Gents

GENTS

A novel

Warwick Collins

COPYRIGHT

Published by The Friday Project, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Marion Boyars Publishers

This edition published in 2007 by The Friday Project

Text © 2007 Warwick Collins

Warwick Collins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

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Source ISBN: 9781905548767

Ebook Edition © JULY 2016 ISBN 9780007391783

Version: 2016-07-18

DEDICATION

To Scott Pack

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Keep Reading

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

At Charing Cross the two underground trains passed each other like tongues of flame. Ez Murphy saw, in the window’s reflection between a young girl and an elderly woman, his own face dark with the lights shining white on his broad cheekbones.

The trains roared and razored in the confined tunnel. As they crossed, his faded image, obscure against the glossy dark, was thrown into sudden prominence by the rush of white lights behind it. The faces of the two women became ghostly, obliterated by the surging luminescence.

He was in his early forties, well-dressed, stocky, broad-shouldered. In the reflection opposite, his hands floated up to adjust his tie, a startling negative against the washed white of his collar. The two trains passed. During the ensuing silence the faces of the women were restored again, two white flowers.

The train traversed several other stations before it finally slid to a stop with a brief squeal of acquiescence. The doors rumbled open. Ez stepped onto the dimly lit platform and walked to the sign marked EXIT. It was eight twenty-two by the station clock. Travelling up the escalator, he put his ticket in the machine, then paused in the concourse. He felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to see daylight. Walking up a flight of grey flagged stairs, he stepped out into the street.

Drifts of London sunlight touched his eyes; a flock of pigeons wheeled above the buildings. Traffic fumes hung over the city.

He approached a sign on a wrought iron stairway which said GENTS. Straightening his tie, he walked down the steps. At the bottom, he faced a turnstile. He glanced around for assistance, but could see no one. Shrugging his shoulders, he shifted the change in his pocket and put ten pence in the slot. Then he walked through the turnstile and paused to glance around him.

The interior was faced with geometric tiles, white with a motif of green. The floors were meticulously clean. In the background he could hear the occasional hiss of the fountains. On the right of the entrance, set back discreetly into a wall of rough, whitewashed plaster, was a green-painted door marked MANAGER.

Ez adjusted his collar and knocked.

After a while, the door opened. The man facing him was as tall as a beanpole. His clothes hung on his skinny frame. He had that almost albino whiteness of certain Jamaicans on the south side of the island. Standing in the doorway, he considered Ez for a moment.

“Mr Murphy?”

“That’s right.”

“Josiah Reynolds.” He seemed to pause for several seconds, and Ez gained the impression he was trying to work out something. “Come in, come in.”

Reynolds stood aside. Ez stepped into a small, neat office with a wooden table and several folding chairs. Against the wall was a filing cabinet, on top of which was a shelf with some grey box files. The only decoration on the walls was a white calendar without pictures, covered by the heavy black print of dates. Ez gained the impression of a pervasive austerity.

Reynolds picked up a clipboard from his desk. He lifted a ball-point from his top pocket.

“Murphy,” he read out. “Ezekiel Stanislaus.”

Ez nodded.

Reynolds smiled, as though in recognition. He indicated one of the wooden seats.

“Sit down, man.”

Reynolds took several paces back and leaned, half seated, on the edge of the table. His long bony wrists emerged from the cuffs. Raising his clipboard, Reynolds consulted his notes.

“You cleaner at Lambeth Council four years. Before that you from Jamaica.”

Ez nodded.

“Which part you from?”

“Brixton.”

“I mean Jamaica,” Reynolds said.

Ez noted the long move of the Adam’s apple in Reynolds’ bony neck. He tried to guess Reynolds’ age. “West Kingston. Greenwich Farm. You know it?”

A thin smile spread across the other man’s face. “Course I know it, man,” Reynolds said. “Mandy’s on George Street. Friday Café. Singular.” He shifted a little against the table. “Aunt Mimmy’s Place. What was it then? Sideways? What is it now?”

“Cornstocks,” Ez said.

“Cornstocks?”

“Selling to Rastas, mostly.” Ez paused, then added, “You live there sometime?”

“Once a time.”

Ez was delighted. He said, “Bacon juice.”

“Bacon juice.” Reynolds laughed suddenly. The corners of his eyes became creased. “All those corner smokers?”

“Still there.”

Reynolds smiled. His face shifted back to an expression of watchfulness. “You know what work is here?”

Ez shrugged.

Reynolds said, “Washing out, mopping floors, keeping turnstiles working, maintaining a change box, controlling the kiddies. Keeping order.”

“Keeping order?” Ez asked.

“Sometimes. Sometimes things get out of hand in the cubicles.”

Ez nodded but he was not certain he had understood.

Reynolds scratched his cheek, a minor gesture of perplexity.

