George's Day

On Monday morning it had begun to snow. It started around one and
hadn't stopped until the street outside George's flat was covered
completely. Workers slipped and skidded their way along the pavement,
arms outstretched beside them for balance and a few young boys ran
wildly past them scooping up handfuls of snow from the doorstep.

George was awake but not out of bed. He lay on his side staring through
the gap in the curtains, his thin sheet pulled tightly up to his chin.
He didn't want to move . He had been laying like this for half an hour,
each minute telling himself he'd get up in another five, but he didn't.
He could see the snow through the window and it was that which kept him
where he was. That, and the warm body sleeping beside him.

He rolled over slowly and looked at Anna's face which was pressed into
the pillow and half hidden by her long black hair. She gave a little
whine as she exhaled and her thin fingers were curled into a fist
beside her head.

George smiled and ran an index finger across her naked shoulders then
down her spine to where her skin stopped and the sheet began. He didn't
want to leave her. She stirred and slowly opened her eyes.

"What time is it?" she asked quietly.

"Half past eight."

She rolled onto her side and pulled the sheet up to her neck.

"Why are you still here?"

George sighed but didn't answer. He leant forward and kissed her on her
forehead then reluctantly pushed the sheet aside. He picked up his
clothes from the floor and dressed.

"Will you be here when I get back?" He asked as he flattened down his
hair.

"Don't know. I might be with one of my other lovers." Anna rolled over
smiling and George smiled too, hoping she wasn't being serious.

In the hallway downstairs George picked up his bicycle and wheeled it
outside into the snow. It had begun to fall again and he watched it for
a while, thinking to himself that he should phone in sick today, say
that he had a cold or that he couldn't get in because of the weather.
But these thoughts disappeared as soon as they emerged. He had to go
in. He couldn't miss another day.
He zipped up his inadequate autumn jacket and mounted the bicycle
trying not to think of the cold on his uncovered hands. He set off,
following the tracks in the road. It was going to be a slow
journey.

He hadn't wanted to buy a car. Not that he could afford one anyway, but
he decided it would be wrong to own one when he only worked a few
streets away. During this discussion with Anna he had made it clear
that cars were polluting the planet, that they were death traps,
unreliable and the killers of children and old people. He hadn't
explained to her that he wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, that
he wouldn't have anywhere to park the thing and that he had never had a
licence or a lesson in his life. She didn't need to know all that. He
remembered that she had rolled her eyes at him, saying he was strange,
that she loved his apparent conscientiousness but that she didn't
believe a word of it. He remembered that she had smiled, lit a
cigarette, then left without kissing him goodbye.

Despite the weather, the pavements were filled with people on their way
to work, people on their way to the shops, people with nothing else to
do but fulfil a routine, snow or no snow. George cycled past them all,
breathing shallow breaths in the freezing air. He was nearly at the
shop. He just had to cross the town square, which would have been
simple enough if it weren't for the mass of bodies which met him as he
turned the corner out of Anderson Street.

He pulled the brakes hard and skidded through the snow, stopping
inches away from an old man wearing a long brown duffle coat. George
dismounted and was about to apologise but he saw that the man hadn't
noticed him. He, along with all of the other figures in the square, was
staring towards the fountain. People were huddled in little groups,
leaning into one another and muttering quietly. Some were facing the
fountain, others looked away, their brows furrowed and some staggered
from the scene into adjacent streets. George didn't know what to
think.

He wheeled his bicycle around the groups, weaving in and out of
screaming children and wide-eyed women with gloved hands blanketing
their mouths. He followed their gazes and when he reached the fountain
he understood their looks. A body was bent backwards over the wall of
it, arms stretched out behind it like a frozen Mexican wave. It wasn't
moving. George took a couple more paces through the broken snow. It was
a man, a boy, maybe nineteen maybe younger and he wasn't moving.
George dropped his bike onto the ground and ran up to him, placing his
hands on the boy's cold chest. He shook him.

"Are you alright?" he said loudly. There was no reply. He shook him
again but he didn't move. His lips were blue and his young face was
grey, like an old doll. George pulled his hands away and saw that the
snow beneath the boy had been melted away with a thick trickle of
blood. George staggered backwards then looked around him for someone to
help. He didn't know why no one was helping.

"Someone get an ambulance," he shouted. But the people nearest to him
shuffled back and ignored his stare. "Get the police!"

"They're already here boy." A deep voice came from over his shoulder
and he swung round to see a tall, bulky male figure standing behind him
and dressed in a black uniform. His skin was chiselled with deep
wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and his expression was grave. "Would
you mind standing back sir, you're in the way." George remained where
he was, staring at the policeman and then at the body.

