press to exit

The one good thing about having a crap job is that you don’t particularly care if you lose it. It’s different, of course, if you’ve got kids or debts. Then they’ve got you by the bollocks. But when you’re young and single, you really don’t give a monkey’s. And, as the cage shudders to a halt fifteen feet from the floor, my initial despair and anger, is soon overtaken by another feeling - a sense of recklessness that seeps out from the centre of my head like smoke fumes filling a bubble.

As the feeling rushes though me, I stand up from the plastic chair, take a deep breath and hit the Press to Exit button. I half expect it not to work. But the side door makes a clunking noise and when I push it with the toe of my Pumas it swings open with a crash that echoes through the deserted warehouse.

Oblivious to the shouts of Len, Don and Rob, who immediately run from the security cabin, I crouch down wicketkeeper style, and pirouette so that my back faces out from the cage. Then I reach down and carefully grip the mesh on either side of my trainers.

Like some trainee trapeze artist, I brace my arms and lower my legs clumsily out of the cage. My coat and T-shirt catch on the base of the escape door, baring my stomach which scratches against the rough wire. But I’m too full of adrenaline to care about the pain.

I pause for a moment, flex my forearms and pushed my stomach clear of the cage. The weight of my legs tugs sharply at my arms, and my body drops with a single jerking movement that takes my breath away. The mesh cuts into my fingers and drags at my wrists. My plan was to land paratrooper style, and hit the ground running, or at least tumble into some kind of kung fu safety roll. But as Len, Don and Rob reach up to grab me, my fingers slip and I fall, kicking one of the men on the way down, before crashing to the ground, winded, in a crumpled heap.

Driven by some primeval reflex, I immediately squirm out from between the men’s legs, scramble to my feet and break into a run. I’ve no idea why or where I’m running. I just keep on going, until after a few moments, a vague sense of sanity returns.

As I slow to a self-conscious jog, I feel a surge of relief that I am free from the cage and appear not to have hurt myself too badly. I also begin to feel rather foolish and, not wishing to confront Len, Don and Rob, I continue towards the despatch bay, where the goods are transferred from the cage, then loaded onto carts and taken up to the shop floor.

Most evenings the bay would still be busy with forklifts and packrats, whose task it is to load up each floor cart. But, it’s a Sunday night, and the store opens late on Mondays, so the carts stand still and empty.

The floor carts resemble grey plastic cupboards on wheels, which are linked together three or four at a time to form a short train. The trains are pulled by a fleet of electric trolleys, which look like the bastard offspring of a bobsleigh and a golf buggy.

I’ve no idea why the trolleys are so streamlined. They only have to pull the carts a couple of hundred yards through the tunnel to the lower ground floor of the shopping centre. And they never go faster than a milk float, so are unlikely to create much turbulence. I guess they are supposed to look futuristic.

As I reach the edge of the goods tunnel, I look back over my shoulder to check that neither Rob nor Don nor Len are following me. But all is quiet, save for a distant clanking, which I presume is the three of them still trying to coax the cage the last few feet to the floor.

Rats are not really meant to use the tunnel as a short cut. But there is no one about, and I want to get to the social club and Sophie as soon as possible. So, I ignore the large sign across the entrance, which says NO PEDESTRIAN ACCESS, and continue towards the shops.

The tunnel is painted a deep grey green and has a rubbery floor. It smells kind of new, but also kind of stale - like the insole of a two-month old trainer. I’ve never seen it so dim and deserted before. The tunnel’s soft yellow lights seem designed to create an eerie mood rather than to offer any serious attempt at industrial strength illumination. I guess they are the brainchild of the same design team who created the ‘jet ski’ nose of the electric goods trolley.

Halfway down the tunnel, it starts to feel quite creepy - like I am on the set of some low-budget horror flick. I break into a jog, and my footsteps make multiple echoes like a rockabilly snare drum, and I am relieved to emerge from the tunnel into the basement below the Bakers and Macey store.

The basement is octagonal like the shopping mall, and is bordered by four lift shafts. In the middle is a large open area where the floor carts are unhooked from the goods train, wheeled by hand into lifts, and taken up and down to the various levels of the store by the floor rats (who, according to the Baker and Macey caste system, are only one step removed from bone fide shop assistants). The floor of the basement is decorated with a pattern of coloured lino, like a giant green snowflake, marked with black scuffs where bored rats have performed stunts in empty carts.

