Zack Wilson, author of The Mirror (erbacce 2008), Lescar (Blackheath Books 2008) and staff writer at goal.com, has graciously agreed to host his Ray Doyle stories here. as new stories are added, previous entries will be archived below.

"Stumbles and Half Slips grew out of a snapshot series of six stories based around a character who drove a van for a living. England's East Midlands was the setting for these pieces, largely because of my personal contacts with the region, though also because there is a touch of glum glamour, in my eyes anyway, about post-industrial landscapes and places called things like Spondon, Ilkeston and Ashby de la Zouch.

"The character got called Ray Doyle in the end, just like the guy in the TV series 'The Professionals' just because I liked its prosaic suitability for a guy who was half-Irish and aware enough to know that he was bascially named after a TV cop with a dodgy perm, and just how dreadful that fact would be to live with for a man of a certain mindset, which Ray probably possesses.

"The events in the stories are themed around emotion and control, in simple terms. I could be pretentious about that, but they're basically stories about how our working and, to a lesser extent, our social lives form structures that contain, shape and even excuse bizarre excesses of stupidity, rage and frustration, as well as deep sadness and futility. Which is exactly where the humour in them springs from.

The series is set to continue for while yet, and may develop into a print project at some stage. But Ray is set to change in the next set of stories, and may go all white collar for a while. Still low status work, but perhaps office based. He did spend a year at university you know..."

Friday dinnertime and I’ve worked hard all morning. I’ve dropped off floor tiles in Matlock, bathroom tiles in Alfreton and Derby, sample designs in Swadlincote, Burton and Uttoxeter, paperwork in Leicester and I’m still back in the yard at Ashby by 2.00pm.

            By the time I’m back, most of the lads have been sent home. Kev and Martin Brown are tidying up in the warehouse, and they tell me that Big Phil, the boss, is in the office with Maureen and he’s got the vodka out. That means that he’s either got nothing for me and I can go home, or he’s going to spring some emergency job on me, long distance or something. I go and grab a coffee in the canteen before he finds me.

            These quiet moments are nice. I’ve always liked drinking machine coffee black. Its cheap unpleasantness shares something with the vodka I drink. I’ve got a bit of job satisfaction going on as well, I’ve done a lot of work this morning, and efficiently. Makes me wonder what would happen if I ever really tried.

            I think about Maxine and when we met each other. About how really I went out with her because I knew how much her Jamaican heritage would piss off most of the people I knew and about how such a misanthropic beginning created something neither of us seem able to shake off nor want to despite incidents like Monday’s broken glass. But I think it’s all sorted now and I’m looking forward to seeing her tonight with her smile and her easy hips.

            It’s another warm day. The wind blows the branch of a tree, heavy with green leaves, against the cheap glass of the canteen window. The coffee’s heat pricks my finger ends through the plastic of the cup. I’ve got some nameless grunge guitar riff in my head and I actually feel good.

            There’s some loud and deep laughter and a slightly hysterical sounding female voice outside. The door swings open and Big Phil beckons to me from the doorway. Big Phil looks nothing like Luis Felipe Scolari, the moustachioed Brazilian football coach. He hasn’t even heard of him. He’s always got a good tip for the horses though. He’s a large man with dark grey hair, thinning a little at the temples. His face is always slightly red, as though he’s just come in from the cold, and you can never tell if he’s growing a beard or he just can’t be bothered to shave. Normally, he’s wearing a company polo shirt, one of the old red ones, that’s a size too small, so the sleeves are pulled high up his arms, revealing his regimental tattoos. Coarse black hairs, wiry like pubes, are thickly massed on his beefy forearms. He’s swigging from a full bottle of vodka, and keeps pouring shots into Maureen, his secretary’s, plastic coffee cup. He seems to be staring hard at parts of her body too, but that might just be because he’s very short-sighted and too vain to wear glasses.

            “I’ve got something for you,” he tells me, leaning in matily.

            “Oh yeah,” I reply, expectant of the wind-up.

            “Yeah. This!” He reaches into the side pocket of his Desert Storm pattern combat trousers that he’s taken to wearing recently and pulls out a moderately sized claw hammer.

            “Here you go, mate! Used to be a joiner didn’t you?” he exclaims with the familiar slurred bonhomie of the pisshead.

            “No. That’s Andy.”

            “Andy’s not. Weren’t you the joiner?”

            “No.”

            “Well you’re here now. There’s two planks damaged, split, in the fence next to the bins. Nails, wood, all by the fence. Just knocking a couple of nails in is all it takes.”

            This means he wants me to fix the fence that surrounds the wheelie bins in the back corner of the yard. He must’ve started early today. Certainly Maureen’s pissed. She looks like a barfly’s girlfriend, her too tight skirt stretched over her rump, a wrinkle in her tights by her ankle and a blouse button too many undone that reveals the freckles and creases of her cleavage. I think she’s around 50, same as Phil. I’ll leave them to it.

            “Everything I need by the fence?” I ask, taking the hammer from Phil’s loosening grasp.

            “Yeah, yeah. When you’ve finished, go home.” He goes into the canteen with Maureen and bangs the door shut before he can hear my “Cheers!”

            I make my way over to the broken fence. Phil wouldn’t have given me anything I can’t do and he’s right that all that needs doing is putting a couple of new upright planks into a pretty basic fence and knocking some nails in. It’s a job that’s easy and achievable, and it’s a nice little full-stop to my week.

            I’m about halfway through when Martin Brown appears. He’s got one of those thick coats that football managers wear on over his overalls, even though it’s a warm day. It was only late summer chilly this morning. He’s sweating cobs.

