Fugue: Chapter 19

I coughed the way I always cough in the mornings, like an unreliable car trying to start in the cold. I felt the familiar sharp burning sensation in the back of my chest as I prised disturbingly chunky bits of mucus from the walls of my lungs. The lumps came up into my mouth, and the curious flavour made me feel pleasantly nauseous, but slightly worried about the state of my health. Maybe the last few years of abuse had already fucked my body up irreparably. No, I hadn’t done enough for that. I’d never been truly hardcore. Even when I was a student, I’d been no more than an enthusiastic amateur drug user. Maybe I was developing some terrible disease. No, I’d feel normal in an hour or so, by the time I was at work. I drifted through the morning, still feeling like shit, and at lunchtime went to have a sandwich down by the river. I sat on a bench and wondered what was wrong with my life. Something had to change. I decided I had to improve myself. I’d stop drinking. Stop doing drugs. Start exercising. Start reading important books. Start eating healthily. My bonnet was suddenly swarming with bees. I wanted to make the world a better place. Start giving money to charity. Yes, I’d start buying the Big Issue every week, and I’d stop and have a conversation with the guy selling it. Not patronise him, not treat him like scum, not quickly hand over a quid so I could brandish my badge of kindness at the next few guys, but actually talk to him. I was always banging on about what was wrong with the world, but never doing anything about it. That was going to change. There would be no more brushing problems under the carpet. The things I needed to do would get further than being written on a ‘to do’ list. No more procrastination. No more dithering. No more self-deception. I was going to be honest. I wasn’t going to take any more unnecessary shit. Today would be the first day of the rest of my life, and all that bollocks. Why is there never a Big Issue seller around when you need one? Normally, when you’re stressing about your bills and your debts, they’re everywhere, pestering you, making you feel guilty about having a house, about spending money on beer and weed and CDs and clothes. Now I was feeling the need to make myself feel like a decent person, but I couldn’t see one anywhere. I wanted to atone for my sins. For some reason, I was overcome by an attack of morality. It wouldn’t last long, I knew, but for now I was determined to do something worthwhile. I went in search of a beggar to help, but none of them looked as if they wanted to talk to me. Wherever it was that they belonged, I didn’t. I was too firmly entrenched in the middle classes for that. I got back to the office, and there was a note at my desk saying that Tom Archer wanted to see me. Tom was the departmental sales manager, and he seemed to have something against me. He was one of those blokes who’s worked his way up through the company, and takes every possible opportunity to remind people of the fact that he’s got where he is in the world having left school at 16 with no qualifications. He seemed to see the fact that I had a degree as some kind of personal insult towards him, and delighted in giving me the most menial tasks possible, usually combined with some reference to education. If I’d been the kind of person who cared about that sort of thing, I might have counted it as bullying. Then again, if I’d been the kind of person who cared about that sort of thing, I’d have got a proper job. I went down to his office, and knocked on the open door. He was on the phone, talking to one of his golf buddies. He glanced up briefly, gestured for me to wait, and carried on chatting away for a couple of minutes about some secretary with a nice arse. I thought of leaving him to it, but then realised that the alternative was going back to my desk and doing some work. Eventually his attention wandered in my direction. He handed me a folder of documents. “Listen, mate, there’s a little job I want you to do for me.” The assertive way he called me mate made it absolutely clear that he had no idea what my name was. I didn’t mind the fact that he considered my his inferior. I didn’t mind the fact that this ignorant pig was in a position to boss me around. What I minded was the way he tried to make me think that this was some kind of favour between friends. I had a vision of myself telling him to fuck off, chucking the folder in his face and walking out. The words bubbled up inside me. I wanted to do it. I could already feel the satisfaction of telling him where to stick his job. But, of course, I didn’t. I looked at the folder, and murmured. I lowered my head obediently and trotted back to my desk.