The Unfinished Tale Of Sophie Anderson (2 page)

2.

All in all it was an interesting drive home and when we got back to the 'shop it was almost time to finish.

"I think they've washed their hands by now," said Tom as he drove into the yard. "At least we managed to waste the whole day."

"There's always a silver lining."

"We did what we were asked to do. It wasn't our fault we couldn't get on site and do the job. We can try again tomorrow if we get that permit."

The three storey prefab monstrosity loomed before us, all grey and dull as if it were the physical embodiment of all that it meant to be a wage slave like me. Year after year, boring, monotonous labour, unchanging and unending. When you came here you realised, like everyone else who has to work for a living, that you should have tried a bit harder at pursuing your dreams - whatever they'd  been. After ten years you tended to forget what it was you wanted to be when you grew up anyway.

Tom parked up near the roller shutter doors and pressed the button to have them raised. I went round to the back of the van and began unloading my tool box.

"You can leave it in for tomorrow if you want," he called to me. I shook my head.

"Nah, I'd prefer to leave them inside."

"Suit yourself."

I sat the hefty thing on its wheels and dragged it in. Some of the lads were milling around near the canteen ready to go home. Mike was there, the second in command, and he was asking Tom what'd gone on.  I found a trolley to bring the welding set in and pushed it around them, narrowly avoiding some plate glass leaning against the wall thanks to the dodgy ASDA shopping trolley wheels the thing had been fitted with. I decided to leave the Argon bottle in the van - I didn't fancy pulling my guts out trying to lift the thing. If someone wanted to steal a  bloody gas bottle then they were welcome to it.

"Another skive, Sophie?" shouted Dave.

"Oh yeah," I said. "While you were slogging your guts out in here, we were sat in traffic for most of the day. Jealous of me, aren't you?"

"You're just dragging the job out."

"I wish." Dave was a fabricator in my department. He'd made the jobs I'd gone to weld on site but had refused to go. He was another one who didn't like heights but unlike Tom he'd had a choice to go or not. And still, it was technically my job to weld so it was obvious I should be the one going.

Tom was still gassing to Mike so I buried my hands in the pockets of my fleece and walked through the plastic doors into the 'shop. Dave was on overtime and so he'd just brewed up, sipping at it the way he does like the cup is full of molten lava or something. He'd been my teacher when I'd started and for a guy close to retirement he was still full of fun. On the other hand, his partner in crime, Frank, took another approach to his working day. Without fail, at least once, he'd remind us both that he had eight years, six months and thirteen days until he retired to his holiday home in Poland. The countdown was as regular as the bell and both me and Dave believed that he actually had it down to hours and minutes as well.

"What's new, Frank?" I asked as I saw him on the press brake. He'd made a start on the Medicare job - flat panels, laser cut out and folded on three sides. When I say 'start' I mean he'd set the machine up which was what he'd been doing this morning. He wasn't the kind of guy to rush and for some reason the boss had let him get away with his snail's pace for the last eight years. Maybe it was some kind of sentimentality. Frank hadn't always been like this. There was a time, he often told me, that he'd enjoyed the trade but one day he'd asked himself if there was more to life than bending metal. I guess we knew the answer now.

"Same old shit," he replied, spitting a grape seed onto the floor. "What happened?"

"No permit," I replied.

"Typical. At least you weren't stuck in here."

"Did I miss anything?"

"Not a lot. There's a meeting on Friday."

"When?"

"Half-one."

"Gee. Exciting."

"Isn't it? I can't wait. Just another eight years of this to go. It's worse for you, I guess. You've got another thirty at least."

"Thanks for that, Frank. I needed a boost." He grinned.

"What are friends for?"

