Terms & Conditions (4 page)

‘Sounds good, where do we start?' I managed to say, hearing in my voice the flutter of my passing panic. ‘Quads then pecs?'

‘Let's begin at the core, lots of cock exercises, then up from there. How does that sound?'

‘Sounds perfect,' I said, as she curled up into the hollow of my arm.

‘You know what,' she whispered, ‘I think we're going to be fine, Mister, just fine.'

I still didn't remember or really know my wife but, at that moment, even for all the farce and confusion that we'd just been through, I knew I cared for her. I had put her through hell – the crash, the worry, the anxiety, me returning home like some amnesiac retard – and she had done everything to support and love me. I still didn't really know who she was but I knew enough to know that my wife was a very special woman.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF MY OFFICE

I'll do anything for a great view.

One man's tragedy is another man's TV show. You see it on the news every week. The eye witness frothing at the mouth describing some atrocious thing that happened to someone else: ‘And then, like, the bullet hit his throat and it, like, almost took his whole head off, it was awesome . . .' Realising they're being insensitive they add, ‘Um, what I meant was . . . you know, an awesomely terrible tragedy . . . it was terrible, a truly terrible tragedy . . .'

I suspect that this was how my
little episode
was viewed by my colleagues. Who really knows what I did?* So although the staff gave me sympathetic looks, deep down I sensed that many of them had a good chuckle. It was probably a real entertainment to them; anything to cut through the office boredom.

* For all I knew I had run about with my underpants on my head farting the national anthem.

And it turns out I was not just your average employee. The very first thing I saw was a sign on the office door:

Shaw & Sons*

* Lawyers

In a mild twist it turned out I was one of the sons while Oscar, who was both my brother and boss, was the head of the company. He explained that our grandfather had founded the firm; our father then ran it, before Oscar (and I) had taken over.

On my first day back at work, Oscar made a speech to the staff about how I had been through the wars but this was not just a business but a family, and that he was going to make sure I got back to being the brilliant man I once was. It became apparent to me that I had once
been brilliant. I felt terrible for disappointing people in my new less-than-brilliant form.*

* I was the elegant butterfly emerging from the chrysalis a fat dumb caterpillar.

The first few days ticked along normally. My colleagues were very friendly; they seemed not to mind when I fell asleep at my desk, a little drool on my yellow legal pad. The building was one of those sheer glass shards in the city, a thousand mirrors balanced one atop the other with Shaw&Sons perched high in the top two floors. And at first I found it all very easy; I slipped back in, people were nice, they smiled and asked how I was. I assured everyone I was tickety-boo (and they seemed to believe me).

The only slight problem about the office was a door. In my first week back I tried to ignore it but each day it loomed larger in my peripheral vision. It was like any other door but it was ever so slightly whiter and cleaner. I can't explain fully the effect of it other than to say it scared me. I literally couldn't go within ten feet of it without feeling faint and woozy. I ignored it as best I could but it was like ignoring the sun on a bright summer's day.

One morning I saw three men in suits enter into the office with the white door. I walked near the door but couldn't get too close before sparks swam in my vision and I backed away, leaning against the wall to steady myself. I couldn't go near the door.

So, instead, I figured out that I needed to keep my distance, stay at my desk, and wait for the door to open. That way, as soon as I saw someone come out I'd run after them –
without going too near the door
– question them, and crack the mystery.*

* I had a plan, brilliant in its simplicity.

Unfortunately my desk was tucked in a corner, which meant I couldn't really see the white door from where I sat – not unless I stood behind my desk and leant at an awkward angle like a bent straw. Which is exactly what I did for half an hour until Oscar came over and gently told me that it was kind of freaking people out.

When I asked Oscar who worked in there, he laughed and said, ‘No one works in there, buddy, it's just a closet or something.'

I told him I'd just seen men going in there and it was clearly not a closet.

Oscar said, ‘Hey, Franklyn, did you take your medicine today?'

