In Pieces (3 page)

‘That assumes it all fits together to make one picture. No, I'm not that optimistic. All I want is the sense that some of it matters… Some of the bits of my life, that is.'

‘Mmm, I see what you're getting at,' lied Jimmy happily. Through the warm fug of the bar he dimly perceived that this was a special moment. One of countless instantly forgotten good times which make life bearable. Jimmy valued his evenings in the pub almost as much as he prized his friendship with Si. Not that he'd ever articulated either idea, not even thought them through clearly. But they were the bedrock of his life.

~

Si stood in his bathroom, horrified. He should have known; of course he should. The trouble was, he half-suspected he had known. But he'd ignored the signs and not bothered to take pre-emptive action. He looked down with a mixture of dismay and fascination.

The shards of glass spread like a mosaic out from the epicentre of the explosion. Silvered slivers, sharp as needles and some as big as daggers. The morning light slanting through the blinds played with the blunt angles revealed by the broken mirror and refracted rainbows onto the white bathroom tiles. Si noticed how a yellow blur melted quickly into a hot orange just above the taps.

‘Damn,' he muttered unconvincingly. What now? He couldn't really move, standing as he was, barefoot in the middle of the broken glass. ‘Damn.'

He had an idea. He spotted the carved frame of the mirror—an Oriental design in dark, painted wood. The frame lay on the floor where it had fallen. Like a guillotine blade, the mirror had slipped off the loose hook and fallen softly to the floor, exploding with a surprisingly loud bang. More of a crack, really, like a whiplash at the circus or static electricity. As the smooth face of the mirror smashed and slid into itself, over itself, sending sheets of glass skidding across the floor, the wooden frame remained upright for a second, as if stunned. In shock, like a shot man realising that death is upon him. Then it had gently toppled over.

Si retrieved the frame and shook the remaining glass out of it. Then he used it as a stepping-stone to reach the door. He decided not to bother sweeping up until later. There wasn't time.

‘Damn,' he muttered again as he closed the bathroom door on the scene. Now the prospect of cleaning up would hang over him like a black cloud all day. But worse, and he hated to admit it, he could feel the primitive suspicions of his childhood weighing upon him. He thought he'd laughed them off years ago. But the thought of what his mother would have said made him shiver.

Si looked at his watch. Twelve ten. Time to get to the pub. Jimmy would be waiting.

~

The Feathers was always quiet at lunchtime, even on Sundays. Si and Jimmy's table faced the big video screen. When there were soccer matches on satellite TV, about twice a week, the screen would
become the focus of the pub. At other times, like today, it would appear a strange appendage, hanging there like a drying sheet. Ugly.

Jimmy was tired. After yet again scoring the winner in yesterday's key Second Division match against York City, he'd gone for a few beers. Ignoring the manager's injunctions against getting drunk during the season, he'd got plastered. He regretted it now.

To deal with his hangover, he ordered a strong Bloody Mary. With everything. As he'd known it would, the vodka was already kicking in and making him feel better.

Si had spent the previous evening watching a film on TV. Some instantly forgettable action movie with a thrilling if implausible plot. He'd gone to bed feeling faintly dissatisfied with his life. Normally, such feelings evaporated overnight. But when he woke up, he'd been surprised to find himself suffering from a mild depression.

‘D'you ever wish you were doing something else?'

Jimmy looked up and stopped playing with his swizzle stick, which he'd been spinning on the edge of the glass. ‘Eh?'

‘Like, d'you ever want to do something else? For a job?'

Jimmy looked thoughtful, raised his glass but didn't drink. ‘Haven't we had this conversation before?'

No answer. Si seemed to be waiting for an answer. ‘Well, now you come to ask… no,' he said.

‘You're lucky… I do. Well, sometimes. Like now.'

‘Why? I thought you enjoyed being a journalist.'

‘I do sometimes.'

‘And you were telling me how wonderful your new job is.'

‘Have you ever read it?'

‘Read what?'

‘
The Courier
? You know, the paper I write for.'

