The Opportunities of Youth
Page 4
Chapter Three
A different experience (July 1982)
The envelope marked Avon County Education Department surprised him as he had not to his knowledge applied for any teaching posts. He checked again and it was definitely addressed to him, posted in Bristol. He opened it.
COUNTY of AVON YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES SCHEME.
(A Person Power Services funded Scheme)
July 27th 1982
Dear Mr Filton,
Re Application for the position of Supervisor (Special Unit)
Thank you for the interest you have shown in the position of
Supervisor, Special Unit. I would appreciate it if you could please attend for a preliminary interview and chat, where I hope we can both find out a little about each other and decide if we would like to further the acquaintance.
Could you please be at St Jane’s Infant School, Weston-Super-Mare, at two fifteen on Friday 16th June, when I will look forward to meeting you? Please use the side entrance.
Please confirm your ability to attend by ringing Miss Angela Banks on W-s-m 342571.
Yours in anticipation
Susan Mandelow (Mrs)
Manageress, Special Unit.
It was signed in a bold and clearly legible signature.
He smiled to himself. “Of course. I had forgotten the application I had written the day of the Great Escape from the pub yard.” He gave a shudder at the memory and looked again. It was a nice friendly letter although to the point. He picked up the phone to confirm the appointment, might as well give it a go.
It was still blazingly hot with the temperature in the high seventies when the day for his ACYOP interview arrived. It had started badly with a letter telling him that he had not got the position with the Southdown Council for Alcoholism, this after waiting for two weeks more than the promised one week for the news. It then rubbed salt into the wound by going on to say that although on this occasion the panel had not felt able to award him the position, the County would be pleased to receive applications from him for any other vacancies to which he might aspire. Reading between the lines Tony came to the conclusion that the County’s Personnel representative had favoured him for the job, but had been outvoted by the Vicars and the other people that looked after the Alcoholic Johnnies. Still, a miss was as good as a mile.
He’d found the school just where the girl on the other end of the phone this morning had said it would be. He pulled into the car park, which at one time had been the front playground until the increase in motor traffic on the road outside had made it too dangerous and the staff gratefully accepted it as their car park. He parked on the end of a row of cars, which had seen better days and got out. The Red MGB looked very out of place sat there with the rusty Marinas and old Volkswagen Beetles etc. He locked it carefully and walked along to the side of the building and the entrance he wanted. On the way he read the various bumper stickers.
DON’T BLAME ME I VOTED LABOUR. (Five of these).
STOP THE BLOODY WHALING. (Only one.)
TEACHERS ARE HUMAN TOO. (First time he had seen that one. Was it true)?
He remembered his own schooldays and decided if what the sticker said was true, things must have changed. In his school a white line had been painted one yard from the railing that separated the boys playground from the girls and anybody caught crossing it after their first warning, were instantly sent for the cane and book. It was a popular sport among the older boys to toss the new kids across this line and wait for the teacher on playground duty to pounce on them. Consequently after their first day at “the big school” over one hundred and twenty first year kids never went within twenty yards of that white line and the teachers ignored the whole situation. Oh well, perhaps things had changed. He didn’t know any teachers so could not make a judgment.
It was an old school built in the Victorian era out of local stone, like the majority of buildings in the town. The doorways and windows were all very tall and arched while the ceilings were wooden panelled and vaulted. The smell of wood and chalk dust took him back nearly twenty five years and if it had not looked so small to his now grown up eyes, he would have thought he was back in his own junior school.
The doorway led into a corridor with two doors of to the right and a set of stairs to the left. The walls were painted dark green up to about five feet from the floor and only then, when you got above the possible reach of dirty little hands, did the magnolia take over. At the end of the corridor was a desk that sported a small notice declaring it to be reception. Sat at it was a blonde girl of about twenty who appeared to be wearing only a white overall. At least in the middle where the two buttons were missing and the material parted, all he could see was flesh peeping through. He approached her trying hard to ignore the gaps in her clothing. She looked up and smiled at him.
