Quota by Jock Serong

Author:Jock Serong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC050000, FIC022000
ISBN: 9781922148933
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2014-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

AFTER A WEEK, Lewis the panelbeater called to say he’d put a new front quarter panel on the Saab and the car was ready for collection. He then felt the need to correct himself and clarify that the quarter panel was in fact secondhand, from the wreckers, and not strictly new. Charlie assured him that was fine.

He was now accustomed to walking the town, and felt almost disappointed when he reached the industrial estate and saw the car waiting for him. When Lewis turned up at the little office window in the corner of his shed, Charlie already had cash on the counter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d managed to use a card in Dauphin, and the routine was starting to bring him a secret pleasure: the slow, careful handwriting on the invoice pad, thumb on the carbon to tear it off, the deliberate counting of the notes. Charlie had kept each receipt from recent days, not because he thought he could claim anything back, but because of the affection he felt for this little ritual. Curlewis Sports and Leisure, Dawkins Pharmacy, Bowman Family Grocers.

On his way back through town he passed the Normans Woe, and knew he couldn’t take another pub meal, a seventh consecutive wander over the chalkboard menu, another side-serve of boiled carrots and peas. Most of the shops were dead in the early evening, the street largely deserted, a handful of locals shuffling into the supermarket, talking beside their cars. Random pools of light spilled from half-lit shop windows, and a blinking neon sign drew his attention. Fortune Palace Chinese Restaurant. The old tiling along the street frontage suggested it might once have been a butcher’s shop. Inside Charlie could see dozens of vacant chairs and an Asian man he assumed to be the proprietor, seated down the back near the kitchen servery, absorbed in a book. Near the door, the glass was festooned with photos of the Fortune Palace’s dishes: empress chicken, salt and pepper squid, Szechuan beef. Each of the photos had faded to various shades of blue, the food indistinguishable.

He entered past a glowing fish tank. The proprietor dropped his book and hurried forward, waving a menu folder at the booths along the far wall, and Charlie slid onto a bench in the nearest booth. The cushion exhaled softly as he sat: the Bee Gees were singing ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ softly in the background. He ordered a beer and ran his finger over the menu folder, unable to place exactly what he wanted to think about. Sometimes at these moments he thought it was Annie. But then that seemed more like a mental puzzle than anything emotional, and he let it go.

The sequence, as he saw it, was: get the car fixed, get Patrick to co-operate, go home. The car was done, therefore going home didn’t present insurmountable difficulty. But what about Patrick? He’d set out his position in no uncertain terms, but even as he’d spoken he seemed to be exploring the limits of that position.

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