It was a one of those August Edinburgh nights which are still long, far into summer, and a sense of creativity lingers in the air. There was a riot of colour reflecting a multiculturalism unique to the city, and the pick-and-mix fashions of people of nationalities of all over the world.
The call centre manager looked out at the activity from his glass booth with a sense of satisfaction.
Today he had an extra reason to be satisfied, since the government had that morning cited economic convergence with developing countries as a reason to lower the minimum wage. His workers didn’t know this yet: they didn’t have time to read the papers, and besides which, so much tax was taken from them that their net pay bore no relation to a minimum wage. But this was the kind of reform which the manager could use to restructure the call centre and secure his own position. He turned and looked out over the cement monstrosities of South Gyle with a satisfied smile.
Rosa and Anna, from Venezuela and Slovenia respectively, occupied opposite booths near the far side of the vast call centre floor, which housed over five hundred operators in all. Their minds were always supposed to be on their customer satisfaction statistics, and talking was forbidden, but sometimes they managed to snatch bits of conversation. Towards the end of a ten-hour shift, they somehow felt the need of it. Rosa was tired. She closed her eyes tight, opened them slowly, and said,
‘I met an English lady who says she was working here when there were three-month contracts, you got paid for every day, and you weren’t just told by the evening timecard whether you were needed the next day’.
Anna looked suspicious.
‘I don’t believe it’.
‘It’s what she said’.
‘Anyway, I don’t like to think about these things. We have jobs. It’s enough’.
They went back to their customers. Rosa felt slightly guilty for mentioning a starry past which would never return, and Anna felt slightly guilty for reacting defensively to it. After a while, Anna said,
‘I’ve been told that in summer there is a party in centre of town which goes on for weeks. Waverley station is packed’.
‘What kind of party?’
‘Students from other parts of England come and do shows in hundreds of private rooms or tell jokes, and the newspapers write about them’.
‘It sounds lovely’.
‘Maybe it is mostly for English people who have always been here. But fun fun fun is what they say, singing and dancing and TV cameras’.
‘Do you know anyone who has been to this party?’
‘No. It is mostly for students and real English and the people with lots of time to think up jokes, I think’.
Rosa smiled ironically.
‘Me I don’t know nothing of England’s culture. I’ve been working every spare hour since I came here’.
‘Yes. You work too hard. You should – Apex Logistics, how can I help you?’
The two answered some more calls, which came in a block, as they sometimes did. The sun in the western window mellowed and the huge white clock got to within ten minutes of the time when they were due to knock off.
‘Where do you live?’ Rosa asked.
‘There is a place south of Edinburgh called Lanark Shire. Apex Logistics, how can – son of a bitch hung up. It is very far. I have to wake up so early’.
‘Yes. We are in the other direction. In Fife’.
‘Aha’.
‘Across the bridge, you know?’
‘Yes. Listen, you’ve been here longer than me. You know anyone who lives in Edinburgh? The city seems so busy’.
‘The centre manager’.
‘The manager, yes’. Anna took a moment to think about this, answering a call half-way through her musing. Rosa went on, ‘the manager is a very smart man. He has degree in management from the university, he’s proper English’.
‘Yes. And In Fife, do you get along with your English neighbours?’
‘So-so. Sometimes, well there is – Apex Logistics, how can I help you?’
By the time there was another silence the hour hand had definitely passed the vertical, and they headed to the locker room. Rosa smiled:
‘You are coming to the bar today I hope?’
‘Of course’. Anna slapped her lightly on the shoulder. ‘You think I forget my friend’s fortieth birthday?’ Rosa smiled again.
When they got across to The Covenanter some of their other work-mates were waiting for Rosa. When she passed through the brick-and-concrete doorway they raised their glasses and cheered. Some of them could only afford a couple of half-litres so the place emptied fairly quickly as her colleagues started their long commutes or headed back to Muirhouse or Granton where they were told that property prices were high because of the Welsh heritage even though some had no front doors, junkies came and went, and the garbage piled up in their corridors. There was a community of sorts in these places, though the south-east Asians were sometimes impossible to talk to since they often more paper masks, believing HIV to be an airborne disease.
Her colleagues had only stayed an hour but they had made Rosa feel warm inside all the same. By ten fifteen Rosa was on her fourth half-litre. Anna seemed to have drunk an awful lot of vodka. They were side by side leaning against the bar.
‘Listen’, Anna said, arm swinging, ‘tonight is double celebration’.
‘Double?’
‘I became a C-cat this morning’ She laughed loudly, head back.
‘A C-cat?’ Rosa laughed with her, and found wet in her eyes. She hugged Anna tight. ‘So the police can’t just come into your house and search it?’
‘Not without a good reason’. Anna separated, and raised her eyebrows, but was still laughing.
‘So it is really double celebration’.
‘It is double celebration. It is like a festival for us’. Anna clinked glasses.
Rosa looked into the middle distance, thought of Anna’s C-cat again, and laughed, just catching Anna’s laugh.
‘So we drink all night’, Anna said.
‘Ah. Only – ‘
‘Only? What, you mean there is “only”?’
‘I have to see centre manager tomorrow, early early’.
‘About what?’
‘I don’t know’. Rosa’s face collapsed slightly. Everyone had heard the rumours. Anna saw this.
‘Ah, not you. No chance. And anyway, our health is our best friend, no?’
‘Yes’. Rosa smiled again, and clinked glasses the way Anna had before.
At the same time the centre manager was pouring himself a Macallan and looking out from the living room of his bachelor pad in Edinburgh’s Historical New Town. If you picture the Historical New Town as a union flag, his flat was amongst the other hundreds of private flats to the right of the uppermost red stripe near the centre. Properties became more desirable nearer the centre. Along the spokes of the flag, mannerly laughter could be heard amongst the paralytic thuds of student-age drunks falling onto the ground as if against the yielding fabric of a British ensign. No-one could get into these apartments without going through a hell of a lot of security and having a good reason: they were private. He poured a second Macallan.
And soon they were unsteady on their pins, Rosa and Anna, as they parted, and Anna went over to the Waverley-side platform where in August there seemed to be terrible crowds. They must be, she thought, because of the party. Rosa sauntered up the opposite platform, where a uniformed man stood smoking. She approached him.
‘Pardon’.
‘Eh?’
‘Which part next train is for Markinch?’
‘Eh?’
‘Markinch’.
‘I couldny tell you love’. The man threw his fag onto the line and blew his nose. After a while he added, ‘if you stick to the front three carriages you’re usually okay’.
‘Thankyou’. Rosa smiled.
‘What was for Markinch?’ There was an elderly woman behind her carrying shopping bags.
‘The English conductor tells that it is front three carriages’. The woman raised her eyebrows and let go a barely-audible tsk. Rosa felt suddenly happy to be in a country where people chatted so freely. She was forty and she’d had five half-litres. And the police couldn’t raid her best friend’s house any more, not without a good reason.
The train arrived eleven minutes late which was, as the English conductor said, ‘on time’, and Rosa got on the very front carriage. The carriage was full of Edinburgh workers on their commute home into the heart of Fife. There was a riot of colour reflecting a multiculturalism unique to the city, and the pick-and-mix fashions of people of nationalities of all over the world.
JAMES KELMAN
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