you could eat your dinner off – check. TV system with more buttons and lights than the flight deck of the Space Shuttle – check. TV actually working – check. Wireless broadband working – check. Carpets clean, beds made, windowsills dusted – checkety-check. The fridge was stocked, though whether it was stuffed with things Africans ate Mickey didn’t know, and didn’t care since that was the club-appointed housekeeper’s problem; the dad spoke some English but the kid didn’t, only French, so the club had lined up a translator, a French-speaking housekeeper, and an English teacher. All that was someone else’s worry so that was fine by Mickey.
It all seemed OK. Mickey had kept his game face on throughout. As he finished he felt like relieving his feelings a little, so he turned to the housekeeper.
‘You understand about confidentiality?’
She nodded but did not speak.
‘No, I mean you really understand?’
She nodded again. He had planned to do a version of the confidentiality bollocking he gave people, about how they were not allowed to say anything to anyone, ever. The housekeeper was so blank and seemed so indifferent, not in an incompetent am-I-bovvered? way but as if her real being was deeply buried somewhere else, that he lost the impetus to go on with it. It was a bit like losing an erection. Too bad. Mickey liked the confidentiality bollocking, because it gave a sense of importance and drama to the work; and the fact was, there was something glamorous about even the mundane aspects of Premier League football. Checking the supply of loo rolls: because a Premiership player was involved, it was important and interesting. Mickey knew plenty of things that people were desperate to know – most of them variations on the theme of ‘what is X really like?’ – as if there were a special category of knowledge called ‘really likeness’ – as if it were somehow the ultimate question.
‘It seems to be OK,’ he told the cleaner. She nodded again. Obviously this was Nod at Mickey Day. Well, two can nod. So he nodded back and headed for the door. There were a couple of bits of post, which he picked up on the way out – an electricity bill and a card which said ‘We Want What You Have’. Mickey had a flash of divorce-paranoia – Dinah’s brief was out to get him! – and then realised it was actually to do with 27 Pepys Road, because the other side of the card was a photo of the front door. This, Mickey thought, was almost certainly something to do with a newspaper staking out the house; maybe it was something specifically to do with the African kid. There were rumours that he’d been poached from Arsenal, or something. Maybe this was loopy Arsenal fans threatening the kid or trying to spook him. Bugger! Mickey thought that the last thing he needed today, as his phone started vibrating again, was a tricky what-should-I-do?
He was wrong about that. Something else turned out to be the last thing he needed. When Mickey came out onto the street he found that his car had been ticketed and clamped.
10
Two weeks before Christmas, Petunia sat in her doctor’s surgery, waiting for her name to appear on the electronic screen behind her. It was a Monday, and the surgery was even busier than usual. There were no seats available facing the screen, so every time she heard the beep indicating that another patient was summoned, she had to turn and look and see if her turn had come.
Petunia didn’t much like that she had to do that. When her name came up she would get up and go through to see her doctor and then everyone would know that she was Mrs Petunia Howe, whether she wanted them to know who she was or not, and her name would then stay up there until the next name came up in lights on the board. She was no spring chicken and to turn her neck enough to see she had to swivel the whole top half of her body, and although every other person in the facing-away seats was doing this too, including the
It all seemed OK. Mickey had kept his game face on throughout. As he finished he felt like relieving his feelings a little, so he turned to the housekeeper.
‘You understand about confidentiality?’
She nodded but did not speak.
‘No, I mean you really understand?’
She nodded again. He had planned to do a version of the confidentiality bollocking he gave people, about how they were not allowed to say anything to anyone, ever. The housekeeper was so blank and seemed so indifferent, not in an incompetent am-I-bovvered? way but as if her real being was deeply buried somewhere else, that he lost the impetus to go on with it. It was a bit like losing an erection. Too bad. Mickey liked the confidentiality bollocking, because it gave a sense of importance and drama to the work; and the fact was, there was something glamorous about even the mundane aspects of Premier League football. Checking the supply of loo rolls: because a Premiership player was involved, it was important and interesting. Mickey knew plenty of things that people were desperate to know – most of them variations on the theme of ‘what is X really like?’ – as if there were a special category of knowledge called ‘really likeness’ – as if it were somehow the ultimate question.
‘It seems to be OK,’ he told the cleaner. She nodded again. Obviously this was Nod at Mickey Day. Well, two can nod. So he nodded back and headed for the door. There were a couple of bits of post, which he picked up on the way out – an electricity bill and a card which said ‘We Want What You Have’. Mickey had a flash of divorce-paranoia – Dinah’s brief was out to get him! – and then realised it was actually to do with 27 Pepys Road, because the other side of the card was a photo of the front door. This, Mickey thought, was almost certainly something to do with a newspaper staking out the house; maybe it was something specifically to do with the African kid. There were rumours that he’d been poached from Arsenal, or something. Maybe this was loopy Arsenal fans threatening the kid or trying to spook him. Bugger! Mickey thought that the last thing he needed today, as his phone started vibrating again, was a tricky what-should-I-do?
He was wrong about that. Something else turned out to be the last thing he needed. When Mickey came out onto the street he found that his car had been ticketed and clamped.
10
Two weeks before Christmas, Petunia sat in her doctor’s surgery, waiting for her name to appear on the electronic screen behind her. It was a Monday, and the surgery was even busier than usual. There were no seats available facing the screen, so every time she heard the beep indicating that another patient was summoned, she had to turn and look and see if her turn had come.
Petunia didn’t much like that she had to do that. When her name came up she would get up and go through to see her doctor and then everyone would know that she was Mrs Petunia Howe, whether she wanted them to know who she was or not, and her name would then stay up there until the next name came up in lights on the board. She was no spring chicken and to turn her neck enough to see she had to swivel the whole top half of her body, and although every other person in the facing-away seats was doing this too, including the
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