My Clocking In System

She was on the third floor at 5 to 9 in the green costume, and she had put it on knowing exactly what she was doing, and she was already annoyed with herself about it in the lift.

You told him you’re not giving this up. So you’re not giving it up.

In the green one.

Which is a coincidence.

Mara, you have not touched the black one since October.

Light off the water going over the ceiling in bands. The filter. Somebody’s flip-flops behind the glass.

Mr Pemberton was already in, going up the far lane in the navy cap at the speed of a man with 90 years and nothing to rush.

Nobody else.

She got in at the shallow end and stood there in water up to her ribs and looked at the door.

Half 9 on Friday he came off that lift in a wet coat.

Give it 3 minutes.

She swam.

Twenty lengths is 8 minutes if she’s working and 14 if she’s thinking, and she did the first 6 properly and then slowed down and stopped pretending.

Right.

He’s not coming, and that’s an answer, and it’s cost him nothing to give it.

She turned at the deep end and pushed off the tile and got about half a length before the rest of it arrived.

And you’re in the green one at 9 on a Monday, so you can get off your own high horse on the way past.

By 12 she had stopped being cross. By 16 she was thinking about the flat, which is what she does when she has run out of other things, and which she has been doing since March.

Mr Pemberton was on the side with his towel round his shoulders when she got out. He had stopped 2 lengths before her.

"Miss Doyle."

"Morning, Mr Pemberton."

"You’re on your own."

"There’s you."

"There is me." He was folding the cap in half and then in half again, which takes him a while. "I have swum at 9 in this building for 11 years and I could count on one hand the number of people who have said anything to me in that water."

"That’s a shame."

"It is a state of affairs." He got the cap into his pocket. "You have said something on 14 mornings."

Mara stopped with the towel half round her.

"Have I?"

"You have."

"I didn’t know you were counting."

"I count lengths." He had a hand on the rail. "One tends to count other things at the same time."

He went off towards the changing rooms with his flip-flops going slap, slap, and she stood there dripping on the tile and did not have the first idea what to do with that.

She was in the lift at 20 past with her hair up in a towel when the phone went.

Voicemail. 09:06.

She looked at it all the way to 39 and did not open it.

I was on length 4.

She let herself in, got the wet things over the radiator, made a coffee she did not want, and sat down on Camilla’s sofa in a dressing gown at 25 to 10 with her thumb over the screen.

Then she played it.

Forty-one seconds, with a machine going behind him for most of it, some kind of sander, stopping and starting twice while he talked.

She listened to the whole thing without moving. Then she played it again.

He’s rung.

He’s actually rung, with his mouth, which nobody does unless something’s gone wrong.

And he’s got no sentence ready. He’s stood on a pavement making it up.

And he’s not made an excuse. He’s said he booked a floor at 8 on the one morning I told him I’d be there, and then he’s said that’s the answer to the question, and then he’s said bye like a man ringing the dentist.

She put the phone face down on the coffee table.

Don’t reply at 25 to 10 having heard it twice. He’ll know.

She got up and stood at the window with the coffee for a bit.

Then she went and got the phone, and did not open his message, and opened the notes instead.

THE FORTY PROBLEM

The grey dash in the directory. The company that went round in a circle and came back to itself.

correspondence address: 2a Clapham Rd SW9, above the dry cleaner’sP. ANAND

Building manager. Down from 40 in the private lift, 10:25.

She looked at it for a while.

Twelve days and 4 lines.

And one of them is a solicitor, and you need a solicitor, and you have needed one since March, and you have not rung her because ringing her makes it a real thing you did about your own flat instead of a thing you did about him.

She searched the name and got a website made in about 2014 and never touched since. One page. A photograph of a shopfront taken from across the road with a bus in the way. Wills, probate, matrimonial, residential. A landline.

Nobody trying to look bigger than they are has a website like that.

She rang it at 10 past 10, which is the worst possible time to ring anybody, and it went 3 rings and was answered by a woman rather than a machine.

"Priya Anand."

"Oh. Hello. I wasn’t expecting a person."

"There’s only me, so it’s a person or it’s nobody." Something going down on a desk. "Go on."

"My name’s Mara Doyle. My flat’s in my brother’s company and it should be in my name, and it’s been 8 months, and his solicitor won’t answer an email."

"Whose name is on the title?"

"The company’s."

"Then it isn’t your flat." Flat, and meaning it entirely. "It’s your brother’s. That’s not me being unkind, that’s the position, and if you’re going to be cross about it be cross now and we’ll get it out of the way."

Mara sat down.

"I’m not cross."

"Good. Did he buy it for you, did you put money in, is there anything in writing?"

"He bought it. In March. As a..." She made herself say the accurate word instead of the comfortable one. "As a favour. There’s nothing in writing. There’s about 40 messages."

"Messages are something. Don’t delete any." Typing stopped. "Right. Unpleasant part now rather than at the end when you’ve paid me. Moving a flat out of a company into a person’s name is a disposal, there’ll be tax in it, and there may be stamp duty on top. Depending on what he paid in March that number could be considerable."

"Right."

"It’s not a reason not to do it. It’s the reason nobody’s done it for 8 months."

Mara sat very still.

There it is.

Rupert hasn’t been ignoring me. Rupert has run it, told Tom what it costs, and Tom’s said leave it, and neither of them has told me because it’s an awkward conversation and I’m the little sister.

"Miss Doyle?"

"Sorry. Yes. That’ll be it. That’ll be exactly it."

"Probably. I’ve never met either of them." A pause. "Fixed fee to review it and write to them is £450 plus VAT. If it goes further we speak before it does, and if it isn’t worth it I’ll say so."

"That’s very cheap."

"I’m not in Marylebone." A biro going. "Address for the file?"

"Flat 39, the Sterling Riverwalk. It’s off the..."

"I know where it is."

And nothing else. No whistle, no ooh, no little pause with a sum in it. A biro on paper and a machine thumping somewhere under the floor of wherever she was sat.

"I can do Thursday at 2, or a week Monday. A week Monday gives your brother another 10 days of it being easier not to."

"Thursday."

"Bring what you’ve got, and if you can’t find something don’t spend all evening on it, I can pull most of it off Companies House for £3." A page turned. "Door’s beside the dry cleaner’s. There’s no plate up because somebody took it. It’s the narrow stairs."

Click.

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