Authors: Craig Cliff
She sounded confused when he told her he would rather not.
‘Perhaps next week?’
‘Perhaps,’ he conceded.
Bembe hung up on her first
Bye
.
That night he and Rosa agreed to talk about their respective jobs at the same time in order to get all the complaining and venting over and done with in half the time, leaving the rest of the evening to talk about other things. To his surprise, he ran out of gripes before Rosa. While she was still in the middle of a story about what the dessert chef had
done with a wooden spoon, he placed a finger over her lips, and told her with his eyes that complaint time was over.
The next morning there was a printout on Bembe’s workstation with a username and a phone number to ring to get a password.
‘Does this mean I get to use this?’ he asked no one in particular, pointing at the computer. The three other people in his pod all shrugged and returned to their spreadsheets.
While he was on the phone to IT, the supervisor above his podmates but below Laird left a pile of papers on his desk. More filing, he thought, but then discovered a Post-it with a network file path on it.
He didn’t know what he was going to say when Lindsey next called him. If he said he now had computer access, she would think it was because of her. But this must have been arranged long before Trish had spoken to Laird. He realised it shouldn’t be this way: that he thought of managing Lindsey before he thought of managing himself. She had become such a big part of his life, yet he’d only met her in person that one time and still thought of an octopus every time he spoke to her on the phone. An octopus with its limbs tangled and tied in knots.
He almost didn’t recognise her standing outside the Lincoln Hammond offices the next day as he headed home for lunch. In fact, he only realised it was Lindsey after walking straight past her. She had her hands dug down into the pockets of her black overcoat, a slim leather folio resting between her arm and her side. He kept walking down Lothian Road without turning in case it
was
her — looking back would acknowledge her presence and compound the
snub. But as he continued walking, he became convinced it had been Lindsey. Even in her thick coat, she could not hide those skinny arms.
Lincoln Hammond was a large company and probably had need for many temps across its six floors. These firms tended to deal with a recruitment firm of choice. It made sense for Lindsey to be there, either to drum up business or discuss existing roles. Perhaps even his position. Yes, she was definitely there for a meeting. That would explain the folio. But why was she waiting outside like that? Jiggling in the cold. It was strange, but not strange enough to concern him as he reheated a bowl of tortellini and caught the Blue team’s items being auctioned on television.
When she was jiggling out on the footpath again the next lunchtime, that was a cause for concern. Again, he kept walking. Again, she didn’t appear to have seen him.
He told Rosa about it that night. Together they ran through his options if it happened again: confront Lindsey; avoid Lindsey then report her to her superiors; go to lunch with Lindsey and string her along so that he got a much, much better job. They both laughed at this, but it was not normal couple laughter. It was as if they were both laughing for the other’s sake.
The next morning Bembe could not concentrate for all the thoughts he spent on
La Problema de Lindsey
. At half-ten his cellphone began to ring. The caller ID said it was Lindsey. He answered at the last moment before his message service picked up, halfway to the fire doors.
‘Bembe, how goes it?’
Oh God, he thought, she is stalking me.
‘Okay.’
‘How are you placed for lunch today? Say, one o’clock? I can come to you.’
‘No. I am uncomfortable.’
‘I’m sorry? Are you unwell?’
‘No. I do not want to go to lunch.’
‘Okay, no problems. Just wanted to talk about a role we’ve had come in.’
‘Really?’
‘What did you think?’
‘—’
The dead air was not completely dead. He could hear the sibilant sound of a hand being moved over the receiver and, through that, a loud but indecipherable female voice that did not belong to Lindsey.
‘Bembe? Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, can I call you back?’
She hung up.
The sudden end, the lack of platitudes and desperate
byeeeee
s, took him a moment to get over.
As he placed his hand on the door to return to the office, his phone rang again.
He saw it then. The course of action required.
‘Hello Lindsey,’ he said, and did not wait for a reply. ‘I would like to go to lunch at one o’clock tomorrow.’
‘Oh. Well. Good. Sorry I had to hang up on you there. Barbara was in my ear.’
He imagined a full-sized woman trying to climb into Lindsey’s earhole.
