The Otto Bin Empire Read Free Page B

you?’ Josh’s ‘voice of reason’ now held an element of impatience that he made little effort to disguise. ‘I mean, when do you intend to get back in touch with the real world?’
    â€˜I’ll get back in touch when I’ve sorted myself out, mate, I promise,’ Clive had said, although even as he did something deep inside told him he wasn’t at all sure he could honour the promise.
    They’d said their goodbyes and that was that.
    Over the ensuing weeks Josh had phoned several times and the conversation followed similarly frustrating lines. Jodie, too, had made further contact, but not verbally, preferring instead to send text messages damning her father. Finally, Clive had turned hismobile phone off altogether, dumping it in the bottom of his backpack. He’d thought of throwing it away, but some sixth sense had warned him not to.
    As time passed and he came to accept his homeless state, Clive was surprised to discover that his life had taken on a bizarre form of routine.
    There were those whose gardens he tended on a semi-regular basis and who he’d come to know – Mrs Cookson and Mrs McPherson (who insisted he call her Florence) and several others besides. There were Saturday afternoons watching Oskar the Pole play chess and Sundays doing the crossword with Ben. There were those occasional afternoon chats with Sal, whom he suspected had come to view him as something of a father-figure, and of course there was Madge, whose conversation never ceased to stimulate.
    His world seemed strangely complete, without threat or demand, and he was forced to admit that perhaps he didn’t really want to ‘sort himself out’. Perhaps he preferred being adrift in a world free of all responsibility other than that of survival. His daughter had been quite right when she’d accused him of running away, he’d decided. He was too cowardly to try and resurrect a new life. Upon coming to this conclusion, he didn’t particularly like himself, but before long, and without too much difficulty, he’d managed to shrug off a sense of worthlessness and embrace his mindless routine.
    Then one day something happened to break the routine, something quite mundane.
    He’d finished a morning’s work for Florence, painting some kitchen cupboards that didn’t really need painting. He’d told her as much, but she’d insisted they be done. The kitchen would be neater that way, she’d said, and besides, she’d be able to get rid of the unsightly tins of leftover paint that had sat in the garage ever since Cyril’s death. Clive had wondered why the unsightly tins needed to be got rid of at all as the garage was never used; it wasn’t even seen by anyone from what he could gather. But he’d been grateful for the work. With autumn on the wane, gardening jobs were harder to come by, and as the weather had grown colder he’d incurred extra expenses: a warm fleece-lined jacket, several pairs of thick winter socks, a woollen beanie and a spare army blanket, all purchased from St Vincent de Paul. The regular nightly nooks of his choice were not as cosy these days, but he had determined not to seek refuge in one of the shelters for the homeless – that was the domain of the truly needy, and he was not one of those.
    After leaving Florence’s, he’d bought three steaming hot meat pies on his way to The Corner – one for him, one for Madge and one for Sal, just in case she was there. If she wasn’t then he’d eat two. As it turned out she was, and the three of them had stood around their Otto Bin, downing their pies with liberal serves of tomato sauce from the bottle Madge had fetched from her bedsit. She’d also fetched a longneck of beer in a brown paper bag. ‘What’s a pie without a beer,’ she’d said, and she and Clive swigged from the bottle while Sal stuck to her takeaway coffee. Sal didn’t