At the Edge of the Game Read Free Page A

their outfits for days, but I
haven’t come up with a good design yet. I’m getting nowhere with it tonight
either, so I turn instead to the least laborious aspect of the project –
designing the human capital city. I fritter away a couple of hours adding
detail to the city map – a task not strictly necessary to the novel itself, but
therapeutic. It makes the whole vision more complete for myself.
    I don’t emerge
from my dream world until four in the afternoon, stiff from stooping over the
desk. Helen’s gone out somewhere, probably to escape Heathshade’s noise. How many
times have we asked him to keep the volume down? He just disregards us, well
aware that we can’t afford to evict. His bedroom door opens and he comes down
the stairs after me, in search of conversation. He’s one of those types who
need always to have something going on, whether they are talking or watching TV
or listening to music, or whatever. Can’t abide for even a few minutes the
opportunity to think.
    ‘Alright,
George?’
    ‘Hi, Marcus.’
    ‘Hey, get your
rent cash for you tomorrow. Dole day.’
    ‘That’s great.’
Might as well tell him. ‘I’ll be joining you down there soon. I got laid off
today.’
    ‘Yeah, sorry
about that, man. Your lady told me this morning. Tough break, that.’
    Heathshade has
difficulty understanding why anyone would choose to seek employment when the
government is willing to pay out hard cash to you anyway.
    ‘Good lady, she
is, George. Needs to be looked after.’
    It’s easiest
just to humour him. He’ll get bored and go away, with some luck. I make my cup
of tea.
    ‘Yeah, you did
well there, but you’ve got to keep ‘em once you have ‘em, know what I mean? Learned
that the hard way, I did. I was married once.’
    I didn’t know
that. Extremely difficult to imagine this man married.
    ‘Yeah, still am
officially, I suppose. It was in my Army days in England. I was on leave. Came
home one evening, found my things in the hall in one big pile. See, she had a
friend, name of Doris, who I met on the train the first day of leave. You
understand, I had hardly seen a woman in months, and so I was looking forward
to seeing to my lady wife. Train gets into the station and instead of going
home I go to her house. I couldn’t help meself. She was all over me. Didn’t get
home until 11 o’clock that night, and had to do some fast talking with the
wife. Then more sex with her. Anyway, Doris feels guilty about a week later,
tells a friend who tells me wife. I come home after a good night to find that
she’s kicking me out. End of me marriage, then and there. Court order stopped
me trying to patch things up. Left me a bit depressed, so that I could not
properly return to the Army life. Got meself out of that gig by and by, though
not without a good deal more strife.’
    I cast the last
of my tea into the sink. ‘Sorry to hear that.’
    ‘Water under
the bridge now, George. Past history, so to speak. Move on with life. That’s
what I say. That’s why I came here originally, you see, to try and get into the
Irish Army. Didn’t know that they would find out about what happened in the UK.
Bit of bad luck, that. But promise me this, George, cos I say it as a friend -
don’t make the mistakes I made. Keep your lady contented to the best of your
ability.’
    ‘I’ll try.’
    ‘I see things
are not… well, you know.’ He’s staring at me with his sly, lashless eyes. ‘She’s
a bit down, ain’t she?’
    Time to bail out
of this conversation. I go back up to my desk, but I can’t work any more. I’ve
lost the thread. And also, I’m massively tired. So I get into bed for a
lie-down. Immediately I start to drift. I always know when I’ll be able to sink
into deep sleep. If in my half-waked state I see images, I will sleep soundly. If
I hear voices, disjointed phrases and names, music, I will sleep only fitfully.
Currently my state is of the latter type. When I wake, if I remember any of
these