Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Some of my files seem to be missing. Not just union stuff – some of my confidential staff development records. And I know I locked it. I always lock it.’

  ‘There was a drawer open when I popped in on Friday,’ I said.

  ‘“Popped in”? I locked the door on Thursday night. I always set the catch thing—’

  ‘The snib,’ I said.

  ‘– and then test the door. Just like my mum. Always turns back and gives the door a shove to make sure she’s locked it.’

  ‘And your computer was warm.’ She might as well have all the bad news at once.

  ‘My God!’ She sat heavily on the other chair. ‘What the hell’s going on? Why me? Do you know if anyone else has had this sort of thing?’

  ‘Me for a start.’ I was eager to tell her about the incursions of Sunshine. ‘I’ll try to find out for you. Anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I know of. But then, stuck in a room on my own and working very much apart from the rest of you, I hardly know anyone to talk to. Not properly. And with exams coming up, everyone’s working flat out anyway.’

  The phone rang. Polly snatched it and barked her number. Then she slung it down.

  ‘I really hate that,’ I said mildly, ‘when you answer and there’s no one there.’

  ‘There was someone there all right. I could hear breathing. Tell me, Sophie,’ she said, getting to her feet and wringing her fingers, ‘am I getting paranoid?’

  ‘Just because you’re paranoid,’ I said gloomily, ‘doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’

  Polly and I waited side by side outside the new door, waiting for someone to admit us to the administrative section of the college; only the initiated, which didn’t include us, the ‘blue-collar’ workers, knew what code to press into the lock. At long last Mrs Cavendish’s voice, disembodied, told us we could enter.

  ‘Miss Rivers? I recollect you have an appointment. But Mrs Andrews – there’s no sign of you in the diary.’

  ‘I asked Ms Andrews to come with me. To be present when I speak to the principal.’

  ‘You’re very late.’

  ‘My lateness is unavoidable. Is Mr Blake free?’

  ‘Mr Blake will not see you if you bring Mrs Andrews. The union has been derecognised.’

  ‘Ms Andrews is here as a friend.’ As I spoke I wondered if we might become friends. I certainly liked what I’d seen of her: a woman a few years older than I with convictions and a personalised office. But somehow I felt so impermanent, so out of place, at this college, I couldn’t imagine myself forming any lasting links.

  ‘That’s as may be. But Mr Blake will not see you together. Nor,’ she added, leaning back and smiling, ‘as it happens, will he see you anyway. He’s having his injections for his Australia trip. I’ll book you in for this time on Wednesday, shall I?’

  ‘Wednesday! What I have to say is urgent!’

  ‘Mrs Rivers, Mr Blake usually only sees staff on Mondays. Don’t you appreciate that you’re very fortunate to be slotted in at all?’

  I bowed grimly. ‘Wednesday, then.’

  I waited till we were outside the gulag before yelling. Then, feeling better, I turned to Polly. ‘What’s this about Australia?’

  ‘Well might you ask.’ She sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair, which responded by flopping beautifully into place. ‘In certain states in Australia – not all of them, not yet – the college managements have gone macho: the sort of thing you see here. They’ve gone even further: unilaterally cutting holidays, introducing weekend working with inadequate time off in lieu. Blake, of course, can’t wait to see how it’s done. So the miserable bastard’s taken the entire staff-development budget for the rest of the year – money that should be retraining lecturers this recession has left without work – to finance his little trip. I refused to sign the paperwork, of course – don’t think I didn’t try to stand firm. I had the budget on my desk at nine thirty and at ten in walks Curtis with the principal’s trip. I refused. At ten thirty I’m told I’m suspended for gross insubordination and sent home. At one I’m told the principal has generously reconsidered my case and I’m reinstated, only to find, of course, that in my absence all his Australian paperwork has gone through.’ She slapped the flat of her hand hard against the wall. Peggy looked up from her crochet and Hector stiffened.

  ‘Don’t worry, Hector,’ said Polly, ‘I’m not going to destroy the place. I shall leave that to the management.’

