The Job at Dobson’s by David Bonnett

Today he has seen Amanda again.  The only other time had been more than a year ago.  After that it had been letters.  She would write and he’d write back.  He’d been in the military.  Letters meant a lot.

But the letters stopped and his time in the military ended soon after.  He’s glad Mum and Dad are no longer around.  They wouldn’t have been happy, the way things have turned out.  These days he has a job at Dobson’s, the posh store in the High Street.  He’s their new security man.  Security Officer, Dobson’s call it.  Dobson’s is that sort of store.

The job at Dobson’s is straightforward enough.  Keep your eyes open and your wits sharp, that’s what they want.  They put you in a box of a room with a monitor screen to stare at.  You stare, and you stare again, because out there amongst Dobson’s rails of classy coats, trendy jeans and fashionable footwear, there are those who are ‘at it’.  ‘Seeking to avoid payment’, in Dobson-speak.

If a shopper leaves the store without paying you guide them back through the revolving door, hand discreetly on their elbow.  Politely, even sympathetically.  Dobson’s has a reputation for civility towards all its customers, not just those who pay, but also those who try not to.

……

Jake has been staring at the woman on his screen for the past hour this afternoon.  He recognizes her.  It’s Amanda, no doubt about it.  ‘Her from the library’, his Army mate Charlie Hooper used to call her, because that’s where he and Charlie first saw her.  In the local library where she worked.

He and Charlie had been home on a spot of leave at the time.  Charlie isn’t around these days.  But now he knows Amanda is.

Jake felt he’d got to know her well even though it had only been letters.  Got to like her too.  More than ‘like’ though he’d never told her.  He’d been waiting for the next time they met in person.  Then he would tell her.  But he’d never seen Amanda again.  Until today.

This afternoon Jake’s leg aches.  It does that some days.  Just enough to remind him of his days in the military.  One day in particular.  The military medics had said the ache days would become less.  He would soon get used to the metal foot.

He had thought about Amanda often, in hospital and then re-hab.  And now, here she is on his screen.   He stares, the way Dobson’s want you to.   Surely Amanda isn’t ‘at it’.  But it’s the ones you’d least expect you need to watch.  That’s something else Dobson’s have told him.

This afternoon Amanda is picking stuff up, putting it down, looking around her, picking stuff up again.  Her showy, nothing-to-hide, big bag could be there to receive a pair of pricey shoes, a coat, a piece of Cashmere perhaps.  Mrs. Pomeroy, the store manager had advised him ‘lifters’ liked a big bag.

……

It is three weeks now since Dobson’s took him on.  Mrs. Pomeroy had given him a chance.  He’d been expecting the usual ‘Sorry, but…’  from her.  She had given him a trial instead.

 ‘Stay alert and keep your eyes open’, Mrs. Pomeroy had said.  Jake said he’d been used to doing that in the military.  Mrs. Pomeroy had nodded, like she understood.  Jake wasn’t sure she did.  She had two good feet.

This rainy afternoon Amanda looks good in her raincoat.  White, he thinks, though you can’t be sure on a monitor screen.  She had probably thrown it on in the rain, with no thought of checking how she looked.  Amanda would look good, whatever she wore.  Some people were like that.

……

Amanda picks up a pair of shoes and flexes their uppers.  Jake is keeping his eyes open and his wits about him, just like Dobson’s want.  In the military he’d kept his eyes open and his wits about him every day whilst searching with Charlie Hooper for land-mines in the hot Afghan sand.  Except for that last patrol when he hadn’t been concentrating like he should.  He’s concentrating now. 

He stares harder at his screen.

……

No monitor screen can spoil that face.  Amanda is not film star beautiful, just nice-looking beautiful.  Better than the film-star look.  On the day he and Charlie Hooper had first seen her in the local library Amanda had been at her desk, checking books in and out, and clicking a keyboard at a hundred miles an hour.  Charlie had given her his smile, because though Charlie wasn’t much to look at he had a hopeful nature and tried never to miss opportunities.  She’d carried on clicking. 

……

It’s been over a year since Amanda’s final letter.  Is she still with that ‘special’ bloke she’d told him about.  Maybe the bloke didn’t turn out so special after all.  A bit of Jake hopes so.  Another, nicer, bit of him knows that isn’t fair.

……

Amanda has done with browsing.  She takes a coat from its rail, folds it with a quick flip before pushing it down into her carrier.  Then a pair of jeans.  High end stuff.  Nothing wrong with putting stuff in a bag of course.

She heads for shoes after that.  She drops two pairs into the carrier and …  Browsing is definitely over.  A glance around her and she takes quick steps across Dobson’s quiet carpeting towards the revolving door that spins you out onto the street.

“Once they are off the premises – that’s when you take action,” Mrs. Pomeroy had said, adding, “discreetly, of course.” 

Amanda steps inside the revolving door, and gives it a helping push.  Jake glimpses her white coat before she disappears onto the High Street.  He leaves his screen.  Dobson’s expect him to speak to her.  He’d wanted to speak to her that day in the library.  But that day had been so different.

……

He and Charlie were home on Army leave.  They had been in the library for a look through the newspapers that were spread on a table.  Charlie said you could get news on your phone and newspapers were for old folk, but that was just Charlie who wasn’t much of a reader.  Jake wanted to know what was going on in the world.  Especially Afghanistan where he and Charlie were headed at the end of their bit of leave.  Charlie said he could think of better places to end up.

In the library silence Charlie had found something better than newspapers to look at.  He’d whispered, “Never mind reading the papers, mate, have you clocked her behind the desk?  She’s a ‘looker’.”

