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gaffer, slapped the front of the van as he mooched past and told us not to bother going anywhere
     with our tools. ‘Gonna rain today, lads,’ he said, but the rest of the gang was already arriving, so we figured we might as
     well make a show of it.
    ‘They reckon it’s going to chuck it down today,’ was Stuart’s assessment when we met him at the bottom of the ladder. Nobby
     agreed and said his missus had phoned up from Slough to tell him it was already bucketing down there.
    ‘What do we want to do?’ Nobby asked, as Big John, Tommy and little Mick all came over to join us. It was pretty obvious what
     little Mick wanted to do from the way he’d left his hod in the car but Gordon had the final say. He was the subby (the subcontractor
     ergo the boss), it was his shout.
    ‘Well, it ain’t raining now, is it, so get up that ladder and lay some fucking bricks, you lazy bastards. Mick, go and get
     a roll of plastic from the compound and we’ll get everything covered up in case it starts coming down.’
    The great rain debate went on for another half an hour, each of us stopping every few bricks or so to feel the wind, until
     eight o’clock brought a skyful of cats and dogs with it.
    ‘Told ya,’ Jason pointed out helpfully.
    We covered up what we’d done and retreated to the van to read the Sun and watch the rain teem down the windscreen in rivers before Jason came to the conclusion that this was it for the day and
     started on his sandwiches.
    ‘Cheese and chutney again. I thought we’d seen the last of that jar,’ Jason frowned at his Sandriches , so named after their creator, Sandra. ‘What have you got? Wanna swap?’ he asked, without waiting to hear what I’d got. We
     thrashed out a deal that saw one round of cheese and chutney and a Scotch egg coming my way in exchange for my fish paste
     doorstep and a Club biscuit, then we read our Sun s from cover to cover until we both needed a stretch.
    The rest of the lads were holed up in a newly tiled house and were debating how long to give it before they chucked in the
     towel and called it a day.
    ‘Any inside work going?’ Big John asked Gordon. He had a few windowsills and a couple of houses that needed scraping out but
     nothing that was going to keep the nine of us in Caribbean holidays so he told Robbie to go and wash the mixer out and the
     rest of us to point up the few courses we’d laid and go home.
    ‘How depressing,’ was the general consensus.
    I checked my watch. What was that, half an hour’s worth of work? Gordon would probably give us the hour but that wouldn’t
     add up to more than ten quid once we’d covered the cost of our petrol and cheese and chutney.
    ‘Still, worth it, though, weren’t it?’ Robbie reckoned when we dropped him off at Thornton Heath roundabout and told him we’d
     see him tomorrow.
    ‘What are you going to do today?’ Jason asked, when he pulled up outside my place.
    ‘I don’t know. You up for a quick half at lunchtime?’ I tried.
    ‘No, can’t, I’m afraid. Sandra’ll have me working on the kitchen, so no booze for Jason today,’ Jason said, talking about
     himself in that weird other-person way he sometimes did whenever Sandra was calling the shots. I sympathised with the both
     of them then climbed out of the van and into the rain.
    ‘Meant to piss down again tomorrow,’ he called up the path after me, then pulled away and went home to give himself a hand
     with the kitchen.
    I had a shower, a cup of tea and a couple of digestive biscuits, in that very order, then stood at the kitchen window and
     looked out at the rain for a bit. It was really coming down.
    There’s something about watching rain that’s spellbinding. I particularly love it when the wind gets hold of it and really
     whips it against the window, though this can lose a lot of its allure when you’re cupping your hands against the outside of
     the double glazing and looking at a set of keys, an umbrella and your