I swipe my security card in lift three, tap the cage rat code into the key pad and wait for the lift to appear.

The social club is on the fourth floor, above the shops, and below the senior managers’ offices. But I decide to leave the lift at the third floor and take the stairs the rest of the way. This will make it look like I’ve taken the official route via the ground floor back entrance and past night security.

The lower two floors of the shopping complex are all taken up by various departments of the Bakers and Macey Store. The third floor, however, is made up of individual boutiques, which sell clothes and records and computer games and books. As I step out of the lift, the floor is deserted and dim. I shiver as I pass the clothes boutiques, where assorted mannequins stare out like different species of plastic aliens.

According to Martin, who studied marketing at college, the reason the mannequins are different is that it helps to give each shop a ‘unique brand identity’. That’s why they all have such distinctive signs, shop fittings, bags and other bits and pieces. It gives the impression that the third floor is a thriving example of the free market in action, offering choice, value, quality, inspiration. In fact, the whole thing is an illusion. Retail theatre, so Martin says.

Apparently, the boutiques are all totally owned by the Bakers and Macey group, and were created by the same retail design company. All the different bags are printed in the same factory in India. The various clothes are all made in the same factories in North Africa and the Fast East, anywhere where oppression and deprivation keep costs low.

The shoppers don’t care. They all identify with one shop or another, proudly clutching bags that tell the rest of the world I’m smart, I’m sporty, I’m rich, I’m trendy or whatever they wannabe. The shop assistants are just the same, looking down their noses at anyone who doesn’t work in their particular retail clique. Christ, even the workers in those African and Asian sweatshops are probably proud they’re making all that shit, glad that they’ve got a job and can earn enough to keep their families in rice and sweet potatoes, satellite dishes and powdered baby milk. So, I guess I shouldn’t really knock the third floor. The place is clean. It caters for all tastes. It makes people happy...and yet...there is still something rather chilling about it all.

Passing those shop fronts at night, you can see there is no substance to any of it. Martin’s right. The whole thing is one big cunningly branded hologram. You could flick a switch and it would be gone, irrelevant, nothing - leaving us all stood here naked as savages. However, like I say, I’m in no position to cast aspersions. I put up with all the shit, keep to my shifts and grab my grubby little pay packet as greedily as the next man. That’s the trouble, I guess. Even though I know it’s all bollocks, I still go along with it. And I still feel guilty for jumping from the cage and ignoring the ‘no pedestrian’ signs in the goods tunnel. I guess, like Sophie’s hair, I’m just very well conditioned.

I swipe my card at the staff door by The Surf Shack and climb the stairs back to the land of the living (or as close to that as Bakers and Macey comes). In the corridor outside the social club I meet Andy, one of the pack rats from the loading bay. Andy has a Freddy Mercury style moustache, and the dress sense of a darts player.

“All right mate? They let you out then?”

I am desperate to get to the social club to see if Sophie is still there. But I automatically stop to answer Andy, and lapse into rat-speak.

“I had to f’king jump for it. The f’king lift stopped 15 feet from the f’king floor.”

I expect Andy to be impressed, or at least make some exclamation of surprise. But he just nods and recites his usual mantra.

“Never ‘kin worked and it never ‘kin will”

I am slightly disappointed that Andy doesn’t show more reaction, Maybe I should have claimed 30 feet. Although, if I had really jumped that far, I would no doubt have ended up in casualty (and, probably, Andy would still have been unimpressed). I grunt a Neanderthal goodbye, and with a whole squadron of butterflies doing an aerobatic display in my guts, I finally enter the Social Club.

the social club

The Social Club consists of a few low tables and some cheap but comfortable chairs. They are arranged in rows in front of a small bar, with half-a-dozen optics and one kind of lager. There is also a blue pool table and a CD juke box. Sunday night is the one night the juke box is allowed to be plugged in. Two girls are stood in front of it, choosing dance tracks that remind them of the night before, bottoms jiggling to a thumping bass. The bottoms aren’t bad, but they ain’t Sophie’s.

