by Polly James
I am trying to establish exactly the point at which our duty to protect staff and others would take precedence over our duty of confidentiality, and am a bit astonished to discover that several of the constituents that Greg and I deem the most dangerous have already been the subjects of a number of multi-agency meetings and risk assessments, none of which we have been included in. We deal with these nutters daily – and without any security at all!
After I point this out, there’s a lot of embarrassed clearing of throats, and then it is agreed that we will be faxed copies of the relevant risk assessments this afternoon – on a ‘need to know’ basis – and we’ll also be invited to attend the meetings in future. Greg and I are well-pleased at this development, but James looks decidedly pale.
I’m not looking much better myself by the time I’ve read the risk assessments. It’s amazing how many of our usual suspects have convictions for ABH,fn8 are known to carry weapons, and are considered to pose a high risk to any staff who have to deal with them.
I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have remained in blissful ignorance, relying on The Twilight Zone theme to protect me. (It hasn’t served me too badly so far, after all. Apart from Frank Dougan, I suppose. Oh, and Mrs Nudd.)
Anyway, the only useful information is a list of those things which are known to trigger certain constituents to commit acts of violence. In Mr Meeeeurghn’s case, this is almost anything, but I had no idea how dangerous Mr Humphries can be.
A paranoid schizophrenic with a persecution complex, I already knew that he’s convinced that all government agencies are spying on him. What I didn’t know was that he believes that other people’s unconscious tics are codes to alert the authorities, and switch on surveillance.
It’s only by the grace of God that Greg and I haven’t ever scratched our noses, fiddled with a stray hair, or chewed the end of a pen while talking to the man! I’m starting to think that a degree in psychology would have been far more useful than one in politics. Even with the addition of another P and an E.
Once I’ve finished reading the risk assessments out loud, James says that he feels unwell, because his irritable bowel syndrome is causing him a problem, so I let him go home early. I’m not entirely sure about his sanity, if I’m honest. I keep hearing snatches of familiar music whenever he passes by.
Greg says this is probably a sign that I am losing the plot, so he suggests we go and get drunk to obliterate the memory of what we’ve been told about the usual suspects. I can’t handle it tonight, though, as I haven’t slept properly for days, so I opt to go home instead.
I soon wish I hadn’t, because Max is in a really bad mood, seemingly because Connie’s got an interview for that call centre job. He overhears her telling a friend that it ‘isn’t brilliant money’ and then doesn’t speak to any of us for the rest of the night. Apart from Max, I’m the only one who knows that the sum in question is barely a thousand pounds a year less than he now earns. And not that much less than I earn, either.
Honestly, could Johnny and I inhabit worlds that were any more different? I just hope he’s forgotten I was the one our class voted ‘most likely to succeed’.
WEDNESDAY, 30 JUNE
Oh, dear. That has to be the record for the shortest stay by an intern – ever. Mr Humphries proves too much for James, who has disappeared in a cloud of loose bowel movements. He hasn’t even been back to collect his stuff. (Let’s hope he has plenty of that disgusting tea at home.)
The morning goes suspiciously smoothly until almost 10:00am, funnily enough, but then Mr Humphries makes the first of what turns into a series of visits to the office. He becomes more agitated with every one.
I deal with the first few, which involve something to do with him being spied on, as usual, but I’m busy when he comes in again just before lunch – at which point Greg receives a frantic call to say that Mr H is holding Joan at knifepoint in reception.
We hadn’t got round to telling Party staff that they mustn’t rub their noses while talking to him, and Joan suffers from hayfever. Incensed by her apparent use of the code to activate government surveillance, Mr H has pulled a Stanley knife and locked her into the room.
The whole building is sent into lockdown mode as I try to contact the police – which is a thankless task, if ever there was one. Dialling 999 achieves nothing more than my being put on hold for eighteen minutes – eighteen minutes! You could walk to the police station quicker than that.
