by Daisy Waugh
‘…To the loving couple,’ he said, standing at the end of the table with his intended on one side and her intended on the other, with the whole party – even Nigel who didn’t drink – holding champagne glasses aloft. ‘I hope you’ll be very, very content. In your teeny house! Absolutely enchanting. Many congratulations to you both.’
‘Aye. Thank you, Maurice.’ Grey leant across while the others drank. ‘And I’m sorry. I know there’ve been times I’ve been bloody rude. But you’re a good man. Yeah, you are.’
‘A good loser, you mean?’ said Maurice.
‘Och no, I didn’t mean that.’
Maurice laughed, threw back his head and laughed wildly. When he straightened up and looked at Grey there was a glint in his eye, an angry flush to his cheeks. On any other occasion Grey, normally so astute, would have spotted it at once, but he was too happy that day, and too unaccustomed to happiness. His alarm mechanisms weren’t working properly.
‘I never imagined it possible, but do you know,’ Morrison gleamed, ‘I begin to think all this marvellous passion is turning you a bit soft around the edges, Mr McShane!’ He patted Grey on the back. ‘And so it should, my dear friend. So it bloody well should. Ha ha ha. Now then, Colin and Chloe, about this egg venture of yours. What stage are we at?’
‘Well, we’ve definitely got about a million of eggs, in fact,’ said Chloe, ‘we’ve actually definitely got about seventy-one. Plus—’ She held up three fingers and a thumb.
‘That’s true, Chloe,’ Colin bellowed. ‘We got loads of ’em. We don’t even know what to do with ’em we got so many!’
‘Splendid! Splendid! Well done you! Now I need to make a couple of calls, and after that, what say you we set off on a little jaunt, hey, kids? Just the three of us, hm? Let’s see if together we can’t broker some sort of deal with that little village shop of yours.’
Maurice Morrison was shaking with rage as he climbed the stairs to his room. He, who could pull the wool over the eyes of a prime minister, who had, in his climb to the top, outwitted some of the sharpest brains, some of the wiliest operators in the country – in Europe – in the world – had been foiled by a bunch of fucking yokels. All he had wanted, after all, was a crumbling house and a fat companion to look respectable beside him at functions. Was it so much to ask? It was not. Not for Maurice Morrison, who often asked for much more and always got it. He felt slighted. He felt insulted. But the thing he felt most was anger, white hot and well hidden, and what he wanted now was not just the house and the fat, stupid woman. He wanted revenge.
Soon afterwards, then, Colin, Chloe and Maurice were heading off towards the village with Maurice’s mobiles, Maurice’s small change dispenser, Maurice’s Palm Pilot, Maurice’s baseball cap and dark glasses, and a basketful of eggs covered in felt-tip. ‘In fac’ me and Chloe was always hopin’ for this,’ Colin yelled, as the three of them strode off across the fields together. ‘We was definitely thinkin’ abou’ you helpin’ us doin’ the acshull deal. We collected twenty fresh eggs this mornin’, didn’t we, Chloe?’ He grinned at her. ‘Chloe wanted to colour ’em in, didn’t you, Chloe? I told her it’s not such a bad idea seein’ as how it’s almost nearly Christmas time. At leas’ it nearly is. The lady at the shop used to be a friend of my nan, Mrs Hooper did. So she’ll take ’em when I tell her. ’Specially when she sees I’m not in trouble no longer.’
‘Now remember, kids,’ said Morrison, who hadn’t been listening, ‘what are you going to call me when we get into the shop? Colin, what are you going to call me?’
‘We’re goin’ to call you Mr Davison, o’ course…Mr Davison!’
‘That’s right. And, Chloe? What are you going to call me?’
She beamed at him. ‘I’m going to call you Mr Morrison.’
‘No. Wrong. You’re going to call me Mr Davison. So what are you going to call me?’
She looked confused. ‘Mr Maurice?’
‘Come on,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t be dense! Colin, tell her. What are you going to call me?’
‘Mr Davison.’
‘Well done. Right. Are we ready? Let’s go.’
Mrs Hooper had indeed been a friend of Colin’s nan. But she explained regretfully that she couldn’t sell the eggs. They didn’t comply with the Ungraded Egg Legislation, she said. (Maurice, of course, looked suitably astonished.) Eggs had to be supplied, she explained wearily, from a ‘“registered packing station”, if you please!’
