by Lodge, David
“I don’t get much time for reading,” said Wilcox, “but I’ve a rough idea what he was about. Said everything came down to sex, didn’t he?”
“That’s a rather over-simplified way of putting it,” said Robyn, disinterring some overcooked fish from its carapace of orange batter.
“But basically right?”
“Well, not entirely wrong,” said Robyn. “The early Freud certainly thought libido was the prime mover of human behaviour. Later he came to think the death instinct was more important.”
“The death instinct—what’s that?” Wilcox arrested the transfer of a morsel of meat to his mouth to put this question.
“It’s hard to explain. Essentially it’s the idea that unconsciously we all long for death, for non-being, because being is so painful.”
“I often feel like that at five o’clock in the morning,” said Wilcox. “But I snap out of it when I get up.”
…
Not long after they got back to Wilcox’s office, Brian Everthorpe appeared at the door. His face was flushed and his waistcoat seemed perceptibly tighter than ever across his paunch.
“Hallo, Vic. We were expecting you down at the Man in the Moon. But no doubt you had a nice tête-à-tête lunch somewhere a bit more upmarket, eh? The King’s Head, was it?” He leered at Robyn, and masked a belch with the back of his hand.
“We ate in the canteen,” said Wilcox coldly.
Everthorpe fell back a pace, in exaggerated astonishment. “You never took her to that hole, Vic?”
“Nothing wrong with it,” said Wilcox. “It’s clean and it’s cheap.”
“How did you enjoy the food?” Everthorpe enquired of Robyn. “Not exactly cordon blue, is it?”
Robyn sat down in an armchair. “It’s part of the factory, I suppose.”
“Very diplomatic. Next time—there will be a next time, I hope? Next time, get Vic to take you to the King’s Head Carvery. If he won’t, I will.”
“Did you want to see me about something?” said Wilcox impatiently.
“Yes, a little idea I’ve had. I think we ought to have a calendar. You know, something to give customers at the end of the year. Great advertisement for the firm. It’s up there on the wall three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”
“What kind of calendar?” said Wilcox.
“Well, you know, the usual sort of thing. Birds with boobs.” He glanced at Robyn and winked. “Tasteful, you know, nothing crude. Like the Pirelli calendar. Collectors’ items they are, you know.”
“Are you off your trolley?” said Wilcox.
“I know what you’re going to say,” said Everthorpe, holding up his pink, fleshy palms placatingly. “‘We can’t afford it.’ But I wasn’t thinking of hiring the Earl of Lichfield and a lot of London models. There’s a way we can get it done cheap. You know Shirley has a daughter who does modelling?”
“Wants to do it, you mean.”
“Tracey’s got what it takes, Vic. You should see her portfolio.”
“I have. She looks like a double helping of pink blancmange, and about as exciting. Did Shirley put you up to this?”
“No, Vic, it was my own idea,” said Everthorpe, looking hurt. “Of course, I’ve discussed it with Shirley. She’s all in favour.”
“Yes, I bet she is.”
“My idea is, we use the same girl—Tracey, that is—for each month, but with different backgrounds according to the season.”
“Very original. Won’t the photographer have his own ideas?”
“Ah, but that’s where the other part of my plan comes in. You see, I belong to a photographic club—”
“Excuse me,” said Robyn, standing up. The two men, who had temporarily forgotten her presence in the heat of argument, turned their heads and looked at her. She addressed herself to Everthorpe. “Do I understand that you’re proposing to advertise your products with a calendar that degrades women?”
“It won’t degrade them, my dear, it will…” Everthorpe groped for a word.
“Celebrate them?” Robyn helped him out.
“Exactly.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that one before. But you are proposing to use pictures of naked women, or one naked woman—like the pin-ups that are plastered all over the factory?”
“Well, yes, but classier. Good taste, you know. None of your Penthouse-style crotch shots. Just tit and bum.”
“What about a bit of prick and bum, too?” said Robyn.
Everthorpe looked satisfyingly taken aback. “Eh?” he said.
