The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (2 page)

   Does anyone really know what computers are talking about between themselves when the humans aren’t watching? And what the bloody hell are Cookies if they aren’t something good to eat that are bad for you? Yeah, the office was exactly the same in Glen’s absence, as the men continued to lust after Melanie Tucker, the office glamour puss, though Melanie was now happily married to Brian, so they said, and well off limits to all and sundry. It didn’t stop the men looking and wondering though, and Gringo Greene was no different when it came to Melanie Tucker. 

   He still called her
Miss Harris,
and that always brought a smile to her wide-mouthed face, though she had not been a Miss Harris for more than eighteen months, more’s the pity.

   Yeah, the office was exactly the same, except it wasn’t the same at all. Glen wasn’t there. He couldn’t keep an eye on her. He couldn’t see how well she looked. He couldn’t begin to know what she was doing, or how she was feeling. He wasn’t even certain where she was. New York, they said, such a long way away, New bloody York, thousands of miles across the planet. Damn and bloody blast!

   No, the office wasn’t the same at all, not for Gringo Greene, though everyone else went about their business as if Glen had never worked there at all. It was as if she had never really existed. Her name was never mentioned. Perhaps the men were all so hypnotised by the glamour that Melanie exuded like a stressed octopus oozing ink, or perhaps it was because the remaining women were just so happy to see Glen gone. One more competitor off the block, so to speak, one less beautiful woman to worry about; leaving more men for the rest of them.

   Gringo noticed all this, though he didn’t once speak her name. He didn’t want to muddy the waters that had so quickly settled after her abrupt departure. He wondered if he would ever see her again. He wondered if he would ever speak to her again. He wondered if he would ever kiss her again. Those heavy thoughts weighed on his mind; and other places too.

A few days later Gringo was busy in the office. He was facing the ever-present pressure of targets to hit. It caused him occasional bouts of indigestion. Heavy aggro flowed in from head office, and it all had to be fielded and sorted and dealt with. Gringo was a manager, the main office manager, and as such he was deliberately put under increased stress, though he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. That was the way of things at Dryden Engineering; that was the way of things in thousands of companies up and down the kingdom.

   His head was buried in the files, his mind thinking of several different things at once, when his stomach began telling him that lunch was fast approaching, though he hadn’t ordered a thing, nor had brought anything with him, something he occasionally did.

   A tap came to his office door. Gringo glanced up. It was Melanie. She was smiling down while standing on one leg, half leaning into his private domain, a bunch of mixed papers, invoices and delivery dockets; hanging from her pink finger-nailed hand.

   ‘You wanted these when I’d finished?’ Gringo peered up and nodded.

   ‘Oh yeah. I have to sign them and they must go in the mail tonight. Head office desires, and all that.’

   She took a stride into his office and leant down and placed them on his desk and as she did so her right breast brushed against his left ear. Accident or design? Gringo had no idea and wondered if Melanie did. He smelt her perfume and began speaking as if on autopilot.

   ‘What are you doing for lunch?’

   ‘No plans, Mister Boss.’

   ‘Buy you lunch?’

   ‘Course you can, Gringo. You can buy me lunch any time you want.’

   ‘Half twelve?’

   ‘You go it.’

   ‘See you later,’ but by then, she had already gone.

   Ten minutes after that Gringo visited the washroom. He combed his dark hair and preened his moustache. He wished now he had taken more care shaving that morning. There were several nasty nicks under his chin. He washed them with cold water and dried them with a rough paper towel and cursed the gashes too, but they were still there. He noticed his shirt hadn’t been that well ironed either, it looked terrible, and he wondered if Melanie would notice. Couldn’t be helped, he wasn’t going to rush out and buy a new shirt, not for Melanie Tucker, not for a quick lunch down at the Shaman wine bar.

   At half twelve she came to his office door.

   ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Ready?’

   She had applied fresh lipstick, he clocked that well enough; she had brushed or combed her tumbling strawberry blonde hair, and she looked amazing.

   ‘Sure,’ he said, standing and buttoning his jacket. ‘Come on.’

   He walked smartly through the office, Melanie trailing behind like a Red Indian squaw. If any of the dozy deskbound workers noticed they were leaving together, they didn’t show it. They were probably too busy with their tuna sandwiches and Daily Mirrors and page three girls and checking their text messages, as they worked feverishly on their lottery systems, and competitions to win a new car, or a fancy holiday in Dubai.

   Outside in the city it was a pleasant enough day. No need for a coat, not raining, and the sun was trying hard to bully its way through the thinning cloud.

   ‘Thought we’d go to Shaman’s.’

   ‘Great,’ she said, now walking beside him, close enough that occasionally their hips would bump and touch as she swayed along the pavement.

   The wine bar was half full or half empty depending on your perspective on life. They grabbed a sofa in the far corner and pulled a table closer.

   ‘Drink?’ said Gringo.

   ‘White wine, dry.’

   ‘Back in a mo.’

   He ambled to the bar. Naomi was there as ever, and Naomi Skeets was an odd woman. She was married to the owner, Jackson Skeets, and he was standing in the corner at the far end of the bar as he usually did, watching who came and went, monitoring the banknotes tumbling into his till. Jackson nodded at Gringo and Gringo nodded back. Jackson was a lot older than Naomi, and word on the street was that Naomi was having a fling with Jackson’s younger brother, Colum. He was there too, further along the bar, chatting up two skinny blondes who didn’t look older than sixteen. If that wasn’t entangled enough, Gringo had picked up rumours that Naomi’s real penchant was for young girls, girls it had to be said, just like the two pieces of skirt that Colum was flashing his new set of teeth at.

