Circle & Triangle
Phil first met Bill in a record shop on the North Laines, in Brighton. He'd just finished work and he stamped the soil off his boots before he entered the shop, glad to leave the noise of the street behind.
The Laines had been busy that day. The heat wasn't unmanageable, and there was a rainbow of hippies and street performers practicing circus tricks for Attention. He didn't mind that lot, they stayed busy and kept out of his way and mostly off their phones, and Phil felt there was at least some purpose in what they did — it didn't do any harm, at least. And it wasn't easy to make a living these days.
Three people approached him for Attention, each preaching their own sense of progress. These were the ones he didn't like:
The first one popped up from behind him and patted his stomach: "What's that! Mate, give us a Follow: I'll get these rock solid in three weeks with a simple routine!" Phil brushed him off. "Guaranteed to raise your CCS!" He shouted after him.
The second appeared in front of him then walked alongside and put his arm around his shoulder, almost trying to pull him away. He spoke conspiratorially: "You want to know the truth about Kai Fassard — send me a Like!" He winked. "Everything the mainstream press won't tell ya!" Phil turned away again. Though homelessness was now a thing of the past, begging was still doing very well for itself.
"Wanna know how to get around Pilot?" This one went so far as to block Phil's path. "I'm your man! I know the algorithm and I'll turn your posts into paydays!" Phil went to move around him, but he kept in his path and gently held his shoulder. "Listen, mate: you want Credit?" He leant in close. "I got a system. Guaranteed. Enough to get you some good pussy, eh…? Bet it's been a while…"
That was enough. Phil wanted to tell him to fuck off and call him a twat. He wanted to tell him that his behaviour was the reason why the Creative Economy was destroying society instead of saving it. But instead he pushed him off and carried on his way. Then he felt his phone vibrate and knew that he'd been reported. Whoever else the guy was, he was in enough Credit for a negative Engagement to impact Phil and he got annoyed at himself for losing his temper. A warden glanced across. Phil gestured with his hands, acknowledging that he'd made a mistake, and they both let it be.
Phil hated this world and the way everyone pretended it was all ok. He hated the Creative Economy and everything it had done. He hated the constant badgering and fearmongering and profiteering, and the desperate need for Attention. Life had somehow been reduced to a constant scream of look at me; a guttural human need that now drove the economy. It could be withdrawn or gorged upon and it was this process that created the strange combination of egotists and neurotics that seemed to make up most of society these days.
Phil didn't Connect with any of them. He hardly reached out at all, which is why he still topped up his minimum Civil Credit Score with a job as a gardener. It was the only way to get by, but he also enjoyed the work. It kept him outside — which was still refreshing, despite the heat — and he was largely left alone.
It was also why he still spent time in record shops listening to old music, from back in the days when people used to dream that the world could still become a better place.
He was slowly flicking through some scuffed Leonard Cohen records and listening to an MP3 player on shuffle when Bill suddenly appeared at his shoulder.
"Cohen's great," Bill said; and though the line came out of nowhere, Phil didn't react. In fact, he barely even looked across; it was almost as though the voice had come from somewhere inside of him.
"But you're similar," Bill continued. "Bitter searching of your hearts."
Phil laughed, though the line took him close to a part of himself where he kept memories of his father and he was lost momentarily. When he did look across, the man was almost leaning into him and staring, deeply and strangely at Phil. For a long time his mind became empty; and then — for the briefest moment — memories of his father came back to him in a form so real they burnt at his insides… and then they were gone.
"You gonna ring them bells Phil?" Bill asked, stepping back and squaring up slightly. "Let in the light?"
Phil withdrew, suddenly aware of how strange this was. He was about to step away when Bill grabbed his arm and held it tight.
Suddenly, Bill changed and a glimpse of rage sparked in him; his eyes burnt and Phil could feel heat where his arm was being gripped. "Remember Graham Hall, Phil," Bill growled, through clenched teeth. Then he let go of Phil's arm and something like regret washed across his face. "Remember Graham Hall…" he repeated. "And there is still a chance that we can save your people."
Phil stared at him, wide-eyed and fearful. Bill looked around the shop, nervous and almost in a panic. He turned to look back at Phil and smiled briefly, sadly, and then left in a hurry.
Despite the strangeness of the situation, the name was what remained.
He did remember Graham Hall.
Where did he remember him from?
The name touched something deep and painful, and although he couldn't quite grasp it, he wanted to.
