Читать книгу Of Things Gone Astray - Janina Matthewson - Страница 31

ONCE UPON A TIME, GEORGE Fortescue had status. Until one day, he lost it.

He had always been the kind to turn heads. Not because he was particularly good looking, he wasn’t. Not because he was tall, he was average. There was simply something about him. At school he’d been listened to by his peers. When he gave answers in class, the other students were silent. No one ever made fun of him, not because they were afraid of him, or liked him particularly, but because somehow the idea of making fun of George was too remote to consider. When he started work he was quickly promoted, although his work was not noticeably better than anyone else’s. He was marked out for leadership from the start; without talent, or charisma, he had status.

And then he didn’t. He himself didn’t realise that he’d lost it. But all of a sudden people were slower to make way for him in the street. His success rate at hailing cabs went down by 40 per cent overnight. The board of directors took no note of his opinions. His staff started whispering behind his back, nothing he wanted done got done.

A few months later he would retire and move to Cornwall. He would get a cat on the misplaced assumption that it, at least, would show him some respect.