The morning, and his back is sore, but he is straight up and about it, pulling open the paper and getting the jobs circled. There are quite a few minicab jobs, which being honest is probably where he should have tried last time, even though most of them are for registered-owner drivers. One or two but, that say they rent a car.
He begins with a place that looks like it’s based nearby. He goes out and to a phone box to give the number a call. The familiar nervous feeling as he waits, watching his breath come in fits of mist, before a man answers and tells him to come over right now if he’s able.
One thing he’s noticed: the bus stops all have these wee maps in them, which makes it pretty easy finding the place. He is there twenty minutes later. There is a sign along the street and a steamed-up window with a light on.
Inside, a man behind the glass.
‘Hello, I just spoke to somebody about the job.’
‘Oh, right, that you was it?’ He eyes him up and down.
‘Like I say, I’ve plenty experience. I’ve been working private hire in Glasgow more than fifteen years.’
‘Right. Do you have a reference?’
‘Yes. See, I do, but I’ve no got it on me.’
‘I’ll need to have one.’ He keeks down at his newspaper.
‘What I can do, I can call ye with the number when I get home. I can’t mind it off the top my head, is all.’
‘Sure, fine. We’ll hear from you, then,’ and he walks off.
References. That’s him screwed, well. Obviously he isn’t putting a call in to Malcolm. They don’t know he’s here, even. That’s how he came in the first place, christsake, to get away. Still, he has to crack on. He has to be positive. Not everywhere’s going to want a reference — probably there’s one or two need a new start straight away and they’re okay seeing if he shapes up on the job just.
It is the same story at the next place though. Once he gets over there and he sits in a kind of waiting room — it’s a chain place and it’s a bit more proper — they give him an application form to fill out. There is nobody else in the room, so after he’s tried at one or two of the boxes, he slips away. What’s the point handing it in if half the boxes he can’t put anything? Address. Telephone number. References. It is only the back of eleven when he returns, but the day is finished. A quick dot to the shop and he’s back in his room, the television on, a Plan B needed.
Plan B gets the swerve for the afternoon. He needs to gather the energies, build himself up to it again. He stays in front of the television; drinks a couple of cans. This programme about these famous people he’s never heard of, a group of them going round each other’s houses to see who can cook the best meal. Then over to the snooker. The picture is that bad it’s near impossible to make out the colours of the balls, but it doesn’t matter, he isn’t paying too much attention; something comforting about it anyway, the silence, the clock-clunk of the balls and the gravelly patter of the commentators. He’s always been quite fond of the snooker. They used to sit and have it on in the background sometimes, him flicking through the Record and the wife with her head in one of the Barbaras. Occasionally the both of them chuckling at something one of the commentators has said — double kisses and touching balls and all that — probably the same kind of things she’s reading in her book there. The feeling of it is so familiar. He allows it to wash over him, a comfort, a dull, familiar comfort that is eased on by the drink, helping him to drift away just, stop to focus. It isn’t the right thing to be doing. He knows that. But he doesn’t stop himself, finishing off the cans and coasting further away from the here and now of things until the eyes are starting to close, and he falls asleep.
The one that isn’t No Breakfast. He has been banging on the door. He wants his rent money. Mick opens up, rubbing his eyes awake as he goes over to his bag and crouches with his back blocking the guy’s view, no wanting him to see as he takes the notes out of the envelope.
He gets onto the bed. The back is hurting. He’s got to stop falling asleep in that chair. The television is still on but he leaves it, the volume turned down low as he gets under the sheets, the rest of the night to get through now, knowing he won’t sleep.
The man gives him the once-over and says the ad shouldn’t have gone in, they’ve already got somebody hired. A handyman job. There’s a fair number of them in the building and trades listings and it’s sensible thinking, because it’s unlikely any of these places will need a reference and the money is decent, plus it’s paid by the day, no the week. He tries the next one on his sheet: General Handyperson, London W2, 50 hr per week, Mon — Fri, £6.50 per hour, temporary. When he gets there but the guy asks him where he is living and he can’t think quick enough what to say. He starts telling him he’s in a B&B the now but he’ll be looking for somewhere to stay as soon as he starts working. He gets told the same story: they’ve took on a guy already but come back next week in case he doesn’t work out. He tries one more, who tell him on the phone they don’t know about any job, and he decides to call it a day.
The trouble is, even if he does make up an address, probably they’d be able to check up on it these days. Even these yards that are just a mess of scrap metal and titty calendars, they’ll still have some way of finding out on a computer if the address matches what you tell them, and then that’s you screwed. He switches on the television. Maybe he’s looking at all this the wrong way round. What he should be doing is fixing out a place to stay first. But no, that isn’t right, he’s thought through all this already: he doesn’t have enough for the deposit; and even if he did, landlords will aye be wanting references as well. And he doesn’t have those, that’s for certain. He has to keep going but. Battle on. What is it they say — if ye get chucked in the Clyde, ye swim to the bank and haul yourself out, a fish in the one pocket for lunch, and one in the other for tea.
He isn’t going back. That is the one thing he is sure about. Getting the coach up there with his tail between his legs and returning to that dark, silent house he can’t even breathe inside, and everyone seeing that he’s failed and pitying him. Everyone? Serious? Who’s everyone? Nobody even knows that he went. And the house is up in the air by now anyway; someone else moved in, and the housing association after him for rent arrears.
He keeps to his room the next few days. The routine is set in. The shop in the morning, and the rest of the day he watches TV, drinking, dozing, the brain shackled. Zoning out like this, he can control it most of the time, keep his thoughts sluggish enough they can’t get any speed up; although the torpor and the drink mean he is sleeping a lot, and that is when he can’t control it. She is in his dreams, but out of reach, never clear. One afternoon he drops off and he has this vivid sense that he is in the house, in his chair, half asleep watching the football scores coming in on the vidiprinter. The house is quiet. There is a faint noise of chopping, coming through from the kitchen. He waits for the Rangers result, and when he’s seen they’ve won, he gets himself up from the chair and goes out of the living room. The chopping noise is louder now, and as well the unmistakable sound of boys fighting upstairs. At the entrance to the kitchen he stops and looks at the back of her, chopping, away with herself humming and no noticing that he’s stood behind her. Carrots. A stew. The pleasing sound of meat frying away on the hob. He is enjoying watching her — the quick hands scooping up carrot chunks and the smooth movement of her shoulders inside the pullover. ‘Ye there?’ she says, without turning round. He smiles, walking up to put his arms around her waist. ‘Smells good, hen.’ He leans forward and now she does turn around but it’s no her, it’s Mary, kissing him, and he stumbles back trying to grip hold of the counter, carrot tops getting knocked onto the floor, bouncing off the lino.