First Day Blues

Norbert

17

First Day Blues

Baldy Warnetires-Skidmore is tall and wiry and has a pronounced stoop, like the weight of the world lies heavy on his shoulders. He is sallow-faced with receding grey hair, a scruffy goatee beard and big hairy ears. He wouldn’t need a Halloween mask. He hands me an ID badge and an armful of new laboratory coats. I follow him into the men’s changing room and am shown my locker, which worryingly has only one key. I decide this isn’t the time to make a fuss. I take off my blazer and hang it inside. The boss reaches over my shoulder and lifts the neck of my cardigan to look at the label.

‘I thought I recognized the branding. You’re dressed from head to foot in PennyPincher’s Destitute range of children’s clothing.’

I colour up and get so flustered I can’t think of a plausible lie. ‘Auntie buys my clothes. Evidently I’m a perfect fit for someone in the final year of junior school.’

A sour look creases his gaunt features. ‘If you wish to avoid ridicule and humiliation, or rather less ridicule and humiliation, I suggest you go on a shopping spree.’

I look down. ‘She doesn’t give me enough pocket money for clothes.’

‘Then do something about it. Be a man and stand up to her in your school clothes.’ He sniffs loudly and grips the lapels of his lab coat. ‘At least you’re not wearing short trousers.’

I shrug into one of my new coats, roll the sleeves back six inches and look down. My feet poke out just below the hem.

‘I’m sorry, but is this the smallest size you’ve got?’ I look at the label of another. It says medium.

‘It didn’t register at the interview that you’re a midget.’

He makes it sound like an accusation, as though I have deliberately shrunk on purpose. I stand at half an inch below five feet. I am a victim of constant bullying. I have a fragile constitution vulnerable to disease. I am afraid of squirrels and have learned from Auntie that physical pain and mental cruelty is a medically proven and legitimate way of controlling people as disturbed as me (though they don’t write about in books). I am therefore always polite to strangers and respectful to superiors. Nunky once advised: “Never shoot your mouth off unless you can back it up with more than just words”. Losing my temper and lashing out is not an option, but this grannytickler, even though he is my boss, has hit the nerve I find it third most difficult to control. (In second place is the nerve in my eye responsible for my squint, but top of the list is the one in bendy bunny responsible for sticky night-time effusions I have no memory of or control over. They really tick me off.)

‘I might be short of stature,’ I say, with as much politeness as I can muster, ‘but I am still a human being. Being called a dwarf, a midget, a shortbottom, a gnome, a pygmy, runt or imp is upsetting and I am slightly unwilling to put up with it.’

‘My, my, you are a feisty little … err...’ He trails off. After another loud sniff he says: ‘How about munchkin?’

‘I am a fully qualified lab technician, not a cuddly toy.’

‘You’re right about that.’

I am still simmering. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly handsome, are you?’

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’

‘From where I’m beholding, you’ve got a face like a bowl of puss with cherries floating in it.’

‘I’ve got teenage acne.’

‘You’re twenty-five.’

‘I’m a slow developer with bad skin, and I worry a lot.’

‘That’s a pore excuse. The last time I saw a face like yours I was staring up at the eaves of a medieval church. And you’re going bald.’

My palms are sweating under the onslaught and I am feeling light-headed. ‘Millions of people go bald, even at my age.’

‘Not from the sides up.’

‘That’s just the way Auntie cuts my hair.’

He studies me carefully, looking for further defects.

‘It doesn’t make you any less repulsive to look at, but you also have a speech impediment.’

This is almost beyond toleration. ‘I’m sorry, but you are mistaken. I happen to be a martyr to mouth ulcers, especially in times of stress, which is all of the time. At the moment, because of changing jobs, I’ve got three.’

I sink to my heels and curl into a ball with my thumb in my mouth, rocking and moaning incoherently.

He seems unmoved. ‘I suppose I am being a little harsh. You are from Brundy after all. The gene pool there is somewhat depleted.’ He lifts me to my feet. ‘Pull yourself together and I’ll introduce you to your colleagues.’

*

The Haematology lab is a large square room, almost completely surrounded by wooden benches and wall cupboards. A central bench houses two identical auto analyzers. A male technician, watching me with an amused smile, is loading both machines with racks of samples. Multiple tubes lead from the backs into different sized reagent cartons placed on the floor beneath. Spare reagent boxes take up all the floor space under the bench below the windows. Three younger people, student technicians I assume, are gathered round an older man, sitting at a microscope. One side of the room is dedicated to the authorization of results. Two female technicians sit at Oracle terminals with piles of request forms beside them. I have little chance to take in any more as Warnetires-Skidmore sniffs loudly.

‘If I could have your attention, please.’ Everyone looks. ‘This is our new colleague, Norbert Winstanley Rockhampton-Smythe. I must warn you he is exceedingly sensitive to his obvious shortcomings…’ He pauses and smiles. The others titter. ‘If you give him a hard time he has a tendency to imitate a frightened hedgehog, so just ermm...’ He sniffs again and leaves.

