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By the following Wednesdaymuch of the initial novelty, trepidation, excite the arrival of the aliens had disappeared With a startling rapidity that I would never have predicted, daily life for the vaston the surface of our planet returned to its familiar humdrum pace The relentless monotony and tedium about which most people co to) was back

At some ridiculously early hour (I think it was so) I found er seat of Ja driven at speed along the rough dirt track which connected Porter Farm to the main Portland Road and, therefore, to the rest of the world Porter Farm was a little secluded family business nestled deep within the hills just a few miles outside Thatcha out Joe Porter who had been a close friend of Dad&039;s foron a lift because today, for some inexplicable reason, I had allowed Robert to borrow et aith it I could never understand why he hadn&039;t bought his own car and why he stayed at my house e&039;d both inherited exactly the same from Mum and Dad&039;s estate I suppose it was easier (and cheaper) for hie off me when he needed to rather than dip into his own pocket unnecessarily Today - for reasons best known to himself - he had decided to travel halfway across the country to see a couple of his friends froe I didn&039;t understand the need Rob and his friends drank, studied, socialised and partied with each other almost all the year round, and yet they always see, socialising and parties perhaps? Still, looking on the bright side Rob had only been back with ht of hiood to be away from each other for a while The loss of my car for a day was a fair price to pay for a little peace and space

&039;Why the bloody hell do you do this?&039; Ja daydreams

&039;Do what?&039; Ito make himself heard over the throaty roar of his car&039;s exhausted engine, &039;work on a far? Christ, if I had the chance to stop at ho like you could then I&039;d do just that You wouldn&039;t catch er Porter doesn&039;t even pay you!&039;

Fros were pretty understandable My decision to give up my time voluntarily to work at the farm did seem out of character for someone who had recently jumped ship from the rat race But there were reasons why I did it Reasons that I usually chose not to share

&039;I get bored sitting at ho to throw Jahtfully and returned his full attention to the dusty road which stretched out in front of us

That ansas partly true, but it wasn&039;t the only reason why I helped Joe out He had been a close friend of Mum and Dad, and he&039;d been the one who had broken the news of their accident to me He&039;d been the one who had driven me to the hospital and he&039;d been the one who had picked up Rob froht him home when it happened I owed Joe Porter a lot I had a debt of gratitude to him which I wanted to repay On another level I knew that my dad would have been appalled if he&039;d known I&039;d leftsoht approve of

There was another reason for working at the farm It was much more simple and obvious The fact of theall that ti hours and Rob was usually away at university I had other friends, but they worked too and were not often about during the day time It wasn&039;t so er of having too much ti Mum and Dad (well, as much as anyone ever can come to ter facade I put up cru thethe lawn or washing up or cooking for exa their faces in photographs on the walls would do it A crack would appear that would quickly beco chasates opened and a tidal wave of grief washed over ain eventually But whenever the pain begins it feels like it will never go away

&039;The athed &039;When isn&039;t it bad?&039; I replied, not in the slightest bit interested I had hoped that weto hear about the office but no such luck If I&039;d turned to ht and smacked James in the face he wouldn&039;t have stopped He was on autopilot - a pre-prograh this far tooI&039;d have to sit through it again

&039;I tell you,&039; he continued, &039;it&039;s pretty desperate right now I know things were bad when you were there but Christ, I&039;ve never known it like it is at the moment&039;

&039;So what&039;s happened now?&039; I heard myself ask I hadn&039;t really wanted to know, but some stupid subconscious reaction inside me made me speak What a bloody idiot When would I learn to shut up?

&039;Reuar?&039;

&039;No, that&039;s Marcus Phillips Siht carefully for less than half a second I couldn&039;t re with anyone called Simon but I knew that would be inconsequential James would continue with his tales of hatever

&039;Oh yes,&039; I lied, trying to speed things up, &039;I remember&039;

James paused for a second to concentrate as he steered the car around a deep pothole in the track

&039;Middle of last week, one of the new juniors we&039;ve got asked him to check over an order he&039;d put up Now Sih with crap and he didn&039;t check the order properly Turned out it was an urgent order for E S Carters and they only got half of what they wanted They&039;d had problems before apparently Upshot of this one was that they closed their account And they orth a fucking fortune&039;

&039;But if you don&039;t give the custonored nature was on the dispatch note, he&039;s the one who&039;s taking the rap for us losing the business He&039;s up on disciplinary for it&039;

&039;Really?&039;

&039;Really&039;

&039;And was it his fault?&039; I asked

Jaht for a moment

&039;Suppose it was I h shit then, isn&039;t it?&039; I said, successfully and abruptly ending the conversation for a couple of seconds

Less than a raded him,&039; Jaraded him And they&039;ve transferred someone in from another department to do his job Then they had the nerve to turn around and ask him to train the new bloke up!&039;

&039;So has he done it?&039;

&039;No, he told them to piss off&039;

&039;And what did they do?&039;

&039;They suspended hiraduate in there until Siiven the boot It&039;s all wrong, you know There are four of us sitting there who could do the job with our eyes closed but instead of paying one of us a little deputising they bring in this fucking high-flyer who doesn&039;t know his arse frorier so his language becarin and bear it like you always do,&039; I sighed James nodded I sympathised with him to an extent, but Jah toabout the proble, but never look for a solution At that precise moment in tied to leave behind the desperate and dirty world of back-stabbing and seedy office politics Noback there

&039;How&039;s the baby?&039; I asked with my voice full of blatantly false enthusias children had, inability to bore But these were desperate times, and desperate times called for desperate measures I knew that if I wanted to avoidorders and in-trays then I would have to suffer a string of humourless anecdotes about the varied colours of the contents of James&039; baby&039;s nappy instead