twenty-two

I got off the school bus in the middle of town as about a hundred kids were trying to get on.

"What's your game?" said the driver. "This isn't a bleedin' taxi service."

"I've forgotten something," I said, barging my way through sweatered breasts and sports bags slung over shoulders.

It didn't take me long to find the offices of Target. They were in the High Street, through a narrow doorway next to a wide-windowed newsagents and a car insurance brokers. I had passed the entrance to the office many thousands of times but had never once taken the trouble to read the bronze name plate on the doorway: Third Floor, Thompson and Morgan Solicitors; Second Floor, United Communication Services (Westing) Ltd; First Floor, Target Group Marketing Ltd

I guess the reason I had never noticed that nameplate before was that my attention had always been preferentially drawn to Allways Newsagents next door and its top shelf magazines. They weren't the run of the mill softcore mags like Penthouse and Men Only. Oh no, Allways catered for the more discerning wanker.

There was Peaches (which promised no model was under fifty five inches), Spanker (the title of which basically speaks for itself), College Girls (with its big red label on the cover stating all the models were over eighteen - even though the girl on the cover was doing her best to look no more than twelve); Thruster (the magazine for men, it's cover resplendent with hirsute stud in leather cap and posing pouch); Wet n' Willing (which could easily have served as a complete clinical guide for students of gynaecology); and many more.

Although, I swear I never once saw anyone actually purchase one of those magazines, the stock did appear to diminish every month, so I guess someone must have been buying them.

Actually, most of those magazines (probably via brown paper bags guiltily thrown into hedgerows and lay-bys) seemed to end up in the school playground. Most lunchtimes behind the back of the sports hall or the woodwork block there'd be a scrum of adolescents craning their spotty necks to catch a glimpse of some tart probing herself with a vibrator or being taken from behind over the armrest of a leather settee in the lounge of some tacky South coast hotel.

Although those magazines tried hard to be artistic and alluring, they were always more sick and sad than sexy (yet, nonetheless, totally fascinating). And, it was really no wonder I'd never noticed the nameplate by the entrance to Target Marketing!

That morning (after I'd had a good old look in the newsagents window) I stood nervously in front of the door to Target Marketing for several moments, feeling, I imagined, rather like the people I used to see in the chemists shop where mum worked, twitching and shuffling as they queued for condoms, lice lotion or diarrhoea tablets. Although, my nervousness wasn't due to embarrassment as such. It was just that I felt such an impostor. I didn't even want the job. In fact, I couldn't even take the job if it were offered to me. I was still at school. And I was suddenly consumed with guilt. What if mum came into town and saw me? What if one of the neighbours saw me? Maggie 'blabbermouth' Adams, for example. She was always dropping in at my mum's to give out and gather fresh gossip. I could just imagine her dishing the dirt, "I saw your young Peter this morning hanging round doorway to the solicitor's. I hope he's in no trouble."

"It can't have been Peter, he was at school," I imagined mum reply, concern slowly creeping into her voice.

"No, it was definitely him. He had one of his dad's ties on. I'd recognise it anywhere."

I started to prepare my excuses. I could say I was doing a project for Geography; a survey of offices in town. That still wouldn't explain the tie, though. Maybe I could claim it was wear a tie for charity week.

As I dithered in Target's doorway, still pondering how well these excuses might work, I heard a voice behind me.

"Are you going in. I need to get these papers out of the rain."

I turned to see a man in a blue pin-stripe suit, with an overcoat of the sort private detectives wear and dark hair which was slicked back over his head, repellling rain drops like oiled sealskin. The man clutched a huge pile of beige cardboard files tied in frayed red ribbons and a tattered brown leather briefcase.

"Sorry," I murmured and pushed the door open, enabling him to follow me in out of the rain.

Inside was a gloomy bare stairwell. It reminding me of the DSS building where dad had taken me a couple of times, to elicit sympathy when his benefits were late.

As soon as the man with the oily hair had got past me he hurried up the stairs. But half way up he suddenly stopped and peered back down at me over his piles of files.

"You weren't waiting for Mr Morgan were you?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," I said.

"You weren't the stolen Suzuki then," he said.

"No I've come to see Target."

"Ah, that's good. Because Mr Morgan's in St Lucia."

"All right for some," I said, trying to be friendly. But the man had already disappeared.

The reception at Target was through a plain brown fire door with an enormous spring at the top and three different locks. The door was right beneath the stairs, where the grey gloominess of the entrance lobby sank deepest. I gave the door a push and dust swirled in a crack of light that lit up the back of the stairs. The door spring was so stiff it was almost stronger than my desire to get inside, but I pushed a little harder and more light spilled out.

