Eight letters, Starting with M...

I sit back down to the crossword in G2. I’ve been stuck on six down all morning. Eight letters, starting with M: The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.

The food bell dings.
Remember to push the cake! Razzle shouts from the kitchen.
I’m only asking them if they want cake if they look like they might, I shout back. It’s not Clare’s Accessories.
How can you tell if a person wants cake? A bald man asks from one of the sofas. Do I look like the sort of person that would want cake?
I look at him for a bit before answering.
No, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have offered you cake.
The bald man tuts.
He’s the kind of person that isn’t actually fat, but as soon as he’s not there and you’re imagining him, you think he’s fat. I bet people tell him he’s lost weight all the time.
He looks at me like he’s offended, so I ask him if he would have bought some cake, if I’d offered.
No, he says after a pause. I probably wouldn’t have bought any cake.
I turn back to my crossword. Eight letters, starting with M.

A man falling onto the empty barrels outside interrupts my concentration.
Please don’t come in here, please don’t come in here, please don’t come in here.
He walks through the door.
The way he walks in I can tell he’s surprised and I wonder what he was expecting. A sequinned floor show, or an enchanted ice cavern. The way he looks at me, squinting and disappointed, I wish I was wearing sequins, or sitting on a glacial throne. Something.
Instead, I just say hello and ask if I can help.
He stands swaying, peering out at me from underneath bushy red eyebrows.
I’mhomeless, he says eventually, Gotanyscraps?
His words fall into each other and he exhales them noisily as if they’ve worn him out.

For a second, I’m distracted by the way that he’s moving his head. The way he’s struggling to hold it up makes it seem like it has a life of its own, like one of those puppets you used to see in the street, really basic marionettes with illuminous, striped fur. Their heads kind of loomed in front of their necks, swaying and bobbing like they had a life of their own.

You can have a cup of tea and a biscuit if you like? I offer, wanting to get back to my crossword.
He doesn’t look impressed.
His tongue lolls on the verge of saying something and he widens his squint a little.
I could put it in a take away cup for you?
No, he stutters. Wantscraps. I’mhomelessanI’mstarvin.
It’s hard for him to get his words out because it’s quarter past eleven in the morning and he’s already this wasted.
This is just the bar. I tell him. You’ll have to ask the kitchen. Go and ask the chef.
The man just stands where he is, his eyes beginning to close.
I repeat myself louder and point towards the kitchen, which is just two metres away, but blocked out of sight by a pillar covered in posters.
This is the bar. That’s the kitchen. Ask the chef.
The man stays where he is, squinting out at me from his wiggly marionette’s head.
Alright, I say, finally. I’ll go.

The chef looks amused when I arrive at the hatch.
Is that the guy who fell on the barrels?
Yes. He’s homeless and he wants some food. Have you got any scraps?
I feel self-conscious saying scraps, like I’m a Dickensian waif. I don’t know why. There’s no reason I can think of to be embarrassed about the word scraps.
Razzle repeats it with a question mark, then tweaks imaginary braces and
She pushes a plate with half a dishevelled chocolate cake towards me and raises her eyebrows.
It looks shit, but it still tastes okay.
I laugh guiltily at the idea of presenting the homeless man with this massive slab of cake.
Serviette? she says.

I’m halfway through asking the homeless man if chocolate cake’s okay when I see his hand is in the box of poppies on the bar. Turning his head vaguely in my direction, he starts to pull it out, grabbing a handful of the little flowers as he does so.
In his head, he’s probably doing it fast so I won’t notice, but in reality, he’s pulling his hand out of the box so slowly that by the time I’m standing next to him, his whole hand’s still in there.
Green plastic stalks poke out between blunt, cracked fingers. Red paper flowers crumple in his palm.
They’re for charity, I say, you can’t take those! They’re for the soldiers.
I sound ridiculous and I’m confused.
Should I just let him have the poppies? He doesn’t seem to have much else.

I hope the man who didn’t look like he wanted cake isn’t listening to this.
Can you just put them back please?
Wait, he exhales, dragging the word out hoarsely for whole seconds. I’mgointoputsomemoneyinthebox…
I relax.

