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  ‘Which means you haven’t figured anything out yet?’

  ‘Not as such, but I’ll get there.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re putting me in this position, Jim. This is really unfair.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re making me be sensible, you’re making me be the one who says you’re being irresponsible. That’s harsh.’

  ‘Terry, I’ve come to the decision that utter irresponsibility is the only responsible course left to me.’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that.’

  And so, we drank.

  Four pints later, Terry said: ‘Are you sure you’re sure about this, Jim?’

  ‘As sure as I’ve ever been about anything,’ I slurred.

  ‘That’s not exactly saying much, is it?’

  ‘Plossibly not.’

  ‘Plossibly?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘This is about number three, isn’t it?’

  ‘Pfff, don’t be daft.’

  ‘I may be stupid, but I’m not stupid, James my boy. I’ve figured it out. Number three was the one you met again a few years ago, wasn’t she? The one you tried to rekindle the magic with, and it didn’t work. Am I right? Am I right?’

  ‘No Terry, you’re not. That was six, then nine. Number three isn’t someone I’m ever going to meet again. Sorry to disappoint.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  I knew because I’d found out on my last date.

  I had met an attractive girl called Judith at a work’s night out the previous year. It was one of those tragically choreographed evenings with quizzes and karaoke, but being relatively new to the company at that point, I was eager to make a good impression. Long story short - my team won the quiz, I did a Meat Loaf duet, and I got a phone number.

  I plucked up the courage to call and Judith agreed to go out for dinner.

  I suggested a posh (yet inexpensive) new restaurant in Shawlands. We met in the bar and it was all going well until we were ushered to our table. The waitress who ushered us was Paula Fraser’s big sister, Andrea. We recognised one another at the same time and, I’m ashamed to say, spent a good five minutes talking animatedly about Paula in the most positive of terms. I could probably have got away with it if I hadn’t answered Judith’s query of ‘who’s Paula?’ by saying:

  ‘Aahh, she’s my ex.’ The huge grin probably didn’t help.

  Anyway, that’s how I learned Paula was happily married and running an English language school in Munich.

  That’s also how I screwed up the most promising date I’d had in years. The remainder of the evening was spent exchanging the tiniest of small-talk. If memory serves, the tuna was lovely, the wine was pleasant, the potatoes were cooked to perfection and the both of us had to get up early the next morning.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ Terry said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s bourbon time, boy.’

  ‘No, honestly, Terry. I’ve got to think.’

  ‘Wild Turkey helps you think; Woodford Reserve is a proven brain aid; Maker’s Mark helps you make your mark.’

  I loved them all, but this wasn’t the night. If ever I needed a clear(ish) head. ‘Just a tequila, salt and lemon, mate.’

  Chapter 3

  I rarely tended to do to-do lists at work, I found predicting failure depressing. I made an exception the next day, though the things I had to do had nothing to do with work, apart from the first one.

  1. Chuck job (try not to laugh in Patrick’s face)

  2. Total all debts, credit cards and loans

  3. Arrange valuation of flat

  4. Pray equity is enough to pay-off previously totalled debts

  5. Spend four week notice period planning what to do with rest of life

  I resolved to get the first three tasks sorted out before lunchtime, thus giving me as early a start as possible on the last two.

  ‘Jim, can I speak to you in the office please?’ Patrick barely slowed as he strode past my desk, and made no attempt at eye contact.

  ‘I was about to suggest that very thing, boss.’ I sprang up and fell into step a few inches behind Patrick.

  ‘Oh, eh, okay.’ Patrick picked up his pace in an effort to put more distance between us. I adjusted my own speed accordingly.

  At our last departmental training morning, the ‘enabler’ from the training company had insisted on doing a ‘personal space’ exercise. This involved half of us standing in a row against one wall while the other half faced us from the opposite side of the office. My row had to walk across the room towards our counterparts and they were to raise their hand and tell us to stop when they felt we had invaded their comfort zone. I ended up opposite Patrick. Everyone else got to within two or three feet of his or her colleague before being stopped. Patrick thrust out his hand before I was even halfway across the fifteen-foot space. Since then I had made a point of getting as close to him as possible during all our discussions.

  He had to stop to open his office door, and went rigid as I walked into his back.

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘Yes, okay, Jim.’ Patrick visibly squirmed as he pushed open the door and scurried to the safety of his office chair. ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘Thanks, boss.’ I walked passed Patrick to the window behind his desk and perched on the sill, forcing him to twirl his chair round to face me.

  ‘I meant on the chair, Jim.’ Patrick waved a hand towards the plastic chair sitting four feet from the front of his desk, a tiny, orange island surrounded by the sea of his insecurities.

  ‘I’m fine here, thanks. Been on my arse all morning.’

  ‘James, please sit down. I have something I need to discuss with you and I would prefer that discussion to take place in a professional manner.’

  I knew when to stop pushing it. I went back round his desk and took a seat. On any other day Patrick’s tone would have had me worried. Like my mother, he only called me James when I’d been naughty.

  ‘What’s up, boss?’

  Patrick lifted a sheet of A4 from his desk but didn’t look at it. ‘According to yesterday’s end of day reports a piece of customer correspondence allocated to you for response is unaccounted for. What can you tell me about that?’

