Tabitha Read online

  TABITHA

  Andrew Hall

  © Andrew Hall 2014

  Find me on Twitter at @andrew_in_space.

  Cover art by Aaron Nakahara

  All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  1

  The end of the world came quietly one day and landed in the sea. Nobody noticed a mediocre meteor, or saw what was growing on it. Humanity was too busy with hunger and war; tight margins and premium goods. Some people, like Tabitha Jones, were busy losing their jobs.

  Tabitha worked in a run-down office in a Welsh seaside town. A town of chip wrappers, graffiti, rain. Rust stains seeped through whitewashed ironwork on the old seafront. The sea was a murky line in the distance, a dull brown mass. Tabitha could see it all from the office window, faded and murked by a film of sandy grime on the glass. She ran her fingers idly over her old computer keyboard. Every button was smooth and shiny and worn out. Marketing Admin Assistant wasn’t an interesting job. Graduation felt like a lifetime ago. She could be making films, she told herself. In another life, a world away, up there in her daydream.

  ‘Tabitha, could I have a word in my office?’ said a deep grave voice. Bill Mangle, CEO. He loomed suddenly at her desk, tall and black-suited, as pale and gaunt as an undertaker’s stereotype. He turned sharply and walked off. Tabitha stood up and smoothed down her shirt and skirt nervously. She followed Bill through the silent staring office into a worn-carpet corridor. They passed sunbleached accolades hung in old gold frames, and a sorry Spanish plant wearing decades of dust. Walls papered in eighties seasick grey. Everything had that strange dusty smell of ancient cigarette smoke, like the fabric seats on an old coach. Tabitha had always hated that smell. Bill led the way in silence; a funeral procession of two. Tabitha’s palms felt clammy; her stomach was scrunched up in a ball. What was this about?

  Bill shifted uneasily in his chair. It creaked in his silent office. He looked up from his long knotted fingers on the desk at the young woman sitting opposite; at her wide green deer-in-the-headlight eyes, half hidden under a mess of ginger curls.

  ‘Tabitha…’ he sighed gravely, breaking the silence. ‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ he said apologetically. ‘We’re making losses. We need to let a few of you go.’ Tabitha could only stare at him. He’d dropped a cartoon ton-weight on her life. Sawed out the floor beneath her in a perfect circle. His words rang in her head like a deep dull church bell in a graveyard. There’s no easy way to say this. We need to let a few of you go. It occurred to Tabitha that this was actually quite an easy way for him to say it. She didn’t mention this. All her young life, many of Tabitha’s opinions had never quite made it to her mouth.

  ‘But I’ve been here for years,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Well, two years,’ Bill chuckled gently, dismissively. Grinning with crooked teeth. He shifted again in his creaking seat; coughed into the awkward silence. ‘The industry’s changing,’ he explained, scratching a dry clean-shaven cheek. ‘There just… isn’t the work anymore.’ Tabitha stared blankly at Bill’s desk. At the fake wood-grain coating on its surface. She smelled the musky whiff of old aftershave that filled the gloomy room. Heard the bland clock on the wall, older than she was, ticking plastic time in the silence.

  ‘Ok,’ she said quietly. Job, gone. Just like that. She didn’t see the point in getting angry. She wasn’t very good at it. There were lots of lay-offs these days, she told herself. This was the hollowed-out economy.

  ‘Ok,’ she repeated, lifelessly, making brief eye contact as she stood up. She saw his eyes and looked away. He always had that dark intense look, like he was weighing her soul. Tabitha looked down at the carpet, her go-to looking place, where no one ever stared back.

  ‘Should I go now? Or…?’ she mumbled.

  ‘I think it’s probably best,’ said Bill, in his kindest fake-kindness voice. His flinty eyes and sharp sunken cheeks did little to complement his tone. ‘Probably better to spend your time looking for a new job, mm?’ he said. Bill seemed brighter now, like a weight had lifted off his shoulders. He was stroking his chin, thinking. ‘I know this chap actually, he’s looking for a cleaner,’ he said. ‘I’ll write you up a good reference, mm? Yes.’ Bill decided before Tabitha could reply. She didn’t want a cleaning job. Something wasn’t right. She wanted to ask about her notice period for a start.

