Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P633-635
The University clock strikes eleven its chimes overlapping with the chimes of other clock, near and far. All over Rummidge and its environs, people are at work - or not, as the case may be.
Robyn Penrose is making her way to Lecture Room A, along corridors and down staircases thronged with students changing classes. They part before her, like waves before the prow of a stately ship. She smiles at those she recognizes. Some fall in behind her, and follow her to the lecture theatre, so that she appears to be leading a little procession, a female Pied Piper. She carries under one arm her folder of lecture notes, and under the other a bundle of books from which to read illustrative quotations. No young man offers to carry this burden for her. Such gallantry is out of fashion. Robyn herself would disapprove of it on ideological grounds, and it might be interpreted by other students as creeping.
Vic Wilcox is in a meeting with his Marketing Director, Brian Everthorpe, who answered Vic's summons at 9.30, complaining of countraflow holdups on the motorway, and whom Vic, himself dictating letters at 9.30, told to come back at eleven. He is a big man, which in itself doesn't endear him to Vic, with bushy sideboards and RAF-style moustache. He wears a three-piece suit with an old fashioned watch-chain looped across his waistcoated paunch. He is the most senior, and the most complacent, member of the management team Vic inherited.
‘You should live in the city, like me, Brian,’ says Vic. ‘Not thirty miles away.’
‘Oh, you know what Beryl is like,’ says Brian Everthorpe, with a smile designed to seem rueful.
Vic doesn't know. He has never met Beryl, said to be Everthorpe's second wife, and formerly his secretary. As far as he knows, Beryl may not exist, except as an excuse for Brian Everthorpe's delinquencies. Beryl says the kids need country air. Beryl was poorly this morning and I had to run her to the doctor's. Beryl sends her apologies - she forgot to give me your message. One day, quite soon in fact, Brian Everthorpe is going to have to concentrate his mind on the difference between a wife an employer.
In a cafe in a covered shopping precinct at the centre of Rummidge, Marjorie and Sandra Wilcox are sipping coffee, debating what colour shoes Sandra should buy. The walls of the cafe are covered with tinted mirrors, and soft syncopated music oozes from speakers hidden in the ceiling.
‘I think a beige,’ says Marjorie.
‘Or that sort of pale olive,’ says Sandra.
The shopping precinct is full of teenagers gathered in small clusters, smoking, gossiping, laughing, scuffling. They look at the goods in the shiny, illuminated shop-windows, and wander in and out of the boutiques, but do not buy anything. Some stare into the cafe where Marjorie and Sandra are sitting.
‘All these kids,’ says Marjorie disapprovingly. ‘Wagging it, I suppose.’
‘On the dole, more likely,’ says Sandra, suppressing a yawn, and checking her appearance in the mirrored wall behind her mother's back.
Robyn arranges her notes on the lectern, waiting for latecomers to settle in their seats. The lecture theatre resonates like a drum with the chatter of a hundred-odd students, all talking at once, as if they have just been released from solitary confinement. She taps on the desk with an inverted pencil and cleared her throat. A sudden hush falls, and a hundred faces tilt towards her - curious, expectant, sullen, apathetic - like empty dishes waiting to be filled. The face of Marion Russell is absent, and Robyn cannot suppress a tiny, ignoble twinge of resentment at this ungrateful desertion.
‘I've been looking at your expense account, Brian,’ says Vic, turning over a small pile of bills and receipts.
‘Yes?’ Brian Everthorpe stiffens slightly.
‘It's very modest.
Everthorpe relaxes. ‘Thank you.’
‘I didn't mean it as a compliment.’
Everthorpe looks puzzled. ‘Sorry.’
‘I'd expect the Marketing Director of a firm this to claim twice as much for overnight stays.’
‘Ah, well, you see Beryl doesn't like being on her own in the house at night.’
‘But she has your kids with her.’
‘Not during term, old man. We send them away to school - have to, living in the depths of the country. So I prefer to drive back home after a meeting, no matter how far it is.’
‘Your mileage is pretty modest, too, isn't it?’
‘Is it?’ Brian Everthorpe, beginning to get the message, stiffens again.
