Powerlines

POWERLINES:

PRIDE AND FALL

By

ANDREW DAWS

October 2011

Smashwords Edition

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Though inspired by real events, and many wonderful people I have met, all the characters named in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, must surely be coincidental.

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Copyright: © Andrew Daws 2011

Read also:

Young Lions

(A Powerlines Sequel)

The Marble Boy

To Ruth Hofmann and John Chitty

With thanks to:

Robert Nelson, David Matthews and

Andrew Cumine for their useful editorial advice

Contents

How to end a bad year

Part 1: Winter

Part 2: Spring

Part 3: Summer

Part 4: Autumn

Part 5: Christmas

‘There would be no great men if

there were no little ones.’

George Herbert

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‘Power to the people.’

‘The little people.’

Kevin Wade: Working Girl

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"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about."

Shakespeare: ‘Julius Caesar’

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HOW TO END A BAD YEAR

Delirious and in pain, Brian is picked up from the floor by his friends and carried into the conference room where they drop him heavily on the broad, leather-topped table. Left alone, feeling dizzy, and desperate for sleep, he is aware only of the pain he suffers in his body. His hip is sore, his head, too. The hard surface of the table doesn’t help. He feels like he’s been kicked. What he remembers, though, is falling from some great height and landing heavily on the floor surrounded by bottles, plates and glasses.

It was quiet, now. There had been shouting, crying, a lot of confusion, though in his state, it was hard for him to distinguish it from his own. He has been in and out of consciousness, and has found it difficult to focus, but when he revived, he had seen blue flashing light, people are wearing bright yellow and green uniforms, and people he knew staring in at him from the other side of the conference room glass wall. What were they saying, he asked himself, struggling to get up. A hand had pushed him down as a voice told him to lie still and rest. It was a nice voice and it continued, telling him that he wasn’t about to go anywhere. No, he thought. Not now, not anymore.

There had been a dinner; there had been speeches, gift giving, jokes, and then dancing to a lot of loud music. Beyond the glass wall were the remains of the office Christmas Party. Brian remembered the dancing. Leonard was wild, shirtless, his long red hair waving like a flag. He danced with Julie who, by then, wore only a bra. Brian remembered how, her arms flying, it barely managed to contain her bouncing breasts. A small detail, but a clear one none the less. When was that? Was that just before he climbed on to the dining table and stood over everyone, waving Dave’s gift, before he slipped on spilt wine, or Christmas pudding, and fallen to the floor? All his friends and colleagues cheered at him, and then jeered as he fell. Lucy helped him up, but he remembers seeing Leonard, his boss, on the floor, with his mouth open as if gasping for air. He feels a wave of nausea ripple through him and his mouth fills with bile.

Then he is aware of a face above him, and recognises it as Lucy’s, all soft blond hair, blue eyes and smiles. She is looking down at him, telling him not to get up. But he feels a sharp pain of regret adding to the pain he already feels in his aching body. Had he been unpleasant to her, too? To his friends? Perhaps so. Yes, he had acted stupidly but now he wonders whether he has done something much worse; something really terrible?

It was something so ridiculous, so bold, and really quite terrible, that he hopes he is still only imagining it, and that none of it is really true. Surely, very soon now, someone, Lucy perhaps, will tell him what really happened, to put his mind at rest. But he just can’t rid himself of the feeling.

‘Luce, what have I done?’ he asks, struggling to control himself to speak. Lucy shushes him.

‘Brian,’ she says quietly, ‘don’t worry about it. It’s not all your fault.’

‘But, Lucy,’ he says, struggling to focus again, ‘I think I killed him. I fired a gun. I did it, didn’t I?’

Lucy is laughing now, and he can’t understand why. Surely she knows he is responsible for murdering his own boss? How could she smile like that knowing he has done something so awful?

The effort of talking is too much for him and he loses focus, closes his eyes, and falls back to the table. In a few moments he is unconscious once more leaving Lucy wondering how to get him home.

That was how Brian’s year ended…

PART ONE: WINTER

CLEAN SHEET

…and this was how it began.

It’s Monday; it’s January, the Christmas holidays are over, and he is up early with his girlfriend Kate. She is eager to get to an early morning editorial conference while he is on his way to his office where he’ll probably be the first one in. As he makes his way to the bus stop, pulling his scarf tight against the cold wind, there are flakes of snow in the air. It’s a cold start to the year and around him clouds of vapour swirl from heavy breathers in the queue. When he manages to get a seat on the bus, he draws himself up and begins to think about the year ahead and, as so often with Brian, it isn’t long before he begins to think about his career and the reasons why he hadn’t done as well as he hoped or expected.