“You religious?” Reynolds asked. “Don’ mind my askin’?”

“Adventist, maybe.”

Reynolds chuckled. “That makes you.”

“You could say.”

“How you like Lambeth?” Reynolds asked.

“So-so.”

“Strange place, man. Council turnin’ itself inside out. Maybe you safer here.”

Ez did not answer. In the silence, Reynolds said, “You meet Jason yet?”

“No.”

Reynolds nodded and moved to the door. He opened it and called out.

“Jason!”

Reynolds returned and leaned back against the table. He smiled, then seemed content to subside into patois again. “Him no dog – like cat, man. Call, him come in own time.”

“He work here?”

“Pass time here,” Reynolds said. “Like you and me pass water.”

Ez watched the movement of Reynolds’ Adam’s apple, the swallow before mirth. Reynolds chuckled softly at his joke.

Not long afterwards a figure appeared at the door, of medium height, slender, with wide eyes and Rasta dreadlocks.

Reynolds said, “Jason.” He indicated Ez. “Meet him here.”

Ez stood up. “Ez Murphy.”

Jason seemed to hesitate. Then he moved forward. Seriously, almost carefully, he shook Ez by the hand. Jason’s right eye was lazy, the left direct. It took a while to work out which eye was assessing you. Back in Kingston they called it chameleon.

Reynolds turned to address Jason formally. “Look after him. He join us now.”

With a brief nod to Reynolds, Jason asked, “You from Kingston?”

“Greenwich.”

Jason nodded.

“Loud place.”

Reynolds translated, “Loud mean good.”

Ez nodded.

“Fat Lion Stevens?” Jason asked.

“He sober.”

Jason smiled. “Too bad.”

“Better show him the ropes, Jason, man,” Reynolds said. “Can’t talk all day.”

Jason turned and departed. Ez glanced at Reynolds, who nodded once, then turned away towards his desk.

Ez followed Jason into the urinals, into the flowing, bouncing light.

CHAPTER 2

Jason removed a key from his pocket and opened a locker-room door. He handed Ez a green overall.

“Fit you?”

Ez slipped it over his shoulders.

“Seem OK.”

Jason reached into the cupboard and brought out an extra mop.

“This for you.”

Ez gripped the wooden shaft of the mop. Jason hauled out a big tin bucket with a heavy handle. He handed it to Ez. Jason pointed to a single tap on the wall with a thick enamel basin beneath.

“Main tap there.”

Jason indicated some buckets lined neatly against the farther wall of the locker room. Several held plastic containers of green fluid.

“Cleaning. Three teaspoon for a bucket.”

“OK.”

Jason indicated a row of boxes containing cakes of antiseptic deodorant for the latrines.

“Replacement.”

Ez nodded.

“You OK? You got everything?”

Ez smiled. “In the Kingdom.”

Ez walked away to the tap, filled the bucket, poured in some cleaning fluid, dipped the mop. He started to work, swinging the mop over the tiled floors.

Jason smiled briefly, put in his earphones, and took up his own mop.

For perhaps half an hour Ez washed the floors with Jason working in the background. He could hear only the faint scratching of Jason’s music.

He swung the head of the mop in long sweeps, quartering an area towards the door and Reynolds’ office. When he had finished he took a long-handled sponge and began to work back over the wet floors.

There was an uneven flow of customers down the steps, through the rattling turnstiles, to the urinals. He became used to the definitions of space, the silences of the tiles, the occasional footsteps of men as they approached the urinals, paused, then walked back through the turnstiles. After a while the flow of men to and fro from the urinals began to remind him of water in its restless inconstancy.

Ez worked slowly towards the cubicles. They were set out against the farthest wall from the entrance, a line of seventeen in all, with wooden doors and solid mahogany frames. He reached the end of the room, then he turned parallel to the line of cubicles and began to work his way to the adjacent wall.

Behind him, the occasional customer entered a cubicle and bolted the latch. He heard the slam of a door as someone exited from a cubicle and then the sound of metal bearings as he passed through the turnstile.

Later that morning, towards lunch, he stopped, blinked, stretched. A man emerged from a nearby cubicle. Ez gained an impression of a City suit, of early middle age, of the brief shine of baldness beneath thinning hair. The man passed through the turnstiles and began to walk up the stairs beyond. He seemed to drift upwards, as though in a trance, towards the grey light of the exit.

Ez put down the mop and walked over to the cubicle.

He opened the door to visit the cubicle himself. But before he could enter, a second man came out, brushing past him, not catching his eye.

