You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps

by Tom Holt

  Eek, Cassie thought.

  Or maybe it happens all the time, which would at least go some way towards explaining some of the bizarre combinations you see wheeling trolleys round Homebase together on bank holidays. Very nasty thought. But it was all going to be all right in the end, because that nice Mr Porzig, or one of his fellow researchers, would undoubtedly have come up with an antidote or cure, something you could get from Boots in your lunch hour and gobble down, and everything’s fine again. Cassie grabbed for the book and flicked through to Connie’s bookmark.

  Drivel, drivel, drivel - ah, here we go. As regards counteracting an existing anomaly or circumventing one believed likely to occur, at the time of writing there is a general consensus among the leading authorities. Even Falkenstein and Shah, the leading proponents of the revisionist approach, agree that once the syndrome has taken effect, absolutely nothing can be done to set things right.

  Cassie closed the book and dumped it on the desk. Thank you ever so bloody much, she thought. Of course, she didn’t believe a word of it. It was all just a bunch of stupid academics making up the most appalling garbage simply so they could justify their research grants. And even if it wasn’t, there was bound to be some other perfectly rational explanation for what was happening to her, which was really no big deal in any case, hardly worth sparing a moment’s thought for.

  She thought about hurling the book on the floor and jumping on it, which wouldn’t solve much but might soothe her immediate need for self-expression; but it was Connie’s book. It was ridiculous, though. There had to be something she could do instead of dropping a meek curtsy and trooping off to choose a wedding dress. To hell with it; it was bullying, and she wouldn’t stand for it -

  ‘You still here?’ Connie had come back. Cassie was about to tell her all about Porzig and the stars in their courses and everything when she caught sight of the look on Connie’s face. ‘Something’s up,’ she said.

  Connie nodded and sat down. ‘You could say that,’ she said.

  ‘Something bad.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Connie shrugged. ‘Define bad. If you mean something really shitty and unfair, then yes, something bad.’ She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. ‘Guess what,’ she said. ‘The bastards have given me the sack.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘They can’t do that,’ Cassie said.

  ‘Really?’ Connie glared at her. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. I could take them to the industrial tribunal for wrongful dismissal, or whatever it’s called. Well, it’d be fun, I suppose, watching a whole roomful of lawyers getting turned into white mice, but I don’t think it’d achieve anything positive. Of course they can do it. They can do anything. Look it up in the dictionary, under M for Magic’ She sighed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s that, I suppose. Nobody’s going to give me another job at my age. In six months’ time, I’ll be one of those sad old creatures you see in supermarkets wheeling round a trolley full of frozen dinners and cat food. I’ll be able to do gardening and watch the daytime soaps. Won’t that be bloody fun.’

  ‘But that’s stupid,’ Cassie objected. ‘You know more about the business than anybody I’ve ever met. You earn them pots of money. You—’

  ‘Not a team player, they said,’ Connie interrupted grimly. ‘They feel I’m too set in my ways to adapt to the challenges of the new post-rationalisation corporate structure. Also, they seem to have got it into their heads that I’m a teeny bit stroppy. What gave them that idea I honestly couldn’t say.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Two weeks’ notice, though of course they’d understand if I want to leave earlier. Fat chance,’ she spat. ‘I never did get the hang of knowing when I’m beaten. Lack of practice, I guess.’

  ‘Hut it doesn’t make sense,’ Cassie maintained. ‘You were going to retire anyway.’

  ‘That’s management for you,’ Connie said wearily. ‘The maximum brutality working hand in hand with the minimum logic to achieve the worst possible outcome - it’s the proud old tradition of British industrial relations. No, they could see I wasn’t going to wear my baseball cap and be a happy camper, so they’ve flushed me down the bog, and the hell with thirty years of bloody hard work.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not like it matters,’ she added. ‘Like you said, I was going to pack it in anyway. It’s letting the little shits beat me that I don’t like. It goes against the grain, somehow.’

  Cassie couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be irritating at best. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a rotten thing to do. In fact, I’ve got a good mind to tell them where they an stick their stupid job.’