My heart sinks as I look around the room. Most people have changed out of their staff uniforms and into something more casual. Most of their clothes are new, bought with staff discount cards from the third-floor boutiques. I am suddenly conscious of how scruffy I must look. My left trouser leg is half tucked into my sock. My T-shirt is hanging out beneath my half-buttoned coat, and my hair band has almost completely come loose, giving my hair that ‘hippy in a wind-tunnel’ look.

I feel like a tramp who’s gate crashed a posh dinner do - like Dustin Hoffman at that psychedelic party in Midnight Cowboy, hurriedly filling his pockets with finger foods before anyone realises he’s an impostor. I am quite relieved in a way that Sophie isn’t around to see me in such a state. Still, I can’t resist having a peek in the staff canteen next door, in case she’s sitting in there.

The canteen is empty, save for a couple having a heart to heart. They stare back at me, not welcoming the intrusion. I wave an apology and withdraw. I return to the social club and spot Clem. This isn’t difficult as he’s the only black guy in the place. As I head for the bar, I wave and mime necking a pint, then point to Clem’s near-empty glass.

Clem raises a flattened palm and taps his watch to show he has to make a move soon. I give Clem a ‘thumbs up’ and order myself a pint of Carling. As it is being poured, I take off my overall and bundle it into a loose ball. I re-tie my pony tail and brush my hand down the front of my T-shirt (as if this would magically render it ironed). I wince slightly as my hand brushes my ribs where they caught on the edge of the cage. Then, pint in hand, I make my way over to Clem with a rueful grin, preparing to tell him about my encounter with Don and Len.

Clem is sat in the corner and I have to negotiate my way past several people to reach him. They all move in an amicable manner, all that is except for Brett Brenner - a fat arsehole who manages the sports department. He is sprawled over two chairs, fat thighs akimbo like a male centrefold. He keeps his knees high, so that I have to hurdle them in slow motion. I glare at him as I clamber past. But Brett just carries on his conversation. I shake my head and grimace at Clem. He grins, and makes room for me on the edge of his seat.

“What a wanker,” I mutter, as I settle down beside Clem.

“Easy,” says Clem. “It’s Sunday night. Relax, unwind, ignore him.” He chuckles. I struggle to raise a smile.

“You all right man?” says Clem. “You look kind of down.”

I grimace again and shrug.

“Nah I’m all right. Just pissed off. Got stuck in the cage again. Can you believe it? Had to jump the last ten feet in the end.”

I’m pleased that Clem shows more reaction than Andy did.

“Jumped?” he says.

“Yea, Rob took about half an hour to turn up, then as soon as he got the cage going again, it stopped about 10-15 feet from the floor. I’d had enough by then. I thought I’m not fucking sitting here all night, so I kind of lowered myself out. Tell you what though, I bloody caught my ribs on the way down.” I gently tap my chest and pull a face.

Clem winces in sympathy. “Yea nasty,” he says. “Sounds like you earned your pint.”

I laugh.

“Leonard and Donald are not happy.”

“For sure,” says Clem.

I sip my pint and we sit and listen to the conversation happening next to us. We aren’t eavesdropping. We have no choice, not once that fat cunt gets going. I look across at Brett and scowl.

Brett has a crew cut, freshly jelled, and his head shines like the arse of an wet seal. He wears an American ice hockey style T-shirt, fresh from the packet, and baggy jeans from Surf Shack. Not that a standard longboard would actually bear his weight. Although, maybe that’s being a little unkind (to board makers), as I did once see a TV clip of an elephant on water skis.

Brett also wears a lot of gold. Chunky Gold. A row of sovereign rings on his knuckles. A couple of chains around his chubby red neck, and another around a wrist like a large German Wurst. His pride and joy, however, is a solid gold lighter, which he turns between his fingers as he talks, occasionally banging it into the palm of his hand to accentuate a particular point.

“I tell you it’s fucking mental,” he says, addressing Dave Mintoe, the sports department floor rat. “You’ll never make it man. It’s a mile swim right? End of October. It’s bloody freezing. You’ll end up getting hypothermia. Then up the side of a cliff on a bike? What’s the point in that? You’ll have to push it most of the way. If it was on a road I’d be up for it, mind. I was bloody fastest in my school on two wheels, me. But not up the side of a bloody mountain.”