Kate, who left early, was always the first up because her career has really taken off. She was now an executive - a ‘high-flyer’ in publishing - expected to climb quickly, and much further, too. Not Brian, who still struggles, he thinks, to be recognised by his bosses. It has been on his mind for quite a while. Actually, all the previous year and over Christmas, but now, as he makes his way to the office, he is rehearsing an important announcement he intends to make to his colleagues that very morning. He has decided, at last, to do something positive about his languishing career.

Alone in the office, and slumped at his desk, he has Carly cheerfully shouting down the phone.

‘Wakey, wakey.’

‘What? Oh, yeah. Still here,’ says Brian, still sleepy.

‘Brian,’ she says, ‘you might try and stay a wake while I tell you all about my Christmas.’

‘I am,’ he says, ‘I am,’ but as she continues, he closes his eyes again.

Carly, also an architect, and one of his closest friends, is telling him about the parties, presents, and punch-ups - pub brawls, fights with her boyfriend, and something about a near miss on the M4 - all the sort of things that Carly likes talking about, actually, only this time, they featured in her Christmas last year in Cornwall. But while she talks, he scans his desk to see last year’s Christmas cards, invitations to parties, and out of date post-it notes still reminding him of meetings he’d already attended, and calls long since returned. There are pens and pencils, rolls of paper, books and magazines all stacked up, around and in front of him. On a clear space, on the white surface of his desk, he notices small, pink circles - shiny wine stains from last year’s office Christmas Party, which he begins to trace idly with his fingers. They are still slightly tacky to the touch. The cleaners hadn’t done their job properly, he thinks.

Brian works in an old mews building in Fitzrovia, an area home to several other architects’ offices. Stück and Stück Architects had leased a space big enough for about twenty-five people, and it’s a space that can be seen in a single glance from where Brian sits, at his desk, along the rear wall. Above, wooden beams support a sloping roof, and the walls have been stripped of plaster and scrubbed clean to reveal bare brick. There are purpose-made workstations in white metal and plastic, arranged into neat little groups, all with low screens, chairs and computer screens. Through a door is a staff kitchen; through another is a large conference room, and next to that is the office of the senior Partner. From there, as many will have noticed, Petra Stück can survey the whole office through its glass wall while remaining at her desk. Several colleagues once joked that it was like, they imagined, being in a prison. Well, the few windows that opened into a rather dreary courtyard where the sun rarely ever penetrated, were gridded with iron frames and only added to the effect. Looking through them now, Brian can see flakes of snow still floating through the air.

He has been listening to Carly for quite a while, during which he has had to provide only a few encouraging grunts. He wants to doze off, but he senses that the story of her Christmas, and her wild New Years Eve in Cornwall, is nearing some sort of conclusion. And so it proves:

‘…well anyway,’ she is saying, ‘it’s gone septic and she now needs an operation. He’s in hospital with a suspected heart attack, and the guy that punched him in the face got in the car and drove it straight into a tree. What a pillock! I’m telling you Brian, it was a classic New Years Eve.’

Brian chuckles, as much to indicate that he’s been listening, though it now means it’s his turn to speak. So, he clears his throat to prepare himself, and begins by telling her about his Christmas: the day itself, with Kate and her parents; the frosty atmosphere he always finds there, whatever the weather, (because, he knows, they have always doubted her choice of boyfriend); the present giving and the Queen’s Speech, followed by a toast. This time, though, it hadn’t just been his poorly chosen Christmas gift, or the overly jokey Christmas card that neither parent appreciated that made it worse. It was because he got drunk before the lunch, that Kate’s mother had spent the entire morning preparing, was served.

‘So, didn’t go well then?’ Carly asks him.

‘Not one of the better Christmas’s, no.’

He hears her laugh. She enjoys this, their call to each other on the first day back at work. It’s something of a seasonal tradition - a kind of clearing out of the old, and preparation for the year ahead. ‘A clean sheet,’ as she once suggested. Carly, despite her ability to monopolise a conversation, always listened to Brian and his complaints, his analysis of his job, his prospects, his bosses, and the prospects of the partnership that employed him. She has heard it all, of course, and knows to expect nothing new. But Brian, having actually thought carefully about his career over the Christmas break, and for the months leading up to it, has decided now that it’s time to use this conversation to make his very important announcement. So, he says,

‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Oh, Yeah?’

