LAST DAY

 

Last days are for dreaming, Hammond thought, as he walked across the spongy turf by the lake. Of what might be and what might have been. There must be so many last days he thought, but when he tried to remember some, make a list, it didn’t seem to be many at all. Not now that both university and career were finishing together, just like that. Had he ever expected them to be the same? There would be the obvious Last day of course but that wasn’t much encouragement. In fact now he thought about it, he was definitely headed from the good ones to the bad ones.

The smell of the kitchen air outlet was awful. ‘For boxes, you want the big skip, love. There’ll be some in there still”. Doris put down her bucket, and pointed with her mop. “That skip near the kitchen is for dirty. There’ll be some in it, but they’ll be all messed up”. She lowered the mop, but stayed watching, passing judgment as Hammond sorted the cardboard boxes. “Them Kleenex ones are good and strong if they’re not too big. What’s it for love?”

“Books, mostly”, said Hammond. “Oh well, Kleenex’ll be too heavy, you want them Mars or Kentucky chicken, them red ones”. She started to stand the mop in the bucket at the same time as the reversing beeps of the rubbish lorry signalled its arrival. “Don’t worry Doris, I’ll find enough”. “You’re just in time love”. The mop waved again as she moved out of line of the reversing truck. "This one’s cardboard, kitchen muck’s a different company, comes tomorrow”. Hammond hunted through the boxes quickly, choosing a variety of sizes he could stack together.

Back at his office, he fished with his foot to swivel the low armchair around towards him. As he raised his chin to try and control the boxes descent, he heard a door open down the corridor. Gerald was far too quick for him. Hammond barely got his hand on the doorknob. “Got the cardboard coffins then”. Hammond forced a smile. “You’re not selling any I hope. Never sell a book. I sold a heap when I went to the States. I’ve always regretted it”. Somehow Gerald had passed him, was scrutinizing the shelves, running his practiced eye along Hammond’s selected history of socialist thought. Hammond stood fiddling with the doorknob. “It might be better than sitting in boxes for years” he replied. “Oh, I don’t know, most of this looks good mausoleum stuff”. Gerald grinned. “It’s where most of them belong. Stick them in the garage, you could do an annual honk at them, on an appropriate day”.

Hammond chose to ignore him, to give his attention to his empty boxes, while Gerald prattled on. “Yes, Andrew, you could have May first garage parties, if party’s not a dirty word right now”. Hammond put two Marathon and Kentucky fries on the desk and arranged the others neatly side by side on the floor, gently easing the bright white Reeboks towards the door. “Yeah, I’ll see. You’re probably right about not selling them. Given the future of libraries”. Hammond knew it was weak, knew he was a fool in rising to Gerald’s bait. He counted out his boxes. “Ten. Yeah, I reckon they’ll probably fill all ten. I’ll be pretty knackered by the time this lot’s loaded. Still, at least I can get the car pretty close”. Gerald moved to the door. “That’s good. No, I don’t envy you Andrew; it’s a lot of work. Don’t." he said, fingering a Hayek, "but if you do decide to sell, I notice a few good ones down at the bottom that I might make best offer on”.

Hammond let him start down the corridor. “Oh, Gerald. If you’re still around later, there’s just one box, might be too heavy, I might need a hand with. I won’t use it if I don’t need to”. “Sure, sure”. Hammond heard his door open. “I’ll be here till twelve thirty Andrew. Anything in the spirit of perestroika, you know”.

Hammond sat down at his desk. On his notepad he drew a pin man with a giant head, and then gave it an enormous nose and short spiky hair. Gerald was in the right field of course, the New Right couldn’t put a foot wrong at the moment, but that wasn’t the total story. Gerald worked at it, he lived it, he bloody breathed it. Most importantly the bugger published it. Hammond had read his latest book. Their views were far too fundamentally opposed for him to be convinced but there was no arguing that it had been good. Even witty in places, though God knows how, and sodding clever. Gerald got to know the right people too. Apparently the American edition had an introduction by Friedman. Whereas Hammond. Well you had to delve pretty bloody deep in the library periodicals section to find the collected works of A.F. Hammond. Even he sometimes struggled. Half of them were already on microfiche; it was like being buried before you were dead. Hammond knew people too, but they tended towards non-subscribers rather than ex-directory.

Oh, he had his excuses for his redundancy of course. He’d rehearsed most of them when he’d phoned his mother three weeks ago. There was the commonplace complaint about preferring the teaching to the research, and how undervalued that was in universities. He’d rightly expected her to be his least critical of audiences, but even her questions had rankled. “Do you think you made the wrong choice then?” “What choice?” “University teaching”. “No, I mean, it’s not just the teaching. It’s the way of the world; it’s what people are interested in now. It’s like fashion. Mine’s out. It’s all money now”. “I should have thought people were always interested in money”. He’d tried to temper his exasperation. “Yes, but it’s in a different way, with different beliefs”. “It’s such a pity, when you’re so good with the computers. And people”.