  ‘You could do that,’ Connie replied. ‘And we could go into business together making soft toys and home-made jam, since neither of us’d be able to get a proper job. Sweet idea but don’t bother on my account. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to sit quietly on my own and think despairing thoughts. Push off,’ she translated, and Cassie left.

  So, Connie thought. She looked around her, considering the boundaries of the life she’d just had taken away from her. From where she sat, she could see the filing cabinet whose drawers had never closed properly, the carpet that rucked up under the door, the empty bubble where the wallpaper had come away from the wall, the standard-issue print of London Bridge that had suddenly turned up one day without any explanation (she’d taken it down and thrown it out once; it was back in place the next morning), the floor-to-ceiling books stuffed with information she wouldn’t be needing any more, the visitor’s chair that squeaked. It was a cage, and the zookeepers came round from time to time to push work under the door, and when she’d gone they’d probably knock through to extend the computer room. She thought of all the hours she’d bled in this room, irreplaceable units of the slim margin between birth and death. What, after all, is Life but eighty-odd quid you get out of the cashpoint to pay some bill or other, and end up frittering away on impulse buys and special offers that you don’t actually want?

  Yes, but she knew all that already. The interesting aspect was why they’d chosen to dump on her now, as opposed to, say, later. Lying on her desk was that old copy of Levinson & De Pienaar, suddenly she remembered why she’d taken it down off the shelf.

  Coincidence.

  Absolutely. Nevertheless, Connie pulled the book towards her and flicked through until she found the place. She was reading and making notes when there was a knock at the door and Mr Tanner came in.

  ‘Dennis,’ she said. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while.’

  Mr Tanner wasn’t looking her in the eye, which meant he’d heard about her getting the sack. ‘Been run off my feet by the bastard auditors,’ he said.

  ‘They’re still here, then?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He sighed. ‘Busy little bees. They’ve been through half the files in the building, they’ve had all the ledgers and the paying-in books and the VAT stuff and the PAYE accounts, and now they want a whole lot more files and the bank statements for the last three years. I’ll say this for them,’ he added, ‘they’re thorough.’

  ‘Apart from that, though,’ Connie said. ‘You’ve made friends with them, I trust; passed round the family snapshots, talked about United’s chances in the League this season, all that sort of thing.’

  Mr Tanner laughed. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘There’s three blokes who look like the Nazgul in pinstripes, and a skinny hatchet-faced bird who keeps saying “Well?” at me every time she asks me a question and I don’t answer her inside half a second. If death’s half as scary, I’ll have to think seriously about living for ever. You got the Takemura file handy?’

  Connie opened her filing cabinet and handed it over. ‘What do they want that for?’ she asked. ‘It was just a poxy little job, and it was all wrapped up three years ago.’

  Mr Tanner shrugged. ‘You ask them if you like,’ he said. ‘And if you do and that bony cow looks at you and turns you to stone, can I have you for a bird-bath stand? You’d look good on our lawn with starlings hopping about on your head.’r />
  When he’d gone, Connie reached for the book and read a little more. Then she reached for the phone.

  ‘Rosie?’ she said. ‘Do me a favour, get me Hollingshead and Farren. Not the boss,’ she added, ‘the son. What’s-his-name, Colin Hollingshead. Thanks.’

  From time to time, you do get trees growing inside industrial premises. The difference is, they’re neatly planted in pots, strategically placed so that visiting buyers can discreetly empty their glasses of disgusting white wine into them at sales presentations. What you don’t tend to get is trees growing straight up through the carpet, and especially not overnight.

  Oh God, Colin thought, and he reached out and wiped his fingertips on the bark. Just as he’d expected: the exact same texture as the one at home. It was a curious thing. For some reason or other, he’d spent an unreasonably large amount of time over the years looking through gardening books and tree books, and he’d never quite managed to pin down the species of the stupid big growing thing that filled the stairwell at home. Just when he was sure it was an oak or a sequoia or a Japanese maple, he’d find another book and realise it was nothing of the kind, though it might just possibly be an ornamental dogwood or an Amazonian bubinga. Whatever it was, though, there were now two of it. How nice.

