Here Comes the Sun (10 page)

‘Finished?'

‘No.'

‘Oh, for . . .' Rosa retracted her head, and Rocco started to lay the pepperoni; slowly, one slice at a time. A Double Roman isn't built in a day.

The jaw he had set was rather a remarkable one. It projected. It had magnitude. You would feel comfortable about mooring a new and expensive yacht to it if you wanted to be sure it would still be there when you came back from the Casino. It was, in fact, the Hapsburg jaw, as worn by Charles V, in full and exuberant flower; and Rocco, completely unknown to himself or anyone else, was, and had been for some years now, the Holy Roman Emperor. His election had been perfectly valid, and he
had even been properly and correctly crowned and anointed - under anaesthetic, admittedly, while he was under the impression that he was having his teeth capped.

As the saying goes: just because a river goes underground doesn't mean it stops flowing.

It is, after all, essential that there be an Emperor: without him, absolutely nothing at all could be done. As the very title suggests, the post represents the fusion of temporal and celestial authority, and the Emperor himself is the spark-plug who transmits the divine fire to the profane cylinder of humanity. His assent (albeit given in his name by his agents under the authority of an eleven-hundred-year-old power of attorney, mistakenly signed by Charlemagne, who thought he was giving someone his autograph) is a prerequisite for the ratification of any statute, human or superhuman. But centuries of experience have taught the College of Electors that if the Emperor ever gets to realise what he actually is, he tends to interfere, usually with tedious results. On a need-to-know basis, therefore, it is generally held that His Majesty doesn't.

Apart from his virtually undiluted Hapsburg blood, Rocco VI was chosen because of his wisdom, his tolerance, his broad grasp of current affairs and because the present College of Electors (who are also the Emperor's trusted advisers and agents) like to do business over working lunches. A really great Emperor, they argue, ought to know how to handle anchovies.

The agenda for today's cabinet was short, even shorter than usual.

‘To start,' said the Lord High Cardinal, ‘I'll have the minestrone. Phil, you're having the
insalata di mare Adriatica
, Tony's plumped for the fish soup, and Mario's going to try the artichokes. They are fresh today, aren't they, Rosa?'

‘They're always fresh,' replied the Emperor's sister. ‘How many years have you guys been coming in here, anyway? You ever know the artichokes not to be fresh?'

The Lord High Cardinal assured her that he was only kidding. ‘To follow,' he went on, ‘I'm having the Sardinian veal, plus two sole. Mario, do you want the Messina chicken or the veal?'

‘I'll have the veal,' confirmed the County Palatine. ‘Chicken I can get at home.'

When they had all finished eating and drunk their coffee and picked their teeth with the proper wooden toothpicks you got at Rocco's instead of those damned plastic ones they have everywhere these days, the cabinet turned to the last item on the agenda. It was Mario's turn.

‘Any other business?' he asked.

The Lord High Cardinal looked at his watch. ‘If there is,' he said, ‘it'll have to be adjourned till next time, because the game starts in half an hour and I need to go to the drugstore first. Next Tuesday?'

The other Electors confirmed that Tuesday would be fine. Then, in accordance with ancestral tradition, the Imperial Treasurer took four toothpicks from the glass and broke one, and they drew lots to see which of them was going to sign the bill.

 

 

 

 

‘T
hank you,' said Staff, cautiously. ‘That's very, ‘ um . . .'

Clerical gave him a slightly distant smile and returned to her desk, leaving him with rather mixed emotions. On the one hand, it was touching to think that she had remembered his birthday; on the other hand, it was profoundly tiresome that she had chosen a present more than usually unidentifiable. If he assumed it was an executive paperweight and left it lying on his desk, it would most probably turn out to be a labour-saving kitchen device and its continued presence in the office would cause immortal offence. If, however, he took it home and put it in the big box in the cupboard under the stairs, it would undoubtedly turn out to be an executive paperweight, and he'd end up having to make his own coffee every morning for the next two thousand years. Difficult.

