Final Demand (2 page)

Later they stood in the smokers' doorway, the two of them. Beside them, the extractor fan whirred out curry smells from the canteen. The fog had cleared; sunlight gleamed on the rows of parked cars. A white dog sat between a Range Rover (Management) and the rusting van belonging to Derek (Dispatch), the object of Stacey's lust.

‘What did you mean about the cheques?' Natalie asked. The dog stared at them with a fixed expression, as if remembering them for later.

‘It's dead simple,' replied Farida. ‘Like, there used to be a dental suppliers called C. Ash. What dentists did was write out a cheque, leaving out the full stop. Then they withdrew the cash, claiming it was business. Pathetic really, but it mounted up.'

‘So what about here?'

‘Easy. If your initials were N.T. you could write in the rest of your name and pocket the cheque.'

‘That easy?'

‘Have to have the right initials, of course. You and I couldn't – well, you could with the Natalie bit, I suppose.' She flicked away her butt. ‘That's why people should pay by direct debit. That's what Bashir says.'

Farida went indoors. Natalie ground out her cigarette with the toe of her boot. The curtains of cloud had lifted; beneath them, between the buildings, the moors glowed with a lemony light. They looked like a stage set, like a show ready to begin.

Natalie couldn't move. She felt the blood draining from her body, down to her feet, leaving her weightless.

She looked at the dog. It held her gaze. Then it turned its head away and licked its balls.

The block of flats where she lived was called Meadowview. Somebody had a sense of humour. In the barricaded shop across the street, Natalie bought a bottle of wine. When she took the change, her hand was trembling.

She stepped outside. It was all strange to her – the heavy brick buildings, bathed in sodium light; the plastic seats at the bus stop. It was as if she was seeing them for the first time. Her own unfamiliarity filled her with panic. Heart thudding, she crossed the street, let herself in and walked up to their flat on the third floor. Soon I'll be out of here, she thought. Stay calm, it can happen.

Natalie went into the kitchen. A lone man had moved in next door; through the wall she heard his kettle whistling. She fetched a bowl and filled it with Bombay Mix. She was no home-maker – nor in fact was Kieran, they were similar in this respect – but tonight she plumped up the cushions like a housewife. She lit a candle and set out the wine glasses.

Hours seemed to pass before Kieran arrived home. He unzipped his leathers. She always loved this moment when he sloughed off the outside world.

He kissed her, slumped down in the armchair and felt for his Rizlas. There was something wrong with his bike, he said; she didn't catch what, she couldn't concentrate. His mate
Keith tried to fix it but apparently it needed a whole new something.

She watched him as he licked the papers and laid them on his knee. ‘It's OK,' she said. ‘You won't have to worry about that.'

He bared his gums. ‘Got my teeth cleaned today, just for you. Like 'em?'

‘Soon you could buy a whole new bike.'

He looked at her, puzzled.

‘A whole new set of teeth,' she said.

She started speaking. He was assembling the spliff. As she told him her plan his hands came to a standstill.

‘You what?'

‘It'd be so simple, see. I'd only do small sums, a hundred pounds here, a hundred pounds there. Not enough to notice.'

‘But that's stealing.'

‘What do
you
do each week?'

‘That's different—'

‘Signing on, claiming benefits?'

‘But you'll get found out.'

Natalie ignored his tone. Her voice rose in excitement. ‘No – see, I'd process their bills as paid, I've worked it out, it's bloody brilliant.'

He lit the joint and, with a hiss, sucked in the smoke. ‘How have you worked it out?' His pale, bony face looked at her. With his hair scraped back like that he looked Slavic, a horseman of the Steppes.

‘I'd log into the Processing program . . .' She explained how she would do it. As she spoke, the white dog flashed in front of her – sitting motionless, watching her face.

‘You're bonkers,' Kieran said.

‘I'd open building society accounts and pay in the money. And we could go on holiday. We could move somewhere nicer, somewhere with bus shelters that aren't smashed.' She smiled at him. ‘You could buy a 1,000-cc Harley with a nice new whatever.'

Kieran didn't offer her the joint. She didn't dare reach for it; she didn't dare move.

