A Mad and Wonderful Thing by Mark Mulholland Read Free Book Online Page B

laughing loudly, slapping the table, punching McArdle, and turning to include all who could hear him. ‘What about those lovely neighbours of yours, Bob? They’d love a fit man like me.’
    I saw the flicker of rage that crossed the old man’s face.
    â€˜Leave that man alone.’ The words flew from my mouth before a consideration to speak was given thought. An abrupt silence tore across the workshop, and uncertainty hung in the hiatus of its tearing. Curiosity gripped the surrounding workers. Suddenly the thing was one big drama. And I was on stage, front and centre.
    â€˜What the fuck is this?’ Grimes turned his pink face towards me. ‘Who the fuck are you? You little cunt.’
    Well, that just pissed me off. I knew Grimes could tear me to pieces in a struggle, but so what? To walk away would open the door for this arsehole to humiliate me every time I walked past his booth. I couldn’t let that happen.
    â€˜A cunt,’ I suggested, ‘is the female genitalia. But you obviously don’t know much about that. Are you sure it was a she last night? Did you look?’
    There was a loud cheer and clatter, with the workers laughing and slapping hands and mallets on the side of their machines and benches. Men tend to do that — they love making noise and throwing verdicts down from the grandstand. Anyhow, Grimes’s pink face reddened and his eyes filled with fury, and they bore into me with all the dangerous threat of an enraged and wounded bull. But he had no answer.
    â€˜Everything all right there, chaps?’ A head popped out of the clerk’s office window.
    â€˜C’mon, son, that’s enough of that,’ Bob said, leading me away. When we reached the end of the workshop, he turned to me. ‘I don’t approve of that abrasive language and bravado, young man.’
    â€˜I understand, Mister Hanratty,’ I replied, surprising him.
    Bob Hanratty paused and placed a hand on my arm. ‘Those brutes have me tormented, son. But that’s all they are — brutes, empty vessels. Grimes and McArdle haven’t a brain between them. Give them no heed; it isn’t worth it.’
    I patted the old man on the shoulder and turned to go.
    â€˜And, son,’ he added, ‘thank you.’
    The next day I approached him as he greased the tracks of a machine near the rear wall of the workshop.
    â€˜Excuse me, Mister Hanratty?’
    â€˜Yes, son,’ he answered, turning and wiping his hands with the red rag.
    â€˜Why do you do this job here, amongst all this? You seem to be, you know, better than this?’
    â€˜Better than this does not exist, young man. I’m here because I’m here, and it’s a fool’s game for me now to think different.’ He let his words stall for a moment and then continued. ‘Maybe once, but that was long ago,’ he said, as he slowly wiped each finger with the red rag. ‘That’s just the luck of the draw.’
    â€˜But you seem content here. What’s the secret?’
    â€˜There’s no secret, son. Look around. Most here spend all their time ducking and diving, and it only increases their misery. Whatever you do in life, even the simplest task, do it to the best of your ability. In that, there is a kind of happiness.’
    I nodded to the old man.
    â€˜And, son, no more Mister Hanratty. It’s Bob.’
    The next day I took to the oil-store bench for my meal breaks, and Bob sacrificed his reading for our daily conversations — the two of us finding a common enjoyment in the transfer of what once was and what could yet be.
    Cora returns and enters the kitchen, and is followed by a man I guess must be her father.
    â€˜Well, well. What have we here?’ he asks. ‘Cora Flannery, what have I told you about bringing home stray animals. Where on Earth did you find this thing?’
    â€˜Found him at the disco, Daddy. What do you think?’
    â€˜I think