‘Many happy returns, Skip.' It was Denzil, from the post room, with a palpably bottle-like shape suffused in brown paper. Staff smiled warmly. He didn't drink, but at least he knew what the present was and could guess approximately how much it had cost. It was the sort of
present the authors of
Social Interaction In The Workplace
heartily recommended. He could give it, he decided, to the window-cleaner for Solstice.

‘Memo to the head of department, general supplies,' he said into his dictating-machine. ‘Re, colon, Truth with a capital T, underlined, new line. I note with concern that the raw material cost of Beauty has risen yet again, comma, this time in excess of six point four two per cent, comma, whereas the budget allocation for resources in this area has been reduced by two point eight per cent, full stop. I must therefore ask you to revise the existing Beauty oblique Truth ratio as from the first of next month full stop. I would propose that until future notice, comma, Beauty shall be sixty-six point six per cent Truth, comma, with a proportionate adjustment in the inverse ratio for Truth oblique Beauty, full stop. New paragraph, row of dots. Chief of Staff etcetera. Thank you. Tape ends.'

He put the tape in the tray for Clerical to collect and sighed. Everyone was going to blame him, and it really wasn't his fault. Never mind, it couldn't be helped. Nothing can be helped, ever. He shuffled about in his in-tray, looking vainly for something he felt he could manage to cope with.

‘Hi.'

He looked up, and saw Ganger, in his usual stance, half-in and half-out of the doorway.

‘Happy birthday,' Ganger said. ‘I got you something.

Quite fun.'

He threw a small parcel through the air. Staff caught it and, feeling rather self-conscious, unwrapped it.

‘Thank you,' he said, after a long pause for inspection. ‘It's really, er.'

Ganger smiled. ‘There's a leaflet inside the box,' he said, ‘which explains what it is.'

‘Ah.'

He found the little piece of paper and unfolded it.

BLANK PAPAL BULL, it read. FOR YOU TO EXCOMMUNICATE THE PERSON OF YOUR CHOICE.There followed two columns of instructions in small print.

‘The receipt's in there too,' Ganger said. ‘If you don't like it, you can change it. What's the plan?'

‘Ah yes,' said Staff, putting the box carefully away in his top desk drawer. ‘I've been thinking about that.'

‘Me too,' Ganger said.

‘What I'd decided,' Staff went on, raising his voice slightly, ‘is something a little bit less risky this time, something more straightforwardly administrative. I mean, we don't want to put her off by just giving her crises to sort out, do we?'

‘All right,' Ganger said, sitting on the corner of the desk and picking up the Executive Present. ‘What had you in mind? Hey, a mate of mine's got one of these. They're very good if you can get them properly tuned in.'

‘Yes,' Staff replied firmly. ‘I was thinking of Records.'

Ganger gave him a look. ‘Oh come on,' was all he said. The rest could easily be implied from context.

‘Yes, I know,' said Staff. ‘But we don't want to give her the wrong impression, do we? I mean, seventy per cent of what we do is just plain, unexciting clerical work; sorting papers, answering queries, filing, ordering, that sort of thing . . .'

He stopped. There was something extremely inscrutable about Ganger's usually mobile face. ‘Maybe you're right, though,' said Staff quickly. ‘We can put her on that later. How about a tour of duty on Earthquakes?'

Ganger shook his head. ‘No,' he said, ‘
you're
right. Absolutely. No, don't bother to get up, I'll deal with it. I'll let her know straight away.'

He stood up, pressed a switch on the side of the present that Staff had completely overlooked, and left the office.
As he closed the door, a few wafer-thin rose-petals formed spontaneously in mid-air and drifted floorwards. When they touched the carpet, they melted like snowflakes.

‘Records,' said Staff aloud. ‘Records.'

A small red light suddenly appeared on the side of the present, then it went out again. Staff spent the next quarter of an hour staring at it and then covered it up with an office circular.

‘Records,' he said a third time. ‘
Records
. Beats me.'

 

‘It's very simple when you get used to it,' said Norman, the supervisor. ‘Once you've been here a few months, you'll find the work is pretty straightforward.'

