By Pan Pantziarka

“Mr Perkins? It’s Alan Edwards, from the council.” Edwards, standing by the front door, waited for some sign of recognition from the old man jealously guarding the entrance. There was none. Instead the old man gazed at him sullenly.

“I called yesterday,” Edwards persisted, keeping his voice calm despite his rising irritation. “From the council,” he repeated, knowing that the phrase was normally enough to gain entrance. “It’s about the bins,” he added finally.

“I know,” Perkins replied eventually, his slightly hoarse voice positively oozing hostility, “I’m not stupid. What do you want?”

“I want to come in,” Edwards admitted. It was cold and wet and he didn’t fancy holding the interview out there on the door step. “We need to discuss this issue and find a satisfactory solution.”

“Get the buggers to take the rubbish,” Edwards stated flatly. “That’ll resolve the issue once and for all.”

“Please, Mr Perkins,” Edwards sighed, “it’ll be much easier all round if we can discuss this sensibly.”

The old man snorted derisively, but finally he stepped back and opened the door for Edwards to pass.

The sitting room looked old and shabby, with ancient furniture, stained carpets and faded photographs on the mantle-piece. There was a big black TV in one corner, a monstrous beast that would have been the height of technology fifteen or twenty years earlier. Apart from the TV there were no other signs of encroaching technology. For Edwards it was not untypical, he saw a lot of places like it. He thought it was a shame really, because done up nicely a lot of these old terraces could really be worth something.

“That’s my chair,” the old man said, as the younger man was about to take a seat.

Edwards put on an apologetic smile and shifted to the other side of the room. He’d known before coming out that Perkins was going to be an awkward old sod, but the old guy really was really going overboard in being unpleasant. That’s what happened sometimes when old people lived on their own, Edwards knew, ist just made them bloody-minded all the time.

“So what d’you want?” Perkins demanded after making himself comfortable in his chair.

“It’s about the bins,” Edwards began.

“I told you,” the old man snapped, “I’m not stupid. I know it’s about the bloody bins. I want them emptied.”

Edwards was still wearing his fixed grin. Game face for dealing with old gits. He had to keep calm – that was part of the job. Keeping calm. “Good,” he said brightly, “we all want to do the same thing, Mr Perkins, which is to get your bins emptied. I’m here to see that we can sort this out so that it happens not just once, but every week.”

There was no response from the old man, who sat impassively, waiting for more.

Edwards realised the old bugger wasn’t going to give an inch. “Now, as you know,” he continued, “the council has a series of policies in place to ensure that we meet all of our statutory requirements on recycling, land-fill reduction, carbon neutrality and so on. These requirements come from central government and from Europe. Do you understand all that?”

Perkins nodded. “It’s all bollocks,” he said. “And it’s more than that anyway. You lot are going further than that.”

Edwards nodded. “That’s right, Mr Perkins, we take our responsibilities very seriously. The council aims to exceed the statutory requirements, which we view as a set of minimum targets, not maximum.”

“Even more bollocks,” Perkins murmured.

“Now, as you know,” Edwards continued, warming to the theme, “pursuant to those policies we’ve switched to a multi-bin mode of refuse collection. Black bin, blue, light green, dark green and a separate treatment of glass. You understand all that?”

“It’s just rubbish,” the old man mumbled.

It wasn’t clear to Edwards whether Perkins was saying that the policy was rubbish or whether all of the refuse was just rubbish. “These are the policies,” he stated flatly. “And any bins that contain the wrong kind of waste will not be cleared by our operatives. Hence our current situation.”

Perkins glared across the room. “I put plastics in the blue bin,” he said. “Just like I’m bloody supposed to. And still the buggers won’t take them away.”

Edwards sighed. This was always tricky for the elderly to get hold of. For them things were always so simplistic. “Let me try and explain it again,” he suggested. “Strictly speaking we’re only collecting PET 2 and PET 5 plastics in the blue bins. But we’re not inhuman, we allow some lee-way, Mr Perkins, but films and carrier bags are not allowed. We’re very clear on that.”

The old man bristled visibly. “I haven’t thrown any film away.”

Edwards stifled a laugh. “I think you’ve misunderstood, Mr Perkins, we don’t mean camera film. We mean things like cling-film, polythene, that kind of thing. And, I’m afraid to say your blue bin was stuffed full of that kind of material. And single-use carrier bags.”

“I put those in the dark green bins,” Perkins insisted.

Edwards shook his head. “Only carrier bags made from corn starch or other biological feed-stock can go in the hot composting bin.”

