Half Plus Seven (6 page)

‘Ah, there he is. What seems to be the problem with him then?'

‘Well, I've had a woman look at it. A woman doctor I mean. And she thinks I may have a genital wart…'

He took my cock in his cold left hand, the silver of his wedding band sending a chill through my nervous bell-end.

‘It's hard to say for sure as these things come and go without ever really going. And strictly speaking you've come to the wrong place, but I'm never averse to checking out a little fella. You really should go and visit the specialist genito-urinary medicine clinic over at the hospital. But what I can do is give you a referral so you won't have to queue up for too long.'

I put it back in my pants while the doc scribbled out a slip for me and then pressed it into my palm, his hand warmer this time.

‘Thanks,' I said.

‘Glad to be of help, lad.'

As I left the office I could hear him muttering ‘Carter Road' over and over under his breath. He laughed to himself as I shut the door. Mrs Walters gave me a stinking look.

My email account was a magnet for electronic missives that ranged from the banal to the biting to the bizarre. If it wasn't Miles demanding a forward planning meeting on the Brompton account, or Carol after inspiration for a strapline for a new brand of hand lotion, it was Jill telling me what a cunt she thought Miles was and asking if I agreed, or messages from a Ukrainian blonde declaring her desire for a strong man to start a big family and make long love. I don't think it helped that I clicked through on these ones.

Every now and again though, Trent would mail me the CV of girls who'd applied for a job with the company, sadly thinking that working with us could be their first step on the ladder to a meaningful career in the media industries. Delusion. Now, as you've probably already guessed, I wasn't part of the recruitment team, God forbid. How Trent had got the gig was beyond me. But there was fortitude in Trent's forwarding. Pressing ‘send' meant I could search the young hopefuls on Facebook and we could compare marks out of ten and work out whether or not we'd need to shave/iron/not smell of booze on the day they'd come in for a grilling.

Trent's real name was Kevin Fisher but he'd changed it by deed poll because he thought it made him sound more Hollywood. He had aspirations of becoming an actor but with a portfolio that boasted two kitchen cleaner commercials, a callback to play bus driver #2 in a television dramatisation of the 7/7 London bombings, and five long empty years of lounging on his arse, we all knew Trent should change his name back to Kevin and be done with it. But the guy loved tail and talking about tail, and for this I tolerated him. It was better than writing punch-myself-in-the-face press releases. This morning's inbox contained one of those ‘now and then' moments.

From: trent.rogers@morgan&schwarzmorgan&schwarz.com

To: bill.mcdare@morgan&schwarz.com

Subject: The new project

Christy Kelkin

Tel: 07723 765678

Email: [email protected]

Personal statement:

Highly efficient administrator seeking positions vacant. The position should allow the application of organisational skills. Highly motivated and able to take the lead in achievement of the business' vision and mission. Ready to use report writing and project presentation skills for the advancement of the company.

Educational Qualification:

• Diploma in Business Administration from the Miller School of Business in 2011
  
• Certificate in Secretarial Studies from the Lee Community Secretarial School in 2012.
  

Other Qualifications:

• e-Type Touch Typing Award
  
• Japanese GSCE.
  

Work Experience:

2012 – 2013 Administrative Assistant at One Voice Music Enterprise

• Organised company functions and events
  
• Kept records of the company's events and progress
  
• Organised and kept schedules for managerial team
  
• Met with clients and ensured that they were well informed on the company's policies
  
• Provided information to prospective and current clients
  
• Assisted in the preparation and presentation of reports.
  

Achievements

Assisted in the development of a new and innovative record keeping system software.

Interesting. Well, ish. She had a foreign-sounded name and seemed practically teenage. Good fucking Lord. I logged onto the internet, found Facebook and tapped the name ‘Christy Kelkin' into the search bar. Not surprisingly, there was only one.

Christy Kelkin
…
is laughing. To herself.