I cannot quite picture Brett on a racing bike, somehow (it would be like that elephant on water skis). However, I’m not surprised at his boast. Brett claims to be the best at every sport or pastime he’s ever tried - Chess, Abseiling, Go-karting, Surfing. In Brettworld no one else ever makes it to the top of the winner’s rostrum - not even Dave Mintoe, who is an ex-marine, and has ridges in his forearms like he is held together by half-inch steel rope.

“Anyway,” continues Brett, shamelessly unaware of his own absurdity, “where you going to find three other cunts daft enough to make a team?”

“I’m not bothering,” says Dave. “I’m going to enter the individuals. You have to have a women in the team event, and you’ve got to cross the finishing line together. So you spend your whole time waiting around for her. Doesn’t matter how much you train, you’re still relying on her for your points.”

“Yea,” says Brett. “But you’d have someone to iron your kit for you...and give you a blow job if you got bored of running.” He swirls the remains of his Guinness in the bottom of his glass, then downs it in one, and from deep down in his guts, lets out an extended burp. Having cleared his throat, Brett rants on.

“Tell you what though, they reckon shagging’s good for you before sport. Mind you, you’d have to take it in turns, and she’s bound to be a right minger, if she’s into running and all that. Like the bloody hockey team at school. Not one bitch you’d want to give it to. Always some fanny-gnasher built like a fucking tank. You’d have to rub it in flour to find the damp patch.”

I feel my heckles rise. Some people think Brett’s funny, a ‘bit of lad’, a cheeky chappy who sometimes oversteps the mark, but is basically sound. Not me. I think he’s a total wanker and needs a good kicking. Besides, he is totally wrong about girls who do sport.

There was this girl at school called Sonia Evermore. She played wing attack for Westingshire under 18s, and she was flaming beautiful. I still get goosebumps thinking about her long brown legs and her almond shaped arse in those navy gym knickers she wore even in the sixth form. As I lose myself in fond memories of Sonia reaching up to take a shot in her tight lemon T-shirt, Clem takes advantage of a lull in Brett’s spiel to cut into the conversation.

“What you got there Dave?” he asks, leaning over to take a closer look at the red piece of paper Dave has been showing to Brett.

Brett, who’s been hunting in his jacket for a fresh pack of Marlboros, looks up to see who has dared to interrupt his discussion. He looks as if he’s about to say ‘mind your own f-ing business.’ But then realises it’s Clem and thinks better of it. Dave passes Clem the paper.

“Hellathon,” he says. “You up for it?”

I glance over Clem’s shoulder at the piece of red paper, headed Westingshire Hellathon. The heading is decorated with two clip art devils with tridents. They are tormenting a very weary looking cartoon runner. Underneath is a box with details of the event.

HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO GO TO HELL AND BACK?

Join the ultimate multi-terrain triathlon on October 14th in the heavenly but challenging setting of the Westingshire Coastal Park.

SWIM 1k to Barrow Island, from Hoxley Point.

CYCLE 20k over woodland and mountain tracks.

RUN 10k all off road

ASSAULT COURSE to finish! (including the notorious MUD BATH - have you got what it takes?)

V. undulating course!

Medals and T-shirts to all finishers. Spot prizes and Trophies for top three male and female athletes. Plus age group prizes for over 35, over 45 and over 55. Entry forms available from Town Hall, Westing Central Library and Sidney Preece Leisure Centre.

All competitors must sign a declaration to state that they are medically fit to participate and enter at their own risk. The organisers will not be held responsible for any injury or illness that may be caused as a result of this event.

N.B. This event is not approved by the British Triathlon Association.

Clem finishes reading and laughs. “I’m too old and tired for that, man.” He hands the piece of paper back to Dave, drains his pint, and stands up. “I’m going to have to get goin’. Sharne got her dancing lesson tonight. Don’t want her standing around on the street. Catch you guys later. And, hey, good luck with the...” He mimes a guy running and laughs like a hyena.

Clem nods to Brett and Dave, and we touch fists. Then he negotiates his way to the door, smiling and waving to several other people before disappearing off to pick up his daughter.

Brett snorts.

“He’d never be able to make it anyway! Niggers are no good at that kind of thing.”

I feel my body stiffen with anger. My head swims and my heart begins to beat wildly. Dave looks sheepish, but just nods and sips his drink, allowing Brett to continue.

