The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit)

Chapter 6

  Loofah followed the receptionist through corridors – carpeted arteries of pulsing power – and open plan offices where computer screens flickered and telephones buzzed. Young men in white shirts with polished shoes ignored him, while power dressed businesswomen and mini-skirted secretaries looked at him blankly, with hard plastic faces. Everywhere was the blur of corporate activity, the metabolism of organisation.

  They turned into a more significant corridor: apparently the aorta of the organism, this was wider than the others with deeper carpets and a soft throbbing silence. 'Miss P R M Leggett,' said a discrete brushed aluminium nameplate on a door at the far end, 'Under Manager'.

  The receptionist knocked. After a long pause, there was a muffled 'come', the impatience distinct even through three inches of wood. Opening the door, she ushered him in.

  'Your visitor, Miss Leggett,' said the receptionist with a deferential smile, her voice sweet and respectful. Then she was gone, the door closing quietly behind her.

  Loofah was standing on a thick pale grey carpet, surrounded by potted rainforest plants and white wood furniture. At the far side of the opulent room, a woman in early middle age sat at an acre of desk in a grey leather executive chair, scrawling red ink comments in a ring-bound report. The muffled silence was disturbed only by the quiet heartbeat of corporate might.

  After long enough to be uncomfortable, the woman closed the report and looked up.

  'Well?' she snapped.

  A plump body squeezed into a dark suit, short dark hair in a loose perm. Her face was flesh-heavy with small, hard eyes. Loofah looked at her blankly.

  'I am extremely busy and I am sure you are too,' said Miss Leggett, 'I suggest we don't waste any more of each other's time than is absolutely necessary.'

  Loofah nodded in acquiescence and smiled weakly. She watched him with irritable expectancy for a few moments, and then grunted.

  'Close the door after you,' she said, returning to her report.

  Without thinking, he turned to go. But as he reached for the door handle, he stopped.

  'Erm.'

  With sigh of profound irritation, the Under Manager looked up.

  'What is it?'

  'I think – .'

  'Yes?'

  ' – that it was you that wanted to see me.'

  The porcine eyes narrowed menacingly.

  'Ah… you,' she said, as if mouthing a morsel of dog's excrement.

  Laying down the report once again, she got up and came slowly round the desk, tight pin-stripe stretching over ample thighs, and looked Loofah up and down as if he had just disgraced himself on her carpet. He winced under the baleful glare of her naked hostility.

  'You,' she repeated, 'You've been giving us a considerable amount of trouble, haven't you?'

  'I… er…'

  'You – and the other one.'

  Something clicked in his fuddled consciousness, triggering a shudder of cold dread.

  'The… other one?' he asked, in a small voice.

  She stared at him hard, without replying. Then, turning her back on him, she returned to her seat.

  'I don't know why you've come here, you and the other one,' she said, 'doing what you're doing, behaving like… that.'

  'Which other one?'

  'What right have you, coming here, upsetting everyone, causing all sorts of unpleasantness?'

  Again she stared at him, waiting for an answer. Loofah cringed into his jacket, shivering with guilt.

  'Well?' she demanded.

  'I'm – I'm sorry,' he stammered.

  'And I'm sorry too. Sorry that I'm now going to have to waste my valuable time sorting out the mess that you've caused, the pair of you, coming here where you don't belong and where you're not wanted.'

  'The pair of us?' he whispered, stabbed by another shock of the weird dread.

  'But sorry's not good enough, is it?'

  'It isn't?'

  'It makes me angry, that's what it does. When I think of all we do, me and my people, working tirelessly, giving of ourselves for the Company…' The Under Manager paused, savouring her indignation. 'And Mr Stobart,' she continued, edging towards some sort of climax, 'What about Mr Stobart?'

  Loofah grinned lamely, wishing he had something to say.

  'Do you have any idea, any inkling, of the importance of the work of that noble man? Not just for his staff and customers, but for the whole community, for every single one of us.'

  Staring at the carpet, he braced himself for the next blast of righteous wrath. He could feel his cheeks glowing, twin beacons signalling his guilt.

  'Well?' she demanded.

  'Oh, sorry. I thought that was a rhetorical – .'

  'I want you to think about that, I want you think about that very hard. About Mr Stobart and his work, and about the rest of us, his people, all doing our duty, all toiling our socks off. And then I want you to think about what you're doing – coming here without so much as by your leave and throwing a great big spanner in the works.'

  The Under Manager paused, giving Loofah the opportunity to squirm in silence under the white heat of her outrage.

  'Not to mention the other business,' she went on, shuddering with revulsion, 'You don't think you'll get away with it, do you? You won't, you know, people like you never do.' Giving him one last long look of abhorrence, she pressed a button on the desk telephone. 'There's nothing I can do for the moment. I have to discuss the whole matter with Mr Stobart – as if he didn't have enough on his plate already. In the meantime I'm putting you in Market Realignment. Report to Mr Sutton.'

  The door opened and a secretary sidled deferentially into the room; she could have been one from the foyer line-up, but it was hard to tell.

  'Do try to make yourself useful,' Miss Leggett said as he was leaving, 'It would be nice if you could make some form of contribution, however minimal – to make up for at least a fraction of the trouble you've both caused.'