Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

Gryce's heart sank. He had not had that in mind at all. A cosy drink at the Pressings, just the two of them: now that would have been worth waiting on for, he could have gone to the pictures by himself and then had a quick snack to line his stomach before opening-time. But the prospect of an evening in some draughty hall, with friend Seeds throwing his weight about in his capacity of stage manager or chief dogsbody or whatever, held little appeal. They would get no time to themselves and he would be seriously late for his supper.

'I thought you were full up?'

'Oh, we're recruiting again. Why don't you give it a try? I think after our little get-together last night you might find it quite worthwhile.' Thelma had clomped towards them with her tray of coffee beakers and Pam was signalling that her words were to be taken as having more significance than would be apparent to their young eavesdropper. She could only mean that the Albion Players would give them an excuse for being seen about together. Discovered holding hands in the Pressings wine bar they would pretend to be rehearsing. And their affair would blossom.

'Yes, all right, I look forward to it,' said Gryce. Nothing to be gained from sounding negative or passive.

As Pam was about to utter some word of gratification, Thelma butted in with the raw directness of youth: 'Do you want coffee or not?'

'Just a minute, Thelma, we're talking!' snapped Pam.

A believer in keeping juniors in their place, Gryce had noticed. To him, in a softer voice, she continued: 'Six o'clock, at the St Jude's Institute in St Jude's Lane. Do you know it?'

'I'll find it.'

'There'll be some familiar faces there, so you won't feel out on a limb. In fact,' said Pam with an arch smile, 'you should feel quite at home.'

She moved away, shaking her head crossly at Thelma who was clanking her tray of beakers. Thelma, quite unabashed, continued to hover.

'Excuse me, Mr Gryce, did Mrs Fawce say they were taking new people on for the Albion Players?'

'I believe that's the case, Thelma.'

'Do you think they'd have me? Only I've been trying to get in for ages. I love acting, always have done.'

A case of whistling for the moon, Gryce thought. It was pathetic really, the girl had the grace of a pantomime cow.

Aloud, he said: 'I think you'd better have a word with Mrs Fawce.'

But when he turned to look for Pam, it was just in time to see her and Seeds, both of them in their outdoor coats, hurrying out of the office. The bundle of mail that Seeds had been happily saddled with was now in the possession of Beazley.

One or two things to get done, indeed. He would give her one or two things when next he saw her.

'I'm sure you'd be most welcome, Thelma,' said Gryce nastily. 'Why don't you come along with me?'

'Pardon? Oo, thank you, Mr Gryce. Thank you very much.'

Later Thelma rewarded him with extra sugar in his coffee. He hoped it was a one-off gesture, he knew he had a sweet tooth but you could have too much of a good thing.

Gryce was in a thoroughly foul mood as he hurried along St Jude's Lane with the clodhopping Thelma in tow. They were twenty minutes late. The stupid girl had waited until they were about to leave the office before deciding that she wanted to 'spend a penny'. She could have spent fifty pee in there, the time it took. And to cap it all, they'd taken a short cut and finished up on a building site. It was the last straw.

He had bitterly regretted inviting her along to the Albion Players the moment he'd opened his mouth. Not that he gave a hoot what Pam might say but it meant he was now committed to spending the entire day loafing about the office with only Beazley and Grant-Peignton for company, everyone else except the Design and Maintenance workmen having sensibly slung their hooks. To have slunk off to the pictures alone and then met Thelma later would have meant making complex arrangements that would have constricted his stomach muscles; to have taken her with him would have laid him open to charges of kidnapping. He could just imagine what the boisterous Vaart would make of a titbit of that kind. There was nothing for it but to sit it out, pacing up and down, jangling one's loose change, and avoiding the eyes of the workmen who, for all that they were like a blessed slow-motion film, could at least claim to be occupying themselves constructively.

To add insult to injury, Grant-Peignton had actually given him work to do. Beazley, having announced his firm intention of not coming back after lunch, had unloaded on Grant-Peignton the burden of mail that Seeds in the first place had unloaded on him. Grant-Peignton, in turn, had palmed it off on Gryce, with instructions that he might as well make himself useful by getting it opened and sorted. Gryce had been reduced to squatting on the floor, tailor-fashion, slitting open envelopes with a pencil and surrounding himself with little heaps of bumph, much of it consisting of angry memoranda complaining of the shortage of stationery. Not that sorting it out did the slightest good, since he had finally and sullenly swept the whole cat and caboodle together and dumped it in the wire basket where Thelma kept her coffee beakers.

Making painful Smalltalk with Thelma after Grant-Peignton himself had vamoosed at about four o'clock, Gryce had a sudden thought about that wire basket. It arose out of another thought which he had toyed with and then rejected, that now would be as good a time as any to start looking for the office furniture.

'Thelma, where do you keep your tea and coffee things as a rule?'

'Pardon? In one of the filing cabinets, Mr Gryce. Mr Copeland said it was all right.'

'I'm sure it is, but all our filing cabinets seem to have vanished into thin air, as you've no doubt noticed. Were you able to wave a magic wand?'

'Pardon?'

'Where did you find your tea and coffee things this morning?'

'Oh, I see. Well, you see, I sometimes get to work very early, because you see my dad, he has to go up to Birmingham sometimes and he drives a van, so you see he sometimes gives me a lift as far as—'

'Yes, I don't want your complete biography, Thelma. Where was the filing cabinet?'

'Pardon? Oh, I see. In the front entrance hall.'

'In the front entrance hall?'

'You know where they've got all those potted plants, just where you go in? There. Only I knew which filing cabinet it was, because it has a bit of red wool tied to the—'

'Never mind red wool, Thelma. What was your filing cabinet doing in the front entrance hall?'

'I don't know, Mr Gryce.'

Neither did Gryce. 'Well, it certainly isn't in the front entrance hall now.'

'No, Mr Gryce.'

He expected the night cleaners must have left it there on its journey to basement three or wherever. Though why they couldn't have taken it all the way down in the lift, Gryce could not fathom. He was certainly not going to worry his head about it, why should he? And if Copeland's telephone rang (as Grant-Peignton had been nervously expecting it to do all day) he was hanged if he was going to cover up for anybody. As for Thelma's wire basket now piled high with the day's correspondence, it could spend the night on the floor, and if the night cleaners slung it in the dustbin, it was no skin off Gryce's nose.

The workmen from Design and Maintenance, who one assumed needed an hour at the very least to change out of their overalls and clock off, had long since gone. As the last clerks departed from Traffic Control and In-house Mail, and Gryce was left alone on the seventh floor with Thelma, he felt increasingly fidgety. Some men, he supposed, would have felt honour bound to make a pass at the girl, dumpy as she was. Not Gryce. It was not his style. Indeed, as they restlessly prowled up and down the empty office, he was careful to keep a good six feet between them. Brush shoulders with some of the girls you got nowadays, and you were up on a rape charge. All in all, what could have been a carefree day had turned into an ordeal.