Acts & Monuments

by Alan Kane Fraser

  And, as he approached the imposing steps leading up to the entrance, Barry couldn’t help feeling that they were right. One hundred and thirty years on, it was still there, standing tall and proud as a symbol of all that a city could be, whilst all around it the later, more egalitarian buildings of the 1950s and 60s, for which Birmingham was famous, had come and gone. No one remembered with any great fondness the tower blocks that had brought gas, electricity, running water and inside toilets to the masses, despite the ostensibly more humane instincts that had inspired them. Meanwhile, the monuments to elitism erected by an earlier age remained a source of pride to an impoverished city that might logically have been expected to see them as hateful symbols of the oppression of the poor. Like a lot of things, Barry couldn’t explain it, but he knew that it was true.

  As he entered the museum and art gallery, he felt as though he was literally entering a different world – the world that it inhabited was a different moral universe to the one apparently occupied by Snow Hill station, just a few hundred metres away. Things that might have seemed audacious, bordering on the absurd, only a few minutes ago whilst he was sitting in the car park – that humanity had the capacity for genuine goodness, that the pursuit of understanding of our place in the universe was noble, and that the design of buildings and how they made you feel was as important, if not more so, than their mere functionality – here, surrounded by the delicately worked cornices and majestic Corinthian capitals of the Classical school, suddenly achieved a degree of reasonableness.

  Yet something had happened in the intervening years that had made buildings like this no longer feel possible. The stone at the entrance read proudly “By the gains of Industry we promote Art”, and, reading it, Barry felt a sense of what it was that might have changed. It was not advances in building technology that had rendered such buildings redundant, but a loss of faith in ordinary people’s ability to acknowledge a greater purpose to their daily toil than simply the accumulation of material wealth.

  Barry was a man of simple tastes, so he felt no guilt about sauntering past the world-famous The Blind Girl (John Everett Millais, 1856) and Proserpine (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882), and heading straight toward the less ostentatious pleasures of L.S. Lowry.

  Barry liked Lowry, though more because of his story than because of his art. Famously, Lowry had been a rent collector for The Pall Mall Property Company, and so Barry liked to think of him as, in some way, a kindred spirit.

  An Industrial Town (1944) was not regarded as one of Lowry’s major works, but it did contain all the familiar elements for which Lowry became famous: smokestacks belching out filth; dark, satanic mills; and, of course, the ‘matchstick’ figures that became his trademark, scurrying about in the shadow of the bleak industrial landscape. Barry preferred it to the ostensibly better-drafted and executed Pre-Raphaelite stuff, with which the museum and art gallery was perhaps over endowed, because it seemed to confront you with reality rather than offering you an escape from it. Instead of all those beautiful redheads with alabaster skin, staring into the middle distance whilst holding a lute, Lowry painted real people going about their ordinary lives.

  His style was often described as naïve, but actually Barry had come to feel there was a brutality to Lowry’s pictures that was far more sophisticated than the superficially more meaningful pictures of the Brotherhood. Lowry didn’t flinch from the realities of life or pretend that things were other than what they seemed. Life was not fragrant, or mystical or pregnant with meaning; it was simply tough. No one looked up in Lowry’s paintings; everyone was hunched over, staring at the ground, as if beaten down by life. And they were all faceless; anonymous bodies in a vast swarm of humanity, scurrying to and fro to nowhere very significant.

  It punctured Barry’s euphoria and made him melancholy because, whilst the smokestacks and mills may have gone, he sensed that this was the story of his life too.

  It was all done through perspective, of course; Barry realised that. In classical paintings, perspective meant that the picture was composed in such a way as to create a single vanishing point. That vanishing point was traditionally understood to be the eye of God. So everything had a significance because it was all arranged in relation to the divine. Lowry, however, in common with most twentieth-century painters, didn’t bother with perspective – it was one of the reasons critics often described his compositions as ‘childish’. But maybe he was childlike; maybe he just refused to see things that weren’t there and painted the pure, unvarnished truth. Perhaps there was no ultimate significance into which all things vanished. Perhaps our sufferings were just sufferings and have no more significance than that. Perhaps the innominate figures were intended as a warning: “This is what you are – what we all are.”

  Barry felt, in that moment, as if Lowry was reaching out across the decades and painting just for him.

  At which point his phone rang.

  “Sorry,” said Barry, to no one in particular whilst rummaging to get the phone out of his pocket.

  It was Lauren. Her train had got in and she was waiting, somewhat irritated, at the station.

  “Sorry Lol. I lost track of the time. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Your mother’s looking forward to seeing you… Obviously, I’m looking forward to seeing you too. Sorry.”

  And, with that, he hurriedly left behind the melancholy of Lowry’s vision of the world and returned to the altogether different melancholy of Birmingham Snow Hill station; Yeoville Thomason’s soaring vision of humanity soon just a distant memory.