‘Yes.'*

* No. (But I'm absolutely fine!) Painkillers killed pain but also killed everything else, including your sense of existence, which was something I was quite keen to cling on to. And my anti-psychotic drugs had dreadful side effects. So I stopped taking those horrid pills (and so far so awesome!).

Instead of standing and leaning, I began to shunt my desk over. It was awkward when I moved so far to the right that my desk touched my colleague's desk.

‘Franklyn, can you move your desk back a bit?' she said.

I said, ‘Of course I can.'

I didn't.

Instead, when she left for a meeting, I moved
her
desk further away too, and then the desk next to hers and so on, pushing the whole office around in a slow circle.

As soon as people went off for meetings, when I was alone, even for a few seconds, I'd shift the desks slightly. I imagined it all in time-lapse: desks migrating like tectonic continents across the deep green carpet.

One day someone tripped over my taut electrical wire and yelled, ‘What the hell!'

I used my lunch hour to run to a store where I bought an extension so I could keep surreptitiously shifting desks.*

* And still I was convinced that this was in no way an obsession! (Oh no no –
I'm all good!
)

I didn't quite get all the desks far enough around in those first few days back. The white door was still not in view from where I sat. So on the Friday I came in early, before anyone was around, and did an additional shunt; then over lunch, when everyone went out, I finally had enough time to administer one final push of all of the desks and then it happened –
I had the perfect view
.

Keeping my distance, I could simply sit at my desk and stare down the corridor to the white door, and – soon as it opened – I'd be on my
feet, charging down whoever came out, asking what the hell was in there that gave me such a deep sense of doom.

I sat there feeling elated, waiting, focusing my entire being on the door, when I heard a colleague across the room shout, ‘Hang on a minute, I used to have a window seat, who the fuck moved my desk?'

There was a meeting held in Oscar's office. I saw them all talking then pointing at me. Oscar came over and very softly told me off for moving the desks and said it wasn't good behaviour for me to get obsessed with things and Dr Mills had said this could happen.

I promised Oscar I'd forget about the door.*

* I lied.

I went straight to the front desk of the building and spoke to the main doorman. I politely explained that there was a shiny white door down the corridor from my office, and I just wanted to know the name of the company; that was all.

The doorman said, ‘Opposite Shaw&Sons? A new office? No. Are you saying that I haven't noticed an entirely new office opening in my own building? Are you saying I'm not doing my job properly, sir? Is this a joke? Did Jeff from maintenance put you up to this?'

Taken aback, I said, ‘Um?'

He looked at me suspiciously and sneered, ‘Nice bloody try, sir.' Then added, ‘I don't recognise you. Have you even got authority to be here?'

I fumbled for my ID and muttered, ‘I'm a . . . Shaw.'

He didn't look impressed; instead he took an age to study my ID, then said, ‘You look sort of different. What's happened to you?'*

* I refer my client to the previous 20 pages of confused revelations.

Too baffled to continue the conversation, I said I'd been on holiday, then ran off, deciding to go and stare at my beautiful barista. (Seamlessly shuffling one obsession with another.)

She was even more beautiful than I remembered and I was so smitten that I had to stop myself approaching her, fearful that partway through ordering I might blurt out my undying love.*

*
An espresso with two sugars, you fantastically wonderful example of everything in life that I love and adore
.

I noticed that she was chatting to someone on her phone, and then the doorman, who I'd previously argued with, came over, and told me I had to leave the premises, as I was freaking out the young lady.

Overall I wouldn't say that my first week back had been a blinding success.*

* Not unless, that is, you compared it to the following week, which turned out to be one of the worst of my life.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF BEES

They're dying.

