Читать книгу The Earlier Trials of Alan Mewling - A.C. Bland - Страница 8

He briefly conferred with Escher Burgoyne about the task his comrades had allocated to him, then left the tea room, feeling both trusted and important. However, when – two steps along the corridor, heading in the direction of his own bay – he heard his name called twice in a low voice from the direction of a large pot plant, the resurgent sense of purpose he experienced was immediately quashed. A blackened eye peered at him through a gap in the foliage.

“Quick,” whispered Quentin Quist, “before I’m spotted, tell me what was decided.”

Alan didn’t want to be sighted by passers-by talking to a shrub and he certainly didn’t want to be observed revealing the outcomes of a union meeting to a member of the Industrial Relations Section … but he couldn’t really pretend not to have heard Quist, having made eye contact through the leaves.

“The rabble,” Quist said, “are they going to strike?”

“I can’t reveal anything about the resolutions of the membership,” said Alan. “You know that.”

“But you still want to be working here when the struggle is done, don’t you?” said Quist.

“Of course,” said Alan, looking anxiously around.

“Then meet me in the toilies in five minutes.”

“I can’t,” said Alan. He’d not previously been party to lavatory assignations of any sort and, now that he was ostensibly a bachelor, believed it especially undesirable to be meeting other men in such places.

“The ones closest to Committee Support,” said Quist.

“But I’m not permitted to talk about union business.”

“It’s your career,” said Quist, “not that it ever amounted to much.”

The gap in the greenery closed and Quist disappeared from view.

Alan wondered what it was about his character that prompted union members to entrust him with important work, yet caused Quentin Quist to think him capable of a double-agent’s duplicity.

His instinct was to return to his work station and commence a substantial task – something that would distract him from all the current ructions and uncertainties – something that would so engross him that he’d be prevented from meeting with Quist. For, although he was a man who effortlessly distinguished right from wrong, he was disposed at this point to revealing things of minor import to Quist in aid of his own cause, fearing as he did for his future.

That future – or the future more generally – was the subject of such animated discussion in his work area when he returned to it that the possibility of losing himself in any diversion seemed remote.

“There’s a message on the computer from the secretary,” said Morton. “It seems we’ve got a staffing freeze.”

In the few months during which the email system had been operative, no ‘all staff’ messages had been sent and it certainly hadn’t occurred to anyone that the secretary of the department might one day communicate directly with each of them, by electronic means.

“Are you sure it’s from her?” Alan asked.

“It’s from her email address,” said Morton.

Alan looked at the in tray on top of his desk; old habits were hard to break. He still expected the most important news to be waiting for him there.

“See for yourself,” said O’Kane, pointing to his own screen.

“A freeze won’t help my job-swap plans,” said Hemingway, before leaving the bay.

“The flamboyant one is right,” said O’Kane. “If there is a freeze, we can’t avoid the axe by swapping with people from other branches who want to go.”

Alan enlivened his screen and looked down the endless red list of emails: messages which had arrived since he’d last logged on.

“Maybe they’ve introduced the freeze,” said Trevithick, “because they want vacancies to move us into, as people retire and resign.”

“No one gets moved during a true freeze,” said O’Kane, “that’s the point of it.”

“In which case,” said Morton, “our branch shouldn’t be getting the chop.”

Alan found, in the secretary’s message, no answers to the questions harrying his equanimity. He felt, by turns, apprehensive, anxious and despondent.

“But the freeze surely won’t affect me,” said Barbara Best, looking at Alan. “I will still have the opportunity to act in Quentin’s vacant position, won’t I? I mean, I completed my form over the weekend and would’ve had it in your tray before the emergency meeting if it hadn’t been for my car breaking down.”

Alan couldn’t recall discussing acting arrangements with Best, or with O’Kane or Trevithick (who might also have aspired to the temporary performance of Quentin Quist’s assistant-director duties). He’d certainly received no instructions from Lorrae or Miserable about filling the vacancy. Moreover, earlier lodgement of Best’s form wouldn’t have made any difference, as Alan didn’t have the authority to approve acting arrangements, not being, in any formal sense the section head. But more than that, he wondered why, with redundancy now seeming inevitable, the matter was of any concern.

“By what process were you going to be selected to fill Quist’s vacancy?” Trevithick asked Best.

“If there were interviews, why wasn’t I told about them?” O’Kane asked Alan.

“I’m obviously the pre-eminent candidate,” said Best, “with my central agency experience and my qualifications.”

“Ha!” said Trevithick.