I poked my head round the door and saw a girl in a dark skirt bent over a pine desk watering a huge potted palm (it rather reminded me of a scene from Wet n' Willing except, of course, that the girl was fully clothed). She had smooth beige legs, and rounded calves, rounded like the balusters of a marble balcony. I wondered whether she would be as equally curved when she turned round.

As it turned out she wasn't quite as ample above the waist as she was below, (although ample enough to make the prospect of working alongside her not unattractive). The girl was two or three years older than me, and had dark, straight hair which was very neatly combed. As well as the dark skirt, the girl wore a stripy blue and white shirt with the collar turned up and a string of dark blue beads. She held a small red watering can, which jerked in her hand as she turned and unexpectedly saw me peering in.

"Sorry," I said, nervously entering. "I hope you didn't spill your water." The girl shook her mini watering can.

"It's all gone now," she said. She caressed a leaf of her potted palm (which was so lush and polished it looked like plastic). "I had to give them two full cans this morning. They'd started to droop."

"Must be all the lights," I said blinking up at the ceiling.

"You're probably right," she said, feigning interest as if the same thought had never occurred to her. "It can get very hot in here. We're very enclosed, and the air conditioning, well..," she raised her eyes in desperation and tutted. "I bring my own fan in."

She gestured to a little black fan on the desk which hummed back and forth like a robot shaking its head in slow motion. There was an awkward silence. And then we both began to talk at once.

"Mr Mallon said I should...."

"Are you here to see Mrs Barley...?"

We both laughed politely, then I let the girl continue.

"I don't think the artwork for Mr Mallon is ready yet," she said sifting through a pile of paper and big cardboard envelopes in a plastic basket on her desk (a red basket that matched the watering can). "I can go and check if you like. but.."

"Actually, I've come about the job," I said. "Mr Mallon said I should." The girl looked slightly mystified.

"Was Cath, I mean Mrs Barley, expecting you?"

"I'm not sure."

At that moment Mrs Barley, the aforementioned owner of Target swept in through the door. She wore a fawn-coloured cape and a toffee-coloured, wide-brimmed hat.

"Good Morning Angela," she said to the girl. "Good morning." She smiled right through me as she tugged off a pair of brown leather gloves off and rubbed her bony hands together. "Is the heating on in here," she asked (which seemed a stupid question to me as it was absolutely boiling).

"I think so," said Angela.

Mrs Barley hunched up her shoulders and shivered dramatically like she was stood naked in a freezer. She went to her desk and looked through a tray of papers.

"No post yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," said Angela.

Mrs Barley shivered again, then looked across at me. I smiled nervously. Usually, in my late teens, when people stared at me I would instantly turn away. But there was something about the way Mrs Barley looked at you, that made you feel like a rabbit mesmerised in the glare of oncoming headlights. On reflection I'm sure she stared at me for no more than a second, but as a spotty youth in an awakward tie, a damp jacket and a strange office, a second seemed to last for hours. It's funny how vividly your brain can record detail if you look intently at something or someone for a few moments as I did that morning. And my remembered image of Mrs Barley is as clear now as it was then.

The first thought that occurred to me upon seeing Mrs Barley was that I'd never come across anyone quite so brown before. I don't just mean her skin was heavily tanned (although it was), everything she wore was brown too, from her hat to her shoes. Even her lipstick was a brownish shade of red, the colour of dried blood, like she'd eaten a raw steak for breakfast and neglected to wipe her mouth. In fact, the only thing that wasn't brown was Mrs Barley's hair, which was like straw in colour and texture, and curved out stiffly on either side of her face like the puffed out wings of a yellowhammer on a cold morning. As well as being very brown she was also very angular in stature. Although the skin around her mouth and eyes sagged a little, it was tight across the jaw bone, and her cheeks had the hollowness of an altogether much gaunter woman, suggesting she'd had several back teeth removed.

"Mr Mallon sent me," I said. "About the job, driving."

"I see," she said, still staring vacantly through me. "So do you work for Mr Mallon at the moment?"

"Oh no," I said. "He's Tony's uncle."

"Tony?" she said, the puzzlement in her eyes seeming to bring me into sharper focus.

"He's a friend," I said.

She nodded.

"So do you have a job at the moment?"

"No, I'm still at school...Well, kind of. But I can drive."

Mrs Barley glanced down at her watch.

"OK, I suppose I can see you now, seeing as you're here." She stared past my left shoulder and said to the girl.

"Ten minutes Angela. When the post comes check to see if that replacement invoice has arrived. Oh and if Mr Hibbert phones tell him I'll call back later. If Sue rings put her straight through."

