My Clocking In System

Out on Lavender Hill a road sweeper came up the bus lane the wrong way.

Tuesday your mum sat on that settee and told you not to tell another living soul, and she told you why, and she was right, and you nodded at her like a man agreeing to something.

48 hours.

And you didn’t do it because it was right. You did it because you’d had 4 hours of a woman not breathing next to you.

He went over the river the long way with the roads empty and was on his own step on Verney Road by 25 past, shutter up, hands round a cup of nothing.

Ray’s shutter went at 5 past 7. Wasim brought the van down at 20 past with the awning already out and made him a bacon roll with an egg on it that he had not asked for, £4.10, 90p back off a fiver.

"You’re stripping that shop out proper, then."

"Ceiling went in Wednesday."

"Yeah." Wasim had both arms on his own counter and was not looking at him. "What’s a coffee going to be in there?"

"Three twenty."

He said it and then he heard it come out.

"I do a tea for 90p and a coffee for a pound forty," Wasim said, to the hatch, "and I’ve had this corner 9 years."

Danny stood on the pavement with half a roll in his hand.

He’s not making conversation.

He’s been stood in that van since half 5 doing the same sum Keisha did, and he did it weeks ago, and he’s waited until you were on your own with your mouth full to say it.

"How long have you been sat on that?" Danny said.

"Three weeks."

"Why’ve you not said?"

"Because what am I going to say." Wasim wiped a counter that did not need it. "I’m not standing here asking a man not to open. So what do you want me to do about it?"

"How many teas do you do between 7 and 9?"

"Ninety. Hundred on a Monday."

"Then there’s 90 people on this road who’d not pay £3.20 for anything, and you’ve fed them off a van in the rain since 2016." Danny put the roll down on the counter. "I’ve got no oven, no pastry, no pavement licence and a ceiling with no skim on it. I’m not after your 90."

"Everybody says that."

"Them scaffolders go up to the garage."

Wasim stopped wiping.

"They go up the garage because I’ve got no toilet," he said. "Eight of them, every morning, and there’s 60p a man in a tea and they walk past me."

"That’s who I want."

"And when it’s raining in February and your 3 quid coffee’s got a chair next to it?"

"Then I’ll have took some of your 90 and you’ll be entitled to have a go at me about it."

Wasim looked at him for a bit.

"Right." He pulled the next order off the rail. "Well. I’m not going to pretend I’m pleased. You’ve still got no sign up, mind."

Keisha’s number came in at 8:41, while Danny was up the stepladder with a torch looking at nothing.

£3.20. 68p of that’s cup, lid, milk and beans if you’re on a decent roaster. Rent, rates, power, insurance, kit and 2 of us on the floor is about £310 a day before you’ve sold a thing. So you want 140 cups before you’re stood still. Marcus does 300 and he’s had that road 11 years and it’s a better road. Don’t panic. Just stop telling yourself 6am means money.

140 cups. Every day. Before anything.

And she’s sent that off her own break, for nothing, and she doesn’t start till the 17th.

Pat came at 25 to 2 with the trolley, wheels up over the threshold without her looking down, and stopped 4 feet in with both hands on the handle and her head back.

"Oh."

"Deniz did it Wednesday."

"There was a brown thing up there with a crack in it and I’ve sat under it for 16 years." She lowered herself into the bentwood chair, got the leg out straight, made the noise she makes. "Where’s your machine?"

"On the floor under 2 blankets. It goes back Saturday."

"So I’ve come for nothing."

"You’ve come for nothing."

"Put the kettle on then, you’ve got a kettle." She started on her gloves, one finger at a time. "Your girl’s not here."

"Keisha starts the 17th."

"The 17th." She took the tea off him without looking at it. "You want to get that sign up before then, because I’ll tell you what happened with Ted. Ted had no sign and Ted had no window and Ted got by on being the only one, and there’s a place opened on the Blue in August with a dog bowl outside it and a queue. I’ve walked past it. I didn’t go in."

"Why not?"

"Because I don’t know what it is, do I." She had a mouthful. "Big grey letters and a plant. Could be anything."

Danny leaned on his own counter.

"Pat. Who’s actually on this road in the morning?"

"What d’you mean who’s on it?"

"You’ve been coming here 16 years. Who walks past that window between 7 and 9?"

Pat put the mug down on the arm of the chair and thought about it in a way that took long enough for the road to go past outside twice.

"There’s 9 flats over Ray’s. Six of them’s got somebody going out early."

She started counting on her fingers on the handle of the trolley.

"That block on the corner’s 40-odd, and half of them’s got a car and half hasn’t. School lets out this side because of the crossing, so that’s 3 o’clock and a lot of noise and they’ve all got a pound off their mum."

"Go on."

"Them scaffolders have been on Verney since August. Eight of them in a van at 7." The last finger. "And there’s a woman brings 2 dogs down from the flats every morning of her life, and I’ve seen her 200 times, and I’ve never once spoken to her."

"That’s more than Keisha gave me."

"Keisha’s not been on this road 16 years, has she."

"No."

"Well then." Pat picked the mug back up. "Write her down an’ all, the dog woman. You’ll want a bowl and a hook outside for the lead and she’ll be in here 5 mornings a week for 20 years."

"A hook."

"In that brick by the downpipe, where she can see it through the glass." She pointed with the mug. "They’ll not leave a dog where they can’t see it. So she stands outside with it and drinks it in the cold, and you’ve lost the table and you’ve lost her bun."

Danny wrote HOOK on the back of Deniz’s docket.

"Norman’s got a chiropodist at 3 so I’m off at half 2." She started on the gloves again, the other way round this time. "Is your mother coming down before you open?"

"She’s not seen it since the floor went in."

"Well, that’s daft." Pat had both hands on the trolley. "Get her down before it’s finished. There’s things she’ll want asking about and she’ll not ask to be asked."

"I know."

"Right, well." She backed the trolley round the doorway the way she does it, one wheel at a time. "Mind your step there, you’ve left a screw on that floor."

He picked the screw up off the floor and put it on the windowsill, and the trolley went off down Verney Road.