your mother really knows what is best for you
I want time to read my book
I want to be the leader
Okay. Hmm. Between all the successes and leaders, he was coming out a bit too type-A-heart-attacks-risk. The mother thing was a nightmare waiting to happen. Books are good.
Four hundred identical ones of these later, Arthur was going stir-crazy. The same lines, repeated in seemingly infinite patterns of stupidity, designed to gradate just in whichever direction, given that you were already going to lie, you would prefer to lie. Would he rather come out as the teacher’s anal sneak or the crazed ambition seeker? The joiner-inner or the workaholic? What was more important – the good name of the company or getting every detail finished? Working yourself into an early grave or keeping up the good name of the company? Arthur groaned and let his head sink forward onto his arms, then pulled it up again in his ongoing hidden camera paranoia. He stared at the paper, distraught. This was meaningless. Useless. And if he didn’t pass … well, he was a town planner without much of a life and absolutely sod all he cared about. His body boiled with fury and he was very close to crumpling up the papers and storming out when the last question caught his eye.
I was made to gallop through the trees
I miss my sword
This is not my time
He stared at it, then swirled round in confusion as the door opened behind him. A tall, elegant-looking woman walked in.
‘Are you finished?’
He looked at her. She was a very pale blonde, slender without being skinny, and had a high forehead and quite a long nose. Not exactly beautiful, but undeniably striking.
‘Um … Just about …’
She swept the papers away from in front of him. ‘I’m afraid we have a strict time limit.’
‘Can I just see the last page …’
‘Sorry.’ She didn’t smile. ‘I’m Gwyneth Morgan. CFC consultancy.’
‘Ah, the Crazy Frightening Company,’ said Arthur, and immediately wished he hadn’t. ‘I’m joking. You know, I’m sure our excellent chief executive Sir Eglamore would agree that humour in the workplace and …’ He was starting to stammer.
She stared at him coldly. ‘Yes, I take your point, except of course that humour is normally funny.’
Arthur was stung. ‘Well, very little is funny when you’ve been chained to a desk in a windowless room for ninety minutes.’
She raised her eyebrow. ‘Perhaps you’d rather be excluded from the process.’
Arthur stood there for a minute, feeling the adrenalin rush through him. Suddenly, he felt furious. What the hell was he doing here and why was she treating him like this? Shaking, he pushed back his chair and stood up. She was offering to sack him and he was swallowing it like chocolate. He hated himself.
‘Am I done?’
‘For now.’
He almost pushed past her into the corridor.
Open-plan offices don’t have anywhere to hide. Well, the solitary cubicle in the men’s toilets, but that isn’t a pleasant place to be at the best of times and this was emphatically not the best of times. Unconsciously loosening his tie and wiping his forehead – Jesus, why couldn’t that bitch have given him two fucking minutes to read the last fucking question – he strode back to his rat hole, hot and furious.
‘How was it?’ asked Cathy anxiously.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, almost spitting the words out. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
‘Why are you such a funny colour, then?’ Sven said, picking his nose behind a magazine.
‘I am not.’
Sven looked over pointedly, still exploring with his finger. ‘Nah, you’re right. You look incredibly casual and relaxed.’
Cathy stroked him on the sleeve. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’
Her pitying kindness was worse than Sven’s predictable indifference, and left Arthur shaking off her arm, half wanting to scream and half wanting to cry.
‘It’s okay.’
Ross stopped past. ‘Hey guys!’ He smiled unconvincingly. ‘You know, just because it’s a special day doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done, hey?’
Arthur briefly closed his eyes, as Sven’s phone started ringing. Sven ignored it for the eighteenth time that morning and Ross made himself scarce.
‘Sven, answer the phone.’
‘I can’t, I’m engaged in an important creative mission.’
‘ANSWER THE PHONE!’
‘You answer it! It’s two feet away.’
This was true. Didn’t prisoners get ten feet by twelve?
Ross may have moved on, but the other office monkeys looked up, sensing something interesting.
‘I am NOT answering your phone, Sven. It’ll be some Danish roofing contractor who wants to know British tiling serial numbers again.’
‘How? How can I create a city if I’m being constantly distracted?’
‘Answer the phone!’
‘No!’
‘ANSWER THE BLOODY PHONE!’
‘NO!’
People who had blended in against the grey background and the aura of coffee breath were openly watching now; signs of animation and interest were showing in weary eyes long-sighted from reading consultancy proposals.
Arthur unplugged the phone, picked it up and walked to the window of the office, which overlooked the business ‘park’. His mind a blank, he had only a very vague idea that he was planning on throwing it out when he got there. Of course, the windows weren’t designed to open, and he hurt his fingers tugging at them.
‘FUCK!’ he said, out loud. Somebody in the office – probably Cathy – gasped. Everyone was silent now.
He put the phone down on the photocopier, still clutching it furiously, his knuckles white with anger, blood flowing like acid through his veins. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was smash the window with the phone, sending it hurtling to the ground and sending Sven right after it.
It’s only a phone, he thought to himself. Calm down. You’re having a bad day. What the hell are you doing? For fuck’s sake, it’s only a fucking phone. That was right. He couldn’t. He should pull himself together, walk back over to Sven’s desk and plug it back in. When it started ringing again he would calmly pick it up and say, ‘Sven isn’t here. He got a bit of a fright from a hole-punch this morning and accidentally crapped himself. He’s gone home and is never coming back again, the shame was so much. You wouldn’t believe how bad it still smells in …’
And then Sven would grab the phone off him and everything would be okay.
Instead, Arthur stepped back from the window, picked up the industrial-sized photocopier with the phone on top, and hurled with all his might.
The photocopier flew through the air and broke through the bullet-proof glass like a flying hippopotamus, gracelessly soaring out onto the grass below. The phone bounced back off the window-frame and knocked him out.
Arthur looked around. It felt like sun on his face. Where was he? What about a window? Was he outside? He risked opening an