Having worked this out, Greg finally loses his patience and legs it over the roof, climbs down the fire escape and runs there, then pushes to the head of the queue and demands a police escort back to the office immediately – or he will ‘tell the Home Secretary’.
Meanwhile, James has gone green and is more than usually desperate for the loo. He can’t get there, though, because that would involve passing reception, where poor Joan is still stuck with a known madman, and a bad case of paroxysmal sneezing.
It takes until almost 3:00pm for the police to storm reception, arrest Mr Humphries and take him away – and for the building to be finally open for business again. This seems an opportune moment to send James off to get a late lunch, and to calm down while he’s at it.
He makes me escort him out of the building, despite the fact that he is almost six feet tall, while I’m at least a foot shorter, but hey, whatever – as Josh would say. Not that that’s what I say when this turns out to be the last that we will ever see of James, who doesn’t come back to the office and ignores our calls for the rest of the day.
As if that isn’t bad enough, it turns out that he also made life difficult before he left, as well – by answering the phone to The Boss while Greg and I were otherwise occupied, and telling him what was going on. What an idiot. Greg can’t get over it.
Now Andrew has left a message instructing me to call him back ‘as soon as the misunderstanding with Mr Humphries is resolved’.
Misunderstanding? Misunderstanding? It was more than a bloody misunderstanding. Joan is a wreck, and James looked even worse than she does, before he did his disappearing act.
The staff of all the other offices in our building are incandescent with fury, too. They blame us for ‘attracting undesirables’ and ‘failing to manage them properly’ – as well as for having effectively lost them the output of an entire working day.
I don’t have time to pour oil on any of these troubled waters, though; or to respond to Johnny’s email reminding me that he is still waiting for a photo of my arse. I still have to give a statement to the police – once Greg and Joan have finished giving theirs.
It’s almost 8:00pm by the time I get home, where I find Ellen sitting at the dining room table with Max. No wonder he hasn’t called to see where I am.
‘Molly,’ she says. ‘Try this wine. I came to borrow your corkscrew, but then I thought Max might enjoy a glass while I was here.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I’m sure he would.’
Max doesn’t meet my eyes, as he fetches me a glass and begins to pour.
‘It’s my new discovery,’ says Ellen, twisting the bottle to show me the label. ‘Dornfelder-Würzgarten Kabinett.’
Her German accent sounds faultless to my untrained ear. I breathe in, then take a sip, though I’m pretty sure I’m going to choke.
‘What does “trocken” mean?’ I say, trying very hard to swallow.
‘Dry,’ says Ellen, which could also be said to describe my mouth.
CHAPTER THREE
July
(Which doesn’t rhyme with anything.)
THURSDAY, 1 JULY
I can’t find that wine for sale anywhere – not online, nor when I spend my lunch-hour checking all the off-licences in the centre of town. I’m sure the staff of Majestic Wines think I’m unusually fussy for an alcoholic, when I burst into tears after they say you can only buy ‘that Bornfelter stuff’ in its country of origin. Bloody, bloody Germany.
After I’ve stopped sniffling like an idiot, I decide that, if Max can get up
to God knows what during a so-called ‘work’ trip, then I can do whatever I like, too. So now I have new underwear – a lot of it. It doesn’t feel great (a bit cheap and scratchy) but at least it’ll look okay in a photo for Johnny, so I suppose what it feels like doesn’t matter. It’s not as if he’ll ever get to touch it, after all.
It makes me feel miles better, though, and helps my blood pressure normalise after The Boss gives me a bollocking: first for ‘breaching Mr Humphries’ confidentiality’ by phoning the police, and then for giving them a statement about what happened to poor old Joan.
She still looks as if she’s been electrocuted or at least over-Botoxed – while Mr H is now in hospital on a section and hopefully getting some help at last. The police say there is to be an injunction against him returning to the building, so everyone’s relieved, except for The Boss, who rants as if he too needs to be sectioned during his phone call, made from his nice, secure office in Westminster. He hasn’t even met Mr Humphries!