Jane nodded. First impressions, she knew, can be deceptive, but it looked to her as if straightforward was putting it mildly. As far as she could judge, it consisted of picking the envelopes out of the trolley, reading the number stamped on the side, taking the envelope to the appropriate shelf and leaving it there. She could, she decided, do it in her sleep; in fact, that would probably be the best way to approach it.

‘If you need any help,' Norman was saying, ‘just ask.'

Thanks, said Jane to herself under her breath; the sort of help I'm going to need here is not the sort you're likely to be able to supply. She smiled, and headed for the trolley.

On her seventeenth visit to the shelves, she collided gently with a bespectacled male person, who fell against a shelf, dislodging its contents.

‘Sorry,' she said.

‘Don't worry about it,' said the person. ‘These things tend to happen in an infinite universe. By the way, you're standing on my foot.'

‘Oh. Sorry.'

‘Not at all. Thank you, that's
much
better. Do please
continue with what you were doing while I laboriously put all this lot back.' He scowled at her, and stooped wearily down.

‘Please,' said Jane through stiff lips. ‘Let me help you.'

The person gave her a prickly smile. ‘How excessively kind of you,' he said. ‘Gosh, how original of you! For years now, I've been putting them in numerical order, but you're quite right. Think what an exciting challenge it'll be for the researchers if they're all jumbled up together like that.'

Jane drew in a half-lungful of breath and started again, while the person looked at her.

‘You're mortal, aren't you?' he observed.

‘Yes,' Jane replied. She stood on tiptoe to replace 26576768/766543765/2308J/3C.

‘Do pardon my saying this,' the person said, ‘but wouldn't you perhaps find it rather more - conducive, let's say - back on Earth with all the other, er, people? I understand,' he added, ‘that there's plenty of room for everyone down there. Up here, on the other hand, it's a touch on the cramped side, if you're not used to looking where you're going.'

For a moment Jane stood with her mouth open; then it occurred to her that she should have prepared herself for this sort of thing. Since she hadn't, she determined to ignore it.

‘Not really,' she replied, therefore. ‘In fact, it's pretty much the same up here as down there I find. Would you be very sweet and put this one back up on the top shelf for me? I can't quite reach.'

The person glowered at her, and then complied. ‘It's been a funny old day so far,' he observed, groaning as he stretched. ‘I overslept, arrived here late, found that someone had moved my trolley, forgot my sandwiches, slipped on the polished floor and bruised my knee, and
now I've been knocked to the ground and trampled underfoot by a mortal, and it's still only ten-thirty.'

Jane allowed herself a smile. ‘That's unusual here, is it? Sounds like an ordinary day where I come from.'

The person raised a corner of his mouth. If hyaenas are dogs, it was a smile. ‘So I'd gathered,' he replied. ‘In fact, I understand you people have a special word for it. Life, or something like that.'

‘Fancy you knowing,' Jane replied. ‘Thank you so much for your help.'

At a quarter past eleven there was a coffee break. To her disgust, Jane found that Departmental coffee tasted very much like the coffee she was used to at home, except that it had even more chicory in it. Her back hurt and her mind had got pins and needles in it for want of activity. For the first time ever she began to wonder whether data inputting at Burridge's had been quite as horrible as she'd thought.

‘My word,' said the person, suddenly appearing behind her shoulder as she drained her coffee down to the silt. ‘What a lot you've managed to get done.'

In spite of herself, Jane felt pleased. She wanted to say, ‘Of course I have; I'm a mortal, after all,' or something equally inflammatory, but she very sensibly didn't. Instead she made vague and quiet thanking noises.

‘Beats me how you can do it so fast,' the person went on, ‘ordering them, stacking them,
and
writing the numbers up in the Register.'

Inside Jane's heart, something small but not entirely trivial broke. ‘What Register?' she asked.

The person smiled, properly this time. ‘The Master File Register,' he replied. ‘Didn't they tell you about it? You write down the number of the file, and what shelf it's on, and under which section of the shelf, and other things like that. Otherwise, you see, the researchers won't have the faintest idea . . .'