by Tom Holt
Instead of heading straight for the bus stop, he stopped at a pub and asked for a half of bitter shandy. He couldn’t really afford to go squandering money on booze, particularly since it was obvious he was unemployable, but he needed somewhere to sit down and shudder quietly for a while. Since he’d just spent his entire entertainments budget for the next fortnight on the bitter shandy, he resolved to make it last a while. He also wondered why he’d ordered it, since he didn’t like bitter. He grinned; it sounded like the sort of question they’d have asked him, and of course he didn’t know the answer.
From there, Paul went on to consider a wide range of issues, all of them depressing. When he’d had enough of that, he looked up and saw the thin girl, just turning away from the bar. She was holding a pint of Guinness, in a straight glass. She went and perched on a bar stool next to the door. Under normal conditions, nothing on earth would have induced him to get to his feet and walk over to her, but after what he’d just been through, there was a limit to how much harm she could do him.
She saw him coming and dived into her duffel-coat pocket for a book, but she wasn’t quick enough on the draw. Also, she was holding it upside down. “Hello,” he said. “How did you get on?”
She lowered the book very slowly, rather in the manner of a defeated general surrendering his sword. “Oh, I don’t think I got it,” she said. “How about you?”
He shook his head. “Just as well, really,” he said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to work for those nutters anyhow.”
“Nor me,” she said. “They asked all these really stupid questions. I told them they were stupid questions.”
He could believe that. “Did you get the one about killing your parents?”
She looked at him as if he was mad. “They asked me to list the kings of Portugal,” she said, “and what my favourite colour was. I told them, none of your business.”
Well, quite, he thought. A person’s relationship with the kings of Portugal is a strictly private matter. “I got a load of rubbish about the Tower of London, and stuff about Star Trek.”
She clicked her tongue. “Not that Chekhov,” she said. “The Russian playwright.”
“There’s a Russian playwright called Chekhov? Oh.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. I think I’d lost it before I even sat down.”
She nodded. “I wonder what they asked the Julia Roberts female,” she said. “I bet she’d have told them her favourite colour. Pink, probably,” she added savagely.
Somehow, talking about it to the thin girl made it seem rather less awful. “Would you fancy coming out for a meal?” he asked.
“No.” She stood up, glugged down her Guinness to the last drop, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I’ve got to go now,” she said. “Bye.”
She was gone before he had a chance to open his mouth. He sat down, drank the last quarter inch of his shandy and left the pub. She wasn’t standing at the bus stop when he got there, which was probably just as well.
§
That night, Paul had a dream. He was standing in a dark cellar—the scenery was straight out of an old–fashioned Dungeons and Dragons computer game, but originality had never been his strong suit—and he was facing a mirror. He could see his own face; also, for some reason, the thin girl’s. That much he could explain away by reference to toasted cheese and pickled gherkins, but that didn’t really account for the other two faces in the mirror, nor for the strong feeling he had that he knew them, very well, as though they were close family or something like that. They were two young men, around his own age; one with curly red hair and freckles, the other fair-haired and slab-faced, and they were waving frantically, as if trying to get his attention. Why he’d chosen to dress up these two figments of his subconscious in what he vaguely recognised as Victorian clothes he had no idea; probably it was something he wouldn’t have wanted to know, anyway. Then the cellar door opened, allowing yellow light to seep in round the door frame, and a man and a girl came in. He thought he recognised them from some TV commercial; either they were the Gold Blend couple or generic beautiful people from a car ad. They were chatting and laughing, as if they hadn’t seen him there; but, as they passed him, they both stopped sharply, and the man pulled out a long, curved knife. Something went snap, and then he woke up.
The snap turned out to have been the letter box, out in the hall. He pulled on his dressing gown, a sad grey woollen object he’d inherited from a dead uncle, put his bedsit door on the latch and went to see if there was anything for him. As usual, most of the letters were for the two nurses on the floor above, with three for the guitarist opposite him and two for the landlady. There was, however, one for him; and the back of the envelope was embossed with a logo, JWW.
