The Pink and the Grey

by Anthony Camber

  Tomorrow’s first job, he told me, should be to shuffle on my knees across the city and prostrate myself before the gods of St John’s: for without their blessing the entire enterprise was, to use his words, up the shitter. I should, he said, proceed merrily on as though Amanda had approved the proposal, despite her earlier words.

  The evening drew finally to a close. I set down my mug and made leaving noises, but Dennis had a surprise in store.

  “Before you scoot home, my lad, we have a short journey to make,” he said, rising to his feet. The twinkle was back. “To drop in on a colleague. He’s expecting us.”

  The Archivist worked out of a suite of rooms in the Admin dungeon. It was no secret that he employed many assistants, undergraduates recruited to his cause and universally known as elves, who rotated in and out on shifts to lighten their fiscal loads. The elves saw much, and knew they were seen much, and it did not affect them much. This current generation at least clutched personal sharing to their very public bosom, although the adage what happens in archive, stays in archive was steadfastly and rigorously adhered to. Naturally there were stories, especially of pranks perpetrated during an eager fresher’s first elving, as it was called: these usually involved impersonations of celebrities or, shall we say, volume of numbers.

  It was said, but never publicly stated, that the Archivist’s empire expanded beyond the college boundary and under St Andrew’s Street and Emmanuel Street, such was the volume of data to retain.

  A fog of rumour and legend surrounded the Archivist himself, whose face was well known but whose name was never uttered. The title was enough: should any local politician fly a policy kite in dangerous proximity to college power lines, mere mention of the Archivist might cause the wind to drop.

  The current Archivist had held his position for many years and was nearing the compulsory retirement age of sixty. The late nights and constant scanning of video streams, especially in more recent data-rich years, took its toll.

  “Professor Sauvage, Dr Flowers.” He gave us a polite and curt welcome at the entrance to his domain. He used the Praelector’s formal academic title, embers of a long-softened Mancunian harshness rekindled by the French pronunciation.

  Identity checks efficiently and thoroughly completed, he showed us to what appeared to be a small office. It was stark, bare, minimalist. No pictures on the walls, no photos of family on the smooth, compact desk. No stray papers at which one might sneak a revelatory glimpse. No bank of screens tracking miscreants like myself from court to court.

  It was, I realised, an office-cum-interrogation room. I looked in vain for a mirror, behind which might stand a camera and two elves in white coats with clipboards. We were surely observed in any case.

  “Do please excuse me, professor, doctor,” he said, careful to refer to us in protocol order. “My shift begins in six minutes and forty-seven seconds and I must prepare. But we may talk briefly.” As was traditional the Archivist took the night shift, nine till nine. He habitually worked through a light exercise regime to limber up for the long evening ahead.

  I felt slightly uncomfortable sitting in a plain wooden chair, alongside Dennis, as this short, sinewy man bent and stretched for our entertainment, his mop of white hair billowing as a willow in a strong breeze. We were disrupting his well-rehearsed routine, and a man’s routine is his castle.

  “Flowers here wants a favour, Archivist, a favour,” began Dennis unselfconsciously, and patted my arm.

  I looked to him, confused. “Favour?”

  The Archivist said nothing.

  “Our friend Amanda,” the Praelector continued.

  Perhaps a glimmer of reaction from the Archivist, or simply a muscle twinge as he pulled and stretched his left foot back and up toward his buttocks.

  “Archivist, I shall be blunt with you,” said Dennis. “The snowfall becomes heavier and begins to drift. Do you have anything that might clear a path?”

  The Archivist switched feet. “Be very careful, Professor.”

  “You see what is happening. It is hardly unexpected.”

  “And what would you have me do?” The Archivist froze. “This is not via proper channels.”

  “Proper channels be damned!”

  “The protocol is well-established. I cannot break it and you know well why this is so.” His dark eyes, shaded and ringed by years of night shifts, years of screens, years of cataloguing and recording, regarded Dennis sternly.

  “Not even—”

  “Not even.” A second more, and he restarted his exercises.

