Reject

  * The Company operated on a highly stratified canteen system. The Executive Dining Room (first sitting) was as far removed from the Executive Dining Room (second sitting) as the Executive Canteen was from the Staff Canteen and the Staff from the Workers.

  This time, there was not one thing he could think of which would deflect him from his campaign for a bigger office.

  He was saved by the merger. The very next day he summoned Grey and gave him permission to go ahead with his plan. A modest bribe to the maintenance foreman saw the partition wall demolished overnight and an irate Howell squeezed into Dave's tiny office to share the one desk which it was physically possible to fit in there. Grey contentedly surveyed the third largest office in the factory. He had also acquired Howell's internal and external phones which, combined with his own, made an imposing row of four along his desk. He was enjoying the fun of calling himself on the internal phone when his own, original GPO phone rang. It was Folklore's secretary calling him via the switchboard.

  "Mr Grey, I couldn't get you on the internal, your number has been engaged for ages. Mr Folklore would like you to collect Dave and Mr Smith and join him in his office as soon as possible."

  Dave was in the pilot plant. He had made the mistake of trying to clean the dial on the TDI pressure gauge on the 'Old 4D' with methylene chloride. The glass face had turned out to be plastic and it had gone all foggy as had the surface of his safety specs which were also plastic, so that what had been a comparatively simple matter of squinting through a film of grime to read the rapidly oscillating pointer was now manifestly impossible. Grey found him pondering whether to attempt to find the maintenance engineer or forget it and work on without being able to read the pressure which was grossly inaccurate anyway.

  "Folklore wants us to see him, immediately, but" he tugged at Dave's grimy lab coat "definitely not wearing that thing. And we have to collect Smith on our way."

  Smith gave the nearer of his two filing cabinets a final polish with a dry duster, its grey lustre mirroring his office. He had just finished their weekly once-over with Windowlene and they looked smart and impressive, smelling of cleanliness. Grey's eyes narrowed with barely suppressed envy.

  "We are summoned to Folklore's office for an important announcement. We are to go at once."

  "Oh, that'll be to tell us about the Aeropreen takeover."

  "What?" Grey's complexion turned a nasty shade of puce.

  "We're taking Aeropreen over. I got the news this morning from one of my spies in Head Office."

  "That's complete madness. Aeropreen's a total shambles. How they've managed to keep going as long as they have is a mystery."

  "Oh, well, the publicity they got over the Torrey Canyon affair seems to have made a deep impression on our management."

  Grey snorted "I suppose the money they made out of that must have just about run out by now. What a joke!"

  "Who are they?" enquired Dave.

  "They're a two-man-and-his-dog organisation of the type that disappears as an Industry evolves. Another of our inspired capital acquisitions this will turn out to be. Oh, well, lets go and see what Sir has got to tell us."

  "The situation is this" began Folklore. "We have acquired Aeropreen Ltd, who have a factory in Ellesmere Port and another one near Reading. We took them over because they have production capacity and goodwill which we can use and, of course, all their technical knowhow. They have a Development team much the same as ourselves and they are quite strong on the engineering side. The boss of the combined Development team will be their existing Technical Director, Mr Millar with myself as Development Manager under him. The two teams will keep their present responsibilities until they are combined at some time in the future, when there will be a certain amount of rationalisation, which Mr Millar and I will decide. The Company guarantees that there will be no redundancy, but you may be asked to move to another location."

  "Why should Millar be in charge?" objected Grey "After all, it's us who've taken them over and not the other way round."

  He had evidently touched a tender spot, judging by Folklore's complexion. "Millar was on the joint negotiating committee. He did well for himself, didn't he?"

  Grey threw himself into his chair in the new superoffice. The four phones no longer gave him any sense of power. He had been conned! Folklore must have known about the merger before he gave in. The fact that he had conceded the office only confirmed that they would be going somewhere else. The combined Development Department would not be at this factory, it would be on some other site. He would not be hanging his Pirelli Calendar on these walls, after all. He ground his teeth with rage. "One day, Folklore! One day, I'll get you...."

  Folklore was summoned to Aeropreen's headquarters near Reading for a meeting with Millar to decide on the location of the combined Development Department and begin to put together a policy for the future. They had not previously met and it was with some apprehension that Folklore heard Millar's secretary announce his arrival.

  "Show him in at once, if you please. And organise coffee for us, will you."

  The office was untidy but homely and dominated by a large ash tray which held precedence over a jumble of books and files on an elderly but elegant executive sized desk. The reek of cigar smoke was deeply infused into the whole environment and several crushed butts protruded from a sea of grey ash which filled the ash tray, spilling over on to the mahogany surface. Bookcases, filing cabinets and a drawing board, all of them antiques, combined to lend a sense of timeless authority which was almost Dickensian and Millar was in perfect harmony with his surroundings.

