Working Wonders

‘We’ll get an extra budget. It’s been approved.’

‘It’s been spent.’ Arthur held up a second sheet. ‘It says here … “extraneous disbursements”. There you go. That’s our entire budget.’

‘Sixteen million pounds?’

‘Sixteen million pounds. I wonder what extraneous disbursements are?’

Gwyneth stared at the paper in disbelief. ‘So you bloody should.’

She picked up the phone. ‘Marcus?’

The voice on the other end was timid.

‘What the hell are these figures?’ She switched on the speaker phone.

‘Um … yes, I had a funny feeling those might come up,’ said Marcus.

‘Did you, now? Then what the hell are they?’

Marcus mumbled something incomprehensible.

‘What? Speak up, for God’s sake.’

Then he spoke up, and Arthur turned white.

‘I don’t understand,’ Arthur was saying for the sixth time, standing over Marcus’s desk. Marcus was cowering and concentrating on the paper in front of him.

‘How the hell can it cost sixteen million pounds to fix a photocopier?’

‘It was a weekend. Call-out charges.’

Oh, God. This place was disastrous. Gwyneth came round into the grey car park and fished in her handbag for her car keys, with a half-hearted plan to go back to her main office and think this through. Across the motorway, the sun was setting over a field. If you could ignore the town, this really was a most beautiful part of the world. She looked back at the office.

Suddenly she remembered the look on Arthur’s face that morning when he’d got the photocopying bill and almost laughed. The way his soft brown hair had flipped over his face …

Oh no, she thought, fumbling with her key in the lock. No, no no no. She couldn’t possibly fancy the guy she was working with. She couldn’t. For a start, it was forbidden in company policy (until you reached director level, at which stage you could shag the pope and it would be discreetly ignored).

Not only that, it was obscenely unprofessional and Gwyneth was nothing if not a paradigm of professionalism.

‘I am a paradigm of professionalism,’ she said to herself, looking in her car mirror and trying to make it sound like a positive reinforcement statement.

Oh, but his hair’s so cute, she thought to herself.

No, no no no no no no, she also thought to herself.

But she wondered what would happen if the project got cancelled and there was nothing in the way.

Chapter Four

Fay shivered and pulled her coat further around her. The November air was chilly, even if it wasn’t raining this morning. She’d driven all the way from Birmingham, where she was staying with her mother. They spent most of their time together slagging off men – Fay had never known her father – and even the very concept of maleness. It wasn’t as much fun as it sounded. Fay could hear the vinegar creeping into her voice as they spoke.

Arthur hadn’t phoned since she’d left. Not even once. It wasn’t as though she expected vast bouquets watered with tears, although they wouldn’t have gone amiss. She didn’t require marching bands although how come, when Bono fell out with his wife, he’d recorded a single about how she was the sweetest thing he’d ever known and got all her favourite stars like Boyzone to be in the video and it worked and they had a baby – why couldn’t she have been going out with an international rock star instead of a bloody useless bloody town planner?

With Arthur there’d been nothing, absolutely nothing at all. It was as if he’d just popped out to take the video back. It was as if she was the video. How could he? How could he just waltz on so very bloody quickly? This wasn’t Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus. This was ‘Men are From Mars, Arthur is an evil demon from the pits of HELL’.

There aren’t many places to go in Coventry if you’re single and not fourteen years old. That’s how Fay found herself in Cork’s wine bar, nursing a solitary glass of wine and trying to look as if she was engrossed in her copy of Red magazine. Why, she was wondering, does the time from Jackie to Red go so fast? Next stop Woman’s Own. She was reflecting on the fact that the age ranges of magazines appeared to be in alphabetical order when someone, who’d obviously been nursing slightly more than a simple glass of wine, heaved himself onto the next stool along.

‘In’t you,’ – he screwed up one of his eyes – ‘don’tcha know Arthur Pendleton?’

Fay regarded the rumpled chunky mess in front of her with some alarm. ‘Um, yes, but …’

‘’E’s a bastard.’

Fay looked closer.

‘Is me!’ he expostulated.

‘Rosh, you know! Arthur’s bloody boss. Well, Arthur’s bloody ex bloody boss, bloody bastard, bloody …’

Oh, yes. Fantastic.

‘Bloody ex-bastard,’ said Fay, allowing herself a tight little grin.