“No, don’t get me wrong, give old Clem there a basketball, and he’d be in his element, yea? But they’ve got different muscles from us. They’re all right over a hundred metres on a straight track. But you get them in the mud and the cold they’ll never beat us. That’s why they always hold the Olympics in the middle of summer. It’s a fucking set-up. When was the last time you saw a fucking black skier, or a fucking nig nog up a mountain. It’s the same with Pakis. Crap at football. Crap at rugby. Come the cricket season they’re all over the park like fucking dog turds.”

I can take no more. I stand up from my seat, step in front of Brett, and stab the air angrily with my finger.

“I’ll tell you what’s fucking crap, you and the fucking shit you speak.”

Brett looks shocked. He starts to get to his feet, but then shakes his head with an incredulous grin and sits down again, avoiding eye contact. I continue.

“Clem isn’t a fucking nigger, or whatever else you want to call him. He’s a decent bloke, and he’d fucking piss on you in a race, you ignorant fat bastard.”

Brett stands up, but still doesn’t make eye contact. I step back slightly, but keep talking. The room falls silent. Everyone is looking over at me, listening.

“You think you’re so fucking great at everything. But I could fucking do that course quicker than either of you bastards. You’re just...

“Hey,” interrupts Dave “I never said...”

“Oh fuck you both,” I say and storm off.

Brett brushes shoulders with me, but it is a half-hearted effort, and I am far too fired up to care. I charge out of the room, walking through people rather than round them, causing them to gasp and curse, as they dodge out of my way.

“Go back to selling the big issue you fucking weirdo,” Brett shouts after me. “Don’t know why they give ‘em jobs here. The place is turning into a bloody travellers camp.”

I hear a couple of girls giggle. It doesn’t surprise me. I flounce down the corridor in a blind rage and crash through the doors to the stairs, practically sending some other girl flying.

It’s only after a couple of steps, that I realise who I’ve just barged into. I turn to see Sophie, her face filled with surprise.

the Driftwood saga

I sit beside Sophie in the Rising Sun, at a quiet table for two. I should feel ecstatic. It’s what I’ve been dreaming of all week. But it feels like a nightmare, the way everything always does after I’ve lost it.

When I was about three, we had this ‘robot’ car. You put a punch card in it and it drove itself around in different patterns. It was nothing like the remote control racing cars you get these days, but at age three - in an era before computer games - I thought it was magic, and played with it for hours.

The robot car had these strange industrial strength batteries, and I soon learned how to pull the back off and get them out. One day, one of the batteries started leaking and I sucked the acid from it. Don’t ask me why. It’s the kind of thing three-year-olds do.

I didn’t want to tell my mum and dad, as I thought I’d be told off. Instead I went to the bathroom and got out my pee step (a plastic box, which I stood on when I wanted to use the loo). I moved it beside the sink, climbed up, turned the cold tap full on and hosed my mouth out. It must have done the trick, as I didn’t die or anything. But I can still remember the taste of that battery acid, which comes back to haunt me at moments like these. And I know the sourness must show all over my face.

“I still don’t see why you got in such a state,” says Sophie. “You were lucky Brett didn’t end up flattening you.”

“He was lucky I didn’t bloody flatten him.” I gulp at my pint and scowl. “Sorry.” I try to smile. “He just winds me up so much.”

“I can see that,” says Sophie. She raises her eyebrows and stares at me with mock severity. The look reminds me of a trainee teacher, trying to simultaneously understand and admonish a misbehaving child.

I sigh. I’ve already tried to explain three times about my argument with Brett. But the more I say, the more flustered I become, and the more stupid the whole thing sounds.

“I know Brett can be a bit over the top,” says Sophie. “But you can’t start swearing at someone in the middle of the social club, just because they say something you don’t agree with.”

“So it’s all right to call Clem a nigger then?”

“No, not at all.” She pauses. “How did Clem react? Did he say anything?”

“He’d already gone by then.”

“Well who else did he say it to then?”

“Well, just Dave really. But...”

Sophie gives me a well-there-you-are-then look. She has one of those faces that can express more in a half-a-second than I ever could in half-an-hour.

“Look,” I say. “Shall we talk about something else. The last thing I want to do is sit here arguing with you.”