The bell rang half an hour later and I'd killed the time by tidying my welding bay. Again. I'd spent the first year of my apprenticeship claiming that little corner one foot at a time and now I had it just the way I wanted it. The area was curtained off with thick green plastic welding screens for the ultimate in privacy (which I argued I needed under the guise of 'health and safety') and I'd made a solid bench out of box section and inch-thick plate to work on. Next to that I had my own welding set (the better of the three we had - considering I am the main welder I think I'm entitled to it), a locker for my stuff, an open-top mechanics tool box (which made an excellent place to stand my phone up and stick a few pictures up with) and a giant leather office chair that I could recline with my feet on a stool. This I'd managed to rescue from the rubbish dump and it used to belong to someone in the offices upstairs. I'd tried to grab a settee from reception once but they claimed it was a fire hazard (pft).

To top it all off there was an overhead bar heater which I could turn on whilst I sat down having my lunch or reading my book. I never bothered with the canteen. With all the noise in the workshop I preferred a bit of silence for half an hour every day rather than listen to the 'shop gossip. One thing I learned early on was that were two or more people gathered together, there was old man Gossip amongst them. Some people like to think it's a woman thing - and in some ways it might have been back in the days when men were kept busy and didn't have time to groan and moan. But the modern workplace was different now. It was a place where men and women alike had 'free time' to stand around and chew the fat, to spread a bit of rumour or just talk crap about a workmate. It's strange though. Most of the time we say things that seem downright horrible, things we'd never say to the other person's face, but yet deep down I've always believed it's rarely meant. It's like the gossip is just like people who leave the TV on in the background or always have headphones in - it's just noise because we're afraid of the silence. That's what gossip always seemed to look like to me. Verbal white noise.

"See you in the morning, Sophie," called Tom as I began the ritual of packing away my things, ready for home. "Same again - seven?"

"Yeah. We'll try again, eh?" I said. He waved a piece of paper in the air.

"This should help."

"The permit?"

"Yeah. At last. Good night."

"Good night, Tom."

My routine for going home (when I wasn't on site) was, I admit, a bit of a ritual. When you do the same thing for five days a week, nearly fifty weeks of the year, you turn them into big parts of your life. They become important for reasons you don't understand and the moment someone screws them up you're tempted to fly into a huge rage. It's easy to understand how prisoners struggle to cope on the outside if they've become 'institutionalised' after a long time in the joint. You become a slave to them (notice the recurring theme when I talk about work!) and mine was quickly making a slave out of me.

First, my cup (the chipped Mickey Mouse one Mel bought me years ago) MUST be put back in the top of my tool box on the open-top bit where my phone goes. The spoon must be inside it and it must be rinsed out if I've had cack (dirt/rubbish/left-over tea) in it. That's so that in the morning, when I come in, I can pick it up and get straight on with making a cup of tea without having to go searching for it (usually where I was working last). When I change out of my boots into my trainers to drive home in, they must go in the little alcove where I keep them with my extra socks (the boots are a little too big so I double up on my socks to pad them out). I hang my overalls up on a nail I've hammered into the brickwork and I make sure my locker is locked and not just swinging open (for all to see). Lastly, I make sure the gas is off on my welder (the pipe leaks somewhere and I'll get around to fixing it one day) and I put my phone in the top of my bag so I don't forget it. Once all this is accomplished to my satisfaction I can think about heading towards the clock machine.

Our clocking machine was one of those swipe ones and it added to the feeling that I was drawing my life cash from an overdraft I never seemed to be able to pay off. Every day I swiped out was another day lost that I'd never get back. Some people crave more money. I just wanted more time. It was the one commodity you couldn't just walk into a shop and pick up off the shelf. Every day gone was another day I'd never see again (morose, I know, but I'm deep like that!)

