Gregory
Published in http://kenagain.freeservers.com/PROSE.HTML
This thin, bald, bespectacled guy answered the door. He was wearing a charcoal grey suit, though it was Sunday. He might have been to church. But who apart from Pacific Islanders went to church? Perhaps he was going to a funeral. But he did not appear sad. Maybe it was a wedding. Would he be interviewing the day he was going to a wedding?
At first I picked him for an old guy; perhaps early forties. Looking closer, however, as his small hand slid through mine, I realised he was probably nearer my own age. The baldness, the serious look in his eyes even when he smiled, and, mostly, the charcoal suit, made him seem older.
Gregory showed me around the place, which took about thirty seconds. The flat was tiny. But it was well-furnished and had all the modern conveniences, even a microwave. I had never been in a place with a microwave before. After a year at Bruce's, where we had not even had a television set, it seemed like more of a luxury than I deserved. I fully expected to be rejected once again.
The spare room was next to the lounge and had a sliding door. Obviously that wasn't going to keep out much noise. There was just space to walk between the narrow bed and the two large tallboys against the opposite wall.
So I was none too bothered when Gregory handed me the now familiar 'I'll call you' line. I had received it at every place I'd visited so far, and not one of them had called.
I understood why and tried not to take it too personally. People had always told me I was a strange sort and a bad conversationalist. Too often my opinions conflicted with theirs, and you had to be careful about that sort of thing. I'd lost count of the number of people who had stopped talking to me because I'd disagreed with them on some matter or another. It was one of the flaws in my personality.
I had to ask people to call me at work. We did not have a phone at Bruce's, and I did not want him to know I was looking for another place anyway. It would be pretty embarrassing to tell him I was moving out then not be able to find a place. The boys would have a field day.
And not being able to find a place was beginning to seem like a very real prospect. I had to tell them to call me at the supermarket, where I worked on check-out, and then a subtle change would come into their eyes, like a neon 'vacancy' sign switching off.
Gregory, in fact, asked no questions. Neither did he seem much interested in anything I said. He hardly stopped talking from the moment he opened the door and introduced himself until the moment he told me he would call me and closed it again.
It was Thursday when the assistant manager summonsed me from check-out to take the call. He scowled across at me with his fiery red eyebrows, like an angry lobster, as though I had just broken some sacred ethical code. He could go to hell. It was the first call I'd taken in over two years.
Dougal was in the tea room with some of the high school girls. They were getting ready to take over for the evening shift. Dougal had fuzzy black hair, thick-rimmed glasses and a seemingly permanent idiotic smile. He bounced along when he walked, his arms flapping at his sides, which added to the overall muppet effect of his appearance. At twenty-six he was the oldest guy on checkout after me, and had been telling us for the past three years that this was only a temporary station for him until he gained a place on the polytechnic journalism course. He fell in behind me as I approached the telephone and began scratching himself under the armpits. The girls laughed away and the idiotic grin on Dougal's face grew so wide he looked more like a muppet than ever.
"Keep it down," I remonstrated with the girls. "This could be important."
Dougal's eyes bulged behind the glasses. "Gosh, an important call. Could it be from Jane?"
The girls laughed again and Dougal could not resist continuing his performance.
I suspected the call must be from one of the places I had looked at, difficult as that was to believe. Nobody else would be calling me at work. I tried to imagine which of the places would be polite enough to call me up to reject me .
"Greg-o-ree speaking," said a flat, disinterested voice. "When do you intend to move in?"
It took me a moment to comprehend what I was hearing, and another to figure it out. Gregory had waited four days before calling me. No doubt he had been unable to get anyone else for the room, it being so puny and lacking a proper door to keep the noise out. I wasn't too keen myself. But no one else was going to accept me and I was desperate to get out of Bruce's.
Rick moved me in with his new Hilux. He was always prepared to help me out, even if I did have to listen to his big-brother lectures in return. I didn't have many things and might have carried them on the bus except for the mattress. I would have felt ridiculous hauling a mattress around on public transport. Rick, naturally, approved of my departure from Bruce's. He had always considered my friends a bunch of losers. He seemed to hit it off with Gregory too. They stood there in the kitchen talking quietly together while I wrestled my mattress through the house to the bedroom. Then Rick had to get back to inspect the plans for his new house. He and Barbara were going to live in Seatoun Heights, overlooking the harbour.
No sooner was I settled in my new room than Gregory called me through to the kitchen. He was seated at the small table in the corner by the fridge, an empty vase and a bowl of plastic fruit beside him. He gestured for me to sit down opposite him. It seemed important.
"It's two weeks' in advance plus two weeks' bond."
"No problem," I said, taking out my wallet and piling the cash on the table.
Gregory swept up the notes and carefully counted them, one by one. "I'll also need thirty dollars for food."
I placed three more notes on the table, and he counted them as well, though anyone could see there were three blue notes there.
"That's for the basics," he said. "If you want things like coffee or biscuits, obviously you buy those yourself."
He twisted around to look up at the calendar on the wall behind him. "Right, wot nights will you be cooking?"
I gazed stupidly back at him. "Cooking?"
