Small Mercies
He was still new, Jamesie, a bit unsure, sitting on the bench with the rest of them waiting for the six beeps. They kicked their heels and double-dragged their cigarettes, the initial banter reduced to a few disparaging asides.
If they could be anywhere other than here…
No-one mentions it, ever, but surely it crosses their minds. Anywhere other than here.
But here was where it was at. This is what he’d been after. He’d walked the streets to reach this place, even though the job had arrived at his door, delivered by his uncle Tam, proud to help his nephew out.
It was shite, the only way to describe it. Shite at best. And some of these boys had been here for over a decade. A decade!
He was lucky, he had to remind himself. He had got sorted out. All that wandering, in the dark and in the sunshine, looking for a different place each day where time could efficiently be put to the sword; it was over. He’d got a job and this was it.
You’re a lucky boy, Jamesie, and don’t forget it. There are people who’d bite the hand off you if you were to offer them the same.
But still.
Beep beep beep beep beep beeeeeep. Radio One News at eight. Time for work. Codename Pandemonium. Hammers flying, bang bang banging, staple guns rattling, shouting, bawling, storms of dust, sweat and swearing.
- Gable ends! Get us some gable ends.
He had to go into the other section to get the gable ends. If they were cut, he brought them through. If they weren’t cut, he had to go and speak to they guys who did the cutting.
- What the fuck do you want?
It was Williams, the foreman. The boss’s spy, his tea-drinking buddy. Instinctively, Jamesie didn’t like him.
- Fuck off. I want some gable ends.
The boys that did the cutting laughed.
– That’s right, don’t take any lip from that old waxer, son. Cut the boy some gable ends and give him a fucking break!
- Cut and fucking ready. They’re over there in a pile, replied Williams, nodding his head in the direction of the separating wall. – Where they’re supposed to be.
Jamesie ran to the wall to get the bits, then ran through to drop them with Billy, the bloke who had shouted for them. The sweat was upon him. You couldn’t fuck around in this game. Time was paramount. Somebody wants gable ends, they want them now. They want them when they ask for them and that’s that, end of story.
Dunky also wanted something but he couldn’t hear for all the fucking clattering going on. He dropped Billy’s order and ran to Dunky who needed half a dozen backs.
- What the fuck’s this? It was Billy. – What are these?
- Gable ends.
- Aye, well, put them in the right place next time.
Billy was explaining where things go, if they were going to the right place. Dunky started doing his nut.
- Where are they backs? For fucks sake! I’m standing here waiting.
He put his hammer down to emphasise the point.
The thing about them was that they were on bonus. That’s what all the panic was about. Get enough of these frames down to the upholsterer and they got another wee something in the pay packet. And it would be a wee something. These boys, the ones that had been here for years, they were on seventy notes a week. Some of them had families to feed and this is what they were getting on the Friday. Seventy quid. They worked their bollocks off, two tea breaks and half an hour for dinner. A minute late you work an extra minute. If you’re in a union, don’t even take your jacket off, you’re out the door and don’t come fucking back.
Give or take a pound, though, and seventy quid was double what Jamesie was getting. He could do with cash like that, especially when you stopped to consider the abuse he had to take throughout the day. Banter, his arse. It was abuse, downright abuse, that he was getting and he was fucking had it up to here. You know what time it was? It was five past eight on a Monday morning and they were screaming at him from all angles. The day, the week, had just begun and his head was spinning. Billy wanted his gable ends moved from here to there, because here was wrong and there was right. Dunky was apoplectic because his half a dozen backs weren’t going to get a fucking taxi to his bench. Some guy with glasses had joined in. Jamesie hadn’t seen him before. He must have been on holiday or sick these past two weeks. He was mumping and moaning about something that the gopher, the new boy, the lucky laddie, Jamesie, couldn’t quite catch because he didn’t know who to listen to first. Fucking fuck the lot of them.
- Ayah, ayah bastard, ya bastard, ya fucking bastard!