Greg phones James to tell him it’s safe to come back to work, but James’ mum isn’t having any of it. She says James is far too shocked by yesterday’s events to ever return to the office, and that The Boss should know better than to expose his staff to ‘such outrageous risks’.
Greg says all he could think of in response was, ‘True.’
‘Perhaps James has been put off politics for good, and will get himself a proper job instead,’ I say. ‘He’ll thank us for it, in the long run.’
‘Maybe so, but what shall I do with all this in the meantime?’ says Greg, gesturing at James’ dietary paraphernalia and his bowel medications. ‘And what the hell is Chai supposed to be?’
‘No idea,’ I say. ‘Some sort of bowel-enhancing tea, I think. And no, of course I don’t want it. You’ll just have to pack everything up and post it all back to James.’
‘Or I could offer it to Joan,’ says Greg, continuing to rummage around in the kitchen cupboards. ‘She still looks a bit bilious. Ooh, what’s this I’ve found?’
Honestly, there’s no privacy, is there? Not even when you hide something right at the back of a cupboard. Greg has spotted my Primark carrier bag and, before I can swipe it out of his hand, is wearing my new lace boxer shorts. On his head.
The sight makes listening to the next call oddly bearable, even though it’s from Mr Beales, who goes on and on for hours about something so boring I can’t even remember what it was. I think I may suggest that cranial knicker wearing is introduced nationwide, as a contractual requirement for constituency staff. Greg reckons it would really help to minimise stress at work.
‘I felt great, wearing them while I talked to the Chief Whip,’fn1 he says, as we lock up for the day. ‘I’m almost sorry to have to give them back.’
‘Well, I don’t want them now,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to wear them after they’ve been on your head all afternoon. I’d never get the hair gel out.’
‘They are a bit sticky,’ says Greg. ‘And a bit glam for you, anyway, now I come to think of it. Maybe you should post them through the letter-box at the Relate shop on your way home. Help someone in marital difficulties, and all that.’
I stare at him, hard, but he doesn’t react, so maybe he isn’t being ironic. I do as he says, though, just in case.
My donation doesn’t seem to bring any immediate benefits, as Max does double the usual number of sit-ups as soon as he gets home from work, and then goes outside to water the garden, yet again – even though it’s pouring with rain.
I leave him to it, and am in the bathroom, trying to photograph my own arse in the mirror – much trickier than it sounds – when I’m interrupted by a phone call from Mum, who says that Dad phoned to wish her a happy birthday for tomorrow.
He hasn’t mentioned anything about it to me, but Mum says that he told her that he got her number from Connie – who’ll tell anyone anything, the idiot. Now what the hell is going on?
I like both my biological parents to stay nicely in their separate boxes, along with their matching and various new spouses. It’s the bloody least they can do to compensate for making me the insecure maladjusted child of a broken home.
I suppose it’s too much to expect the proceeds of a pair of secondhand lace pants to fund effective help with that.
FRIDAY, 2 JULY
Maybe it’s a good thing that long-serving MPs become so disconnected from their constituents. How else would they retain any certainty about their own political ideology? The more I hear and investigate constituents’ real-life stories, the more confused I get. It’s like trying to work out the guilty party during one of Josh and Connie’s arguments: absolutely bloody hopeless.
Mrs Hetherington attends surgery today. She’s a mature student at university, has teenage children like me (poor woman), and previously worked full-time for twenty years. She’s also furious, having discovered that she won’t be entitled to sign on during the vacation if she’s unable to find a job. To add to the problem, her husband’s self-employed and his business is collapsing.
The Boss nods sympathetically, as he tries to think of a way to blame Mrs H’s situation on the Coalition, but then she hits him with it: ‘There’s a single parent on my course who’s allowed to sign on during vacations,’ she says.
‘Ah, well, obviously someone has to care for her children, and she does only have one income,’ says The Boss, looking relieved.
