Diary of an Unsmug Married (18 page)

God knows when we’ll get our clothes back, if we ever do. I have to go home in a plastic suit and a pair of fireman’s trainers – which must be size nines at least.

‘Looking good, Mol,’ says Greg, now that the tension’s dissipating a bit. He hasn’t spoken at all since the stripping naked trauma.

‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say. ‘Sarcasm’s the lowest form of wit, you know.’

He’s about to come back with a no-doubt even less-witty rejoinder when the police call to say that the office is to stay closed until the exact nature of the powder is established, and that officers will be posted there overnight.

‘Bugger,’ I say, after I hang up. ‘I should have asked them if they can deal with all the abusive messages we’ll get from the usual suspects, while they’re there. The answer-phone will have a meltdown if someone doesn’t answer calls.’

‘That’s the least of our problems,’ says Greg. ‘Not when we still have to wait for Porton Down to tell us whether and when we’ll die horrible deaths.’

Max takes the same view as Greg, when he hears all about it – and is
furious
. So furious that he phones The Boss at Westminster and shouts at him about how badly he’s failing to protect his staff.

In response, Andrew goes on about being ‘a man of the people’ and ‘accessibility’ until, eventually, Max gets so cross that he has to do my trick of pretending that the call’s been accidentally cut off. Otherwise, he says he might have resigned on my behalf, and then where would we be? (Max is not at all himself since his company started talking about redundancies.)

I’m too discomfited to do anything at all for the rest of the day, except sit at home and stew about whether I
am
going to die – and to wonder how The Boss manages to lead such a charmed life. This sort of thing
never
seems to occur when he’s in the office.

If it did, maybe he’d learn his lesson and stop claiming that we exaggerate what happens, or that we do something to cause it ourselves. Until that occurs, I suppose I’d better go and check whether my life assurance covers me for acts of terrorism – especially if Max is going to lose
his
job.

TUESDAY, 20 JULY

Bloody hell, I don’t even get a lie-in this morning. I’d been hoping the office would have to stay closed all day so I could lounge around relaxing – as far as it’s possible to relax while waiting to hear if you’re going to die – but instead I get a call at about 9:30am, saying that I can re-open the office, as soon as I like.

The results have come back from Porton Down, and have confirmed that the powder wasn’t harmful to breathe in – although it
was
potentially explosive. Apparently, we’re to keep what happened to ourselves, so as not to spark a general panic.

At least we don’t have to keep taking the tablets now, so that’s good news, as is the fact that we’re not going to die.

The bad news is that, once I get to the office, today’s mail is already sitting on my desk – and I
really
don’t want to open it. I’ve gone right off that part of my job. I consider sticking all the letters and parcels into one of the big grey plastic House of Commons envelopes and sending it to the girls in the Westminster office, so that, by the time they send it back to me, it’ll at least have passed through the scanners at the House of Commons.

Then I realise that this will slow down our turnaround time, which would be noted by that bloody
WriteToThem.com
fn4
– so there’s no way The Boss will put up with
that
. There’s no option but to open the post myself.

‘Be careful,’ says Greg from somewhere behind me, though his voice sounds strangely muffled.

I hold each envelope out in front of me as if it is a bomb, then poke a letter-opener into one corner, before turning my back and ripping the blade through what I
think
is the top of the flap. This achieves the dubious benefit of making me feel better while I’m doing it, but irritating the hell out of me immediately afterwards – when I realise my method has a serious flaw.

I’ve cut through the top third of every single letter I’ve opened, so then I have to get Greg to stick them all back together before we can even begin to read the damned things. That’s once I’ve persuaded him to come out of the archive cupboard, where he hid while I was opening them – ‘not through cowardice, but to save the taxpayer the cost of decontaminating two of us’.

It’s after he’s finished with the Sellotape that the problems
really
start. So much for making sure that the public didn’t know about the anthrax scare. (Max is
far
better at keeping secrets than the authorities,
or
The Boss.)

