Ross Armstrong - The Girls Beneath

One thing’s for sure, Eli is getting fucked from every side whatever I do. He’s contributed pretty amply himself, yet I know I could save him some hassle if I just look the other way on this occasion.

But this is my first week, so I keep it simple and I call it in.

Later, he’ll say I was ‘victimising him’.

And what’s true is, I could’ve been kinder. I think they call it tough love. I hope, in that tiny moment of decision, that everyone else isn’t too tough on him as a result.

*

It’s been a week. I can’t quite tell what sort yet. But it’s certainly been a week. Friday has come shaped like mercy.

*

‘Dee. Dah dah dah dee dah, dah dah, dah dee…’

I get these tunes in my head sometimes, I think everyone does it.

Earworms. People say you choose the tune because the lyrics associated hold the key to something you’re mulling over in your subconscious.

But I don’t know about that.

I barely even remember the words. I try to keep it down as I zone out, muttering under my breath as I walk.

‘Dee. Dah dah da, dee dah, dah dah, dah dee…’

I get a call on my radio about a minor accident at the other end of the main road. I need to go and direct traffic. I’m not sure this is what I was birthed for.

At least you can pick your hours, within reason. You have to cover thirty-seven in a week and they like you to take one evening. So I went for a five-hour evening shift on Thursdays, seven till midnight. Then took eight hours on all the other weekdays, leaving my weekend free. I consider the merits of this time format. Even my thoughts start to bore me.

I count them as they as they plod through me. Dry and empty.

This is a thought.

This is a thought.

This is a thought.

Then one comes along covered in this morning’s regrets:

I was called to a house after a neighbour had complained about frequent raised voices and commotion, as well as the sound of skin on skin contact and not the friendly kind. I didn’t bother the neighbour on the right side of the house before calling on the home in question. They had been brave enough to make the call and I didn’t want to give them away by paying them a needless visit first.

As I approached, the neighbour on the left side came out, and when she saw me she hustled back inside quickly. She had a look of intense fear about her. I wondered if that came from the build-up of what she was probably also hearing through the walls, night after night. A man, taking out his stresses on his wife. Or whoever else.

The neighbour looked spooked so I didn’t say a word. She didn’t want any trouble, and to her maybe I meant trouble, so she shot back inside to avoid whatever was about to happen. She gave me a funny feeling, her presence sparking a strange sensation close to déjà vu.

When he answered the door, the man, bald, moustached and laying on the innocent look as thick as it comes, led me inside, where a woman, presumably his wife, sat in the kitchen giving little away.

An extraordinary sense of creeping unease came over me, a tingling on my skin, which had started when I saw that neighbour’s face.

I asked the woman if she was okay. I asked him the same. They both replied with a nod. It felt like something hung in the air between us that I wasn’t allowed to touch. There seemed to be a palpable prompt the scene itself was giving me, other than the possible violence between them. Another cue that I wasn’t picking up on.

The silent couple… The noises through the wall… That neighbour’s face.

‘There’ve been reports of a disturbance coming from this residence. I’m duty bound to follow that up. So… anything I need to know?’

Nothing but the shaking of heads.

‘Anything at all?’

In the next deafening silence, I tried to communicate to her wordlessly that she didn’t have to take any shit. And to him that if he was doing something to her then I’d be back with uniformed friends and trouble. But all I said was:

‘Well, we’re a phone call away.’

I shook off the tingle and reluctantly got out of there, resolving to do the only things I could: make peace with my limitations, and with the sour fact that she would probably never make that call, and record the encounter in my pocket notebook.

I can feel my mind listlessly erasing the encounter, as I make my trudge through grey reality towards traffic duty.

But then, they’ve recently found you can’t erase memories. They’re physical things. They make visible changes to the brain. Some are hard to access if you haven’t exercised them recently, but they never disappear. If you took my brain out of its case, you could see it all.

• There’s the crease that holds my parents’ smiles at my fifth birthday party.

• There’s the blot that is my first crush’s face.

• There’s that neighbour’s face, just next to it.

• There’s the dot of possible heroism. Watch me be disheartened, watch it degrade and fade.

This is not the electrode up my arse my life needed. This isn’t even a power trip. Perhaps I should have stuck with charity fundraising on the phones, say my thoughts. But I guess mum and dad would be prouder of me doing this.

The radio kicks in.

‘PCSO Mondrian? This is Duty Officer Levine, over.’

‘Yeah. Yes, this is me.’

‘… You’re supposed to say over.’

‘Over,’ I monotone.

‘So when someone calls for you, say go ahead, over . Over.’

‘Go ahead, over.’

‘Understood? Over.’

‘Yep.’

A pause. I wait.

‘Don’t say yes, say affirmative . And you didn’t say over . Over.’

I sigh, away from the walkie-talkie. Then steel myself.

‘This is PCSO Tom Mondrian. Affirmative. Go ahead. Over.’

‘Understood. Hearing you loud and clear. I’m over by the loos, over.’

‘Understood… over.’

‘What a wanker,’ I mutter to myself.

Cccchhhhhh.. .

‘And after you’ve finished speaking, take your finger off the PTT button. We all heard that.’

Crackles of laughter from someone else on the line.

‘You forgot to say over, over,’ I say.

I remember to take my finger off the button this time as I walk along.

‘Not funny, over,’ he says.

But it was a bit.

Levine is clearly the pedant of the bunch. I keep walking, my feet crunching in the snow.

Here we are. Broken glass on the tarmac. Red faced fella at the side of the road. A light blue Astra with one door open, diagonally up the kerb. Levine sees me and holds up a hand. His posture says, ‘I’ve got this thing locked down, you just stand way over there.’

La-di-dah. The beat goes on.

The ABC. The body. The beat. All firsts.

I wonder if anyone has ever fallen asleep while directing traffic. Could be another first for me this week.

I check my watch and see there’s an hour until my week ends. Nearly time to head back to the station locker room, change, clock off. Maybe a drink with the team if I’m unlucky.

Levine signals me to allow traffic around the car from my side, while he holds vehicles at a stand at his end for a while.

I signal. I smile courteously at the drivers as I do so. La-di-da.

I see many faces I recognise.

Amit from the paper shop down the road. Zoe Hughes from Maths drives past, averting her eyes to ignore my existence. She didn’t always.

I glance to the cluster of shifty kids on the other side of the road to make sure they see traffic is being held and let through at intervals. I’m only looking out for them, but they take one covert glance at me, put up their hoods and scarper off, one holding something weighty in a black plastic bag that’s got them pretty excited.