‘I think I’m going to kill my boss.’

STICKING IT OUT

‘Okay, maybe not kill him,’ Brian continues, ‘but I have to do something to get out of here.’

Carly starts to laugh. ‘What a choice!’ she says, and then adds, ‘of course, I ought to do the same, but I’m not sure a stake through the heart would be enough. The bitch I work for is indestructible.’

Then she asks, ‘Are you really gonna leave?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where are you going to go?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Brian,’ says Carly, sighing. ‘Get real. You can’t just leave!’

‘Well, I’m going to. It’s time,’ he says. He pauses and this time Carly falls silent, too, which leaves Brian wondering whether she’s still on the line.

‘Hello? Hello?’ he says.

‘Yeah Brian. Right here,’ she says finally.

‘I thought I’d lost you.’

‘Brian, I’m actually way ahead of you.’

‘Carly, it’s time. You know I’ve had enough of him. I can’t face another year of this…’

He trails off while she lets out an audible sigh. ‘We’ve heard all this before, Brian,’ she tells him.

‘Yeah. I know,’ he says. ‘But you know, I really do mean it this time.’

‘Sure, sure.’

And, she has heard it before, and on several occasions, too. Wearily, she reminds him that it had been not a year ago when they met with a friend of theirs from university over dinner one evening, at which he’d spent the evening moaning about his prospects. Then, he had issued a solemn, if no less dramatic announcement about his future. Brian remembered it, too. He and his friends were all, by then, advancing steadily in their careers and, having passed gruelling final exams, had all qualified as bone fide, professional architects. Carly soon began working for a talented but difficult woman whom Carly considered had only the barest notions of business, but who nevertheless made her life miserable with criticisms and personal jibes. Despite all of that, Carly found herself practically running the office for her, without thanks, either. Carly would complain to her friends because, of course, she had gone un-promoted. She expected, but wasn’t hopeful, for some recognition that all the hard work she’d put into the business was worth something. In the meantime, Phil, Brian’s age, though married with kids, was immersed in the design of healthcare facilities and dental surgeries that the office that employed him seemed to specialise in, but had, at least, been promoted. He was an Associate. Brian, now at Stück and Stück Architects, had not been recognised with promotion, but remained ever hopeful. Even after they all agreed, usually after several bottles of red wine, that promotions were ‘rubbish’, and not really worth the effort of getting, it never stopped them hoping for one, though.

On that occasion, they sat in a favourite Soho Trattoria over steaming bowls of spaghetti, laughing about their jobs. When the moment came, Brian simply told them that enough was enough, and that it was time to make a decision, and that he was finally going to leave his job. He’d made the announcement calmly, and with considerable force, too, so they guessed there had been yet another falling out, another rude remark from one of his bosses, and another realisation that he was going nowhere in his job, and needed to move on. They held their forks in the air as Phil and Carly exchanged glances, briefly, before laughing long and loud. Brian had been startled.

‘You know, Brian,’ Phil began, ‘you’ve been saying something similar since the day you actually got that job.’ The laughter continued as they began twirling their forks in spaghetti again.

‘Well, I will now,’ Brian protested, miffed at their laughter. ‘I can’t stay. I’m totally fed up with the way they treats me.’

He then told them there was obviously a lack of any real opportunities there, and he was fed up being ignored.

‘Yeah, yeah!' his friends chorused.

‘It’s true. It’s all about Leonard.’

‘You know, I think you actually quite like your famous boss,’ Carly suggested, draining her wine glass.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Brian said, aggressively. It was a ridiculous suggestion.

‘Well, you’re obviously pretty fucked up about him,’ Phil told him.

‘Jealousy,’ Carly shouted, pointing her finger at him. She tipped more red from a bottle into her glass.

‘I am not!’ Brian shouted.

‘You’re an idiot?’ ventured Phil.

‘Thanks,’ said Brian.

‘You’ll never leave.’

‘Brian, you may be fucked up,’ said Carly, ‘but you’ll never leave. We do love you, though. Honest.’

They both raised their glasses to toast him.

