The Bottom Line (15 page)

She'd have liked to carry on arguing but I cut her short, pointing out that this was the third time in as many months that she'd been the subject of an official complaint and that, if it happened again, I would have to consider reporting her to Sir Rodney.

‘Wow!' she said sarcastically. ‘Report me to Sir Rodney? You really have got me worried now.'

‘You should be worried, Adrienne,' I told her. ‘Sir Rodney has the power to dismiss you out of hand if he feels like it, and you know very well that you signed an agreement giving up your conventional employment rights.'

She made as if to interrupt again, but I stopped her. ‘Please think about what I've said and don't give me any further cause for complaint.'

I might as well have saved my breath for all the difference it made to Adrienne. Within a week she had been so rude to a visitor that it took all my powers of persuasion to calm him down and prevent him from walking out with his entire entourage. It simply could not be allowed to continue. I told her that this was beyond the limit as far as I was concerned, but she still didn't take it seriously. Sir Rodney sent for me later that same day and asked me to fill him in with the background, which I did.

‘Is she worth keeping?' he first asked me.

‘Oh yes,' I replied, ‘if she can be made to behave. She can translate from five languages and she has an amazing breadth of knowledge. She works hard and the other girls like her, partly I think because she has such an irreverent attitude to everything and says things they would like to but daren't.'

‘Hm,' he mused, pausing for a moment before continuing. ‘Could she be made to toe the line?' he asked.

‘I'm not sure,' I answered. ‘I think it's worth trying because she's one of the most talented young people we've had in here for a long time.'

There was another pause.

‘Very well, then,' he eventually decided. ‘I'll have a letter drawn up by tomorrow morning notifying her of her dismissal and you can report back to me later in the day, if she's prepared to listen.'

The next morning, therefore, I summoned Adrienne to my office and gave her the envelope that contained notice of her dismissal. She opened it in her usual casual manner, but her mouth dropped when she read the letter inside.

‘But he can't do this!' she blurted. ‘He's sacked me. What have I done? Why I am being sacked? Where will I get another job like this?'

‘You're being sacked, Adrienne,' I told her with genuine regret, ‘because you refuse to do as you're told.'

‘But I'm good at my job,' she argued. ‘You ask any of the girls - they all come to me for help when they get stuck.'

‘You're a very intelligent girl, Adrienne,' I conceded, ‘and you do the formal part of your job brilliantly. But at the same time you're a public relations disaster.'

She sat down, looking pale. ‘What am I going to do?' she asked. ‘Where will I get another job? Will he give me a reference? Will
you
give me a reference?'

‘Yes, I'll give you a reference if that's what it comes to,' I promised her, ‘but only in a job where you don't deal with telephone enquiries.'

She was on to me like a flash. ‘What do you mean,' she asked, ‘when you say “if that's what it comes to”? Are you saying there might still be a chance I don't get sacked?'

‘Not really, no,' I replied. ‘Very occasionally Sir Rodney has been persuaded to change his mind, but he's not an easy man to persuade and, even if he does agree to keep you, there might be strict conditions.'

‘I don't care what the conditions are,' Adrienne pleaded. ‘I really like this job and I want to keep it. Please try to make him change his mind.'

‘I'll think about it,' I said, ‘but it's not as simple as you seem to think. If Sir Rodney is prepared to give you a second chance he'll need to be absolutely certain in his own mind that you've changed and that you won't cause any more trouble.'

‘Oh, I promise, I promise!' she exclaimed. ‘Please try to have a word with him.
Please
. I'll do anything.'

This was the sort of thing I'd been waiting to hear, but I still had to make it absolutely clear to Adrienne that it wasn't just a case of letting her off with a caution. ‘I'll see what I can I do,' I offered, ‘if you're really sure, but Sir Rodney will need to see you himself and you will almost certainly be punished.'

‘Punished?' she said. ‘What do you mean? Am I going to lose my lunch allowance for a week, or what?'

‘I think you'll find it will be more serious than losing your lunch allowance,' I warned her. ‘If Sir Rodney agrees to keep you on, he'll want to know that you've learned your lesson and that you aren't likely to upset any more of our customers.'

The look on Adrienne's face told me that she might just have understood what I was hinting at: it was a mixture of shock and amusement.

‘Do you mean what I think you mean?' she slowly asked.

‘What do you think I mean?'

‘You mean that he'll want to punish me himself, don't you?' she asked.

I confirmed that this was what I did mean and she beamed at me. Without having any idea of what the punishment might involve, she quickly agreed that she would accept her punishment, meet any conditions laid down and sign the necessary indemnities, if only she could keep her job. I smiled to myself and telephoned Sir Rodney's secretary to ask whether he was free.

‘He will be for you,' she told me. ‘In fact, he was expecting you to phone and said that you were to come straight up.'

Sir Rodney greeted me in that courteous but relaxed way which made him such an admirable boss to work for, as long as you didn't get on the wrong side of him. He motioned me to sit down, sent for coffee for both of us, and listened intently while I explained to him Adrienne's various misdemeanours. Then he asked me how she had reacted to the notice of dismissal.

‘She was horrified,' I told him, ‘and very upset.'

‘Do you think she will accept a punishment if it means keeping her job?' he asked.

‘I don't know what she expects,' I replied, ‘but she seems to think it's a bit of a joke.'

‘Oh dear,' Sir Rodney mused. ‘There certainly won't be any joking. We'll make it Friday then, as usual. Make the necessary cover arrangements, please, while I have a word with Beaumont.'

