‘Oh, certainly.’ Amiss felt he shouldn’t give too much encouragement to Horace. He’d be sewing numbers on the blokes’ suits next. ‘What are my staff like?’
‘Well, perhaps not as dynamic as one would wish,’ Horace said sadly. ‘Though I’m sure that now you’ve arrived they’ll have more of a sense of purpose. They’re all experienced and reliable men, of course. I’d keep my eye on Charlie Collins, though. He doesn’t seem to take his work as seriously as he should. I’m afraid he’s a bit flippant.’
Suppressing a flash of fellow-feeling for Charlie, Amiss nodded knowingly. ‘I’d better get out there and talk to them now,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly lunchtime. Perhaps we could all have an informal drink?’
Horace was flabbergasted. ‘We don’t encourage our staff to drink.’
The reproof drove Amiss into stumbling fatuousness. ‘Oh, just a symbolic quick one, you know. Breaks the ice and all that.’
‘Well, of course I don’t want to tell you how to do your job. But when you’ve been around as long as I have you’ll discover that too much informality breeds contempt for management.’
Amiss felt a pang of homesickness for his cheerfully irreverent staff back in the DOC, but answered obediently. ‘Yes. I quite understand. I’ll watch that.’
‘Just one thing before you go. It’s about your office.’
‘I didn’t think I had one. When we walked through the general office I saw an empty desk that I assumed was mine.’
Horace corrected him gravely. ‘That was for a special reason. George couldn’t work in an enclosed space because his cigarette smoke could have been bad for his chest. You’ll be having a proper office like this to yourself.’ He gesticulated vigorously around the cramped and claustrophobic cubicle which Amiss had already dubbed ‘the command module’.
‘Oh, really. I’d rather sit with my staff. It’s what I’m used to.’
‘It’s not a question of what you’d like, if you don’t mind me saying so. It’s a question of what is correct for an SPE. The union wouldn’t be very pleased if you allowed management to deny you the privileges it has won for you. In any case, the carpenters are coming in to construct it tomorrow.’
Amiss gave up. There was no point in alienating Horace—or the bloody union for that matter. He stood up. ‘Well, that’s fine, then. Thanks for everything, Horace. You’ve been very helpful.’
Horace was a hard man to shake off. ‘I’ll come with you and introduce you to your chaps. Might as well do the thing properly.’
He led Amiss out and they skirted the long row of filing cabinets that cut the branches off from easy contact with each other. Horace cleared his throat. ‘This is your new SPE, Robert Amiss.’
Amiss’s ingratiating smile died abruptly as he glanced over the small group and encountered a concerted glare of hostility.
Chapter Three
Purchasing Department, British Conservation Corporation
14 May
Dear Rachel,
You won’t be the only person to be surprised by an unexpected letter from me. After almost five days in my new job on secondment to the above I’ve decided to occupy my office hours by writing incessantly to old neglected friends. To be seen reading for pleasure is considered bad for discipline.
I would describe this place as a mad-house, except that it’s nothing so exciting—more like a geriatric home. Between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. I’m walled up in a ten foot by four foot plywood cubby-hole where I pretend to spend eight hours on work that wouldn’t occupy a half-wit for three. My staff of six sit outside discussing old and new grievances (I’m one of the latter), exchanging badinage, reading newspapers on the pretext that they need to keep in touch with technical developments, and covertly pursuing their hobbies. They and I are supposed to concentrate full-time on purchasing furniture, stationery and calculators for the BCC.
All our furniture is bought from the same source the civil service uses, so all we have to do is rubber-stamp requests and fill out order forms. Stationery needs more attention. If so minded, one can spend many happy hours engaging in exchanges of memoranda with irresponsible colleagues who have ordered a stapler we consider surplus to their needs.
