The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician. Tendai Huchu
a cathedral, an awesome sight. I feel high, he thought, really shouldn’t have had that last joint this morning. Next I’ll be talking to myself, Tim Marlow at Tesco. He finished his fag, threw it on the ground and crushed it under the heel of his boot. The last cloud of smoke hung in the air just above him. He walked down to the shop, past the cash machines, the railing with shopping trolleys stacked one behind the other, and through the glass doors. Hey, Maestro, turn that smile upside down, you’re here to work. That was Peter Aaron, the security guard, standing behind a construct that looked like a pulpit with screens that allowed him to watch what was happening in every corner of the store from the CCTV cameras dangling from the ceiling, feeding in from every aisle. The Maestro saluted him and went by. He felt like Superman as he removed his jacket, revealing a chequered blue shirt with his name-tag in clear lettering. The symphony of the checkouts bleeping filled the air. It was mechanical, hypnotic, a ceaseless intonation; the soundtrack of commerce so familiar to him after four years working in the store. Had it been that long? Time was warped in this place, bent, buckled, packaged into little packets called clocking in and clocking out. Everything had a price tag, a value assigned to it by some unseen authority. An old woman stopped him. Can you tell me where I can find the antipasto? He didn’t miss a beat. Aisle twenty to the left of the cooking oil, you’ll find it on the third shelf from the top beside the artichokes. She thanked him and tottered along with her basket. He had to clock in. There was nothing worse than being deemed late when you’d actually come in on time. He made his way through the familiar aisles. Above him were the steel struts of the roof, crisscrossing one another, the fluorescent lights suspended there made the building feel like a spaceship. Everything about it felt as though it could just take off at any moment, nothing was permanent, nothing was fixed; it was just a space, a form that could be taken apart and reassembled anywhere else – transient, with no pretence of an eye on eternity. He went back stage, staff only, gloomy and functional without the polish of the shop floor. I see you finally made it, said Tina’s disembodied voice from somewhere. I always make it, he replied. They’ve stuck you back on frozen foods, I’m afraid. She emerged in her coat, with silly netting round her hair. The look suited her. That’s the way aha, aha I like it. He serenaded her and grabbed a trolley. Barry came up behind him and slapped him on the back of the head. That’s for being too damn cheerful, he said, and went on his way. Aye, grandpa, I’ll have a bullying lawsuit on ya. You wait and see. Laughter erupted from unseen corners of the warehouse. He pushed his trolley out. It was time for work. He got to the freezers, feeling the chill within. A man and a woman walked past. The woman, his partner perhaps, was in the lead. The man followed dull-eyed and dazed, his primitive brain forged in the hot, sparse savannah was overwhelmed by the bright lights, bright colours, the incredible range of choice on display, so that an elementary defence mechanism kicked in, a fuse breaking the circuit, shutting it down. He was zombified, mute, out of his depth. His partner led confidently, navigating the aisles by instinct, using her superior evolutionary gifts to sniff out the frozen parsnips, somehow knowing to choose Aunt Bessie’s, because somehow, just somehow, maybe x-ray vision piercing through the multi-coloured plastic packaging, perhaps genetic memory passed down through the matrilineal DNA, she knew they were better than the rest. The poor man was relegated to the role of trolley pusher. The Maestro arranged the merchandise, first checking the chicken thighs in the fridge were not past their sell-by date and loading the latest batch underneath. His fingers were frozen and numb. A pair of gloves was stashed in his back pocket, unused. A nasal voice came on the tannoy asking the in-store cleaner to report to Beers, Wines and Spirits. He checked his watch, the hands barely moved. That’s what this place did to the fourth dimension; outside of it time rushed by too quickly, but inside it was dilated by some sort of Tardis effect, which also made the store feel bigger on the inside. I have to stop smoking pot, he told himself. He met Carrie at the dairy section, offloading some Yakult. Hey, Carrie, he said. She handed him a pack. Have you tried this stuff? she asked. He shook his head. It’s got Lactobacillus casei, it will improve your digestive system. Do you know you’ve got good and bad bacteria in your gut? Of course not. Well, Lactobacillus casei is good bacteria. Each small bottle of Yakult contains over six billion bacteria in it. Impressive, hey? He shook his head; he didn’t want six