Read by David Mildon
Alex stared out of the window. He had given up both his seat – to a waiting old lady – and his attempt to read his neighbour’s newspaper over his shoulder. The train stopped and Alex started. Good grief! This was his station.
“I have a very important meeting today,” he said to no one in particular as they waited for the train doors to open.
Off the train he went and across the platform. Then down, down, down into the darkness of the underground. Gaps minded, doors closed, eyes avoided and so he arrived. The receptionist received him.
“I need a photo of you, for the pass. And don’t smile, it upsets people.”
Alex tried on a suitably serious expression. “Like this?”
“Don’t talk. Stand there.” She pointed at a spot. “What’s that?" she exclaimed.
Alex reddened and covered the pimple with his hand.
The receptionist peered up at him. “That’s no good. No good at all. We’ve lost the top of your head; bend down a little.” The camera was adjusted up, Alex down. “No, no, no! Now you’re too short. I can only see the top of your head. Up, up.” Alex ascends. “Too tall. Down!” He cocked a knee and affected a part curtsey. “Up!” He added tip-toes to his curtsey and a grimace to his expression. The camera clicked. “Well, really. I don’t know why you needed to make that quite so difficult.”
The receptionist handed him his pass. Alex considered it. It was an unlikely portrait, looking nothing like the face he had left at home in the mirror that morning. Beneath the face, a name: ‘Bonnie’.
“Thank you,” he offered, taking the pass and, with it, his leave.
*
Alex rode an escalator into the heart of Head Office. Arriving at a grand concourse, he found himself caught among a chaotic crowd. “Oh dear,” he thought. “How will I find my way with all of these people coming and going in all directions?”
It was at that moment that a flash of high visibility jacket caught Alex’s eye.
“Who are you?” asked the man in the high visibility jacket, as Alex dabbed at his freshly red and watering eye with a sleeve. “Where are you going?”
“I hardly know, sir. I have a very important meeting today but I fear I have been turned around and now I don’t know where I am at all.”
“Well good luck with that. Off you go.”
Alex did not consider this to be particularly helpful. “But how do I get through this crowd?” he asked.
“It is very simple. You walk on the left when you’re going away from us and on the right when you’re coming back. You have to have a system.”
Alex looked at the confusion of workers bumping into each other in front of him and decided to try a nearby door instead.
Stepping inside, Alex found himself in a large open-plan office, with desks lined up in row after row, reaching out across the room. To his surprise he saw that only three were occupied. Behind two of them, two ladies sat. Beneath a third, a small man in a brown suit was gently snoring.
“Can we help?” asked the first lady as Alex approached.
“I am here for a meeting,” explained Alex.
“In which case we can,” beamed the lady. “Hattie, would you please meet this young man?”
The second lady rose from her desk and began to introduce herself. “It is very nice to meet you,” she mumbled.
Alex raised an apologetic hand to stop her, which she immediately took hold of and began shaking enthusiastically.
“No, I’m sorry; you have it all mixed up. I am here for a meeting – one that’s already been arranged – with some very important people.” She let go of his hand and sat down again looking rather put out. “What I mean to say is –“
“What you say is mean, whether it is what you mean to say or not,” said the first lady, cutting Alex off in mid flow. “And you have upset poor Hattie. Would you like to see my cat?”
“I’m sorry?” he replied, confused.
“Why, what have you done?” she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“But I haven’t done anything,” he explained.
“Then why are you sorry? You shouldn’t go around apologising to people for no reason. It’s very bad manners. Have you seen my Dinner?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re doing it again. Hattie, he has such terrible manners; whatever shall we do?”
Hattie shook her head at him disapprovingly. The first lady picked up a photo frame from her desk and turned it towards Alex. Inside the frame was a photo of an enormously fat cat. “Here she is, my Dinner.”
“How strange,” exclaimed Alex. “Why would you call a cat Dinner?”
She bristled at this and said, in decidedly defensive tones, “It is really not a very unusual name for a cat. No, not at all. Every night we would call her In For Dinner and every night she came, as eager as anything. Our little In For Dinner. Dinner for short.”
“I see,” said Alex, although he was not entirely sure that he did.
“What do you see?” asked the lady.
“Your cat?” he tried.
“My cat?” The two ladies spun around in their seats and began looking about the office, under desks and in drawers. “Where? Where did you see my cat?” In their excitement they woke the small man in the brown suit, who rubbed his eyes, glared at a clock, gave a small shriek of dismay and dove straight under the desk in front. Almost immediately, Alex could hear snoring again.
“Look I am very sorry, but I do have to get to my meeting. It is very important.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “Is that the correct time?” he asked in a panic, for the hands were far too far around the face for his liking.
The first lady poked her head out from behind a filing cabinet. “It was, but it isn’t any more. It will be once again though, if you care to wait.”
Alex sighed. This wasn’t helping him get to his meeting. He looked around the office; there were clocks all along the wall. “None of these clocks have the same time,” he complained.
