“I don’t,” Alan conceded.
“Or what type of emergency it is.”
“True, once again.”
Alan sensed that the exchange was nearly over and had not seen his communication skills used to best effect. Another piece of paper was disgorged.
“Anything else?”
Alan couldn’t think of anything that needed saying. “No,” he wrote.
“Then, too busy (for alleged and non-specific emergencies),” came the reply with the capitalised word “END” at the very bottom.
He pushed the note back under the door, as required by his instructions, and hurried away.
Chapter 3
Meetings in the department inevitably began eight minutes after the appointed hour with an announcement that the most senior of expected attendees had been detained by more important persons or by more pressing business. By the time Alan arrived at the tea room, he was seven and three-quarter minutes late, yet fifteen seconds early.
The branch head, Marcus “Miserable” Mecklenburg ─ a thin, pallid, worried man who’d been senior media adviser to a succession of disgraced government ministers ─ followed Alan into the room. After announcing that Brian Gulliver, their new first assistant secretary, had been ‘unfortunately delayed’, Mecklenburg wasted no time on additional preliminaries.
“It is my melancholy duty to inform you,” he announced, “that, quite separately from any targeted savings which may yet be required of the department, this branch is to be abolished at the close of business on 24 December.”
Alan’s heart raced and gasps could be heard from all corners of the room. Peaches Trefusis, Mecklenburg’s executive assistant, burst into tears and was led away by a first-aid officer.
“People who are on contracts will finish up on Christmas Eve. Ongoing staff will presumably be subject to the customary redeployment arrangements, enabling them to trade positions with officers in secure jobs who are happy to transfer to our branch and be made redundant.”
All the permanent staff, except for Miserable, himself, did mental calculation of how much their redundancies would be worth, using the standard formula.
“The relevant unions have been informed,” said Mecklenburg, “that there are unlikely to be, at this stage, any forced separations of permanent staff.”
The mention of forced separations stilled the hands of those whose journalistic instincts had been awakened by the press-conference-like circumstances.
“Because I don’t know anything more than what I’ve just told you, there is no point in asking me any questions. I’ll tell you more when I know more.”
A number of the journalists’ hands shot up, anyway. Miserable ignored them all. “Thank you for coming,” he said, as he headed out the door.
For the longest three seconds after his departure, the eighty people remaining behind stared at each other in mute disbelief. When the silence broke, though, there were as many questions and exclamations as there were persons present (minus, perhaps, one).
While some asked how it could be that a whole branch was to be summarily dispatched, others speculated about the particular acts of commission and omission which might have caused the new government to abolish them. Others – mostly contractors – voiced more personal concerns, wondering how they’d pay the rent, meet their child support payments or pay for their leased motor vehicles.
If Alan hadn’t been in a state of standing shock, he’d have heard Miserable blamed for the course of events because “things always ended up badly with him”, “because he was bad karma/juju/news/medicine,” and “because he knew where the skeletons were buried.” Other explanations he might have noted were ones to the effect that the journalists comprising most of the branch had done too good a job of talking up the department’s achievements under the previous government (not thought to have much substance), that they'd done too poor a job (again, not thought to have much substance) and that the new ministerial advisers had seen the names of too many one-time critics and detractors on the branch phone list (thought to have a great deal of substance).
“Or it’s about none of that,” said a grizzled old drunk who’d once been a press gallery bureau chief, “and it’s to do with the page 3 girls.”
“The page 3 girls,” said another old hack, glumly.
Opinions were fiercely divided on the extent to which the swimsuit-less models whose chests had once diverted attention from any newsworthy content in the rest of the newspaper, were to blame for declining community respect for the fourth estate – more to blame than, say, articles about cross-dressing clergy, peculating politicians and celebrity amours.
One thing led, as usual, to another, and attendees were soon embroiled in argument about the plummeting standards of modern journalism and whether the media had a role in shaping public expectations or were simply required to provide a low-brow readership with the philistine content it required (with or without a triple D brassiere).
While the debate raged around him, Alan thought about the advisory committee whose bi-monthly deliberations he had dutifully recorded and “improved” over the previous nine years. It seemed to him that all the effort he’d made to instil in committee members a respect for procedure, an understanding of ‘the possible’ and a sense of the sensible, had been a waste. Nine years of his life had – with a decision whose rationale might never be revealed – been rendered pointless. He felt an almost unprecedented sense of defeat.
Trevithick appeared at his side and said, in a concerned voice: “Come on, Alan, let’s get you back to your cubicle.”
“Yes, we don’t give a toss for the page 3 girls,” said Hemingway, oblivious to any onanistic irony.
Alan allowed himself to be led to the door.
“Angry Eric isn’t going to let them get away with abolishing us,” said Morton, acknowledging the negotiation skills of their union organiser and resiling, at the same time, from his earlier predictions of a branch laid waste.
“Even if he can’t stop them from abolishing us,” said O’Kane, “he’ll give them what for. Not even I would like an earful from Angry Eric.”
Morton flashed him a look that discouraged further pessimistic talk.
“Yes, Eric will do some sort of deal and we’ll be fine,” said Morton, as they moved along the corridor towards their work area. “There’s always room for negotiation in these situations.”
“This would never happen in a central agency,” said Barbara Best from the rear of the group.
“Psalms 9, Verse 9,” said Trevithick, “The Lord will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble.”
“We’ve been caught in some crossfire – something nasty that’s got nothing to do with us,” said Morton, “some skirmishing or score-settling between apparatchiks and journalists … and someone will realise, soon enough, that we shouldn’t be peripheral damage.”
“Surely they wouldn’t abolish our committee,” said Ernest Hemingway, as they reached their own part of the floor. “Haven’t all the major parties had their snouts in our trough?”
Now it was Hemingway who received a warning look from Morton. “It’s true that each of the major parties has had the opportunity to appoint favoured sons and daughters to the committee,” Morton said, “but it’s the ecumenical nature of the membership and the different perspectives that our members bring to the table that makes their work so valuable.”
“And there’s always the possibility,” said O’Kane, hoping to atone for his earlier defeatism,