You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (17 page)

‘Summoned?’

‘By Them. God only knows why, but there’s only one way to find out. You read that bit there, and I’ll explain what I’m on about when I get back.’

So Cassie picked up the book. Connie had marked the place with an empty After Eight wrapper.

… is generally misinterpreted as a reference to Leo Porzig, late Fulbright professor of applied metaphysics at Stanford University. In fact, Porzig was not the first to identify the phenomenon; however, it was his landmark article in Metempsychosis 67 (1962) that initially drew attention to the research conducted in Paris by Lehmann and Diakonov between 1927 and 1932 …

Cassie frowned. Skip all that.

… his epoch-making 1962 article, Porzig characterises the effect thus: An individual A, of sound mind and subject to no perceptible supernatural influence, becomes aware that he is in fact leading the life of another individual, B - he has some or all of B’s memories, finds himself in situations alien to his own circumstances but relevant to B’s, experiences emotions or holds opinions entirely foreign to his own nature but in keeping with B’s. In some cases reported by Lehmann and Diakonov, at the relevant time B had predeceased A, sometimes by a substantial number of years, whereas in other instances A and B were almost exact contemporaries and B was still alive. Under the influence of the syndrome, subjects had espoused causes they detested, quarrelled bitterly with close friends and family, and in some instances married partners they heartily disliked. Lehmann and Diakonov collated the data but were unable to advance any cogent explanation; it was Porzig who proposed the hypothesis that the effect is a symptom of a temporal anomaly, in essence a massive rupture in the time/causality interface, whereby B, having been preordained to commit some act or suffer some experience but having been prevented by the intervention of some unforeseen and anomalous external force or event, B’s destiny attaches itself to A and influences his existence in all relevant aspects as though A were indeed B—

Cassie looked up and rubbed her eyelids. It wasn’t quite as bad as tax statutes or EU directives, but it wasn’t exactly light holiday reading either. She went back and had another crack at it. Second time around wasn’t much better than the first; third time, a glimmer of light began to shine through the cracks. She cast her mind back to college, when she’d had to wade through this sort of garbage all the time. Back then, it had always helped if she stuck in a few names, so she did that, and went through it in her mind to see if it made any sense.

All right. Suppose Sean Connery’s got a destiny; he’s destined to be the first man on Mars. But, the day before the Mars rocket’s due to blast off from Canaveral, Sean trips over the cat, falls down the stairs and sprains his ankle. Destiny is foiled; but what’s written is written, so instead Destiny darts out into the street and press-gangs the first remotely suitable person it comes across - Jim Carrey, say - into taking Sean’s place. Accordingly, Jim abandons his promising career in insurance, signs up with NASA and becomes an astronaut. Destiny is happy, because in the end a human toe leaves a print in the chartreuse dust of an alien world; whether Jim likes it or not is neither here nor there. Fine.

Back to the book—

… complications arise when the superimposition of B’s destiny on A prevents A from fulfilling his own destiny, which in turn lights on a random third party C, and so on in a rapidly escalating chain reaction. That no such sequence of events has yet been detected or recorded, Porzig argued, is beside the point; given the right circumstances, such a chain reaction could quite possibly develop, with obviously disastrous consequences. Dismissing Porzig as unduly alarmist and seeking to refute his basic conclusions, Hrozny and Crossland (JTS 105, 1972, pp 156-94) argued that such an effect would immediately be neutralised and readjusted by Meilhac’s Phenomenon, and accordingly …

Cassie shut the book. She couldn’t be arsed with Hrozny and Crossland right now. In fact, if they both fell down an open manhole cover, and Meilhac tumbled in after them and broke his stupid neck, it’d serve them all right for complicating her life to the point where she wanted to scream.

Living someone else’s life instead of my own, she thought; well. In a sense, she’d been doing that for years (Daddy’s voice: You don’t want to be a boring old accountant, kitten, you ‘re going to be a sorcerer just like me) but that wasn’t an effect or a phenomenon, that was her own fault for not digging her heels in and saying no. The recent stuff, though; that was something else. Suppose, then, that somebody she didn’t know, hadn’t ever met, had been destined since Time began to fall in love with Colin Hollingshead. A nasty thought, that, although it was always possible that this unknown person had been very naughty in a previous existence. Suppose, though; and suppose somewhere along the line true love had cast a shoe or blown a tyre; and suppose that, in consequence, there was this huge splodge of romance ricocheting around like a stray bullet, and she just happened to be in the way—

Eek, Cassie thought.