Calculators are our hot potato. As far as I can gather from the files, we’ve been making a cock-up here for some time. Our last achievement was to buy—two years ago—two hundred expensive models because we were impressed by promises of longevity. It is now alleged by our critics that these are obsolete and that smaller, more sophisticated calculators can be bought at Woolworths at a tenth of the price. A war has been raging for some considerable time. We are fighting a last-ditch action to persuade Authority that it shouldn’t decentralize calculator purchasing as it has in recent years—and clearly with good reason—decentralized damn near everything from computers to teapots. The only weapon we’ve got is to blame the whole mess on my predecessor, who was not at his sparkling best when the decision was taken. If I am to gain any popularity here, it will be by winning at least a stay of execution, and at best a confirmation that I am to be left with my rightful responsibilities in this matter.
As yet I haven’t the faintest grasp of why an apparently efficient outfit like this should tolerate the existence of a department in which fifteen men do the work of three. And what a shower they are! My boss, Donald Shipton, sleeps his life away down the corridor. My opposite number, Horace Underhill, devotes all his efforts to complicating our work to a level where even an Indian bureaucrat would cry halt. I know next to nothing about my staff except that St Francis of Assisi would find it hard to love them. They have made it abundantly clear that they take a dim view of being lumbered with an alien—worse, a young alien. They’ve resisted all my attempts to be friendly. Over the one drink I persuaded them to have with me all I got were snide remarks about graduates who thought they knew it all, the superiority of those who had been to the university of life, and animadversions on the inefficiency of civil servants. Which last is a bit thick when you consider that they are all people who transferred from the DOC when the BCC was set up—presumably because the salaries here are slightly higher—and must have been among the worst duds in the whole of the Home Civil Service. (From all this I exempt Charlie Collins, the only human being in the group, but more of him later.)
Henry Crump is particularly ghastly. He’s in his early fifties, all spreading belly and bum. His main hobby is making a nuisance of himself to the two women in the room. (In addition to Horace’s other burdens, he controls the Clerical Assistant, Cathy, a long-suffering middle-aged Irishwoman who bears on her face signs of the 800 years of sorrow and oppression of her race, and Janice, a dishy eighteen-year-old West Indian typist.) Henry, though like most of PD a sexist xenophobe, never misses an opportunity to squeeze up against either of them in narrow spaces. When he isn’t doing that he’s finding opportunities to lean over Janice and peer down her front. He’s got a sort of underhand leer, if you know what I mean, that makes one cringe and blush for him. He is also, I gather from occasional pronouncements drifting through my wall, in favour of capital and corporal punishment, repatriation, the outlawing of strikes and getting the trains to run on time. He manages cleverly to be anti-Semitic and fascist while referring to Chancellor Kohl and the rest of his nation as Nazis who should have been eliminated in 1945.
Graham Illingworth is about ten years younger and combines dullness, obstinacy and pessimism to a unique degree. All requests, whether from me or elsewhere, are initially answered by ‘Doubt it very much’, ‘No chance’ or ‘I see trouble’. When I’ve tried to get him to talk about his interests (because I’m still trying, and I do sit and talk to them sometimes), I can occasionally get him to say something about DIY or the merits of taking the A1 rather than the M1, but it’s mostly monosyllabic. He’s mousey-looking and without a single distinguishing feature physically, and I fear that some day I’ll meet him outside the office and won’t recognize him.
Tiny, God help us, is called that because he has
the surname Short. Also, as you will instantly have guessed, he is in fact large and exuberant. He must weigh sixteen stone in the buff and he keeps himself fit with Saturday rugger. I might possibly like him if he didn’t confine his conversation in my hearing to anti-queer jokes of a crudity that throws even me, on the undoubted assumption that I’m queer myself. Moreover, I suspect him of being responsible for upending a plant pot into one of the drawers of my filing cabinets yesterday. I had an hour of happy fun clearing the mess up. In my anxiety to avoid trouble so early in my time here, I said nothing about it.
Bill Thomas is sweaty, bespectacled, forty-five-ish and almost entirely bald. As far as I can gather he has no interests outside his house and garden. He certainly spends enough time looking at seed catalogues under the desk. So far I’ve discovered that he won’t go abroad because he didn’t like it when there on National Service, that he doesn’t like books or music and that he won’t have a TV set because it’s rubbish. (He’s the only bachelor among them, by the way. It figures.) The lack of a TV set cuts him off from much of the general conversation among his peers.
