‘That’s …’ Jon, still seated, was forced to look up at this creature, to appear in public being belittled and lectured at like a 1950s secretary — taunted by an oaf. ‘Unfortunate.’ His one hand was clenching, he couldn’t help it, but he thought he might still seem placid otherwise and he hadn’t — for example — taken up his fork like an angry trident and plunged it into that exposed leer of belly. His calm would count as one of the civil service’s many unsung and yet remarkable achievements.
‘And why are your owners worried, Sigurdsson? Nervy about the folks out there going all Glasgow on them? The public? No one really gives a shit. The worst I could tell the faithful reader is unbelievable, the best is tedious — all of it makes them feel they’ve been screwed over and who wants that? Nobody wants reminding they’ve been fucked. Are being fucked. That’s the Great British Public for you — like a Saturday-night housewife putting up with it, like a sad little slag lying back and hoping at least the boyfriend won’t wipe his dick on the nice new curtains. They spoil everything, your lot. They’ve put democracy right off its dinner. Whether the parties parachute more girls in, fanny about with the ethnic diversity, root down the back of the chaise longue and find a coherent pleb, no matter how many muddy pints they gurn behind and cheap snacks and ciggies they hold, how many like-minded freaks they gather … Whoever they put in the cast, they’re always just more of the same old show. Like those bargain buckets of chicken — shitty dead meat to start with and in the end it all tastes the same.’
‘You know that’s— You can’t simply dismiss—’
Milner loomed in and down, breathed hotly. ‘And you let them fuck you, too … You’re the closest, you’re their old lady, you’re Mum. Civil service … So you service ’em, don’t you? You’re another one of their shiny garage doors — IN CONSTANT USE.’ Another laugh rattled out, spattering lightly against Jon’s hair, as Milner swung his torso upwards again and then steered his combined weights towards the door.
His exit was not accompanied by an outpouring of affection from the room.
‘And again — no goodbye.’ Jon sipped his, by this time, cold cup of tea. His hands performed well while he did so, seemed almost completely reliable.
16:12
OH, FOR FUCKSAKE.
Jon was examining an on-screen document.
Shitting bloody Moses on a bike.
It suggested that anyone’s professional life, that anyone’s day-to-day activities, might actually involve ‘running a discovery’. And that was wrong. That was a wrong thing.
Run a discovery? You want me to run a discovery? You want anyone to run a disfuckingcovery?
This was the kind of thing that made sane parliamentary minds rejoice in the estate’s still-patchy Wi-Fi provision. Never mind if you couldn’t reach constituents, at least you could steer clear of this.
Page seven also contained reference to Fast Streams and the fact that GOV.ORG as a brand was able to harbour the belief that The Strategy is Delivery.
It’s zero content. We no longer deliver anything, we just have a strategy and the strategy isn’t a strategy — it’s delivery. We deliver an intention to deliver an intention to deliver. Why we don’t all suffer absurdity-related aneurysms is beyond me …
Another page — all of this is in a primary-school font, bloody children’s literature I’m reading here — posed the merry question: What Does This Mean For You?
I’ll tell you What This Means For Me, I’ll tell you — I won’t, but I could — I’ll tell you What This Means For Me. It means that you’re a moron who only knows how to use not-quite language to not-quite say anything, which is lucky for you, because you have fuck all to say. You’re a bloody Squid.
And what is a Squid, children? A Squid is a creature of darkness and the lower depths which renders all around it inky-murky at the least sign of unease. Then it buggers off and leaves you to deal with its squiddy problems.
My world is filled with Squids.
Jon considered his mobile: neat, sleek and inquisitive in his semi-dependable hand. He willed it to be helpful, to provide consolation. None was forthcoming. It was, no doubt, currently telling a number of entities where he was and where he’d been, what searches he’d performed, what preferences he had in various directions.
My preference is to be left bloody well alone.
He was being distracted by a number of factors besides the Squid.
I can’t comment on this shit: it’s from someone else’s people and I shouldn’t have to. I can’t say a thing. If I started I wouldn’t stop. If I could get every holder of an MBA into a burning warehouse … well, then that would be a wonderful thing.
No, no, it wouldn’t. That goes against every principle I still have — that I think I still have.
But one may dream, surely, indulge oneself — unwritten imaginings, no ink necessary.
Jon also had a sensation that might indicate a call from Chalice — or some other Nibelung — was on the way, enquiring about the conduct of Jon’s Milner-based liaison.
Then again, they’ll have had eyes in the pub. Chalice will enjoy asking for details and knowing that I know that he knows them already and that I also know that. Fuck.
I’m swearing a lot. Even internal swearing can show — Val could spot it. I should stop.
Beyond Jon’s desk, the office was fully functional and apparently placid. It was purring along, if not as it should in an ideal world, then certainly as it did on untroubled days. In as far as the departmental definition of Untroubled had been subject to mission creep, through time.
But it all looked fine. Staff members came and went like nicely phrased imaginings. He had a good team. They were engaged, as they should be, in building the long, long memory that any hope for common sense required: adding to an intelligence that could consider and extrapolate, that could govern effectively, that could underpin a civilisation. Jon would seem, on sweet days, to feel the threads of various, reliable, verifiable narratives winding about him as they flowed on and this would make him happy.
I believe in reality: in the trinity of here and now and me. Not in a messianic sense. I believe these three things are connected and should be connected. I believe in the rightness of doing right things and nothing more. Not much more. In this — where else? — I can exist.
The compulsory Sunday services at Jon’s school had removed any other faiths, inner and outer. He’d had a not unpleasant speaking voice, even then, and was often asked to deliver Bible readings. That’s when he’d first noticed that he echoed — inside and out. And it was when he’d first felt the betrayal inherent in passion, too: the aftermath of nausea and uncleanness after a psalm flared up and lit him, while still being quite meaningless. It wasn’t just him, either — the homilies and sermons offered by his betters had also echoed, split open and revealed their emptiness.
And the words of my betters echo still.
He thought about turning off his mobile.
Any text will be bad news. There’s no reason for anything lovely, not really. I do hope for better, or for opportunities to be of use. What I’ll get will very probably be Sansom having another go.
My phone is not here to help me — it’s just trying to guess how I might like to spend my money. It is purring along in its way. Somewhere in its workings, in its extended pattern of thoughts, there are plans to show me other and better shirts than the one I bought this morning — that and new, breathtaking ranges of corduroy.