Chapter 2 #3
As he walked towards the road he gave a heavy sigh.
He understood why people weren’t willing to offer him work but it still hurt.
A sudden loud rev from a motorbike made him jump and he looked up to see a bike with two people on it coming towards him.
The bike was travelling very close to the pavement.
As they went past a guy who was chatting on his phone, the guy riding pillion reached out and grabbed it.
The robbed man yelled, the bike sped up and Newt jumped into the road.
The bike toppled, so did those on it and so did Newt, all of them skidding along the ground.
Oh God, that hurts. But Newt had the phone in his grip and he held it tight.
A boot hit his ribs and he cried out and curled up.
Bit late to consider he should have thought before he leapt, then he heard the bike roaring away and he was left lying there.
The whole thing had taken seconds. I’m an idiot.
“Oh my God, are you all right?”
He uncurled to see the man who’d been robbed staring down at him. Newt held out the guy’s phone.
“Oh Christ. You could have been killed for a bloody phone! But thank you. Really, thank you.” He put it in his pocket. “Can I give you up a hand up?”
Newt let the man pull him to his feet. His jacket was ripped, which had probably saved his arm from the same fate.
They walked—Newt limped—off the road onto the pavement.
He leaned against the wall of a pub. His legs were shaking.
That had been stupid. He had enough problems without risking his life helping a stranger.
“You’re bleeding. Your face.” The man offered him a tissue.
“Thanks.” Newt dabbed his cheek.
“Well, that was a few minutes of excitement I’d not anticipated. Let me buy you a drink. You look like you could do with a sit down.”
“Thanks.” Newt wasn’t going to turn down a free coffee.
“What about this pub? Is it any good?”
“I’ve never been in.”
“We’ll give it a try.”
It was only a few steps to the entrance and Newt followed him inside.
“Take off your jacket. Check your arm,” the man said.
Newt struggled out of it. His sweater was ripped. Fuck. When he rolled up the sleeve, he could see his left arm was grazed, but not badly.
“Oh God. I feel terrible. Your jacket and sweater ripped, your face cut and you’re going to have bruises. But I am very grateful for my phone. Sit down. What can I get you? Alcohol or a coffee?”
“A coffee, please. Black.”
Newt sagged into the chair. He’d been reckless. What if the police had been called? He’d have been in trouble even though he wasn’t at fault. Except, they might say he had been at fault. A few weeks of freedom and he was breaking his own rules.
Stay out of trouble.
Keep your head down.
Mind your own business.
The guy was coming back from the bar. He looked to be in his early forties, and was taller and broader than Newt, with silvery-grey hair.
Good-looking if Newt had been into smart, older guys.
He liked guys the same age as him. Blonds in particular.
Though he shouldn’t be particular. He’d be lucky to find any kind of boyfriend.
He imagined one asking if he had a criminal record. Newt didn’t even know what he’d say.
The man sat down. “They’ll bring the drinks over. My name’s Max Turner. Thank you again.”
“Newt Jones.”
“Do you live in Tonbridge?”
“About five miles away. Tunbridge Wells. I’ve just been for a job interview.” He wasn’t sure what made him add that but maybe this guy knew of a job somewhere. He’d come to realise he needed to seize every opportunity. This might be one.
“Good thing you’d been to the interview rather than being on your way to it.”
Newt forced a smile. “I didn’t get the job.”
“They told you there and then?”
“Yes.” Sort of.
“What type of work are you looking for?”
He wished he could joke and say pilot or banker or personal assistant to a millionaire. But he couldn’t bring himself to be flippant. “At this point, I think I’d do anything as long as it was legal.”
“Right. Your cheek’s still bleeding, by the way.”
Newt wiped it again and held the tissue in place.
“What can you do?” Max asked.
“I have a psychology degree, which appears to have qualified me to do very little. I’d take bar work, cleaning, gardening, office work, retail… As I said, anything legal.”
The coffees arrived with little jugs of milk, though Newt didn’t take milk.
The milk tasted horrible in prison so he’d gone without and soon hadn’t missed it.