  ‘Oh, and don’t worry about serving your notice,’ said Bill, as if he’d read her mind.

  ‘Ok,’ she mumbled, defeated, opening the door. Wait, wasn’t that something she was entitled to? She should be pressing him about it. That all seemed a bit confrontational though.

  ‘Oh, Tabitha?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Nobody emptied the bins over the weekend,’ said Bill, with a confidential tone. ‘What with the hot weather and everything… would you mind just… taking the old bags on your way out? Please?’ Tabitha stared at him, and didn’t say what she wanted to say. She’d need a good reference for her next job. Best not to rock the boat.

  ‘…Ok,’ she replied timidly. She left Bill’s office and closed the door silently behind her.

  The main office was eerily quiet when Tabitha reappeared from the corridor. She was walking on a floor that didn’t quite feel like it was there. Pale, thoughtless, she reached her desk in a daze and switched her computer off. A phone was ringing somewhere behind her. She emptied the contents of her desk into a rustling carrier bag. Her stapler. Her pens. Her work schedule, lovingly drafted one weekend; packed with tasks that she’d colour coded by order of importance. All redundant now, just like her.

  ‘Everything alright love?’ said Gwen in her sing-song voice, peering over the partition from the desk behind.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tabitha replied. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Gwen, anyway.

  ‘What happened?’ said Gwen, with the look of someone who knew full well.

  ‘I’m leaving.’ Tabitha replied quietly. She wanted to keep it vague. Everything about Gwen was an intrusion. Always had been.

  ‘Leaving? Oh, how awful!’ said Gwen dramatically, with all the sincerity she could muster. Tabitha didn’t look Gwen in the eye. She couldn’t stand to see the look of victory there; the look she was so bad at hiding.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Gavin, half-interested, popping his head up a couple of desks away.

  ‘Tabitha’s been made redundant,’ Gwen declared sadly, revelling in the drama. Strange that Gwen knew the exact reason why she was leaving, Tabitha thought to herself. She didn’t mention this though.

  ‘Oh no, really?’ Gavin murmured, after a brief pause to click Save on his spreadsheet. Tabitha watched him trying to formulate some sympathy. Maybe he was waiting for her to say something. He looked down at his computer to type something quickly.

  ‘How come?’ he said eventually, looking up at her again. Tabitha was already walking away down the office.

  ‘Bye then,’ Gwen called sarcastically.

  ‘Bye,’ Tabitha replied quietly, barely looking back.

  A big dead moth lay frayed and dusty on the kitchen window sill. The summer sun shone bright and milky through grubby glass. Tabitha wrestled with the sticky sides of the bin bag to tie it up, and carted its stinking weight out of the office kitchen with a second bag. She’d never known a smell like it; like death and dairy. Lazy flies followed the sour fumes out into the corridor.

  ‘Alright Trouble?’ said Kevin, smiling his creased old grin as he ambled into the office. He always smelled of old hair gel. He studied the bin bags in her hands. ‘Who made you the bin man then?’

  ‘I’ve been laid off,’ she sa
id quietly. Kevin’s wrinkled face dropped. He was the one person in the office she’d actually wanted to tell. He looked angry. He clenched his big old hands into fists; knobbly knuckles turning white.

  ‘Wait here,’ he growled, walking off. ‘And put them bloody bin bags down girl,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘He’s taking the piss.’

  Kevin stormed into Bill’s office and slammed the door behind him. It wasn’t clear what was said during the muffled shouting match, but the rest of the office tried their best to listen in. Tabitha had never heard so much anger, and she was all the way down in the corridor by the front doors. When Kevin emerged he growled at everyone to get back to work. He walked back out into the corridor with a face like thunder, like a grumpy old hound. Tabitha was going to miss that face.

  ‘Prat,’ Kevin snarled. ‘Well, I tried to talk him out of it,’ he sighed, his stubbly face softening. ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen, love. Not if I want to keep my job. I’m sorry.’ Tabitha looked into his sad eyes, and she wanted to hug him. She didn’t, though. It might have turned out awkward. She wasn’t good at contact.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said, smiling. ‘It happens a lot these days, people losing their jobs.’