It was the speccy guy, jumping up and down, blood squirting out of his hand. He held his thumb in front of him, a staple sticking through his fingernail. Jese Oh! These were big staples, not for piles of paper but for holding couches that heavy bastards will to test to the limit in their living rooms. Big, big staples, and one of them was coming through the nail or, maybe, the bone. He couldn’t tell for all the blood and the speccy fella dancing round and round in circles.
- Bastard bastard bastard bastard!
- Take it out, ya fucking wumman, shouted Dunky.
- Take it out! How am I going to take it? You fucking take it out!
- Fucks sake. Dunky left his bench, shaking his head. – Give us it here, your hand.
The bespectacled guy held out his hand and turned his head towards the floor.
- How are ye going to take it out?
- Just shut up and stand still for a minute, will ye?
Dunky got the staple between his teeth and yanked it. There were no witnesses to this event. Every eye was shielded by a hand or looking somewhere else. Instead, the ears received the information. The scream bounced off the walls and round the room, so loud they could be heard long after the injured party had left to go to hospital, hand bandaged up with toilet roll.
- He’ll no get paid for that time off, said Dunky.
Everyone got back to work. Jamesie didn’t like it, not one bit. If he had stapled his own thumb he’d want a bit of wage, half a day at least. I mean, was that too much to expect?
By the time the tea-break approached, he was knackered. There was four and three quarter days of this carry on before the weekend arrived! Jamesie had to make the tea. That was part of his job. He had to make sure that the boys were well stacked with their bits of wood and then he had to go and fill the urn. While that was heating up, he took the orders for the sandwiches which he then had to go and collect from the van.
He didn’t mind this bit of the job. It was a break of about half an hour, all told, from running about like a maniac. He got a chance to have a cigarette, which, technically, you were only allowed to do during the official breaks. It would be worse when the winter set in, though. The van was a good ten minute hike and the estate he was working in was highest spot in miles. Even on a good day, there was a wind rampaging through the place that would cut you in two. He wondered what it would be like to be Russian. No wonder they were mental.
Arriving at the van, he was about five minutes earlier than normal, due to his efficiency in rinsing out the cups. He had been economical with the gaffer and the gaffer’s snitch’s. They were of the opinion that time was money, so he saved some of both by neglecting their receptacles. There was no malice in it. Not really. It was just that they were a pair of fucking bastarts.
The bloke on the van wasn’t ready. He was running late.
- Eh, how long will ye be?
- What?
- I’m just wondering, how long will ye be?
- Don’t know, fuck, about five minutes.
- Five minutes?
- About that.
- I mean, if you’re going to be ages then I’ll go back to the work and tell them. But if you’re only going to be five minutes I might as well sit tight.
The bloke didn’t answer.
- So, I’ll just sit tight then.
- Aye, whatever ye want.
Jamesie pulled out his cigarettes and sparked one up. That was two gone in the space of the last ten minutes. He was going to be one short for the afternoon, but not to worry, he’d nip his lunchtime one and keep it for later. He could always buy a packet but that would be the bus fare down the tubes. He didn’t mind walking it, especially if some of the other guys were doing the same, but if it came down to a choice he’d rather not. It was a good distance. An hour and a bit if you were putting a step on it. Aye, fuck walking it.
He read the packet. It didn’t take long. He took out his matchbox and started getting rid of the spent ones and when that was done he sparked a couple and chipped them into a puddle, just for the sport, the hissing noise they made.
There was nothing round here; an industrial estate halfway to the middle of nowhere. Whose idea was this for a place?
Boring.
- Fucking freeze ye, eh?.
- What?
- I’m saying, it would fucking freeze ye. Although, I suppose you’re all right in there with that big fucking oven.
- It’s all right, I suppose.
- What up with you? Got a hangover or something?
- Eh?
- You’re like a bear with a sore fucking head!
- Aye, well.
- Look, I’m no being funny, but how long are ye going to be? These bastards want blood, ye know what I’m saying?
