by David Nobbs
‘Happiness doesn’t really come into it,’ said Tom.
They were sitting on the terrace of a Thames-side hotel. It was the first really warm day, and swans were picking their stately way among the oil-drums and plastic bags at the side of the river.
‘The epitome of England,’ said Reggie.
The Spanish waiter brought them vast menus with shiny black covers.
‘I’m not a mid-week lunch person,’ said Tom. ‘95p for smoked mackerel. What a mark-up.’
‘Outrageous,’ said Reggie.
‘What a stupid way to write the menu,’ said Tom. ‘Le bœuf rôti avec le pudding de Yorkshire. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Ludicrous.’
Tom ordered smoked mackerel and le bœuf rôti avec le pudding de Yorkshire.
‘Do you feel you have a vocation for property?’ said Reggie.
‘Oh no. I just am an estate agent, that’s all.’
‘You must have become one at some stage,’ said Reggie. ‘I mean when you were born the nurse didn’t tell your proud father: “It’s an estate agent.”’
The terrace faced a small island, where the white pillars and porticoes of an abandoned pre-war night-club could still be faintly seen among the vegetation.
‘Do you mean to remain an estate agent until you retire?’ said Reggie.
‘That’s a question,’ said Tom. ‘That really is a question.’
‘Supposing you answer it, since you’ve identified it so accurately,’ said Reggie.
‘Sometimes I look at that board “Norris, Wattenburg and Patterson”, and I think: “You’re a man of substance, Tom Patterson.”’
‘It provides reassuring evidence that you exist?’
A pleasure steamer ploughed demurely upstream. Reggie waved. One boy waved back.
‘Then I think: “Norris is as thick as two short planks. Wattenburg’s going ga-ga. Why am I third on the list? Is there no justice?”’
‘No.’
‘I think you could say that Linda and I are serious-minded people, Reggie.’
‘I think I could, yes.’
‘We think about world problems, Reggie. We care. We exercise our vote.’
‘You make it sound like a dog,’ said Reggie.
‘It might as well be, for all the good it’s done,’ said Tom. ‘We might as well have universal Jack Russells instead of suffrage. I’ve voted six times – twice labour, twice liberal, and twice conservative. What a contribution I’ve made to democracy.’
The Spanish waiter informed them that their table was ready.
‘What I’m trying to say is this,’ said Tom. ‘I believe in social justice and equality, and I don’t think I do want to be an estate agent all my life.’
‘Splendid,’ said Reggie. ‘Come and work for me.’
Tom was speechless for almost a minute.
‘You’re offering me a job? What as?’
‘Head of Publicity.’
Walking back from Climthorpe station the following evening, his legs leaden in the early heat-wave, Reggie saw a man with a pink face weaving gently along the pavement.
‘Thirsty weather,’ he said.
‘You’re right there,’ said the man in a Limerick accent.
‘I’ll be half an hour, darling,’ Reggie told Elizabeth. ‘I’ve just got some business to do.’
Elizabeth’s eyes indicated the tipsy Irishman questioningly. Reggie nodded. Elizabeth looked annoyed and surprised as she trudged home alone through the soupy evening air.
‘How about a drink?’ said Reggie.
‘In the Station Hotel?’ said the Irishman. ‘I never use that house myself, sir.’
‘Routine made Jack a dull boy.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
Over their pints of vinegary bitter in the cavernous public bar of the Station Hotel, which had an unusable dartboard with seats and a table beneath it, and two boring pictures of the outside of the pub in thick snow, Reggie talked to his new acquaintance.
His name was Seamus Finnegan, and he had not worked that day, due to an urgent appointment at Kempton Park.
‘My system failed me,’ he said.
‘What is your system?’ said Reggie.
‘I always back the grey. If there isn’t a grey, I back the sheepskin noseband. That’s about the size of it, sir.’
Reggie smiled. This man promised to be ideal.
‘Where do you work?’ he inquired.
‘I’m working on the new Climthorpe Slip Relief Feeder Road, sir. We’re held up at the moment till they move the pigs out of the piggery.’
