“You have got to be kidding!” I had been on the job less than ten minutes, and there was already a disaster.
Rapid-fire cursing echoed out of one of the stalls. I walked along the row until I found a man standing on a toilet seat, arms reaching into a cistern high up on the wall, apparently screwing in some kind of black plastic ball. He was wearing a pair ofbrown loafers, obscenely tiny shorts, and a tattered old Polo Ralph Lauren rugby shirt. He was drenched.
“You’re making a right mess, mate,” I said.
“Hang on.”
“Have you got any idea what you’re doing there?”
“I said hang on.”
The plumber finished playing with his little ball and turned to look at me over his shoulder. His face was as wet as the rest of him. Strands of his mid-length auburn hair were stuck to his forehead and cheeks. He was, to be clear, bloody gorgeous.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
His rudeness jogged me out of my trance. I had a job to do.
“I’m the bloke whose job it is to make sure the toilet’s fixed!”
He turned back to what he was doing. “Well, it’s fixed. I’ve just fixed it. Probably.”
Water sploshed over the side of the cistern and onto his shirt. It ran in rivers down his legs. His thighs were so meaty they belonged in a butcher’s window. Frankly, he did not look like a professional plumber.
“Mate, are you even qualified to fix that?”
“Qualified?” He laughed. “I have a degree in English lit. I’m singularlyunqualifiedto fix this. I’m unqualified to do anything remotely useful at all, truth be told. But it’s never stopped me fixing the plumbing in this house before.”
I was shocked, to be honest. “Breaks down regularly, does it?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I don’t think I would.” Not if this was the quality of the tradesman sent to fix it.
The plumber sighed, stood upright, and cricked his back. His wet clothes were clinging to him like he’d been vacuum-sealed into them. He turned to look at me, and his face, still ridiculously gorgeous, looked seriously annoyed. His cheeks were as red asapples. He had an extremely wet cloth in his fist, which was dripping water as he jabbed a finger in my direction.
“I told Bramley not to call you,” he said. “Sorry, but you’ve had a wasted trip. I don’t need your help. You can leave.”
“Pardon?”
“And don’t even think about charging a call-out fee, because I’m not paying it. I didn’t call you out.”
He’d lost me now. “Why would I charge you a call-out fee?”
He sighed. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I’ve fixed it. I don’t need any help.”
I roared in frustration. “Youdoneed help. Blind Freddie can see this job needs an actual qualified plumber.”
“I’m not paying you to do a job I can do perfectly well myself.”
“Why would you paymeto do it?”
“Because I’ve never heard of a plumber working for free. Unless you’re some magical plumbing fairy my mother has accidentally summoned with one of her ridiculous herbal concoctions?”
He was winding me up now. “I’m not the plumber. You’re the plumber.”
“No,you’rethe plumber.”
“I am not!”