  The distaste with which he said the word ‘unaccounted’ would have made it obvious he was a trained accountant even if I hadn’t already known. Patrick Barry was 31-years-old, with the mind of an 82-year-old and the body of a pre-pubescent 11-year-old. He was the only person I knew who still wore those blue striped shirts with the plain white collars. Rumour had it he wanted to be a virgin when he grew up.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘Sorry about that. After my wee episode yesterday I got a bit off track. I know the letter you’re talking about - Mr Fraser. It’s on my desk; I’ll get it sorted today.’

  ‘Make sure you do, Combined Utilities has a reputation to protect.’ Despite my to-do list I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Is something funny?’

  ‘Sorry boss, private joke.’ Patrick’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  The scary thing was, he believed himself. He honestly did think that, despite the lies and subterfuges we were practically ordered by head office to employ to prevent or put-off customer refunds or admissions of culpability, as long as everything was logged and filed properly the reputation of the company would be protected.

  ‘Well save it for your own time please, James. I want that correspondence dealt with before lunch, understand?’

  It struck me that, until the previous day, this little man had actually been able to intimidate me. The tone he was employing would have had me shitting myself only twenty-four hours earlier, but I now recognised it for what it was - the pitiful, and rather sad attempt of a scared wee nyaff trying to act bigger than he knew he was. I felt a bit sorry for him. Only a bit, mind.

  ‘No worries, boss. There was one other thing.’

  Patrick was in the process of opening his
filofax, having apparently already dismissed me from his thoughts and returned to the eighties. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘This is for you.’ I handed my resignation letter over the desk.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A piece of correspondence I expect to be dealt with before lunch.’

  ***

  By eleven I had arranged for an estate agent to value my flat and was beginning the terrifying task of working out exactly how much money I had borrowed to fund my not so thrilling lifestyle.

  Once I’d done the arithmetic and had a panic attack I began the praying. In my favour, property prices had gone mental in the nine years since I bought my flat, so maybe twenty-eight grand in equity wasn’t totally out of the question, even given the recent downturn.

  There was one task I had left off the list, mainly because I had no idea what to do about it. I opened Simon Fraser’s letter and stared at it once more, hoping the answer would miraculously reveal itself.

  The easy option would be to answer it as I would have any other similar letter. I was a lifelong fan of the ‘easy option’, but it didn’t feel right. This letter was responsible for me making a pretty bloody huge decision, and it wouldn’t have been fair to fob the guy off with the usual excuses.

  Of course, there was nothing I could actually do to help his situation. He had been waiting over six weeks for an engineer to repair his central heating boiler, and been billed for three maintenance visits that had clearly never happened.

  As I pondered, a bizarre and terrifying though occurred to me. What about honesty? A cold sweat formed on my top lip at the thought of such radical action.

  Did I dare? I knew if I was caught being honest to a customer I would be sacked on the spot for gross misconduct. Yes I was leaving anyway, but I had a feeling I was going to need my last month’s wage and my unused holiday pay before very long.

  Patrick’s door opened. ‘Jim,’ he shouted across the office, ‘I’ve forwarded your notice to human resources. Your leaving date is the twenty-fourth of March. Make sure you remove all personal items before then.’

  ‘And I’ll miss you dreadfully too,’ I mumbled as he closed his door again. Right, fuck it. I pulled up Simon Fraser’s file on my monitor and lifted the phone.

  ‘Hello, yes?’ I recognised Mr Fraser’s Irish accent immediately. The family had moved over from Galway when Paula was fourteen, and none of them had lost their native twang.

  ‘Mr Fraser?’

  ‘It is, yes.’

  ‘Hi, my name’s Jim Cooper. I’m calling from Combined Utilities about your recent letter.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, what have you to say about it?’ He had come back at me quickly enough for me to know he didn’t recognise my name.

  ‘To be honest, sir, I just wanted to apologise for the poor treatment you’ve received from the company.’ This felt as strange for me to say as it clearly did for him to hear.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘No, I am, Mr Fraser. There’s no excuse for any of this. Your maintenance issue should have been dealt with long before now, and there is no way those engineer visits should have been added to your bill. I’m afraid it’s just another example of how rubbish this company is.’ I was starting to get into the flow now. ‘I mean, would you believe we had one poor lady who couldn’t even heat up her baby’s milk because her power had been out for five days? And do you know what we did? Bugger all. That was three weeks ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still farting in the bathwater to try to heat it up. It’s a scandal.’

  ‘Eh, excuse me son, but who are you, exactly?’

  I realised I’d been rambling. ‘Sorry, Mr Fraser. It just bugs you when you start thinking about it, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Okay, son, that’s grand. Was that all you wanted, or are you going to do anything about it?’

  ‘I only wish I could, I really do. I’m afraid I’m completely powerless. A bit like most of our customers, hah.’ I should probably have thought this conversation through before I called. ‘Can I be frank, Mr Fraser?’

  ‘It would appear you can, yes.’

