6.

Going back to work felt premature, but to say I was making progress on the couch felt dishonest. The night shift was returned to me as being the least stressful option by Martin, the head of the audio-visual department. My days felt bereft. I yearned to be wherever I wasn’t: at work when home, home when at work; on the tram while waiting at a stop, waiting at the stop when on the tram; with Claire when I wasn’t, and alone when I was.

I became an aficionado of the late-morning bottle-shop run, soon cosying up to whiskey – especially the American types. The stuff could make a man feel like a scholar or a sailor, make him muse or sit in desolate silence, want to mend the world or tear it to pieces. I began having a few during the day to accelerate the time until work, and soon found myself having a few during work to accelerate the time until I could return home. If my sentence was to be life itself, I was going to make it as quick and painless as possible.

I put my feet up on the desk at work one night and took a sip from my flask-enhanced coffee. The client was running late, which meant they would undoubtedly expect missed time to be tacked onto the end of the booking, pushing back the others. I’d be the arsehole whichever way it played out. I’d expected a buzz from the front door’s bell, but instead there was a knock on the studio’s door. I sat, wondering how they’d gotten in before the door opened, and Martin stepped through. The head of the department had no reason to come in after hours, though I feared he’d found a compelling one.

‘Martin, hey,’ I said, moving my feet off the desk and standing.

‘Hello, Mister Ward, how are you?’ he asked without looking at me, perusing the studio as if he’d left something behind – his usual demeanour of being just too preoccupied for sincerity was more pronounced.

‘Fine. Waiting for my eight o’clock.’

‘That would be me.’

‘You? Ah, you want a session …?’

‘No, no. Just needed you to come in,’ he said, stepping closer to my desk.

‘You could’ve called; I would’ve come in early.’

‘I wanted to see how you work. There’s been some … concerns.’ He wrapped a finger around the handle of my mug. ‘May I?’

I envisioned appeasing the situation by knocking the mug out of his hand. How we might laugh about how clumsy I was and forget about the whole thing. In the time I’d daydreamt, he’d sniffed and sipped – his taste buds confirming suspicions with a scrunched face. He nodded.

‘You had a group last week, Mark,’ he said. ‘They called the next day claiming their engineer was drunk. You know what I told them?’

I shrugged.

‘I told them to piss off and have their work done elsewhere. But then, today, we get another call from one of your clients. You know what they said?’

‘What?’

‘Well, more or less the same thing. Peppered with expletives, though.’

He paused as if expecting a defence, but I had nothing to offer.

‘We have a serious problem here. Do you understand?’ he asked, shaking the mug at me.

‘I do.’

‘You do? Really?’

‘Yes, I need to finish my drinks before the bookings start.’

‘You think this is a joke?’ he demanded, bringing it back down on the desk so hard it almost broke. ‘I’ve shown you nothing but compassion and fairness and you’re snubbing your nose at it? This is a small industry, Mark, which makes this a big deal. People talk.’

‘Let them talk,’ I said, with mounting irritation.

‘Look, I’m willing to give you a chance here. Take another month off, get the help you so clearly need. Come back to the night shifts.’

‘You can keep them.’

‘You’re going through a rough patch, I understand. I’m sorry about your mother,’ he said, raising his voice and posture over mine, ‘but this attitude’s not the solution.’

‘Martin, my entire life has been a rough patch. I just get thrown leftovers and told I don’t say “thank you” loudly enough. This job is shit, this place is shit,’ I said, ripping back the tape holding loose cabling to the wall that’d bothered me for months, taking a large flake of paint with it. ‘Everything is shit and nothing ever gets better. We just sit around talking about how shit it all is, but nobody ever does anything about it.’

‘Alright, Mark,’ he sighed, ‘if that’s how you feel, consider this your notice of termination. Effective immediately.’

I dropped my keys into Martin’s upturned palm as he stood blocking the doorway of the school’s entrance. He seemed a lot more hurt by the whole situation than I was. But I had to hate him; in those seconds he was everything I’d ever hated.

‘All the best, Mark. I hope you get better,’ he said.

‘Fuck yourself,’ was all I could muster.

The door slammed in my face and I heard the lock turn. I lurched backwards into the cold wind. Lighting a cigarette, I looked up and let out a plume of smoke. The buildings seemed somehow taller and I smaller. With a strong sense this world was slowly rejecting me like some kind of bacteria, I turned, crossed the street and walked into the first pub I saw.