Graham Hall… Graham Hall… who the fuck was Graham Hall?
He'd searched up the name a half hour later, after he'd got back home again. The only reference was a Wikipedia entry about a little-known musician from the 60s with a gravelly voice and anger issues. That made sense — and it meant it was from his dad. There was a list of albums in the entry — Broken Seed, The Rabid Monk, Traveller Scholar Poet — but not much more.
He started his computer and opened his journal and stared at the cursor for a while. Then he went to the fridge and poured a glass of wine. The sun was setting and he didn't have work the next day so maybe he had some time to remember. For the first time in a while, he felt like he had a purpose.
Broken Seed, that had done it.
I'm your broken seed… it was a line from one of his songs.
He stared out of the window, across a line of grey roofs. I'm your broken seed… you're nothing but an… animal? And I'm your broken seed…?
He shook his head. He didn't like it, so he picked up his phone and began to scroll.
Though he never engaged, he regularly swiped through life with the detachment of the serial scroller. It was almost like a form of meditative state that he fell into as he glazed through images and video and mindless words of encouragement. He didn't enjoy scrolling, he hated it, but for him this was a chance to meditate on his loathing.
In the hour he sat there he must have swiped through a thousand posts, promoting anything from the benefits of hiking to the fun that could be had after fifteen beers; one in five was a healthy cooking recipe or an exercise regime — they'd increased as Phil had grown older; there were the standard pictures of food or a nice view, that were really just requests for a Like; a diminishing few were AI-generated videos or images that used to be entertaining at times, but had drifted into a kind of generic oddness that always gave Phil a rush of hate. Every dozen-or-so swipes Phil would see another advert to encourage him to join the wardens, or sign up for Border Patrol, and he swiped past them with a bitter snarl and a feeling of superiority.
He took a break to go to the toilet and open a bottle of whiskey, then he turned to his journal. Within a few hours, he was halfway through the whiskey and back to writing about his ex-girlfriend, Madeleine.
I'm so sorry that I wasn't more. I'd wanted to reach out, I'd wanted to connect, but I couldn't find the heart to love myself much less face someone else. If there was only a way back… but this world is not a place for livers, lovers, brothers or children with mothers…
It was gone three am before he fell into bed.
Though he couldn't remember when or how he'd done it, amidst the incoherent rambling, he wrote a single verse in his journal:
During the next day, while he cleared gardens in Queen's Park he was constantly distracted by fragments of lyrics that came back to him, sometimes in sudden clarity, sometimes fading into awareness:
On their own they were nothing… but they came from a feeling, and he knew they connected to something bigger and so he was never not looking for more.
For a long time he stood by a rose bed and had a profound and very real memory of Hall: acoustic guitar, wandering poet; spoke from the heart, wrote from the hip. He remembered him: a man with a life so like his own but blessed with the ability to make the pain somehow beautiful.
On the way home, he bought his usual wine and noodles with a kind of determination and then went back to his flat and tried to remember his house and his dad's records… and his dad, and he tried to place Graham Hall in the middle of it.
Phil's dad had died a few months earlier, alone and in poverty; and although they'd rarely spoken in the years beforehand, the manner of his death — he'd been dead for a week before anyone found him — had hit Phil hard. They weren't bitter, but there was so much left unsaid that they'd grown apart. His dad was deeply resentful, and so was Phil. And although they weren't angry at each other — they both agreed that the mother was the issue — the agreement wasn't strong enough to keep them together.
Phil's mum had always maintained that Phil shouldn't have expected anything different. His father was always going to leave, it was in his DNA. But Phil knew that wasn't true. As far as he was concerned, she was the abuser: tyrannical, bitterly disappointed in them both, and full of blame. She'd wanted her life to turn out differently and had never been afraid of expressing it to either of them.
And so, despite the fact that Phil spent his teenage years living with her, while she cooked his meals and washed his clothes and attended the occasional parents' evening and poked her head around the door to check he hadn't died in the night when he was still in bed at 3pm, he never really forgave her.
Years later, he visited her a number of times while she was in the hospice. He'd told her he loved her and that he was sorry for what she was going through, and he soothed her where he could. But if he had been honest with himself, he didn't really think she deserved it. He was sorry she was dying, that was only human, but he wasn't sorry he wouldn't have to deal with her again.
In a similar manner, Phil had barely responded to the news of his father's death, delivered to him by a long-forgotten uncle, over the phone one rainy day in November.
