The 2084 Precept (34 page)

"Well, Joe," I said after they had gone, "we
had to get tough on that one."

"Yes," he said. "I noticed your distinct
lack of charm this time. But judging by the facial contortions
toward the end, I would be happy to bet they'll be back with a 8%
offer; perhaps even the 10% we are asking."

"Right enough. But I would guess you are
going to have to change suppliers in this case anyway. Even
allowing for our exaggerations, the problems they are causing are
not acceptable to us. See what happens.”

“Will do,” said Joe. “Hopefully we are
finished and you want to go home now?”

“No and yes. There are two overall projects
we should start implementing as soon as possible, and it won’t take
long to run through them."

"Not long?" An ironic smile.

"Not long," I said, slinging him a smile
back. "We need to set up a system whereby your department receives
purchased material defect reports on at least a weekly basis. The
same goes for delivery issues. And a monthly report detailing
incorrect invoices received. And your department becomes
responsible for doing something about it all. Regularly. Continuous
improvement.
We
are the customer,
we
tell our
suppliers how things are going to be if they want to continue
selling to us. And the second thing we need to do is set up a
planned alternative supplier review. Price is not the only factor
in determining from whom we buy, and sometimes not even the most
important one. But we do need to know where we stand at all times,
and price comparisons with alternative suppliers should be part of
our regular procedures."

"Great," said Joe, "I like all of that. But
I would need to have an additional person to take over some of my
day-to-day duties. I wouldn't have the time to properly manage all
of that, be involved in negotiations, and still deal with my
current daily workload."

"Quite right, Joe, and you will get that
person, I assure you. The cost will be nothing compared to the
benefits. And at the same time, we may be upgrading your
department. Your function is important enough. Maybe we'll have you
report directly to the top instead of through Ron. But keep your
hat on that one for the moment, Joe. I would like management to see
some results from our activities first. And by the way, how would
you feel about handling these supplier meetings yourself from now
on? Starting tomorrow? Program it to fit in as far as your workload
allows?”

"No problem, Peter. I'm enjoying it. Of
course, I wouldn't necessarily be handling the meetings in your
particular charming style, but I think I can be reasonably
successful in my own way. It's a tough target you've set, but I've
changed my thinking about it somewhat. In other words, I no longer
view the target as an unachievable one."

"That's good to hear, Joe. So you'll be
managing this from now on. And I wish you luck! As I think you
already know, I'll be leaving toward the end of next week. And I
won't be in tomorrow. But I think I shall be continuing on a kind
of ad hoc basis for another year or two. That means that if you
ever need to contact me or would like me to make an appearance, all
you have to do is let me know. Email or mobile, it doesn't matter.
In the meantime, we'll probably be seeing each other next
week."

And so that was that. I went out to the car
and smoked a cigarette. A reward cigarette, the purchasing
initiative was properly under way. It was coming up to seven p.m..
I drove back to London and there were no cars following me. None
that I could see anyway.

I went up to my room and checked my
messages. Hey, a message from Céline! And about time too, I wonder
what has been happening. Well, I wasn't due to find that out yet. I
opened up the message and it read:
Peter, I am very sorry not to
have contacted you before. I have some complications in Rouen. I
cannot come to London at this time. I will write to you again over
the weekend. Céline. P.S. Your poem was great. The pupils loved
it.

I am not an idiot. The message was clear.
There were no erotic wishes, there were no
mots romantiques
,
no loving
à bientôt,
no
je t'aime
, no
je
t'adore
, just her name. One of life's big waves, no doubt about
it, one with an undercurrent you can't fight against. I lay down on
the bed and decided to be depressed. A common reaction for many
when self-interest is knocked hard on the head. And self-interest
it was. Céline was a very special girl and there is not much I
wouldn't have done—O.K., within justifiable limits—to have been her
guy, to see if it could work out. It doesn't happen very often, I
mean that you find a girl who takes over your feelings so
completely that you would refuse an offer from the Dream, the
Crooked Smile and Little Miss Ugly all rolled into one. I mean,
that was one hell of an effect that this Céline had had on me.

However, not being an idiot does not
eliminate my potential for having idiotic thoughts. She had
referred to 'complications'. That was not a very definitive
statement. And she could not come to London 'at this time'. Which,
while it doesn't have to mean that she will come at some other
time, certainly implies the possibility—otherwise why write it?

My depression lasted for about five minutes.
Like all true cynics, one has learned to deal with the waves,
including the big ones, up on the swell and down the other side,
wait for the currents to subside, check out what kind of waves are
waiting up ahead, and observe each situation with regard to its
significance within the overall cosmic perspective. Reality rules
the cynics' world.

But it didn't stop me feeling sad, nothing
to be done about that. I went down to the bar, ordered a single
malt, checked the females, automatic pilot. But there were none of
any interest, and even if there had been, I wouldn't have been
interested.

And cosmic perspective or not, I didn't feel
like eating. I went outside to smoke a cigarette, went back to my
room, read Ellin's prodigious
'The Betrayers'
, and fell
asleep.

I got up reasonably late. Overcast again,
suited my mood. Had coffee in the breakfast room, still didn't feel
like eating. I went for a walk to Park Lane and picked up my IHT on
the way and then crossed over into Hyde Park. Lots of people
around, plenty of women, dogs in abundance. How do these people
earn their living, how come they can just be sauntering around a
park mid-morning on a Friday? The conundrums of life on this
planet. Well…not necessarily a conundrum regarding the women, a lot
of them live on money provided by a man. Their money could be
coming from hubby, sitting on his ass somewhere in an office or
squashed immovably into an airplane seat. Or they've got a rich
lover. Or they've inherited money from dear old dead under-the-turf
Daddy. Or incinerated Daddy. Or from Grandad. Or from Auntie
whoever, who inherited from Uncle whoever. Or they have had a
divorce, another way of distilling money from the male brewery. Who
can tell? Life on this planet is simply the way it is and there
they all are.