Gender
Female

Birthday
15th February 1990

Basic info

Siblings
Joe Kelkin

Relationship status
It's complicated

Political views
Look after yourself, they won't

Religious views
Ha

Bio
Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not

Favourite quotations
There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened – Mark Twain

Likes and interests 
Music
Nirvana, Nick Cave 
Films
Disney

These days, you could tell more about someone by trawling through the open-hearted hooey they saw fit to share over the World Wide Web than you did by sleeping with them. Sure, you'd swapped bodily fluids and made her call you daddy, but did you know that her favourite novel was
The Bell Jar
?

So, what of this one? Well, she seemed just like the kind of teenage car-crash that would have the office's alpha males turning hard at the mere thought of her vulnerability. These were the kind of girls guys in our industry preyed upon. Young, appreciative of dark, heartfelt music, impressionable, damaged.

But what of her marks out of ten? Well, it was pretty difficult to assess a piece of ass when she hid behind a Hallowe'en mask in her profile picture. Bringing down the office sport like that. Trent would be disappointed.

It wasn't long before we got to see behind the mask. Trent had discovered she was booked in for an interview with Miles in two days' time. The company was in desperate need of a new receptionist after what happened to the previous incumbent of the front desk's red swivel chair. The incident had become known as ‘
Die Dina Debacle'.
Not because Dina had died, but because Jill, the septic source of much of the office's trash talk, had spent two years as an au pair in Bavaria and was a sucker for alliteration and the unnecessary use of foreign words.

Dina was a nice well-meaning young lady. Her wholesomeness rooted in her rural upbringing. The only daughter of a widowed down-at-heel dairy farmer, her self-sufficiency and strong moral fibre made her the perfect filter for the trumped-up businessmen, tricky callers and time wasters that swam to our switchboard each and every working day. She'd ask for names and numbers as a rule, tell phone spammers we were stuck in strategy meetings, or solve problems herself with a wherewithal and wit that were rarely seen – but highly desired – as the front-face of an organisation like ours.

But then along came Trent. He'd email me on an almost hourly basis how Dina's ruddy cheeks rubbed him up the right way and what he'd like to do to her given half the chance. But the problem was, unlike most of the girls who slid in through our swing door, she wasn't giving him even half of half a chance. She was dedicated to her work, not swapping fuck-me looks with the account handlers. Trent realised he would have to up his game. While most men faced with unrequited lust would work hard to woo a potential lover with poetry, posies or platitudes, Trent took a slightly different approach. It was the tradition for non-married members of the office to share a few drinks on a Friday night before heading off to a weekend of whatever lay ahead. Car boot sales for Pete, a one-way ticket to cirrhosis of the liver for me. Different strokes for different folks. After months of spurned invites, Trent realised the object of his affections was going to have to be fished with a more wholesome bait. It was on a Wednesday when his evil plan became apparent. Carol walked over to my desk, clutching an A3 sheet of paper in her hand.

‘Have you seen this, Bill?'

‘I can see it, Carol, but I have not seen it.'

‘Very well, Bill. Literal as ever. Well, it's Friday night's drinks, they're going to be in aid of Save the Children. It's the big fund-a-thon day on Friday, you see. Apparently we all have to wear one yellow item of clothing and…'

‘Just the one item of clothing?'

‘Golly no, Bill, let me finish. One item of yellow clothing and donate a fiver. To give a little back to those poor kids. It was Trent's idea. It's nice isn't it?' Nice wasn't the word which immediately sprang to mind. Nefarious was. Trent knew Dina was never going to be interested in going to the pub just for the pints and peanuts. But by appealing to her good nature and plying her with toasts to the downtrodden and Downs Syndrome he was banking on the Trojan Horse of charity donation leading to a Trojan of a very different kind.

‘Very nice, Carol, very thoughtful.'