“And I certainly expected to fill the vacancy in the short-term,” Best continued, “until interviews could be held to confirm my ongoing claims to the position.”

“So, let me get this right,” said O’Kane to Best. “You’re telling us that you expected to just waltz into assistant director higher duties, having been here all of three months, regardless of the expectations that Trevithick and I might have after years of dedicated service to this department?”

“It’s not my fault that I’m so extraordinary,” said Best, “and that you’re so …”

“And then,” said Trevithick to Best, “when the staffing freeze was announced, you assumed that it would apply to everyone, except you?”

“Yes,” said Best.

“In the last freeze,” said Morton, looking up from the secretary’s message, “the only temporary vacancies able to be filled were for section heads and above.”

“This would never happen in a central agency,” said Best.

“According to the last paragraph in Carol’s message,” said Morton, looking at his screen, “this is a public service wide initiative, so it not only could happen in a central agency but has happened, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it confirmed by my ex-colleagues,” said Best, reaching for a tissue. “I should never have come to this department,” she added, as a prelude to tears and much nose blowing.

“We are all impacted by this,” said Trevithick.

Alan could forgive his colleagues the occasional conversational ‘haitch’ and even a ‘nothink’ or a ‘somethink’. On a good day he could even abide a “youse” or a “youse all” in casual discourse. But he abhorred the employment of nouns as verbs and, in any event, suspected that Trevithick hadn’t meant to suggest that everyone present was constipated by the staffing freeze.

In the heavy silence that followed, he pondered the steps he might have taken to avoid the perilous situation he now found himself in, pointless though such speculation always was.

“I don’t suppose anyone’s had a chance to let Debbie know about developments?” he asked.

Debbie Dapin-Clappin-Cloppers, the section’s third assistant director, was engaged in semi-permanent home-based work, owing to a ceaseless round of infant coughs, wheezes, sneezes, and upset tummies.

Alan suspected that everybody had, in fact, been possessed of a chance to communicate with Dapin-Clappin-Cloppers but that no one had made the smallest use of it. Silence and an absence of eye contact confirmed his suspicion.

“If I bring Lorrae up to speed,” he asked hopefully, “can someone ring Debbie?”.

Hemingway looked at O’Kane, seeking permission to volunteer, but was, with a shake of the head, denied the opportunity. No one otherwise nodded willingness or raised a hand.

“Perhaps you will know more after your directors’ meeting,” said Morton, simultaneously indicating that contact with Dapin-Clappin-Cloppers could reasonably be delayed, and that he – as the section’s other remaining 2IC – expected Alan to attend Miserable’s weekly gathering of section heads in Lorrae’s stead.

Alan thought it most unlikely that he would be better informed after the meeting. After all, Miserable’s modus operandi was always to deliver bad news at the earliest opportunity and he’d said nothing about any freeze at the earlier branch ‘get together’. “But if I’m to fill in for Lorrae at section heads, I’ll need someone to attend the delayed social committee meeting for me.”

The emergency gathering had caused the branch social committee meeting – the final one before the Christmas party – to be pushed back, and it now clashed with the section heads’ confab.

“I don’t suppose anyone is feeling up to the struggle?” Alan enquired.

Once again, no one volunteered. Branch social committee meetings were notoriously fractious.

“Perhaps,” said Alan, “I could go to the social committee meeting and Morton, as the other permanent assistant director, could go to section heads.”

“You know I don’t do section heads,” said Morton. “My stupidity threshold is much too low.”

“I’d be happy to go, if Stephen can’t,” said Best.

“In that case, I would also be willing,” said O’Kane.

“Me, too,” said Trevithick.

Even as the section breathed its last, Alan mused, subordinate staff were determined to permit no peer advantage.

“Kind though those offers are, I’m not sure it would be appropriate to entertain them while ever there is an assistant director to─”

“─all right, I’ll go to the social committee meeting,” said Morton, shamed into compliance.

“Thank you, Stephen,” said Alan.

The three junior staff turned to face their screens, having demonstrated their willingness to step up, to no good end.

Alan looked at his watch and thought about Quentin Quist waiting for him in the lavatories. The announcement of the staffing freeze, and the resulting hike in redundancy prospects, made him more inclined to catch up with Quist and reveal inconsequential things about the union meeting that might, perhaps, improve his chances of survival in the days ahead. This didn’t mean, though, that he felt guiltless or at one with himself; he knew that even the smallest betrayals were corrosive of ethical certainty and conducive to a dangerous moral relativism.

