by Alan Hackney
“You are both in error, philosophically speaking,” chimed in one of the small Indonesians. “At Conference on Bandung side we disposed of idea of vacuum. This is old fashion. When the imperialists have gone the peoples of Asia remain. You mean to tell me all peoples of Asia are vacuum?”
“I say, look here——” began Stanley.
“How can you know what they are talking about?” said the Etonian Burmese. “Let these fellows have their say.”
“Kindly don’t call me fellows,” said the Sikh in a dignified tone. “I must remind you …”
“And I must remind you of philosophical principles,” cried the Indonesian. “You appear to me not progressive, talking of vacuum. The Five Principles clearly …”
At this point Stanley, carried away by the Oriental nature of his surroundings, called for a drink. Unfortunately, his cry, sandwiched in a narrow gap in the hubbub and clearly audible, took the form of the word “Bearer!”
The Etonian Burmese, approaching helpfully with a cocktail shaker, froze where he stood. Stanley, the focus of four dozen scowling pairs of eyes, blushed.
“I’m so sorry,” he explained. “I got carried away with the discussion.”
“No use to explain,” said Mr Singh coldly. “It is perfect clarity, your real opinion of coloured people. The imperialist slave-trader beneath the skin stands revealed to all.”
“I think,” said the imperialist slave-trader, “I’d better catch my bus.”
As he made for the door the voice of the vocal Indonesian could be heard saying: “It is disgrace. Some swindle is doubtless being prepared.”
*
“Bit of a business at Mahommed’s tonight, Julian,” said the Minister of State, “I did get there late but he could hardly bring himself to talk to me. God knows why. I bring myself to talk to him.”
“Is he sore about your chat with Emmanuel, I wonder, sir?”
“How can he be? He doesn’t know about it.”
“No, he hardly could.”
“It’s the same with all these goodwill visits.”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m. Incidentally, that fellow I had today instead of Wallace Hardy-Freeman. Who is he? He seems a dead loss. Chatted to some Burmese all day.”
“Windrush, sir.”
“Yes, Windrush. Know anything about him?”
“Very little, sir. We seem to telephone each other in the middle of the night.”
“Mahommed seems to know him all right. I wonder if it’s possible … Has he been checked at all yet?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Check up with the Personnel Department. Anyway, I certainly don’t want him tomorrow.”
*
In his flat, Julian set his alarm for 3 am. When it rang he woke and dialled Stanley.
“Yes?” Stanley seemed desperate for sleep.
“Sorry to disturb you, my dear fellow. Brimpton’s just this minute decided he won’t want you tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry to have to ring at this time.”
Julian put the telephone down and went to sleep again.
*
Stanley’s security check was expedited and the report from MI5 came quickly to the Personnel Department.
“Nursing another viper in our bosom, I see.”
“Is he any good?”
“Well, frankly …”
“All right; we’ll not fight it. How long’s he been here?”
“A fortnight. In that time he’s somehow managed to turn Mahommed against us and infuriated the Board of Trade with some rigmarole of a memorandum about shirts.”
“Why did we have him? Far Eastern department short of Japanese people as usual, I imagine. Well, it wouldn’t do for it to get out that we’ve taken on a clown. Better pin this business here on to him, about his sister being married to a Commie.”
*
When Stanley opened the letter marked PERSONAL he was surprised to read: … On these recommendations the Minister has been led to the conclusion that you must be regarded as an unacceptable security risk, and regrets that in the circumstances he must terminate your probationary period.
“My God,” said Stanley. “I’ve been witch-hunted!”
Stanley went straight to Charing Cross Hospital. Wallace was lying with his right leg in a horizontal cradle.
“Witch-hunted?” said Wallace. “Bad luck. Thank God we never had any nonsense of that sort in Bangkok.”
“They don’t even charge me with anything in particular,” complained Stanley. “Just some business about being associated with Communists. What an extraordinary thing. I’ve never joined anything at all, not even the Wolf Cubs.”
“Are you going to appeal?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“Oh yes. Then it all goes to some chaps called the Three Advisers. God knows who they are. I shouldn’t bother. If you want to defend yourself they’ll say they consider it inadvisable to let you know the exact charges.”
“I see. I wonder if it’s just that I’m no good and they’re doing this to break it gently?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Good gracious, I couldn’t do without you. No, you must have been up to something.”
“Well, I hope your leg gets better. I imagine they’ll let you hop about soon.” He sighed. “And so farewell to the Last Outpost of Privilege. Do they pay people any better outside?”
“Practically everywhere. Industry’s crying out for people. I only stay because it’s the only way to get back to Bangkok.”
CHAPTER 5
“WELL, THERE’S only one thing to do,” said Great-Aunt Mildred. “Start painting the bathrooms. No need to waste one’s time. Nothing runs you to seed quicker than idleness.”
Stanley sipped his tea in a melancholy frame of mind.
“It’s the injustice of it all,” he said.
“It’s worse than injustice,” said Great-Aunt Dolly. “It’s impertinence. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be a Communist if you want to. It’s a very dim thing to be in my view, but the point is, any gentleman is entitled to his opinions. It’s bad for the working classes, of course, but it never does any harm in a gentleman.”
