My Clocking In System

Jodie rang at 11:31 and he had the phone in his hand before it got to the second ring.

"She’s taken them. All 6." She was walking fast with traffic behind her. "And she’s put them at £150, not 120."

"Jodie, that’s..."

"Don’t. You told me on Tuesday sat on my floor and I’ve been walking up this road for 10 minutes being pleased and then getting the hump about it, and I’ve not sorted it out yet."

"You’re cross you’re making more money."

"I’m cross I’d have taken 120." A bus went past her. "I’d have taken it and said thank you and she’d have let me."

"She didn’t though."

"No." Her voice changed. "No, she could have and she didn’t. She said £120’s a supermarket dress with a good collar on it, and then she said, who taught you collars, and I said nobody, and she said right, come back in 3 weeks and we’ll see what’s gone."

Danny stood up off the bucket.

"That’s a second order."

"That’s a woman being nice."

"That’s a woman telling you to come back in 3 weeks. I’ve had 4 people say that to me this month and every time it meant something."

"Right, well." She had stopped walking. "I’m not thinking about it till they’ve been in a window a fortnight. Are you at that shop?"

"I’m at the shop."

"On a Saturday."

"I’m at Mum’s at 1 and I’ve got to be somewhere at 4."

"Course you have." No weight on it. "Go on then. And thanks for picking up."

"I said I would."

"You did," Jodie said, and went.

The message came in at 12:18 while he was getting the shutter down, and he read it stood on the pavement with the key still in the lock.

Naomi Adeyemi. On a Saturday. She had never sent one on a Saturday.

Mr Flynn. Croydon have come back early. They did it Friday afternoon rather than Monday. Could you come and see me first thing.

Danny stood on Verney Road with his hand on a shutter.

Friday afternoon.

She filed it at 9 in the morning and they ran it the same day and she’s had the answer since Friday and she’s sat on it overnight and texted me at 12 on a Saturday.

Which is what you do when it can’t wait till Monday and you’re not going to put it in writing.

He typed what’s it say and looked at it and deleted it, because there was no version of that answer he wanted to read stood on a pavement, and there was no version of Naomi Adeyemi that would put it in a message anyway.

He typed what time instead.

8am. I’ll be in from 7.

The scooter was cold and did not catch first time.

Adaeze rang him at 25 past 12 while he was crossing the bridge, and he let it go and pulled in on the north side and rang her back, because she had not rung him since October and she is not a woman who rings for nothing.

"Danny Flynn."

"Adaeze."

"I want to ask you something and I want you to not be clever with me about it."

He stood on the pavement with the river going underneath.

"Go on."

"A woman rang me Monday morning from a building called the Sterling and asked me about you." Her voice was completely level, which is how she says everything that matters. "And I told her the true thing and I stopped, exactly like you asked me to on the Friday night. Eleven years, always paid, 2 months behind at the start of the year."

"I know. She told me. Thank you."

"I’m not finished." A pause. "And then she asked me for dates and I told her I’ve only owned it 2 years, which you will have known and I didn’t think about until I said it out loud, and she went quiet for about 4 seconds."

"Adaeze."

"And then she asked me who owned it before, and I said a company I’ve never met anybody from, and I’ve spent 2 hours in a loft with a torch since and I’ve found the completion statement and I’ve sent it to her."

"I know you have. You did that at 7 in the morning and I’m not going to pretend that’s nothing."

"No, you’re not." Something moved in her voice for the first time. "Now here’s my question, and it’s the one I’ve been sat with since Monday."

He waited.

"At the end of it, she asked me where you were living now. And I said I didn’t know, which is true, and then I told her I had a bit of post for you." Adaeze let that sit. "I have not got any post for you. There is no post. I made it up standing in my own kitchen, to a stranger, because I wanted her to tell me where you’d gone."

Danny stood on the north side of the bridge with the wind coming off the water.

"Right."

"And she said forward it to me and I’ll see it gets to him." A short breath. "So now there is a woman at a building expecting an envelope, and I’ve got a week before it looks strange, and I do not tell lies to people for a living, Danny."

"I know you don’t."

"I have been a landlord for 11 years and I have never once said a word to anybody that I could not stand behind." She was not shouting. That was the worst of it. "And I said that one in about a second and a half because I wanted to know where you live. So you can tell me what I’m in."

Tell her.

She’s 39 years old and she never once chased you and she went up a ladder into a loft with a torch at 7 in the morning for you, and she has just told you she lied for the first time in her life about it.

Tell her.

And then she’s in it. Then she knows, and she’s a woman with a name and an address and a business, and she is exactly the sort of person who would be asked.

"There’s an insurance form," Danny said. "For the flat I’m in. And it wants 3 years of addresses and you can only cover 2 of them, and that’s the whole of it, and it’s nobody’s fault."

"That’s not an answer to what I asked."

"No."

"I asked what I’m in."

"You’re not in anything." He had his eyes shut on a bridge. "You answered a reference honestly and you found a document in a loft. That’s it. That’s all you’ve done."

"And the post?"

"Tell her you were mistaken. Tell her it was for the flat and you’ve opened it and it’s a circular." He made himself say the next bit. "Or give me her name and I’ll tell her myself that there’s nothing coming, and I’ll say you told me."

Adaeze did not say anything for a moment.

"You’d do that."

"Yeah."

"Right." Something settled. "No. I’ll do my own. I’m not having you ring a woman to clean up after me."

"Adaeze..."

"And I’ll tell you what I actually want, since we’re doing it." She had gone brisk. "I want you to tell me where you live. Not because I’m going to turn up. Because you sat in my kitchen in September and told me you didn’t know how you’d get through the winter, and it is November, and I have not got one idea where you are."

Danny stood on the bridge.

Say it.

Say the name of the building. It’s one sentence and she’d never tell a soul.

"I’m all right," he said.

"That’s not where you live."

"No."

"No." A long pause with a car going past on her end. "Well. You know where I am."

Click.

His mother had the pie in at half 12 and would not be told about it.

"It wants an hour."

"I know it wants an hour."

"Well, you were stood in that doorway like a man who’s going somewhere." She had the oven open. "Sit down."

The kitchen was the kitchen. The robin mug, the 3 photos on the shelf, and the brown chair by the window in the front room with the light on it.

He sat at the Formica table with a phone in his coat pocket that had Croydon in it, and let her do 10 minutes on Denise upstairs, who had been to the doctor about her knee and come back with a leaflet.

"A leaflet, Danny. She’s 61 and she does 4 flights with a bin bag every day of her life."

"Is she going back?"

"She is not going back, because that’s Denise." She sat down. "You’ve gone thin."

"I’ve not gone thin."

"You’ve gone thin in the face. That’s what happens with you, it goes in your face first." She put her hands round her mug. "You looked like this that year."

He did not ask which year.

They ate at half 1 and it was very good and he said so twice and meant it both times, and then she started clearing up and stopped with a plate in her hand.

"Oh. I meant to say."

"Go on."

"I went to bin that postcard and I couldn’t find it."

Danny put his fork down.

"I’ve had that whole drawer out." She was running the tap. "I thought I’d done it myself the week after and forgot, because I do that now."

She’s handed it to you.

Say nothing and she’ll never think about it again as long as she lives.

"I took it," he said.

The tap went off.