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P635-637
‘In the 1840s and 1850s,’ says Robyn, ‘a number of novels were published in England which have a certain family resemblance. Raymond Williams has called them “Industrial Novels” because they dealt with social and economic problems arising out of the Industrial Revolution, and in some cases described the nature of factory work. In their own time they were often called “Condition of England Novels”, because they addressed themselves directly to the state of the nation. They are novels in which the main characters debate topical social and economic issues as well as fall in and out of love, marry and have children, persue careers, make or lose their fortunes, and do all the other things that characters do in more conventional novels. The Industrial Novels contributed a distinctive strain to English fiction which persists into the modern period - it can be traced in the work of Lawrence and Forster, for instance. But it is not surprising that it first arose in what history has called “the Hungry Forties”’.
‘By the fifth decade of the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution had completely dislocated the traditional structure of English society, bringing riches to a few and misery to the many. The agricultural working class, deprived of a subsistence on the land by the enclosures of the late eighteen and early nineteenth centuries, thronged to the cities of the Midlands and the North where the economics of laissez-faire forced them to work long hours in wretched conditions for miserable wages, and threw them out of employment altogether as soon as there was a downturn in the market.
‘The workers’ attempted to defend their interests by forming trades unions was bitterly resisted by the employers. The working class met even stiffer resistance when they tried to secure political representation through the Chartist Movement.’
Robyn glances up from her notes and sweep the audience with her eyes. Some are busily scribbling down every word she utters, others are watching her quizzically, chewing the ends of their ballpoints, and those who looked bored at the outset are now staring vacantly out of the window or diligently chiselling their initials into the lecture-room furniture.
‘The People's Charter called for universal male suffrage. Not even those far-out radicals could apparently contemplate the possibility of universal female suffrage.’
All the students, even those who have been staring out of the window, reacted to this. They smile and nod or, in a friendly sort of way, groan and hiss. It is what they expect form Robyn Penrose, and even the rugby-playing boys in the back row would be mildly disappointed if she didn't produce this kind of observation from time to time.
Vic Wilcox asks Brian Everthorpe to stay for a meeting he has arranged with his technical and production managers. They file into the office and sit round the long oak table, slightly in owe of Vic, serious men in chain-store suits, with pens and pencils sticking out of their breast pockets. Brian Everthorpe takes a chair at the far end of the table, slightly withdrawn as if to mark his difference from the engineers. Vic sit at the head of the table, in his shirt-sleeves, half a cup of cold coffee at his right hand. He unfolds a sheet of computer printout.
‘Does anybody know,’ he says, ‘how many different products this firm made last year?’ Silence. ‘Nine hundred and thirty-seven. That's about nine hundred too many, in my opinion.’
‘You mean different specs, don't you? Not products,’ says the technical manager, rather boldly.
‘All right, different specs. But every new specification means that we have to stop production, retool or reset the machines, stop a flow line, or whatever. That costs time, and time is money. Then the operatives are more likely to make mistakes when set-ups are constantly changing, and that leads to increased wastage. Am I right?’
‘There were two climatic moments in the history of the Chartist Movement. One was the submission of a petition, with millions of signatures, to Parliament in 1839. Its rejection led to a series of industrial strikes, demonstrations, and repressive measures by the Government. This is the background to Mrs Gaskell's novel Mary Barton and Disraeli's Sybil. The second was the submission of another monster petition in 1848, which forms the background to Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke. 1848 was a year of revolution throughout Europe, and many people in England feared that Chartism would bring revolution, and perhaps a Terror, to England. Any kind of working-class militancy tends to be presented in the fiction of the period as a threat to social order. This also true of Charlotte Bronte's Though set at the time of the Napoleonic wars, its treatment of the Luddite riots is clearly an oblique comment on mord topical events.’
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P637-639
Three black youths with huge, multicoloured knitted caps pulled over their dreadlocks like tea-cosies lean against the plateglass window of the shopping precinct cafe, drumming a raggae beat on it with their fingers until shooed away by the manageress.
‘I hear there was more trouble in Angelside at the weekend,’ says Marjorie, wiping the milky foam of the cappuccino from her lips with a dainty tissue
Angelside is the black ghetto of Rummidge, where youth unemployment is eighty per cent and rioting endemic. There are long queues in the Angelside Social Security office this morning, as every morning. The only job vacancies in Angelside are for interviewers in the Social Security office, where the furniture is screwed to the floor in case the clients should try to assault the interviewers with it.