  He stood up, exhaled a cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling, dumped his cigar stub in amongst the others, blew a few grey fragments from his fingers and offered his hand. "Delighted to meet you, Folklore. I hope you don't mind my cigar smoke, my secretary says it gives the place a bit of character."

  Folklore's cold, limp palm was caught in Millar's powerful engineer's grip. "My pleasure" he replied "and if Mr Churchill found strength in his cigars, who am I to complain!"

  "Make yourself comfortable" he waved him to a red plush armchair which might easily have once been thrown out of Buckingham Palace. "Would you care for a Scotch and soda?"

  "I don't drink, thank you."

  "You won't mind if I do?" Millar poured himself a large measure with a slightly unsteady hand. He took a generous mouthful, sat down and took a cigar box from a drawer in his desk. "Would you like a cigar?"

  "I don't smoke, thank you"

  Millar helped himself, clipping off the end with an attachment he carried on a penknife which was fastened to his belt by a short length of chain. He put a lighter to it and examined Folklore carefully through an eruption of smoke. ('What a nasty, slimy piece of work to get myself saddled with for a deputy. I'm going to have to keep a very close eye on this one. Start as you intend to continue, though!').

  ('I don't like the look of this one at all. Bull-at-the-gate type, no respect for politics, which explains why Aeropreen is such a mess, no doubt. Still, it may prove to be a weakness that can be turned to my advantage, given time').

  Millar swilled whisky through his throat and coughed in Folklore's direction before continuing.

  "I called you here today to put you in the picture regarding future location of the Department. I would like you to plan to move your staff and equipment to this site so that it can be merged with mine. There is some talk of a new factory to replace this one so you may have to put up with makeshift accomodation for a year or two, until that happens. Any questions?"

  "What's wrong with our place?" Folklore made a token protest. It had been obvious from the beginning that Millar would never have anything to do with a move into the provinces, it would have put him at a political disadvantage compared to Folklore. Had the situation been reversed, he would have done likewise, but his adversary's manner alarmed him. "The rent is cheaper and we get a good deal of government s
upport for any capital equipment we purchase."

  Millar leaned forward through another eruption. "I've lived and worked here for more years than I care to remember. If you think I'm going to move to some god-forsaken hole next door to a slag heap at my time of life, you can think again!"

  His secretary came in with a tray containing the Cona machine, finding a corner of the desk on which to place it without disturbing anything of significance with a skill borne of long experience.

  "Will you have a coffee?"

  "I only drink decaffeinated."

  The meeting crystallised Millar's plans. There existed a particularly grim and dilapidated corner of the old factory into which he decided to have Folklore and his men incarcerated in the hope that they would eventually wither away and cease to be a problem to him. 'A couple of years in such dismal surroundings ought to be enough to break their spirit' he reflected 'and then I can spin out my days to retirement without having to worry about that creep Folklore'.

  Howell refused to go. They first tried appealing to his better nature and when that failed, tried bribing him into it.

  He was characteristically blunt. "I should need œ1000 a year to cover the extra mortgage, œ500 as compensation for the loss of the mountains and at least œ400 to put myself out. You couldn't afford it."

  Next they tried threats. There would be no job left for him to do. He joined the Union and quoted their own redundancy agreement back at them. Eventually they gave up. Their parting shot was that he could not expect ever to be promoted to which he replied that they would never promote him anyway and in any case, even if they did, he would not want the bother of it. And so, when Dave sadly bade him farewell as the Department upped sticks, the production department converted the area into a stores and relegated him to an old air-raid shelter in the furthest corner of the factory in an attempt to bury him alive.

  The old Aeropreen factory was an ancient rabbit warren of a place, converted and reconverted over the years until it had acquired a rambling aspect. Some of the things which were reputed to have happened in its darker and more evil recesses would stretch the credulity of a listener. The whole building was vaguely unhealthy. If the windows were not cleaned frequently, they would fog up with a crystalline deposit whose nature defied analysis. Various parts of the floor were impregnated with chemicals to such an extent that they oozed out of cracks even after the most rigorous cleaning and it was always sticky underfoot. Decrepit and decaying wiring festooned it, rusting sprinkler pipes were all that remained of a long forgotten attempt to improve its firesafety and rustier steam heaters suspended on steel brackets from the roof seemed to be so corroded that they teetered perpetually on the verge of disintegration and always dripped water from numerous leaky joints, accompanied by hissing clouds of vapour which kept everything permanently damp. The lighting consisted in the main of fluorescent tubes, dingy and stained with age, often poorly sited and sometimes not working at all or flickering forlornly for weeks on end. Barrels and drums of chemicals stood in odd corners everywhere, some of them for so long that they looked like part of the structure of the building. The electrical earth line sparked alarmingly if it was touched against anything made of metal and it was advisable to touch anything cautiously.