“I’d better be going,” he said, collecting his notebook and diary, intent on the briefest restroom rendezvous before the meeting in Miserable’s office.

Morton walked with him and Alan steeled him to the difficulties likely to be encountered at the social committee meeting. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be easy for you,” he said. “There’ll be the usual, last minute, rear-guard actions.”

“To change previously agreed arrangements?”

“Yes.”

“So, I’m holding to our traditional line?” said Morton.

“Yes,” said Alan, “There must be solids … and I’m not talking about nuts, crisps or finger food.”

“A proper meal,” said Morton, “to reduce early drunkenness and associated breaches of the code of conduct.”

“And there has to be a cash bar; no drinks tab and no ‘one in, all in’ arrangements, or the abstemious will be funding the excesses of the habitually drunken.”

“Understood.”

“And no last-minute Kris Kringle or Secret Santa.”

“No anonymous gift-giving,” affirmed Morton.

“But if we lose out on that one – and I can tell you that the numbers were very tight last year – there should be no virtual or third-party gifts.”

“I don’t follow,” said Morton.

“No goats, buffaloes, cattle and so forth for persons in far-off places.”

“Because of the love that dare not bleat?”

“People may only be joking but there are others who find these jests distressing and distasteful,” said Alan.

“Fair enough,’ said Morton.

“Not to mention the offence caused to animal welfare activists and vegetarians.”

“Of course.”

“And while I’m about it, absolutely no Secret Santa gifts of personal hygiene products. No soaps, deodorants, breath fresheners, anti-dandruff treatments or binding agents.”

“Nothing to combat odours, stenches, flakes or –”

“– and no hand creams.’

Alan recalled an insensitive gift in a previous decade to an allegedly dextrous young woman known in certain circles as “Rhonda the Reliever”.

“I sometimes wonder what happened to Rhonda,” said Morton, fondly. “It must be more than ten years since …”

“Let’s not take the risk, anyway.”

“Right you are,” said Morton.

“And, finally, no sharp objects.”

“To reduce the chance of stabbings?”

“And self-harm.”

“I’m with you.”

“Any questions?”

“I think you’ve covered it all.”

They neared the lavatories and Alan prepared to peel off. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “Good luck.”

“You, too,” said Morton, rushing away with purpose.

Alan pulled on the handle of the outer rest room door as its inner pair was flung open with a mighty force and Quentin Quist hurtled past, wide-eyed and flushed.

Alan swivelled to follow Quist’s flight down the corridor. It was less than two minutes after their appointed meeting time.

Had he been relieved of the Quisling’s part by Quist’s high-speed departure? It certainly seemed that way to him … and it was with a deep sense of relief that he continued inside with the intention of making use of the amenities.

Ernest Hemingway, he noticed, was standing at the mirror, apparently repositioning his comb-over. Alan tried to make his way directly to the urinal without any acknowledgement, in keeping with inviolable male restroom conventions. However, his gaze lingered a moment too long on Hemingway. Communication consequently became difficult to avoid and then ─ once Hemingway’s right eye was revealed to be red and swollen ─ quite unavoidable.

Alan stopped in front of the cubicles, halfway towards the trough, thinking it preferable to converse without his manhood in hand.

“Your eye,” he asked. “Are you all right?”

“Quist,” said Hemingway.

Alan had no ready response to this news. He only wondered how it was that Quist and Hemingway could have interacted in a place where social intercourse was by custom prohibited.

“I went to have a chat with Peaches about stationery,” said Hemingway, “because Morton warned me it would be the next thing to be frozen. And once I’d ordered a few items I thought I’d have a tinkle.”

“I see,” said Alan.

“But on getting here I was surprised to hear a voice, from one of the cubicles, say, “is that you?””

“How extraordinary,” said Alan.

“Or that’s what I thought was said. And, anyway, I couldn’t really deny that I was me, could I … or me?”

“I suppose not,” said Alan. “So, you …?”

“So, I answered “yes’”.

Alan now felt most apprehensive.

“… and approached the door.”

“And then?”

“‘Come in, quickly’ were the next words I heard – delivered in such a strong, commanding, manly tone that I found it quite impossible to resist.”

It was now clear to Alan how the meeting of Quentin Quist and Ernest Hemingway had come about. He felt guilty about not having arrived earlier … or at least in sufficient time to keep temptation out of Hemingway’s way.

“So, I entered the cubicle and…”

“Don’t tell me,” said Alan, even though logic told him the end of the tale was nigh.

