The Mill for Grinding Old People Young by Glenn Patterson

Author:Glenn Patterson [Glenn Patterson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780571281848
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

In the wake of the glass-breaking, Sir Clueless gathered us all together one afternoon in the Ballast Office, masters, deputy masters, constable and clerks. Even the cat was there, at least in body. (From the twitches of its paws and whiskers, it seemed its sleeping soul was somewhere else entirely.) The higher-ups sat on chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the desks, on which the lower-downs knelt, becoming for that briefest of interludes, and in that most meaningless of ways, the higher-ups themselves. My head – as the lowest and therefore the highest in the Office – was level with the top of the chart displaying the progress of the cholera. The day before I had been tasked with placing a pin next to the Russian port of Riga, from where, it was reported, sixty vessels had earlier in the week fled before they could be impounded. At least four of them were intent on Sunderland in the north-east of England, giving rise to calls for a general quarantine on all Baltic shipping.

“Gentlemen,” Sir Clueless said, and applied his thumbs with vigour to his lapels. A few more such speeches and he would be right through to his shirt. “Feelings are running high in the town. I need not enumerate the reasons why. You will all undoubtedly have your own opinions on where we find ourselves at present, I would not want men here who did not, but it is not for us to become involved in debates or speculation.” (Bright, in front of me, nudged Ferris a moment before Ferris could nudge Bright.) “Our duty is clear. We are to carry out the directions of the Board and, ultimately, of the Parliament. Both of these, I need hardly add, are subject to the change that all the institutions of Man are subject to.” A sound outside of a rope snapping quickly followed by a crash, the splintering of wood, all accompanied by a lexicon of curses. This sort of “violence”, at least, we were used to on the docks. The Master of all Ballast pitched his next line a fraction higher. “We have another duty, however, which is to the river and the quays, to maintain them for the use of generations yet to come. It is on this that we must concentrate our efforts. However ill advised we might in private think are the plans – any plans – we are asked to execute, we must execute them in such a way as causes the least injury. Let us . . .” he coughed. “Let us be the men for the small details.”

Somewhere around “generations yet to come” he had exceeded in duration anything we had ever heard him say, even to the Sandy Row weavers. Still‚ we waited for him to exceed it in distinction, and when no more was forthcoming, bar another “Gentlemen” as he turned to climb the stairs again, the whole company of us, high and low, fell to debating and speculating.

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