Chapter Three

Scarlet and apricot hues stained the sky as the transit rumbled back down to the city. Looking to be a decent day tomorrow as the incipient moon hovered overhead.
As last in, Ryan was first off. But that just left him with more time than he really knew what to do with. He stood for a moment, then walked over to the chippy. The guy who owned it had an interest in crocodiles from an early age which is why he only had one arm now. He was given to serving difficult customers with his hook. Ryan got cod and a chip and went home. He walked past the shops, whose wall acted like a community notice board.
There was still the same announcement there that had been up for the last four months: 'IAN BEALE CLYMIDA'. Exactly how it was written.

Ryan got to his front door and went in. He got the plate out and sat in the living room and ate while watching TV. He had a TV as he had nothing else to do until bed just before 9. Evening after evening was the same. He pushed his tea aside when finished, belched and then settled into viewing for the next five hours.
Weirdly, he enjoyed the stability. He got up each day before dawn, worked and then came home, watched TV and went to bed. If he had a day off he just watched TV. He never went out unless he was cajoled into doing so by Frank or one of the others.
He was 25 years old and had calmly spent the last five years of his life in this way.

But there was a reason for this stable nothingness and it was a good one.
Aged just four days old, Ryan had been abandoned in a break room at Euston station in London where he was found by the staff. The only identifying feature had been an arm-band with the name 'Ryan' written on it. Though it wasn't clear if this was the family name or his first name. It was how he was known anyway. His parents were never traced. He was put in a children's home in Southwark during the search period. Adoption was delayed and after that didn't happen for various daft reasons. He became institutionalised. When he started fighting with other boys, he was put into fostering.
His first home was with the Harris family in Essex. Coming towards his teens, he fancied their daughter something rotten which only lead to a fight with her older brother and Ryan being moved on.
By age 14 he'd been with no fewer than eight different foster families until he was moved in with the Sinclairs, a retired couple living in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. They, at least, tried to be parents to him though it was really a stopgap until he would be leaving school at 16. He lived with them for a further year after that and they gave him a proper first name, 'George' and let him use their surname to get his National Insurance number.

Despite signs of having a quick mind, George Sinclair, who still was known as Ryan left school with no qualifications and went to work in a succession of call centres. He got his own place through the Housing Executive on the Cregagh Road in Belfast and seemed settled at long last.
When he was 20 though, he got into a fight with a couple of guys who had just started working at the call centre he'd been transferred to. Bored shitless, they'd started making prank calls on the machines. Ryan who, after four years, hadn't a notion how to call out, got blamed as they used his phone when he went on a break. That was just the way things were. So he in turn reported the real culprits and the whole atmosphere froze from then on.
As they were walking past him the next day to the smoke room, one of them said to the other:
'Coming out for a smoke?'
'Aye...'
Then pointedly at Ryan said:
'Coming out for a lynching? Ya fuckin' tout.'
That did it. Ryan had enough and left the job that day. He didn't leave the house then for four weeks until he was offered the grave-digging job by social services. He took it, even more determined now that his life would settle down to being stable, whether he enjoyed it or not.

About ten minutes before bed, Ryan switched off the power and sat silently in the dark. Then he got up and went upstairs. That morning he was up at half 3 as ever.