Oddjobs 2: This Time It's Personnel Read online

  “Well, maybe you’ll get a chance to tell me. I’m in your neck of the woods tomorrow evening.”

  “Really?”

  “Got a job interview on Thursday.”

  “The tech support role?”

  “You know about it?”

  “I knew the previous person,” said Morag. “Knew, fought, fed to a shape-shifting god.”

  “Really?”

  “Long story.”

  “Sounds like we have a wau lot to talk about.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  A movement at the edge of her vision caught Morag’s eye. She turned and, for an instant, didn’t even recognise the woman and then, with a jolt, she saw that it was herself: herself still wearing the work clothes she had taken off just minutes earlier, herself holding a wide slice of pizza.

  “Call you back,” she said and ended the call.

  She stared at the other Morag.

  The other Morag took a bite of pizza. “Richard said you didn’t want any.”

  “How the hell…?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “And they told you to come here?”

  The other Morag gave her a tired smile. Is that what her smile looked like? God, it looked smarmy.

  “No one knows,” said the other Morag. “I didn’t know what they’d say.”

  “What?”

  The other Morag rustled in a carrier bag and pulled out the Rubik’s Cube of Prein and the pabash kaj doll.

  “You stole them?” said Morag and then immediately, “You used them? The tunnelling power of the cube to bypass Omar’s wards and then…”

  “This is Steve the Destroyer,” said the other Morag, “of the entourage of Prein.”

  “I will tear your soul apart,” squeaked the doll adorably, struggling in the woman’s grip.

  “Jesus wept,” said Morag. “And I thought I had fucked up enough for one day. I break one OOPArt and cause a disaster and now you steal two more and… you!”

  “Me?”

  “You’re a damned OOPArt yourself! You don’t belong!”

  “Charming, Morag. I’m you.”

  “You’re a… you’re an OOPMorag.”

  “So witty. Are you finished bitching now?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Fine,” said the other Morag. “Now, let’s open that bottle of nasty Merlot in the cupboard because I don’t think I can face any more of today sober.”

  And Morag heartily agreed.

  Wednesday

  “We need to decide on names.”

  “I was trying to sleep.”

  “I can’t. We need to decide on names.”

  “What’s to decide? My name’s Morag.”

  “So’s mine.”

  “We can keep using them both. When I say Morag, I mean you. When you say Morag, you mean me.”

  “And if someone says Morag and we’re in the same place?”

  “When are we ever going to show our faces in the same place?”

  “I will drag your soul to hell!”

  “Shut up, Steve. You’re not helping.”

  “We need names to define ourselves. You were Plaits Morag yesterday.”

  “I took the plait out.”

  “You can still be Plaits.”

  “No. It’s a stupid name.”

  “OOPMorag, then.”

  “Why do I have to change my name?”

  “Because I’m the original.”

  “Which makes you better, huh?”

  “No, it makes me the oldest. I’m Morag. You can be… Morag Junior.”

  “Junior?”

  “Yeah, just Junior is fine.”

  “I think I preferred Plaits.”

  “If you like.”

  “No, I’ll be Junior. You can be Senior.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Old Mother Murray. It suits you. You’ve already got more grey hairs than me.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “The elderly can often find things confusing.”

  “Cheeky wee bitch.”

  “You’ve only got yourself to blame.”

  “I will flay the sins from your bones!”

  “Shut up, Steve.”

  Jeffney Ray got up at dawn every day.

  He rolled nimbly out from under his Aston Villa duvet, cast his sleep mittens aside and stood in front of the mirror above the hand basin that had been put in when this had been his grandma’s bedroom. The smell of grandma still clung to the place, to the fat pillows and the pink, deep-pile carpet, even months after she had gone. Ray had tried to make the place his own – the Villa duvet, his collection of forbidden texts on the window sill – but the old woman’s ghost lingered.

  As a self-employed and independent dealer in all things occult, he knew that an early start was a positive start on the day. He had once seen an internet meme that read, “The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese” and it had stuck with him. He’d typed it up on his mom’s computer in a bold and dramatic font, printed it off and wedged it in the side of the mirror so he would see it every day. Yes, he was the early bird and, yes, he was that cautious mouse. And today was going to be an especially busy day: door-to-door sales, a trip to Fish Town, then the Black Barge and an appointment at MMI.

  Ray looked at his reflection. He ignored the most recent cuts on his face. They were still healing. The old scars were the ones that bothered him most. His mom told him repeatedly that they were barely noticeable but once you saw them, the white web of short scratches was impossible to ignore. His face was more scar than gap, a crazily smashed mirror of a face. Ray set about his morning routine, washing and then applying bio-oils and silicone gel to his ruined face. He hummed his mantra as he rubbed them in: fifty it-rubs-the-lotion-on-its-skins for the bio-oil and fifty it-rubs-the-lotion-on-its-skins for the silicone gel.