  Staring and prodding at the horrible thing wasn’t going to achieve anything. He passed it by and went to his office. As he pushed open the door, he heard the burbling of the phone.

  Her voice; the sound of it made him catch his breath. No doubt about it, then. ‘There’s a Connie Schwartz-Alberich calling for you from J. W. Wells,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ He’d forgotten all about JWW, and everything they implied. How could you possibly forget about something like that? ‘Sorry, I mean, right, yes, put her through. Thanks.’

  Connie Schwartz-whatever-she’d-said. Who? Never mind. ‘Hello?’ said a voice.

  ‘Hello,’ he said back. ‘Colin Hollingshead,’ he remembered.

  ‘Connie Schwartz-Alberich. It’s all right, you don’t know me from a hole in the ground. But you have met my colleague, Cassandra Clay.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said, and he meant it.

  ‘Right.’ Pause. The voice was brisk, normally the sort of tone he’d be intimidated by; and he was, but not nearly as much as he’d usually have been.

  ‘You got a minute?’

  ‘Sure,’ Colin replied. ‘Is this about—?’

  ‘No.’ Another pause, though slightly shorter this time. ‘It’s really more a sort of personal matter. Look, it’s difficult to explain. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could spare me half an hour? This evening, preferably. Sevenish?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Colin said doubtfully. ‘Why?’

  ‘If I could explain why over the phone, I wouldn’t need to come dragging out all the way to Richmond, or wherever the hell you are. Sorry,’ the voice added, ‘I’m having one of those days. Actually, I’ve been having one of those lives, but it’s only just starting to catch up with me.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Colin said. ‘Is it important?’ He caught the sound of breath being intaken at the other end of the line. ‘It’s important,’ he added quickly. ‘Look, excuse me if this sounds really strange, but might it have something to do with why we’ve got a tree growing up through the middle of our lounge?’

  He had no idea why he’d said that; but, to his great surprise, the voice replied, ‘Interesting. A tree.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’ Pause. ‘You’re sure it’s a tree?’

  ‘Absolutely fucking positive.’

  ‘Right.’ The voice sounded thoughtful. Not thoughtful as in should-I-tell-someone-where-I’m-going-and-be-sure-to-take-my-personal-security-alarm. Thoughtful as in Oh. ‘Ash?’ What?’

  ‘Is it an ash tree?’

  ‘No’

  ‘Oh. You do know what an ash tree looks like?’

  ‘Yes, and it isn’t one. It’s not any kind of tree I’ve ever seen anywhere else. Look—’

  ‘Ah.’ The dictionaries are pretty useless on the subject, but there can be an infinity of difference between an ‘Ah’ and an ‘Oh’ Right, where shall I meet you? I’ll be coming on the train from the City.’

  The rest of Colin’s working day was almost mockingly orthodox. He stuffed circulars into envelopes. He went down to Crudgington’s to pick up five boxes of dovetail cutters for the big CNC mills in the tool room. He filed some letters for Uncle Chris. Life was teasing him, pretending to be normal when it patently wasn’t. On the positive side, Fam smiled at him four times, laughed at two jokes, agreed with his views on the latest Trinny and Susannah show and happened to mention in passing that she quite fancied seeing the new Mel Gibson film. All of that was, of course, wonderful. It was only its juxtaposition with all the sub-Koontzian melodrama that made it seem bizarre.

  He’d got rid of the ninety minutes between end-of-work and seven o’clock after the fashion of the sea grinding down a cliff. Most of it he spent in a grim little pub just down from the station, where he spun out a glass of Pepsi and failed to read the Evening Standard. At five to seven, he got up and wandered over to the ticket barrier. At ten past seven he’d just resolved to give it ten more minutes and then go home, when a middle-aged woman in a Marks & Spencer coat appeared in front of him like a decloaking Romulan and said, ‘You’re Colin Hollingshead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine. I need a drink. Lead the way.’

