The Virus Man

by Claire Rayner

  Edna buttoned her coat as slowly as she could, loitering deliberately by the doorway, hoping he’d come back this way, maybe, and she could just say, casually, ‘Oh, Dr Pitman, I’m glad I ran into you, could I just have a word?’

  She smoothed the cloth of her coat over her hips, planning the rest of the conversation. ‘Of course, Edna,’ he’d say, smiling the nice way he did; always friendly, Dr Pitman, not at all stuck up like some of them. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ she’d say, all relaxed and easy – Edna could see herself in her mind’s eye being extremely relaxed and easy – ‘It’s nothing much really. It’s just that I think this place needs a bit more cleaning than I’ve been able to give it. I’m not complaining, you understand, but the supervisor says I’m supposed to get it really clean in just two hours a morning, and I’m doing my best, but really, sir, it needs at least twice that. At least. I’d gladly do it, you understand, it’s just that the supervisor, she says two hours is enough, much the silly … much she knows. So if you could have a word, sir, say you want me four hours a day, I reckon that’d mean I could do the job the way it ought to be done.’

  Edna could see herself standing there, cool as you like, saying it all to Dr Pitman, could see him smiling and nodding and saying of course he would, anything you say, Edna, of course, and then going right away and telling that old bitch of a supervisor, and then she’d have to agree. That’d mean another twenty-one quid a week and though that wouldn’t sort the whole thing out, it’d make a good difference, a very good difference.

  Her coat was buttoned now, and there was no other reason she could have for hanging around, and she looked towards the door of Dr Pitman’s office, and almost decided to take the bull by the horns, as it were, go and beard him in his den, stand up and be counted – the words twisted in her mind and she took a tentative step forwards, and then the door behind her was pushed open and Tomsett, the mortuary porter, put his head round it and shouted, ‘Dr Pitman in yet?’

  ‘In his office,’ Jessie said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s an ambulance just come up, got an urgent PM, the driver said, and I told him he’d got it wrong, that I knew nothing about it, there was no PM booked for this morning, but he said there was, and got right cocky with it. But there isn’t, is there? Because I’m not ready, no matter how you look at it. I’m not ready and won’t be this side of ….’

  ‘It’s all right, Tomsett,’ Jessie said soothingly. ‘I dare say there’s a simple explanation. You go and register the body in, I’ll get Dr Pitman to come down and let you know what’s happening.’

  ‘Well, I can tell him now, and you too, if they’ve gone and arranged a PM without booking it the right way, all straight and proper in the book the way it ought to be, that I can’t be held answerable for any ….’

  ‘I told you, Tomsett, I’ll sort it out,’ Jessie said a little more sharply, and Harry Gentle looked up and grinned at her and Tomsett began to nag again and Edna sighed. Tomorrow maybe, tomorrow she’d be able to talk to Dr Pitman. She’d have to do something soon, because the way things were going she’d never get the money together. And here it was almost half past nine and the buses over to Petts’ Hill going only every quarter hour if you were lucky. Nasty they got over there if you was late. I’ll have to ask him tomorrow.

  And she hurried out across the yard past the now crammed car park and the ambulance that had brought Miranda Hallam from Bluegates School to have a post-mortem on her twelfth birthday.

  2

  Peter Hurst was never late, but he was never too early either. He despised people who were so uncertain of themselves and their own value that they felt it necessary to get to their place of work before the appointed hour; sometimes he told Jessie that, when she was being particularly sullen about that silly job of hers. He knew she liked to get there long before nine, when she was supposed to start, and that irritated him. Bad enough she insisted on having a job at all; she didn’t have to be so enthusiastic about it. Not that she ever paid any attention to what he said these days.

  But no one could say he didn’t apply his own rules to himself. He never appeared in his own office on the seventh floor of the new Civic Centre near the big new shopping precinct at Lovell’s Cross before nine fifty-five, but by the same token he was never later than ten a.m. If it had been possible always to walk through the door on the tick, he would have done it, but idiots in car parks and the vagaries of the lifts made that virtually impossible. He had been thinking seriously lately about eschewing the lifts altogether and using the stairs since that would take some of the uncertainties out of the morning, but he hadn’t reached a decision on that yet; it would be healthy, no doubt, but all the same, seven floors ….

