Wednesday 12 November 2014

Take A Deep Breath, And...


It may come as a surprise to those of you who know me as a wisecracking, fun-filled ball of merriment, but there are times when I’m not the most cheerful man in the world. God knows, there have a couple of posts on here lately that might have had the more empathic among you reaching for the phone to ask if I’m, you know, alright, but let me assure you that A) yes, most of the time I’m fine thank you and B) I never answer the phone.

Nobody’s ‘on’ all the time though, and I’ll be straight with you; if you know what’s best for you you’d be well advised to steer a wide berth on Saturday evenings. My old man used to be a bugger for this; on Sunday mornings; there’d be a regular sideshow going on, as he’d get up in a bad mood, open the living room windows and ceremonially throw each one of our admittedly over-numerous cats (Mum was a bit of a soft touch for a waif or stray) out into the front garden, calling each one of them a selection of ripe names as he did, and there they’d sit, momentarily stunned by this impolite and thoroughly unwarranted intrusion into their busy agenda of sleeping on the sofa, licking their own backsides or wailing for scraps, then slip down the alley and come in the back way, where Dad would find them, pick them up, and chuck them out the front again.

I don’t think I’ve inherited the old man’s at times incandescent temper, being more of a slow burner, but Saturday afternoons really do get on my wick. For a start, while any sensible person would have spent the day having a lie-in, maybe taking a leisurely fry-up and a wander around the shops before settling back with Final Score and contemplating what debauchery the evening might bring I, working as I do in retail, would have spent the day at work. And, working as I do in what we refer to ‘Specialist Retail’, I’ll have seen most of the day spent staring into space, or processing stock, or just begging silently for somebody to come into the shop and either have a conversation or, you know, actually spend some money.

It doesn’t help that Saturdays usually follow a pretty well-worn routine: sod all happens, then at about twelve I go out and get coffee and have a chat with Gareth in the Blackhorse Workshops; then sod all happens, then Mo comes in with more coffee, then sod all happens, then it gets a bit busy when the locals go for their afternoon stroll, and then, just as the metaphorical factory whistle gathers a head of steam for its final blow, it’ll be Timmy Time.

Timmy Time begins with a 158 bus pulling up outside, then its doors open, then nothing happens for a moment or three before, from its depths, a blue carrier bag makes its appearance. This is followed by its owner; a lumbering creature in soiled tracky bottoms and a t-shirt of no small vintage, over which is casually - and literally - thrown a beige suede jacket decorated by a selection of interesting stains. This fashionable ensemble is completed by a baseball cap embroidered with the logo of some long-forgotten West End musical flop; Oscar Wilde, perhaps, or Sing-A-Long With Pol Pot.

All of these clothe the fulsome figure that is Timmy. If you need to know what Timmy’s like, let me tell you this: I once had to accompany him home when he was having one of his more emotionally fraught afternoons. This meant getting a cab and staying with him for the journey as it was not entirely a certainty that he’d be able to recall his own address, then seeing him to his door after slapping a tenner into the driver’s hand (“I’m not letting you out, I’ve seen too many runners lately”) while I walked with him, at a pace which even the most relaxed flaneur would describe as leisurely, to his door. There, his mother, a gaunt woman in an acrylic pullover and an expression far wearier than you’d expect even on someone in their latter years and with a slightly handicapped fifty-year-old son, thanked me for seeing him home and explained, obviously not for the first time: “He was a difficult birth”. I of course told her it was no bother and hot-footed it back out onto the street, just in time to see the cab’s tail-lights as it disappeared around the corner, leaving me on a nondescript Chingford side-street with no idea where I was, as cold rain began to fall.

So: Timmy’s a challenge. But Timmy’s also good for about eighty quid a visit, so you knuckle under and get on with it, knowing that no matter how much of a strain dealing with him is going to be, you’re safe in the knowledge that at least he’ll be the last customer of the week and from here on in the weekend’s your own.

Timmy likes Spider-Man. A lot. His baggy-necked t-shirts generally feature some representation of his hero, or sometimes of Harley Quinn, the psychotic one-time sidekick who became a sensation in her own right (and yes, I’m fully aware that I’m talking about fictional characters as though they were real people with an actual existence and everything. Perk of the job, y’know?)

Because Timmy likes Spider-Man a lot, he buys every Spider-Man comic that’s published. Which is a lot of Spider-Man titles. Core books, spin-offs, mini-series; Tim buys them all, plus a load of other stuff, all of it tucked away by either myself or the boss as part of our “You call it a Standing Order, we call it Guaranteed Money” service. Like I said, eighty quid a week.

