Vignette: "Full Charge"

"World events do not occur by accident. They are made to happen, whether it is to do with national issues or commerce; and most of them are staged and managed by those who hold the purse strings."


[*]

"No Government can produce an economic miracle. An economic miracle depends on people on the shop floor, in the board room, in the sales office, working a bit harder and more efficiently than they have worked in the past."​


[*]​


The cashier didn't hear the vehicle pull up. Although the glass windowed shopfront was only single paned - its insulation properties as ineffective for sound as they were for heat - the dull hum of an electric engine was soft enough as to go undetected. Instead it was an abrupt electronic ringing that brought the idling retail worker to attention. The motorist had by then already disembarked from his vehicle and connected the heavy flex cable from pump to fuelling socket; the pump had then triggered its in-shop attention bell, as electronic signals raced down copper wires. The cashier flicked a switch with one hand, signalling to the motorist with the other. This latter concession to human interaction represented the least efficient part of the entire process. Before the cashier had even begun to motion "proceed", electronic signals were racing on ahead, authorising the pump to begin it’s vend.

Of course "pump" was an anachronism - a nod to a turbulent century now past, when fossilised liquid carbon was physically pumped up from subterranean storage tanks. "Charging stations" would have been more accurate a term, but language can sometimes change even slower than habit. And if the tired paintwork of the shopfront and forecourt were anything to go by, that linguistic quirk wasn't the only relic about.

The whirring of the rapid electric chargers slowed, as the motorist eased his foot on the pedal, one eye set towards a dashboard gauge. He stepped back, raising his posture upright. The heavy flex cable was disconnected, replaced into its holster. The motorist went to step forward.

And then he stopped.

The cashier watched expectantly. A series of actions, observed many times before, were now repeated flawlessly, as if in an uncanny mockery, or as the result of a long rehearsal. The motorist reached from one pocket to the next across his waist-coast. Then he patted the pockets of their trousers - an action executed with an auto-recollective overemphasis. Then he looked up to the heavens, mouthed something chiding and curse-based. Then he looked down, apparently reconciled to fate, and began walking towards the shop.

The cashier waited.

No-one had ever bothered to fix a bell to the shop door. It clattered loudly enough in any case. The cashier adopted a neutral expression - hopeless for poker, sufficient for retail - an expression that denied all anticipation of what was coming next.

"Hi mate" - it was always good to affect a false chumminess in these situations, everyone knew that - "what it is... I've left my wallet at home..." the cashier turned his mouth to an on-demand empathetic smile. He'd had some practice at that. It happens. Mistake anyone could make. You're a busy man, it’s a hot day, it’s not your fault... and so on. The motorist pushed on "any chance I could come back and pay later?"

And so the cashier was called upon to explain that no, that wasn't possible. Did they have any alternate means of payment?

"I've got my key... but I don't know if there's any balance on it..."

It was worth a try. But then that was a low benchmark to clear.

The motorist reached into an inner pocket, fishing out a line of cotton ribbon, the end of which was adorned with three plastic keys. He unclipped one - a pea-green cuboidal key adorned with the logo and name of Midland Bank - and passed it to the cashier.

"Full charge. Standard rate - that will be £170.25".

"I don't think there's enough on there to be honest..." the motorist lowered their voice apologetically, though they still offered forward the key. The cashier accepted it, plugging the key into their E-banking terminal. The terminal displayed "ERROR 7" by means of a reply. Not having much luck here today are we mate? The cashier removed the key and blew carefully on the row of copper contacts set in plastic grooves. The terminal would probably need proper cleaning later too - they weren't supposed to do it like that. Not that there was any more effective method. This time the key worked, although the triumph was short lived.

INSUFFICIENT BALANCE
TRANSACTION REJECTED
CONTACT BANK

"Yeah... I thought so." The motorist declared; prescience now apparently a worthy substitute for solvency. "I haven't got anything else on me I'm afraid."

And now it was the turn of the cashier to bring out the "No Means of Payment" forms. There was a time when he had dreaded issuing these - the awkwardness of foisting them upon customers, the stark bureaucratic declaration of implied fiscal incompetence. Now he simply didn't care - people for the most part grudgingly accepted them. Some even became upbeat, as if easily recording their personal details were some form of reprieve - not as in reality a promise to pay within seven days. But hey, what was seven days? In seven days they might have won the State Pools, or emigrated, or sold their car entirely. It was next week's problem.

The motorist began to fill in the form without complaint, much as everyone else did, sooner or later. Then, halfway through, he stopped.

"You know, I could probably arrange to have my key updated... could I borrow your phone?"

The cashier considered for a moment. Sure. Why not. He reached below the counter for the cumbersome handset, brushing away the accumulated dust of under-use. Nominally he wasn't supposed to use the phone for personal calls - and since his job involved precious few professional calls the handset generally went unused. In any case he always had the home landline they shared with next door - if he could get to the other hallway.

The motorist checked for an address card lodged within his wallet. "It’s a work car actually" he volunteered by way of an explanation. "Really they should be able to pick up the bill..." Rationalisation complete he dialled the number, a local one with no area code. After a few audible rings the call connected. The cashier couldn't make out the voice at the other end - not that they were actively listening. The motorist was explaining his bind:

"Yep... yeah... no... About a hundred and seventy... yeah, quite cheap... yeah, if you could... Tah..."

He hung up.

"Should only take about twenty minutes mate. Mind if I wait here?"

Sure. Why not. You won't be going anywhere else.

