The Street and other stories Read Free Page B

gurgled. He looked over at Richard.
    “Was that you or me?” he smiled.
    “What’s that?” Richard stammered. He wanted to avoid conversation.
    It was almost half-past eleven and he had now been in the broo for two hours. He looked over towards the cubicle. Somewhere behind the door his benefits form was being processed. His neighbour’s stomach gurgled again. He nudged Richard.
    “My guts think my throat’s cut. I’m starved. Here, d’you want a fag?” he asked.
    “Thanks, mate,” Richard inhaled thankfully. He had smoked the last of his cigarettes for breakfast that morning. “I was dying for a smoke.”
    “Aye, I know the
craic
myself. There’s nothing worse than having no smokes. Especially in a kip like this.” He glanced up as an attendant called out a list of names.
    “Nope. No luck there. Ach, well, there’s no use complaining. No point in biting the hand that feeds you, that’s what I say.”
    “Unless you’re starving,” Richard observed dryly.
    “Ha,” his neighbour chortled, “that’s a good one. Well said. Oops, that’s me.” He nodded over towards the attendant. “See ya, son.”
    “Thanks for the cigarette,” Richard called after him.
    “No problem, son. No problem.”
    Richard slouched into the chair and sucked his cigarette down to its filter. A slight nicotine-induced sickness turned his stomach and dampened his brow with sweat. He flicked the filter tip away from him and looked about the room for a toilet door. There wasn’t one.
    “Excuse me, missus, do you know where the toilet is?”
    “I do not, son. I do not indeed. I was just saying to myself, so I was, you’d think they’d have a toilet here. It’s desperate. There’s nothing here. Not even a place to get a cup of tea. I’m parched for a wee cup of tea.”
    “McCaughley.”
    Richard excused himself, stepped over two squabbling children and went, as directed by the attendant, into a small cubicle. He meant to ask the whereabouts of a toilet, but when a small grey-haired woman bustled into the cubicle, he decided to ignore his nagging bladder.
    “Good morning, Mr McCaughley; I won’t delay you.”
    Richard nodded in reply.
    “You’re making a special benefits claim because your son has started work,” she noted, glancing up from the paperwork before her. “He left school last week, isn’t that right?”
    “No, there’s been a mistake. The man at my signing-on box is sorting it out. I’m having a special allowance claim in the meantime.”
    “What do you mean, a mistake?”
    “The computer messed up my son’s age. He’s sixteen months; the computer put him down as sixteen years.”
    “Oh, I see. Well, we can’t have that. I need a different form. I’ll be back in a minute.”
    She rose and shoved back her chair.
    “I’ve been here since a quarter-past nine,” Richard complained.
    Her face clouded.
    “I’m sorry, Mr McCaughley, but I’m doing my best.”
    “I know,” Richard said sulkily, embarrassed by his tone. The door closed behind her.
    “It’s not your fault,” Richard told the door. “It’s nobody’s fault. It never is.”
    Half an hour later he left the cubicle. An attendant was telling the dozen or so on the black plastic chairs that they would have to leave and return after lunch. Richard hunched his shouldersinto his denim jacket and edged his way past them. He joined the stream of people bobbing their way via the glass-panelled doors towards the turnstile in the wire fence. The stream of people surged around and past him so that he was sluggishly towed in their wake on to the pavement outside. He went up the road and into the toilet in Daly’s bar. As he left the bar a light drizzling rain started. He walked his way slowly home, a small, slightly built dark-haired man in his mid-twenties. His attractive face was unshaven and his eyes were downcast.

The Street
    Castle Street was quiet. Midmorning sunshine warmed the pavements and the shopfronts and created a pleasant,