  ‘Well it’s a bloody shame that people like you have to go, and some of them keep a job,’ he said quietly. Tabitha smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation though, I reckon there’s more lay-offs coming soon anyway.’

  ‘It’s not any consolation, really,’ Tabitha told him quietly. ‘I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry about them,’ said Kevin. ‘You just look after yourself, alright?’ he was smiling sadly.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Tabitha replied.

  ‘You never know. Losing this job might be the best thing that ever happened to you. A good kick up the bum to find something better, maybe.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tabitha agreed quietly, welling up.

  ‘So, you better come back here and see us when you’re a high flyer, alright?’ he said. Tabitha nodded, with a tear running down her cheek.

  ‘And leave them bloody bin bags here, will you?’ he said, pulling them out of her hands to give her a hug.

  ‘Bye Kevin,’ she said, her voice muffled in his musty jumper.

  ‘Bye Trouble,’ he replied. ‘Now go on, get lost. Go and get a better job.’

  The gravel in the car park crunched under Tabitha’s shoes, stabbing crisp sound into the silence. There was only the grey distant hiss of traffic noise in town; no other sound in the world. Tabitha’s head was empty of thoughts. She didn’t know whether to grieve or celebrate. Maybe this was a time for both. She’d been cut loose, so what now? Did that mean she was falling, or flying? Maybe it was up to her. Yes; it was up to her. A whole world was open to her. Tabitha climbed into her car and shut the door on the office behind her. She turned the key in the ignition. As the engine started up she felt like she was starting a new chapter in her life. She could go anywhere she wanted, do anything she wanted. She was absolutely free. So… why did she feel like everything had come crashing down on top of her? She reversed out of the tiny office car park and drove off down the road. It was Friday; there was a weekend to enjoy. The next few weeks, strange and uncertain, could stay on the far side of Sunday. As for now… she knew exactly where to go.

  Tabitha’s worries disappeared for a while once she parked up at the supermarket. She’d always liked supermarkets. They were magnolia paint for the mind. A busy vanilla distraction, plain and orderly. She hadn’t been to this one before, though. She didn’t normally drive this way home after work, but she was feeling daring today after losing her job. Life was too short not to try a new supermarket once in a while.

  She thought quite highly of the supermarket’s exterior on her way in. Tasteful brick pillars, accentuated by the clean sharp lines of modern glass. A class act, really, though she wanted to reserve judgement until she’d seen the customer service. She felt a cool blast from the air vents over the doors on her way in. The fake breeze touched her head for a moment like a good thought. She picked up a shopping basket and felt the reedy rubber-plastic handle in her hand. She studied the black-dotted sick-beige of the floor tiles under her red suede shoes. Walking in through the customer barriers she began her browsing tour, eyeing the shelves like an art critic. She put a crinkling packet of grapes in her basket, bright poison green. Crunchy biscuits, sloshy wine, and a definite slab of chocolate. Cheesy pizza. Serious DVD.

  A blazered shop manager followed an old man around the store at a distance. She sprayed asthmatic puffs of air freshener discreetly in his wake. The old man smelled of urine. A very sharp cloying smell, like car park stairwells. Tabitha saw him walking this way. She smiled to him as she passed by, to show him that she didn’t mind the smell. He saw her, but didn’t acknowledge her. He had bushy eyebrows, grumpy jowls. Tabitha watched him push past a young man rudely in the next aisle, and suddenly felt more entitled to dislike his sour old smell.

  ‘Excuse me, I was in the queue,’ Tabitha told a tall man in front of her. He ignored her. Short hair, gold chain, angry red tan. He’d simply walked over and made himself the front of the line for the self-service tills. He’d taken her place, jumped in front. The crook. Tabitha was just the right height to face his armpits too, and the dark smelly sweat patch under each one. He looked like a gym fan, steroid-angry. Tabitha sighed and turned away, refusing to even look at him. The supermarket checkouts bipped incessantly like robots praying. A faint smell of sun cream filled the store. Everyone at the tills, staff and shoppers, shared the same crabby, clammy exhaustion in the summer heat.

