Chapter 3
NEIL
Ezra normally takes charge of the important, unsexy paperwork side of things, such as the payroll.
We’re a good team. We play to our strengths, though I take over the simple office stuff if necessary.
I’m not stupid, but I am dyslexic, and Ezra deals with it much quicker.
But now, what with the eye thing (I’m going blind, Ez, didn’t I tell you?) on top of every other word being jumbled on the page…
Ezra taps on his phone whilst he talks, as if ticking off a task list, relaying important information to me, and thumbing a message to somebody else aren’t three mutually exclusive actions.
“That smell outside the ladies’ loos when it rains hasn’t gone away.
Someone needs to take a look, asap. The details of the plumber we used last time are pinned to the office noticeboard.
Check his call-out fee before agreeing a time; if it’s more than a hundred quid and his hourly rate thereafter is more than seventy, then see if Gerald or Alaric can recommend anyone cheaper.
It’s not a big job, I reckon all he needs is to shove some rods down the drain or give it a quick pressure hose. ”
I’m not saying weed fixes the noise in my head.
And I’m not pretending I need it for medicinal purposes.
It’s not even about getting high. Right now, it’s more about catching my breath, about turning the volume down a notch for a few fucking minutes so I can focus on Ezra’s endless list of instructions instead of the part of my brain yelling, you’re going blind, you’re going blind.
The tapping stops briefly. “What do you think?”
I think I need that joint like I need my next breath. “Drains. Got it.” Smile and nod. But not too much, otherwise he’ll go even faster. “Yes, small job.”
Should I tap this into my phone too? I’m going blind, Ez, you should probably know. What was the thing he said about Alaric?
“And then, whilst the plumber is here, maybe sound him out about moving the water cylinder for when we refit the whole of the basement, yeah? Just to give us a price ballpark, not to commit.”
Still not sure what Alaric has to do with it. As a urologist he deals with waterworks, but he isn’t a plumber.
“Got it.” I’m going blind, Ez. I’m lacking the courage to tell you. “And I need to do the stock take on Tuesdays.”
“Exactly. And the payroll every Friday. And go through that spreadsheet from the brewery. Oh, and talking of spreadsheets, the accountant will send our yearly accounts any day now before she files the tax return. She won’t have missed anything, she never does.
But go through them, yeah? We need to file the day after I get back, so we won’t have time to check them together. ”
“Sure.”
Under the table, I dry my clammy palms on my jeans.
I fidget, sit up straighter, and wipe a hand across my mouth, then wish I hadn’t as it reminds me I have a painful cut on my lip.
I’m trying to concentrate, really trying, effort cranked to eleven.
How hard can checking over the tax returns be?
I’ll muddle through, exactly like I’ve been muddling for a few months now. I have no choice.
“You’re only on holiday for four weeks, Ez. You’re making it sound like four years. I can handle the club without you.”
He purses his lips. “I know you can. It’s just…” He squints at me, hesitating. “You haven’t seemed yourself lately. Everything okay?”
If I sit directly across from you, with the light coming in from that angle, yeah. A fraction to the left, then no. And if you really want me to take a closer look at the basement plumbing issues, never mind my tumbles from the stage. Those rickety steep steps might see me off once and for all.
For a second, I entertain telling him the truth.
Several times, in these quiet moments, I’ve almost blurted it out to him.
I imagine the relief of letting it all spill from me.
No more hiding behind spurious justifications and laughed-off mishaps.
No more eye rolling at the near misses, the stumbles, the bruised hips, the I must be tired or one drink too many excuses.
But then what? Once I say the words out loud, it becomes real. It becomes a thing I must face up to and deal with, alongside everyone’s unasked-for kindness and their unwanted fucking pity.
“Of course everything’s okay.” I grin my trademark flirty grin. “I’m young, solvent, and getting a lot. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Ezra shrugs, shrewd gaze searching mine. “I don’t know. But are…are you drinking more than usual? You know, maybe too much?”
Barely a drop, actually, which is ironic, because the worse my eyes become, playing drunk becomes easier and easier. But how much longer can I keep up the clumsy alcoholic pretence?
“Nope.” I shrug back, not convinced he believes me. “Nor have I gone back to doing coke, before you ask.”
