17

 

Seventh-Inning Stretch: a traditional pause during a baseball game, after the first half of the seventh inning.

 

 

10.30 a.m.

 

IT IS TIME for Frank’s mid-morning break and, on cue, his bladder starts to exert a mild, insistent pressure against his lower abdominal wall. Not painful, but not to be ignored either.

From years of repetition, Frank’s body has synchronised its urges with the dictates of his daily timetable. He wakes moments before his alarm clock tells him to wake, he starts to feel hungry just when his schedule permits him to eat, and his bladder has learned to regulate the incoming flow of liquid so that it reaches capacity just when it is convenient for him to drain it. Indeed, his physiological functions dovetail so immaculately with the pattern of his working days that on Sundays, when in theory he ought to be free to do as he pleases, he ingests and eliminates at the exact same times as during the rest of the week. Some might cite this as a demonstration of mankind’s evolutionary talent for adapting to circumstances, but Frank knows better. To him it implies that inside every human brain sits a mainspring regulating the turn of the cogs that govern the body’s rhythms. People run on clockwork, and if they are forced to go through the same routine day after day, their rhythms become rigidly attuned to the work-metronome – so much so that, sometimes, they find they literally cannot live without it. Frank knows of numerous retired or sacked employees who have gone mad or dropped dead shortly after their last day at Days, unable to cope with being liberated from the strict tick-tocking of a timetable. Time suddenly slackens its grip on them, and their mainsprings whirl and spool out.

By leaving today he may be able to prevent suffering the same fate himself. If he stays any longer, it may be too late.

This is Frank Hubble, he subvocalises to the Eye. I’m clocking off for half an hour.

OK, Mr Hubble, says a screen-jockey, a girl this time. Frank hears the rattle of a keyboard. Enjoy your coffee break.

Polite, cheerful – she can’t have been on the job more than a week. It won’t be long before poor diet, stress, and overexposure to the ion-charged atmosphere generated by myriad TV screens have turned her into a short-tempered, facetious pest like her colleagues.

Finding a staff lift, Frank summons it with a swipe of his Iridium, and on his way down studies his smeary reflection in the steel doors. This blurred other Frank appears and disappears and reappears over and over as his concentration waxes and wanes, until finally he stops bothering to look for it, and it vanishes altogether.

I am there, he tells himself, I am there, I am there, I am. But the words ring hollow when the evidence of his eyes tells him the truth.

He longs for the day when he will once more be able to glance into a reflecting surface and see himself there without having to make a conscious effort, and suddenly his resolve to seek out Mr Bloom and tender his resignation burgeons again.

But first, having arrived in the Basement, he heads for Tactical Security, and there, in the Gents cloakroom, he assumes the position at a urinal and braces himself for his regularly-scheduled relief.

 

 

10.33 a.m.

 

YEARS AGO, THE Tactical Security cafeteria had a buffet counter manned by serving staff, but they found it a disagreeable place to work. The Ghosts – as cold a bunch of fish as you could ever hope to meet – treated them as though they were beings from another dimension, barely talking to them beyond the basic courtesies of “Please” and “Thank you” and never able to look them in the eye, until after a while some of the staff actually started to believe that the Ghosts’ behaviour was normal and that it was they themselves, with their friendly, outgoing attitude, who had something wrong with them.

Automation was infinitely preferable for all concerned, and was introduced shortly after Frank started at Days. The food is of an inferior quality, tending towards the prepackaged and the microwaveable, the preservative-laced and the just-add-water instant, but the Ghosts find the dispensing machines a great deal more amenable than real people. The machines do not try to strike up a rapport, do not jabber pointlessly about the weather or politics, and do not take umbrage when their conversational overtures are rejected. The machines dole out food and drink at the touch of a button, without fuss, with comforting predictability, and thanks to them and to plastic cutlery, paper napkins, and cardboard plates and cups, the need for human staff in the Tactical Security cafeteria has been all but done away. There remains a skeleton staff of two: the janitor who comes in after closing time to empty the bins and mop up, and the technician who comes in once a week to restock and service the machines.