- A couple of minutes, or something.
- Right.
- He looked at his watch but he couldn’t remember when he’d left so, realistically, he didn’t have a clue how long he’d been here. It could have been ten minutes. It could have been more. It could have been less. He probably hadn’t been that long, thinking about it. The problem was that there was only so much reading on a cigarette carton. It just seemed like a while because he had nothing to do but sit there. The guy in the van, his conversation wasn’t up to much. To say the least, man, to say the fucking least.
Fucking knob. It was a question of civility, that’s all. A bit of civility; nice to be nice and all that patter! But, fair’s fair, sometimes you’re not in the mood to talk, not to anybody. You want to get on with your day. You want people to leave you alone and just because you’re in the business of selling people food, that doesn’t mean you’ve got to have a chinwag with every one of them. In fact, Jamesie decided, he wouldn’t talk to any cunt either. He could see it, after a while, slapping down the bacon on the bread. Want sauce? There’s it’s there. What’s that? A ten pound note! Fuck’s sake.
This is what they were like some of these guys. You give them a ten pound note and they give you a filthy look. It’s like they don’t want ten pound notes!
Jamesie started walking back to the factory. He’d been away too long. That Hector, the boss, he’d be climbing the walls if he had an inkling. The boys would be running about daft as well, their gable ends diminished.
Acht! It was rubbish. This life, I’m telling you, it was fucking rubbish. And this was his own personal Utopia. He was desperate for the chance to go out and earn a couple of shillings, go for a pint, whatever, just to get out the house for a while. Sitting there, day in day out, staring at four walls. It was enough to crack you up, it really was. So, this was it. He was supposed to be happy. He’d reached his own personal pop-stardom and realised that fame wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It was Maggie fucking Thatcher, that’s who it was. If it wasn’t for her, then things wouldn’t be the way they were. If it wasn’t for the situation, with that Thatcher turning the fucking screw, a job might be a good place to go to. But this? This was terrible. It really was. It was shite. Do you know how much he was getting to do this? Fuck all, that’s what. He was getting fuck all. It was an insult. But that was the way it was. You got fuck all, and you were one of the lucky ones! Honest to God! You had to be thankful for small mercies, count your blessings, be grateful because at least you were getting fuck all. Other people were left to wander about. And wandering about had its limits, to put it mildly. There was only so much wandering to be done before you went home and never bothered going back out again, melted into the bed.
Actually, thinking about it, he hated her, Maggie Thatcher. He actually despised her, more than anything that he could think of. He couldn’t think of anything in the world more despicable than Maggie Thatcher. She was evil, pure evil. You see her face, man, are you trying to say that was a normal face? No fucking chance! It was the face of a headcase, pure and simple. She was nuts, a screwball, running about destroying the place and the cops wouldn’t even arrest her! If it was him, Jamesie, with a tin of spray paint down the town centre, they’d huckle him, make him pay for his misdemeanours. But she was getting away with murder and nobody was doing anything about it. How come? How come, eh? that’s what he wanted to know.
He stopped in his tracks. Right; if he went back in empty handed after being away for all that time, ten minutes/half and hour, whatever it was, it would be worse. Hector and his sidekick would fucking string him up. It was better to do it all in one go, get it out the road. Go back and get the pieces off the van and that would be it. It wasn’t his fault if it took a bit longer than usual. The bloke in the van, five minutes he said. It was better to wait five minutes than walk all the way back to the factory and then turn round and come back again, just for the sake of showing your face. It wasn’t Jamesie’s fault the cunt couldn’t tell the time.
There was a queue. He had to stand and wait in a queue! This was the tin lid. After all that hanging about, he had to stand and wait again. Five minutes! He felt like punching the bloke on the throat.
- Up and running at last?
- What are ye after?
- Right, two rolls and sausage, four rolls and bacon, two rolls and bacon with tattie scones, one bacon, egg and sausage, three pieces and sausage, two pieces and bacon…
- Right, right, hold yer horses, eh?
