music.
He swung the head of the mop in long sweeps, quartering an area towards the door and Reynolds’ office. When he had finished he took a long-handled sponge and began to work back over the wet floors.
There was an uneven flow of customers down the steps, through the rattling turnstiles, to the urinals. He became used to the definitions of space, the silences of the tiles, the occasional footsteps of men as they approached the urinals, paused, then walked back through the turnstiles. After a while the flow of men to and fro from the urinals began to remind him of water in its restless inconstancy.
Ez worked slowly towards the cubicles. They were set out against the farthest wall from the entrance, a line of seventeen in all, with wooden doors and solid mahogany frames. He reached the end of the room, then he turned parallel to the line of cubicles and began to work his way to the adjacent wall.
Behind him, the occasional customer entered a cubicle and bolted the latch. He heard the slam of a door as someone exited from a cubicle and then the sound of metal bearings as he passed through the turnstile.
Later that morning, towards lunch, he stopped, blinked, stretched. A man emerged from a nearby cubicle. Ez gained an impression of a City suit, of early middle age, of the brief shine of baldness beneath thinning hair. The man passed through the turnstiles and began to walk up the stairs beyond. He seemed to drift upwards, as though in a trance, towards the grey light of the exit.
Ez put down the mop and walked over to the cubicle.
He opened the door to visit the cubicle himself. But before he could enter, a second man came out, brushing past him, not catching his eye.
In his initial incomprehension it seemed to Ez curiously like a magical trick – two rabbits from the same hat. Or perhaps déjà vu. He tried to assemble an impression of the second man, of a white face with fair hair and almost albino eyelids, of a grey City suit like the first, and an air of calmness or preoccupation. He was younger and fairer than the first man, though they might have come from the same firm, the same office. Ez watched him walk through the turnstiles and up the steps. He listened to the final faint patter of his leather-soled shoes as he disappeared from view into clouded daylight.
He glanced at Jason, who was standing a few yards away, leaning on his mop, watching Ez equivocally. Jason smiled, shook his head, and turned away. He began to mop the floor again. Ez heard the furred music from his headphones, like an insect fluttering against a pane.
Later that afternoon the three of them, Ez, Reynolds, and Jason, were taking tea in Reynolds’ office.
Reynolds said, “How your first day going?”
“OK, man.”
Jason sat in his chair chewing a biscuit.
Ez said, “Funny thing happen to me.”
Reynolds sipped his tea. “What?”
“I was wanting to visit a cubicle – you know. Someone come out and so I know it is free. I go to open the door and … another man come out.”
Reynolds watched him carefully, as though trying to calculate Ez’s comprehension.
After a while, Reynolds said, “So?”
Ez shrugged. “I don’t understand it. Two men in there.”
Reynolds sipped his tea and chewed his biscuit.
“What don’t you understand?”
“One man sitting, one man waiting. Why don’t he wait outside?”
Ez looked at Reynolds’ face. Some faint appreciation entered his thoughts.
Reynolds considered him. He observed several expressions move across Ez’s features.
Ez said, “You don’t –”
Jason seemed embarrassed more by Ez’s innocence than the subject under discussion. He shook his head and looked away.
Finally Reynolds said, “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“Happening all the time,” Jason said.
“What happening?” Ez asked.
“All the time,” Reynolds repeated. “Reptiles.”
Ez looked from one face to the other.
“Men are …? Two in …”
“Sometimes three.”
“No.”
Jason said, “One time, five.”
“Five?” Ez was incredulous.
Jason nodded. “Five walk out.”
They paused. Ez sipped his tea and considered. Neither of the other two spoke.
After a few moments, Ez said, “What you do about it?”
Reynolds shrugged. “Stop it getting out of hand.”
Jason moved on his chair and nodded. “That the truth.”
Ez said, “Why they wanting to do this, man?”
“We don’t ask why, man,” Reynolds said. His voice had the singsong of patois. “We don’t keep their conscience, we only keeping order.”
“Why they do it here?” Ez asked. “Why not somewhere else?”
“Where else?”
“Better than out on the street,” Jason said.
Reynolds and Jason laughed softly. Jason said, as if by way of confirmation, “Better than the pavement.”
Ez waited patiently for their mirth to subside.
“They got a compulsion,” Reynolds explained. “You see them, looking about, hoping to catch someone’s eye.”
“What you do to stop them?”
“We can’t stop them looking about, man. If they loiter too long, maybe, we ask them to move along.”
“Sometimes another one come,” Jason said. “They go into a cubicle. Two of them.”
“How?”
“When you not looking. One go first. Wait awhile. Then another. Slippery, man. But once you know they in there, you can make it difficult. You knock on the door. If nothing happen, you put a big stick under the door, rattle it about.”
“A big stick?”
Reynolds stood up, walked to the farthest corner, and picked up an oversize wooden walking-stick that leaned against the wall.
“You knock this against their ankles.”
Jason said, “You rattle their cage, man.” He laughed openly, shaking his head.
“Sometimes it doesn’t work,” Reynolds said. “Sometimes nothing happen.”
Ez swallowed. “What then?”
“You just have to wait for them to come out.”
Ez didn’t bother to hide his consternation. He knew he was under observation but he had moved beyond surprise. He looked from one to the other. Reynolds gave him a straight stare. Jason softly shook his head and turned away.
In the evening, as Ez took off his overalls and put his mop in the cupboard, Reynolds asked, “First day all right?”
“Fine.”
“Think you last?”
“Believe so.”
Jason drifted out on his way out through the