‘Pelham’s Piggery?’
‘That’s the one, sir. I talked to your man last week. He’s taking it very hard, sir. The piggery, I wouldn’t give it house room, but it was in the blood of the man, you see.’
‘Then why did he sell?’
‘They found irregularities, sir. They threatened to close it on health grounds – that was about the size of it.’
They sat with their backs to the dartboard, and their pints were nearly drained. Seamus Finnegan’s eyes were clouded with drink.
The seats were upholstered in red leather which had cracked and burst.
‘Have you ever worked in management?’ said Reggie.
‘No, sir. My genius for management remains a secret between me and my Maker.’
‘Do you have any experience of administration?’
‘No, sir. That’s one fellow I’ve never met.’
‘I run a firm called Perrin Products. We have some shops called Grot. I would like you to be my Admin Officer.’
‘Would you be having a bit of fun, sir, with a simple Irishman from the bogs?’
‘I’m offering you the job.’
‘Jesus Christ! I’d better bloody take it, then, before you change your mind.’
Later that evening Reggie telephoned Mr Pelham.
‘Ridiculous, isn’t it?’ said Mr Pelham. ‘Cutting out food for roads. I thought they were trying to make this country self-deficient.’
‘Can I do anything?’ said Reggie.
‘The boy got up a petition, Reg. Two hundred and thirty-seven names.’
‘Did you send it in?’
‘Yes. They laughed at me. The boy meant well.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He filled it out a bit. He couldn’t get many real people. I haven’t many friends.’
‘Filled it out a bit?’
‘Oliver Cromwell, Louis Pasteur, that sort of thing. There were only twenty-nine real names on the list – and seven of them were my boy.’
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Reggie.
‘Don’t you lose any sleep, old son. There may be another world, I don’t know, but we’re on our own in this one.’
‘I wondered if you’d like a job.’
‘What? In a factory? No fear.’
‘You’d be a director.’
‘Much appreciated, old son, but it’s not for me. Sleep well.’
And there was a click as Mr Pelham rang off.
Letters to Cornwall elicited no reply. Telephone calls to Trepanning House met with no response. All of which was very inconvenient, when Reggie wished to offer Jimmy a job.
And so, on the first day of June, Reggie and Elizabeth drove down to Cornwall.
‘I can’t understand why you’re offering all these people these jobs,’ said Elizabeth, as they skirted the magnificent country of Dartmoor.
‘Conscience,’ said Reggie.
‘You can’t run a business on conscience,’ said Elizabeth, ‘but I love you for it.’
As they crossed the border into Cornwall, Elizabeth said: ‘I can’t see Jimmy giving up his private army.’
‘You can only ask,’ said Reggie.
They stopped off at the Fishermen’s Arms, to secure their accommodation.
‘It’s not your usual room,’ said the landlord. ‘We’ve got a party of French cyclists. They don’t seem to hit it off with our crisps.’
&nb
sp; ‘Have you seen my brother?’ said Elizabeth, as Reggie bought them drinks.
‘I said to this French chappie, I said: “We’ve not got plain. We’ve only got smoky bacon or salt and vinegar.” He said “merde”. “Merde,” he said! Who won the war, that’s what I want to know?’
‘We did,’ said Reggie.
‘Thank you,’ said the landlord.
‘With the French on our side,’ said Reggie.
‘Oh aye, they were on our side, I grant you that, but that doesn’t give them the right to be rude to my crisps.’
‘Yes, but have you seen my brother?’ said Elizabeth.
‘You’ve heard, then,’ said the landlord.
Elizabeth went pale.
‘Heard what?’ she said.
‘The tall bugger. He’s shoved off wi’ t’bloody lot.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘What exactly’s happened?’ said Reggie.
‘All I know is this,’ said the landlord, ringing the final bell and putting cloths over the pumps. ‘It were Tuesday night. No, I tell a lie. Monday.’
‘Tuesday,’ said the landlady, still flushed from cooking the lunches. ‘I didn’t get back while Tuesday.’
Tuesday. I were right first time,’ said the landlord.