- I’m just giving ye the order, so ye know.
- Aye, well, give us a fucking chance.
- Ye want me to give ye the orders individually? No? I didn’t fucking think so. I’m just telling ye what it is and, if ye get stuck, I’ll remind ye.
- What did ye say it was again? Four rolls and sausage and what?
- Two rolls and sausage…it was two rolls and sausage and four bacon…fuck it, do ye want the list?
- Aye, give us it here.
He handed over the bit of paper with the orders on it. – Mind give us it back, it’s got the people’s names on it so I know who gets what.
Right.
He shoved the food and drink into a couple of plastic bags and carted it back to the factory. What else was there to do? Options, we’re talking about. His options were limited. He couldn’t go anywhere because he didn’t have any money. He’d never thought about it before but if he was somewhere else things would have been different. If he didn’t live in a fucking blackspot, life would be much easier. All they fucking yuppies running about in London, the same age as him, driving about in Porsches and the rest of it, buying and selling houses left, right and centre. If he had been brought up in London, he might have got a slice of that, but he wasn’t and so he didn’t. These were the cards he’d been dealt. Whoever dealt them hadn’t shuffled them properly by the feel of things. He couldn’t even get to London. How could you get to London on the money he was getting? You couldn’t get anywhere. He couldn’t even get home if he bought a packet of fags for fucks sake. That was the situation. No point in even thinking about it. You just had to keep the head down. It was all you could do. And, always remember, be grateful for small mercies.
Fuck small mercies.
He didn’t want small mercies.
Butterflies. He had butterflies in his stomach as he approached the door to the factory. What were they doing there? He wasn’t bothered. He had nothing to be bothered about. He wasn’t in the wrong. He wasn’t even in the right. There was no right or wrong to it because he had just been doing his job. His job was to make the tea and go and get the pieces. It took a bit longer than it usually does but it’s not as if he went to the pub or anything like that. He hadn’t been sneaking about, enjoying himself in some peculiar fashion. He was freezing. All right, he wasn’t freezing, he was cold. He’d been out in the breeze after working up a sweat. Are you trying to say he’d do that for the fun of it!
So, fuck them. If they want to have a pop they can have a fucking pop. It would only be that big fat, Williams, the offside tea-drinking fucking spy. The rest of them were actually alright, as far as he could tell. They weren’t bad. It was just because he was new. Once he settled in everything would be hunky-dory, a piece of piss. He had a good sharp tongue on him, himself. He could fucking banter with the best of them, just you wait and see.
He opened the door. It was like the baddie walking into a saloon, spelling trouble, freezing time. A split second where the entire place looked at him at once. It was barely perceptible, but it was a definite moment that alerted him to something up. Those that were sawing stopped momentarily before starting again. It wasn’t much but it was enough. He took the food to Dunky to distribute. He was going to make the tea, quick as fuck. Dunky was all right. Out of the lot, he was the one he got on with best.
- What the fuck kept ye, wee man? he whispered.
- Long story. The fucker in the van took donkeys to start up, more or less.
- Ach.
- No jesting. I was going to come back but I couldn’t see the point, running back and forward.
- Jamesie opened a bottle of Cola and let the fizz come out a bit.
- Ye’d better get a move on. Hector’s on the warpath.
- Just one quick drink.
He took a mouthful and wiped this mouth with the back of his jumper, the sawdust on his sleeve transferring to his cheek. Dunky’s eyes alerted him to a presence from behind. He turned to see Hector rushing over towards him. He was raging. There were no two ways about that. His big red face was getting ever brighter, his bulbous nose twitching, moving his glasses up and down. If he tried anything funny, Jamesie was going to whack him.
- You! In here.
- What about the tea?
- Just you never mind the tea.