“I didn’t think we were arguing.”

“You know what I mean.” I swig the last of my Stella. I nod at her glass. “What would you like?”

Sophie glances down at her watch. It’s gold and has a slim strap with a narrow oval face, which sparkles as if it had been sprinkled with extra fine glitter. It seems more like a toy than the real thing - the kind of watch you might pull out of a cracker. But it looks OK on her, as anything would.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is hesitant. “I should be getting home. My bus goes in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, well. I guess you better get going then.” I push my chair back, and try to mask my disappointment. “Actually, I should probably be making a move.”

Sophie nods.

“Where are you off to?”

I shrug.

“Oh, you know...”

We walk towards the bus stops by the station, side by side, but not together. The gap between us is probably only a couple of feet, but it feels like some fissure in the pavement that goes down for miles and miles.

The smell of beer, curry and garlic bread blows from the kitchens of pubs and restaurants. The streets are quiet, about what you’d expect for the second Sunday in March, small groups of friends out for a drink, chatting about football and films.

We are a short distance from the station when Sophie turns to me.

“There’s something I keep meaning to ask you,” she says.

“Oh yes?” I smile (my first real one of the evening).

“Is that really your name, Newton Driftwood?”

I generally respond with sarcasm to this question (it’s one I’ve been asked a hundreds times). However, I am so pleased that Sophie has broken the awkward silence between us, I reply with unexpected sincerity.

“Yea, but there’s a bit of a story behind it.”

“OK,” she says. “Tell me.”

We sit down on a bench inside one of the bus shelters.

“It’s a bit complicated. I might not finish before your bus comes. You know what I’m like, once I...”

“Well,” she interrupts. “Why don’t you start then ...”

“OK I will if you give me a flaming chance.” I grin.

“OK” she says.

“Sitting comfortably?”

“Yeeesss.” She laughs.

“Then I’ll begin…In about 1893, there was a terrible storm in Westingshire and the rain was so heavy it caused a huge landslide a couple of miles from Budleigh Salterton. The cliffs collapsed and load of trees fell into the sea. In the morning, they discovered huge branches and even whole trees washed up on the beach. And among them was what they thought was a dead body. The villagers called the local bobby and a doctor, and when they arrived, they realised the man was still alive. So they took him on the back of a cart to the cottage hospital at Fettlington, which is about eight miles away. After a few hours the guy came round. But he couldn’t speak a word of English. He had no identification on him, and he’d totally lost his memory. Didn’t even know his own name.

Sophie leans towards me listening intently.

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m coming to that. Anyway they had to give him a name. So they called the police constable to see if he’d found any papers at the scene. But all he had were some notes he’d made, which described finding the man lying like a piece of driftwood on the beach. So after that, all the nurses called him Mr Driftwood. The man looked kind of dark, so they guessed he must have been a sailor or a foreign fisherman who’d been washed off a boat in the storm. It made him seem very exotic and apparently quite a few of the nurses were rather taken with him. And he was rather taken with one of the nurses, my great grandmother, who taught him to speak English, and eventually married him. She passed the story down to her sons, and her youngest son was my grandad - Reggie Driftwood.”

“Reggie Diftwood. Are you making this up?” says Sophie.

“I swear its true,” I say placing my hand on my chest. “ I wouldn’t be called Driftwood otherwise, would I?”

“No I suppose not.” She still looks sceptical, but adds, “It’s a very romantic story.”

The headlights of a bus flash across the front of the shelter, and, with a squeal of brakes, it pulls in. Its engine rumbles, hungry for passengers.

“My bus,” says Sophie. It is the 54, which goes to Wooton Heights - not the poshest suburb of Westing, but close.

“I can get this one,” I lie.

“I didn’t know you live out this way.”

“Well, yea, kind of...” (as in, kind of in the opposite direction).

A man pushes past us. He is about 40 or so, and North African in appearance, with a slightly pock marked face. He isn’t being rude, just over anxious about catching his bus. We step away from the door.

“You want to hear the end of the story don’t you?” I say.

The bus doors hiss loudly, and the driver calls down to us.

“You want this one then or not?”

“Yea,” I say, “Sorry.” I jump up both steps in a single stride. “Seventy please mate.”

Sophie follows, pulling her bus pass from her purse. The pass looks as clean and crisp as the day that it was issued.

