My Clocking In System

He was outside his own shop at 10 to 7 with a coffee off Wasim’s van that he had queued 4 minutes for.

There were 6 in front of him and 2 behind by the time he got served, and Wasim did not stop moving once, and did not say anything about the fact that a man opening a café 200 yards up the road was stood in his queue in the dark.

"Two teas, one with, one without, bacon roll no sauce." Scrape, went the griddle. "You’re up early for a Sunday."

"It’s Monday."

"Is it." Wasim did not look up. "Then I’ve been out here 14 hours."

Ray’s shutter went up at 5 to. Rattle-rattle-CRASH.

"Morning."

"Morning, Ray."

"You’ve got a van coming."

"How’d you know that?"

"Because there’s a bloke sat in a Transit outside my forecourt eating a sandwich," Ray said, "and he’s been there since half 6, and if he’s not yours he’s a problem."

Danny went and looked.

Lloyd was in the driver’s seat with the engine off and a flask lid balanced on the dashboard, and he had a radio going through the window and the sander already loaded on a sack barrow in the back.

Danny knocked on the glass.

"You’re early."

"You said 8." Lloyd wound the window down 3 inches. "I get here for half 6 and I sit. That way if the traffic’s had me I’ve still not let you down."

"You could’ve knocked."

"You weren’t here." He screwed the lid back on the flask. "Right. Have you moved everything off it?"

"There’s a counter fixed down along the window."

"I know there’s a counter fixed down along the window, mate, I’ve been looking at it through the glass for an hour."

They got the chair and the milk crate and the bucket out onto the pavement, and the £12 umbrella stand, which Lloyd picked up and looked at and put down again without comment.

Then he stood in the middle of the room and looked at the floor for a long time.

"Right. You’ve got the good half and the bad half and the join."

"That’s it."

"The join’s the job." He crouched down and put his palm flat where the honey stopped. "Anyone can sand a floor. Getting rid of where somebody stopped, that’s the bit people don’t pay for and then complain about for 20 years."

"What do you need from me?"

"Nothing. Keep out." He was already going for the barrow. "And open that back door, because there’s going to be dust in this room like you’ve not seen."

Danny went and asked him one more thing before the machine started.

"What’s your name?"

Lloyd looked up.

"You what?"

"Your name. You’ve been on this job 3 weeks and I’ve been calling you the floor man in my head and I’ve never asked you."

"Lloyd."

"Danny."

"I know what you’re called, it’s on the paperwork." He plugged the sander in. "Go and stand outside."

It took 4 hours and 20 minutes and most of it was noise.

VVVVVVVVVV. On and off, up and down the room, and every time it stopped there was a gap of about 8 seconds where you could hear the road again and then it started up somewhere else.

Danny stood on the pavement in the cold with a coffee gone stone dead and watched through his own window.

Dust came out under the door in a low grey creep and got onto the pavement and blew about. A woman went past with a pushchair and took it out into the road to get round the barrow, and Danny got out of the way and apologised, and she said you’re all right, love without breaking stride.

At 9:04 he looked at his phone to check the time and stopped.

Nine o’clock.

She’s in it now. Four miles north, 3 floors up, doing her 20 lengths, and she told you to your face she’d be there.

And you booked a floor for 8 on Friday afternoon and never once thought about it.

He rang her.

He did not plan to and he had no sentence ready and he pressed it stood on a pavement in Bermondsey with a sander going through the wall behind him.

It rang 5 times and went to voicemail, and her voice came on being brisk and slightly annoyed about having to record a voicemail at all, and then the beep.

"It’s Danny." VVVVVVV, went the sander, right on cue. "Sorry. There’s a, I’ve got a bloke doing the floor."

He shut his eyes.

"That’s not why I’m ringing. I’m not in that pool and I said I’d work out what I was doing, and what I’ve done is book a floor for 8 o’clock on the one morning you told me you’d be there." The sander stopped and the road came back. "Which is the actual answer to the question, so. There you go. That’s me working it out."

