I came to England when I was seventeen. I know what hard work is. Or, with the mistake in English I still always make, I know what is hard work. You speak a little of my language, or I would not trust you with this story.
Daniel Mendonça operates the till all night while I pull coffee, so he can afford to work. He has a smart job in an office, for the parliament, but they do not pay. He waits until they offer him a real contract when he will never have to know what is hard work.
I would like the same thing for my son, but only if they pay.
One night last month, three men in jeans and blazers came to the café. They wore pink shirts and they laughed with women. Daniel tried to change places with me so they would not see him. It was too late. They recognised him and laughed like drunkards. One of the men, a ginger, stayed behind. I heard him say to Daniel, “We’ll hook you up, but first you must…” And then he told what Daniel must do. I was right there but that did not stop him. Perhaps he thought I did not speak or I am slow.
Same morning, when we closed our shift, the owner came. Daniel and I have zero-hours contracts. Nothing guaranteed, but you work when called, then you are paid. By custom, still, the night belongs to me and Daniel. The day before, a daytime girl had left. Daniel must take her shift instead. “No,” said Daniel, “there’s my other job.”
“You work for me,” the owner said, “or you do not work, you choose.”
I followed Daniel to see what he would choose. He did not go to his other work. He took the bus from Fulham past the estate where he still lives but stayed on almost to Hyde Park. I pulled my hood up so he would look through me. He walked up to a huge apartment block. It had its own driveway, with water running through a piece of art. He knew the combination for the gate but I was lucky and slipped straight through after. I told myself he would see only the cleaner. He already learned acting like he does not know hard work.
He went to the third floor, and also there he knew the combination. He let himself into one apartment. It had no rooms, just like the place the party gave my grandmother but twice the size. In the round bed was an Arab man. Daniel saw the man asleep and smothered his head under a silk pillow.
And now Daniel does not operate the till. I saw him in a newspaper at work. That is a story of success, it said, this bright young Portuguese lad from a council flat.
I will send my son back home to Belgrade, where no-one laughs at waiters and we know what is hard work.
Alex Fleetwood is a writer and anthropologist who lives on the south coast of England. Her fiction has appeared in Collective Fallout and The Future Fire.
GD Star Rating
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20 Responses to “THE MEANING OF HARD WORK • by Alex Fleetwood”
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December 12th, 2010 at 12:59 am
I found this piece difficult to follow and too ‘telly’.
The occasional error in English thrown to show the MC wasn’t a native English speaker didn’t help. Consistent errors would have helped with voice rather than a scattering of pronunciation mistakes that ended up sounding like bad grammar.
I’m not that easily offended, but the use of outdated racial and lifestyle stereotypes didn’t really impress me. What with ‘pink shirts’ and the term ‘a ginger’ (London slang meaning ‘ginger beer – queer’) as well as the Arab man in the round bed (the Arab World stretches from Morocco to Kuwait to Lebanon, making Arabs as varied as Europeans), I found the piece vaguely distasteful.
December 12th, 2010 at 3:41 am
We certainly didn’t select this piece with the sense that it could offend anyone — in fact, I can recall a conversation about whether or not “ginger” as a term for a redhead was considered offensive, and given the context of the story, the pink shirt detail made me think “fashion-conscious yuppies” rather than “homosexuals” (which just shows how open to interpretation story details can be). I’m further puzzled by the suggestion that there’s something offensive about the murder victim being an Arab.
All of that having been said, my apologies to Paul and anyone else who finds anything offensive in this (or any other) story, and please feel welcome to contact us if you have serious concerns about any of the content on our site. We are an inclusive and alternative-lifestyle-friendly magazine and have no wish to offend or marginalize anyone.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:48 am
While I didn’t find this a perfect story, I believe it was not intended to be offensive. (I don’t doubt Mr. Freeman’s sincerity.) I’m not sure that ginger meant homosexual; I also took it to mean hair color. But if it did, it just showed the character to be a hard-edged man who had grown up in a brutalizing environment.
So much for the controversy. As for the story itself . . . The repetition of “known what is hard work” was an excellent device, because it had slightly different meanings at each iteration.
The one thing that I could not digest: that the narrator observes the murder as it is happening and doesn’t do anything. He could have followed Daniel to the address and observed the break-in, and then found out the next day he killed a man. Or he could have watched and thought, “In Belgrade, I learned never to interfere with a criminal unless you want to become victim yourself.” Something that would have made him still be a reasonably sympathetic narrator. But as is, I can’t buy him just watching that happen.
December 12th, 2010 at 8:04 am
I wasn’t offended by the story. The ending may have been a little bit unbelievable, but up to that point, I felt for the plight of the immigrants struggling to make a living. (I’m from the U.S. I had no idea ginger meant anything other than red hair.)
December 12th, 2010 at 8:21 am
An interesting immigrant’s tale; I wasn’t offended, but I wasn’t enthralled, either.
Write1Sub1
December 12th, 2010 at 8:26 am
The only problem I had with the story was that the writer did not have control over the English language. It is very difficult to write well in any language if it is not your native language. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. This story is not one of them.