billion more bacteria in his gut, he was happy with what he already had. John came by, looking all-serious, face pockmarked with acne. You guys should be working, said John, who was one of those supervisors drunk on an ounce of power. Carrie replied, I was just informing Maestro about the benefits of having a probiotic drink once a day to boost your immune system. John frowned, the Maestro backed off, worried that he might burst a whitehead. It’s true, he said, I have to know stuff like that in case a customer comes by and asks, you know, like, how many bacteria are in a bottle, that kind of thing. John looked him in the eye, De Niro style, and told him to go outside and stack trolleys in the car park. How come he gets to go out and I stay in the freezers? asked Carrie as he walked away. The Maestro turned round and winked. He always found himself shunted between one department and the other, ping ponged round when there was heavy grafting to be done. It was better like this when there was stuff to do outdoors, he’d have hated doing personal shopping for online orders. He took his jacket from the warehouse. It was nippy outside, but he knew, after a couple of minutes running about, he’d have to take it off again. Peter stopped him at the door. I know you’ve got a piece of frozen chicken in your left pocket, it’s all here on CCTV, pal. The Maestro shook his head; Peter was going on loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear. The ladies at the cigarette kiosk laughed. Betty called out, Leave him be, Peter, he’s only skinny, he needs the nutrition. He felt himself turn crimson, couldn’t find a comeback line. The brain’s too slow after a stint in frozen foods. The ladies at the kiosk were little oldies with honest faces, the kind that made you think it was a good idea to buy a lottery ticket. He walked out into the open, surveyed the car park all the way up to the green building, Corstorphine Police Station, sweeping round to the lane between PC World and McDonald’s. Empty trolleys lay between the parked cars, used and discarded. No one thought about the poor sod who had to clear up after them. He watched a toff push a trolley into the middle of the road and leave it there before he drove off in his brand new Prius. Wanker, he thought. The cold made him crave a fag. He pushed those trolleys. For each one he parked in the rack, two more popped up. Hercules’ Hydra. The Maestro felt the sweat drip from his armpits. Should have pinched a puff of Sure from Health and Beauty. He loved it outdoors, watching the cars negotiate the roundabout by the McDonald’s, the American Golf store beside the police station, the pet shop, daily life, commerce, people going by, the senseless muddle of it all. He stacked up more trolleys, creating a metallic millipede, bent his back and pushed them, straining the muscles in his arms to keep them on course. The last thing he needed was for them to crash into someone’s car, ruining the bodywork, like Gary had done a few weeks back. It wasn’t worth the hassle of the disciplinary: the inquiry, the formal letters, the health and safety training. Though Gary had come out of it all alright and got redeployed to the checkouts where the only risk that remained was of him dropping a can of baked beans on a customer’s toe. He tried to drive his stack into the other trolleys by the railings, but he hit into the side of the last one. The impact jolted his shoulder making him wince. He pulled them back and tried his approach again, a complicated manoeuvre like a Harrier landing on a carrier. A cab pulled up. The cabbie got out and helped a mum with two tots load her shopping. He watched them drive away, out of the car park and then get caught at the traffic lights. You’re daydreaming, Maestro, we don’t pay you for that. It was Colin, coming to relieve him. Time for the Maestro’s break. He went round the back, to the bins and the loading bays where the deliveries came through. A lorry was backing up. He smoked, watching it reverse, a robotic voice announcing: Attention, this vehicle is reversing. Attention, this vehicle is reversing. It bored through his skull and he could still hear it long after the lorry had stopped, its engine switched off. He watched piles of expired food being tipped into the skips outside, perfectly good food going to waste just because a label said otherwise. He was thinking. He had to stop himself from thinking. There were processes and procedures, a rule for everything, thought out and planned by head office. Once you started thinking for yourself, you were lost. At least that’s what he thought about his job, and so far the idea of putting his brain in neutral at work had served him well. He’d seen blokes come in, get tired of the BS and leave in a matter of days – blokes who thought too much. He finished his fag, watched the lads offloading the lorry for a bit, and then went back to work. There was nothing else for the Maestro