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Lynne raised an eyebrow at Arthur as the man retreated inside. ‘Hello, Arthur. Well met.’
Arthur swallowed. ‘Em, hello there.’
‘Are you going this way? Let’s walk a while.’ It sounded more like a command than a query.
‘Why …’ Arthur stumbled for something to say. He didn’t really know any therapists and was slightly worried about being misinterpreted in some way that would mean he was a terrible person. ‘Why do you want a crocodile?’
‘Who wouldn’t want a crocodile?’
Arthur shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘What’s the matter?’
Arthur looked at her kind face. Today, her hair, decorated with pendants that looked like leaves, was loosely pinned back in a bun with tendrils escaping.
‘Well …’ He explained about his conversation with Gwyneth. She was meant to be his counsellor, after all.
‘Hum.’ Lynne stared straight ahead. ‘That was quick.’
‘What? You knew they were going to do this?’
‘No, of course not. Not as such,’ said Lynne, twisting up her face. ‘Office grapevine, you know.’
Arthur nodded.
‘So. How are you going to begin?’
Arthur shrugged. ‘I was actually just considering … that I might not.’
‘Might not? Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘What’s ridiculous? Do I have the look of the man who’s going to spend the rest of his life stuck in an office?’
‘Around the mouth … and the nose, yes.’
Arthur grimaced and walked on. Lynne caught up with him.
‘I think it is time, don’t you?’
‘What?’ He turned round. ‘It’s not my time.’
‘It is,’ said Lynne urgently. She looked at him, and he felt something odd pass between them. He shook his head.
‘Sorry – I don’t quite know what I meant by that. I mean – well, what do you mean? Time for what?’
‘Time for you to take all this energy and …’ Lynne cast her hand around the desolate parking garage where they found themselves. It was puddled with oil and cigarette ends. ‘Ssh,’ she said.
Arthur followed her gaze. In the far corner, three white faces were huddled round a brazier, staring at them like ghosts out of the darkness. Not an unfamiliar sight in the back roads of the town. Arthur and Lynne quickly hurried on through the car park.
‘Who’s going to change all this if you don’t?’
‘What, now you want me to tackle the drugs problem?’
‘Environment matters, you know that. Pride, Arthur. It’s time to pick up your sword and go for it.’
‘Pick up my what?’
‘It’s just an expression.’
‘Oh. Only I seem to have been hearing about swords rather a lot recently.’
‘Yes, well unfortunately I’m not a Freudian type of analyst, so I can’t help you with that one.’
‘What sort of analyst are you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Let’s just see how it goes along, eh?’
‘You are a real therapist, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she patted him on the arm. ‘Yes, I am. Now, what have they asked you to do? Fire someone?’
Arthur gave her a sharp look. ‘Do you do everyone’s therapy or just mine?’
‘I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, then. Obviously you already know. Yes, they have.’
‘Then do it quickly. Show who’s in charge. Don’t mess around. If you’re going to run this thing, Arthur, you’re going to need respect.’
‘I know. But even though I hate the guy, I don’t want to ruin his …’
‘Week, perhaps? Month, maybe? His type always bounces back. Look over there.’
Arthur followed where her finger was pointing. Two nine-year-old boys were bent over a rain puddle in the cracked concrete. They should have been at school. Instead they were mindlessly, repetitively, picking up pieces of rubbish, setting them on fire with a lighter and dropping them in the water.
‘You don’t have long,’ said Lynne. Arthur watched the two boys for a moment more.
‘But I …’ He turned round. In the darkness of the car park, Lynne had gone.
Ross was sitting alone in the canteen, a place made up of hideous plastic furniture that somebody believed would be made to look like the Dorchester by the addition of some wickerwork and some pathetically touching pot plants. He was rocking on the edge of his chair and prodding a pencil at a glutinous piece of Danish pastry. Arthur stood in the doorway and looked at him. Suddenly, he didn’t look much of a tosspot any more. He looked like an ordinary young man, already running to fat, anxious and insecure.
‘Ross,’ said Arthur softly. He’d felt nervous about doing this, but seeing him, he couldn’t be.
Ross blinked and let his chair fall back to the table with a start. He couldn’t quite look at Arthur but stared straight ahead.
‘Hey Art!’ he said, forcing the jocularity into his voice.
‘Do you want a coffee or something?’ As soon as he’d said that, Arthur realized it was cruel. Why prolong the uncertainty while he buggered about getting a cup of coffee? He might as well have said, ‘Would you like an extra four and a half minutes of excruciating torture?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Ross.
‘Ross …’
‘Yeah? What? Good news, is it?’ He coughed a cynical laugh.
‘No,’ said Arthur. He wondered if Ross would punch him, but he still felt all right; quite under control.
‘Ross, they’re doing something different. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.’
Ross stood up, as if he couldn’t bear to be any closer in airspace to Arthur. ‘God, God, I bloody knew it.’
‘I understand you’ll be feeling upset …’
‘Might have known they’d get some namby pamby PC non-car bloody saddo who just happens to be good at fucking poofter tests …’
‘Okay … maybe not quite that upset.’
‘I told ’em. Sort out the roads. Build more. Don’t hire some soft wanker who can’t even get laid.’
‘Yes, well, we seem to be moving from upset to offensive …’
‘And now they’ve got you running the whole bloody town! Well, God help them, that’s all I can say.’
Ross stood up and kicked his plastic chair crossly, his heavily gelled ginger hair sticking straight up from his forehead. He advanced on Arthur.
