills or qualifications, except in the very vaguest terms — is ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’.

We are currently recruiting an Accounts Assistant to join the small and friendly finance team of this busy public sector organisation. Reporting to the Finance Manager you will be responsible for purchase invoices. A minimum of a year’s experience in a similar role is desirable. Applicants should be enthusiastic and have good attention to detail. The client offers an excellent basic salary and an attractive benefits package as well as the opportunity to work in a positive and supportive environment.

Heather, who was not at all satisfied with the outcome of their talk, is on edge and suspicious, and prods him with pointed looks and impatient sighs whenever she sees him doing anything other than finding a job — watching the tail end of Christmas TV, for instance, or putting his jacket on to take Oli to the snooker club. Several times a day she seeks progress updates, and he tells her, with increasing irritation, not to expect anything to happen before the new year. ‘But you’re not even trying,’ she says, a shrill, despairing note to her voice.

‘I am. I’ve already applied for a job.’

She shakes her head incredulously. ‘What?’

‘Purchase Ledger Clerk,’ Paul mutters, walking out the door and telling himself that he must send his application tomorrow.

Life is pervaded by a sense of financial emergency. The new television was taken back to Dixons. ‘God that was embarrassing,’ Heather said, as they emerged from the shop onto Western Road, which was thronged, like North Street and Churchill Square, with impatient shoppers, struggling for their share of the sales. She had spent the whole twenty minutes they were in the shop under a crimson blush, her hair curtaining her face as she filled in the forms. She said that the money from the TV would be reserved for the February rent, the council tax, for bills — for all of Paul’s liabilities going forward. They went to Sainsbury’s. No luxury products were on the menu now. Instead the trolley was piled with basics in their no-nonsense livery, extra value multipacks and special offers. It was almost fun — like an old-fashioned game show — trying to pile up as much food for as little money as possible. The children, in particular, participated with enthusiasm, even questioning the necessity of many items, until they started to get on the adults’ nerves. And having at least a week’s supply of food stashed in the house seemed to stabilise the situation. There was something atavistic about the way that the food made everything seem more secure. Even Heather seemed to feel relaxed — she gently green-lighted a four-pack of Carling for Paul, and it was at her insistence that they bought a bottle of cava for New Year’s Eve.

What is it about ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’ that fills him with fear and despondency? As he haltingly types a CV on Oli’s computer, wondering how many years of previous clerking experience to bestow on himself, Paul feels a massive lack of enthusiasm for the role. Filing invoices, filing bills — despite the vision of secure public-sector drudgery, there is something wrong with it. It is not the drudgery he minds. The drudgery is fine. More than fine — he is in a state in which the thought of it elicits strange little pangs of ecstasy. No, it is not that. It is the environment of ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’ which depresses him. It will certainly take place in a grey-carpeted office with desks and ceiling panels and office equipment in neutral plastic tones. He will wear his suit. And somehow the fact that he will be filing invoices troubles him too. Leaving his half-made CV on the screen, he goes downstairs for a cigarette.

The children do not seem to understand what has happened. Or if Oli does, since it has nothing to do with snooker, it does not seem especially of interest to him. He has not said anything, or asked any questions. Of course, that may be because he senses that Paul does not want to talk about it — that it would be painful and embarrassing for him to do so; which it would be — he is embarrassed, the sense of ignominious failure is sharp, and he knows that it will be worse in the new year when instead of returning to work, he is still haunting the house in jeans and a jumper, typing CVs, and poking around in the kitchen for some lunch. He thinks of his own father — how he lost his managerial job and became a coach driver. Paul did not think less of him. Of course not. Or did he? Did he in fact, in some way, think less of him? Perhaps he did. Did he suddenly seem pitiable, impotent, small in a way that he had not until then? That he took his fate with stiff dignity did not make him seem any less diminished. Yes, he seemed diminished, and Paul senses that Oli’s perception of him is already drifting in a similar direction. The boy’s sense of status, of society, is sufficiently sharp — it is that after all, more than anything else, that he is learning at school — to notice that, in those terms, Paul has taken a knock.

Oli is watching television. ‘Have you finished with the computer?’ he says huskily, still staring at the screen.

‘Er, not yet,’ Paul says. ‘I’m taking a break. Go ahead and use it if you want.’

Oli shakes his head. ‘S’all right.’

Paul stands there for a few moments, pretending to follow what is on the TV, then goes to the kitchen and takes one of the Carlings from the fridge. He has thought a lot, since Boxing Day, about the Buddhist monks of Dharamsala who live by repairing motorbikes and cars. That is the sort of thing he has in mind. Useful simple manual work. Is it important that it is manual work, physical labour? Somehow it is. That seems to be part of the problem with ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’. He wants no involvement, not even the most menial, with the workings of the money machine. That is precisely what he does not want. Though he had promised himself not to do so until the CV is finished, he breaks open the can of Carling and swigs at it thirstily. He does not want a job, he thinks — pleased with his precise semantic distinction — so much as work.

Perhaps it is simply the specificity of ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’ that has extinguished his eagerness. Might not any such work, in all its dreary specifications, have the same effect? And more menial jobs, even more so? The old edition of the Argus is on the kitchen table, and to test this, he sits down with his lager and looks at it again. If he is really so keen on something of utter meniality — if ‘Purchase Ledger Clerk’ is too serious, too white-collar — then let him see how he responds to what is on offer for the semiliterate. There seems, however, to be very little on offer for them in the Argus. The jobs advertised there include secretaries and receptionists and sous-chefs and sales assistants, but nothing in the way of unskilled manual labour. Disappointed — more than that, starting to get depressed — he sits back and lights a cigarette.

He is drinking the second can of Carling when Oli comes into the kitchen. ‘Have you finished with the computer now?’ he asks.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I have, Oli. Thanks.’

Oli spins on his heel and leaves.

He will finish the CV in the morning. There will be time to do it then. It is early evening, dark outside. Though it is Wednesday, it feels like Sunday. He drops the empty can into the bin and goes to the fridge for the next.

In the morning a letter snaps through the front door. He recognises the handwriting. It is from his mother, and he knows what it will be — a thank-you note for Christmas. It was, she says, ‘wonderful’, its setting his ‘lovely home’, where she had ‘so much enjoyed’ meeting Heather’s ‘wonderful’ parents. He smiles, touched. Also perturbed. It makes him sad, this sense that his mother is just a little insane. Why does she always have to overstate everything? It just makes it all seem even worse than it is. There is a PS — ‘I enclose Dad’s latest PUBLISHED work!’ He looks in the envelope. There is a narrow strip of newspaper with a Post-it note stuck to it — Bucks Advertiser, 30 December 2004. Presumably a slow day for local news.

‘Gardens’

A few stalks of corn.

A cherry tree.

Muttering sprinkler.

Deep shade in the botanical gardens.

All the exotic flora

looks quite ordinary.

Window —

the garden looks dreary

on a wet December afternoon.

Pigeons feeding,

rustling unseen

in the foliage of the big tree.

Why had he not thought of it until now? All his life, he has watched with envy from the insides of schoolrooms, of offices, while gardeners tasked outside in the fresh.