When I dragged my arse out of bed this morning I had to put up with the guilt trip that Susannah, my flatmate, laid on me about using the washing machine after eleven o’clock at night. It might not seem like much but it’s a lot to take when you’re trying to eat Frosties and watch the Breakfast News. I then ironed the shirt for work, which was in last night’s controversial washing load, and somehow fit in a shit, shower and a shave between breakfast and the two-hundred-metre sprint for the bus in my uncomfortable shoes.
I sat down on the lower deck of the number seventeen bus that takes me from Harpurhey to the Arndale Centre, grateful for the small slice of peace that I was given. That peace wasn’t broken by the brisk walk along Cross Street with the other men and women in cheap office attire and excruciatingly painful shoes, nor was it broken by the numerous Big Issue vendors competing against each other for the sympathy and pound coins of Manchester’s subsistence wage office workers. My peace was not broken until I got upstairs and sat down at my desk, where the early shift were debating the most stupid issue that I’ve heard of outside the confines of Jerry Springer’s talk show.
“I’m tellin’ yew, et’ll severrr thee opteck nerrrve n’ et’ll mean yew carn’t see no morrre,” said Emlyn, clearly getting into his subject matter to show off the one year he spent studying Biomedical Sciences at Bradford that we’ve all grown tired of hearing about.
“Nah, yuh can ’ave it fall out the sockit n’ halfway down yur face, n’ yuh can clean it n’ pudd it back in, n’ it’ll be fine,” Lee told him. Lee watches too many truly shit horror films and his becoming too involved in meaningless, trivial arguments like this is one of the main reasons that I feel a bit intimidated by him.
“I’ve gotta friend who works for BUPA,” Cleo tells both of them. “She’ll know fer shore.”
I can understand why Cleo is so willing to defuse the situation between Emlyn and Lee. She’s distracted from work and she’s annoyed that the row isn’t actually about anything that matters. It isn’t as if there’s a high probability that anybody in the office is going to have their eye pop out its ocular cavity. Saying that, working for Swift Claims doesn’t require any form of mental gymnastics, so it isn’t really surprising that Emlyn and Lee are arguing about fuck all.
Matt, the line manager, fresh from the same type of jobs as us but with a BSc in Business Studies from De Montfort, pipes up in a voice reminiscent of a twelve-year old smoking sixty Woodbines a day. “Awright, I unnerstand that you’re ’avin’ a hea’id debate, but could you do some work as well, yeah?”
I see everybody sitting on the row facing me shoot a look towards him that says ‘You cock!’ I look at the medium-sized stack of claim forms piled up on my desk, inviting me to do my job, drawing me to them by default because I would rather not get drawn into the air of conspiracy that fills the office. Emlyn is hollering at me. “What do yew think, Glen?”
“Oh, me sister’s ex-boyfriend gorr he’s eye bashed out o’ the socket when he was playin’ football. He’s gorr a glass eye now.”
Lee stares hard at me but I refuse to meet his gaze. I’m not quite alpha male enough to rise to his challenge so I stare at the forms again. All I want for now is just to be able to do as much of this insignificant work as I can, even though it usually feels like I’m taking my head for a shit. Matt won’t have seen figures this good from me ever before but I’m hoping this is a one-off. Emlyn’s Enrique Iglesias CD is washing through my ears like supermarket muzak. I check the claims from the Newcastle office and feel homesick for Sunderland again. I want to talk to my mother so she can chill me the fuck out but I know there is no chance of that. I plough through the forms and before I know it I’ve got one hour out of the eight and a half out of the way. I suck my chapped top lip in behind my lower teeth, waiting until I can escape to some café or other to buy something to eat.
