Miserable ignored the murmurs of agreement around the table.
“And a daily update on the birthday suit brigade – who, what where and when – so that I can keep Brian fully apprised of developments.”
“As if we haven’t got enough to do,” said one of the other directors.
“But I want you to otherwise pay as little attention as you can to naked individuals.”
Alan wrote “report nude daily but ignore” in his workbook.
“We all know that attention only encourages them,” said the special projects director, to everyone’s surprise.
“Quite so,” said Miserable. “Otherwise, in the current circumstances, our mantra needs to be ‘business as usual’. Well, actually, ‘business as usual plus a lot more filing.’”
“Filing,” exclaimed a number of the directors as Alan wrote “b as u” in his notebook.
“Yes,” said Miserable, “filing, in case we don’t have January to get all of the paper off people’s desks and out of their trays.”
“Some of my people will need assistance with this,” said a director to Miserable’s right.
“Because of the volume of unfiled material?” asked the Business Unit Manager.
“Because they don’t understand the fundamentals.”
“How hard is it,” asked Miserable, “to whip a hole into a piece of paper and then bung it onto a file?”
Alan wanted to pipe up and say, in a respectful but firm tone, that he believed there to be a good deal more to filing than hole ‘whipping’ and file ‘bunging’, but the Business Unit Manager had issues of her own to raise.
“How can public servants not know about filing?” she asked.
“We were journalists before we were public servants,” said another of the directors.
“And the rest of us didn’t have other lives?” said the Business Unit Manager.
Alan certainly didn’t think of himself as having a previous life – at least not one of any substance – but, again, kept his own counsel.
“We’ll sort this out later,” said Miserable. “Perhaps Alan, who is reputed to have expertise in this area, could deliver some lightning filing workshops to get your people up to speed.”
Alan liked to think of himself as the filer nonpareil and, for the second time that day, felt a rush of pride at being selected for an ‘out of the ordinary’ assignment. He wrote “Einreichung Blitzkriegs” in his notebook.
“In the meantime, though,” said Miserable, “is everybody clear on my requirements as regards the redundancy try-ons?”
The directors all nodded reluctant agreement.
“Peaches will distribute forms for your reports.”
The directors all made notations in their workbooks.
Had Peaches not popped her head through the door, Alan would then have sat through the usual summary of the work being done in each section (except by the special project director).
“Brian is free,” Peaches said, “to see Alan about that other matter.”
Alan flinched. Why would his first assistant secretary - or any first assistant secretary, for that matter – want to see him?
The lavatory encounter between Quist and Hemingway, even if promptly reported by one or both, couldn’t already be known of by such a senior officer. After all, there were protocols to be complied with and procedures to be worked through.
And, anyway, Quist surely wouldn’t have acted so precipitately to place his reputation at further risk … and Hemingway couldn’t have recanted so quickly his decision to not notify the appropriate authorities. But even if one or both had decided to bring their version(s) of the incident to the attention of Personnel and/or a Sexual Harassment Contact Officer, how could the matter have been reported, and then been discussed by Miserable and Brian Gulliver, in the brief time between Quist making good his escape and the commencement of the section heads’ meeting?
Still further, why would anyone want to involve him, bearing in mind that he hadn’t actually seen anything, other than the aftermath of the alleged fracas?
What, accordingly, could the first assistant secretary – who’d once been Alan’s (not very satisfactory) graduate assistant – want from him? None of the work done by Alan, in his capacity as a mere assistant director would normally have warranted discussion with anybody above the rank of assistant secretary, at best. And the catering arrangements for Gulliver’s annual “Senior Executive Only” Christmas party were usually communicated to Alan by an executive assistant; they hadn’t necessitated the direct involvement of the host, himself, for years.
Maybe, though, Alan’s section was to be secretly quarantined from retrenchments, and Brian didn’t want the rest of the branch – meaning the journalists, with their ignorance of the filing essentials – to know. But if that was the case, surely Miserable, who evidently knew something about the reason for Alan’s summons, could have kept him back after the directors’ gathering to give him the news (and not have taken up Gulliver’s valuable time with such a trivial matter).
Then a startling thought occurred to him: one so bizarre that he almost dismissed it from further consideration. He flipped it gently away to the periphery of his consciousness, as many as three additional times, before he accepted that resistance was futile and that he had no option but to think it possible that, in his final days – and as a way of softening the blow of early retirement – he was to be granted his heart’s most secret and cherished wish: he was, at last, to receive the Public Service Medal he’d so long thought himself deserving of.
And hadn’t stranger things happened? Hadn’t so many of the unworthy been rewarded before him? Common sense told him, however, that the various approvals could not have been obtained in such a short time and that Gulliver’s reasons for seeing him were unlikely to be altruistic. Indeed, he was more likely to have been summoned so the first assistant secretary could witness the pain he (Alan) felt at the prospect of redundancy and at the orphaning of his committee. If that wasn't the case, his presence was probably required in the hope that he would shame himself by breaking down and begging for his job.
“Yes, Alan,” said Miserable, “Brian requires your help with a little task.”
Alan smiled wanly.
“Off you go.”
“You won’t be coming with me?” said Alan.
Officers in the lower ranks, if involved in meetings with first assistant secretaries, were invariably silent onlookers or note takers, and never unchaperoned.
“No, I’ve been fully briefed,” said Miserable, pointing towards the door. “Don’t keep Brian waiting.”
All eyes were on Alan as he rose from the table. He left much as a junior boarder, summoned unexpectedly to the headmaster’s study at afternoon tea time, did i.e.
