The Opportunities of Youth

by Donald Phillips

Chapter Five

  In at the deep end, August 1982

  He drove into the car park and again parked on the end of the row of cars with their bumper stickers. He wondered if he should get one to show solidarity with his new colleagues and pondered on what it should say. He discarded “You can trust the Liberals” and “Good old Enoch” as being effective, but hardly subtle. He finally decided on a play on an existing sticker that he felt was sure to raise a few temperatures in an industry that seemed to be staffed almost entirely by ex-teachers. “Don’t blame me I had a lousy education.” He was still smiling at this when he became aware that someone was trying to attract his attention from the main school entrance. A grey haired woman in her late sixties was pointing an outstretched arm in his direction, the outstretched forefinger on the end of it quivering with indignation.

  “You there! Yes you! This is not a public car park you know. Only the staff are allowed to park here.”

  She withdrew her arm and stood glaring down at him from the advantage of the top step. Tony remembered the piece of paper that had been left under his windscreen wiper on a previous occasion and racked his brains for the name. “Miss Farthing? No, Miss Fielding.” That was the name. He turned on the charm and went towards her. He stopped at the bottom of the short flight of steps and smiled at her.

  “Miss Fielding, I am so pleased to meet you. My name is Tony Filton and as of today I am afraid I do work here. I suppose you will be seeing my little car here quite a bit from now on.”

  Miss Fielding looked at his suit and the car and then back to his suit again. She put her head on one side and looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief.

  “Are you telling me that you are with ACYOP?”

  She said the last with unmistakable contempt. He made a depreciating shrug.

  “I am afraid so.”

  Miss Fielding glowered at him.

  “Our agreement when your lot took over that part of the building was that you should be allowed to park no more than ten vehicles here. Now there must be over twenty of you in and out all the time with those vanloads of louts, smoking and swearing in front of the children. I shall have to talk to Mr Gains about this.”

  Without another word she turned and stormed into the building. Tony let his smile, which was becoming strained, fade away, collected his briefcase from the car, and trudged of around the side of the building to his own entrance. “Welcome to St Jane’s school”, he thought to himself.

  He entered the shady cool of the building and looked around him. In the large room immediately to the right were about fifteen youths standing around in small groups while a hand full of adults stood to one side in earnest conversation. The youth he remembered as Lightning looked up, saw him in the entrance, and nudged the youth next to him to attract his attention to Tony. When the second youth saw him standing there a look of panic crossed his face and he moved quickly to go and stand behind another group in the corner out of Tony’s line of sight. Tony gazed towards the reception desk, but no one was there. Then the man he remembered the girls addressing as Mike saw him standing there and leaving the others he came over to him. The Brummy accent seemed stronger than ever.

  “Can I help you, mate? The school entrance is around the front if it’s them you’re looking for.”

  Tony shook his head.

  “No I’m not looking for the school. I join the Special Unit here today, but I have no idea where they are. Can you tell me where I can find Cheryl Baxter?”

  Mike turned around to the other three adults and called across to them.

  Gordon, Archie, Cec. Any of you seen Cheryl Baxter this morning? This bloke is joining the Special Unit this morning and he is looking for her.”

  The other three came over. Two of them Tony had seen before when he had come for his second interview. They had been the ones reading The Sun. The third man was short and thin and Tony immediately mentally christened him Jed the Ostler. Like the line in the famous poem The Highway Man, he sported a head of hair coloured like mouldy hay and seemingly cut with garden shears, as it stuck out from his head at all angles. The eyes were pale blue and dreamy, as was his smile. He held out his hand.

  “Welcome to the madhouse. I’m Gordon Blake.” He to indicated the other two that Tony had seen before. “This is Cec Goodwell and this is Archie Cumberbatch. They are Construction Supervisors and I am with the Land Use crowd.”

  Tony shook hands with the other two. Cec Goodwell was in his late fifties, but still had a full head of wavy blonde hair and the build of a wrestler. Archie was taller, slimmer, and very black. Tony put his age at about forty. The introductions had just been completed when Angela walked in. She nodded to the others, gave Mike a warm smile and then turned to Tony.

  “Hello, Tony. Cheryl Baxter rang me at home just as I was leaving. She won’t be in for a few days and asked me to show where you will be living. Would you like to come with me?”

  She turned away and walked towards the door, stopping suddenly and turning back into the room.

  “Oi, you lot.”

  The voice was at parade ground level and it stopped the noise of conversation dead. Angela looked around the assembled youths some of who looked away sheepishly.

  “One of you little buggers nicked my pump on Friday. If it’s not back on my bike by tonight I will be stopping the cost for a new one out of all your wages. I have asked Malcolm and he agrees, so you better make sure it comes back.”

  She swept out of the room and along the corridor. Tony followed the long and lovely legs up the stairs and into the room in which he’d had his second interview. There were three desks in it. Two of them were placed on each side of the room as you entered it and were facing each other. The third was directly in front of him but facing the rear wall with its sash window. Angela indicated it.

  “That’s your desk.” She looked puzzled. “It was facing the other way on Friday”

  Tony looked at the desk and felt the first stirrings of anger begin inside him.