I know what this is, he thought; still, I might as well look at it, nothing better to do. He went back into his own room and sawed it open clumsily with the bread knife.
The letterhead was old–fashioned, embossed in black on thick paper;
J.W. Wells & Co.
70 St Mary Axe
London W1.
Thought so, he told himself. Now then: Dear sir, piss off, loser, yours faithfully. He unfolded the rest of the letter.
Dear Mr Carpenter (he read)
Thank you for attending our offices for interview on the 21st inst. We are pleased to offer you the position of junior clerk, on the terms stated in your notification of interview. It would be most helpful if you could make yourself available for work from Monday 26th inst. Kindly confirm your acceptance in writing at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
(Obscene-looking squiggle)
H.G. Wells
Partner.
TWO
There was a different receptionist on duty, Paul noticed. When he’d come for the interview, the girl behind the desk had been a stunning brown-eyed brunette, who’d scared him so much he’d almost forgotten his name when she’d asked him for it. Today, her place was occupied by an equally stunning sapphire-eyed ash blonde.
“It’s Paul Carpenter, isn’t it?” she said, smiling at him in a manner liable to cause a breach of the peace. “Mr Tanner would like to see you in his office straight away.”
The smile had been bad enough. Usually, when girls like that smiled at him, it was through the thick glass of a TV screen, and they were trying to sell him hair conditioner. That and the alarming news that he had to go and see someone, presumably one of those terrible partners, before he’d had a couple of hours to calm down and prepare himself for the ordeal were almost too much for him to cope with.
“Right,” he said. “Yes, thanks.” (Also, how had she known who he was?)
“Do you know the way?”
The way? What was she talking about? “Oh.” he said. “Um, no. Sorry.”
She stood up to point. “Left down the corridor,” she said, “through the fire door, turn right, up two flights of stairs, then right again, through the photocopier room, turn left, second door on your right, you can’t miss it.”
That statement contained at least one bare-faced lie. He could remember as far as through the fire door. “Thanks,” he said.
“If you get lost, just ask.”
“Right.”
“I’m Karen, by the way,” said the blonde, lifting a telephone receiver. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Me too,” he added. Then he bolted like a rabbit.
It was a large building, and the floor plan turned out to be the sort of thing you’d expect to find if the Hampton Court maze had been designed by the Time Lords. At one point, he found himself in some sort of basement; he could see the soles of people’s shoes passing overhead through thick green glass panes in the ceiling. Some time after that, he opened a door and stepped out onto a flat, lead-covered roof. The hairiest moment was when he pushed through the door that ought, by his calculations, to have brought him out onto the fourth-floor landing, but which in fact opened into a vast portrait-lined boardroom, where two dozen men were
sitting round a table. He apologised and got out of there as quickly as he possibly could, but not before they’d all swivelled round in their chairs and stared at him. Other discoveries included two lavatories, a kitchen the size of Earls Court, a stationery cupboard filled from top to bottom with typewriter rubbers, and a door that opened to reveal a solid brick wall.
Just ask someone, the receptionist had said. That was all very well, but (apart from the mob scene in the boardroom) the building appeared to be deserted. Bizarre, he thought; why on earth would anyone want a place this size if they didn’t have any people to go in it? He was just painting in his mind a picture of his desiccated bones propped up against a corridor wall when he turned a corner and collided with something extremely solid, which turned out to be one of the partners from his interview; to be precise, the short, wide man with the huge black beard.
Blackbeard recovered first; hardly surprising, since he appeared to be built of solid muscle. “Ah,” he said, in what Paul reckoned was probably a Polish accent, “Mr Carpenter. And how are you enjoying your first day with us?”
Paul stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “Excuse me, but are you Mr Tanner?”