“Mr Filton?”
He smiled back and nodded.
“Yes.”
“I thought it was you. You sounded like a suit man on the phone this morning.”
He was immediately on his guard, but managed to give her one of the smiles he reserved for charming young ladies.
“Is the suit a mistake then, do you think?”
“Oh no. Personally I like to see a man in a suit, but not many people around here wear them.”
She gave him the benefit of her own smile, which she obviously kept for the benefit of nervous interviewees. After what she had said it didn’t help one little bit.
“If you would like to wait in there, Mrs Mandelow will see you soon. She’s just in with our Manager at the moment.”
She indicated the last doorway that he had passed and he turned back and entered it. Inside there were several low chairs and a coffee table that Oxfam would not have hesitated to refuse. The rest of the floor space was being utilised by half a dozen teenage girls who appeared to be making paper dolls from old newspapers and then painting them. Two of them looked up and smiled, but the other four carried on with what they were doing. They were all smoking. He picked up a magazine from the table. From its title, Nursery World, it didn’t promise to enthral him but it gave him something to do with his hands. The girls were all dressed in extremely short skirts or skin-tight jeans. They were all kneeling on the floor in various poses and it seemed to him that if he just sat and watched them working, he would be instantly branded as a lecher by anyone entering the room. Best to ignore them he thought and tried to get interested in the magazine.
“Come for an interview then?”
The speaker was a longhaired blonde girl. From her darker eyebrows the hair was evidently dyed to its almost golden colour. She was dressed in three-inch high heels, a white low cut satin blouse and a short and very tight, black skirt with black tights. She was wearing a fair amount of make up and looked at least twenty. Through and over the top of the thin material of her blouse a pair of fully developed breasts could be seen straining at her red lace bra. She plonked her self down in the chair opposite him and made a half-hearted attempt to pull the skirt down enough to cover the matching red lacy panties that were suddenly on view. She abandoned this futile effort and turned her attention back on Tony.
“You’re about the sixth one today, I reckon. You want a fag?”
He had to smile.
“Yes, I am here for an interview and no, I don’t want a fag. I’ve not long given them up.”
The girl gave him a look of admiration and leaned forward so that he could get an uninterrupted view down her cleavage. It really was worth looking at, but at this point in time, not what he needed.
“How long?”
“Pardon!”
He tried to look at her while avoiding seeming to concentrating on the lace knickers and the straining breasts, but it was bloody difficult. He wondered if this was part of some test and looked around for the two-way mirror.
“She said how long have you given em’ up? You know, the fags.”
A second young female had come up and was kneeling on another chair staring at him. To his immense re
lief she was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, had no figure to speak of and actually looked as if she had just left school. With an inward sigh of relief he turned his full attention onto her.
“About eleven weeks ago when I lost my job. Strange how much easier it is to say that to a kid rather than a grown up. Why is that, I wonder?”
She looked at him.
“Was you sacked?”
“No, I was made redundant.” He went on to explain. “That is what they call it when they don’t have enough work for everybody and they have to let some of you go”
“I know what it means, I ain’t fick.” Her bottom lip came out and a frown appeared on her face. My dad says that is so they can keep the best workers and get rid of the Wankers and the trouble makers.”
She gave him a knowing smile as she blew smoke down both nostrils. The blonde in the red lace bra sprang to his defence.
“Oi Julie, don’t call him a Wanker. I think he looks like a nice bloke.”
A chorus of “Yeahs” made him turn his attention back to the vamp, only to discover that the whole group was now taking an interest in him. They were grouped around him like flock of little budgies. All bright eyes and colours, breasts and tails.
“Are you coming for a job ere’ Mister?”
The speaker was a dark headed girl with deep brown eyes that looked wide and innocent.
“Yes, I am.”
