Timothy Lea - Confessions from the Shop Floor

One of the strangest things about my “engagement” to Pearl is that Mum never mentions it — apart from saying that she will drop dead if we ever walk up the aisle together. She doesn’t even say anything about the eiderdown. As a gambit — which is what I believe they call them in some circles — it is well worth remembering. The next time your mum or dad catch you on the job with someone, say that you’re going to marry them. They’ll be so horrified they won’t bother to castigate you — it’s OK, it doesn’t mean what it sounds like. Sometimes I think that parents experience the reverse of what I feel when I imagine them on the job. It turns them right off to think of their little boy or girl indulging in all those nasty goings-on.

Of course, the fact that Pearl has joined the brownies without having to buy a uniform slips down less than a treat but it isn’t the whole story. Sid hears about it from Rosie when she drops in to see Mum and he is full of interest as we drive to see Slumbernog — that is the daft name he has come up with for the company we haven’t even seen yet. He was going to call it Slumnog until I spelt it out to him.

‘You jammy old bastard,’ he says. ‘What was it like then? I hear they’re a bit special.’

‘Sidney, please!’ I reproach him. ‘Do you think I’m the kind who scatters the secrets of the nuptial couch?’

‘But you aren’t going to nupt her, are you?’ asks Sid. ‘I believe the ceremony is very embarrassing. You have to give her one while you’re signing the register.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I say.

‘All your relations standing about watching you,’ muses Sid. ‘I wouldn’t fancy it.’

‘Well, don’t disturb yourself,’ I tell him. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

In fact, nobody need get their knickers in a twist because I haven’t seen Pearl since the night in question. I think she was a bit upset by some of the remarks Dad made. When he saw all the feathers in the bedroom he thought we had killed a chicken.

‘Coming round here with your voodoo love rites!’ he kept shouting. ‘We don’t want no jungle loving in this house!’ It was all very embarrassing.

‘How much further have we got to go?’ I say, deciding that the time has come to steer the conversation into less controversial waters.

‘Just along here by the river. Nice, isn’t it?’

I don’t answer immediately because I am not certain whether he is joking. It depends whether you call boarded up buildings and collapsing warehouses nice.

‘It seems to be coming down faster than a snail’s knickers,’ I say warily.

‘That’s good isn’t it?’ says my idiot brother in law cheerfully. ‘Rents will be low and we’ll be able to keep the overheads down.’ He starts whistling “Old Father Thames” and rubbing his hands together.

‘I should think the overheads will all be at floor level anyway,’ I say. Sid slams on the brakes and pulls into the kerb.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ I say.

Sid turns off the engine and bashes his nut on the windscreen because he hasn’t taken it out of gear first. He curses softly and faces me. ‘You’ve got to change your attitude. All this fas-fash-vas —’

‘Vasectomy?’ I prompt.

‘Facetiousness has got to stop. If you’re going out on the shop floor you’ve got to do so in the right attitude. Serious, alert, responsible —’

Hang on a minute,’ I say. ‘Shop floor? I thought you were taking over this place?’

‘And you thought you were going to end up with some cushy number sitting behind a big desk?’ Sid shakes his head. ‘Oh no, Timmo. It’s not going to be like that. That’s the besetting sun of British industry, that is. Management up there, workers down there. With me at the helm, it’s going to be different.’

‘You mean it’s going to be Sid up there, Timothy down there?’

Sid bashes his mitt on the dashboard. ‘There you go again. You can’t be serious, can you? What I’m saying is that we’ve got to integrate ourselves with the labour force. We’re all working to the same end. We’ve got to understand their problems, feel their grievances. And you can only do that by working alongside them.’

It has not escaped my attention that the “we” has changed to “you” at a very crucial moment. ‘Are you going to work on the shop floor, too, Sid?’

‘Up here,’ says Sid. ‘Up here.’ A fanciable bird is passing the car and for a moment I think he is saying “Up her!” Then I see that he is tapping his nut. ‘In my mind I will always be shoulder to shoulder with the workers. Their struggle will be my struggle, their sweat will be my sweat —’

‘Their money will be your money. Come off it, Sid. Who do you think you’re kidding? Why don’t you go on the shop floor and I’ll do what you’re going to do?’

‘Experience, Timmo. That’s all it is. I’ve been forced into a role. You remember the position I held at Funfrall Enterprises?’

‘It was on page forty-three of the Perfumed Garden, wasn’t it?’

‘Management, Timmo. That’s my forte. We’ve all got to do what we’re best suited for. I’m not condemning you to the shop floor. I just feel that you should have the opportunity to come to grips with industry at all its levels, to work your way up through the organisational structure. Think of the effect it would have if the two of us came into the company and went straight to the top? You would understand dissatisfaction running rife, wouldn’t you? This way, with you going in right at the bottom, there can be no complaints, can there? It’s democracy in action.’

‘Uum.’ I don’t say anything because I can’t really think of anything to say. I could dive out of the window but Sid has started the car again.

‘Just think of it,’ he raves. ‘The Queen’s Award to Industry.’ Sid is wearing his light blue, collarless, two piece, slim fit and I think that he has got a better chance of receiving ‘The Industry’s Award to Queens’. Still, I don’t say anything. Sid is always at his most sensitive when on the brink of a great enterprise — or cock-up as we in the business call them. I try to comfort myself with the thought that nothing is settled yet and that he may not go through with the deal but when I look in his gleaming eyes I have a nasty feeling that he is already choosing his office furniture.

‘Here we are. Universal International Bedding Company. Henceforth to be known as Slumnog.’

‘Slumbernog,’ I remind him. ‘Slums are broken down, disgusting places where no decent person would —’ My voice trails away as I look through the padlocked gates into the squalid courtyard littered with rubbish and beyond to the crumbling buildings. ‘I don’t know, Sid. Maybe it is quite a good name.’

‘It slips off the tongue a sight quicker than Slumbernog,’ says Sid. ‘Now, I wonder how we get in?’

‘There’s a sign on the gates,’ I say. ‘It says “For admittance call opposite”.’

We bend our eyes across the street and there is a broken down boozer called the Workers United.

‘Looks more like Manchester United,’ I say. ‘Blimey. They can’t mean that, can they?’

‘Better have a look,’ says Sid.

We park the car, decline the offer made by a couple of kids who want 50p to stop anybody removing the hub caps, fail to do business on the basis of them paying us 50p to avoid a clip round the earhole, and go into the pub. It looks like nobody has bothered to clean up since the Waco kid last hit town and has had no difficulty in resisting the temptation to tart itself up into the muzac and moquette bracket.

‘Can you tell us how to get into U.I.B. mate?’ says Sid to the ferret-faced geezer behind the bar.