‘I recognize you … from the Christmas party … always fancied you …’

What were you doing in the stationery cupboard with that poor Cathy woman then, thought Fay, but decided not to mention it.

‘Yes, of course I remember,’ she said, using the brisk tone one reserves for children and drunks.

‘Do you know … he bloody sacked me … bastard.’

‘Me too,’ said Fay with a half-smile. ‘I know how you feel.’

‘Really?’ He moved forward across the stool.

‘Not that much.’ She promptly removed his hand from the top of her thigh, where he’d landed to steady himself.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Oh, go on.’

Fay arched her eyebrows, hoping he’d continue on over to the bar and forget he was ever talking to her. On the other hand, the article in Red was ‘Baby Massage With You, Your Baby and Your Ever-Loving Partner – First, pick your largest, sunniest reception room …’

‘You know,’ said Ross, trying to be conversational, ‘they’ve offered me the other job.’

‘What other job?’

‘His job. In Slough. Same deal. BUT! Only one city gets to be European City Culsha.’

She looked at him. ‘Slough’s a city?’

‘Yeah, it’s – it’s got an IKEA and six polyversities. Yeah.’

‘Oh. Right.’ But inside she was thinking that this might be rather interesting.

‘What do you do again?’ he said.

‘Personnel management.’

He pointed a beefy finger at her. ‘We NEED one of those.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Ross became momentarily distracted by a passing waitress. ‘Oh, she’s gorgeous, eh? I bet I could have her. I had this page three girl once. Well, I met this page three girl once …’

Fay sighed and went to finish her drink.

‘No, no, right, you’d be perfect for the job.’

‘What job?’

‘Coming to be in my team, thass wha job.’

‘What, you’d give me a job just because I hate Arthur Pendleton?’

‘Precishely.’

‘I’ll have a white wine spritzer, please.’

And that was how, a week later, she found herself on secondment from the recruitment firm (‘City of Culture’ her boss had twittered, ‘such an exciting opportunity for the firm … all those heads! … all that hunting!’) driving to start her first day’s work for Ross, a man whose tosspot qualities had been expounded on at such length and in such detail by Arthur, she was warming to him already.

There was a summons.

Arthur would be meeting the chairman for the first time, to have a discussion about the delicate financial situation.

He hadn’t been able to chat to Gwyneth before he’d left the night before. Weighing up the balance of the evidence, he reckoned she was going to grass him up. He sighed. Sixteen million quid, and he’d be back to where he started. Or worse: they might sack him. Or he’d go to prison, maybe. No, surely not prison. Still. Nowhere good.

Arthur looked at his forehead in the bathroom mirror. Was there more hair there or less? And where was the soap? By utter coincidence, ever since Fay had left he’d run out of soap, toilet roll, razorblades and clean towels.

That is a coincidence, he thought to himself. He stomped out of the bathroom to iron a shirt, and immediately forgot all about it when he realized he was going to have to be eating cooking chocolate for breakfast again. At least something good was happening.

There were a million other things to do. Or, of course, none, he reflected.

For the first time, realizing that he might lose this job, he became aware of how much he wanted to do it.

When he entered the main boardroom – distinguishable from the rest of the plastic grey building only by a singularly incongruous stag’s head attached to the wall – Gwyneth was already there in a pale grey trouser suit with a lilac coloured top. He didn’t know anything about women’s clothing, but he noticed there was a subtle difference in the suit she had on and the dumpy two-pieces Fay used to wear. He bet she smelled nice. Right before she grassed him up of course, the cow.

Gwyneth was sitting next to the chairman, so it looked like they were in it together already, Arthur thought glumly, taking a seat across the table. There was another, younger man, sitting at one end, obviously there to take minutes. Nobody said good morning.

The chairman, Sir Eglamore, seemed an amiable enough old buff. He studied his notes, then glared at them incredulously.

‘Is this in shillings or – drat it, what are those blasted things called?’

His softly spoken PA leaned in. ‘Euros, sir.’

‘That’s right. Blast their eyes. That Tony Blair, you know. Should be hanged.’ He sneezed. ‘Who’s in charge of this affair, anyway?’

‘Me,’ said Arthur.

‘Ah, young Arthur, am I right?’

Arthur nodded, already surprised. Well, he was one up if the top brass could bother to find out his name.

Eglamore pulled his half-moon spectacles further down his long nose. ‘You’ve got a long way to go, then.’