‘I don’t give a fuck, you know. You’re not the first guy in here. Some bloke walked in and offered me a job in Slough. You just bloody watch me. I’ll sort out that place and we’ll be using your fucking pedestrianized precincts as car parks.’
Arthur got riled. ‘That will be great. Why have just one town hating you when there are so many more opportunities out there?’
Ross leaned into him menacingly. The room was eerily silent, it still being out of lunch-hour time. Arthur suddenly found himself thinking back to his first and only fight ever. He was ten years old and, after kicking the shit out of everyone in the class in ascending order of size, McGuire had finally got round to him. The time had been pre-ordained. The class had encircled them. Arthur had taken a deep breath, trying to remember what his stepfather had told him – ‘Don’t worry, son, you only have to square up to the bullies once, then they’ll leave you alone. Run at him as fast as you can and try and hit him on the nose.’ Of course McGuire had held out one arm, held him by the forehead and pounded him into the ground – on that day and so many days after that, it long ceased to be a spectator sport. Arthur’s nerves were not, at the moment, at their boldest.
Without warning, Ross’s left arm shot out and smashed him on the ear. It felt like being stung by an extremely large bee. Arthur was dimly aware of a buzzing noise, then realized there wasn’t a bee, it was the rest of the office, attracted to the open door of the restaurant. Before he could stop to think, the adrenalin kicked in, and he threw up his arms like he was playing volleyball. He caught Ross a glancing blow on the underside of the nose. Ross grunted and staggered backwards a few feet. Whilst Arthur was taking this in, Ross threw out a foot and cracked it into his gut. Arthur squealed – it was as undignified as that – but, finding it in him to ignore the pain, came charging forward, yelling and letting fly with an erratic punch which landed straight in Ross’s eye socket.
Ross was roaring now, like a giant bear, lunging around with his hand to his eye. Furiously, he dragged up one of the plastic chairs which, Arthur dully noted somewhere in the bottom of his mind, were normally bolted to the floor, and brandished it in the air across the canteen.
And Arthur, noted coward, who had never done anything even vaguely out of step in his life before yesterday, who had balked at everything that came his way, who was ready to get soft and old in his middle age, said something he’d never said before in his life, not even in fun. Instead of clenching his body and waiting for the blow or trying to make himself as small as possible, he pushed out his shoulders and opened his body wide, like a gorilla, or Russell Crowe. He stood, legs apart, eyeing up the other man with as much ferocity as he could muster.
‘BRING IT ON!!!’ he roared.
The sound bellowed and bounced off the walls. Then – silence.
Ross and Arthur stared at each other. The crowd of people by the door were completely silent. Nobody dared breathe. Then, with a crash, Ross hurled the chair across the room, but away from Arthur. It split through a picture frame hung from the raffia.
‘Fuck you! This will come around,’ said Ross, his face purple and red to bursting. He pointed his finger at Arthur. ‘THIS WILL COME AROUND!!’
And he stormed out of the room, leaving Arthur and the rest of the office staring in his wake.
‘How was your day?’ Fay asked carefully.
‘Oh, oh, it was fine, you know. Usual.’
This was becoming a nightmare. He used to share everything with her. Now he could barely talk to her beyond politeness, before she’d sigh and start mentioning somebody or other’s toddler who had done something which was supposedly cute but in fact just sounded incredibly annoying.
Fay was well aware of this. She flicked quickly through Heat magazine, elaborately casual.
‘So the black eye …’
Arthur winced. Okay, that was stupid. Perhaps he should have double-checked for the visual evidence.
Fay let out a long sigh. She remembered what the book had said – never nag, never burrow into his affairs. She tried to do her best. But he was late, tired, distracted, he’d hardly said a word to her for what felt like months – ooh, and, by the way, there was blood on his collar and he had a black eye. Her man – the sweet, gentle man she’d fallen in love with five years ago at a training conference in Peterborough – couldn’t even tell her why he was dripping blood. She set aside her magazine.
‘Arthur, we have to talk.’
He grunted into his newspaper. Yes, he knew they did. He looked up at her. His eyes were hollow.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Well …’ Arthur did a quick summary in his head.
Hmm not that bit … No, maybe not that …
‘I got promoted.’
Fay’s face lit up. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, really.’
‘But this is brilliant!’ Her eyes shone. ‘I mean … we’ll have enough money to – hang on.’
She ran to the fridge and came back with a bottle of champagne they’d been keeping for good news.
‘This is so fantastic!’ She kissed him on the top of his head. ‘You’re so clever, darling! And think what we can do now …’ She straightened up for a second and smiled at him. ‘And the black eye is, what – the official entry token to the executive washroom?’
‘I had to fire Ross,’ said Arthur matter-of-factly, uncorking the bottle.
‘Oh! God, well, that’s even more brilliant. Isn’t he the one you thought was a bit of a tosspot?’
Arthur nodded. ‘With a good tossy right hook.’
‘Ooh!’ She sat by his knees, hugging her own, and lifted up her glass to be filled. This was it. This was the moment. No wonder he’d been so quiet, if he’d been working up to such a wonderful surprise!
‘So, there’ll be a bit more money coming in, won’t there?’
‘Um, we didn’t discuss it … Probably.’
Oh God, thought Arthur. He suddenly had an inkling as to where this was heading. Thank God his eye was already black. Although of course she could still scratch it out.
‘So, you know, maybe we could …’ She twirled her manicured finger around the top of her glass. Looking at it, Arthur realized for the first time that he didn’t really like manicures. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to sound like he was encouraging her. The pause grew longer. She looked up at him, firstly with hope, then, as the silence continued, almost as he watched, the light in her eyes slowly dimmed.
