Chapter 25
A man in a suit is sitting on a bench. A short way down the towpath, an elderly Mediterranean-looking woman in a huge fur coat is waiting for her small dog to finish shitting beside a tree. The man knows full well that she is not going to clear it up. He knows it, and it is irritating the hell out of him that he knows it, but still he cannot move his eyes away: the dog squeezes out the final pellet, and he watches in silent fury as the woman slowly wanders off in her enormous coat.
The man turns back to his lunch, but that just serves to annoy him further, so he looks up at Battersea Power Station instead — something reassuring about the size and solidness of it. He could kill for a sausage sandwich right now. That was his old routine: after the first couple of weeks last summer when all the new advisers would go together from the Department for Business building to the pub for lunch, he had taken to walking down to the river and buying a sausage sandwich en route. He looks down miserably now at his Boots meal deaclass="underline" the juice drained in one go, sandwich vanished, colourful delights of the fruit salad still to come. The homeless man is there again. He is sat three benches further up, and there’s little chance he could have seen him but even so the memory of yesterday returns, and he experiences for a moment the same sense of panic he had felt as the man had approached him, the crazed look on his face. He seems to be keeping to himself today, ignoring the passers-by and just glaring out at the river in what appears to be the same dirty brown jacket and torn trousers as he had on before.
He attempts the fruit salad. It is dry and soapy; he compresses a piece in his mouth but no moisture comes out. He knows that it is almost time to return to the office, but as soon as he thinks about leaving the bench he starts to become a little nauseous. There is a pre-meet at one to brief the Idiot for his afternoon meetings. No doubt the others will be prepared: they’ll have been planning over lunch, devising a briefing strategy. They will have choreographed their spiel; and when, at the end of the brief, the Idiot turns to him and asks if he has any input, he will look every inch the pointless fat fool as he replies that he believes it’s all been covered. In his whole time there so far, his single most significant contribution was the moment during a meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses when the Idiot passed him a squiggled note that read: What is the minimum wage these days? Remembering the stupid flush of pride that he had experienced on sliding back the answer causes the sick feeling in his stomach to increase now, as he rises from the bench.
A runner comes past in a gold-coloured pair of lycra trousers, his large muscular buttocks seizing as he pounds down the towpath. The man starts back toward Westminster, but immediately as he does so the strange, horrifying image enters his head of himself in the same pair of trousers, entering the building and suddenly everybody looking at him — the security guards suppressing their mirth as he passes through the scanners — and the sight of his fat golden arse repeated all around him in the unending glass and mirrors and polished flooring. Suddenly he stops right there on the towpath, looking round to check nobody is nearby, and, with the fruit salad punnet, he scoops up the four small nuggets of dog shit from beside the tree. He ties up the Boots carrier bag around it, continuing alongside the river, and drops the package into the next dustbin he passes.
Further down the water, Mick is viewing across the way to the power station. One thing that must be admitted: it’s bloody big. When did they close it? Who cares, what does it matter? It doesn’t. Probably the Milk Snatcher but. We don’t want power stations, what we want instead is more apartment buildings — these ones you can see here all along past the bridge, curving swirls of bright blue and green.
He pulls out the leaflet and turns it over. One thing that’s obvious, looking at the map: these churches are spread miles apart. And, on top of that, the Monday one is the other side of the map from Tuesday, which does not neighbour Wednesday, and so on, and so on. Obvious it’s done on purpose. To make things difficult, for whatever reason. The absurdity of it all. An absurd situation, would ye no agree, Mr Jogger, in your — and let’s be honest here — pretty daft leggings? Fucksake, he needs a drink. The pub just a little way down the road but him sat here with no money on his tail. Cruel. Very cruel.
It takes him two hours to walk there, and he arrives while it is still light. Maybe that’s how they keep them so far apart. To give the scaffers something to do. Pass the time. The Hallelujah that comes to the door isn’t as friendly as the other one. He’s in fact quite annoyed that Mick’s turned up out the blue without booking his place. He’s not supposed to arrive before seven. He should have phoned ahead. A good one, that. See the thing is I was going to call ahead on the mobile phone but then I was that busy on the line with clients and contractors and all that, I forgot. He doesn’t bother arguing with the guy. No the energy or the pride, so he keeps quiet and the man agrees to book him in, only he has to go away the now and no come back until seven o’clock. He leaves, walks about, wondering how he’s supposed to know when seven o’clock is.
Shepherd’s pie and a spoon of boiled vegetables. The set-up is different here — it’s a bigger place, and there are small round tables to sit at, but he manages to find one where he’s on his own. He recognizes one or two of the faces. The beans guy is here, sat over the way at a full table, laying it off to some poor ancient scaffer about something or other.
The Hallelujahs wait until everybody has got food, then they fix out plates for themselves and sit down inamongst the tramps. Mick stares down at his plate, eating quickly, but nobody comes. Afterwards he gets a sleeping bag and finds a space, then sits against the wall next to it, making sure he doesn’t catch eyes with anybody. Some of the scaffers stand together in dirty clusters, talking. Others keep with themselves, avoiding the groups, like he is doing. No. As long as he remains outside of it, eating the food just and accepting the shelter for now, and no talking to any scaffers or any Hallelujahs, then he will stay afloat. Only if he accepts that he is part of this, that he belongs here, will he be done for. Because if he does that, then there’ll be no control over it, and he may as well throw in the towel. Game over.
A dribbly day, but no too cold. He takes a free paper from a stall he passes, to lay down on the bench. Irrational, maybe, no the sensible man’s choice, but he goes the trek to his usual spot. The night’s church is in the other direction but it doesn’t matter, better anyway to use up the day by walking. He is sat staring at the power station when a young lad, looks like a student, comes and sits in next to him. It isn’t long before he turns and starts talking. Mick keeps quiet, hoping he’ll get the message. He doesn’t. Incredible sight, he is saying, wet day, and all this. Go bloody sit inside well if it’s too wet for you. He has started fiddling about in his rucksack.
‘Would you like a muffin?’
Mick ignores him.
‘It’s okay. It’s spare.’ He is holding his muffin out to him. ‘Well, I’ll just leave it here in case you change your mind.’
The boy stays sitting there. He keeps looking over, Mick can see him doing it out the corner of his eye. After a while, he turns toward the lad, the muffin still there on the bench between them.
‘I’ve ate already. I’d take a pound but, get myself a cup of tea.’
The boy obvious isn’t too sure about this and he delays a moment, nay doubt thinking — how do I know he isn’t going straight the offie with this? Which is exactly where he intends going with it, but the lad is by now getting out his wallet, and he hands him £1.50.