‘No,' Jimmy admitted coyly. He didn't like it when Si went off on masochistic tracks like this. Si was his friend—he wanted him to be cheerful and crack a few jokes, not get all introspective. Jimmy tried to raise his spirits. ‘You know I don't read much. But I'm sure it's really good and you can influence people…'

‘Can I?'

Jimmy sighed. It clearly hadn't worked.

‘I wonder. Most of the time I think I'm writing rubbish and feel like I'm being manipulated by people whose real intentions I don't understand.'

‘Eh?'

‘Oh, nothing. It doesn't matter.' Si sighed in turn.

Jimmy didn't give up and looking at his friend said brightly, ‘You always wanted to be a journalist. You're natural for it.'

‘I didn't always want to be. It kind of happened, really. It seemed the best option at the time, but I never thought I'd spend the rest of my life doing it.'

‘Who said you would?'

‘Well, it's difficult to change careers once you've got going.'

‘My arse. It's only difficult if you think it is. And you're being bloody stupid 'cause you're only twenty-eight. You could stop tomorrow and become…whatever. No problem.'

‘A footballer?'

‘What?'

‘Could I become a footballer? Tomorrow like?'

Jimmy's brow creased. ‘Well, no. It's a bit late at twenty-eight.'

‘Exactly, that's my point. It's already too late to do most things. Even at twenty-eight. And the thing is, nobody tells you that when you're twenty.'

‘I never knew you wanted to play soccer.' Jimmy was clearly puzzled. ‘You were crap at school.'

‘I know. I don't want to play soccer.'

‘So why did you say you did?'

‘I didn't. I just meant… Anyway, the point is even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I don't suppose there's much I could do if I wanted to change.'

‘You could become a dustman. I had a cousin who became a dustman when he was made redundant at forty.'

‘Yeah, I suppose so. I could become a dustman. That's a relief, isn't it?'

Jimmy failed to notice the irony and nodded. The conversation had woken him up and, combined with the healthy measure of vodka, had buried his hangover.

‘It's not that I really want to change jobs…'

‘Great, I don't think you'd make a very good dustman anyway. No offence, mind.'

‘None taken. I think really, I'd just like to know I could do something else if I wanted. To have the option. Often I feel like I've no real choice in how I lead my life. Know what I mean? Things just happen and we react to them. We have no control.'

‘Yeah, it's a bugger, isn't it?'

They lapsed into Sunday morning silence and sipped their drinks.

‘Gagging for a fag,' said Jimmy.

Si recognised the beginning of a well-practised routine. He took up the script. ‘Have one.'

‘Can't. The manager'd kill me. Anyway, I don't really want one. It's three years since I last smoked and mostly I don't miss it much.'

‘Never saw the appeal myself.'

‘Oh, there's nothing like a cigarette. Especially with a cup of coffee after breakfast.'

They fell silent. Si wondered what had happened to the rest of Jimmy's habitual eulogy of smoking. He hadn't even mentioned the post-coital bit, which he always did, with a great cheesy grin when it came to the most purple part of his speech. Instead, Jimmy slipped into a nostalgic reverie.

‘Sometimes I think that whatever we do we'll end up at the same place.'

‘What?'

‘Well, you know, even if I'd stayed at
The Standard
and not moved to
The Courier
, I doubt it'd have made much difference in the end.'

‘Yeah, I suppose we all die eventually,' said Jimmy cheerfully, the urge to smoke clearly conquered.

Si looked dismayed. ‘No, I wasn't being morbid. Only that I reckon we can probably follow a thousand different paths, maybe even simultaneously, and still end up at the same point. I'd probably end up a sad old lushed-out hack, whatever…'

‘Now you're losing me.'

‘Oh, it doesn't really matter. But it does make a mockery of choice, I reckon.'

‘This is way too serious. Remember, I've still got a hangover. Treat my brain gently.'

‘Yeah, you're right. Sorry.'

‘Another one?'

‘Yeah. Another Bloody.'

‘Right you are.' Jimmy slipped off to the bar. As he watched him go, Si chewed the lemon slice from his last drink and wondered why he spent so much time in the pub. It wasn't as if he was an alcoholic or anything. The social conditioning of his generation, he concluded. Jimmy returned smiling, gripping two long red glasses firmly in his hands. Red, the colour of Sunday mornings.

