CHAPTER 6
She left me with a hug, and I wondered how this was happening so fast. I hadn’t started out that day with the intention of telling anyone else at all, and there I was spilling my guts to the leading light of both Debt Management and Gossip Central. Some small voice was telling me, however, that this was one piece of gossip she could and would contain.

I worked my way through the rest of the day, issuing the 191’s where I had to and writing the letters that I needed to, but all the time I was still thinking of her. She had absolutely everything I had ever desired, in all senses of that word, and she had been spot on when she spoke about the shitty hand that life had skimmed out in front of me. In the end, when I did leave the office, at about a quarter to seven, I ignored all my good intentions and picked up a couple of bottles from the off-licence. The next day’s first visit wasn’t until nine thirty, so I could risk it, as long as I spent a chunk of the following morning in the shower. I rang for a curry to be delivered, and answered the door forty minutes later in my dressing gown, legs freshly shaved. If I didn’t scrape them regularly, it became a bugger to get my tights on.

I laid the boxes out in the kitchen while I finished shaving, and once rinsed spread the whole mess onto one big plate and settled down in the sole armchair I possessed, in a skirt and blouse, tights and shoes, and checked the story site as “Warrior on the Edge of Time” pounded and pulsed through my headphones, and the two bottles sat on the coffee table ready.

One fifty-seven read the clock when I awoke, still in the chair, my laptop emitting a strange noise that I put down eventually to the glass of wine I had apparently spilled all over it. Fuck. I struggled out of the chair and staggered into the bedroom, where I managed to set the alarm clock. Well, I must have done, because a very few hours later it was bleating at me, and I had to drag myself up once again. Shower. Black coffee. Toast…

I was certainly not in the best of moods when I arrived at Dixon and Utley, Architects, and my mood wasn’t helped by the fact that the Dixon in question had clearly been separated at birth from his soulmate, who could only have been Wilkins. Dixon was also AC, it seemed, and my presence was barely tolerated. No offer of a cup of tea or coffee, no enquiry as to how things were going, just a sneering contempt from an Audi TT driver for someone in cheap shoes on a bike.

I sat and festered for a while, before I noticed the vending-machine cups of coffee that some of the staff were drinking. So, I asked the question.

“Is that a vending machine, Mr Dixon?”

“Yes, it is”

“On free-vend for the staff, I assume?”

“Does it look like I run a bloody charity? The lazy sods pay for what they drink! Anything else? Some of us are here to create wealth for this nation, you know. But you wouldn’t know, would you?”

As soon as he left, I started the hunt, and as soon as I had the original purchase invoice I had the date to start from. Number of pre-mixed cups, take a reasonable stab at a charge of thirty pence a cup, low enough not to be seen as excessive, and start adding. Apply the VAT fraction, and, ooh, what a nice tidy little sum of tax on undeclared income from the sale of hot beverages he now owed us. Fucking parasite, was I?

In a momentary rush of common sense, I realised that his arrogance had collided with my hangover, and this was one I needed to think about. I finished my other checks, packed my kit and left, pausing only to say goodbye to the receptionist on the way out.

“You all finished then, sir?”

“You can let Mr Dixon know I will be writing later”

Her mood suddenly changed, and with a sly grin she said “Nothing nice, I hope!”

I couldn’t help myself, and gave her a grin of my own.

“Do you do the post opening?”

“Oh yes”

“Then…you may have a nice read in the next few days”

“Oh goody!”

She seemed to be inspecting me rather closely, and I had to ask,

“Something wrong?”

“No…but…”

She seemed really hesitant.

“It’s just, I don’t know, how does a nice guy like you get into such a nasty job?”

I had to pause for a second before I found the right words.

“It’s not a nasty job…?”

“Larinda” she said, in response to my raised eyebrows.

“Larinda. Look, there are people who want to screw everybody over, whatever it takes, and that money they get from VAT fiddles, like, that’s your hospital beds, your schools, all that. You got kids?”

“Not met the right bloke, have I?”

I smiled. “Neither have I. Right woman, I meant”

She smiled, and it was truly warm. “No, you meant the right chap, but it’s not a problem with me, I’m a modern girl”

I smiled back. “I am not gay, Larinda”

A half-lie, sort of.

She gave me a particularly cheeky smile. “Yeah, whatever. Didn’t mean to be rude, yeah, but you don’t strike me as Mr testosterone, which ain’t a bad thing, looking at you-know-who”

“Well, my girlfriend is reasonably sure I’m not into blokes. Look, catch up some time, OK?”

“Here…”

It was surreal. I was being handed a mobile number by a girl who had not only assumed I was gay, but now knew I was attached. Some receptionist. She caught my expression.

“Don’t care any more, do I? Got a new job, start next week. What can he do?”

I spotted the ring at that point. “You married?”

“Divorced. He loved his cars more than me, and I sent him packing. Give me a ring, and we’ll catch up, yeah? I’ll tell you how he reacts when you send your letter. Look…I’m not looking for a shag, yeah? Well, I am, but it’s just, you, you seem to be someone I could natter with, which is what I meant when I thought you were, you know…”

She trailed off. “That was really unprofessional, weren’t it? Sorry”

“No, it’s all right, it’s just I’m not used to being chatted up in any way, yeah? So, yes, if I get the chance, we can meet up, all right with you”

She grinned again, and this one had dimples. Quite plump, pleasant face, probably an arse the width of the Mississippi hidden behind the desk.

“You forgot one thing…sir!”

“Yes?”

“I ain’t going to some pub or park or whatever and calling you ‘sir’!”

I had to laugh at that, my hangover easing. “It’s Rob!”

“OK, Rob, laters, yeah?”

“I promise!”

I made my way back to the station, ready to grab a train to my next trader, and it hit me. There I was, a transsexual woman who needed to do something about her transition, someone who had a girlfriend to ease out of her…yes, her life, and I was chatting up another woman, someone else the whole process could hurt. It seemed that even as I hated that stupid bit of meat its little brain was still steering my life up blind alleys. Shit.

The next trader was a bread and butter job, errors cancelling each other out till we ended up owing them a small sum, which I suggested they claim on their next return. Back to the office by five, just in time to see MAC leaving, and as I settled my case onto the desk Rachel was there, bursting out in several ways.

“What is up, Rach?”

“Two things, Rob! The first is that MAC has a date, and it’s in two months. The second…I finally did it!”

“What, group sex with every fireman in Surrey?”

“No, been there, done that. No, I finally distrained on a Roller!”

“Never!”

“A white one, too! Stupid bugger kept fobbing us off, so I had the bailiffs ready with a flatbed, and off it jolly well!”

“And he hasn’t paid yet?”

“Nope, but then I sort of officially went home as soon as I got back, so he’ll be without it till at least Tuesday”

“You are a grade A bitch, Wiseman”

“Oh yes, and so are you, Carter! I just get more chances to show it. Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that”

“I know…look…”

I described what I was about to do with Dixon, and then my mouth ran away from me, and she got the story about Larinda as well.

“Carter, you really do have to do some serious thinking. What is the point of trying to ease one woman out, if you are just going to grab another before you’ve even binned the first one? For a fucking woman, you do seem to think with your cock, right?”

I took a little while to try and put things into some sort of order.

“I thought that too, at first, but the more I think about it, it’s not that. I mean, I don’t even fancy her, not particularly, it’s just, well, she thought I was queer, like”

“From what you said to me, you are; about as queer as it’s possible to get, right? So what is it?”

“I think…I think I just met the first person who knew, sort of, what I am, just from talking to me. Special, that is”

I took another few seconds to gather my thoughts.

“I just don’t know what to do, Rach”