Forty Days and Forty Nights

Forty Days and Forty Nights

 

Look, here’s Candice. 

Shall we not share her pain?

Why, you ask? There’s no fasting in the wild for her; that belt is doing a valiant job. Give it an award. Fly it a kitemark. 

She will hang off the glass plated office door. In the mornings. Her hands the handle handling, but, you know, unsure whether to open or close, like her dreams.

In the mornings. That was when she began her hanging, her dreaming, all Christmas bauble visions, Santa Claus and ‘a-ho-ho-ho-haram’ and the hanging would continue through the day, on and off, usually prefaced by a question.

Work related. Admin. Deadlines. Dates. Was there a deadline for this; a deadline for that? Where were the due dates?

Had they fallen from the palm tree yet?

Usually dressed in something baggy that would just about meet the requirements of school dress code. She’s South African, in her forties, but still twenty years between herself and the object of her dreams.

Flip flops or sandals – but not those strappy ones with pink pom-poms. Her colleague, Precious, had been sent home for that, had slopped across the concrete concourse in the hot burning desert heat, had tripped on a loose curb, twisting a shapely ankle. “You threw me under the bus!” she had cried, after they’d sacked her for one transgression too many, something to do with poetry, examinations, irate parents. Who can remember?

They come, they go. Burn in the memory for about the same time as a meteorite arcs across the sky. Bitter cold when light has fled.

Peering at him, through the glass. Her grizzled head of department. Tempted and yet undefiled. 

Yet here he was, defiling. Files into folders, decluttering the desktop with mouse-strokes, captain of a very fine ship, the fastest on the sea.

Squinting his raw eyes at the monitor. 

Are they still called that? Well, the screen then. 

He would push his bifocals upwards with a digit finger, left or right, he was not particular, so that the bits of his glasses that still worked helped him focus as though using a partially masked telescope. 

Periodically swiping a tissue from the box, drying a tear, wiping some snot. Sucking throat drops. Strepsils. Blackcurrant and menthol.  And twenty years between them, if she gave it a thought.

Conjunctivitis or just sheer bad luck?

The coffee was hot, already in the pot, if you liked your coffee hot, I will be your John Cooper Clarke and thanks. But no milk, you get used to it black, because the heat sours milk or the cleaners pinch it – one of those - and no sugar; the cockroaches get at that.

Candice wasn’t averse to pushing the plunger on her own behalf. Perhaps one push out of the five weekly plunges would result in hot liquid slopping all over the desk; dripping onto two battered cardboard boxes full of ancient examinations from the days of paper and ink, pre pandemic, pre quarantine, pre online, pre mask, pre every bloody thing.

Today was one of those.

“Shit!” snapped Candice, wiping black streaks of oily, bitty liquid gritty stuff from her pants and top, with practised fingers. It had spurted everywhere, of course. Probably, when it dried, it would blend unnoticed into the dark material. Dark shapes, like prowling beasts.

He looked up from defiling. “What you do?”

“Sorry, Craig.”

“It’s OK, I’m pushing these little white ones into these little yellow ones.”

“I can see.”

“Yes, very important. Hides them, you see? Removes them. Crosses them off the job list.”

“You have one of those?”

“No. Not any more. Waste of time.”

“I came for coffee. You want one?”

Craig pulled his face into such a gurn that it looked like a walnut.

“Why are you doing that?” she asked, still mopping her chest with tissues that had taken on the colour of gravy browning.

“I’m being inscrutable.”

Perhaps proximity dawned, so close their breaths did mingle, that’s right - so he pulled on a mask - medical ones from a box of fifty, you know the sort. Black or blue.

From constant use over the past two years, his ears had begun to stick out and there was a red sting around both of them from ringing elastic. Like those rubber things that farmers use on bulls and a medical condition now so prevalent in the community, there were articles on the internet and a mask strap mini-boom.

Fortunes found on Melbourne grounds and pharmaceutical businesses the world over.

Craig used his legs to manoeuvre his office chair the two feet between his desk and the coffee pot, took a handful of tissues and helped with mopping her chest. It rippled. Like a pond after stones had been thrown. For should they not the trials share?