Withdrawing a near-scalding cup of coffee from the delivery chute of the hot-beverage dispenser, Frank scans the cafeteria for an unoccupied table. He manages to reach one and set the coffee down before its heat, efficiently conducted by the polystyrene cup, starts to blister his fingertips.

He will go and see Mr Bloom once he has finished the coffee. The coffee is a delaying tactic, he knows that, but a few moments to clear his head before tendering his resignation won’t go amiss.

He has barely had a chance to take more than a few sips when Mr Bloom strolls into the cafeteria.

Nonchalantly the Head of Tactical Security fetches himself a cup of milky tea and a jam doughnut, and chooses an empty table. Mr Bloom seldom eats in the cafeteria, and it can’t be coincidence that he has chosen to be here at a time when Frank is likely to be here too.

Frank contemplates slipping quietly out of the room, but he realises that would be childish. Besides, Mr Bloom’s attempt to pin him down – if that is what it is – may be an abuse of their thirty-three years of acquaintance, but it is a miscalculation rather than an act of malice.

With a sigh, Frank takes a last swig of the by now merely piping-hot coffee, gets up, and strides heavily over to Mr Bloom’s table. A part of him cannot believe what he is about to do, and begs him not to put himself through this ordeal. Why this compulsion to make his resignation official? Why not just slip away without telling a soul?

Because that would not be proper. Because he owes Mr Bloom, if no one else, an explanation. And because to sneak away furtively is the action of a thief, and thieves are a breed Frank has dedicated half a lifetime to thwarting.

“Donald?”

“Frank.” There is little surprise in Mr Bloom’s eyes.

Frank can almost hear the grinding of neck bones as the Ghosts around him surreptitiously strain to listen.

“Could we have that chat now?”

“Of course. My office?”

“Of course.”

 

 

10.39 a.m.

 

FOR THE FIRST time Frank notices the homely touches in the office as he sits facing Mr Bloom across his desk. The small framed photograph of a young girl (Mr Bloom has mentioned a niece in the past). The paperback novels sandwiched on a shelf between bulky file boxes – Joyce, Solzhenitsyn, Woolf. The yellowed, frail clipping from a financial newspaper tacked to one corner of the year planner on the wall, an amusing ambiguity in its headline: “Spring Figures Prove That Days Has Not Lost Its Bloom.” The yellow smiley-face sticker pasted over the Days logo on the desktop terminal. Tiny, personal additions it would never occur to Frank to make were this bland subterranean cell his own.

Mr Bloom is waiting for him to speak. He has been waiting a full three minutes, patiently eating the jam doughnut and licking the sugar granules off his fingers, sipping the tea. Frank’s silence is about to cross the line dividing hesitation from rudeness.

He admits defeat. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Begin at the beginning,” says Mr Bloom.

“That’s the trouble. I’m not sure where the beginning is. Things just seem to have... accumulated. I thought I was happy in my job, now it seems I’m not.”

“Ah.” Mr Bloom’s eyebrows lift, parallel wavy furrows bunching across his brow all the way up to his tenacious foretuft. “And is there any particular aspect of the job that you’re not happy with, or is it nothing you can put a finger on?”

“It’s... me, I suppose. The job is the job. It doesn’t change, so I must have changed.” Why is he making this so difficult for himself? He should just come right out with it, American-style. I quit. That’s all he needs to say, those two little words. Why this pussyfooting about? Why the absurd desire to break it gently? What difference will it make to Mr Bloom, one less Ghost, one less responsibility?

“Changed in what way?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“Frank, I appreciate that this can’t be much fun for you, so take your time, and when you’re feel ready, tell me what’s on your mind. I don’t need to remind you that nothing you say will go beyond these four walls, so feel free to have a go at the customers, the brothers, a co-worker, a sales assistant with offensive halitosis, me, anyone you want.”

“This has nothing to do with anyone else. This is just me.”

Mr Bloom regards Frank placidly. “Yes, I know. I was just trying to get you to crack a smile. Silly me.”

“Donald, why did you leave the job?”

