Cast Off
written by: Niall Crowley
The two computer screens tighten their grip. Tom pivots between them, tracking one while he works on the other. Careful discipline from early morning to close of business. Number crunching, he would have termed it before. Now it’s data management and verification, his task to model and tabulate clients’ financial situations and options. Bookkeeping, he would admit to, in more candid moments. He’s tethered firmly to the task, though, and has been since he started here, nearly two years now. Bound in the rigour the work requires, as if life itself depends on it.
Top floor, dormer window, and cramped space make up his habitat. Attic quarters in days gone by, the maids would be stowed away here overnight. Genteel lodgings of old, recast to serve the world of commerce. That’s the pattern all along the street. The window offers an expanse of shifting skies or, for the less fanciful, allows scrutiny of the street below. Beds, tables, and chairs had been stripped away to allow for two large desks set face-to-face. Closets and lockers that held a life or lives, torn apart for filing cabinets to be marshalled sternly along the wall. The office door opens forcefully to discharge Maria into the calm.
‘Jaysus, you’re in early, Tom.’
‘Nope. It’s you that’s late, Maria. Not that it’s any of my concern.’
‘Had to have breakfast down the street first, to feed the hangover. It’s called living, a sport some of us still engage in.’
‘Better to be making a living. Breakfast doesn’t come free, even if for a hangover. Come to think of it, hangovers cost a pretty penny too.’
Maria flicks on both her screens by way of dismissal, and disappears into the one full of unopened mail. She emits impatient ‘tsks’, taps furiously at the keyboard. Clients crowd out her headspace and sap composure with their insistent demands. She groans in exasperation, sighs, rubs at her temples. Correspondence finally disposed of, she starts on her client files with equally reluctant diligence, snapping quickly from screen to screen, guided by intuition rather than rigour. Patterns she seeks, not discrete numbers. Numbers drag you to tedium, patterns lift you to creation.
Tom presents grim and gloomy opposite her, ever grim and gloomy. She would get more joy from scrutiny of the dreary filing cabinets, but her positioning restricts the view. His lips move without sound, as if counting. Definitely a numbers man, with little that is modern about him, even if he is her own age. Not that there’s much to be cheerful about, she won’t argue with the gloomy part. There is little to celebrate in a career dedicated to enabling tax avoidance, with her life beyond tied to the turbulence of forgetting such tedium. Maria pops her head around the screen.
‘Coffee?’
‘You’re barely in the door, for feck’s sake.’
‘And already at your service. Would you have it any other way?’
‘There’s no doubt, but you are one lost cause.’
‘I’ll take that for a yes. Now, how do you want it?’
‘A drop of milk, no sugar. You hardly need the details at this stage.’
‘Even maids need reminding. Have you got the paper?’
‘Here, and don’t spill stuff on it. I’ve not had time to look at it yet.’
Tom watches her leave, her head bent in concentration as she riffles the pages roughly. Maybe in search of something of interest, but mainly to aggravate. He knows her too well by now to be riled. It was easier before she came, there was no distraction. He could concentrate on the pursuit of targets set and the search for approval from those more senior. She’s like a ball of fire that captivates, just as it endangers in its disregard for the way things must be. His road had been set by others from early on, and he had never thought to deviate. The screens insinuate their hold on him again, and he sets too with resolve. There can be no room left for clutter to intervene. Two steaming mugs eventually push gently against the door, followed by the makeshift maid, paper scrunched up under her arm.
He takes the proffered beverage, with a thumbs up for gratitude, and sips gingerly at the coffee. Across the desk from him, Maria avidly scans the lifestyle pages in between blowing over her coffee to cool it. He prizes doggedness, not invention. Always had, always would, always had to, really. She’s not dogged, but he couldn’t see invention about her either. Hers was just a different mould, and she was loyal to its formulae. His mould was long set, and he had been trained to its contours. Exploration was never an option, he had no idea what might lie beyond the boundaries established. The comfort and calm offered in acquiescence, though, is his reward. Maria stirs from her perusal of his paper.
‘Taylor and that lad, Travis, eh? A match made in heaven if ever there was. Aren’t they just?’
‘Not something I’ve thought about much, to be honest.’
‘Jeez, you need to be out and about more. Stop hiding behind those computer screens, and get with the vibe.’
‘Genocide, floods, wars, droughts. All over page one there, and on through most of that paper I’d warrant, and you want me to get worked up about Taylor whoever and her pal?’
‘I can’t read that stuff anymore, too depressing.’
‘So, who’s doing the hiding then? That’s what’s out there, in all its destructive glory, and maybe you need to get your sozzled head around it.’