I assured him that I would. Beaumont was a high-class caretaker, not one who went round emptying wastepaper baskets but one who generally ensured that the support staff carried out their duties efficiently. He worked under Sir Rodney in the army and the pair had been together for something like twenty years. We both knew that Beaumont's preparations would be very thorough and that nobody else would know about them.

‘Very well, then, Audrey,' Sir Rodney said. ‘You and I will meet just before seven o'clock on Friday evening and we'll teach this young lady a lesson that she's likely to remember.' He made as if to dismiss me, but there were things I wanted, and needed, to know.

‘Excuse me, Sir Rodney, will it be a duet on Friday evening?' I asked him.

‘Oh, certainly,' he assured me. ‘I shall rely on you.'

‘And will there be an encore?'

‘Come now, Audrey,' he chided me gently. ‘You know there has to be an encore, as you put it. The evening wouldn't be complete without the encore.'

I returned to my own office and sent again for Adrienne, who breezed in quite cheerfully.

‘Did you fix it?' she asked me, her manner betraying her confidence that I had indeed fixed it.

‘Yes, Adrienne, I fixed it,' I told her. ‘Sir Rodney will see you at seven o'clock on Friday, and I shall be there as well.'

‘Like a chaperone?' she asked.

‘Not at all like a chaperone, no,' I retorted. ‘Sir Rodney is a gentleman of the old school, with the most advanced sense of propriety. There will be no need of a chaperone.'

She giggled.

‘You will stay behind when the other staff leave and take the lift down to the basement. The door will be locked and you are to arrive just before seven o'clock. Knock on the door and we shall let you in. There will be some documents for you to sign and some brief preparations to make. After Sir Rodney has...' I hesitated while I sought the right verb, ‘...
interviewed
you, you will be taken home and you will not be required to work on Monday or Tuesday. When you return on Wednesday the whole incident will be regarded as forgotten, provided that you have learned your lesson.'

She was still giggling to herself.

‘I assure you, Adrienne, this is no laughing matter and you will most assuredly not be laughing on Friday evening.'

‘Sorry, Mrs Tempest,' she spluttered, ‘but you must admit it all sounds a bit medieval, doesn't it?'

‘We'll see how medieval it is on Friday,' I said. ‘Let's hope that when it's all over you can get back to the things you do best and stop being such a nuisance. In the meantime, you're not to answer the telephone for the rest of the week.'

 

The week dragged unbelievably slowly from then onwards, but Adrienne managed to behave herself and she had clearly obeyed my injunction to tell nobody about Friday's arrangement, which was just as well or she really would have been out on her ear.

I dressed very carefully on Friday morning, wearing a generously cut skirt and a severe but smart blouse. Underneath it I was wearing a sports bra made of very light material and with seamless cups. Experience had told me that the events on Friday evening would cause me considerable excitement and I wanted to be sure that, as my nipples hardened, they rubbed against the material of my bra. Other than that, I needed clothes that were comfortable and loose.

The day passed without incident and I made my way down to the basement in good time. Sir Rodney was already there, inspecting Beaumont's preparations, which as ever seemed very thorough. As I walked in he locked the door behind me. The room was dominated by the huge whipping triangle, more properly a pyramid with a front triangle of wood filled in by strong webbing latticed between the upright sides. The front tilted slightly backwards and was held firmly in position by an arrangement of bolts, so it could be guaranteed not to slip or give way.

There was a trestle table with a variety of implements laid out on it, apparently in ascending order of severity from left to right. There were thin straps to begin with, a variety of paddles in both leather and wood, crops of various lengths and thicknesses, three canes, a couple of whips each having several short strands, and a martinet. In one corner stood a pail of water holding a birch rod, so that the surprisingly delicate twigs would remain fresh and supple. On the wall opposite the whipping triangle a small folding screen had been erected, close to which stood a desk bearing a folder with papers visible inside it.

‘Tell me, Audrey, how long is it since the last offender was brought down here?' Sir Rodney asked.

‘I'm not sure exactly,' I replied, ‘but it must be over a year.'

‘I supposed it must be,' he said. ‘That's really far too long. We ought to do this more often.'

I laughed. ‘I don't really think the department would allow us to set up girls for punishment just so we could give ourselves a regular thrill on Friday evenings. And the reason why we've kept it secret is that we've been so... I can't think of the best word.'

‘Abstemious?' suggested Sir Rodney, at which I laughed again.

We chatted for a few moments more and then came the knock on the door we'd been waiting for. I opened the door, ushered in Adrienne and locked it again. She glanced around the room, suppressed another giggle and seemed not the least but nervous.

‘It really is medieval, isn't it?' she commented. ‘I really had no idea.'

‘That itself is the idea,' said Sir Rodney. ‘The existence of this room and the equipment within it has saved quite a few careers from an untimely ending, I assure you. But I do urge you to take these proceedings seriously. Presumably Mrs Tempest has told you about the preliminaries, before we get down to business?'

‘You mean I have to sign a few papers?' she said, and continued without waiting for an answer. ‘Oh yes, I know all about that. Anything's better than getting the sack.'

‘Quite so,' said Sir Rodney, opening the folder. ‘Now this is the first paper we need you to sign. I'm afraid you have to sign two copies.'

He removed a single sheet of paper which stated that the signatory had agreed to accept the punishment in lieu of dismissal, that she understood she could end the punishment at any stage subject to instant dismissal, that she was in perfect health and that she accepted that all the proceedings would remain confidential. Adrienne glanced at it, signed both copies and handed them back. Then Sir Rodney handed her two copies of the second sheet, at which she glanced a little less perfunctorily.

‘I'm not signing this,' she said. ‘It says that I've had my punishment, and we haven't even started yet.'