Scratch (2 page)

Once the bar was re-stocked and the floor swept and the chairs lifted onto the tables and the drip-trays washed and the wine glasses polished and the ashtrays cleaned and the toilets checked and the floor mopped and the rubbish put out (tasks which, even at the time, I knew it was a bloody liberty to make me do on my own just because I was the new boy), I got to sit down and have a beer with the five other staff, who were well into their second drinks by then.

I was so buggered I chose not to notice the flash of discomfort that crossed Paula’s face when she realised the only empty seat at the table was next to her. I plopped myself down with a sigh and tried to smile as I raised my pint to my lips (I can’t remember what I’d poured for myself but it wasn’t bloody Moosehead, I know that).

Sammy lifted his glass from the other end of the large round table. ‘Well done, Jim,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the underground.’

‘Cheers,’ I said.

‘Do yourself a favour, though,’ Sammy went on, ‘and stop walloping my favourite barmaid in the tits, okay?’

I cringed, but heard Paula laugh along with everyone else.

‘I’m so sorry about that,’ I said to her as the rest of the table resumed their various conversations.

‘Yeah, don’t worry about it,’ she said, chuckling.

‘Normally I wait till the second meeting before attempting a fondle.’

Her smile widened briefly as she changed the subject. ‘So, did you get the hang of the Moosehead?’

‘Nah, I’m still its bitch,’ I said.

‘Tough tits.’

‘Don’t put yourself down, they felt soft enough to me.’

Paula reddened and gave me a look.

‘Sorry, sometimes I just say things,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking of getting counselling.’ I gave her what I hoped was my best puppy-dog expression.

‘I can see I’m going to need to keep an eye on you,’ she said. She was still smiling, thank God.

‘If you insist.’

***

‘Jim Cooper, you are by far the biggest wanker I’ve ever met.’

This wasn’t quite the start I was hoping for to our first date.

‘I’ve been sitting here like a twat for half-an-hour, where have you been?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said, sitting next to Paula. ‘It all went a bit wrong, getting here.’

Paula waited expectantly. I just waited.

‘And?’ she said.

‘Oh right, well. I was all set to go for the bus when my mum started going on about my career and shit, I think she’d had a wine, and probably a fight with my dad. Anyway, by the time I got rid of her I’d missed my bus. I tried to get a taxi but none were passing so I had to wait for the next bus. Sorry.’ I tried the puppy-dog thing again. ‘Do you want a drink?’

Paula managed to shake her head and nod at the same time. I went to the bar, thankful for miniscule mercies.

As it turned out the night was a good ’un. I was telling the truth about my mum delaying me so I didn’t have any guilt to hide.

We had planned to meet for a quick drink then go and see
Jurassic Park
. In the end up we skipped the cinema and stayed in
Nico’s
drinking till shutting time. By eleven we were inebriated enough to think our sarcastic comments about the state of everyone else’s dress sense were both hilarious and discreet. By
midnight
we had drunkenly bonded enough for it to feel natural when I draped an arm around Paula’s shoulder as we waited in the taxi rank in
Sauchiehall
Street.

We had a wee kiss in the taxi queue. We had a bigger kiss in the taxi. I pretended I really needed the toilet, thus eliciting an invite up to Paula’s flat.

***

We were together for two years. Not coincidentally, we both continued to work in The Basement for those two years.

When Paula graduated from University she got a proper job as a languages tutor (she’d studied English and German, and ended up qualified to teach both) in that very same University. In the equivalent time span the only thing I had graduated from was my inability to pour a pint of Moosehead, and even that remained shaky.

It was a Wednesday and I’d been on a lunch-time shift. As usual when finishing at four I’d had three pints by five-thirty when Paula came in to meet me after her work.

‘
Hiya
,’ she said, perching on the barstool next to me. She looked tired.

‘Hey, all right? Drink?’

‘Just a coke.’

‘No worries.’ I ordered a coke from Sammy. He poured it from the gun, so I didn’t have to pay.

‘Can we get a table?’ Paula said.

I already knew something was up, and Paula’s face as we sat down at the corner table confirmed it. Her eyes were as red as mine had been the night we met, but for patently different reasons. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing her usual make-up. She was far paler than she deserved to be and her lips formed the saddest smile in the world. I knew what was coming.

I braced myself. What would it be? ‘We need to talk’? ‘I’ve been thinking’? ‘We’ve been drifting apart for a while now’? What gentle way would she find to say it?

‘Jim Cooper, you are by far the biggest wanker I’ve ever met.’

That was unexpected, if consistent. ‘Eh,’ I said.

‘Two years,
two years
.’ Paula shook her head. ‘We were both nineteen, now we’re twenty-one.’

This was both factual and correct. Beyond that I couldn’t see what she was getting at. ‘Hmm, yes,’ I said.

‘You don’t have a feckin’ clue what I’m talking about, do you?’

