My Clocking In System

His mother rang him at 5:50 in the morning, which meant she’d been up since 4:10 and had been sat on her decision to ring for about an hour.

"I’m not stopping, I’m at the stop, I’ve got about 2 minutes. Did you eat that fish finger?"

"I ate 6 of them."

"Six?"

"You said there was a whole bag."

"There is a whole bag, Danny, it’s not a challenge." Somebody said something near her and she said morning, love and came back. "Six. And what did you have with them?"

"Bread."

"Bread and what?"

"Bread and butter and fish fingers."

"That’s not a dinner, that’s what you had when you were 9." He could hear her rearranging her bag. "Right, well. Listen. I’m going to say this and then I’m getting on this bus and you’re not going to argue with me, because I know you and you’ll go on about it all day."

"Go on."

"I’m doing Tower Court today."

"Mum, "

"I said you’re not going to argue."

"I’m not arguing, I’m asking you to have one day off. One. In 20 years."

"And who does the third floor?"

"Somebody from the agency."

"They sent a girl from the agency in September and Eileen sat in the hall with her coat on for an hour and 40 minutes and wouldn’t come out." She said it like a fact about the weather. "And that girl was lovely, that’s the thing, she was a really lovely girl, she was from Wolverhampton, and it was nothing to do with her. Eileen just won’t. She’s 89. She’s not going to start."

Danny stood at the glass with the sky doing nothing yet over the east.

"Let me get you a car, then."

"No."

"Every morning. Door to door. It’s £40, Mum, I promise you it’s, "

"It’s not the money and you know it’s not the money, so don’t."

"Then what is it?"

"Winston drives the 44 on a Thursday," his mum said. "And I’ve got my seat. And I’ve got Bernie who gets on at the church and if I’m not on that bus she’ll think I’ve had a fall, and then she’ll ring Denise, and then Denise’ll be up my stairs banging on the door at half 7 in the morning." She stopped for breath. "And I’m not being funny, love, but if I turn up outside Tower Court in a car, what am I? What does that make me?"

"Nothing. It makes you somebody who got a lift."

"It makes me the cleaner who turns up in a car, Danny."

He didn’t have anything for that.

"There we are then." Her voice went brisk, the way it did when she’d won and wanted to move off it. "Now. Have you got milk in? Because I got you the 4 pinter and you’ll not get through it."

"I’ll get through it."

"You will not."

"I’ll make tea."

"You don’t drink tea in that flat, you’ve got that machine in the wall that does 9 things and you’ve never once, " A bus came in with a hiss and the whole line went to noise. "That’s me. That’s Winston. Ring me tonight."

"Mum, "

"Tonight, Danny."

Click.

Marta let herself in at 8 with a supermarket carrier and the two of them stood looking at each other by the lift for a second before either of them worked out what to say, and then she told him the runner on the cupboard by the stairs had been sticking since June and she’d reported it 3 times, and he wrote it down, and she went off to clean 4 bathrooms that nobody had used.

He swam at 9 and Mara wasn’t there.

Mr Pemberton was, going up the far lane at the speed he always went, and he got out on the steps at 25 past with a hand on each rail and said "Mr Flynn" on his way past, and Danny said "Mr Pemberton," and that was the whole of it.

He did 20 lengths on his own after that.

She’s not coming.

13 days you stayed off this pool and the first morning you come back she’s not in it.

She was in that lobby yesterday though. In that jumper. So she’s not avoiding you.

So what is she doing?

He turned at the deep end and pushed off the tile.

No idea. That’s the honest answer. You have got no idea what that woman is up to and you’ve done nothing to deserve one.

You know where her flat is. Nobody’s stopping you.

And do what, knock on 39 at 9 in the morning with wet hair? She could barely cross her legs sat down, that’s how sore she is, and that’s you, that’s your doing.

And she still came down and sat there an hour so you’d have to walk past her.

Her hands over his on her tits, pressing them in harder than he’d have dared. Her hair down over both their faces. The second one, when she’d stopped moving entirely and had to put both hands on his face, and the way her cunt had gone on him in waves with her mouth against his throat and no attempt whatsoever at being quiet.

Right. Stop it. You are in a swimming pool.

He did 4 more lengths, hard, and got out.

Keisha was already outside the unit in Peckham when he got there, leant against a roller shutter with her hands in a black puffer, and she started talking before he’d got the helmet off.

"You’re 6 minutes late."

"Traffic on the, "

"Yeah, everyone’s got traffic. Right, listen, before we go in there, because I need to say this and then we’re going in." She pushed off the shutter. "Femi’s a mate. I’ve known him 8 years, he did my install at the last two places, he’s straight. But he’s a mate of mine, not a mate of yours, and if you go in there and start being nice about the price I’ll have to fix it after and it’ll cost you."

"I wasn’t going to, "

"You were. Everyone does. Men come in with money and they get shy about it." She was already walking. "Your budget’s £4,600 and it’s tight. That’s it. That’s the whole thing you say."

"Right."

"Say it."

"It’s £4,600 and it’s tight."

"Yeah, but say it like you mean it, you sound like you’re at a funeral."

She was not tall. Built hard through the shoulders and the upper arms in a way that came off 9 years of turning between a portafilter and a grinder 400 times a day, and she moved like somebody who was used to being in a space too narrow for two people. Black puffer, tracksuit bottoms, trainers with no mark on them at all. Short natural hair and 3 gold studs going up the curve of one ear.

She had her sleeves shoved up past the elbow in November, and the inside of both forearms was covered in little pale marks, old ones, a dozen on each side, steam wand and hot milk over years.

Femi’s arch was two down with the shutter half up and a radio going, and it was 15 degrees warmer inside and smelled of coffee grounds and machine oil.

"Keisha Adjei."

"All right."

"Seven months."

"Eight." She went straight past him. "This it?"

"That’s it."

Red, 3 group, the paint gone dull on one corner and a dent along the bottom edge of the drip tray.

She had the top panel off before she’d properly got her hands out of her pockets.

Then she stopped talking for about 90 seconds, with her phone torch in her teeth and both arms down inside it, and Danny stood by the door with his helmet under his arm and did not say one word.

"Boiler’s been out."

"It has."

"When?"

"March."

"Who did it?"

"Me."

"With what?"

"New element, new pressurestat, new safety valve, and I’ve got the certificate for the vessel because I knew you’d ask."

"Get it."

He got it. She read both sides of it standing up, and then handed it back and went in with the torch again.

"Femi."

"Mm."

"Group 3."

"Yeah."

"You’ve had it apart."

There was a pause of exactly the wrong length.

"I’ve had it apart."

"Why?"

"Because it was creeping down under load and I stripped it and it was the seat. So I lapped the seat, I put a new dispersion screen in it, new seals all round, and it’s been on the bench 3 weeks and it holds." He wiped his hands. "And before you say it, no, I didn’t do it with a drill and a bit of wet and dry, I did it properly, I’ve got the lapping tool, you’ve seen the lapping tool."

"I’ve seen you lose the lapping tool."

"That was 2019."

"Put it on."

So he put it on, and it took 20 minutes to come up to temperature, and in those 20 minutes Keisha asked him questions without stopping and Danny understood perhaps a third of it.

Something about the pump and something about a flow restrictor and a long bit about water that had the words softener and scale and Bermondsey in it, and Femi arguing back the whole way, and neither of them once explaining anything to the man who was paying.

Then she pulled 4 shots.

She threw the first 2 straight in the bin without smelling them. The third she watched all the way down, said "there," and pointed at the stream coming off group 3, and Danny leaned in and looked at it and could see nothing at all.

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