‘Or maybe oyster,’ says Sandra dreamily. ‘To go with my pink trousers.’
‘My point is simply this,’ says Vic. ‘We are producing too many different things in short runs, meeting small orders. We must rationalize. Offer a small range of standard products at competitive prices. Encourage our customers to design their systems around our products.’
‘Why should they?’ says Brian Everthorpe, tipping his chair back on its rear legs and hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.
‘Because the product will be cheap, reliable and available at short notice,’ says Vic. ‘If they want something manufactured to their own spec, OK, but we insist on a thumping great order or a high price.’
‘And if they won't play?’ says Brian Everthorpe.
‘Then let them go elsewhere.’
‘I don't like it,’ says Brian Everthorpe. ‘The small orders bring in the big ones.’
The heads of the other men present have been swivelling from side to side, like spetators at a tennis match, during this argument. They look fascinated but slightly frightened.
‘I don't believe that, Brian,’ says Vic. ‘Why should anybody order long when they can order short and keep their inventory down?’
‘I'm talking about goodwill,’ says Brian Everthorpe. ‘Pringle's has a slogan - ’
‘Yes, I know, Brian,’ says Vic Wilcox. ‘If it can be made, Pringle's will make it. Well, I'm proposing a new slogan. If it's profitable, Pringle's will make it.’
‘Mr Grandgrind in Hard Times embodies the spirit of industrial capitalism as Dickens saw it. His philosophy is utilitarian. He despises emotion and the imagination, and believes only in Facts. The novel shows, among other things, the disastrous effects of this philosophy on Mr Grandgrind's own children, Tom, who becomes a thief, and Louisa, who nearly becomes an adulteress, and on the lives of working people in the city of Coketown which is made in his image, dreary place containing:
several streets all very like one another, and many more streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.
‘Opposed to this alienated, repetitive way of life, is the circus - a community of spontaneity, generosity and creative imagination. “You mutht have us, Thquire,” says the lisping circus master, Mr Sleary, to Grandgrind, “People mutht be amuthed.” It is Cissie, the despised horserider's daughter adopted by Grandgrind, who proves the redemptive force in his life. The message of the novel is clear: the alienation of work under industrial capitalism can be overcome by an infusion of loving kindness and imaginative play, represented by Cissie and the circus.’
Robyn pauses, to allow the racing pens to catch up with her discourse, and to give emphasis to her next sentence: ‘Of course, such a reading is totally inadequate. Dickens' own ideological position is riddled with contradiction.’
The students who have been writing everything down now look up and smile wryly at Robyn Penrose, like victims of a successful hoax. They lay down their pens and flex their fingers, as she pauses and shuffles her notes preparatory to the next stage of her exposition.
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P639-641
In Avondale Road, the Wilcox boys have risen from their beds at last and are making the most of their unsupervised occupancy of the house. Gary is eating a heaped bowl of cornflakes in the kitchen, while reading Home Computer propped up against the milk bottle and listening via the hall and two open doors to a record by UB40 playing at maximum volume on the music centre in the lounge. In his bedroom Raymond is torturing his electric guitar, which is plugged into an amplifier as big as upended coffin, grinning fiendishly as he produces howls and wails of feedbacks. The whole house vibrates like a sounding-box. Ornaments tremble on shelves and glassware tinkles in sideboards. A trademan who has been ringing at the front door for several minutes gives up and goes away.
‘It is interesting how many of the industrial novels were written by women. In their work, the ideological contradictions of the middle-class liberal humanist attitude to the Industrial Revolution take on a specifically sexual character.’
At the mention of the word ‘sexual’, a little ripple of interest stirs the rows of silent listeners. Those who have been daydreaming or carving their initials into the desktops sit up. Those who have been taking notes continue to do so with even greater assiduousness. People cease to cough or sniff or shuffle their feet. As Robyn continues, the only interference with the sound of her voice is the occasional ripping noise of a filled-up page of A4 being hurriedly detached from its parent pad.
‘It hardly needs to be pointed out that industrial capitalism is phallocentric. The inventors, the engineers, the factory owners and bankers who fuelled it and maintained it, were all men.