  Dennis turned to me and forced a smile, bleak as midwinter. “Worth a go, worth a go.”

  “Forgive me,” I said, “but might someone explain? Channels, protocol? Snowfall?”

  The Archivist and the Praelector exchanged a look. The Archivist nodded with, I felt, a slight reluctance.

  “The screens,” said Dennis. “She has… some access to the cameras. Perhaps too much, my lad.”

  “You might think of it as an addiction,” said the Archivist, grunting as he bent over. “Like pigeons pecking constantly at a button that once delivered seed.”

  I could see Amanda pecking away in my mind’s eye. Unpleasant.

  “There is such a thing as too much data, Dr Flowers. Within these walls we manage it through shifts and careful monitoring of the elves.”

  “Who watches the watchers? You do.”

  From his expression, a weary smile, it was not the first time that phrase had been uttered. The phrase elven safety also came to mind but I wisely kept it there.

  “Indeed,” said the Archivist. “We believe with the Master the influx of data combined with a pathological desire to know everything and, of course, her general floundering in the role, triggered a kind of scrambling. Hence her increasing infelicity with language. The snow, falling, drifting.”

  “And I suppose,” I said, “it explains her selecting me, of all people, to resolve the funding crisis.”

  “Oh, no, my lad,” said Dennis, “that’s entirely personal.”

  “Then I confess I don’t have the faintest idea why we are here. Why me, especially.”

  The two men looked again at one another, the look of a joke shared.

  “Oh! Were we about to attempt to blackmail Amanda?” I said, and they both laughed.

  “There is no such thing as blackmail,” said the Archivist tightly, pulling an arm behind his head. “Black implies an absolute. There is no black, there is no white—”

  “—All is grey, above, below and beyond,” the two men completed together.

  My back shivered with a touch of the freemasons. I must have looked confused. Dennis touched my arm again. “Don’t worry, lad. Old saying. We are all complex creatures, and none of us is perfect, is perfect.”

  “I am afraid I cannot help you on this occasion, Dr Flowers.” The Archivist dabbed his face with a branded college towel. “And now it is time for my shift.”

  He made a signal to what appeared a bare wall. Evidently not: in a few seconds we were joined in the room by a young man, a student — an elf. I recognised him as the undergraduate I had encountered just after the Master had forced SPAIN upon me. He saw me and gave a shy smile. I was glad he was making himself useful here.

  “Please escort these gentlemen out,” said the Archivist.

  The elf led us out of the office into the entrance hall. I saw three other doors, leading somewhere unknown: secured, reinforced, with some form of scanning device guarding against unauthorised entry. Retinal scan? Hard to be sure in the gloom.

  eight

  The Contact

  “A word, please, Mr Geraghty,” said Simon after my first Tuesday morning coffee. What he meant was: a bollocking. It’s never just a word, especially if he’s not taking the piss and calling me ginge or mick or something. The little mini-Kray. Nelson’s bell-end. Oi oi saveloy my Irish arse.

  All bollockings were officially administered in private, in the fire exit stairwell off to one side of the office
. Everyone knew full well, though, that every whisper echoed and amplified up and down and was about as private as a celebrity sex tape — and that was the point, of course. It was the newspaper equivalent of executing a recaptured Steve McQueen-alike at a prisoner-of-war camp: against all the rules but, well, how else will these savages learn?

  I donned my flame-proof suit and gave Manish an any-last-requests wink, and then followed Simon through the fire exit to the naughty steps. But he surprised me by not stopping: he headed straight down, two flights, and out past the beautiful arrangement of discarded cigarette butts into the car park. I screwed my eyes up against the damp sunshine and smelled wet dirt, but frankly it could’ve come from me or Simon or anywhere. Was I being fired? Driven to a building site to make friends with a cement mixer? Taken for a swim in the river inside a bag with some labrador puppies? Or a good old-fashioned beating?

  I waited for him to say something.

  “Fag?” he asked, and grinned, pulling a pack from his back pocket. He always said that. He knew I didn’t smoke.

