Men at Work

  Mike Gayle

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder and Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Mike Gayle 2010

  The right of Mike Gayle to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 9781444711783

  Book ISBN 9781444711776

  Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Men at Work

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Quick Reads

  About the Author

  Also by Mike Gayle

  Chapter 1

  “What would you do if you won the Lottery?”

  It was just after ten on a Sunday night in May and thirty-one-year-old Ian Greening was sitting in the Red Lion with his girlfriend Emma Kavanagh having one of their amusing but daft conversations.

  “How much are we talking?” asked Ian. “Many millions or just the one?”

  Emma considered the question. “Many,” she said after a few moments. “I reckon you’d need six or seven million to totally change your life.”

  “Cool,” said Ian. “Six or seven, eh? Where to begin? Well, it’s obvious that I’d buy us a new house with his ’n’ her bathrooms so that I wouldn’t have to walk over your underwear to get to the shower. Then maybe I’d pay off my mum and dad’s mortgage. A luxury yacht would be nice and I’d get myself a season ticket for the Blues. Actually scrub that. I’m a millionaire now, aren’t I? So I’d be able to afford a box at the Blues!” He glanced over at Emma and grinned. “Oh, and I suppose I’d have to take you on the holiday of a lifetime because if I didn’t you’d moan at me for the rest of my life.”

  “And is that it?” asked Emma.

  “Obviously I’d buy a few flash cars. You know the drill, a couple of Ferraris and maybe a Range Rover for when I need to take you to Tesco’s but other than that I think I’m pretty much done.”

  “And what about work?”

  “What about work?”

  “Well, I assume we’d both give up work. So what would you do with all your spare time, you know, when we weren’t jetting about or lounging on our yacht?”

  Ian laughed. “What are you talking about? I’d be more than happy for you to give up work, but what makes you think I would?”

  Emma stared at him in amazement. “So you’re telling me that if you won seven million pounds on the Lottery you would still get up every morning, make your way through the traffic to get to work, put in your eight hours and then fight your way home again, even though you didn’t have to?”

  “Yeah, of course I would,” replied Ian. “There’s no way I’d ever give up work. Not in a million years. Not even for seven million pounds.”

  “But why not?” said Emma, more than a little bit confused by her boyfriend’s reply. “Why would you carry on working in what – no offence, babe – is a temp job that you never quite found the energy to leave?”

  “I just would,” said Ian.

  “Why?”

  “I just would. There’s no reason. I just would.”

  “BUT WHY?”

  There was a silence and then Ian said, “Because I love my job, okay?”

  Emma looked at him. Her face was puzzled. “I know you like your job but you actually love it?”

  Ian nodded. “It’s true! I don’t care who knows it. I love my job.”

  “Yeah, but when you say you love it, you really mean that you like it a lot, don’t you?”

  Ian shook his head. “Nope, when I say I love it, I really do mean that I love it. I adore it. If my job could get up and move around I would follow it and kiss the ground it walked on. That’s how much I love my job.”

  “But you don’t love it more than anything else in your life do you? For instance, you don’t love it more than those awful sandwiches you’re always making?”

  “You mean the Greening Cheese Wonder?” Ian felt hungry at the very thought. “Ham, cheese, Branston pickle, with a layer of crushed salt and vinegar crisps all wedged between two slices of white bread and garnished with a half radish?” Emma nodded as Ian found himself wiping a line of drool from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah of course I love work more than those.”

  “Okay,” said Emma, clearly still wanting to make her point. “How about your comic collection? I can’t believe for a minute that you love work more than those X-Factor things you’re always going on about.”

  Ian sighed heavily. “X-Men, Emma. They’re called X-Men.”

  “X-Men, X-People what’s the difference?”

  “What’s the difference?” Ian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Only last week he had sat Emma down to explain why Wolverine and Sabretooth were sworn enemies. “I’ll tell you what the difference is, young lady! One is a group of cool outlaw mutants who are forever saving the universe from certain doom and the other isn’t!”

  “Fine!” said Emma crossly. “X-Men it is! But the question is, do you love your job more than your X-Men comics?”

  “Yes!” snapped Ian. He was getting cross with Emma for getting cross with him. “I do indeed love my job more than I love my X-Men comics, okay?”

  “No,” said Emma. “Not okay. I’m still finding it hard to believe that you love your job more than those dusty old comics because you won’t let me anywhere near them! But that’s fine. I don’t mind. Let’s take a look at this. You love your job more than you love those stupid sandwiches and more than your comic collection. My final question to you is this . . . do you love your job more than me?”

  Ian looked at Emma and could see that she was deadly serious. Emma, his girlfriend of the last six years, really wanted an answer and she wasn’t going to take any old rubbish. “Oh, Em!” he said with a sigh. “If you have to ask, then all I can say is that you really don’t know me at all.”

  Chapter 2

  One year later

  “Moonwalk! Moonwalk! Moonwalk!”

