by Daisy Waugh
She shuffled a bit, tried to stand up and fell back again, the way heavily pregnant women tend to. Jo had always assumed she would glow through her pregnancies, just as she glowed through everything else. It was usually only a question of willpower, and one or two useful techniques. And Jo worked hard at her glowing, of course. Jo always worked hard. But the task was proving more difficult than she had imagined. With every day that passed, the harder she felt she had to work at it, and yet the more cumbersome, dependent and generally dismal she felt. ‘I think,’ she said, lunging forward and falling back once again, pretending to laugh but suddenly feeling oddly tearful about her intolerable state, ‘I think I’m going to need a bit of help.’
Slowly, carefully, Charlie levered her back up to her feet, and as they were walking across the lawn towards the house she tried to make a joke of it: ‘God knows what it’s going to be like in a month’s time. I’m already the size of a small car.’
And Charlie chuckled warmly, because whatever size she was it didn’t occur to him; he could not imagine how it would ever matter. ‘I know,’ he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. ‘You are going to be vast. You’re going to look like a bloody bus!’
Back in the kitchen things were slightly worse than they had imagined, when they were lolling beneath the cedar tree, imagining the worst. Nobody was shouting at anybody. In fact Messy and Grey were hunkered together whispering in one corner of the room, while Gunston worked away in the other, scribbling furiously, her mouth so pinched the lips had turned white. She stood, bent rigid and awkward over her labour, left hand resting on her paperwork, writing hand clasping its pen at the furthest end, to maximise the distance between her flesh and the detested, potentially germ-infested wooden dresser she was leaning on.
‘Hello, hello,’ said Charlie. He and Jo hurried in, bringing with them a burst of cool fresh air. ‘How’s it all going? Everything OK?’
Gunston didn’t look up. Grey and Messy, both white in the face, looked from him to Jo and back to each other.
‘What’s happened?’ said Jo.
Messy and Grey stared back at them, dumbstruck apparently. Lost for words.
‘What’s happened?’ said Charlie. ‘For Christ’s sake—’
‘She’s closin’ us down,’ said Grey, his voice low and lifeless. ‘The fuckin’ bitch is closin’ us down.’
‘I’m issuing,’ she said primly, but still without looking up, ‘what we call a prohibition notice, effective immediately. Should you wish to contest it, and—’ she glanced at Jo and Charlie and offered a little laugh, ‘I don’t honestly recommend it, you’ll find details on how to appeal on the reverse of the form. In the meantime I would advise you that failure to comply with this notice carries a fine of up to £20,000 and/or two years’ imprisonment.’
‘But why?’ said Charlie incredulously. ‘I mean…why? What have we done that’s so wrong? Of course I realise the vegetable peel probably isn’t—’
‘Vegetable peel? Mr Maxwell McDonald,’ she said, laying down her pen and slowly, assiduously, fitting the completed form into an envelope. ‘If I didn’t know better I would assume you were joking. Frankly, where do I start?’ She laughed a little recklessly and, with the envelope neatly glued, indicated the space around her in exaggerated despair. ‘The inadequate lighting? The total lack of temperature control documentation? The primary food handler smoking – smoking – and apparently inebriated whilst stationary and without an HACCP.’ She pointed, as if it would clarify anything, at an electrical socket a metre or so from Charlie’s left elbow. ‘The absence of an appointed safety representative or any hazard analysis records; the absence of an approved first aid kit; the absence of any first aid kit at all; no visible kitchen staff overalls; no staff cleaning facilities; inappropriate sanitary conveniences for guests or staff; wholly inadequate food storage facilities; no visible pest control systems; a total omission of maximum load notices on the shelves; inadequate plate stacking and storing facilities; ditto cutlery. No safety viewing panel on significant traffic route outlets in the food preparation area, no fire safety equipment, incorrect positioning of potentially hazardous disinfectants and sanitisers…and you talk to me about vegetable peel?’
‘Yes!’ said Charlie, who had listened in fascination to Sue-Marie’s impassioned spiel and, like everyone else in the room, had drawn from it only one nugget of reliable information: that they were in a lot of trouble. ‘But for Heaven’s sake, don’t worry about the vegetable peel! It’s nothing! We can clear it up!’
