‘Cheers God’, very sweet of you,’ Hasseem said blowing me over a kiss, which I pretended to catch and stick in my top pocket.
‘Oh yeah, like fuck you would. I’d put any money on it that in real life you’d really rather get shagged up the arse by me,’ Matt said, sounding a little bitter.
‘I wouldn’t,’ I insisted.
‘Yeah, Jimmy Hill.’
‘Tell us then, Matt, why should God’ go with you rather than Hasseem?’ Paddy asked.
‘Why? Because I’m white, and that’s not meant to be an insult on you Hasseem, or nothing. It’s just an observation based on what you lot are always coming out with, that this big black bloke’s going around shagging you lot up the arse, so that says to me that you’re all inherently racist. Not in an evil way, I don’t mean that. But just in that us in this country, no matter how fucking integrated and politically correct we all are, are still deep down scared of old darkie. It’s been this way for fucking centuries and it’s going to take more than a generation or two of living side by side before institutionalised racism vanishes from the collective consciousness.’
‘Bollocks,’ said fat Paul.
‘You don’t even listen to yourselves when you talk, do you?’ Matt said.
‘Alright then, Nelson Mandela, if we’re all so fucking racist, how comes God’ chose Hasseem over you?’ Don asked.
‘Oh he didn’t, he’s lying, because he just wants to disprove my point.’
‘That’s not true,’ I told him.
‘It is, it so fucking is.’
‘You’re just a bad loser,’ Hasseem said.
‘I’m not,’ Matt protested. ‘I couldn’t give a shit.’
‘You are,’ everyone told him.
‘I’m so fucking not... alright then, let me ask you this God’; why Hasseem over me? Come on, the truth. What swung your decision?’
‘Well, I don’t know. He’s a nice bloke, I suppose; we get on well together, got quite a nice body...’
‘Okay, that’s it! I’m out of here,’ Paddy said, heading for the door.
‘You know, you blokes talk about this so much I swear you’re all really gagging for it with each other,’ Susie piped in.
Susie hated our daily theoretical discussions, and not just because we shouted our thoughts from all corners of the room right across her desk rather than get out of our chairs (well, who could be arsed?), but also because she had a typically girlie pragmatic mind. See, in my experience, career women almost always make for the biggest moaners at work. They’re forever watching you and moaning when they see you skiving. They’re forever taking themselves and their jobs way too seriously and they’re always competing with everyone around them to see who can be the most conscientious at work. And it winds them up no end when they look about and see all the competition’s fucked off down the pub or are standing around in front of the mirror drawing Mexican bandit moustaches on themselves with big black marker pens. They hate the Devil-may-care-but-I-really-couldn’t-give-a-toss weariness that envelops most blokes after ten years in the work place and don’t get our lackadaisical attitude towards time-keeping and petty theft because they haven’t been working as long as us. It’s a simple fact. See, when a bloke’s born, he’s told from day one that he’s going to work, and that’s it mate, end of discussion. Whether you leave school at 16, 18, 21 or 28 (put it off as long as you like, egghead, but you’re still going), eventually you have to get a job and go to some soul-&-spirit-sapping office/factory/field and put in eight hours a day until you’re an old man. And then, and only then, are you allowed to stay at home and talk about what a fantastic life you had polishing car bumpers for the last 50 years, and please can you cut up my blancmange for me because my hands are a bit fucked?
Women though, women have only just started colonising ‘meaningful’ full-time employment so they’ve yet to discover just how shit a life-time in the workplace really is. Also, whether you like it or not, they’ve got the ultimate ‘get out of work free’ card, although I’m sure you’ve all marked me down as a right chauvinist for bringing this up. Well nuts to you all, it’s true and that’s all there is to it. When the thrill of sending me 16 memos a day wears off for Jennifer in Production, all she’s got to do is have a shag and it’s, ‘so long work’ and ‘hello coffee mornings and walks in the park’. And ‘Darling, could you buy an extension lead on your way home from work so I can stick the telly in the garden?’ This is a fact. Women can and do have babies. Men can’t. If men could, then I really would be bent over the desk having Hasseem throw all he could up me – gun or no gun.
Which brings me rather neatly back to my original point and Susie’s snipe.
Like I was saying, she hated our little think tank and thought it was a pointless waste of everyone’s time because no big black bloke was ever going to come in here with a gun and demand sexual favours from us, so why did we insist on discussing tactics for such an inevitability five days a week?
It drove her barmy.
This was a good thing, we all agreed, particularly Don, who was waging his own petty revolt against the woman who’d made his last few years a living hell. Why had she done this? Like I said before, she was a cunt. Of course not every woman boss is and there are more than a fair few blokes out there who are worse still but Don worked for Susie so she was the raven in his waking nightmares. It probably wasn’t even anything to do with Don himself, it was just that he was a bloke and that she was an old misery guts. I don’t know for sure but all the smart money was on her having been fucked over a few times before in the past so Don got to bear the brunt of her retaliation. Not a particularly nice thing for Susie to do but then again she wasn’t a particularly nice person. She was a cunt. Get the picture?
‘One of these days we’re going to walk in here and there you’ll all be on the floor rolling around together,’ she added, completing her all-encompassing put-down.
‘People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,’ fat Paul warned her, then added, ‘especially lesbians like you who’ve actually done it with other birds.’
‘Oh yes, and here it comes. I’m very comfortable with my sexuality, thank you very much. I’m about the only one in here who is. The rest of you are a load of repressed fags.’
‘Fuck me, make up your mind, either we’re a load of racists or we’re a load of poofs. I don’t think we can be both,’ Don said.
‘Have you finished those pages yet?’ Susie snapped, flexing her authority over Don and making plain her disapproval concerning his continued participation in this discussion.
Don didn’t reply. He merely held her gaze for a moment, gritted his teeth, then went back to work. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t answered. Susie hadn’t asked the question to get an answer, she’d asked it to bring him to heel. We all saw this and cringed for Don.
Paddy, back from the bog and the only one of us with equal status to Susie, asked her why she was always giving Don stick but went pretty easy on Hazel.
‘Are you two muffers at it or something? Because you want to try and make it a bit less obvious if you are.’
Hazel, who up until this point had stayed more or less out of it, burst into a string of denials.
‘Don’t be so fucking ridiculous, of course not, you stupid prat. Why are you lot always having a go at me? I haven’t said anything to you, it’s just all the time, fucking childish wankers, the lot of you...’
She went on for a bit longer than that and I couldn’t help notice the hurt look on Susie’s face, like as if she was taking Hazel’s vehement reaction to such an idea as a personal knock, which I guess was Paddy’s plan.
‘... you lot might want to fuck each other but count me out...’ she was saying as if her life depended on it.