‘Would you like my help looking for a larger flat? I can look online while you’re away.’
‘Away where? Who says I’m going away?’
‘Well, excuse me, didn’t I just hear you say that you would “come up in the morning”?’
‘But only for a day or so at most.’
‘So I should just leave it then?’ He stared blankly at Annabelle. ‘Hello, Keith. Anybody at home? Do you want me to look online or not?’
‘Thanks, but I’m not sure how much money I have.’ He took a sip of his latte and then shook his head. ‘Renting in this city is tough, and it’s probably a lot more expensive than it was when I signed the lease on Wilton Road.’
‘Do you have any savings? And don’t look at me like that because I’m not prying.’
‘I’ll have to figure out the whole money thing. I’m just not sure what’s happening.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Annabelle looked quizzically at him, but he suddenly felt overwhelmed as he realised what his next move would have to be. ‘Well, are you okay? You seem to have gone mental walkabout.’
‘I’m fine.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Really, I’m fine, just a bit tired, that’s all.’
‘Another coffee?’
‘No thanks. Honestly, I’m fine.’
He watches as Clive Wilson edges his way back from the bar with a pint in his hand, and then his boss sits opposite him.
‘Cheers.’
He knocks his own glass against that of Clive Wilson and then takes a drink.
‘I might as well come straight to the point, Clive. I’m resigning, okay.’
‘What do you mean “okay”? It’s not okay with me. I told you, these things take time and this one’s a bit tricky. However, I can now see some light at the end of the tunnel. I’m pretty sure that Yvette is going to be transferred.’
‘Is that what she wants?’
Clive Wilson laughs out loud. ‘What’s it got to do with what she wants? It’s better for everyone if she moves on. It’s a sort of sideways shift, with a more senior title, and the girl seems okay about it. This might happen next week, and then we can see about your coming back. To tell you the truth, I could really use you around the place at the moment. It’s a bloody nightmare trying to understand all this new red tape baloney.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, which he unfolds. ‘Listen to this. I just got this email directive saying that as service providers, we have to “recognise the needs of diverse communities and provide facilities that are genuinely multicultural, being aware that different facilities might be needed for people with specific religious, cultural, or dietary needs”. All this rubbish just in case I start getting hassle from a one-legged Muslim who likes burgers and feels like the council isn’t paying enough attention to his needs?’ He tosses the piece of paper on to the table. ‘What am I supposed to do with garbage like this?’
‘I’ve got no idea, Clive.’
‘Nobody really understands this guff, except you that is.’
‘Well, that’s not quite true, but I still think that I should resign.’
‘Are you thinking of your pension? You can only lose it if you get fired and that’s not going to happen.’
‘I’m thinking of what’s best for me.’
Clive Wilson picks up the email and folds it back into his pocket, and then he takes a long swig of his beer. ‘I don’t know what to say. Except, of course, you’ve blindsided me. What are you going to do?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I’ll think of something.’
‘Are you going to write that book of yours?’
He laughs now. ‘I don’t think so, Clive.’ He stands and points to Clive’s glass. ‘Another one?’
‘I’ll have another one. Why not?’ Clive Wilson hands him the empty glass. ‘But you are going to stay in the business?’
‘Social work?’ He smiles. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to do something different with my life. You know, before it all gets a bit monotonous and predictable.’
‘You mean like my life?’
He continues to smile, and he notices that Clive Wilson is looking perplexed.
‘So you think your life is monotonous, do you, Clive?’
‘Like watching bloody paint dry. Sometimes I think I should go out and get myself a young bird. Put a bit of spice back into things.’
‘And you think that’ll do the trick?’
‘Can’t hurt, can it?’
He stares at the computer screen and scrolls down the list of flats to rent in his area of west London, beginning with the three-bedroom flats, his thinking being that he can set up an office while he and Laurie can each have a bedroom of their own. The problem is the price of renting in London, which, as he feared, seems to have gone up significantly since he signed the lease for this one-bedroom flat. His rent is hardly cheap, but three years ago he was more concerned with the trauma of the break-up than he was with money. However, after a miserable week in the Travelodge, during which time it became clear that Annabelle was serious and had no intention of changing her mind, he convinced himself that this was an unexpected opportunity to begin anew, and he might as well seize it and pay the exorbitant rent. The recently decorated flat smelt of paint, and there were dustballs in the corner, and bits of sandpaper and twiglets of electrical wiring on the floor that the workmen had left behind. However, the space was his for him to reinvent himself as he saw fit, and although he remained somewhat confused and hurt by Annabelle’s rejection of him, he eventually made peace with his situation. But having his son move in with him is hardly a new adventure, more like an obligation that he knows he should fulfil, but without a job he is having difficulty figuring out how he can realistically make this work.
He quickly accepts the fact that he will most likely have to set up a work-station in his bedroom, and he scrolls down to the two-bedroom flats. While they are significantly cheaper, they are still prohibitively expensive and it occurs to him that maybe he should have tried to negotiate some kind of pay-off deal with Clive Wilson. However, given the manner in which they left things, it is now highly unlikely that his former boss would be receptive to any more overtures from him. He took Clive Wilson’s pint glass and crossed to the bar, where he ordered a lager. Once the barman had pulled the pint, and he had paid for it and received his change, he carried the pint of lager back to Clive Wilson and placed it on the table before him.
‘Where’s yours, Keith?’
He looked down at Clive Wilson. ‘So you’re really sorry that I’m leaving, are you, Clive?’
‘I told you, nobody understands all this gobbledy-gook about brand-repositioning better than you do. The new regulations make no sense, and the language is impossible. Anyhow, there’s still time for you to reconsider.’
‘Let me ask you, Clive. Do you know how to spell “hypocrite”? It’s not a hard question.’ Clive Wilson looked up at him with his hand eagerly gripping his new pint of beer. ‘Pride yourself on running a tight ship, do you? Well you need to look around yourself a bit for I’m not the only one who thinks that you’re a sad tosser. That’s t-o-s-s-e-r in case you’re still struggling with “hypocrite”. They’re both applicable.’
He turned and left before Clive Wilson could reply, but as he pushed his way through the crowd of briefcase-wielding after-work drinkers he knew that at least he’d done the decent thing and bought his boss a pint.
As he left the pub he saw a bus approaching, so he quickly dashed across the street to the stop outside the West London Internet Call Centre, a place that seemed to specialise in calls to Somalia, Bangladesh, or Pakistan. The girl ahead of him in the bus queue was wearing flip-flops as opposed to pumps. He remembers Yvette telling him that in London women’s feet get too dirty and calloused in flip-flops, but this girl, who was listening to some kind of bhangra music on her iPhone, seemed cheerfully oblivious to this fact. As the doors to the bus concertinaed open, and the line began to shuffle forward, he realised that for the first time since he left Bristol he was now officially unemployed.