“But don’t you see, Aunt,” protested Stanley. “I’m not a Communist and I’ve never wanted to be one. It’s all nonsense.”
“My dear boy,” said Great-Aunt Dolly, “in that case I think I’ll go and see the Foreign Secretary about it. It does seem a great impertinence.”
“No, please,” said Stanley hastily. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t do any good at all. I suppose there must be something behind it.”
“Well, what?” snorted Mildred.
“I’ve been trying to think. I don’t even know any Communists. Ah, but wait a minute. I seem to remember Philip, Cat’s husband, once did a poster for a Russian cartoon film that was showing here—some comic weasel animal called Igor. Wasn’t much of a success, I remember. I suppose they connect me with him, though I can’t think why.”
“Did he get any Russian money for it?” asked Dolly.
“Well, I suppose indirectly he did. From the distributors, or whoever pays for posters. I know he and Cat lived on it for a month or two, and he was always hanging around to see if there was any more work going. I believe he joined the Anglo-Soviet Friendship thing for a time to try and get some more posters, till he found there was nothing doing.”
“Well, no use crying over spilt milk,” said Mildred energetically. “Care to come to the judo class at the gym, Stanley?”
“Thanks awfully but I think I’ll go and buy some paint,” said Stanley.
*
Stanley found painting soothing at first, but three days saw the job finished and Stanley’s future as a gentleman still unresolved. One or two of the dogs had pale blue spots in their coats as a result of straying in during the ceiling painting, but apart from Stanley’s recurrent nausea the painting had come off pretty well.
“Why get a man to do it when we can have
Stanley?” was Great-Aunt Mildred’s enigmatic comment. She did, in fact, seem pleased, but Stanley was anxious to avoid being available when she came to decide that the whole house needed doing.
Wallace, after one premature reappearance at the office, now wisely stayed away. With Stanley dismissed, the burden was likely to prove too great, he argued, for a sick man. This decision, taken in enlightened self-interest, forced the Personnel Department to transfer to the section a new man who at once proved extremely competent. It was quickly obvious that he was making a far better job of it than Stanley and Wallace combined, and it was this which paved the way for Wallace’s reposting to Bangkok. It had become the only sensible thing to do with him. Wallace, having proved once again from his own experience that self-interest pays the best dividends, was put on long leave to await reposting to many happy amatory years in Siam.
*
On the day following the business at the Agyppian Embassy the Coloured Conference returned somewhat uneasily to its tasks. Its early bounce and goodwill had begun to evaporate, a circumstance for which the British Minister of State was unable to account. He found himself longing for the goodwill tours to begin.
“I can’t think what’s got into that chap Mahommed, Julian,” he said to his private secretary. “All these veiled accusations. And this stuff today about collusion. Why should we colluse?”
The secretary looked thoughtful for a while.
“Collude,” he said finally.
“There you are. We don’t even know the damned word. And I had a couple of Indonesians glowering at me half the morning. When do the first lot push off to look round factories and council estates?”
“Not till a fortnight tomorrow, sir.”
“You know, I’ve an idea Mahommed’s a bit peculiar. He goes in for Sanity Through Nudity, you know. However, one has one’s duty. I’ll not spare myself.”
The Minister of State’s modest if old-fashioned goal of the House of Lords was so well known that the secretary said: “Exactly, sir” in exactly the wrong tone.
*
Stanley did not follow the declining fortunes of the Coloured Conference, as reported day by day in the newspapers. Having had a whole fortnight at Her Majesty’s Foreign Office he felt he had done a good deal to help, and he had no particular wish to have much more to do with the business. There must surely be, he considered, other ways in which his expensive education could help the country. But although he felt, on the whole, distinctly helpful towards his fellow men, he found it difficult, reading the Public Appointments columns in The Times, to whip up any great interest in what seemed to be an offer. There seemed to be almost daily openings in Nigeria and the Gold Coast, usually for engineers with experience in water conservation, any number of obscure jobs in HM Land Registry or in the spidery offices of provincial Town Clerks, and even a vacancy or two for Research Workers in Bovine Infertility, but Stanley’s painfully acquired English degree hung uselessly about his neck, clanking the more heavily as his search for employment lengthened.
“You know, Stanley,” said Great-Aunt Dolly, “they’ve been talking about full employment for years in the newspapers, but look how it works out in practice. It seems an excellent thing for the working classes, but nowadays so many people like us have to have jobs it’s all terribly overcrowded. Take Polly Walden’s family; she’s the same age as I am. Well, they were rather poor after the First War so when they’d finished with the Kaiser three of her boys had to become clergymen. Imagine. She said herself how tiresome it was. Now, they’d be your father’s age and of course, being in the church, they all had to get married, and all their children—people your age—have simply had to get jobs. Four of the girls are in shops and nearly all the boys are in advertising.”
“I don’t like the thought of advertising much,” said Stanley. “You know, I think I’d stand a better chance going where there’s a crying need. Have you seen anything about this business of industry crying out?”
