Falling (3 page)

Next on the list is the mess on
the fire escape. Wine stains, beer stains - OTHER stains. All leading up to the
roof. Even CSI would struggle unravelling this one. My best guess is a rampant
eight on the stairs alcohol fuelled orgy. I could be wrong but I bet I’m closer
than I think.

I decide to make this easy. Start
at the top. Mop down and slosh the mess over the edge. A forty storey drop down
the stairwell will vaporise most of the falling liquid and if I’m quick I can grab
a ten minute break and some fresh air up top before I need to check in with the
head office.

‘Ladies and gentlemen welcome
to the annual Tyler Tower Facilities Management Games. Up first is the
individual stair cleaning - one hundred steps or less category’
.

Mop, check. Bucket, check. Soapy
water, check. Packet of chewing gum, check. Target time to clean three floors
and get back to the top for a breath of air - ten minutes.

‘Ladies and gentlemen going
for a new world record is Mr George Dall. Anything under nine minutes fifty
seven seconds will constitute a new world’s best. Best of order. Silence in the
arena. To your marks. Set. Go.’

‘And stop. Nine minutes thirty
two seconds. A new World Record. I thank you.’

Cheering and applause deafen the
athlete and I take a bow. Now for a break.

I used to smoke but I gave it up
ten years ago but I didn’t give up the breaks. I can’t see why a cigarette
addict should get a break and I don’t. As a rule I take four breaks a day. It’s
not in my contract but then again smokers have no contractual exemption either.

Across the road from my building
they have closed the smoking room and even banned anyone from smoking outside
the front door. This all seems a bit draconian if you ask me. Anyway I’ll just
sit up top. Grab a few lungfuls of the fresh stuff and drift back to last
night.

The next task is to wash what
looks suspiciously like a spray of blood from the boardroom wall. Now that will
take time and effort. So it can wait.

I am half way back to last night.
High up on the Cowal Peninsula looking down on the dark sheet that is the River
Clyde. I have a flat in Innellan - a small village squeezed into a ribbon of
flat land between the hills of the peninsula and the river. An hour after the
sun set last night, I was high on the forest road behind the village doing
little more than taking in the serenity.

In my mind I breathe in the
Atlantic fresh air while trying to open the fire door to the roof. The fire
door to the roof has always been stiff. The handle is hard to turn and my mind
slips from the hills to thinking about the blood on the boardroom wall. There’s
quite a bit. Could be red wine but I’ve seen a lot of red wine stains and I’ve
seen a lot of blood stains and my money’s on blood. Class-leading nose bleed.
Punch up. Ritual slaughter of a virgin. Overly violent paper cut. Probably
punch up. You can bury yourself with the petty hate that flies around this
floor.

I’ve been doing this job for five
and half years and haven’t seen a fight, hardly a word raised, on all the other
floors put together. But on this floor I’d reckon on a flare up twice a week.
Fisticuffs - at least once a month. Serious violence - a couple of times a
year. Well you only have to go back to the Christmas Party: Police, Fire
Brigade, Ambulance - we were only missing the Coastguard. Two arrests and
Michael, the head of sales, spending a night in the Royal with a fractured
skull.

I have no idea how the company
makes cash. If they are not killing each other, they are ripping each other
off. I’m sure Simon is on the major fiddle and Karen, the HR director, is well
in it with him. I’m also fairly sure that Robin, the Financial Director, is
riding shotgun with both. It’s amazing how invisible a maintenance man can
become and how much they can learn. By all accounts I am considered both hard
of hearing and on an IQ band that equates me with a monkey. At least I have to
assume this is the case by the way the majority of the occupants ignore or talk
down to me on a regular basis.

As such I hear much but say
little.

I open the door. Fresh air. Well
as fresh as it gets in the middle of the city. This is the tallest building in
Glasgow and the pollution below has thinned by the time it gets up here.

It’s amazing where your head goes
when you switch off for a second. Up here I can freewheel ‘till my heart is
content. Escape the job for a moment and focus on the more positive things.
Positive things like my love life. A subject that is dear to my heart. My
girlfriend!

