the other side of the valley a belt of derelict open spaces and car parks threaded its way into the centre of the city and petered out among a mass of printing presses, garages and canteen windows. Beyond them, on the right, rose the towers and spires of the principal buildings.
Fletcher stopped walking and leant against the wall, looking out over this new land. The city was given over, in the main, to heavy industry. A hundred years ago, he mused, it had been little more than a collection of villages, each with its own peculiar customs and institutions. Now it housed, he estimated, some half a million souls, several of them taxi-drivers, others lawyers, journalists, smelters and so on, down through the whole gamut of human activity. There was not much here, he judged, to attract the tourist, but there was a thriving air of activity which would no doubt compensate for the lack of historical interest and beauty. The inhabitants, he felt sure, retained the traditions of independence and individuality which their manly life had given their forefathers.
It was to be his domain! In this great city lay his life’s work. He strode on, past the Salvation Dining Rooms, the Midland Station, the Hippodrome Cinema, the Telegraph and Chronicle Building and the Temperance Launderette. He passed the imposing façade of the Neo-Gothic Town Hall, on whose well-kept lawns summer time crowds enjoyed, in son et lumière, the dramatised history of the Chamber of Commerce. He passed the sandstone and soot cathedral and the Northern Productivity Pavilion, and the whole bustle of the early-morning life of the city fired his imagination. He drank in the atmosphere as if he could not have enough of it. It was a beautiful morning. Quite soon it would snow, but at this moment the sun, high above the slate roofs, was shining on the upturned faces of the buses. The city was full of noise. The market was situated on the hill. The politicians were driven in the big, black cars. The pencil was in the pocket of the publican. The tourist was purchasing a tin of luncheon meat. The street trader was displaying many kinds of produce. The townsfolk were travelling to work. See, the merchant has raised his glass and is drinking. Why, the newsvendor is selling those journals with ease.
So the city went about its business, and Fletcher watched. This was the promised land, and it seemed natural that a military ceremony should take place and martial music should sweep him into battle. He was not certain of the purpose of the parade, nor did he know the identity of the elderly lady who stood in the uniform of a field marshal on the dais, but he stood near her and watched the troops march past. Contingent after contingent swept by in perfect step. The sun shone on the green berets of the Third Battalion the Queen’s Own Mexborough Fusiliers and glinted off the campaign medals on the chests of the Old Comrades and the veterans of Ladysmith. There was cheering from the crowds as the military bands played and swept Fletcher towards his duty. There was so much that must be saved. As he marched he saw the world waiting to be saved. Africa, Asia, America, Europe. Mountains, rivers and forests. Rivers running through the forests. Mountains emerging out of the forests. Fletcher running through the forests. Fletcher emerging out of the forests. Fletcher at the summit, on the raised dais. Fletcher, the universal panacea for all mankind.
The bands stopped. The ceremony was over. He must get a job, and he set off down the hill and bought a copy of the Telegraph and Chronicle.
Chapter 7
TELEPHONISTS REQUIRED. APPLY IN WRITING TO Deputy Superintendant of Communications, Northern Lead Tubes Ltd., stating age, experience and details of National Automatic Dial Proficiency Tests passed.
Museum attendants wanted. Apply Box 80.
Are you an enthusiastic, ambitious and healthy university graduate, with an alert mind, a penchant for new gimmicks, a driving licence, and a solid grounding in the container production industry, who welcomes innovations, believes in expansion, can mix with industrial leaders, speaks Flemish, has advanced views on lid design and would be prepared to share bathroom with radiator mechanic? If so, apply Personnel Manager, the Conical Canister Corporation.
Applications are invited from those qualified to fill the post of CHIEF ENTOMOLOGIST at Badi El Swami Agricultural Research Centre, in the Republic of the Sudan. The selected officer would be expected to unify existing research on insect migration, and must have first-hand knowledge of tropical spiders and modern methods of aerial spray. Starting salary £1,750.
Spoon roughers and insiders, throstlers and large ingot men required. Apply British Watkinson Dessert Spoons and Sons.
Bus conductors required by City Corporation. Apply Ledge Street Garage.
Fletcher felt depressed after reading this list. It was not much use knowing that British Watkinson Dessert Spoons and Sons required spoon roughers and insiders, throstlers and large ingot men, unless you were a spoon rougher and insider, a throstler, or a large ingot man. But if you were any of these you would almost certainly have a job already, and so it was with every other one of the vacancies on the list. They demanded that you were already what they offered that you should become, and Fletcher, whose life consisted so largely of wanting to be what he was not, felt at a distinct disadvantage.
The only thing to do, he decided, was to apply for those jobs where the gap between their requirements and his capabilities seemed least. Obviously there was no chance of his becoming a Chief Entomologist, and he had never passed any Automatic Dial Proficiency Tests. He might have been designed as the direct opposite of what was required by the Conical Canister Corporation, and as for British Watkinson Dessert Spoons, he did not even know the meaning of most of the words in their advertisement.
No, it would have to be either a museum attendant or a bus conductor. It hardly mattered which, really. It was the fact of working, the fact of being of service, of fulfilling a function in the bustling city world, that mattered. Yet the fact that a decision is unimportant does not make it any easier to reach, and he was relieved when Mrs Pollard spoke.
“Not found much?” she asked.
“No. It seems to be either a bus conductor or a museum attendant.”
“I don’t know why you don’t go back to teaching.”
“I wasn’t very successful as a teacher.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“I couldn’t cope.”
“What a shame.”
“So it seems to be either a bus conductor or a museum attendant.”
“Very bad for the health, these museums. It’s one thing to look round them and another thing to actually live there.”
“Yes.”
“I knew a man who worked in one. He caught Egyptology disease. He was very well preserved, for his years, but as dead as they come. It’s his wife I’m sorry for. You never know how you might end up, if one of those places got a hold over you.”
“Yes.”
“Of course there are the treasures. You can’t say that about a bus.”
“No.”
“You don’t get the exhibits on a bus. Or the coins. It’s just pennies, threepences and sixpences there. No variety. But then again you never know where you are with it in these museums. Roman coins, Saxon coins, everything.”
“Yes.”
“I mean you could go for the museums if you wanted to.”
“Yes.”
“But you know where you are on the buses. I’d