He stood there for a second.

"Right. That’s the message. Bye."

He put the phone in his coat and got it back out 40 seconds later to see if it had done anything, and it had not.

Lloyd came out at 20 past 9 for a cigarette and stood next to him.

"You’ve left a bad voicemail."

"How can you tell?"

"Because you’ve looked at that phone 4 times since you put it away." He got the lighter going. "My daughter does that."

Danny put his hands in his pockets.

"How old’s your daughter?"

"Twenty-six." Fzz. "She’s got a bloke who does the same thing to her, so I get both sides of it, and I’d say from where I’m stood the ones who ring are all right." He nodded at the window. "Now come and look at your join before I do the second pass, because if you’re going to hate it, hate it now."

Four miles north and about a mile east, in a kitchen in Hackney with the radio on low, Adaeze Nwosu’s phone went at 10:03.

She was doing the crossword and not doing very well at it, and she had been sat with the same corner of it since half 9, because Danny Flynn had rung her on Friday night at 9 o’clock to ask her to say a true thing and stop, and she had spent the whole weekend working out why a man would need to ask for that.

"Adaeze Nwosu."

"Good morning. My name’s Naomi Adeyemi, I’m the building manager at the Sterling Riverwalk. I’m hoping you can help me with a landlord reference."

"Go on."

"It’s for a Daniel Flynn."

"Danny." She put the pen down. "Yes."

"He’s given you as his previous landlord. Pembury House, Hackney." Paper moving on the other end. "I’ve got 3 questions and then I’ll leave you alone."

"That’s fine."

"Dates of tenancy?"

"He was there until October."

"And from when?"

Say the true thing and stop.

"He was in that flat before I owned the building," Adaeze said. "I bought it 2 years ago and he came with it."

The typing paused.

"So your dates would be, what, autumn of the year before last?"

"October, near enough. Two years."

"Right." A small sound, a pen or a mouse. "The form wants 3 years."

"Well, I’ve got 2."

"Who had it before you?"

"A company." She could hear how thin that sounded coming out of her own mouth. "It was 4 blocks and a garage sold as a lot. I bought it through an agent and I’ve never met anybody from it."

"Do you have a name for them?"

"It’ll be on my completion statement somewhere, in a box, in a loft."

"Not to worry." The typing came back. "Second one. Did he pay his rent?"

Adaeze looked at the crossword and did not look at anything else.

"Yes."

"Every month?"

"He got behind at the start of this year." She was not going to pretend he hadn’t. "Two months. And then he cleared it."

"Right."

"And I want to say, because you’ve asked and I’ll only say it once. I never once had to chase that boy. He’d have crawled through a window before he’d have knocked and asked me for more time, and I’d have given him more time, and he knew I would, and he still wouldn’t ask."

The typing had stopped again.

"That’s very helpful, Ms Nwosu."

"Is it?"

"It is." A pause. "Last one and I’m done. Any issues with the property?"

"He left it better than most of them leave it. He did the tap in the kitchen and never told me."

"Lovely. Thank you for your time."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Where’s he living?"

There was a gap on the line of about a second and a half.

"I’m afraid I can’t discuss residents, Ms Nwosu. Data protection."

"No. No, of course." Adaeze had her elbow on the table now. "It’s only that he moved out in a fortnight and I’ve not had a forwarding address off him, and I’ve got a bit of post."

"You could forward it to me and I’ll see it gets to him."

"Right."

"Have a good day, Ms Nwosu."

Click.

Adaeze sat in her kitchen with the phone face up on the table next to a crossword she was not going to finish.

I have not got any post for him.

Why did I say that.

She had said it because she wanted to know where he lived, and a woman who would not tell her had just offered to be the one to hand it over.

She picked the phone up and got as far as his name in her contacts and looked at it.

You said the true thing and you stopped, and it took her about 90 seconds to find a hole in you that you didn’t know was there.

Two years. She wanted 3.

She put the phone back down face up on the table where she could see it.

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