There was a biscuit too. He had missed those.
They could be bought at the canteen but he’d managed without.
He checked the tissue and the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
“Did you, by any chance, study language in your degree course? How speech develops, problems with speech, that sort of thing?”
Newt nodded. “How people produce, understand, acquire and use language was part of it. And the way language influences our thinking, how we learn languages, and the way they’re processed in the brain. It’s fascinating.”
“But you don’t want to use those skills?”
“I would in any job I did. Understanding people and their behaviour is part of most types of employment. Knowing how to communicate is sort of essential.” He gave a short laugh.
“Well… Unless I was working on my own in the middle of nowhere. A lighthouse keeper, if they still exist, or counting puffins on some remote island, or a caretaker in an isolated hotel that’s closed over the winter.
Ooh, that sounds too much like The Shining. ”
Max laughed and Newt felt a frisson of pleasure to have managed that.
“Though if I was only communicating with myself, and had time to analyse why I wanted a job away from civilisation, I’d probably not like the answer.”
“Do you not like people?”
“I like some.”
“I do too. I like you.”
Maybe Newt showed his discomfort because Max shook his head. “Not like that. You’re not my type, darling. I go for cruel butch guys who treat me like shit, because apparently, I’m a masochistic idiot.”
He was gay?
“I never seem to learn.” Max sighed. “Every time, I assume that under the cruelty, there beats a gentle heart that’s all mine if I can just find the key. I never find the key. But I’ll keep looking. I wish you were my type. Brave is, cute isn’t.”
“How did you guess I was gay?” Newt was half-shocked, half-impressed.
“I wasn’t sure, but now I am.” Max grinned.
Newt groaned. That was careless.
“Does it matter? Aren’t you out?”
“No, it doesn’t matter. I’m neither out nor in. I just don’t want to get my head kicked in, so I’m careful.”
“As opposed to breaking your ribs when you rescue an idiot’s phone? Are you feeling all right? I could take you to a hospital. Maybe we should have called the police.”
“And tell them what?” Newt said quickly. “I’m fine.” He ached but…
“Do you have family around here?”
Newt tensed slightly and hoped this sharp guy hadn’t noticed. “No. They live in Essex. Well, they used to. I don’t know if they still do. We’re not in touch. They didn’t like that I was gay.”
It was a convenient semi-lie. Probably Phelan wouldn’t have minded.
“I’m sorry. People can be shits. When it’s your own family… Very sad.”
“What do you do?” Newt asked.
“I find people work. Before you get your hopes up, I’m a theatrical agent. I act as a liaison between artists and employers. I find and suggest clients for roles in film, theatre, TV and adverts.”
Newt chuckled. “I can’t act. I can’t think of anything worse.”
“It makes a refreshing change to speak to someone who has no interest in performing. Though you have the face for it.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“You know it was. You’re a good-looking young man. I told you that you were cute.”
Newt wondered what was going on. He wasn’t used to being complimented about anything.
Still, he was drinking a cup of decent coffee, he had a biscuit to eat, he was warm and he had nowhere he needed to be.
The book about Romans in the library could wait.
Talking to someone he wasn’t hoping to impress was a novelty.
“What happened with your last job?” Max asked. “Why did you leave it?”
“I worked in a kitchen until a few weeks ago, but wasn’t keen on some of the people I worked with. I decided on a change of scenery and moved south.”
“With no job to go to?”
“I thought I had one but it didn’t pan out.”
Max chuckled. “Was that a pun?”
Newt let him think so and smiled.
“You can cook?”
“Not anything posh but yes.”
Max leaned back in his seat and stared at him. Newt ate the biscuit. Fuck, it was delicious but too small. He was trying to eat it slowly but he’d look ridiculous trying to make it last more than two bites. He pushed the rest of it into his mouth.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Max asked.
“No.”
“Friends around here?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you drive?”
“Yes.” It had been seven years, but…
“Clean licence?”
“Yes.”
Newt braced himself for the question he didn’t want.
“Then I have a job for you.”
Oh my God.