Hyde

As the bus turned a corner, the leaves of the trees lining the road split the sun into glowing fragments. One shifted onto his eyes, making him wince. There were a pair of girls at the back. One gave him the eye as he turned his head that way. He realised they were jailbait, but was still uneasy and pleasantly tense at their attention.

One of them stood and spun round the yellow pole at the end of the seats in front. The other laughed.

“Do that again.”

“Why?”

“'s funny.” in a lilting scouse which turned the ends of each sentence up in a petulant way. It put him in mind of an upturned nose.

The bus carried on through tightly packed streets overhung with old trees, and the low sun continued to scatter its motes around the top deck, around the itchy velour of the seat backs, the yellow poles which shone and glinted where the shining shapes hit, and on the backs of his hands and his worn t-shirt and dirty jeans. The summer was in full swing, but the day would be gone in an hour or two.

He was listless. He'd been listless all day, from the hangover in the morning onwards. It had woken him in a desultory manner, a kick in the head and a sullen weight in his bladder, but it had stopped there, leaving him strewn in a suffocating single bed with covers that felt like sandbags about him. There were thick curtains on the window at his knees beside the bed, which did nothing but darken the other side of the room, as his nocturnal squirmings had shifted them so as to leave a chink right over his face. The day was just getting into its stride then. It was a hell of a day. A hellish day for a hangover.

He had booted himself out of bed, the oppressive sun and the heat and the tightness of the room, eight feet by twelve at most, with a broken chest of drawers a wardrobe, a desk and chair, a computer, and bags upon bags of clothes, all pushing in on him, layering in on top of him like shovelsful of soil in a shallow grave. He had hauled the topmost set of clothes from the morass on the floor, pulled them on, and set off out to work some life back into his legs and his lymphatic system.

He had stepped out into a day approaching its full heat, even before noon – his internal clock had imposed a reasonable rising time on him along with the shafts of dazzling light bypassing the curtains, and had got him up near enough in time for a shift at work. It was his day off. May as well try and do something with it. He had strode across the road to the gleaming white mass of consumer comfort at the end of the road, the Asda that served the area riddled with students and drunks and young professionals. He had walked in one door, past the security guard at his stand full of monitors for the cameras, he had lifted a sandwich and a caffeine- and sugar-laden drink from the nearest fridge, and he had walked out the far door without looking round or deviating once.

And on he had walked, ignoring his phone as it jiggled and buzzed in his pocket. It was likely someone looking from money. It was happening more and more lately. He had walked on, looking for somewhere free to get on the internet. His own had been cut off at the start of the month, and he had not a penny to his name, save five pence in one bank account, and five pence in another. So on down the Smithdown Road, past overpriced cafés, beauty parlours clean as dentist's surgeries, bars and charity shops, past people in boating shoes and aviators, girls in shorts and playsuits and lightweight dresses, Arabs on bicycles skirting past him, under the Victorian railway bridge and on past the estate agents and the innumerable bars. He had got to the library, airy and busy with its high windows and tall laden shelves, and sat absently to wait for a computer, and when one had become free he had heaved his carcass out of the plastic chair again and into another, and had worked his fingers on the cheap scratchy keyboard. There was an email for him.

Hi,

I have been asked by Hayley Trigg the recruitment manager to contact you regarding your current contract. I am sorry to bring this up over email but you did not pick up your phone and you do not seem to have Voicemail. We are standing down your current contract within the call centre as the contract is overstaffed. Hayley and myself with stay in touch regarding other vacancies as the go live.

Thanks very much

Faye Tisdale blah blah blah

-

“What's the plans then? No point lazing around this place all day.”

He dragged his focus away from the laptop and stretched. His elbow cracked with a twinge as he did so.

“What do you fancy then?”

“Need to get some breakfast anyway. Shout Paul and see if he fancies it.”

“Sounds good. Wanna head up Lark Lane way?”

“Alright. Hang on, I'll shout Paul.”

Darren loped out of the room and down the hall to rouse Paul. He returned to the laptop to check his bank account. No sense in chatting about actually buying breakfast if he was fleeced.

He cast an eye around the room as the page loaded on Darren's hobbled old machine. The walls, which had started off white but been smudged and sullied by the and fug from too many parties, glowed dull yellow in the sun through the open window, as if obscured by fog. The blinds were drawn back, and the sun bounced in off the wall of the house opposite. There were bedraggled leather settees either side of him as he sat on a long fabric sofa-bed, in front of a large TV showing a repeat of Top Gear, and showing its age after being dragged between several houses, none of which had showed it much respect. Richard Hammond was saying something about a caravan. The carpet felt gritty under his socks, and stank of soaked-in beer and spilled ashtrays and Christ knows what else.

