David Mathew - O My Days

Well, everybody’s got a past, she says.

Not me.

Call me bolshy. I can’t help myself sometimes. And she’s the psychologist; let her pick the bones from my temper. Let her diagnose me. Miss Wollington abandons that line of inquiry for the time being. I watch her scribble something out and something down. For the first time I understand she’s a smoker. Never noticed it before. And you never know what is going to be important to retrieve in Dellacotte. When she sighs out her sensation of impotence, there’s a smell of tobacco riding the surface aroma of strong coffee and peppermints.

Do you think about your crime then? she asks.

How many more times? I want to ask but I hold my tongue.

Nope.

Why not?

I copy her shrug. I can do nothing else. Virgin, I tell her.

Excuse me, Alfreth?

Consult your previous minutes, Miss, I say. I’m innocent innit.

Now this is a horse she can jump on. The judge didn’t seem to think so, she replies.

Well, the judge doesn’t have three yoots on bare sniff trying to kick his eyes out. You listening?

Yes, I’m listening, she interrupts.

I’m smiling now. It’s not, I say, it’s not like a question, man. Yeah, I’m smiling, right, but it’s in spite of myself, as they say. I don’t like it that she’s broken my armour. Been far too much of that noise of late.

I’d rather you didn’t call me man , Miss Wollington informs me.

Sorry, Miss.

Kate is fine. Ms Wollington is fine.

It’s a bit like having my fur roughly fondled; it’s like what I remember of my old boy—my only memory of him, in fact. No—That’s not the case. There are a couple of things I recall. I know that I sat on his lap and coloured in the tattoos on his forearms with a blue biro. I know how important I felt when I was sent out to the kitchen to fetch another bottle of beer. And I can remember the bloody nose he got from Mum—the vase in the face—when he refused to leave the flat and kept saying that he’d done nothing wrong. I remember. Is this my first memory of fear?

It’s the first time that Miss Wollington has given me permission to use her forename, although it’s common knowledge. I’ve never used it before. Nothing more do I offer than a nod of the head, saying: message received; let’s not talk about it anymore. But Kate wants to.

I notice you ask it a lot, she says.

Ask what?

Are you listening though? It’s as if you’re frightened of losing your interlocutor’s attention. Would that be fair?

The fuck? I shout. I ain’t frightened!

Concerned, then.

I’m getting pissed. I’m getting vex, blood, I tell her.

To which she smiles; it’s a comforting sight of back molar black bits and lumpy fillings: it convinces me once and for all that behind the shield of that clipboard and the notes on my case, she’s anything but invulnerable. It’s a nervous laugh and I’m only a few seconds from seeing her nervous once again. But for the moment it’s me who’s on the back foot.

There’s really no need, she informs me. And please—I hate blood .

Considering my possible replies, I wait. And then I add: I wanna go back to my pad.

I’m afraid the hour isn’t up yet, Billy…

Fuck the hour, fam! I ain’t your puppy, Miss Wollington. Allow it.

She has solidified; she’s a fossil. I’m trying to help, she tells me, her voice as patient as it’s been hard trained to be, her accent as mild but pretty as ever: like good perfume, ah, the perfume of her voice, man. I like it sweet.

Where you from? I ask her, calming down but betraying myself by revealing a curiosity—a long held-back question—to someone holding a pen. She’s not used to being asked much. Her business is on the other side of the counter: it is she who takes the hard cash of my conscience. But if she’s an emotional salesgirl what’s she’s vending? What’s in it for me, this transaction? Oh yeah, I’ve got it. She sells me guilt.

She adjusts her glasses and fidgets for a fraction of a second that she doesn’t think I’ll notice.

Why do you ask?

Conversation, rah, I tell Kate. Shrugging my shoulders.

We were already taking part in a conversation, she tells me, consulting the pages in front of her, thumbing the bull-clip.

Feeling cocky because I’ve made her squirm, I lean forward.

Don’t remember that, I reply. I do not quite fully recall, Miss, I’m having a conversation.

My breath is a little bit nifty but I’m coming up out of this good.

Kate smiles. Good girl that she is, she has come to understand the power of a well-meant compromise. She places the clipboard on her desk, to her left; she smoothes the skirt out over her legs again, her fingernails perfect and as purple and shiny as a plum.

From what used to be called Czechoslovakia, she answers, when I was a girl. When I was your age.

How old are you now? I ask.

Never you mind! she answers, still smiling—and quite possibly smiling because I haven’t asked the obvious question of What’s it called now?

I’m not sure I’m winning and I’m not certain that she isn’t reading me. What I do know is, she’s not expecting something so personal.

My turn, she says, whipping the matador’s cape. You’ve referred, in the past, to the fact that three men attacked you, she says.

Fact is right, I tell her. But it’s the same old song, and she knows it, swear down. As fully as she knows that I’ll now be staring at her chest until she grows uncomfortable.

Despite the fact the assault was filmed on CCTV.

She is growing vex herself. She says, Billy. Billy, are you listening?

I’m listening, I can’t resist saying.

Then listen to this. There was only one man there, Billy. One man.

I refuse this line, as I’ve refused it from day one. Three men, I tell her straight. I was attacked by three men. And when I discuss this, I even manage to confuse myself—routinely. I have been in a situation where three men attack me, I know I have; but I can’t recall the incidentals. What they’ve got me on is an attack I made on a guy who shares my first name.

Billy, I’ve seen the film, she tries.

Yeah, me too. But it’s three men, I repeat. Uno, dos, tres , innit?

Kate Wollington nods her head and removes her spectacles in order to give them a clean on the fabric of a silk scarf that she has slung down over the spine of a metal radiator. The process takes less than a minute. It’s like a ballet, but in miniature. It’s something like poetry. And then the bombshell.

Can I change the subject? she asks.

Feel free.

She waits. She is picking at her words with the choosy lack of charm of a fussy eater—like some of us do actually eat when we first get here. Until we realise that it’s all shit and that shit food is better than no food.

What did you talk to Dott about? she asks.

In truth, I feel sick. The news has spread too quickly.

How do you know I spoke to Dott? I ask her. More importantly, I think, what business is it of yours?

The conclusion I jump to is not a tricky leap. Either Kate Thistle has asked her to ask me; or Kate Thistle has mentioned that I’ll be delivering a publication to Dott (at the staff canteen, perhaps) and Kate Wollington is firing off on her own pursuit; or Kate Thistle has gained her own version of events from Dott himself, and she’s using Miss Wollington to verify the facts. The suppositions point firmly to an identical solution. One that has crossed my mind more than once, and has left bare footprints. Kate Thistle is a fed. Kate Thistle is Billy Blue-Light. Kate Thistle is a copper. Here to keep tabs on the raping piece of shit name of Dott. And I can buy that. The part I can’t buy is precisely why.