‘Our level?’
‘Well,’ grinned MacDonald, ‘not quite Brother; but no too far away.’
‘I move we put in for twenty!’ declared Tam, rising to his feet.
‘Jesus Christ!’ muttered the Chairman.
‘Tam there’s no chance. Waste of bloody time!’ cried the Shop Steward.
‘Well fifteen. .’ Tam paused. ‘We ask for twenty we’ll definitely get fifteen.’
The Chairman struck a match and relit his long-dead pipe. He spoke quietly to the Acting Secretary, seemingly without any interest in the current discussion.
‘Anybody second that motion?’ asked the Shop Steward hopelessly, after a moment.
‘Aye me!’ said Tam’s neighbour, rising and standing shoulder to elbow with his tall friend.
MacDonald hesitated.
‘Brothers,’ said the Chairman at last, ‘this has been gone into very carefully. We are asking fifteen and that’s that. Waste of time asking more. Let’s wait and see what happens through at Kilmarnock first eh?’
A few of the members nodded their agreement.
‘Think you should withdraw the motion,’ stated the Chairman after a short pause.
‘Aye,’ agreed Tam’s neighbour without hesitation.
Tam sat down shaking his head in disgust.
* * *
‘What about this business about the apprentice?’ asked a man in the front row.
The Chairman turned to Brother Reilly who quickly explained the facts to him.
‘It’s out of order that one of the clerks has only to open his mouth and the boy’s hauled up in front of the manager,’ continued the man.
‘Well he shouldn’t have swore at him in the first place Brother,’ said the Shop Steward.
‘Ach it’s out of order.’
‘He shouldn’t have been in their toilet in the first place,’ said the Chairman.
‘Christ he had the runs! What’s he supposed to do?’
‘That’s right he couldn’t wait,’ said a voice from the back.
‘He only got a warning. .’
‘I’ll speak to the manager,’ remarked the Shop Steward.
‘Says they’ve got towels in there,’ grumbled old Sammy.
‘Anyway,’ said the Chairman, ‘that’s it?’
‘What about a games room or something, snooker or something?’ asked Tam.
‘Well!’ called the Chairman.
‘I move that we try again to get a snooker table,’ affirmed Tam.
‘I second that motion Brother,’ said the Acting Secretary.
The Chairman looked at his watch before saying: ‘Nothing else then?’
‘I could do with a pint,’ said the Shop Steward, shuffling his sheaves of foolscap paper as he rose to his feet.
‘A minute!’ cried Willie in a voice two octaves higher than usual.
Dougie rubbed his hands together and lowered himself further down in his seat.
‘Well Brother?’ called the Shop Steward. The Chairman was knocking his pipe bowl out, against his shoe.
‘About the Bill. The second reading takes place at the end of the week and if nothing worthwhile is done quickly it will be passed through without any opposition worth talking about.’
A murmur travelled through the room. The Shop Steward sat down heavily.
‘What’s he talking about?’ asked someone.
‘When did he start in the job?’ asked another.
‘Never get a pint now,’ muttered Brother Reilly.
‘You mean THE “Bill”?’ queried the Chairman.
‘Of course,’ replied Willie. ‘As far as I can ascertain there have been no individual points raised, neither has the “Bill” as a whole ever been discussed — at any of your branch meetings.’
Someone at the back laughed. Old Sammy shuffled up the passageway and out, quietly closing the door behind him.
‘He’s a student!’ confirmed someone at the back.
‘Well son,’ explained the Shop Steward, ‘naturally we don’t like it but it has to get done. I mean it had to come.’
‘What’s it all about?’ asked Tam.
‘It means one cannot strike unofficially, for one thing,’ said Willie.
‘That right?’ Tam said to the table.
‘Well. . aye,’ answered the Shop Steward, ‘but all it means is our strikes’ll all be official from now on.’ He rolled a cigarette.
‘For example,’ persisted Willie, ‘if you were to decide to strike because the management refused to meet your demands for adequate toilet paper, and the union would neither support nor back your action, you could be jailed.’
‘What!’
‘What was that?’
‘Okay son,’ commented the Chairman. Turning to Tam he said, ‘He’s talking nonsense. The management are giving us the paper anyway.’
‘I didn’t know anything about it,’ insisted Tam glaring around the room.
‘It’s on sale at the Post Office,’ someone shouted from the back.
‘But Brother what’s this about the jail for striking?’ asked an elderly man sitting in the front row.
‘Nobody’s getting the jail for striking!’ cried the exasperated Chairman.
‘Unless any of you take unofficial action,’ added Willie.
‘Right son that’s it finished. They’ve taken this decision at Headquarters and that’s it. It’s ultra vires!’
‘I am surprised the matter has not been discussed. .’
‘Okay kid it’s finished,’ said the Acting Secretary. ‘It’s just politics anyway.’
‘So if there’s nothing else Brothers. .?’
‘I don’t know the score here about all this,’ said Tam.
‘Get it at any Post Office; been on sale for weeks,’ the Shop Steward said quickly as he closed his briefcase.
‘Aye okay.’ Tam hitched up his trousers then pointed a finger at him.
‘You remember and see the manager about that bloody canteen.’
‘Aye, don’t worry about that Tam. I’ll go and see the bastard first thing in the morning.’
‘Right then.’ He nodded down to his neighbour and they strode purposefully from the room.
‘Be lucky to catch a pint,’ they heard Tam’s neighbour say.
‘Right Brothers I think we’ll wind it up here.’ The Chairman stood up and the other committee members filed down the passageway after him.
‘Should come for a drink with us son,’ said the Chairman, pausing as he passed Willie’s row. ‘Eh Gus?’
‘Aye son, we like a good argument,’ said the Shop Steward.
‘As long as it’s no about religion,’ affirmed the Chairman. ‘OK then lads? See you tomorrow.’
When everyone had left the room Dougie turned to his companion and hooted derisively.
Willie scratched his head.
This Morning
Sam pulled on his boots and laced them, then lay back in the old armchair. It was too early yet. The newspaper bundles would hardly have arrived so there was no point in leaving for a while. He stared up at his books which were arranged in alphabetical order on the wooden shelves he had built a couple of years ago. Nowadays he looked up at them more than he read them. Perhaps he would take a walk up the jumble sale on Saturday, see if there was anything doing.
He sighed deeply, aware of the phlegm rumble in his chest. He pulled himself up from the chair and filled the kettle. A hell of an amount of tea passed through him these days. He shook his head and opened the tobacco tin to roll a cigarette; then returned to his chair and tore a strip from yesterday’s paper, and got a light from the fire. Choking on the first drag Sam spat out some shreds of tobacco onto the grate. He ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth. It tasted vaguely of whisky. He had had none for a month.
The kettle whistled and he jumped up from the armchair, and turned the gas off. He rinsed out the tea pot and hand-measured the tea into it before pouring in the boiling water. He placed the pot on the fire surround to infuse.