Mood Indigo (17 page)

Chick didn't answer. He took his notebook and pencil and jotted down some figures.

‘Did you find a job?' he asked.

‘Not yet,' said Colin. ‘But I've got an interview later on, and another one tomorrow.'

‘What sort of thing are you looking for?' asked Chick. ‘Oh, anything!' said Colin. ‘So long as I can get some money. Flowers are so expensive.'

‘They are,' said Chick.

‘How are you getting on at work?' said Colin. ‘I got a pal to take over from me,' said Chick, ‘because I had so many other things to do …'

‘Did they take him on?' asked Colin.

‘Yes, it all worked out perfectly. He could do my job backwards.'

‘So?' asked Colin.

‘So when I wanted to go back,' explained Chick, ‘they told me my pal was doing fine … But, if I wanted a new job, then they'd find something else for me, only the pay wouldn't be so good.'

‘Your uncle can't give you anything now,' said Colin.

He did not even make his sentence into a question. It seemed obvious to him.

‘It would be rather hard for me to ask him for any,' said Chick. ‘He's dead.'

‘You never told me …'

‘It wasn't madly interesting,' murmured Chick.

Nicholas came back again with a greasy pot in which three black sausages were fighting for their lives.

‘You'll have to eat them like that,' he said. ‘I can't finish them off. They're as hard as old boots and as tough as nails. I put some nitric acid in – that's why they're black – but it wasn't powerful enough to do the trick.'

Colin managed to stick his fork into one of the sausages and it writhed as it gave out an unrhythmical death-rattle.

‘I've got one,' he said. ‘You have a try, Chick!'

‘I am trying,' said Chick, ‘but it's not so easy!'

He sent a great splurt of grease flying across the table.

‘Hell!' he said.

‘Don't worry,' said Nicholas. ‘It's good for the woodwork.'

Chick managed to help himself at last, and Nicholas carried away the third sausage on a stretcher.

‘I don't know what's going wrong,' said Chick. ‘Did it used to be like this here before?'

‘No,' confessed Colin. ‘Everything everywhere is
changing, and I can't do anything to stop it. It's grown like some kind of leprosy since my doublezoons disappeared …'

‘Haven't you got any left at all?' asked Chick.

‘Hardly any,' replied Colin. ‘I paid for the mountains in advance and for the flowers too – because I don't want Chloe to go short of anything that might help to get her better. But, apart from that, things aren't too good in themselves.'

Chick had finished his sausage.

‘Come and look at the kitchen corridor!' said Colin.

‘I'm right behind you,' said Chick.

Through the panes on each side you could just pick out a wan, tarnished sun. Their centres were smothered with black spots. A few skimpy handfuls of rays had got through into the corridor but, as soon as they touched the ceramic tiles that were once so brilliant, they turned to liquid and trickled away into long damp stains. A smell like locked cellars hovered over the walls. In one of the corners the mouse with black whiskers had built a nest on stilts for itself. It could no longer play with the golden rays on the floor like it used to. It was shuddering on a pile of remnants of silk and taffeta, and the damp was causing its long whiskers to cling together. After a supermuscular effort it had managed to scratch some of the tiles to make them shine again, but the task was too mighty for its tiny paws, and now it just stayed in its corner, trembling and worn out.

‘Aren't the radiators working?' asked Chick, pulling up the collar of his jacket.

‘Of course they are,' said Colin. ‘They're switched on all day long, but nothing happens. This is the spot where it all started …'

‘What a nuisance,' said Chick. ‘You ought to get the builders in.'

‘They've been,' said Colin, ‘and they've been laid up ever since.'

‘Oh!' said Chick. ‘They'll be all right in a day or two.'

‘I don't think so,' said Colin. ‘Come on, let's go and finish our lunch with Nicholas.'

They went into the kitchen. There too the room had grown smaller. Nicholas, sitting at a bare little table, was reading a book and munching at something.

‘Look here, Nicholas …' said Colin.