  By now it was time I went to my office to find out what was going on there. I’d managed to postpone what I expected to be a confrontation between me and Sunshine until about eleven. I ran up the stairs and strode briskly along the corridor. I wanted to pretend to myself that it was the exercise that was making my heart pound and my palms sweat.

  The office door was open, and someone was in there. But even as I prepared to challenge him, I realised the intruder was not Sunshine but one of the caretakers. He gave the desk one last polish with the tail of his cow-gown and stood back to admire his work. All evidence of Sunshine was gone, and my room had been cleaned. There was a distinct piney smell in the air. I sniffed suspiciously.

  ‘Bit of my body spray, like,’ he said. ‘Don’t like the smell of them fags meself, not since I give up, any road.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering how soon I could tactfully open the window. ‘What happened to, er …?’ I waved my hand airily. ‘The guy that was here.’

  ‘Gone back to his own room, far as I know. Not for long, though. One of them engineers. All for the chop, like.’

  ‘What sort of engineering?’

  ‘Dunno. Something to do with plastic. I’ve seen him with odd bits of plastic, like. You know, shapes.’

  I didn’t. But I smiled reassuringly.

  ‘They reckon as he may be one as keeps his job for all he’s new. Funny handshake brigade – see what I mean?’ He winked hugely and tapped a knowing forefinger against the side of his nose. ‘Lots of them in this place, of course – tap and they come out of the woodwork. Ought to be brickwork, oughtn’t it? Gerrit? Masons? Brickwork?’

  To oblige him, I chuckled. Perhaps with a bit of encouragement he’d continue.

  ‘There’s tales I could tell you – make your hair curl, they would. Now, there’s the paper, for starters, that is.’

  ‘What about the paper?’

  ‘Look, I’m all behind, like, as Tessie O’Shea might have said. But she’d be before your time, of course. Two-Ton Tessie, they used to call her. This room wasn’t on me schedule. Got put on at the last minute, like.’

  ‘That was very kind of someone.’ I smiled, hoping I wouldn’t have to ask directly.

  ‘Don’t mention it, miss. All in a day’s work.’

  ‘Well, I shall mention it – I’m very grateful. It all looks splendid. And I’d better thank your boss, too.’

  ‘Don’t want to worry – ah! ’Scuse me, miss. Makes me feel quite grand, being paged.’

  He switched off his bleeper and hurried out.

  I sat at my newly waxed desk and thought. But before I could come up with anything worth recording, I had to go off to my class. We are the hollow men …

  I must say, I was surprised to see a set of police horses in the car park. There must be some appropriate collective noun for horses which I, as an English teacher, ought to know. When I was a kid, we’d been taught out of a floppy blue-covered book called First Aid in English. A troop of monkeys. A pride of lions. A something – something really quite poetic – of goldfinches. And we’d sat there in rows, a something of parrots. Now I needed a something of police horses. While I waited for the meeting to start, I let the somethings roll round my brain. What about college managers, now? A discord? A sleaze? A corruption?

  I also discovered I was very angry. Who on earth could have imagined that a confabulation of lecturers would need such confrontational policing? All we wanted to do was talk, to protest quietly and constructively. I di
dn’t want to believe those stories about the rhythmic beatings on riot shields, the chanting of provocative obscenities, but I might have to.

  And then the word went round that we were to go inside. The historians had legitimately booked the conference room for a meeting, and we were to infiltrate, one by one, not as a surging crowd.

  There was, of course, standing room only. Polly had to perch on a chair to make herself heard. Her message was brief. First of all, the news about Tom Hendry was promising. He was conscious, and the cardiac people hoped he’d make a good recovery. Concerning the cause of his distress, until we had held a ballot there was nothing we could do. Then she introduced a regional official, Seb, a bulky man with an enthusiastic beard.

  He took her place on the chair. ‘It’ll take seven or eight weeks to organise official – legal – strike action. And remember that strikes cost you money and save the employers’ wages bills.’

  ‘What about working to rule?’

  There was a roar of agreement.

