The leftover matters from the morning meeting included cancellation of the branch Christmas party (owing to the abolition announcement) and postponement of the branch planning day (already postponed multiple times owing to the lack of a firm branch budget and the likelihood of a new government). Attached to the message were forms to be used for reporting on the antics of individuals taking extreme measures to improve their redundancy prospects.
The abandonment of the Christmas party was no bad thing, bearing in mind the dangerous decision to proceed with a secret Santa and the ways in which fear of the future might be magnified by alcohol. However, postponement of the planning day – no matter how brief the activity’s usual impress upon the actual conduct of affairs – sent a most undesirable message to the subordinate staff i.e. that things could chug along well enough without review, reconsideration or any thought for the longer game.
Even if timely planning was recognised as pointless by more experienced officers – because the priorities of government and the senior executive group were subject to constant change –the process itself provided a useful illusion of shared purpose for junior officers. The notion of an ordered, well-thought-through programme (or program) of work should not, to Alan’s way of thinking, have been so casually dispensed with. It seemed to him that, at the very time he was being discarded, so, too, were many of the traditions which had served the bureaucracy well over its history.
It was hard in such circumstances to summon the fortitude to carry on but he had, in the course of something resembling at least half a career, been swept up in numerous changes thought by others to herald the demise of effective public administration. And the service had not only survived these initiatives but flourished in the rich verbal diarrhoea that invariably accompanied their implementation.
There had been disappointments of a more personal nature, too. In the years following his great mistake he’d seen lesser men (and even women) promoted over him, and his talents and dedication ignored. He’d not only been the subject of derisory and disparaging remarks, but had heard his name employed as a synonym (or even eponym) for plodding ineptitude. Yet he’d not only survived the indignities, humiliation and scorn but had maintained the highest standards of record keeping, demonstrated the strictest possible compliance with the code of conduct and not once used Commonwealth assets (excluding, perhaps, ablutions areas) for private purposes. He had, in his own ‘not very special’ way, flourished.
And having endured so much without succumbing to bitterness, cynicism or clock-watching, he knew himself capable of doing all that might be required of him in a final fortnight of service, should the taxpayer have no further use of him after Christmas.
To that end he imagined himself at his assiduous, calm and confident best, and was so successful in thinking himself into a positive state that, when he heard the phone ringing, there was, once more, no crisis capable of discommoding him, no catastrophe with which he could not deal, and no cataclysm for which he was not ready.
“Would you like me to get that for you,” said Hemingway, peering over the top of his magazine, as though the device had been ringing, unattended to, for some time.
“I’ll deal with it,” said Alan, with renewed determination.
“Good-oh,” said the ex-milliner.
Chapter 9
“Are we still on?” enquired the Hon Barry Cunliffe QC, chair of the advisory committee. “I’ve been swatting up on modern dance, especially.”
Alan was aware that the one-time Attorney-General and Minister for Asian Affairs had a heightened interest in all art forms in which female nudity was a prospect. However, he was not aware of any reason why the ex-politician should think the impending committee meeting to be in doubt … unless someone who knew of the branch abolition had ‘leaked’.
Alan concluded that a disingenuous response was the desirable one.
“I believe that everything is in order, minister.”
Although it had been a decade since Cunliffe last held public office, he liked to be addressed as “minister”, instead of “chair”, when not in the presence of other committee members.
“We are looking forward to a productive and interesting meeting,” Alan added.
“There are rumours we’re getting our marching orders,” said Cunliffe.
Alan at this point suspected Morton of having spilled the beans and suspected the ex-minister of having made the same reasonable assumption that he (Alan) had earlier made about the repercussions of the branch’s abolition i.e. that the committee would be dispensed with at the same time as its servants.
“While some changes are anticipated within the department,” Alan said, “and different officers will probably be looking after you in the future, I’m not aware of any intention to disband the committee.”
This was Cunliffe’s opportunity to take a principled stand: to state that the committee couldn’t possibly proceed without Alan’s guidance and support, that he would be doing his utmost to ensure that Alan was retained in his current (essential) role and even that the committee would, if necessary, pass a formal resolution, calling on the (real) minister to ensure that Alan remained at his post.
“I get it,” said Cunliffe. “Business as usual until told otherwise.”
“Business as usual, most certainly,” said Alan, hoping that his voice betrayed no disappointment.
“And everything is in hand for our Christmas party?”
“Morton,” said Alan, “has made all the necessary arrangements.”
“With pudding for all?”
There’d been outrage when, two years before, the Christmas dinner desert had been, alternately, crème brûlée and mini pavlova.
“Pudding for all,” answered Alan.
“Carried to the table, in flames?”
Without a brandy-fed, fiery journey to the table, the most magnificent pudding was, apparently, no pudding at all.
“Most certainly.”
“With hard sauce?”
“I checked on this, myself.”
Alan had, indeed, checked on it, the previous week, and had thereby offended Morton.
“Then I’ll see you bright and early on Wednesday morning.”
Alan would not have called a 10:00 meeting start “bright and early”, even by departmental standards, but the committee members who travelled from other cities on the day of the meeting could not be persuaded to set out at dawn. A mid-morning commencement was, consequently, the best that could be managed.
“Until then,” said Alan, concluding the call and commencing a record of the discussion in his workbook.
“Cunliffe?” asked Hemingway.
“Indeed,” replied Alan, “and someone told him we are being abolished.”
“It wasn’t me,” said Hemingway.
“I’m sure it wasn’t,” said Alan.
Prompted by even louder stomach rumblings, Alan’s mind turned to the cheese and beetroot sandwich, wrapped in greaseproof paper in the middle fold of his briefcase.
In the past, he’d often eaten his lunch in the tea-room while reading the day-old newspapers ─ Miserable’s castoffs ─ left there by Peaches. However, since Eleanor’s flight he usually attended the supermarket at lunchtime to purchase something for his evening meal.
But with the morning characterised by unpredictability, and his time taken up by unscheduled events, there were work matters which called for his attention.