The emergency gathering had caused the branch social committee meeting – the final one before the Christmas party – to be pushed back, and it now clashed with the section heads’ confab.
“I don’t suppose anyone is feeling up to the struggle?” Alan enquired.
Once again, no one volunteered. Branch social committee meetings were notoriously fractious.
“Perhaps,” said Alan, “I could go to the social committee meeting and Morton, as the other permanent assistant director, could go to section heads.”
“You know I don’t do section heads,” said Morton. “My stupidity threshold is much too low.”
“I’d be happy to go, if Stephen can’t,” said Best.
“In that case, I would also be willing,” said O’Kane.
“Me, too,” said Trevithick.
Even as the section breathed its last, Alan mused, subordinate staff were determined to permit no peer advantage.
“Kind though those offers are, I’m not sure it would be appropriate to entertain them while ever there is an assistant director to─”
“─all right, I’ll go to the social committee meeting,” said Morton, shamed into compliance.
“Thank you, Stephen,” said Alan.
The three junior staff turned to face their screens, having demonstrated their willingness to step up, to no good end.
Alan looked at his watch and thought about Quentin Quist waiting for him in the lavatories. The announcement of the staffing freeze, and the resulting hike in redundancy prospects, made him more inclined to catch up with Quist and reveal inconsequential things about the union meeting that might, perhaps, improve his chances of survival in the days ahead. This didn’t mean, though, that he felt guiltless or at one with himself; he knew that even the smallest betrayals were corrosive of ethical certainty and conducive to a dangerous moral relativism.
“I’d better be going,” he said, collecting his notebook and diary, intent on the briefest restroom rendezvous before the meeting in Miserable’s office.
Morton walked with him and Alan steeled him to the difficulties likely to be encountered at the social committee meeting. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be easy for you,” he said. “There’ll be the usual, last minute, rear-guard actions.”
“To change previously agreed arrangements?”
“Yes.”
“So, I’m holding to our traditional line?” said Morton.
“Yes,” said Alan, “There must be solids … and I’m not talking about nuts, crisps or finger food.”
“A proper meal,” said Morton, “to reduce early drunkenness and associated breaches of the code of conduct.”
“And there has to be a cash bar; no drinks tab and no ‘one in, all in’ arrangements, or the abstemious will be funding the excesses of the habitually drunken.”
“Understood.”
“And no last-minute Kris Kringle or Secret Santa.”
“No anonymous gift-giving,” affirmed Morton.
“But if we lose out on that one – and I can tell you that the numbers were very tight last year – there should be no virtual or third-party gifts.”
“I don’t follow,” said Morton.
“No goats, buffaloes, cattle and so forth for persons in far-off places.”
“Because of the love that dare not bleat?”
“People may only be joking but there are others who find these jests distressing and distasteful,” said Alan.
“Fair enough,’ said Morton.
“Not to mention the offence caused to animal welfare activists and vegetarians.”
“Of course.”
“And while I’m about it, absolutely no Secret Santa gifts of personal hygiene products. No soaps, deodorants, breath fresheners, anti-dandruff treatments or binding agents.”
“Nothing to combat odours, stenches, flakes or –”
“– and no hand creams.’
Alan recalled an insensitive gift in a previous decade to an allegedly dextrous young woman known in certain circles as “Rhonda the Reliever”.
“I sometimes wonder what happened to Rhonda,” said Morton, fondly. “It must be more than ten years since …”
“Let’s not take the risk, anyway.”
“Right you are,” said Morton.
“And, finally, no sharp objects.”
“To reduce the chance of stabbings?”
“And self-harm.”
“I’m with you.”
“Any questions?”
“I think you’ve covered it all.”
They neared the lavatories and Alan prepared to peel off. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “Good luck.”
“You, too,” said Morton, rushing away with purpose.
Alan pulled on the handle of the outer rest room door as its inner pair was flung open with a mighty force and Quentin Quist hurtled past, wide-eyed and flushed.
Alan swivelled to follow Quist’s flight down the corridor. It was less than two minutes after their appointed meeting time.
Had he been relieved of the Quisling’s part by Quist’s high-speed departure? It certainly seemed that way to him … and it was with a deep sense of relief that he continued inside with the intention of making use of the amenities.
Ernest Hemingway, he noticed, was standing at the mirror, apparently repositioning his comb-over. Alan tried to make his way directly to the urinal without any acknowledgement, in keeping with inviolable male restroom conventions. However, his gaze lingered a moment too long on Hemingway. Communication consequently became difficult to avoid and then ─ once Hemingway’s right eye was revealed to be red and swollen ─ quite unavoidable.
Alan stopped in front of the cubicles, halfway towards the trough, thinking it preferable to converse without his manhood in hand.
“Your eye,” he asked. “Are you all right?”
“Quist,” said Hemingway.
Alan had no ready response to this news. He only wondered how it was that Quist and Hemingway could have interacted in a place where social intercourse was by custom prohibited.
“I went to have a chat with Peaches about stationery,” said Hemingway, “because Morton warned me it would be the next thing to be frozen. And once I’d ordered a few items I thought I’d have a tinkle.”
“I see,” said Alan.
“But on getting here I was surprised to hear a voice, from one of the cubicles, say, “is that you?””
“How extraordinary,” said Alan.
“Or that’s what I thought was said. And, anyway, I couldn’t really deny that I was me, could I … or me?”
“I suppose not,” said Alan. “So, you …?”
“So, I answered “yes’”.
Alan now felt most apprehensive.