Free Days by James Lovegrove

hours.”
    “Well, excuse me ,” says Fred, and immerses himself again in his newspaper, wiggling his eyebrows humorously for the benefit of anyone caring to look.
    The breakfast-time conversation continues in fits and starts, counterpointed by the click of cutlery on crockery and the tap of keyboard keys and the peel of newsprint pages. Meanwhile, Old Man Day glares balefully down at his sons from the portrait, his good eye glittering. All six brothers studiously avoid looking at or mentioning the empty seventh chair, the mock throne, in front of which sit an untouched salver and all the ingredients for a good gin and tonic.
    The ice cubes in the malachite bucket have started to melt.
     
     
    8.28 a.m.
     
    F OR FIVE MINUTES Frank has been watching the clearing which the white tigress has now vacated, hoping she will re-emerge from the trees to look at him again, but at last he accepts that she has gone. And it is time he should be going, too. The quiet half-hour is almost over. Distant voices are coming faintly from all floors, drifting across the cathedral vastness of the atrium. Sales assistants are arriving, filtering in through the four main entrances and spreading out through the store to take up their posts by the counters and displays. He ought to be heading downstairs.
    But still he keeps gazing down into the clearing, a gibbous striped afterimage of the tigress hovering before his eyes. Not that he believes in such things, but he can’t help thinking she may have been an omen of some sort. An omen of his new life, perhaps. The tigress is soon going to be elsewhere, out of Days, as is he. Freed from captivity. But no. She is simply being transferred from one kind of captivity to another. He is not. So, not such a good omen after all. But then, since he doesn’t believe in such things, what does it matter?
    He stays by the parapet until the last possible moment. When a yawning restaurant chef saunters into the hoop, Frank silently turns and makes his way to the nearest staff lift.

 
    7
     
    Chapter 7 : a provision of the U.S. federal Bankruptcy Act for the relief of insolvent debtors and their creditors.
     
     
    8.30 a.m.
     
    “T AXI’S HERE, G ORDON !”
    Gordon Trivett comes trotting down the stairs, buttoning one shirt-cuff, and muttering, “Why’d it have to be on time?”
    Linda is holding his coat for him in the hallway. She herself is all set to go. She has on her best blouse and skirt, over which she is wearing a cheap plastic mackintosh which has been taped up in several places where the seams have split. These homespun repairs are symptomatic of the make-do-and-mend ethic that the Trivetts adhered to during the time they spent saving up for their Days Silver. Today, that long, arduous, and sometimes seemingly endless period of belt-tightening is over, and Gordon and Linda can at last reap the rewards of their patience and self-denial.
    Gordon, typically, has failed to grasp the wonder of the moment.
    “Where are my keys?” he says, fishing frantically around in his pockets.
    “Gordon, don’t worry, I have mine,” Linda says, holding up her set to prove it. “Now, are you ready?”
    “I’d be readier if the taxi hadn’t turned up on time. Whoever heard of a taxi turning up when it’s supposed to?”
    “The taxi turned up on time because the driver knows where we’re going and wants to impress us by being punctual. No doubt he thinks we’re big tippers.”
    “Now, have we got everything?” Gordon grabs his coat from his wife and whisks open the front door.
    “I have my keys, my handbag...”
    “What about the card? Where’s the card?”
    She blinks at him. “What card?”
    Gordon’s eyes bulge behind his spectacles. “The card , Linda! The Days card!”
    “I’m just winding you up, Gordon. Here it is.” Linda produces their Silver from her handbag and shows it to him. Satisfied, Gordon turns and sets off down the garden path to the street.
    “ Someone’s Mr Grumpy this