“Yes. I’ll take a coffee,” he grunted, rubbing with more vigour, receiving his in a miniscule paper cup.

Candice had one of those metal Starbucks jobs, always prepared. No stones for pillows, never earth for bed.

For Craig, paper cups might be like paper roses. They do a job. Bully Forbes could look for his Starbucks in vain. Or in any stormy port.

Eyeing the simulated leather chair from which he had not moved, Candice sipped her coffee. That comfortable chair. Another sip. Conversational gambit. “What’s the deadline?”

“Is there one? Deadline? What for?”

“Marking those mid-term assessments. Is it before we go on holiday?”

“Ah, holiday.” Draining bitter coffee, Craig pursed his lips, chucking the empty towards the bin. It bounced off the rim. Hit the floor. Settled next to a discarded banana skin. But he was now back at his desk, unconcerned, peering deep into the monitor or screen – whatever. “Holy day. Check this out. The Marco Polo. Fastest ship on sea. Captained by Bully Forbes.”

You couldn’t even see her lips from behind the pouting N95, guaranteed to prevent 95% of all known viruses, and she walked towards the door with a shrug, turned left and set sail south for her classroom.

Oblivious, Craig continued talking, “Beat all the records. The Australia run. The Blackball Line. I wondered if she put into Zanzibar? There’s a poem in that, you know. I have a plan.”

Humming to himself contentedly, he clicked his mouse a couple of times, typing one fingered onto the keyboard, “there’s a fortune to be found, beneath the ground, where the eucalyptus grows.” Turning triumphantly in his chair, he clicked his fingers. “See? Quarantine. Forty days and forty nights. Lying offshore. That’s where the word originated. Italian. Quarantina.”

Scratching his poorly shaved double chin, Craig frowned. “Candice? Where you go?”

 

 

Change of scene. A little later in the day and Carlotta sees he’s hanging off glass, handling the handle with his hand, staring in. Dreams, you know?

Another glass fronted office, perhaps twice the size of Craig’s. It’s up to you to keep your crew.

But nothing work related. Him watching for a while.

Carlotta’s behind her desk, bent over her monitor (or screen) in a loose-fitting floral blouse with haphazard buttons, twin peaks and an inviting valley. Dark, hair, hardly brushed because why brush when it falls so free?

She’s flicking through thirty six pictures with mouse strokes - hotel rooms, beaches, sands. Indistinct portraits of fixed grin families, deck-chaired or submerged or diving with not a mask between them.

Which dates them, doesn’t it?

No wait, this one has a mask, look, but it’s plastic fronted and set over the eyes, leaving the mouth and nose free to gargle germs into sea water.

Let the fish have it. Let all sea urchins sneeze.

Now he’s been hanging around long enough, she gives a friendly nod, fastens buttons instinctively.

They do that here.

A dazzling Hispanic smile beckoned him, so Craig shuffled in, rubbing his grey pate and managing an almost-blush, avoiding the blouse and, as he pushed behind her desk, she, mindful of social distance, shoved up her mask so her nose no longer peeped.

“Morning, boss. How is it? All good?”

“Only three days until Zanzibar,” she gushed, “I’ve finished the online visa. Did you do it?”

“Yesterday. It was a breeze. Easy. On Zanzibar’s strand, we soon will land.”

“Eh?”

“Nothing. There’s that 24-hour medical thing on the ‘travel and entry’ page, though.”

“Did you get your PCR virus test, yet?”

“Just waiting for them to buzz me with the result. Not worried. I care less. Quarantine. Thing of the past. We’re all triple vaccinated. Time’s up. Governments the world over know that we have to live with it. What’s the point of a vaccine if no one trusts it?”

Carlotta nodded, swiping through pictures of Paradise Beach before flicking back to an opened spreadsheet. “Thing of the past.” She reached for a bottle of sanitizer.