Stop - let me say that again -
slowly - my G-I-R-L-F-R-I-E-N-D. Wonderful. Sorry but I need to say it yet
again. My Girlfriend and I. Sounds good. It is hard to fathom that a confirmed
bachelor and a man on a ten year forced celibacy trip now has a female
companion who seems happy to be referred to as his girlfriend. Hand holding,
snuggling, smooching - even a little bit of fondling. To be honest I’ve not
pushed things much further on that front. Patience is a virtue and after ten
years I can wait a bit longer.

Not much longer though. I’m
embarrassed to the core over the industrial scale masturbation I have embarked
on as my preferred methodology to cool down after a night out with Tina. It is
running out of control and has now become a matter of public record.

Maybe I should précis how this
has come about with a little dose of mitigation.

I met up with Tina at lunch time
a week ago. A highly unusual occurrence to be fair. Even though she works close
by she is a home bird at lunchtime and prefers thirty minutes in her own home
to an hour in the nearest Pret-a-Manger or munching at her desk. She phoned and
asked the office manager on the fifth floor, an old friend of mine, to track me
down. I called her back and we met up at the small park that backs on to my
building. I had sandwiches and she bought a sub from Subway.

We ate and chatted our way
through the lunch hour and at the end we kissed and for reasons known only to
Tina she took the opportunity, just before we parted, to squeeze my balls. And
with that she was off. Flustered I was left to return to work fully supporting
the sort of erection that is nigh on impossible to hide. Half an hour later it
was showing no signs of abating and I was struggling to get on with work.

Now common sense would have had
me pick one of the hundred odd toilet cubicles that litter the building and
relieve myself in secure isolation. Instead I chose a cleaning cupboard on the
twenty eighth floor. To be fair it is a favourite haunt of mine if I want to
grab forty winks mid shift and I have always thought it fairly safe. 

What I didn’t count on was the
receptionist for Lader & Sons opening the cupboard door and finding me on
my haunches, trousers round my ankles in full flow. I was surprised that she
had a key to the cupboard. She was surprised at just about everything. She
screamed and slammed the door shut and I fell back into the cleaning equipment
behind me.

She ran to the reception and
informed the first person she met. Unfortunately it turned out to be Mr Lader
himself - a grizzled old man that made his fortune looking down his nose at
people.

Realising all was not good I
whipped up my trousers, grabbed a bucket, some Flash and a mop. Mr Lader flung
open the door and I went into denial mode. Her word against mine. I had every
right to be in the cupboard after all.

He asked why I had locked it. I
didn’t have a good answer.

He asked if this was something I
did on a regular basis. I said yes. He meant masturbating. I meant getting
equipment from the cupboard.

He called me a pervert. I took
umbrage at this.

He threatened to report me. I
threatened to call the union.

He asked why? I didn’t have an
answer to this.

I tried to leave.

He demanded an apology. I refused
and we hit stalemate.

It’s all got a little awkward
since then. For a start the story spread like a virus throughout the building.
I think I can cope with the sniggers, the pointing and the gossip. I’m not sure
I can cope with the wisecracks.

‘PULL the other one George.’

‘Are you UP to it George?’

‘George have you got time for
a SWIFT ONE?’

‘George something has come UP.
Could you give me a HAND?’

To top it all the company that
employs me is sending over an inspector to review my performance next week.
There is not a cat in hell’s chance that the inspector won’t find out about the
incident and when the story gets back to head office I’m dead meat.

The fire door opens and I step
out, look around and freeze mid step.

That looks a lot like Charlie
Wiggs being thrown off the top of my roof!

Why is someone throwing Charlie
Wiggs off my roof?

Charlie Wiggs. Accountant.
Cheedle, Baker and Nudge. Twentieth floor. Third office on the right. Always
leaves his bin full of barely used Kleenex. Strange choice of person to throw
off the roof I would have thought.

Why would someone throw Charlie
Wiggs off the roof?

Chapter 5

The regrets of Simon.