The most commonplace metonymic index of industry - the factory chimney - is also metaphorically a phallic symbol. The characteristic imaginary of the industrial landscape or townscape in nineteenth-century literature - tall chemnys thrusting into the sky, spewing ribbon of black smoke, buildings shaking with the rhythmic pounding of mighty engines, the railway train rushing irresistibly through the passive countryside - all that is saturated with male sexuality of a dominating and destructive kind.
‘For women novelists, therefore, industry had a complex fascination. On the conscious level it was the Other, the alien, the male world of work, in which they had no place. I am, of course, talking about middle-class women, for all women novelists at this period were by definition middle-class. On the subconscious level it was what they desired to heal their own castration, their own sense of lack.’
Some of the students look up at the word ‘castration’, admiring the cool poise with which Robyn pronounces it, as one might admire a barber's expert manipulation of a cut-throat razor.
‘We see this illustrated very clearly in Mrs Gaskell's North and South. In this novel, the genteel young heroine from the south of England, Margaret, is compelled by her father's reduced circumstances to take up residence in a city called Milton, closely based on Manchester, and comes into social contact with a local mill-owner called Thornton. He is a very pure kind of capitalist who believes fanatically in the laws of supply and demand. He has no compassion for the workers when times are bad and wages low, and does not ask for pity when he himself faces ruin. Margaret is at first repelled by Thornton's harsh business ethnic, but when a strike of workers turns violent, she acts impulsively to save his life, thus revealing her unconscious attraction to him, as well as her instinctive class allegiance. Margaret befriends some of the workers and shows compassion for their sufferings, but when the crunch comes she is on the side on the master. The interest Margaret takes in factory life and the processes of manufacturing - which her mother finds sordid and repellent - is a displaced manifestation of her unacknowledged erotic feeling for Thornton. This comes out very clearly in a conversation between Margaret and her mother, who complains that Margaret is beginning to use factory slang in her speech. She retorts:
“And if I live in a factory town, I must speak factory language when I want it. Why, Mamma, I could astonish you with a great many words you never heard in your life. I don't believe you know what a knobstick is.”
“Not I, child, I only know it has a very vulgar sound; and I don't want to hear you using it.”
Robyn looks up from the copy of North and South from which she has been reading this passage, and surveys her audience with her cool, grey-green eyes. ‘I think we all know what a knobstick is, metaphorically.’
The audience chuckles gleefully, and the ballpoints speed across the pages of A4 faster than ever.
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P641-643
‘Any more questions?’ says Vic Wilcox, looking at his watch.
‘Just one point, Vic,’ says Bert Braddock, the Works Manager. ‘If we rationalize production like you say, will that mean redundancies?’
‘No,’ says Vic looking Bert Braddock straight in the eye. ‘Rationalization will mean growth in sales. Eventually we'll need more men, not fewer.’ Eventually perhaps, if everything goes according to plan, but Braddock knows as well as Vic that some redundancies are inevitable in the short term. The exchange is purely ritual in function, authorizing Bert Braddock to reassure anxious shop stewards if they start asking awkward questions.
Vic dismisses the meeting and, as the men file out, stands up and stretches. He goes to the window, and fiddles with the angle of the louvred blinds. Staring out aross the car park, where silent, empty cars wait for their ownerP like patient pets, he ponders the success of the meeting. The telephone console on his desk buzzes.
‘It's Roy Mackintosh, Wragcast,’ says Shirley.
‘Put him on.’
Roy Mackintosh is a MD of a local foundry that has been supplying Pringle's with castings for many years. He has just heard that Pringle's is not reordering, and has phoned to inquire the reason.
‘I suppose someone is undercutting us,’ he says.
‘No, Roy,’ says Vic. ‘We are supplying ourselves now.’
‘From that old foundry?’
‘We've made improvements.’
‘You must have ... ’ Roy Mackintosh sounds suspicious. After a certain amount of small talk, he says casually, ‘Perhaps I might drop by some time. I'd like to have a look at this foundry of yours.’
‘Sure.’ Vic does not welcome this proposal, but protocol demands a positive response. ‘Tell your secretary to fix it with mine.’
Vic goes into Shirley's office, shrugging on the jacket of his suit. Brian Everthorpe, who is hanging over Shirley's desk, straightens up guiltily. Griping about the boss, no doubt.
‘Hello, Brian. Still here?’