Kate, at home, reminded him that he always seemed to miss opportunities, and wondered aloud why it was he hadn’t yet been promoted. He needed to try harder, she had said. Surely. That, or find some other office to work in.

It doesn’t help Brian to realise that most of his other friends have all done quite well for themselves. He even hears of friends, and friends of his friends being promoted to middling ‘Associate’ level positions, powering their way, he believes, into the securer, better-paid ranks of middle management. From where he viewed it, the prospect of a promotion at Stück and Stück was looking extremely unlikely. Carly understands, but her solution was always to choose the known devil, rather than risk inevitable disappointment elsewhere. Now, once again, she advises him,

‘Stick it out, Brian. Make it work. I mean, what else are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Get another job.’

‘Is that going to change anything? I dunno, maybe you should kill him. It would be easier.’

‘I wonder sometimes,’ he says.

‘Wherever you go, it’ll be the same. It always is. The same problems.’

‘Different faces?’ Brian suggests.

He hears Carly tut loudly at the end of the phone. ‘Well, fine. Go!’ she tells him. ‘Change the scenery!’

Brian, now that he has announced his intention, notices a new year-planner on his desk, a book with pages of numbers, all of them to be eventually struck through with a pen. He begins to flick through it, as it gives him the chance to see the year ahead.

‘What about that client of yours?’ Carly asks him. ‘You did all that work for him. What happened to all that?’

‘Oh. He never phoned me back.’

‘Well, phone him! It’s the New Year. He’s probably wondering why you haven’t. Much as I can hardly believe this, he probably needs you.’

‘Thanks. I really need him right now! One client, just one of my own might be all I need to get me out of here.’

‘Well, that would be better than murder. Let me know how you get on. Right, must go! My boss has just arrived…’

Carly rings off quickly.

With the phone back in his pocket, Brian looks up. It’s still early, before nine in fact, but he wants someone else to talk to. Thankfully, he notices now that he’s no longer alone.

PARALLEL LIVES

Dave has appeared at the door. Dave Bonney, Brian’s work colleague and best friend, is dressed for cycling, wearing his usual yellow Lycra shorts and top, and black goggles now pushed up to rest on his forehead. With fabric stretching across his slim body, Brian thinks he looks like an insect, bright and angular. He clip-clops across the wooden floor in his specially designed cycling shoes, sweaty and red faced from his ride into work and, as he reaches his desk next to Brian’s, dumps his bag on his chair and shudders, saying,

‘Ugh!’

Brian is smiling.

‘Good morning,’ he says.

‘It’s Monday, Brian!’ Dave says sourly.

‘It’s the first Monday!’ Brian says, trying to be cheerful. He holds up the year-planner as if offering proof.

‘Exactly. Ugh!’ says Dave again, and with a roll of his eyes. He sits heavily, breathes deeply, and leans forward to switch on his computer.

‘Tell anyone who wants me I’m not available,’ he says.

‘Oh. Okay,’ says Brian, smiling to an empty office. Then he asks, ‘Coffee?’

‘Two sugars!’

‘Righty-oh.’

Brian, glad that his friend is in now, stands and walks to the kitchen as Pippa Jolly arrives, waves, and sits at her desk in reception where she begins to rummage through her bags. Lucy has also just come in and surprises Brian in the kitchen. She is already busy pinning a sheet of out-of-focus photographs to the wall - smudged faces from last year’s Christmas party; faces all drunkenly leering into the camera. Lucy Thomas works alongside Pippa at reception. She’d never really intended staying as long as she has, and would have been just one of many that used Stück and Stück as a stepping-stone to something else. But since it has always been a pleasant place to work, she’s been content to stay. Brian enjoys her bright smile and unhurried attitude. He likes her long blond hair fixed up with a large plastic clip too, and the fact that when she does so, it reveals a smooth, slim neck. She has clear blue eyes, a fine boned nose, and red lips that look rather Pre-Raphaelite (as someone had once told her). It’s an artistic reference she rather enjoys. Brian likes it, too.

‘Hey! Morning Lucy,’ he says.

‘Brian!’ she exclaims brightly.

‘I see you’re wasting no time.’

‘How was it?’

‘Christmas? Oh, fun, I suppose,’ he says, in a rather deadpan way.

‘Where were you?’

‘Kate’s parents for most of Christmas, and a few friends over for New Year’s.’

‘Yes? Same here,’ she says. Then, quickly altering her tone, she asks,

‘How was it with Kate?’