Phil said he wouldn't be going to the funeral because of the distance that had grown between them, but the truth was that he didn't want to speak to anyone about his dad. He had his own version of events and he was sticking to them: it wasn't his father's fault, it was hers. She'd worked to be rid of him for years, and had, as far as Phil was concerned, succeeded almost two decades ago. She hated him because he'd tried to stand up for himself, and she simply couldn't have that.
He'd been cold to the fact that he was now an orphan for months. He'd barely known his parents when they were alive and was determinedly nonplussed now they were both dead.
But as he sat and drank, late at night, and searched for Graham Hall amidst the memories, his mind touched on a sadness that became the most powerful thing he'd ever felt. The feeling was accompanied by a rush of adrenaline that was painful but enlivening, and for a long moment he was lost in it.
Despite having his journal, he started a new document in Word. He stared at the blank screen for so long it grew out of focus, his hands lightly brushing the letters on the keyboard.
He could remember his dad's old house in Bristol as being always in shadow, and he moved through it in search of his father: down the blue-walled, purple-carpeted corridor — his mind's eye like a cinematic tracking shot — toward the smoke of the living room, to where his dad was drinking and thinking and listening to Graham Hall.
Then he wrote the word: I
Then: don't
Then: want
Then: nothing
And then: more
He wrote them out slowly and deliberately, without thinking about the previous one. They were just five words that felt right.
He looked it back over: I don't want nothing more
He wondered if it was anymore — I don't want nothing anymore — but he knew it wasn't. Hall wasn't like him. Hall was braver than him. Hall wanted things, he hadn't given up.
What did Hall want?
A home he wrote
And a hearth
And then he stopped and sat back and took a drink. Then he arranged the lines and added a word and read:
And although that was right — he could almost remember the song now: it was just Hall and his guitar with some strings in the background… ah, but that was what was missing: the strings.
Because Hall was a romantic; like a broken romantic.
And a woman to share in the magic, Phil wrote, and his stomach momentarily reeled from the realisation. It was almost enough for him to lose the flow, but before he stopped he tipped over the moment and wrote:
After he finished he stayed still for a long time, feeling his body acclimatise itself to a gentle pain that moved around his core. He sat back and read it through twice.
It was Graham Hall. They were real lyrics, he was sure. He finished his beer so he could open the bottle of red he'd bought and lit another cigarette, reading the lines over and over, and searching inside himself for what came next.
It was the feeling he chased. He was touching a place deep inside himself, a place he hadn't felt for years, and the desire to acknowledge it again became all-powerful. It was painful to touch but the pain felt keen and enlivening, and he wanted more.
He stayed up writing until he was so drunk he couldn't see properly and then crashed into bed, pulling the blinds shut to keep out the daylight.
The pattern repeated itself, night after night… but remembering Graham Hall was different to any of the other writing Phil had done before. Hall was found in a feeling that grew in his guts; a rush of adrenaline that set his heart racing. He felt like something had become alive inside of him, and if he didn't feed it, it would eat him up from within.
And all the while he was writing, because he was remembering the lyrics to songs, music began taking shape in his mind: an echo of clean-cut strings and an icy guitar line chilled the corridor that ran through his dad's house like a crooked spine. He could smell the damp carpets, smoke and drink. And his dad was silently listening to Hall pluck strings on his guitar like a funeral march, while a single violin rose above it like a phantom.
It was warlike, but intensely sad; like the sound of impotent rage:
In spare moments in the gardens, he'd trawl the net looking for any other references to Hall but even the Wikipedia article had been removed. It seemed like he was the only person who remembered him now and it became Phil's mission to preserve this work for the world.
One day he went out and bought some paper and coloured pens and began writing them out on A4 sheets and then he cut around the words and stuck them to the walls of his flat, designing layouts that would highlight ideas or themes.
Though it was all written by Hall, it seemed like there were whole sections about relationships and it felt as though the breakdown of his relationship with Madeleine was written in these lines; and there were reams about his parents, or Hall's parents, Phil couldn't tell the difference anymore. But now that he could see it all, spread out in lines and stanzas, he could see how clearly the collapse of his parents' relationship had led inevitably to the collapse of his relationship with Madeleine: he'd inherited his parents' mess and it had doomed his chance of love. It was all here, in Hall's lyrics:
Eventually he ran out of wall space, and so he started sticking string to the ceiling and hanging pieces of verse in the middle of the room that spun gently, like dark dream catchers. As he did this he'd often be reminded of something new, and he'd return to the desk and begin writing again:
The second time he saw Bill, Phil was sitting on a bench in Preston Cemetery at sunset. He'd spent the morning tending to the plots, clearing them of bramble and nettles. He liked this work: it was simple and repetitive and he could see the difference he'd made at the end of the shift. His father was never far from his thoughts that day, and for the morning remembering him had even eclipsed his search for Graham Hall. At one point his memories had become so vivid that he'd caught himself having a full-blown conversation with him. Not just the mumbling he'd been doing for the hour leading up to it, but a full-throated chat with a memory. He stopped when he realised someone was watching him and sheepishly went back to his work.