   ‘How are you, Naomi?’ asked Gringo.

   ‘I’m good,’ smiled the curvy, dark woman. ‘And I can see you are doing all right.’

   ‘Eh? How do you mean?’

   Naomi nodded over his shoulder toward the glamour puss sitting in the corner.

   ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘Melanie, I’m doing fine, ta.’

   ‘What can I get you?’

   ‘Dry white wine and a G and T; make them large ones, and we’ll want some food as well.’

   ‘Okay. I’ll send over that lazy arse, Colum, if I can prize him away from those two little madams.’

   Gringo paid for the drinks and returned to Mel and sat down beside her, close enough he thought, but she promptly linked his arm and tugged herself closer.

   ‘What were you two talking about?’ she whispered. ’You looked as thick as thieves.’

   ‘Trying to order food, that’s all. The guy will be over in a mo. Steak pie and chips do you? It comes recommended.’

   ‘Fine,’ she said, sipping the bucket of wine.

   ‘What do you make of these people?’ whispered Gringo, trying to speak without moving his lips, nodding at the bar staff.

   ‘Motley bunch, if you ask me,’ she said, from behind her glass. ‘The boss lords it over the rest like King Canute, but does he really know what is going on in his little domain?’

   How perceptive she was, he thought, as he told her of the gossip that circulated about their complicated private lives.

   ‘My God,’ she said, ‘you could write a book about all this.’

   Colum came and went, slavering over Melanie, as men of all ages were wont to do.

   ‘What a creep,’ she whispered.

   ‘I’m glad you said that. I’ve always thought it.’

   ‘You’ve cut yourself shaving.’

   ‘Yeah,’ mumbled Gringo, his hand involuntarily going to the bloody marks.

   ‘I’m good at shaving,’ she said.

   ‘Yourself or other people?’

   Melanie giggled. ‘Other people of course, don’t be so cheeky,’ and she gently punched his near arm, while pulling herself yet closer, if that were possible, something he adored, and she knew he would.

   A young kid brought the meals, a stranger, a lad that Gringo had never seen before, and he couldn’t help wondering where he fitted into the strange ranks of the Shaman’s Bar staff. To cap it all the cheeky little git winked at Melanie as he retreated from the table.

   ‘Bloody nerve,’ muttered Gringo.

   ‘He’s well cute,’ said Melanie.

   A few moments later, between shovelling steak pie down her throat, Melanie said, ‘So is this a date, Gringo?’

   ‘Course not!’ he said. ‘Dates have to be at night time, don’t you know that? You can’t have a proper date during the lunch hour, it’s not right, there is not enough time, and anyway, you are a married woman. Married women don’t go on dates.’

   ‘How sad,’ she said, ‘and who’s to say married women can’t go on dates?’

   ‘Don’t suppose Brian would take too kindly to it.’

   ‘You are right there, mate. He’d kill anyone who even thought of it.’

   It was only as Gringo expected. Brian Tucker was a mad bastard. Everyone knew that, not to be messed with, and Gringo had no intention of incurring the wrath of Mad Brian, even if the delectable Melanie was the ultimate prize. What’s more, he had no wish to have his recently cleaned teeth realigned, no thank you, nor his straight nose bent into a question mark.

   ‘Brian’s away on Saturday night,’ she whispered, sipping the wine again. ‘Conference in Birmingham, or something.’

   Gringo shook his head as if to check his hearing. What could she be suggesting? What was he thinking of a second or two ago about not incurring the wrath of Brian? And then he said without a moment’s hesitation or forethought, ‘How about dinner?’

   She smiled through the near side of her face.

   ‘Thought you’d never ask, Gringo. Of course I’ll have dinner with you, any time you want.’

   ‘It’s a date, then.’

   ‘On one condition.’

   Gringo raised his right eyebrow.

   ‘Two conditions,’ she corrected herself.

   ‘And they are?’

   ‘You keep it a total secret. You must never tell anyone. Not a living soul. If Brian ever found out he’d kill us both, and I’m not joking.’

   ‘Course,’ he said. ‘No one will ever know, not from me, never.’

   ‘And secondly,’ she said, coyly Gringo thought, as she licked her fork after finishing her lunch, before placing it carefully in the centre of the empty white plate. ‘We go somewhere miles away, out of the district, away from prying eyes.’

   ‘Not a problem.’

   ‘Where will you pick me up?’

   ‘Do you know White’s bookshop in front of the Town Hall?’

   Melanie didn’t really go in for books, in fact she hadn’t read an entire book since she’d left school eight years before, but oddly enough she did know where White’s bookshop was, if only because Brian was something of a petrol head, and had wanted the newest motoring book the previous Christmas, written by that curly haired geek off the television motoring show.

   ‘I know it, yeah.’

   ‘I’ll pick you up outside there at eight o’clock.’

   ‘Fine,’ she said, wiping her ample mouth on the white paper serviette.

   ‘Just in case there’s any problem I’ll give you my phone number.’

   Gringo glanced around to check they were not being listened to. ‘But don’t write it down anywhere, keep it a secret locked up here,’ and he tapped the side of his head.

   ‘I’ll never remember a telephone number,’ she said.

   ‘Course you will. It’s safer that way, we don’t want anyone finding it,’ (and they both knew who he meant by
anyone.
) ‘It could cause problems.’

   ‘You can say that again. Brian would go ape-shit if he found out.’

   ‘All the more reason to be careful.’

   ‘I will never remember a telephone number,’ she repeated.