Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

Gryce took the liberty of interrupting this roll-call by addressing himself to Grant-Peignton. Mrs Rashman had already drifted across to talk to Pam and Grant-Peignton showed signs of restlessness. Gryce didn't really want to be left to the tender mercies of Mr Vaart, thank you very much.

'You mentioned "oldest inhabitant". And yet your friend was only here for — what was it, four years? Surprising. I get the impression that British Albion is a relative newcomer to the scene?'

'The reverse. By no means. On the contrary. Not at all,' said Grant-Peignton with vigour. 'They've been around for donkey's years, under one name or another. Now originally— ' Grant-Peignton moistened his lips, as if about to launch on a long narrative. Vaart, with a broad wink at Gryce, departed hastily, and was to be heard advising the Penney twins that Grant-Peignton was off down Memory Lane again. You would have thought he could have shown a little more discretion, if not respect. When all was said and done, Grant-Peignton was second in seniority only to Copeland.

'Now originally they were printers, pure and simple. Commercial work, paper bags, handbills, cloakroom tickets. The Albion Printeries: that stretches back to the turn of the century at least. Then they started diversifying, buying up this and that company, and finally they went into property. And hey presto, that's how British Albion was born.'

'So it does have quite a pedigree?'

'Oh, as long as your arm. Now admittedly, as the company is structured today, it was very much started from scratch. Apart from one or two souls like Norman Ferrier and Jack,' — Jack presumably being Vaart, you wouldn't have thought Grant-Peignton was on first name terms with him— 'nearly all the present staff were recruited as and when this present building was completed. That's going back only — oh, barely four summers.'

'Jack—' Gryce hoped he didn't sound over-familiar. 'Jack must have started in some previous building, then?'

'The original Albion Printeries. One of those rambling old Victorian dust-traps near London Bridge. Pulled down by now, of course. They got out of printing long ago.'

At least, thought Gryce, one was a bit nearer knowing from what branch of commerce one earned one's daily bread. Ex-printing, now property, plus various interests as listed in the guidelines booklet. Given that the subsidiary companies were self-supporting, that might also explain the puzzling business of the internal telephone directory.

Perhaps Grant-Peignton meant to reassure him on just those lines. Gryce waited for him to say, 'Does that answer your question?' but he didn't. What he did do, however, was to expand on the historical lecture he had just delivered, crossing the t's and dotting the i's to such a tedious degree that Gryce was relieved when Thelma interrupted the monologue by arriving with beakers of coffee.

The staff of Stationery Supplies converged on Thelma. She had not yet collected the money for the coffee and there was much joshing speculation as to whether the management was providing refreshment free as compensation for the inconvenience caused by the reorganization programme, or alternatively, whether Thelma had robbed a bank or was standing treat on account of it being her birthday. The mood was one of end-of-term gaiety, almost of subdued hysteria. While willing hands passed out the steaming beakers, others dug into pockets for tenpenny pieces; jovial voices urged that the least Vaart could do, by virtue of having been on holiday, was to pay for coffee all round; others warned Thelma to beware of his palming off foreign coins. The victim of this badinage took it in good part. Everyone was good-humoured: even Copeland, who had joined in the throng without in the least pulling rank, was to be seen enjoying a joke with Ardagh, of all lugubrious people. Copeland's laugh — a dribbling 'Keeesh!' was infectious. Soon everyone was joking and laughing. 'Coh!' Tuh!' 'Sha!' 'Haaark!' 'Tchair!' 'Keeesh!' It was like Christmas.

The next day could have been equally memorable for Gryce had he not been too embarrassed to join in the fun. Little or no progress had been made on the partition front, rightly described by Vaart as a shambles from start to finish, and again Gryce and his colleagues were reduced to standing about in groups, talking about what they had seen on television the night before. After yesterday's excesses it might all have been something of an anticlimax but for the fact that this was going to turn out to be a real red-letter day, over and above the excitements of the reorganization. Mrs Rashman was leaving. Officially, of course, she was supposed to work until the end of the week but she did have two days of her compassionate leave concession owing, and taking that into consideration and the fact that there were no desks to work at, Copeland had used his discretion to release her at lunch-time. There was to be a presentation.

Gryce found himself in a quandary. He had been asked to add his signature to the giant-sized card — of a cartoon elephant woozily imbibing a glass of champagne: not at all suitable, considering Mrs Rashman's girth and her well-known proclivity for wine bars — which Pam had bought at one of the many greetings-cards shops near the office. (It bore the caption 'Don't forget to write', which at least could be said to justify the elephant motif, and most of the signatories had touched on this theme in their parting quips — if you have time!!!', 'After the honeymoon natch!!!' etc. Gryce, not being on familiar terms with the woman, had contented himself with a chaste, 'Best wishes, C. Gryce.') But he had not been asked to chip in to the collection which Beazley had surreptitiously made under the pretext of selling supplementary raffle tickets. Quite right too: Gryce had been sweating on the top line on that one. But it did place him in the position of having to decide whether to attend the presentation ceremony or not. A fruit cake had been bought with the few shillings left over from the set of teak-handled steak knives that was to be Mrs Rashman's leaving present. If Thelma could find it again in the jumble of filing cabinets out in the foyer, it was to be sliced and consumed during coffee break when Copeland would make a speech. Could Gryce eat cake that he had not subscribed towards? Could he look suitably bashful, along with the others, when Copeland spoke of 'a little something to remember us all by'?

Much as Gryce enjoyed a good leaving thrash, he came to the reluctant conclusion that he would be better off out of it. Accordingly, when Thelma began whispering audibly to Pam about paper plates, he discreetly absented himself, pretending to be heading for the lavatory but instead wheeling off sharply into the furniture-infested foyer. It was not as if there was any work to be getting on with. No one would miss him.

It was mainly to kill time that Gryce set about exploring the British Albion offices from top to bottom. He had had it vaguely in mind to embark on such an expedition ever since stumbling across the internal telephone directory last Tuesday evening, but what Grant-Peignton had told him about the firm had somewhat taken the edge off his curiosity. However, there was no harm in having a look-see.

He already knew what went on at the tenth, eleventh and twelfth floor levels. No need to trouble the Catering (Administration) empire with his presence again; and besides, he didn't fancy another confrontation with the sharp-tongued individual who looked like Jack Lemmon. Gryce started at the ninth floor.

His policy was to check the directory signs in the foyer and then glance in through the glass doors to see what was going on. From what he was able to make out, precious little so far as this particular home from home was concerned. The ninth floor was graced by the administrative wing of Design and Maintenance (the hordes currently at work, or not at work, on the Stationery Supplies partitions would get their instructions from here, although as blue-collar workers they were housed among their lengths of hardboard and angle-brackets down in some sub-basement or other), and also by two inscrutable departments called Services C and D, which presumably had some connection with Services A and B next to Personnel on the third floor. A case of bad office planning here: Gryce could see the day when Design and Maintenance would be invited to swop places with Services B, or when Personnel was shifted up to the ninth and Services C or D were moved to the third. But that would still leave one services department out on a limb. He was glad that such decisions did not fall within his ken. Anyway, whatever Services C and D did for a living, they seemed to be having an easy time of it. So did Design and Maintenance, one of whose draughtsmen was inking in a poster to do with a residents' association hot-pot supper. The atmosphere on the ninth floor, it could be said, was relaxed.