  This Thursday morning he managed to be as precise as he could have hoped for. His wrist watch was bleeping the hour as the big double doors that led to the Environmental Services section whispered open, and he nodded affably at Miss Price at the first desk as he went by, pleased with himself, and she stared bleakly back and knew they’d have a more than usually tiresome day with him. Mr Hurst when he was irritable was merely petulant or sulky like a small boy, and easy to ignore, but when he was pleased with himself he was inescapable, poking his nose into all the corners of the office which were none of his affair, covering up his inquisitiveness with a massive jocularity that set her teeth on edge. And she’d had enough to put up with this morning already.

  She followed him into his office to find his coat and hat already neatly disposed on the stand in the corner, and him standing beside the row of plants on his window sill, tweaking off the dead leaves and poking the compost in the pots to make sure she had watered them this morning.

  ‘If you pull them around too much they’ll die,’ she said. ‘And I’ve already done them today. There’s a deputation waiting to see you. Seven of ’em, and you’ll hate them all.’ She said it with a gloomy relish that made his brows tighten for a moment.

  ‘Deputation? What sort of deputation?’

  ‘They’re from the Animal Freedom Brigade,’ she said, and grinned so that her narrow face seemed to split. ‘Animal Freedom Brigade. A right mouthful, isn’t it? You’ll hate ’em.’

  ‘Then I shan’t see them.’ He sat down at his desk and held out his hand with an air of calm decision. ‘The post, if you please, Miss Price.’

  ‘You’ll have to see them.’ Miss Price began to feel better as Peter Hurst’s face started to lose its affability. ‘They had an appointment to see Mr Wilmington and he sent down a message to say he’s tied up getting the draft report ready for this afternoon’s council meeting, and please will you deal with them. Shall I tell him you refuse, then?’

  ‘Try not to be any more stupid than you have to,’ Hurst said savagely. ‘What is it they want anyway? What has animal freedom got to do with Env. Planning, for God’s sake?’

  ‘They’ve found out there’s something going on somewhere, I fancy. They’ll tell you all about it – try and stop ’em. I’ll send them in, shall I?’

  ‘Try and stop you,’ Hurst said. ‘They can wait. Bring in some coffee and the post and I’ll see them when I’ve dealt with that.’ But he knew, as she did, that he wouldn’t dare to keep them waiting long. Not if Mr Wilmington had sent them to him. Wilmington might be only a grade senior to Peter Hurst, but he wielded his authority with great skill.

  They filed in quietly and he peered at them over the top of the letter he was holding in his hand and ostensibly reading, trying to assess their strength, and began to feel better. Two men in neat business suits, much like his own, civilized looking chaps with briefcases. Older than himself, of course, could be retired, even, but sensible men. A couple of rather dumpy looking housewives, both of them with shopping bags as well as handbags clutched in their fists, neither worth a second look, but flanked by two girls very much worth a second look. Pretty, both of them, one in a pair of jeans so tight that they took your breath away – and it wasn’t because you could imagi
ne how they’d feel if you were wearing them yourself – and a floppy T-shirt that showed extremely clearly that she wasn’t wearing a bra this chilly morning, and the other in a full-skirted flowered dress that showed a rim of lace petticoat beneath it, pretty as a picture. Lovely, both of them. Behind them a young man with a mop of black curly hair and a number of acne scars on his anxious round face stood uncertainly and then, as a grinning Miss Price closed the door on him, bobbed his head nervously and looked round at Peter Hurst with a slightly hunted expression on his face.

  By now Hurst felt positively benevolent towards them; clearly harmless, they were no sort of threat to him.