  The canteen was almost out of action on the day they arrived because the foaming machine had had to be dismantled for emergency repairs and this necessitated opening up the canteen floor to allow a hoist to take the weight of the machine head directly below it. In order to get a plate of 'n chips' the queueing workforce had to climb over blue boiler-suited maintenance engineers and their equipment on their way to the serving hatch. Bobski, whom they had just met, remarked caustically that this explained the particularly subtle flavour of the food (he was wrong, the manageress kept costs down by a dubious purchasing policy which only barely kept the complaint and complaints level below the critical).

  They surveyed their new quarters with an air of corporate gloom. They occupied an old storage area roughly 40 feet square and with a very high ceiling. The only light came in through a single row of small, filthy and uncleanable windows 20 feet up on the wall along one side so that it would be necessary to use artificial lighting all the time. In winter it would obviously be very cold, that day, a bright summer's afternoon, it was pleasantly cool. The office area was along one side, comprising a ten feet wide strip, partitioned off from the main room into two roofless sections of equal size. The furniture, laboratory benches, cupboards, crates of chemicals, equipment and samples were heaped untidily in the middle of the floor.

  Folklore took command. "I shall have the office nearer the door. The rest of you will have to fit your desks into the other one after you have moved my things in. Meanwhile, I have an important meeting to attend. I shall be back in about an hour, you should have it all done by then." Mike, who had been recruited locally and was still glowing from Folklore's euphoric sales pitch was brought to earth with a crunch as another facet of his new boss's character became apparent.

  Dave intercepted his troubled gaze. "Selfish old cunt, isn't he" he observed cheerfully.

  "Is he always like that?"

  "You can rely on it absolutely. With Folklore it's himself first, last and in the middle!"

  Folklore's executive furniture had fared quite well in transit and his new quarters gave a surprisingly uncluttered and well organised appearance despite the ancient strip lights dangling on wires from the ceiling far above. The overcrowded office next to it had proved to be difficult but after a great deal of manoeuvering a workable system was established provided that at least two people were out at any time. Grey's desk was parked at the end furthest from the door and blocking the fire exit which was a lift-off panel giving access to an 18 inch wide gap between the wall and the boundary wall of the factory. Alongside the wall an iron ladder lead vertically to the roof 30 feet above. It would have been manifestly impossible to get an overweight Folklore up the ladder even if his bulk could somehow have been squeezed through the gap. As Grey had bucolically remarked "every cloud has a silver lining!"

  Sitting back to back with Grey was Smith. At the end of each desk a filing cabinet separated them from Dave and Mike, similarly back to back. Folklore's new secretary's desk was just beside the door, and behind her, the departmental bookcase.

  They had just settled themselves comfortably, but immovable as sardines in the proverbial tin, to drink a well-earned cup of tea when the internal phone on the secretary's desk rang. She had the curious experience of hearing Folklore's voice simultaneously through the earpiece and over the partition wall. "Can I speak to Mr Grey, please."

  Grey cursed under his breath, put down his cup and fought his way painfully past Smith, Mike and Dave, causing tea and a miscellany of documents to spill on to the floor. He stretched out his arm to take the receiver, causing the trailing cable to overturn a bottle of glue on the secretary's desk and knocking Mike's glasses askew on his nose.

  "What can I do for you, Mr Folklore?"

  "Would you ask Mr Smith to come and see me" the voice was audible to all over the partition as well as through the telephone. Smith raised two fingers in the direction of the other office, Grey wriggled back into his corner and Smith squeezed between the others to emerge breathless in the doorway.He went into Folklore's office and the others heard him say "Will you get me your report on flashless moulding. I can be reading it through while the department is getting itself organised."

  An irate Smith struggled back to his filing cabinet, extracted the document with some difficulty and tossed it to the secretary to take next door, before settling himself again in his chair. She was gone only a short time.

  "Mr Grey, he would like to see you again."

  Their first visitor was Dik. He surveyed the scene carefully and at some length, sniffed and remarked "You are going to have your work cut out even to develop a cold in this dump!"

  Three weeks later the Project was born.

/>   She's so pneumatic!" "Ford in Flivver!" He raised his fingers in the sign of the 'F'.

  Aldous Huxley ‘Brave New World' – sort of!