That night Bembe told Rosa of his plan to confront
Lindsey at lunch. He would ask her plainly why she was always waiting outside his building, why she was always asking him to lunch, and he would tell her it was inappropriate. Rosa did not react as he had expected to this plan. She folded her arms and said nothing, staring at the television.
‘
¿Qué?
’
‘You think too much about her,’ she said in sharp-edged English.
‘
Pero
—’ He had no comeback.
At one the next day he went downstairs and saw through the glass doors Lindsey waiting as she had waited before: hands plugged into pockets, leather folio under her arm, jiggling to keep warm.
Bembe gave a polite nod before pushing out into the cold, but she did not respond. It was as if she was looking right through him.
He came to stand in front of her and she leaned to the side in order to maintain sight of the doors.
‘Lindsey?’ he said.
Her reaction was slow. First she corrected her lean. Then she blinked twice, winced, retrieved a pair of reading glasses from her pocket and placed them on. Only then did she say, with the rising inflection of surprise and not questioning, ‘Bembe.’
‘You did not see me,’ he said, unsure himself if this was a question or not.
‘I — I thought we could go to this place just up here on the corner.’
‘That is fine.’ Every word was a struggle now. Nothing
was automatic. And he needed to think about so many other things.
Inside the sandwich bar posing as a brasserie they took a round table with three seats near the back and piled their coats on the spare seat.
‘This lunch is on me, Bembe.’
‘That is okay.’ When he compiled the response in his head, he thought it would express that he was prepared to pay for himself but, upon hearing it, and seeing Lindsey’s reaction, he realised he had just agreed to let her pay.
Menus arrived and were stared at in silence, until Lindsey said, ‘I’m so blind.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I should really wear these all the time.’
‘I see.’
She laughed, nervously.
He stared at her glasses. The lenses were circular, and magnified her eyes and lashes.
Octopus
.
The word popped into his head just as it had at their first meeting. It taunted him with its pop-shock-and-ooze progression. Meaning? Where was meaning?
Lindsey was back to scanning the menu and producing sounds but he could not find meaning.
I
am the tangled octopus, he thought, first in Spanish, then translated into English.
‘Bembe?’
‘Ah?’
‘I asked if you’ve decided.’
He lay down his menu and pointed to the BLT bagel.
‘Me too,’ she said in a
How funny
kind of way, and got up
to place the order at the till.
‘
Dame pan
y
llámame estúpido,
’ he said when he thought she was out of earshot.
She spun quickly. ‘What was that?’
‘I only say some Spanish. A proverb.’ He smiled because the correct English word had come to him.
She nodded.
When Lindsey returned, she took off her glasses and placed them on the table.
‘On the phone yesterday, you said about a role?’ This was Bembe trying to take control again, of Lindsey and the language, but her eyes glazed over, her chin came to rest on her hand. ‘Lindsey?’
‘I loved Spain,’ she said, as if they had been talking about his homeland. ‘I — I actually met someone there this summer.’
It sounded to Bembe like she was breaking up with him.
‘I fell for him like I fell for Spain.
España
. But he broke my heart.’
‘I see.’
Her eyes were directed his way but were not looking at him.
‘I have been waiting outside your office. It was Barbara’s idea.’ She gave a false laugh, as if she had been lightly rapped on the stomach. ‘Your voice —’ she said, but stopped.
A waiter arrived with their bagels, which were surrounded by garlands of salad greens.
‘That was quick,’ she said, and smiled at the waiter. Bembe waited to see whether she would attack the bagel with cutlery or pick it up in her hands.
‘Looks yum,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She pushed the ring of rocket and chard with her fork and lifted her head slowly as if sneaking a look at what he was doing. She
was
waiting for him. She was younger than him, after all. Seeing her in person this second time, she seemed just out of her teens. A young twenty-something with a grown woman in one ear and his accent in the other. He looked at the O of the bagel and put down his cutlery. ‘I’m sorry to hear your heart was broken.’
‘—’
‘We have a saying:
Al mal tiempo, buena cara
. It means —’
She held up her hand. ‘No. Don’t tell me.’
‘Okay.’ He licked a smudge of balsamic reduction from the knuckle of his thumb.
‘Say something else. In
Español
.’
