The Walking Dead

He carried his tray away from the counter. He skirted the tables and made a target of the one furthest away from them. Into Banks's ears came the bleat of the one called Peter: 'This stuff might be all right for strapping young soldiers needing their strength built up — not for us. Sausages and chips. A pork chop that is more fat than meat and chips. Fish that drips with batter and chips…Someone might have told these people about cholesterol levels. What's this going to be doing to our hearts? Frankly, it's a disgrace.'

Food did not matter to him. At work and at home in his bedsit, he ate what was fast and convenient. He would have reckoned his fitness levels compensated for the rubbish he swallowed, snatched when he had time.

A plate loaded with sausage, bacon, beans, fried bread and chips was on his tray, with a can of soft drink He sat at the table, distanced from them. He ripped back the ring-pull, swilled the drink and started to eat.

He had not dented the plate's heap when he heard the shuffle of feet, loose sandals, behind him. 'Mind if I do? Is it permitted?'

He emptied his mouth. 'Please yourself.'

It was hardly a welcoming invitation, but enough for his Principal. On Wright's plate there was a chop in a pond of gravy, peas, but no chips.

'Not much to write home about, is it? The food…'

'It's what's on offer,' Banks said curtly. It had been his intention to sit quietly, alone, at the table, clear his plate and then submit to the addiction — open that bloody notebook, take his fix if he could find a vein to lance the needle into.

He kept his eyes on his food, listened to his Principal eat.

Banks had meant it, what he had thought in the courtroom, the hatred. But the guy was in his pocket, in his mind, and the bloody place where the guy was…There should have been a photograph. Maybe an outing from work, before he'd travelled, down to the coast; a group of young men in suits and shirts with collars, ties knotted below the stud. Without a photograph, he could hate but could not ignore the damn man. He was thinking of Cecil Darke's food: no meat, no fat, no fried chips served up in the forward positions on Mosquito Hill.

'Well, Mr Banks, what sort of day have you had?'

'Just a day, a day's work.'

'Me, I've had a good day.'

'Pleased to hear that, Mr Wright.' He mouthed it, hoped that his lack of interest would register and be rewarded with quiet. No bloody chance.

'See that Vicky, sat behind you?'

He didn't turn.

'I reckon anyone, and wouldn't take too much patience, is in there with a chance, a damn good one. Shoving her curves out for everyone to see. She's rather lovely, don't you think?'

He lied: 'I hadn't noticed her.'

There was a grin opposite him. 'Don't you do women, Mr Banks? Don't you have time for them? God, I'm telling you, it's an empty world without women — specially women like that Vicky. You married, Mr Banks? That why you don't do women?'

'Divorced, actually.'

He didn't have to — could have put his head down and gone on clearing the plate — but Banks broke the rules of his trade: he told his Principal about Mandy, about Mandy's adultery, about the dispute on the money share-out, about the collapse of any reasonable post-marriage, post-divorce relationship. It was no business of his Principal's but he was given it, chapter and verse, as if that was a way to lose a load that had festered. Couldn't have justified it, but he spilled out confidences on Mandy.

'Sorry to hear that, Mr Banks…Never mind. Look on the bright side. You're free, can play the field.'

'Things seem to get in the way,' Banks said. He felt inadequate and squirmed deep in his gut.

He looked up into Wright's face, and took the full-impact force of a smile.

Wright said, 'I don't suppose we're exactly a roller-coaster of thrills. Are you usually with people like us, life's flotsam?'