him. ‘I could believe that.’
Arthur grimaced and sidled past her, into the open-plan space beyond. The office was cunningly done out in various shades of grey on grey which blended into the background outside, so that it rendered the world in black and white, punctuated occasionally by a particularly jolly stapler and purportedly humorous Garfield posters peeling from the walls.
His nearest colleague grunted, from behind his partition. Sven was a Neanderthal umbilically connected to his computer. He had convinced himself that in traffic patterns lay the ultimate sequence of truth: the perfect number, the end of pi and the key to universal harmony, or so he explained the hours a day he spent staring at the screen and plotting wildly complicated graphs in the further reaches of Excel.
Arthur could smell something. Part of it was Sven – if you’re looking for the ultimate sequence of truth, as Sven often pointed out, personal hygiene is not a priority. Also, Sven liked to think that really he worked in Silicon Valley in California, or Clerkenwell, which meant a surfeit of slogan t-shirts, trainers, and a diet consisting entirely of junk food, none of which helped the hygiene issue particularly.
The office of course smelled the way it normally did – of ink, dirty computer keyboards, bad food and a general low-lying depression. Under that smell, though, there was something else – something different, Arthur thought. Something reminiscent of wet school blazers and drool. He navigated the last few identical grey desks – newcomers could often be found scurrying around here like panicking rats before they gave up and simply became resigned rats.
Oh God, this was all he needed. Sure enough, now he thought about it, he could hear the heavy panting. He stood up and peered over the partition. There was Sven in all his normal early-morning sweatiness, munching his way loudly through a breakfast bun, but today – yet again – with the help of Sandwiches, his small, droopy-eared, stubby-legged, dribbly, stinky basset/sausage/ God-knows-what of a dog.
‘Bloody hell!’ said Arthur, all the frustrations of the morning welling up. ‘Sven, I thought you were supposed to stop bringing that fucking dog in. Today of all days!’
Sven grunted, entirely unconcerned. ‘Are you my boss?’
‘That’s not the point. Your dog is so dirty he’s a fire hazard. It’s health and safety.’
‘It’s “Bring Your Dog to Work Day”, innit?’
‘It is not,’ said Arthur fiercely, although a faint glimmering of doubt crept into his mind. Was it?
‘Yeah, it is. It said so in the Guardian.’
‘What? What on earth could a dog possibly do in an office? Well, yours could lick all the stamps.’
Sven snorted. ‘Yeah. And he could probably do your job. With one paw tied behind his back.’
‘Oh, don’t start.’
‘Who started? You started, you doggist bigot.’
Sandwiches reached up and carefully ate the end of Sven’s malodorous bun.
‘And if you fed your dog properly he wouldn’t fart all over the place.’
‘He doesn’t fart all over the place!’
‘Yes, he does, actually. You just don’t notice because you, too, fart all over the place.’
‘Why are you so fucking grumpy this morning then? Not getting any?’
Arthur wondered if job stress might make him impotent for the rest of his life. ‘NO!’
‘I reckon Sandwiches gets more than you, and I chopped his bollocks off five years ago.’
‘Nyeaarrgh,’ said Sandwiches.
‘Coffee?! Anyone? Who wants coffee!?’
A woman in a bright pink mohair sweater popped her tidy, short-white-haired head round the other side of Sven’s desk. This was Cathy who administrated the planners, oiled the troubled waters, did far too much of everyone else’s boring jobs and gave off an aura of complete desperation. She had a horrible husband and two horrible teenage boys, and coming to work was just about the most fun she ever had. Arthur tried not to think about this too often.
Sven and Arthur stopped sparring for a moment and grunted back at Cathy. Sandwiches’s tail wagged sturdily: he was the only person in the office, and possibly the world, who loved her unconditionally.
In fact, Arthur didn’t mind fixing coffee in the morning: it deferred the ultimate computer switching-on moment when the jolly day’s crap would begin.
‘No, it’s okay, I’ll manage.’
‘Ooh, I’ll come with you. But we can’t be too long, or people will start to talk!’
Cathy tried to look flirtatiously at Sven, who gave a groan of disgust and ignored them.
‘Do you like my new brooch?’ Cathy showed off the diamanté panda bear incongruously fastened to where her nipple must be underneath her shapeless sweater. ‘It was a birthday present!’
‘Oh, that’s nice,’ said Arthur. ‘From Ken?’
‘No.’ She looked at the floor, then jollied up again. ‘I got it for myself. Well, you know, the boys are soo forgetful. Which is actually better, you know, because I get to choose what I want!’
‘It is,’ said Arthur, trying to nod as if this were true.
‘So … it all starts today …’ Cathy offered tentatively as she pottered around the urn.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Arthur, ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ In fact, he reckoned mousey work-horses were almost always the first to go; they complained less about redundancy.
‘Is it really a good idea to make us reapply for our own jobs, do you think? I mean, management must be right, but …’
Arthur nodded. ‘Absolutely. The fact that we’re in these jobs to begin with, of course, must be sheer chance. I got mine through my lottery numbers, in fact.’
Cathy perked up as she spotted someone on the horizon.
Great, thought Arthur, as Ross, his Tosspot Boss, came striding towards them in his cheap suit, with a big grin on his face implying that, whatever might happen to the rest of them – destitution, poverty, depression – he, mate, was going to be just fine, alright, mate? Yeah.
‘Art. Cath.’ Ross the Tosspot Boss was a year younger than Arthur and liked to point it out. His shirts were always on the wrong side of shiny, his voice on the grating edge of bonhomie and his actions mean as a snake. Arthur half-suspected that this strategic review thing was his idea. It meant Ross got rid of people with no direct route to himself: the consultants made him do it. Perfect. Although on reflection, Ross would probably have absolutely no trouble telling people to go by himself. He’d like it, in fact. A lot.
‘What are you getting up to in here then, yeah? Hanky panky!’
Cathy grinned and blushed. She had a hopeless crush on Ross – she clearly had a type. ‘Oh no!’
