The Art of Becoming Homeless by Sara Alexi Page B

think of would have taken the money and run, even if they didn ’t want to replace the donkey, wouldn’t they? He could have taken the money to build this room for his parents, or just to help live through the winter. How can someone living so hand-to-mouth be so choosy? If his parents sleep on daybeds, he is not secretly wealthy like Costas Voulgaris the waiter. But perhaps the people she comes into contact with through her work are the sort who would resort to the law to settle their difficulties or even use it to their advantage. Perhaps there are scores of people, the majority even, who are like this donkey man? A whole world of people who don’t complain or try to make a profit from accidents.
    Michelle frowns. She was about to do something—what was it? The heat is delicious but seems to be sapping her ability to think. She shades her eyes with her hand and looks up. The sky ’s blue is deep, no clouds, not a wisp. High up, there is a ragged line, a vapour trail, the plane no longer visible.
    She leans against the post Suzi was tied to and looks out to sea.

    ‘ Michelle, here’s a new case to cut your teeth on. It’s a small claim, but he is a regular customer, so keep him happy.’ Arnold Braithwaite, head of the Yorkshire branch of Dulwater & Marown, grinned as he passed her the folder. This was in the days before she transferred to the London office. Grasping the folder, she returned to her desk, eager.
    ‘ What ya got?’ drawled William, who sat opposite her and liked to make a point of being her senior, although he’d only been at the firm a month or two longer than Michelle.
    ‘ Cyril Buttershaw.’ Michelle read the name at the top of the file.
    ‘ Ha, Septic Cyril! Bad luck!’
    ‘ Why bad luck?’ she asked, but William wouldn’t give anything away.
    ‘ You’ll see,’ he laughed.
    The next day she went to visit the place where Cyril Buttershaw had tripped on the upturned paving slab. He had made the same claim against the council three years in a row. He lived in a small, one-street village that looked like Yorkshire had forgotten about it, the houses set back from the road with a narrow strip of land in front that one or two had planted with flowers, nothing surrounding the houses but fields across which a single-track lane curled , flanked on either side by dry stone walls. For the most part though, these front yards were bare soil or a dumping ground for household refuse. There was a cluster of children’s bikes rusting on one, a mattress on another. The offending paving stone was near the end of the row of houses before the road turned a corner and disintegrated into the overgrown front gardens of the last two houses.
    There was not much to see. Michelle made some notes on her clipboard, holding down the paper against the keen wind that was blowing. She took a photograph as an aide-mémoire and then turned to go.
    ‘Are you from the law firm?’ The voice had the trace of a lisp.
    ‘ Er, yes, hello. Michelle Marsden, can I help you?’ Michelle tried to tame her hair, which was blowing either side of her face, her back to the wind.
    ‘ I’m Cyril.’ He did not offer his hand, and Michelle retracted hers awkwardly.
    ‘ Ah, Mr Buttershaw. I take it this is the offending paving slab?’
    ‘ Yes it is; I fell over it last year and the council still hasn’t fixed it. France this year, I think. Last year was me first cruise in the Bahamas with me claim money, but it’s a long way; won’t do that again. Didn’t like the food, neither.’
    He used both hands to hitch up his trousers. Michelle noticed they were a thick-weaved pair of suit trousers held up with coarse string tied in a bow, his shirt a dirty cream with a multitude of vertical thin coloured stripes and a large collar dating it back to the seventies, a typical charity shop bargain buy. The collar was pulled onto the outside of his jacket, a rough, shapeless tweed worn smooth around the inside of the neck with drooping baggy