Thick and Fast

Mrs. Alice Haute and the sickly looking vicar seemed to appreciate, there had been speeches and dances and drunks to attend to. A one man band played incessantly, filling the air with the musical equivalent of pestering wasps. The musician/D.J. was a short man nearing his fifties, with dyed hair swept back over his shiny, suntanned skin, and an unshakeable belief that any combination of notes and rhythms was a gift of the gods: they sent him into a frenzy every time. He played his organ, he swayed his hips, he held out his arms outstretched to the indifferent crowd as if saying – I give you music!

  Eventually the sun had gone down and the cavalcade had disappeared through the metal gates. The caterers went about their business, the D.J. loaded his kit into his van, family and friends retired exhausted. Andrea and Sydney were now married. Till death do us part.

  That day had gone down officially as the happiest day of her life. She could not possible go through it all again.

  In the weeks that followed the brief marriage ceremony, Harvey moved in. And it seemed that with each van load of his belongings that arrived he was also reassembling his original personality. The pleasantries became few and far between, shorter and sharper, pinched into caricatures of courtesy. He became brusque and off-hand, and his temper began to make an appearance. It was clear from the outset that he was going to have difficulties handling the staff, the very same staff he had so recently wooed and charmed. He had no tact, no patience, no time for fools. Things were to be done properly at the first attempt, anything less was incompetence. Instructions were to be understood straight off, because they were clear and unequivocal. In his opinion Haute House should run as smoothly as his office, and the employees should be professionals, that was why they had been hired in the first place. He had no truck with the subtleties of command, couldn’t care less how the underlings felt, if they took things personally or not, if they responded to certain strategies or others. There was work to be done, and there were plenty more people out there willing to do just as a good a job under the same conditions.

  He was to be called Mr. Paulson, or, as an alternative, Sir. He had wanted to suggest forms of address for Andrea, too, but soon realised that would be going too far. There was a bond between his wife and the members of the household that he could not now undo, a bond strengthened over the last few years by the unifying force of mutual loss. They would continue to call her Andrea as they had always done, just as they had called her late husband simply Sydney. The boy had now inherited that name, the suffix ‘junior’ having lost its usefulness. But Harvey would be respected, much as he imagined the late Mrs. Haute had been respected, as undoubtedly had her husband and all the other former owners of the estate. Mr. Paulson, if you please. Sir, for short.

  Joe Stein, as acknowledged head of staff, bore the brunt of this change in attitude. In many ways he understood Harvey’s complaints, even shared with him certain suggestions for improvement. It was true that the house ticked over at a slow pace, with a relaxed rhythm that could at times be infuriating. It was also true that sometimes chores were left undone, that messages were not given to the right person at the right time, that mistakes were made. Mr. Stein recognised the facts, was the first to agree. However...

  That was when Harvey cut him short. No howevers, no buts, no mitigating circumstances. Efficiency. Attention to detail. Concentration. Responsibility.

  Yes sir.

  What Mr. Stein knew but Harvey Paulson did not, is that not everybody responds to the same therapy. For some people a simple command, clearly given with no possibility of misinterpretation, was the perfect tool with which to work. Mission accomplished. To others such an order raised a whole host of related questions, posed a full range of possible knock on effects. Luz would definitely prefer to be able to clarify the consequences of the command by asking for further information. To her it was not enough to say ‘clean the windows’. She would need to know if that meant inside and out, if the curtains should be removed, if there was a certain room that should be cleaned first, if the window cleaner, read Ambrose, should drop all other chores and concentrate solely on cleaning windows, or if it should be done piecemeal. And of course there were those, Brendan for example, who did not like to be told what to do. That did not imply laziness or slovenliness. Far from it: Brendan, like his son after him, was an excellent gardener and dedicated professional. But he had to feel that the initiative came from him, had been his sovereign decision. He expected his age and his wisdom to be respected. The gardens were his domain, and nobody knew better than he did what needed doing and when. So for Brendan it was better to mention that the lawns seemed to have suffered a little from the recent weather. Ten minutes later he would be working on the grass. The chestnut trees have really grown. They would be pruned to perfection before the day was through.