December 12th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Echoing Milo………..
three……..stars ?????
December 12th, 2010 at 9:09 am
I loved this story because of its thriller like plotline. I half expected the main character to tur villian and murder Daniel before he got to the other man’s apartment. And I certianly wasn’t expecting a murder, what a surprise!
I think the author *is* a natiave English speaker but was writing the story as a non-natiave.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:10 am
I don’t normally consider myself intellectually deficient, but I could hardly follow this story. I’m still not sure what happened other than Daniel smothered someone.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:31 am
I was able to figure out the story but it took me two readings. The attempt at POV from an immigrant from Belgrade, who speaks limited English, was commendable but the experiment ultimately failed for me.
The question about “ginger” has even another twist. Although I had established the story was set in England, “ginger” has been used in America to distinguish between the varying hues of African Americans. So, it added another layer of confusion for me, wondering if the slang word meant the same across the pond.
@ Paul–I made the same “pink shirt” connection = homosexual, especially the allusion in the paragraph that Daniel didn’t want to be seen, and what the men may have asked him to do (we don’t really know, except to fill in what we want after the ellipses.) There were so many ways that whole paragraph could be interpreted depending on the reader. I wasn’t so much offended as I was puzzled although I can see your point.
Three stars for the attempt and the resulting conflict of opinions.
December 12th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Not my favourite story. However, regarding the Victim being referred to as, “Arab”. I don’t see the problem. Sure, it would be politically incorrect if you knew fur sure the nationality of the person in question, but still referred to them generically as “Arab”. The character in this story however, doesn’t know, and doesn’t seem like the type of character that cares that much about it. But even then if the character were being politically incorrect or even intentionally being offenive, creating such a character, or writing a story with such a character, does not inherently make the author or the story so. I personally know people who still refer to people from China, Japan, Thailand collectively as Orientals and Asians. If I were to write a story from one of these peoples points of view however, that would not make me or my story bad, it would just be a reflection of people who actually exist and think in such a way.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Very interesting voice here. The syntax (which some found hard to follow) was the reason I gave it 5 stars. A very fresh voice.
Anyone who was offended by this piece needs a hobby.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
I agree with Geoff Moehrs above; I liked the syntax.
December 12th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
I’m afraid I read this story about a total of seven times and could not make heads or tails out of it. But given some of the comments above, I will give it 3 stars. Would love to hear what the author intended if she is so inclined.
Thanks,
Buddy
December 13th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Just to clarify, ‘a ginger’ as written in this piece is London slang (and the story is set in London) meaning ‘a queer’.
What disturbed me about the ‘Arab’ being killed so offhandedly was that even though the MC (mysteriously) saw the crime, it wasn’t deemed noteworthy enough to think twice about, let alone report to the police.
As for getting a hobby goes, I think I’ll start watching ‘Top Gear’ where I see Jeremy Clarkeson got into trouble for saying a car was ‘a bit too ginger’ for his liking.
December 13th, 2010 at 3:08 am
@Paul–Thanks for the London slang information. For a story I didn’t really like, I’ll probably vaguely remember it now every time I hear the word “ginger.”
December 13th, 2010 at 6:50 am
All ‘ginger’ means to me is a red-head, but we’re from the midlands.
Once I got into the flow of the voice I was all right, and I knew right away what was to be expected of Daniel. It bought to mind a problem Canada is having in the west with young Somali men; gangs and initiations. Homosexuality never crossed my mind.
I also would be interested in the author’s mind set when she wrote it. If she’s so inclined. If not, I look forward to her next story.
December 30th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
[...] (very) short story ‘The Meaning of Hard Work’ is now up at Every Day Fiction. Enjoy! Posted by hampshireflyer Filed in is in print Leave a Comment » LikeBe the [...]
December 30th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this, & in particular I’m sorry that some of the images in the story caused offence to some of you–that certainly wasn’t an effect I wanted to produce.
Replying to that point in more detail : I lived in London for years & never personally heard the word ‘ginger’ to mean a gay man–but that could just reflects my age or the parts of London that I lived in–& I certainly won’t dispute other commenters’ awareness of the term. I certainly didn’t intend it or the clothing to signal that the character was gay–what I had in mind was a younger James Hewitt type, with his social class & privilege relative to Daniel & the narrator being the most important thing.
In describing the murder victim as an ‘Arab’ it’s much as Eric said–I was limited by what the narrator could perceive at that moment–though it’s a valid criticism that by making the story slightly longer I could have done more to establish his identity & origin. Thank you.
Thanks also for the comments on the voice more generally. I was challenging myself to keep the story as tight as possible when I wrote this piece–working at this length is a departure for me–though I agree now the narrator’s reasons for not involving the police would have been worth exploring.
Anyway, thank you for taking the trouble to read & comment, & please let me apologise again if the language created messages beyond what I intended to convey.
December 30th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Well I gave this amazing story 5 stars because I was immediately hooked from the beginning to its very harrowing conclusion. It is bleak and sparse and a complete story – everything is wrapped up – there are no loose ends and I was immediately drawn in by the narrative and the narrator.
Thanks for the read.