I took a few days off, doctor's orders. I'd given up searching for clues in the flat. I accepted that I was looking for someone who wasn't there. I was a junkie who'd forgotten what drug he was addicted to. The need was there but with nothing to sate it, I craved without end, desired without satisfaction. Between being Old Frank and New Franklyn I found I was forever second-guessing myself – saying something but hearing the thing I actually wanted to say echo in my head – like a Russian doll of disappointed versions packed deeper and deeper within. So I made the decision to put myself out of my own misery. I didn't want to find Old Frank. I was happy as I was, and I kept sadness at bay for a while, until I met three people. The first was Sandra, the second was Doug, and the third was the oddest – it was me.

I was watching a programme on television and a presenter was explaining what an essential link the bee is in life's chain. ‘Without this little Aphrodite of the flowers, mankind is in danger of following the bees into extinction,' the man said, smiling to camera. It cut to an image of dead bees scattered like gun pellets in a field and I felt warmth on my face. Tears. I was crying. Crying for those damn stupid bees. Tears rolled down my face. I didn't even place the story into the greater context of what it meant for mankind, I just felt incredibly sad about all those poor little dead bees. There was a knock on the door and I waited for Alice to answer it, but remembered she had a yoga away-day with her boss, Valencia. I quickly tidied myself up and when I opened the door there was a lady who said what everyone said to me these days, ‘I'm not sure if you remember me, Frank.'

‘You're Molly?' I guessed.

‘I'm Sandra.'

This woman had the most remarkable nose, like something chiselled from crystal, with so many wonderful angles that I got lost in it. She smiled in a way that filled me with love. I felt as if she were my real
wife. I held this rushing sensation of love in place and said, ‘Your nose is really beautiful.'

‘Thank you,' she said, and blushed. ‘I'm a friend of your wife. Well, to be honest, I'm an old friend, maybe an ex-friend. It's been years. But a friend told me about your . . . accident. I miss you, Frank, I'm so sorry about what happened . . .'

Then, before I could stop it, I started to cry again. Without pausing Sandra gathered me up into a hug and deep inside her hair and her cardigan – which released just a whiff of mushroom – I suddenly recalled a detail. ‘Is Molly OK? Your mum is Molly.'

Without breaking the hug, Sandra said, ‘I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, Frank, but Molly's not well. She's in hospital. She's dying.'

I cried even more loudly and, before I realised what I was saying, I heard myself mutter into Sandra's warm neck, ‘Just like all the bees, Sandra, just like all the poor bees.'

She kept hugging me and whispered, ‘I know, Frank, I know.'

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF CULLING

Friends are a hindrance.

Since my wife and I had made love – which turned out to be a one-off incident – things had not gone as smoothly as I had hoped. Initially we were fine and our pleasant dinners continued to be pleasant until one night we hit a hurdle. It started when I began to ask questions. Without mentioning the book
Executive X
or the floating finger, I just said vaguely, ‘Was I depressed before the crash?'

She stared hard into my eyes as if we were working on a telepathic level, only my receiver was broken and nothing was coming through.

‘Why ask that, Franklyn?'

She loved answering questions with questions. I was growing irritated by it.

‘I just feel something isn't quite right.' Then I went one further, and said, ‘Look, Sandra came to visit me and she told me Molly's sick.'

‘I know,' said my wife, with no surprise in her voice.

‘You know Molly's sick and you've not been to see her, or even mentioned it to me.'

‘You're still sick yourself; I didn't want to stress you.' My wife then looked up and said coldly in a voice I'd not heard before, ‘Look, Frank-lyn, to be honest with you, I dumped them, I culled them.'

‘How do you mean?' I asked, confused.

‘Did you take your medicine today?' she asked.*

* No (but, as I said, I'm doing really absolutely brilliantly without it).

Then my wife said, ‘I culled them because I just decided they weren't getting me anywhere.'*

* Now, normally at our little dinners – to keep it all sweet – I would do everything to avoid rocking the boat, and I would have just said, ‘OK, I understand, I'm really sorry I asked.'

But this time, before I could stop myself, I heard myself saying, ‘Is that what friends are for? To get you places? I'm pretty sure that's what cars are for.'