Rachel Cusk - The Temporary

‘This is Francine,’ said Jane loudly. She threw her voice in the direction of another man on the far side of the room and then followed keenly after it like a dog chasing a stick. The man wore a pinstriped suit identical to that of his colleague, but sat behind a desk whose podium raised it just perceptibly higher. At the sight of Jane advancing briskly towards him he stood up and put out his hand, as if anticipating the transfer of a baton. His gesture had been automatic, but as he comprehended the nature of the interruption Francine saw him waver in his maintenance of it, his arm flopping feebly as if the mechanism designed to retract it had suddenly failed.

‘Francine, this is Mr Lancing. Francine will be looking after you,’ said Jane, raising her voice for Mr Lancing in the manner of a matron in an old people’s home.

‘Hi,’ said Mr Lancing in an American accent. The blood appeared to flow back into his dysfunctional arm and it twitched perkily, inviting Francine to shake it. He had a boyish, grinning face over which a map of age had been laid as if artificially. His clear eyes peering through the tanned and withered skin gave him the appearance of a child wearing a rubber mask. ‘Great!’ he said enthusiastically.

‘Hello,’ said Francine, shaking his hand.

Mr Lancing continued to grin at her and she noticed a slightly dead expression behind his eyes.

‘Well, that’s the introductions over with,’ said Jane. ‘I’ll just show Francine to her desk, Mr Lancing.’

‘Give ’em hell!’ said Mr Lancing. He clenched his fist and punched it into the air.

Jane laughed shrilly. ‘We will, Mr Lancing,’ she said.

Francine’s desk was a right-angle of grey counter-top positioned near the foot of Mr Lancing’s podium. The desk was fenced in by a capacious window to the side and a wall on which shelves were hung to the rear. Along the shelves were arranged a large number of box files, their vertical labelled spines inscribed like tombstones. In front of the desk stood what appeared to be a coffee station, a small table on which a kettle fumed in a dry and dissolving landscape of shiny brown pools and white hillocks of sugar, interspersed with tiny dark granular boulders, stained spoons, and damp fists of used teabags. Francine’s objections to this arrangement were strong and immediate, not least because it formed a second channel of interference — the first being the rows of files — which permitted the unrestricted access of office traffic to her territory. She moved behind her desk and saw that it put her in view of the whole room. From beyond the plastic plain of the desktop, a chirping forest of computers appeared to monitor her movements with their single unblinking eyes. She wrestled for a moment with her faint-heartedness, knowing that if she cowered from this corporate ecology she would disable herself for survival within it, becoming victim to a new range of cruelties whose invisibility did not lessen her faith in their existence. Mr Lancing and his colleague sat atop their rival podia, dumb and vigilant as marble dogs at a gate.

‘I’ll just run you through one or two things,’ said Jane. She manoeuvred her broad hips round to the other side of the desk, as powerful and clumsy as a car. ‘Do you mind if I just sit on your chair for a minute?’

‘Not at all,’ replied Francine. In such a place territories were as quickly and fiercely marked out as they were returned to their anonymity. She moved to stand behind Jane so as to observe her instructions. On the chair, the cheeks of her buttocks were forced sideways like a tomato crushed underfoot.

‘You’ll be in sole charge of Mr Lancing’s diary,’ said Jane, lifting a large ledger from the far end of the desk. It had scraps of paper stuck to its cover and protruding from amongst its pages, scribbled relics of other hands. She opened it and began to leaf through the blueprints of days long since passed, with their emergencies of meetings and lunches. The diary was thick with arrangement and rearrangement, its pages gnarled into relief by the hieroglyphics of rounded handwriting. ‘Here’s today’s schedule,’ said Jane, turning to reveal a fresher page. ‘11.30 Haircut’ read Francine.

The phone on her desk began suddenly to shriek. Francine started and stepped automatically aside so that Jane could pick it up.

‘Let’s see if you can answer it,’ said Jane, revealing her large teeth.

‘All right,’ Francine replied, bright with loathing. She picked up the vibrating receiver, and in the imperative of its sudden silence felt necessity overpower apprehension. ‘Mr Lancing’s office,’ she said smoothly.

‘Gary there?’ barked a voice in reply. Its American accent took her by surprise, disabling her comprehension as if it were a foreign language.

‘Excuse me?’ she said, after a pause.

Jane lifted her head like a guard-dog detecting an intruder.

‘I said gimme Gary.’

Francine paused.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know who Gary is.’

‘Who is this?’ said the man impatiently.

‘Francine,’ said Francine stupidly. She felt herself beginning to drift away and pulled herself back sharply. Jane writhed beside her in her seat. ‘I’m new here,’ she added. Her blunder had brought heat to her face.

‘Well, Francine, all I can say is you must be pretty new,’ said the man. ‘Gary’s your boss, honey.’ There was a pause. ‘Ha! Ha!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Ha!’

Francine giggled politely.

‘We’re not on first-name terms yet,’ she said.

‘First-name terms!’ said the man after a pause. ‘Ha! Gary! Gimme Lancing, honey. That all right for you?’

‘Who shall I say is calling?’ said Francine, keeping the warm edge of humour in her volce.

‘Jim — no, Mr Vernon. Ha! Tell him Mr Vernon’s on the line for him.’

‘Just a moment, Mr Vernon,’ said Francine.

‘Nice to know you, Francine,’ said Jim as she put him on hold.

‘Mr Lancing!’ she called firmly, humming with success. Jane’s examination burned beside her and she turned away slightly, blocking her out. Mr Lancing looked up, his mouth agape.

‘Somebody call me?’ he said.

‘Mr Vernon for you,’ said Francine. He appeared confused and she waved the receiver helpfully.

‘Put him on.’

Mr Lancing gripped his phone expectantly and Francine ran her eye down a list of numbers attached to her extension. She located his number and put the call through.

‘Hello?’ said Mr Lancing loudly, as if uncertain whether his voice would travel down the wire without reinforcement.

‘Well,’ sniffed Jane as Francine turned triumphantly to face her. ‘You seem fairly confident. You shouldn’t have any trouble coping.’

‘Oh, I’m used to this sort of thing.’

‘I think you’ll find this position rather more demanding than what you’re used to, actually. Mr Lancing is a very important man.’

‘I think I’m going to like him.’

‘Well, I think the point is rather more whether he likes you, isn’t it?’ Jane’s teeth made a menacing reappearance. She stood up and smoothed her furrowed skirt tightly over her hips. ‘Let me know if you have any problems.’

She eased herself out from behind the desk and walked towards the door.

‘Bye, everyone!’ she called out when she reached it. One or two people looked up but there was no audible reply. Jane smiled widely and disappeared.

As soon as she had gone, Francine saw Mr Lancing’s colleague move smoothly from behind his desk and approach her across the office, his eyes fixed with studied absorption on a piece of paper in his hand. She sat down, busying herself with Mr Lancing’s diary. He loomed before her and she bent her head in concentration.