Again, factual and correct. ‘Not ... specifically, perhaps,’ I said, winging it.

‘Where’s your life?’

‘That depends; define your terms.’ I hoped some levity might help. It didn’t.

‘The life you said you wanted. You were going to look into going to
Art
School
or something; you were going to find a way to prove your father wrong. What happened to that?’

‘Ah well, that would be the whole entropy thing.’

‘I’ve been offered a job.’

‘Another one? Bloody hell, well done.’

‘It’s in London.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a good offer.’

This was the time for me to say something devastatingly witty, intelligent and endearing in order to make her stay with me. ‘Is the money good?’ Pathetic, utterly pathetic.

The thing was, I knew I couldn’t keep her. Paula was way beyond me; I’d known that since the day we met. Our paths happened to merge for a couple of years, and I was a lucky bastard to have the time I’d had with her. She was always cooler than me; she was always going further than me; she was always smarter than me; she was always, when it came down to it, bigger than me.

And, that day, she chucked me.

***

So, that was the first time I was in love.

The last time? Now there’s a story.

She was, I’m neither afraid nor ashamed to say, a goddess.

Ah, there was a girl. She had the eyes. That’s always been the thing for me, the eyes.

They could look at you, through you, past you and deep inside of you, all at the same time. They could see the truth of you.

A simple colour doesn’t do that justice. They were, pure and simple, home.

She had the finest of hair, the sweetest of smiles, the most perfect of faces, the most beautiful of personalities. Fortunately for me she also had, for a time, the lowest of expectations.

She made friends like I made fag burns on the carpet. Just hearing her name was enough to make anyone who knew her smile like an idiot.

When was this?

It was the year before, the month before. It was the day before, it was that day. It hadn’t faded, yet.

The last time I was in love? Same as the first.

The last time I saw her? 12 years ago.

She was Irish, and her name was Paula Fraser.

Chapter 2

‘I completely understand your frustration, Mr Johnston, and I want to help get this sorted out for you as quickly as possible.’

I hoped my voice didn’t sound as bored as I knew my face must look. I would have held the receiver away from my ear had I been able, but modern telecommunications technology had done away with such antiquated concepts as receivers and dials. Instead, what would once have been a simple telephone had been transmogrified into a computer station - the dial was now a keyboard, and the receiver a set of headphones with a thin plastic microphone snaking out of my left ear and curving ergonomically round the contours of my face until it all but disappeared up my left nostril.

Still, this huge leap forward did have a couple of benefits. The main one being that I knew exactly what the caller was going to say before they said it, thus removing the necessity for me to actually listen.

I knew, for example, that Mr William Johnston lived at 109
Braidbar
Road in
Giffnock
, because this information appeared on my monitor the instant his call connected. I also knew he was a retired civil engineer living alone in his two-bedroom terraced house. I knew he had gas central-heating but an electric cooker; I knew he had both a bath and a shower, but used mainly the shower; I knew he had a gas fire in his lounge, but rarely used it; I knew he had his central-heating checked for faults annually. I didn’t know what school he’d gone to or how his sex life was these days, but I could probably have found out fairly easily.

I also knew that, three days ago, he had received an electricity bill for £4,538. I therefore knew exactly why he had phoned, and what he was saying at that very moment. Indeed, as he continued his tirade I couldn’t help but pick up a couple of key phrases despite having turned the volume on my head-set to practically zero.

‘
Four and a half grand … it’s a bloody disgrace … you big companies … damned liberty … this is the eighth time I’ve phoned …
’ and so on.

I’m not an ogre, I did have some sympathy for Mr Johnston’s situation; there was sod-all I could do about it, though. It was patently obvious he would have to be powering the
Blackpool
illuminations from his kettle-socket to rack up a bill so high, but this fact didn’t change the facts. The system said he owed the money, which, until someone far higher-up than me admitted that the guy who last read Mr Johnston’s meter was clearly dyslexic and possibly blind, meant he owed the money.

I’d been in the job for a while, so knew the appropriate tactic to adopt in this situation.

‘Mr Johnston,’ I said as he took a breath-break. ‘I agree this is a very serious matter and I’m going to put you through to a senior manager who’ll be better placed than I am to help resolve this for you, okay?’

‘Oh for
fu
—’

‘Yes, sir. Please hold while I transfer you.’

I punched F6 on my keyboard to switch the
muzak
on, and leaned back in my chair, stretching my arms above my head and yawning loudly as I swivelled my neck in an effort to relieve some of the stiffness I’d been feeling all morning.

I closed my eyes for a second, trying to find my first wind. I was of course hung-over. I checked my watch – a half-hour till lunch. What would it be today? Sausage roll and a yum-yum from Greggs, a six-inch club and a packet of cheese and onion from Subway, or a couple of swift pints from Dave in The
Fixx
?