Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

Gryce, with the very beginnings of a nagging sensation in the back of his head, descended to the eighth. This again was divided into three sections. Where Stationery Supplies would have been, there was a walled-off structure with a number of grilled hatches, rather like the ticket-office affair up in Catering (Administration). The cashier's department, or Great Bank In The Sky as Seeds had called it when telling Gryce where he could draw his salary cheque. That was worth knowing about, if nothing else was. The next section was the Welfare Office, staffed almost entirely by middle-aged women: doubtless research had shown that female employees had more problems to be sorted out than men. Each of the familiar desks had a chair invitingly placed in front of it, where harassed cooks and bottle-washers from the Buttery or Cockpit could plonk themselves down and pour out the saga of their troubles with worthless husbands who appropriated their wages to spend on drink. The nearest of the middle-aged women, on the look-out for custom, smiled at Gryce. He hoped he didn't look as if he needed advice on how to cope with his alimony payments or anything of that sort. He smiled back, noted that the farthermost section was the Central Typing Pool, and withdrew.

Skipping the seventh floor, where Copeland by now would be making an incomprehensible speech urging Mrs Ash-can not to ferment her old collies in Stationery Surprise, Gryce continued his exploration.

He still had no particular plan in mind, save that of making himself scarce for a while, but the nagging sensation in the back of his head was working its way forward. By the time he had by-passed the third floor, well-known as the lair of Lucas of Personnel, the curiosity temporarily satisfied by his talk with Grant-Peignton had returned. He had the same feeling as he had had on his first day when he'd cocked his ear for all the background noises of the office, being puzzled at the time and only realizing later that it was the sound of the telephone that was missing; the same feeling he'd had when browsing through that internal directory. Something not here that should be here.

Perhaps the second floor would provide what he was looking for. Gryce took the stairs, turned into the second floor foyer and found himself face to face with one of the one-armed commissionaires. Which of the three it was he couldn't say, they all looked alike to him, but the man was definitely barring his way, and furthermore looked as if he had been placed in position with that very object.

'Can I be of any assistance, sir?'

For 'sir', Gryce read 'Sunny Jim'. He felt, for all that he had never risen above the ranks in his conscript days, like a very junior subaltern being addressed by a very senior colour sergeant.

'Ah — it's all right, thank you.'

'You say it's all right, sir. We don't know whether it's all right or not. What are you on?'

'Ah — well you see, I'm a new boy here. As you know. You remember — that kerfuffle over my B.52 part two?'

The one-armed commissionaire plainly didn't remember any such thing. It occurred to Gryce that he might be a different one-armed commissionaire from the three he had already encountered. It was only his assumption that the same three were permanently on duty. After all, they had to go on holiday or sick leave some time, they would have duty rosters and tea breaks and so on and so forth. There might, for all he knew, be a dozen one-armed commissionaires. There was probably a fuggy basement rest-room crammed with them.

'I was just getting myself orientated,' he explained. The word did not seem to register with his inquisitor. He amended it. 'Finding the geography.'

'The toilets, sir? There's one on each floor.'

'Yes, I'm aware of that. The truth of the matter is—' Gryce commenced a babbling explanation of how, in view of the fact that one of his colleagues was leaving to get married, he had decided to explore the building. It didn't make sense even to himself. The one-armed commissionaire, however, woodenly heard him out and indeed even allowed a sizeable pause for revision or retraction before continuing his interrogation.

'You in possession of a docket, sir?'

'A docket. You mean a B.52 part two. No, if you recall, I did try to hand it in downstairs but—'

'We're not talking about Bee Five Twos, sir, we're talking about dockets. I'm asking for sight of your docket.'

Gryce, patting his side-pockets in a futile gesture of cooperation, confessed that he did not have one.

'Ah, well there you are then. Before you can visit this floor, for whatever reason whatsoever, you've got to be in possession of a docket. Fact before you visit any floor,' pursued the one-armed commissionaire, after apparently giving this wider aspect of the matter some thought, 'you've got to be in possession of a docket. And that docket is issued and signed by your head of department. It's the fire regulations.'

Gryce didn't understand that at all but wasn't going to say so. The one-armed commissionaire, however, was not one to leave incomplete explanations hanging in the air.

'If you'd read your guidelines booklet, sir, you'd find it all laid down. See, in the event of fire, everyone has to be booked out of the building. By nominal roll, from each and every department. That entails knowing where everybody is at all times.'

Pull the other one, it's got bells on it, thought Gryce, but said nothing. The one-armed commissionaire scrutinized him for a time through narrowed eyes.

'What floor you on, sir?'

'Ah — seven. Stationery Supplies, in fact. Name of Gryce.'

The one-armed commissionaire's lips moved as he transparently made a mental note. Gryce could just hear him asking his colleagues on the main door if they had a Gryce on the seventh floor listed. 'My advice to you, then, Mister Gryce, is to return from whence you came with all possible speed.'

Mercifully, there was a lift in position. Mumbling his thanks and apologies, Gryce stepped into it. As the doors rumbled gently to meet each other, they framed the one-armed commissionaire like a camera viewfinder, seeming, in the last fraction of a second, to zoom in on his unblinking, staring eyes behind their bottle-glass spectacles.

Arriving back at the haven of the seventh floor, Gryce was distressed to find Mrs Rashman's leaving ceremony still in full swing. They evidently made a meal of such events in this particular billet. He could not pretend to be going to the lavatory again, and he dare not skulk among the stacked-up office furniture out in the foyer where he might be asked for his docket. There was nothing for it but to tiptoe forward in his squeaking shoes and hover on the outskirts of the little cluster of colleagues who encircled Mrs Rashman as if she were 'it' in a game of piggy in the middle.

At least they had got the actual presentation over with, for Mrs Rashman, pink-faced and moist-eyed, was clutching her box of teak-handled steak knives and jumbo-sized greetings card, not to mention a bunch of wilting carnations that had appeared from Gryce knew not what source. Copeland then, thank goodness, would already have made his speech and with any luck Mrs Rashman her reply. The fruit cake, also thank goodness, had been distributed, as was evidenced from the crumb-laden paper plates clutched by most of those present. What Gryce seemed to have stumbled on was an unofficial and probably unscheduled postscript to the proceedings, which consisted of the Penney twins reading a long poem of their own composition. They took the verses in turn, to the accompaniment of many snorts of laughter and ribald interjections.