For an instant, a frightful scowl hovered on Blackbeard’s face, as though he’d just been mortally insulted. Then he laughed. “Heavens, no,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. Casimir Suslowicz.” He stuck out a hand you could have landed a Sea King on. Paul braced himself for a bone-crunching handshake, which didn’t happen. “Dennis Tanner’s office is—actually,” he said, “it’s probably best if I show you the way. This place can be a little confusing, till you get used to it.”
“Thanks,” Paul replied, slightly stunned. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Mr Suslowicz replied. “Follow me.” He set off at a brisk walk, so that Paul had to half skip, half trot in order to keep up with him without treading on the backs of his heels.
“Actually,” 14r Suslowicz called back over his shoulder, as they passed the second lavatory, “it might be an idea if I send you down a map. Would that be helpful, do you think?”
“Oh yes, definitely,” Paul replied. “Thank you very much.”
“No problem,” said Mr Suslowicz cheerfully. “In a day or so, I’m sure, you’ll be able to find your way around in the dark; but to start off with, a map. My secretary will bring it to you this afternoon.”
Well, Paul thought, that would be something to look forward to, assuming he ever managed to find the place he was supposed to go to after he’d seen Mr Tanner. Not for the first time, he noticed how hot the building was. He could feel sweat crawling under his armpits, though running up and down a dozen or so flights of stairs in his overcoat might have had something to do with that.
“Here we are,” Mr Suslowicz announced abruptly, coming to a dead stop outside one of four identical doors. “Hold on,” he added, “I’ll introduce you.” He knocked sharply once and jerked the door open, so hard that the wood actually vibrated.
“Dennis,” he said, standing in the doorway and blocking Paul’s view. “Here is Mr Carpenter.”
“About time,” said someone on the other side. Judging by his voice, Mr Tanner was Australian. “He should’ve been here twenty minutes ago.”
Mr Suslowicz smiled at Paul as he slid past and scampered away down the corridor. Paul took a deep breath and went in.
He recognised the man behind the desk straight away. Once seen, never forgotten. Mr Tanner was the freeze-dried child with the acupuncture eyes. Marvellous, Paul muttered to himself, and walked across to the desk.
The room was blue with cigar smoke, and it took him a moment to peer through it. All he could see of Mr Tanner behind a gigantic desk was his head, which looked like a grotesque novelty paperweight on top of a pile of brick-red folders. “Got lost?” Mr Tanner said.
“Yes,” Paul replied. “Sorry.”
Mr Tanner shrugged. “Move that stuff and sit down.”
Paul lifted about ten pounds’ weight of files off a narrow plastic chair and sat down. The cigar-smoke fog had lifted slightly, and Paul could just about make out the two dozen or so framed photographs on the walls—all portraits, signed, of people so astonishingly famous that even he had heard of most of them. Interspersed between the pictures were what looked alarmingly like a collection of tomahawks, each in a glass case with a neat printed label.
Mr Tanner grinned at him. His teeth were unusually narrow, and some of them were almost pointed. “Not a wonderful start,” he said, “getting lost on the stairs. Still.” He stubbed out a half-smoked cigar and immediately lit another. “First things first, here’s your employment contract.” He pushed across two bundles of typescript, certainly no thicker than the Bible or the omnibus edition of The Lord of the Rings. “If you want to sit there the rest of the morning and wade through it all, fine,” he said. “Or you could just sign both copies on the back page, where I’ve marked your initials in pencil, and save us both a lot of time.”
Paul signed (his pen had run out; Mr Tanner passed him another without saying a word) and handed back the bundles. Mr Tanner signed, shoved one copy back to him and dropped the other into a deep drawer, which he then locked. “That’s that out of the way, then,” he said. “Next. I expect you’d like to know what you’re actually going to be doing.”
“Yes, please,” Paul said.
“Right.” Mr Tanner blew smoke at him. “Actually, it’s all really simple, boring stuff. Filing. Photocopying. Collating. Stapling things together.” For some reason, Mr Tanner laughed at that, like it was a sick joke. “Fetching and carrying. Franking letters. Making tea. Do you think you can handle it?”