‘All right,' said Nicholas. ‘I was just going to bring your afters in.'

‘That's not what I meant,' said Colin. ‘We're going to eat it here. No, it was something else. Nicholas, you wouldn't like me to give you the sack, would you?'

‘Not really,' said Nicholas.

‘Well, I think I might have to,' said Colin. ‘You're going to seed here. You've grown ten years older in a week.'

‘
Seven
years older,' Nicholas corrected him.

‘I don't like seeing you like this. It's not doing you any good being here. It's the atmosphere.'

‘But it isn't affecting you,' said Nicholas.

‘It's not the same for me,' said Colin. ‘I've got to get Chloe better and nothing else matters to me, so it doesn't have any effect. How's your club?'

‘Never go there these days …' said Nicholas.

‘I can't take any more of this,' repeated Colin. ‘The High-Pottinuices are looking for a cook and I've said you'll go. But first I'd like you to tell me that you'd like to go there.'

‘I wouldn't,' said Nicholas.

‘Well,' said Colin, ‘you're going to go there, whether you like it or not.'

‘That's a rotten thing to do to anybody,' said Nicholas. ‘I feel like a rat buggering off from the sinking ship.'

‘Not at all,' said Colin. ‘You
must
go. You know how sad it makes me …'

‘Yes, I know,' said Nicholas. He closed his book and put down his head in his arms on the table.

‘You've got nothing to be sad about,' said Colin.

‘I'm
not
sad,' groaned Nicholas.

He looked up. Great tears of silence were in his eyes.

‘I'm a nut,' he said.

‘You're a great pal, Nicholas,' said Colin.

‘No, I'm not,' said Nicholas. ‘I'd like to crawl away inside a shell. Then I'd hear nothing but the sea. And nobody would find me and come and disturb me …'

Colin went up the stairs. They were gloomily lit by unblinkingly leaden leaded windows. He reached the first floor and found a black door cut into a cold stone wall. Without ringing he went in, filled up a form, gave it to a commissionaire who emptied it, screwed it into a little ball, fed it into the mouth of a ravenous cannon and took careful aim at the inquiry desk in the partition facing him. He ignited the gunpowder, closed his right ear with his left hand, and fired. Then he sat down to recharge his weapon in preparation for the next caller.

Colin stood there until a peal of bells summoned the
commissionaire to show him into the chairman's office.

He followed the man along a long winding, rambling passage whose levels went up and down with every step they took. Although the walls were perpendicular to the floors, they twisted and turned with them at each corner, and he had to go at full speed if he wanted to stay upright. Before he knew what had happened, he was standing in front of the chairman's desk. Obediently he sat down in a restive armchair that reared and pranced between his legs and only stood still when its master made an imperative gesture.

‘Well? …' said the chairman.

‘Well. Here I am! …' said Colin.

‘What do you do?' asked the chairman.

‘I've mastered the rudiments …' said Colin.

‘What I mean,' said the chairman, ‘is how do you spend your time?'

‘I spend the best part of my time,' said Colin, ‘in making things worse.'

‘Why?' asked the chairman, in a deteriorated tone.

‘Because the best never makes things better,' said Colin.

‘Ahem … Hum! …' murmured the director. ‘You know the kind of job we are offering?'

‘No,' said Colin.

‘Neither do I …' said the chairman. ‘I'll have to ask my managing director. But you don't look as if you would be suitable …'

‘Why not?' This time it was Colin who asked the question.

‘I don't know …' said the chairman.

He seemed nervous and pushed his armchair back a little.

‘Don't come any closer! …' he snapped.

‘But … I didn't move …' said Colin.

‘No … No …' muttered the chairman. ‘That's what they all say … And then …'

He leaned forward provocatively without taking his eyes off Colin, and picked up his telephone from the desk, shaking it violently.

‘Hello! …' he shouted. ‘Come in here immediately!'

He put back the instrument and continued contemplating Colin suspiciously.

‘How old are you?' he asked.

‘Twenty-one …' said Colin.

