LITMIR.BIZ

       5

       Elasticity

      Next morning Mark went back to Belbury by train. He had promised his wife to clear up a number of points about his salary and place of residence, and the memory of all these promises made a little cloud of uneasiness in his mind, but on the whole he was in good spirits. This return to Belbury–just sauntering in and hanging up his hat and ordering a drink–was a pleasant contrast to his first arrival. The servant who brought the drink knew him. Filostrato nodded to him. Women would fuss, but this was clearly the real world. After the drink he strolled upstairs to Cosser’s office. He was there for only five minutes, and when he came out, his state of mind had been completely altered.

      Steele and Cosser were both there and both looked up with the air of men who have been interrupted by a total stranger. Neither spoke.

      ‘Ah–good morning,’ said Mark awkwardly.

      Steele finished making a pencil note on some large document which was spread out before him.

      ‘What is it, Mr Studdock?’ he said without looking up.

      ‘I came to see Cosser,’ said Mark, and then, addressing Cosser, ‘I’ve just been thinking over the last section but one in that report–’

      ‘What report’s this?’ said Steele to Cosser.

      ‘Oh, I thought,’ replied Cosser with a little twisty smile at one corner of his mouth, ‘that it would be a good thing to put together a report on Cure Hardy in my spare time, and as there was nothing particular to do yesterday I drew it up. Mr Studdock helped me.’

      ‘Well, never mind about that now,’ said Steele. ‘You can talk to Mr Cosser about it some other time, Mr Studdock. I’m afraid he’s busy at present.’

      ‘Look here,’ said Mark, ‘I think we’d better understand one another. Am I to take it that this report was simply a private hobby of Cosser’s? And if so, I should like to have known that before I spent eight hours’ work on it. And whose orders am I under?’

      Steele, playing with his pencil, looked at Cosser.

      ‘I asked you a question about my position, Mr Steele,’ said Mark.

      ‘I haven’t time for this sort of thing,’ said Steele. ‘If you haven’t any work to do, I have. I know nothing about your position.’

      Mark thought, for a moment, of turning to Cosser; but Cosser’s smooth, freckled face and non-committal eyes suddenly filled him with such contempt that he turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him. He was going to see the Deputy Director.

      At the door of Wither’s room he hesitated for a moment because he heard voices from within. But he was too angry to wait. He knocked and entered without noticing whether the knock had been answered.

      ‘My dear boy,’ said the Deputy Director looking up but not quite fixing his eyes on Mark’s face. ‘I’m delighted to see you.’ As he heard these words Mark noticed that there was a third person in the room. It was a man called Stone whom he had met at dinner the day before yesterday. Stone was standing in front of Wither’s table, rolling and unrolling a piece of blotting paper with his fingers. His mouth was open, his eyes fixed on the Deputy Director.

      ‘Delighted to see you,’ repeated Wither. ‘All the more so because you–er–interrupted me in what I am afraid I must call a rather painful interview. As I was just saying to poor Mr Stone when you came in, nothing is nearer to my heart than the wish that this great Institute should all work together like one family…the greatest unity of will and purpose, Mr Stone, the fullest mutual confidence…that is what I expect of my colleagues. But then as you may remind me, Mr–ah–Studdock, even in family life, there are occasionally strains and frictions and misunderstandings. And that is why, my dear boy, I am not at the moment quite at leisure–don’t go, Mr Stone. I have a great deal more to say to you.’

      ‘Perhaps I’d better come back later?’ said Mark.

      ‘Well, perhaps in all the circumstances…it is your feelings that I am considering, Mr Stone…perhaps…the usual method of seeing me, Mr Studdock, is to apply to my secretary and make an appointment. Not, you will understand, that I have the least wish to insist on any formalities or would be other than pleased to see you whenever you looked in. It is the waste of your time that I am anxious to avoid.’

      ‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Mark. ‘I’ll go and see your secretary.’

      The secretary’s office was next door. When one went in, one found not the secretary himself, but a number of subordinates who were cut off from their visitors behind a sort of counter. Mark made an appointment for ten o’clock tomorrow which was the earliest hour they could offer him. As he came out he ran into Fairy Hardcastle.

      ‘Hullo, Studdock,’ said the Fairy. ‘Hanging round the DD’s office? That won’t do, you know.’

      ‘I have decided,’ said Mark, ‘that I must either get my position definitely fixed once and for all or else leave the Institute.’

      She looked at him with an ambiguous expression in which amusement seemed to predominate. Then she suddenly slipped her arm through his.

      ‘Look, Sonny,’ she said, ‘you drop all that, see? It isn’t going to do you any good. You come along and have a talk with me.’

      ‘There’s really nothing to talk about, Miss Hardcastle,’ said Mark. ‘I’m quite clear in my mind. Either I get a real job here, or I go back to Bracton. That’s simple enough: I don’t even particularly mind which, so long as I know.’

      To this, the Fairy made no answer, and the steady pressure of her arm compelled Mark, unless he was prepared to struggle, to go with her along the passage. The intimacy and authority of her grip was ludicrously ambiguous and would have fitted almost equally well the relations of policeman and prisoner, mistress and lover, nurse and child. Mark felt that he would look a fool if they met anyone.

      She brought him to her own offices which were on the second floor. The outer office was full of what he had already learned to call Waips, the girls of the Women’s Auxiliary Institutional Police. The men of the force, though very much more numerous, were not so often met with indoors, but Waips were constantly seen flitting to and fro wherever Miss Hardcastle appeared. Far from sharing the masculine characteristics of their chief they were (as Feverstone once said) ‘feminine to the point of imbecility’–small and slight and fluffy and full of giggles. Miss Hardcastle behaved to them as if she were a man, and addressed them in tones of half-breezy, half-ferocious, gallantry. ‘Cocktails, Dolly,’ she bawled as they entered the outer office. When they reached the inner office she made Mark sit down but remained standing herself with her back to the fire and her legs wide apart. The drinks were brought and Dolly retired closing the door behind her. Mark had grumblingly told his grievance on the way.

      ‘Cut it all out, Studdock,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘And whatever you do, don’t go bothering the DD. I told you before that you needn’t worry about all those little third floor people provided you’ve got him on your side. Which you

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