  “Out and proud,” I replied as always, with a clenched fist in salute, as he lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “What’s this about, Simon? Before you start: anywhere but the face. I have a beautiful nose. You can break my arm if you like. Just the one, mind. I’d get a lot of sympathy from the boys for that. I could get them to sign the cast, you know, leave their mark.”

  “Yesterday,” he said, scuffing along a couple of pebbles and blowing smoke after them. “All that talk about the— the past.” I picked up a hint of Old Spice from him.

  “What about it?” I tried to keep it light, relaxed. No sense in raising hackles, and neither was I about to go the full hedgehog. I kept my eyes on his fists.

  “I admire your historical… interest.” Admiration? This was a brand new flavour of trouble. “But don’t forget the perspective, mate, will you?”

  I waited in vain for him to give me some of that all-important perspective, while I tried to remember whether he’d ever called me mate before. It was a deliberate mate, though. It wasn’t an alright mate mate, or a you’ve had enough mate mate. It was more a you looking at my bird, mate? mate, a “mate” suffocated by camouflaged quote marks.

  “Sure,” I said finally, straining every muscle not to say mate. “I was just being sociable, is all. You know, like the humans do.”

  He toe-poked a pebble skipping under some random’s Volvo and gave me a dead smile. “I know you were, son, I know you were. Remember the five Ws: who, what, when, where, why.”

  “I try.” I tapped my head. “They’re right up there with the seven dwarves and Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands.”

  “Glad to hear it. Right, ginge, clear off.” Muffled, fag between the lips.

  “Not even a clip round the ear?”

  He waved me away. That was all a threat, to be sure, but simultaneously not a threat. I went back through the fire escape door feeling like I’d just come out of confession with a dodgy priest with a combover and he’d told me to say three Hail Marys and sit on his lap.

  Manish was buzzing when I got back. “What happened?” he whispered as I sat down at my desk beside him. “I was waiting for the screams.”

  “Just a minor kneecapping. Used to happen all the time back in Dublin growing up. I got through about forty-nine different knees in my time. When you’re an experienced journalist like I am you learn to take the pain.”

  “Yeah, sod off Weasley.”

  “Twiglet.”

  “Seriously, though.”

  “Oh, it was all a bit of friendly banter. Mostly him saying keep your nose out and me going don’t cut me!”

  “Keep your nose out of what?”

  I thought he was about to get out his notebook and start taking shorthand. “Nothing to concern your pretty face.”

  “That’s sexual harassment, that is.”

  “Take it to the papers.”

  That lunchtime I scooted into town, officially on an emergency mission to find a last-minute card for a non-existent aunt about to topple off the perch back home. In truth, to visit a source. As usual at this time of day, he was at his pitch outside the supermarket opposite Sidney Sussex College and had probably sold half a dozen of his “very last copy” of that week’s Big Issue.

  “Conor, mate!” he said, arms outstretched, as I approached. This was a could do with a tenner, mate mate. We shook hands tribally, two chiefs meeting on a savannah with dust and grit and Sainsbury’s bags spiralling around us. His dog, a bull terrier with a dirty white coat, sat serenely upright behind like a wise elder of the tribe tied to a bike rack.

  “Hey Charlie.”

  Charlie was my age, my height, but looked old and broken. He had lank, unwashed hair in tangled dreads, greying from black, or at least it looked black. A scuffed anorak hung limply around his shoulders but doubled his bulk. He didn’t talk about his past, or his present. His apparent cheerfulness always subdued me.

  “What can I do you for, mate?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for some gossip, Charlie. New and exclusive gossip.”

  “A scoop, eh? After a bit more moolah?” He leaned in and I smelled old newspapers.

  “Something like that.” I instantly felt bad. “Need to get into my boss’s good books.”

  “I got nothing for you, sorry mate.” To some passers-by: “Big Issue, sir? Madam?”

  “Shit. Are you sure?”

  “It’s been really quiet. Not sold one in two hours, have I?”

  I took that as a hint and dug into my pockets. “I’ll take a copy off your hands, Charlie. Least I can do.” I handed over the cash and with a flourish he presented me with that week’s edition.