"Is he..?"

"Dead? Yes he is, now step back."

This time he persuaded George with a heavily placed hand on his
shoulder. George picked up his bicycle and staggered back, merging into
the crowd. George turned to an elderly woman standing next to
him.

"Did you see what happened?"

She turned and looked at him blankly.

"No." she replied.

The policeman lit a cigarette and wrote something in a small black
notebook. He wasn't in any hurry. After a few minutes more officers
arrived and they crowded around the frozen boy, all leaning over him
and George wondered at their disinterest at keeping track of forensic
evidence. Even George knew about the importance of that. He had seen it
on TV, in all those drama programmes and documentaries. But these
policemen were not careful about where they placed their feet or about
the cigarette ash that the wrinkled man flicked to the floor every few
seconds.

George waited for a policeman to come and talk to him. He thought they
might want a statement or at least a sample of is DNA to eliminate him
from their enquiries. But although he waited and waited no one
approached him. As they rolled the body onto a stretcher George decided
to leave.

He didn't mount his bicycle. It felt disrespectful, like the boy had
been of no more consequence than a dead pigeon. So George wheeled his
way across the square and through the dispersing crowd which had had
its entertainment for the morning. People were muttering to one another
as he walked past, questioning what had happened, inventing hypotheses
about gang violence and drug dealing. But the boy hadn't looked like
that to George. His face hadn't been scarred with a history of knife
fights. Nor was he thin and gaunt like a drug addict. In fact he was
the same build as George himself. Average height, average weight,
dressed in jeans and a thick roll neck jumper. He was even wearing
gloves.

Then George thought of Anna. The events of that morning had distracted
him, but now she returned. He had to speak to her, to tell her what had
happened, to make sure she was all right, even though he knew she would
still be in his bed. He quickened his pace.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?"

George's boss, Philip, strode through from the back room as soon as he
had heard the shop bell ring.

"I'm sorry Philip, I got held up." George said in one breath.

"Got held up in bed more like. Just get rid of that bloody bike and
start work. That delivery will be here any minute."

George did as he was told and he pushed his bicycle through the shop
and into the back room, leaning it up against the cold radiator. He
didn't know why he hadn't mentioned the body. It seemed easier not to
somehow, like if he didn't tell him then it wouldn't be quite real.
Like he had imagined it. He thought he might feel better by leaving it
unsaid but his stomach still turned at the thought of the boy's cold
chest and the puddle of blood frozen beneath him.

"Are you going to do anything today boy?" Philip shouted from the
other room. "Get a bloody move on!"

"Now coming. Can I just use the phone? I need to make sure I haven't
left the cooker on."

Philip poked his head around the door. "I don't know why I employ you.
I'd get more work out of a fucking hamster."

This was Philip's way of saying 'Yes, of course you can use the phone'
so George picked up the receiver and dialled the number of his flat.
Only there was no answer. He let it ring and ring but no one picked up.
He put the receiver back down again. Where was she? Still sleeping, he
thought. Or just doesn't want to answer the phone. That would be what
it was - she didn't want to answer his phone.

"Did you?" Philip barked as George walked back through to the front of
the shop.

"Huh?"

"Leave the cooker on."

"Er..no."

"I don't know what's wrong with you today." Philip shook his head at
him slowly before going outside to sign for the delivery.

The snow outside George's flat had turned to a grey slush by the time
he put his key in the door. His shoes and the bottom of his trousers
were soaking and heavy and slowed the ascent to his flat. He paused and
sighed before opening the door.

He switched on the kettle in the kitchen and walked into the bedroom
where he took off his trousers and socks. Anna lay in his bed, just as
he had left her that morning, twisted into the sheet, hair and arms
splayed out behind her. But she wasn't sleeping.

"You decided to stay then?" George said as he opened the door of his
wardrobe.

"There was nowhere else to go." She replied, sitting up and letting
the white sheet fall away from her body.

"I phoned you earlier but you didn't answer."

"I had a shower." She said as a way of explanation.

He took a pair of jeans from one of the coat hangers.

"I just wanted a chat. I had a bad morning." He said.

Anna climbed off the end of the bed and walked towards George. She
took the jeans out of his hands and dropped them on the floor.

"What can I do to make you feel better?"

She stood only inches away from him. Almost touching, but not
quite.

"Have you gone out at all today?" George asked.

She didn't reply but began to kiss his neck instead.

He didn't press the point. He already knew the answer. Before she
dropped to her knees, he breathed her in and he knew the answer. She
looked up at him, from the floor, her face smiling. He sighed and
closed his eyes but didn't tell her to stop.