Shit. Graeme starts panicking, he doesn’t need to be walking about the streets stinking of weed. He sniffs his towelling Adidas top. That must have has soaked up weed fumes. He can’t smell anything, can’t tell. Is it this top?
I don’t know what it is. I ain’t sniffing you bruv, Joolzy scowls. Maybe it’s your armpits, man. Maybe you are sweating it out. I ain’t sniffing your armpits, get me.
Shit, I should get some deodorant or something.
You should wash your clothes bruv! You been wearing that Adidas top nuff time. You get a new one down
TKM
axx five pounds, innit?
Shit, shit. He discreetly sniffs at the top again, can’t smell anything. Maybe it’s his coat. Maybe. He checks the pockets. In the upper left one there’s a dry and brittle half-smoked spliff that, now he remembers, he was smoking out front of the house when his upstairs neighbours turned into the road. He immediately docked it and for some reason stuck it in his pocket before he went back into the house.
He turns to Joolzy. Yeah, I have got half a spliff in my coat. I forgot about that.
Go flush it down the loo, Joolzy says. These clowns ring the Fed, you get yourself in trouble.
They won’t do that will they? Now Graeme’s even more jittery.
You never know, you never know, Trust me. One little mistake and they will screw you now. They bang you up for nothing now, nothing. Any excuse. Anything, bruv, he sucks his teeth, you know that. The Dutty Babylon! Joolz announces to the carriage and cackles, exactly the kind of behaviour that is likely to have Five-O getting on at the next stop and, panicked, Graeme heads for the toilets to flush the spliff away.
He takes couple of deep breaths and looks at himself in the dirty mirror, the train rocking back and forth. Get a grip on yourself, Graeme. He needs to sort this out, having developed a sympathetic relationship with a couple of big collectors in the States. He needs to make the most of it.
Careful Graeme. Not Curators, not Collectors, but Curectors. He didn’t pretend to understand exactly what the differences were but he understood it was something to do with carefully selecting a specific slice of the past, a tranche, a seam and acquiring everything connected with a specific scene, right down to the sweat drips off the ceiling and the smell of the toilets around three thirty, the drum pattern someone tapped out on a glass coffee table while waiting for a pizza to arrive, the heartsick look the girl in The Cure t-shirt gave the guitarist as she left with the blonde boy. These particular guys were true completists, anything and everything from the period 1992–1996 was what they wanted and it seemed to Graeme Ferris that it was more important to them to simply own everything than it was to exercise any kind judgement about what was good or bad. That was something unknowable one of his online friends on the
Curector’s Egg
forum had pointed out, whereas a pair of knackered Dunlop Flash ingrained with dirt from TranceInCentral’s legendary ’91 Rave in Dearsham was an indisputable part of a real moment, beyond all questions of taste, it was a slice of life.
Life, sliced up into smaller and smaller slivers, bought and sold.
Good he’s flushed that spliff away, otherwise he might be tempted to smoke it and that will get him paranoid. He’s still shaky from the post office bullshit last week. Doesn’t know why it affected him so much. An argument had erupted between the elderly Jamaican guy trying to get his dole, the elderly Sikh guy behind the counter, a young mother waiting with a pram and a middle-aged guy in a suit, clearly impatient to get his vital package sent. At first it had seemed almost humorous, the misunderstandings between the guy behind the counter and the Jamaican guy but quickly, in their failure to understand each other over some form that the Jamaican guy had to sign to get his money, they became suspicious and defensive. Then the mother joined in with, excuse me, do you think you could hurry up please, and then it had degenerated further until the businessman had decided just to bypass all this rabble and came round the other side of the aisle, slammed his package down on the counter saying, some of us have work to get back to, alright, and then everyone going for it, please sir rejoin the cue and the old Jamaican guy yelling and the mother demanding to know why he thought she, a mother, wasn’t pressed for time too and equally worthy of consideration.
That’s how it is, things get ugly quickly. You need to be on your guard. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t put anything down in writing. Try not to catch someone’s eye.