All he could think of were proverbs, as if his Spanish was also failing him.
‘
A
donde fueres
,’ he said, slowly, as if he was waiting for the words to appear on a teleprompter, ‘
haz lo que vieres
.’
She reached out, fumbled for his hand. With her magnified, moon-like eyes looking into his, she said, ‘
Gracias
, Bembe.
Muchos gracias.
’
It began with a puddle. His right hand had been resting on the mouse while he stared at The Register. He had once calculated that this one Excel file was worth $25,000. At least that’s how the sums worked out on a cost-accounting basis —
hours spent plugging numbers into spreadsheet multiplied by hourly rate
. He had used other valuation methodologies, too. Net Present Value. Internal Rate of Return. Technology Factor. These calculations, outdated now, still lay buried in forgotten worksheets in The Register, like a bag of mixed veg at the back of his freezer.
The screen flicked to black and the company logo, a smiling grapefruit, started to move across the screen. He waved the mouse to banish the screensaver and noticed the puddle on his plastic mousepad, right where his hand had been resting. He checked his surroundings for the source — overfilled pot plants, leaking drink bottles — but there was nothing. No
stream leading to or from. Just a puddle. He felt his forehead, but wasn’t sweating there. The edge of his hand was moist, but that could have come from resting in the puddle. He lifted his head to the ceiling. It looked watertight.
‘What’s the date today?’ Fiona, the team’s admin assistant, shouted from across the partition. She asked this about ten times a day. It was one of the many annoying things about the office he had become comfortable with.
‘It’s the seventh,’ he said softly, dismissed the puddle and went back to plugging numbers into The Register.
When he woke the next morning his sheets were damp. He went through the same routine as in the office, looking everywhere for the source, but again found nothing. Just damp sheets, which he pulled off the bed. The mattress protector was damp also, so he pulled that off too, and threw everything into the washing machine.
It took him longer than normal to dry himself after his shower. He sniffed his heavy, sagging towel. He had never really smelt his own scent before — the nose having the ability to eliminate the white noise of the familiar — but his towel shot images of his childhood into his head.
It’s me, he thought.
On the bus to work, a small but persistent trickle began to run down his pant leg. People stared, thinking he’d peed his pants, as the colourless liquid ran down the aisle and towards the driver.
When he arrived at the office, Fiona told him he looked terrible.
‘I’m melting,’ he said.
‘Maybe you should see a doctor.’ She patted him on the
shoulder, which stuck slightly to his shirt, before bustling into the next cubicle to ask what the date was.
At the doctors, he removed his soaking shirt, his damp pants, his soggy socks, and stood there, dripping. His doctor — a kindly Hitchcock lookalike with no sign of a top lip — inspected his body, shone lights into his ears, pushed down his tongue with popsicle sticks, and prodded tender spots with three stiff fingers. He held an empty urine container below a dripping elbow and collected a sample of the liquid for testing.
‘I should have the results in a couple of days.’
‘What should I do until then?’
The doctor shrugged, and suddenly looked a lot younger, a lot less like Hitchcock.
That night, he rang his best friend who lived in another city.
‘I want to cry, but I’m on water restrictions.’
‘Maybe it’s not, y’know, physical?’ said the friend.
‘It’s manifestly physical,’ he replied. ‘It’s dripping all over the receiver.’
‘Okay, but maybe you should see a mental health professional anyway.’
‘Why are you talking like that?’
In the shrink’s waiting room, he made a young girl cry.
‘Is he dying, Daddy?’ she asked. ‘Will he die like Mummy?’
The shrink — a dead ringer for Lily Tomlin — asked him if he had changed his routine lately. Had he experienced a traumatic event? Had he lost a loved one?
‘Well, I’m stumped,’ she said, and smiled a squinty smile.
The test results came back from the lab. The doctor informed him he was leaking water. ‘Pure H
2
O.’
He went to a priest and got into a metaphysical argument.
The priest — who looked like every other priest he’d ever met; that is, somewhere between his grandfather and the previous pope — told him, ‘You must look beyond the physical. This is not your spirit, my son,’ pointing to the puddle slowly extending along the pew.
‘But the human body is, like, ninety per cent water. This stuff I’m losing, it is me! What’s left but dead wood?’
