John

He wasn’t a man who surrendered often to introspection. He carried on like the soldier he thought he was, fighting a professional war that was indulgent and ultimately pointless. It wasted both his time and theirs. His detractors, the piddling and squalling front-line staff on the manufacturing floor of FedCare Medical were a stubborn lot. They were ill-informed and, let’s face it: not capable of understanding the world above whatever dead career they had stagnated under. They fought not for the fairness or appreciation they claimed to deserve, but against responsible elimination of the lethargy and indifference his predecessors had come to allow. They feared accountability, and it was one of the goddamn listed principles of FedCare Medical. He knew it, they knew it. Their time had belatedly come, and he was the one willing to deliver the necessary adjustments.

It was no surprise he had sashayed so seamlessly into his current position. There were two managers now between his moisturised piano-key fingers and the grubby, greedy mitts of the staff. He had the ambition. He had the confidence. He had that switch, the one that could click off against the wailing frailties of the workers. He’d shuffled from one opportunity to the next, always with a cunning word, a skilfully dignified sell, and a hormonal advantage that made the ones with the power of decision disregard his year of birth and judge his maturity by the retreating line of his hair.

Positions below him were in constant turnover.
The flux reflected the difficulties of the manufacturing floors and the bleating demands that drifted up from them. He floated finely in the authoritative dust, a harmless looking mite with venom at the ready. He conducted tours of the equipment and production line sometimes, smiling warmly at each staff member until they looked away. He was always polite, and his door he kept reminding them, was always open.

Come at me. Say something. No? Smile and move on. Get on board kitten. Get that scowl off your face because your easy ride is over.

In his upstairs office, he would mark in his desk diary that he’d once again given them a chance to express any concerns. That book would be his insurance when they came howling, and he never missed a thing. He had the confidence of the entire building, some of the staff on the floor even remembered that he was once one of them. Soon enough though, all but the especially disinterested would come to understand that he was picked for a reason.
They didn’t take to it kindly, no matter what variety of prophylactic respect they tried to wear. He understood their real motivations, their sour feelings, but he was never wavered by the gathering discontent of the staff he presided over.

That was where he shined, where that kind of ridiculous mistake became the territory of his predecessor alone, the lovely Frances. There is a reason that the word empathetic so easily leaves just pathetic in its wake. And where was she today? Skidding sideways, that’s where she was, Queen Frances: Lovely blonde Frances with her volleyball butt. He imagined her that way: popular royalty out of control, fumbling in the darkness of a castle of concern, walling herself in for the pigs and peasants. He did imagine her, only in private though. Well, all right, maybe over a few drinks with anyone up here with him who got it. Anyone worthy. Have your principles Frances, have your babies. He would always win, trajectory unaltered, and still come home to a silent conscience and even a sprawling family, sacrifice free if he cared for one. Unlike those before him. Unlike the weak.

When the board headhunted a new CEO and settled on Deirdre Trice, it was to this man she was introduced. She had been told that he was the one, the man who wouldn’t baulk at the demands of a thriving business. That’s what it was, a business. How offended some of the staff had been, trying to handle the idea that their medical equipment was being manufactured by a business. Deirdre had first encountered this sentiment in a footnote before she took the job, the company had begun in some forgotten age as a charity, of all things. She might have been concerned, had the promise of her coming professional satisfaction not been so exquisite. She was adept at the art of spin, at convincing her workers that not only did this profit-driven business prioritise the quality of product, but the welfare of their workers. It was a delicious kind of challenge for her, and all her experience told her: this man, if she was seeing him accurately through these figures, could handle the execution of her talent.
They first met at a luncheon, an elaborately decorated round table heaving with other key figures from FedCare Medical. His owl eyes went first to the threats. Gough Bartlett three seats over, his wax paper hands with their cherry knuckles clutching at cutlery. He could slice you apart with that tongue, never to be provoked. Colleen Marriott directly opposite, jewellery stacked high on the right hand. To be gently flirted with but not underestimated. The others were safer, more predictable, every guest a note in the more private book of his social and professional stratagem. It was this careful handling of each player that helped earn him a seat at the table in the first place.

And there, two guests to his right had been this Deirdre Trice. He had performed research on her of course, not that she wasn’t already worthy of note. He was curious as to how she would handle herself. As the head of a major rival supplier she had been catapulted to newer challenges when an improperly qualified conman had been found to be orchestrating quality checks, illegal and long unnoticed. The scandal was an embarrassment, one she had worn with skill. He had ferreted out some interviews performed with her at the time, and he admired the coolness of her deflection and spin. A politician, just like he was, a fellow soldier perhaps. He felt as if he could hear her mind working as he read the quotations, heard her voice in his head marry his own. He had watched her carefully as her high laugh stabbed at the table air, effervescent with sparkling wine aerosol. She had glanced at him then, just briefly, but he didn’t let his stare break. Before they had taken their seats, at the initial introduction, he had shaken her pulpy left hand and their wedding rings clacked. She had said Nice to meet you. He: Isn’t it though? He knew by the resulting high stabbing laugh that his charm here was working, and yes he planned to tease out that laugh often enough to keep climbing.

Time grunted by, and on their fourth one-on-one meeting in her maroon and gold office, he had come to expect her to be playing music. It was always this jarring, frantic piano, variations on an intellectual seizure. He only recognised it as the same set of tracks because of an irritating copy fault in the CD. It was if she didn’t hear it. This time he inquired about it and she said it was Mendelson or Mandelshon. She smiled, and it was warm.

Have a seat.

The leather sang out under him and she directed a remote at the stereo, softening the music. In the new silence the remote knocked a sound from the desk as she put it down, fingers hurrying to fold into one another.