  It was just after ten on a Friday night in May and a very, very drunk Ian Greening was being hounded by his chanting workmates. They wanted him to climb onto the table and perform the “It looks like I’m going forwards but actually I’m going backwards” dance routine made world famous by Michael Jackson. And the reason they wanted Ian to do his Michael Jackson dance routine was simple – they wanted a laugh. Ian worked on the fourth floor of Holling House in the Policy Planning department of the Department of Work and Pensions in Birmingham. And as far as the workers there were concerned, Ian Greening was a laugh and had been ever since his first day at work eight years ago.

  Although Ian had usually worked in poorly paid jobs, he had always managed to make them fun. For instance, when Ian had worked at a large DIY store he had organised trolley races along the aisles whenever the store was quiet. When he worked at a petrol station near Ladywood he had made up a game called the “Carless Car Wash Challenge”. This involved trying to find out which member of staff could stand in the car wash in borrowed Scuba gear the longest.

  Then there was the time that he worked as an orderly at Selly Oak Hospital. He got the other orderlies to join him during their break in a game of 101 Uses for a Non-Latex Glove. Whatever the job and whatever the situation, Ian had never doubted that there was a way of making it fun. But that was then.

  Ian had been just twenty-three when he joined the fourth floor of the Department of Work and Pensions as a temp in what was then known as the “Office of No Hope”. On his first morning, he walked up to the drab concrete building and watched his fellow workers, armed with their passes, make their way through security up to the fourth floor. And he had wondered whether he was about to make the mistake of his life. He had never seen a building quite so grey or fellow workers who looked quite so beaten down by the daily grind of the work routine. This would either be his worst defeat or his greatest success.

  Five hours later, as he moonwalked across a row of tables in the local pub, having talked half the office into coming for a lunchtime drink, he found out. The people who staffed the “Office of No Hope” were nowhere near as boring as he had feared they might be. In fact they were the best bunch of people he had ever had the pleasure of working with. All they needed to bring out their inner party demon was a bit of booze, a smattering of Eighties music and a bit of moonwalking. E ven after eight years of performances at their after work drinks dos, that always got a laugh.

  Sometime later on that Friday night in May, he had led the entire room through several different karaoke versions of Queen’s greatest hits. And done an impression of his line manager that was so accurate that even people who didn’t know him were crying with laughter. Then Ian decided to make his way home.

  A little bit worse for wear, he looked around for a taxi and was relieved when, after ten minutes, one pulled up next to him. He jumped into the back, settled into his seat and mumbled his address to the driver. He pulled out his phone to check his messages. Just as he had expected, there were well over a dozen texts from his workmates thanking him for making Big Friday (as he had christened it) such a laugh and saying it was the highlight of their week. Ian always felt good when he read these messages. As though he had found his place in the world. It made him feel as if simply by turning up to work and being himself he was doing a good thing.

  He saw that he had a few missed calls from his girlfriend, Emma. He thought about checking his voicemail but then he got sidetracked recalling just how funny his impression of his line manager had been. He then fell asleep, only waking up as the cab pulled up outside their two-bedroom terrace in Bearwood.

  Ian handed the cabbie a ten pound note, told him to keep the change and made his way into his house. He headed straight for the kitchen to grab a glass of water in the hope of staving off the hangover he knew would be coming his way.

  With his glass in hand, he was about to turn on the burglar alarm and go upstairs when he noticed a light on in the back room. He went to check. Sitting on the sofa, looking for all the world as if she had spent the whole night crying, was Emma.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately sobering up as he raced to her side. “Have you been crying?”

  Emma nodded. “I’ve been trying to call you all night!”

  “Oh babe,” said Ian as he remembered those missed calls. “It was noisy in the pub. I’m sorry. You know I’d never ignore you. Tell me sweetheart, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s bad news,” she said. “Really bad news . . . I’ve lost my job.” And then she burst into tears.

  Chapter 3

  Emma was so upset that Ian didn’t even bother trying to get any more detail out of her. Every time her sobs seemed to be on the verge of dying down, she would open her mouth, but before the words reached her lips another wave of sadness would crash over her. And she would be in tears again. Hugging her tight, Ian thought that the best he could do for now would be to stroke the top of her head, tell her everything would be all right and try not to yawn. Although he really needed to go to sleep, what he wanted more than anything else in the world was for Emma to be okay.

  Ian and Emma had been together for seven years. They first came across each other back in their school days at St Benedict’s in Smethwick. Ian was a couple of school years above Emma but had been on nodding terms with her because her brothers, Liam and Keith (the Kavanagh twins), were in the year above him. They had played five-a-side football with him over at Hadley Stadium.