  ‘Good morning!’ he said loudly, with the jolly tone in his voice he used for children and old people. ‘A lovely autumn morning, isn’t it? A touch blustery perhaps, and a bit of rain about, but very invigorating. Now, let me see, chairs for the ladies I can provide, but I’m afraid you chaps’ll have to settle for your own feet. I’m sure you’ll forgive me, but I don’t normally enjoy so many visitors at a time. Now then, what can I do for you? What can the department do for you?’

  Surprisingly, it was the curly-haired youth who was the spokesman, and he came and stood beside Hurst’s desk, blinking a little nervously and rather obviously sweating, but his voice was clear and firm and his hands steady as he put a sheaf of paper down on the blotter.

  ‘A petition, sir. That’s what we’ve brought you here. You’ll see when you study these documents at your leisure, that we, the Minster chapter of the Animal Freedom Brigade, have identified a vivisection centre here in the town. The main, indeed the entire aim of the AFB is to put an end to these vicious practices, alerting as many people as possible to the unspeakable cruelties that are perpetrated in these establishments and ….’

  ‘Well, quite,’ Hurst said heartily, not looking at the papers, but smiling round at the faces that stared solemnly back at him, lingering a little on the girl in the flowered dress; she really was very pretty with her soft curls and wide brown eyes. ‘Quite, absolutely. Everyone with any imagination at all must … er … be concerned.’ He began to back-pedal a little. It was all very well to be friendly, but it wouldn’t do to be too enthusiastic about whatever it was they were in a lather about. ‘But I’m not quite sure what this has to do with Env. Planning? I mean, we’re involved in the business of building and insulation you know, and green belts and so forth.’ He smiled at them, as though they were rather dim children in need of education. ‘Nothing to do with animals, you see, nothing at all.’

  ‘We want to know if this vivisection centre has been properly licensed. There are Home Office rules about these things, they’re pretty bad rules, don’t go nearly far enough – what we need in this country if we’re to be regarded as civilized is a total ban on all live animal experiments with all medical research done only on tissue culture, not on helpless dumb animals that can’t speak for themselves – but there are rules and they can be used, weak as they are, to help the cause.’ He stopped and took a breath. ‘And rules about how buildings are used are surely part of the work of your department.’

  ‘Sorry, old boy.’ Peter Hurst shook his head with every appearance of regret. ‘Not our bag at all. We just scrutinize plans, consider requests for permission to build and make sure the buildings are up to scratch and so on. But we have little to do with how buildings are used.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ one of the dumpy housewives said sharply. ‘When a shop on our parade over to Holmsley was sold and the new people wanted to run it as a fresh fish shop, they couldn’t get permission ….’

  ‘Quite a different department, my dear lady, quite a different department,’ Peter Hurst said. He was beginning to feel more and more comfortable with these people; they’d soon be sent on their way. ‘That’s a matter for the rating authority, you see, and the people who deal with head leases and so forth; they have the say in usage of premises. We’re part of overall planning here, you see, not individual projects. We have a good deal of responsibility for Minster and its environs but we’re answerable to a different body: the council, you see, and its main committees. Very complex business, government, very complex. So you see, this … ah … nc doubt very worthy petition of yours really isn’t any affair of this department. I’m amazed that Mr Wilmington didn’t make that clear when you asked for an appointment. Wasting your valuable time this way, it’s too bad, really!’

  ‘I think you’ll find your department is involved, sir,’ the young man said stolidly, blinking at him. ‘We’ve already discussed this with the Environmental Health Officer on the second floor here, on grounds of health hazards, but he can’t act, he says the place is properly run according to his knowledge, and it comes under your department, not his.’

  ‘Environmental Health?’ Hurst said, and lifted an eyebrow. ‘Well, of course, that is part of Environmental Planning, but once again only in a very narrow way – they inspect restaurant kitchens, food shops, places like that. They don’t have any wider responsibility for overall planning, so they take a rather more, well, blinkered, view than we would here. Where did you say this place was? Perhaps we can help you find just who is responsible for it. Home Office is my guess but ….’