He was beginning to enjoy the attention. After all, it was now them watching him, not the other way round and it showed anyone that walked in that he had an affinity at least with teenage girls. On second thoughts perhaps that would do him no good at all. A dark haired, slightly swarthy man, with a brown cord bomber jacket and blue jeans came in and went to the far end of the room where a kettle stood on a table.
“Good afternoon, girls.”
It was a decidedly Brummy accent. It reminded him that this morning he had found his quince bush protector bent almost double, although he wouldn’t have thought to check if he hadn’t seen from the bedroom window his neighbour hammering the rear valance of his old Cortina back into shape.
“Hello, Mike, are the Land Use boys with you? It was the vamp that asked the question.
“Sorry Karen, but its just me here. Will I do?”
He didn’t turn around as he said this and so missed the face that she made at his back. Out in the hall Tony could hear a woman’s voice talking to the receptionist and prayed that Mrs Mandelow had arrived. The girls had begun to drift back to their painting at Mike’s interruption and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. Just then Angela came in.
“Mr Filton, Mrs Mandelow is here now. Can you come with me please?”
He noticed again that the overall she wore had the two middle buttons missing and she had to hold it together across her body. She saw his look and explained.
“I was helping the girls with some paint this morning and they spilt it all down my dress. Its round at the launderette and I’m only wearing this until it comes back.”
She was going steadily more crimson as she spoke. Tony looked her in the eyes.
“Angela. The other week I went for an interview at Taunton Town Hall and the young lady there was properly dressed and very smart.”
He watched her colour even more before he went on.
“However, she was an absolute bitch and I much prefer the way you welcome people, overall without buttons or not.”
She gave him a big sunny smile and he knew that if by some chance her opinion was sought, he had her vote. She led him up the stairs, giving him a chance to admire her legs, long and attractive and led him into a small room on the right. It contained three desks, a set of card racks on one wall and a woman who stood up as they entered.
“Sue, this is Tony Filton. He drives a sports car as well.”
Sue Mandelow smiled and held out her hand while he was trying to work out how Angela had found out the sports car was his.
“Does he now. Come on in Tony and have a seat.” He shook the proffered hand and took the offered seat.
She was not at all what he had expected being somewhere around forty and very tiny, no more than five feet. Taking in her colouring, a smooth light olive, he would have said that she was of Italian origin. She was a little plump, but was one of those women that could not possibly have been anything else. She had a vibrancy and attractiveness that immediately radiated out to him and he instantly decided to like her, a rare thing for him on a first meeting. Her clothes were, to say the least, unusual, made of some filmy green material and fashioned into an Edwardian style flapper outfit complete with matching scarf around her neck. In his ignorance of the staff of Avon County’s ACYOP Scheme he decided she was a little overdressed for the occasion, an opinion he was later to revise, and wondered what sort of interview this was going to be.
“Remove your jacket if you like, Tony.”
“Thank you.”
He gratefully took it of and once sat in his short-sleeved shirt he felt instantly more comfortable.
“Tony, my name is Sue Mandelow and I am the Unit Manager for the Special Unit for the whole of Avon. We have read your CV and it obviously impressed us or you wouldn’t be here. However, all your experience to date has been in the commercial world. Why do you want to leave it?”
She sounded more nervous than he was, but she had gone straight in to the heart of the matter. He pulled his thoughts together and responded.
“Up until two years ago I didn’t, I was very happy as a Personnel Manager, it suited me. However, when your company starts to get into trouble you have to cut your cloth to what you can afford, I was transferred to the Sales Department, and I hated that. “Christ, doesn’t a bloke get to know what the job is about before he answers questions on his ability to do it?”
It seemed not.
“Why?”
“Because I found I was working wit a bunch of egotistical, lazy people who were more interested in what car they were getting to drive than selling anything.” He caught himself. “Whoops, that slipped out. She must be better at this than I thought.”
“I see. Well you don’t pull your punches, do you? Tell me, what do you think you can bring to this job?”