The laptop had obliged him. So had the government. His dole was in, and for a change it had gone into the right bank account, so as not to be gobbled up instantly in unauthorised overdraft fees. So. Breakfast.

He stood and headed out through the flat to Paul's room. Darren stood in Paul's doorway, long and lean in a pair of track bottoms pushed up over high-top trainers and slung low at the waist, a nondescript t-shirt owned by some one or other in the flat pulled up to show the tops of boxers underneath as he leant, arm up with his elbow against the door. Paul was inside pulling on shoes.

Paul's room was typical of the rest of the house – clothes flung over the floor, a chest of drawers in pieces beside an open and empty wardrobe. There was no sheet on the bed, from which Paul looked up though black-rimmed eyes, odd black hairs sprouting from his jaw and upper lip. He finished tying his laces and stood, as wiry as Darren, though shorter.

“Heading then?” he said with an upward jerk of his chin. The other two nodded their assent and they made a move.

The day was a scorcher for the time of year.

“Take it that's our summer done,” muttered Paul. He and Darren nodded and sniggered.

They strode over to Lark Lane with its multitude of bars and cafés, through streets glowing and baking in the high sun. It was half term, and may even have been a bank holiday, although none of the three could remember. Everywhere there were parents with young children, chirruping and shouting away. Old men walked by slowly in t-shirts and sandals.

“This is madness,” said Paul, “it's only fucking March.”

“You're right though,” said Darren, squinting in the glare. “We'll get a decent week now and fuck all for the rest of the year.”

“At least you're getting away somewhere,” replied Paul. “Fuck, I need to get away somewhere...”

“Need some money first mate. No point making plans if you've no house to come back to, or money to get on a plane.”

“Need to get on Housing Benefit or something. Only thing is that cunt landlord'll probably start chasing us for Council Tax if he knows I'm not a student.”

“He knows you're not a student anyway,” chuckled Darren. “You and him both.”

He pondered. He was on Housing Benefit himself. It paid about three quarters of his rent. He had contacted no-one about the remaining quarter.

“No-one's said fuck all to me about Council Tax. Reckon he's just ballbagging, saying we're students or there's only three people in the flat.”

“Do they not sort Council Tax for you anyway, if you're claiming all that shite?” said Paul, his brow knotting, a bead of sweat forming on the inside edge of his eyebrow as they walked through the unseasonal heat.

“Could be,” said Darren pensively.

They crossed the road and got onto Lark Lane. The low bars either side of the street had their doors and windows flung wide, and punters spilled over onto the pavement. The whole street had pretensions of Mediterranean class, only slightly skewed by the clientèle: students with their quiffs and denim waistcoats and sandals and the like, and middle-aged scousers, the men small and rodentine, or squat muscle-bound hulks, the women well-tanned and expensively waxed and primped, to varying degrees of effectiveness.

They stood between two bars, beer gardens only half-full due to the earliness of the hour.

“What are we after then?” asked Darren, rubbing his hands and casting his eyes about hungrily.

“Well if I'm going on this Housing Benefit,” mused Paul, “I doubt I'll be needing the back end of my birthday money.” He scratched his chin.

“Pint?”

“Fuck that,” said Darren. “I'm working in Chester. No point starting now or I won't stop.” Darren worked in a cocktail bar in the Tom Cruise sense of the term. A liquid lunch would lead to smashed bottles, which would be docked from his salary.

He ran his fingers over the bank card in his pocket.

“Fuckit, I'm game,” he said. “Need to hit a bank machine first.”

“One over there,” said Paul, pointing with his chin.

The three of them slunk across the road to the ATM, which stood beside a deli. Cool air from the fridges inside wafted out and gave them a brief respite from the heat, and the sun hove its way past its height, and the day settled into its warmest point.

They sat in a low cool bar on green leather sofas. As they waited for Darren and Paul's food they cast their eyes around the antique tat in cases around the walls, the bookshelves filled with old volumes never intended to be read here, portraits and photographs of sitters now long dead, of archaic machinery and farming equipment. He could afford either to eat or to drink. It was a Friday, so he was drinking.

He stood and strode across the hardwood floor, battered soles of his boots clacking and thumping like in a spaghetti western. The barmaid was Irish and petite. She gave him a smile as she finished stacking the dishwasher and clicked almost audibly to attention. He ordered an extortionate lager of some kind and returned with it to their table.