Though he was only paid up until 5pm, he worked until almost sunset. He'd allowed himself a longer lunch-break than he was strictly allowed and he preferred to work in the cool of the evening.
As a result, at a little after 8pm, he was sitting with the remains of his lunch and staring into the distance and dreaming about changing the world while the sun went down. His current fantasy had been running for a couple of weeks, on and off. He replayed large parts of it like a film he edited as he watched.
In it, he'd been declared a wanted man by the Government for expressing dangerously liberal views and garnering so much support that it seemed revolution wouldn't be far off. In one last-ditch attempt to stop him he was captured by idealistic young thugs (who he suspected were wardens in disguise) who tortured him, streaming the video live on the internet. He escaped moments before an execution that would have been seen by millions. After killing his captors he drove cross-country to London, where, with helicopter cameras circling, he was reunited tearfully with Madeleine, who told him she loved him, and only him, and always had, and always would. And then he died in her arms, because he couldn't imagine a better way to end it.
Phil was just building up to the big reunion — he was driving the truck and nursing a bullet wound in his side — when Bill suddenly piped up: "Amazing places, cemeteries," he said. This time, Phil did jump, like he'd been caught out.
"I honestly think," Bill went on, "that the world would be a better place if people spent a little longer reflecting on the condition of the dead." Then he looked across at Phil and smiled. And despite his outfit — he was dressed in a rough woollen jumper and jeans, and short wellington boots with a ring of fur around the top (he looked like he should be reading the Sunday papers in a country pub somewhere in Surrey) — Bill's smile did nothing to soften the strange fire that still burnt in his eyes.
"You ok?" Bill asked, after Phil had stared for long enough to establish that he wasn't.
Bill waited.
Phil stared some more.
"You remembered Graham Hall yet?" Bill asked brightly. Then he smiled and waited for Phil to pull himself together.
"Yeah, I…" He was about to start answering questions when it occurred to him to ask: "Who are you?"
"You can call me Bill," he said. "I'm just… visiting some relatives." He gestured indiscriminately at the graves. "Don't worry." Then he breathed deeply and that seemed to settle the discussion. Then he repeated his question: "Have you remembered Graham Hall yet?"
"Well, yeah, maybe…" Phil was unable to shake the feeling that he was still in the middle of a dream. "I wrote this… I remembered it earlier today." He opened the notes app on his phone. "I think it's him…"
Bill smiled and took the phone:
Bill looked up when he'd finished but seemed to roll his eyes a little with a strange kind of disappointment. "That's him alright." He sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "But don't dwell on… that side of things, you know." He looked like he checked himself in thought and then sat back. "There's a lot of Graham Hall that was very hurt; and sometimes he dwelt on it for longer than he should have done. But don't turn it all inwards. Don't blame yourself, son. You were born perfect, and then…" he wafted a hand around at the world, "all this happened… and that's what broke you, really. I understand the pain, Phil, I really do… but don't blame yourself." He looked across at Phil and the fire in his eyes was now a warming Christmas hearth: "It's the world that needs to change, you see, not you."
Phil hung his head. "Yeah," was all he said.
"No, I mean it Phil," Bill said. "If you go through your life blaming yourself all the time, you'll do nothing. And you haven't got the time for that anymore. It's self-indulgent. It's lazy and it's selfish."
That seemed a bit harsh. "What are you talking about?"
"You sit around crying about everything… Madeleine left you, boo-fucking-hoo; your mum never loved you, boo-fucking-hoo; your dad's dead — who gives a shit!" A bit rude! "You gotta move on, Phil. You were designed to deal with these things. Now you can get over them, and be the great man you were meant to be, but you need to get your shit together."
"I'm doing alright," Phil was getting defensive now. "I'm working… I pay my way."
"You are a shadow," Bill whispered. "A shadow of who you could be."