He blinked at me through his spectacles. "Yes, you'll be cooking three nights, I'll be cooking three nights, and Saturday's we'll provide for ourselves. I often go out for dinner on Saturday evenings, and no doubt you'll have your own plans."
I had difficulty drawing my next breath. The idea of cooking for this guy every other night held all the appeal of a prison sentence. But I had to tell him something - until I could find a way out of it. "I can cook Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays, I s'pose..."
Gregory shook his head slowly. "No, it's got to be alternate nights. Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for instance."
I stared in disbelief at him, sitting across the table from me in his charcoal grey suit. "I've got rugby practise on Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"Then make it Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."
"I work late on Fridays."
He blinked at me some more. "So give up one of your practise nights."
"But that won't work," I appealed to him, sounding like some desperate leper even in my own ears. "It'll be both practises and I'll lose my place in the team."
His expression did not change, as though all this meant nothing to him and the only thing of consequence in his life was that I cooked on the specific nights he wanted me to cook on. "Well, you'll just have to decide wot's more important to you, won't you? I've never had anyone here who wasn't prepared to cook before."
I wondered in a moment of bitterness just how many people he had had there before, and what the average term of their stays had been. I couldn't see myself lasting very long, and this was only the first day. But I needed the place, at least until I had chance to find somewhere else. I couldn't go crawling back to Bruce's now. The boys would have a field day.
My mind raced. "I s'pose I could put something on before practises, then dish it up as soon as I get back." He was frowning, so I quickly added, "I'll have it on the table by eight or so."
Gregory massaged his narrow jaw a while. "Well, so long as it is on the table by eight. No later."
I took a deep breath and slumped back in my chair. I had meant closer to eight-thirty. Practise didn't finish till eight so I was going to have to leave around twenty minutes early. I would not be able to keep that up for very long. But at least I had gained a temporary reprieve. I hated to think how Rick would have carried on had I been forced to call him the same day he had moved me in to ask him to move me back out again.
Gregory, having settled the life and death issue of cooking nights to his satisfaction, then set about explaining the rules of the house to me. They were numerous and mostly trivial. He was still droning on when a light tap at the door interrupted him. It was an old woman seeking donations for the Crippled Children's Society. I had my wallet open and was approaching the door when Gregory apologised to her and closed it in her face. He had just taken half a month's wages off me and was refusing to make a donation.
That evening I was sprawled out on the leather couch when Gregory entered the living room and asked me to remove my feet from the coffee table. He sat down right next to me and used the remote control to switch on the television. It was all a bit strange, if you asked me, and him wearing his suit and drinking coffee at twenty-to-nine.
I was not a fan of television either. Most of it seemed like it was designed for mentally-handicapped toddlers. But it would have been rude to get up and leave the moment Gregory sat down. So I stayed and watched it with him. He flicked back and forth between the two public stations and the tacky private one, before settling on a movie, 'Last of the Mohicans.' That lasted about twenty minutes, at which point he declared it 'typical American rubbish' and switched channels again. Now we were watching 'COPS' and some old white officer was being congratulated for shooting a black youth as he fled down an alley. There were slow motion replays of the guy being killed, like a football game. Gregory decided that was 'more American rubbish' and switched channels again. So now we had the local version of Candid Camera on and some overweight aerobics instructor was baring his buttocks to a class full of women; a chorus of mechanical, screechy laughter in the background. Gregory chuckled too and put the remote control down.
Then he got talking about his career. He babbled on about that for quite a time, but he might have been speaking Greek for all the sense it made to me. Next he explained how he was dealing in shares for himself nowadays as well as on behalf of his clients. He even tried to talk me into investing some money, and it required a considerable effort on my part to persuade him I was not interested. Next he enlightened me with his plans to go into property development. There was a "cool fortune" to be made in that, he reckoned, gazing at me with bulging bespectacled eyes. It was all I could do to prevent myself from yawning into his face.
When Gregory went into the kitchen to make another coffee, I seized the opportunity and escaped to my bedroom. He returned a few minutes later and turned the television up. I could hear it through my sliding door just as clearly as if I had still been sitting on the couch beside him. He flicked through the channels again and finally settled on the movie he had earlier denounced as 'American rubbish.' This presented me with a dilemma. I was actually interested in the movie, but I didn't want to listen to Gregory, and what I discovered was this: If I stood right by the wall with my door open a fraction, I could see all of the television screen apart from the bottom left corner which was obscured by Gregory's head. So after that I watched television from inside my room, peering out through the gap between the wall and the sliding door, and I didn't have to listen to Gregory talking.
Coach was not accustomed to me running off twenty minutes before the end of practises, and he roundly abused me every time. But it was mostly warm-downs, and I kept my place in the team regardless. Probably it was too late in the season to disrupt things by changing players.
The boys, naturally, had their fun. They were exceedingly witty, nicknaming me 'The Nanny,' and even presenting me with a frilly pink apron after one match. I suppose I couldn't blame them. I had become a pretty easy target, what, with this business of cooking for Gregory. They never said anything about me moving out of Bruce's though.
