Broken Places by Wendy Perriam Page B

my GCSEs at the age of thirty-five and with everything against me – saddled with huge debts and living in a tip. The other students don’t know they’re born, with rich mummies and daddies, and not having to earn a living, or keep the fucking bailiffs from the door.’
    Eric noticed Vera twitch at every ‘fucking’. His usual role was to crack down on bad language if it arose in any readers’ group or school visit to the library, but he could hardly take a stand in this particular setting. It also seemed a little callous to guzzle his fruit cocktail while a tale of woe was in progress, so he politely put his spoon down, while Lily moved on to the iniquities of the government (both central and local), the Council Tax, the water rates and the state of London Transport. Only when she paused for breath did he take his first small bite of melon, but then Vera began cross-questioning him again.
    ‘Are you in work?’ she demanded.
    ‘Yes,’ he said warily. Perhaps this lunch was restricted to the unemployed, the disabled and the dispossessed. As well as Vera in her wheelchair and Lily with her bailiffs, he spotted an old guy in dark glasses, with a white stick by his chair, and a woman with her arm in a plaster cast, sitting further down. He wished he’d thought to don a bandage or an eye-patch before joining these good folk. ‘I’m a librarian,’ he admitted.
    ‘Books are dead,’ Malcolm declared, making a cut-throat gesture. ‘Gone the way of the horse-drawn carriage, the gas-lamp and the typewriter.’
    ‘Isn’t that a slight exaggeration?’ Eric said – or tried to, before Lily started up again.
    ‘Don’t talk to me about books!’ Lily cut in again. ‘They said we’d get our textbooks free, then they had the bloody cheek to charge us an arm and a leg for stuff we don’t even need. I blame the—’
    ‘Look, can’t you stop belly-aching?’ another man reproved her: a rough-looking customer, with a stubbly chin and tattoos on his arms. ‘People make their own luck, mate. I was given all this bullshit when I was a kid: “Keep your nose to the grindstone, boy”, but that’s a load of crap. I worked things out for myself, took a load of chances, even survived attempts on my life. But then I had what it took – very quick reactions and a left fist like a sledgehammer.’
    ‘So you’re suggesting I bash the fuckers up?’
    All this talk of violence seemed extremely disrespectful in a church – andsuch a grand, impressive church, with its soaring roof, its pillars, its monuments and tombs. Eric imagined the marble statues recoiling in revulsion; the figures in the memorial brasses flinching at the language.
    ‘A show of force is useful sometimes, Lily, so as to let them know who’s boss.’
    Eric left them to it and turned to the Ukrainian sitting next to Malcolm. ‘And are you studying, or over here to work?’
    The woman’s answer was completely indecipherable. He should have learned Ukrainian, he thought, along with all the other tongues he had vowed to master, sometime.
    ‘She doesn’t speak a word of English,’ Malcolm said, with a shrug. ‘I’ve tried hard myself, and got nowhere. Mind you, we poor natives are outnumbered by the immigrants.’
    Eric tensed, expecting a tide of prejudice to follow, but Malcolm simply took refuge in his wine, downing the whole glass in one protracted gulp. Eric sipped more slowly, knowing if he overdid the drinking, he might fall off his bike and land up in the gutter.
    ‘More turkey, Vera?’ a server asked, proffering a large silver platter.
    ‘Eric hasn’t had his first lot yet,’ Malcolm pointed out.
    ‘Oh dear,’ the woman twittered. ‘That won’t do, now, will it? Have you any special dietary requirements, Eric? We have fruit and nuts for vegans, rice and beans for vegetarians, and strawberry mousse instead of Christmas pudding for anyone who can’t eat gluten.’
    ‘I eat anything,’ he said hastily, before they brought him sunflower