Chapter 123: Wednesday I

He woke up at 10 to 5 with the birth certificate on the kitchen island where he had left it, and he stood in his own kitchen 40 floors up in his pants and read it again in the dark.

His name. The date. The district.

Under FATHER, in a registrar’s hand, a man in Noosa.

Right. Put it somewhere.

Not a drawer. A drawer’s where things go missing.

He put it flat in the inside pocket of his coat, in the bag his mother had given him, in the same envelope the 3 useless documents had come out of, and he did not take his coat off the hook for the rest of the day.

He was on the scooter at 6:20.

Deniz’s van was already outside the shop with the back doors open and a stack of boards going in under the streetlight, and the lad was carrying them one-handed on his head like a man carrying a tray.

"You’re early," Danny said.

"I’m always early. You’ve got a ceiling open and a road outside with kids on it." Deniz came past with a bag of screws. "Boards go up at 8 and they go up all day. By half 4 you’ve got a flat white ceiling and nothing above it."

"Right."

"Where’s your sparky?"

And Danny stood on the pavement at 20 past 6 in the morning and felt the whole of Monday come back at him.

Tell him morning. He said tell him morning and you were out the door by 9 and you went to a swimming pool.

And then Clapham, and then Mum’s, and it’s Wednesday.

"Hang on," Danny said.

He rang Errol from the kerb with the van doors banging behind him.

It went 7 rings.

"Danny."

"Errol, it’s early, I know."

"I’ve been up since 5, I’m in Sydenham." There was a drill going somewhere behind him and then it stopped. "Go on."

"My ceiling’s coming down and going back up today. It’s open right now and it shuts at half 4."

There was a pause with a woman’s voice in it somewhere, asking Errol something, and Errol saying 2 minutes, love, I’ve not forgot you.

"Today," Errol said.

"Today."

"Danny, I’ve got a consumer unit in bits and a woman of 78 sat in a coat. I’ve not got heat on in this house and I’m not leaving her in it."

"No."

"I mean I’m not, mate. I’ll come tonight, I’ll come at 6 tomorrow, but I’m not walking out of here."

"I know. Don’t." Danny had his free hand on the top of his own head. "I’m not asking you to."

"Then what are you asking me?"

Deniz went past with 2 boards and looked at him.

Think.

He doesn’t have to be here. He has to have told somebody where it goes.

"Can you tell somebody else where the cable goes," Danny said, "if you can’t pull it yourself?"

Errol did not answer for about 3 seconds.

"Who’s pulling it?"

"The plasterer."

"Is he any good?"

"He’s the best bloke who’s been in this building."

"Hm." A chair scraped on Errol’s end. "Put him on. And get a pen, you’re holding the tape."

So at 25 to 7 in the morning Danny stood in the middle of his own shop with the phone on the windowsill on speaker, plaster dust still on everything from Monday, and 2 men who had never met argued about his ceiling for 11 minutes.

"How many drops?" Errol said.

"That’s not me, that’s him." Deniz had his head back. "I’m not telling a man where his lights go."

"Danny."

"Six," Danny said. "Three over the counter and 3 down the middle."

"Why 3 over the counter?"

"Because there’s a machine, a grinder and a till, and the woman who’s running it is 5 foot 4 and she’ll have her back to the window all morning, and if there’s one big light behind her she’ll be working in her own shadow."

Silence on the line.

"Say that again about the shadow," Errol said.

Danny said it again.

"Give him the 3." That was to Deniz. "And a separate drop for the extraction, 400 off the wall, not tight in. That hood’ll want to move once she’s stood under it."

"How much slack?"

"Metre and a half in every void, taped up out the way. I’ve had 4 ceilings down this year off a buried cable."

"Not mine," Deniz said.

"No."

Danny marked the 6 positions on the joists in pencil with a tape measure and Deniz stood behind him and moved 2 of them.

"That one’s on a joist. Six inches left or you’re drilling a beam."

"Six left."

"And that one’s in the doorway. You’ll be stood under it with a tray."

"Then put it there." Danny moved it. "Where the woman with the trolley sits."

Deniz put his glasses down off his head for the first time since Monday and looked at the pencil mark.

"Right," he said. "Two hundred and forty and I’ll pull it and I’ll not certify a metre of it."

"Errol certifies it Friday."

"Friday, 7." Errol was already going off the windowsill. "And if it’s wrong it comes out. Right, I’ve got a woman in a coat."

Click.

Ray came out at 7 with his shutter half up and stood in the cold in a fleece.

"You’ve got 2 vans."

"One van, Ray."

"There’s a van and there’s a flatbed and the flatbed’s on my loading."

"That’s the boards."

"I’m not saying move it." Ray had his arms folded. "I’m saying I’ve had this road 22 years and I’ve never once seen a flatbed on that loading, and now there’s one on it, and I’d like it noted."

"It’s noted."

"And you’re still not doing beer."

And he went back in and got his shutter the rest of the way up before Danny had his mouth open.

At half 8 the first board went up over the counter and the room changed sound. Thock. Everything got closer and flatter and the road outside went quiet, and Danny stood in the doorway with a cup of Wasim’s tea and watched a ceiling start.

Then he got on the scooter and went a mile and a half north with the dust still in his eyebrows.

Keisha worked in a place off Grange Road with 9 stools, a queue out onto the pavement at half 9 in the morning, and a lad on the till who kept saying bear with you to people who had been bearing with him for 4 minutes.

Danny stood across the road and watched her through the glass for 10 minutes and she did not see him.

She never stopped moving. Knock out, grind, dose, level, tamp, lock, go, and her left hand was on the milk before her right hand had let go of the portafilter. She turned on the spot in a space 3 foot wide. Bang. Shhhhk. She had a cloth over her shoulder and she used it about every 40 seconds without looking at it.

At one point a bloke in a suit said something to her over the machine and she said something back without her face changing and he laughed and put a pound in the jar.

13 quid an hour. Maybe 14.

And she’s doing 400 of those and she’s the reason 30 people come to this road instead of the other road, and the bloke who owns it is not in the building.

She came out at 9:50 with a black puffer over her apron and her sleeves shoved up, and she saw him on the wall and did not look surprised.

"Two days," Keisha said.

"I know."

"Tobi rang me Monday night."

"I know that as well."

"Right." She got her hands into the puffer. "Go on then."

"Fifteen an hour."

Keisha took her hands out of her pockets and put them back in.

"Fifteen for you. Contract, 4 days, hours on it. Tobi’s on 14 while he’s learning and 15 when he’s not, and you tell me when he’s not, not me. Paid monthly, last working day, and the coffee’s yours. Beans, grind, menu, anybody else who ever stands behind that bar. You pick them and I don’t overrule you on it."

"And who says what a cup costs?"

"You said £3.20 on Thursday in front of a woman with a trolley."

"I did. What’s your margin on 3.20?"

"I don’t know yet."

"No. Work it out tonight, because 15 an hour on 4 days is a third of your wage bill and you want to know what it means before you sign anything."

"I’ll have it by tomorrow."

"You’ll have a number by tomorrow. You’ll have the right one in about 6 months."

She looked back through the glass at the lad on the till for a second.

"I’m on 13.10 here. And Marcus isn’t a bad man, before you start. He’s on it at 6 himself twice a week and he’s never once had me over."

"So I’m 2 quid over a man who’s all right."

"You are. Which is either somebody who knows what I’m worth or somebody who’s guessing."

"Bit of both."

"Yeah." She got a foot up against the wall behind her. "At least you’ve not said investment in people at me. Right. What’d make me say no."

"Go on."

"Shops shut."