Arthur nodded vehemently. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not the best of starts, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Hrumph.’ Eglamore turned his attention to Gwyneth. Arthur looked at her curiously.

‘And we thought this was the best man for the job, did we?’

‘Um, yes.’

‘On the basis of …?’

‘Um.’ She looked embarrassed. ‘Many reasons, sir.’

Sir Eglamore made a noise like an angry horse. ‘Photocopier incident, wasn’t it?’

‘Um, yes.’

‘So what do you think now, hey?’

Gwyneth looked at Arthur, then straight at Sir Eglamore.

There was a pause. Then she said, ‘He’s still the best man for the job, sir.’

Both Sir Eglamore and Arthur’s eyebrows shot up in the air.

‘What’s that, what?’

‘And he fits candidate requirements.’

‘And accidentally losing sixteen million pounds is a candidate requirement, is it?’

‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time,’ said Arthur and Gwyneth simultaneously. Then they looked at each other.

Sir Eglamore studied his papers for what seemed like a month. Then he looked at them from under his craggy eyebrows.

‘Well, I don’t approve … but I don’t know how we can back out now. I’ve told all my friends at the – well, yes, you don’t need to know about that.’ He plumped up the papers on his desk, slightly embarrassed. ‘Of course, it won’t be happening again, you understand? Or even anything like it. I don’t know what all this modern fuss is with photocopiers, anyway. Just get a couple of the boys to copy them out by hand. Keeps them quiet and out of mischief.’

Arthur could have wept with relief. ‘I’ll try and stay away from all heavy office equipment, sir.’

‘I’m going to put someone in place to watch out for you. In fact, my nephew is looking for a job. He can come and cast an eye over your figures, what?’

He looked rather dodgily at Gwyneth for a second, who effortlessly ignored him. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll send Rafe along to you. Heard he’s the best man for the job, what.’ He turned to his PA. ‘Right, right, next? And do hurry it along – it’s venison for lunch.’

‘Rafe? Who the hell is Rafe?’ said Arthur, once they’d got back to his office. ‘It sounds like Sir Eglamore’s helping out the local orphanage! Who asked him to interfere, anyway?’

Gwyneth shrugged. ‘No clue,’ she said. ‘Presumably one of Sir Bufton Tufton’s useless inbred Cyclops children.’

‘Yeah,’ said Arthur. ‘He’ll be a complete burden. And anyway …’ He knew this much from countless boring personnel conference evenings with Fay. ‘We can’t just take someone on. We have to advertise it and then interview all the one-legged people who apply or something.’

‘No, really? God, yeah. I forget this is a public service organization.’

‘That’s cos we hate serving the public and what we do is actually invisible.’

‘And what’s he going to do?’

Arthur scratched his head. ‘Well, now we’ve got our money back, I’m sure we’ll find something … yes?’

Marcus put his head round the crack in the door. ‘It’s here!’ he said excitedly.

‘What?’

‘What are we waiting for?’ said Gwyneth.

‘I don’t know – what’s up, Marcus? Have they just announced that they want all the accounting in base thirteen?’

‘No, no, look.’

He entered the room, and brought out from behind his back a long roll of paper. ‘The mighty scroll,’ he announced with some reverence and placed it in front of them on the table.

‘The what?’ said Arthur and Gwyneth, simultaneously.

Marcus looked around. ‘Um, I mean the official European application form.’ He looked slightly embarrassed. ‘It just came by fax. So I just thought it would be – you know, more fun – if I delivered it in the form of a mighty scroll.’

‘It’s okay.’ Arthur picked up the scroll and unrolled it flat. It covered the entire length of the table and dropped onto the floor. ‘We already know your job is boring.’

Gwyneth looked over his shoulder. ‘Good God, it’s immense.’

‘That’s because it’s in fifteen different languages.’

‘God, so it is. Look, it’s in Welsh! Who on earth thinks Swansea would be made European City of Culture?’

‘I’m from Wales,’ said Gwyneth.

‘Most beautiful countryside in the world, isn’t it?’ said Arthur hurriedly.

‘Wow, this goes to the European Parliament,’ said Marcus, reading the small print.

‘That’s the least exciting parliament ever, though,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s like the Saturday superstore of parliaments.’

‘This is going to take a lot of serious work, even just in English,’ said Gwyneth, looking worriedly at it.