It started raining one night so Coach sent us into the gym lest we chew up the field. A game of touch was organised and I scored a couple of easy ones inside Pigsy. He was only suited for scrummaging, with that big beer belly of his. If you beat him once he would feign disinterest in the entire affair and call out ''bring the ball back when you're finished'' each time you glided by him, like you were just being being downright childish or something. As tighthead prop he, naturally, regarded himself as the epicentre of the team. So I liked to give him a cheeky wink along the way.
I was going by Pigsy for the third time when an electric current shot through my knee and my leg went out from under me. I gazed up at the timber ceiling as the faces began to gather at the perimeters of my vision. They gawked down at me, saying nothing, like I was at the bottom of a well and they were looking into it. And it seemed to me, in my dazed state, that what I saw in their eyes was not concern but something closer to triumph. Only Coach's face appeared genuinely perturbed when it joined the circle of starers.
"Haven't done your bluddy knee in, have ya?" he asked in his gruffest tone.
"I'll be okay," I assured him through clenched teeth. The pain had hold of my knee like some demon bull terrier.
Coach turned to Wheels. "Go an' fetch Mat. He'll be out on the main ground with the seniors."
It seemed an eternity before Wheels returned with the physio straddling along behind him. Even Pigsy looked like a titan next to Wee Mat. The boys were chuckling into their sleeves at the sight of him, a chubby green elfin in a soaking wet tracksuit.
"Wotcha done to yourself there, son?" he enquired, squatting down beside me.
I pointed to my outstretched leg. "Just wrenched me knee. I'll be right in a jiff."
He made a prolonged examination, entailing much painful prodding and bending of the knee, before agreeing with my assessment. From his bulky sports bag he produced a tube of ointment.
"It'll ease the pain," he told me, massaging a little into my knee. "But you're finished for the season, sorry to tell ya."
It took me a moment to comprehend what he was saying. I was out for the last five games! I was so disappointed I neglected to thank him as he straddled back out, an elfin with his bulky sports bag, and the guys pointing at his back and chuckling among themselves.
My despair turned to alarm when I realised it was seven-thirty. It would take me half an hour to get home on this leg. I'd be lucky to have dinner on the table by quarter-past-eight.
I was close with my estimation too. By the time I got back it was already eight, Gregory's dinner deadline. He was sitting at the small kitchen table in his charcoal grey suit (perhaps he had a collection of them), the electric light shining on his spectacles and frowning forehead.
"Wrenched me knee," I explained sheepishly. "Got home as quick as I could."
Gregory removed his spectacles and laid them on the table beside the bowl of plastic fruit. A lime-green apple tumbled out and he smartly replaced it. The irritation was in his eyes but failed to prepare me for what was to come.
"Look, this isn't working out," he said flatly. "I don't ask much, but if you can't make an effort to comply with the few simple rules that I do set down, then you'll need to find another place."
In that moment, as I stood there on my aching knee, having hobbled home through the rain at maximum speed just to serve him his dinner, I had a very strong impulse to pummel his narrow bland face in. But stronger than this was my growing sense of desperation. I had not got around to looking for anywhere else yet, and going back to Bruce's held about as much appeal as hauling my mattress out to the city dump and taking up lodgings there. I had to be able to reason with this guy.
"My season's over anyway. It's not gunna happen again."
Gregory replaced his glasses and rose from his chair, shaking his head with finality. "No, it's not just the cooking. There are other issues besides. The way you disappear into your room every night, for instance. It's insulting."
"You should a said something. I'll watch television with you this evening, if you like." It sounded pathetic even in my own ears. But I was desperate.
The head kept shaking, and for an instant I felt the way I had in the gym as my teammates had gazed down at me. Gregory turned away, as though I no longer existed, and went through to the living room.
"My decision is final," he said over his shoulder. "I'll give you a week to find another place."
I hobbled after him. I wasn't about to grovel anymore. He wasn't going to change his mind. Though I still had to contain my anger, for I needed that week, I was prepared to be a little less pathetic now that it had come to this. "Well, I'll need my bond back before I go."
Gregory sat down on his leather couch and shuffled through a few sheets of paper on the coffee table. "You'll get your money the day you leave. Don't worry yourself too much about that. We'll settle your bills first though."
I took them from him and immediately noticed they were dated the month before I had moved in. It figured. The bills for the current month couldn't have possibly arrived yet.
''Oh!'' He feigned surprise when I pointed this out to him, as though a guy who practically had dollar signs in his eyes didn't know what month's bills he was looking at. "In that case I'll have to hold onto your bond till this month's bills arrive."
Perhaps it was the light on the lenses of his spectacles, but he seemed to be gloating as he looked up at me. The urge to pummel his bland little face in was very strong in me then. I wondered how long it would be before someone actually did, for it could only have been a matter of time. But, as for me, I needed that week. I made up my mind I would have it all out with him the final day, and if he didn't come up with my money then, I'd punch his teeth out, smash his spectacles and take his microwave or something.
Meanwhile, I had to find somewhere else to live.
End
(next in this series http://bobnerinpoulsen.blogspot.com/ )