Like these two on the train. The word Claimant, Claimants, spat out everywhere. Officially he was unemployed but as the man had pointed out to him in the post office when he had been drawn into the argument, everyone momentarily coalescing on the anti-business side, he wasn’t just unemployed, was he? My wife doesn’t work, my kids don’t work, they are unemployed, but you are not unemployed in that way are you? I support them. Who supports you? I do and so do others like me, people who work. And how do you get my money, because every week I give you a portion of my tax, don’t I? How do you get it, you claim it?
Because I have a right to it, Graeme Ferris said. You certainly do at this moment, at this point, but still what you are is a Claimant, you claim you have a right to the money, you claim the money you claim you have a right to. But all that can change. The man began nodding, a triumphant smile on his face. Just let’s wait and see. All that can change. And it will. Trust me.
At Margate, safely through the ticket barrier they part company, Joolzy off to see family, Graeme heading along the front to the clock tower and then up the hill to Nick’s office.
Come on, Graeme, come on. You can do it. Don’t fuck things up. Opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
Graeme’s nervous approaching the Council offices and going in through the doors, too many bad associations with these places. He goes up the stairs to the first floor corridor and Nick pops his head round the door about halfway down, gestures to him, points him to a chair.
Sit down, sit down. He has the cassettes and a couple of test pressings, some CDs in a carrier bag next to his chair. He can spare five minutes for a bit of smalltalk. Matt’s brother, it’s only polite.
So what do you do up in London, Graeme? Nick asks.
Graeme looks a little sheepish. Mostly record trading.
Ah that’s right, yeah, Matt told me. Have you got your own shop or something?
Nah. It’s kind of a sideline. I used to work in Music and Video Exchange. But now it’s like freelance stuff. Online. Except I keep missing out on stuff ‘cause of Giveback.
Nick smiles. So, are you Claiming, Graeme?
Graeme tenses up. Shit.
It’s fine, it’s fine. I don’t care about you making a bit of extra money selling stuff. I know no one can live on the money they get. That’s not why I am asking. It’s just that if you live in South London and you have been claiming for a certain length of time then several new rules apply starting as of the 23
rd
. Last weekend, basically.
Yeah, yeah, right. Graeme says, nodding.
How long have you been claiming?
About two years. I was on this Nurse training course but…
And you live in which bit?
South East. Greenwich. Between Woolwich and Greenwich.
OK. Nick says in a voice that makes Graeme anxious. Graeme, have you had any letters from the Work Council or the local council over the last few months?
Yeah, yeah. Graeme says, non-committal. Junk mail, yeah.
Junk mail? How do you mean?
Y’know. They send you all kinds of leaflets and stuff.
Well. Judging by what you are saying. Who pays your rent, you, or …?
Housing benefit.
For the last two years?
Yeah, but I do Giveback, Graeme says defensively. Well, you have to.
Nick’s voice gets low and tentative. Well. Sounds to me like you’re a Phase Three-er Graeme.
Graeme looks at him, what do you mean?
Nick is tired of explaining it; he tries not to let his impatience and his weariness show.
OK, under the new rules you are assessed according to several criteria: outstanding number of hours on giveback, rent subsidy, length of time out of work, plus number of hours logged job searching, and if you hit over the threshold, which most people unemployed, he lapses into the old speak and corrects himself, jobseeking are, then from the 23
rd
of last month you are allocated both a place to live and full time Giveback position. That means …
Graeme looks alarmed and Nick stops himself. Actually, he says, before we start jumping to any conclusions just let me check the database. He fires up the laptop and stares at it intently for a minute or two entering passwords and clicking links.
Graeme? Sorry.
Ferris.
Postcode’s SE?
10
10 …?
3RE.
He clicks enter, beep, mouse click. Nick scans the screen, eyes still down, perhaps because he doesn’t want to see the all too familiar look of alarm on Graeme’s face says,
Well, now. You are in the right place at least. You are just about a week late. You should have been out of Flat 4 34 Woolwich Road last Friday and actually down here for rehousing and reorientation. Your full time Giveback contract starts on Monday out at the old Pfizer factory.