  ‘I think under present legislation you’ll find that costs you more than striking. There aren’t any rule books any more. If you refuse to set and mark exams, for instance, you not only harm your students, you risk losing all your salary for the whole period you take action. The same for refusing to mark registers, answering phones, anything. Truth is,’ he said, ‘we’re pretty well impotent. If the miners couldn’t win, I don’t see how we can.’

  I could hardly believe my ears: this was a union official whose job it must be to raise our morale. I had a terrible frisson of fear that even our union had somehow been got at. But then I remembered all that eighties legislation.

  ‘To be honest,’ he continued, ‘I hope this doesn’t come to a strike. Most reasonable managers – and I have no reason to believe that Mr Blake isn’t reasonable—’

  ‘What about Curtis, though?’ asked a voice close to me.

  ‘– most reasonable managers prefer to settle sensibly, without so much as an industrial tribunal. There is some legal action you can take, however. The results are through for the national strike ballot. The May strike’s on! One day, just one day of national, as opposed to local, action, should help. Meanwhile, you have to work normally. Sorry.’

  There were jeers of disbelief.

  ‘Didn’t this morning’s memo convince you? We’re not in the era of beer and sandwiches now, you know. And yes, of course it’s unfair, we all know that. But I presume we didn’t vote for them,’ he added, with heavy irony.

  At length we all acquiesced. But it was an angry acquiescence.

  I got back to the sanctuary of my room exhausted after my afternoon GCSE class. You’d have thought that with so little time before their exams the students would have wanted to work. I might have understood it if their minds were too absorbed by the prospect of chaos taking over their Alma Mater slap in the middle of their exams. But all they wanted to talk about was some football scandal, which, since it did not involve a West Bromwich Albion Player, left me cold. Irritated and frustrated, I snarled them into submission and made them buckle down.

  I was just contemplating the possibility of risking the canteen to get a cup of tea – the strong, sweet, milky sort that would have been anathema to Ian Dale – when the phone rang. A cool official voice told me that my Barclaycard had just arrived at my local branch of Barclays, and they would like me to collect it at my earliest convenience.

  I checked my watch: I just had time to get to the far end of Harborne before four thirty. I’d come back to Muntz afterwards; there was still work I wanted to do on this project, and, since there seemed to be no sign of my co-workers, I didn’t want to get too far behind. I dived out of the back entrance and hurtled to the bus stop, where the driver waited, not quite patiently.

  The traffic at the far end of Harborne High Street was already pretty solid. Although there was a perfectly good pelican crossing five yards down the road, I gave no second thought to dodging between stationary cars, particularly when the driver of one on the far side of the road waved me on. And then, a quick, hostile roar of the engine, and he was on me.

  I slapped my hand on his bonnet and leaped sideways. I’d meant to use his car simply as a lever, but the noise was terrific. And then I landed, awkwardly. As I watched, my left knee went in one direction, the rest of the leg in the other. The pain was exquisite. But then the whole lot coalesced: the joint was putting itself miraculously if agonizingly back together. I managed to lurch on to the pavement, clutching a lamppost to stay upright. The car was nowhere to be seen.

  A discussion went on over my bowed head: although half were quick to blame me, the rest of the crowd I’d attracted were convinced they’d seen the driver wave me on and grin as he shot forwards. But no one had his number; one man thought he might have been on trade plates.

  At last I forced myself to move. Each step made the pain explode, but now I was here I might as well get my Barclaycard, and persuade the bank to phone for a taxi. So I hopped and wobbled my way up the bank steps. Although someone was just shutting the outer doors, she let me in.

  They were kindness itself: their first-aider slapped on ice and then strapped me up. The manager insisted on running me home. The only thing that truly pissed me off was that they couldn’t find whoever had phoned to tell me my card was ready.

  They couldn’t find my card, either. And this was hardly surprising – a quick call to Barclaycard confirmed what I might have suspected. The card hadn’t been sent out yet.