‘I don’t think putting porn plugs in park benches is going to pass for the required “Three Major Cultural Events”, do you?’

‘Just the one,’ said Marcus.

‘No, none.’

Marcus looked at it again. ‘Ooh, look, we have to support and develop creative work, which is an essential element in any cultural policy. Like, Sven’s expenses.’

‘Is that someone taking our name in vain?’ asked Sven, walking in eating a hot dog with Sandwiches at his heels.

‘Can’t you knock?’ said Arthur, still sitting slumped in his chair.

‘Cool down, el power-crazed Nazio.’

Sandwiches, meanwhile, had scrambled in ungainly fashion onto the meeting table and was clacking across it, looking for custard cream traces.

‘You should get that dog’s toenails trimmed,’ observed Gwyneth.

‘What? What?’ Arthur turned round to look at her. ‘Is that really your first reaction? Maybe you should have been a vet. Why didn’t you say, you should get that dog out of the office – or, you shouldn’t let your dog onto other people’s tables …’

‘Or, you shouldn’t let your dog eat the mighty scroll,’ said Marcus in horror, staring at where Sandwiches was happily tearing away at the edges. Drool advanced down the paper.

‘Nooo!’ Arthur lunged for it, causing Sandwiches to slide backwards across the polished wood and disappear, ears last, over the end, giving an anguished yelp.

Sven rushed to his aid and Sandwiches – wounded only in pride – hid his head in Sven’s meaty armpit. Rather him than me, Arthur found himself thinking.

‘Don’t shout at Sandwiches,’ said Sven.

‘I’m sorry, but I reserve the right to shout at anyone who eats the proposal guidelines,’ said Arthur.

‘It was only that we have to “exploit the historic heritage, urban architecture and … something about life in the city”,’ said Gwyneth, unravelling the slobbery bundle. ‘And by the way, how come I’ve only been here a fortnight and I’ve already become an expert in dog kablooie?’

Marcus and Sven started an argument about expenses as Gwyneth and Arthur bickered over who was going to pick up the scroll, and it took them a while to notice the shadow in the doorway.

The man standing there nearly filled the doorway. Tall and fine-boned, with a mop of long, curly blond hair, he looked, as the light fell upon him, like a pre-Raphaelite painting caught in a frame.

It was as if a spell had been cast over the room. As Gwyneth stared at him, Sven and Marcus fell quiet. Sandwiches dropped like a rock out of Sven’s arms and went over to explore.

‘Hey,’ said the man, smiling suddenly. It lit up his features and broke the mood immediately. He dropped a long arm to scratch the dog. ‘Is this Festival City?’

‘That depends,’ said Gwyneth. ‘Who are you?’

He looked around the room. ‘You know, you’re all so lucky.’

‘We’re what?’

‘I mean,’ he gestured to the scroll, ‘you’ve got this blank canvas, right? And this town … Man, anything you do to this town is going to make it better, isn’t it? You could put up a picture of this dog taking a leak and it would be more attractive than ninety-five per cent of the town centre.’

‘I like you,’ said Sven, coming forward.

‘But you could make it – God, absolutely fantastic! And that’s your job description, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got so much potential. So much fun! Fairs and parties, and celebrations and flowers and …’ He stopped and collected himself for a moment. ‘Sorry. I’m getting carried away.’

‘No, go on,’ said Gwyneth, finding herself doing something uncharacteristic. Smiling.

‘Well, you can basically plan for anything – one town had a new tram network. One place made an entire square blue – the stones, the walls, everything. You take the money you have and find out what you can do, then Brussels puts up some more money, then lots of people come and bring money into the town and it all works brilliantly …’

Arthur turned round slowly from the window. ‘Sorry, but – who are you?’

‘Oh, sorry, hi – I’m Rafe.’

Arthur couldn’t sleep that night. Something felt wrong. Something wrong in the world … Of course all insomnia is melodramatic, he thought, staring at the flashing LED of his alarm clock. Three thirty-two a.m. Insomnia makes you feel you are the only person awake in the entire world. Of course, he could have got up and phoned his half-brother Kay, who lived in Australia and would be more than happy to hear from him in the middle of the afternoon … but no. He felt pinned to the bed, and even thinking nice thoughts about Gwyneth wouldn’t help him drift off.