"Yeah… but it's hard…"
"Then you need to be harder!" Bill shoved him. "Your father was broken by what happened to him. But he was a great man. A kind man. And the world fucking destroyed him. Now you need to be driven by the fire of vengeance, not consumed by it."
Phil laughed. "Fucking hell… what am I supposed to do?"
"It's not about you, Phil, it's Hall. Find his rage and channel it. Forget about yourself. His voice will speak for both of you."
Phil had been doing that — it was all he was doing these days.
"Keep looking," Bill said, returning his phone. "Because I'm telling you that dark days are coming. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. But I'm giving you a chance to change this, I just need you to wake up."
Bill looked down the hill, towards the graves, to where two mourners eyed them back, curiously.
"We haven't got the time for self-pity anymore," Bill said, then looked back at him. "You don't need to change, Phil… you need to change the world."
Phil didn't reply. Strangely, even more than Bill's appearance, the idea that Phil might be the one who could do something about the state of society was the thing that really took him by surprise.
"I better get going," Bill said and left in a hurry.
Phil watched him go, lost in thought. But it wasn't until he walked behind a tree and didn't come out the other side that he took a double-take on how weird the whole thing was.
The encounter changed things for Phil; he dropped further into the pit of verse but left behind the pity. He worked incessantly, barely sleeping, rarely eating, but when he wrote it was with the bitter rage of a man empowered by his hatred.
When the well was dry, he'd stand in his room and perform verse to the wall, imagining a world hanging on his every word, and almost hearing the songs that went along with them.
The quiet, uncomfortable, passive man was growing into a noisy, confident, angry one.
He fucking hated his world. He'd always hated it, that was clear, but over the course of those weeks his hate morphed into something with a venom and a purpose that he'd never felt before. It was like a moment of sobriety, or an epiphany — something he'd always known but never fully understood — and his eyes turned outward with Bill's fire in them.
Who were these fucking people?
Not just the influencers — the shallow, narcissistic, vain, egotistical beggars, desperate to be seen and accepted — but their ring-masters as well. The luxurious rich who watched over it all and pretended it was ok and they were deserving of their wealth by virtue of the fact that they were simply so adept at enjoying it.
He often worked on the gardens in Withdean or Roedean or Tongdean; huge houses with long lawns he manicured, and bushes he carefully pruned. He never saw the residents: their gates were opened automatically, security monitored with AI; he held conversations with housekeeping robots who spoke with an imitation of enthusiasm that made him want to smash them into pieces.
The wealth he saw was astonishing. While he worked he ran it over in his head: he earned a few hundred tokens a day for what he did, and a dozen tokens was a Credit, and a few hundred of them was a Sat and a hundred million of them was a Coin. A hundred million… he did the maths as he sifted the soil and trimmed the bushes and looked at the blades of grass… Their wealth was astonishing.
And generated from what?
Everyone knew it was just a matter of luck; thousands of years of economic development had all come down to a game of musical chairs: if you'd ended up Coined after the AI Crash, you were set for life on another level.
Admittedly, some of these people would have sat on the high end of the Civil Credit Score, but most of them were Coined and this was just their seaside pad. These guys worked for the banks, the server centres, and CCTV control rooms; they set the targets, monitored behaviour, and ran the algorithms that ensured compliance. They were the reason his father's payments had been stopped; the reason his father had died alone, in the Slums.
He'd died alone, and in the Slums.
The fucking Slums.
They'd left his father to die in the Slums.
Whatever else he'd done, he hadn't deserved that.
On those days he didn't work so well at his job. On some of those days he was so angry that he either wouldn't do anything, he'd just stand and stare at a rose bush as though he was going to smash it in the face, or he'd work at small pieces of horticultural sabotage. It was pathetic really, but he'd over-trim the bushes or mis-plant the bulbs, or feed weedkiller into the wrong patch of flowers, or lay rodent bait with no trap. He'd pull healthy shoots or leave stems he should have cut, dreaming strange revenge fantasies of Triffid-style plants strangling the home-owners with bloody, thorny arms.
Why was he here anyway, giving his life over to the demands of excess?
He hated them all. Not just the rich, but the whole fucking lot of them. He'd stare at the robotic housecleaners patrolling carefully designed living rooms, imagining them as prison guards, patrolling the perimeter fence.