  Cleansed, Ray dressed. A proper businessman dressed smartly and Ray was determined to look the part. A shirt with metal wingtips. Blue jacket on top. Polished shoes. Oxfords not brogues. That’s what the man said. Ray applied a blob of gel to his hair and combed it through. Lots of product. The girls liked that. Looking neat, looking sharp. He pocketed his comb, checked he had his Travel West Midlands bus pass, packed his clipboard, his notebook and his copy of Venislarn: A Language Primer in his briefcase and slipped down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  His mom was at the kitchen sink, smoking a fag and staring mindlessly out across the garden. Ray got his probiotic yoghurt drink from the fridge and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “You smell nice,” she said absently.

  “That’s the lavender-scented facewash.”

  She came back to the here and now slowly. She looked at his suit and the briefcase.

  “Where you off to?”

  He waggled the briefcase. “Sales don’t make themselves.”

  “They are paying you, aren’t they?” she asked. She had asked it before.

  “And how!”

  “Don’t let them take advantage of you, Jeffney.”

  “God, mom.”

  She looked back to the window. “Weren’t you going to take that shed down for me?”

  He tutted at her. “I’ve got to clear some things out first, mom. I’ll deal with it.”

  “Right,” she said and went back to smoking her fag.

  Morag Junior (previously Plaits Morag, previously just Morag or perhaps nothing at all depending on one’s perspective) made tea and toast for the pair of them in the morning. It was a reconciliatory gesture. Turning up on one’s own doorstep unexpectedly would come as a surprise to anyone and perhaps she, Junior, had misjudged how Morag Senior would react. A settling in period was needed. Bridges needed to be built.

  While Steve the Destroyer ran around on the kitchen counter looking for weapons he could a) use to disembowel her and b) lift in his tiny cloth hands, Morag spread thick marmalade and poured the tea. As she added milk, she dithered over which cup she
would give to Morag Senior. Of the two that were clean, one was perfectly adequate and the other was her favourite mug with the ducks on it. She was naturally inclined to give the duck one to herself but she was trying to be nice so she should give it to Morag Senior but Morag Senior would instantly know what the gesture meant and thus it would be crass and obvious.

  Morag Senior walked in, scooped up the duck cup and sat at the fold-leaf table to eat her toast.

  “Helped yourself to my wardrobe, huh?” she said, nodding at Junior’s clothes.

  Junior bit back the reply that they were her clothes too.

  “I couldn’t wear yesterday’s clothes.”

  Senior nodded.

  “True. But I don’t think I’m happy about it though. You need your own clothes.”

  Steve the Destroyer ran along the counter, a chopstick held overhead like a spear and tried to impale Junior’s hand as it rested on the counter. The chopstick bounced off Junior’s skin. The force knocked Steve the Destroyer from his feet but he came up in a fighting stance.

  “Stop it,” she said.

  “You will suffer the death of a thousand blows, gobbet!” he squeaked.

  “That was a poke, not a blow.”

  “The death of a thousand pokes!”

  Junior picked him up, put him in the microwave and closed the door.

  “Today, you can sort out my clothes,” said Senior.

  “You’re giving me chores?” said Junior.

  “You have other plans? Get all the laundry done and then make two equal piles. One for you, one for me.”

  “And then you pick which one you want when you come home. Sounds fair. You want me to cook dinner too?”

  “I’ve tasted our cooking,” said Senior. “Besides, I’ve got dinner with Cameron tonight. But if you’re having the day off work, you could do some other jobs.”

  “Like what?”

  Senior looked at her. “You’re me. You know what needs doing.”

  “We need to buy some new towels. And there’s that art print in the shop you fancied.”

  “You’re picking jobs from the nice end of the list there.”

  “I could change the bedsheets. You hate doing duvets.”

  Senior shook her head.

  “What then?”

  “We promised Richard we’d help him with his jigsaw.”

  “God, no.”

  “You told him it was an intellectual challenge and, I quote, ‘I’d love to help finish it’.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “And, on top of that, we’ve been promising to –”

  “No. Not that,” said Junior loudly and forcefully.

  “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

  “I’m not doing it.”

  “Mrs Atraxas lives upstairs all by herself.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “And when did we last go round for a coffee?”

  “That stuff’s not coffee.”

  “It’s just a drink and –”

  “A million photos of her cats in knitted bonnets.”

  “Yes. Take a bullet for the team.”

  Junior bit her toast miserably. She opened the microwave and released Steve the cuddly Destroyer.

  “Kill me now, Steve.”

  The doll did a little dance of glee and went off in search of weaponry.

  Rod and Vivian sat in traffic in one of the Queensway tunnels. Attempting to drive from the Library of Birmingham out to the housing estates of south Birmingham during morning rush hour was an almost pointless exercise. They now sat in the green-grey light of the tunnels, breathing the fumes of all the other vehicles in the two-lane queue.

  If Rod had his way, they wouldn’t be there at all. Mr Canal-Bike had called the police with further tales of bicycles mangled by canalside predators. Rod was happy to ignore such time-wasters. Vivian, however, was quick to remind him that aquatic incursions fell under the response team’s specific remit and they were obliged to attend. Rod had told her that she was welcome to attend. Vivian had assured him that she would do so, and then insisted that he drive her there so she could read en route.

  “Look at this,” said Rod, gesturing to the traffic.

  Vivian looked.

  “Yes,” she said and returned to her papers. Traffic jams were none of her concern. They merely gave her more time to read.