‘Benefits, not income,’ says Mrs H. ‘And her daughter is fifteen years old.’
‘Um,’ says The Boss. He looks helplessly at me.
I’m in no mood to help out and, anyway, I want to hear his answer.
He says, ‘Ah.’
‘And she’s never worked a day in her life,’ says Mrs H. ‘Whereas I’ve been paying tax ever since I left school. Explain that, if you can!’
The Boss looks relieved. There’s a Party line on this one.
‘But surely you’d agree that it’s in everyone’s interests for single parents to be encouraged to train, and then find employment, wouldn’t you?’ he says.
‘No,’ says Mrs H. ‘Be bloody nice if you politicians encouraged people to work and to stay married, for a change.’
The Boss has no answer to that. Nor do I, though at least there won’t be any letters to write on the back of this particular appointment. I have no idea to whom I’d address Mrs H’s enquiry, or how I’d word it.
The Boss isn’t very happy, though. ‘You were no help, Molly. No bloody help at all,’ he says, as Mrs H takes her leave.
‘Well, I don’t know what I think about what she said,’ I say. ‘Do you?’
‘She’s a bigot,’ says Andrew, with no trace of irony.
He goes off in a huff – to get the early edition of the local paper, or so he says. That’s usually code for a ‘restorative’ drink.
While he’s gone, I email Johnny the best of the photos I finally managed to take last night – by waiting until everyone else had gone to bed, then locking myself in the bathroom again.
I had to keep flushing the loo and groaning so Max would think I had a stomach upset, while twisting around like a lunatic to make sure that my arse was actually in the frame. The whole thing took ages, and it was after 4:00am when I finally got to bed. How have I come to this?
Of course, as soon as I hit send, I change my mind. Then I spend the rest of the afternoon panicking, especially when I get an out-of-office reply from Johnny. I bet his PA is showing my arse to everyone at the Global Oil Company water cooler right this minute.
I’m still trying to work out how to get an email back when there’s another call from Josh’s school. For God’s sake. Josh has apparently ‘failed to control’ his skateboard, which has flown up into the air and smashed the window of the Deputy Head’s office.
Mr Thumb says that he had intended to confiscate the skateboard for a week, but has now changed his mind.
‘Why?’ I ask.
I’d have confiscated it for ever, given half a chance. Josh’s teeth looked per
fectly normal until he took up skateboarding, and I’m sure he was more reasonable before all the blows to the head.
‘Because of the championship,’ says Mr Thumb.
‘Pardon?’ I say. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘Well, Josh was saying that he’s in the National Skateboarding Championships this weekend, so I felt it would be only fair to delay his punishment until next week.’
Josh can’t stay upright on that damned thing for more than twenty seconds without having an accident. No way is he capable of participating in a National Championship, unless it’s the Unintentional Comedy on a Skateboard Championship – which I don’t think exists, though it certainly should.
‘Don’t you agree?’ says Mr Thumb.
I’m barely capable of speech, so just mumble a pathetic ‘Thank you’, and then hang up.
How the hell did Max and I raise a compulsive liar? And why didn’t I expose Josh’s dishonesty, to teach him a lesson? This abdication of parental responsibility and discipline is probably how serial killers are made – as well as gang lords.
At least Connie’s unlikely to become either of those things, as she’s got the call centre job, which sounds fairly harmless. She’s very excited about it – particularly at the thought of flexi-time – though I forget to ask her why, as just then Max arrives home, looking thoroughly fed up.
He feigns enthusiasm for Connie’s achievement pretty well, but later tells me that his boss warned of further branch closures this morning. I try to reassure him, but God knows how we’d manage on my pathetic salary alone. We’d probably have to separate to survive. According to Mrs H, that’s what all married people should be doing, anyway …
SATURDAY, 3 JULY
Josh does not take well to Max and I taking the piss about the National Skateboarding Championships. In fact, he goes so far as to say that it is our failure to encourage his talents which has made him the way he is. Then he storms off into town with Robbie.