Perkins seemed to get angrier. “I haven’t got a bloody certificate in plastics,” he snapped. “I just want to put stuff in the bin. Like we used to.”

Edwards shuffled his papers and pulled out the newspaper cutting. “Indeed,” he said, “after your last court case you were quoted as saying ‘Is this what we’ve come to? Spending our days sifting through our waste.’”

“I didn’t say it like that,” Perkins responded, “but it’s what I meant alright.”

Edwards sighed. “It’s not just the plastics. The black bin, the smallest of the lot, is always over-flowing. It’s small for a reason, Mr Perkins, it’s the general waste bin. It’s the one we intend to ultimately eliminate completely. Yet you persist in over-filling it.”

“It’s not my fault I fill it up.”

“I’m afraid I disagree, Mr Perkins. Since your wife passed away you’re on your own. How is it one man can fill it when we have other families who manage not to?”

“Because some of the buggers round here use mine.”

Edwards eyes widened. “Are you making a specific accusation, Mr Perkins? Do you have names and dates? We would be more than happy to launch the formal complaints procedure.”

Perkins laughed suddenly. “You want me to grass on my neighbours? I know, grass goes in the light green bin.”

Edwards was not amused. “We do not take anti-social behaviour lightly. And believe me, dumping rubbish in someone else’s bin is very much within our definition of anti-social.”

“I’m making no complaint,” Perkins stated flatly.

“Did they dump the tea bags in the black bin?” Edwards persisted.

“No, that was me. Tea bags are not food. So I put them in the black bin. Do you eat tea bags? Is that how you count them as food?”

There was nothing for it, Edwards realised. Perkins was being wilfully difficult.

“Do you have any help here?”

Perkins eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Social services say you no longer have a home help. There’s no record of any kind of support. Do you have some kind of informal support network to help you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Finally the old boy was beginning to sound engaged. Edwards flicked through the paperwork. “I see you have no children. Effectively, Mr Perkins, you are completely on your own. Is that correct?”

“What’s this got to do with my bloody bins being emptied? I’m on my own, alright. I’ve got my pension from the Co-op. I was a butcher there for thirty years odd. That was when we had butchers. And bin-men who’d take your bin when it was full.”

Edwards raised a hand to cut the old man short. “All this has to do with competency, Mr Perkins. I’ve discussed this at our last multi-team meeting. My colleagues from Social Services are agreed that this business with rubbish suggests that you’re not able to look after yourself any more.”

“That’s rubbish,” Perkins responded, but he no longer sounded so confident.

“You see we’re finding that there’s a correlation between the ability to follow waste disposal policy and general social functioning.”

“Are you threatening me?” Perkins asked, looking confused. Old and confused, Edwards noted quickly on his pad.

“There’s no threat,” he explained calmly. “Warden-controlled housing is perfectly suited to a man in your circumstances.”

Perkins looked uncomfortable. For one awful moment Edwards was convinced that the old man would make a scene and start crying.

“It’s three o’clock,” Perkins realised. “I have my tea and some biscuits at three.”

He stood, unsteadily, and went into the kitchen. It seemed to Edwards that the old man had suddenly aged another ten years. Or rather the hostile front had all been a façade to cover up the fact that he was unable to cope on his own any more. Sheltered housing would probably be a relief once the shock had worn off.

Edwards was still writing his notes when the old man returned.

“Where would I put something like this? Is it the black bin?”

Edwards barely had time to register the knife. Perkins was saying “Six inch boning knife, Sheffield steel, wooden handle.”

The papers flew across the room as Edwards jumped out of his seat. “Please, Mr Perkins, put that down.”

“I like my house here,” the old man said, keeping the knife in front of him. “It might not look like much, but I worked bloody hard to get this house. Me and Margaret.”

“Be reasonable, Mr Perkins,” Edwards said, trying to edge towards the door.

“Reasonable? Tell me that your bloody bins are reasonable.”

Perkins had the door covered, Edwards realised. “There’s no need to threaten me. I’m just doing my job. That’s all, Mr Perkins.”

“But you love it so much,” Perkins murmured.

“Please, Mr Perkins, you’ll just make things worse. You’ll go to prison.”

“Then maybe I should gut you. Make it worth the effort. What bin do I put you in? Where would you like to lie?”

Edwards, shaking, feinted to one side and then was out the door.

The old man slumped into a chair and started to cry. The knife lay in his lap, cold, sharp and a memory of a life that had once been his.

© Pan Pantziarka, 2020. All rights reserved.