Finally, in a fit of exasperation, he threw the covers off, got up and stared out of the window. All the windows in the executive estate were dark, every single one. Somebody must be up, he thought. Somebody, anybody, doing something. No babies? No parties? Yet there was nothing but the sodium lights of the tall street-lamps, and the distant hum of the motorway. Nobody moved. Nobody stirred. Arthur looked up to the stars, and imagined the world this quiet a thousand years ago, with everyone asleep when it got dark and up with the sun.

He shivered in the early morning cold, but didn’t go back to bed – now he was up, he actually felt rather peaceful. He liked the idea of the world quiet; full of possibilities and opportunities. Everyone asleep, optimistic about tomorrow – or at least, optimistic enough to sleep. A thought struck him. This would be a good time to see the place, see the absolute raw material he was dealing with – what the streets looked like empty. If this was going to be his town he should go out, take a look around it, examine it from the beginning with no hordes of teenagers or gangs of lads getting in the way, and no cars to block the view across the road. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a good idea. Even if, he realized, somewhere not too far away, it sounded like something was howling.

Ten miles away in her mother’s house, Fay had felt pulled awake at the same time as Arthur. Her first day at work hadn’t gone so bad … well, Ross hadn’t groped her. As such. But this was all going to be worth it for the look on Arthur’s face when she and Ross won the bid and left him crying on the street. Yeah. Her face took on a grim satisfaction and she turned over again on the single bed and fell asleep.

The darkness was hinting at dawn. Arthur looked at his own reflection in the window. God, yeah. That really was something howling. It did it again. Arthur reminded himself that wolves no longer roamed the countryside.

Sounded bloody weird, though.

‘We’re all going out at what time in the morning?’ said Gwyneth.

‘No sodding way,’ said Sven.

‘Listen to me,’ said Arthur, then realized he was begging, and that he was trying to remember about this whole respect issue, and took a breath.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘This came to me last night. It’s a great idea. We’re going to go out into the city when there’s nobody else there, and take a good long look at it. See what we’ve got to work with. It’s the only time of day we can do it – after the drunks and before the milkman. Plus, it’ll be fun. Maybe. No, yes it will. It’ll be like an expedition.’

‘Fine by me,’ said Cathy.

‘Great, that’s great!’ said Arthur. ‘Well done.’

‘I usually get up at that time to start the boys’ breakfast. And do the ironing, you know.’

‘I can’t, anyway,’ said Sven. ‘It would interfere with Sandwiches’ digestion.’

‘Yeah – might make it work,’ retorted Arthur.

‘Couldn’t you come without your dog?’ said Gwyneth.

‘No. He sleeps right across me.’

As if to demonstrate, Sandwiches crawled up and lay in the most ungainly fashion across Sven’s lap, a forlorn stubby pair of legs and a single ear hanging down either side.

‘That’s disgusting,’ said Gwyneth, committed vet.

‘I think it would be nice to have something to cuddle at night,’ said Cathy. Then everyone – including her – remembered she was actually married and already shared a bed with her husband and she blushed.

‘Yes, well,’ said Arthur briskly, ‘we’re going to take a look at a blank canvas; imagine what we could do if we set our minds to it. Too late for the drunks and too early for the milkman,’ he repeated. ‘Do milkmen still exist?’

‘You’re thinking of the bogeyman,’ said Gwyneth practically. ‘Milk, yes, bogeys, no.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Sven, with one finger up his nose.

Just then Rafe walked in, the only fresh-looking person in the room. Gwyneth had invited him along for the day to ‘see how the department works’ and he, amazingly, still seemed quite enthusiastic in the moments he could join them between hurrying to the toilet to cope with Cathy’s near-endless coffee provision.

Cathy looked at Rafe with that strange mixture of lust and motherly devotion only women teetering on the brink of menopause can conjure up for fresh-faced young men. ‘Hello, Rafe. More coffee?’

‘No, I’m fine thanks, Mrs P. What’s up?’

‘He’s trying to make us go out in the cold and dark.’

‘Why?’

Sven explained, and Arthur hovered in a corner feeling stupid. He’d planned to get them all whipped up with his enthusiastic oratory. Sven was making it sound as if he was transporting them all to prison ships. Rafe listened closely, nodding his head. The whole room was watching them. Finally, he straightened up.

‘Well – that’s a brilliant idea!’ he said. There was something about his open handsome face that made it look permanently smiling, and it was infectious.