You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (28 page)

‘Incorrect.’ Colin could feel Oscar’s displeasure, like an ice cube down the back of the neck. I do not understand why you should feel the need to lie to me. Your mate,’ it added; and then the wire trolley skidded sideways under its weight, and it went down like a dynamited chimney stack. ‘Pain,’ it said, as though reading out a stage direction. ‘I can only assume that you are deliberately falsifying data with a view to generating humour. Ha ha. Now, will you please confirm that you are in love with Ms Clay?’

Colin frowned. If only he’d been a bit quicker off the mark, he could be on his way to Vanuatu by now. On the other hand, somehow Oscar didn’t seem quite so terrifying now that he’d seen it go arse over tip over a wire trolley. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘If you get up off the floor and let me go home to bed, I’ll say anything you like. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

‘All right, then. I’m in love with the Clay woman.’

‘Excellent,’ Oscar said. ‘That concludes our lads’ night out. Would you like me to give you a lift home?’

‘In the state you’re in? No, tha—’

It hadn’t been an offer, except in the Sicilian sense. Oscar reached out, grabbed a handful of Colin’s hair and swung him into the air like a carrier bag. ‘Shit, fuck you’re hurting me,’ Colin was about to say; but by then he was sitting on his bed, alone, with the bedside light on, staring at the Deep Space Nine poster his mum had bought for him ten years ago, and which he’d never got around to taking down off the wall.

She was there, of course, next morning. Colin slouched past her, his head cloudy and fragmented with hangover; she looked straight through him, as though he didn’t exist.

Dad intercepted him before he could crawl into his office and build himself a cosy nest out of brochures and envelopes. ‘Didn’t hear you come in last night,’ he growled. ‘Had a good time, did you?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Got a thick head, by the look of you.’

Colin mumbled something about a touch of flu.

‘Like it matters. Anyhow, buck your ideas up - we’ve got a lot to get done today. Meet me in ten minutes in the tool room.’

Aaargh, Colin thought; in the tool room lived a whole lot of big, noisy machines. There was the one that went scree-scree-scree, the one that cachunk-zee-chin’d its way through solid brass bar stock, the scrungle-scrungle-scrungle machine and the screamy-grindy thing. They were enough to set your teeth on edge at the best of times, and definitely not recommended for anybody with a head full of tactical flu. He gobbled a couple of aspirin, which had no effect whatsoever, and drank a glass of dusty, chalky tapwater.

There was a welcome surprise waiting for him in the tool room. All the machines were still and silent; in fact, the place seemed to be deserted. Odd; usually there were half a dozen men working there. Colin looked round for some sort of clue, and saw his father approaching.

‘All right?’ Dad said. ‘Feeling better?’

‘No.’

‘Well, try not to puke up all over the place, it’ll create a bad impression.’

Colin thought about that for a moment. ‘We’re meeting someone here?’

Dad nodded. ‘Our new best friend. Ah,’ he added, and maybe he winced just a little. ‘Here he is.’

Something had just stepped out from behind the scree-scree machine. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, because Colin had looked. This morning, it was wearing a very sharp Italian light grey suit.

‘Talk of the Devil,’ it said. ‘Good morning. You have both rested sufficiently.’

‘Fine, thanks,’ Dad replied automatically. ‘Right, Colin,’ he went on, ‘this is primarily for your benefit, so pay attention. Now, you’ll have noticed there’s nobody here but us.’

Colin nodded. Stupid thing to do.

‘That’s because yesterday I sent all the men home. We don’t need them any more, thanks to Mister —’ Dad froze, but Oscar simply bowed its head slightly. ‘Today we start doing things the new way, right?’

‘Correct,’ Oscar said, and snapped its fingers.

It was a bit like Star Trek, only there was no hum and no shimmering lights. They just appeared, as though the cameraman had stopped filming and started again once they were in position. They didn’t look at all like Oscar; and Colin reflected wretchedly that, a mere twenty-four hours ago, he’d have expected that to be a good thing.

They stood at attention until Oscar snapped out a word of command; then each of them headed for a different machine. They moved like second-rate computer animations and when they trod in oil stains or patches of wood shavings on the floor they left no marks. They really did have cloven hooves instead of feet, which goes to show that not all stereotypes are wrong.