Graeme is silent for a few seconds, trying to take it in. I don’t understand.
Nick looks up. What I don’t understand is how you managed to stay up in London for an extra week; I wonder what your landlord’s been up to. Who is your landlord?
Dunno, I rent through an agency.
Still, your card should have shown up that you were still in London.
I haven’t used it for a week. Just cash, he admits hesitantly.
Well, that shouldn’t make any difference. You do understand that the Giveback card is well, it’s a
de facto
tag. I mean they can track your movements at all times with that; it has a tiny chip in it. No really, it does. Trust me. I use the system to track down our waifs and strays all the time. And we have volunteer groups who head off Claimants trying to get out of the area so that they don’t end up being picked up in other jurisdictions and then being billed for the police time they have incurred with more Giveback.
I can go back up to London though, right? All my stuff’s up there.
Probably, Nick’s eyes scroll down the screen, it is not anymore. You had a bailiff action against you today. Haven’t you had notification of this in the last few days? Levy distress against your goods and chattel?
Graeme shrugs and looks around the office appealing to invisible onlookers for a little understanding, a little support.
I get a load of letters from them. Forms. I haven’t got time to …
I am supposed to be job searching thirty hours a week.
I know it is a lot of hassle, it is a lot of work, but you need to, you needed to keep on top of it. You were supposed to be out of those premises. Looking at this, he runs his fingers down the screen; it has been actioned today, the squad’s gone in. You are lucky you’re not there.
Graeme doesn’t feel lucky, he feels trapped.
Not nice people.
What about my stuff?
Well that’s gone I am afraid.
Gone? How can I get it back?
You can’t. It’ll be sold to cover cost of relocation and the expense of the bailiffs. You know how they used to say that if you got executed in Communist China the family would receive a bill for the bullet. Well now you get a bill for the whole lot, the blindfold, the post, the cost of building the prison and the parade ground, the cost of the manpower required to execute you. And if you can’t pay it then you are deeper in debt and you have even further obligation to the state.
Gone?
Nick wants to shake him. Why didn’t you read the letters? Don’t you understand, you have debts, whatever assets you had are gone now, whatever path you thought your life was talking it has now become the exclusive property of the state, and the state wants you picking oakum. You have entered into a contract with the banks, with the taxpayer and have incurred debts we expect you to pay back. Welcome to the Marshalsea 2.0.
Luckily you can still make it out to your workfare Giveback assignment tomorrow.
Tomorrow? I can’t start work tomorrow; I need to get back up to London.
Forget London. I really, really wouldn’t advise going AWOL Graeme. If you are not there Monday, or you try to get back up to town, you are going to incur a lot, a lot of sanctions.
But if I can sell this…
Your buyer needs to come down here to see you.
OK. Maybe that will work. Maybe he can hang around here for a few days, sell what he has and get enough money to pay back some hours then get them off his back for a while.
How much do you think this stuff is worth? Nick asks.
Graeme is about to lie, say, could be reasonable, could be nothing, all depends who is buying his stock answer, but he stops himself. I dunno. This stuff is not priced in anyway, I mean it’s not in any books. It just depends on how much someone wants it.
Sorry, Nick says, looks at his phone, I am in a bit of a rush, Graeme, let me just quickly take you outside to our
USG
affiliates, explain that you’re a late arrival. Wrong time, right place.
Graeme has a place waiting in the recently requisitioned Walpole Bay Hotel and Nick puts him in a
USG
minivan with a few other recent arrivals. The rooms are all full and so a series of bunk beds and spaces for sleeping bags have been set up in the downstairs lounge. He sits in the corner feeling vulnerable, his bag held tight, wishing he hadn’t flushed that spliff away; he could do with a smoke, calm his nerves. How much will his records get sold for? They must be worth six, seven grand if he could get full price for them, probably they will go up for auction on one of the Government’s Clawback sites and be sold for whatever anyone bids for them, anything that isn’t sold after a certain point goes to charity shops for free. He thinks maybe he can sell the records he has in the bag to pay off his debts and buy back his own stock.