‘Have you,’ said Sue-Marie severely, ‘ever actually slipped on vegetable peel?’
‘Never!’ said Charlie adamantly. But the question suddenly seemed so ludicrous he started laughing. ‘That is to say I have never—’ he repeated solemnly, hearing Grey and Messy both stifling their own laughter, and desperately trying to focus on what was actually at stake. ‘I am glad to say I have never in my life suffered that misfortune.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Jo said earnestly, scowling at Messy and Grey. ‘Because we all know how slippery vegetables can be.’
‘They can be lethal,’ corrected Sue-Marie. ‘And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, poor balance in later stages of pregnancy can increase the risks from slippery surfaces. Spillages should be cleaned immediately and sensible footwear should be worn. Don’t, Mr Maxwell, try to make light of these hazards. Or my work. Did you know that four hundred people every year are killed in accidents caused by work or work-related activities?’
‘Goodness,’ said Jo. ‘How terrible.’
‘1.7 fatalities per 100,000 workers in Great Britain. As opposed to 3.2 in the US. And 3.9 across Europe.’
‘Goodness,’ said Jo. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Thanks to the likes of people like me,’ she said, crossing the room and holding out the envelope to Charlie, ‘Britain has one of the best Health and Safety records in the world. And I, for one, intend to keep it that way.’
‘Amazing,’ said Jo. ‘Fantastic. Well done. But, Sue-Marie, if you don’t mind my saying, this isn’t a chemical plant or a nuclear power station. Nobody’s dying at Fiddleford. We just haven’t cleared up dinner.’
To Jo’s dismay, her three allies responded to this quite reasonable observation with nothing more useful than muffled guffaws.
Gunston glared at them. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Very humorous, I’m sure.’
It was the ‘I’m sure’ that finally did it. Like a group of schoolchildren, all four of them, Grey, Messy, Charlie and finally even Jo, disintegrated into nervous, helpless and entirely unhelpful giggles.
Upstairs Maurice Morrison heard the door bang as Charlie and Jo returned from their night-time walk and assumed it was the sound of the Environmental Health Officer leaving. He wasn’t tired (Morrison was rarely tired) and he longed to rejoin the social throng. But the spectre of encountering Gunston again made him hesitate. What if she came back again? He forced himself to wait a little longer.
Maurice Morrison hated his own company at the best of times. He was a people person, so he explained to them. Without people around him, swooning at his energy and charm, Morrison’s mind tended to race very unpleasantly, and his whole being began to feel weightless, as if he were sort of evaporating into the air. But he had checked for messages and there were none – not at home, at his offices, nor on either of his mobiles (he always travelled with two), and though he racked his brain he could think of nobody to telephone. Or nobody, at this hour of the night, who would have been willing to take his call.
Alone in his beautiful, grand old bedroom (magnificent plasterwork, he noticed. Original. Perfect condition. This house was a remarkable find), his mind was racing even faster than usual, hopping manically from one subject to the next. From the monstrous EHO woman downstairs; to Messy Monroe’s miraculous weight loss; to his own precarious position here at Fiddleford and the ghastly humiliation of being caught by TB, cowering here, with a bloody stripper. He thought of the comatose Albanian boy (name temporar
ily forgotten), lying in his NHS hospital bed. Maurice couldn’t help hoping that the boy’s – situation – might be resolved, one way or another, without too much more unnecessary hanging about. Apart from anything else there was his parents’ anguish, of course, which-must-be-unbearable…and while the boy insisted on clinging on, Morrison’s entire ministry – actually Maurice’s entire life – was being forced into pointless suspension, which really wasn’t good for anyone or anything, least of all, of course, all the genuine recipients of unkindness in the country who were here quite bloody legally…Mostly, though, what he thought about were all the Boys out there (some of them not so Boyish any more) who might be reading of his downfall, and remembering…Had he maltreated any of them? No! Certainly not. He’d always been very considerate. Very generous. Unless you counted – well, but that was years ago…Or the other little chappie. Little Afghan. Little shit. What was his name? Who’d started asking for money…But Maurice had threatened to have his entire family deported. Which had shut him up.