  Joe Stein knew these things, and a lot more. He also knew he would have to agree with Mr. Paulson on everything, show no signs of dissent, and pass the word on to the rest of them if they were to keep their jobs. All this without causing a fuss or stirring up ill-feeling. They would all have to make an effort if Harvey was to be accommodated.

  The upkeep of a large house in extensive grounds is a constant battle against time, weather and nature. At the first signs of neglect window frames begin to swell and buckle, stonework crumbles, ironwork dissolves into rust. Wild plants lurk on the edges of lawns and carefully tended arbours, patiently waiting for a chance to return, to reclaim the land from which they have been evicted. The maintenance of this tiny portion of civilisation against the onslaughts of the elements was a continuous struggle, and all available able bodied men and women would need to be recruited to combat those forces. It was a matter of patience and constancy, and was the way things had been run for years. Only now there was a new boss, with a new vision, who believed that if he applied his organisational skills to the estate, then the war would not only be won, it would be the war to end all wars. At least that was the impression he wanted to create.

  ‘Señora Luz.’

  The ‘señora’ he used to maintain his distance.

  ‘Yes sir?’

  She was professionally unruffled, on the surface.

  ‘I asked you for the inventory to be done at the end of every month. Have you done so?’

  ‘I hope to have it finished by mid next week sir.’

  ‘I need it by Monday.’

  That was a challenge. He was deliberately pushing her to see how far she would go, how far she would bend, before snapping. As she had already explained, the inventory was done on a three-monthly basis, with a flexible time table, as it always had been. There had never been even the slightest incident. That irritated him. She seemed to be saying that if it was good enough for the late Alice Haute and all those that had come before her, it was certainly good enough for the likes of Harvey Paulson. Well, he was well aware of what had been the case in the past. That was not the case now. By Monday, if you please. Yes sir.

  When Mr. Stein had tried to intervene he had fared no better. He had pointed out that the inventory was a very time consuming affair, and that if Señora Luz were to be asked to complete such a task once a month, it could only take away from her other duties such as cleaning. Harvey listened attentively then suggested, to a stunned Stein, that Luz spend less time gazing out of the window, less time telephoning her relatives, and more time doing her allotted chores. Or, better still, perhaps Stein himself should do the inventory? By Monday. Yes sir.

  No idle hands. Harvey was a great believer in work for work’s sake. To his mind it was better to mop the floors once more, even if it was totally unnecessary, than to stand around gossiping. So little by little he increased their workload with mindless chores and inventions. Brendan was to justify everything he did in the gardens. As he did not live on the premises but came in on a part-time basis, he would now be required to make a note of every bush clipped, every lawn mown, every sack of dry leaves collected and disposed of. Harvey drew up a spread sheet which was to be completed at the end of
each day’s work. Trees, hedges, and bushes were subdivided into three different categories: large, medium and small, with, incredibly, their relative size-time ratios already calculated. Trees and bushes in height, hedges in length. Lawns were to be estimated by the square metre, as were the flower beds. Brendan was to be allowed twenty minutes per spread sheet, and it was to be handed in to Stein at the end of each session. Harvey would then reclaim these and supposedly study them, checking to make sure Brendan was indeed as trustworthy and efficient as he was made out to be. He rarely did, that had not been the purpose. The idea was simply to make the workers know that they were being watched so that there would be no slacking, no cheating, no idleness. And that the new boss was called Harvey Paulson.

  Brendan naturally hit the roof. Who does he think he is? Who does he think he’s dealing with? I’m going to tell him where he can stick his spreadsheets. But when he eventually confronted Harvey, he noticed that look in his eye, the look that said ‘go on, tell me where to stick my spreadsheets, go on, and I’ll tell you where to stick your job’. So instead he climbed down, gruffly, showing his distaste, but ready to accept