I’ve invited you here to talk about the direction of the organisation, she said, maybe get some insight from someone who has come from the bottom.

He had to smirk at that. Well Deirdre he said, I’m gratified that you recognise my… unique position. I’m one of these people, I know who they are and what they want. But I also know what they’re capable of and my priority is to help them realise that.

Good, she nodded. Because I’m looking to you to orchestrate this closure from a… professional standpoint. As one of them. We’re moving forward here and frankly I need my best people to make it happen and happen professionally. Now I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know everyone that well and obviously I’m in a tight spot. The closure has to happen. That department is… simply redundant as you know. I was impressed with your arguments to the leadership team. I think you get it.

I appreciate that.
Then let’s get on top of this. They spent the next hour conspiring together, managing the project. They concocted a redistribution of assets, the department wouldn’t so much be closed down as… streamlined, integrated. There had been a moment, among that brainstorming, when a lacquered stalk of Deirdre’s tangerine bouffant had loosened and lent sideways. It was so absurd that before he could help it he found that he was turned on. When he left he was thinking of piano lessons. He had played excellently, once upon a time and no, music teacher you did not need passion to play perfectly. He saved passion for other pursuits. It had no place in public, it was unseemly and it interfered, like rage on the golf course.
The changes rolled out.

He had the redundant manager in, a fat and old compatriot whose breathing was so laboured that water broke frequently from all the pits he owned. He put on his sincere face and appealed to the fat man’s sense of economics.

All the best for the future he concluded after forty minutes of reminiscing and sorrowful nostalgia, and I mean that, mate.

The manager of the salvaged department, the spared sister of the dismissed fat man, came slithering into his office more now than her entire tenure beneath him. He enjoyed her scaly face, the black eyes clamouring for his approval. The way she nodded in muted hyperbolic praise whenever he spoke. How desperate she was to please him. She even stood up for him against her own staff when she thought they might offend him. She at least, was an asset. She came crying to him, quite literally, when the news broke about the reclassification. The disrespect, she said. They’re not happy. They don’t understand and they blame me. What am I supposed to do? What do they want from me? It’s business. Can’t you talk to them?
I’d be happy to! He insisted, eyes wide. Why didn’t you come to me sooner? My door is always open. And she pretended she was satisfied, a lizard on a cold rock.

Eventually to no surprise, the figures came back in his favour. When the shock became boring the staff forgot to complain so often. He clinked glasses with Deirdre as the quarterly board update roared her success from the pages. Her trust now belonged to him. His owl eyes were greedy.

On their seventieth one-on-one meeting in her office, which he had come to think of as their personal War Room, there was no music. He had put together a semi-formal report that detailed some further streamlining they could implement, and he senses another restructure on the way. Their victory was only so potent as to last until the next quarterly update. By the silence in the office he knew she had responded to the gravity of the potential in this move. Long ago he had stopped needing an invitation to sit down. She smiled, and it was warm. Knowing her patterns, he readied himself for praise.
Look, she began, I’m not going to bullshit you.

The confidence rooted in his own surety kept realisation out of his reach for far too long into the conversation. She had to say it directly before he realised this was not a prelude to the acclaim he was expecting.
It’s a business decision…
My hands are tied…
I fought for you, by God I fought for you.

He heard his own words, saw his own hand pressed sincerely over his heart. Watching his own careful dismissal in that tangerine mirror, the hot shame rushed to choke him. Words refused to greet his throat. He faltered, off guard. He was never off guard. Owl eyes sped to the stereo, as if it might have a
different song, and back again to that sympathetic visage, singing his virtues but easing him away.

Deirdre. He managed.

Then the whole fractured thing fell away and he could finally hear the voice. He clicked back into action, remembering all the embarrassing begging he’d had to fend off in the past.
Stop he shook his head, Deirdre, I understand. Honestly, I saw it coming. Who wouldn’t? It was inevitable. The right decision.

He nodded. Couldn’t seem to stop nodding. Deirdre continued, assuring him of a sterling reference. Assuring him, assuring him, assuredly, Ass-luridly Ass. Lurid. Deirdre. The clarity dissipated, he didn’t hear her; not until she said All the best… and, with her hand reaching for his, their wedding rings clacking for the last time …and I mean that mate.

Naturally at the end there had been some joke to ease the rejection, he didn’t know if she had offered it or he had. He left her office actually laughing. This helped stoke whatever surreal engine it was that kept him walking, one New & Lingwood British Stamford Loafer at a time. He was struck with an urge to visit the salvaged manager, the scaly crier, so he turned left. He opened the door without even knowing why he wanted to see her, but her corner desk was empty. He bullied on, through the stairwell doors and down. He would have to leave via the production floor now that he had turned the wrong way out of Dierdre’s musical harem.
His keypass in its plastic sheath made him ill, knowing that in four weeks he would have to surrender it. He felt as if he could smell the sterility of the production environment before he beeped open its door, too caught up in momentum to hesitate. He was a man with a mission: GET OUT.

…The equipment hummed, as always, but the floor was too quiet. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to know why, to find someone responsible and remind them of their duties. He slipped back in to the costume of a responsible manager. He knew it wasn’t time for their break. Were they having a meeting? Did they know already?

And there she was, Lovely Frances. Suddenly above the drone of machinery he heard the fawning of the masses. A baby, sleepy and pink. Passed around the other mothers, fathers, and prospective parents, well-wishers and hysterical maidens. Safety glasses perched on their crowns threw reflections of light back and forth. The pitch, high and happy, was unbearable. He started forward, already planning his courtesy wink, but then Lovely Frances, she turned suddenly and spotted him. She smiled, and it was warm.

The rest kept their eyes on the baby, on Frances, on each other; but no one paid him any mind at all, and no one saw him leave.

 By: Kyah Horrocks