“There’s no need to tell us that. You have no idea what it is like to have to work here. It really is rather tiring trying to keep up with the clocks.” She pointed to the clock at the end of the room. “That one there is correct first thing in the morning, and this one here is correct at ten past ten. The one above the water fountain is right just about lunchtime and we always end the day by that clock over there.”
Alex turned to follow her pointing finger to a clock with its hands fixed at five to five.
She giggled. “It means we always get to leave a little early. You won’t tell anyone will you?”
She had disappeared back behind the cabinet before Alex had a chance to reply. He turned quickly for the door, leaving the ladies to their search and their colleague to his slumber.
*
He found himself once again in the concourse. “Finally, some luck,” he thought as he spotted, at the far end of the building, his Manager. “I might actually get to my meeting at last.”
He shouldered his way through the crowd, apologising as he went. His Manager was a tall man, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, and this allowed Alex to pick him out from a distance. Up close Alex found that he loomed even larger, but that was perspective for you.
“Hello sir,” said Alex when he finally reached him. His Manager looked around him in lofty confusion. “Down here sir,” he continued, waving a hopeful hand above his head. “I’m here for the meeting.”
“Of course. Yes. Well, at any rate, you’re late. And at the rate you arrived at, you’re even later. So come on, come on.” He hurried Alex along a corridor and into a meeting room.
Inside, chairs had been laid out surrounding a table – upon which sat a plate of cakes and a dozen or more teacups – and, in one, sat the Company Director, looking very unhappy. Alex and his Manager rushed forward and helped her out of the teacup and into a chair, whereupon she immediately perked up.
“There’s trouble brewing,” she began, before noticing Alex. “And who are you?” she enquired.
Alex’s Manager peered at his badge. “He’s Bonnie,” he said.
“Isn’t he?” she squeaked and ruffled Alex’s hair with her hand.
“It’s actually Alex,’ explained Alex. ‘There was a mix up with the receptionist.”
“Ah, I see. The receptionist is Bonnie.”
“I’m not so sure about that actually, she seemed a little brusque to me,” said Alex, in rueful remembrance.
“Well this has been instructional, thank you for coming.” She started to get up from the table.
“But what about our presentation?” Alex was surprised to find that it was his voice that had uttered those words. “Sorry,” he mumbled quickly.
“You’re fired!” cried the Company Director. “And you can’t have a cake.” She picked up the largest slice of cake from the plate and began to work her way through it. Alex stayed exactly where he was, not entirely sure what he should do. “Well?” she spluttered eventually, sending a shower of crumbs across the room. “Get on with it then. Present!”
Alex cleared his throat and began. “Today, we would like to talk to you about –”
“No, no, no! This is a terrible present. Try again, and do better or you’re fired.”
Alex looked around desperately. He picked up the plate of cakes. “Would you like a cake?” he asked.
The Company Director smiled a big smile and took a piece of cake from the pile. “That would be lovely,” she said, stuffing the cake into her mouth. She picked up a pad of paper and handed it to Alex. “Put this down,” she instructed.
Alex grabbed the pad and took out a pen, poised to note down the next thing the Company Director should say.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Put it down!” cried the Company Director in agitation, and she began pounding the table with her fist. “Put it down! Put it down! Put it down!”
Alex hurriedly dropped the pad of paper onto the table, where it upset the teacups, the stack of cakes and, most worryingly of all, the Company Director.
“I have had enough! You’re fired!”
“But you can’t fire me,” spluttered Alex, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I can and I will and I am,” cried the Company Director. “Be gone, Bonnie. Be gone.”
“My name’s not Bonnie, it’s not, it’s not, it’s –“
*
Alex awoke with a start. He looked around and was surprised to find himself safely back inside the train carriage. “What a curious dream,” he thought as he looked out of the window, trying to work out where he was.
He turned to his neighbour, half-hidden behind an enormous newspaper. “Do you have the time?” he enquired.
“Just a quarter to nine,” replied the newspaper.
“Oh thank you,” said Alex. “Plenty of time still. After all, I wouldn’t want to be late; I have a very important meeting today.”
The white rabbit put down his paper and looked at his travelling companion. “Goodness me,” he thought. “Some people are always in a hurry.”
(c) Jon Stubbington, 2015
Jon Stubbington is swapping numbers for words, turning his back on a degree in mathematics and a career in financial services to write stories. He lives on the edge of a moor in Devon, which is not as poetic as it sounds. You can also find him at www.recycledwords.co.uk
David Mildon (left) is an actor and playwright and was a founding member of Liars' League. His stories “Worms’ Feast” and “Red” were performed at Liars' League and appeared in Arachne Press anthologies London Lies and Weird Lies. In 2015 his play The Flood was produced at the Hope Theatre, Islington and short plays Second Skin and Either/Or were performed at Theatre 503.
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