‘Just off.’ Smiling blandly, he tugs the points of his waistcoat down over his paunch and sidles out of the office.
‘Roy Mackintosh wants to look around the foundry. When his secretary rings. put him off as long as you decently can. Don't want the whole world knowing about the KW.’
‘OK,’ says Shirley, making a note.
‘I'm just going over there now, to see Tom Rigby. I'll drop into the machine shop on my way.’
‘Right,’ says Shirley, with a knowing smile. Vic's frequent but unpredictable visits to the shop floor are notorious.
Robyn's student, Marion Russell, wearing a long, shapeless black overcoat and carrying a plastic holdall, hurriedly enters a large building in the commercial centre of Rummidge and asks the security man at the desk for directions. The man asks to see inside her bag and grins at the contents. He motions her towards the lift . She takes the lift to the seventh floor and walks along a carpeted corridor until she comes to a room whose door is slightly ajar. The noise of men talking and laughing and the sound of champagne corks popping filter out into the corridor. Marion Russell stands at the threshold and peeps cautiously round the edge of the door, surviving the arrangement of people and furniture as a thief might case a property for ease of entry and swiftness of escape. Satisfied, she retraces her steps until she comes to a Ladies' cloakroom. In the mirror over the washbasin she applied pancake makeup, lipstick and eyeliner, and combs her hair. Then she locks herself in one of the cubicles, puts her bag on the toilet seat, and takes out the tools of her trade: a red satin basque with suspenders attached, a pair of black lace panties, black fishnet stockings and shiny high-heeled shoes.
‘The writers of the industrial novels were never able to resolve in fictional terms the ideological contradictions inherent in their own situation in society. At the very moment when they were writing about these problems, Marx and Engels were writing seminal texts in which the political solutions were expounded.
But the novelists had never heard of Marx and Engels - and if they had heard of them and their ideas, they would probably have recoiled in horror, perceiving the threat to their own privileged position. For all their dismay at the squalor and exploitation generated by industrial capitalism, the novelists were in a sense capitalists themselves, profiting from a highly commercialized form of literary production.’
The campus clock begins to strike twelve, and its muffled notes are audible in the lecture theatre. The students stir restlessly in their seats, shuffling their paper and capping their pens. The springloaded clips of loose-leaf folders snap shut with a noise like revolver shots. Robyn hastens to her conclusion.
‘Unable to contemplate a political solution to the social problems they described in their fiction, the industrial novelists could only offer narrative solutions to the personal dilemmas of their characters. And these narrative solutions are invariably negative or evasive. In Hard Time the victimized worker Stephen Blackpool dies in the odour of sanctity. In Mary Barton the working-class heroine and her husband go off to the colonies to start a new life. Kingsley's Alton Locke emigrates after his disillusionment with Chartism, and dies shortly after. In Sybil, the humble heroine turns out to be an heiress and is able to marry her well-meaning aristocratic lover without compromising the class system, and a similar stroke of good fortune resolves the love stories in Shirley and North and South. Although the heroine of George Eliot's Felix Holt renounces her inheritance, it is only so that she can marry the man she loves. In short, all the Victorian novelist could offer as a solution to the problems of industrial capitalism were: a legacy, a marriage, emigration or death.’
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P644-646
As Robyn Penrose is winding up her lecture, and Vic Wilcox is commencing his tour of the machine shop, Philip Swallow returns from a rather tiresome meeting of the Arts Faculty Postgraduate Studies Committee (which wrangled for two hours about the proposed revision of a clause in the PhD regulations and then voted to leave it unchanged, an expenditure of time that seemed all the more vain since there are scarcely any new candidates for the PhD in arts subjects anyway these days) to find a rather disturbing message from the Vice-Chancellor's office.
His secretary Pamela reads it off her memo pad: ‘The VC's PA rang to say could they have your nomination for the Industry Year Shadow Scheme.’
‘What in God's name is that?’
Pamela shrugs. ‘I don't know. I've never heard of it. Shall I ring Phyllis Cameron and ask her?
‘No, no, don't do that,’ says Philip Swallow, nervously fingering his beardless chin. ‘Last resort. Don't want to make the Arts Faculty look incompetent, We're in enough trouble already.
‘I'm sure I never saw a letter about it,’ says Pamela defensively.
‘No, no, my fault, I'm sure.’