As if forcing enough alcohol down the poor girl to tranquilise a horse wasn't enough, Trent managed to finish the job while Dina was distracted by Pete's inane chat about premium bonds or the price of a barrel of oil. Ketamine, slipped right into her drink. Being from the countryside she had no idea what a Mai Tai tasted like. He could have got away with lacing it with arsenic. As the group broke up in numbers and Dina broke up in body and mind, good old charity-champion Trent rose to his feet with the declaration he'd drop her off in a taxi.

‘It's been a long week, she's tired.'

‘I'll jump in.' said Pete. Trent had banked on this cover. Pete always wanted to go when people were splitting a cab, it appealed to his frugal nature. And the best thing? Pete lived closest to the pub, meaning he'd be first out. Sadistic, but systematic. You couldn't fault Trent for that.

Poor Dina didn't stand a chance. The key-load of ket had seen to that. We never saw her in the office again, her irregular correspondence with Carol our only update. The last we'd heard she was living out west as part of a breakaway group from the Seventh Day Adventists. It was rather sad the lengths she had to go to to forget that night. We couldn't help thinking she only wrote to Carol due to a healthy commission on offer for enlisting new recruits. And Trent? He didn't bat an eyelid. It was all in the game for him. All in the game.

A new phase of the game's play began the day Christy walked into our often wired, always warped little world. It was the month-end, which meant the atmosphere in the office was tauter than usual. The tension emanated from the Finance Department, who for the other twenty or so working days of the month were treated with the pity and contempt it was felt grey-suited penny-pinchers deserved from a cluster of ‘creative' coke-heads. But come the time of the month someone responsible had to monetise our hair-brained, half-cut ideas they ruled the roost. And every one of us who enjoyed the comforts of warm clothing, the Taste the Difference range and a roof over their heads damned well fucking knew it. It was like the role reversal of the bullied becoming the bully. And the asexual abacuses loved every minute of it as we scrambled around to try and come up with a list of outputs worthy of the inflated sums clients paid us on the second of each month.

Every month, when the figures were being collated and the activity interrogated, a shadow of doubt crept across some members of the team as we realised the game was up and the last days of Rome upon us. Jill could sometimes barely talk, which was a fucking godsend, but even she broke out of her nervous nihilism to comment on the stranger in our midst.

‘I imagine that's the new girl, then,' she said to no one in particular. Welcoming the break from my screen, I replied ‘Where?' but before I could get the word out I'd realised exactly where, what and whom she was referring to.

It was her red red hair which punched me hard in the heart from the off. She was in Miles' office, which perched above our factory floor like a dictator's palace peering over a favela. Surrounded by his Barcelona chairs and misjudged modern art chosen by his overbearing Japanese girlfriend Kira, she was still a good twenty yards from where I was now ignoring Jill. But that didn't dull the effect. Ruffles and ruffles gushed from her head the colour of dried blood and served to stir mine. Flame-haired broads stoked my coals. Not only did their colouring speak of passion, of love, of danger, but the women who wore it often burnt brighter after a childhood of piss-taking from shitty, spotty little sheep who knew no better than to flick rubber bands at the ginger girl because she was ‘different'.

But she stood out for me for different reasons, and I felt a wave of nausea come over my body at the fact Miles was first in to bat.

Miles was our boss. He was the kind of guy who'd walk into a bathroom, unzip his fly and go right ahead and piss in the middle urinal. No hiding off to the side for Miles. It wasn't that he
actually
had a big dick (far from it if you were to believe the stories that did the rounds following the industry awards' party back a few years ago). As with most things at Morgan & Schwarz, the truth didn't matter. He possessed an absolute blind faith in the fact that he did, and did a hell of a job in making others believe the same. Whether you were a clerk at his bank, his ex-wife's mother or some starlet who'd chase him all night at a Bellini and bullshit function, you didn't have a dealing with Miles Carter without coming away with the unwavering knowledge that the dude packed heat. He had a confidence others weighed out in Peruvian lines and a clarity that came from being teetotal for 12 years. And that's why he was the big man on 120k a year with an expense account that rivalled a small nation's GDP. I hated him from the pit of my stomach and respected him from the depths of soul.