My Clocking In System

He rang her.

"Hello."

"You’ve not booked it."

"Jodie, "

"You have not booked it, I can hear it in your voice, you’ve gone all, " She was laughing at him now. "You’ve gone all formal."

"I’ve had a week."

"Everyone’s had a week, Danny."

"No, I’ve had a, " He stopped. "Right. I haven’t booked it."

"I know you haven’t booked it."

"How?"

"Because I’d have got a message going booked it, and then a second one about 5 minutes later going is 8 all right, because you always do that." A rustle at her end and a kettle starting up. "It’s fine."

"It’s not fine."

"It genuinely is fine, I’ve had a bath and I’m not moving off this settee."

"I’m going to sort it."

"Danny."

"I’m going to sort it, and it’ll have tablecloths on it, and I’ll ring you back."

"Don’t ring me back with a Harvester."

He tried 6 places between 7 and half past, stood on the pavement outside his own shop with the light on inside it and his breath going.

The first one laughed at him. Actually laughed, and then apologised for laughing, and said Saturday night in November, mate, come on.

The second one had 5:45 or 10:15.

The third didn’t pick up. The fourth had a recorded message. The fifth said they’d had a cancellation and then came back 90 seconds later and said sorry, that’s gone, somebody’s just taken it on the app.

The sixth one asked him how many and he said 2 and she said what name and he said Flynn and she said and what time were you looking at, and he said 8, and she said we’ve nothing at 8, and he said what have you got, and she said nothing, and he said right, and she said sorry, love.

He stood there.

You’ve got £113,000 in an account.

And there’s not one table in South London and money is doing exactly nothing about it, same as Wednesday.

So do Wednesday.

He got on the scooter and went to the Walworth Road.

The Portuguese place was a shoebox with 9 tables in it and steam on the inside of the window and a man carving something off a spit behind the counter. Every table had a proper cloth on it, white, and a paper one over the top, and a jar with 2 flowers in it.

It was full.

Danny stood in the doorway with his helmet in his hand and waited until a woman in her 50s came past with 4 plates up one arm.

"Two minutes, love."

"No rush."

She came back in 6, wiping her hands.

"You want a table?"

"Tomorrow night. Saturday. Two people."

"Ohh." She pulled a face at the ceiling. "No. No, Saturday, no."

"I know. I’ve rung 6 places, everyone’s told me the same thing, I’m not being funny with you." He turned the helmet round in his hands. "Can I ask you something else instead?"

"Go on."

"Did Yvonne Baptiste do this room?"

The woman stopped wiping her hands.

"Yvonne did this room."

"I’ve had her in my place this afternoon. Up on Verney Road, the corner, the one that’s been shut."

"The old caff." She looked at him properly for the first time. "Ted’s."

"You knew Ted?"

"Everybody knew Ted." She put the cloth over her shoulder. "You’ve bought Ted’s?"

"I’ve bought Ted’s."

"And Yvonne’s doing it."

"Yvonne’s telling me to take a wall out and I’ve said no."

"Ha!" It came out of her like a bark and 2 people at the nearest table looked up. "She told me to take a wall out. I said no. Then I did it 2 years later and she never said one word about it, not one, she just come in and had a coffee and sat looking at it." She shook her head. "Tomorrow night, 2 people."

"Yeah."

"Quarter past 9. That’s my second sitting and it’s the only thing I’ve got, and if you’re not stood in that door at quarter past I’m giving it to somebody off the street, because I’ve got 9 tables and the whole road wants them."

"Quarter past 9’s perfect."

"And it’s not fancy," she said, pointing at him. "You want fancy, go up town."

"It’s got a cloth on it," Danny said. "That’s the whole of what I need."

He rang Jodie from the pavement.

"Quarter past 9 tomorrow. Portuguese place on the Walworth Road. It’s a shoebox, there’s 9 tables, and the woman’s already threatened me."

"Has it got a tablecloth?"

"It’s got a cloth and a paper one over the top and 2 flowers in a jar."

"Danny Flynn," Jodie said, "that’s the nicest sentence you’ve ever said to me."

The Sterling did the thing it always did, warm air, marble, the water wall, and Thomas had the door before he’d got the stand down.

"Evening, Mr Flynn."

"Evening. You off soon?"

"Twenty past 10."

"Long one."

"They’re all long ones," Thomas said, and took the helmet.

Danny got as far as the lifts and then went back to the desk instead, because the thing in his coat pocket had been sat on his chest since Wednesday and it was not going to get easier by Monday.

Naomi Adeyemi’s office was behind the desk, and she was in it at 8:40 on a Friday with her coat on the back of the chair.

"Mr Flynn."

"Have you got 2 minutes?"

"I’ve got 2 minutes." She did not get up. Charcoal wool, hair up, the thin gold chain. "Is this Section 4?"

"It’s Section 4."

"Good."

She turned her screen away on its arm before she said anything else, and Danny watched her do it.

"Because I’ve held them off 3 times, and on Monday I stop being able to."

"Pembury House," Danny said. "Hackney. I was there 11 years, up until October."

She wrote it down.

"Landlord?"

"Private. Adaeze Nwosu."

"Number?"

He gave it to her, and she wrote that down as well, and then she put the pen down and looked at him.

"Thank you."

"That’s it?"

"That’s Section 4." She squared the paper up. "I’ll ring her Monday morning. It’s a 4 minute call. She confirms the dates, she confirms you paid your rent, and the file closes."

"Right."

"Mr Flynn." She’d not moved. "May I say something that isn’t the insurers?"

Here we go.

"Go on."

"I have worked in this building 16 years," Naomi said. "I came in on the desk at 18. There is nobody in these 41 flats whose story I don’t know, because people tell me. They can’t help it. They tell me about their divorces and their tax and their sons."

"Right."

"And I don’t know one single thing about you." She said it without any edge on it at all. "And that isn’t a complaint, and you’re under no obligation, and I’d like to be clear that I’m not asking. But when the insurers ask me who lives in 40 and I have nothing to give them, that becomes my problem rather than yours, and I’d rather it didn’t."

Danny stood there.

"I was a courier," he said. "Eleven years. Sainsbury’s bags, then the app stuff. That’s the whole of it up until October."

"And October?"

"October was very lucky," Danny said.

Naomi looked at him for a long moment and then picked up the pen again.

"Thank you. Have a good weekend."

He got out of that office and stood in the lobby with his ears going.

She let me off.

She did not believe one word of that and she let me off, and she made sure I knew she was letting me off.

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