‘They’ll be working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,’ Dad was saying. ‘No tea breaks, no unions, no paternity leave, no minimum wage; no wage at all, come to that.’ His face darkened for a moment, and Colin saw him deliberately relax it. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘if this idea catches on, the manufacturing sector in this country might just still have a snowball’s.’

Oscar didn’t seem to be listening to him, it was concentrating very hard, like a conductor standing in front of his orchestra. One by one, the machines started to turn, spin and reciprocate. Colin braced himself for the noise, but there wasn’t any.

‘Completely silent,’ Dad said. ‘Mister, um, Whatsit here did explain it to me, but it’s all a bit technical. Bottom line is, they don’t even need the electric, so that’s another useful saving. And no noise means we don’t have the bloody Environmental Health down here every five minutes.’

‘The fundamental principle,’ Oscar started reciting in a dead flat monotone, ‘is that of the elimination of entropy through temporal displacement. Because entropy only has effect in time, if you eliminate the passage of time you effectively negate the first law of thermodynamics, with the result …’

‘Something like that, anyhow,’ Dad said. ‘Bloody clever, these people.’

‘Give the Devil his due,’ Oscar said. ‘There are also significant ecological benefits, including reduced fossil-fuel usage, thereby helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—’

Somehow, it came as no surprise to Colin that the powers of darkness were ecologically aware. They probably supported the Kyoto accords and everything.

‘And of course,’ Dad steamrollered on, ‘with these lads on the job the place’ll pretty well run itself without us needing to lift a finger. Which is why,’ he added, turning to Colin, ‘I’m promoting you. Director in charge of production, which means that from now on all this lot’s your responsibility. There’s no extra money or anything like that, but we might start looking around for a car for you; I was thinking a nice clean Fiesta, something like that.’

Inside Colin’s head there was that split second of delay, like during a transatlantic phone call. ‘Did you say director?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. I mean, there’s no rush, sometime in the next six months, I was thinking, it’s a case of waiting till the right car comes along, because it’s daft running out and buying the first one you see—’

‘As in, seat on the board and everything?’

Dad shrugged. ‘Theoretically yes, I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But don’t let it go to your head, we don’t actually have board meetings and stuff, we just all do as I say. Still, if it gives you any pleasure.’

‘Wow,’ Colin said quietly. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

For some reason, his gratitude seemed to make Dad uneasy, so he packed it in. Even so. A director of the company, a seat on the board. If he was a company director, surely that meant everybody’d stop treating him like a twelve-year-old, and—

Oscar was grinning. It was, of course, difficult to be sure, given its rather unconventional facial geography, but Colin was convinced that it could see what he was thinking, and the grin was because he’d taken the bait, just as he was supposed to. Fair enough, now he came to think of it. Accepting a seat on the board of Hollingshead & Farren in exchange for his conscience was a bit like selling Manhattan to the palefaces for a handful of shiny beads. He hoped that that was why Dad had just frowned, and that this hadn’t been his idea.

Not that it was of very great consequence, since Dad was now just one jump ahead of the everlasting barbecue, and there were strange-looking people with cloven hooves all around him, operating machinery. Colin’s head had started to hurt, and he wanted to get out of there. After all, now that the contract had actually been signed and the new workforce had reported for duty and started their first shift, he’d failed, there was nothing more he could do. In which case— ‘Look at that.’ Dad had picked up a newly fettled widget from one of the plastic bins into which the finished product dropped from the delivery chute. ‘Lovely piece of work, better than the stuff the Swiss turn out. They’re all right, these lads of yours.’

‘I am delighted to hear you say so,’ Oscar replied quietly. ‘It’s a point of pride with us that we always keep our side of the bargain.’

That was about as much as Colin could take. Mumbling something about an upset stomach (not a million miles from the truth) he scuttled across the shop floor and through the fire doors into the back yard. Home; the passport, the station, the airport; after that he wasn’t quite sure, but it didn’t really matter. He thought of those road signs you get on the outskirts of big towns that say ‘All Other Destinations’. That was exactly where he wanted to go, and he couldn’t wait to get there.

‘Feeling better?’ _.

He turned his head. Oscar was standing beside him, directly between him and the side gate.