Spoiler alert: I haven’t always been squeaky clean. Neither of us have.
“You’d tell me wouldn’t you, Neil? If something was troubling you?”
“Of course! Stop fussing! Just burning the candle at both ends. You know how it is. We’ve been busy lately, haven’t we?”
“Yes, agreed.” Ezra sighs. “I’m knackered too. But your head.” He taps his own. “That’s twice you’ve banged it. Maybe you should get checked out. You might have a low-level chronic concussion or something. That can affect mood and balance.”
“My mood’s awesome!” I’m redefining awesome to include a sullen glare that could melt a steel beam.
“Is it?” Apparently, Ezra is immune. “You were horrible to Luke the other night. He was only trying to help you. He hasn’t been back here since, and I’m not surprised.
Getting him to come out at all takes Isaac a lot of effort.
The least we can do is show him a decent time, considering everything he’s been through. ”
“Like what?” I’m not especially interested; I’ve enough shit on my own to deal with.
Luke looked pretty fine to me. I mean, he’s always swathed in a dowdy, oversized hoodie like a grumpy teenager, but at least his eyes fucking work.
Even if they did appear bloody anxious staring into mine the other night. Well out of his comfort zone.
Join the fucking club.
“None of your business, to be honest.” Ezra frowns. “Nor mine. And anyhow, at the moment, you’re concerning me more.”
Fuck, I need to wrap this up. “Jeez, Ez, all I did was let my hair down for a couple of hours and trip over that warped board on the stage! Jacko left a foot pedal sitting proud on it, and I was too busy checking out some bloke near the front of the crowd to notice. Stop sounding like my dad!”
I’m not sure he’s entirely reassured, but I’ve ground him down for now. “Alright, whatever. Should I ask Isaac to have a chat with you about concussion before we go away, just to be sure?”
Ezra’s brother-boyfriend, Isaac, is also a doctor. What with Alaric, Isaac, and this other guy, Luke with the hoodie, I’m bloody surrounded.
“For the last time, I’m fine.” I shoo him away with my hand.
“I’ve got your list of things that need sorting, and I’ll be on it tomorrow.
Go! You and Isaac have been planning this for ages.
And it’s not like you’re not at the end of a phone, is it?
Everything will be peachy; I can run this bar standing on my head. ”
For the first week, I cope brilliantly. Olfactory glitches such as the intermittently blocked ladies loos don’t require twenty-twenty vision, merely a cranky bloke with a very long flexible hose and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the London sewerage system.
His quote for moving the water cylinder is reasonable too; my brownie points stack up.
The brewery spreadsheet proves a little trickier, until I land on the idea of sweet-talking Jess into doing it on my behalf, in exchange for a paid afternoon off.
If she chooses to interpret this as a roundabout apology for letting her proudly heterosexual brother blow me, then that’s her problem.
On day eight, the email from the accountant arrives. And that’s when the universe starts to fuck with me.
I open it with optimism, telling myself I’ll breeze through it. Our accountant is meticulous and knows us well. Ezra had a meeting with her a fortnight back. This is simply dotting the i’s prior to filing the return.
Hi Neil, I’m Dan. I’m filling in last minute for your usual accountant, Lorna, who’s had a family bereavement.
She gave me a handover; I think I’ve got everything.
For ease of understanding, I’ve reviewed the year month by month, then did quarterly summaries, crossmatching expenditures against income stream onto three Excel spreadsheets.
Let me know if you need anything more before filing. Best wishes.
My heart sinks. Excel: the spreadsheets of my nightmares. Three of them.
Okay, don’t panic. I can enlarge the font, turn everything to bold and, worst comes to the worst, print it out. Or I could get a ruler and trace along the lines with my finger like my teachers taught me after my dyslexia was diagnosed. Back when that was the only problem I had with reading.
Holding my breath and crossing my fingers, I click on the first attachment. And almost burst into tears.
Tiny dense print fills the screen in a multi-column layout. I scroll and scroll and scroll until I reach what I think is column AX. Twenty-four fucking columns. Cells of different depths. Dan has bolded some items, underlined others, and used varying font sizes.
Feeling sick, I blink. Squint. Rub my eyes as if that will magically reset my duff factory settings. I push the laptop farther away. Then bring it closer. Then farther again. Then contemplate hurling it at the wall.