My card was near the top of a long list of names - ANDERSON, SOPHIE and I passed it through the reader with as much zeal as I could muster at five pm on a Monday evening. It was dark outside too which made the act even more important. Swiping like this was an act of defiance against 'The Machine' and I believed that if I could just beat the scanner, if I could just make it malfunction, then I'd have won a great victory for the common worker. There was a time when, if you timed it right, you could silence the building's bell by swiping your card just as the clock hit the precise finishing time. Imagine how earth shattering that one small action could be? With one flick of the wrist you altered the working day itself. Imagine the power you could wield with that knowledge? I never got chance to find out anyway. Once it became clear what was happening when a certain unknown rebel pulled this off, they called the engineers in and had the glitch fixed. Still, it was nice while it lasted. I suppose The Man has to keep putting down these small rebellions the moment they arise or who knows what might happen?

On this occasion I failed in my duty to break the machine. The display flashed my name - CLOCKED OUT and buzzed. I guess the revolution would have to wait until tomorrow.

My tatty Ford Focus was sat alone in my usual parking space. I was always one of the last out of the door but it had nothing to do with my work ethic. It had more to do with the fact that getting out of the car park during the hectic 90 seconds after the bell had rung was more akin to a destruction derby than a workforce bound for home. In my time at Riley's there'd been no less than six accidents thanks to the layout of each parking space being directly in line with another. I had no love for my Focus but I felt the motherly protective urges stirred in me whenever I watched this insane spectacle. I noticed that Frank, in his sleek new Audi, was the most successful at getting out unscathed and in the quickest time. This was owed to the tactical positioning of his parking space. Now, it wasn't as good as mine because I always came in early so I could take my pick and I always chose the place facing the exit. But Frank had found himself the only spot that allowed him to cheekily block everyone else by parking with the nose of his car a little too far forward. It was enough to be considered an honest mistake and just not too much to be accused of doing it deliberately. It was enough though and when the race began he was always the first out with a line of angry colleagues right behind him. 

By not taking part in this melee, it did mean that I had to face the traffic though. It's amazing how a few minutes can be the difference between an empty road and total gridlock. There was a rumour though of a golden minute between finishing time which, if tapped into, would cut nearly ten minutes off your journey home time. I'd never seen it though and I was inclined to believe it was a myth.

On the way home I stopped off at the Spar to grab some milk and bread. To call Mel a flatmate would have been to over exaggerate her role in our relationship.
Squatter
might have been more accurate a term. Or dosser. It was only the history we shared that made me overlook her many shortcomings - mainly her inability to contribute to the running of our little social experiment.

First of all, if there's the chance that something is about to run out - be it bread or milk or shampoo, she'll make sure there's enough left to trick me into using it up. Then, like a ninja, she'll pounce out of nowhere and tell me to get some more, given that I was the last one to use it. Once I was sat on the toilet with only three pieces of paper left when I heard her call from downstairs that we needed some more. Such friendship is precious, they tell me.

Did I mind? Sometimes. Then I had to remind myself that she was a thirty-something woman living with her high school friend. That her hopes of being more than a secretary were long gone. That her marriage to someone we thought was amazing turned into a living hell when she miscarried. That she'd spent two months in hospital with the injuries he'd given her after getting drunk one night. It kind of put the occasional empty milk bottle into perspective.

Our flat was above a hairdresser which, I can tell you, is mighty convenient. I'd got the rent at a steal when I saw that the landlord was a cousin of mine who I never knew existed until I applied to the advert.
He
knew
me
though and slashed fifty quid off the monthly rent. Was it my catwalk good looks that won him over? No, it had more to do with the fact that he fancied my auntie on my Dads side. I could overlook this though because he always carried out the repairs - like the time our boiler blew in the middle of winter leaving us freezing to death, and he always made sure the hairdressers below (he owned that part of the building too) gave us a hefty discount. There had also been some spare furniture that he was able to give us, such as the battered old coffee table in the living room and a nice Ikea wardrobe which Mel promptly claimed for her many outfits. The foundation of this claim was that, of the two of us, she was the better dressed and thus needed the space. I couldn't really argue - my 'wardrobe' consisted of jeans, work clothes and a few tee shirts. What can I say? I like simple.