He was ready for this.
“Most of that experience of the commercial world. After all, I started off working a centre lathe on the shop floor and ended up on the Senior Management team. You get to know what employers are looking for after that sort of history. You know, experience of the real world of work which has to help in this business.”
And so it went on. It seemed to Tony that she was asking the questions in such a manner as to show him the answer she wanted and he was not sure if this was deliberate or because of a lack of experience in interviewing. Whatever the reason it was a great help. Sue, they were definitely on first name terms by now, finally looked at her watch and said that it was half past three and time to call a halt as she had to get back to Bristol. By this time it had become a conversation rather than an interview.
“One last thing, Tony. Your accent, what is it, South African?”
He was stunned. “South African?” Had he heard that right? “I beg your pardon?”
“Your accent. Where is it from?”
The penny dropped. It wouldn’t do to have a potential black hater in the organisation when Avon had a substantial West Indian minority. Better put her mind at rest. He grinned.
“No, it’s not South African. My father comes from Cumberland and my mother comes from Camberwell, in London. I was born and raised in Hemel Hempstead, which was an overspill town for London. Most of my schoolmates came from Bow and Popular and I have lived in the West Country for fifteen years. The accent has got a bit mixed by now I suppose, but I never thought it sounded like a South African.”
She hurried to assure him.
“You don’t, not really. It was just there was an accent there I couldn’t explain.”
“Yes I bet.”
But he let it pass. They went back do
wn the stairs passing Angela at her desk who smiled at them, and then out through the building. It was only three thirty five, but it was deserted.
“Poets day on Friday.” He thought to himself. “Piss off early tomorrow is Saturday. If I were manager here I would stop this. It can’t do the kids any good to think that you don’t have to work on a Friday afternoon.”
Sue had stopped at a gold coloured Fiat X19 and was unlocking the door.
“What a smashing little car. My wife wanted us to have one of those, but I am afraid that they are too small for my long legs. That is why we bought the MGB.”
He pointed to it, but it was unnecessary as it was the only other car in the car park, except for the old Morris Marina with the, don’t blame me, sticker.
“At least Malcolm is still here.”
“Who?”
“Malcolm. You will meet him in good time. He is the Area Manager.”
“Well,” thought Tony, “So she did notice they had all pissed off early.”
“Well goodbye, Tony. Thank you for coming in to see me and I will be in touch with you early next week to let you know what is happening. Any days you are already booked?”
“Considerate.” He though. “They usually think you are so bloody desperate for their job that you would even cancel your mother’s funeral to get it.”
“Any day except Thursday, please, Sue.”
He had very little on the cards for next week at this point in time, but she didn’t need to know that.
“OK, see you soon.”
She stooped to get into the Fiat but then stopped and turned.
“Look, you ought to know that the woman you would be working for here already has someone else in mind for this job. I don’t want him and that is why we took the unusual step of advertising in the local paper as well as the Job Centre. I just thought you ought to know that.”
While he was still absorbing this nugget of information with his mouth slightly open she slid into the drivers seat and was gone. He watched her drive away and then walked over to his car. Someone had left a note under the windscreen wiper.
This part of the car park is reserved for the use of the educational staff. The number of your vehicle has been noted and will be reported to Mr Gains. “Who the hell was Mr Gains?” Please bear in mind in the future that your presence in this car park is allowed as a favour and abuse will not be tolerated.
One Miss Fielding, Assistant Headmistress, had signed it. Looking around the car park Tony could see several other similar leaflets lying on the ground and guessed that Miss Fielding was on a crusade. He would park more carefully next time. Then he realised that he was strangely confident that there would be a next time.
They were sat in The Woodsman, drinking wine and waiting for their ham and egg pie and chips to arrive. It was their usual routine on a Friday evening not to cook at home, but to go out to the pub and let some one else do the work. Since he had been out of work they had not been to the Woodsman very much as an economy measure, but tonight when he had collected Tas he had said that he would like to eat out as he was too hyped up to stay in. He was watching the traffic going by on the road outside when he realised that Tas, sat across from him, was speaking to him.