  13

  I kept a pack of frozen peas specially to use as a compress, and many a time had reduced an ankle swollen after a jogging mishap to a perfectly usable joint the next morning. I even had some tubular elasticated bandage, so I could support the knee when I moved around. However, it looked so ridiculous with the shortish skirt I was wearing, I changed into a pair of summer-weight trousers. Jeans might be regarded as inappropriate for the trustees’ meeting that evening. I dug in the cupboard under the stairs for a walking stick. Damn it all, all I needed was a patch on my eye and a parrot on my shoulder. I was just applying some make-up when the front doorbell rang. The leg was definitely improving – I didn’t have to go down the stairs on my bottom.

  ‘My dear Sophie! Are you all right?’

  Richard Fairfax. I hadn’t been aware that I was in any way dear to him. But he stared at me with such solicitude I realised I must have forgotten my blusher.

  I had also forgotten to clear the assorted rubbish from my dining table. I gathered it up with an impartial sweep – I could see membership renewals, a final demand, the Midshires Symphony Orchestra’s programme of summer concerts, a card from my father suggesting I might like a weekend with him when I was next in Spain, and some notes I thought I’d lost for the computer project.

  Fairfax regarded the assortment thoughtfully. ‘A young person’s table. It’s only later one learns to be methodical, to keep one’s affairs in order.’

  I looked at him sharply. He was paler than I.

  ‘A little tired,’ he said deprecatingly, as if that was the price to be paid by a captain of industry.

  If, of course, that was what he was. He was clearly loaded, but had not found it necessary to explain how he passed his working days.

  ‘Whisky?’

  He shook his head. ‘Are you sure you should be standing on that leg?’

  From the sofa, my leg propped up, I gestured him to an armchair. But he fidgeted around the room. I wondered by what standards he was judging my pictures and the framed sampler Chris had given me for my most recent birthday. ‘My feet will seek the paths of righteousness. Catherine Mary Roberts. Anno Domini 1837.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ He pointed to my leg and sat on a dining chair, pulling his briefcase alongside him.

  I explained.

  He was suitably outraged. ‘Which hospital did they take you to?’

  I laughed.

  ‘You mean you’ve ignored—’

  ‘If I’d taken it to Casualty, I’d
still be there now. And I’d be taking someone else’s place in the queue. It’s not terminal, you know.’

  ‘I’ll take you in after the meeting. I assure you you won’t have to queue.’

  I had a sudden and unattractive vision of him marching up to the reception desk and waving his BUPA card. I shook my head emphatically.

  He was about to speak when the doorbell rang again. He sat and watched while I struggled to my feet, and I pondered the difference between taking a grateful me dramatically to hospital and offering the unobtrusive courtesy of opening the front door for me.

  By the time I’d greeted Aberlene, and waited with her while Adrian and Simon got out of Adrian’s lush new Mondeo, then explained to all three what I’d been up to and ushered them into the living room, Fairfax was just putting away his mobile phone. When the bell rang for the third time, Aberlene pushed me gently on to a chair and headed off. Simon darted out too. Aberlene returned with Frank and the two trustees who hadn’t made it to the previous meeting, but no Simon.

  I greeted the three men as graciously as I could from a sitting position: Adrian; Michael Hobbs, an overblown man whose thick moustache and thicker neck combined to make him look like a species of seal; and Philip Berkeley, grey and nondescript. Hobbs was company secretary to one of Birmingham’s few remaining manufacturing firms; Berkeley something in insurance. I never quite gathered how they fitted into the musical frame as trustees, but being in industry these days was supposed to make you an expert in everything. Now I came to think of it, more than half the governors of George Muntz and the other newly incorporated colleges were required by statute to come from commerce and industry.

  There was a drift to join me at the table.

  ‘No! Don’t sit down yet! Not till we can see where’s best for Sophie,’ Simon called from the door. He was carrying my dressing-table stool. ‘There! Just the right height, I should think.’

  Adrian looked pointedly from Simon to me. I smiled blithely and, supporting my calf with one hand and my thigh with the other, manoeuvred into place. Fairfax moved himself and his briefcase to the seat opposite.