Rubbish

I'm on that college course now. And I've moved flats. I'm first
floor now - smaller, but I don't care, it's got my books. I never
really thought about books before.

It's on the other side of the city, that's all that matters. I'm a
kitchen porter at the Neptune Restaurant, part-time, because the
government don't give a grant for mature students anymore and I need
the money. Not much chance of seeing Lisa there either. Or Samuel. Or
Mr Richardson. Not that it matters.

Being on the first floor I've got people underneath and above me. And
being that I don't do the same hours anymore, I can hear them. The
couple upstairs often argue. Down below it's that bumpbump music they
used to play at the Hacienda. I can hear folk coming in and out. I
wonder what they're up to. If I miss anything it's the quiet times I
used to have after work when everyone else was sleeping. And I miss
Lisa coming round. My fridge is a mess.

The old flat was a top floor. I'd finish about three-thirty, be home by
four. I'd open the window right up and sit at the table - never mind
the wind coming in, you had to hear the seagulls echoing against the
tenements, it was part of the whole thing. Hours I'd sit there. I
suppose if I'd got to sleep straight after finishing I could've got
into some kind of pattern but I don't suppose I wanted to. Just me and
the seagulls, the odd car, the odd siren down below. I liked it that
way. Three cups of coffee and I didn't want to go to my bed. Eventually
I'd go, around seven thirty or eight. Be up at two or three, next day -
out for a paper and some fags, come home and watch the box. I'd
probably fall asleep until mid-evening. Unless Lisa came round, that
is.

She'd come in with her boyfriend sometimes, a real rag-tag lad, hair
down to his nose-ring, not much meat on him. I'd seen them at the club
a couple of times but they weren't in too often. Then the boyfriend
stopped coming and it was just Lisa. I wondered if it was over with the
boyfriend. She sat on the old couch I had when she came round to mine,
dejected. I didn't ask, though, about the boyfriend. Not my
place.
In fact, it was always a bit tricky trying to find out where my place
was. If I'm working again, I better remember not to make it a family
business.

'Won't your dad think it a bit strange you come here?' I asked,
once.
She had bare arms, had a tattoo - you know, one of those celtic rings,
round her arm. The other arm she wore bangles round the wrist. She
shrugged. 'Doesn't know I'm here,' she said.

I got the feeling Mr Richardson never knew where she was. It seemed
like she didn't live anywhere. Certainly not with him. She must have
done the rounds of friends, staying a bit here, a bit there. Once I
came home she was on the top landing outside the door. It was January,
freezing, the snow outside was up to your knees.

When I saw her first I thought it was some tramp - just a pile of old
clothes, looked like. Then I saw it was her, cut above the eye,
couldn't hardly walk. Pissed. 'Oh, no,' I thought, Who could I phone?
Not Mr Richardson. It was quarter to four in the morning. The club had
just shut. Mr R wouldn't want to be disturbed. So what did I do? Took
her in. I locked up behind her, I put the kettle on, cleaned her eye up
a bit and stuck a plaster on the cut. I pulled the gas heater over by
the couch where she was freezing, and turned it up. I took off her
parka, which was soaking wet. I left the jeans although they were
soaked too, took off her shoes and got a blanket to wrap her in. By the
time I'd made the coffee she was out - gone - zonked on the sofa. Big
z's. I thought, 'This isn't a good idea.' I opened the window.

'You're a bit of a dark horse, Edward,' she said, in the morning. She'd
made a miraculous recovery. No sign of a hangover. Of course, I was
still awake. I couldn't have got to sleep anyway. 'There's nothing dark
about me, Lisa,' I assured her. She said, 'Well? you don't talk much
about yourself, do you?' to which I said, "That's because there isn't
much to talk about.'

She felt her head. For the first time she realised there was a plaster
on it. Then she went to take a piss. I could hear it from the kitchen ,
and her groaning. I wondered if she'd left the door open.

Anyway, she was there for a while. She kept asking things like, could
she borrow some toothpaste. She dried her socks off on the gas heater
because they were damp. Then she made coffee, then soup and a sandwich,
all drawn out, all over a period of time. I kept making hints, but she
wouldn't go. I couldn't spell it out. Eventually I said I was working
that night, I had to get some sleep, but instead of going she said,
'That's all right. You go to sleep and I'll tidy up.' 'No I don't think
that's a good idea,' I said. 'Go on,' she said, and more or less pushed
me in the bedroom door.