Everyone else goes back to what they are doing, leaving me standing in the middle of the room like a dyslexic at a poetry reading. (I think I once sat next to a proper dyslexic on the 32. He was singing “Vole vole me do, I’ll always vole you”. Mind you, he was wearing a floor mop on his head.)

The man loading the analyzers walks over, still smiling, and holds out his hand. He is about my age, tall, suntanned and handsome, with thick curly black hair, sparkling brown eyes and unnaturally white teeth (He could be Louie’s brother). His badge identifies him as my potential rival, Manuel Forth-Gere.

‘They call me GT.’ He squeezes my hand, making me wince. ‘What about you?’

‘They don’t call me anything. I don’t know anyone. It’s my first day.’

‘What did they used to call you, in the stagnant backwater of Brundy?

‘Usually it was “Oi you” followed by an insult.’

‘Popular, were you?’

‘I was misunderstood.’

‘Well, here in the big city we are more civilized, not like the dumb hicks back home. GT christens you Norbie.’ He raises his voice. ‘Hear that, drones. From now on the little drone is Norbie.’

The two girls sitting at the authorization bench stop chattering and look at me. Both are so incredibly beautiful I catch my breath. The petite one on the left with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail asks: ‘Are you vegan?’

‘No,’ I stammer. ‘This is my home planet.’

She laughs. ‘No, I mean are you vegetarian?’

‘Is that what stunted your growth?’ the gorgeous flame-headed girl in the other seat responds.

They giggle to one another.

I sigh and look down. I might as well be back in Brundy, being humiliated by Florence and Blethyn. Are all women nasty to people like me?

GT comes to my rescue. ‘Come on, girls, it’s his first day. Give the little drone a break. He might actually be a cretin.’

They all wait to see how I react. I concentrate on my breathing and remember Nunky’s advice. I remain calm and don’t respond.

‘Maybe he over-chews his food?’ says the blonde.

The redhead piles on the pressure. ‘Is that why you’re so small? Do you masticate too much?’

They laugh out loud.

I know it is the vilest of sins, but to cope with their ridicule and stay upright, I tip into daydream mode and see myself spurting my love custard into her fiery locks.

But immediately, a worrying thought drags me back. What if GT is right? What if my lack of height is due to cretinism? My thyroid gland isn’t something I’ve given much thought to. If it’s on the blink, I’ll need thyroxine. But from what I remember, the other classic symptom of cretinism is mental retardation and I’m not that dim.

Buoyed by this thought, I address GT. ‘Did you get better than a two-one for your Biomedical Science degree?’

He narrows his eyes, purses his lips and turns back to the analyzer. The girls focus on their Oracles.

It feels like a victory. Maybe I should fight back more often. Rather than crawl back into my shell, I say: ‘If your initials are MFG, why are you called GT?’

He smiles, walks over to the women and delicately caresses them, stroking his forefingers up and down the nape of their necks. Both close their eyes and shiver.

‘The harem calls me GT because I’m sleek, I’m sexy and I’m top of the range, the fastest and best looking model in the showroom.’ He thrusts his groin forward. ‘Vroom-vroom. I’m Manwell (he pronounces it the Spanish way), the ultimate Latin lover … Ain’t that right, girls?’

Both nod in agreement, wet lipped and misty eyed. 

I am hurt. At a stroke (literally), he has re-established his authority and superiority, using powers I will never possess. I am also confused, because the feeling overriding the antagonism and self-disgust is undeniably jealousy. I lusted after Blethyn and Florence, despite the torment, but it didn’t upset me to see them with Botcher John and Kneale-Down. Malicious and spiteful as these two beauties appear, it hurts to see their reaction to GT.

‘I had you down as a cricketer,’ I snap at him.

Forth-Gere clenches his fists and I see rage in his eyes, but I’m not being totally facetious; he really does remind me of Louie. Before he can respond, the man surrounded by students stands up, laughing loudly. He is a big, jovial-looking character with wild brown hair, greying at the temples, and bushy eyebrows. Like a mayor with his chain of office, he wears a stethoscope round his shoulders.

‘Well said, boyo. There’s a slip fielder if ever there is.’ He offers me his hand. ‘I is Daffyd Llewellyn-Llewellyn, the Consultant Haematologist, but you is call me Healer Dai cos I is Welsh.’

We shake. ‘That’s a very unusual name you have, sir.’

‘Lot of interbreeding in the valleys, look you.’

‘It’s pretty much like that where I come from.’

‘I come from Pant-ys-Ddown, see, in the shire of Glamorgan, where Llewellyn-Llewellyn is as common as leeks in a rugby crowd, whereas in the next valley you get a lot of Evans-Evans, and the one beyond that are nearly all Williams-Williams. And so on, do see?’

‘Wouldn’t it make more sense to go over into the next valley to find a wife?’

‘Repeating one name is hard enough for most Welsh people. Mixing it up would confuse matters and lead to tribal warfare, like it did in Scotland when they tried to introduce inter-clan marriages. On top of which, most of the girls in the valleys isn’t worth climbing over the hill for. The sheep is generally prettier and cleaner, but not as willing.’

‘We did it in history at school, but in the case of the Scots I believe it was more to do with having to constantly weave new tartans.’

‘Don’t you argue with me, squirt. I is better than you.’