‘Ah,’ said Maurice, glancing at his watch. ‘What a shame.’
‘Don’t be daft, Mrs Hooper!’ bawled Colin. ‘They’re perfect eggs. Aren’t they, Mr Morrison? Aren’t they, Chloe? We pick ’em all up this morning!’
‘Colin!’ said Chloe triumphantly. ‘You called him Mr Morrison, you stupid old fool! That’s wrong! You actually definitely got it wrong!’
Fortunately for Maurice, Mrs Hooper wasn’t listening. ‘I’m sorry, Colin, but I can’t risk it,’ she said. ‘They’ll be down on me like a ton of bricks. But wait there a moment.’ She disappeared into the back of the shop and came back carrying a bale of literature. ‘The inspector people gave me these ones last time. I can’t make much sense of them myself, but if you’re set on the idea…’
They were about to leave when Maurice asked Mrs Hooper to keep an eye on the children for a minute and slipped out of the shop to make a few more urgent telephone calls. First he telephoned the local council. Where developments were going according to plan, he learnt, but running a little late. They needed another half an hour. Fine.
The next few calls needed to be more easily traced to the village, so Morrison pulled out his coin dispenser and crossed over to the telephone box. Within a few minutes, and in an impeccable West Country burr, he had informed the reporters of four national newspapers that Schedule One offender Grey McShane was living in a house with an unaccompanied pre-pubescent boy and a fatherless girl of four. The children were in danger, he said. And it was illegal. Something had to be done.
He returned to the shop wreathed in magnanimity and blinding smiles. The three of them would be continuing their afternoon’s adventure, he informed Colin and Chloe, in the East Wood, where he had no doubt there was plenty of kindling to be gathered.
‘No thanks,’ Colin shouted, nodding at the leaflets. ‘I’ll be gettin’ crackin’ on all this rubbish, Mr Davison. It’s goin’ to take me about six years to read this stuff! ’Cept Chloe says her mum’ll help me.’
‘Anyway the wood’s boring,’ said Chloe.
‘Nonsense,’ snapped Maurice. ‘Come along.’
So Maurice was still out when Derek and a colleague from Preserving Britain arrived to serve the owners of the stable yard with an Emergency Notice of Listing and an Emergency Notice of Repairs.
Derek Stainsewell may not have been in love with Maurice Morrison. But during his telephone calls with the government’s Minister for Kindness he had recognised a man to be obeyed. And unquestioning obedience was something which Derek was generally happy to provide. ‘Anything,’ as he would often drone to himself, or anyone lazy enough to listen, ‘anything for an easy life’. Especially, of course, with the added incentive of a cheque from the kind Minister for £7,500. What with one thing and another, Derek had a very easy life, and he wanted to keep it that way.
‘Under Section 115 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971,’ he began, standing at the front door before Grey and the General, hands in anorak pockets, shoulders softly sloping…
‘Oh dear Lord,’ sighed the General. ‘Here we go again!’
‘May we speak to the proprietor of the stable block?’ said Derek’s companion.
‘I wish you could! You’ll have to make do with us,’ said the General.
‘May we come in?’ said Derek.
‘No.’
‘You should be aware that as of this morning your stables are protected by an Emergency Grade Two Star listing. This brings with it numerous implications, and you may find it more desirable to discuss them inside.�
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‘Absolutely not,’ snapped the General. ‘I do wish you’d get on with it.’
With a lazy sigh, and an arse which quivered for a chair, Derek began again. ‘Under Section 115 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 we are hereby serving the proprietor of the Grade Two Star listed stable block with a notice.’ He handed the General an envelope. ‘This notice specifies the works which we consider necessary and urgent for the proper preservation of this Grade Two Star listed building. Further,’ he went on, and paused for a breath – a nervous breath, ‘since this Grade Two Star listed building is unoccupied, there can be no reasonable excuse for delay. If the aforementioned refurbishments have not commenced within the next seven days we – the local authority – can and will commence repairs ourselves, and shall recover the cost from you in due course.’
The General opened the envelope.