  ‘My advice would be to switch suppliers. This lot are never going to change, you should go with one of the newer crowd. They’re all so desperate for business they’ll undercut our prices by miles. Tell them what you’re paying now and they’ll halve it, I guarantee you.’

  ‘Okay son, thanks for that. I’m a wee bit busy, so if that was all …’

  I had a thought. ‘Actually, there is one thing I could do.’

  ‘Oh, and what would that be?’

  ‘I could give you the MD’s direct number. I bet if you gave him a bollocking you’d get sorted out no bother. Do you want it?’

  ‘Well yes, I suppose—’

  ‘Cool.’ I read the number from my monitor, on which I had called up the company’s internal directory. ‘If you felt able to avoid mentioning my name for about four weeks, that would be great.’

  ‘Okay son. Was that everything?’ I didn’t acknowledge at the time how slowly and carefully he was speaking.

  ‘Actually, there was something else.’

  ‘Oh, right. What was that, now?’

  ‘How’s Paula?’

  Chapter 4

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Simon Fraser said.

  As a way to broach a delicate subject I accepted it hadn’t been ideal. The chance to be so freely insulting about Combined Utilities had gone to my head, and I’d ended up blurting it out.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Fraser, that was a bit sudden. I used to know your daughter Paula. Actually, you and I met once. I’m sure you won’t remember but I came to your house with Paula for your wife’s 50th birthday party.’

  ‘What was your name again, son?’

  ‘Jim Cooper.’ Maybe he did remember me, after all.

  ‘Are you the boy who gave Louise that god-awful rash?’

  Shit, I’d forgotten about that. Louise was Paula’s mum, and as a birthday present I had avoided the unpleasant necessity of spending money by giving her some of my wee cousin Cath’s homemade soap.

  Cath really wants to be a hippy, and refuses to this day to accept she doesn’t have the requisite agricultural, pharmaceutical or, frankly, intellectual strength to be a self-sufficient ‘living off nature’s gifts’ type. Thirteen years ago, Cath developed a recipe for soap that she assured us would revolutionise the beauty industry. Through a combination of foolishness and being a tight-arse, I had happily accepted her offered free-sample and passed it on to Mrs Fraser as a birthday present.

  I now remembered Paula telling me (in a very subtle and non-judgemental way) that her mum’s sensitive skin didn’t really agree with it. It’s little wonder, given the ingredients included nettles, lemon juice and ‘jesus berries’, which was Cath’s name for the gloop left behind when slugs die.

  ‘Eh, yes, I’m afraid that was me, sir. Yes.’

  ‘Jaysus, you nearly feckin’ killed her!’

  ‘And I apologise, sir.’ This wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped.

  ‘You stayed at the house that night, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did, yes, and thanks for your hospitality, it was much appreciated.’

  ‘Did you achieve intimacy with my daughter?’

  Christ! ‘Absolutely not, sir. Not at all.’ I chose to assume he was only referring to that particular night, when there was not a chance in hell Paula and I could have got near each other. I was on the couch, while Paula was in her old bedroom upstairs. Mr and Mrs Fraser tried to pretend that Rocky, their extremely loveable, bad-tempered bastard of a Labrador always slept outside the living room door. Yeah, right. I made one futile attempt to go to the kitchen for a drink of water, but the instant I touched the door handle I heard the big blond fucker growl. He wasn’t there because he wanted to be; he was a dedicated agent on a mission, and his mission was to threaten me with the immediate loss of my scrotum if I even thought about leaving that room. It worked.

  ‘Well then, I suppose.’
>
  I had no idea what this meant, though I was glad his tone was relatively calm. ‘Eh, how’s Rocky?’ I said.

  ‘We lost him a few years ago.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. He was a lovely animal.’

  ‘He certainly had his uses.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Massive bowel failure. He basically shat himself to death, it was very sad. Do you really work for this power company?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do, though I’ve just handed my notice in.’

  ‘Ah. So what are you going to do now?’

  This felt better, I was back on track, sort of. ‘I don’t have the first clue, Mr Fraser. I just feel it’s time for me to make a change in my life. I’ve decided to throw the cards up and see where they land. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Do you have a father, Jim?’

  This was a surprise. ‘Eh, yes. I do indeed.’

  ‘And what would he be feeling about this idea of yours?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t talked to him about it yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Eh.’ What to do? I didn’t want to lie to Mr Fraser; hell, I didn’t want to lie to anyone anymore, that was kind of the whole point.

  ‘Have you a mother still with you?’

  Oh for fuck’s sake, make it harder, why don’t you. ‘Yes Mr Fraser, I have a mother.’

  ‘So what would her thoughts be about all this?’

  This was getting far too heavy for my liking. ‘Again, I haven’t spoken to her about it, sir.’

  ‘And yet you’re speaking to me?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Because you’re the father of the only woman I’ve ever loved, I wanted to say. Because you managed to create a person as stunning as Paula, I wanted to shout. Because you figured out a way to raise a child who wasn’t a fucking disaster area, I wanted to scream.

  I sighed. ‘I’m not really sure, sir.’

  ‘Would it be because you don’t know me well and can’t picture me in your head?’ I could picture him all right. You never forget an ex’s protective father, or his dog.