Eat To The Beat - Thursday

I spot him heading my way through a throng of lunchtime escapees. The sort of office workers who are either in the private sector, like me, and are taking five minutes to grab a sandwich to eat at their desk in between calls, or are working for the public sector and engaged in exercising their body, mind and rights by taking their full sixty minutes entitlement - no matter how may times the phone rings unanswered in their absence.

I consider dodging to the other side of the pavement, as I reach the pedestrianised area with slightly fewer empty shop units, not so many charity outlets and a healthier footfall, but I’m almost as lame as him now. Instead I paste on the increasingly hard to muster, glad to see you face. He looks genuinely pleased to meet me again – unless…

‘How’s tricks?’ Begins the hobbling banker breezily, as if greeting some sort of worn-out hooker whose overdraft facility he’s thinking of extending. The analogy has some merit, I think, as we both labour to a halt causing two jogging-bottomed, large-arsed young mothers, with more tattoos than what’s left of the Royal Navy can muster, to swerve their pushchairs past us without cracking into our ankles. The pair are engaged in some sort of harsh-vowelled rant about not getting their money on time and I wonder if they’ll be in shortly to ask B, our loose lettings lush, if she rents to DSS tenants – or if she’s coming out on the pull later? I realise, my autopilot has taken over and I’ve answered with a default platitude along the lines of: ‘Not too bad. You?’

The banker frowns and I notice, with a little churlish pleasure that he’s greyer and thinner on top than me now.

‘Seriously?’ he quizzes, shaking his head a bit like Bomber our destructive local surveyor when he down-values another home and destroys a much-needed sale with the words: ‘Price seems a bit full. Got any comparables?’

I admit, a bit sheepishly, that I haven’t thought the answer through and I’ve had better weeks, better months, better years and probably better career opportunities.

‘Thank God,’ he says brightening. ‘I thought it was just me.’

‘Thing is. I feel like a bloody dinosaur.’ Continues the shot-to-pieces in the hip and hair department moneylender, as I find myself perching on a pigeon-shit-stained bench half listening to his depressing monologue and half hearing the increasingly plaintive cries from the Big Issue seller everyone with a job, or not retired, is studiously avoiding.

‘Your business has changed a lot.’ I concede, trying to look at my watch without him spotting the movement. All the low-calorie meal deals with any non-horsemeat filling will be gone at this rate and I vaguely imagine I can hear phones ringing in my office, unless it’s that ear infection back again.

‘Tell me about it.’ Answers the man morosely, as I think ring the Samaritans pal. They volunteer for this sort of thing and don’t have to sit on a chilly bench a wino slept on a few hours earlier, feigning an interest rate I can’t sustain. The tarnished and gum-splattered pavement at my feet looks suspiciously like night-time emissions have been vented, making me wonder if I’ll have any, shoes of at the door before you come in to our house, oddballs later today. But then again, maybe they aren’t so weird?

‘The world is run by bloody bean counters.’ Rails the banker, seemingly without irony. Should I ask him about my endowment mortgage? Probably not. I’ve already seen one grown man cry today and there’s still that repossession to attend later.

‘Do you know, I’m one of the oldest in my branch now.’ Continues the man semi-rhetorically. ‘I have to report to some snot-nosed kid who talks in marketing sound-bites and questions my sales figures every Thursday.’

‘Not good.’ I concede, wondering if I can stomach another reduced-fat cheese and pickle, with those taste-free baked crisps and a bottle of flavoured water resembling piss?

‘Burger and chips?’ Asks assistant manager T, as I return.

‘Comfort food.’ I tell him - feeling a bit sick.

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Cold Logic - Thursday

I let a guttural expletive out before I realise, and it echoes around the kitchen accusingly. My wife walks in, even before the swear word has finished pinging round the room, the last timbre-filled bounce off the aluminium cooker hood almost pleasing She frowns at me. There was a time when I never swore in front of her, but half a lifetime of marriage and a similar period selling to the public, has broken more than barriers.

‘What is it?’ She asks resignedly. She doesn’t sound as if she really wants to know, more a fading loyalty question.

‘I forgot to clean my shoes.’ I tell her sheepishly, still staring at the slightly scuffed selection of Oxford and Brogues on the floor in front of me. She moves past the counter and inspects the footwear quizzically, then says:

‘I thought it was meant to be girls and shoes?’

‘I haven’t got as many pairs as you.’ I snap back ungraciously before a small detonation goes off at the back of my throat and I add to the necessity of a footwear clean up, by unloading a percussive sneeze that splatters the leather unpleasantly.

‘You shouldn’t even be going in.’ Chides my wife as I stifle another sneeze and a derisive laugh, before bending to get the cleaning kit from a cupboard too low for those with fragile backs and disposition.

‘If I don’t show up nothing will be done.’ I sniffle defensively. ‘And then we’ll have no commission payments in a few months time.’

‘Nonsense.’ She proclaims, opening a box of sultana bran she knows I find about as appetising as sawdust and rabbit droppings, a combo the cereal has an uncanny resemblance to.

‘Surely they can make do without you?’ My wife continues, as I apply black polish to the snotty surface and feel the wax going under my fingernails to create another unwelcome chore before I leave. My head is thumping like a jackhammer and as I stoop towards my shoes, gravity is sluicing more mucus down both nostrils in a double-barrelled river of infection. An infection that woman in London Road almost certainly gave me last week – although she didn’t give me her house to sell. Bitch.

‘That’s just it, they can’t.’ I tell her as I work the polish in to the shoes in a circular motion, before beginning the buffing with a separate brush. ‘They’ll just stare out the window or update their social networking page if I’m not there to direct.’ I pronounce pompously. There’s an element of truth to my statement, but I also know that if I dropped dead this afternoon the bean counter boss would happily replace me before anyone could….sneeze.

‘The shoes don’t have to be done daily do they?’ Asks my wife pointlessly, as she pours me a bowl of long-eared cage-dweller’s floor covering. She sees me scowling at her through watery eyes, as another sneeze starts to prickle my nose. ‘What?’ She says, as I buff with a cloth. ‘It’s good for your cholesterol.’ I don’t know where to start.

‘People notice the smallest things.’ I tell her through laboured mouthfuls of the tasteless, own brand, bran mix. ‘So if you have dirty shoes they might just choose the next agent in.’ She looks at me unconvinced, as I notice my blackened fingernails and wonder where the nailbrush is.

‘They won’t thank you for going in and spreading your germs.’ She perseveres doggedly.

‘They never thank me anyway.’ I bat back, as a hacking cough that might be a ball of bacteria, or a stubborn sultana regurgitating, rises uncomfortably. ‘What you forget.’ I splutter, as I swallow whatever it was trying to escape. ‘Is that we’re not some cosy public sector where it doesn’t change the bottom line if you turn up or not. There’s no taxpayer bailing me out at the end of the month.’ I rail, as she visibly switches off.

‘Have you got your medication?’ She asks wearily, as I stand on the doorstep and check both nails and shoes. It’s a question I expect to hear for the rest of my life. I check my briefcase. Cold tablets, menthol inhaler, throat sweets, tissues, disinfecting gel.

Ready to clean up.

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