The homeless man struggles to put one hand into his pocket, still clenching the poppies tight in the other.
When he finally pulls his hand out of his rusty looking jeans, I’m surprised to see twopound coins and fifty ps.
He could just buy some food. Why is he in here asking me to give it to him for free? Why is he stealing paper flowers behind my back?
Because, I remind myself, this is not the kind of person that is happy to spend twenty pounds a week food shopping in Tescos. This is a man with a habit, who has fallen by the wayside of life and had to find a new approach.
Gonnaput two p in, he says, like I needn’t worry, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a fair price.

I imagine a group of dead veteran’s wives sitting up way past nine o’clock in the W.I., dutifully sticking the black middles onto poppies with hands burgundy from the cold.
I’m not sure I can go on Doris, I need a break.
That’s how William felt Nina, but he couldn’t stop, could he? Old Bill couldn’t stop, or Jack. They were tired too, and they didn’t have Penguins, or your fruit cake. They didn’t have pots of tea.
I’m sorry Doris, you’re right. It’s just my arthritis playing up.

The man drops a pound. It bounces on the floor, but he doesn’t notice.
I watch it spin round and round like a dice before it lands flat.
If it’s tails, I’ll put it in the tin when he’s gone, if it’s heads I’ll chase him and give it back.
He tries to put the two p into the cardboard poppy box instead of the collection tin.
Put it in the tin, I say, pointing.
He drops it in the box, then picks up a wooden cross.
You can’t have that as well, I say. Put that down.
His looming head turns towards me and I wonder whether he could get violent. I imagine him picking up a poppy pin and pushing it through my eyeball.
I blink rapidly and he drops the cross.

I ask him again if chocolate cake’s okay.
Cooksomethingup? He says.
Comeon, I’mstarvin.
If that was true, you’d have eaten the cake, I think.
Gotanythingsavoury?
Alright, I’ll ask. Wait here. But leave those poppies alone!
Doris and Nina applaud. At last, someone with authority, they say, clenching and unclenching their arthritic knuckles before getting back to work.

Razzle dings the food bell when I get there. She’s standing at the counter, smirking, probably in awe of my control over the situation.
Get me a takeaway cup, she says. He can have some soup.

When I walk back to get the cup, the man has his hand in the poppy box again.
What are you doing now? I nearly shout.
Needsomepins.
How many pins?
…Twenty? He says slowly and I gasp.
You can have two. I say, holding the pins out authoritatively.
When it looks like his dirty fingers are about to touch mine, I move my hand out the way.
Then I feel guilty and give him an extra pin.

I walk to the hatch backwards so I can keep an eye on the poppies, glancing round the pillar every few seconds while Razzle ladles soup into the cup.
The homeless man hangs his head just above the poppy box. A red flower peeps sadly out from his filthy pocket.
It’s alright, I tell it. I remember.
Razzle passes me the takeaway cup and a tiger bap.

Here you go, I say smiling at the homeless man, determined to get something warming from this Good Deed.
He doesn’t say anything, just holds onto his tiger bap hard so his fingernails dig into the bread. His eyes flicker open then shut.
He walks out the bar, letting his head lead his body as usual, low and lumbering, an illuminous marionette.

I remember the pound he dropped and bend down to have a look.
Tails. The old girls win.
Fair enough, I think, and drop the coin in the collection box.

Razzle comes out the kitchen for a break and sits down at the bar.
I hope he wasn’t vegetarian, she says, there was pig in that soup.
She pulls G2 towards her and reads the clue for six down.
The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
She puts a seven into the Suduko.
Are you in for the lottery this week? she asks and I swear, because I’ve forgotten my wallet again.
It’s a rollover. I’m going to get the tickets after work.
I imagine missing out on the work windfall. Everyone phoning in jubilantly to quit on Saturday night after Dale announces the numbers, then going off together in hired limos to buy houses and helicopters. All the while I’m holding fort at the bar, still using the calculator on my phone to add up what a week’s worth of five pound forty an hour is, trying to work out if I can afford to do the shopping this week as well as pay my rent.

