He took his drink into the living room. The buttons on the only chair stared cross-eyed at the opposite wall. He straightened one of its cushions and went to the window. Just on the other side of the glass the branches of an ancient tree were scratching to be let in. He liked the tree. He might have even called it his best friend. When he looked at it sometimes, he felt like it was looking back at him, especially on gloomy days, when its shadows and shapes turned into things other than themselves. He could see its eyes, dark knots regarding him silently from within a gnarled face. People spoke of the tree of wisdom, the sage, the sentient thing that watches through the ages. Over the years he’d seen it change and change back so many times, unveiling new versions of itself with the seasons, yet it was always the same thing. He respected that. A bird opened its wide wings. It flapped on its branch and then flashed black across the pale sky and was gone. Benjamin Tate sighed. He reached forward and fingered a date into the mist that had settled on the window, staring at it until it leaked over itself and disappeared. If only it could have really been like that. The big things had ended that day. He took pleasure in the small things now because the big things that had been planned for him, whatever they might have been, had ended.

Normally he would close his front door between 8.34am and 8.36am and that would afford him all the time he needed. There were mornings, strictly rationed, when he would adjust his schedule by twenty minutes. It was no small thing for Benjamin Tate, this breaking from routine, but when it was called for he would walk slowly to the café, slow enough to savour each of the 749 steps. This morning was such a morning. He had put on his black tie for the occasion. He owned a blue tie as well but the black tie was slimmer, more confident, a sartorial arch of the eyebrow, and in front of the mirror, at the third attempt, he’d got the length of it just so. Beneath the tie he wore the newest of his four blue shirts and a jacket that was also blue. Benjamin Tate had settled on his colours many years ago. In a rare moment of élan he had parted his hair the other way, and when he caught sight of himself in the Perspex of the bus stop he was, within his own limits, not cripplingly discouraged.

Although – and this nagged like a loose scab catching on his clothing – the brown shoes. He wondered what he’d been thinking. He had black ones. They had been sitting there waiting for him, right next to the brown pair, squared off, shining, ready for service. He’d even reached for them. But then what? It made no sense. Something had made his hand sweep past them and the next thing he knew his fingers and thumbs had clasped the heels of the brown ones and now here he was, halfway down the road already. He considered turning back. The colours didn’t work together, they would undermine him. But then he came upon the solution, genius in its simplicity, like a swimmer might come upon a warm patch in cold water; he need simply stand closer to the counter and she’d be none the wiser.

His pace quickened again. This, for Benjamin Tate, could be considered exuberance. He started humming. He decided Louis Armstrong was right, it was a wonderful world, and there were trees of green. He scanned the gardens for red roses. A cat appraised him from a low wall. Benjamin Tate squatted down and put his hand out. Is there any creature on this earth more capable of conveying contempt than the cat? He’d read somewhere that they spend much of their time plotting to overthrow their owners. Only size held them back. The cat noticed him with languid indifference, stood up, stretched out its lithe body and then settled back down, sphinx-like, looking the other way. With a derisive swish of its tail, Benjamin Tate was dismissed.

He continued on his way. He felt the morning on his cheeks, took covert delight in the sun and moon appearing together in the same clear sky; it was a bright new day and he resolved to be bright and new as well.

There was nothing special about the café. It was fitted out with three flimsy metal tables, one of which wobbled over a scrap of paper bent double beneath a leg. A chalkboard on the wall advertised full breakfasts, home-made lasagne and cottage pie, while a heater in name only cowered in the far corner. A draught blew whatever warmth it produced back in on itself. Benjamin Tate pushed open the door and his brown shoes propelled him forward into the room. Deliberately casual is perhaps the phrase; lips pursed as if he was whistling, but he wasn’t; eyebrows knotted as if he was preoccupied, but he wasn’t; a hand nonchalantly in his pocket, but that hand was clammy.

He gazed up at the day’s menu on the opposite wall. It never changed. Near the window two women were slopping up runny eggs and spearing bits of sausage. A blue-collar worker sat at the broken table. Whatever had been there before him was seeping into his newspaper. The third table was empty.

