Graham Swift: Shuttlecock

But this is not all. If, in the course of an inquiry, you need one of the sealed files or one of the files that are kept in Quinn’s safe, you have to apply to Quinn himself for access to the contents. In such an event, Quinn will do one of three things. He will unseal or unlock the file and give it to you — no problem; or he will say, ‘That’s all right, I’ll take over from here’ — causing you no more trouble at least, but rendering all your previous work wasted; or — and this is worst — he will retain the sealed file in question, briskly say, ‘I’ll deal with this,’ and tell you to carry out the remainder of the inquiry. Can you solve a mathematical problem if one of the factors needed to solve it is missing? And there is yet a further dilemma. Sometimes when looking up one of the files listed in Quinn’s instruction, you discover it is missing — absent from the shelves. Now there is a ready explanation for this. It simply means that the file is one of those Quinn himself is using in one of the inquiries he handles alone. Obviously, you are obliged to point this out. You do. ‘Excuse me, sir, but I think you must have this file — it’s not on the shelf.’ Quinn’s reply on these occasions is never direct. ‘Do I, Prentis? Do I? Hadn’t you better check first that it hasn’t been put in the wrong place?’ He looks at you over the top of his glasses. And then, after an unpleasant pause and with a sigh that seems to condemn you for stupidity: ‘All right, Prentis — I’ll carry on from here.’

Do I begin to give the impression that something is wrong in our department?

When I first started in our office I must have accepted these anomalies, frustrating, baffling as they were, as part, nonetheless, of a ‘system’ — the way things had always been done and continued to be done, which it wasn’t mine to question. Or perhaps it was true that when I first started things really were done in a more logical and sensible manner, which I have forgotten, and these peculiarities were a later development. I can’t remember when I first began to find them unsettling. But I’m sure now, at any rate, that they are not part of any system. They are part of Quinn. They are part of that old bastard’s obstinacy, mania, malice — whatever it is.

How can I best describe Quinn to you? I could say, in the manner of police descriptions, that he is shortish, about five-six; on the plump side; in his early sixties; balding; with spectacles and with a slight limp in his right leg. That he likes grey or dark blue suits; that his chubby face is often ruddy and cherubic (let’s skip the police language); that his grey, soft hair is quite thick and glossy where it has not receded; and that his black-rimmed glasses are as much a means of hiding his eyes as of helping him to see. All this would be unexceptional. It might even suggest a podgy, harmless, quite benign little man. And that would be true. Quinn does look bumbly and benign. He has the sort of kindly, dimpled face which might be used in TV adverts to promote the ‘home-made’ qualities of some manufactured biscuit or pie. But it is precisely Quinn’s apparent benignity and geniality which heighten his real coldness, his severity, his ruthlessness. Could I be wrong? Could I have mistaken and perverted some quite innocuous truth? Could I have exaggerated my boss’s vindictiveness because I have set my sights (I don’t deny it) on one day having his job? That is a common enough story. But I don’t think so. When a man sets you difficult or impossible tasks and then summarily blames you when you fail to complete them — that is vindictiveness.

And it’s not as if I haven’t tried the sympathetic view. Could Quinn be ill in some way? Could he be suffering some kind of breakdown? (I have had some experience of breakdowns — but I will come to that later.) Could he be going off the rails from overwork? The answer to that question is: yes — and no. Quinn does work extremely hard. He often stays in his office late into the night — his light shining purposefully through the glass panel when you yourself are winding up a late day. But I get the distinct impression that this extra work Quinn does is more by choice and design than obligation. And when you enter his office on some fleeting and innocent errand — merely to bring him a routine document he has asked for — the picture you get, as you wait for him to raise his head, is of a man happily — I repeat, happily — and earnestly engaged in his tasks. A man pleased with his efforts and sure of their usefulness. It is only when he looks up and says, with a scowl, ‘What is it?’ — as if you have encroached on his contentment — that any discord enters the scene. And then it seems that you are to blame for it.

So, if that picture — of Quinn contentedly beavering away in his leather chair while outside the cherry tree waves at his window — does not capture his true malice, what does? I will tell you. It is when, at moments during the day, he gets up from his desk and — sometimes for minutes on end — looks down at us through his glass partition. If you look up then, as you only dare do for a brief, disguised instant, you see him framed in the rectangular panel. He stares at us with the air of a scientist surveying some delicate experiment. His face is stern and gloating. He rests his hands against the glass, and the tips of his fingers and the balls of his thumbs go white. It is then that I know that Quinn is evil — I hate him. It is then that I know too, most clearly, that I envy him.

And let me tell you just two or three things that have been puzzling me — and still are — despite Quinn’s almost incredible remarks yesterday about my promotion. Firstly, those lists of file-items which Quinn gives me to investigate — they are getting remarkably long. It is rare for any one case to involve more than two or three files, but Quinn sometimes has me scouring through five or six — and in some instances I cannot find any relation between the material in one file and the next. Secondly, those missing files which I assume Quinn is working on himself (it would explain those late nights of his) do not reappear. I have watched. Even after weeks they are not back in their places. Thirdly, none of the other assistants says anything — only the usual quiet passing complaints about ‘bloody Quinn’. I am beginning to think that it’s only me Quinn is playing games with.

But I didn’t mean to talk about Quinn, or about my problems. I meant simply to tell you about my work. I’m not the only one who has a tiresome job or a difficult boss. And I don’t want to give the impression that because we work in a dungeon, we are prisoners. That we don’t emerge at lunch-time, like everyone else, and make for the pub on the corner (Quinn, by the way, works through lunch); that we can’t go through, more or less when we like, to our ancillary offices and typing pool, beyond the file rooms, and joke with the girls (there is a new one at the moment called Maureen with extremely thrusting breasts). There is nothing exceptional about our job.

But I hear you say, Yes, there is, and in an interesting, an exciting way. Something to do, you’re thinking, with the thrill of detective work. I used to think that too once, when I first began. I used to think of all those stories which no one ever knows about, all those buried secrets, hidden away in our files. It must have shown, because Quinn once said to me (here I go again about Quinn): ‘You’ve got a rich imagination, haven’t you, Prentis? A lurid imagination. That doesn’t help, you know, in this job.’ It was the first personal remark I can remember him making, and he said it with a frosty look and a scowl, and I resented it. But it was true. You soon learn to forgo the thrill of detection in our department. To begin with, we are not detectives — that is somebody else’s job. We are only, as it were, specialized librarians. What blander job is there than a librarian’s? And then, as with any work, ours too is routine. Most of the time is spent in mundane chores like cataloguing and indexing. Real inquiries don’t come our way thick and fast (though they’ve been getting ever more frequent recently). And even here the law of routine applies. No matter how extraordinary the material you work with, it becomes, when it’s your daily business to deal with it — unextraordinary.