The priest brought a finger up to rest on the shelf of his top lip. ‘I read an article in the
Globe
about this the other day. Well, not this exactly,’ he said, slowly pulling his vestments away from the pooling water. ‘Apparently, the body is ninety per cent water at birth, but the proportion decreases with age. An adult is about seventy per cent water. The elderly are about fifty per cent. But then, my son, there is the soul!’
The scientist — who looked a little like Tony Blair, a little like Hugh Grant — confirmed what the priest had told him.
‘Are you drinking enough?’
‘I don’t stop.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem.’
‘Would I look like this if I was over-hydrated?’ He pulled up the sleeve of his raincoat, which was as good at hiding his waterworks as it was at keeping the rain out, and revealed his emaciated arm. ‘I can hardly lift a glass with this thing, but the drinking is the only thing keeping me alive.’
‘Have you tried straws?’
The scientist started researching.
The priest added the poor melting man into his prayers.
The doctor conducted more tests.
The shrink kept him waiting two and a half hours while her cat gave birth.
While in the waiting room, he read
Cosmo
and
Fast Fours
and
GQ
and
Bride
and a copy of
National Geographic
that must have been the oldest magazine there. He read an article concerning the pollution of East German rivers, an interview with Dian Fossey and a story about the San Andreas fault. He asked the receptionist for a pen and wrote a few lines over an ad for Fuji film:
Three crusts to this earth
The land crust
The sea crust
And the crust of ourselves
‘What does it mean?’ the shrink asked when he showed it to her.
‘I don’t really know.’
Even though he kept leaking pure H
2
O, and the doctor, shrink, priest and scientist weren’t coming up with much in the way of solutions, he stayed alive for the next few weeks, jotting down fragments of poetry on whatever was lying around.
‘I’m not sure if it’s all the drinking or the poetry that’s keeping me alive,’ he told his friend over the phone.
‘You’re still seeing the shrink, aren’t you?’
He started carrying around an inflatable paddling pool, which he stood or sat in to catch the water when he was stationary.
‘That’s canny of you,’ said the scientist. He was very apologetic about not making any headway with a solution to his new friend’s problem, but asked him a favour anyway.
‘I told my daughter about you, how brave you are. Her class is doing a project on “people who inspire us”, and she wants you to speak to them.’
He was quite a sight for the eight year olds: a skeletal man sitting in a paddling pool, sipping from his water bottle via a string of straws Sellotaped together, softly talking about his poetry. He didn’t have many poems to read to the class because he didn’t collect them. He just left the napkins and the flyers and the newspapers where he found them. Disposable poetry.
You can’t take yourself too seriously when you’re time is nearly up
. But he read them the poem he had written on the back of his bus ticket:
Think too much do too little
Think too much say too little
Do little say little Think think much much
Too too much
The class stared at him. To him they looked like meerkats.
‘I envy you,’ he said. ‘So full of life. So full of water.’ He wiggled his giant straw. ‘You retain everything at your age. I’m proud to think that you will keep the memory of me with you always.’
The teacher stood, but before she could thank him, he shouted, ‘Water! We are so much water. We are all of us swimming in ourselves.’
His friend from another city finally got time off work
to visit. When he saw the melting first hand he was very apologetic about not coming sooner.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m okay with it. I know that when I stop melting, the story ends, whether I’m alive or dead. I’m okay with melting for a little longer.’
‘You look like the guy from
Tales from the Crypt
.’
‘I get that sometimes. I don’t see it myself,’ he chuckled, and sucked on the straw leading up to a bottle affixed to his cycle helmet.
He went back to the office to see how they were coping without him. They put on a morning tea.
‘Sausage rolls,’ he said, ‘my favourite.’
He unfolded his paddling pool and flicked the switch of the tiny, battery-powered pump he’d bought off eBay. As it pumped, people began to separate into eddies of conversation.
‘You going for a paddle, Hamish?’
He looked to see who had said it. Everyone pretended to be engrossed in their own conversations.
‘We are all of us’, he said loudly, ‘swimming in ourselves.’
The eddies of conversation stopped. Everyone looked at him. To him they looked like meerkats.