I couldn't get to sleep. I heard noises of her moving about in the
kitchen, the hall, the living room. When I got up after a few hours she
was gone and the floor, the cupboards, the fridge were all cleaned. I
thought, 'This isn't the best of things to be happening.' It was fair
enough for her to clean my fridge on a Sunday when all I was doing was
reading the papers, but not when I was lying half clothed in bed next
door. Mr Richardson wouldn't have liked that at all.

Course, I never let on to Samuel. Samuel is Mr Richardson's son. He's
as big a streak as you'll ever see. A strip off his dad but not worth
the half of him. He's done his official training same as I had to,
except he didn't listen.

Course I was on with Samuel that night. He was only there every now and
then. Pocket money he would've called it. I think most of the time he
was working at the Portico. He was probably helping out dad. I'd worked
with him enough times to know what he was like, and he didn't like me.
Used to rub me up - 'You not getting a bit old for this, Edward?' he'd
say, laughing as he said it. 'Only saying for your own good, old man.'
Then he'd say, 'Stand against the wall behind me, Edward, in case
there's a rush. Some of these don't look too savoury. Don't want you
getting hurt.'

Once or twice I told him it wasn't a joke being a doorman. It was a lot
of standing around in the cold, being bored so it was, saying, 'Evening
Gentlemen, How you doing, Ladies,' and all that stuff, keeping a smile
on, acting as if you were loving it, so it looked like a really
welcoming kind of place, and paying attention to the fact that out of
this congenial nicety could come at any moment some nutter mistaking
you for Joe Bloggs at the club down the road, or some nyaff you threw
out so long ago you couldn't remember him, harbouring a grudge - maybe
even harbouring a knife - fancying himself a bit of a face-carver. But
it always went over his head. Samuel always knew best.

One exception was the time after he'd been up seeing his dad in the
office. He came back and I reckon he'd had a dressing down about
something or other. He was quiet as a mouse the rest of the night. He
left all the 'Hello's to the punters up to me and skulked into the side
lobby biting his thumbnail. Not quite classic doorman but it suited me
better than his big flapping mouth. Afterwards I remember him saying to
me, 'What you were saying about some guy with a knife, Edward. Is that
how you got that?' I left him to wonder. Lot's of things aren't my
business. Lot's of things aren't his.

Anyway, that was a while ago - and maybe he talked to his dad about me
and his dad put him right. Mr Richardson and myself used to be on
terms, you see. I had a bit of respect there, a bit of dignity, and
that's what it's all about. It's all about dignity.

But what's important is what happened that night, and all that talking
to Samuel just hadn't made any difference. He was up like a cobra the
whole night, looking down on people, running his beady little eyes over
them, trying to exercise prejudices in a world where prejudices don't
count for anything. Like I'd told him - you can have a guy in a
sackcloth and jeans with greasy spiked hair and so many earrings you
could hang up a curtain, I mean, this guy has so much facial jewellery
he's creating his own magnetic field, but he's Sylvester the Pussy. And
you can have Mr Business, straight from the financial sector with a
wife and two kids in the country, out for the weekend with his split
personality and a stanley knife. It's dark, it's drinking time, Samuel,
and prejudices don't work.
Intuition does. Which is where being an old fuck like me comes in handy
sometimes. But it all depends who you're working with. It's all about
teamwork.
I had Samuel in my team.

