After Hours - Chapter One

It wasn’t one of Max’s better days. Starting from the moment he peered through the curtains, eyes grainy with sleep, at the steady drizzle.
The alarm clock was having a mid-life crisis, deciding to take a day off, leaving Max groping frenziedly for his glasses and heading for the bathroom half an hour later than normal. No time for contact lenses today.
‘Bollocks!’ he muttered as the cool shower erupted onto him. Silently cursing the last occupant, he had the quickest shower in history. Dressing in record time, he looked down at his feet to discover odd socks, and was about to peel one of them off when he surveyed the shambles that was his sock drawer and realised it could be lunchtime before its partner was found. In the great scheme of things it really didn’t matter.
In his haste to descend the stairs Max tripped over a pile of books on the landing, and half running, half-falling made it to the bottom in one piece. Leaving the books in a heap on the hall floor, he raced to the kitchen.
The kitchen clock told him it was ten minutes later than he thought, and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair, he flew from the house. The drizzle in the last few minutes had become a fully-fledged downpour, forcing him back into the house for his umbrella.
The walk to the underground was strewn with dangers as he tried, without success to avoid the spray as cars sped through the numerous puddles, which looked only to be on his side of the road. Finally he squelched down the steps to the station, to the distant sound of the train pulling out.
‘Bloody typical’, Max shook the umbrella and closed it into an untidy heap as he slowly walked down the now deserted platform to begin the wait for the next train.
His left foot felt very wet. On inspecting its sole he knew he should have had it repaired when he’d first noticed it some weeks ago. Fantastic! A long day ahead with one wet foot and everyone saying “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
‘Bloody typical’, he muttered again and fell heavily onto the nearest bench.
The lines crackled as the white-eyed snake emerged from the blackness of the tunnel, and Max slowly got to his feet, which was when he noticed that his trousers weren’t quite as willing to leave the bench as he was. Looking down he found he had sat in a glob of chewing gum, which some kind soul had deposited on the bench.
‘Bugger!’ He quickly tried to peel the offending gum from his backside as the train came to a halt and the doors noisily opened. Very conscious of the fact that he still had a large amount of the gum stuck to his trousers, Max pulled on the back of his jacket in a vain attempt to hide his embarrassment before climbing wearily onto the train.
There were plenty of empty seats, but as much as he would have loved to sit down, Max decided in view of his sticky situation it was better to stand. So, despite the odd glance from his fellow passengers, he swayed all the way to St Paul’s station, then quickly alighted and hurried to ground level, occasionally pulling at his jacket to separate it from the stickiness of his trousers
As he puffed up the last few steps and prepared to dive out into the rain again, Max realised to his horror that he’d left his umbrella on the train. Taking a deep breath he launched himself into the torrential rain, which was coming sideways across Cheapside. Only a short way to go thankfully, and he would be able to dry off and attend to his trousers.
Surprisingly, it was such a relief to get to work that he didn’t notice he was over an hour late, and he got to the office he shared with two others without anyone saying anything to him.
‘I didn’t know you wore glasses.’ Glenda said from behind the heap of files she was looking through. Max didn’t dignify her comment with an answer. He had to sort out the gum problem before he could even think about sitting down.
‘Either of you know how to get chewing gum off?’ He contorted himself, trying to see the extent of the damage. Glenda got up and came to assess the problem.
‘You could always try ice. That’s supposed to work, although I don’t know where you’ll get any from,’ she pulled at the material. ‘Take them off and I’ll have a look.’
‘I can’t just take them off in here!’
‘Course you can. Sit at your desk. No one will notice’ Tim grinned across the room. ‘Just don’t get up suddenly,’ he smaned. You’re loving this aren’t you? Not for the first time Max pictured Tim at the gallows, noose around his scrawny neck, awaiting the final plunge. Face beetroot red, he stood behind the filing cabinet and stripped off his trousers, threw them to Glenda, then scurried to the relative safety of his desk.
The door opened and the Section Manager popped her head round.
‘Nice of you to join us Max. Can I have a word in my office?’ The rest of her navy blue angular body appeared round the door. ‘Now.’
‘I’ll be right there,’ Max started to get to his feet, then realised too late that his florescent yellow boxer shorts were the most interesting thing in the room.
‘Do you often come to work without your trousers,’ she raised an eyebrow. ‘Or is it a one-off because you were running late?’ You should see my socks. You’ll love them. Max could just picture her face as she looked down at the Wallace and Gromit Christmas sock and its striped partner. He started his explanation, which would probably dig him a bigger hole. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Glenda frantically scraping off the gum with a metal ruler.
‘I’ll see you as soon as you’re properly dressed,’ she interrupted and strutted out of the room.
Feeling like a disgraced child at infant school, Max hastened down the corridor and knocked at the dreaded door.
Angie Prescott’s office reminded him of the old saying that a dog looks like its owner. This small room was immaculate, with no sign of anything personal in it. The blinds were pulled to such an angle that you couldn’t see out. The desk in front of him looked to have been arranged by a drill sergeant. Piles of papers neatly stacked, pens and pencils arranged in the pot, all pointing downwards. Even the tray of paperclips all looked to be facing the same direction, terrified of breaking rank and risking Angie’s wrath.
The only comforting thing in the room was the smell of coffee from the machine in the corner. Max didn’t let this lull him into a false sense of security. Once inside he declined a seat, due to the fact that he would probably stick to it, and this was one place he didn’t want to be stuck. Angie Prescott was feared by most of her work colleagues, even her seniors.
She sat at her desk and got straight to the point.
‘As you know, the company’s profits are down by twenty percent this year.’
Did he know? Perhaps if he paid more attention he would have.
‘This leaves us with no alternative but to lay off staff members.’
Max swallowed hard. He would have had to be really stupid not to realise what was coming next.
‘I’m sorry, Max, but as you’ve only been with the company eleven months, we have to let you go.’ She didn’t look sorry. Her hard features didn’t soften as she delivered the bad news.
‘We’ll give you a good reference, and the board have decided to offer a month’s salary, which I think you’ll agree is more than generous.’
Within what seemed like a moment, Max was out of her office and out of a job. Drifting back to his own office, he cleared his desk. Had she said when he was to finish? He couldn’t remember. He just wanted to get out. For the first time in his life, Max was unemployed. Unemployed with a wet foot and a sticky backside.
He sat down on the tube home. Feeling totally deflated, and missing his stop he walked back in the rain, which had returned to drizzle. So what if he was soaking wet when he reached home? Deliberately walking through the biggest puddles so that his right foot was as wet as his left, he jumped at the blast of an air horn.
‘You trying to get run over mate?’ A furious-looking lorry driver yelled from the cab as he swerved to avoid Max, who, not looking where he was going had managed to walk into the road.
Heart pounding, Max managed the remainder of his journey uneventfully. On opening the front door he kicked his shoes off and hurled them back into the garden, slamming the door behind him.