“So what is the job about then, Tony? It can’t just be sitting around talking to nubile young girls.”
There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice and Tony realised he had made a mistake in telling her about his experience with the girls.
“Well, I think I could handle that bit if it paid enough.” He ducked as a beer mat winged its way across the table towards him and quickly answered her question. “But it’s about finding kids a job for a year with a private employer to get some work experience.”
“Like the girls you use to take on for your lot, you mean?”
“Not quite. Those girls were bright kids who were only on the dole because there are not enough jobs for them.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“So what’s different about the ones you will be working with?”
He hesitated, knowing that it was going to be a difficult half hour or so and then plunged on.
“Well my kids won’t necessarily be bright. In fact some of them will be pretty thick, or if they are bright, then they will have had their collar felt by the Law or come from a broken or foster home, or be all three at once.”
He ran out of breath, subsided, waited, and was not disappointed. After about ten seconds of complete amazement Tas got her mouth closed and began to laugh. She put her glass on the table quickly as she was in danger of spilling wine down her dress and then collapsed in helpless hysterics along the wooden bench on which she was sat.
“All right, Tas, calm down, people are looking at us”
This was an understatement. The whole bar was peering at them curiously. Tas ignored them and fumbled in her bag for a tissue to mop the tears of laughter from her face. It was nearly thirty seconds before she was in control enough to speak.
“You, as a social worker? You, the person who thinks that football hooligans should be locked up and the key thrown away? You, who think that parents should be made to pay for the damage their kids, do. You are going to go and persuade people like Robin Welsby-Green to give them a chance in life?”
She collapsed again and fumbled in her bag for another handkerchief to wipe the tears away. Tony started to grin. It was bloody funny when it was put like that. He went to the bar and got two more glasses of wine to allow Tas time to recover herself. When he came back she was still sniggering.
“All right, Tas, its not that funny.”
She snorted.
“It is you know. Are you going to grow a beard and wear cords and sandals?”
He snapped at her and went into sanctimonious mode.
“Look, Tas, I may be conservative in my view of hooliganism and vandalism, but be fair. I have always pointed the finger at the parents.” He now went into his highly indignant mode. “You on the other hand have a load of prejudices that are based solely on what you read or see on the television, not from any experience of real life. Your attitude to the Social Services for instance.” He was getting pompous now. “You assume because you have never needed to use them, that the whole organisation is staffed by bleeding hearts wearing knitted pullovers and anoraks. Have you ever stopped to consider you might be wrong and that some of them could be normal people doing a bloody difficult job, eh! What...?”
He looked over his shoulder in the direction of her pointing finger. The whole of the throng at the bar, including the girl holding their order, was listening to him in sudden silence. He felt the blood rush to his face and he stood up and pushed his glass towards Tas.
“You carry that.” He took the plates from the girl. “Its such a nice evening I think we will eat this on one of the outside tables.”
He ignored his wife’s muttered aside about sharing it with the flies and the midges and walked towards the door. Twenty minutes later he had a full stomach and was feeling much more benign towards the world. He was explaining to Tas why he thought he would get the job.
“From what Sue said I think they have trouble getting people with the right experience. They are only allowed to take people who are already unemployed and the right people are not always available when you want them. So you end up employing the nearest you can get. It’s not surprising when you consider the salary. Also, up until recently the only people available to them with any background in training were ex-teachers. So the kids are leaving a school full of teachers that have not managed to make them employable and then gone straight back to another load of ex-teachers who are supposed to reverse that in one year. I think that alone gives me a good chance.”
Tas focused on the practical.
“How much is it? The salary?”
“Not that much. Only five and a half thousand a year.”
“Can we afford to live on that? You were getting nearly nine in the last job.” Her manner said it concerned he
r. “That only just over half as much.”