  “Tell me, Angela, What is keeping Cheryl Baxter away for a few days, is she sick?”

  Angela blushed and lowered her eyes. She gave an apologetic shrug.

  “No, she’s not sick. She has taken a few days leave.” She caught his look and hurried on. “Its not Sue Mandelow’s fault, Tony. She didn’t know about it. You see we all book our holiday through Doug Westlove our administrator. You are supposed to clear it through your immediate boss first, but Doug doesn’t check up on you. It’s a sort of trust thing. Sorry, but Roy Stone will probably be in later. He is the other Special Unit Supervisor.”

  The anger was full blown now. So this nasty cow was giving him the treatment was she? Not only that, but she was leaving a twenty year old girl to deal with any crap that might hit the fan. He turned to her.

  “You get back to your desk and I will sort this out. After all, I am a big boy now.”

  She rewarded him with a smile and fled.

  He spent some fifteen minutes rearranging the furniture to his liking and putting out his diary, pencils and desk tidy when the door of the office opened and a man walked in. Roy Stone was a big man. Just over six feet tall and seemingly nearly as broad and he dominated the room. As well as his sheer physical size his unruly, blonde hair also made him seem a lot larger than life. He stuck out a meaty hand on a forearm covered in freckles and bearing the tattoo of a sinking Galleon. He grinned at Tony.

  “You must be Tony Filton. I’m Roy Stone, welcome to the Special Unit. Cheryl can’t be here today so I will take you around and show you the ropes. That you’re MGB outside? Good, we’ll go in that. My old Cortina is like an oven when it’s hot and it doesn’t have a sun roof.”

  Roy, it turned out was an ex merchant seaman and over the next three days was as good as his word. He gave Tony a lot of useful information and introduced him to Careers, Social Services and the local Drop-In Centre, where, he maintained, a high proportion of their kids could be found if they went missing from their jobs.
He introduced him to the card system with its colour coding to show who referred various kids and explained the rules for obtaining placements. Then on the Thursday, when they were having a quick half in a pub at lunchtime, he gave him the news.

  “I know it’s not your fault me old mate, but you do realise that you are caught right in the middle of a nasty little war.”

  “You mean between Sue Mandelow and the enigmatic Mrs Baxter?”

  “That’s right, mate and as far as Cheryl is concerned you are with the enemy.”

  “Its hardly my fault that they gave me the job rather than one her cronies is it?”

  Roy shrugged.

  “Don’t take it personally. Its just that if you succeed it proves that Sue was right to go over Cheryl’s head, so as far as she is concerned you are in her way.”

  Tony sat back in amazement.

  “You mean that she is going to try and get me the sack.”

  “Not as such. I think she feels that if she makes you feel an outsider you will give up and go back to where you belong. Cheryl can be a right handful.”

  Tony took a sip from his glass and studied Roy’s profile. Why was a great muscular bloke like him acting as a messenger for this woman because there was no doubt that was what he was doing? He tried a different tack.

  “Gives you a hard time as well does she?”

  Roy’s head swung towards him.

  “Me? Why should she give me a hard time?”

  Tony thought it was time to do a bit of fishing.

  “Well I get the strong impression she is a bit of a man hater this Cheryl. You know the type. Cut everyone’s balls off and then we all start equal. I will not be a sex object just because I am a woman. I can’t believe she is doing this just to get at Sue Mandelow and she has never even met me so it must be that.”

  Roy gave a little smile to himself and shook his head gently as he stared into the bottom of his empty glass.

  “You are way of line there pal, believe you me.”

  Tony to gave a little smile. “Got you, you bugger. You’re shagging her.” Tucking his discovery away for future reference he turned to Roy and spoke casually.

  “Did you know I used to be a Personnel Manager?”

  Roy nodded and then caught himself.

  “Sue told me.”

  “You bloody liar.” thought Tony, but kept the thought to himself and continued out aloud.

  “The most interesting thing was negotiating with the Unions. You see only about four years before they made me Personnel Manager I was working on the shop floor and I was a Shop Steward. Then all of a sudden I was the bloke on the other side of the fence. I still played skittles with some of the lads and I can tell you that at pay talk time I used to get some stick. Some of those blokes would have tarred and feathered me at the very least because they saw me as a traitor to the cause. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Roy looked him in the eyes and Tony saw the light dawn. He nodded.

  “That’s right. If twelve hundred workers hating my guts didn’t make me leave I don’t think Miss Baxter has got much chance, do you? Perhaps you should explain that to her if ever she decides to discuss the subject, but I would try and keep out of the cross fire if I were you. No point in picking up a bullet meant for someone else.”

  Roy Stone tipped his glass to drain it and then put it firmly down on the table.

  “Let me give you some advice, Tony. When you crossed the wall last time you moved from the focs’l to the officers quarters and you could afford to wave two fingers at the lower ranks. This time you are trying to go the other way and you won’t find that so easy. Take my advice mate and start applying for a job you can do.” He stood up. “ I shan’t give you a hard time, but don’t expect me to stick my neck out for you either. I got a wife and two kids to keep. Come on. Cheryl told me to hand some of my case load over to you to get you started.” He gave a savage grin. “She even told me which ones.”