Or maybe it happens all the time, which would at least go some way towards explaining some of the bizarre combinations you see wheeling trolleys round Homebase together on bank holidays. Very nasty thought. But it was all going to be all right in the end, because that nice Mr Porzig, or one of his fellow researchers, would undoubtedly have come up with an antidote or cure, something you could get from Boots in your lunch hour and gobble down, and everything’s fine again. Cassie grabbed for the book and flicked through to Connie’s bookmark.

Drivel, drivel, drivel - ah, here we go. As regards counteracting an existing anomaly or circumventing one believed likely to occur, at the time of writing there is a general consensus among the leading authorities. Even Falkenstein and Shah, the leading proponents of the revisionist approach, agree that once the syndrome has taken effect, absolutely nothing can be done to set things right.

Cassie closed the book and dumped it on the desk. Thank you ever so bloody much, she thought. Of course, she didn’t believe a word of it. It was all just a bunch of stupid academics making up the most appalling garbage simply so they could justify their research grants. And even if it wasn’t, there was bound to be some other perfectly rational explanation for what was happening to her, which was really no big deal in any case, hardly worth sparing a moment’s thought for.

She thought about hurling the book on the floor and jumping on it, which wouldn’t solve much but might soothe her immediate need for self-expression; but it was Connie’s book. It was ridiculous, though. There had to be something she could do instead of dropping a meek curtsy and trooping off to choose a wedding dress. To hell with it; it was bullying, and she wouldn’t stand for it -

‘You still here?’ Connie had come back. Cassie was about to tell her all about Porzig and the stars in their courses and everything when she caught sight of the look on Connie’s face. ‘Something’s up,’ she said.

Connie nodded and sat down. ‘You could say that,’ she said.

‘Something bad.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Connie shrugged. ‘Define bad. If you mean something really shitty and unfair, then yes, something bad.’ She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. ‘Guess what,’ she said. ‘The bastards have given me the sack.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘They can’t do that,’ Cassie said.

‘Really?’ Connie glared at her. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. I could take them to the industrial tribunal for wrongful dismissal, or whatever it’s called. Well, it’d be fun, I suppose, watching a whole roomful of lawyers getting turned into white mice, but I don’t think it’d achieve anything positive. Of course they can do it. They can do anything. Look it up in the dictionary, under M for Magic’ She sighed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s that, I suppose. Nobody’s going to give me another job at my age. In six months’ time, I’ll be one of those sad old creatures you see in supermarkets wheeling round a trolley full of frozen dinners and cat food. I’ll be able to do gardening and watch the daytime soaps. Won’t that be bloody fun.’

‘But that’s stupid,’ Cassie objected. ‘You know more about the business than anybody I’ve ever met. You earn them pots of money. You—’

‘Not a team player, they said,’ Connie interrupted grimly. ‘They feel I’m too set in my ways to adapt to the challenges of the new post-rationalisation corporate structure. Also, they seem to have got it into their heads that I’m a teeny bit stroppy. What gave them that idea I honestly couldn’t say.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Two weeks’ notice, though of course they’d understand if I want to leave earlier. Fat chance,’ she spat. ‘I never did get the hang of knowing when I’m beaten. Lack of practice, I guess.’

‘Hut it doesn’t make sense,’ Cassie maintained. ‘You were going to retire anyway.’

‘That’s management for you,’ Connie said wearily. ‘The maximum brutality working hand in hand with the minimum logic to achieve the worst possible outcome - it’s the proud old tradition of British industrial relations. No, they could see I wasn’t going to wear my baseball cap and be a happy camper, so they’ve flushed me down the bog, and the hell with thirty years of bloody hard work.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not like it matters,’ she added. ‘Like you said, I was going to pack it in anyway. It’s letting the little shits beat me that I don’t like. It goes against the grain, somehow.’