  Which he did, with tolerable efficiency. She bought, which both impressed and relieved Colin, since he suddenly realised, as they walked into the pub, that he only had two pounds and seventy-six pence on him. For some reason, he felt inclined to trust her - probably because she was middle-aged and female, or some daft superficial reason of that kind. In his narrow and slight experience, middle-aged women were calm, efficient voices on the other end of phones sorting out botched deliveries, explaining incomprehensible Department of Trade export licence regulations, or telling him in words of one syllable how to install broadband on the office computer. Leaving aside his mother (easily done), he’d never been let down or dumped on by a middle-aged female, though of course there was a first time for everything.

  ‘Now then,’ she said, as they sat across a table in the quiet corner, next to the broken fruit machine. ‘I’ve got a theory, and I need you to help me prove it. All right?’

  Colin nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Is it to do with—’

  ‘I’m coming to that.’

  ‘Are you? I mean, fine, sorry.’

  ‘All right.’ She seemed to brace herself, as though she was nervous. The thought of someone being nervous talking to him struck Colin as faintly absurd. ‘You’ve met my colleague, Ms Clay.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The woman thought for a moment. ‘All the time you were with her, you had this unaccountable feeling that something extremely weird was going on, but you couldn’t quite figure out what it was.’

  Colin nodded.

  ‘You know what it is we do at JWW.’

  ‘Sort of.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You’re wizards. Sorry, witches, I suppose, in your—’

  Connie gave him a weary look. ‘Hint,’ she said. ‘Not the W word. It’s got the wrong connotations; you know, old men in long white beards, crones with cats, teenagers larking about in the sky on broomsticks. We prefer the word “magical practitioners”, though old-timers like me still say sorcerers. Amounts to the same thing, but it doesn’t make me cringe when I hear it.’

  ‘All right,’ Colin said. ‘Sorcerers. You do magic’ He hesitated for a moment, then added: ‘You’re arranging for my Dad to sell his soul to the Devil.’

  ‘Hmm?’ The relative positions of the woman’s nose, mouth and eyebrows gave Colin the impression that she didn’t hold with that sort of thing, but wasn’t quite prepared to admit as much to someone outside the trade. ‘I imagine you’re not thrilled by that.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Don’t blame you. If I
were you, I’d talk him out of it.’

  ‘You don’t know my Dad.’

  ‘True. But that’s beside the point. Listen.’ She then told him about temporal displacement theory. She was better at explaining than Messrs Levinson and De Pienaar which was just as well.

  ‘Ring any bells?’ she concluded.

  It was Colin’s turn to think. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes, that could be me. But hang on. You’re saying that I’m being - well, like possessed, or something.’ He heard himself say that, almost as though he was eavesdropping on someone else, and his hand shook, spilling beer on his knees. ‘Someone else has taken me over, and they’re making me feel like I’m in love with her.’

  Connie pursed her lips. ‘Nearly,’ she said, ‘but not quite. It’s not a case of malicious little gremlins squatting inside your head and ordering you about. It’s more - I don’t know; more impersonal than that. It’s got more in common with catching a cold than invasion-of-the-body-snatchers. The thing is,’ she went on, ‘it’s a really huge coincidence that both of you seem to have gone down with the same thing. Trust me, that’s really unusual. In fact, I can’t think of a single case study where it’s happened before.’ She drank some of her gin and tonic, then said, ‘Why don’t you tell me about it in your own words?’

  That sounded a bit too much like English homework for Colin’s taste, but he did his best. ‘And the crazy part of it is,’ he concluded, with a rush, ‘since all this stuff started I’ve met someone else who I think’ I really do like, a lot. And some of the things I’m feeling now are pretty much the same, but a lot of them are different. Like, with this - this other girl I mentioned, it’s—’ He made an effort and found some words that more or less got the job done. ‘It feels much more like me, if you see what I mean. The stuff with Cassie doesn’t feel like me at all. It’s like I suddenly stopped talking normally and started saying everything in blank verse. It feels all wrong, but at the same time it’s really, definitely there, if you get me. Almost,’ he added with a frown, ‘it’s like it’s all happened before, and I’m remembering it. Which can’t make any sense, surely.’