In his initial incomprehension it seemed to Ez curiously like a magical trick – two rabbits from the same hat. Or perhaps déjà vu. He tried to assemble an impression of the second man, of a white face with fair hair and almost albino eyelids, of a grey City suit like the first, and an air of calmness or preoccupation. He was younger and fairer than the first man, though they might have come from the same firm, the same office. Ez watched him walk through the turnstiles and up the steps. He listened to the final faint patter of his leather-soled shoes as he disappeared from view into clouded daylight.

He glanced at Jason, who was standing a few yards away, leaning on his mop, watching Ez equivocally. Jason smiled, shook his head, and turned away. He began to mop the floor again. Ez heard the furred music from his headphones, like an insect fluttering against a pane.

CHAPTER 3

Later that afternoon the three of them, Ez, Reynolds, and Jason, were taking tea in Reynolds’ office.

Reynolds said, “How your first day going?”

“OK, man.”

Jason sat in his chair chewing a biscuit.

Ez said, “Funny thing happen to me.”

Reynolds sipped his tea. “What?”

“I was wanting to visit a cubicle – you know. Someone come out and so I know it is free. I go to open the door and … another man come out.”

Reynolds watched him carefully, as though trying to calculate Ez’s comprehension.

After a while, Reynolds said, “So?”

Ez shrugged. “I don’t understand it. Two men in there.”

Reynolds sipped his tea and chewed his biscuit.

“What don’t you understand?”

“One man sitting, one man waiting. Why don’t he wait outside?”

Ez looked at Reynolds’ face. Some faint appreciation entered his thoughts.

Reynolds considered him. He observed several expressions move across Ez’s features.

Ez said, “You don’t –”

Jason seemed embarrassed more by Ez’s innocence than the subject under discussion. He shook his head and looked away.

Finally Reynolds said, “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Happening all the time,” Jason said.

“What happening?” Ez asked.

“All the time,” Reynolds repeated. “Reptiles.”

Ez looked from one face to the other.

“Men are …? Two in …”

“Sometimes three.”

“No.”

Jason said, “One time, five.”

“Five?” Ez was incredulous.

Jason nodded. “Five walk out.”

They paused. Ez sipped his tea and considered. Neither of the other two spoke.

After a few moments, Ez said, “What you do about it?”

Reynolds shrugged. “Stop it getting out of hand.”

Jason moved on his chair and nodded. “That the truth.”

Ez said, “Why they wanting to do this, man?”

“We don’t ask why, man,” Reynolds said. His voice had the singsong of patois. “We don’t keep their conscience, we only keeping order.”

“Why they do it here?” Ez asked. “Why not somewhere else?”

“Where else?”

“Better than out on the street,” Jason said.

Reynolds and Jason laughed softly. Jason said, as if by way of confirmation, “Better than the pavement.”

Ez waited patiently for their mirth to subside.

“They got a compulsion,” Reynolds explained. “You see them, looking about, hoping to catch someone’s eye.”

“What you do to stop them?”

“We can’t stop them looking about, man. If they loiter too long, maybe, we ask them to move along.”

“Sometimes another one come,” Jason said. “They go into a cubicle. Two of them.”

“How?”

“When you not looking. One go first. Wait awhile. Then another. Slippery, man. But once you know they in there, you can make it difficult. You knock on the door. If nothing happen, you put a big stick under the door, rattle it about.”

“A big stick?”

Reynolds stood up, walked to the farthest corner, and picked up an oversize wooden walking-stick that leaned against the wall.

“You knock this against their ankles.”

Jason said, “You rattle their cage, man.” He laughed openly, shaking his head.

“Sometimes it doesn’t work,” Reynolds said. “Sometimes nothing happen.”

Ez swallowed. “What then?”

“You just have to wait for them to come out.”

Ez didn’t bother to hide his consternation. He knew he was under observation but he had moved beyond surprise. He looked from one to the other. Reynolds gave him a straight stare. Jason softly shook his head and turned away.

In the evening, as Ez took off his overalls and put his mop in the cupboard, Reynolds asked, “First day all right?”

“Fine.”

“Think you last?”

“Believe so.”

Jason drifted out on his way out through the side-door.

“Bye, man.”

Reynolds put on a scarf and coat. “See you tomorrow.”

Ez nodded. He followed Reynolds out into the winter dusk. He heard Reynolds lock the heavy door behind them, using several keys. Then he walked towards the underground station, past the grey and blue fluorescent lighting of the shops.

CHAPTER 4

Martha set a meal of mackerel and maize on the table in front of Ez. She sat down and watched him eat, her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands.

Ez took several mouthfuls. He said, “You not eatin’?”

“I ate earlier.”

Ez nodded. He glanced up at Martha and saw she was still watching him.

Martha said, “So how was it?”

“OK.”

“You like the others?”

“Mr Reynolds is the supervisor. Jason is the other cleaner.”

Martha said, “You get on?”

Between mouthfuls, Ez replied, “I get on fine.” He paused. “Where’s Stevie?”