“I thought we were here to talk about you.”

“It might help.”

“Really? Well, if you say so. Why did I give up the Ghost? Mainly because I couldn’t hack it any more. I wasn’t making as many collars as I used to. Customers were noticing me. I was losing my touch.”

“Losing touch?” Frank asks carefully, pretending to have misheard.

“No, losing my touch,” says Mr Bloom, flashing a look of curiosity across the desk. “I was offered the promotion at just the right time. I didn’t accept it because I wanted to, I accepted it because I had to. I had no choice. There was no way they could keep me on as a Ghost, so it was either this or retirement, and I wasn’t ready for the pipe and slippers just then. I’m still not. And the Academy wasn’t an option. How could I be expected to train people to become Ghosts if I didn’t have the talent for it myself any more? Is any of this relevant to your problem?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t think so. You still have the knack for it, Frank. Your arrest record is as high as ever. You’re one of the best, I might even say the best, and Lord, I’d give my eye-teeth to be out on the shop floor like you, still plugging away, still getting the old tingle when you spot a likely one. Granted, it can be godawful at times, it can get as boring as hell, and there are days when your feet feel like two lumps of lead and your legs have knives in place of bones, and there are departments you hate going into but feel obliged to go into anyway, and you get sick of looking at customers’ faces day in, day out, those empty, eager faces – you’d think they’d have enough of what they wanted, but it’s never enough, and even the fat ones look hungry, don’t they? And the screen-jockeys, God, the screen-jockeys! Imps of the perverse, sent to torment us. But Frank – isn’t it all worth it the moment you make a good, clean collar? When you catch a real smooth operator red-handed, and you know the sticky-fingered bastard is yours, he’s not getting away from you, he’s a done deal? Isn’t any amount of crap worth the wonderful feeling of utter conviction you get as you lay your hand on his shoulder and show him what he did on your Sphinx and recite the Booster’s Blessing? Those few minutes of pure, sweet clarity of purpose are a Ghost’s reward for all the hours of fuss and tedium and aggravation. Don’t you agree?”

Frank is about to reply when two things happen. First, seven notes ring out over the loudspeaker mounted outside the door, the echoes bouncing down the corridor, and the announcement of a lightning sale in Travel Goods commences.

“Attention, customers.”

Almost simultaneously, the Eye whispers in Frank’s ear.

Mr Hubble? It is the same girl he spoke to quarter of an hour ago. I’m sorry to interrupt you on your break, but they want you over in Processing.

What?

It’s a shoplifter you collared. Wants to talk to you. Insists on it.

I have something else on at the moment.

“Frank?”

“Travel Goods is located in the south-eastern quadrant of the Orange Floor and may be reached using the banks of lifts designated I, J and K.”

Processing think it’ll help if you go over there.

“Frank?”

Excuse me, Dona– “Excuse me, Donald. I’m talking to the Eye.” Eye, this is highly irregular.

I know, Mr Hubble, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of bothering you, but Processing says the shoplifter won’t talk to anyone until you get there.

Talk? What about?

I’m sorry, they didn’t tell me.

Well, the timing stinks. But actually, Frank thinks, it could have been a lot worse.

What can I say? I’m sorry.

Hubble out. “Donald, I have to go.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, can’t it wait? Can’t someone else deal with it?”

“Apparently not.”

Mr Bloom keeps his suspicions to himself. It wouldn’t be out of character for a Ghost to fake an emergency appointment in order to get out of a situation that was in danger of becoming uncomfortably personal. “All right. Look, we obviously have a lot more to talk about. Let’s meet for lunch.”

“Donald, I don’t–”

“One o’clock, at the Italian restaurant on the Green Floor hoop.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good place for a talk.”

“Frank, no one’ll pay any attention to you. Or to me, if I really don’t want them to.”

“Well...” Frank is at the door.

“It’s a date, then. One sharp. Promise me you’ll be there.”

Embarrassed at the eagerness with which he has seized his chance to escape, Frank can hardly refuse.

“I usually eat lunch at quarter to one,” he says.

“Quarter to it is, then.”