Days (27 page)

The air between the two four-person factions is cat’s-cradled with antagonistic stares. Silence holds sway.

11.48 a.m.

E
VERYBODY IS LOOKING
at him. Of course. Who wouldn’t stop and look at a man being escorted by four security guards? A few of the shoppers recognise him, most don’t. Recent photographs of the Day brothers are hard to come by, but the family features are definitely there for all to see. The nose, the Oriental colouring – unmistakable.

But the stares have no weight. That is what’s important to Sonny as the guards steer him anticlockwise around the Yellow Floor hoop towards the entrance to Computers. No one is peering at him with that intense light of knowledge in their eyes that says that they are privy to his secrets. None of them are using that look that seems to claim ownership of his soul, as if the public have some kind of proprietorial right over public figures. Perhaps it is because they can’t see into him properly through his gauze of inebriation, or perhaps it is because
he
can’t make
them
out properly. Either way, it makes no difference. The effect is the same. He is protected. So let them look.

11.49 a.m.

T
HERE IS A
shimmer of commotion from the opposite entrance of Computers. A whisper races across the department like an electric current.
He is coming. Master Sonny is coming
.

And Miss Dalloway thinks,
How typical that he should choose a path that takes him through Computers
. She is aware that Computers, being one of those sales-favoured departments that abuts onto a hoop, lies directly between her department and the brothers’ private lift; it would be absurd for him to come any other way, and yet...
How typical
.

There is a bustle of noise between the high-stacked racks of computer paraphernalia and peripherals, the mouse mats and manuals, the dust-covers and disk drives. Master Sonny is not yet in view but the hissed news of his approach breaks before him like a bow wave. Mr Armitage switches on a smile in readiness. That is the first thing Master Sonny will see as he reaches the connecting passageway: Mr Armitage’s studied smile. Miss Dalloway grits her teeth and puts it out of her mind. Nothing matters except stating her case. The truth. Justice.

And here he is. Not as tall as she expected, although the four guards surrounding him would make a dwarf of anyone. Not as assured in his bearing as his father. An incipient puffiness around the jawline which, given time and no change in his habits, will develop into jowls. Eyes averted, watching the floor, or perhaps the boots of the guards in front. And that outfit! The outfit has to be some kind of joke, doesn’t it? It chills Miss Dalloway to think that Master Sonny might consider what he is wearing appropriate attire for a serious businessman. A catwalk model at one of the more eccentric fashion shows might be able to pull off a get-up like that, but one of the joint owners of the world’s first and (formerly) foremost gigastore? No. Never.

Here he is, and Mr Armitage is stepping forward, hand outstretched, seizing the initiative.

“Sir, a great honour. Roland Armitage, Computers. A great honour indeed. We’re so grateful you could make it down here. It’ll be good to have this misunderstanding straightened out for once and for all.”

The leading pair of guards move apart, leaving Sonny standing, perplexed, staring at Mr Armitage’s proffered hand. Then, as if suddenly remembering what to do in such circumstances, he reaches out and clasps it.

After a few forthright pumps of Sonny’s arm, Mr Armitage disengages, turns, and begins introducing the Technoids present by name. Greeting their employer, they writhe humbly.

As for Miss Dalloway, she is so furious over Mr Armitage’s remark about a “misunderstanding” she can barely think straight. Was he simply trying to annoy her or does he sincerely believe that her committed resistance to eighteen months of attempted annexation has stemmed from nothing more than a
misunderstanding
? But it quickly dawns on her that standing there seething will get her nowhere, and so, with a resolute snort and a shake of her head, she steps forward into the connecting passageway.

Technically nowhere on the shop floor is out of bounds to Miss Dalloway, but since the dispute began she has struck the Computers Department off her personal map, refusing to acknowledge its existence, even if that has meant having to make time-consuming detours to avoid it. Now, crossing the threshold to that department, she feels like a soldier venturing behind enemy lines.

Behind her, the three Bookworms hesitate. Miss Dalloway has forbidden them to enter Computers territory. Should they continue to obey that order, or does showing support for their head of department take precedence? They decide to follow her, and cross no-man’s land in a nervous gaggle.

