David Szalay - London and the South-East

Doug Woburn, who occupies a position — Paul is not sure what — in the parks and open spaces section of the council environment direct orate, was not initially an intimidating figure. With the shapeless khaki bag of his suit, he wore a burgundy shirt and a turquoise tie, and even Paul thought it a strikingly unsuccessful ensemble. Though probably not much over forty, Woburn’s hair is entirely white, styled like a Roman emperor’s, and his face unusually soft and pink.

‘And,’ he is saying, ‘what do you think you would do in the event of some sort of mechanical problem?’ He leaves a pause before adding, ‘What would you do in a situation like that?’ He asks the question, and waits for the answer, with his eyes fixed on Paul’s application form. They are in the underground staff canteen of the town hall — which is emptying as the lunch hour ends — sitting at a round table, each with a plastic cup of coffee in front of him. Paul clears his throat. ‘Mechanical problem?’ he says. Apparently engrossed in the application form, Woburn nods. The interview has not been going well. Paul wonders, in particular, whether he should have dressed differently. He spent hours — literally hours — deciding what to wear. In the end, he went for jeans, green jumper, suit jacket and hiking boots — only to jog back to the house from the end of the road, and change into a full suit. It would look bad, he had thought, to show up not in a suit if that was what was expected — worse than the other way round. Now, though, he is not so sure. His suit seemed to have an instantly unsettling effect on Woburn, and seeing this — and seeing also how Woburn himself was dressed — he had realised, too late, already shaking his interviewer’s soft hand, that it was probably not appropriate. He was applying for a job as a gardener , for fuck’s sake, not deputy manager of the finance directorate. Downstairs, they did not speak while they waited, standing side by side, for the machine to dribble coffee into their plastic beakers. Woburn, in particular, seemed intent on not looking at Paul, as though this in itself would constitute some sort of insult, as though half his face were a loud mulberry birthmark.

When they were sitting down, still refusing to look him in the eye, Woburn said, shuffling the mass of papers in his hands, ‘So, er, what, er, what is it that interests you about this job?’

Paul said, ‘Um.’ He took a sip of coffee, though it was still too hot, and for an infinitesimal moment, Woburn looked at him. ‘Well, I’ve always been interested in gardening,’ Paul said. ‘I worked as a gardener for a few years before I went into … went into, you know …’ Woburn nodded — the CV had Paul working as a ‘private gardener’ from 1987 to 1991. ‘And now,’ Paul said, already losing momentum, ‘now I just want, you know …’ He stopped, and again Woburn looked at him, this time for a whole second. ‘You know, I was just getting tired of sales. Being stuck in an office all day. I love the outdoors. You know. And.’ He left this ‘and’ hanging as he took another sip of coffee. Then simply said, as if everything had been explained, ‘Yeah.’

‘Okay,’ Woburn said nervously. ‘But what, um, what was it that attracted you about this job in particular?’

‘About this job?’

Woburn nodded, and made a sort of affirmative murmur — ‘Hn.’

Wasn’t that the same question, Paul thought, the one he had just answered? ‘Well, I just said. Um. I want to get back into gardening. That’s it really.’ He had not thought his motives would be an issue. (They never were in sales — there, no one ever even pretended that anything other than money played a part, and questions such as these were unnecessary.) Woburn was obviously not satisfied with his answer, but seemed slightly intimidated — or perhaps just indifferent — and nodded, still leafing through papers. ‘So your previous experience …’ he said vaguely.

‘Yes.’

‘A few years … From eighty-seven to ninety-one?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Um. Perhaps you could tell me a bit more about that?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Paul had spent the previous five days preparing this, and had it down pat. He had worked, he said, for a firm in London, Alfred Gold Ltd — ‘I don’t think it exists any more, actually’ — doing ‘all sorts of things’, mostly ‘in the London area’, including some ‘quite complex plantings’ and ‘sizeable hard-landscaping commissions’. Woburn nodded, seemingly impressed. The firm had prospered in the late eighties, but then the property market slump — so Paul said — had hit it hard, and he had had to look for work elsewhere. So it had never been his intention to leave ‘the horticultural sector’. (He said the pompous phrase with a wry smile, which Woburn, however, did not see.) Economic imperatives had forced him out. He said that he had always intended to take it up again, and ended by saying, once more with a wry smile, ‘Better late than never, I suppose.’

Woburn looked up at this and smiled milkily himself, and Paul felt, for a moment, that he might have turned things round.

Then Woburn said, ‘What sort of equipment have you used in the past?’

‘Equipment? Er. What sort of equipment? Pretty much what you’d expect, I think.’ Apparently at ease, Paul drank the dregs of his coffee.

‘But specifically …’

‘Oh …’ It was odd — his mind seemed totally empty. ‘Just the usual stuff.’ Suddenly, he remembered some words, and said them. ‘Lawnmowers. Strimmers.’ He shrugged. ‘Um. Maybe if you could give me an example of what …’

‘What sort of strimmers have you used?’

Without hesitation, Paul said, ‘Different ones.’ He tried his coffee cup again — it was empty. Woburn was waiting for him to say more. ‘I can’t remember exactly,’ he conceded after a few moments. ‘It was quite a long time ago.’

‘Sure. But what sort of power were they?’

‘Oh, quite powerful.’ He almost reached for his empty cup, but caught himself in time.

‘Like … what …?’

Paul stuck out his lower lip and shook his head.

‘What sort of wattage?’ Woburn said, looking at his papers.

‘I’m sorry. I really can’t remember.’

‘That’s okay.’ Woburn wrote something down. ‘Have you used a triple mower before?’

‘Um. I don’t think so.’

Woburn nodded, and wrote. ‘What would you say,’ he said, still writing, ‘was the most important factor in prioritising your workload?’

For fuck’s sake, Paul thought, shifting in his seat, literally scratching his head. It was obvious that — though phrased as if it were — this was not a matter of opinion. Woburn was looking for something specific. That Paul did not know what this was was already evident — if he did, he would simply have said it. ‘Um,’ he said. And then, unable to keep a slight interrogative twinge out of his voice, ‘The, the weather conditions?’

This evidently was the answer — the nature of Woburn’s nod said as much — so there was something sinister about the lack of follow-up questions. Woburn said, ‘Are you familiar at all with the relevant health and safety procedures?’

Picking up his empty cup, Paul said, ‘Yeah — yeah, that should be fine.’

‘Okay. And what do you think you would do in the event of some sort of mechanical problem? What would you do in a situation like that?’

‘Mechanical problem?’

‘Say with a piece of plant.’

‘Plant?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mechanical problem with a plant?’

Woburn nods, his eyes on the form that he is slowly filling in, ticking boxes — or not — as Paul struggles with his questions.