Working Wonders (19 page)

Local skating rink manager Howard Franscombe said, ‘Well, we know nothing about this. You’d think they might have the courtesy to have a word with us if they’re building another rink. Plus, it’s not like we’re mobbed in here as it is. These are people’s jobs they’re talking about!’

Park manager Francis Onetapo had this to say: ‘Yes, I hear this morning they are taking away half of my park. It’s the kids I feel sorry for really.’

Silently, Gwyneth turned to page four.

Coventry needs prestige. Of that there is no doubt. But is the right way to go about this really by letting us be held up as a laughing stock and depriving our kids of play areas?

Local government must stop this loony scheme (already tipped to be won by Slough, in Berkshire) and use the money for something really worthwhile in our community – like kidney machines, to name just one example!

The phone rang. Cathy picked it up, then looked rather frightened. ‘Arthur,’ she said. ‘It’s the
Sun
. They want to talk to you.’

Arthur couldn’t sleep. It was just turning into dawn and he’d been awake for hours, staring out of his window and watching the frost form on the branches of the emaciated, plastic-looking trees. He had heard the wolves again tonight, and his heart was heavy. He cradled the white flower – he’d pressed it underneath some weights he’d bought six years ago and never got round to throwing away; this was the first time he’d ever used them.

It was no use. The last couple of days had been absolutely awful. They’d hit the red-top nationals: ‘Crazy Coventry Cock up!’ was one of the headlines. It was a quiet time for news, and any local council wackiness was welcome, it seemed. The letters pages had been full of complaints about money-wasting eejits. Arthur was waiting on a summons from Sir Eglamore which hadn’t yet come, making the waiting worst of all. And that moment with Gwyneth … she had been so sweet, and so briefly. Now, she wasn’t being deliberately hostile to him, but things were just too difficult to take any further.

He heaved a sigh and stood up. Light was just starting to break over the horizon. He’d take a walk. The wolves would disappear for daylight. Maybe he could tire himself out enough for a couple of hours’ sleep before he had to go in … no. Still, he’d take a walk anyway. There wasn’t much else to do.

It was a beautiful morning – frosty, but not freezing; bright and sharp. The town was just starting to stir – one of the few remaining milkmen clattered past on Feldane Road, an early starting postman stomped off in the direction of the high street.

The cars, of course, were still moving; were always moving. And the coming brightness of the morning showed up the damp seeping through the cheap, thrown-together, post-war buildings, the concrete, deliberately, it seemed, stamping ugliness on top of ugliness.

Arthur sighed and wandered on into Chapel Fields.

Here, dog walkers and joggers, wrapped in headscarves and Walkmans, and red in the face, pounded past him. He kept his head down, in case anyone recognized him from his picture in the paper. That was the last thing he needed – someone starting a fight.

His feet were getting muddy as he walked across the wet and crunchy grass in his Hush Puppies, but he didn’t care. Let him be as cold and miserable as he could. Suddenly he missed the days when he was a bored drudge, blankly pushing his best days behind him and scarcely thinking beyond his next Chinese carryout.

‘Arthur! Hey! Over here!’

He blinked, then walked on, in case it was someone as obnoxious as that overweight journalist who’d asked him why he hated sick children.

‘ARTHUR!’

He turned at last. About twenty yards away, he could see Rafe waving wildly at him. His face was pink-cheeked from the cold and some exertion. As Arthur moved closer, he noticed Rafe was wearing mittens and looked not unlike a bouncing Jamie Oliver.

‘Hi there!’ said Arthur, confused but pleased to see him. ‘What are you doing out here? T’ai Chi?’

Rafe looked slightly sheepish. ‘Um, no.’ He looked around him, slightly secretively, but still didn’t say anything.

‘You’re … walking Sandwiches and he’s fallen down a well and you’re trying to leave the scene of the crime. Don’t worry, I’m not going to report you for that.’

‘No, Sven told me Sandwiches takes himself on walks. Won’t let anyone come with him. Same time every day.’ Rafe shook himself to keep warm. ‘Er, I was just … looking, you know. Looking to see how much space the maze is going to take up, stuff like that.’