He walked off and left Jamesie standing. Jamesie surveyed the scene around him. Dunky shrugged his shoulders. Williams, the spy, looked at him. The man who knew everything; there was a smugness about him that was really starting to grate. He started whistling and turned away, a long piece of wood in his hand, towards the cutting machine. A flash of putting a bit of Williams through the electric saw flashed through Jamesie’s head. Aye, scream, ya fucking bastard!
When he got to Hector’s office, he could almost smell the atmosphere. The room was thick with rage. Jamesie stood, his bottle of Cola in his hand, picking at the label. He waited and waited for a word from the gaffer but Hector stood facing the corner. Jamesie wondered if he was staring at the wall or out the window. He felt stupid, standing there, his position clear and ready to be delivered on invitation. Nothing. He took a drink of Cola. Hector, hearing the fizz as the cap turned, span around to watch him drinking.
- You’re one cocky bastard, eh! Eh?
- What are ye on about?
- What am I on about? What am I on about! Do ye know what time it is?
Jamesie made to look at his watch before Hector interrupted. – I’ll tell ye what time it is, shall I? Do ye want to know what time it is?
- I thought it was tea-time.
- Clever, eh? I’ll tell ye what time it is. It’s time you started waking up. Ye hear me? It’s time ye started pulling yer weight, eh? Do ye understand me?
- Aye.
Williams walked into the room with two cups of tea. He put one on Hector’s desk and sat down on a chair sipping on his own. He didn’t look at Jamesie and he didn’t look at Hector. He was a picture of indifference. It was nothing to do with him. He sat, flicking through the paper. A lapdog, that’s what he was. A fucking lapdog.
- Ye need to grow up, son. Ye need to learn the score. Ye can’t have people running after ye tidying up your mess. It’s no fair on them, they’ve got their own work to do without worrying about what you’re up to.
I don’t think I get ye.
I’m saying you’re on yer own can. You pick up the wages so you do the work.
I do do the work. If I wasn’t doing the work, ye think they wouldn’t let me know?
- It’s no what I’ve been hearing. Like I say, you’re on yer own can. Get it? You’re on yer own can.
- Right, right, I’m on my own can, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Jamesie looked at Williams who, smiling shortly, attempted to export some empathy. A futile effort, it drew contempt in Jamesie. He didn’t need anything from people such as him.
- How long does it take to go to the van?
- What, usually?
- How long does it take?
- About five/ten minutes there, the same back, plus the time it takes to make the pieces.
- How long?
- How do I know? I’ve never timed it. Do you want me to time it for you the next time?
- Well, that’s just it, sonny Jim. I don’t know if there will be a next time. I don’t know if I see enough in your attitude to warrant a next time. Can ye give me one good reason why there should be a next time?
- The guy was just starting his motor. He said it would take five minutes until he was ready to start serving. I could have come back but if I did that, and I didn’t have the grub, I thought I’d get a roasting. I thought it would be better to wait. I don’t know how long it took him but he was longer than five minutes. I was trying to use my initiative, okay? You try standing outside in the cold…see if ye think it’s preferable to being inside.
- See what I mean about your attitude. I’m trying to give ye a second chance and ye can’t stop giving me lip.
- I’m no giving ye lip. I’m trying to explain where I was. Your pal there, he told ye I was away for ages so ye dragged me in here, presumably for an explanation. I’m trying to give ye one.
- You’re an impudent so and so.
- What? What is it? I don’t know what you’re talking about half the time. I thought ye wanted an explanation and when I give ye one, ye tell me that I’m out of order. You’re going on about my own can and I don’t know what it is. I mean, what’s that all about? Cans... Christ!
- I need to put ye right on one point, son.
- It was Williams, chipping in from his chair.
- What?
- Hector doesn’t need me, or anyone else, to tell him what’s going on in this place.
- Whatever ye like.
- What does that mean? said Hector.
- It means whatever ye like. It doesn’t mean anything.
- Dear, dear me. What are we going to do with you? I created a job here for ye to do your uncle, a friend of mine, a favour. This is how ye repay the both of us.
