It was now clear to Alan how the meeting of Quentin Quist and Ernest Hemingway had come about. He felt guilty about not having arrived earlier … or at least in sufficient time to keep temptation out of Hemingway’s way.
“So, I entered the cubicle and…”
“Don’t tell me,” said Alan, even though logic told him the end of the tale was nigh.
Hemingway shrugged and turned to the mirror where he used a piece of paper towel to dab at his damaged eye.
“Do you think you should see the first aid officer?” Alan asked.
“Oh, it’s hardly the first time I’ve been roughed up in a lav.”
Was the frequency with which one was assaulted likely to lessen the impact of a battering? Alan didn’t think so.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, trying not to appear unduly sympathetic. Then an awful possibility occurred to him. “Are you… would you… be intending to report this incident?”
If the matter was reported and investigated, Quentin Quist would doubtless reveal that his toilet invitation had been intended for Alan, for some reason unconnected to union espionage, and the resultant suspicions, gossip and innuendo would undo all the hard work he (Alan) had done to rehabilitate his reputation in the years since his great mistake.
“I think it best that we keep this to ourselves,” said the ex-milliner in a conspiratorial tone which had Alan wondering if he was already suspected of being the person Quist had expected to meet. The only way this could be was if Quentin Quist had mentioned him by name in the lead up to the near-tryst. But if this had occurred, wouldn’t Hemingway have revealed as much in his (still fresh) recounting of the incident?
Alan felt somewhat reassured but knew he was not yet out of the woods.
“I wonder if Quentin will report the matter?”
“And implicate himself in an assault?” said Hemingway, clearly thinking Alan to be worried about his (Hemingway’s) reputation in the two weeks that remained of their employment.
“You’re right, of course,” said Alan.
“But if he does take me on, he’ll find me a formidable opponent.”
There was something about the set of Hemingway’s jaw and the look of fierce determination in his undamaged eye that caused Alan to shudder.
“I’ll claim,’ Hemingway continued, brightening, “that he’s been pursuing me for months – making increasingly lurid suggestions – and that he enticed me into a stall when he finally encountered me alone … but that he panicked at the moment of commitment.”
Alan was appalled at this effortless embroidering of the truth and at Hemingway’s delight in it, but nonetheless heard himself say: “the bit about the advances might not ring true.”
“You think I’m insufficiently desirable?’
“The business with Azure Faraday suggests that Quist has proclivities of a different nature,” Alan replied, avoiding a direct answer to the question.
It was Azure who had blackened Quentin Quist’s eye after unsolicited overtures from him in the photocopying room.
“That does complicate things,” Hemingway admitted.
Alan tried to come up with alternative explanations but found his imagination wanting.
“I suppose I could recast him in the voracious, bisexual mould,” said Hemingway, excitedly, “as a depraved, insatiable, monster, preying on men and women without discrimination or compunction.”
“Goodness me,” said Alan.
“Yes, a vicious, sex-crazed beast, with whom even – I don’t know - even animals are not safe.”
“Ghost,” said Alan, voicing his strongest expletive and thinking that he was never to be free of the love that dare not bleat etc.
“A base, debauched creature consumed by unfettered lust and bereft of any sense of decency or restraint. How do you think that would go down?”
“The part about animals might be a bit over the top,” said Alan, wondering for the first time whether he might have been too hasty in judging the Monst (who might actually have been spirited away, like the missing underwear, by deviants).
Hemingway appeared disappointed by this. “I actually thought that it and the unfettered lust were the best bits.”
“I think not.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to claim he’s been making nasty, homophobic remarks to me, threatening me when others aren’t around, and that today, when he thought we were alone, he finally made good on his threats.”
“And the reason why you didn’t report him sooner?”
“Fear,” said Hemingway in a childish little voice.
“That seems to be a more credible scenario,” said Alan, now shocked at himself.
“So, we’ll wait and see what results,” said Hemingway, turning back to the mirror.
At least, Alan thought, they had plans, if Quist decided to go public.
“You’re sure you don’t want to see someone about your eye?”
“No, I’ll put some mascara on it and no one will know the difference.”
It was unlikely, Alan thought, that the injury would go unnoticed but, if believing as much made Hemingway feel any better, and less likely to make an official complaint, no bad purpose was served.
“Well, I suppose I should be getting on,” said Alan still hoping he could avail himself of the conveniences without commentary or company.
“Me, too,” said Hemingway, “but I’ll have that tinkle I missed out on, earlier.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” said Alan.
“You’re welcome to join me,” said Hemingway.
“Gosh! Is that the time?” Alan exclaimed, looking at the wrong wrist.
“I wouldn’t peek,” said Hemingway. “Well, nothing more than the briefest admiring glimpse.”
But Alan was already opening the outer door with a hand swathed in protective tissue paper, on his way to his next meeting.
Chapter 6
Six of the real directors and the Business Unit Manager were waiting outside Miserable Mecklenburg’s office when Alan arrived.
“He’s on the phone to Brian,” said Peaches, for Alan’s benefit, “but he won’t be long.”
“Perhaps we should come back later,” said one of the directors.
“Yes, things don’t stop happening because we are being abolished,” said another.
“He does know you’re here,” said Peaches.
“In fact, I’m busier,” said a third director, “because we are being abolished.”
“If he wanted to reschedule, I’m sure he’d have told me,” said Peaches, as the branch head’s door opened.
“Sorry to have kept you all,” said Miserable. “Come in.”
The table seated eight, comfortably. Alan as the ninth, last and lowest ranking attendee, took one of the two vacant seats against the wall.
“Still no Lorrae?” asked Miserable, looking at Alan.
This might have been an opportunity for him to announce, in a jocular tone, that he was impersonating his absent leader. However, the events of the morning – topped off by the message about the staff freeze