First, the new intern phones to say she’s changed her mind about working here, since she heard what happened yesterday – so that’s another one we’ve lost in less than a month. Even James managed longer than no days at all, so Fiona Thompson gets
nul points
for effort, and Greg says he’s gone off her a bit.

‘I admire courage,’ he says. Presumably in other people.

Fiona doesn’t want to say who told her about the bouncy castle incident, but I think we can probably guess. Andrew went to a Council jolly last night, at which Fiona’s father was the host.

Anyway, after I mumble something non-specific but vaguely threatening about the Official Secrets Act, Fiona does at least promise not to tell anyone else – and then Greg phones The Boss and demands that he doesn’t, either, so hopefully that’s the end of the Andrew-related leaks – for today.

We’re not out of the woods yet, though, as we’ve still got to find a way to explain to the usual suspects why we couldn’t answer the phones yesterday. We can’t tell them the truth, because that’d just give them ideas, and I don’t
ever
want to have to go through
that
again. (Steve Ellington would get busy with the Johnson’s Baby Powder and a stack of envelopes immediately.)

In the end, we decide to tell callers that there was an ‘emergency in the building’ then change the subject, as fast as we can. Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best, and this works, until late afternoon, when it’s Mr Beales’ turn to phone.

‘You lot can’t keep nothin’ from me,’ he says, apropos of nothing in particular.

‘Excuse me?’ I say.
Now
what?

‘It’s in the paper: “Terrorist fears spark full-scale evacuation of local office”.’

Argh
. Does he
have
to sound quite so smug about it? (I’m impressed he can read such long words, though.)

‘Ah,’ I say, for want of a better alternative. There follows the verbal equivalent of a particularly ungraceful fencing match, as I try to side-step Mr Beales’ attempts to extract the juicy details, while he just prods deeper and deeper. He’s better than a tabloid journalist when he gets going.

I’m exhausted by the time I get him off the phone, at which point Greg says that he is so traumatised by having had to expose his body to a ‘bunch of gym-toned civil servants in a public place’ that we are going out tonight to get drunk, in order to obliterate the memory.

This seems like a good idea, at the time. When will I
ever
learn?

TUESDAY, 20 JULY (VERY LATE EVENING)

Greg and I decided to go straight to the pub after work, then on to The Star of India. This proved to be an exceedingly unwise decision, but now it’s very late and I’m far too distraught to even
think
about what happened, let alone write about it – so it’ll have to wait until I’ve calmed down a bit.

If I’m not arrested first. (We could have sparked an international incident, for all I know.)

WEDNESDAY, 21 JULY

I still seem to be at liberty, but I’m also still really pissed off with Greg, though he
is
looking a bit shamefaced this morning, not to mention very hungover. I feel surprisingly alert, which I can only ascribe to the adrenalin that went flooding through my body while we were being thrown out of the restaurant last night.

Suffice it to say that we have now been banned from The Star of India, because Greg decided it would be funny to order an ‘Osama Balti’ and a ‘Semtex Surprise’. God knows how we escaped with our lives.

Bloody Greg spent the rest of last night in a collapsed state on the couch in our living room, demanding to know how ‘any ordinary, educated, hardworking family’ like mine could manage without Imodium in the medicine cabinet.

Luckily, Max was finding Greg funny. I wasn’t, which is why I went to bed in disgust. I
knew
we shouldn’t have had all that gin before we got to the restaurant. Not on top of anthrax, anyway.

THURSDAY, 22 JULY

Thank God today is fairly quiet. There’s the usual stuff about dog poo, violence on television, and rejected lovers wanting their exes reported for tax or benefit fraud, but the highlight is Miss Emms, who writes in to say this:

Dear Mr Sinclair,

I am writing to you to complain about my irresponsible and inconsiderate new neighbour, who lives in the flat beneath mine. He’s always smoking cannabis, and the smoke seeps into my flat and is causing serious problems. The smell is so strong, it gets everywhere!

I have eight guinea pigs, and exposure to this drug is affecting them psychologically. I don’t know where else to turn, as my Housing Officer doesn’t seem to be taking any notice, and the RSPCA aren’t interested either.