He felt in his pocket and produced a bit of paper.
“Look, I have worked it all out. If you take into account the fact that I will be in a lower tax band, the bottom one to be precise, and that I will pay much lower National Insurance and Graduated Pension payments, there is not such a difference as it at first looks.”
He handed her the paper and she studied it.
“But according to this you will only be about twenty percent worse off when your salary will drop by forty percent?”
He nodded.
“That’s right. The reason is the different tax band and the lower stoppages.”
“But that means that as I earn the same as you did before you lost your job, they are taking nearly twice as much away from me in stoppages as they will from you.” she scowled. “That is not fair.”
“Well it used to happen to me as well, you know.”
Tas was not to be placated.
“Oh yeah, well you seemed to have ducked out of it now and left me to carry the load of paying for all the useless twits that call themselves the government.”
She stopped dead as a light dawned somewhere inside her head.
“Its done so I can pay for people like you to swan around the County getting jobs for all the deadbeats and tearaways who don’t want them anyway.” she screwed his sheet of calculations up and threw them in the gutter. “Christ, Tony, now I will be keeping you as well as the rest of them.”
She drained her glass and he could no longer keep the grin from his face.
“Well if that is the case you are making a profit. I will be getting more than you will be paying in, so you will be ahead for the first time in your life.”
She leaned across the table and glared at his smug face.
“Listen, mister. There’s a flaw in that argument and when I have worked out what it is I am going to stuff you with it. Now lets go home and have an early night. I need my sleep now that the country has another Dosser for whom I have to contribute.”
He parked his car this time on the end of the row of bumper stickers and wondered why they were being blessed with such good weather in this, the first summer he’d had the misfortune to be out of work. Sue Mandelow had rung him the same evening on the day of his first interview to confirm they would like to see him again at the same place on the following Tuesday morning. Tas had said she didn’t think she could afford for him to be successful, but she had hugged and kissed him all the same and wished him good luck. He walked down to the side entrance and nearly stopped in his tracks. Nine or ten youths were lounging about outside the door, half of them with skinhead haircuts and all of them wearing dark blue reefer jackets and Toe protector boots. They moved aside when he said excuse me and looked at him with frank curiosity. As he once more entered the chalky atmosphere of the corridor he couldn’t avoid hearing what they said.
“Gotta be CID”.
“How do you know he’s CID then, Lightning?”
Lightning answered, sounding smug.
“Cos he’s got a suit on, ain’t he. None of this lot wear suits do they and we know all the Social Workers and Probation Officers.”
There was a pause while the second speaker digested this information and then, “Well they ain’t got nuffing on me this time. I ain’t daft enough to get nicked again before I’ve been to court for the last lot.”
Tony walked on down to the reception desk where Angela was on the phone. Through the glass partition behind her he could see into the section of the building still used by the junior school, where a group of six year olds, boys and girls, were taking a dancing class. He wondered at what age they transformed from that to the hulking youths he had seen outside. Once again he was grateful that they didn’t have any kids. Angela put the phone down and smiled at him. Today she was wearing a skirt and jumper that were gapless.
“Hello, Tony. They will be with you in a minute. They have finished with the other bloke and they are just having a cup of tea before they start on you, would you like to wait where you did before.”
She must have caught the look on his face because she giggled.
“Its all right. Karen and the others are with their play groups in the mornings.”
He nodded and wandered into the room he had come to think of as The Harem. It was empty of girls, but two men were sat at the work surface where the kettle lived, drinking tea, one of them a very dark skinned West Indian, the other with the straw coloured hair and ruddy complexion of a West Country farmer or builder. He said good morning and they both nodded. He didn’t want to sit in one of the low chairs so he wandered around the walls, which were covered in drawings that looked as if they had been made by five year olds. He wished they would hurry up and call him, as the silence between the three of them in the room was almost tangible.
