My Clocking In System

The fourth she drank about a third of, put down, and went and stood in the mouth of the shutter looking at the road.

"Well?" Femi said.

"It’s a good machine."

"It’s a very good machine, Keisha."

"It’s a good machine at £4,600." She turned round. "It wants commissioning on site, and it wants doing on his water, not yours, because he’s on that Bermondsey run and it’s hard as anything down there and it’ll scale this thing up inside a year if nobody’s watching it. And it’ll want a service at 3 months, not 6, because that group’s been apart."

"That’s all fair."

"So do both."

Femi laughed. "There it is."

"In the price."

"Keisha, man."

"In the price." She had her hands back in the puffer. "You’ve had it 5 months. You’ve had 2 people out to look at it and neither of them came back, and one of them was that bloke from Deptford who was never going to buy it, he just likes looking at machines."

"He does like looking at machines."

"So."

Femi looked at the ceiling for a bit.

"I’ll commission it. Service at 3 I’ll do half."

"Both."

"Half, and I’ll throw you a spare set of seals and a basket, and that’s me done, Keisha, I mean it, that’s me at the end of it."

She looked at Danny.

Danny had not spoken in 25 minutes and had been extremely aware of it for about 20.

"Half’s fine," he said. "And I’ll pay the whole thing today, not thirds, if that’s any use to you."

Femi’s eyebrows went up.

"That’s some use to me, yeah."

"Then that’s what we’ll do."

Out on the road with the shutter coming down behind them, Keisha stopped by the scooter and looked at it, and then looked at him, and then looked back at it.

"That yours?"

"Yeah."

"Right."

"What?"

"Nothing." She zipped the puffer up to her chin. "You just paid £4,600 in one go off a phone and you’ve come here on that."

"It’s a good scooter."

"I never said it wasn’t a good scooter."

Danny got the notebook out.

"Can I ask you something and you’re not allowed to sigh at me?"

"I don’t sigh."

"You sigh constantly."

"Go on."

"Which way’s the machine facing?"

Keisha stopped with her hand halfway to her pocket.

"Say that again."

"You’ve asked me twice on the phone and both times I said I didn’t know, and I’ve been going round and round it ever since. Counter’s built. It’s not fixed down yet." He had the pen ready. "So. Which way?"

"It faces the door."

"Right."

"It faces the door, grinder goes on the left, knock box goes between them and not on the end where every single idiot puts it, because if it’s on the end you’re turning your whole body away from the queue 400 times a morning and by 10 o’clock you want to die." She was talking with her hands now. "And you lose the corner return."

"The corner return’s half the counter."

"The corner return’s a trap. You’ll walk into it every day for 20 years."

"Terry’s built it."

"Then Terry can unbuild it."

"It’s in the light, that corner. Old boy told me. He said whoever’s stood there’ll be squinting at everyone all June."

"Yeah, it’s in the light and it’s also in your way, and you’ll put a blind on that window anyway." She shrugged. "Look, it’s your shop. I’m telling you what I’d want if it was me stood in it, and you asked."

Danny got his phone out and rang Terry from the pavement.

"Terry. Danny Flynn. That corner return on the window run, I want it off." A pause. "No, off completely, not shortened. And the machine’s facing the door now, so your power’s got to come up back left instead of right." Another pause. "Yeah, I know. I know it is. Bill me for the change."

He put the phone away.

Keisha was watching him with her head on one side.

"You just did that."

"You just told me to."

"People don’t do that though." She said it like an accusation. "I’ve told 4 men in good coats where to put a knock box this year and every single one of them said interesting and then did what they were going to do anyway."

"Well, you know machines and I don’t." He put the notebook back in his coat. "There’s no point asking you and then not, is there. That’s just a way of feeling like I asked."

She looked at him for a second longer than was comfortable.

"Saturday I said I’d promise nothing."

"You did."

"I’m still promising nothing." She was walking backwards up the road now. "Get that floor finished. Don’t let anybody but Femi near that machine. And ring me the minute you’ve got power, and I mean the minute, not the day after."

"Keisha."

"What."

"Thanks for coming out on your day off."

"Yeah, well." She turned round and went. "You’ve bought the corner on the sunny side and you don’t know what you’ve got. Somebody’s got to stop you ruining it."

Ray’s sister’s lad came at 1, looked at the step for 11 minutes, said Friday, and when Danny said Friday was gone he said Saturday, and when Danny said Saturday was worse he shrugged and said "well" and got back in his van.

Which left Danny stood on his own pavement at 20 past 1 looking at a 2 inch lip of stone with a dip worn into the middle of it.

He went down to the builder’s merchant on the corner and came back with a scaffold board, 2 lengths of batten, a bag of ballast and a bag of sharp sand he did not need, because he wasn’t certain and he didn’t want to have to go back.

Then he cut the board in the back kitchen with a handsaw, in the dark, badly, holding it against his own knee.

It took him an hour and 40 minutes. He screwed the battens down first and got them wrong and took them up and did them again. He packed underneath with the ballast so the thing didn’t drum when you stood on it. He put 6 screws in when 4 would have done because he could not stand the idea of it moving under somebody.

Then he went and stood out in the road and looked at it.

Raw board, screw heads showing, one edge sitting proud of the other by about 3 millimetres.

It’s horrible.

It’s a ramp though.

He got the rasp and took the proud edge down and went and stood in the road again, and it was still horrible.

Norman came at 20 past 3 and Danny didn’t hear him arrive, because the stick didn’t stop.

On Monday it had come up the pavement and halted at the door, and there’d been a scrape and a long pause and the sound of a man getting his weight onto a frame. Today it came up the pavement, went tap tap tap straight across the board, and carried on into the room.

"You’ve put a plank down."

"I have."

"That’s a scaffold board."

"It is."

"Screwed into my threshold."

"Your threshold."

"Well." Norman got himself down onto the milk crate in about 3 stages. "I’ve been coming here longer than you’ve been alive, son, so."

"Cup of tea?"

"You’ve no power."

"No."

"Then what are you asking me for?"

"Manners," Danny said.

Norman put his stick against the wall and it slid down it and Danny got there before it went over.

"That’s twice you’ve done that."

"Three times."

"Twice."

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