“Well, statistically, at least ten percent of your customers must be gay. Aren’t they entitled to a little porn too?”
“Ha, ha,” Everthorpe laughed uneasily. “Not many queers in our line of business, are there, Vic?”
Wilcox, who was following this conversation with amused interest, said nothing.
“Or what about the women who work in the offices where these calendars are stuck up?” Robyn continued. “Why should they have to look at naked women all the time? Couldn’t you dedicate a few months of the year to naked men? Perhaps you’d like to pose yourself, along with Tracey?”
Vic Wilcox guffawed.
“I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong, darling,” said Everthorpe, struggling to retain his poise. “Women aren’t like that. They’re not interested in pictures of naked men.”
“I am,” said Robyn. “I like them with hairy chests and ten-inch pricks.” Everthorpe gaped at her. “You’re shocked, aren’t you? But you think it’s perfectly all right to talk about women’s tits and bums and stick pictures of them up all over the place. Well, it isn’t all right. It degrades the women who pose for them, it degrades the men who look at them, it degrades sex.”
“This is all very fascinating,” said Wilcox, looking at his watch, “but I’ve got a meeting in here in about five minutes’ time, with my technical manager and his staff.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” said Brian Everthorpe huffily. “When there’s less interference.”
“I’m afraid it’s a non-starter, Brian,” said Wilcox.
“Stuart Baxter didn’t think so,” said Everthorpe, fluffing out his sideboards with the back of his hand.
“I don’t give a monkey’s what Stuart Baxter thinks,” said Wilcox.
“I’ll talk to you again, when your shadow, or your guardian angel, or whatever she is, will let me get a word in edgewise.” Everthorpe strode out of the office.
Robyn, whose legs felt suddenly weak as the adrenalin drained out of her, sat down. Wilcox, who had been frowning after the departing figure of Everthorpe, turned and almost smiled. “I quite enjoyed that,” he said.
“You agree with me, then?”
“I think we’d make ourselves a laughing-stock.”
“I mean about the principle. The exploitation of women’s bodies.”
“I don’t have much time for that sort of thing myself,” said Wilcox. “But some men never grow up.”
“You could do something about it,” said Robyn. “You’re the boss. You could ban all pin-ups from the factory.”
“I could, if I was completely barmy. All I need is a wildcat strike over pin-ups.”
“You could set an example, at least. There’s one of those girlie calendars in your secretary’s office.”
“Is there?” Wilcox looked genuinely surprised. He jumped up from his swivel chair and went into the adjoining office. A few moments later he returned, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Funny, I never noticed it. Gresham’s Pumps gave it to us.”
“Are you going to take it down, then?”
“Shirley says the Gresham’s buyer likes to see it on the wall when he visits. No point offending a customer.”
Robyn tossed her head scornfully. She was disappointed, having glimpsed the possibility of returning from this expedition into the cultural heart of darkness with some creditable achievement to report to Charles and Penny Black.
Wilcox turned on some lights above the board table on the other s
ide of the room. He went to the window, where the daylight was already fading, and looked out between the vertical louvres of the blind. “It’s snowing again. Maybe you should be on your way. The roads will be difficult.”
“It’s only half past two,” said Robyn. “I thought I was supposed to stay with you all day.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, with a shrug. “But I warn you, I work late.”
While Robyn was hesitating, the office began to fill up with men wearing drab suits and dull ties and with the pasty complexions that seemed to be common to everybody who worked in the factory. They came in diffidently, nodded respectfully to Wilcox, and looked askance at Robyn. They sat down at the table, and took out of their pockets packets of cigarettes, lighters and calculators, placing these objects carefully in front of them as if they were necessary equipment for some game they were about to play.
“Where shall I sit?” said Robyn.
“Anywhere you like,” said Wilcox.
Robyn took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Wilcox. “This is Dr. Robyn Penrose, of Rummidge University,” he said. As though given permission to stare at her, the men all turned their heads simultaneously in her direction. “You’ve all heard of Industry Year, I suppose. And you all know what a shadow is. Well, Dr. Penrose is my Industry Year Shadow.” He looked round the table as if daring anyone to smile. No one did. He explained the Shadow Scheme briefly, and concluded, “Just carry on as if she wasn’t there.”
