He is a small man. A small fat man who operates a forklift. And he is gay. He wears it upon him like he wears his little frieze of white hair: naturally. And his name is Derek. Funny, isn’t it?
I’d gone out onto the shop floor, finding staff and giving out their payslips. When I got to Diane, the sty red under her left eye like some little object of affection she tried to hide beneath the frame of her glasses, I’d said, ‘D. Underhill. Diane? Have you collected your payslip?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘No? Not Diane Underhill?’
‘No, I have collected it,’ she said, ‘but I think you’ll find that that’s a Mr Underhill – and I am not a man.’ She paused, now standing up to either scorn me or address me further. ‘And there is no Mrs Underhill.’
Before I could understand what she was saying, she continued, nuance clearly not her want – inference to her clearly a thing for that other sort.
‘He swings the other way. I don’t know who’s the man and who’s the woman. His other half’s quite fit apparently, though.’
As I made to get away, not uncomfortable, but not entirely agreeing with the direction of this exchange, she continued. ‘He works in the stockroom – he’s the small, fat feller with the white hair.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’ I recognised him: I'd seen him in the store that morning, although I hadn't seen his face.
I continued giving out the payslips, eventually making my way to the stockroom. When I got there, two little faces peered out of the double windows and hands waved. I stopped and waited.
‘You can come in now.’
I entered, and there he was – the small fat man – driving the forklift. It weaved around the stockroom intricately like a wannabe ballerina, like some portly Russian girl with all the grace and the poise, but with too much flesh on her bones. And as she moved, one could tell that she dreamed of being on some Moscow stage or at the London Opera Theatre, but, for now, she was happy with a stockroom for a stage, and two ladies on the sour end of middle-age, chatting away whilst Derek drove her, for an audience.
I approached Derek once he’d docked the forklift. ‘Hi, Derek. I’ve a payslip for you, if you’d like to sign for it.’ I handed him the payslip and then the folder. ‘I’m Robert – new starter.’ I looked at his face. It seemed featureless in the light – pink with a white crown of hair. But for some reason I could imagine it being a friendly face.
When I’d finished work and got home, I thought about all this. I had a good mind to report what had gone on to my manager. But then my strands of thought caught me insect-like in their web: no, I could not. This is how the world works. New boys on the job might want to seem to be caring, stalwart, moral people, but fifty years of life can do that to a person – make them bitter. It can make them do that: vent their hate, whilst they save their affection for some other person or some other forum, saving it if only to remain sane. You meet them every day: they smile, they chat, they laugh, but life for some people is a sentence, a burden to be carried. You try living the life I’ve lived, see the things I’ve seen, she’d say, and then you come back to me with your high-fucking-morals!
The truth is, you can’t argue with some people. Sometimes, your sight wide, you can see a little farther – you take in much of the picture. And sometimes what you see can be ugly, displeasing. But you can’t go around cavalier, superior, trying to cleanse the world as you ride from place to place on your brilliant-white stead.
But what you can do is try hard to be a good person. Understand why people do the things they do, and make your own actions just. Because, the truth is that not all of us eat from the same pie – and some slices can taste that little bit sweeter.
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