It is. Philip Swallow finds the VC's memorandum, its envelope still unopened, at the bottom of his In-tray, trapped between the pages of a brochure for Bargain Winter Breaks in Belgium which he had picked up from a local travel agency some weeks ago. His casual treatment of this missive is not entirely surprising, since its external appearance hardly conveys an idea of its august addresser. The brown manila envelope, originally dispatched to the University by an educational publishing firm, whose name and address, printed on the top left-hand corner, has been partially defaced, is creased and tattered. It has already been used twice for the circulation of internal mail and resealed by means of staples and Sellotape.
‘Sometimes I think the VC takes his economy drive a little too far,’ says Philip, gingerly extracting the stenciled memorandum from its patched and disintegrating container. The document is dated 1su December 1985. ‘Oh dear,’ says Philip, sinking into his swivel seat to read it. Pamela reads it with him, peering over his shoulder.
From: The Vice-Chancellor To: Deans of all Faculties
Subject: INDUSTRY YEAR SHADOW SCHEME
As you are no doubt aware, 1986 has been designated Industry Year by the Government. The DES, through the UGC, have urged the CVCP to ensure that universities throughout the UK -
‘He does love acronyms, doesn't he,’ Philip murmurs.
‘What?’ says Pamela.
‘All these initials,’ says Philip.
‘It's supposed to save paper and typing time,’ says Pamela. ‘We had a memo round about it. Acrowhatsits to be used whenever possible in University correspondence.’
- make a special effort in the coming year to show themselves responsive to the needs of industry, both in terms of collaboration in research and development, and the provision of well-trained and well-motivated graduates for recruitment to industry.
A working party was set up last July to advise on this University's contribution to IY, and one of its recommendations, approved by Senate at its meeting on November 18th, is that each Faculty should nominate a member of staff to ‘shadow’ some person employed at senior management level in local manufacturing industry, nominated through CRUM, in the course of the winter term.
‘I don't remember it coming up at the meeting of Semate,’ says Philip. ‘Must have been passed without discussion. What's CRUM?’
‘Confederation of Rummidge Manufacturers?’ Pamela hazarded.
‘Could be. Good try, Pam.’
There is a widespread feeling in the country that universities are ‘ivory tower’ institutions, whose staff are ignorant of the realities of the modern commercial world. Whatever the justice of prejudice, it is important in the present economic climate that we should do our utmost to dispel it. The SS will advertise our willingness to inform ourselves about the needs of industry.
‘The SS? Got his own stormtroopeqs, now, has he, the VC?’
‘I think it stands for Shadow Scheme,’ says Pamela.
‘Yer, I'm afraid you're right.’
A shadow, as the name implies, is someone who follows another person about all day as he goes about his normal work. In this way a genuine, inward understanding of that work is obtained by the shadow, which could not be obtained by a simple briefing or organized visit. Ideally, the shadow should spend an uninterrupted week or fortnight with his opposite number, but if that is impracticable, a regular visit of one day a week throughout the term would be satisfactory. Shadows will be asked to write a short report of what they have learned at the end of the exercise.
Action: Nominations to reach the VC's office by Wednesday, 8th January, 1986.
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P646-647
‘Oh dear,’ says Philip Swallow, once more, when he has finished reading the memorandum.
Anxiety makes him want to pee. He hurries to the Male Staff toilet and finds Rupert Sutcliffe and Bob Busby already ensconced at the three-stall urinal.
‘Ah, well met,’ says Philip, taking his place between them. In front of his nose dangler hexagonal rubber handle suspended from a chain, installed a year or earlier when the University removed all automatic flushing systems from its men's cloakrooms as an economy measure. Someone in the Works and Buildings Department, haunted by the thought of these urinals gushing pointlessly at regular intervals all through the hours of darkness, Sundays and public holidays, had hit on this means of reducing the University's water rate. ‘I need a volunteer,’ says Philip, and briefly explains the Shadow Scheme.
‘Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid,’ says Rupert Sutcliffe. ‘What are you laughing at, Swallow?’
‘Cup of pee. Very good, Rupert, I musa admit.’
‘Tea. I said cup of tea,’ says Rupert Sutcliffe frostily. Traiping round a factory all day is not mine. I can't think of anything more wearisome.‘ Buttoning up his fly (Sutcliffe's trousers date back to that era, and look it) he retreats to the washbasins on the other side of the room.