This they seemed to find no difficulty in doing, once the meeting started. The subject was Wastage. Wilcox began by stating that the percentage of products rejected by their own inspectors was five per cent, which he considered far too high, and another one per cent was returned by customers. He listed various possible causes—defective machines, careless workmanship, poor supervision, faulty lab tests—and asked the head of each department to identify the main cause of waste in their own area. Robyn found the discussion hard to follow. The managers spoke in cryptic, allusive utterances, using technical jargon that was opaque to her. The adenoidal whine of their accents dulled her hearing, and the smoke of their cigarettes made her eyes smart. She grew bored, and gazed out of the window, at the fading winter light and the fluttering descent of the snow. The snow was general all over Rummidge, she mused, playing variations on a famous passage by James Joyce to divert herself. It was falling on every part of the dark, sprawling conurbation, on the concrete motorways, and the treeless industrial estates, falling softly upon the lawns of the University campus and, further westward, upon the dark mutinous waters of the Rummidge–Wallsbury Canal. Then suddenly she was listening with attention again.
They were discussing a machine that was continually breaking down. “It’s the operative’s fault,” one of the managers was saying. “He’s just not up to the job. He doesn’t set the indexes properly, so it keeps jamming.”
“What’s his name?” Wilcox demanded.
“Ram. He’s a Paki,” said one.
“No, he’s not, he’s Indian,” said another.
“Well, whatever. Who can tell the difference? They call him Danny. Danny Ram. He was moved on to the job when we were short-handed last winter, and up-graded from labourer.”
“Let’s get rid of him, then,” said Wilcox. “He’s causing a bottleneck. Terry—see to it, will you?”
Terry, a heavily built man smoking a pipe, took it out of his mouth and said, “We haven’t got a basis to fire him.”
“Rubbish. He’s been trained, hasn’t he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Check it out. If he hasn’t, train him, even if he can’t grasp it. Are you with me?”
Terry nodded.
“Then each time he fails to set the machine properly, you give him a proper warning. On the third warning, he’s fired. Shouldn’t take more than a fortnight. All right?”
“Right,” said Terry, putting his pipe back between his teeth.
“The next question,” said Wilcox, “is quality control in the machine shop. Now I’ve got some figures here—”
“Excuse me,” said Robyn.
“Yes, what is it?” said Wilcox, looking up impatiently from his spreadsheet.
“Do I understand that you are proposing to pressure a man into making mistakes so that you can sack him?”
Wilcox stared at Robyn. There was a long silence, such as falls over a saloon bar in a Western at moments of confrontation. Not only did the other men not speak; they did not move. They did not appear even to breathe. Robyn herself was breathing rather fast, in short, shallow pants.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business, Dr. Penrose,” said Wilcox at last.
“Oh, but it is,” said Robyn hotly. “It’s the business of anyone who cares for truth and justice. Don’t you see how wrong it is, to trick this man out of his job?” she said, looking round the table. “How can you sit there, and say nothing?” The men fiddled uneasily with their cigarettes and calculators, and avoided meeting her eye.
“It’s a management matter in which you have no competence,” said Wilcox.
“It’s not a management matter, it’s a moral issue,” said Robyn.
Wilcox was now pale with anger. “Dr. Penrose,” he said, “I think you’ve got the wrong idea about your position here. You’re a shadow, not an inspector. You’re here to learn, not to interfere. I must ask you to keep quiet, or leave the meeting.”
“Very well, I’ll leave,” said Robyn. She gathered up her belongings in a strained silence, and left the room.
“Meeting over?” said Shirley, with a bright, meaningless smile.
“No, it’s still going on,” said Robyn.
“You’re leaving early, then? I don’t blame you, in this weather. Coming back tomorrow, are you?”
