“Wasn’t it his baby?”
“It was no one’s baby …”
“Eh?”
“It was no one’s baby …”
“What do you mean?”
“There was no baby … That was the lie.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t pregnant … I told him that I didn’t want it.”
“The imaginary baby?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“I told him that I wanted an abortion … Immediately … And, because he was the father, he should pay for it. That it, the baby, was as much his responsibility as mine …”
“Did he pay?”
“Yes. The whole amount. The last thing he wanted to be was a father.”
“What did you do with the money?”
“I spent it on a weekend in the Lake District with my best friend. We got drunk, fucked men, had fun …”
“Why?”
“Why have fun?”
“No … Why lie to your boyfriend like that?”
“Because he deserved it. He was cheating on me. He didn’t care about me. He hated me. Oh, the usual stuff, you know. The only thing he cared about was money, so I hit him where it hurt. In his pocket. Money was everything to him, still is probably, I don’t know really. It was all he lived for. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. It’s all everyone lives for, it seems.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I am right. I turned his guilt, his hatred for me into a commodity. And he — the moron — bought into it. He bought his own piece of me. And at the same time hated the fact that he had to give me, of all people, money. These are the depths people will sink to.”
She began to pick at the skin near her fingernails. The skin looked smooth and shiny. She was fresh-looking and clean. She stared straight ahead, towards the office workers in the whitewashed building opposite. I watched her chest rise and fall. I didn’t know what to say to her. A discarded can of beer floating by caught my attention. A lone swan avoided it, paying it no attention whatsoever.
We sat on the bench in silence for maybe an hour before I asked her.
“What’s your name?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because I prefer to remain anonymous.”
“Why?”
“Things are easier like that … You’ll see the end of me anyway”
“I think I know what you mean.”
With this she got up to her feet and walked off towards Hackney. I watched her. I liked her gait. She walked with purpose, yet slowly, like she was floating, her head in the clouds, yet towards something, a confrontation, maybe. I stood up.
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!”
Eventually she stopped, but she didn’t turn around. I ran towards her; just as I got to her she turned to face me.
“What?”
“Er …”
“What?”
“Well … Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Yes … I always come by this way.”
She continued on. I turned around and walked back to the bench. “You’ll see the end of me anyway …” It stuck in my mind, even though I had no idea what she was talking about. I tried not to think about it too much. But it was hard not to.
I looked over at the office workers opposite, sitting at their snazzy monitors. It was like I’d never even had a job. I couldn’t continue with that sort of thing anymore. Work was nothing to me now. I was happy — happy that I wasn’t them, stuck in that dreadful place of work. I decided that I would go home and compose a letter of resignation. And I would write this letter in my own hand. An email wouldn’t suffice; I wanted my letter to be authentic.
seven
Dear Richard,
I can’t go on anymore with this. I can’t see the point. I don’t expect you to understand my feelings about this. I am bored with work full stop. Not your company, but work. You may think that I am ergophobic, that I need help, that there is an obvious solution to this — there isn’t, Richard, not in the way you’re thinking. I am simply bored. I am not sick. I have no psychological disorder. I simply want to embrace my boredom — and my boredom forces me to walk away from work.
Some people work because they are bored — they aren’t aware of this fact though. Some people spend their entire working lives bored and never once question this. They accept this by trying to quell it; maybe they would be a lot happier if they tried embracing it rather than trying to ignore it — or battling against it — all their miserable/happy lives. I am embracing boredom — yes — that’s what I am doing. I don’t need to clear my desk; those things are superfluous to me now. Richard, I wish you every success in your venture. No hard feelings, eh? Goodbye, talking about boredom bores me. I must act.
Yours,
A happy man.
eight
I was waiting for her when I was suddenly surrounded by a group of teenagers. They just seemed to appear out from the foliage or something. Two plonked themselves down either side of me on the bench. The other two loitered threateningly in front of me, music blaring from a snazzy mobile phone, blocking my view of the canal and the whitewashed office block. The music they were listening to was Dizzee Rascal — although it could have been any one of the numerous grime stars of London. Dizzee Rascal is the only one I have heard of, so I presumed it was him. Then they began to swap places. I found this very unnerving. A couple of them began shouting along with the tinny music blaring from the snazzy mobile phone. I started to feel uncomfortable, even though they were clearly much younger than me. Two of them had put their hoods up (something I usually liked; aesthetically, if done correctly, a group of teenagers dressed this way can look striking). They began to lean over me.
“What you doing, man?”
“What you up to, man?”
“What you doing?”
“What you doing here?”
This seemed to be ejaculated at once; a cacophony of teenagers and testosterone — a heady combination.
“What you doing on this bench for, man?”
“What you doing on this bench?”
“What you doing just sitting here?”
“What you doing, man?”
My right leg began to shake. I wanted to shout, to start running, but I couldn’t muster the energy.
“Are you a battyboy, man?”
“Are you a battyboy, innit?”
“Are you a battyboy?”
“Battyboy, man?”
I looked across to the office workers through a gap between two of the teenagers. There must have been a meeting in progress at one of the desks, as all the staff had wheeled their chairs over to it. I counted ten in total, but it was hard to determine for certain as the two teenagers in front of me kept obstructing my view. I could see a woman addressing the team. All, except one who was looking directly over to me. He was young. I’m sure he was smiling.
“What you doing, man?”
“Do you suck wood, man?”
“Are you battyboy, innit?”
“Do you have any money, innit?”
It was rapidly turning into my worst nightmare. I had no money on my person. If I told them I had no money they would turn violent, that’s how these situations unfold.
“Have you got any money, man?”
“Have you got any money?”
“You got money, man?”
“Have you got any, man?”
The smallest of the four — who had bright red hair — began to fumble for something inside his pockets. He yawned. He pulled out his cigarettes. I let out a sigh — I thought he was searching for a knife. I thought he was going to threaten me with it; it’s always the smaller ones with something to prove. He lit his cigarette with a match and flicked the still-lit match at a lone coot on the canal, missing it by half a foot or so. I could smell the sulphur. He turned and exhaled the blue smoke into my face. He muttered something to the other three in slang that I couldn’t understand. They laughed.