My Clocking In System

He was awake at 6 and up at 6:20 and stood in the kitchen at 6:25 before he remembered there was nowhere to go.

No floor man. No crew. No Terry, no Keisha, no Errol. A shop 4 miles south with the lights working and nothing in it that one man could do on his own with a brush.

He put the kettle on anyway.

Clunk, went the switch on it, and the rumble started, and he stood there in the dark with his hands flat on the marble and listened to the only object in that kitchen that made any sense to him.

Outside the glass the sky was doing nothing yet. One plane over the east with its lights going. The crane over Vauxhall, on and off, on and off.

He made the tea and did not drink it.

What do people do?

Saturday. What does anybody actually do on a Saturday?

Eleven years you did 6 days and slept the seventh. Now there’s a Saturday sat there with nothing in it and you’re stood in your own kitchen at half 6 like a lemon.

He got the phone out to give himself something to look at.

And then he did the thing he had been not doing since Monday night.

Maps. The search box. His thumb went over it.

NOOSA.

Five letters. He’d typed them standing right here on Monday with his mother asleep down the hall and stopped with the cursor going, and this time he pressed it.

The map moved.

Australia came up and slid east and dropped him onto a headland with a river mouth going round the back of it, and the sea on the map was the colour they make it on maps, and he sat down on a stool without noticing he’d done it.

He went in closer.

A main street. A chandlery. A fish co-op down on the water with a car park. Boats moored in a row up the river, dozens of them, all pointing the same way.

He got the little yellow man out and dropped him on the road.

And it was a road with trees down it, big ones, with purple on them, and a low white building with a green roof, and a woman in shorts crossing with a dog and her face blurred out, and the light in the photograph was so hard and so bright that he actually leaned back from it.

29 degrees, said the corner of the screen.

It’s November.

It’s 6:30 in the morning in November and it’s 29 degrees where he is.

He came back up the road with his thumb, past a bottle shop and a place doing acai bowls, and then he found the jetty.

Or a jetty. There were 4 of them along that stretch and he could not have told you which. Timber, a rail down one side, a boat tied up behind.

He put the photo from the postcard next to it in his head and could not make them match and could not make them not match.

It’s a real place.

That’s the thing. It’s not a story, it’s a place with a chandlery in it and a dog crossing the road, and he’s in it somewhere this morning with the sun on him.

His thumb was already doing the next bit before he’d decided anything.

Flights. £912 with one stop. £1,340 direct.

You could book 6 of them. Right now. You could book 6 and not feel it.

He closed the app.

He drank the tea, which had gone cold and which he drank anyway, and he washed the mug and put it on the hook his mother had found for it.

Then he opened it again 20 minutes later and looked at the jetty for another 4.

Jodie rang at half 9, which meant she was still in bed, because she was never up before 9 on her one day off and had told him so with some pride.

"Are you at that shop?"

"No."

"You’re at that shop."

"I’m in my kitchen."

"Really?" A rustle, and a yawn she didn’t cover. "What are you doing in a kitchen? You don’t do kitchens."

"I’ve been looking at a map."

"Of what?"

Danny looked at the glass.

"Australia."

"What’s in Australia?"

"Nothing." He heard how that landed and went again. "There was a thing on the telly. It’s got in my head."

"Right."

She let it go. She always let it go.

"Well. Tonight."

"Tonight."

"I’m not being funny, Danny, but I’ve told Nadia about tonight and if you cancel I’ll have to leave the country."

"I’m not cancelling."

"Say it properly."

"Quarter past 9, Portuguese place, Walworth Road, and there’s a film first if you’re up for it." He put his hand flat on the marble. "And I’m not cancelling."

"There’s a film first?"

"There’s a film first."

"Ooh." He could hear her sitting up. "What are we seeing?"

"Don’t know. Whatever’s on at that little one on the corner."

"The one with the sticky carpet?"

"That’s the one."

"Danny Flynn, that place is a health hazard and I love it." A pause with something in it. "Half 6?"

"Half 6."

"Good." Another yawn. "Right, I’m going back to sleep for an hour and then I’m doing my hair, and it’s going to take 3 hours, and I don’t want to hear a word about it."

Click.

The phone went again at 11:14 and it was not her.

He was sat on the sofa with the football preview on with the sound off, and it lit up on the arm next to him, and he saw the gold before he’d properly turned his head.

[ Good morning, host. ]

[ Your shift begins at 16:00. ]

Danny sat forward.

He read it twice, and then a third time, and the third time he read only the second line.

Shift.

It’s never said shift.

He picked it up.

shift?

[ Yes. ]

what does that mean

[ It means your shift begins at 16:00. ]

He sat with that for a while with the football on silent in front of him, two pundits saying nothing at each other in a studio.

Then, without him touching it:

[ Shift assigned. ]

[ Ashcombe’s, 11 Ryder Court, SW1. ]

[ Grade 2. ]

Danny’s thumb went straight to it.

grade 2 of what

[ Of 6. ]

what’s grade 1

[ A room that would let you in already. ]

[ It pays nothing. ]

He sat forward with his elbows on his knees.

so what’s 6

[ You are not going to grade 6 for some time, host. ]

Then, 40 seconds later, on its own line:

[ Grade 2 wages: 140,000. ]

£140,000.

Two hours.

And that’s the second cheapest one there is.

He got up and walked to the glass and started doing sums at it, because sums were the only way he had ever been able to hold a number in his head.

The machine was £4,600. Errol’s the whole electric and that’s £11,400. Terry’s counter was £4,200 and the floor man’s £3,800.

That’s the lot. That’s every big thing I’ve bought for that shop and it’s twenty-four grand.

And this is 140 for standing somewhere for 2 hours.

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