About twelve it gets busy. Most of the pubs are closing and people are
moving on to the clubs. The Hacienda was no different, except maybe
that there were less people than a month ago. That didn't bother me,
particularly. Fashions change. Clubs have to dress themselves up just
like the underage girls who go out on a Saturday night, and the word
from Mr Richardson was that they'd be refurbishing soon.
So anyway, shortly after this, we get a buzz from the bar. Someone had
seen something, so we had to go inside and take a look. Samuel went and
I stayed on the door - that's how it worked, for security. If he wasn't
back in a few minutes, or if the buzzer buzzed again I'd go in too. No
need to worry. I stopped people coming in in the meantime. Nothing
strange there, we kept a queue most nights, especially weeknights -
whenever it was slow. It makes the naive punter passing think something
good is happening inside. Give people a queue and they'll queue. Don't
ask, I don't know.
So after a while, when he didn't come back I told the punters to wait
at the door. I shut it, saying I'd be back shortly, and went to take
inside. What I saw was Samuel with his hand round this scrawny guy's
throat. Hardly in the Stewardship Manual. 'Get him outside, Samuel,' I
said above the music. 'Head down.' So he took him through, past a dozen
or so people who were there at the bar, with me behind him watching he
did it right, saying to the punters, 'Carry on, folks! Nothing
happening here! Get on with your drinks, enjoy yourselves!' Just trying
to calm the clients, you know?
I'm following up behind Samuel until we get to the door. Into the
lobby, and Samuel's got him one hand round the back of his neck, the
other pulling his arm. Suddenly he shouts at the guy, 'Not in here!'
and to the word 'Not,' he smacks the guy's arm off the door jamb, turns
him round and says, 'What ye got, then?' The guy mumbles something and
holds onto his shoulder, which must be already bruised. 'What ye got?'
says Samuel. He pushes the scrawny guy up the 'Staff-only' stairs and
the guy falls over, can't find his feet - Samuel looks back at me and
says, 'Get the door!'

Course, I look back at the door, just for a second, and when I look
back again, Samuel's taken his fist off the guy's mouth. He pulls him
up and he's into his pocket - the guy's inside jacket pocket - pulling
out a bag, saying, 'Is that it? Is that all you've got?' and he starts
pushing the guy, gives him one other punch to the stomach. The guy
gags, looks over at me for help - but it's a cardinal sin for one
doorman to compromise another - so I have to look like I'm not doing
anything. But I need to get the guy out. Samuel pulls him up by the
lapels and I take over, pushing the guy into the street, past the
queuing punters - handing him a hanky to make it look good, saying,
'Don't bother coming back. You're barred!'
'Bastard,' the guy says. 'What about my friends?' He points at the
door. I feel something press on my shoulder. Samuel, behind me, shouts
right past my ear, 'Friends? Shite like you doesnae have friends!' I
see him sticking the bag in his own jacket pocket.

To give the impression of some sort of normality we let another four
punters in. They're looking nervous but a few drinks inside will settle
them down. Samuel grins and rubs his knuckles. A bit of light
exercise,' his expression says. 'What the fuck's that?' I say, nodding
my head at the pocket the bag's in. 'Mine,' says Samuel, 'Let some more
in, it's dead as fuck in there.'

I let it go. Afterwards, when I usually stayed around to check the
place out - nobody sleeping or comatose in the toilets, everything
secure, that sort of thing, I had to pass him in the bar.

He was usually long gone by this time, but he was sitting at a table
with a long drink. His legs were splayed, sticking out under the table
and I stood between them. His pupils were wide. You notice these things
when you work on a door. I said, 'Your dad wouldn't be too happy about
that.' I was meaning the hiatus earlier. He laughed and sneered, leaned
over the table at me, his head cocked. 'It's only whizz, Edward. No
need to get moral. Da's got his Coca. You think he cares about
me?'

I was about to go home. I hoped the sunrise would be slow and
colourful. I wanted - but I didn't want - Lisa to come by the next
day.

A bottle had been dropped on the floor and I kicked it accidentally.
Things get really quiet in a club when the music's switched off and
nobody's there. Or maybe it's just your ears adjusting, but it sounded
loud. Loud enough to get the other staff looking, when Samuel said,
'Hey, Edward! You're hitting the bottle again!'

I turned. Samuel waited a moment while the bottle spun down to a stop
on the floor and he said, 'Oh, yes . What does an old man like you do
with his cock? Hmm. I don't know. Maybe if I asked Lisa?'

I said, 'You're a lovely talker, Samuel. You can stir up anything if
you put your mind to it.' I felt I should say something about the Lisa
thing but to even mention it would make a mountain out of a mole-hill.
He pushed his arms flat on the table and wiped them slowly to the
edges, daring me. I leaned forward. It was just as if I was leaning on
the table with my two arms. One of my hands covered his hand. 'You're
not like your dad though, are you?' I said. I leaned on his hand with
all my weight. His expression changed. I could feel him squirming away
underneath my hand, trying to get away like a cat with its tail stuck
in a door. 'Do you want to talk about what you did tonight?' I said, 'I
don't give a fuck what your dad thinks. It's me who's working with you.
So? do you want to talk about it?' ' I leaned further. You could tell
he was scared. You could see him working out if he could punch me with
his free hand, and working out if he could, could it be hard enough to
stop me leaning on him - because I'm quite a big man, getting on maybe,
true - but I do my my press-ups and I eat steaks when I can and christ
almighty I was laying some weight down on his knuckles. Not only was I
pushing down on the hand I had my fingers wrapped around the edge of
the table and using the edge of it to squeeze. No way he was getting
away. I didn't care too much if the fingers snapped. I'd tell Mr
Richardson he fell.