Hemingway shrugged and turned to the mirror where he used a piece of paper towel to dab at his damaged eye.

“Do you think you should see the first aid officer?” Alan asked.

“Oh, it’s hardly the first time I’ve been roughed up in a lav.”

Was the frequency with which one was assaulted likely to lessen the impact of a battering? Alan didn’t think so.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, trying not to appear unduly sympathetic. Then an awful possibility occurred to him. “Are you… would you… be intending to report this incident?”

If the matter was reported and investigated, Quentin Quist would doubtless reveal that his toilet invitation had been intended for Alan, for some reason unconnected to union espionage, and the resultant suspicions, gossip and innuendo would undo all the hard work he (Alan) had done to rehabilitate his reputation in the years since his great mistake.

“I think it best that we keep this to ourselves,” said the ex-milliner in a conspiratorial tone which had Alan wondering if he was already suspected of being the person Quist had expected to meet. The only way this could be was if Quentin Quist had mentioned him by name in the lead up to the near-tryst. But if this had occurred, wouldn’t Hemingway have revealed as much in his (still fresh) recounting of the incident?

Alan felt somewhat reassured but knew he was not yet out of the woods.

“I wonder if Quentin will report the matter?”

“And implicate himself in an assault?” said Hemingway, clearly thinking Alan to be worried about his (Hemingway’s) reputation in the two weeks that remained of their employment.

“You’re right, of course,” said Alan.

“But if he does take me on, he’ll find me a formidable opponent.”

There was something about the set of Hemingway’s jaw and the look of fierce determination in his undamaged eye that caused Alan to shudder.

“I’ll claim,’ Hemingway continued, brightening, “that he’s been pursuing me for months – making increasingly lurid suggestions – and that he enticed me into a stall when he finally encountered me alone … but that he panicked at the moment of commitment.”

Alan was appalled at this effortless embroidering of the truth and at Hemingway’s delight in it, but nonetheless heard himself say: “the bit about the advances might not ring true.”

“You think I’m insufficiently desirable?’

“The business with Azure Faraday suggests that Quist has proclivities of a different nature,” Alan replied, avoiding a direct answer to the question.

It was Azure who had blackened Quentin Quist’s eye after unsolicited overtures from him in the photocopying room.

“That does complicate things,” Hemingway admitted.

Alan tried to come up with alternative explanations but found his imagination wanting.

“I suppose I could recast him in the voracious, bisexual mould,” said Hemingway, excitedly, “as a depraved, insatiable, monster, preying on men and women without discrimination or compunction.”

“Goodness me,” said Alan.

“Yes, a vicious, sex-crazed beast, with whom even – I don’t know - even animals are not safe.”

“Ghost,” said Alan, voicing his strongest expletive and thinking that he was never to be free of the love that dare not bleat etc.

“A base, debauched creature consumed by unfettered lust and bereft of any sense of decency or restraint. How do you think that would go down?”

“The part about animals might be a bit over the top,” said Alan, wondering for the first time whether he might have been too hasty in judging the Monst (who might actually have been spirited away, like the missing underwear, by deviants).

Hemingway appeared disappointed by this. “I actually thought that it and the unfettered lust were the best bits.”

“I think not.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to claim he’s been making nasty, homophobic remarks to me, threatening me when others aren’t around, and that today, when he thought we were alone, he finally made good on his threats.”

“And the reason why you didn’t report him sooner?”

“Fear,” said Hemingway in a childish little voice.

“That seems to be a more credible scenario,” said Alan, now shocked at himself.

“So, we’ll wait and see what results,” said Hemingway, turning back to the mirror.

At least, Alan thought, they had plans, if Quist decided to go public.

“You’re sure you don’t want to see someone about your eye?”

“No, I’ll put some mascara on it and no one will know the difference.”

It was unlikely, Alan thought, that the injury would go unnoticed but, if believing as much made Hemingway feel any better, and less likely to make an official complaint, no bad purpose was served.

“Well, I suppose I should be getting on,” said Alan still hoping he could avail himself of the conveniences without commentary or company.

“Me, too,” said Hemingway, “but I’ll have that tinkle I missed out on, earlier.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” said Alan.

“You’re welcome to join me,” said Hemingway.

“Gosh! Is that the time?” Alan exclaimed, looking at the wrong wrist.

“I wouldn’t peek,” said Hemingway. “Well, nothing more than the briefest admiring glimpse.”

But Alan was already opening the outer door with a hand swathed in protective tissue paper, on his way to his next meeting.