Daft Wee Stories (17 page)

Matthew himself waited on what he had to say next.

Matthew's smile faded. It faded as he remembered something. Something he shouldn't have forgotten. Quite a simple thing, really.

He had forgotten to make a show.

No, that can't be right. That can't be right.

He had forgotten to make a show.

A cough from somewhere up the back filled the otherwise silent hall, and then it went silent again.

It had completely slipped his mind. Somewhere in amongst the convincing and door-chapping and jumping through hoops and—

‘See, Mummy,' he heard a child say in the audience. ‘I told you we weren't doing anything.' Mummy told the child to shut up, don't talk nonsense. It was nonsense, wasn't it? It was going to be a surprise, something like that.

The child looked up to the stage, along with every other child, parent and teacher. All nine hundred of them.

Matthew looked back.

It had completely slipped his mind.

Tony was stacking the shelves in the wine aisle. They had new bottles just in, expensive ones, about fifteen quid each. He'd better be careful.

‘Oops,' said Maureen, his manager, before bumping into him on her way past. Crash! Almost fifty quid's worth of wine on the floor. ‘Clumsy,' she said, meaning him, not her. ‘That'll be coming out your wages.'

Tony said nothing. He knew what had happened, he didn't imagine it this time. She definitely said ‘Oops' before bumping into him. Not after bumping into him, but before. What was going on there? Something about that wasn't right, but he didn't want to jump to conclusions. Maybe she didn't see him until it was too late, maybe that was it. Maybe she realised she was on a collision course but she'd left it too late to move out the way, but not too late to make her apology, in advance, like her mind could respond faster than her body. Maybe that was it. Except it wasn't an apology, was it? And this wasn't the first time it had happened. But that could just mean that she was rude and clumsy, it didn't mean it was deliberate. But it didn't mean that it wasn't. Oh, he didn't know. He just didn't know.

As he headed home that night, he wondered what the fuck had been going on in work these days. Something had changed in there. He'd spoken to a few of his colleagues about it, but they didn't know what he was on about. But something had changed. He didn't know what, he didn't know why.

Like a few weeks ago, he asked if he could do a night shift that Thursday, he told them he could do with the extra cash, but they said no, and that was strange. They used to have to beg him to do the night shift, but now it's a no. Then, the following day, he told them, out of consideration, that if they were thinking of changing their mind and giving him the night shift, it was all right, they were to just forget it, because he remembered that he had a party to go to that night. Know what they did? They came back to him an hour later and told him he'd have to do the night shift after all. He reminded them of the party and that it was for his granny's ninetieth birthday, and quite possibly her last. They told him the world didn't revolve around him and that he should be grateful.

He supposed they were right. But they never used to speak to him like that. Something had changed. He didn't know why.

Then there was that other thing. The thing that'd been happening at the staff entrance. There was a security code they all had to enter on the wee keypad to make the door open. But normally you didn't have to press the buttons because Walter, the security guard guy, would spot you from the inside and press a wee button from behind his desk to open the door for you. Walter would say that he didn't need any machine to tell him that Tony worked there, they knew each other, they had a chit chat practically every morning. But recently, Walter hadn't been doing that, neither the opening of the door nor the chat, none of it. He'd be there behind the desk as Tony approached the door from the outside, but Walter wouldn't look up, even when Tony chapped on the glass. Tony would have to enter the numbers to get in, sometimes getting it wrong and having to spend five minutes digging out the number on his phone. Tony supposed it was maybe an extra security precaution they'd brought in, so that was all right. But quite a few times Tony had spotted other members of staff getting buzzed in by Walter no bother, and they'd get the chit chat as well.

Something had changed. He didn't know what, he didn't know why. Wee things. So many wee things.

At lunchtime he'd look for his milk in the fridge and it would be gone. Or he'd come back from the toilet and his phone would be on the floor, even though he was sure he left it on the table, nowhere near the edge. And when he came home last night, he hung up his jacket and noticed that hanging off the back was a snotter, like somebody had held one of their nostrils shut and blown out the other. A big fucking green slug hanging off the back. It could have been an accident, maybe. Somehow. He just didn't know.

Something had changed. Something had happened, he didn't know what, he didn't know why. He just knew it didn't use to be like this. He sometimes had to remind himself that it never used to be like this. So he got out his remote to do just that. To remind himself. He stuck the telly on, went to his recordings, and played that episode of
The X Factor
. The one he recorded a couple of months ago.

The one he was on.

He didn't get that far in the competition, but far enough that they did a wee feature on him. They brought the film crew round to the supermarket, and there they all were, all the staff, all proud of him, happy for him, all in their T-shirts with Tony's face on the front. It was hard to believe these were the same miserable bastards that he was working with today.

‘I've always wanted to sing, singing is my life,' said Tony on the telly.

What had he done? Were they jealous?

‘
The X Factor
is my last chance,' said Tony, ‘and I need it to work.'

They couldn't be jealous, they were all behind him. They got T-shirts and everything.

‘Because I'll tell you something,' he said on the telly, as Tony sat on the couch, wondering where the fuck it all went wrong, wondering why the fuck Maureen kept bumping into him, why Walter wouldn't buzz him in, why there were snotters on his jacket, why his tea smelled of pish, why his bag smelled of farts.

‘I'll tell you something,' said Tony on the telly again, shaking his head. ‘I don't want to go back to working in a supermarket.'

Oh.

Fuck.

George sat in the back of the taxi, drunk. He was a bad drunk, a nasty drunk. He had this permanent sneer on his face when he got that way, sneering at everything. Sneering at nothing. And now sneering at the driver in the rear-view mirror, even though the guy had done fuck all. He'd actually done George a favour by picking him up, most drivers who saw somebody in that nick would save themselves the likelihood of aggro or having to clean up sick, and just drive on by. But he picked up George, fuck knows why. And did he get a ‘thanks', or a ‘please' when George told him where to go? No. George just barked out the destination, then proceeded to give the driver hassle for pretty much the whole fucking journey.