Tony Farson is small, weedy and late forties. He spends a great deal of his time peering over the financial pages and is, I suspect, as mean as hell. The only time I’ve seen him animated was when I shocked him to the core by admitting that I was renting rather than buying a flat.
Then there’s Charlie. I can’t imagine what he’s doing here. He’s not much older than me, nice-looking, quick witted and quick-moving. He’s not exactly friendly towards me, but he does throw me a civil and occasionally funny word from time to time.
What all of them have in common is a total lack of interest in the work they do and a deep resentment about poor promotion prospects. They ransack Personnel News looking for jobs of a higher grade for which they can apply, but Horace has admitted that for the last three years, no one from PD has ever been transferred, let alone promoted. Their journeys to work are horrendous. Every one of them commutes from outside London and then has a long tube journey and a twenty-minute walk at the end of that. They loathe London and get the hell out each evening as fast as their employers and British Rail will allow. Their travelling habits are as regular as their bowel movements (about which I am well informed, as they seem to save up evacuation for office hours).
They’re all discontented with their personal lives as well (except possibly bachelor Bill). None of them has a good word to say about marriage, though those with children seem to like them. The younger ones are financially crippled by mortgages and travel costs. In my kindlier moments—when they aren’t particularly thick or unpleasant—I feel sorry for them, but they wouldn’t thank me for that. They abhor me even more than they would otherwise, because I live in London, have no dependants to fritter my money, and, worse again, I earn more than they do.
I forgot to tell you about their chief diversion—persecuting Cathy with Irish jokes which she pretends not to hear.
I feel better now. Sorry to have whined so much, but it has been a considerable shock to my self-esteem to find that someone saw fit to send me to this hell-hole. Did you ever see Sartre’s Huis Clos? If you did, you’ll get the general idea.
I’m going to make efforts to get a transfer, but my chances are slim, especially since I’ve got to do it without antagonizing Horace. On the plus side, I’ve got more spare time than I’ve had for years and I intend to enjoy it. I might even come over to Paris some weekend if you renew last year’s invitation with sufficient enthusiasm.
And now, on to news of common acquaintances…
Chapter Four
PD2
BCC
11 June
Dear Rachel,
You’re very decent to go on writing so regularly. Yes. The weekend after next will be fine. I’ll be on the plane that arrives at Charles de Gaulle at 7:45 your time. It’s kind of you to offer to introduce me to some of the embassy people, but if it’s all the same to you I’d prefer not to be sociable. Could we just eat and drink a lot and catch up on the last two years? You haven’t really told me much about your job and I’ve mostly just been maundering on in my letters about the horrors of my exile. Absence has certainly made my heart grow fonder of the good old DOC—although I’d like to strangle that shit who sent me here.
I can’t resist giving you some more of the same. You shouldn’t have given me the opening by asking about my attempts to get out of here. The simple answer is no dice. Personnel tell me stiffly that they would consider it only if I got Shipton to recommend it. Apart from the fact that he’d resist the physical effort of signing his name, he’s too satisfied with me to think of letting me go. I realize from something Horace said recently that the last PD2 was given to wheezing up the corridor and trying to pass decisions up to Shipton. Stupidly, I haven’t bothered him at all: the trickiest issue I’ve been faced with so far has been whether to let the paper recycling lab have an unscheduled batch of pencils. I said yes and Graham the DIY fanatic is still sulking.
Speaking of Graham, the other day I found in a file a memo which sums up magnificently his approach to his job. It reads thus:
P/Lab: Mr E.B. White
With reference to your request for a paper-punch (PP14976) I must point out that you have failed to fill in on your CP/3A the box in which you are required to give your reasons for needing this item. Without this the requisition cannot be considered.
I should point out additionally that we have been experiencing considerable delays from the PP14976 suppliers and I think it is very unlikely that even if we approve your request there will be a delivery situation before October at the earliest.
G. Illingworth APE
PD2.2.1
Mr E.B. White is clearly a patient man. He returned a CP/3A with the crucial box filled in with the words ‘For punching holes in pieces of paper.’ Graham duly did the necessary with his rubber stamp. I contributed my mite by sending a rocket to the suppliers which had the effect of securing a delivery within the week. Graham’s pissed off about that too.