  Nine

  She was different. Even in the four short weeks that she’d been away, Barry could see a difference in her. It wasn’t just about how she looked (although she did seem to have lost a bit of weight) but how she spoke and acted; how she was. Her face had acquired a certain youthful swagger and indifference to her surroundings, as though the city were no longer her home, just a useful stopping off point on her way to somewhere altogether more interesting.

  “Where’s Mum?”

  “She’s at home, tidying up,” said Barry as he led the way back to his car, “but she’s looking forward to seeing you. I’ll take you back now for some lunch, then you and your mum can come back into town for some shopping this afternoon.”

  “You not coming with us?” asked Lauren, her attention fixed firmly on the screen of her smartphone.

  “Nah. Your mum thought you needed some mother-daughter bonding time together.”

  “God, we’ve done nothing but bond since I left! I swear she’s stalking me on social media.”

  “She misses you. She’s not used to it just being the two of us.”

  “Yeah, plenty of opportunities for husband-and-wife bonding time now I’m not there, eh Dad?” said Lauren, nudging her father’s arm and chuckling.

  Barry didn’t chuckle.

  “Anyway, she’s looking forward to having you back for the weekend,” he said.

  “I know; she keeps telling me. I must have had a dozen texts last night and the same this morning, just checking I was still coming. I can’t understand it – she was never this keen to see me when I lived with you.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, do you? And after what happened with your brother…”

  They continued their walk back to the car in silence. Barry was desperate to break it, not because he had anything to say, but because he could feel it growing between them awkwardly, like a balloon being inflated that might burst at any moment.

  Lauren was greeted at the door by a long hug from her mum. It was the kind of hug parents gave when they re-found their child after momentarily thinking that they’d lost them in a shopping centre. But Lauren was turning into a young woman. Barry noticed it throughout the twenty-four hours or so she spent at home before returning to Warwick. He rather liked it.

  His wife, in contrast, clearly hated it. The fact that
Lauren was no longer their little girl disconcerted her. It was as if a pet dog had suddenly decided that she didn’t need her owner to feed her anymore.

  Barry’s wife had a simple solution to every difficulty: food. Food, to her, was a soothing balm that could be administered to any wound. It was why she and Barry were both quite large. It was something of a bone of contention between her and Lauren, however, and, having apparently had something of a ruckus whilst they were out shopping together over the necessity or otherwise of having a cinnamon swirl with their coffee, she had decided to give up on the food angle and instead attempted to demonstrate her affection for her daughter by what Lauren took to be ‘fussing’. And she asked questions – oh so many questions – about the course, about the people she’d met, about her halls of residence, about possible or actual boyfriends, about the fastidiousness of the cleaners and, of course, about the prevalence of drugs.

  So, there had been conversations; small, apparently ordinary ones. But, in a house that still echoed with the howl of a death, they felt to Barry like evasions; cascades of words with no other purpose than to give the three of them something to do instead of screaming in pain.

  Barry sensed Lauren’s frustration pushing carefully against every word she uttered, every door she closed, every mug she put down, until finally, it tumbled out in a loud and rather dramatic argument after Sunday lunch, ostensibly about Lauren’s alcohol intake. The atmosphere seemed broken, like a smashed plate, which prompted Barry to take himself upstairs until he was called down by Lauren to take her back to the station.

  Barry looked into her eyes as he said goodbye on the platform, searching them for the answer to a question he couldn’t articulate.

  “You all right, Dad? Your face looks funny.”

  Barry tried to remember what his normal face looked like, but the memory of it was lost in the briars and brambles of his sorrow.

  Ten

  Monday started with yet another email from Angela, this one advising everybody that Maxine had decided that it was time for her “to pursue new and exciting career opportunities elsewhere” and that, therefore, she would be leaving Monument with immediate effect. The email had ended with “I’m sure colleagues will wish to join me in wishing her well for the future”, which, under the circumstances, felt somewhat disingenuous at best. But, as Jean had pointed out, it was just the way these things had to be handled.

  But then Barry saw another email – this one from Langley: “I’ve just been told by Ruth that she’s stopped the finance team issuing any more invoices until they’ve sorted out their bank account rationalisation. Please tell me that you managed to get The SHYPP’s invoice out before she put a stop to everything. I think I was quite clear that we needed to get that one out ASAP!”

  Frankly, I might as well march myself to the exit door now, Barry thought.

  He pulled up an email from Saleema, which had a draft version of the invoice attached. Sure enough, it contained the figures that he had agreed with her, but, frustratingly, it also contained Monument’s old bank details. The thought occurred to Barry that he could post it out anyway with new payment details, and just include a note advising that they’d changed. But he didn’t know what the new payment details were, and it seemed unlikely that anyone in the finance team would offer to tell him if it meant that he would circumvent Ruth’s directive.

  Barry printed off the invoice to The SHYPP anyway. As he did so, he heard a familiar nasal whine behind him.

  “Barry, you can read my mind! I was just about to check where we were with The SHYPP invoice,” Langley said. “I certainly hope you got it out before the finance team put us all in lockdown,” he added with his now familiar undercurrent of menace.