  Ian hadn’t thought much about Emma back then (mostly because the Kavanagh twins were big lads who didn’t take kindly to people messing with their kid sister). Then, long after they had left school, he had bumped into her one Saturday morning on Bearwood High Street as she was coming out of Woolworths. Ian had recognised her straight away, even though she had changed quite a bit. While the schoolgirl Emma had been all NHS glasses and braces, the Emma now standing in front of him was stunning. She had beautiful green eyes, gorgeous long hair, a great smile and the most amazing laugh. It was like a cross between a chimp and an out of breath hyena, which some people might have found annoying. Ian thought it was the single best sound he had ever heard. Right there on the spot he had asked her if she fancied a drink in the King’s Head across the road and Emma had agreed. A year or so later, in the middle of one of their many late-night talks, he told her that during that first drink it had taken him just ten minutes to realise how special she was. And a further twenty to realise that he never wanted to leave her side.

  Ian looked down at Emma. Had she stopped crying? He wasn’t sure.

  “So what happened?” he asked.

  Emma sat up and wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. “I went into work as usual. Everything seemed normal and then just after five they started calling people into the office one by one. At first I thought maybe someone had been nicking money and they were trying to find out who had done it but then they called me. From the look on my line manager’s face I knew that it wasn’t anything to do with stealing. It was more serious than that.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I can’t remember. I wasn’t listening properly, to be honest. I was too busy trying not to burst into tears on the spot. Anyway, the point is that the bank is cutting back on staff costs by thirty per cent and I’m one of the first to go. They were really nice about it. They’ve promised to give me a good reference and everything but I’ve no idea what I’m going to do. I’ve only ever had two jobs in my life and I really liked this one.”

  “Well, maybe this will be a good thing,” said Ian. “It’s not like you haven’t talked about doing something else. A while back you were thinking about going to university. Maybe you should do that.”

  “That was all talk,” sighed Emma. “I don’t really want to go. I’d have to do an access course to start off with and I think they take a year or two. Then there would be another three years after that. I need money. We need money. Going to university just isn’t an option right now.”

  “Well, what about a change in career then? You once told me that you quite fancied being a florist . . . or how about a beautician? The bathroom cabinet is stuffed with all your lotions and potions. Surely that will be enough for you to start your own beauty shop?”

  Emma sniffed and smiled. “The way you go on about my make-up anyone would think that you don’t like me looking pretty!”

  “Listen, you,” said Ian, grinning, “You could bin all your make-up and still be the best looking girl that I have ever met.”

  “Really?”

  Ian nodded and kissed the top of her head. “By a mile.”

  “I love you, you know,” said Emma.

  “I know,” said Ian. “I love you too.”

  Ian yawned widely and stretched his arms. “I’m really sorry, Ems. I do want to talk to you about this whole work thing, babe, but I’m shattered. Why don’t we just head to bed and have a good night’s sleep? Tomorrow I’ll make you breakfast in bed and we can talk about it for as long as you like. How does that sound?”

  Emma smiled, put her arms around Ian and kissed him. “That sounds brilliant. Do you know what? You are the best boyfriend in the entire world.”

  “I know,” grinned Ian giving her a wink. “But don’t go telling your mates, okay? Otherwise they’ll all want a go!”

  Chapter 4

  It was just after eight as Ian got to his bus stop on the next Monday morning. Most of his usual fellow travellers were already there. There was the young woman with the green uniform, the middle-aged man who fell asleep in his seat and the young couple who always looked as if they were in the middle of a row. Every last one of them had a look that said, “How can it be Monday already?” Ian, however, was listening to a new album on his iPod and feeling glad that in a few moments he would be on the bus with nothing more pressing to do than look out of the window for the next twenty minutes. He had a look on his face that said, “It’s Monday! Great! Bring it on!”

  Ian went to his usual seat on the left-hand side of the middle part of the upper deck and sat down. As the bus pulled away he watched the world pass by through the window. He tried to lose himself in the music but kept being drawn back to thoughts about Emma and her current job situation.

  Ian had tried hard to make Emma’s weekend as much fun as he could. On Saturday morning he had made her breakfast in bed as promised, then surprised her with a picnic tea in Lightwoods Park. In the evening he had taken her for a meal at a posh Japanese restaurant in The Mailbox shopping centre. On the Sunday morning he had treated her to brunch (even though he still wasn’t quite sure what “brunch” was) at her favourite gastropub. In the afternoon he had invited all her family over for tea and even baked a cake. Finally, on Sunday evening, while Emma soaked in the bath that he had run for her, he had nipped out to Blockbusters and rented two films that featured Hugh Grant. He was Ian’s least favourite actor in the entire world. Yes, Ian had without a doubt gone so far above and beyond the call of duty that even Emma’s best friend Selina had joked that if Emma ever dumped him, she would snap him up in a second. So why did he still feel so down? Why did he feel as though he wanted to do more? The answer came just as the bus reached Five Ways. The reason he felt so bad was simple. He loved Emma. In fact he loved Emma in a way that men his age should only do if they keep it to themselves and don’t make a big deal about it. So her unhappiness was now his unhappiness too.

 

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