The most annoying two-tone bleep comes from Cleo’s computer to notify her (as opposed to everybody in a fifty-yard radius) that she has a new email from her friend. “Listen, everybody, Jane says she’s talked to some of the guys she works with and they all say that as long as the optic nerve ain’t damaged then the eye should be fine, awthough there could be some visual impairment.” She smiles, and her perfect teeth form one of the most gorgeous formations that I have ever witnessed. I secretly fantasise about going out with Cleo, but not in a sexual way; she’s just really bubbly, although she does have a worrying fixation with Craig David. However, the smile is useless when pairing it with the most dangerous thing to say right now: “See, you’re boaf right.”
Clearly, both of them can’t be right. There has to be a winner and a loser, that’s how the male form of logic works. It is entirely impossible for them both to be correct in their argument. It’s like black and white, not two shades of grey. They both sulk and shoot imaginary death-ray stares at each other and the atmosphere of the office is definitely not psychically balanced, or whatever the correct hippy-ish term is correct, for the rest of the day.
*
After work I go to the dreary, crap, Wetherspoon’s pub in Deansgate where all my colleagues drink. Since I started at Swift Claims six weeks ago I have been in here about twenty times. I order a pint of lager and a watermelon-flavoured Bacardi Breezer for Debbie from the sales department because I want to get into her knickers. It takes ages to get served in here so I’ve been preoccupied with thoughts of a drunk and lustful Debbie for the best part of five minutes. I take the drinks over to the table and she’s there talking to Lee, who is flirting ferociously with her. I set the drinks down and sit back in my chair opposite her. Lee talks to her as if I am not there at all. Debbie doesn’t seem embarrassed or annoyed for me, so I think, ‘Fuck you!’ and tell them that I’m going to the toilet.
I stand at the trough, looking at the cross-hatching of the grout in the tiles, seeing a multitude of crucifixes. I hate pissing in pub toilets more than anything apart from shitting in pub toilets. It just feels demeaning because there isn’t any real privacy. While I’m in mid stream the door bumps open. The next thing I know is that I’m on the floor of the toilets, knob still in hand. Paul is kicking me really hard and I get to see his Frank Wright loafers up very close. He’s kicking my kidneys and my ribs and he’s making my screams become muffled because I can’t breathe enough air to be able to scream properly.
“Is that what yuh like doin’, is it? Makin’ me look small in front o’ everyone,” he yells. I’m hoping that somebody can hear what’s going on in here, that somebody will intervene because I am feeling so scared at the moment that every school-bullying session that I was a victim of is running through my mind in Technicolor, Panavision images with THX sound. Nobody will intervene because people don’t like to get involved in violent situations. Lee knows this and I know this. Everybody minds their own business as a self-preservation mechanism. If I hadn’t got involved in his daft argument with Emlyn earlier today I wouldn’t even have this shit to deal with.
“I wasn’t tryin’ to make you look small,” I whimpered. “I was just tellin’ you what I know about it.”
“Oh, yeah, cos yuh know loads, don’t yuh, new boy? I fuckin’ hate college pricks like you lot, yuh all mek me sick wi’ yur fancy, fuckin’ la-di-da shite. N’ it’s not just me eever. Nobody likes yuh, so fuck off back to Newcastle, you poofy college wanker.”
He has hold of my hair now and is pulling on it quite hard. Some of it is painfully detaching itself from my scalp. I wish it all would, so I could flee, leave the toilets, leave the pub, and beat a retreat to a taxi rank or bus stop. Anything to get out of here. He pulls harder and I get shooting pains in my neck as my head is brought back. There’s an awful feeling of G-Force now as my head is pushed rapidly forward towards the sink. I hear a breaking as my jaw hits the sink; it is the sound of my teeth and jaw breaking I realise, as a few of my newly-loosened upper teeth roll around in my bloody mouth. I want to vomit but I can’t. I taste the sweet ferric haemoglobin of my own blood flowing and I spit into the sink, but it is no good. I couldn’t scream before because Lee was kicking my ribs but now it’s because I’m choking. I ache like I have never done before and I think I see Lee leave. I hear a slow-motion thump and a cacophonic ring in my ears. I cannot do anything though; my only instinct is to sleep.