‘Oh, okay. Only a few rows.’

‘Uh huh. Was that good?’

‘Yes. No. Not really.’

‘No’.

Lucy is sympathetic. She is fond of him, and remembers they had chatted for quite a while at last year’s Christmas party. Brian got drunk and confided too much to her about his relationship with Kate. But she was drunk too and, during a dance, they had kissed. It didn’t last, few saw it, or so they’d hoped, and they’d laughed it off at the time without too much embarrassment. Still, it had left a residue.

‘How about lunch later?’ she suggests, determined not to let the memory of it sour their first day.

‘Sure!’

Brian watches her go as he makes Dave his coffee, and one for himself, and begins to thread his way through the office back to his desk.

‘And, how is Lucy?’ asks Dave sternly, not lifting his eyes from the screen.

‘Good,’ Brian says.

‘Embarrassment?’ asks Dave.

‘No, not really.’

‘Well, there ought to be! It was disgusting to watch.’

So, Dave had seen them kissing.

Brian laughs, ‘I think she would have preferred kissing you.’

Dave grimaces.

Eric Payne then arrives. Looking like Dave’s twin brother in Lycra, Eric’s one-piece cycling outfit is stretched so tight across his wiry body it reveals rather more of his anatomy than Brian thinks polite. Eric sits, heaves a sigh of his own, and then reaches down to switch on his computer. Eric is ‘IT’, responsible for all the computers, and while it is usually ‘all systems go’, there have been occasions when it has seemed quite the opposite. There were groans across the office when he would suddenly shout ‘Save your Work’, or insist on rebooting the main server, or declare the need, mysteriously, to switch everything off and on again to clear the ‘problem’. Generally, however, he runs the technical side of the office well enough. Eric is quiet, introspective even. Some of the women in the office, Pippa especially, thinks he ‘smoulders’, though Dave has struggled to see how. Eric is just uncomplicated, he once told her - an avid football fan that wears his favourite team strip and leaves his lunchtime sandwich crusts lying about him. He sits in a corner surrounded by computer equipment, bicycle parts, and old socks. He and Dave, though not the best of friends, were often to be found together with spanners, air pumps, and inner tubes slung over their shoulders, kneeling next to their up-turned bikes with the wheels in the air. Brian, who never cycles, once light-heartedly tried to joke about their ‘equipment’ in a sexual way. Behind Eric’s back, he waved a bike pump suggestively.

‘Don’t!’ Dave said bluntly.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not you.’

‘I can be camp,’ Brian asserted, with a grin.

‘Brian, you really don’t have a clue,’ Dave said, dismissively, and tutting loudly, before shaking his head. Brian looked miffed.

So, Brian’s day, and his story, begins slowly, but at least we have had the opportunity to meet his friends. Now we get to meet his colleagues too, as they drift in after their week off work. The threatened tube strike had been called off at the last minute, but that didn’t prevent most from having unpleasant journeys. He watches as they appear now, red faced from the cold.

Julie Knowles waves to him and Dave, as she chats with Lucy and Pippa at reception. Always dressed in black, with jet-black hair ‘from a bottle’, a pierced nose, and slang words woven into her conversation, she’s from a good middle-class home in Surrey. Dave always thinks of her as a ‘daddy’s girl’ gone wrong. Still, Brian thinks she is good at her job. Santiago follows Julie into the office. He’s a tall boisterous Spaniard with big feet and a head of curly black hair, flowering like an unpruned bush, over a low forehead and intense blue eyes. Though he is a good worker, and accurate in his work, he is also popular with the ‘girls’ in the office. But he also has a high voice and a lisp, and Dave has convinced himself that he’s gay.

‘Where’s the evidence?’ Brian asks, confronting him. Was this just another example of Dave’s obsession?

‘Listen to him! I mean, come on…’

Brian laughs incredulously.

‘Dave, you think everyone is gay!’

‘There are more of us than you know,’ says Dave, tapping the side of his nose with his finger.

Hugh and Charles then arrive. They wave, and shout ‘Happy New Year’ to them. Hugh is a qualified architect, married, with a mortgage on a house (being renovated, of course), and has happily married parents in the country. Lucy always thought of him as ‘a bit boring’, and sometimes would say so, but Hugh was largely immune to her views. He is ‘job-runner’, meaning he can be left alone to manage a team or architects and draughtsmen to produce drawings, and get buildings built properly. He is what is known as a safe pair of hands. Usually the first in the office he is followed quickly by Charles, and together they sit side by side, sometimes sharing work, but mostly a similar outlook on life and work.