            I nod to him, and he says, “Hello.” Then he stands watching me hammering nails in. I do the two at the top of the fence and I can sense him behind me, and glimpse him on the edge of vision. He doesn’t move. I look quizzically at him and he stares back and grins. I raise my eyebrows and he raises his. I pick the final two nails up from the bag that Phil left for me and crouch to hammer them into the supporting, horizontal planks at the base of the fence.

            “You hold your hammer in your left hand,” Martin says.

            “Yes. I’m left handed,” I state.

            “Oh. I knew a lad at school who had that.”

            “Had what?”

            “Left hand.”

            “He had a left hand?”

            “Yeah. But he used it to write with, not like me.”

            “So he was left handed?”

            “Yes.”

            “Great. I’m not alone then.”

            “No. I’ve got to stay till 4, Phil says.”

            “Oh.” I nearly ask him why, but start hammering again instead. I really have nearly finished when he crouches next to me.

            “You don’t hold it like me either.”

            “What?” I pause hammering.

            He reaches over and takes the hammer from my grasp.

            “Look,” he tells me, and proceeds to hammer in the last nail. He does it too hard and at a stupid angle, so that the nail’s head gets deformed and the wood of the plank splinters. I stand up and spectate as he finishes the job for me.

            “You see,” he says, as he stands up and gives me the hammer, “that’s how I do it. My wrist is different.”

            I’m about to reply when Kev appears with a half-full black bin liner in one hand and a copy of The Daily Sport in the other. He slings the bin bag easily into one of the wheelie bins and says, “’Ere, ‘ave a look at this tart here.” He opens his copy of The Sport and shows me a picture of a topless girl in a thong, manipulating the bend of her body so that you can see both her tits and her arse. She’s mixed-race, with a deep vanilla tone to her skin and innocent eyes she thinks are alluring. She looks just about 18.

            “Just feast your eyes on that lads!” exclaims Kev, “I think I’m in love!” He pouts his lips exaggeratedly and kisses the girl’s bottom. Martin Brown laughs along with him. I raise my eyebrows and pretend to laugh quietly. There’s an awkward pause.

            “Yeah! I’ve heard those nigger bitches go like the clappers!” Martin Brown enthuses. Kev knows about Maxine and looks embarrassed. He starts to say something but can’t seem to find the words to fit the fluttering shapes of his mouth. He looks expectantly at me.

            I really don’t have to say anything, I really would just like to leave it. “Watch your mouth, Martin,” I quietly state.

            “No, it’s true! This lad at Stokes in Sheffield told us that he always gets black prostitutes cause they go better. Straight up!”

            I grab the hammer from him. I don’t know what to do with it so I point at him with it. “Just watch your mouth. I don’t like you talking like that where I have to listen to it.”

            “What?” he asks.

            “Are you really so fucking thick!” I shout, and move my left hand as if to grab him, stop halfway and allow my fist to clench air.

            “But I’m telling the truth!” he yells. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him shout at anyone.

            I look over at Kev. He’s closed his paper and rolled it up. He holds it in one hand. There’s an uncertain look on his face. He’s on new ground and he thinks he’s enjoying it, but he knows that really it’s serious and he’s still at work and he should do something. He watches us, the corners of his mouth twitching, twisting his lips.

            I drop the hammer and it makes a pathetic clatter on the concrete paving. I try and grab Martin Brown by the lapels of his football manager’s coat, but they’re too thick and the waterproofed material too unyielding to get a proper grip. My hands slide down his front pathetically so I grab him round the throat with my right hand, choking him, and push him up against the fence. I bring my face close to his and see fear and a stupid perception of injustice, genuine, in his eyes. My anger departs, flushes away, leaves an emptiness, I’m on the edge of tears. I let go of his neck and kick him in the shin, not hard.

            “You’re a cunt, Martin Brown,” I say, “and you, Kevin, area fucking fat spineless twat. I hate the fucking lot of you.”

            Martin is silent and looks full of tears. He stands with his back close to the fence, hunching slightly. Kev looks indignant, and, as though struggling for breath, says, “I’m telling. I’m telling Big Phil!”

            “Fucking tell him you fucking loser! Fuck the lot of you! I hate this fucking job and you can fucking tell Big Phil to shove it up his fucking fat fucking arse!” I shake my head, turn away, and head to where my van’s parked.

            As I reach it I remember I’ve just told them where they can shove the job and so when Phil finds out he’s unlikely to let me use the van to get home like he usually does on a Friday in case any weekend jobs come up. I’ve got a jacket and a CD in there so I open the door to retrieve them. I have to lean over from the driver’s side and lose my balance and fall gently face first onto the seat. Recovering myself, I manage to stand up and put my jacket on. The CD won’t fit into my jacket pocket, so I slam the door shut with my right hand. Then I realise I’ve still got the van keys so I have to open the door again.

            I look over and see Kev and Martin Brown standing in front of the pre-fab canteen, watching me. I glare back, hold the keys high above my head, then fling them onto the driver’s seat of the van. Then I slam the door.

            It feels strange walking out the yard. It’s about a mile to the pub, a walk along the edge of a major road with limited pavements. I feel self-conscious an idiotic as I walk and when a car toots to tell me I’m in the way I think it’s only to laugh at me.

            I nod to the barmaid as I walk into the Shakespeare, and she pours me a Strongbow without asking, smiling. I get a double vodka too, knock it back and switch my mobile on. Almost immediately it rings. It’s Big Phil. I press the ‘reject’ button and switch it back off.

            I wonder how to tell Maxine I’m out of work. I wonder what to tell her. What the fuck am I going to tell her? What am I going to do? What will I do on Monday?

            What the fuck are we going to do about Monday?