The Way Out (12 page)

The whole point of focus groups is to have opinions and
speak up. You have to take your turn. Can't just sit there and stare at your hands. That's not what they pay us for. And if it wasn't for the money, none of us would be here. Except maybe Allen.

JAMIE

Christ, how long are they going to keep us waiting here?

I look at the three women in turn.

Aye… Probably… Aye, why not?

I'd do them all.

None of them are particularly fit or anything but I wouldn't turn it down. If it was there on a plate, like. No Sir. The older ones would be grateful, especially the fat one. Maybe she's a dyke. They don't bother about the fat the same as straight birds. The one with the orangey hair has the look of a screamer. But it's the quiet one with the small mouth that'd be the filthiest. It's always the quiet ones. I pass the time while the old guy drones on about cells and arseholes, imagining the women in various positions with each other, and me, obviously. It soon gets complicated. Imagining group sex is a bit like chess, holding all the possible moves and counter-moves in your head while not letting the entire plan go off the boil.

ALLEN

I give up. This new lassie's a waste of space. I can tell that straight off. Reminds me of my daughter, Lisa. Never could get a reaction out of her either. She'd just sit there, letting everything happen around her. Like her mother. Not one thing happened to that woman that she had the gumption to do anything about, not life, not death.

MEGAN

Either she's not been given a name label or she's not got the nerve to put it on.

There's one custard cream left and I'm just about to go for it when that bitch Frances picks up the plate, and offers it to the nameless girl saying, ‘Here you are dear, you nearly missed the best bit.'

FRANCES

Anyone can see the poor thing needs that biscuit more than the rest of us. She's that thin, she'd snap in a high wind. The way young lassies starve themselves. It's not attractive. She could be quite pretty too. Lovely bone structure, if there was more than just skin stretched over it.

JAMIE

The skinny bird takes the biscuit without saying anything and starts nibbling away at it, like a mouse. Her mouth. Telling you. It's mental.

When it opens, you can just see, it's bright red inside. Can't take my eyes off it. Sexy as anything. All red, and wet. A tiny triangle of tongue darts out and swipes around her lips. I want to put my fingers in her mouth and feel about. Like there's bound to be treasure in there. Some kind of jewel or a golden key or a miniature beating heart. All this just comes out of nowhere. My mouth goes dry and I sit on my hands to stop them reaching out to her. I'm blushing. I glance around the rest of the group. Allen's glasses have come loose again and Megan is staring like she wants to eat her. Frances wipes her forehead with a tissue and it comes away all smeared with orangey-brown gunk.

MEGAN

We're all watching as she chews and swallows. It's like we're all waiting for something to happen. Then it does. She sits suddenly forward in her chair, her mouth peels open. I think she's about to speak. But her hand goes to her throat and her eyes widen. We're all just sitting there watching her. I'm hoping she's just making a big performance out of being about to speak, since she's said nothing so far. I think we're all trying to hold onto that same hope while knowing we're looking at something else completely.

ALLEN

Her eyes are bulging now, like they're being inflated from the inside, pushing out from the bones of her head and her hands are clawing at her throat, leaving red scores on her white skin. Her mouth is open so wide she looks like a baby bird waiting to be fed. Waiting and waiting and nothing coming her way. Straining wider and wider till her mouth is bigger than the whole of her head.

JAMIE

Why isn't anybody doing anything? I don't fucking know what to do. Why doesn't anyone know what the fuck to do? She's up off the seat in a crouching position, keeling over to the side and then she's down on the floor, her legs scrabbling under her like she's trying to run away. Then there's this moment like a pulse, like some electric charge goes through everyone and we're all on our feet.

FRANCES

Allen pulls the lassie upright and I get behind her, lock my arms around her middle and pull back hard. Heimlich manoeuvre.
Everyone knows it. Anyone of us could have done it. I just happen to be the one in the right place at the time.

JAMIE

This wet doughy wad of chewed custard cream comes shooting out the girl's mouth, hits the coffee table and explodes, sprays right across it. And it's like everyone unfreezes. Megan helps Frances and the pair of them lay the lassie down on the settee next to me as I sit down and let her sort of slump over so her head is on my lap. She's breathing heavy and her forehead is damp as I stroke her hair out of her eyes. She nestles into my arms like they're a space that was always waiting for her. I feel like I'll never let her go. Like I'm only here, was only ever here to take care of her. Like this is love.