“Anything on tonight?” he asked as he sat, rubbing the condensation from the glass around iin his fingers, savouring the cool of it before it evaporated away.

“Dunno,” said Darren. “Kyle'll be on it like.”

I'd have thought so, he thought. Flying about the place coked to the eyeballs, eyes on stalks, an electric sizzle in his hair as white gobs formed at the corners of his mouth.

He rested a hand on a belly he could swear was growing by the day, the endless sandwiches and the sedentary habits, rolling around him like snow into a ball. This is getting old.

“Has to be done,” he said, raising his glass. “Sitting around doing fuck all all week gives you a wile load of nervous energy to kick off.” He drank deeply.

The barmaid turned up with breakfasts too small for their price tag, plates filled mostly with beans and gigantic mushrooms. She had forgotten their coffees.

He drained his glass – that was quick, where did it all go? - and strode back to the bar, mind full of Bronson and Eastwood. He ordered another, and coyly mentioned the missing drinks. The barmaid spewed apologies as she retreated to a back room to look for a teacloth. He paid, and drained a quarter of the pint.

-

He had sat and stared at the screen. The pixels had swum in front of him in blotches like bacteria growing in culture. Somewhere in the high roof a fly was buzzing.

This would sink him. Ruin him. He had planned that money out far in advance. Banks and loan companies were queueing up as it was to take their percentage out of his hide. Easy finance.

Of course he had known it was only a temporary gig. And he would have fucked it off in any case after a month or two, as soon as it had staved off immediate ruination.

He could remember it all so perfectly, a moment frozen, crystallised around himself like a scene in some film where time has been played with, stopped or slowed. He could see the Somali woman queueing to check out a book, her smiling bucktoothed face an island in her shroud of black, one child in a pram in front of her, another in front of the pram playing some kind of slapping game with the first, grinning and chattering impatiently. He could see the two old men, one bending the other's ear about his redundant satellite dish since he got Virgin in, the other laughing and interjecting where he thought appropriate, turning and making to leave at the end of each stanza, getting caught back for another screed about something or other. The two young men and a girl huddled round one computer to his left, the way one of the boys had held his gaze as their eyes met and kept looking at him after his eyes had snapped away. The middle-aged women behind the counter, checking books mechanically like workers in a shirt factory, and the other dowdy woman walking past stern-faced, a copy of "Menopause for Dummies" clutched to her chest like Sandra Dee. All this, stuck in his mind complete and three-dimensional, a gnat in amber, coalesced into one piece complete and indivisible. It was eternal as his mind itself, pinwheeling around, sparking between the cells which themselves were dying constantly, maybe to be replaced by new ones, maybe by older ones adapting to the task; made up of molecules of long proteins and shards of precious metal, hyrdrocarbons for fuel and for coding and for other things, all informing each other, making bonds according to their framework, reacting to each other, an acid messenger here, a bond made differently there, all being replaced constantly from water that formed the mind of Shakespeare and Crippin and cavemen and Mount Pinatubo; all made up of ever-changing atoms of electrons sparking particles between themselves like a country dance, spiralling and gyrating, which in turn were made of condensing coils of pure energy slowed and folded in on itself, like everything else there was. How does this become me? How does this become mind? How does this lead to my remembering this, as eternal as molecules and tissues and bodies can be, because they are energy, and eternal, and rented from the universe at the same time?

He had tensed his fingers into fists reflexively, and uncoiled them, and then he had set about his reply.

-

The work was dull. In fact it was non-existent. They sat there, around sixty of them, all sat there, doing various different kinds of twiddling their thumbs. A low hum of male voices sat overlaid with a babble of female, a little louder.

They had been hired on a temporary contract. They had all known this would be dull work since the interview (not really an interview, more like the setting of an appointment - “So are you free Monday to Saturday for the next twelve or so weeks? Evenings as well? Good, I'll be in touch when there's a start.”)

They had played all the team-building games the managers could think of. They'd done quizzes and personality tests and word games and crosswords of their own devising. A few had scoured the computers looking for the odd sites that had not been blocked. He had done about two months' worth of quick crosswords on the Guardian website, and had read near enough the entire BBC site – that is the portion that had been uploaded since he had last trawled it while idling in a call centre.

The job was to man a hotline set up to deal with the expected calls regarding a letter sent out, telling people about a change in the legislation governing sewers. It said on the letter not to bother ringing in. Maybe everyone was just heeding the letter. He had joked he was literally being paid to talk shit. Now he was being paid to metaphorically talk shit to his co-workers alone.