  ‘Excuse me, you pushed in the queue,’ Tabitha tried again, quietly. It wasn’t like her to press a point like this, but she felt fighty today. How could someone flaunt the rules like this? She’d left the standard six-foot gap between herself and the self-service checkouts. It was the unspoken law. A decent-sized space to let other shoppers make their way past the queue. Everyone knew they should do that. Not only had this man strutted over and stood in front of her as if she wasn’t there – he was also becoming an obstruction to hurried lunch-breakers, tired mums and frail old couples trying to get past. Civilisation was lost on this man. Social rules were just flimsy guidelines to people like him, like dull terms and conditions printed on toilet paper. No one else in the queue behind her said anything. He was her problem. The man shoulder-strutted to the next checkout that freed up; the one that should have been hers. He even glanced back at her then, looked her up and down, and dismissed her as a lesser female specimen. What annoyed Tabitha more was that he paid and left so soon, leaving her to use the same checkout. Like she was left owing him something. She put her basket down at the checkout, and despite herself she smelled the lingering stink of fresh sweat. He was still pissing her off, and he wasn’t even here.

  ‘Approval needed,’ said the checkout. Tabitha sighed a sigh, tiny and exasperated. Why hadn’t she scanned the wine last? She could have been bagging the rest of her things up. She was out of sorts today, as her mum would say. Sunlight spilled through high windows. Cranky children were stropping with their mum at the next till along. Shrill screams. Tabitha didn’t notice the short figure standing beside her.

  ‘Have you got any ID love?’ said a smiling perm-lady, appearing from nowhere. She worked here. A rectangular badge on her large bosom declared that she was BRENDA.

  ‘I think so,’ Tabitha replied, fishing her driving licence from her purse. It was the purse with the art-nouveau cat, her favourite. Worn and well-loved. She knew she had her licence in there, of course, but she didn’t just want to tell Brenda “Yes” in case it sounded too abrupt. She passed Brenda her licence, and watched her examine it. Tabitha had always hated that picture of herself. A mess of ginger hair, curling round a pale face that she wished was someone else’s. Some people looked nothing like their driving licence photos. Tabitha matched hers exactly.

  ‘Happy birthday for last week then,’ Brenda said
brightly, looking up from the licence. Tabitha smiled back, pleasantly surprised. She felt rushed though, conscious of the checkout queue behind her. She was probably holding everyone up. Brenda seemed unaware of this risk.

  ‘23 last… Saturday?’ said Brenda, giving her licence back.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Tabitha replied happily. It was nice to have someone taking an interest. She felt like she should get a move on with her shopping, though. People would be waiting behind her. She hurried her food through the scanner. Another checkout lady put Tabitha’s DVD through for her, but she wasn’t as smiley as Brenda. The new woman looked Tabitha up and down for a moment like a style critic, and all but screwed up her nose in distaste. Tabitha paid the checkout and snatched her debit card back from the reader, trying not to look back at the queue. She could feel their eyes on her. She felt them waiting impatiently to buy their things, and get back to all the jobs they still had. Tabitha grabbed her plastic bag of emotional first aid and left.

  ‘Bye love,’ Brenda called to her, while she helped an old lady bag up bottles of vodka.

  ‘Bye,’ Tabitha replied quietly, happily. She was definitely coming here again. Top-notch customer service, it really was. There were too many people around, though. There were always too many people around. She put her headphones back in to block them out.

  Home was an old rented house on the seafront. Tall and narrow. Single glazed. Victorian brick. Dark green door. The small front garden had grown wild in the summer sun. Tabitha stayed clear of it, especially the bees and wasps that prowled the haphazard flowers. Threatening as tiny flying tigers. She stepped around frantic ants on the stone steps up to the door. Mog was looking out at her from the window, a lazy black fuzzchunk of feline indifference. Tabitha slid her key in the door lock and opened up a darker, cooler world inside the house. She shut the door on the hot bright world outside, vast and full of dangers. It still smelled of bolognese in here. A lingering whiff of garlic in the air, nose-grabbingly pungent.