‘You’re jokin’, aren’t you?’ said Grey. ‘And how much are your a-fuckin’-formentioneds expected to cost?’
‘Good God!’ cried the General, goggling at the paper. ‘Are you all stark staring barking bloody mad? We’d be better off knocking the entire building down and starting again.’
‘I’m afraid this would not be permissible,’ said Derek.
‘But we can’t do it! We can’t even begin to do it!’
‘In which circumstances we’ll be looking at a compulsory purchase, after which the authority will, of course, be at liberty to redevelop the site for whichever use it deems necessary at the appropriate time. With regards to cost of repairs,’ Derek added blandly, ‘I would estimate all building works coming to something in the region of £750,000.’
Maurice, of course, was long gone by the time the newspapers arrived at Fiddleford. He had already told everybody the previous evening that he’d be heading off early to visit Gjykata Drejtohet, the sick Albanian busboy. If things went according to plan, he said, he would be back in time for dinner. They had all wished him the very best of luck.
‘I shall probably bring my helicopter, Colin,’ he said. ‘Would you like that?’
Colin stared at him, his pale-blue eyes open wide.
‘Hm, Colin? What do you say to that?’ said Maurice. ‘Would you and Chloe like a ride in my helicopter tomorrow evening?’
‘Is that a joke, Mr Morrison?’ Colin said at last.
‘Do I look like a man who would joke about his own helicopters?’
‘…I don’t think so, sir,’ he whispered.
‘Well exactly. So I shall see you here, shall I? Eight o’clock sharp? And Chloe too, I dare say. Don’t forget!’ He had ruffled Colin’s pale-red hair, and wished him good night.
But by eight o’clock sharp, as Morrison knew only too well, the children would be gone. And Grey would be the focus of hatred once again. And Messy would be distraught, and Maurice and his helicopter would only be dropping in to pick her up and fly away again.
Maurice Morrison always got what he wanted.
At six that morning, as the newspapers were being delivered at Fiddleford and as Morrison was slithering into his limousine at Leigh Delamere service station, Charlie Maxwell McDonald awoke with a start. Mrs Smiley, in slippers and a South American cardigan, had shut her front door with a slam that woke up half the street. She was scowling as she made her way over to him. But when she noticed the look of hope on his tired face she wavered a fraction, and the line she had prepared – something aggressive about calling the police – came out surprisingly half-hearted.
‘Never mind the police, Anne,’ Charlie had said, yawning a bit. ‘I just want to talk to my wife. I won’t leave – I can’t leave – not until I’ve talked to Jo. Will you tell her that?’
‘You’re disturbing the peace. You’re disturbing my daughter. Why don’t you just piss off?’
He laughed, partly to dispel some of the tension. ‘Well, look,’ he said. ‘You say I’m disturbing your peace. But you’ve just woken me up, so I’d say it was you who’s disturbing mine. Anyway I’m not going to piss off. I’m never going to piss off. I want to talk to Jo.’
‘Yes, and she doesn’t want to talk to you…Anyway,’ she added suddenly, ‘have you listened to the radio this morning?’
‘But she’s all right, isn’t she? You’d let me know if there was something wrong?’
Mrs Smiley ignored the question. ‘I said have you listened to your radio today?’
‘Of course I haven’t. I was asleep.’
‘I’m just saying,’ she said, turning back towards the house, ‘you should probably get yourself down to that house of yours pretty sharpish. Only it sounds like things are turning a bit nasty.’
‘Is this a trick?’ he said.
She didn’t answer.
‘Why, what the Hell’s happened?’ But she was leaving already, and he didn’t want to talk about Fiddleford. ‘Mrs Smiley – Anne,’ he shouted after her. ‘Please. At least—will you tell her—please, Mrs Smiley. Will you tell her she’s gone mad. Will you tell her she’s gone barking fucking – mad…Please. Will you just tell her I love her?’
She laughed. ‘Love? Pah!’ she said. ‘You don’t even know the meaning of the word!’ He looked at her, looking back at him, and of course he couldn’t be sure; his eyes were bleary and it was still only half light, but he thought he saw her smiling at him. ‘And don’t say “fuck” in front of your mother-in-law,’ she added, before hurrying back inside again.