‘No,’ Colin said. ‘I think I’d better go home.’

‘Of course.’ Oscar nodded, and Colin noticed that it was holding something in its hand; sort of burgundy colour, a little book. A passport.

‘Excuse me,’ Colin said. ‘Where did you get that from?’

‘Does it matter?’ Oscar held it out to him. Colin grabbed at it but as soon as his fingertips brushed its cover, it vanished. Colin opened his hand, and found nothing in it except a few wisps of pale grey ash.

‘You won’t be needing it,’ Oscar reassured him. ‘Of course, you could go to the station anyway. You’ll find it’s closed for renovation: a complete refit, very ambitious. If you’re thinking about taxis or buses, you should be prepared for a very long wait. You have no car, and walking, or even running—’ It shook its head. ‘You could always try.’

Colin looked at it for a moment. ‘I might just do that.’

‘Of course,’ Oscar said, and stood aside.

Colin took two steps toward the gate and staggered. Pins and needles in both feet, worse than he’d ever felt before; worse even than that time in the tea shop—

‘Quite,’ Oscar said. ‘In the end, you see, everything eventually turns out to be about true love. If I were you—’ It made a sort of wavy gesture with its left hand, and the pins and needles went away again, ‘I’d go into town and buy myself a nice, smart new suit, for being a director in. A small act of celebration would seem to be in order, after all.’

‘A suit,’ Colin said.

‘Indeed. I believe you’d look good in a middle-weight dark grey wool with perhaps the faintest suggestion of chalk-tripes. If you wish, I can come with you and help you choose.’

Colin thanked it but said he’d rather go alone, and left. Once he was a couple of hundred yards away from the factory, he thought, Yes, but I can send away for a new passport, and then realised that most likely he couldn’t, not if Oscar didn’t want him to. Just for fun he looked in at the station. It was surrounded by hoardings and scaffolding, and a big blue sign told him the name of the contractor and the scheduled completion date for Phase One. There was a long, grumpy queue at the bus stop; he felt that he should stop and apologise to them, but he couldn’t think how to explain why it was all his fault.

Even so; he went on a bit further, past British Home Stores to the travel agent’s. Only it wasn’t there any more. In its place was a large, smart-looking Burton’s, and the notice in their window said that they were having a special offer on business suits.

Well, fine. To paraphrase the words of the poet, you can lead a free man to water, but you can’t make him drink; all you can do is drown him. So he went in - but he didn’t get himself a nice new suit. Instead he bought a tie, light blue with little yellow sunflowers on it. It wasn’t much; in fact it was pathetic, a single tea bag thrown into Boston Harbour. Unfortunately, it seemed that it was the best he could do.

Colin went back to the factory. On the way, he made a resolution. So he couldn’t save his Dad’s soul from eternal damnation. So he couldn’t do anything about the fact that the workforce had been fired and replaced by non-union demons (hooflegs rather than blacklegs; dear God, he was even starting to think like bloody Oscar now). So he couldn’t even run away to the Andaman Islands and start a new life as a beachcomber. There was one thing he could still do to win himself a little smear of happiness on Life’s windscreen; or at least he could give it a go, though he didn’t rate his chances very much. And it’d be a minor act of rebellion against Oscar, who seemed very keen on fixing him up with Cassie Clay. Yes; he could find Fam, blurt out a grovelling apology and ask her out for a proper date. It was a bit like asking the lifeboat to go back to the sinking Titanic so that he could get his sponge bag, but so what? He’d done his best to do the noble, unselfish things and got precisely nowhere. At least finding true love would be doing something, rather than giving up completely.

Fam wasn’t behind the front desk, where she should have been. Instead, there was someone he was pretty sure that he didn’t know. He reckoned that he’d have remembered her if he’d met her before.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.

She smiled at him. It was the kind of smile that should have stopped him dead in his tracks and left him stammering and glowing bright red like a traffic light. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I’m Rosie. You must be Colin.’

‘What’re you doing there?’ he said. ‘Where’s Fam? Ms Williams?’

Rosie looked at him for a moment; Colin had the uncomfortable feeling of “being gripped in tweezers, as though she was about to smear him on a glass slide and shove him under a microscope. ‘She left,’ Rosie said.