Pushing her way past the trio of Technoids, Miss Dalloway thrusts herself between Mr Armitage and Sonny. Mr Armitage has been telling Sonny how useful the extra display space has proved in enticing shoppers into Computers. He is halfway through suggesting that the department’s other entrances might benefit from a similar arrangement when she interrupts him.

“Rebecca Dalloway.”

Sonny’s head snaps round. His eyes and his attention seem to follow a couple of seconds behind.

“And you are?”

“Rebecca Dalloway,” she repeats patiently.

“No, I mean, what do you do?”

“Head of Books.”

“Oh. OK. Right.”

“I’d like you to know, Master Sonny, before anything else is said, that as a loyal employee of some twenty-five years’ standing I have nothing but the utmost respect for the way you and your brothers manage Days, and I would never dream of calling your undoubted competence into question.”

“Easy does it with the flattery, Miss Dalloway,” Mr Armitage mutters, too low for Sonny to hear. “A paintbrush rather than a trowel.”

That’s
rich coming from the arch sycophant himself, but Miss Dalloway refuses to be waylaid. “Nor is it for me to argue with any decision made on economic grounds. After all, we’re all working together for the common good of the store, aren’t we?” Here she attempts an ingratiating smile. It is not a pretty sight, as she would be the first to admit, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “However, I think you’ll agree, when you see for yourself the size of the area of floorspace involved, that the negligible increase it brings to the Computers Department’s sales figures scarcely warrants the time and effort Mr Armitage and his staff spend setting out their stock there.”

That’s good
, she thinks.
Appeal to his need for cost-effectiveness. There, surely, lies the Day brothers’ Achilles heel.

“But, Miss Dalloway,” says Mr Armitage, butting in before Sonny has been able to stir himself to reply, “by the same token, if the area of floorspace is so small, it scarcely warrants the time and effort
your
department devotes to trying to keep
my
department out. Perhaps you’d be better off channelling the energy you put into thwarting us into drumming up custom and improving your department’s dismal sales figures.”

“My sales figures might not be so ‘dismal’, Mr Armitage, were I allowed to keep all the floorspace I’m entitled to.”

“Hear, hear,” says Oscar, and he is echoed by Salman and Kurt.

The encouragement stiffens Miss Dalloway from head to toe like a leather scabbard when the sword is sheathed. “And as my staff will testify,” she continues, “our attention to our duties as Days employees has inevitably been compromised by the Computers Department’s repeated acts of aggression and intimidation. How can we be expected to concentrate on our customers and merchandise under a constant barrage of threats and harassment?”

“If by threats and harassment you mean laying claim to what is rightfully ours, then my staff and I stand guilty as charged,” says Mr Armitage. “We have threatened, we have harassed. But we wouldn’t have had to resort to such drastic action if you and your Bookworms, Miss Dalloway, hadn’t been so obstinate from the start. Not just obstinate, downright rebellious.”

“Rebellious!”

“The e-memo granting my department the extra floorspace came, did it not, from the Boardroom. Is that not so, Master Sonny? From the very highest authority in Days. And so resisting the order contained in that e-memo would seem to me an act of insubordination at the very least, if not open rebellion.”

“Don’t exaggerate.” Miss Dalloway can feel her cheeks reddening. She knew this would happen. Mr Armitage is twisting her argument around, trying to make it look like
she
is the one in the wrong. She turns to Sonny. “He’s exaggerating, sir. He wants you to believe that by opposing him I have somehow been opposing
you
. That certainly is not the case. As I told you just now, I am a loyal employee of some twenty-five years’ standing. It’s hardly likely that I’m going to turn against the people who have employed me for a quarter of a century, now, am I?”

“Aren’t you?” Mr Armitage gives a tiny, knowing tweak of his eyebrows.

“Of course not.”

“But if I’m carrying out the brothers’ orders and you oppose me, by definition that means you must be opposing the brothers.”

