Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

After this excitement there was a lull. The question of the desks and chairs was raised again, this time by Ardagh who said that he could do with a sit-down and that they must be somewhere. Gryce began to feel, although it was probably his imagination, that his colleagues were looking at him reproachfully. But he stood his ground until the messenger from In-house Mail arrived with the morning's bundle of letters. They were signed for by Grant-Peignton who at once looked round in a speculative manner, quite obviously with the intention of repeating yesterday's farce of having the mail opened, sorted, and then dumped among the dirty coffee mugs in Thelma's filing tray. His eye fell on Gryce, who now wished that he had positioned himself over by the window out of harm's way, like Vaart, Ardagh and the Penney twins. Grant-Peignton, however, hesitated and then said pointedly: 'No, you already have your hands full, if we're ever to see our desks again' and turned instead to Seeds.

Mutinous rejoinders coursed through Gryce's head. 'Considering all that we heard last night,' he might have said, 'and the probability that we are working for a Government agency engaged in heaven knows what outlandish schemes, I would have thought that the absence of furniture was the least of our problems!' But he could just hear Grant-Peignton saying with good-humoured firmness, 'Mr Gryce, whether we are working for a Government agency or invaders from Mars, we would all like very much to sit at our desks!' Again: he could have pointed out the inadvisability of roaming about the building without a docket. But he had already tried that one on Copeland, and got short shrift.

With a martyred sigh, Gryce announced loudly: 'Well, assuming they haven't vanished into thin air…!' and headed for the foyer. Vaart shouted something ribald after him, he couldn't make out what, and there was a roar of laughter. Well: if he was stopped by one of the commissionaires again and asked what he was on, it would be Grant-Peignton who would have to answer for it.

As his luck would have it, after the lift had rumbled down past ground level into the bowels of the building, and the doors had slid open to reveal the whitewashed brick walls of basement three, Gryce stepped straight into the arms of, or rather the one arm of, the same commissionaire who had detained him the other day. Or perhaps it was not the same one. Perhaps it was one of the three commissionaires who had been on duty at the St Jude's Institute last night, or one of the three different commissionaires — assuming they were different commissionaires — who when last seen had been staring vacantly into space in the entrance hall. Or perhaps the commissionaire who had detained him was a member of either or both of these groups. There was no way of knowing.

The unidentifiable commissionaire was consulting a sporting paper, expertly folded to accommodate to his disability, beneath a hanging sign that read: 'FILES DEPOSITORY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY'. Behind him was a desk strewn with the paraphernalia of his office: signing-in register, sheaf of what looked like authorization passes secured by a bulldog clip, ink pad and several rubber stamps. Beyond the desk, and at the other side of a metal-and-glass partition that ran the length of the basement leaving the narrowest of corridors on Gryce's side of it, were row upon row of filing cabinets. Many of them looked donkey's years old to Gryce. Those nearest to him were of the wooden variety, three drawers sliding but lacking telescopic runners, dimly remembered as No. A2A/0629 from a Comform catalogue long ago withdrawn. But there was also, in the middle distance, a fair number of the more up-to-date B4B/04885s, duo-grey metal, recessed handles. Thank goodness he didn't have to search for the Stationery Supplies filing cabinets among this lot, talk about needles and haystacks!

The commissionaire, again thank goodness, didn't ask Gryce what he was on, or for his docket. He didn't say anything at all, merely lowering his newspaper and concentrating hard on Gryce's face as if focussing his thick lenses, like binoculars, by will-power.

'I'm not sure whether I'm on the right level, at all? Design and Maintenance bay?'

The commissionaire, after staring for some time at Gryce like an elementary school headmaster suspecting veiled impertinence from one of his charges, raised his surviving arm and, deploying his folded newspaper as an arrow, pointed along the corridor. This gesture was completed in silence, but was followed some seconds later by a brief verbal addendum.

'Straight on. All way round. Come to a sign that says Design and Maintenance.' He uttered the words as if debating whether Gryce would be better off having them written down on a sheet of paper.

'Thank you indeed.'

The Design and Maintenance bay, when he had followed the narrow corridor around two corners, proved to be a mirror image of the Files Depository occupying the back half of the basement. But here the rows of filing cabinets were new, unused, the very latest that Comform had to offer, with push-button drawer-retraction and 'At-a-Glance' concertina-action index system: they hadn't even been given a catalogue number when he'd left his last billet. Some department was going to be lucky. And besides the filing cabinets there were lines of new desks stretching apparently into infinity, their legs still sheathed in protective corrugated-cardboard cladding; and there were new free-standing coat-racks without number, new stacking chairs in stacks ten deep, executive padded armchairs and showroom or conference-room tables, glass-topped, pedestal, straight from the Comform warehouse. For anyone with an interest in office furniture, it was a veritable Aladdin's Cave.

The equivalent hanging sign to the one back in the Files Depository announced: 'DESIGN & MAINTENANCE/EQUIPMENT SUPPLIES. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY'. But to Gryce's relief, there was no equivalent commissionaire and no table where dockets would have to be shown. He passed through the grotto unchallenged until he reached, in the centre of it, a clearing some twelve feet square, fenced off by the same type of waist-high metal partition that was common throughout the building. Here, as divined by Beazley in a recent conversation, the workmen who had been such a feature of Stationery Supplies during the last few days were playing cards. At least, Gryce supposed they were the same workmen, they were like the commissionaires: interchangeable. One thing he did notice, that they had commandeered the most superior type of executive furnishings for their rest area.

He leaned ingratiatingly over the partition, waiting for attention. The game was brag and the pot a large one: Gryce had time to reflect that if anyone — Copeland — had had the wit to question the workmen about the whereabouts of the office furniture when they were performing their slow-motion antics up in Stationery Supplies, the department might by now be sitting comfortably at its desks again.

The dealer glanced in his direction — none of the other workmen, who were studying their playing-cards, so much as nodded — and Gryce stated his business as succinctly as he could. After the obligatory sharp intake of breath common to this class of person, the dealer said: 'Din fetch it dahn ere, mate. Inna foya, lass we saw.' Clearly he had been to the same finishing school as friend Vaart.

'Yes, I've just said — it was brought down by the night cleaners.'

'Cunna bin. Snot their job, shiftin furnisher. Sahr job.'

'Apparently there were special circumstances. Don't ask me, ask the Fire and Safety Officer.'

'Snorrupper me task nobody, mate. Gorrer nandin-over doc, avvyer?'

'A handing-over document no. Not with me.' That, Gryce had concluded on his way down to basement three, was no longer the insuperable problem it had once seemed. His plan was diabolically simple: identify the Stationery Supplies filing cabinets; force open the one containing his white and pink check-lists and abstract a goodly quantity of the same, if necessary concealing them under his pullover; send out check-lists to all departments at random until one rose to the bait and admitted holding stocks of obsolescent handing-over documents; follow this up with a requisition form calling-in such documents; get Copeland or Grant-Peignton in his absence to sign one such document per pro the excommunicado Fire and Safety Officer, and present it to the Design and Maintenance workmen as a fait accompli, trusting to luck that in their simple ignorance they would not realize an obsolescent form had been palmed off on them. The scheme would take time, but it was as near foolproof as made no difference. It was certainly better than any idea Copeland had come up with.