‘Yes, but what happened?’ said Reggie.
‘They were in here, your brother and tall bugger, and they were shifting some. I said to Annie, “Annie,” I said, “them two are supping some lotion tonight.” It were right odd. “It’s a rum do, our Annie,” I said. “Tall one’s pretending to drink a lot and t’other one’s shifting them like buggery. Tall one’s usually t’biggest drinker, tha knows.” Oh aye. Definitely. We notice these things, tha knows, being in t’trade. We’re trained to it.’
‘Yes, but what happened?’
‘T’other one, not your one, he says can they stay, be accommodated like, because they’ve had too much to drink, which I don’t reckon he had had, t’other one, not your one, he had had too much.’
‘Yes, but what happened?’
‘He’s hopeless,’ said the landlady. ‘If it were left to him to tell the tale you’d be here till Christmas. You’d be here till Doomsday.’
‘You tell it, then, Annie,’ said the landlord, and he came round the bar to collect the empties.
‘I will,’ said the landlady. ‘I will and all. Well, we had two rooms, one single, one double adjoining, which we wouldn’t have had, ‘cos it’s an early season this year, only I’d been back home, my mother’s been none too clever, and me dad, he’s come over all unnecessary, so we’d run the accommodation side of it down – the hotel side, like – he can’t cope on his own, it worries him.’
‘Yes, but what happened?’
‘I’m telling you. In t’morning, tall one had gone.’
‘Buggered off,’ said the landlord, dumping a leaning tower of pint glasses on the bar.
‘Aye. Gone. There was no sight nor sign of him. And when your brother got back to t’farm, whole lot had gone, money and that and I don’t know what else.’
Reggie and Elizabeth set off urgently for Trepanning House.
Jimmy made sure that every window was sealed, that the cracks round every outside door were filled with old newspaper. He even ripped up the book of the flags of the nations given to him at school by Patrick Williamson.
He had been round to all the men personally, to explain the fiasco. They had all seemed strangely resigned to it, as if they had always known that it was only a dream.
He realized now that there were no other cells, there was no famous person behind the scenes, the balloon never could have gone up.
He switched all the gas appliances full on. The gas began to fill the dank air in the old Cornish farmhouse.
Clive would be caught, of course. He might get away with the money, but he’d never be able to sell the weapons safely.
The farmers who had occupied this dreary house had gone, after a lifetime striking bargains with an impoverished land. Vets who had come here at five in the morning to tend dying cows were themselves dead now. Nettles lapped round their neglected graves, and the cows had no monuments.
Sheila was gone, the army was gone, the private army was gone, Linda was untouchable.
He lay with his head in the oven, to speed the end. Vaguely he registered the distant ringing and knocking.
The wind was thick with the whisperings of the tormented souls of the old tin workers as Reggie knocked and rang to no avail.
Then they noticed that the door was sealed up.
Reggie broke a window with a large stone, reached in and opened it. He climbed in and let Elizabeth in through the front door.
Soon they had all the appliances switched off and Jimmy out in the mild night air.
He didn’t seem too ill.
‘Too soon,’ said Jimmy. ‘Wanted to die. Damned slow, this high speed gas.’
Reggie laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ said Elizabeth indignantly, and even Jimmy looked hurt.
‘North Sea Gas isn’t poisonous,’ said Reggie.
Back at the Fishermen’s Arms they had ham and eggs and discussed the dastardly qualities of Clive ‘Lofty’ Anstruther.
‘No more a colonel than that pepper pot,’ said Jimmy. ‘Bogus. Should have seen through him. I’m an idiot. Whole life caput, plug-hole.’
Reggie offered him the job of Head of Creative Thinking.
Chapter 23
A lovely summer enveloped the land, and still the bubble did not burst.
Turnover and sales continued to rise. New lines were introduced, including fattening foods for masochists on diets, and a second silent LP. This was advertised on TV as: ‘More Laryngitis, featuring the silence of Max Bygraves, Des O’Connor, the Bay City Rollers, the Sex Pistols and Rolf Harris.’ It sold millions.