- The way I heard it is there was a job here. My uncle spoke for me. That’s his involvement. I’m no letting him down, or anyone else.
- Only yourself.
- Tt.
- Excuse me?
- What?
- Did you just tut at me?
- I just tutted. Not at you, particularly.
Hector’s temporary avuncular demeanour deserted him as quickly as it had descended. He was raging. That made two of them. Jamesie had a short fuse, granted, but it seemed to him that there was a game going on. This pair were trying to knock the stuffing out of him at an early stage. They wanted him to apologise and go work harder. They wanted repentance for sins never committed. It was the duplicity that Jamesie couldn’t come to terms with. If they were going to sack him, fine, fucking sack him. Don’t stand there and ponder loudly the pros and cons of letting him stay there. What was he, a child? Behave yourself, you get some pudding. Act the clown, go to your room. It made him angry. It made him really fucking angry. These bastards, he’d seen it all before. They wanted to make you feel small, begotten to them. It was a question of authority. It wasn’t that he had a problem with it, as had been pointed out. It just happened to be the case that he didn’t recognise the jurisdiction of these people. He was not in debt to Hector and his ilk. He took the money but he gave him labour in return. If anyone was disrespectful, it was these bastards who had the cheek to pay the kind of wages they were paying. They weren’t educators. They weren’t guardians. They were creaming the profits on the sweat of desperate people. They were Thatcher’s fucking toadies. The same with school; it had turned into a battle. The factories shut down and there was nothing left to aim for. Education, as far as Jamesie could see, was there to produce a body capable of discipline and obedience, with the basics in reading, writing and a bit of counting. It wasn’t designed to produce a person with the wherewithal to spread his wings and find the world, to broaden his experience. That would have left the factory a body short. So when the factories shut their door, everyone lost interest. Everyone said, fuck it. The school had lost its purpose as a school. It was redundant, as the kids would be. A line was drawn in the sand. Disaffected youth on one side and disillusioned educators on the other. The skies grew dark and battle joined. Everyone lost. The system fucked the youth and the youth went on the rampage. There was nothing in the water. There was no collective madness with the generation. It was despondency with young, vicious, teeth. It was the price the system had to pay for playing with people’s lives.
- You never, ever, tut at me again. Ye hear that? Ever!
- What are you, my teacher?
- Teacher! Oh, no son, I’m no yer fucking teacher. I’m more important than yer teacher. I’m the man who pays your wages and it’s high bloody time ye started to remember that.
- My wages? What wages are they? I’m in a full time job. I come in here and run about like a daftie. I breathe in shite all day. I need to buy my own fucking mask! I break my back lifting shit. The only times there aren’t people shouting at me is fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes in the afternoon and half an hour for dinner. Otherwise, it’s constant. I’ve no opened my mouth about it. I’m trying to get into it and then you pull me in and talk down to me like I’m some sort of stupid wee boy who’ll stand there and let ye. For what? For thirty-six pound fifty a week! Ye know what that is? That’s under a pound an hour before they start taxing me, before I pay my bus fares, before I buy my sandwiches. After I pay my digs, I’ve got fuck all left to play with. All I’m doing is getting out the house. That’s the only function of this job. Okay! Understand? On my own can…I can’t afford a can! Ye don’t want me tutting? Well, I’m not fucking bothered. Tt. Ye hear that? I tutted. I tutted in your face. Tut tut tut tut tut tut fucking tut.
- You…
- Naw, you! Tut tut tut, ya fucking annoying arsehole.
- Hector rushed over towards Jamesie. Jamesie lifted the bottle off the table and counter-charged, grabbing Hector by the collar.
- What are ye going to do? Hit the ungrateful upstart? Come on then, ya cunt that ye are. And you, he pointed to Williams, - Get yer fat arse back in that chair or, I swear to God, I’ll crown yer boyfriend with this bottle of tasty ginger, ya fucking grassing bastard. Ye think I won’t? Ye want to try me? Hector, ask your little helper if I’m scared to use yer head as a bottle opener.
