A Smaller Hell Read Free Page B

caricatures of Nazi officers I'd seen in old war films.  The softer woman sank into one of the nylon, cotton, button-strewn recesses of the department and out of sight, leaving me with the harsh-looking sales assistant.
    Upon seeing me, the Nazi officer smiled so broadly that I thought her paper-thin, powdered skin might rip.
    ‘I'm here for an interview with Ms. Doyle and I'm not sure where to find her.  Can you tell me where her office is?’
    The old woman stopped smiling, struggling to contain her contempt as she looked me up and down.   ‘Who turns up for an interview looking like this?’
    ‘Erm …’
    ‘How old are you, urchin?’
    ‘30.’
    She was picking at my suit with her long, pearly claws, tutting all the while.  She smelled like hairspray, perfume and death.  When my answer registered, her eyebrows raised, revealing her antique eye sockets.
    ‘Well, no wonder you're still jobless.  You can't even keep your breakfast off your lapels.’
    She licked her hanky with her lizard widow tongue and began wiping off the crusty stain.  It only occurred to me after she began ablutions that it was most likely vomit or mucus belonging to the pipe-smoker on the bus.  She licked the same spot on her handkerchief and resumed.
    ‘Erm, sorry but I don't think that's, erm …’
    ‘My name is not Erm .  Call me Miss Allister from now on.’
    ‘Yes, Miss Allister.’
    She finished off the last of the puke and turned her attention to my hair.  What I thought was a smile at first turned out to be a wince.
    ‘Well, I haven't got all morning.  At least now you have a fighting chance.  Perhaps if by some miracle you succeed in your interview, we might get you a jacket that fits and a shirt that isn’t made of plastic.’
    ‘Thank you, Miss Allister.’
    She stared at me for a few seconds then asked me to smile.
    ‘Hmmm.  Good luck.  You’re going to need it.’ 
    Miss Allister pointed to the small brushed steel lift doors marked Staff Only .

Venetian Tombstone
     
    Like a stinking portal between cause and effect, success and failure, hope and despair, the waiting room was like every other I’d ever been in: drained of blood and tainted with body odour.  The cheap Venetian blinds let in some of the grey light which danced on the dull, carpeted floor, refracted by the water cooler. There were two others waiting, one reading a book, the other doing the thing with her phone that people do when they want to avoid talking to anyone.  Neither of them had really acknowledged me as I walked in, although the girl reading the book offered me a faint smile as I sat down.  Neither of them seemed particularly nervous either.  I’d never been so nervous about a job interview, but then I’d never been a fugitive, either.  I also never thought that I would be hanging everything on Christmas temping at a department store.   The porcelain foreheads of the other applicants seemed untroubled as I wiped away the beads of sweat from my own. 
    I didn't even want the job at this point.  It was all a dreadful mistake and I wanted to go home.  Confusion and panic rushed from my feet to my hairline like an army of prickly insects scaling my body.  My vision began to close in from the edges as I looked around for a window to open, but they were all beyond my reach.  Who the hell would be tall enough to open those?  
    I felt the eyes of the two candidates upon me as I stood on a plastic chair, trying to open the window, desperate for air.  Reaching up for the handle, my shirt stuck to my back with cold sweat.  The wintry sun, hanging low in the eastern sky, dazzled me through the slits in the blinds and suddenly black coffee and orange juice lurched up through my oesophagus as my ears began ringing.  With an aluminium death rattle, I fell into blackness under the sad eyes of the porcelain onlookers; plastic carpet the soil of my grave, a broken Venetian blind my tombstone.

The Wolves
     
    The cracked earth beneath my