Hammond drew another pin man, with a slightly smaller head, but a bigger nose. He wondered if he should bother labelling the boxes. He got up and started browsing the shelves. Maybe he should ignore Gerald and sell half of them. He picked at a dusty Thomas Aquinas, when would he ever read this again. He flicked through the pages. Had he ever read it?

Virginity. Of course. He hadn’t thought of that one. There’d been the last day of virginity. Mind you, that hadn’t been a particularly good one either. No dreaming there. Probably one of the few things he hadn’t done from a book. But a good one to get crossed off the list. Would it be fair to put Plato in with Hobbes? It depended on interpretation of course. He wasn’t as hard on Hobbes as he used to be. Oh hell, he had to fill the boxes. Get on with it; it’s bound to be a depressing day. Just start at the top.

He nearly ran Doris over backing into the loading bay. “Sorry Doris, my mind was miles away”. “It’s good to see you still smiling love”. “I’ve made a big decision. What to do with my books”. “Well, you haven’t looked so good, these last few weeks. It’s a real shame. We all think so. Mavis said so. ‘It’s a real shame it has to be Mr Hammond’ she said”. Doris glanced around. “There’s a few others it’d have been better to see the back of”. “Oh well, thank you Doris, but I’d better rush. I’m on a bit of a deadline. “Well, you just take care of yourself love”. “You too, Doris”.

He filled the back of his car with ten minutes to spare. His office looked a mess now, the dust showing on the shelves and just the one big box left. He heaped the scattered newspapers and computer listings into a pile on his desk. There was a bit of space at the top of the box, so he threw in the doodle covered notepad and a particularly impressive looking listing which neatly filled the whole top.

He walked along the corridor and knocked on the door. “Right then”, said Gerald, though Hammond saw him glance at his watch. “What’s the route comrade?” “Round to the back of the kitchens. The best way is along by the lake, it’s fractionally further, but there aren’t any doors".

The ducks heard them coming. Around midday anyway the background quacking inclined to increase. “School’s out, ducks”, Hammond shouted as he walked backwards. “It’s vacation time, the Russian winter”. He smiled cheerily at Gerald who was feeling the weight. “We’ll cut across the grass and rest at that bench, you okay?” Gerald nodded. “The heaviest one I carried was a wine box, oops, you okay again?” Gerald had slipped and recovered. “Bloody goose shit”. “Montana Dry. Filled to the brim with fiction. I figured if any got nicked they’d go for the wine. Actually that reminds me, a question I must ask you. Here, stick it down; we’ll take a breather. Yeah, the kid next door, he comes in yesterday, oh I’m sorry about your trainers". Gerald was wiping the green slime from his left shoe. “’You know that wine that people drink, that you see on telly and so on’ the kid says. ‘It’s called dry but if you stick your finger in, it’s still wet. 'Why’s it called dry' he says”. Gerald frowned at the remaining stain and used the wrought iron of the bench to clean away from the instep. “What did you tell him?” “I said it was a bloody good question, everything to do with wine was pretentious, and I’d find out”. There was a pause dominated by the sound of quacking. “I always tell children to look things up in the dictionary, or an encyclopedia. It gives them the idea of how to research things properly for themselves. “Piss off goose”. Gerald waved his foot at the approaching duck.

“Ready then for the final haul”, said Hammond. Hammond’s shoulders were aching as they came round past the kitchens. But it had been Gerald’s turn to go backwards and his face looked like the pink squeaky hedgehog so beloved by Hammond’s next door’s dog. “Here”, Hammond thrust his chin sideways at the skip. “Let’s rest it again, stick it up on the edge”.

“I told you Kleenex was too big, love”.

Hammond hardly recognized Doris in her smart overcoat with her handbag tucked under her arm. “No, it’s been just right, Doris”. “Well, don’t you go getting no hernia, love” she called back turning out of the gate. They got the box balanced. Gerald grimaced at the revolting jumble of kitchen waste, and then looked round the parking bay. “Where’s your car?” “It’s over in the chemistry car park”. “Jesus, we’re not lugging this over there. I thought you’d brought it close”.

“Oh no, don’t worry. This stuff isn’t for the car. This is for the skip”.

“Bloody hell, you mean this is rubbish. Why didn’t you just stick it outside your door for the cleaners to deal with?” Hammond grasped one end of the box firmly by opposing corners. “Come on,” he said. “Grab that end, I want to keep the box, it’ll come in useful”. Gerald reluctantly helped and the two men upturned the box watching the contents descend into the gross mess below. In amongst the chicken bones and plastic cutlery and smeared gallon ketchup containers slewed Hammond’s small but select collection of New Right literature.

Hammond had only winked at someone once in his life, a redhead in a shoe shop in Streatham High Street. He thought it was time for another go. He winked at Gerald. “Where they belong, I think”, he said.