him tuck into pastries and talk animatedly about anything but shop with his staff, made Fen feel much less conspicuous. And it was nice to meet the fourteen staff who, it soon occurred to Fen, were as diverse as the art the Trust was saving for the nation.
From Fundraising, three girls with pearls, hearts of gold and hyphenated surnames provided a nice contrast with the two dowdy accountants, sweet but dull, with little interest in art but a near-obsessive passion for stretching the Trust’s funds in all directions. The sober Acquisitions team, essentially art historians rather than administrators, dressed demurely and talked art earnestly with Fen, in hushed tones and with much eye contact. The two women in Membership could double for headmistress and hockey captain and Fen found herself promising them that she’d deliver Trust Art leaflets to all the streets within walking distance of her own.
Fen particularly liked Bobbie, the receptionist, who was clad in an extraordinary polka-dot ensemble as daring for a woman in her fifties as for an institution as seemingly staid as Trust Art. Bobbie was as categorically Cockney as Rodney Beaumont (who looked like an extra in a Merchant Ivory production of any Evelyn Waugh novel) was wholly Home Counties. He lolloped around the room like a young labrador, or an overgrown schoolboy (though he must be nearing fifty), tucking into the croissants. Fen mused that there were probably conkers and catapults and dusty pieces of chocolate in his pockets. He was affable and ingenuous and kept grinning at Fen, sticking his thumbs up or saying crikey! what goodies you are going to unearth! terrifically exciting, terrifically!
And then a tall man, much her own age and appearing to be constructed from pipe-cleaners and drinking straws, such was his thinness, introduced himself. Sidling up to her, he ate his croissant in a silent and contemplative fashion whilst visibly assessing Fen from top to toe. After much teeth sucking and de-crumbing of fingers, he smacked his lips, held out his hand and made her acquaintance.
‘Otter. I’m Otter. Charmed to meet you,’ he said in a voice so camp that Fen initially thought he was putting it on.
‘What do you do here?’ Fen asked, wanting to stroke his hand for fear of breaking it on shaking it. ‘And why are you called Otter?’
‘I work in Publications,’ he said, running bony fingers through a surprisingly dense flop of sand-blond hair, ‘and I am called Otter because Gregory John Randall-Otley is a mouthful.’ He paused, licked his lips and leant in close. ‘A fucking mouthful,’ he bemoaned. ‘Anyway, what sort of a name is Fen, then?’
Fen whispered, ‘It’s short for Fenella.’
Suddenly, she felt utterly buoyant; as if she’d just been afforded a glimpse, via coffee and croissants and people coming to say hullo, of future fun to be had at work. Fen had been excited enough about the job itself and now she discovered, almost as an added bonus, colleagues so affable. On the face of it, backgrounds were distinctly contrary and yet (hopefully not just on the face of it) the staff of Trust Art seemed non-judgemental, genuine and unconditionally friendly. Apart from Judith St John, deputy director, whose steely exterior and somewhat cursory handshake Fen had told herself must just be an unfortunate manner, surely.
‘And when are you Fenella?’ asked the man called Otter. ‘Only on very special occasions?’
‘I am only ever Fen,’ she declared, pausing for effect, ‘unless I’m being told off.’
Otter narrowed his eyes and put his hands on his skinny hips. ‘And are you told off often?’
Fen feigned offence and clasped her hand to her heart. ‘The dread of being called Fenella ensures that I behave perfectly all the time.’ She kept her eyes wide whilst Otter narrowed his all the more.
‘It will become,’ he said, with great conviction, ‘my aim in life to make you misbehave. I shall then call you Fenella at the top of my voice and with much satisfaction,’ Otter proclaimed triumphantly. ‘Now Ed,’ he said, looking around the room, ‘Ed would have you misbehaving in no time, Fen McCabe. Where is he, the bugger? Late. Must have been misbehaving himself.’
Fen laughed. ‘Does that mean we’re going to call him Edward or Edwyn, or whatever his full name is, very sternly all day today?’
Otter regarded her quizzically but before he could answer, Rodney whistled piercingly through his fingers, compounding Fen’s overgrown-schoolboy theory. ‘The meet and greet is over!’ the director exclaimed with gusto good enough for a town crier, or a master of ceremonies, or a soapbox at Speaker’s Corner. ‘There is art to save for the nation – and, more to the point, no bloody croissants left!’
The Archive room was smaller than Fen remembered from her interview, and the boxes seemed to have increased twofold. She sat down in the typist’s chair and swivelled hard, discovering that however hard she propelled herself, the chair conscientiously returned her dead in front of the computer. She ran her fingers lightly over the keyboard, as if eliciting soft notes from a piano, then rotated herself once clockwise, once anti-clockwise. She stared out of the window to the courtyard below which separated Trust Art from the Tate. The incongruous floral roller blind was half down and she gave it a tug to zap it up and let in more light. However, it unfurled with a clacketting whoosh, like a roll of wallpaper from on high, and subsequently refused to be rolled up by hand, let alone spring back by a pull at its cord. Let it hang. Switch on the light instead. A travesty on a fine April morning but better than wrestling with the blind or being held in the dark.
Fen regarded the floor-to-ceiling metal shelving standing up valiantly under the tonnage of brown archive boxes. She felt simultaneously unnerved and excited.
Julius is in there, somewhere. I can’t believe I’m being paid to do a job I’d gladly pay to do. Where on earth do I start? Only half the boxes are labelled and most of those are ‘Misc.’ or have question marks. Six miscs. See here: ‘1954?’, and there: ‘Symposium?’. I’ll start here: ‘Members’ gala dinner (1963) + Trip to Blenheim + Poster for Post Impressionism show + Misc. correspondence’.
Cross-legged on the floor, having hauled the box off the shelf and been sent staggering under its weight, Fen eased the lid off and grinned at the contents as if she’d just prised open a treasure chest. She was engrossed. When the phone rang, she leapt.
‘Hullo?’ she said, as if the call had come through to the wrong extension.
‘Miss McCabe?’
Fen was silent before she clicked that she was Miss McCabe and the call was most certainly for her.
‘This is Barnard Castle Museum.’
‘Hullo! Barnard Castle Museum!’ she greeted them with excessive delight.
‘Just wondering whether you’ve received our package?’
No, she hadn’t but she assured them she’d go down to Reception to check and would call them as soon as it arrived. By the way, what is it? Oh, only photos and documents. Only? Only? Fantastic!
‘I’m expecting a package from Barnard Castle Museum!’ Fen announced triumphantly in Reception, where Rodney was peering with intent into the biscuit barrel.
‘Marvellous,’ he said, though whether this was about the Bourbon biscuit or Barnard Castle was unclear.
‘Not arrived yet, ducks,’ said Bobbie. Seeing Fen look a little crestfallen, Bobbie suggested a biscuit. Seeking some solace in a Jammy Dodger, Fen climbed the stairs and walked briskly back along the corridor to the Archive.
And