  “It’s all in hand, Langley. I’m on the case.”

  “Glad to hear it. We don’t want any slip-ups, do we?” Langley said, with a slightly unnerving smile.

  “Oh, absolutely not, Langley.”

  “I was also just wondering if I could have a word with you… in my office?”

  Barry wondered if he ought to pack a few of his personal effects into a box first before making his way over. He thought better of it, but still checked nervously before entering to see if Angela was waiting for him. He was relieved to see that she wasn’t.

  “Barry,” Langley said, after the usual pleasantries had been exchanged. “We’ve got some challenges in the department at the moment, and I need your help, at least in the short term, to help us come through them.”

  This was said with the slightly forced bonhomie of a man who had been told how to present an unattractive proposition in a way that made it appear as though he was presenting an exciting opportunity. Barry guessed that the words had come from Angela. In any event, he was on his guard.

  “As you know, Maxine has decided to move on. Now that I’ve been asked to fill this position, it does leave us rather low on area managers. Given your experience, we thought you would be the obvious person to ask to cover Maxine’s team while we look to put some new management in place.” Langley attempted to muster a smile.

  “Well, thanks, Langley. It’s obviously flattering to be considered for an opportunity like this, and I’m always keen to help where I can, as you know…” Barry paused for a moment, unsure quite how to put what he wanted to say.

  Langley leant forward in anticipation.

  “It’s just that… I’m sorry, but I just wondered if… I wondered if there was any kind of additional remuneration… package… or something… Sorry.”

  Langley’s eyes quickly flicked down to some notes on his pad.

  “Well, as I’m sure you’re aware Barry, the business is facing some real financial challenges at the moment, so whilst we’d love to be able to offer you something, I’m afraid at this point we’ve just not got the headroom.”

  Barry’s heart sank. Even allowing for his never-failing politeness, how could they possibly have expected him to say yes? Langley’s next comment seemed to provide the answer.

  “Of course, with the VR trawl coming up, this should only be a very short-term arrangement. Only a couple of weeks. Probably.” Then his eyes narrowed and his forehead creased. “We’ll be looking at a longer-term solution when we know where we are.”

  Barry heard a very clear subtext to what Langley was saying. It wasn’t a promise that his VR application would be approved if he did this, rather it sounded like a thinly veiled threat of what might happen if he didn’t.

  Under the circumstances, Barry didn’t feel he could say anything other than yes, which he duly did. He even apologised for having asked about the extra money. As he did so, he reminded himself that it didn’t really matter because he would be gone in a few weeks anyway. Yet, even as he tried to force that thought to the forefront of his mind, a faint whisper reminded him that he was never more than an exec-team announcement away from heartbreak.

  Eleven

  As he returned to his desk, Barry’s thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.

  “Oh, hi Mr Todd. It’s PC Rathbone here. I was wondering if I could ask you a favour? I don’t suppose you have any CCTV at Neville Thompson House, do you?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a few cameras.”

  “Brilliant. So you can go back to the last evening that anyone was heard coming out of Chris Malford’s flat – two weeks last Thursday?”

  “Uh, yes, I guess so. I’m sorry, but do you mind me asking what this is about? It’s just that I was hoping to have had the keys back by now.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but the lady across the hall says she heard someone coming out and we just wanted to check if there was any footage of who that was. It might just help us to fill in some blanks if we knew.”

  Barry didn’t particularly want a late finish, but he was prepared to hang around if it meant that he would get the keys to flat twelve back quicker. On that basis, he agreed to PC Rathbone’s request.
When she arrived about an hour later, the footage from Neville Thompson House was available for her to view.

  “That’s great,” said Gemma appreciatively. “Can we go back two-and-a-half weeks and have a look at the Thursday please?”

  Barry whizzed through the footage of that fateful Thursday until it showed, in mid-evening, Chris Malford come up the stairs and make toward the door of his flat. Sure enough, alongside him was a companion: young, male and wearing a baseball cap that partially covered his face. As the figures stood at the door to flat twelve, both could be seen in profile, but Chris’ companion had kept his cap on and was standing at Chris’ shoulder, so was partly obscured.

  On the screen, Chris Malford unlocked the door of flat twelve and walked in. His companion followed him and finally removed his cap – just at the point where he crossed the threshold and therefore disappeared out of sight.

  “You might as well fast forward this bit,” Gemma said. “Just keep going until we see someone come out.”

  The footage whizzed forward. Occasionally, a neighbour would be seen going into or out of one of the other flats on the landing, but the door to flat twelve remained firmly closed; 8pm, 9pm, 10pm all came and went with no movement. And then, at 11.57pm, the door finally opened and a figure with a small, black rucksack emerged – this time without his baseball cap. His face still couldn’t quite be seen though, as he was looking downward. It appeared that he was stuffing something into his pocket.

  “Well, that explains why we couldn’t find Malford's wallet,” said Gemma, with just a hint of the world-weary cynicism that Barry had found so unattractive in her colleague.