Arthur looked around. ‘It would be here, wouldn’t it?’

‘It
will
be here,’ said Rafe, sincerely. ‘Don’t worry about a few stupid newspapers.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a
few
,’ grumbled Arthur. ‘It’s when it’s all of them that it starts to piss me off.’

Rafe smiled, showing white teeth. ‘Eh …’ he said. ‘It’s only the press. Okay. Tell me now: who got a doing in last week’s
Coventry Advertiser
?’

Arthur shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea … em … someone connected with the local farming community?’

‘Who knows? Probably. Or, you know, could be anything. Naughty vicar. Busty barmaid.’

‘Dodgy town planner.’

‘See! You’re even less memorable than that badger who had twins in a milk float!’

‘Yeah,’ said Arthur.

And as the two men briefly grinned at each other, he left Rafe tracing imaginary boundaries in the watery sunshine, and returned to his house to get changed. Examining his red-rimmed eyes in the mirror, he felt strangely cheered that someone, somewhere, seemed to be on his side. It seemed odd, given how he felt about Gwyneth, that it should be Rafe.

‘Oh, I am so happy.’

Ross stamped around his office. ‘Oh yes, yes, yes, I am. What a lovely day.’

‘All you need,’ observed Fay, ‘is an evil cackle.’

‘Bwa ha ha ha,’ added Dave Gorman helpfully.

Spreads from the newspapers were plastered around the walls of the office, drawing attention away from the collection of model cars that seemed to be spilling across every available surface.

‘It almost makes up for not getting your way with the committee,’ said Dave.

‘Yes, shut up,’ said Ross. ‘Who could have guessed they’d have had some stupid bird on their panel, anyway? Lucky fluke.
Won’t
happen again.’

He sat down in front of the computer, then stood up once more. ‘Ooh, no, let me see the
Courier
again. That is just so sweet.’ He rubbed Fay under her chin.

‘Well done, sweetheart. Clever piece of espionage.’

Fay twisted aside. She had felt worse and worse about it since it had come out, but she wasn’t going to admit this to anyone. In fact, anytime it crept into her conscience at all, she deliberately hardened her heart against it and made herself tougher. Sometimes she caught sight of her mother reflected in her own mirror.

Well, he wasn’t going to get the better of her. He deserved this. She squeezed her fingers into her palm and forced herself around with a smile.

‘It wasn’t exactly what I’d call fun …’

Ross and Dave both sniggered dirtily.

‘She’s a picky lady,’ said Ross meaningfully.

She hadn’t let him yet, but he was clearly and consistently trying to get into her knickers. At first she considered it, thinking how angry Arthur would be. Now, she didn’t think Arthur would even care any more, so why put herself through something that would once have made her ill?

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Now, where are we?’

Ross pulled some of his model cars closer towards him. ‘Okay, we’re going to take this churchyard here, right?’ He pointed out a small square of green in the centre of his large map of west Slough. ‘Okay, well, that’s going to be the main car park,
here
. Then we’re going to have moving walkways … with fruit machines lining them …’

‘Moving walkways … that’s great,’ said Dave.

‘Yeah – who likes walking? That’s for losers who haven’t got cars. Okay, have you spoken to the fruit machine guys?’

‘Yes,’ said Fay. ‘He said he can take on fifteen extra men to get them finished in time.’

‘Perfect,’ said Ross. ‘We can leak that to the papers – getting down the jobless totals. How’s the planning going for the outdoor bingo?’

Fay shuffled her notes. ‘It’s going to need a louder public address system. But that’s okay, it’ll help with the broadcast adverts anyway.’

Ross nodded. ‘Well, anything that helps bring in the dough. And it’s not as if the town isn’t noisy already. Right. How’s it going on getting Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to open it?’

‘He says any day between … no, hang on, absolutely any day is fine.’

‘Great, now, how about the local hunt?’

Dave nodded. ‘Yeah, they’re on. Apparently they think they’ve got a bit of an image problem.’

