John Lanchester - Mr. Phillips

‘Unexpected lingering effects of recession among customers in our market sector —’

Wilkins and Co. was a catering services supply company.

‘— gap between revenue and provisions — retrenchments called for — not a case of so-called “downsizing” for its own sake — company policy of exacting cuts department by department — accountancy’s turn to “give” — as always in these cases no question of any implied comment on the ability of anyone involved — he himself had once — best thing that ever — absolute confidence that — Wilkins and Co.’s settled policy of trying to act as generously as possible in these instances — one of the many ways in which the company tried to behave as a progressive, humane employer —’

As with many energetic talkers Mr Wilkins seemed as keen to convince himself as the person to whom he was talking. The point about Wilkins and Co. being enlightened employers seemed especially important to him.

‘— not necessary to serve out full notice period — inevitable sense of gloom on these occasions — fresh fields and pastures new — better for all concerned — particularly keen that departing employees should get to keep their company cars at competitive terms — not a relevant factor in this particular case — these little and not-so-little things which make all the difference — Mr Phillips’s valuable contribution to Wilkins and Co. — once part of the team always part of the team — importance of team players like Mr Phillips to any company — regret and also sadness and also sense of new beginnings — not the least service he had performed the company his current bearing under difficult circumstances — was that the time — another meeting — thank you thank you.’

When Mr Phillips had first gone to Wilkins and Co. in 1969, Mr Wilkins, the son of the founder, had then been young to be the managing director of a company of that size. He had one of those tanks full of heavy pink oil which slosh from side to side in a supposedly soothing way. It was what they used to call an executive toy. Nowadays his office was decorated with two abstract paintings. The photos of his family which sat on his desk were turned towards the visitor’s seat, either because Mr Wilkins was sick of the sight of them and/or because he wanted to show them off. So the last thing Mr Phillips saw as he left his now ex-employer’s office was a picture of his boss’s son wearing robes and smiling nervously in a graduation day studio portrait.

Mr Phillips went back to his office and slumped into his chair, which wheezed out a puff of air, as if it and not he were making a physical effort. Neither Mr Monroe nor Karen was there. For some time he sat and didn’t do anything. No one came into his office and the telephone did not ring. Then he leaned forward, took a pencil out of the ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ mug he had bought himself one Father’s Day and began to do some sums.

‘You’re a what?’ asks the man in the park.

‘I’m not an anything now,’ says Mr Phillips.

‘That’s no way to think.’

‘But it’s true.’

‘Ah, “but what is truth?” I’ve always thought that wasn’t nearly as clever a remark as it’s supposed to be. It’s like those wankers who say “Define your terms” when you’re having an argument, like a record with a broken needle. There’s no excuse for anyone over the age of fifteen using that kind of trick in argument. So you’re a what?’

‘I’m an accountant,’ says Mr Phillips.

‘I’m good at sums myself,’ says the man. ‘Not like these days with the calculators at school, you’d wonder if they can even add up.’

‘I use, used, a calculator all the time at work.’ Mr Phillips has a twinge of romantic feeling about the calculator that prints out the figures fed through it, keeping track of any errors in the calculation. He has always privately thought of the calculator as surrounded by a nimbus of professional glamour, as much a symbol of the accountant’s mystery as a stethoscope is a doctor’s.

‘What sort of accountant? City firm, that sort of thing?’

‘I used to work for a catering supply company,’ says Mr Phillips.

The man nods sympathetically. ‘Wrong game. Can happen to anyone. Dual streams of revenue, that’s the beauty of the magazine business. You’ve got your income from cover sales as well as your money from advertising. As an accountant you’ll appreciate the elegance of that. Plus, the business is based on masturbation, which is the steadiest source of revenue imaginable. People buy the magazine to have a wank, and people advertise in the magazine to get in touch with people who wank, and it’s all the best business in the world, since everybody wanks. You don’t often hear it discussed, but it’s true. People always say the great taboo is death, but in my experience you hear death discussed a lot more than you do wanking. Perhaps older people don’t do it quite so much but you can bet that even they do it every now and again. Probably even the Queen does it. Mind you, you’ve got to watch the demographics. Older women, for instance, appeal mainly to very young men — I dare say you remember. But very young men haven’t got any money, have they? Bad demographic. I’ve heard it said that lesbians go for older women too,’ the man added in a more thoughtful tone, ‘but that’s a bit off my patch. You have to stick with what you know.’

There’s some truth in all this, Mr Phillips has to admit. He himself does it never less than once a week and often as much as three times: at home in bed, or upstairs in his den, which is his favourite because he can lock the door and get a magazine out, though it’s true that he prefers the fully prone position available in bed to the semi-recline he can get with his beloved den Barcalounger. This would of course affect the 96.7 per cent figure for not having sex, if you included all forms of sex including with yourself. He sometimes used to masturbate in the toilet of his office at Wilkins and Co., when seized by an irresistible impulse or when Karen was looking particularly attractive — though it was less a spur of the moment thing than a question of the need building up over a couple of days, a familiar and pleasant pressure around his prostate, a warmth in the balls, which eventually reached the point where it demanded release. Women probably don’t masturbate in the toilet at work, Mr Phillips feels. He is quietly confident about that one. He once even masturbated in the toilet at Thomas’s school during a PTA meeting (his cock had been hard, he had come with appropriately teenage speed).

There must be lots of evidence of Martin and Tom’s masturbating, to be found in their sheets and in the bins, not to mention pornography stashed in drawers and under mattresses, but Mr Phillips doesn’t want to know about it, and anyway can’t imagine formulating the detective procedures by which he might find out for himself. No, he definitely doesn’t want to know. Would it be different if he had daughters? Probably — Mr Phillips has no difficulty in imagining himself as a knicker-sniffer and injuncter of boyfriends. With his sons he feels a systematic, deliberate incuriosity. He authoritatively shirked the task of educating them about sex. In Mr Phillips’s view this was not news anyone wanted to hear from their parents. Leave it to school and to porn mags. After all, what does he know? His own father’s instructions about sex had been a late-night five-minute monologue about ‘the strength being sapped’ — a highly cryptic allusion to the subject of wet dreams, as Mr Phillips realized about a decade later. At the time of this chat he had already been having wet dreams for over a year.

‘I have to go now,’ says Mr Phillips. ‘It was good meeting you.’ He thinks about offering to shake hands but the moment seems subtly wrong. He has had enough of the park. They have walked as far as the giant gilded Buddha on the embankment; there are four Buddhas up the stairs on the square plinth, three of them very bright in the morning sunlight. Mr Phillips looks up past the man at the nearest of the Buddhas. He is fast asleep while attendants gaze fondly down at him. He looks like a man who enjoys his sleep. Mr Phillips tries to think of any pictures of God or Christ asleep, but the only ones he can come up with concern the disciples panicking during the storm on Lake Galilee while Christ has a zizz.