I walked for a couple of hours, including
some IHT reading time sitting against a tree trunk, and headed back
toward the hotel. I was still sad after the walk but I had an
appetite now. So I decided to have an early lunch before going to
my meeting with Jeremy. There is an excellent restaurant in
Piccadilly, used to be a bank in the old days, high ceilings and so
forth, sits just along from the Ritz. The problem is that you can't
get a table there unless you've reserved. Or unless you know the
guy in charge, which I did. Not because I am a frequent visitor. On
the contrary, I am an extremely infrequent visitor. But he plays
chess in the En Passant, or tries to, and he remembers me from
there. He also remembers my big tips, an investment I restrict to
those few establishments in which I consider it to be useful to be
known. And that doesn't work always either. But I was early enough
today and it wasn't a problem he couldn't resolve.

I ordered some fish. A certain religion—for
reasons I do not comprehend—strongly recommends that you eat fish
on Fridays. Apparently, this ritual activity enhances your chances
of entering the musical profession (you can learn to play the harp
for free). As said, I do not understand why this should be so and
maybe it isn’t so, just another of their many rituals. Whatever, I
ordered fish because I felt like eating fish and because in a
restaurant such as this one you know the fish is going to be good.
I ordered a Riesling to go with it and I finished off reading about
the most recent human slaughtering and the Giro d'Italia and the
cricket news while I ate.

Lord Mancroft’s views on cricket are not
shared by everybody. I noted an article in the cricket news which
quoted William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, who said (in 1925)
that he personally had always looked upon cricket as organized
loafing.

I took a cab to Haymarket and then another
one up and around to Marble Arch. I didn't notice anything or
anyone. I waited until another cab came along and hopped into that,
back down to the bottom of Park Lane, and then walked along into
the Ritz. Five minutes to two.

The Ritz, like all hotels of its class, has
fully trained employees, the customer is king, and there is not
much they won't do for you providing it is legal. I even had the
feeling they might have provided me with a golf cart to get me to
Jeremy's conference room, had I so wished. But I didn't need a
golf-cart and I was escorted there in the normal manner by a
courteous employee who gave me the impression that he might have
cleaned my shoes en route had I asked him to. The sensation I get
in hotels like these is that I am a fantastic, superior, wonderful
person, to be taken care of as only someone of my station and worth
in life could possibly merit. The ego boost is worth every
penny.

"Nice to see you again, Peter," said Jeremy.
"Punctual as usual. Please take a seat, everything is on the
table."

"Glad to see you looking happier than the
last time we met, Jeremy," I said. "Not a very joyful topic, was
it?"

"No, Peter, it wasn't. I performed a
significant amount of additional research on your hatred for each
other and your killing habits, before completing and transmitting
my thesis' draft text on this aspect. It makes for some sickly
reading and I am afraid we will need to have a discussion on that
later on. But first, we should go ahead with today's subject if you
don't mind. By the way, any problems on your way here?"

"No problems. I'm fairly sure that nobody
followed my first two cabs and I'm absolutely certain about the
last one."

I paused. I needed to adapt myself to alien
mode again, send firm instructions to my neurons that we were
indeed meeting with somebody unacquainted with our planet.

"Jeremy, today's subject is ‘
Social and
Organizational Characteristics’
. This is truly a vast theme and
we could probably sit here for a weeks and still not cover
everything. Even if I were knowledgeable enough on everything.
Which, by the way, I am not. Not by a long way."

He smiled his warm smile. His round face
really did look like the man in the moon, but a much
friendlier-looking one than the one illuminated for us by our
star.

"Peter, the same comment as before. Just
choose what seem to you to be the most important items, and we'll
see how far we can get."

What a way to earn money. No stress in these
meetings at all. Apart from the subject matter which is negative
all round. But that affects him more than it affects me. I just
accept the way things are, have done for as long as I can remember.
Certainly there were more pleasant things I could be doing with my
time. But feeding his delusions was a small price to pay, no
problem. For this kind of money, no problem at all.

"Then I'll start," I said, "by outlining our
species’ organization. First of all, through wars and so on, we
have divided up our planet into 197 separate countries, give or
take a couple and depending on how you define a country. Some
countries are huge. The largest one measures 17 million
km
²
. And some are tiny. The smallest one measures all of
3 km
²
. Not very logical, but then you wouldn't expect
that from us, would you? And most of them are not even reasonably
divided by straight lines. They are just illogical shapes and
squiggly frontiers and some frontiers are still changing, and some
are being argued about, and new countries tend to sprout on a
regular basis."

"How strange," said Jeremy. "May I ask why
have you divided up your planet in this way? And why you are still
arguing and changing things?"

"Basically, Jeremy, because we human beings
don't get on with each other. We have never been able to get on
with each other. We just can't do it and, for all the religious
chanting and pleas to the various deities and the throwing of white
doves into the air, annually or otherwise, we never will. It's just
the way we are. I think our last meeting made that clear. And we
are indeed still changing everything. We continue to chop
everything up, we continue to create new countries. We no longer
have the Soviet Union, we no longer have Yugoslavia, we have lots
of different countries instead, all because of the fact that their
inhabitants are incapable of living together in a single country.
We need to be separated by frontiers and passports. Somalia has
lost its northern territory to something calling itself
Somalialand, but this, similar to the something else calling itself
Kurdistan, has not been internationally recognized by those who
have determined they have the prerogative to do so. Recently, even
Sudan split; there is now a country called South Sudan. But they
are also killing each other in South Sudan now, another battle for
power, we'll wait and see what happens. And Ukraine and the Crimea.
We'll wait and see what happens there also."