He looked at me. His free hand grabbed my sleeve. I flipped my hand
round and put my thumb knuckle on his tendons and pushed with even more
weight. The big man dropped out of him straight away. He breathed in.
He started talking to me as if I was his daddy. 'Okay, okay, I'm
sorry.'

I said, 'You sure you don't want to talk about it further?' He nodded,
sweat on his neck. When I was half way out the room, he picked up the
bottle. I looked back to see what he would do with it but he changed
his mind. He started rubbing his hand. 'You better talk to somebody!'
he shouted, 'You better talk to somebody about getting another
job!'
The sunrise that early morning was nothing spectacular. For the first
time I could remember I was tired, but the open window and the cold air
kept me awake. I read old newspapers to keep from thinking.

The next few nights Samuel wasn't working. I didn't see much of Mr
Richardson either. He wasn't there mostly because he'd meetings during
the day. I knew something was happening but I didn't know what. I
thought maybe it was the refurbishment we'd been waiting for. And it
wasn't until a few nights later that Lisa appeared - but when she did,
it was for two nights in succession. She'd never appeared after work
before. It was always the day after, except for the time she was drunk
and she'd cut her hand.

'Why do you like watching the sun come up over those buildings?' she
said. 'I don't know. Because it's peaceful.' It was far from peaceful
with those gulls screeching but the noise was far away, almost like
music, and I think she knew what I meant. She didn't say anything for a
while. We just watched them together, wheeling and shrieking round each
other, bickering on the chimneys of the tenements, landing on the roof
of the electric company building and the spotlights of the rail yard.
Lisa wore a parka, with the fur-lined hood up. I had the gas heater on
but close to the window it didn't make a difference. She got up and
shifted from one leg to the other. Then she put her arms in the air. I
thought she was tired, stretching. Out of the blue she says, 'Edward?
Why do people dance?' I didn't answer her. I didn't even look at her.
There was gull, a big herring gull on one of the chimneys below. It was
bending its head back and shrieking up to the pink sky. I said, 'I
don't know.' She rested her hands on the table, sitting so I couldn't
see her face behind the hood.

'You know anything about interior design?' she asked after a
while.
'No,' I said.
She said, 'I think I'm going to do a course on interior design.'
She left about seven, saying she had something to do. Next night she'd
changed. She was more animated, lively. She said, 'Can't you clean up
after yourself? You don't do anything round here but read the papers
and eat breakfast.' I said, 'What do you mean? I don't think about it.
It's just not one of those things I think of.' 'Oh? Well, what sort of
things do you think of?' she said. She tried to pretend she wasn't
angry but I could tell she was. 'Maybe you should go,' I said. I'd
thought about the situation. I'd turned it over in my head and the
whole thing was a bad idea. I was thinking about what Samuel said and
what Mr Richardson said. I didn't know if I could speak to Mr
Richardson now, or even look him in the face, although I had nothing to
be ashamed of. When she left I did a sit-up routine, trunk curls and
press-ups, to try and tire myself out but I was so wide awake I had to
go for a walk around the railyard and past the boathouses and back
again.

Then the Hacienda shut down.
Mr Richardson, who'd said nothing about Lisa's visits, bunged me a
couple of hundred, which was nice of him - but I was out of a job. He
moved to that fancy restaurant in the centre. Before I went, he said,
'I'm moving to the Portico. We're selling up here, it's not worth
overhauling. Buy yourself a drink.' He looked at me in apology. 'I'm
sorry. Don't buy yourself a drink, then. I forgot.' I took the
envelope. For the first time in a year, my hand was shaking. 'Let me
settle at the Portico,' he said, 'There are some other faces there. But
once I know what's what I'll give you a shout. I might have a job for
you.' I shook his hand and he said, Are you okay? Are you sure
everything's fine?'