Finally, Benjamin Tate allowed himself a glance towards the counter. Clare was looking directly at him. She smiled a hello and instantly he looked away. He started to rummage in his pocket for something he knew wasn’t there. He looked at the two women who were both talking now. He looked back up at the menu that never changed.

Three boys burst in behind him. They were loud and immediately they filled the room with their loudness. They brushed past him and strode towards the counter. They didn’t acknowledge Clare directly. Instead, in their loud, breaking voices they told each other what they wanted and how they wanted it and then continued talking amongst themselves while they waited for it to arrive. Then they were gone and Benjamin Tate was again standing alone on the sticky floor of the café.

Clare’s hair on this Tuesday morning was dark red. It hadn’t always been red. It had been black, blue-black, deep purple, sandy brown. It was down to her shoulders and that day she had tied it up in a high ponytail that exposed her ears and neck. There were wisps hanging lightly against her skin.

‘Sorry,’ she said to him, rolling her eyes. ‘Boys will be boys.’

He began walking towards the counter. ‘Yes, the boys,’ he replied, pointlessly.

She laughed. ‘So, what can I get you? Coffee, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Thanks.’

And that’s all it was. His special treat. Her fingertips stopped short of touching his palm when she gave him his change – or perhaps he dropped his hand a notch to avoid contact – and then he was heading briskly out the door. He walked a short distance until he knew he was out of sight and then leaned against a wall. He looked at the polystyrene cup. He wasn’t even thirsty. He thought of the date on the glass and sighed deeply, realising how tired he felt. He wondered if everyone found it such hard work being themselves or if it was just hard work being Benjamin Tate.

He looked at his watch. It was 8.37am. He brushed his hair back the other way and started walking again. He didn’t want to be late.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Benjamin Tate had worked at the same place for twenty years. It was a vast white building that dominated its block. Beneath it a basement had been hollowed out and buried within that basement were the medical records, a rolling history of health and ill-health, of everybody who’d lived, and was still living, in the district. The notes had been kept, meticulously, mercilessly, by the doctors who practised in the offices upstairs. Some worked there still, some had moved away, many were themselves now names on a card.

They’d been filed alphabetically, these loose, faded-by-time cards, in cumbersome metal filing cabinets with sliding drawers that clanged and clattered along their rollers. Years of heavy-handedness had bent many of their rails out of shape. Not all the drawers closed fully now; some, more than some, twisted in at odd angles and wedged inches short of flush. The cabinets themselves were stacked three and four high in long unstable rows that towered to the ceiling and barricaded the windows.

Benjamin Tate’s task, and it had been his task for twenty years, was to collect these cards and turn the scribbles of blue and red and black ink into clear, chronological data entries. He ferreted along the dim alleyways, banging his shins on the sharp edges lurking in the shadows. He didn’t stop to consider how many cards he’d processed, or how many still remained. Too many. And with every birth, one more still. He could remember his first. Carmichael. Dementia. And something else. Angina. Seventy-six years old. A widower. Since then he had learned all about human frailty. He had transcribed every malady and misfortune that can strike at the human body and mind. He had not missed a day. The three desks that sat alongside his, tucked into a tight alcove and weakly lit from above by one of those half-hearted, energy-saving lightbulbs, had been at various times occupied and unoccupied. The men and women who were there on his first day had long since drifted away. Their replacements too had been replaced many times over. Benjamin Tate, though, he’d survived – was that the word? It probably was.

On this Tuesday morning Benjamin Tate arrived at work at 8.56am. His brown shoes echoed in the stairwell as he descended. At 8.58am he sat down at his desk. He was the first to arrive. He switched on his monitor and while it whirred into life he checked to make sure all the items on his desk were still squarely aligned. When he was satisfied he picked up the batch of cards that had been correctly placed at a right angle to the keyboard the previous evening. Douglas, K. Obesity. High blood pressure. Diabetes. Douglas was forty-three. Carmichael to Douglas. Twenty years of life. He began tapping at the keys.

Over time his day had been divided into four subsections. From 9 to 11am was the first of them and it was all about finding a steady pace. He’d been a runner once and understood about rhythm and not going out too hard, too early. So, the first few hours were key to establishing an easy forward momentum, keeping something in reserve to make sure his race wasn’t run by mid-afternoon.

