Surviving Michael Read Free

whatsoever for the rest of the afternoon. The poor chap’s become somewhat of an addict to her perfect contours. Last week she had a half day, and he was itching and scratching at himself like a junkie.
    Perhaps she sees me as just one step above the likes of them, and barely worth the bother. Sees me for what I am. Or rather, what I could have been but am not. She knows well enough that I have enough clout in this place with the boys upstairs to warrant a nominal amount of respect from her at the very least, and that very little leaves this factory without my input. But she’s seen through all that with the inherent perception that only women possess.
    I’ve been in this place since it opened, and it would undoubtedly struggle to function without me, but still, after, what is it? Eight years... Christ, eight years. After eight years, that’s as high as I’ve risen and am ever going to rise. Sure, they flatter me with public praise and throw me a perfunctory salary raise every now and then, but then I do make their lives run a lot smoother. I open up in the morning and lock up in the evening more times than even the owners do. There used to be twenty of us down here, but after the Celtic tiger emigrated, we’re back down to the same six that we were eight years ago. I do realise the freedom I have, and the level of trust too, but it comes with a price tag. I have my leeway, but only as far as the links in the chain will allow me. I’m fully aware that the end of that chain is bolted securely to the floor of the warehouse, and its length will never increase to allow me beyond the base of the stairs. I am what every smooth running body needs to function at its optimum efficiency – an arsehole. I deal with all the shite and make sure everyone comes out smelling of roses.
    And it took Alysha Devon all of five seconds to realise what it took me eight years to. And I’ve just got to admire her for that. One look up and down at me from those green eyes over the rim of her first cup of coffee that morning, and she had me sussed down to a tee. Guessed my past and predicted my future. He’s not worth riding, she thought. Not even worth a quick hand job in the toilets.
    So this is my worth. A five minute flirtatious tease every afternoon.
    ‘Nick, can I ask you about this?’ she says, conspiratorially, and then leans into me to show me some papers, as if presenting her cleavage to me for inspection, while every other pair of eyes in the place devours her. She says by the way I smoke my cigarette that I look like a young Martin Sheen from
Apocalypse Now
, when what I feel like is a very old Charlie Sheen.
    ‘You’re such a pet,’ she might add, and then touch my arm. Or chew on her pen. Or squeal with laughter at something I say. Or shake her hair loose with her free hand. And then off she’ll go back up the stairs. The hot summer days making her skirts as short as the nights. Up, up, and away. An angel rising to the heavens. Her heels clobbering on the wooden steps again. Bang. Bang. Bang. That sound like nails being beaten into a coffin. Bang. Bang. Bang. A gavel sentencing me to an eternity in this warehouse below. Bang. Bang. Bang.
    And then the shuffling sound as little Barry Stephens scurries his way out to the toilets again.
     
    After Aoife was gone, one of the things I most dreaded was coming home to a quiet and dark house. Actually, it turned out it didn’t bother me that much. In fact, I quite liked it. We were going out for just under ten years when it happened. Not that I had anything planned for our anniversary to celebrate.
    It’s strange that if I try to visualise her sitting in her favourite reading armchair, as I’ve seen her hundreds of times, that all I can see is an empty chair. Or if I sit and listen and pretend that I can hear the rattle of her keys outside and then the front door opening, as I’ve also heard hundreds of times, all I can hear is silence. But her perfume, her smell, her scents,