Charlie thought all girls were ‘lookers’, even the ordinary ones, but the one behind the library desk was not ordinary.  Yes, of course Jake had ‘clocked’ her.  Before Charlie had probably.

She’d left her desk and had been gliding around the tables in a sky-blue jacket and cream trousers, quietly efficient, her neat ears peeking through her dark hair.  She was squaring up the newspapers, and smiling at people.  Best of all, she’d smiled at him, but it was Charlie who had smiled back, because that was what Charlie did.  Jake’s insides did a tumble as she went back to her desk, immediately busy clicking away on her computer keyboard.

“Back in a minute,” Jake had whispered to Charlie, before scraping back his chair, disturbing the quietness and getting looks.

Charlie had grinned.  Charlie always could read his mind.

Jake headed for the library desk, thought about turning back, but managed not to.  She looked up from her keyboard.  “Can I help?”  Her voice had a lilt. Irish perhaps. 

“I – I’d like a book, please.”

“We’ve got all sorts.”  Said with a smile that was almost a laugh.

“Er …”  He couldn’t think of a title.  He pointed to the high shelves behind her.  “Anything from up there will do.”

 “It’s all sport up there.  Is that what you want?

“Yes, sport – I like sport.”  No he didn’t, he was no good at sport.  Snooker maybe.  Was snooker a sport?

She swivelled her chair.  “Really anything?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll see what I can find.”  She swung her chair around to the ladder which was propped against the shelves behind her and climbed it to its top. When she came back down with a book she’d plucked like she was picking apples she gave him another smile and his insides did another tumble.  “Try this.  It’s about cycling.”

“Cycling?”

“Yes, you know, on a bike.  Loads of people have them.”  She was definitely laughing at him.

“I cycle to the library every day,” the girl said.  “What do you do?”

“I’m in the Army.  But me and my mate over there -” (Charlie was watching, of course he was) – “we’re on leave.  And …”  He wasn’t as good talking to women as Charlie was.  “I’m being posted abroad.  My mate is, too.  Afghanistan.  And …”

She was looking up at him.  A hint of a smile.  “I’m sure you suit an Army uniform.  You’ve got the build.”

“He hadn’t been ready for that.  His mate, Charlie would have been.  “Thanks.  Er …”

“Yes?”

“When I’m away will – will you write to me?”  His words had tumbled out, surprising him.

She’d said nothing and gone back to hammering her keyboard.  For a long time.  How could he have thought …

“Yes, alright,” she said at last.

“Really?”

 “Yes, really.”

Amanda sent him a letter every week.  Newsy, funny too which helped when the heat and the explosives in the Afghan sand weren’t funny at all.  Friday was letter day.  An envelope with her neat back-sloped, blue-inked writing on it made it a good day.  Charlie Hooper said he wished he had a ‘looker’ who would send him letters. 

One Friday Amanda’s letter wasn’t wonderful at all.  She’d met someone.  ‘Someone a bit special’ was how she put it.  ‘I won’t be writing any more, Jake.  Sorry.’

Jake had gone out with Charlie on mine patrol straight after, which was the worst thing he could have done when all he’d wanted to do was go somewhere quiet.  As they scraped the sand in search of explosives he didn’t see the one that blew his foot off.  The one that killed Charlie Hooper.  The stripes on Jake’s arm meant he was supposed to be the one telling Charlie when it was safe to take the next wary step in the sand.  But he hadn’t been keeping his mind on the job.  His mind had been on the letter from Amanda – the letter telling him she’d found someone special.

……

This afternoon Jake limps from his ‘Security’ room.  A fast limp which he’s getting better at.  He makes it through Dobson’s revolving door and out onto the High Street.  He sees Amanda ahead of him.  She is paused at the kerbside, waiting for an amber light to become green, and he makes up the distance between them.  Now he is alongside.  She is not short, but he is taller.  He looks down at her and points to her bag.

“Excuse me, Madam.”   Quietly.  The Dobson’s way.

 “Yes?”

If she remembers him she doesn’t show it.  He wants to tell her, ‘It’s me, Jake – Jake from our letters’.  He wants to tell her about the foot – the foot that will never get another blister, never need another toenail clipped.  He wants to ask her about her ‘special’ bloke.

  He points to her bag.  “I – I think you forgot to pay for your shopping.”  Dobson-speak is still new to him. 

“I …”  She hesitates.  “I … I thought, others do it, so why shouldn’t I.  Never again, I promise.”   Jake wonders how many times she’s said it before.

She holds out the bag like it’s a gift.  “Here, take it. You can say I dropped the bag and ran away and you couldn’t catch me.  You can say that, can’t you?”

 His mate, Charlie Hooper would have.

“Please, Jake.”   She does remember him.

Her eyes meet his and his insides do a familiar tumble.

She plants the bag beside his fake foot.  She looks at it for just a moment.  “Your poor leg – I really am sorry.”  She does a kiss-blow with her fingers, turns and hurries away.  No looking back.  He watches her white raincoat weaving between other raincoats on the wet crowded High Street.  It disappears, and then there it is back, and then gone again, and then back one more time after that, until he sees it no more.

He takes up the bag and limps back to Dobson’s glinty entrance.  The leg aches, but the medics have told him it will soon become less.  Right now his heart aches too.  That may not ease so quickly.  At the revolving doorway he pauses.  He hears Charlie Hooper’s voice, as if Charlie is standing beside him.  ‘You’d have let her go anyway, mate.’

Charlie always could read his mind.  Jake gives the door a shoulder nudge,  disappears inside, and limps back to the job at Dobson’s.