The Thing on the Shore by Tom Fletcher Page B

were supposed to help people to remember to lock their computers while they were not at their desks. The words had been burned into everybody’s brains just through this constant exposure. By the constant repetition.
    â€œI was late on t’dinner because I had a proper fucked-up account just,” Diane announced. “Some right bitch screaming that she wanted to speak to Harry. He’s proper messed it up, he has.”
    â€œWho’s Harry?” Oscar asked.
    â€œHe’s this weird old twat. You’ll soon recognize him: flaky skin, smells of meat.” Diane lowered her voice. “Everybody says he’s a pedophile. Got sacked from his last job because they found stuff on his computer. He’s a fucking freak.”
    â€œHe got sacked from his last job because he had a mental breakdown,” Arthur interrupted. “He’s never been accused of pedophilia.”
    â€œWell,” said Diane, turning to face Arthur, “that’s what people say. And I heard that’s why he smells of meat. I’m just saying.”
    Arthur put down his sandwich and swallowed. He stretched out his fingers and looked at them. “You know that what you’re saying is nowhere near true, but you’re saying it anyway,” he said.
    Diane shrugged.
    â€œYou’re a spiteful, nasty little maggot,” Arthur continued. “You’re malicious and small-minded, and what you think and what you say count for nothing good. Don’t you
dare
reiterate such vile, destructive
shit
about my dad.” He stood up. “You’re a fucking disgrace,” he concluded, then picked up her cardboard mug of tea and poured it all over her plate of chips.
    Diane stood up and jabbed a long, sharp fingernail at Arthur’s chest. She screwed up her mouth to speak just as Arthur felt a hand fall on his shoulder.
    â€œArthur! What the hell are you doing?”
    Arthur turned to see Bracket’s pale, dark-eyed, stubbly face looking at him in confusion.
    â€œSorry,” Arthur said, quietly. “She was being very cruel.”
    â€œCome with me,” Bracket said. “Now.”
    Arthur left work that day with a warning. “One foot wrong and you’re gone,” Artemis had told him. Interext wouldn’t tolerate such deplorable behavior.
    He hurried along by the harbor to the Vagabond, passing elderly couples sitting on benches while eating bags of chips from Crosby’s. It was a clear day, but breezy, and everybody seemed to be wearing heavy beige coats. He could tell that Old Man Easy was out and about, as he could hear music drifting across the marina. Just before he got to the pub he kicked out at a big metal sculpture of a knotted rope, one of several rising from the promenade at regular intervals. Yasmin finished half an hour after he did, and had told him she would meet him there. He was about to go inside and buy a drink when he saw Old Man Easy ambling toward him down the Sugar Tongue. He carried his knackered, fuzzy-sounding stereo in his right hand, as ever, while he murmured along to the Engelbert Humperdinck tape he was playing at full volume. He wore a pair of glasses that he’d covered in Sellotape to turn them into sunglasses. He nodded and smiled at Arthur as he passed. He gestured at his glasses with his left hand, and puffed out his already sizeable chest.
    â€œBetter than my own eyes, these are,” he declared. Thatwas what he always said. Or, at least, that was all Arthur had ever heard him say.
    Arthur nodded and entered the pub.
    â€œIt’s not a good time to be pissing them off,” Yasmin said, staring at her empty wine glass.
    â€œI know,” Arthur said. “I know, but I didn’t do it on purpose.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œI shouted at Dad this morning.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Yasmin said, and she put her hand on Arthur’s arm. “I used to argue with my parents all