News from Henry (mostly through the partition) is that he thinks that any woman who says no means yes. However, he also thinks that rapists should be castrated. He has informed his colleagues that all black men have enormous dongs. I won’t commit to paper what he thinks all black women have.
Bill has had a record crop of lettuces. He’s now bent over the summer seed catalogue.
Horace is in his element. He’s standing in for Shipton, who’s on holiday, and is trying to get approval for some mad scheme for a PD brainstorming weekend at the BCC’s Hertfordshire training centre. I am fearful that Shipton won’t have the energy to countermand the plans when gets back. Brainstorming! Sweet Jesus! How can I get out of it?
Janice, splendid girl, finally flipped last week when Henry’s hand connected with her bum and screamed at him to fuck himself as no one else would. She has now been transferred. Her replacement is a superannuated lady who bears a strong resemblance to Eleanor Roosevelt and sports knee-length pink woollen knickers. Henry’s prospects are bleak.
Oh, I forgot. Horace is threatening to invite me home to dinner so that I can meet his wife and see the slides of their last Spanish holiday.
Yesterday someone put drawing pins on my chair. My cry of pain was answered from without by a raucous laugh from Tiny.
On the plus side, I have come the heavy with Personnel over Charlie’s future prospects and the omens are propitious. He really is bright. I wouldn’t mind getting to know him better, but I can’t of course. It would finish him off with his associates.
I must stop now as I have an important meeting to prepare for. Horace and I are to state our calculator retention case before a higher court. Even the civil service never expected me to prostitute truth in such a cause—but I can’t quite see it as a resignation issue.
Love,
Robert
Chapter Five
5 November
The sound of bird-shot in the near distance jerked Amiss out o
f his drunken doze. Diving panic-stricken for cover, he caught his foot on the leg of his chair and his head struck the sharp edge of his desk. As he sprawled, the chair fell painfully across his twisted right leg. Full-blooded, throaty laughter sounded through the wall and his senses returned, bringing with them clashing emotions of anger and embarrassment.
What he wanted to do now was to hurtle out into the general office and throttle the fool who had launched what must have been an entire carton of paperclips at his plywood wall. What he had to do was recover his composure and think of an appropriate wise-crack to deliver when he sauntered out in a few minutes, apparently unruffled. It was his own fault anyway. He shouldn’t have drunk so much at Charlie’s goodbye party.
Wincing, he disentangled himself from the chair, set it upright and examined the damage in the mirror. His face was flushed and a discoloured swelling was beginning to appear high up on his left temple. The relief of finding that his hair was long enough to cover the evidence of his fall made the pain easier to bear, though the throbbing of his right leg demanded great will-power if he was to avoid exhibiting a limp. It was worth it, though. If the chair hadn’t fallen on his leg it would have made a resounding crash and the bastards would have been chortling for the rest of the afternoon.
It had to be Tiny, of course. Only he had the strength to create a din of this magnitude with the missiles to hand. Amiss wondered for the hundredth time why Tiny seemed determined to annoy a reasonably well-disposed boss, who was in a position to counteract the effect of the vicious reports that Henry put in on him. But then he probably didn’t realize that Henry was selling him down the river, or that Amiss was struggling hopelessly to persuade Shipton that Tiny deserved a break. Fat chance. It had taken six months of constant effort to wangle Charlie a temporary promotion to another department and that had really only been possible because Bill’s reports on him had been so innocuous. Thinking back to what he had endured from Tiny over the six months, Amiss was impressed by his own generosity of spirit. Of course, he couldn’t be certain that Tiny had been behind all the practical jokes, but he couldn’t think of any other likely perpetrator. God! They were so wearisome and unfunny. Plastering his office with soft-porn pin-ups was one thing; lining his briefcase with green jelly was another. And those damn bogus alarm calls in the middle of the night were especially hard to bear. Maybe he should have come down on Tiny like a ton of bricks when the jokes started, rather than ignoring them. But then he’d probably have denied responsibility.
The Saint Valentine’s Day Murders Page 2