- Just take it easy son. Calm down, eh, we’ll sort it out, said Hector.
Jamesie let him go. The adrenaline was pumping through him. He could feel it in his ticker. There was a throbbing pulse in his right eye, adding to the strangeness of the situation. He had lost the place. He had to go. There was nothing left for him to do. He was walking out the door and he wasn’t coming back.
- One thing, son.
- What’s that?
- You’re fucking sacked.
- Naw, I’m not.
- Oh, I can assure ye, you’re sacked.
- I’m resigning.
- Sacked.
- Semantics. Sacked, resigned, doesn’t matter. In fact, here’s my resigfuckingnation letter.
Jamesie smashed the bottle of Cola on the floor.
– Get your pal to mop it up.
A sudden realisation came upon Jamesie. You can’t walk out of a job. The Social doesn’t let you. They’ve changed the rules. Resign and they cut off your benefit. It didn’t matter. He’d go to fucking London. Fuck them. He’d come back in a fancy motor and run the bastards over and then reverse over the top of them. Enough was enough. He would get his wages and he would get the fuck away from here. He walked back into the factory, through the cutting section and in to pick up his jacket. He couldn’t look at anyone or he’d probably burst out greeting. Dunky approached him.
- Ye alright Jamesie, son?
- Naw.
- Are ye off?
- Aye.
- What happened? I mean, we heard the tail end of it. Fucking brilliant, by the way, son. It was fucking magic. I wish I had done it myself a few years ago.
- Aye.
- What happened, but?
- I just cracked up. That’s all.
- Dunky looked, awaiting further explanation. – Sorry, Dunky, you and the boys, I think yous are the ones that’ll get the comebacks. Nice to meet yous, and all that, but I need to get to fuck before something else happens. Tell the boys all the best for me.
He was actually scared. He was all right in the factory with all the people around, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they came out after him. Try to catch up with him and do his fucking melt in.
- All the best, wee man. You’re a good wee guy.
Dunky. See if they come out after me. You’re my witness, right.
- They’ll no come out.
- Aye, but if they do.
- If they do, no bother son.
He walked out the door. Hector’s car was sitting there. A Jag. The bastard drove a Jag. He was going to let the tyres down in case they fancied coming after him, but that was criminal damage. He didn’t doubt that Hector would take it all the way. You couldn’t blame him. He walked straight past the car before Hector’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
- Just to clarify a point…you’re sacked.
Jamesie turned and smiled. – What did you just say to me?
I said you’re sacked.
- Can you repeat that, a wee bit louder? Jamesie walked back towards Hector who was retreating into the factory. He opened the door. – What were ye saying?
- Sacked. You’re fucking sacked. Get out the door and don’t come fucking back or I’ll get the police to deal with ye.
Jamesie looked around the factory. – Any witnesses to this sacking, or do you think I’m being invited back?
There was silence as the entire factory stood to watch what was going to happen.
- It’s just, I want to come back but I’m not sure Hector wants to let me. Can anybody clarify the situation for me? Hector, do you want me still to work here?
- Over my dead body.
- Fair enough. Anybody hear that?
- Probably best if ye don’t come back, Jamesie. It seems it’d be for the best.
It was Dunky. Jamesie winked at him and walked out the door. Hector had fucked up. He would be back on the Social, which was terrible, but it was better than going penniless. Not much better, but better all the same. He was going to have to get something sorted quickly. He was getting out of here. He was getting on his bike. He was going to London to see the fucking queen.
A desperate feeling came over him. What would happen when he got there? He needed a few hundred quid at least. He couldn’t ask his folks. They wouldn’t want him to go, anyway. They would try to talk him out of it but there was nothing left to say. The day was dull and there was a long way to go. He walked past the bus stop and headed into the scheme across the way. A man in a square white building sold him ten cigarettes. He put a match to one and started on the long road home.
© Jimmy Wilde