ALLEN

It all happened so fast but everyone's doing what they need to do. I take the lassie's hand and rub it. It's limp but I can see the life pumping through those small blue veins. She turns her head and looks me right in the eye. Her eyes are so blue and her look makes a clear space right through all the shite and shows me what I have to do. Soon as I leave here I'm going to phone Lisa. Life is so fucking short. There's no time to arse around.

Megan has her arm around Frances, holding her up. Both crying. Big black tears are running down Frances' face and Megan is wiping them away, telling her everything's okay, that she's amazing, that she saved that lassie. Someone, maybe it was me, I don't know, shouts to the receptionist to phone an ambulance.

Chicken

Don't think about it. Just keep shovelling. Try not to breathe any more than necessary. Get the job done.

The stuff weighs almost nothing, taken one shovelful at a time. But when the first bag is full it stands as tall as my waist and the rolled plastic edges stretch tight over my fingers when I heft it to the side. One down, two more to go.

Across the road, I can see them watching. Arthur's orange curls blazing in the sun, legs planted wide, arms folded across his chest. He'll see these bags filled and brought back over the road and he won't take his eyes off me till it's done. No chance of escape. Not from him.

It's piled in three hills, high as houses in the middle of the field. This field isn't even ours. It belongs to the farmer next door but Arthur says we've an arrangement with him and I've drawn the short straw. What straw? I asked, and he gave me one of his looks. The short one, boy, he said. None of the others are going to stick up for me. They're having a great old laugh, happy not to be Arthur's victim for the day, the week, however long he likes. Eddie's been getting it in the neck most of the summer, so a day off for him must feel like Christmas. Still, someone needs to have a word.

Doesn't even smell like shit. Not like manure or anything. Manure's got a good clean smell, sort of natural. If I had to choose a favourite shit smell then it'd be horse. But this stuff is rank. Worse even than Eddie-after-a-curry-in-the-portabog stink. This is beyond shit. It's disease and filth. Don't get me
wrong, I'm no veggie, I like my meat, but this stuff is making me think about the battery barns it's come from, about the crippled birds sitting in their own mess, about how all eighteen years of my life somehow add up to this. To me in this field with this mountain of shit.

Shake another bag open and weigh it down with a couple of shovelfuls. Where I've been digging, the stuff underneath is damp, yellow-white and porridgey. The sun has dried out the top layer and the wind lifts dust and crumpled feathers off the sides of the hills and swirls them around. It's all over me, on my face, in the creases of my clothes, through my hair, making it feel coarse and sticky like wool does when it's still on a sheep.

I blow my nose into my hand and this muck comes out thick like wallpaper paste. I hawk and spit and the taste in my mouth nearly makes me chuck but I hold it in. I'll not give him the satisfaction. Christ, it's hot. The sun's on the back of my neck like a branding iron.

Just get it done.

You'd think a man with a name like Arthur would be some nice easy-going old bloke with trousers all bagged out at the knee and maybe a fishing rod or an allotment. Our Arthur picks me up for work at five thirty every morning at the bottom of my street. The early start is fine when you get used to it. Better to be out the house before the old man wakes anyway. I like walking down the road while everyone else is asleep. Not a sound apart from the birds until Arthur turns up. I can hear him coming a mile off. Drives a red Escort with so many spoilers and extra bits of body-work you have to wonder what's underneath it all. When he pulls up, the engine noise is drowned out by the Bruce Springsteen Arthur likes to play, full blast with the windows down. He doesn't lower the volume when I get in, just shouts
over the top of it, drinking from a can of Pepsi Max and steering with two fingers, arm crooked out the window. And he never stops talking. It's usually details I don't want to hear about all the sex stuff he did with his wife the night before. Or his psycho mates and the fights they get into. I just stare out the window, but I can't tune right out in case he asks a question and susses I've not been listening.

His eyes are a chlorinated blue, and his hair is brutally orange. No one takes the piss the way they normally would with a ginger nut. No jokes about Duracell or carrot tops around Arthur. Not if you value your life. Eddie once called him the Ginga Ninja, thinking Arthur was up the top field but he was back and he overheard him. Probably that's why Arthur's had it in for him all summer. Someone should say something though. He's right out of order.