Craig wasn’t really here, his hands strumming an imaginary guitar, a bass guitar, his index finger on the G fret of the D String, the middle finger on the dominant. Somewhere mid position, his eyes told a different story, his mouth was jumping this ship in Melbourne town. “Those wretched young ones won’t be there. Getting pissed in Turkey, I’ve heard.”

Neither was Carlotta, though. “Excuse me, my dear, I must complete this,” sighed Carlotta, brushing him off without any sort of broom; his turn to leave the room, sail south, a smile upon his mouth.

 

 

He walked thirty paces and the phone rang. In his pocket. Quiet mode, but it still did, anyway 

If there is gold underneath eucalyptus trees, it will not be silent.

Even now, long past the days of walkie-talkies, defunct like silent films and many a piano player put to pasture, retired by scurvy tars, intent on replacing Wurlitzers on rising platforms with actors who can speak their lines directly to camera, even now, vibrating pockets shake.

Do you reach within?

Depends on age. Some scowl at the interruption, others feel disconnected without.

And realise we were once only very small, but it flows on.

Craig stabbed at his life with a chunky finger, swollen from a parrot bite.

“Yes?”

Candice’s voice issued from the speaker. “Was cover set for Year 8 Girls?”

“Cover?”

“A couple of classes on the girls’ side. No teacher.”

Craig bit his lower lip with his upper teeth and twisted his mouth downwards. It was quite charming and comely when he was twenty years younger. A habit he’d adopted and hadn’t managed to shake off. Charming, that is, if anyone was around to see it. “Did you check the cover sheet?” he muttered.

Had he checked the cover sheet? I can’t remember.

“Well…er, no,” Candice sounded surprised. It wasn’t her job, after all, I don’t think.

Anyway, he’s turned about and was striding towards the girls’ side, over the bridge that spanned the gym, through the double doors with a double palm push and swish; firmly cutting the light behind him and panting into his mask. Yes, there she was, hanging off a classroom door.

The stepometer had racked up more metres, anyway, while he’s still kissing the phone, but he’s shoving it back into his pocket now that he can see her.

“Well, who’s off sick this time? Any ideas?”

You could hear the wasp of teenage voices inside, some shrill, others more damning and incensed.

Candice bellowed through the door and the hubbub washed away. “Did no one buzz in?”

Snorting, Craig checked messages. “They never do, do they? No one does, these days. They just say ‘in quarantine’ and leave it at that. Too ill to set work. It’s endemic amongst the young ones. They love it.”

The gold lures them away. The young ones. Freshly minted, chucked out of sloppy UK training colleges, I’ve heard, and on a jolly abroad for a couple of years. Still, not the sort of thing he should have said, I agree, no matter how much truth might lie in the suspicion that this pandemic is a jolly good thing for some. It isn’t. Is it? Quarantine, I mean.

“Forty days and forty nights.”

“No. Usually only a week these days. A week for what is basically a runny nose and a sore throat. Unprofessional, I call it. I heard they were all kissing each other in the disco last weekend, just to ensure maximum exposure.” Craig pushed past Candice, glaring inside, but it’s hard to see the interior. His head reappeared. “Nearly the end. Of the lesson. You’ll have to mind them.”

Craig fished in his other pocket, removed his mask, pulled a tissue and blew his nose.

“I can’t. Forty Days and Forty Nights’.

“What do you mean? That maudlin hymn? And from worldly joys abstain? Fasting with unceasing prayer?”

“Well, it’s important to me. It’s our rehearsal.”

“Well, yes. Suppose it is, OK, I’ll do it, not as if I haven’t got a thousand things on my job list, though.”

“You haven’t got a job list, remember?” Candice pointed out, fairly. You can see she is somewhat shocked by her temerity, but she said it anyway.

“So I haven’t,” snapped Craig, slamming the door behind him.

 

 

I guess it’s literally five minutes later when that same door smashes open, almost tearing itself from its hinges in rage and Craig’s sprinting back the way he came. Pretty impressive, given his age and ancient bulk. The floor is taking a pasting. Out for the count.

The phone’s back in his right hand; he skids around the corner and straight into Carlotta’s office.