  Rod tried some meditative breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  “Stop that,” said Vivian.

  “Breathing?”

  “Breathing like that.”

  Rod grimaced and held his tongue.

  “You know, perhaps I shouldn’t even be driving or owt with this arm,” he said, gesturing to the dressings invisible beneath his shirt and jacket sleeve. “That Dinh’r near had my arm off.”

  Vivian regarded the arm in question.

  “Did the doctor say you could not drive?”

  “Not as such.”

  “No.”

  The car in front inched forward a fraction. Rod inched forward too. His thoughts were now on doctors, one doctor in particular.

  “I’m meeting someone for drinks later.”

  “Yes?” said Vivian, uninterested.

  “I’m wondering what to wear.”

  Vivian lowered her papers. “Are you likely to spill some?”

  “That’s not what I…” He shook his head. “I’m wondering what I’m meant to wear if I’m meeting someone. I dress smartly for work.”

  “I approve.”

  “But I can’t just dress smartly again. That’s just me turning up in my work clothes.”

  “But you have more than one suit, do you not?”

  “Four. Three for work and one for funerals. I’m not wearing my funeral suit. That would send out the wrong signals. Vivian…” He paused, knowing he was heading into dangerous territory. “If you were meeting someone, a man, for a date, what would you want him to wear?”

  “I do not date, Rod. I have never dated. Nasty American invention. In my day, one had dinner or met in some other social situation. There was no need for a special word for it.”

  “Yes, but when you went out with Mr Grey, back when, you know…”

  “When he was alive, Rod. Yes. Don’t be coy. I do know he’s dead. There is no need to break it to me gently.”

  “But what did he wear?”

  “He wore the clothes I bought him.”

  “And those were?”

  “Suit trousers, jacket and a shirt.”

  “No tie?”

  “It depended on the social event.”

  “So maybe I should just take my tie off,” he said and then sighed. “I think what I’m meant to wear is smart casual.”

  Rod’s phone, tucked into the satnav holder on the dashboard, rang. Rod tapped the answer icon. “Campbell.”

  “Hi bab, it’s Lois,” said the office receptionist on speaker. “Are you at the call in Aston?”

  “Stuck on the A38,” said Rod. “So, no.”

  “Are you close to Ludgate Hill?”

  “By the canal?” They were only twenty yards from the tunnel exit and the slip road that could take them off via Livery Street towards the Jewellery Quarter. “Very close. If we can get out of this traffic.”

  “The police need back up with an incident, a Mammonite caught trying to kidnap a local.”

  “We can probably be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  “Ta.”

  The call dropped. Rod inched forward again even though the car in front hadn’t moved.

  “What is smart casual?” he said.

  “An oxymoron,” said Vivian, “and an abomination.”

  The number 6 bus took Ray from Shirley up the Stratford Road to the city. Ray sat on the upper deck and read his Venislarn primer.

  “Skeidl hraim yeg courxean. Oyo-map-ehu merishimsha meren’froi. Do not kill me, honoured friend. I was only admiring your beauty. Meren’froi. Meren�
�froi.”

  He rolled the alien word around in his mouth and ignored whatever glances the other early commuters threw his way. The lone wolf did not care for the opinions of sheep. A girl across the aisle watched him. Ray reckoned she was a five, maybe a six. She was giving him filthy looks. He knew what she wanted. Dream on, girl, he thought.

  In his briefcase, Ray had a folded map of the city on which he had crossed off the streets he’d already covered. When he’d first started this sales racket, he’d worked his way up the Stratford Road, through Hall Green, Sparkhill, Sparkbrook and into the city centre via Deritend and Digbeth. From there he’d experimentally branched out into different areas. He quickly found that although it was quicker to cover the cheaper areas of town (in tower blocks, it was less than five seconds from one door to the next), he’d convert more knocks to sales in wealthier areas. Ray was peddling an offer that was too good to be true and the wealthy were likelier to fall for it. They spent their lives expecting something for nothing, why should it be any different with their phone and broadband?

  Today, Ray continued to work his way through the big old houses where Edgbaston ran up against the ring road and Five Ways. The first knock of the day was always the hardest. A salesman didn’t get a chance to warm up; he had to hit the ground running. As he crunched up the short gravel drive, he reminded himself: he was the early bird, the cautious mouse, top dog, a lone wolf. Frankly, Ray was a lot of animals. He didn’t have to settle for just one.

  Knock, knock.

  The man holding the slice of toast who answered the door was young, perhaps only a handful of years older than Ray. Good. The young and wealthy were the best marks of all. The young thought they had a handle on the world and were immune from tricksters and con artists. Not that Ray was a con artist, he delivered exactly what he promised. The terms and conditions were quite precise.

  “Good morning, mate. And it is a good morning, isn’t it? Tell me, are you happy with your current broadband provider?”

  “We’ve got Sky,” said the man, already closing the door and putting the toast to his mouth.

  “Because I can get your telephone and broadband down to a fiver a month,” said Ray quickly.

  The door stopped.

  “Five pounds?” said the man.

  “Five pounds, mate,” said Ray. “Five of your English pounds.”