Shall I just put in for you? Razzle says, and I nearly laugh in her face.
If I borrowed a pound off Razzle, she could cut me out when we won.
I put Kate’s pound in, she could say, I should get twice as much as you lot.
And they’d all whisper, Split it with us and we’ll back you up.
I’d be left with nothing.
No that’s alright, I say casually, I’ve probably got one in my bag.
Razzle shrugs and makes a coffee to take back into the kitchen.

I walk up to Doris and Nina’s collection box and pick it up, lift the string that fetters it to the Red Stripe pump nonchalantly and take it behind the bar. I calmly turn the music up as I walk past to detract from the noise of stealing.
After trying to shake my pound out for some time, I get a knife to try and stick it in the bottom, but there’s no little button to lever out. This piggy bank is indestructible. There’s no way this dense, red, plastic is going to shatter however many times I throw it on the floor.
Besides, smashing the old girls’ money box is completely different to quietly borrowing one of their little pounds.

I’ll have to take the money from the till.
The till bounces open easily and I take two fifty ps, thinking that’s better somehow.

It’s obvious someone has been fiddling with the collection tin, but I’m not too worried about that. When I’ve won the lottery, I’ll put a thousand back in, and anyway, there’s no one here to see, which means it didn’t happen.
Yeah, when I’ve won the lottery I’ll find that homeless man and give him a thousand pounds too. He can spend it how he likes, on heroin or crack, whatever. That’ll make up for the pound I nicked off him.

I hang the collection tin back over the Red Stripe, wrapping the cord round twice so no one can steal it.
Guilt is replaced by the thought of donating a huge cheque to the W.I.. I imagine myself on a stage that smells of school dinners, handing over a huge cardboard cheque to a frail but lovely Doris and Nina, both dressed in wispy, pastel old lady suits.
You’ll never have to work again ladies! I’ll say after the ceremony, kissing Nina’s powdery cheek and congratulating her on her lovely, moist fruit cake.

I take the fifty ps over to Razzle.

I’m daydreaming and doodling when the bald man who didn’t look like he wanted cake comes up to the bar.
He looks like he’s lost weight.
I saw you. he says. In the mirror,
I turn and check the mirror behind the bar. The white back of his Apple Mac winks at me.
I saw you laughing as you put the collection tin back, he says. My great Granddad died in the war. Do you think that’s funny?
Of course not, I say.
I want to explain about Doris and Nina, about the moist fruit cake and my friends’ helicopters, but what good will it do now?
I only took two fifty ps, I tell him. I was going to put them back later on.
He shakes his head.
It’s a rollover, I try.
You took that poor man’s pound.
But I gave him the soup, I say, raising my eyebrows as if we’re bartering.
What you just did was a criminal offence, he tells me, and I look at the floor.

I tell you what, he says, and I lift my eyes slowly. Give me a latte and a slice of that carrot cake and I’ll forget all about it.
What? I say, then, No problem! quickly, before he can take it back.
A big slice mind, he says, and I cut him a double piece with thick icing and extra walnuts. I put two biscuits on the side of his latte and sprinkle chocolate powder on the top, then decorate the cake with a flourish of icing sugar.
He smiles at me as I set everything down on his table.

Before he leaves, he smiles at me, as if I’m his accomplice.
It was only a pound anyway, wasn’t it? He says. You were going to put it back, weren’t you?
I nod, smiling back at him, wishing he’d just leave.

I can see the red collection tin out the corner of my eye when I sit back down to do the crossword, so I take G2 across to the food hatch, sit down to do it there.
I can’t concentrate on six down. Eight letters starting with M just doesn’t seem important now.
Doris and Nina tut at me and I’m no longer convinced they’re on my side.
It seems suddenly farfetched that I could win the lottery.

The homeless man will go without his heroin and the old girls will keep on using their tired, burgundy hands. Me and Razzle will keep on working here and the bald cake man will keep being asked if he’s lost weight.

Fuck six down, I think. It’s time for a drink.

Gin o’clock! I shout and Razzle dings the food bell hard in agreement.