Free Blue Collar by Danny King

little faces. See, happy and frowny? For yes and no.’
    ‘I see.’
    Truly bizarre. And I don’t mean Charley’s text shorthand. I mean the fact that she wanted to see me again. It’s funny how
     two people can come away from the same date with completely different ideas about how the evening has gone, isn’t it? It had
     happened to me a few times in the past but this was the first time I was the one who hadn’t thought the evening had been a
     blistering success.
    What was it that Charley had liked about the evening? We’d chatted and joked and a couple of times I’d even managed to make
     her laugh, but it had been a long way from great. I don’t mean from my own point of view. No, I’d loved the evening because
     Charley had been there. So as far as I was concerned the evening had been great. I just couldn’t figure out why Charley had
     thought it had been great too.
    ‘Will you stop annoying me and talk about something else, for crying out loud?’ Jason pleaded from the other end of the scaffolding.
     ‘Christ, it’s like someone reading out Marjorie’s problem page all morning long.’
    ‘You know what your problem is, Tel?’ Big John said, addressing me with the tip of his trowel. ‘You’ve stuck this bird up
     on a pedestal from day one without even getting to know her. Perhaps she did have a great night. Perhaps she’s all as chuffed
     and as giggly and girlie as you this morning. I don’t see how she could be, but you never know.’
    ‘Yeah, she’s probably on the other side of London, slapping down some bricks and having exactly the same conversation,’ Jason
     pointed out, as he cut and buttered a brick.
    ‘You don’t know what sort of blokes she’d been out with in the past,’ Big John then said. ‘She might’ve been out with all
     sorts: boozers, wife-beaters, two-timers, cokeheads. They’re a right load of bad boys those rich Flash Harry City types, you
     know?’
    ‘That’s true,’ Jason confirmed, which instantly underpinned Big John’s statement as a fact. Two brickies’ opinions carried
     that sort of weight, you know.
    ‘She could’ve had the lot, you know. Compared to them, you could be Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot all rolled into one,’ Big
     John said, twirling his trowel around in his hand. ‘You’re a nice bloke, you are. What’s up with you? Why wouldn’t she like
     you? Sort yourself out.’
    ‘Nah, I go wit’ Jays,’ Nobby perked up from the other end of the flank. ‘She’s probably just after a bit o’ rough. Ah put
     money on it that she was aching to see you smack tha’ fella in the gob las’ night. I bet she would’a wet her knickers and
     sucked you off all the way ta hospital if ya had.’
    ‘Yeah. Or there is always that,’ Big John admitted, rolling muck on his muck board to get a nice big trowelful before spreading
     it along the wall.
    My love life focus group continued with such advice up until tea break when the conversation landed on football island and
     got shipwrecked there for the rest of the week.
    I’m not much of a football fan, to be honest. I’ll watch the odd England match and get as excited about it as the next guy
     come World Cup time. I’ll even occasionally ask Robbie how Crystal Palace are doing, them being my nearest local league team,
     but by and large the government could outlaw the game and I don’t think it would make a jot of difference to my life. Not
     like Robbie. It would be an utter disaster for him. And not only because he wouldn’t have anywhere to go at the weekends –
     and anything to talk and think about at all other times – but because he’d suddenly find himself up against an enormous pool
     of unskilled and unemployed labour and I bet Wayne Rooney could shift a few bricks if he put his back into it.
    ‘He’d have to for two hundred grand a week,’ said Robbie, prompting one of those ‘if I had a million pounds’ conversations
     which ended in a shouting match when Stuart insisted