What Timmy likes to do is to be handed the inches-thick pile of publications that we’ve put aside for him at his request, then spend as much time as possible looking at the shelves, then ask whether any title has been cancelled – this is regardless of whether he reads this particular book or not – then chat to anybody else who may be in attendance about what they’re reading – and this is regardless of whether they join in the conversation, smile politely and edge away, or just flat-out ignore him. Sometimes he goes up to another customer and just starts to riffle through whatever they’ve picked up, but we’ve explained to him more than once that if you do that, then in the fullness of time you will get hit. Then Timmy does What Timmy Does.

What Timmy Does is order more books than he can afford in any given week. It’s okay, it averages out over the month, but in two weeks out of three he has more reserved for him than the budget allows. So that’s our first question (and when I say ‘our’, I mean ‘my’, as by this time the boss is hiding in the back room, supposedly backing up the database or doing the last admin of the week, but in actuality strumming on the acoustic guitar he keeps out there for just such eventualities). “Tim, what’s your budget?” And Tim will tell us: it’s eighty quid. Sometimes it’s fifty, or in lean weeks it’s thirty. If he’s been to the theatre – and you’ll have gathered from an earlier paragraph that Tim like a musical, which I’m also quite noted for, and I’ll admit that if I’m in a good mood I may occasionally strike up a version of Fugue For Tinhorns or another of the tunes from Guys And Dolls or whatever he’s been to see – it may be as low as twenty. In a week when he's been paid for his job of collecting trolleys in a supermarket carpark, it may be as high as a hundred and twenty.

That’s when we start the real work. Tim will sort his pile out into the books he really wants to take this week, and the books that he’d like to take this week but which aren’t vital, and the ones that can go back in his box until there’s cash enough to cover them. I’ll add them up and give him a total.

And then he’ll go over the shelves again and add some more. Won’t tell me, mind. Then he’ll take things out his ‘buy’ pile and swap them for things from his ‘put them back’ pile. Won’t tell me. So the whole ‘reaching a final total’ thing can take a while. Also, during this it’s usually rubbing closely up against closing time and I’ll have been there for nine hours already so I’m not really willing to dawdle, especially as there’s shutters to bring down and lights to turn off and all the other tiny locking-up-the-shop jobs that when put together can add up to a good ten minutes worth of labour. That’s about the pount where I lower my voice into a friendly-but-menacing growl and mutter “You’re on my time now, sunshine”. Timmy doesn’t really care. He’d happily be locked in the shop all weekend, though I’ve pointed out to him that the alarm system is motion-triggered so if that were to come to pass he’d have to spend two entire days not moving a muscle of his considerable load.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that by the time we’ve been through this palaver, then found out his ultimate choice of purchases, wrested actual cash out of his wallet, and totalled up the till, and done the credit card reconciliation, and locked up, it’s a good half-an-hour after Official Going Home Time.

I was asked, just before my birthday, if there was anything I’d particularly like as a gift. Yes, I said. Come to this shop at half past five on a Saturday – don’t tell me which Saturday, I’d like it to be a surprise – see the fucking idiocy I have to put up with, then just drag me out to the nearest pub and pour gin down my throat until it’s all been blotted out. Hasn’t happened yet.

Not that this is the end of things. The final act of this hebdomadal hellishness (and yes, my battered old Roget was brought into service there) is Seeing Timmy To The Bus Stop. This is a relatively new thing: whereas in the past Tim would walk in a different direction from me to reach his transport home, lately he’s chosen to join me, and occasionally Coffee-bearing Mo, to the traffic lights at the top of the road, walking at a stately place, making small – microscopic, in fact – talk about his favourite television programmes and generally delaying the journey home even further. When we reach the crossing Tim, being a stickler for road safety, will refuse to even contemplate putting a toe across the tarmac until the green man is firmly shining from his little box. Once he reaches the other side – and more than once he’s been distracted long enough to miss an entire cycle of the lights despite me standing next to him shouting “TIM! IT’S SAFE TO CROSS NOW!” at him – he bids us goodnight then walks all the way to his original choice of bus stop, which is opposite the bloody shop.

Yes, I know I’m being less than charitable. Impatient, certainly. Maybe even a little cruel towards the differently-able. And I’m aware that for somebody like Tim, somebody with learning difficulties, physically unprepossessing and emotionally fragile enough to be stressed to tears by the sort of incident that you or I would simply mutter an under the breath cussword at, these visits are probably the only social interaction he has that doesn’t involve ostracision or humiliation. But bloody hell fella, at least try to get a wiggle on, will you?

So you’ll see that rather than fill me with the joy that most people feel at the end of the working week, rather than stoking the anticipation of joining colleagues and friends for a post-toil booze, Saturday afternoons and early evenings just get on my sodding tits.

But here we are, two thousand words in, and we’re about as near to the ostensible subject for today as astrology is to common sense.

So: same time tomorrow?

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