“I think industry’s likely to be very tiresome,” said Dolly. “And you’d have to go and live in the Midlands. I don’t know if you’ve ever been. It’s depressing.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stanley. “There must be lots of places round London, making light stuff. I don’t think I’d go in for anything heavy.”
So when a day had been fixed, Stanley put on his duffle coat and his bowler hat, and took train to Oxford to see a man at the University Appointments Board.
*
“Oh, yes, it’s quite true,” said the man at the Appointments Board. “Firms are always asking us for good chaps, and they usually like what they get and ask for more. We’re gradually breaking down the resistance of industry to the graduate.”
“They’re likely to resist?”
“Oh yes, there has been that tendency. They used to be inclined to say: ‘We want chaps as soon as they leave school so that they know what they’re talking about by the time they’re thirty. Not fellows with their heads stuffed with a lot of useless stuff.’”
“Well, I think that’s very sensible, don’t you?” said Stanley. “Though mind you, I didn’t stuff myself with a great deal.”
“But now it’s all changing,” said the Appointments man. “They like a chap with a first-class degree and they run special courses to train him for the job.”
“I see,” said Stanley, a little discouraged. “I suppose chaps like that would do well?”
“Certainly, in time. It’s my ambition to have university men on the Board of Directors of all the big firms and in twenty years time we shall see it.”
“I wish I were twenty years younger,” said Stanley feelingly. “It should be pretty easy to get a cushy billet when you get that organized.”
The Appointments Board man’s expression altered.
“Attitude is vitally important,” he said, a little primly. “One must be prepared to go to Industry and say: ‘This is what I have to offer—intelligence, a trained mind, the ability to learn, and so forth. And enthusiasm for the job.’”
“I see,” said Stanley. “I’m sure you must be right; after all, you’ve handled hundreds of chaps like myself.”
The Appointments man began to say: “Well, to be strictly accurate——” but he seemed to change his mind and went on: “Let me have a look at your paper qualifications.”
He began to flip through Stanley’s file.
“Of course, it’s difficult to know what one’s attitude is,” said Stanley helpfully, “until one is faced with one ghastly industry in particular.”
“Which ghastly industry in particular?” asked the Appointments man, looking up.
“No, I mean any industry that one might consider ghastly,” explained Stanley. “Say a great heavy thumping business like iron and steel.”
The Appointments man swallowed carefully.
“Mr Windrush,” he said heavily, “you did say to me just now that you weren’t frightfully good at interviews. I can understand that. But you must realize it’s useless to approach any industry in a frivolous spirit.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Stanley, a little alarmed. “I’m afraid you must have misunderstood me. I really am quite serious about all this.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Mr Windrush,” said the Appointments man. “It’s essential. Now, you say here you would actually prefer the production side rather than selling?”
“On the whole yes,” said Stanley. “I feel I’d be more in the product that way, and one wouldn’t be badgered so much when sales were going down. I’m sure the sales people get kicked out first.”
“Well, that’s hard to say,” said the Appointments man. “You mustn’t think it’s a precarious life in industry. A firm might conceivably go bust, but it’s very rare these days. A man going into industry has very good security of tenure.”
“He has?”
“Oh yes,” said the Appointments man emphatically. “The security of employment in industry’s practically as good these days as in the Civil Service
, and, as you know, people in the Civil Service are hardly ever chucked out.”
How very odd he should say that, thought Stanley. I only lasted a fortnight at the Foreign Office.
“You’re rather restricting yourself, you know,” said the Appointments man, looking at Stanley’s papers again, “when you say you don’t want heavy industry and you prefer to be near London. You’ll find it a bit difficult convincing a firm that you’d go to any lengths to get in with them, and that’s the sort of spirit they want. However,” he went on, “I’ll sort out some vacancies to suit you.”
Twenty minutes later, with high hopes in his breast and four duplicated vacancy notices in his pocket, Stanley left to catch the London train.
CHAPTER 6
TWO OF Stanley’s letters of application brought courteous though negative replies. He was disappointed that Can-Can Frozen Foods had, to their regret, already filled their vacancy, and somewhat hurt that Worm Castings Ltd had not selected him for their short list. But in the course of the week there came two invitations to attend for interview.
“They’re both pretty good firms,” said Stanley, “and they’ve both got a steady future, it seems to me. One depends on people keeping on washing—that’s Spindley’s, they make Fome and Turgy, and the other relies on people eating—that’s Bumper Bars. I’ve never actually eaten one but I’m going to try some today.”
“That sounds a sensible idea, Stanley,” said Great-Aunt Dolly. “And it sounds quite like a slogan, too. Why don’t you go in for advertising?”
“No, I must go where they are crying out for me,” said Stanley.
*
Spindley’s, the English division of the great Americo-Dutch-Swedish-German soap and detergent octopus, said they looked forward to seeing him at their Boltley, Lanes, factory on the thirteenth, but after a last-minute cancellation, accepted by Spindley’s in view of Stanley’s acute stomach upset, they looked further forward and said they would be pleased to see him on the fourteenth.