Besides, he didn't have to work. He had a score still; it wouldn't last him long, that was true, but long enough that he could do something that would be remembered. He wouldn't turn to anything as petty as Attention Grabbing for Credit; he'd rather go down in a blaze of glory and burn the fucking lot of them.
On some of those days, he left work feeling ten feet high, his resolution making him a king amongst men. But then he'd get home and Hall would be there waiting for him; his aching heart would be there again, still searching for love amidst the shame. It worked like a shot of cold truth that reminded him of his place.
On some of those days he'd go out walking, and get some distance, and try to forget about Graham Hall.
On one of those days, the days he couldn't face the search for Hall, he climbed up into the flat's loft area. He'd been up there before, moving some boxes around, and he knew there was a beam that he thought could work. He was never sure about the drop space though — you needed to pick up enough speed to break it, but had to make sure you didn't hit the ground first. He needed a long enough rope to leave a small gap between his feet and the floor. He thought this could do it.
But was that right? He had nothing left to give, he didn't believe anything would change, and it seemed like a waste of a life to have him here in this strange limbo. Life meant nothing to him anymore. But wasn't that a gift? Couldn't he use that power to do something amazing before he was gone? He had no need for regret, no fear of the end; that made him powerful. And maybe Hall was a path to somewhere…
On that day, he went out and he walked all across Brighton — along Hove lawns and up Kingsway and then North into Aldrington and past Hove station, Denmark Villas, and along the Shoreham Road to Seven Dials. He knew these streets well, he'd driven along them to jobs. A lot of the blocks there used to be flats, but more recently they'd been converted back into town houses for the London wealthy to visit when the mood took them.
He dropped down New England Road and past the old Duke of York's Picturehouse — the oldest cinema in the country apparently. When he'd first arrived in Brighton it was famous for still showing old movies, 20th Century classics, but it was bought out a few years ago and now screened the same shit as everywhere else: AI-generated hero films. They had some posters up, but even he knew that no-one went anymore and it was just a space in limbo until someone could decide what to do with it.
He turned away from town and walked up Ditchling Rise and down the other side, then doubled back towards the Level. He stopped for a long time by St Peter's Church, staring up at it and lost in thought. It was empty now. Derelict. They'd tried to turn it into a performance area a few years ago, but there was no-one left to perform and the only time anything had happened in it recently was when some kids had broken in for a stunt. They'd been fined, but the fine wasn't anything compared to what they'd made in exposure.
There was nothing left here, in this wilderness. Nothing had value anymore. He looked around him, in the black of night, amidst the plastic glow of streetlights, at a barren wasteland of a space. Inside every building he'd walked past, people would have been eagerly generating digital distractions but the space itself — the real world — was lost to them. There was an alien kind of silence about it all that made Phil feel alone but exalted, because he did see it. He walked to a tree and put a hand on its trunk. He fucking loved trees. They just did their thing; there was no desire to be any more than they were. He laughed at himself as he thought that, but he believed in it enough to bring himself back to sobriety and think the thought again.
Suddenly there was a shout from across the street and he looked across and saw a lone male, dressed in torn jeans, with a dirty top on and no shoes. He was shouting at himself and then out and into the night and then he punched himself in the chest and collapsed to his knees. In a moment, he looked behind him and then scrambled to his feet and ran. A car pulled up and two wardens exited and grabbed him and dragged him, kicking and shouting, into the car. A few windows cracked light as curtains were parted and then the car drove off and the windows were blackened out again. Phil was left with his hand on the trunk still, in the silent darkness again.
Was that what awaited him?
He reminded himself that he couldn't lose this job.
He had nothing else. He had no-one else.
He would remain silent and play the game and then die alone.
Sometimes he hated the fact, but the fact remained: he was his father's son.
In the end, the decision was made for him.
His manager was young, with a head of curls like a wire brush. He was clean-shaven and wore a suit. His hands were soft and had never touched dirt in their lives. He didn't smile as Phil entered the room, and throughout their interview never once looked like anyone other than someone who enjoyed what they did.
"Your work is simply below par," he said. "When you do anything at all."
He gestured to a monitor and tapped his keyboard. The video showed Phil, in one of the gardens in Withdean. Phil was standing, stock still, and staring at the house. The bushes near to him rustled gently in the wind, but to look at Phil it could almost have been a photograph. He let the video play for a while before speaking again.
"Plants do respond well to humans, and so, by chance, you had a good opportunity here. One of the few real jobs that remain. But I'm afraid that we won't be continuing with your contract." He smiled. "I'm sure you understand."