It would be tempting, once he’d found his stride, to put in a bit of a spurt before lunchtime, to hit 11am and begin a gradual wind-up. But session two required discipline, keeping the brakes on. There’s always a sense that the faster you work the quicker you finish, but he’d learned, down there in the basement, doing what he did, that work was a continuous thing. One card, ten or one hundred, the end would always remain out of sight, round one more bend. And he’d seen it before many times, those fresh faces, new blood that had trickled down through the floorboards to puddle up in the basement beside Benjamin Tate, ticking along at the beginning, all buzz and bluster, but then winding down like an old clock as the scale of the task dawned on them. ‘How long did you say you’d been here? How long?’ They’d stare at him in wonder, and that would be the moment, a stark, terrifying vision of the destination awaiting them. Many would be gone within the week.

So, Benjamin Tate was in no rush. One o’clock would come and go, the afternoon would start and session three, the dead time between 2pm and 4pm, when he was a long way from both the start and finish, would take its course. If he were to have a weak moment during the day it would occur here, when his powers of endurance might be examined. It was sometimes as simple as a lull, as though a parachute had suddenly opened behind him and was slowing everything down, but sometimes it was more than that, more like a strained tension, probably only fatigue-induced, but it had a physical quality and they would all feel it, like someone with a nasty past they all knew about had entered the room and was loitering just behind them. It would though, it always did, dissipate as 5pm approached and Benjamin Tate might permit himself a downhill run to the line, letting his step quicken and his hands tap at the keyboard with a touch more zing.

But this Tuesday morning was different, as he expected it to be, and by 9.16am Benjamin Tate was still holding the same card he’d picked up when he’d first sat down. He read it again. Douglas. Obesity. High blood pressure. Diabetes. Forty-three. Older than he was. There were dates down the side. If he turned the card over he’d know if Douglas was dead or alive. Two of the three other desks had been filled by now. He’d not noticed it happen. Where had these people come from, these fellow moles, not just the two that sat beside him now, but the dozens that, at one time or another, had sat beside him? Some had been older than him, many had been much younger. How and why had they ended up there? What could have happened to send them scurrying out of the light? Perhaps they too had… He stopped the thought before it developed. Obesity. High blood pressure. There was a barely legible note about exercise and diet. Benjamin Tate could just make out the word yeast. He looked back at the screen and then rubbed his eyes and started at the top again. Diabetes. 9.36am. Suddenly Benjamin Tate tore a strip off part of the card and stuck it over the date that had been glaring at him from the corner of the screen.

‘Everything okay there, buddy?’ Pete asked. Pete sat at the desk beside his. ‘It’s too early to be clock-watching, you know. And anyway, you’ve still got that bastard up there.’

He pointed up at the clock on the wall, then got up and disappeared behind the filing cabinets. When he returned he was carrying a stepladder under his arm. He climbed up and took the clock down. ‘How’s that, buddy? Better?’

Pete smiled again. He didn’t belong there, in that basement. He looked like someone who should own a yacht, or have friends who did. He always said the right thing, and when he said the wrong thing he said it the right way, which seemed to matter more. But what Benjamin Tate liked most about him was that he treated everyone the same way, even the stranger types. He suspected it was less to do with goodness and more to do with self-absorption, a narcissistic bubble that enveloped him and enabled him, without difficulty, to remain unchanged, exactly who he was, regardless of his environment, but he didn’t mind that. That made no difference to Benjamin Tate. He had once seen a painting of an ancient ship being tossed about on a wild sea. The scene was so visceral he could almost hear the damp wood creaking and groaning in the storm. Where had he seen it, that picture? Somewhere dark and dingy like this. But that’s what Pete was like. What did it matter if the painter had witnessed the scene or imagined it, the effect was the same. Pete was still holding the clock in his hands, regarding it carefully. A flicker of something came to his face and he looked up at Benjamin Tate, grinning.

‘Hey, you want to see time really fly?’