‘Really? Well, they won’t do after we let them ride through the town. And how about the
Daily Star
?’

‘Hmm.’ Dave paused. ‘I don’t think they’re too keen on the wet t-shirt competition coming from here. I think they’d prefer Malaga or somewhere.’

‘Then speak to them again. Slough is going to be
the
place for girls with big bazooms and wet clothing come next year. Got to get the punters in. Hey, Fay, maybe you could …’

‘Yeah, no, I won’t be doing that,’ said Fay quickly.

‘Well, they’ve got Lady Godiva,’ pouted Ross.

‘I don’t care!’

‘Huh. Okay, then. Right, and last item on our agenda – the live Robot Wars. Dave?’

‘It’s looking good.’

Ross stared into the middle distance in what he considered to be a statesman-like manner. ‘This … it’s just going to be so great. Give something back to the town, make an absolute fortune. I mean, live Robot Wars. How cultural is that?’ He sighed with happiness. ‘Do you know, I think we can treble the fast food concessions in this town in under a year. That’s what I call achievement.’

Fay looked at the floor. ‘This just gets better and better,’ she said quietly.

Arthur looked at the fax and let it drop quietly onto the floor.

‘Oh, well,’ he said, attempting a ‘don’t care’ voice.

The fake ice company had withdrawn their offer of help. They couldn’t resist alienating their main area client, they explained. Particularly after the bad publicity and everything.

Marcus stood on one leg and scratched his head. ‘They said … well, the other ice rink was threatening to take away their business.’

‘It’s not
another
ice rink, Marcus. It’s an ice
festival
.’

‘Yeah, uh huh,’ said Marcus, who wasn’t exactly sure of the difference himself, except for several noughts at the bottoms of invoices.

‘Fine,’ Arthur said. He was saying fine to everything at the moment. If the roof fell in on his office and they were overrun by a freak shower of scorpions, he was going to say fine to that too. Otherwise he had to stop long enough to think about things.

Sven leaned over and heaved a heavy sigh. Everyone ignored him. He did it again.

Cathy looked up, vaguely sympathetically. Sven confused her completely, but she was very fond of his dog.

‘What is it?’

‘Well,’ said Sven, then raised his voice so Arthur could hear. ‘WELL …’

‘I’m right here,’ said Arthur. ‘If I’m ignoring you, it’s on purpose.’

Sven ignored him right back and wheeled his impressive form round to face the room. Marcus and Cathy stood on the side. Sandwiches slunk over from where he’d been busy making friends with the curtains and scrabbled up onto his lap.

‘Of course,’ began Sven loftily, ‘I do come from the land of perpetual ice and snow …’

‘That’s right,’ said Arthur. ‘So, you’d obviously know fuck all about the fake stuff.’

‘Well,’ said Sven. ‘Perhaps there is a mysterious race far in the north of Jutland, who have studied the different formations of snow and ice all their lives and are the acknowledged experts at reproducing it.’

‘Do you reach it on the back of a giant eagle?’

Sven ignored him. ‘Perhaps they’re the famous Skærgård “
Is og Sne Kontor
” renowned throughout the world.’

Sandwiches snuffled appreciatively, but nobody else made a sound.

‘I wonder what people think when they hear the words “Seoul Winter Olympics” …?’

‘I wonder when the rhetorical questions stop?’

‘Seoul,’ went on Sven doggedly, ‘is a very hot place.’

‘… And …’

‘And maybe this rather
high profile event
needed the most
high profile snow and ice makers
in the
world …
’

‘What are you saying?’

Sven shrugged. ‘Just, what do you expect from Mr Freddy Roller Rinks sitting in a shed in Milton Keynes anyway?’

Arthur shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’re the one who told me they could do pig heart transplants.’

Sven ignored him again and opened his hands. ‘You know, this is an art we’re talking here. I mean, do you want slush everywhere? Do you want grey ice? Do you want little kiddies falling through the ice?’

‘Are you trying to blame the deaths of children on me not listening to your latest hairbrained scheme?’