“Next week,” said Robyn. “Every Wednesday—that’s the arrangement.” She was very doubtful whether this arrangement would continue, but it suited her purpose to conceal the row that had just occurred. “Do you know a worker in the factory called Danny Ram?” she asked, in a casual tone of voice.
“Can’t say I do. What’s his job?”
“I’m not sure. He operates some kind of machine.”
“Well, most of them do, don’t they?” said Shirley, with a laugh. “Quite a change for you, isn’t it, this kind of place? After the University, I mean.”
“Yes, quite a change.”
“This Ram a friend of yours, is he?” Shirley’s curiosity, and perhaps suspicion, had been aroused.
“No, but I think he’s the father of one of my students,” Robyn improvised.
“You could ask Betty Maitland in Accounts,” said Shirley. “Two doors along the corridor.”
“Thanks,” said Robyn.
Betty Maitland very obligingly looked up Danny Ram on the payroll (his name was actually Danyatai Ram) and told Robyn that he worked in the foundry. Since the only way she knew to the foundry was the route of her guided tour earlier that day, she was obliged to retrace it.
In the machine shop, without Victor Wilcox to escort her, Robyn was as conspicuous in her high-fashion boots, her cord breeches and her cream-coloured quilted jacket, as some rare animal, a white doe or a unicorn, would have been in the same place. Wolf-whistles and catcalls, audible in spite of the mechanical din, followed her as she hurried through the factory. The more the men whistled, the more ribald their remarks, the faster she walked; but the faster she walked, the more of a sexual object, or sexual quarry, she became, twisting and turning between the rows of benches (for she soon lost her bearings), stumbling over piles of metal parts, skidding on the oily floor, her cheeks as red as her hair, the wings of her nostrils white, her eyes fixed steadfastly ahead, refusing to meet the gaze of her tormentors. “’Allo, darlin’, lookin’ for me? Fancy a bit of that, Enoch? Show us yer legs! Coom over ’ere and ’old me tool, will yow?”
At last she found the exit at the far end of the enormous shed, and burst out into a dark courtyard, littered with the hulks of aba
ndoned machinery, which she remembered from the morning. She paused for a moment under a feeble electric light to recover her self-possession, drawing the clean cold air into her lungs, before plunging once more into the third circle of this industrial inferno. With no daylight at all penetrating to the interior of the foundry, it looked more hellish than ever, its furnaces glowing fiercely in the smoky gloom. Here the workers were fewer than in the machine shop, and shyer—perhaps because they were mostly Asian. They avoided her glance, and turned away at her approach, as though her presence vaguely alarmed them. “Danny Ram?” she called after them. “Do you know where Danny Ram works?” They shook their heads, rolled their eyes, grinned nervously, and went about their inscrutable business. At last she came across a white man, nonchalantly lighting his cigarette from a twelve-inch flame shooting out of a gas jet, who was prepared to answer her question. “Danny Ram?” he said, holding his head aslant to avoid being scorched, “Yeah, I know ’im. Woi?”
“I have a message for him.”
“’E’s over theer,” said the man, straightening up, and pointing to a thin, rather depressed-looking Asian standing beside a complicated piece of machinery. It was making so much noise, and absorbing his attention so completely, that he didn’t register Robyn’s approach.
“Mr. Ram?” she said, touching his sleeve.
He started and swivelled round. “Yes?” he mouthed, staring.
“I have some important information for you,” she shouted.
“Information?” he repeated wonderingly. “Who are you, please?”
Fortunately the machine came to the end of its cycle at this point and she was able to continue in a more normal tone of voice. “It doesn’t matter who I am. The information is confidential, but I think you ought to know. They’re going to try and sack you.” The man began to tremble slightly inside his overalls, which were stiff with grease and dirt. “They’re going to keep finding fault with your work, and giving you warnings, so they can sack you. Understand? Forewarned is forearmed. Don’t tell anyone I told you.” She smiled encouragingly, and extended her hand. “Goodbye.”
The man wiped his hands ineffectually on his hips and gave her a limp handshake. “Who are you?” he said. “How do you know this?”