“A equals B and B equals C, therefore A must equal C. If only the world ran according to your simple, logical patterns, Mr Armitage.” Miss Dalloway moves a step closer to Master Sonny, narrowing, she hopes, not just the physical distance between them. She catches a whiff of his breath, and suddenly the reason for his bleary indifference becomes clear. She is appalled, but she knows she mustn’t allow anything to deter her. “If you could only have seen, sir, how eagerly Computers leapt on the new floorspace, without so much as a syllable of apology in my direction, not one gramme of remorse, only the arrogant, gloating assumption that I was going to let them have whatever they wanted. If you could only have seen that, I think you would have agreed with me that they didn’t deserve it.”

“Ah, so now it’s down to what we deserve as opposed to what we’ve been granted,” says Mr Armitage. “It’s about our
attitude
, which you, in your infinite wisdom, have judged inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate, insensitive, insulting...”

“Would it have made a difference if we’d approached you with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and asked, pretty please, Miss Dalloway, would you let us have the ten square metres of your department the Day brothers have already said are ours? Would you have given them up without a murmur then? I doubt it.”

“I might at least have thought about it.”

“Thought about it and then gone ahead and done exactly the same.” Mr Armitage shrugs extravagantly at Master Sonny. “It’s no use, sir. There’s no point discussing this. We aren’t going to get anywhere until Miss Dalloway realises that an order from you and your brothers isn’t just something she can ignore if she doesn’t like it. We all understand about wounded pride, but there are times when you have to admit defeat and accept the inevitable. Take it – if I can use the phrase with reference to a lady – like a man.”

“A man wouldn’t take the way I’ve been treated half as well as I have,” says Miss Dalloway. “My sex has a long history of bearing up nobly in the face of injustice and oppression. It’s about time they changed the phrase to ‘take it like a woman’.”

“However you wish to put it, then. Bite the bullet. Concede gracefully. Bow under pressure. Go with the flow.”

“This particular flow I would rather resist.”

“The willow that bends with the breeze survives.”

Miss Dalloway cannot suppress a burst of contemptuous laughter. “Where did you dig up that fatuous little epigram, Mr Armitage? From some self-improvement manual for ambitious executives?”

There. Is that a twitch she sees? A tiny wrinkling in Mr Armitage’s oh-so-smooth-and-placid surface? Has she finally succeeded in getting to him?

If so, he recovers his composure swiftly and with consummate skill. “It’s a wise person, Miss Dalloway, who knows how to handle change.”

“It’s a wiser person who knows how to distinguish good change from bad. Not everything new is improved, Mr Armitage. That may be the reigning philosophy in the world of computers where a piece of equipment is obsolete almost from the moment it hits the shelves, but in most other walks of life the new does not automatically oust the old, at least not without a Stalin or a Mao or a Pol Pot in charge. In most walks of life change is an extension of tradition. It happens naturally. It isn’t forced on you like a software upgrade or a faster processing chip; you don’t
have
to have it if you don’t want it.”

“When you talk about tradition, Miss Dalloway, the image that comes into my head is of a bunch of cobwebby old books mouldering in a pile on a table, unbought and unread.”

“But some traditions survive because they
work
. For example, when Mr Septimus divided Days into seven hundred and seventy-seven departments and allotted each department exactly the same amount of floorspace irrespective of its profit potential or the dimensions of the merchandise it would stock or the number of staff members required to sell that merchandise, he did so for a purpose, to show, in effect, that he regarded every department as the equal of its neighbour, no one department less worthy of his attention than any other.”

“But you can’t compare one of the Indigo Floor Peripheries, where they’re lucky if they make a sale a day, with, say, Jewellery. That’s preposterous.”

“Let me finish, Mr Armitage. To Mr Septimus – to your father, Master Sonny – each department was as important as the next. Obviously in financial terms you can’t compare Jewellery with Single Socks, only a fool would, but the fact that there
is
a Jewellery Department ensures that a department like Single Socks – which is a godsend to anyone who has ever lost a sock in the laundry and doesn’t want to spring for a brand new pair – can continue to exist. Days was designed to be in equilibrium, every part in harmony with every other part.”

“If that’s so, then how come all those departments disappeared or got merged when the brothers took over Violet for themselves?” says Mr Armitage. “Why would the brothers disturb this precious equilibrium of yours if it was one of the main reasons the store was raking in money?”