Living Upside Down. John Hickman

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СКАЧАТЬ iron men from the surf join the girls. “They say it’s easy enough to apply.”

      “Yes, I know. Moreover, if you qualify they’ll sponsor you, which means employment is guaranteed. They haven’t shut up about it. All anyone has to do is pack up their shit and move to the arse end of nowhere!”

      Sue’s emerald eyes bore in to Roger. “They say Australia is a huge continent that’s only sparsely populated.”

      Roger’s gut tightens and the feeling of cement shoes forms around his feet.

      “I’m unimpressed. And anyway, much as some of the scenery appeals, don’t I have a good enough job here?”

      “Yes, you do.”

      Jayne! Don’t let Fred lick your face, Sweetheart, you don’t know where a dog’s tongue’s been.”

      “£1,200 per annum, Sue, plus commission on sales; can’t sneeze at that.”

      Sue counters, “When they don’t renege.”

      “They have been known to move the goalposts mid game but don’t forget there’s a company car.”

      “Luxuries are beyond our reach, admittedly a gap made wider since the failure of your father’s hotel businesses.”

      Sue did not marry Roger for his money. Sometimes he wonders why indeed she married him at all.

      Their agreement was to have children and at twenty-one years of age that was alright with him. A view currently shared by her, but she is finding him increasingly difficult to please.

      “There’s not too many around here on that sort of moolah in their mid twenties. We can’t live on the square root of nothing. I’ve got two children under four to support, no degree or trade qualifications.”

      Now the cement is inching up his calves.

      Sue frowns. “But you don’t really like working in pest control, do you?”

      “I wanted a profession. All those years of studying Latin and the General Principles of English Law, turns out now I just need money.”

      “You’re not Robinson Crusoe, Roger. Most people are short of money.”

      “Who’d have thought I’d end up killing vermin for a living. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m physically repulsed, Sue. Frankly, some pests frighten the shit out of me. I have the odd nightmare of being trapped in a cellar, I can hear them but unable to find them. Then again as a consultant I don’t have a great deal of contact with them.”

      Ironically, the cement is now reaching his throat.

      Sue juggles James and her cup of tea. “I can honestly say I enjoyed hairdressing — every moment — I truly loved it.”

      James grizzles.

      “Not surprising as you were rubbing shoulders with stars of the silver screen,” Roger patronises, “but I’ve never done anything I truly liked since college, and I wasn’t rapt in that. To me a job is just that, a job. At the hotels I cooked, cleaned, served at table, bar, and now I’m chasing money, which is about as easy as levitating right now.”

      “To most people going to Australia would be their adventure of a lifetime.” Sue fingers her nightie nervously. “Who knows? You might even stumble over a job you like?”

      Roger shrugs. “Adventure? I don’t think so. For thrills I’m thinking milk a death adder, castrate a raging bull, or…” he pauses caught for another suitable example. “Or, go sing the Scarlet Flag outside Buckingham Palace.”

      “Why?” she studies him closely.

      He feels himself shrink from the scrutiny. “There’s a time to be boring, Sue, or being a man. Think of the adrenalin rush before being arrested.”

      Sue takes a deep breath. “Imagine a life with sunshine, then.”

      “I’m so fair-skinned, I get burned by the fridge light.”

      “Then wear protection. It could be the best £50 you’d ever spend.”

      “Fifty quid!” Roger shrieks. “How come?”

      “Well,” Sue replies testily, “unless you’ve not noticed lately there are five of us in this family.”

      Roger grunts, “Can Fred go for £10?”

      “I don’t know,” for an instant Sue’s smile falters, it no longer reaches her eyes, “he is part of our family, isn’t he? We can hardly leave him behind.”

      “That reminds me he’s due to be neutered at the vet.”

      Roger lights another cigarette.

      “Ignoring the vet taking a higher percentage of our earnings than the mortgage this month, I see my future prospects as reasonably bright. My region’s supposed to be expanding.” He chances a bright smile. “I have you, our two children, and the dog. I’m not complaining.”

      Sue strokes his arm, “But we’re still without curtains.”

      He now feels like a fully kilned concrete statue, ready for primer and paint.

      “You could always pretend it’s deliberate because we’ve nothing to hide,” he tries weakly.

      Sue frowns. “Heavy curtains would help keep the house warm.”

      Not long and they’re back to another advertisement.

      “Their beaches do look good,” Roger acknowledges, “I’ll give them that, but our local beach at Great Yarmouth is sandy enough, don’t you think?”

      “Maybe our sand isn’t quite as white as theirs,” Sue smiles, “nor our sea or sky as blue. Although you have to admit beach life here does lose most of its appeal.”

      “Why?”

      “Well, being adjacent to the North Sea, for starters, it’s too damned cold.”

      “Being unable to stand upright in a force eight gale, you mean.”

      Sue looks at Roger triumphantly. She barks back. “Unless you’re congenial to being rugged-up to the eyebrows, it doesn’t make for a great day at the beach, does it?”

      Roger pries himself reluctantly from the warm cushion of his armchair and reaches for the coal scuttle to replenish the fire. Tense as his wife is, he realises that she would likely go off as easily as nitroglycerine dancing on hot coals. He decides to tread carefully.

      Certainly, their small two-bedroom brick veneer house, Casa Del Coxwell, is not remarkable by any means, looking out as it does over a street of identical small homes with small front gardens, ranging from immaculately tidy to jungles of death.

      Tiny kitchen, living room and dining area combined. Their bathroom would suit Tom Thumb. The only people for whom the house is in any way special are Sue and Roger, as it happens to be the one they live in.

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