Suddenly he threw the clock like a Frisbee over the top of the filing cabinets. Three pairs of eyes watched it sail disc-like through the air. It seemed to hang forever, almost not moving, until it dived down and there was a loud shattering noise on the other side of the room.

‘For Pete’s sake,’ he said, smiling at the now familiar joke. ‘The old ones are the best. That’s why I like you, buddy.’ He winked. ‘It’s all good.’

Benjamin Tate was stunned. A little disturbed. He couldn’t grasp chaotic gestures like that. It was too cavalier, too devil-may-care for his liking. There were rules, rules kept order, order was important. He watched Pete stroll back to his desk. Was it nonchalance? Nerve? Cocksureness? Probably a bit of all three, and other things besides. He didn’t so much strut as roll sinuously in his joints. He had a way about him, did Pete. He turned over a card and moved his hands to the keyboard as if nothing had happened.

Benjamin Tate waited for whatever had been pitched sideways in his chest – that ship? – to right itself and then looked back down at his card. Douglas. Obesity. High blood pressure. Diabetes. Forty-three. Still alive. Living just three streets away. Married. Second marriage. Yeast-free diet recommended. He glanced at the screen and saw the bit of paper. It allowed him to go on.

Douglass, M. Dead. Dead for years. Aged fifty-seven. Stroke. A smoker. Benjamin Tate had never paused to wonder why it was necessary to store for posterity such records, records of the old, disappeared souls that no longer filled the gaps they once did. Tap, tap, tap.

Downes, T. Seventy-two. Arthritis in both hands. Mild depression. Cataracts. Chicken pox as a child. A long list. Benjamin Tate recorded it all.

Downes, V. Six. Measles. A bump on the head from a fall at school.

Dove, B. Ninety-eight. Ninety-eight and counting. Three cards’ worth. All full on both sides. A scribbled story of survival. Tap, tap, tap.

Dover, B. Nineteen. Suicide.

Dovesett, K. Thirty-six. Appendicitis. Benjamin Tate checked both sides of the card but that was all there was. Appendicitis. Nothing more.

Dow, A. Sixty-two. Cancer. There was always one. No, there was always many more than one. He typed the word out and then read it silently in his head. Cancer. What was it about that disease that separated it from all the others, that stirred such feelings of disquiet and inevitability? It was the stalker you can’t shake off. That’s how it felt, as though it had singled you out even before you knew it existed and had, ever since, been closing grimly in. Is it really true that the Komodo dragon poisons its victims with a single bite and then patiently tracks the doomed beast down to the place where the toxins have finally felled it? The poor creature, what a way to go, shivering woozily beneath a bush in the sand, already on the brink, noticing, at a stage when it’s too weak to do anything about it, those dead reptilian eyes staring lewdly at it from the other side of the clearing. Would there be a moment’s pause, a moment of sizing up, one side assessing and the other accepting, or would that giant, low-hung head, all scales and hissing tongue, just keep swinging on the end of its thick neck as it advanced?

Doway, D. Sixty-eight. Cancer. Again. But in remission. Hopeful. The period after the bite, thinking you’ve escaped.

Dowdall, L. Forty-one. Stress. Asthma. Eczema.

Dowley... Downer... Downes... tap, tap, tap. Downing... Dowton... Doyley.

The steady rhythm. That easy pace. There was a cushion at his back and one on his seat. His mug had a picture of a palm tree wrapped around it. He’d never been anywhere where palms grew. That didn’t matter. Its colours were bright against the background. The tape and card covered the date. The big things had ended. That didn’t matter either. He’d have fish later. He always had fish on Tuesdays. The choice of fish, and how he cooked it, was variable. He was leaning towards hake. Possibly grilled. He didn’t need to decide yet. The small things. The safety of the small things. A hand on his shoulder made him jump.

‘Time to come up for air, buddy.’ Pete half turned away but then stopped. ‘You okay? You’re as white as a baby’s arse.’ Benjamin Tate’s breathing was fast. He put his hand to his forehead and noticed he was sweating.

‘I’m okay.’

‘You work too hard, buddy. Slow down. Come on, it’s time for our elevenses.’ Benjamin Tate looked up at the clock. It wasn’t there. Pete laughed. ‘Long gone, mate.’