Tom and Linda booked a holiday in Brittany; Tony Webster and Joan resumed cohabitation; Climthorpe signed two new players; Reggie and Elizabeth had good weather for their holiday on Elba; swifts screeched happily in soft blue skies; skylarks sang exultantly above ripening corn; Mrs C.J. tripped getting off the coach on a mystery tour to Namur, and broke her other leg; and in Peter Pan, that moving tale of a revolutionary leader whose ruthless courage earns him the gift of perpetual youth, the lovely Belinda Longstone, the polystyrene heiress, demonstrated a heroic abnegation of the looks given her by fortune, when she chose the role of the crocodile in preference to Wendy.
Reggie was not unduly upset that the bubble did not burst. He was content to wait until the new arrivals had settled in.
Not everybody approved the new appointments, especially that of Seamus Finnegan as Admin Officer. ‘I didn’t get where I am today by having Irish labourers promoted over my head,’ was one anonymous comment. But, bearing in mind Reggie’s new reputation as a genius, everybody was happy to give them a chance.
One morning Reggie visited the new arrivals in their identical offices on the third floor. Each office had a green carpet, a teak veneer desk, expandable grey wall filing units, two cacti, three chairs, and an inspiring view over a heavily pitted open-air National Car Park.
Tom’s desk was covered in pieces of paper on which he had written various slogans and hand-outs. On the floor around the dark green waste-paper basket were many crumpled up pieces of badly aimed waste paper.
‘How’s it going?’ said Reggie.
‘I’m not really a slogan person,’ said Tom.
‘Nonsense. Read me some.’
On the filing units, Tom had placed photos of Linda and the children.
‘Perrin Products are very good, because they are very bad,’ he read.
‘Excellent,’ said Reggie. ‘The essential paradox in a nutshell.’
‘Go to Grot shops and get an eyeful
Of Perrin Products with a wide range of goods that are really pretty awful.’
‘Very good.’
‘It doesn’t rhyme properly.’
‘It almost rhymes, Tom.’
‘I have the feeling my stuff isn’t snappy enough.’
‘It’s exactly what I’m paying you for, Tom.’
Jimmy was staring blankly at a blank piece of paper. There were two neat piles of paper on his desk, and six sharpened pencils of equal length. He had added no decoration to the office.
‘How’s it coming along, Jimmy?’ Reggie asked.
‘Mustn’t grumble. Learning the ropes.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘Not yet. Fly in the ointment.’
‘Keep up the good work, Jimmy.’
Doc Morrissey had drawn pictures of naked girls on all the pieces of paper on his desk.
‘Well, how’s advanced planning coming along?’ said Reggie.
‘I did have one idea,’ said Doc Morrissey.
‘What’s that?’
‘January sales.’
‘Yes. A nice idea, but something similar has been done before.’
‘In September.’
‘I see. Yes.’
‘With . . . er . . . I don’t know whether I’m on the lines, Reggie, but I have tried to understand your . . . er . philosophy . . . with the prices of everything going up instead of down.’
‘I see.’
‘I just thought it would be different.’
‘It is. It is. I wish I’d thought of it myself.’
To Reggie’s surprise the walls of Seamus Finnegan’s office were covered in neat graphs and well-ordered lists. Three photographs of Arkle provided a more human touch.
‘How’s it going, Seamus?’ said Reggie.
‘Slowly, sir. It’s a new field for me and thoroughness, he’s the man for me, he’s the fellow.’
‘Quite. What are all these graphs and things?’
‘Well, sir, I find there has been a considerable disimprovement in organization of late. We are running, at a rough calculation, at only 63 per cent of internal capacity. Production methods leave much to be desired and delivery to the shops is a horse of a similar complexion.’
Seamus had his window wide open and warm sunshine was flooding in.
‘You seem to be doing pretty well.’
‘If I may say so, sir, without courting immodesty, I am in the way of being a bit of an organizational genius. You may recall my mentioning the fact.’
‘I certainly do, yes.’
‘It is a quality that I have not had much opportunity to develop in a world that had me marked up for an ignorant Irish git from the land of the bogs and the little people.’