oOo

A wild-haired figure clad in a voluminous pink towelling dressing gown was hunched at the kitchen table.
‘Kettle’s just boiled,’ it grunted as Max threw his jacket over the back of a chair. Black coffee, he thought, laced with rum. The first was not a problem, due to the lack of milk. The second however proved to be difficult when the cupboard revealed an unused cocktail shaker, an empty gin bottle and a half-empty bottle of Crème de Menthe left over from the previous Christmas.
‘And so poor Max had none,’ he muttered, picking up the newspaper, and ignoring the puzzled face at the other side of the table as he put it on the chair and sat on it.
The figure opposite him, clutching a coffee cup with the last drops of the milk in it, was his housemate Kate. Not an early riser, Kate worked at a pub in the City. They rarely saw each other during the week, which finally prompted her to ask Max why he was at home at 11.30 on a Wednesday morning.
‘Sacked,’ Max burnt his mouth on his coffee. ‘Or should I say redundant.’
A silence followed as Kate digested this information. He could almost hear the cogs whirring as she slowly came to life.
‘So what will you do?’
A good question.
‘I suppose I’ll start by getting a new pair of shoes,’ Max couldn’t think beyond this cup of coffee, let alone about his future.
‘Good idea. Just what I would do,’ Kate was warming up. Any minute her razor sharp wit would be fully operational, and Max would be its first victim of the day.
‘The thing is,’ he stood up and began pacing the kitchen floor, leaving a trail of newspaper behind him. ‘I’ve never been out of a job before. Surely it shouldn’t be too difficult to get another one. After all, everybody has insurance.’
‘True,’ Kate’s eyes followed him round the room from beneath the curtain of strawberry blonde hair. ‘Why don’t you get the Standard this evening and start looking? Something’ll turn up.’
It wasn’t like Kate to be so supportive, which worried Max. He eyed her curiously, waiting for the turn of the knife, which followed fairly quickly.
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be able to rent your room out to someone who can actually afford to pay.’ Kate dumped her empty cup in the sink, smirked over her shoulder and went upstairs to get ready for work.
She’s right. What the hell will I do if I don’t get a job by the end of the month? His savings had been blown on his trip to America last summer, and until he had finished paying off his Visa bill he would continue to find too much month left at the end of the money. He buried his head in his hands, bereft of thought.
Brought back to reality by light footsteps on the stairs, a totally different Kate re-emerged. The pink dressing gown replaced by a white short-sleeved blouse and impossibly short straight black skirt. Her wild hair had been tamed and was in a long plait down her back; and the slits that had passed for eyes now carefully made up.
‘You still here?’ she enquired cheerfully, rooting under the table for the shoes she had kicked off the night before.
‘I’m not really sure what to do with myself,’ Max blurted. ‘It’s not every day you lose your job. I just can’t believe I’m out of work. I’ve never been out of work in my life.’
‘Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help. You need to get straight out there and start looking for something else.’
As sympathetic as ever, Max thought to himself. It’s all right for her. Bar jobs are ten a penny. But he knew she was right. She planted a kiss on his cheek as she swept past him. The front door slammed and she was gone.
I’ll have a day off today, Max thought to himself after sitting in silence for a while. A hot bath, then a couple of hours kip. I deserve it. He hauled himself up from the chair and headed up the stairs.
Crawling under the duvet felt like the height of decadence. The only time he normally got into bed was at night, to sleep, except on the occasions he got lucky on a Friday night, or had to spend a morning in bed with a hangover. It felt very strange to be here midweek during daylight hours. Thoughts of the day’s events quickly succumbed to the fuzzy promise of sleep.