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‘That’s your fucking problem.’
Barbara coughed. Bailey wasn’t her favourite person. He made a fuss every week about his pay cheque.
‘There is nobody to clean today, we are very short-staffed –’ began Leah.
‘Then there’s no bloody class, that’s it, I’m off!’ and he slammed the sports hall keys on the table.
Oh God, I am so sick of angry men! ‘What do you want me to do, clean the floor for you? I’ll show you where the broom cupboard is.’
‘I’m not paid to clean floors!’
‘Then you won’t get paid at all. Barbara, Bailey isn’t getting paid today.’
‘You can’t do this, I’m on a contract!’
‘Yes I can, I’m on the committee!’ They stared at each other. Leah was charged up and raging. ‘This is the way to the broom cupboard,’ she said, and Bailey followed her, slamming the office door.
The sports hall was a newish building on the other side of the Project. Leah stormed past the café, Bailey still following. People in the café watched them with oh-yes expressions on their faces. ‘This,’ said Leah, pushing open another door, ‘is the broom cupboard.’ It was a small room filled with brushes and mops and various cleaning fluids. They went inside and the door shut behind them.
‘This,’ said Leah, ‘is a broom.’ And she handed one to Bailey. He looked at it and held it at arm’s length. He sniffed and patted his hair. He looked so vain and ridiculous she began to giggle.
‘What’s up with you?’ he snapped.
‘Bailey, it’s a broom,’ said Leah.
‘So fucking what? And that’s a lightbulb.’
‘Oh Bailey.’ She put her hand to her mouth and propped herself up against the wall. She felt quite hysterical. ‘And that’s the floor,’ she said.
‘You’re fucking mental, you are.’ He had the broom in one hand; the other was still patting his hair, his stupid red hair. There he was in his vile luminous green tracksuit with a pink stripe down one side and massive trainers with multicoloured laces.
‘Bailey, what do you look like?’
‘And what do you fucking look like … a liquorice allsort! You do, you bloody do, one of them liquorice allsorts.’ He began to sweep the floor.
‘Bailey, stop it!’
‘I thought you wanted me to do this.’
‘Out there, not in here.’ They were both laughing. He swept up clouds of dust which made them cough as well as laugh. Bailey opened the door. Go on, get out,’ he said and they stumbled into the foyer of the sports hall. ‘I’ve got a lesson,’ he said importantly.
In the office Barbara was still doing the accounts. ‘That man!’ she said to Leah as she walked in and then, ‘Oh, heavens!’ because Leah’s face was grimy with dust and tear-marked from laughing.
‘What on earth happened?’
‘I’m not quite sure.’ Leah sat down. She felt shaky all over and completely crazy. Lesley came back from the bank. ‘Has he gone?’ she said, looking anxiously round the office.
‘Ask Leah,’ said Barbara.
‘What did he do?’ said Lesley, wide eyed because Leah looked deranged.
‘He thought it was funny … in the end.’ Leah was quite aware this wasn’t a satisfactory explanation. ‘I think I’d better wash my face.’
In the loo she splashed herself with cold water. She was still shaky. He was angry, but I didn’t crumble. I changed it. But into what? I’m not sure.
It was half-past three and the office was closing. Leah was thinking about children and what to have for tea. Barbara left and Lesley; Leah was going to lock up. Bailey came in with the sports hall keys.
‘Good lesson?’ asked Leah.
‘All right.’ He had showered and his hair was wet. He fiddled with the keys before putting them on the table. ‘What you doing tonight?’
I was thinking about tea and children and Al coming back. ‘There’s a committee meeting.’ She put on her coat and picked up her bag.
‘What you doing after the meeting?’ He tapped the table and she looked at his finger, then up his arm and right into his greeny eyes.
‘Bailey, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … because last time I got into terrible trouble.’ She felt herself blush; she hated talking about Al and her.
Bailey put his head to one side. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because … he thinks I’m having an affair with you.’
‘Well, he’s a dickhead because you’re not.’
Then the whole business seemed much clearer. ‘I’ll see,’ she said.
‘I’ll be in the Cambridge. See ya later.’ That was it, he was gone.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_450d2982-1914-569d-9b88-8f717237e43f)
Al came back from college and slumped into a kitchen chair. The children were in the front room watching Blue Peter. Leah was heating up bean soup, which the children hated but if she gave it to them in front of the telly they might eat it.
‘Nice day?’ she said to Al.
He did not look like a person who had had a nice day. ‘They’re bloody sending me to the Blessed Martyrs for teaching practice.’
‘What’s wrong with the Blessed Martyrs?’
‘It’s Catholic.’
‘Is that bad? Do you want some soup?’
‘I’m not going to go.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘I’m not going to that place, it’s so uptight. I can’t possibly work there creatively for six weeks … Catholic God and bullshit stuff … nuns – and I have to wear a tie!’ He ate his soup, spilling a large glob of it on to his jumper. He wiped it off with his hand, which he wiped on his knee. ‘I told my tutor, I said, I’m not going to that place, I’m not bloody going.’
Leah had a vision of her husband as a child screaming, ‘I won’t go to school,’ and now he was a teacher and he still wouldn’t go. It made her smile.
‘Oh, you would think it was funny, wouldn’t you?’
‘It was something else.’ And she quickly took the children’s bowls to the front room. They were sitting in the dark watching the presenter making an Advent ring out of coat-hangers. They began to eat their soup mechanically.
Al was helping himself to more so it couldn’t have been that bad. She took a small portion and sat down.