“He’s out.”

“Not with that bad crowd?”

“Maybe not,” Martha said. “He tell me different.”

“Some fellows from West Kingston living round Buckle Street. Northampton estate. Some real bad boys. Seen them on the streets. Easy money.” He moved mackerel onto his fork with his knife. “Maybe afterwards, I go take a look for Stevie.”

Martha put a restraining hand on his elbow.

Ez watched her hand, the pale fingernails. He always liked the way the flesh sat on her fingers, firm.

Martha said, “I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“At the hairdresser’s.” She paused. “Biziou’s.”

“Getting a haircut?”

Martha smiled. “No. Learnin’.”

“Learnin’?”

“Learnin’. Takin’ up a new job, like you.”

Ez’s fork hovered.

“Stevie?”

Martha nodded. “It’s a good trade.”

Ez said, “He don’t play football no more.”

“Ez.” Martha’s fingers seemed to caress his arm. “Steve’s good at football, but he’s not so good. It’s not an easy life.”

“Application,” Ez said. He watched her hand retreat, almost with regret, then he returned to his eating. Martha seemed about to leave the table. He felt conciliatory.

“He’s good,” Ez said. “He could be something. The best in his youth club. Nothing to stop him. One day maybe he play for a club, maybe Arsenal.”

“Ez, don’t make Stevie do what you didn’t do.”

“He’s different,” Ez said. “I had a wife and kid, responsibilities. He got none. He could still do it.”

“Training, day in day out, for his father’s ambition.”

When he had finished, Martha said, “You want some more?”

Ez shook his head.

“I go make some coffee.”

Ez watched as she got up and went to the cooker. He glanced down at the table in thought. After a while, he pushed his plate away from him. He had wanted to say something about the work, about his consternation and doubt.

“How your day?” he called out. She worked part time at the social services department at Lambeth, doing clerical work. The extra income was useful.

“Not so bad.”

He could see Martha’s back through the kitchen door as she rinsed plates while waiting for the kettle to boil. By the poise of her neck and the angle of her head he could tell that she was thinking about something. She was not usually so uncommunicative. He knew that the subject of Stevie affected her too.

CHAPTER 5

Ez hung up his coat and hat. He put on his green overall. At the end of the room Reynolds was talking to Jason, outlining an object with his hands. Jason nodded in greeting to Ez over Reynolds’ shoulder.

Occasional customers moved back and forth from the urinals. Sometimes the door of a cubicle banged.

Ez picked up a pail with a small bristly brush and some cakes of disinfectant. In another bucket he had placed a pair of large tongs.

Approaching the urinals, Ez stopped at each one. Using the tongs, he lifted the old urine-streaked cakes of disinfectant and dropped them carefully into one of the buckets. Then he scrubbed the urinal with the bristly brush. When he had finished, he picked up a new cake of disinfectant and placed it in each urinal.

A tall, stooped man puffed softly with the effort of carrying a large shopping bag. He was standing crouched over himself like a question mark. Ez had to move around him.

Ez repeated the process on the next urinal. Removing the old cake of disinfectant, he began to scrub the enamel walls.

The man said cheerily, “New here?”

Ez finished scrubbing and reached for a cake of disinfectant. “Not long.”

The man said, pleasantly enough, “Always something new to learn, isn’t there?”

Ez nodded.

The man coughed, shifted in his space. He zipped himself up, then reached for the heavy paper bag.

Ez watched him walk through the turnstile. He went back to work.

During the break, Reynolds said to Ez, “You have a family?”

The three of them, Ez, Reynolds, and Jason, were seated at the table. Steam rose from their tea.

“A wife and kid,” Ez said.

“How old your kid?”

Ez blew across the surface of the tea. “Seventeen.”

Reynolds nodded. He sipped his tea, put it down, added another spoonful of sugar, then raised it and sipped again.

Reynolds said, “I got two.”

“That so?”

“Grown up now.”

Ez nodded.

Reynolds indicated Jason with his head.

Reynolds winked at Ez. Jason was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He seemed locked in his own thoughts.

Ez said to Jason, “Jason? Married too?”

Jason was quiet. Reynolds interceded. “Jason got two.”

“Two children?”

“Two wives,” Reynolds commented. He chuckled. Ez glanced toward Jason. Jason seemed as taciturn as ever, sipping his tea.

Reynolds said, “He leave one wife in Kingston. He come here. He marry another. Wife from Kingston also come. That why he turn Rasta.”

“Rasta?”

“Rasta can take more than one woman.”

Reynolds appeared mightily amused at this legerdemain. He joshed Jason affectionately.

“Ol’ Jason,” Reynolds said. “He flow where de wind flow.”

Jason gave a bemused smile.

In the silence, Ez sipped his tea.