She’s still deep in spreadsheets, deep in not being here but being in far off Zanzibar and on this trip, you won’t leave the ship.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Because she really, really likes him. As far as that goes.

Craig sounded like a man who cannot believe the words coming from his mouth, but come they do and they tumble out like the Angel Falls. “It’s off. I can’t go. I can’t go. Can you believe my fucking luck?”

“Now, of course you can. What do you mean?”

“The result.” Craig shook his phone as though strangling it. “My result. It’s ‘inconclusive’. Inconclusive.”

“What do you mean, dear? What is ‘inconclusive’?”

Well he means that now we lie in Salthouse Dock, he’ll go no more to sea sir, that’s what he means. There is some sort of scurvy, isn’t there?

“’Inconclusive’. I don’t know what it means. Yes I do, it means quarantine. Forty days, forty nights. Bloody quarantine. I’m no better than those bloody kids, am I?”

Craig stabbed his phone with his parrot bite. Sure enough, the reassuring green had been replaced with a flaccid yellow fevered screen that jumped out at him in mockery. He blew his nose almost spitting onto the floor the throat drop he was sucking. “There’s nothing bloody wrong with me. A runny nose. That’s all. A runny bloody nose.”

“Yes, dear, just move a little away from my desk, though, will you?” Carlotta bit her bottom lip with her front teeth and pulled a comical expression, which was rather comely and charming. Craig was not in the mood for it, so it fell upon stony ground.

But she pressed on anyway. “Those kids. Yes. All off to Turkey. Know what I think? They pulled the quarantine early in order to be clear for the holidays. That’s why we have too much cover this week.” She frowned. “Do you know, don’t repeat this, I heard they were all kissing each other in the disco.”

“Were they? Bastards.”

“Clever, though. It’s that young way of thinking. They can see all the…wrinkles.”

“Well punish them, then, let them suffer. Put out to the ministry that they’ve come into contact with the virus.”

“But they haven’t. They’ve been in quarantine.”

“Dock their pay, then. We’ve been carrying them all bloody year.”

Carlotta tittered. “Well, we could do that, but because they’ve been in quarantine, they get paid sick leave anyway. What would be the point? We take away with one hand; give back with the other.”

“I don’t believe in quarantine, I won’t have it,” blustered Craig, but you could see the light dawning, the scales falling from his watery, wrinkled eyes.

Conjunctivitis or just sheer bad luck?

Nodding, Carlotta licked her lips, and, to be fair, her expression was not without sympathy. “A shame. So sorry, my dear. Like me, you come to school with a runny nose for a week. But, unlike you, I got lucky.”

“You’re not Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, you know.”

“Who?”

At this point, I have to report that Candice was hanging off the door, handling the handle in her hand, unsure whether to come in or not. Dreaming.

As he pushed past her, I think she hummed, “then if Satan on us press flesh or spirit to assail, grant we may not faint nor fail,” but I wouldn’t place 500 riyals on it.

 

 

Look, here’s Craig.

Shall we not share his pain?

Why, you ask? Well, even though you might think it, it’s not quite the end of his story. Perhaps a month later and he will hang off the glass plated office door. In the mornings. His hands the handle…well, you know how it goes by now.

Candice, looking up from her job list, sees him there. She smiles, but what kind of smile is hard to say. Younger than his smile, that can be proven, but older than a dozen, woebegone, hungover teachers, lately arrived from Turkey.

Now drifting past the office, they glance in, see her sitting in that comfortable, simulated leather chair, perhaps they straighten their hair, check dress and become altogether more brisk as they hurry to class.

And they see him, not averse to pushing the plunger on his own behalf.

Perhaps one push out of five would result in hot liquid slopping all over his shirt - post pandemic, post quarantine, post online, post mask, post every bloody thing.

Today was one of those.

Wiping black streaks of oily, bitty liquid, gritty stuff from his trousers and his shirt, because It had spurted everywhere, of course, he might have stared at and muttered to dark prowling shapely beasts, “you threw me under the bus.”

And, in turn, Candice would take tissues in order to rub his chest, which rippled like a pond after stones had been thrown.