‘Switch that fucking music off,' he said. The driver switched it off. ‘What way are we going, what the fuck's this?' The driver explained that it was the quickest way, and it was. ‘Aye right,' said George. ‘Roll down the window, it's fucking stinking in here.' The driver told him where the button was to roll the window down. ‘You do it. I know you've got buttons next to you to do it, you roll my window down for me, that's what I'm paying you for.' The driver rolled down George's window. George thanked him, sarcastically; it was as close to good manners as the driver was going to get. And when they arrived at George's house, George tutted at the fare. He spent the best part of three minutes counting out the change in his pocket to make sure the driver got not a penny more.

‘D'you want a tip, mate?' said George to the taxi driver. ‘Don't smoke in bed, hahaha!' He slammed the money into the driver's hand, half of it falling on the floor, before leaving the taxi with the door wide open.

George staggered into his house and straight to bed, straight under the covers. He didn't bother taking his clothes off, he couldn't be arsed. He lay there and thought back to the many people he'd pissed off that night, and laughed. That guy behind the bar. Her in the queue at the chippy. He said something particularly funny tonight, what was it again? He said, ‘D'you want a tip? Don't smoke in bed.' He laughed again, that was funny. Who was that to? He remembered: it was the taxi driver. He gave that driver so much shite. George stopped laughing, and thought about that for a second. No, he wasn't thinking of the shite he gave the driver, he didn't regret a thing, he'd just realised that he himself had never actually smoked in bed before. It sounded good. It sounded bad. It sounded like one of those things you weren't supposed to do, like driving without a seatbelt or drinking before midday. It sounded right up his street. He leaned to his side, and grabbed his fags and lighter from his back pocket. Aye, that sounded right up his street.

An hour later, he woke up, screaming, with the room in flames. He pulled the quilt off his face, and the smoke hit his eyes and throat. He could smell singed hair. He covered his face with the quilt again and tried to see how to get out of this, but he could barely see three feet in front of him. He could hear burning, he could hear wood crackling like a bonfire. He grabbed onto the edge of the bed to steady himself, and squealed; the iron bed frame was as hot as a grill. He fell to the floor, cutting his hands on a pint glass that had shattered in the heat. He ran to the door and gripped onto the handle to pull, and had his hand burnt once again. He thought about running back to the bed, but he knew that if he didn't get out of here now, he never would. He braced himself, gripped onto the handle and pulled as hard as he could, but it was no use. The door had expanded in the heat and was jammed shut in the door frame. George pulled his hand away from the handle, leaving some skin from his palm behind. He ran back to the bed, slicing his foot open on the broken pint glass, and dived under the covers. He started shrieking, not just because he was in agony, but because he was terrified. And then he died. It wasn't the smoke that killed him, it was the fire. Burnt. Burnt to death. And it took ages.

As for the taxi driver, that was a different matter. The funny thing is, the driver usually did smoke in bed, he had done for years. The wife didn't mind it that much, being a smoker herself, but she did think it was a bit dangerous. He assured her, though, that all those warnings were just for alkies who lived by themselves, people so wrecked that they could start a fag but couldn't stay conscious for long enough to finish it. When had he ever done that? Never. Mind you, he'd never been this knackered, not for a long time anyway; three shifts, back to back. Christ, the way he let that wee ballsack in the back seat talk to him tonight showed him just how knackered he was. Usually he'd have pulled the handbrake on a guy like that and dragged him out by the throat. But tonight he didn't bother, he couldn't be arsed.

He thought about that for a second. No, not how knackered he was – he was still going to have his fag – he was thinking about what that guy had said. His wee parting shot, what was it again? Something about a tip. He couldn't quite remember, but it was something … about … a …

The driver woke up in the morning with his two wee daughters jumping up and down on the bed, and he gave them a cuddle. When they were gone, he stretched, then turned to the bedside table to get his fags for a morning smoke. His fags weren't there. He was about to run after his daughters, thinking they'd grabbed the packet when he wasn't looking. But then he remembered the fags weren't there because he hadn't taken them out of his jacket pocket the night before, because he didn't have his bedtime fag. Now there was a turn-up for the books. He thought about getting up and heading to the cupboard for his jacket, but the idea wasn't as appealing as lying all cosied up under the covers, especially after the shift he'd put in yesterday.

It wasn't until later in the day that he realised he hadn't smoked in twenty-four hours. One of his daughters said something about fresh air. And that was that. Him and his wife both decided to knock it on the head, and other than a few blips along the way, they never went back. The driver added an extra ten good years onto his life that would have otherwise been snatched off him by cancer. He started going swimming, jogging and playing five-a-sides. And he didn't stop telling everybody that he felt fucking marvellous these days.

As opposed to George.

George was toast.

What was it he said again? ‘D'you want a tip, mate? Don't smoke in bed, hahaha.'

Fucking backfired, that one, didn't it?

There once was a guy. A normal guy. I don't quite know how to describe him. He was a normal guy with normal hair, a normal build and normal clothes. And his face was, well, it was just sort of normal. You might think I'm not trying hard enough to describe how this man was, you might think that I'm failing as a writer, but if you saw him yourself, you'd say the exact same thing. Normal. A normal sort of guy.

He was the sort of guy whose name you'd never remember, even if you were introduced to him dozens of times over the course of a night. He could be on your train every morning as you went to work, sitting right there in front of you, every day for a year, yet you wouldn't know him from Adam if he came up and shook your hand in a pub. He's that one in your primary school class photo you don't recognise, even though he was in every class you ever had.