‘I can't believe you're saying this.'

‘It's just an idea,' she said. ‘I thought you'd be up for it, all the stuff you've told me, about what you did when you were a kid—'

‘So how're you going to change your surname? Look a bit suspicious, wouldn't it? Just suddenly calling yourself something different.'

There was a silence.

‘We could get married,' she said.

He stared at her. ‘What?'

‘Then I would be Natalie Turner. N.T.'

In the kitchen the tap dripped – plunk, plunk – on to the heaped-up plates in the sink. She didn't look at Kieran. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him leaning forward, his shoulders hunched, gazing at the carpet.

‘I mean, I'm thirty-two,' she said casually. ‘Other people do it . . . Maureen and Farida and your brother and, well . . . people
do
get married . . .'

‘Yeah.'

‘I mean, we've lived together for three years . . .' A little laugh. ‘It's not such an odd thought, is it? I mean, we've never talked about it, but, you know . . .'

Kieran didn't speak. She felt heat spreading into her face. He cleared his throat. She couldn't look at him, not now, not ever.

‘Forget it,' she muttered.

‘Look, Nat—'

‘Who wants to get married anyway? It's only a bit of paper.'

‘Didn't know you were thinking about it—'

‘I wasn't. Not really.'

‘I mean, if you really want—'

‘Forget it. I didn't mean it.'

Oh, the embarrassment, the horror of it. Natalie got up and went into the kitchen. Clattering and banging, in a fury of mortification, she washed up last night's dishes.

They didn't speak of it again. All week the conversation lay between them like a dead weight. I thought I knew him, Natalie reflected bitterly. How could I have got him so terribly wrong? She told none of her girlfriends about that humiliating night; their pity, their contempt for Kieran, and their rallying female solidarity would have been too much to bear.

To an outsider they carried on as before. Kieran was out most evenings. He was helping his dad, who was an electrician, refurbish a bar. This sudden interest in work was obviously an avoidance tactic. Back home they were polite with each other, as if they had recently met; Kieran was uncharacteristically solicitous – no flare-ups, no irritability. He even took their washing to the launderette. Natalie had no idea what was going on in his mind, none at all.

She had forgotten the conversation that had prompted this whole business. Tampering with cheques . . . how ludicrous it seemed now! How could she have entertained such a thought? Maybe it had spooked him. She tried to convince herself of this: that her plan had shaken him to the core and it would take him a while to recover. She tried to justify it this way, but it didn't work. The truth was simpler: he didn't love her the way she loved him.

On Friday her wages were smaller than usual. She took the pay slip to Mrs Roe, her supervisor, a woman with a mole on her chin, a woman who, until this week, Natalie had considered past it. But things were different now. Mrs Roe was a woman somebody had loved enough to marry; no doubt there was a Mr Roe around, oiling his lawnmower ready for spring. No doubt there were Roe children, grown-up now, who dropped in for Sunday lunch. Natalie gazed at Mrs Roe with venom.

‘There must be some mistake,' she said.

‘Ah yes,' said her supervisor. ‘I presume you were informed. It only affects the smokers.' She gazed out of the window, at the rain-lashed car park. ‘You should have received a letter.'

Natalie shoved official-looking letters behind her toaster. ‘I never got a letter,' she said.

‘Those who smoke, and choose to do so in the designated areas, are from this month onwards subject to a mandatory time penalty.'

‘A what?'

‘The equivalent minutes are deducted from their wages – seven minutes, to be precise, mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Fourteen minutes in total.'

Natalie stared at her. ‘You must be joking.' Mrs Roe was unmoved. She didn't care; in a month she would be retired and living on Lundy.

‘It's so unfair!' said Natalie. ‘They don't give a toss, not about us. You know how much profit they made last year?'

She was sitting with Kieran in a Slug and Lettuce. Though outraged, a small part of her was secretly gratified by NT's behaviour. It would draw Kieran closer to her, in sympathy.

Friday night, and the place was heaving with people. Natalie had to shout to make herself heard. ‘They don't give a toss, what a dump! Monday morning I'm going to give in my notice.'

