David Szalay - London and the South-East

‘What about them?’

‘Nothing,’ he says, with a shrug. He takes one. ‘You seem in a good mood.’

‘Do I?’

‘Have you been on a sunbed?’

‘I spoke to Martin.’ She has her back to him, is pouring hot water into the teacups. ‘You know — Martin. Martin Short.’

‘Yeah of course.’

‘Well, he says they’re always looking for people to do the night shift. At Sainsbury’s.’

‘Oh. Yeah, well …’ He sits down. ‘Is that why you’re in such a good mood?’

She puts his tea on the table. ‘Paul,’ she says matter-of-factly, ‘it’s almost February. You promised me if you didn’t find something else soon you’d get another sales job.’

For a while he stares out of the window. It is twilight — cold, deepening twilight. Over the roofs of the opposite house-backs, two garden lengths away, the sky is gelid, luminous, sad. A quiet albescent yellow. Everything is very still. ‘Yeah,’ he says. She has been waiting for him to say it.

‘And we agreed,’ she goes on, ‘that “soon” meant three weeks from the new year.’

He nods — it was agreed.

‘That’s tomorrow.’

He nods again.

‘Maybe you’ve found something else?’ she says. He shakes his head — he has not even told her about the street-sweeping. Or the grave-digging. He has become very secretive, turned inward. And he had thought that, with the TV money taking care of the February rent, she was simply waiting for twenty-one days to elapse before sending him out to find work in sales. For this reason, he is surprised by her suggestion of shelf-stacking in Sainsbury’s. Surprised and touched.

‘I think there’s a job there if you want one,’ she says.

‘Is there?’ He sounds vague. ‘Why? What do you mean?’

‘Martin gave me that impression.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh … Just … He said they always needed people. I said you were looking for a job. He said if you wanted one, he couldn’t see it being a problem.’

‘You told him I was looking for a job?’

‘Well, you are.’

‘I wish you hadn’t.’

‘Why?’

That is the only problem. That he would be working with Martin Short — the fresh-produce manager, lean and hungry, swanning around the shop floor in his Next suit. Except that, working nights, Paul would presumably never see Martin, would never even be in the shop at the same time as him.

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I didn’t tell him anything. If you don’t want the job, fine. I’d rather you went back to your old job. Something in sales. It’s ridiculous. You shouldn’t be working in supermarkets, garden centres!’

‘Why not?’

‘I mean, stacking shelves … What do you mean, why not? ’

‘I mean, why not …’

‘It’s ridiculous. And I find it insulting. It’s an insult to me .’

‘An insult to you ?’

‘Yes.’ Said emphatically — though with a slight hesitant wobble.

There is a strange superficial stillness. ‘I don’t understand,’ Paul says. ‘An insult to you?’

‘Look, Paul … I don’t want to have an argument about this …’

‘Nor do I.’

‘If you’re interested in the job, you’re supposed to call someone … I’ve got the name — the personnel … The human resources lady. If not …’

‘I am interested,’ he says.

‘Okay.’

‘But I want to talk to Martin about it.’

‘Why?’

‘I just do. What’s the problem?’

‘It’s not a problem,’ she says. ‘I just don’t know why you want to talk to him.’

Why does he want to talk to Martin? There is, it seems, nothing to talk about. Martin has given Heather Sally Marshall’s number, and said Paul should phone her if he is interested. Paul, though, does not want Heather to be his intermediary with Martin. He does not want things to be furtive, only to meet his smirking pentagon of a face in the street one day. So full of purpose, after smoking a spliff, he puts on his jacket and leaves the house. The two-storey Victorian terraces of Lennox Road are moonlit and shadowy. Although the houses are identical there is immense variation in their states of repair, from the frankly derelict, through the merely tatty (Paul’s is one of these), to the ostentatiously souped-up — the Shorts’ house being perhaps the most souped-up of all. In its small front space, separated from the pavement, as they all are, by a low brick wall, is an illuminated, ‘Japanese’-style water feature — a zinc slab with a sheet of water perpetually sliding down it into a basin of round white stones. There is also some dead bamboo. A wall light next to the door is covered by a convex strip of metal, so that the illumination spills onto the painted brickwork above and below it. The brickwork, the whole house, is painted a shade of pale avocado, or lime sorbet. Paul opens the dinky gate (unlike his own, it does not squeak), and covers the three paces of salvaged York stone to the front door, which is the same colour as the bricks, but glossy with a big brass knob. He is nervous. He knows that the slightest pause, the slightest opportunity to think, will see him turn and slip away, so he shoves the brass bell push into its socket before he has even stopped moving, and then waits, while his heart beats thickly. He is not calmed by the continuous burbling of the water feature. The ground-floor curtains are drawn, but he can see that the lights are on, and Martin’s yolk-yellow Saab — how often has Paul seen him washing it, seen his tight tracksuited arse as he stoops into it with a dust-buster of a Sunday morning — is parked a few metres along the street.

He has just tilted his head back to inspect the upstairs windows when the door opens. Martin seems slightly out of breath. He is wearing jeans and a baggy green jumper, and even more than usual, his face looks as if it were being subjected, at that very moment, to enormous G-forces, the shallow flesh stretched tight over the prominent underlying bones. His skin is pink and dry — it looks painfully so in places. He does not hide his surprise on seeing Paul — perhaps he is unable to. ‘Oh,’ he says. And then, for several moments, is speechless.

‘All right, Martin.’

‘Paul — hello.’

And since Martin is still simply standing there, smiling extremely uneasily, Paul says, ‘I’m not getting you at a bad time, am I?’

‘No, not at all. Of course not. What … Do you want to come in?’ he suddenly blurts.

‘Um, yeah, sure. Thanks. If that’s okay?’

‘It’s okay. Of course it’s okay. Come in.’

The interior of the house feels strange to Paul, being a mirror image of his own. The stairs, instead of being on the left, are on the right. The front room is on the left, instead of the right. He cannot get his head round it. It makes him feel queasy. Everything is brightly lit. ‘Come in, come in,’ Martin keeps saying. He seems to be encouraging Paul to go straight ahead, towards the back of the house where, as in Paul’s own, an extension has been built on. In Paul’s house this extension is a modest, flimsy addition, entirely functional, containing the kitchen and, above it, the bathroom. Here, though — and Paul is unable to suppress an awestruck, mumbled ‘Cor’ on entering — it resembles some sort of Viking hall, timber-framed with a high pointed roof — like something, Paul thinks, remembering his university days, out of Beowulf , except that it holds a pool table with raspberry baize, a TV even larger than Heather’s ill-fated purchase, and a black leather three-piece suite with red leather scatter cushions. Wherever he looks there seem to be discreetly positioned speakers, and warm pools of halogen light. There is a small bronze statue of a woman, naked, lying on her back.