‘… Catholic repression turning out fucked-up individuals who are too repressed to think for themselves and too fucked up to feel anything …’ Leah’s family were Catholic. ‘Stupid ignorant nuns forcing children to believe in hell and fat complacent eunuch priests, and repressed Catholic Mafia families with their insidious network of do-goodism.’
‘I’ve got a meeting tonight,’ said Leah, ‘at half-past seven, so could you –’
‘Put the children to bed. Yes, dear wife. I like to spend time with my children.’
‘We’ll probably go for a drink afterwards, at the Swan, we usually do.’
‘I like to spend time with my wife, but unfortunately she doesn’t like to spend time with me.’
‘It isn’t that,’ she said as casually as she could. ‘It’s good to socialise with people you work with. Clive has invited us all for a drink.’
‘Good old Clive. Do you fancy him as well?’
Leah sat through the meeting not taking much of it in. She doodled on her notepad. She drew a path going over a hill into a sunset, and a funny little house with a chimney and smoke coming out, but she scribbled that out and drew boxes like cages and more boxes and more boxes.
‘Item five, compost bins,’ said the chairperson. This was Phil. He had been chair for the last three years because nobody else wanted to do it. He was tall and thin with a trim beard. He was a history teacher at the local comprehensive. ‘Clive, I think this is your area.’
Clive was the community gardener. He was about forty with a bald head and an enormous bushy beard. He was square set and rather rounded. While working he wore a wide-brimmed hat with a feather in it. He had tanned skin from working outdoors and red cheeks, probably from too much beer.
‘Ho, the problem, as I see it, is that basically, the residents of Brewery Lane have been complaining about the present siting of the compost bins, basically because of the smell.’
‘Smelly bins,’ said Phil. ‘Well, what to do?’ A map of the whole site was produced and every alternative discussed at great length. Leah looked at the clock: it was gone nine. Doris and Betty kept knitting and started reminiscing about who used to live at 21 Brewery Lane, which was the house opposite the offensive bins. ‘That Madge Parkins, ooh, she were a compost bin ’erself.’
‘Um ladies,’ said Phil. ‘I think we have to wind this up soon. Let me make a suggestion. How about over here at the back of the sports hall?’
‘We’ll have to consult that sports hall chappy,’ said Vic, the treasurer, who could always think of a reason why something wouldn’t work.
‘Leah, that’s your department,’ said Phil.
‘I think it might be better to inform him rather than consult him,’ she said, going pink. Doris and Betty started whispering: ‘… and he wears earrings.’
‘Clive, what do you think?’
‘Well, basically …’ said Clive and the matter went on for another ten minutes.
The meeting finished. Clive was rubbing his hands: ‘Ho, ho, time for a drink. Up the Swan.’ Vic lit up his pipe and blew it near Phil, who had banned smoking at meetings two years ago.
‘I have to go,’ said Leah, gathering up her things and rushing out before anybody could ask her any more questions.
Bailey was at the far end of the bar, a pint of Guinness in front of him and several empty glasses on the table. He looked glum. He was not wearing his usual wacky clothes but a grey jumper and ragged-look jeans. He didn’t see Leah until she sat down opposite him.
‘Yo!’ he said and managed a smile. ‘Well, you got rid of the liquorice allsort.’
‘I can’t wear that to meetings.’ She was also in jeans, decent ones. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, it was one of those last agenda items that go on and on.’
‘I don’t know why you bother.’ His hair was tied back in a ponytail and he had taken off his earrings. ‘What was it about this time?’
She hesitated. Compost bins to be moved near sports hall. Leah to inform Bailey. She didn’t want to talk about that now. ‘A load of rubbish,’ she said and shook her hair as if she were shaking out all the day’s worries.
‘Do that again,’ said Bailey, ‘I liked that.’ And she did, self-consciously, as Bailey watched her. He took a great gulp of his Guinness and handed her a cigarette.
‘Is Declan coming out tonight?’ she said and dropped Bailey’s lighter on the floor. Flustered trying to pick it up she nearly fell off her chair and had to steady herself. She put her hand on Bailey’s knee. There was a huge hole in his jeans, she was touching his knee. He didn’t react. ‘Fuck knows about Declan,’ he said.
They sat there awkwardly. Bailey finished his drink and bought another. Leah smoked a cigarette; so did Bailey. Two lads and a plump girl in a white miniskirt were laughing loudly at the bar. ‘I’m not into this,’ said Bailey. ‘I’m off.’ He stood up. ‘Come and have a spliff at my place.’
It was uphill all the way to Bailey’s. Leah told silly tales about the members of the committee so by the time they reached Steep Street it felt as if they were old friends. The house was the same as she remembered, tiny and blue. Bailey made tea and they smoked joints. He undid his ponytail and rearranged his hair. He hadn’t put on any music so there was just the hissing gas fire to listen to.
‘I was mega naffed off before I met you tonight,’ said Bailey.
‘Because of Declan?’
‘Sod Declan. No, I got a letter from London.’
‘Oh? And that was bad?’
‘From me mum, with photies.’
Leah didn’t understand any of this. ‘You don’t like your mum?’
‘You’re fucking right I don’t.’ He smoked his joint furiously.
‘You don’t like her sending you photographs?’
‘No! I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know, she’s growing up and I don’t see her.’
‘Your little girl.’ She understood now. ‘Does your wife write to your mum?’
‘Yes.’
‘And not to you?’
‘You got it.’ He picked at the hole in his jeans.
‘Do you write to her?’
‘Sometimes …’
‘And she never writes back?’