I can’t face it. I need someone
to take a hammer and strike just above my neck - right at the base of my skull.
A clean stroke. Out like a light I’ll go. Deep, blissful, soothing,
nothingness. Right now. Right fucking now. Please if there’s any justice on
this planet.

Three more aspirin. Make it four
and I’ll get on the road. How many is that today. Eight, nine. I’ve lost count.
Too many? I don’t think so. The last lot came up when I chucked up in the
office. They won’t count. I’ll make it four. Four aspirin washed down with the
dregs from a warm can of Coke. Foul!

God how did I get this bad and
more importantly, much more importantly, what was I doing snogging Karen Lewis.

Man, but that will seriously come
home to haunt me. What on earth was I thinking? Karen Lewis? Our HR Director.
Of all the people to snog! What possessed me? I don’t even fancy her. At least
I don’t think I do.

Something to do with a thong. That
was it. She bet me that I couldn’t squeeze into her thong without it snapping.
Why would I do that? What kind of crazy bet is that? She is built like a stick
insect. I have a waist that would do Moby Dick proud.

Did I really do it? God I’m
struggling. Tell me I didn’t? Please. Shit. I think I did. I’m sure it all
happened in my office. Sometime late last night. At the office party.

She had her thong off in seconds
and next thing I’m down to my y-fronts. Correction down to my bare BOLLOCKS!!!
Down to my bare bollocks and trying to pull on a strip of dental floss. Then
she came on to me. We snogged and…

…and I can’t remember. But it
sure doesn’t feel like it stopped there. I woke up this morning, admittedly
alone in my own bed, an empty feeling downstairs. I suspect that our snog was a
bit more than a kiss. I can’t cope. Not while I have a hangover of this scale.
And then there was the camera. My camera. Her taking a picture of me trying on
her thong just before things went black. The camera that I have just driven
through hell to come in and get. The camera that now has no memory card in it.
And that is down in the dirt bad news. I have no idea what is on that card. I
doubt it will be good for my future.

I’ve known Karen for twenty plus
years and she is a bitch of the first order. She needs to be in our business.
Too many secrets. Too many opportunities for slip ups. When I want someone out
of our business I want it now. No questions. When I want some gen on an
employee it is Karen’s job to dig up the crap.

She has two files on every
employee. File A - the proper HR file. Reviews, personal details - the usual;
and then there is File B or the X Files as I call them. The dirt on each
employee. Their indiscretions - and they all have indiscretions. Who they are
sleeping with, their drug habits, their other habits, their financial troubles
and it doesn’t stop there.

We’ve got knowledge on their
families, their friends and some cases their friends’ friends. We’ve used
private detective agencies, local criminals, bribed people, threatened people -
if you can name it we can probably own up to it. All to fill the X Files. For
the X Files are my insurance. Do your job and you get a gold star in File A.
Cause trouble and we dig out your X File.

Well you need to in our job. One
loose mouth, one crying baby, one bleeding heart and we could be history.
Fifteen years to life history if you get my drift. So there’s no room to dick
around.

Karen is my right hand woman,
Robin my right hand man and I may have just had intercourse with the devil
herself. I need to get out of here. Deal with this later.

I head for my car. It is parked
down in the building’s basement car park.

Concentrate. Engine on. Select
drive. Crap. Select reverse. Pull it together. I suspect I’m going to chuck up
again. If I do it will be an expensive vomit - this thing costs two hundred
quid a pop to valet. Exit barrier. Ramp. Back lane and here comes last night’s
remains. Out the car, engine still running and my digestive system goes into
reverse.

How bad must I look? Lying in the
gutter of some back alley trying to throw up the lining of my stomach? If
anyone sees me I can kiss my hard man image goodnight. What in the hell was I
drinking last night?

I remember the wine - a nice
bottle or two of Cote Rotie la Mouline 2004 Guigal, one fifty a pop. Then onto
a bottle of Dalmore 18 year old. Then I think it went down hill.

Grey Goose vodka, Ron Coba 12
year old rum, Cascade Mountain gin. I remember a couple of bottles of
Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh and you have the makings of a stunning hangover.