Charles, known as ‘Sweet Charles’ by most of the women, and by Dave, is a preppy looking athletic type, with a calm and steady approach to life. He also has a winning smile. While not as advanced in his career as Hugh, Charles was aiming for roughly the same outcome: a wife, kids, a mortgage, and a happy retirement. He’s had a girlfriend since childhood and as everyone at Stücks knows, and his family too, they had married and would be together for the rest of their lives. So, along with Hugh, he is one of the more conservative types in the office. And, much as Dave professes to ‘love’ him, and often swoons over him from the distance of his desk, Charles’ world picture irritates Dave to distraction.

‘How can someone that cute be a bloody Tory?’ Dave asks.

‘Oh? Are Socialists any better looking?’ says Brian.

‘God, no!’ Dave says.

Now, watching Charles settle at his desk, Dave observes, ‘He’s ruining his life!’

‘Oh?’ says Brian, following Dave’s gaze.

‘By marrying, that’s how. Ugh!’

‘Dave. We need to find you a proper boyfriend.’

‘Oh please!’ says Dave, dismissively. Then, after a moment, adds,

‘How?’

RECONSTRUCTION

Our two friends know that very little happens on the first day back at work, so that they can settle at their desks, with glum faces and hunched shoulders, behind their large, black computer screens and talk.

‘Where was I? What was I doing?’ says Dave, gloomily. He hugs his coffee, and stares at a drawing.

‘I feel tired,’ Brian says.

‘Last year feels like…well, years ago,’ says Dave.

‘Yeah. It always feels like we’re starting again, somehow.’

‘It’s a New Year,’ says Dave.

‘Loaded with expectations…’

‘…that never materialise.’

‘God, listen to us. We should be shot.’

‘Talking of which, did you like the bullets?’ Dave asks, brightening.

‘Very witty!’

Dave had bought Brian gold wrapped chocolates in the shape of bullets as his own Secret Santa gift to his friend at last year’s Christmas party.

‘What did they taste of?’ he asks.

‘Gunpowder,’ says Brian.

‘Ha, ha!’

Lucy appears and leans over Brian’s desk.

‘Hello boys,’ she says. They look up and offer her a weak smile.

‘Tough day!’ she says, smiling. Dave simply nods and sips his coffee.

‘It’s fine. He’ll warm up soon,’ says Brian.

‘Give me till June,’ Dave says. Lucy giggles and blows them a kiss.

So, on the morning of the first day back, they slowly settle into a familiar routine. It’s quiet, though the familiar sounds of the room at work, the chatter, the rattle of computer keyboards, clicking of ‘mice’, and the shuffle of paper, all begin to hum in their ears. There are mumbled telephone conversations to banks, (checking balances after the Christmas spending sprees) friends (‘How was it for you?’) and to shops (‘Can I return the sweater?’). Some even manage to make a few work calls, too. Lucy and Pippa sit together at reception, chatting away as they rip through the post that arrives in a large sack. Only an occasional laugh punctures the hum. Jacob, too, is still on the phone. Frankie is perched on Eve’s desk, in conversation. Julie, and some of the other junior members of the staff, including Santiago, sit among drawings, or peer silently into their computer screens. Dave, after a shower, has changed into tight jeans, ‘trainers’, and a slim-line shirt that goes with his boyish looks, and looks again at a drawing he’s been preparing since before Christmas. He tries to settle into his work knowing he is luckier than most. He has been working with Alistair, a senior partner, on a private house in the Chilterns. Alistair is grateful for Dave’s quiet, workmanlike manner, despite his generally high spirits at other times. Dave, content with work at least, remembers occasionally to glance up over his screen to see Charles who, he notices, is standing in conversation with Hugh and Ray. He sighs, looks away, and re-focuses on his screen. Brian, next to him, leafs through reports and views photographs for a site in the north east of England that the Stücks had been introduced to the previous December. He studies the site, the photos, and the brief, and manages a doodle or two in his sketchbook.