I followed Mrs Barley past a photocopier, above which hung a calendar of British castles, and round a row of filing cabinets to a partitioned alcove that functioned as her office.

"Take a seat," said Mrs Barley.

I sat on a maroon swivel chair, my rain-damp Harrington clinging coldly to my spine as I leaned back. Mrs Barley opened her handbag, a brown leather affair like a small satchel. She took from it a pack of twenty Camels. She pulled a cigarette from the packet with her teeth and lit up with a silver lighter engraved with a swirling black pattern of leaves and flowers.

"Do you smoke?" she asked.

"Oh no....well, not much," I said.

"Good," she said, holding the smoke deep in her lungs then slowly exhaling like a steam train stopping. "It's a foul habit."

"So you're at school at the moment?" she asked.

"Yea, sort of," I said. "But I'm thinking of leaving."

"Any particular reason?"

"I don't really like studying. I'd prefer to have a job."

"Hmm," she said.

She handed me a piece of A4 paper.

"Jot your details down there then," she said and picked up her phone, dragging heavily on her cigarette as she dialled.

I surveyed the desk, searching for a pen. I spotted one in a pot on the far side of a doodle-decorated blotting pad. It was just out of reach. I wriggled on the seat, uncomfortable in my wet jacket and nervousness.

Mrs Barley looked enquiringly at me.

"Pen," I mouthed.

She covered the mouth piece of the phone with her hand.

"What?" she mouthed.

"Pen," I repeated.

She pushed the pot about an inch towards me. I got up and reached out across the desk and grabbed a blue biro, then sunk back into the seat and started to write. I wasn't sure what details she wanted to know about so I put down my name and address, age and height and the word weight with a question mark after it (well I didn't bloody know did I).

When Mrs Barley saw what I'd written, she smiled. It was one of the rare occasions I remember her looking genuinely amused. She replaced the phone on its hook.

"Have you taken any exams?" she asked.

"Maths, English Language, English Literature, Geography, Art, Biology, French," I said. I'd rehearsed the list a thousand times for just such an occasion.

She smiled again as she scribbled on the paper.

"And you passed them all?" she asked, looking up.

"Well, all except French, "I said. "I got a D."

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem, she said, smiling as she studied what I'd written. "Well, at least you can do joined up writing, which is better than some I've had in here recently."

"So,Peter, what do you get up to in your spare time?" she said. "I expect you like to go down to the pub with your pals, eh?"

"Not really," I said, cautiously. I was going to tell her about the guitar playing but thought better of it and mumbled vaguely that I liked listening to music and reading.

"What do you read?" she asked.

"Well, magazines mostly and books, though not as many as I used to. I lost my library card. But I sometimes use my mum's."

Mrs Barley laughed.

"OK," she said.

"So you've driven a van before?" she asked.

"Oh yes," I lied. "My dad used to have a transit."

"I presume you know your way around town?"

"I've lived here all my life."

She looked thoughtful.

"Do you have a car?" she asked.

"Not at the moment," I said. "But I drive my dad's car, when I can manage to get it started."

"So you could handle basic repairs," she said.

"Oh yes," I lied. "No problem".

"Hmm and you're seventeen."

"Yes."

"And you're eighteen soon."

"Next birthday," I said.

"Which is when?"

"August."

"Hmm. Well I can tell you're keen, but you are rather young."

I shrugged and raised my hands, as if to say 'so what.'

"Well," explained Mrs Barley. "We sometimes use hire vans and unfortunately we can only get insurance for drivers over twenty-one."

"I can be twenty-one if you like," I said.

She stared through me again then nodded.

"I'm sure we can work our way round it," she murmured.

Angela poked her head into the alcove.

"Mr Hibbert on line three," she said.

"OK," said Mrs Barley stubbing her lipstick stained cigarette butt out in a chunky square china ashtray. "Tell him I'll call back later."

Mrs Barley lead me out of a door at the back of the office and down a gloomy corridor to a warehouse. It was piled high with boxes of brochures and magazines and about ten million different types of labels and envelopes. She explained where the stock came in and where it went out. She showed me how to fill in triplicate despatch forms and reorder forms and I followed her like a nodding dog, totally bemused by it all.

She finally offered me the job in the corridor on the way back to the office. She told me to go home and get changed and come back that afternoon to start a week's trial. Then she formally introduced me to Angela and a man about two or three years older than me, who wore a shiny grey suit, lots of jewellery and had very white teeth. He reminded me of Dad's friend Brian Phillips (you know, the one with the red BMW, all those ex-wives and the rottweiler named Rex).

"Chris is our sales manager," explained Mrs Barley.

Oh I would never have guessed, I thought, brimming over with smugness. And smiled politely as I shook his hand.