  “You’re a gentleman, Conor,” he said. “Listen, probably nothing, but I just remembered. You know Quiff? You must know Quiff.”

  It was a new name for me. “Quiff?”

  He fished out another one of his last copies of Big Issue and failed to attract the fanny packs of a gaggle of Americans.

  “Yeah. You not know him?” he said. “Dunno his first name. Sometimes comes and spreads a little love around, know what I mean? Full of stories. Said something’s going on at one of the colleges.”

  It didn’t sound that promising — something was always going on at one of the colleges. Usually in Latin and with a procession. But it was all I had, and time was ticking, and I didn’t want to give Geoff or Simon any more reason to dislike me.

  “Worth a punt I guess. Where can I find this Quiff guy?”

  “Where he always is, which is why you should know him. Humbug. Stupid big hat.”

  My face must have lit up.

  “Ah, now you know who I mean.”

  I thanked him and gave him another couple of quid — always keep your sources well hydrated — then hurried off to Bar Humbug, less than a minute’s walk away. I’d never spoken to this hat guy before, except perhaps the odd excuse me or a strangulated mumble in the piss queue. He’d always seemed part of the furniture, almost a sideshow along with the juggling cocktail boys and the occasional drag act. I presumed he was family — but I never saw him leave with anyone. I never saw him leave at all, or arrive, come to that. Eddie had said his first name yesterday — Cornelius — and now I had his surname too. Gave me the upper hand. Useful.

  Humbug was a confusing, unfamiliar place of sunshine and mothers and young kids bouncing off the walls. The nighttime Bumhug had become the daytime Mumhug, or maybe Mumdrug thanks to the supply of caffeine and chocolate. The coffee machine growled and coughed on a loop, and one of Eddie’s tight-shirted little twinky helpers was in great demand for a de-stressing Manhattan or Cosmo — or anything, as long as it had chocolate sprinkles. It still had the soul of Bumhug, just with a lipstick sheen.

  And at the far end of the bar, in his usual position watching over the world, sat the man with the furry hat I now knew to be Cornelius Quiff, cuddling some booze. Early fifties, I guessed. Thin, struggling beard turning to silver. Every day a littl
e heavier. Enveloped in a fog of some manly fragrance I recognised but couldn’t put a name to.

  I sidled up to the bar not far from Quiff, hoisted myself onto a stool, and went full-twinkle.

  “I guess I’d better get a coffee,” I said to the barman. “First time for everything. Normal coffee, normal cup, normal milk, please. I’m a simple Irish boy with simple tastes, and I don’t think I’ve ever come here and felt older.”

  The barman laughed. He knew me from the evening crowd. “Is different, yes?”

  He was eastern European. Latvian, perhaps. Face like an angel after a few too many five-in-the-morning finishes. Not perhaps the land of DILF and money he was expecting.

  Off to the left a small fat boy pushed a smaller fatter boy into a chair, and the tears and the wailing began. “Obviously not that different,” I said, thumb aimed at the kids. “Switch on the waterworks and fall into the arms of the woman with the big breasts. No different at all.”

  I turned to Quiff and nodded a greeting. It felt mildly sacrilegious, saying a proper hello for the first time to someone you’ve recognised but skirted around for a year. Like the mind-whirling clumsiness and rictus grin when you finally meet someone after months of chatting online: you know that your relationship changes at that point, changes irrevocably. You just don’t know how.

  “It’s Mr Quiff, isn’t it? Cornelius Quiff?”

  He seemed shocked at the need to speak, and coughed. “It is, yes, that’s right.” Yorkshire? Lancashire? All those northern English accents sounded alike to me. This was soft, light, camp. “Have we met?”

  The barman slid over my cup of coffee.

  I said: “Can I get you a drink, Cornelius?” Stick to the first name: keep ’em friendly.

  He nodded gratefully and the barman didn’t bother asking: double vodka, lemonade, lots of ice. Liver a gift from the gods, I guessed. And wallet.