Glass by Alex Christofi

Author:Alex Christofi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books

14

Bundles

The morning I was due to help Blades clean the IMAX in Waterloo began badly: I had run out of Dutch waffles. For the first time since Mum had died, I had to eat something else for breakfast, and what’s more, the only thing in the house was sushi. Deciding it would be an insult to mother’s memory, I went hungry, and going hungry is something that I am very loath to do.

I had told myself that I was definitely going to cycle, but, with the morning I was having, I decided to let Frank drive me today. I would cycle next time. Also, I had a bit of a fight with Blades over using my own equipment.

‘Why do you need your own pouches?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t you just wear what everyone else wears?’

‘You hired me because I do things my own way, so let me do things my own way.’

‘But it doesn’t make any sense. What do you need different sprays for?’

‘This is regular cleaning fluid, this one’s distilled water in case of any problems with the solvents, and this is something called GOMORRAH. It “wipes filth away for good”.’

‘I thought that stuff was banned in Europe?’ he said.

‘Well … It gets the job done.’

‘What is it about the regular equipment that offends you? I’ve been using it for years. You’re good, but you’re not better than me. Until you are, it’s my way or the highway.’

‘I just don’t understand why you have to be such a damned fascist about it! I get the job done, don’t I?’

‘I’m telling you, Günter, don’t bring it again.’

We continued cleaning in silence. I spent a long time on my own, up a rope, thinking about how, on my first proper day of work, I had called my new boss a fascist. It had just slipped out. To calm myself down, I tried to think up various scenarios in which the conversation could have gone better, most of them involving not calling him a fascist, and, in a broader context, not sleeping with his ex-wife. Was it better or worse that I’d done it twice?

We had split off in different directions around the circular building, and so, inevitably, we met on the opposite side of the building. He grabbed me by the safety rope, ensuring that I couldn’t escape.

‘You know, Günter, the word fascist is very misunderstood.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say except, ‘Oh?’

‘You young people have been fed all this liberal trash by the media, and you don’t realise that there are different sides to every story. I won’t even ask what they taught you about World War Two.’

I glanced out at the cars on the roundabout, looked down at the drop, and tried to carry on window washing.

‘Fasci were just like-minded political groups,’ he continued. ‘It means bundles. People naturally bunch together, don’t they? You wouldn’t mix a bundle of hay with … Well, anything else. Fascism was about strength through unity. People don’t realise nowadays that by tolerating

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