As Brian and Dave idle themselves, Petra and Leonard Stück arrive, and stand together in reception. Petra Stück eye’s the room, not wasting a moment to note who is in and who’s not, then smiles to a few and waves before entering the glass cube that is her office, where she drops her bag heavily on the desk. Leonard steps up to reception and, cheerfully approaching Pippa, shouts joyously,

‘Happy new Year!’

Pippa, her day beginning in earnest now that the senior partners have arrived, leans back and flicks her hair girlishly past her ears. Petra re-emerges from her office and stands smiling next to Leonard and together they wave to members of their office. Then the partners, after a few ‘Happy New Year’s’ to staff members, take to their seats, Petra back in her glass cube, and Leonard at his desk in the middle of the office.

*

It may be a traditionally slow day, but Brian feels impatient. He needs to begin the year positively, and to make that announcement. First, he needs to talk to Dave. Glancing over, he can see that Dave is concentrating hard on some drawing on his screen, and was beginning to get down to some work. His hair is still damp, and he gives off a fresh, clean smell from his shower. So, ignoring those words of advice from Carly still in his head, he calls out,

‘Dave?’

‘What?’ says Dave without looking up.

Brian pauses, perhaps for effect, and then says, ‘Today’s the day.’

‘For what?’ asks Dave.

‘To quit.’

‘Quit what? You don’t smoke.’

Brian rolls his eyes but says nothing, and Dave has to turn, reluctantly, to acknowledge him.

‘It’s time,’ Brian says, with a serious face.

Dave, the suggestion now sinking in, begins to shake his head in irritation, ‘Oh Brian! It’s the first day back. Don’t be daft.’

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Brian…,’ Dave begins, shaking his head again. He is hoping the day will end soon, so that they can get it over with and go home again.

Brian is whispering eagerly, ‘Dave, I’ve talked about this long enough.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ he says, remembering long, long nights in the pub with him. It was where they’d retreated to discuss their future, and where he’d listened, over several beers, to Brian’s incessant moans. Yes, Dave has been aware of Brian’s anguish for some time.

‘Have you heard from that client yet?’ Dave asks, trying to distract him.

Brian shakes his head. Brian, desperate for some opportunity of his own, worked privately for a client in the hope it would amount to a career break, roping Dave in to help, but as yet he’d heard nothing.

‘Well, call him, Brian,’ Dave urges.

‘I’m not going to wait for him.’

‘Oh, not now Brian,’ says Dave, irritated, sitting forward again and resuming his stare into the computer screen.

Brian is disappointed with Dave’s response. He hoped for some encouragement. It doesn’t occur to him that Dave, also restless, might not actually want him to go. What would Dave do if he did? Brian will try again later, as he has made up his mind. Instead, he sits quietly at his desk and, without much to do, idly watches Petra through the glass walls of her office.

There she goes, he thinks, performing all those little morning rituals that always seem to ease her into her working day. He watches, a little mesmerised, at how she scrapes a yoghurt pot clean with a small spoon, finishing it with a quick wipe with her little finger, which she then puts into her mouth to lick clean. He watches how she delicately peels her banana, then attacks the erect fruit hungrily, and then disposes of the skin in her waste paper basket below her desk. He watches her stir the coffee with another spoon, tap the side of the mug when she has done, and then lift the mug thoughtfully, almost reverentially to her lips, to drink. She has performed these little rituals for as long as he’s been there, and this could have been any morning from any day during the last twenty-five years of her working life.

This morning is different, though. She has been rifling through papers, most of which have come from the day’s post and have been placed before her by Lucy. He watches how she picks one letter, stops to read, and then another until suddenly she stops, as if frozen. Then, in a scene that resembles a silent movie, he watches how she first reads from a piece of paper, a letter perhaps, then looks up with excitement, then down again, to read once more, then look up again, this time with a smile, and then look excitedly around the office. Brian is alert now, curious. He wonders what can be so interesting about that piece of paper, unless perhaps it is a cheque? He knows it always thrills her when a bill is paid. He watches her push her chair back to stand up, and then hears her shout something through the door, but she doesn’t wait for an answer, and emerges quickly from her office, her mouth open.

As in many offices returning to work after the Christmas break, nothing new or significant was ever expected on the first day back to work. Brian hoped to change all that, of course, but now Petra is standing with a broad grin on her face and does something she has almost never done: she shouts in a loud voice so that everyone can hear,

‘’We’re through! We did it!’

THE WINNING LINE

Petra is waving her piece of paper in her hand as if it’s a winning lottery ticket.