Things were easier between them; she felt it. A good moan put things back to normal. Happiness swept through her. So what if her boyfriend didn't want to marry her? Until recently she had felt exactly the same.

‘Fuck 'em,' she said. ‘Fuck them all.'

Natalie was a spirited young woman, toughened by life, for she had learnt resilience at an early age. It had been a humiliating week but all that was over now. She had an adorable boyfriend; he might be feckless, but in his own way he loved her. He just wasn't the marrying kind.

Kieran traced a puddle of beer with his finger. She gazed at his bent head, his hair scraped back from a centre parting. To tell the truth she didn't like his long hair, it made him look girlie, but what the hell. He was the best lover she had ever had.
He could make her come just by touching her nipple with his finger.

He hadn't spoken, but then he had never been overly interested in her work. It was beyond his comprehension, how people could work at office jobs, nine to six, day in day out. So she just thought that his mind had drifted. They were going to a Michael Douglas film later.

He looked up. ‘Natalie, we've got to talk.'

‘What?'

‘This is kind of hard, sweetheart . . .' He stood up. ‘Let's get out of here.'

His mate Dexter arrived with the van he drove, for kids with learning disabilities. Natalie, sitting on the bed, heard the thuds in the hallway as they removed Kieran's belongings.

After a while the thuds ceased. Down in the street the van drove away. The engine rattled; there was something wrong with the exhaust.

Kieran tapped on the door, already a visitor. He put his set of keys on the bed. Under the leather jacket he wore the green sweater she had given him for his birthday, back in August. This was the first time she had seen him wearing it.

‘Let's stay in touch.' He hesitated, then he kissed her forehead. ‘You going to be OK?'

What reply could she give to this? She took the piece of paper he gave her. A phone number was written on it. Dex had apparently found him a room; maybe they had spent all week looking for one. She didn't have the energy to speculate.

Kieran gazed around the walls. Maybe he was checking he hadn't forgotten something; maybe he was remembering this bedroom for later. She doubted this; he lived simply, in the present. He had already disappeared from this place.

‘Take care,' he said, and then he was gone. A moment later she heard the roar of his motorbike, for the last time.

Natalie, who seldom phoned her mother, tried the last number she had been given. It was somewhere in the Dundee area.

‘Nobody of that name here,' said a voice and rang off.

Later, after a spell of inaction sitting in the kitchen, she went to collect her car from the garage. It was already dark; Saturday's meagre spell of daylight seemed to have come and gone without her noticing it.

The garage was up an alleyway, under a bridge. The cobbles shone greasily in the lamplight.

‘Thursday last, a girl was stabbed along there,' said the mechanic. ‘She was a Hungarian.'

Natalie leaned against her car. She had drunk the best part of a bottle of wine – maybe all of it, she couldn't remember.

‘Can't take no chances,' he said. ‘You're a wise girl, getting an alarm fitted.' He moved closer. ‘This here activates it . . . series of beeps, listen . . . you press this, here, it immobilizes the engine.'

She tried to concentrate. They were alone. Outside, a train rattled past; the tins on the shelves trembled.

‘And I fitted you a nice new radio.'

She said: ‘Looks like I've bought back my old one.'

‘Naughty naughty.' The mechanic wiped his hands on a rag. His nose was red and spongy, as if made from different material to the rest of his face. Yesterday, when she had brought in the car, it had been another man here. The garage seemed changed too – more cramped and lurid, with girlie calendars on the wall. Overnight her old life had gone, and been replaced by things that were entirely unfamiliar. She wouldn't have been surprised to find, when she returned home, that her flat had disappeared.

The man took her credit card and swiped it through his machine. ‘Oh oh,' he said, ‘who's been a bad girl then?'

‘What?'

‘Won't take it. You've exceeded your limit.'

She paused. ‘Can I pay by instalments?'

He passed her the card. ‘Only if I can look at your tits.'

Natalie's head swam.
I'm drunk.

‘Let's take a look at those boobies.' He moved to the door. It was one of those up-and-over ones. Grasping the lever, he started to slide it down.