~

Si was working late. He flicked on the TV. It was tuned to the Parliamentary Channel. He'd sussed out from the start that the way to Dougy's heart lay through his politics. And on several occasions when Si had been summoned to Dougy's office, the TV had been tuned to the Parliamentary Channel.

Now, as far as Si could work out, Dougy supported the Government. But it wasn't always clear. And often Dougy would run stories as a favour to individual members of the Opposition. He obviously had a foot in both camps. This made it difficult for Si to know what he should and shouldn't put in his column. He seemed to have got it right so far. But he knew that when he didn't, he could expect a rollicking from Dougy. To minimise the risk of this, Si had taken to watching coverage of Parliament at every spare opportunity. He thought this would help him to tune into what made Dougy tick.

At the moment the Opposition party were doing well. They were ahead of the Government in the polls, and exuded a cocky assurance that they would form the next Government. But there was no
date for elections to take place and Si knew that Dougy was working to position himself to gain the maximum from whatever turn the political scene took.

‘Doesn't the Honourable Member for Bognor South realise that education in our schools is a disaster? Worse, it's an unmitigated disaster. Since this government took power, funding for the education sector has been cut by 26 per cent in real terms. How can he claim that the Government has improved education for our children? It hasn't improved it; it's virtually destroyed it.' The Opposition Spokesman subsided into the empty acres of green leather bench—there couldn't have been more than a dozen MPs present. His opposite number on the Government benches stood up.

The Secretary of State for Education dismissed as nonsense what had just been said, and fiercely defended the poor backbench Member for Bognor South, who had been so savaged by the fluent and acerbic onslaught.

The backbencher, pink-cheeked and tightly upholstered in wide pinstripe, huffed in indignation at the Opposition's attack, hear-heared his Right Honourable Friend and looked forward to a good dinner at the end of the debate. It was jolly unfair of the Opposition to single him out for attack. He was only doing what the Whips had told him to do. It was damned annoying that they'd forced him to come along to this debate at all. What did he know or care about education, anyway? Confound them. He hated having to feed questions to Ministers. The sooner he found his own rightful place on the Front Bench, the better.

The Shadow Spokesman had forced the Minister to give way again. ‘In response to the Minister's challenge, let me tell him this. When
this
party is in power, we will consult widely with leading representatives of all the main religions in this country and will work closely with them to improve moral standards and to improve the education system…'

A sarcastic voice from the most distant of the benches opposite shouted, ‘Is that a policy? If so, it's the first yet.' Howls of exaggerated laughter greeted the comment.

‘Yes, it
is
a policy. And it's more than the government can offer us. They are bereft of new ideas and morally bankrupt and that's why they will soon be out of power. Yes, it
is
a policy and I am grateful to the Honourable member on the opposite benches for highlighting this point. This party believes that you cannot divorce religion from education and that to improve education standards in this country we need to involve religious leaders in seeking ways forward.' The Shadow Spokesman sank back as the Minister impatiently sprang up and thrust forward to the dispatch box, gripping the metal-banded box, eager to seize back the initiative.

Si's interest was already drifting. He wondered if Dougy had been watching. It would be interesting to see how
The Courier
's editor decided to play it in tomorrow's edition. Certainly, there was considerable scope for journalistic soapboxes; religion and education were two very emotive subjects.

~

Si and Jimmy started out about seven at The Feathers. Quietly at first. Just a few pints and some gentle banter. The usual comfortable and sporadic conversation. Neither had any fixed plans for the evening.

It was best to get to The Feathers early on a Saturday night, if you wanted a stool at the bar; if you didn't get a stool, there was little chance of chatting up the girls as they waited later in the evening to be served. When it got really busy about ten, they were standing three deep at the bar, sometimes for up to a quarter of an hour. That was Jimmy's favourite time to strike. Like tickling salmon, he described it. Taking them when they were most vulnerable. Belly up, half-drunk on lager, and starting to forget themselves.