‘Bob, what about you?’ says Philip, swivelling his head in the opposite direction. Bob Busby had also concluded his business at the urinal, but is adjusting his dress with a great deal of fumbling and knee-flexing, as if his member is of such majestic size that it can be coax back into his Y-fronts only with the greatest difficulty.
‘Quite impossible this term, Philip. With all extra AUT work on top of everything else.’ Bob Busby stretches out a hand in front of Philip's face and pulls the chain. The cistern flushes, sending a fine spray over Philip's shoes and trousers bottoms, and the swinging handle released by Busby hits him on the nose. The protocol of chain-pulling in multiple-occupancy urinals has not been thought through by the Works and Building Department.
‘Who shall I nominate then?’ says Philip Swallow plaintively. ‘I've got to have a name by 4.30 this afternoon. There isn't time to consult other Departments.’
‘Why not do it yourself?’ Rupert Sutcliffe suggests.
‘Don't be absurd. With all the work I have as Dean?’
‘Well, the whole idea is pretty absurd,’ says Sutcliffe. ‘What has the Faculty of Arts to do with Industry Year, or Industry Year to do with the Faculty of
Arts?’
‘I wish you'd put that question to the Vice-chancellor, Rupert,’ says Philip. ‘What has the FA to do with IY, or IY with the FA?’
‘I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.’
‘Just my little joke,’ says Philip to Sutcliffe's departing back. ‘Not much to joke about when you're Dean of sweet FA,’ he continues to Bob Busby, who is carefully combing his hair in the mirror. ‘It's responsibility without power. You know, I ought to be able to order one of you to do this shadow nonsense.’
‘You can't,’ says Bob Busby smugly. ‘Not without asking for nominations and holding a Department meeting to discuss it first.’
‘I know, and there isn't time.’
‘Why don't you ask Robyn Penrose?’
‘The most junior member of the Department? Surely it wouldn't - ’
‘It's right up her street.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course - her book on the Victorian industrial novel.’
‘Oh, that. It's hardly the same ... Still, it's a thought, Bob.’
Nice Work (3) - David Lodge P647-649
Later that day, much later, when Shirley and the other office staff have gone home, and Vic sits alone in the administration block, working in his darkened office by the light of a single lamp, he gets a call from Stuart Baxter.
‘You've heard about Industry Year, Vic?’
‘Enough to know it's a waste of time and money.’
‘I'm inclined to agree with you. But the Board feels that we've got to go along with it. Good PR for the Group, you know. Our Chairman is dead keen. I've been asked to coordinate initiatives - ’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Vic cuts in impatiently.
‘I was coming to that, Vic. You know what a shadow is, don't you?’
When Stuart Baxter has finished telling him, Vic says: ‘No way.’
‘Why not, Vic?’
‘I don't want some academic berk following me about all day.’
‘It's only one day a week, Vic, for a few weeks.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you're the most dynamic MD in the division. We want to show them the best.’
Vic knows this compliment is totally insincere, but he has no wish to disown it. It could be useful to remind Stuart Baxter of it some time in the future.
‘I'll think about it,’ he says.
‘Sorry, Vic. I've go tie it up now. Seeing the Chairman tonight at a function.’
‘Left it a bit late, haven't you?’
‘To tell you the truth, my secretary fucked up. Lost the letter.’
‘Oh yes?’ says Vic sceptically.
‘I'd be very grateful if you'd co-operate.’
‘You mean it's an order?’
‘Don't be silly, Vic. We're not in the Army.’
Vic keeps Baxter in suspense for a few moments, while he seviews the advantages of having him under an obligation. ‘About that automatic core blower ... ’
‘Send me a Capex and I'll run it the flagpole.’
‘Thanks,’ says Vic. ‘Will do.’
‘And the other?’
‘All right.’
‘Great! The name of your shadow is Dr Robyn Penrose.’
‘A medic?’
‘No.’
‘Not a shrink, for Christ's sake?’
‘No, I understand he's a lecturer in English Literature.’
‘English what?’
‘Don't know much else about him - only got the message this afternoon.’
‘Jesus wept.’
Stuart Baxter chuckles. ‘Read any good books lately, Vic?’