At the newsagent’s he discovered there were stories in almost every paper. Pictures of the old Grey – debauched and demonic – and, beside them, the pictures of Fiddleford, taken after his sister had died and before they’d put the gate in. The coverage was as vicious as might be expected. The papers were having a field day.
Of course an Anti-Media Refuge could only have been an execration to the people it kept out. Fiddleford Manor, a place which protected the publicly persecuted, which only existed to defy Popular Opinion, and yet which was funded by Popular Opinion’s most boisterous, bullying voice, had more than simply infuriated the press. It had revolted them. It had enraged them. Until now they had been restrained. For fear, of all the humiliating reasons, of losing out on exclusive interviews with any future nationally reviled guests. Now they believed they had the ammunition to bring the place down, and they had no intention of holding back…
‘BRITAIN’S HOUSE OF SHAME,’ the headlines yelled…
‘Have we really come to this?’ ‘THE SUMPTUOUS MANSION WHERE BRITAIN’S DETRITUS REVELS IN THE BEST THAT MONEY CAN BUY…’ … ‘…Where only the vicious, the corrupt and the depraved are given a welcome…’ … ‘…Cads, lechers, strippers, con artists and crooks lounge in opulent luxury quaffing top-drawer vino from the palatial cellar’, ‘…while evil child abusers frolic openly with innocent young kids…’
There was no mention of Maurice Morrison in all this. Not that Charlie noticed. He barely even noticed what they were saying about his house. But Grey McShane – who was more honourable than anyone, more honourable than all of them – had been happy this time two days ago, when Charlie left him. And not just any-old-happy; happy for the very first time. And now, for the sheer Hell of it, they were trying to ruin his life yet again. Charlie knew how to help him. But first, he realised guiltily, it was about time he called home.
Meanwhile, inside the mews house, Jo lay on her sofabed oblivious to all this, oblivious to everything in fact, except the loss she felt for Charlie. When she tried to imagine a future without him she found she couldn’t. She felt empty. She felt numb. She felt half-dead. And after a day and two nights of listening to his shouted denials, after reading the scrawling letters he kept jamming through the door, she was even beginning to wonder if she hadn’t got it all wrong. He’d camped out there in the freezing cold for two long nights…Didn’t that prove he loved her? Wasn’t it almost enough? Except Maurice had said…What had he said exactly? Christ, she couldn’t even remember now.
She and Charlie had to talk. Now. Before she changed her mind. She heaved
herself out of bed, glanced in the mirror, glanced quickly away again, put on a dressing gown and tiptoed onto the landing. It was only quarter past six, but she could hear her mother moving around in her bedroom. She tiptoed over the landing and reached the bottom of the stairs without disturbing her. But then she hesitated: straight on to the front door, or left to stand in the kitchen while the kettle boiled? He was cold. He was bound to be cold. It could be a sort of peace offering, semi-peace offering. Just in case he’d never actually done anything wrong. She’d waited this long, she could wait another two minutes…
Slowly, carefully, her heart pounding, she carried the two steaming mugs of coffee to the door, threw it open—
‘Charlie?’
But it was too late. Twenty yards up the street and accelerating quickly away she could see Charlie and his Land Rover, deserting her and her enormous belly to their lonely Hampstead fate.
Be honest. Do you sometimes juggle priorities, so that safety is not a main consideration? Have there been occasions when day-to-day pressures of running your business led to actions that put people’s safety at risk?
Health and Safety Towards a Safer Workplace. Brought to you with the compliments of 3663 Foodservice in association with the Hospitality Training Foundation, as part of the Quality Business Initiative, which is funded by the Department for Education and Employment
(ix)
ACTION A FULL AND FRANK ASSESSMENT OF CORE VALUES
A cheerless, prohibited breakfast was spread out over the prohibited table. Nigel and Anatollatia gazed at the papers, drinking prohibited cups of coffee. Messy was already in tears. Grey was already packing. The children ate their prohibited toast and Marmite in silence. It was a truly woeful crowd which gathered in the Fiddleford kitchen that morning.
This time, at the sound of the intercom, they didn’t jump, they flinched. It had become impossible not to associate the sound with trouble. Without a word they slid the evidence of breakfast into a nearby cupboard, and awaited their fate.