Sitting on the edge of his red velvet four-poster bed and running, once again, through the names on his mobile memories just in case someone to talk to had slipped through the net, Maurice realised that what he really needed in life were friends. And a house like this to entertain them in. And a wife to organise the flowers. A charming new wife! (That would shut everyone up.) And a new family, why not? He wasn’t very old. And he looked years younger. He could start all over again.
He threw his two mobiles onto the bed and stood up in restless disgust. Never mind bloody wives. Right now what he needed was humans. Anyone. Distraction. Morrison paced the room, picking up ornaments, putting them down again, evaluating the little oil paintings on the walls (mid-nineteenth century mostly, he noted. Farm animals and so forth; charming but virtually worthless). He could buy the whole place, lock, stock and so on – if he wanted. A few authentic touches would be nice…and he could always throw out what he didn’t like. Had that bloody woman left yet? He thought so, but he couldn’t tell. Well, of course she bloody had. Anyway, he couldn’t wait any longer. The silence was driving him insane…
So he pushed open the kitchen door (without safety viewing panel: hence the mistake) with the kind of intensity expected from a man at the end of his solitary confinement. By which time it was too late. He couldn’t turn back. Charlie, Jo, Messy and Grey were just recovering from their unhelpful bout of giggles as the door slammed into Miss Gunston’s solid torso, sending her thundering gracelessly to the floor.
‘Oh, my dear!’ exclaimed Morrison. ‘I am so sorry!’
He had no choice but to bend over and help her up. And something, perhaps the impact with the floor, or the angle of his head as it loomed over her, provided the jolt she’d been looking for. He held out both hands to her and started heaving her up, and suddenly she exclaimed:
‘I know who you are! Of course!’
‘I do apologise, Miss Gunston,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Are you all right? That was quite a tumble.’
‘You’re Maurice Morrison, aren’t you?’
He concealed his anger perfectly. Nobody would have guessed, from his concerned smile, how violently he was cursing her inside. ‘There’s a little…ah—’ He pointed delicately at a piece of vegetable peel which had attached itself to the hip of her white doctor’s coat. ‘I think it’s carrot…’
She flicked it off impatiently, and turned back to gaze. ‘This – is – such – a – complete…’ She shivered, apparently lost for words. ‘This – is – such a…completely…amazing…honour!’ she gasped at last.
‘Oh!’
‘Do you know, Mr Morrison—’
‘Maurice! Please!’
‘Maurice,’ she corrected, flushing slightly. ‘Do you know, Maurice, we actually used your company’s safety procedures as a model at college! A model! At work in the real world…That’s why I was so sorry to hear what happened. To you of all people. You didn’t deserve it.’
‘You’re too kind,’ mumbled Maurice, looking appropriately hangdog. ‘Really, too kind.’
‘He didn’t deserve it,’ muttered Grey. ‘What about the fuckin’ busboy?’
‘Well, quite,’ added Morrison smoothly. ‘The poor lad is still in a coma, I gather. I spoke to the hospital this evening. It’s terrible. Too terrible. My heart breaks for the family…’
‘Well,’ she said, her soft moon face flabby with concern as it peeped up at him. ‘If there’s anything I can do. Anything at all…’
He smiled at her. What, he wondered, did she think she could possibly do to help him, under the circumstances? Except die. Perhaps. Get off the estate and crash into a tree and die. ‘You’re very sweet. Very, very kind. And I do apologise for that unfortunate—bump. Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?’
‘Oh, not to worry,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll probably pop in for a check-up tomorrow. But I don’t think there’s any serious damage.’
‘I’m so pleased.’
She stood there grinning and everybody waited. ‘But what are you doing here, Maurice?’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t mean to be rude but I mean to say – no offence – only I wouldn’t imagine this was exactly your sort of a place.’
