Ed stumbled down the steps and onto the street. He’d been on the bus nearly two hours, and at first glance, it didn’t look like Hoston was a place that made that sort of journey a worthwhile investment. Boarded-up shops, a branch of Greggs, a cut-price supermarket. The whole place looked run-down. He ambled over to the bank, where he’d been told to wait. The large clock on an old stone building that, according to a sign, housed a gym, told him it was 11.00am. He glanced at his wrist, still unused to wearing his watch, and saw that the clock was right.
The air reeked of grease and hops. The café along the street explained the grease, and he supposed there must be a brewery nearby. A sudden rush of memory took him by surprise. He pushed those thoughts - of a long-ago summer, when he was in a good place, sun beating down, the smell of hops - back to where they’d come from. There was no time for nostalgia.
All around him, people went about their business, ignoring him. That suited him just fine. A young girl was pushing a buggy, her child’s face hidden by the sausage roll it was cramming into its mouth. He stepped out of her way, into the path of an old woman, her face bitter and wizened. ‘Watch where you’re bloody going!’ she said.
Ed stepped back, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the bank’s windows. He looked tired and scruffy. He leaned against the building, thinking about what he was doing last week, last month, last year at 11.00 o’clock on a weekday morning. And now, here he was, doing as he was told, standing and waiting for instructions. This was his life. This was freedom. He laughed, shaking his head.
‘What’s amusing you, Ed?’ William said. He’d appeared out of nowhere. Ed followed him up a side street and climbed into William’s Golf.
Five minutes later, they pulled up outside of a three-storey building. ‘Home sweet home,’ William said.
He led Ed upstairs and opened the door to a top-floor flat. It was no palace – there were damp patches on the ceiling and the carpets were older than he was, but it was perfect in Ed’s eyes. His own place with his own key. William dithered around, showing Ed how to work the heating, the oven, the shower. Before he left, he told Ed to turn up at the local amusement arcade at ten the next morning for an ‘informal interview’. Ed unpacked his few belongings and ate beans straight from the tin. He turned out the light at 9.30pm. Old habits died hard.
~
‘Amusement Arcade’ was stretching it a bit. It was a room, crammed with slot machines and leading through to the bingo hall next door. Johnny, a huge man whose chin was covered in either flakes of dry skin or pastry – Ed preferred not to dwell on which – told him he had the job, working every day except Sunday from 2.00pm to 10.00pm. He showed him how to give change, clean and empty the machines and deal with customer queries. From what Ed saw in the two hours he was there, Johnny’s job mostly consisted of him sitting on his arse, and the customer queries mostly received the response, ‘Piss off’.
~
The job turned out to be everything Ed expected it to be. Boring. Repetetive. But he could deal with that; he was an expert in boring and repetitive. By the end of the week, he recognised the same faces; kids wasting time and money, old women feeding the slot machines before the afternoon bingo session, a group of older lads, cans of Stella in their pockets and an air of menace about them.
After a couple of weeks, Johnny announced Ed was ready to man the place alone, and left at 5.00 o’clock.
A couple of hours later, the usual group of lads came in. One of them – obviously the leader, the way he strutted about - came straight over to Ed. Ed immediately felt uneasy – this lad could so easily have been someone he had known, in another time, another place.
