Arthur was startled by the rattle on his window. He jumped in panic, his heart fluttering, his memory somewhere outside Thelma’s door wondering what to do next.
‘We’re done here, Arthur.’ It was Tina. ‘It’s time to get smartened up. We can’t have a scruff driving us around. There’s a fabulous gents’ outfitters on the next block. We’ll go there, please.’
The women bundled themselves into the back of the cab, babbling in excited but hushed tones to each other. Their words were indistinct, hovering on the inaudible. Arthur attempted to focus but was still dazed from his nap. ‘Sorry ladies, where did you wanna go again?’
‘Left around the next block. It’s only a hundred and fifty yards.’
‘Sure.’ He peeled into the traffic and drove into a street he didn’t recognise. Buildings rose tall and high and gave the impression of closing upon each other at their summits, with only a slim shaft of natural light filtering to ground level.
They stopped outside a tailor’s named Millingtons. The establishment’s signage had beige lettering on a board that complemented the wooden door and surrounds. A couple of mannequins adorned the shelves behind the shop’s glass frontage, both dressed in morning suits. It was the sort of place that reeked of pretention, and Arthur’s spirits sagged. The last thing he wanted was to swap his nice, comfortable work gear for some stiff old outfit that had gone out of fashion with Frank Sinatra. But he’d a feeling that was how he was going to wind up, and imagined what the boys at the depot would make of it. He cringed. Davide and Rolf would rip him to pieces, and his life would be intolerable, and as for Taylor… she’d think he was out to impress someone new, like he was having an affair or something. Heck, dressed in one of the suits he imagined would be purveyed inside this shop, he would think he was having an affair.
Lara said, ‘Right, Arthur, you come with us. It’s time you got dressed.’
This was not good at all. Helpless, he tried to object. ‘Youse ladies don’t need to go to all this trouble. I’m cool the way I am.’
The three of them laughed before Lara said, ‘We said already… you have to look the part. We can’t turn up to our business meetings with you dressed for filling a dumpster. Come along, before time catches up with us.’
Arthur’s face flushed. ‘Hey… that’s not fair,’ he said, but the women had already entered the shop, and he’d no alternative but to follow them inside.
Afterwards he returned the ladies to his depot through rush hour traffic. The journey was slow, made ponderous by a glut of tourists and commuters edging their way home. Two brown paper bags sat on his passenger seat. One contained a set of fresh white shirts, the other his t-shirt and pants, discarded in a crumpled-up ball. The tailor in Millingtons had observed him with disgust as he rolled the clothes together and crushed them into a ball on the wrapping paper beside his kicks. Then, at arms’ length, the tailor had cut the paper, folded it over Arthur’s gear, and knotted the bundle with a length of string, all the while holding his nose in the air as if Arthur’s old attire offended him.
Arthur was too embarrassed to care. He wanted out of the building and away from the snotty-faced man. He’d been correct in his assumption about the place: Millingtons wasn’t his sort of establishment. He’d happily sit in his cab outside while a passenger went to purchase something, but it was the sort of store he’d never visit himself.
He caught a glimpse of himself in his mirror and conceded that, despite his reservations, the end result had made his appearance snappier. He wouldn’t tell the ladies that of course, wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing him say it. Besides, the single-breasted charcoal grey suit and matching Oxfords simply weren’t him. The shoes may have been as snug as slippers but he wanted his kicks back on.
He’d been forced to buy cufflinks, too. The tailor had snorted with derision at Arthur’s attempts to put them on, which flustered Arthur entirely. He’d never worn cufflinks, not even for Uncle Kenny’s or Aunt Sylvia’s funerals. Such metal studs were nothing but an unnecessary frivolity in his opinion. Yet, their weighing scale motif was met with approval by the three ladies, and went well with the shirts he’d bought to go with the ensemble.
There was also the hat. Someone had placed it on his passenger’s seat while he’d been dressing up in the suit. The women hadn’t owned up to giving him it, at least not directly, but commented gleefully that it was the perfect match for his new suit. They’d made him wear it immediately, telling him he was now a proper chauffeur. That was not what he would have called himself.
He drew to a halt in Kaufman Cabs’ car lot, obligated to get out of the vehicle to open the passenger door. His effort was greeted by a theatrical, ‘Thank you, sir,’ from Lara, and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. He scanned the parking lot, happy to discover they were alone.
‘Are we done now?’ he asked them.
Chloe shook her head. ‘We’ve only just started. There’s much to do. Can you collect us here at eight a.m. tomorrow, please? And wear that outfit. We can’t have you backsliding into your old habits, can we?’
He mumbled a reply, cursing his luck.
‘What was that?’ she asked.
‘I’ll be here.’
‘At eight a.m.?’
‘Yeah. At eight. What do youse want from me, blood?’
Chloe was shocked. ‘Heavens no… we only need you to drive us to our appointments. So… we shall see you in the morning. Shall we go, ladies?’ Arthur waited until they’d sauntered onto the sidewalk and out of sight before reaching into his cab for his old clothes. They might insist he wear his new clothes in the morning, but until then he was going to dress exactly as he pleased.
Leave a Reply