He was roused from his reverie to find the girl a the computer opposite looking at him. She was pretty, teenage, bottle blonde, with freckles on her nose and watery blue-hazel eyes. He realised she was asking him a question. He made a questioning noise back as he shifted more upright in his swivel chair.

“Who's Gordon Brown?” she asked, a look midway between worry and pensiveness on her face. “Is he the President?”

He had to check to make sure his jaw hadn't dropped. HE made the questioning noise.

“Who's Gordon Brown,” she repeated, a faint sheepish grin playin across her lips, “Is he the President, is he?”

He stifled a laugh. Others at the computers nearby were asking, straight-faced, did she mean the Prime Minister, and saying no, Gordon Brown was the previous one.

“So who's the one now, then?” she asked, sitting up herself and looking vaguely interested.

Is it worth seven quid an hour, me being here, he thought? Is seven measly fucking quid worth an hour of my life, spent learning nothing, stultifying and wasting away? What's it actually costing me, in terms of things I could be doing, people I could be talking to? I could be in the Tate Gallery looking at some things. I might meet a girl there. We might hit it off, and I might take her for a drink and a dance. I might end up fucking her on the stairs to her flat because we can't wait to get up them. But instead I'm sat in a room with no natural light because the blinds have been closed over the massive fuck-off windows which don't open, and the air con means the place is either an oven or an icebox (currently an icebox), and I'm listening to some scouse bird ask her friend what the pope is, and whether she has to vote and who are we meant to vote for. My time is more valuable that this. Surely it has to be.

A call came through, the first of the day. He stumbled over his intro spiel.

-

He had sat there in his crystallised moment, like a fat frog in a pond. He was still. He was seething. He had let the reply congeal in him, and started to type.

Dear Faye,

Thanks for your email. You, personally, have ruined me with it. I am now nearing bankruptcy, will have nowhere to live next month, and you, personally, have taken the security from my life to such a degree that I do not know how I will eat next week.

But still, silver cloud and all that. Your email has led to some thoughts crossing my mind that may not ordinarily have done so. I thought about leaving town, but realised my creditors would find me easily enough in Manchester or London. I then contemplated skipping the country, heading somewhere non-English-speaking and doing something completely different. Bartending perhaps, or cutting sugar cane or harvesting poppies. But the same objection stands (although I would care little). Also I would need a passport and a plane ticket. I have neither of these things, and therefore they would cost me money. As I am sure you have by now gathered, because of you, personally, I have none.

The second thought lead to another, though, and that to a realisation. I need to drastically change what I am doing with myself. I am a wreck in all conceivable ways, and jobs like the one you have just taken from me are a symptom and a cause of this. I am going to think seriously about what comes next for me, but I am as close to sure as a rational person can be that it will not involve call centre work, and it will not involve Liverpool. It will more surely again not involve you or your company. As such I would be obliged if you would take my details from your computers, shred whatever copies of my CV and personal documents you have in your possession, screw the remains of these last into a ball, and work them into an orifice of your choice, on either Hayley's body or your own. I will not be needing your services again.

And as you have deprived me of the ability to use a line I have always wanted to but have never been able (“Take your job and shove it up you hole”) by grace of firing me earlier, please make do with the recommendations above, and the spirit in which the sentiments are delivered.

Yours in eternal gratitude blah blah blah


He had stopped, exhaled and curled his fingers into fists again, and knuckled his eyes, hard. The hangover was beginning to bite again now that he had been sitting down for a while. His hand returned to the cheap plastic mouse, and his cursor hovered over the Send Mail button.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to lower his finger that fraction of an inch, to click down on that button. It could have been the daftness of it all. It could have been the old man waiting in a queue for the computers behind him, who had kept stealing glances at his screen. It could have been the oppressive heat, and the half-light, and the hangover. But right now, as he ran these moments through in his mind, he thought it was fear. Fear of someone not liking him.

He had clicked the little X at the top of the screen. When asked, he had chosen to leave this page with the message sat as a draft on a server somewhere.

-

He at his computer. A noise outside his room made him snap to his senses, and he realised how late it had become. The late spring air was close, despite his open window, and the cars drifting by outside sounded lazy and unhurried. He had an image of alligators in a sluggish mud-filled river. Just then a siren of some kind kicked up – he had forgotten how to tell the difference – and there was a revving and a whoosh of someone frantic to save someone else. A sharp-prowed speedboat churns the water leaving shreds of plant debris and great waves that undulate away to the banks and die out amid the parted alligators.