Paul nodded. “I’ll do my best, certainly,” he said.
Mr Tanner looked at him. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “Anyhow, after you’ve done that for six months or so, we’ll have another look at you and see if you’re actually any use, and take it from there. All right?”
“Fine,” Paul said. “And, urn, thanks for having me.”
That just made Mr Tanner laugh again. “It’s pretty simple,” he said. “Do as you’re told, don’t get under anyone’s feet, and we’ll get along fine. All right.” He picked up his phone and muttered something into it that Paul didn’t catch. “My secretary’s going to take you to the office where you’ll be working most of the time,” he said. “Don’t want you getting lost again, we might not find you this side of Whitsun. Anything you want to ask?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something anyway,” Mr Tanner replied. “You can call Mr Suslowicz Cas and Mr Wurmtoter Dietrich, or Rick if you’d rather, though I don’t suppose you would. But Humphrey Wells is Mr Wells, Theo Van Spee is Professor Van Spee or Professor, and Judy Castel’Bianco is always Contessa, if you value your life. And of course, Mr Wells senior is JW, that ought to go without saying. I’ll answer to pretty well anything short of Fido, though I’ve got to say I don’t go much on first names, it makes the office sound like one great big early-morning chat show. You can call Benny Shumway down in the cashier’s office any damn thing you like, he won’t take a blind bit of notice of you unless you’ve got a pink slip signed in triplicate. What you call the girls is between you and your conscience. Right, here’s Christine, to show you the way. She’ll be your real boss for the next six months, but it’s OK, she doesn’t usually draw blood.”
A moment later the door opened, and a smart-looking middle-aged woman came in. Since he’d apparently ceased to exist as far as Mr Tanner was concerned, Paul mumbled, “Thanks.” under his breath and followed her out of the room.
“Well,” she said, as soon as he’d closed the door, “so you’re Paul Carpenter. I’m Christine.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Paul said awkwardly.
“Oh, they all say that,” she replied cheerfully, and for the next five minutes, as he followed her down corridors, up corridors, through doors, up and down stairs, sideways along corridors and (if he
wasn’t mistaken) across the same landing twice, she rattled through a barrage of complex information without looking back at him once.
“Your reference,” she said, “will be PAC. Usually it’d be PC, but we’ve already got one PC, that’s Pauline Church in accounts, and you haven’t got a middle name so we put in an A. The toilets on the third floor are partners-only except in an emergency. Don’t ever switch any of the computers off, or we have to call out Basingstoke and nobody’ll thank you for that. Coffee is eleven to eleven-fifteen and lunch is one to two, we lock the street door so don’t forget anything if you do go out. Tracy and Marcelle will do typing for you if they haven’t got anything else to do, if you do any letters or anything yourself, send it through to the laser on the second floor, the paper jams so you’ve got to stand over it. The strongroom keys are in reception, and for crying out loud don’t forget you’ve got them and go waltzing off. Paper clips and rubbers are in the green cupboard on the fourth floor, notepads and pencils and felt tips are in the closed-file store but they’ve got to be signed for. Pens, see me. Dial 9 for an outside line and if you use the long stapler, make sure you put it back where you got it from. Mr Wells has two sugars in coffee and one in tea, Professor Van Spee never has milk, he’s lactose-intolerant. You’re sharing the small back office with the other new clerk, it used to be the second interview room but the damp’s chronic, but I don’t suppose you’ll be in there very much. All right?”
“Thanks,” Paul said. He hadn’t caught any of that, and he was absolutely positive he wasn’t going to pick it up as he went along, at least not without a great deal of suffering and embarrassment along the way. All in all, he decided, he really wished he’d got the job in the hamburger bar instead. One thing, though, did register with him. “What other new clerk?” he asked.
“What? Oh, Sophie. Nice girl, you’ll like her. That’s the broom cupboard there, it’s where we store all the file copies of the Financial Times. There’s a notebook in there to sign them out if you need to borrow one.”