I sit down near the back and Sophie sits across the aisle from me. I am slightly disappointed she doesn’t sit right next to me. But there are about 40 empty seats on the bus. And it’s not like we are going out together or anything.

“Sorry,” she says. “You don’t have to go three miles out of your way just to finish the story.”

“Oh no it wasn’t just that, I...” I pause, embarrassed. Sophie appears not to notice.

“What happened to your grandad?”

“My great-grandad?”

“Reggie.”

“Oh, he lives with mum now. He had a stroke about three years ago. He could hardly speak or walk. It was like he’d had about fifteen double whiskies, and one side of his face went completely dead. It just hung there like he was made of plastic and he’d sat too close to the fire. He has to take it easy now. But back in the fifties and sixties he was a legend in Westing. He was a salesman, out on the roads, what they used to call a commercial traveller. You name a car or van, he’s driven it. His life is like a history of light commercial vehicles of the 20th Century. I think, he even used to deliver to the original Bakers and Macey store at one time.”

The bus hits a speed bump and we are jolted into the air. We look at each other and grin as we both pull faces of exaggerated bottom pain.

“Do you have any other grandparents?” asks Sophie.

“No, just Reggie now. My gran went a few years ago. One of those freak accidents. She took my sister Janine to see The Empire Strikes Back at the Odeon, and tripped on the stairs on the way out. She was only about four steps up, but hit her head on the wall, knocked herself out and had a brain haemorrhage. She was in a coma for a couple of weeks, but then they pulled the plug on her.”

“Oh how horrible for you, and for her.”

“Well, she would never have known anything about it, I guess. And I was too young to realise what was going on. They thought Janine might be traumatised, but she just wanted to go back and see the cabbage.”

“The cabbage?”

“Yoda. You know, the Jedi Master - that weird little green guy who speaks backwards. She thought he looked like one, I guess, because his head was kind of wide and bobbly. Maybe she’d seen something similar on Sesame Street. I don’t know.” I pause for a moment. “How about you?”

“What?”

“Are your grandparents, still, you know...?”

“Only my nan,” says Sophie. “My grandad died a couple of years ago, and I never knew my dad’s parents. He’s quite a bit older than my mum.”

I nod. “Sorry, this is a bit morbid isn’t it.”

“I know,” gushes Sophie.

“Oh well...” I say, quietly.

I’m still thinking of Nan lying there with all the tubes connected to her. I picture sitting in the hospital corridor with my sister and my brother Max. I’d insisted on wearing my football kit, and mum and dad were too tired to argue. I can feel the plastic of the chair on the back of my thighs, hear the low murmur of the consultant’s voice from inside the room. I shiver.

“So,” says Sophie brightly, “How come you’re called Newton then?”

“It’s another long story.”

“OK.” Sophie pretends to brace herself.

“Well, my mum got a scholarship to Westing Girls School, and then went on to study physics at University. That’s where she met my dad, Derrick, who was studying engineering. She called my brother Max - after Max Planck, the forefather of Quantum Theory - which Reggie wasn’t happy about. Then when I came along, mum decided to name me Isaac after Sir Isaac Newton. And Grandad went ballistic.

According to my Aunt Sheila, he thought the name sounded too Jewish. Not that he’s a Nazi or anything. In fact, the Germans are probably the people he hates most. I remember we were watching Wimbledon a few years back and Boris Becker came on. I asked Reggie who he thought would win, and he said, ‘I don’t care as long as it’s not that bloody Jerry.’ He’s just the same during the World Cup.

Mind you, he did spend three years in the Atlantic being torpedoed by U-boats. So it’s kind of understandable. And, to be fair, he has mellowed a bit recently - even reads the Guardian (well, he used to, until his eyes went). He listens to Radio Four now instead. I think he’s actually quite a clever bloke on the quiet. Just never had much of an education. That’s probably why he hated my mum going to University. I think he was jealous. He always used to go on and on about having to leave school at fourteen and my mum thinking she was better than the rest of us.

Anyhow, after they’d had this big row about calling me Isaac, my mum agreed to call me Ian instead. But when she got to the Registrar of Births, she flipped and said my name was Newton. My Aunt reckons it was post-natal depression. But I reckon she was just having one of her loopy turns. She does that sometimes. So, there you are, I really am Newton Driftwood. It used to be worse actually. At school I was called Newton Driftwood-Noone. Had to have two lines for my name in the Register.”