I shook his hand, because Mr R had been good to me, gave me a black
suit and tie and with it dignity. Respect was something you earned,
I've heard people say. Mine was earned in that suit and tie and this
brown envelope.
The call came one Wednesday it was raining. I'd tried every club and
pub up and down town, and although a few had taken my details and
promised to phone back there was nothing solid yet.

The Portico is on a plaza underneath a tower block of offices. It's
plush. A new building right in the centre of the West End. Blue lights
light up its fifteen storeys. 'The Portico Restaurant' is illuminated
in red above the door and the windows are tinted so you can't see
in.

'Nice place,' I said, when I met Mr R. He showed me into his office,
which had plants and glasses on a shelf. 'Glad you think so. Maybe
you'll eat here sometime.' 'Its a bit exclusive for me,' I said. He
said, 'Lisa did some of the interiors. Well I say did, she had some
ideas.' I nodded. 'You haven't seen her lately, have you?' he asked,
'She's gone off somewhere.'
I told him I hadn't.

'She didn't mention our little argument, then?'
I hadn't seen Lisa in two weeks. I had got used to the idea, too. I
hadn't heard anything about any argument.
The job was for the following Monday evening. It turned out not to be a
doorman's job. It was one-off, moving some stuff from the shell of the
Hacienda, some fittings that the new owners wanted taken away and
wouldn't pay for, and Samuel was picking me up in a dropside van. Mr
Richardson provided the gloves and I provided the back for fifty quid
the evening. I didn't want to see Samuel but I had no choice, my
landlady wanted to see the fifty quid.

So that's how we were motoring down with a van full of stuff headed for
the dump, Samuel making good use of the old man jokes as I struggled
with sink-units and bar frames. He didn't use much muscle himself, only
for his mouth, as usual, until I said, 'Hey, are you doing this?' and
he began to pull a bit of copper piping out the back of the van and
throw it into the pit. I was doing all the work. 'It's amazing the
things people throw away,' he said, 'Look. Good copper piping. Hey,
didn't you used to work for the council. On the rubbish? Someone told
me you used to work the rubbish.' In the pit there were washing
machines, paper rubbish, bent metal bedframes, wardrobes, squares of
turf. All of these things were familiar to me. Part of the past, but
still familiar. There were seagulls above a mound up on the hill. I
threw one of the broken metal barstools in. 'But you got binned because
you were always smashed. Is that it?'

'Why don't you help,' I said.
He ignored me. 'You ever seen Lisa, bin man?' he said.
I focused on a rat I saw squirming under someone's old mattress. 'Your
dad asked me that,' I said. 'No, I haven't.'
'Must miss her,' he said. He was goading me. I could have seen it
coming. It was a surprise it had taken this long. Fifty quid or no
fifty quid I wished I'd turned down the job.
'How can you sleep at nights?' he hissed.
I said, 'I haven't seen her.'
'Dad says you're lying.'
I was getting tired. 'Let's get this finished and go,' I said. 'I
haven't got all night.' Then I turned to see one of the bar-stools
coming down on me. I managed to pad it away and caught my wrist on its
metal leg. 'Hey!'
I was right at the edge of the tip, with a drop of eight or ten feet
beside me. That was a careless thing to play at. Then I realised this
wasn't Samuel's usual stupid horseplay, I could see by his eyes. He
threw another one. 'We'll go back to yours and wait for her after this,
will we? You old fuck. She's twenty five!' Another stool.

Twenty five? What did he mean twenty five. Of course I knew she was? I
had a daughter that age.
'Maybe we could have a drink while we wait,' he said, 'See if there's
any meths down there.'

I got my balance, finally.
The third stool missed but I nearly went in. The last one I caught by a
leg and swung it at him. It caught him in right the chest. The reason
it hit him so hard was he was coming off the van. It lifted him right
up. But I'd swung it hard. Just like those council bins when I'd to
lift them into the lorry. One hit would have knocked sense into him, it
might even have shut his big mouth. But I did it twice. If a job's
worth doing, it's worth doing right, and if you don't have a job
sometimes you're too lost to care.

It's all about dignity.

His mouth belonged on that tip. That's what I thought. He'd wake up
smelling like his words. I took a quick look round. The seagulls
scavenging on the mound of rubbish exploded into the air. I watched
them, lifted Samuel back into the van and put the dropside up. I
disengaged the handbrake and let it roll in.

Of course I knew she was twenty five.