One
requirement of Brother Skunk’s job is that he check off and sign for each day’s
stock delivery, and this being almost mid-term the term the boxes still number into the upper
eighties, with both fresh stock to accommodate those lecturers late in
submitting recommendations, and back-up to replenish the commensurate depletion
from the semester’s first few weeks. He finds his task facilitated not at all
by the good-natured delivery driver, who helps trolley the books into the
backshop, and the various bypassing bookstore cogs.
Skunk
(sotto voce, his fingers moving across each box as he counts): seventeen
eighteen nineteentwentytwenty-one
cog
(entering the backshop to file a paperback upon the customer order shelf):
Skunk!
Skunk
(ignoring): twenty-three twenty-four twen-
cog:
Hey Tony! Big load, I am impressed,
really.
cog:
Why thank you, thank
pointing
cog:
you! There should be eighty-seven ah!
waving
the sheaf of stickered forms
cog:
but that’s only, let me repeat, only, if they were correctly checked out
at the base.
Skunk
(with the beginnings of irritation): thirty-eight thirty-nine forty
cog
(nodding at Skunk, a wink of melodramatic proportion): What time do you make it
Tony?
Skunk:
FORTY-THREE FORTY-FOUR
cog:
The time?
and
the penny drops.
cog:
Oh the time, the time, why
consulting
his wristwatch
cog:
it’s nearly, well, it’s one fifteen now, but it’s almost one sixteen.
Skunk:
FIFTY-TWO FIFTY-THREE FIFTY-FOURFIFTY-FIVEFIFTY-SIX
cog
(laughing): How almost?
cog:
It’s one fifteen and fifty fifty-one fifty-two fifty-three
laughing.
cog:
Now it’s one sixteen and one two
three
cog:
And in twenty-four hour mode?
cog:
Well let’s see, for twenty-four hour mode you just add on twelve, so that’ll be one plus twelve that’ll be thirteen sixteen
Skunk:
SIXTY-THREE SIXTY-FOUR SIXTY-FIVESIXTY-SIX SIXTY-SEVEN
The
sound of an unanswered telephone takes one cog back out into the shop as
another enters, quickly assessing Skunk’s mounting irritation.
cog:
Tony! Tony when’s your birthday?
cog
(laughing): Ha ha HA you bastard!
It’s on the eighth of the sixth, nineteen sixty-six. And you?
Skunk:
SEVENTY-THREE!
slapping
the flank of each box for emphasis, his tiny silver namesake aswing on its
lobe.
Skunk:
SEVENTY-FOUR!
cog:
This year I’m
Skunk
straightens up and, pulling a ballpoint from behind one ear, inks a number onto
the top box of one of several tall stacks, crosses his arms, and waits.
cog:
I’ll be twenty-four this year, if
cog
(entering backshop, frowning): Skunk that’s your mum on the phone.
Skunk
(bewildered): My mum?
cog:
I know, I don’t... That’s what she said, she said
Brother
Skunk stabs the pen point-first into a box and moves at speed out into the
shop, calling back
Skunk:
Which line is she on?
