she has never looked better. But just lately arranging to see her has almost become a question of booking an appointment.
She is now forty-five minutes late.
There will be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her absence. As occurs in a million appointments every day, an innocent delay has arisen. She is late, and that is all there is to it.
For the sake of variety, I climb up to the bed – climb, because the bed is a king-sized bunk which hangs from the high ceiling on big white-painted chains. When Angela first moved here, three years ago, she and I had a private sentimental nickname for this loft: the love-nest, we used to call it.
I lie down on my back with closed eyes. I breathe deeply.
There is so much room up here that three people could stretch out in comfort. In fact, it took Angela and me a little time to become accustomed to the space. In the year before she moved in here – our first year together – when I was living at home with Pa, we did our sleeping together at her old place, a cheap flat by the docks. Angela had a single bed, one as narrow as a train berth, and when the underground passed below and sent vibrations through the house, the two of us lay there rocking like journeyers on an overnight express. Who is to say that the sensation of travel was not an appropriate one? After all, we were going places. I was about to embark on my chair-making venture and Angela had just started her MBA, and like motorists entranced and quickened by new cities tantalizingly pledged on highway signboards, during those shaking nights our quickly looming futures kept us awake for hours, talking, talking. Fired up, emboldened by the rich proximity of our goals, we travelled easily through the hours of darkness, all the while wrapped up together like a package, our legs intertwined, our arms locked into bear hugs. We hung on like this all night. We had to – the bed was so small that we couldn’t roll over without falling out.
I open my eyes. Jesus, I hope she’s all right. I hope nothing’s happened to her.
I rise with a start and climb down the ladder. I’m damned if I am going to worry. The chances of Angela not safely returning home must be at least a million to one. Only a professional nail-biter like Pa would get worked up by those kinds of odds.
But if I were him, I would be fearful of long shots, too.
The incident in the pub this morning. Now that’s what I call a dark horse.
Pa and I had just sucked down the remains of our beers and were about to make a move when, pushing through the crush, a man suddenly came forward and pointed at Pa. ‘I know you,’ he said. He kept pointing. ‘It’s Breeze, isn’t it? You’re him. You’re Gene Breeze, aren’t you?’
Pa glanced at me nervously and said, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am.’ He turned to the man. ‘How – how can I help you?’
‘I thought I recognized you,' the man said. ‘I said to myself, I know that face from somewhere.’
It is important, here, to point something out: the most remarkable thing about the newcomer was his size. He was a midget. He could not have been more than four feet tall.
I picked up my coat and said, ‘Let’s go, Pa.’
The man said, ‘You want to know if I’ve got any problems, Breeze? You want to know if I’ve got any complaints? Well, pal, I do. I’ve got a whole pile of fucking complaints.’
He put his beer down and stood at the end of the table. Pa was cornered.
Pa said, ‘How can I help you, Mr …'
‘Don’t worry about my name, Breeze, you’re the one with questions to answer.’ Again he jabbed his index finger in Pa’s direction. ‘You got that, Breeze? You’re the one doing the answering around here.’
I could not believe it. This runt, this titch, was threatening two fully grown men.
‘How is it,’ the man demanded, ‘that I’m late for work almost every day of the week? Eh, Breeze? How is it that I spend two grand a year on fucking travel and still I get to stand in a crowded, dirty train every morning – if I’m lucky?’ He wiped the small wet hole of his mouth and started moving towards Pa. ‘Well? I only live fifteen miles from Rockport: so why does it take me, on average, one hour to get into town?’
Pa, his face yellow-grey again, was completely lost. He started shrinking into his anorak as the stranger slowly advanced like a miniature gunman, punctuating his sentences with absurd stomps of his cowboy boots. The stranger said, ‘You haven’t got much to say for yourself, have you, Breeze? Eh? Why do I spend half my life freezing on a fucking train platform? Well, Breeze? Sorry – well, Gene?’
‘I …’ Pa said. ‘I …’
I decided to intervene. ‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Listen, I don’t know who you are, but…’
‘Enjoying yourself, Breeze?’ the man sneered. ‘Having fun, are you? I am. I should do this more often. I should liaise with you more often.’ Now the midget’s red face, bright as a stop light, was directly below Pa’s. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘You want to know how I feel, Gene, old boy? You really want to know how I feel?’
The man spat straight into Pa’s face, the saliva spurting up and sticking with a tacky splash on his eyebrow and on the frame of his glasses.
The man drew back. ‘There you go, Gene. Stick that in your report.’ Then, before I could react, before I could snap his fucking dwarf’s neck, he walked off.
‘Pa,’ I said. ‘Pa, Jesus, I…’
Pa had not moved. He was still frozen in the corner with shock, the spittle now slowly dripping down on to his lips.
I took out his red linesman’s handkerchief and wiped his face and glasses. ‘Come on,’ I said, stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
That fleck of shit spat at Pa because Pa is the manager of the Rockport Railway Network, Northern Section. He is the man responsible for the smooth running of two hundred and sixty trains a day. It’s a large responsibility which has not been lessened, it has to be said, by the poster campaign which the Network has recently embarked on. Plastered over every train and every train station in north Rockport is a photograph of my father holding a telephone. It is not a very good photograph: his hair is uncombed, his cream tie clashes with his brown shirt and grey jacket and, worst of all, his face bears an apprehensive and culpable expression. The caption reads:
GENE BREEZE – AT YOUR SERVICE
Hello, I’m Gene Breeze, your Network Manager. If you have any comments – good or bad – about the service we provide, let me know. I want to know how you feel to help me meet your requirements. So don’t hold back. Liaise with me or my staff on Rockport 232597.
THE ROCKPORT NETWORK – WE’RE GETTING THERE
The network motto, ‘We’re getting there’, has, of course, become something of a joke, because everybody knows that the Network is getting nowhere. It has personnel problems, rolling-stock problems, signalling problems and investment problems. Above all, it has delay problems – delays that have been attributed to such malign agents of nature as swans (flying into the overhead lines), leaves (falling on the tracks) and rodents (gnawing into cables). Staff morale is low and passenger dissatisfaction is high, and for an hour at the end of every day Pa has to listen to the abuse and anger of the Network users. That is on top of the nine hours he puts in trying to run the railroad itself.
It angers me to think of what he goes through. Not long ago, I tried to talk him out of fielding the complaints personally.
‘I have to, son,’ he said. ‘I have to. I owe it to the customers. It’s not right that I invite them to ring me without me being there at least some of the time. They are my clients. They have a right to talk to me.’
‘But,