‘I thought as much …' said his interlocutor.

Somebody knocked at the door.

‘Come in!' shouted the chairman, and his expression relaxed again.

A man, ravaged by the continual absorption of paper dust and whose bronchia must have been overflowing with reconstituted cellulose paste, came into the room with a file under his arm.

‘You've broken a chair,' said the chairman.

‘Yes,' said the managing director.

He put the file on the table.

‘It can be repaired, you know …'

He turned to Colin.

‘Do you know how to mend chairs? …'

‘I think so …' said Colin, taken by surprise. ‘It isn't very difficult, is it?'

‘I've used up three pots of office glue so far,' said the managing director, ‘and haven't managed it yet.'

‘You'll pay for them,' yelled the chairman. ‘I'll deduct the cost of them from your salary …'

‘I've already taken it from my secretary's,' said the managing director. ‘Don't worry, chief.'

‘Were you looking for somebody to mend chairs?' asked Colin timidly.

‘Of course!' said the chairman. ‘We must have been.'

‘I don't remember very clearly,' said the managing director. ‘But you can't mend a chair …'

‘Why not?' said Colin.

‘Simply because you can't,' said the managing director.

‘I wonder how you realized that?' said the chairman.

‘Mainly,' said the managing director, ‘because these chairs cannot be mended and, in particular, because he doesn't give me the impression of being able to mend a chair.'

‘But what has a chair got to do with an office job?' said Colin.

‘Do you sit on the floor when you work?' sneered the chairman.

‘You can't work very often if you do,' improved the managing director.

‘It's perfectly obvious,' said the chairman, ‘that you're an idler! …'

‘That's it … An idler …' approved the managing director.

‘We could never,' concluded the chairman, ‘under any circumstances, take on a lazy-bones! …'

‘Especially when we haven't any work to give him …' said the managing director.

‘It's absolutely illogical,' said Colin, stunned by their bureaucratic booming.

‘Why is it illogical, eh?' asked the chairman.

‘Because,' said Colin, ‘the last thing you should give an idler to do is work!'

‘So that's it,' said the managing director, ‘so you want to take over the chairmanship?'

The chairman split his sides laughing at this suggestion.

‘He's wonderful …!' he said.

His face clouded over and he pushed his armchair still farther back.

‘Take him away …' he said to the managing director. ‘It's clear to me now why he came. Go on, quickly! … Buzz off, slacker!' he screamed.

The managing director made a dive for Colin who had smartly grabbed the forgotten file from the table.

‘If you lay a hand on me …' he threatened.

He backed slowly to the door.

‘Clear off!' screeched the chairman. ‘Spawndrift of Satan! …'

‘And you're a silly old bugger,' said Colin, and he turned the handle of the door.

He flung the file at the desk and dashed into the corridor. When he reached the front door the commissionaire fired his cannon at him and the paper bullets made holes in the shape of a skull and crossbones in the upper panel of the door as it swung back.

‘I can tell that it's a very fine article,' said the junctiquitarian, as he walked round Colin's clavicocktail.

‘It's made from genuine crow's-foot maple,' said Colin.

‘So I see,' said the junctiquitarian. ‘I suppose it works all right?'

‘I'm only selling my very best things,' said Colin.

‘It must upset you,' said the junctiquitarian, leaning over to examine a little pattern in the grain of the wood.

He blew away a few specks of dust which were spoiling the polish on the piece of furniture.

‘Wouldn't you prefer to go out to work for your money and hang on to this? …'

Colin remembered the chairman's office and the parting shot and he said ‘No.'

‘You'll come to it in the end,' said the junctiquitarian, ‘when you've got nothing left to sell …'

‘If my expenses stop rising …' said Colin. And he went on … ‘if my expenses stop growing, then, by selling my things, I should have enough to live on without working. Not live very well, but live all the same.'

‘Don't you like work?' asked the junctiquitarian.

‘It's horrible,' said Colin. ‘It takes a man down to the level of a machine.'