His housemate has a new girlfriend. His old one was quiet and pleasant, a little mouse of a girl. He finished her because he didn't want to be stopped fucking whoever he liked. The new girl is a colleague, a great buxom girl from the country somewhere, with an accretion of fake tan, blackened hair, and large teeth. They sound drunk. A tinny rendition of an Arctic Monkeys number emanates from laptop speakers through the wall, clear enough to pick out riffs and vocal melodies, but no lyrics.

The two of them are laughing and bantering about something. He has started selling coke alongside his sundry other substances, and they both seem to be enjoying it. Then, by the sound of it they both seem to be enjoying each other.

When he fucked his last girlfriend they were pretty quiet. She made hardly any noise at all but for some heavier breathing and the occasional moan. This one is different. She moans alto, long and loud, as the wood frame bed creaks and cracks with each stroke. The moans increase in volume and become breathier, and a slap rings out – this is greeted with a redoubling of moans.

A succession of slaps denotes a change of position, and the pace quickens. Male noises now drift through the wall. He loses interest, stands and makes to leave. He lets his bedroom door close on its spring with a loud bang, and heads for the living room before he can figure out if they've noticed.

-

He sits on the stain fabric sofa-bed in front of the big battered TV. An episode of Top Gear he may or may not have seen. He flicks over to LFC TV, where Dirk Kuyt is talking stiltedly about his top five favourite goals (they are all workmanlike and unspectacular, and are usually winners in derbies), and then on to an Under 21 match between England and Spain. It has been hyped as only Sky can muster, because of the dearth of other things to hype, and despite himself he cares about the result because of this.

The flat is empty, everyone else having moved out or gone on holiday. He likes the quiet of the place, which is still a tip, but the living room is comparatively tidy. He reclines on the sofa bed, whose frame has been warped and beaten until it now more closely resembles a bed than a sofa. He scratches himself behind the head with a crooked arm, and takes a glug of iced water.

He starts at a sound on the landing outside – someone has let themselves in, and is singing under their breath. He does not recognise the voice at first, but it comes to him – the new girlfriend. What the hell is she doing here? And why does she have a key?

He darts to his feet and to the door to the flat, locking it. She tries the handle on the other side, groans with displeasure on finding it locked, and jingles through a set of keys for the right one. He unlocks the door deliberately, and opens it for her. She is slack-jawed, surprised to see him but also in general.

“What's happenin'?” The question is casual, but contains a challenge.

“Oh hiyaaaa, Sam gave me a key, just here to pick up some of his clothes and I'll be off.”

She stand in the brightly-lit landing room that serves his flat and the one upstairs; he stands propped against the doorframe, stood in the dark narrow hallway, which feels as though it is getting darker and closer with every moment passing. He stands back out of her way.

“Thanks,” she jabs perfunctorily.

He leaves the flat's door open to light her way through the twisting corridor, the lights long since blown and never replaced. She calls to him over her shoulder.

“Everyone else moved out then?”

He nods, then remembering she can't see him anymore calls, “Aye.”

“Ah right. Place is awful quiet,” she burrs, making conversation.

He agrees. The corridor closes around him as he closes the door to the landing with a bang. He walks silent on stockinged soles across the coarse weave of the carpet, running one hand along the wall to guide the way. She stands with her back to him, folding trousers, and bends to put them in a holdall.

When she turns to face him he is standing in the doorway of her boyfriend's room, the one next to his. He is in shadow again, but the difference in light levels is less here – the blinds are drawn in the room, and the sun is on the other side of the house, low and yellowing. She stands erect, her large breasts pushed up over a bra which is visible through her sheer top, her shortish legs and small feet in skirt, near-opaque tights and heels with bows at the ankle.

He can smell her perfume, mingling with the smell of the room – the only room in the house that always smells nice. Or at least always smell of chemicals. Nice chemicals. Bought for the purpose of making places smell nice. His palms are sweaty, and tingle.

“Could do make sure that door's not locked later on? Like after-the-bars-close time? I'm staying here tonight.” Her look is a challenge, and also partly hides disgust and condescension. That look seems to swell in his mind – it closes in on him, with the dark, and the smell, and the corridor closing on him, until he can't breathe with it.

His hands come up. A free act. She doesn't move until they are fastened around her neck, and it's too late to scream, or make any sound at all but for a crackling and choking in the depths of her throat, and her limbs convulse as he pins her to the bed, and continue to jerk and spasm as her breathing chokes out once and for all, and despite their haemorrhaging at the pressure of blood and abortive attempts to gulp in air the eyes retain, even to the last, the disgust, the condescension, the mocking laughter which never finds expression because it lies buried under a mechanical lack of pity, like that for the plight of a dumb beast.