Can you please do something to help my poor, defenceless animals?

Yours hopefully,

Janice Emms (Miss)

Greg spends an inordinate amount of time attempting to emulate a psychotic guinea pig, and then tries to persuade me to write back and ask Miss Emms for further details.

I don’t want to encourage the poor woman, but Greg says he has decided to re-train as a guinea pig whisperer if The Boss ever sacks him, or fails to get re-elected, next time round. I hand him Miss Emms’ letter and tell him to do whatever he thinks best.

At that moment, Johnny emails me and says, ‘How are things at the heart of the UK political establishment? What are you doing right now? I want to imagine it.’

‘Handling a case about a psychotic guinea pig,’ I say.

It’s a bit unnerving when Johnny replies with, ‘Ah’, though not half as unnerving as what he says next. Maybe he’s been on the ‘wacky baccy’, as Dad would say?

FRIDAY, 23 JULY

I get more confused with each day that passes, and not just by the Max and Ellen situation, either – or the one with Johnny.
Everything
is complicated.

I used to be so full of certainty – about pretty much everything, but especially political ideology. Now I’m like a rabbit in the headlights, and today’s surgery makes things even worse. No wonder The Boss is losing the plot.

We haven’t had much comment from constituents on one of the Tory MPs’ attempts to ban the burka and the niqab – or not until now, anyway. I haven’t even thought much about it myself, beyond a knee-jerk reaction that of
course
we can’t.

That’s until Mrs Jewson comes along.

‘I want to talk about this burka thing,’ she says.

‘Ah,’ says The Boss. His catchphrase. (And now Johnny’s, too, apparently.)

Mrs Jewson glares at him, but then she carries on. ‘I’m getting a bit fed up with the double standards in this country. My son wears a hoodie, like all the youngsters, and he got made to take it off in the mall yesterday. By the security guards.’

She crosses her arms, and looks at Andrew, long and hard. It’s like a ‘who’ll blink first’ schoolyard challenge.

‘I see,’ he says, for variation, blinking like a madman at the same time. Then he looks sideways at me, for back-up.

I keep my head down, and write ‘hoodie’ ten times on my notepad. I take my time while doing it.

‘Well, if he can’t wear a hoodie,’ continues Mrs Jewson, ‘then why can these women wear bloody burkas, or whatever those things are called that cover their whole faces?’

‘Well, I think that’s rather different,’ says The Boss, looking sideways again.

‘
Why
is it different?’ Mrs Jewson doesn’t even wait for a reply. She’s really on a roll. ‘Do you know
why
my son likes to keep his hood up?’ she says.

‘
No
-o,’ says Andrew.

He’s twitching a bit now, but I’m still leaving him to it. Serves him right for ignoring Joan yet again this morning.

‘He’s deaf! And if he doesn’t keep his hood up, then all the young ‘uns take the piss out of his hearing aid.’

Andrew’s given up, completely. He just looks expectantly at Mrs Jewson, as do I. It’s obvious she hasn’t finished yet.

‘So what I want to know is: say he got a teacher who wanted to wear one of these things, but he couldn’t lipread her, because he couldn’t see her face – whose rights would the bloody government decide were the most important then?’

I have
no
idea how to answer this question, and nor does The Boss. He looks optimistically at me once more, just in case, but in the absence of any meaningful response is left with no option but to say, ‘Mrs Jewson, I’ll be happy to take this up, on your behalf. Molly will let you know when we receive a reply.’

Of course, after Mrs J’s left, Andrew’s
furious
with me. Yet again.

‘You are less and less help with every week that bloody passes,’ he says.

‘Well, I don’t know
all
the answers any more,’ I say. ‘The same as you.’

Andrew obviously doesn’t agree, as he storms off, leaving the security doors wide open.

I’m gathering up the case folders, when I’m suddenly confronted by a man wearing a full face crash helmet. He leans aggressively across the table, and nearly gives me a heart attack. A rush of something hot travels up my body, which I don’t
think
is a hot flush – though who can tell? I have got
those
to look forward to, at some point.