My throat tightens. The cells dead centre swim into focus, but the words and numbers and the edges don’t sharpen, even when I track along the horizontal lines with my finger.
Not even when I turn my head and shine my phone torch on it.
They sit there, mocking me in all their indistinct glory.
Is that a nine or a seven? What fucking font it that?
Why is it printed so small? I increase the brightness, then sit back and try to catch my breath.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears. Anybody sane would phone this Dan person.
Explain the problem, ask him to go through it with me, section by section on a Zoom chat, or rewrite the whole thing differently, so that a person with low vision can make sense of it.
And that’s exactly how I’d explain it to him.
I’d say Alright, Dan, mate? Having trouble reading the email you sent me.
Ezra’s away and my eyesight isn’t great, so I’m going to need a bit of help.
And he’d be all apologetic and promise to make it simpler for me.
Or explain the maths and the accounting like I’m three not thirty-three and in possession of a perfectly functioning brain, thank you very much.
Just two fucking big brown eyes that have become so used to being the main draw, they’ve forgotten the whole fucking point of being on my face.
They still know how to produce tears, though. A frustrated one trickles down my cheek. Thirty-three, Neil. Pull yourself together. Thankfully, I’m alone in the office. We’re not open today.
My phone vibrates, and I ignore it. In a minute or two, I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself and have another go. Try enlarging different sections one at a time then printing it out. Maybe tape the sections together. Or photograph sections on my phone and enlarge them.
A person with visual impairment. Going blind. A person with partial sight. Nauseated, I try the words out on my tongue in the privacy of the quiet office. How can I form coherent sentences to some random bloke down a phone line when I can barely admit the truth to myself?
The phone vibrates again. Ezra. He’ll keep trying until I pick up. Wiping the back of my hand across my wet eyes, I take the call.
“Neil, babe. How’s it going?” Cheerful and relaxed, Ezra’s voice crackles across the airwaves from somewhere warm and sunny. His son, Jonty, squeals in the background. There’s splashing and the unmistakable clink of ice in a glass. I can practically smell the SP50 from here.
“All good, all good.” I glance up at the grey skies outside, busy offloading aggressively wet drizzle. Except that I’m going blind. You should probably know. “Everything is under control.”
“How did you get on with the plumber?”
We talk drains and toilets for a few minutes before moving on to the beer stock take.
Ez tells me about his drive through the Pyrenees, hairpin after hairpin, and how, even though Isaac clutched his seat in terror and Jonty nearly threw up in his lap, it was worth the drama for the spectacular views alone.
“You’d love it, Neil,” he says at the end. “You can see both countries at once and for miles and miles; France behind and Spain ahead. And below are clouds. It makes you feel really small and insignificant, you know?”
I swallow drily. For weeks now, I’ve been feeling both those things most of the time. “Are you going to bore me with loads of pictures?” That I’ll hardly be able to make out?
“They’ll be a damn sight more interesting than the ones you sent me of all the crap the plumber dislodged from the drains. Oh, before I forget, did the accountant get in touch?”
My chest tightens. The accountancy report is right there on the screen. I could just tell him. This minute. Tell him I’m going to have some trouble deciphering it. Tell him I have a problem with my eyes that won’t miraculously vanish any time soon.
“Yeah, it came today. I’m having a quick look at it now.” I inhale deeply. “Lorna’s off work for a while, some guy called Dan has put it together. A huge fucking Excel spreadsheet and you know how my…uh…my dyslexia struggles with those.”
“Babe, if it’s any consolation, everyone struggles with those. Do you want to send it to me, and I’ll take a look?”
I’m going blind, Ez. My dyslexia has fucking nothing to do with it.
Jonty squeals again, and I hear Isaac shouting something to him, then laughing. More splashing. “God, no,” I say. “I’m fine, it’s all under control. I can always ask him to send it in a different format. Forget about work, enjoy your holiday. I’ve told you, it’s all good.”
The ice in his drink clinks again and Ezra sighs happily.
“I owe you one, Neil, for letting us have this trip. I don’t want to get all mushy on you, but I’ve been thinking about how glad I am that we went into this business together.
This is the beauty of having a business partner, isn’t it?
We can do stuff like this. We’re each other’s eyes. ”