The motorist stood still for a few moments. A few precious moments of patient waiting. Then an idle mind, perhaps becoming uncomfortable with only itself for company, began to seek other stimulation. The motorist started to pace about. A few paces took him to the newspaper rack.

"Horrible this thing in Syria isn't it?" came a trite observation, a reference the cashier judged to the Guardian's typically downbeat front page. "Of course, that's militant secularism for you - no respect for tradition..." the motorist looked more closely at the photographs of wrecked antiquities, before dropping the 'paper back in the rack - untidily, as the cashier couldn't help but notice.

"I see Kendall's won it..." This time it was the Mirror; the populist tabloid announced the election of the new TUC chair in a typically irreverent manner. "KENDALL MINT CAKE-WALK!" proclaimed the headline - justifiably so it seemed. Well, she had the NUM on side, and that was as good as victory there. The cashier hadn't paid all much attention to the contest - his employer being too small for him to be eligible for in-work representation, there didn't seem much point in joining the Retail Workers Union. Not that there would be much for any such council to decide: what flavours of crisps to stock? How often to change the fridge coolants? That was about it. Not much point arguing about remuneration - that depended on how many people came through the door and what they paid.

Or didn't pay, in the case of his guest.

Said guest had now apparently bored of perusing the newspapers - he'd even flickered a half-interested eye over the less popular titles - the Times, the Mail - and those Irish papers they kept for the old boys who'd come over in the sixties.

"Shouldn't be much longer now" he stated, a reassurance more to his own impatience than informed prediction. The cashier nodded.

"Getting dear for a full charge now isn't it?" he observed, in loaded tone.

"Still more convenient than getting the bus every day" the cashier didn't reply.

"I've considered the gas conversion you know-" the motorist continued, seemingly indifferent as to whether the cashier was even listening, let alone interested. "-But the garages 'round here reckon the bodywork isn't robust enough for the envelope... So that means a new car, most likely, which is another expense - and even then I wouldn't want to commit until the hydrogen price comes down - I don't want to get stuck with a car than can't take both... You drive?"

The cashier shook his head.

"Nah, well, not worth the hassle most of the time... You're a student?"

"Graduate. Geology."

The motorist adopted the facial expression of someone who has heard of something but doesn't know what it is or what level of social respectability it carries; and who further does not want to reveal their own ignorance, just in case.

"Oh." he said with a raised eyebrow and noncommittal tone.

"Given a couple of years I'm hoping to get into the energy industry" the cashier elaborated.

"Nuclear or coal?"

"Renewables."

The motorist frowned. "Can't say I'm fond of them. I mean, they're fine up in Scotland and wherever, but not down here. Not where you've got industry. Rover, Jaguar, JCB, the Maglev - even Cadbury's - you can't run all that off windmills!"

"There's the Severn Barrage..." the cashier ventured. It proved to be an act of futile defiance.

"Heseltine was bloody mad to authorise that thing! ‘Think Big’ he called it - you're probably too young to remember - the money that went into that! Well, we could've had three or four new nuclear stations on line by now, or modernised more of the pits."

The cashier nodded noncommittally. The motorist continued.

"And of course who controls it now? One end at the mercy of the Welsh Nats, the other under the thumb of Red Dawn. What kind of energy security is that? We'd almost be better off still dancing to the Arab's tune."

The cashier let the rhetorical question, along with its borderline racialist garnish, hang in the air. Though he was always loath to use them, there were conversational fall-backs for occasions such as this.

"So what do you do?" he asked, with a passable level of feigned sincerity.

The motorist perked up, ego sufficiently coaxed. "I work for the BBC at Pebble Mill. Current affairs."

The cashier now developed a genuine interest. The motorist, thus encouraged, continued:

"We do the news programmes, most local, some national. I was in the control room for the West Midlands election coverage - at the count. We caught those reaction shots when the Liberals won Stechford."

The cashier smiled in shared amusement - footage of the Labour candidate entering into a prima donna tantrum had been shared around from web-book to web-book for days afterwards.

"And of course we did that obituary the other week, when the former Prime Minister died"

The cashier racked his brains - an old name, from before his time really. One of those people you didn't even know were still alive until you found out they'd died. He remembered the Steve Bell cartoon though. A rather tasteless image of disembodied eyebrows being lowered into an open grave; the speech bubble read "First law on holes. When you are in one, stop digging." Tasteless and bizarre, but then that was Bell.

The phone rang. The cashier answered it.

"Good evening. British Auto-Electric Service Station 10-2940. How can I help?" He turned to the motorist. "It's for you."

The motorist picked up the mouthpiece "Hello? Oh, really? Great... Cheers... Bye." He returned it to the cashier. "Funds should have gone through - shall we try again?"

The cashier took the key, plugged it once more into the E-banking terminal. This time after the customary thirty-second wait the terminal offered a soft-toned beep of acceptance. The receipt roll whirred and spluttered out a typed receipt - the words "DEBIT ACCEPTED" and "TRANSACTION APPROVED" in prominent bold letters across the bottom, just above the date stamp "12/10/2015".

"Yep, that's gone through" the cashier confirmed, redundantly.

The motorist didn't trouble himself to offer much more than a mumbled 'thanks', before collecting the key and turning to leave the shop.

The cashier sat back on his chair, and returned to his newspaper. Nobody ever bought the Independent. That he kept the only copy behind the counter for his own entertainment didn't change that fact.

Outside the forecourt was empty once more, silent save only for the soft sound of passing cars.
 
fascinating

Most enjoyable and quite a few nuggets of times changed.

So far did devolution go in Bristol if Dawn Primaralo is in charge? Is she mayor or is Bristol a region or something?
 
Top