I realise Sophie is looking out of the bus window into the darkness.

“Sorry, I’m rambling. You should have told me to shut up. I just go on forever otherwise, like one of those Duracell bunnies.”

“No, no,” she says. She turns to face me. “I was listening. It’s a lot more interesting than being called Sophie Keene.”

I resist the temptation to ask, ‘and are you?’

“I think its a nice name,” I say.

“What, Keene?”

“No, Sophie. Well, both. I...”

“You sound close to your family,” says Sophie.

“Well, kind of.”

I realise, as I say that, that I’ve not visited mum and dad or Reggie since Christmas. I feel a sudden pang of guilt - like I’ve swallowed a large stone. I bet Brett Brenner pops in to see his grandad in some nursing home every week. Probably the nurses and the little old ladies all look forward to his visits, amused and flattered by his unfunny shite, like the audience of some dated TV game show. God, life is a fucking mess.

“You all right?” asks Sophie. “You looked really sad just then.”

“Just knackered,” I smile.

“You better not be too knackered,” she says. “Not if you’ve got to do this Triathlon from Hell thing.”

“Me?”

“You said you challenged Brett and Dave to a race or something.”

“Well, not exactly.”

“You can’t back down now,” she says. “Anyway I think the triathlon sounds a good idea. Help you get rid of some of your tension.”

“What tension?”

She pulls a face.

“Anyway, I haven’t even got a bike.”

“Well you could buy one. Or get someone to lend you one. You must know somebody who’s got an old bike?”

It suddenly occurs to me that, actually, Reggie has a bike he doesn’t use any more. After he had his stroke, the doctor suggested he should do some exercise, walking or even a bit of gentle cycling. So Reggie, being Reggie, ordered himself an eighteen speed racer from the Gratton catalogue. He rode it a few times (mainly to wind my mum up). But he couldn’t get on with the saddle. Said it gave him piles. So, for the last couple of years, the bike’s been rusting away at the back of dad’s garage .

I begin to feel better. I decide, as soon as I get home, I’ll ring mum and arrange to go and see grandad. I’ll buy him a big bottle of whisky, then ask if I can borrow the bike. I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to buy Reggie off. I know he would just give the bike to me anyway, spoiling me the way he always does. But I want to make a fresh start. Visit more regularly. Get fit again.

I decide I will definitely give the Triathlon a go. Mum would be pleased, and dad. He’s always going on at me to do something more worthwhile with my life. ‘We don’t mind what you choose to do, Newton, we just wish you’d do it properly.’ The Hellathon would shut him up for a bit.

We reach Wooton Heights, and I follow Sophie off the bus. We walk along a street of detached houses and bungalows with manicured lawns and fake antique lamps illuminating freshly painted porches. It’s like where mum and dad live, only ever so slightly posher.

We pause at the bus stop.

“Oh well, see you later in the week, I’m off until Wednesday now.”

“I’m off on Wednesday this week,” says Sophie.

“Maybe catch you for a cup of tea Thursday then?”

She nods.

My heart starts to beat madly. “I’m sorry about tonight. You’ve been really nice about everything. I kind of owe you one.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says.

“I just wondered,” I continue. “If you’re not doing anything later in the week. Maybe we could go out for a drink, a proper one. I promise not to talk all evening.”

She half laughs, half splutters, as if choking on an invisible breezer. Then quickly regains her composure.

“I do aquarobics on Wednesdays, and I promised Sandra I’d go out with her one night this week, so...”

“Look it doesn’t matter. It was just a thought.”

I feel a right fool.

“Thanks for seeing me home,” she says. She reaches out and squeezes my arm. Her grip is sensual, tender, beautiful. But it feels like a consolation prize.

“Yea, no worries,” I say.

And without making proper eye contact, I smile a goodbye and walk away.

“Good luck with your training,” she calls after me.

I walk a few more steps and then turn around to wave, but she’s disappeared into one of the gardens. I sigh and begin the three mile trudge home just as the first spots of rain start to fall.

All fiction on this site is © Copyright Roger Frederick 2005 All Rights Reserved