Scrap 78

SCRAP 78
Frank has decided to call on his boss to find out about the coming week’s work schedule. Young Kenneth lets him in and motions for him to go upstairs, where Frank finds Ken sitting in the bath peeling mosaic tiles from their backing mesh and sticking them one at a time in a row on the wall.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Asks Frank, laughing at the sight of his boss covered in tiling cement and sweat. ‘What does is fucking look like I’m doing?’ Frank lowers the toilet seat and parks himself next to the unhappy tiler. ‘That’s not how you put mosaic tiles up,’ says Frank; ‘here, let me show you.’
Ken hauls himself painfully from his cramped position and stands, rubbing his back, as Frank demonstrate. ‘You slap the cement on the wall, take a strip of mosaic tiles, still on their backing sheet, and press the whole panel in place. You don’t peel them off and stick them on one at a time.’
Ken stands in shocked silence as the two men survey the mess. Ken’s efforts have made a higgledy piggledy botch, whereas Frank has just stuck on a panel of 30 tiles straight and level, making Ken’s work look even worse. ‘Nobody bloody told me,’ grumbles Ken. ‘I’ve been sitting here all day messing about with those bastard things. No wonder it looks so bad. They’ll have to come off: Pat will never accept this effort.’
Frank takes his shirt off and gives Ken a hand, chipping off the whole lot and starting again, making sure to measure the space and pencil in guide lines beforehand. Of course it means they don’t have enough tiles after Ken ruined so many so he drives off to buy some more, leaving Frank to get on.
Frank is just fixing the last sheet of tiles when Ken returns. ‘Blimey, that was quick,’ he says, ‘and I’ve only been gone an hour or so. ‘I hope you’ve got some cold beer in the fridge,’ says Frank, ‘it’s thirsty work this.’
They go down to the kitchen and open a couple of beers. Frank downs his in one and motions for another, which Ken reluctantly hands over. ‘That hit the spot,’ says Frank, draining the second and looking out for a third. ‘Let’s finish the tiling first, shall we?’ Ken is eager to get the job out of the way so he can get cleaned up ready for a night at the Bay club, where the entertainment promises to be very popular. ‘Hey, I’m doing you a favour here,’ says Frank, opening the fridge door and helping himself. He takes his time with this bottle, enjoying Ken’s look of agitation. The phone rings and young Kenneth answers. ‘Okay, I’ll tell him,’ is all he can manage, before replacing the handset. ‘That was mum,’ he shouts from his position stretched out on the couch, ‘she’ll be home in an hour.’
Frank follows Ken back to the bathroom to finish the tiling. He makes a neat enough job of it but is not keen on the design. Still, it’s not he who has to live with it. ‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to grout it up,’ says Frank. ‘How do I do that?’ is the reply. ‘Blimey, Ken, don’t you know anything? Tell you what: I’ll come up tomorrow afternoon and do it for you. But you owe me for this.’