  ‘No, not the Home Office. We’ve dealt with them. They say it’s not their department. The Health people say it isn’t theirs, either, even though it’s in NHS premises. They say it’s Environmental Planning – you can object to misuse of premises which you’ve designated for certain uses – if you ….’

  ‘I don’t know that we ever had anything to do with designating any NHS premises in Minster …’ Hurst began, trying to remember how many such establishments there were – health centres, clinics, hospitals, day centres – but the young man interrupted him, leaning forwards to rifle through his papers.

  ‘If you look at these documents, sir,’ he said with patient courtesy, ‘you’ll see that you did. Not you personally, of course, but this department. Long time ago, but all the same … there you are,’ and he pointed out a paragraph on a tightly printed page and Hurst read it, frowning.

  ‘I rather think, you know,’ he said at length, ‘that I’m going to have to take guidance on this matter. I’m not convinced even now that this is an Env. Planning affair, but ….’

  ‘They all say that,’ said the woman who had complained about the fish shop, her voice shrill and whining at the same time. ‘Not my fault, nothing to do with me. Just like kids fighting over who broke the jam pot.’

  ‘Shut up, Dora,’ the young man said sharply. ‘No need for that. We want to do everything right and proper. We won’t turn to more active measures till we have to. Don’t want any bad temper yet.’

  ‘Quite,’ Hurst said, and then looked at the young man sharply, who stared blankly back at him. ‘What do you mean, active measures?’

  ‘We’re serious, sir,’ the young man said, and smiled very sweetly, and suddenly looked no more than fifteen. ‘We may seem a bit daft to you, sitting here, looking at all these pieces of paper. You may think we’re just a bunch of cranks with nothing better to do than come here and make a nuisance of ourselves, but we’re serious. We’re trying to close down this place legally. There are Home Office rules and there are Department of the Environment rules, and we’ll try to use them first. But if that doesn’t work, then we’ll have to take further steps.’

  ‘Plan B,’ said the pretty girl in the flowered dress, and giggled.

  ‘What we plan doesn’t matter,’ the young man said quickly, and shot an angry glance at her. ‘We’re just going a step at a time. Seeing all the relevant authorities at all levels, that’s what we’re doing. That’s the way the AFB always does things. We’re not stupid, sir. We’re just animal lovers.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ Hurst said, a little uneasily, and looked up at the damp face with its scatter of pockmarks, and then smiled. He really couldn’t take such people seriously. Animal Freedom Brigade and Plan B – it was all out of a bad television show. ‘Well, I’ll see what I
can do to help. I’ll look at your documents, make further enquiries, and be in touch. Your address is on the papers? Excellent, excellent. I’ll deal with it as soon as possible.’

  ‘We’ll come back if we don’t hear from you in a couple of days,’ the young man said. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Well, a little longer than that, perhaps a few days longer!’ Hurst said, and laughed boisterously. ‘Big department here, you know, a lot of work going forward. But we’ll get on with it as fast as we can. Good morning!’

  After they’d gone he put their pile of documents in a file unread, and marked it ‘Wilmington Urgent Action’, and deliberately put it at the bottom of his ‘In Abeyance’ box. It would be a week or even a bit longer before it emerged and reached Wilmington, and by that time they’d be a lot less easy to deal with. And he himself would be in London for the week of the planning officers’ conference and Wilmington would have to deal with them on his own. And serve him bloody well right.

  The planning officers’ conference; he sat and thought about that, his good humour at his ploy to embarrass Wilmington while getting rid of the AFB evaporating. Why the hell wouldn’t she come with him? He only got his chance to go once in every four years, the way Wilmington always hogged it, and he’d been looking forward to it for months. And so should she have been; any other woman would give her eye teeth for a chance to spend a week in London with her husband. They’d organized all sorts of things for wives, so it wasn’t as though she’d be bored. He’d shown her the programme, pointed out to her the lectures on herbs and French country cookery and the demonstrations of quilting, the evenings going to the theatre to see ‘No Sex Please, We’re British’, and ‘Singin’ In The Rain’, but she’d just looked at it poker-faced and said she really didn’t want to bother.