The Pink and the Grey Read Online Free PDF Page A

littered with dusty old toys — not those kinds of toys — plus papers to read and to ignore and the inevitable laptop front and centre. Add a brace of chairs, a sofa of unknown provenance and a disintegrating kettle to keep the paracetamol company, and the room could fit no more. Oh, there was the ubiquitous camera, of course, snug like a spider in the corner above the door — upon which hung a turkish rug of multicoloured wools and cotton, delicately woven, a story for another time, perhaps.
    The room’s least appealing feature was its rather unpalatable view onto the lifeless, foggy plastics of the bus terminal, and consequently and constantly it throbbed a sulphurous orange from artificial light no matter how lead-thick the curtains. The benefits, however, were occasionally many: on a warm summer’s afternoon with the sash fully open, and in the glorious, brief moments when the ad-stained buses held their belching and stood silent and cold, I could absorb the sprawls of half-naked sun worshippers dotted about the grass of Christ’s Pieces beyond, full of cheer and drink and tossing balls and frisbees and whatnot, and I could feel the breeze, hot upon my gently procrastinating face.
    Sadly, my day was usually too damned occupied with work and panicked students and the blessed like to gaze too long at the unattainable outside.
    I do confess the room was, on drunken occasion, pressed urgently into service for unofficial, personal purposes, witness the farrago with the Master over Scott — git . It was no accident I suspect that the sofa could easily transform into a bed of sorts whether my eyes consented to focus or not. But despite what Amanda might believe it was not my habit or my preference to bring gentlemen back to the room. I owned a very pleasant flat in a quiet area of town. Unhappily, it was a more distant area of town than I sometimes cared to stagger post prandium .
    I returned to the room after Amanda’s press-ganging and sat harumphing at my desk in the orange-dark willing an obvious, easy idea to pop quickly into life so that my weekend wouldn’t be banjaxed utterly. The clock ticked stubbornly towards seven, at which point the gin switch in my brain would spark. All I could then hope for would be some lurking subconscious imp tackling the problem while the thinking portion disengaged. A few minutes of cogitation now might at least satiate what very little conscience I had on the matter.
    Sadly, no life-saving plan was forthcoming as the hour chimed. No amount of riffing on the words gin , git , tick , clock , cow , murder , escape , train , and so on, triggered anything meritorious. I granted myself permission for a light starter drink, a boozette , since it was after all a Friday and pace was of the utmost importance, and then I called Claire.
    “On a scale of one to ten,” I began as soon as she picked up.
    “My dear, he hasn’t left yet.” The he to which she referred was her husband, Ken: a chubby businessman, ruddy-cheeked and rarely present, even when present. Ask him his wife’s birthday and he’d struggle, but he could rattle off Powerpoint keyboard shortcuts like Add Pointless Transition and Insert Shitty Clipart like a nerd on speed. He was forever jetting upon one urgent, sweaty business trip or another, and it seemed one such other was beckoning. I’d once called him a travelling salesman — why yes, alcohol was involved — and his cheeks had purpled for a nanosecond before the corporate smile reasserted. Aside from that momentary lapse he was always pleasant enough with me, and I suspect somewhere beneath the layers of blubber was secretly happy for his wife to have some unthreatening and convivial company while he counted ceiling tiles in airports and increased his circumference.
    “Can you not decant Ken into a taxi and scuttle down here?” I said.
    There was palpable tutting. “Spencer, you know I barely see him. Anyway, it’s only just gone seven. Why now?”
    “On a