He heard footsteps and looked up to see a striking brunette in her early thirties standing in the doorway. She was staring at him with a cold expression on her admittedly beautiful face and he stared back in fascination.
She was bands of colour from her head to her toes. She wore knitted tights with individual toes that were banded in inch wide strips of primary colours. Over those she wore what looked like a cotton tee shirt except that it had long wide sleeves and came down far enough to form a mini skirt, a short caftan really. This too was banded in primary colours and was pulled in tight at the waist with a bright yellow plastic belt. On her head she wore a tam-o’-shanter banded in Rastafarian colours and the whole ensemble was finished of with luminous green Dr Scholl sandals. She was stood with one leg akimbo, holding one arm of her sunglasses to her lips with the other hand on her waist. She kept this pose for about thirty seconds while she stared at him, before placing her glasses back on the top of her waist length, pony tailed hair. Tony turned to the two men to see their reaction, but they were both reading the Sun with their backs to the door. When he turned back the woman had gone. More footsteps led him to the renewed hope that Angela had come to rescue him and so it transpired. She led him up to the stairs to the door of the room where he’d had his first interview and knocked. Sue Mandelow opened the door and smiled at him.
“Thanks, Angela. Hello, Tony, come in and I will introduce you to the others.”
She led the way into the room. There were two other men in the room and they were about as different as it was possible to get.
“Tony this is our Scheme Coordinator, Commander John Jameson.”
Commander Jameson was a tall, thin gentleman of decidedly military bearing. He wore a charcoal grey suit with a white shirt and a navy blue tie and his shoes were so polished that they looked like glass. Tony glanced around and sure enough over the back of a chair in the corner of the room was a black umbrella. He was disappointed in his search for the bowler hat, however. They shook hands and told each other how pleased they were to meet you. Sue turned to the other man.
“This is our Area Manager, Malcolm Gains.”
“So this was the Mr Gains on the note under his windscreen wiper.”
It looked as if Malcolm and the Commander had gone to extreme lengths to be as different as possible. Malcolm was dressed in a dark brown and very baggy, cord jacket and trousers that didn’t quiet look like a suit as they were in slightly different shades. Under this he had on a lumberjack style shirt that Monty Python would have been proud of and on his feet, opened toed sandals without socks. Only his eyes and teeth were visible as a large and shaggy beard obscured the rest of his features. Tony went into shock.
“And you already know me, of course.”
Sue was wearing what looked like the double of her previous flapper outfit but this time in a light blue. The other difference was that this time the scarf was worn tied around her head and hanging down over one ear.
“So you see, Tas it was the most surreal interview I have ever had. I mean, I have had some interviews with the Union’s Shop Stewards that I found hard to believe, but this was something different. They did
n’t really ask me any questions. Sue just went through my interview with her the previous week and I confirmed my answers. Malcolm said nothing, but smiled a lot and the Commander only came to life at the end of the interview, when he suddenly stood up and shook my hand and said that if I decided to join them he was sure that with my commercial experience I would be a great asset. It was worse than weird.”
Tas waited to see that he had wound down before speaking.
“So are you going to take it?”
“Oh yes. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She gave a small frown.
“If you want to do it, Tony, its fine by me, but you be sure it is what you really want. If you get fed up with it in a couple of years and want to go back to the real world, it might not look that good on your CV.”
He grinned.
“Then I shall have to do what I did during my rock group period before we were married, when I had five jobs in a year.”
“What’s that?”
“Lie about it when I compile the CV.”
And so he phoned Sue Mandelow and told her he would take the job. However, he had some tiny reservations about the woman who he had discovered would be his new boss. Cheryl Baxter sounded as if she could be a right bitch if Sue thought it necessary to warn him about her before asking him to accept the job. Still he had one advantage. He knew she had wanted some one else for the position and he also knew Cheryl Baxter was not quite right in the head. If she were, she would never have worn those green doctor Scholl’s sandals with such a colourful outfit.