Maria flips disdain in his direction, by way of raised eyebrows and curled upper lip, before she recoils behind her screens. She twists to glare her anxiety out the dormer window. People are scattered along the street below, wrapped in thick coats, striding with purpose to destinations and destinies unknown to her. Tom would be at purposeful home down there, if he wasn’t so busy fulfilling such impulses up here in client credit and debit accounts. Not for her, his engrossed rationality, she is a creature of the wild. Purpose had to be otherwise defined, not left to the Toms of this world. However, she is at a loss when it comes to working out the details on that one.
Her head throbs, making concentration on the files an even greater burden than usual. Cocktails would be the death of her. Flavour and bouquet to beat the band, you couldn’t argue that, and they packed a punch. That punch, though, comes with a cost. Still, they’d had a laugh. Girls’ night out, not to be beaten. She doesn’t recall a thing that was said, but can still feel the laughter, the warmth, the craic. Beyond the salty rim of those margaritas, the babbling circle of heads around the table, and the struggle to get the key in the lock at the end, there was actually little of specific detail she could remember. An unpleasant tension builds in her chest at the thought. She is caught in that ritual night after night, now that she has a bit of money, as if life itself depends on it.
‘I didn’t mean to say sozzled, Maria. Sorry for that. Your free time is not my business.’
‘Whether it’s your business or not, you’re still never short of an opinion, are you?’
‘I am sorry. I did apologise.’
‘What is your business then? What has you so caught up with stuff here? Why does it matter so?’
‘It’s about getting on, I suppose, making a living. You have to knuckle down. That’s what progress is, has been forever. Can’t be news to you, surely?’
‘Don’t know who drilled that into you, but they weren’t doing you any favours. There has to be other ways to be and grow. We just play games in here, go through routines, act out crap.’
‘No less routine than a boozy … no, not going there, sorry. Either way, they’ll have your arse if you don’t settle down and do some work.’
Tom leans across, reclaims the paper, and folds it carefully back into its former creases. He returns to his sums. Doing sums, that’s what he would have called this as a child. Not much knuckling down and getting on, when you look at it that way. His gaze drifts distractedly out the dormer window and reaches up into skies turned dark with roiling waves of raincloud. That accumulation of murky froth in ever heavier folds, must have a name. He’s no student of nature, though, doesn’t have the time. Even nameless, the display fascinates, asserts a physical presence. It takes a hold of his mood and insists on sharing its bleak burdens.
Maria is strangely dulled at the moment, sat there in front of him, where normally she discharges impatience and animation. She works in bursts of industry and then searches for diversion and distraction. He can spot that shift, as her head begins to bob this way and that, and her gaze to wander. She is stilled now, as if abruptly drained of that drug. This place can do that to you. It demands discipline, and she has little of that. She’ll not last. His own future, he is less clear about. Promotion and a move downstairs are what he’s playing for. Confinement to the attic with the maids of old, is not attractive, but still a risk as the months pass. Who knows, though? Promotion might mean little beyond a better view of the street below and a bit more cash in his pocket.
‘It’ll be your arse that gets taken, if you don’t stop daydreaming. Not like you, Tom, what’s up?’
‘Nothing, just thinking. Might come as a surprise to you, but it does happen.’
‘Two little cogs in the wheel of a nasty machine, that’s us. Has to get you thinking.’
‘Not thinking like that.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Actually, you’re the one that’s not yourself today. You don’t do subdued and down, so what’s going on?’
‘Just the hangover, working its way out.’
‘Sure, sure it is.’
He’d not thought to stray from that path laid down for him, didn’t have the temperament or the means. He scrutinises Maria bluntly. No shortage of foolish waywardness about her, but there’s life there, life that he finds himself wanting. Drama and excitement down at the pub, then, tempered with the odd hangover? No, he’s not drawn to that. There must be other worlds out there, though, that offer energy and meaning. He’s no explorer, not one to leap into the dark, never had those tales of adventure to prompt and suggest. Could he lose those ties that bind and seek that other world, even if undefined? Don’t know till you try, even if he fears such uncertainty. He nods, as if saying goodbye. But, to what end?
She watches Tom covertly, taken aback at an anxiety there to match her own. It is stolid determination that usually frowns over at her from across the desk. There is something to his ambition, though, that nags at her. To make something of herself, that she would not argue with. Office-bound and life set aside as a distraction, then, tethered to the quest for promotion? No, she couldn’t betray hopes and dreams, however vague. Though, for lack of nourishment, these are only sustained by the deadly cocktails. There must be other routes to pursue that hold purpose and life together. Could she cast off from impulse and the camaraderie of the cocktail, to find such vocation? Don’t know till you try, even if she mistrusts such conformity. She nods in return, as if in agreement. But, with what?
- Cast Off - December 9, 2025
- Brewery Town - December 7, 2024
- Interview Q&A With Niall Crowley - September 19, 2023