Don't know what I did to deserve his attention today. Maybe he's just sharing out the pain, his own idea of fairness, showing he's no favourites.

His skin is white as milk, as if his hair and eyes got all the colour going and his skin was left with none. The muscles on his arms and shoulders are all scooped and piled up like ice cream Sundaes. He's not a tall man but not short. Broad, walks bow-legged like a cowboy, holding his arms out from his sides like he's about to reach for his gun any second. The rumour is he's not long out the jail. Killed some guy outside a pub. Didn't mean to, just unlucky. Not as unlucky as the poor bastard he killed, Eddie said. One punch and the guy went down, hit his head on the kerb and that was him. Finished. Involuntary manslaughter. I don't know if it's true. Don't know where the rumour came from. Could've been Arthur himself started it. It's the sort of thing he'd think was funny.

Couple of weeks ago he nailed Eddie's lunch box to the ceiling of the howf. We all watched him do it. No one said anything. He emptied it first, got the nail gun, stood on a chair, held the box against the ceiling and fired four nails through the base. Then he crammed Eddie's lunch back inside and put the lid on. When Eddie came in we all watched him looking for his lunch. Arthur watching us. Eventually he found it. Everyone was laughing, especially Eddie, though we all knew he didn't think it was funny. He saw it through, climbed up and tugged at the box so the lid came off, let his sandwiches slap him in the face, his banana poke him in the eye as it fell. He just stood there laughing, a brown smear of pickle wiped across his cheek. Never said a thing.

The empty box is still there on the ceiling. Eddie brings his lunch in a plastic bag now. And Eddie's the foreman. Arthur is really no one, no better than any of us, but don't try telling him that. Even Ross the Boss gives him a wide berth, calls Eddie up to the office if he's something to say, doesn't come down to the nursery himself if Arthur's around. Learned his lesson the first time. He'd said something about could Arthur please not park his car in his special manager's space. We all knew that was a mistake. Next day, Arthur got the guy that delivers the compost to dump the load on Ross's Beamer. Covered it completely, just the wing mirrors sticking out from this hill of compost. Ross got Eddie to dig it out. Didn't say anything to Arthur. Thing is, Arthur's a good worker, fast and strong, so we all have to work harder to keep up. Since he started we've got on faster than ever before. The top field is already laid out and the polytunnels are nearly done. That's pure profit for Ross. And that's what he likes. So, we're stuck with Arthur till the end of the season. All the same, it's not right. The way he is.

I'm on the third bag and it's started to rain. Not enough to wash the stuff off me. Just enough to plaster it on worse. The front of my coat is all stuck with scraggy feathers and crap, the combination of the wet and the dust making a kind of gluey soup. This lot is going straight in the machine, soon as I'm in the door. Boil wash. Just have to hope the old man's still down the pub when I get back.

It's not right though. I know fine nobody asked for three bags of chicken shit. Probably the farmer doesn't even know I'm in his field. For all I know he could come along and shoot me for nicking his shit. I shouldn't have to take this. But the third bag is almost full. I'll finish it. I'll fill these fucking bags and take them over and dump them and that'll be an end to it. And I'll tell him as much.

I have to take them one at a time. The wet plastic is hard to get a grip on and I have to hug them close in to my body, stuff falling out over my chest, some down the neck of my t-shirt. A car horn sounds as I cross the road, not looking, too busy thinking about what I'm going to say. I am going to say something. What's he going to do? I don't reckon he wants to go back to the jail. Arthur's watching me from a distance, smiling and nodding. His white t-shirt is tight across his chest, tucked into his faded blue jeans. He looks deliberately clean, glowing like a washing powder advert. I'm on my way back for the third bag when it occurs to me that maybe the jail is exactly what he wants. Maybe he's too much of a coward to face up to life on the outside. Maybe his wife and all the dirty stuff he claims she wants him to do makes him sick and he wants to get back to his quiet life inside. Provoking one of us enough to set him off. That'll be his plan. Mad ginger bastard. Well I'll not give him the satisfaction. No way. He can go whistle for it.