‘On the contrary, Miss Gunston, this house is a very remarkable…’ He broke off, briefly defeated by her plainness, and the absence of any observable advantage in going on. But she waited expectantly, and so he tried again. ‘…Certainly one of the most delightful country houses I’ve had the pleasure…but er—I’m really only down here helping out an old—friend. Isn’t that right, Charles? Joanna? Giving them a little advice on, er, safety matters. And of course…Anyway. In these tragic circumstances perhaps, I would be awfully grateful if you didn’t mention our, ah. So if you could—’
‘She’s closing us down,’ said Charlie bluntly.
‘Closing the place down?’ he said. Slowly Maurice looked around the room, at Charlie, Grey, Jo, Messy…They all looked back at him in silence, waiting for his reaction. He glanced down at Gunston, barely a foot in front and at least a foot below, her pallid moon face still gazing up like a lovesick teenager, entirely in his thrall. With a single word, he realised, he could put a stop to it. If he wanted to. And they all knew it.
‘Really?’ he said at last. ‘…But why?’
She blushed. ‘Why? Why? Well…Where do I start?’
Where indeed? Faced with Maurice Morrison, utterly unable to break from his inquiring eye, she suddenly couldn’t remember. She hunched her shoulders together for lack of anything else to do. And laughed.
‘Inadequate lighting,’ said Grey sardonically. ‘It’s where you started before.’
‘Well, exactly…’
‘And vegetable peel,’ said Charlie. ‘But we were about to sweep that up.’
‘And the plate stacking…precarious…plate-stacking procedures,’ she stuttered. But she still couldn’t bring herself to break his gaze, and while she drowned in his cool blue eyes, the kitchen she had taken such exception to faded into oblivion.
Another long pause while they all looked at Sue-Marie, and she looked at Morrison, and he inhaled through his teeth – thinking – and slowly exhaled again. Until finally he smiled, and said—
‘Well, goodness, Sue-Marie. It’s wonderful to see you – being so industrious at this late hour. And so conscientious. I couldn’t fault it. Marvellous! It’s what keeps Britain’s safety records so ahead of the game! But I’m a great believer in giving people a second chance, aren’t you?’
‘Oh absolutely,’ she said limply. ‘Where there isn’t any danger to the general public…’
‘I mean I can see,’ he said, incorporating all his surroundings in a vague but thoroughly obliging hand gesture, ‘that there is some room for improvement. But isn’t it perhaps a little draconian to close the place down. Just like that? At eleven o’clock at night?’
She left just before midnight, having withdrawn her prohibition order, provided Grey with an application form for th
e course in Basic Food Hygiene – to be held at the council offices on Monday of the following week – and enthusiastically, by way of reward, accepted Maurice’s offer of a little drink with him, alone in the drawing room.
So while Charlie, Jo, Grey and Messy tidied the kitchen, Maurice sat with Sue-Marie, listening patiently as she sipped at a glass of Baileys and bored him senseless about the need for protective eyewear in commercial kitchens.
‘I’m thinking particularly,’ she said, ‘of steam and smoke situations. For example when relocating oven-fresh products from one food receptacle to another.’
He gave her a business card and implored her to contact him directly with all her safety-related observations, whenever they occurred to her.
‘Or anything else, for that matter,’ he said, ‘because of course what we need, what every government needs, is the grassroots voices: intelligent, informed communication directly from the coal face. Yes? Otherwise, Sue-Marie, let’s be frank, how can we ever really know where we’re going wrong?’
As he guided her out to the front door she assured him, for reasons only fuzzily understood but satisfactory nonetheless, that she wouldn’t breathe a word of their magical encounter to anyone. Ever. After all, even Government Ministers needed a bit of privacy once in a while! It would be their little secret.
Charlie and Jo went to bed immediately after Gunston left, and Maurice Morrison followed soon afterwards. Which, just as the clock in the hall began to strike midnight, left Messy and Grey loitering awkwardly at opposite ends of the kitchen, trying to guess what move the other might want to make next. They weren’t ready to say good night to each other yet, but as the clock chimed on it became clear that they couldn’t think of much else to say to each other either.
‘Hm!’ said Grey, who never, never used platitudes. ‘That was a lively evening!’
‘Yes, wasn’t it?’
‘And a close one. With the inspector there.’