Cassie couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be irritating at best. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a rotten thing to do. In fact, I’ve got a good mind to tell them where they an stick their stupid job.’

‘You could do that,’ Connie replied. ‘And we could go into business together making soft toys and home-made jam, since neither of us’d be able to get a proper job. Sweet idea but don’t bother on my account. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to sit quietly on my own and think despairing thoughts. Push off,’ she translated, and Cassie left.

So, Connie thought. She looked around her, considering the boundaries of the life she’d just had taken away from her. From where she sat, she could see the filing cabinet whose drawers had never closed properly, the carpet that rucked up under the door, the empty bubble where the wallpaper had come away from the wall, the standard-issue print of London Bridge that had suddenly turned up one day without any explanation (she’d taken it down and thrown it out once; it was back in place the next morning), the floor-to-ceiling books stuffed with information she wouldn’t be needing any more, the visitor’s chair that squeaked. It was a cage, and the zookeepers came round from time to time to push work under the door, and when she’d gone they’d probably knock through to extend the computer room. She thought of all the hours she’d bled in this room, irreplaceable units of the slim margin between birth and death. What, after all, is Life but eighty-odd quid you get out of the cashpoint to pay some bill or other, and end up frittering away on impulse buys and special offers that you don’t actually want?

Yes, but she knew all that already. The interesting aspect was why they’d chosen to dump on her now, as opposed to, say, later. Lying on her desk was that old copy of Levinson & De Pienaar, suddenly she remembered why she’d taken it down off the shelf.

Coincidence.

Absolutely. Nevertheless, Connie pulled the book towards her and flicked through until she found the place. She was reading and making notes when there was a knock at the door and Mr Tanner came in.

‘Dennis,’ she said. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while.’

Mr Tanner wasn’t looking her in the eye, which meant he’d heard about her getting the sack. ‘Been run off my feet by the bastard auditors,’ he said.

‘They’re still here, then?’

‘Oh yes.’ He sighed. ‘Busy little bees. They’ve been through half the files in the building, they’ve had all the ledgers and the paying-in books and the VAT stuff and the PAYE accounts, and now they want a whole lot more files and the bank statements for the last three years. I’ll say this for them,’ he added, ‘they’re thorough.’

‘Apart from that, though,’ Connie said. ‘You’ve made friends with them, I trust; passed round the family snapshots, talked about United’s chances in the League this season, all that sort of thing.’

Mr Tanner laughed. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘There’s three blokes who look like the Nazgul in pinstripes, and a skinny hatchet-faced bird who keeps saying “Well?” at me every time she asks me a question and I don’t answer her inside half a second. If death’s half as scary, I’ll have to think seriously about living for ever. You got the Takemura file handy?’

Connie opened her filing cabinet and handed it over. ‘What do they want that for?’ she asked. ‘It was just a poxy little job, and it was all wrapped up three years ago.’

Mr Tanner shrugged. ‘You ask them if you like,’ he said. ‘And if you do and that bony cow looks at you and turns you to stone, can I have you for a bird-bath stand? You’d look good on our lawn with starlings hopping about on your head.’

When he’d gone, Connie reached for the book and read a little more. Then she reached for the phone.

‘Rosie?’ she said. ‘Do me a favour, get me Hollingshead and Farren. Not the boss,’ she added, ‘the son. What’s-his-name, Colin Hollingshead. Thanks.’

From time to time, you do get trees growing inside industrial premises. The difference is, they’re neatly planted in pots, strategically placed so that visiting buyers can discreetly empty their glasses of disgusting white wine into them at sales presentations. What you don’t tend to get is trees growing straight up through the carpet, and especially not overnight.

Oh God, Colin thought, and he reached out and wiped his fingertips on the bark. Just as he’d expected: the exact same texture as the one at home. It was a curious thing. For some reason or other, he’d spent an unreasonably large amount of time over the years looking through gardening books and tree books, and he’d never quite managed to pin down the species of the stupid big growing thing that filled the stairwell at home. Just when he was sure it was an oak or a sequoia or a Japanese maple, he’d find another book and realise it was nothing of the kind, though it might just possibly be an ornamental dogwood or an Amazonian bubinga. Whatever it was, though, there were now two of it. How nice.