Life at the Top by John Braine

Author:John Braine [Braine, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2014-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

11

As I walked along the corridor to my office, Hillington, who had recently been put in charge of the computer room, was very much in my mind. He was a pale young man with brilliantined hair parted in the middle and a breast-pocket crammed with pens and pencils, who always wore unfashionably high collars and a rather raffish tie-clip in the shape of a hunting-crop. For some reason he never failed to depress me and I went to some effort to keep out of his way. I rarely had much success in doing so; I felt gloomily certain that he would buttonhole me very soon. There was never any legitimate reason why he should; he was Middridge’s appointment, not mine. In fact, I reminded my­self sharply, everything connected with the computer was Mid­dridge’s responsibility. And that was something for me to trea­sure. Middridge had spent his whole life passing on the can: now at last he was carrying it and it was full of trouble.

The corridor smelled agreeably of fresh paint; I had an absurd desire to touch the gleaming cream walls to ascertain whether they were still wet. For five years I’d been pestering Mid­dridge to brighten up this part of the works; a month ago, quite un­expectedly, he’d given way. He’d even consented to have a glass door put in at the end of the corridor. Through it I could see sun­shine; I quickened my pace. Then, at the moment I drew level with the door of the computer room, Hillington came out. This was the third time this had happened recently; I wondered how he always knew exactly when I was in the vicinity.

“I’d like a word with you, sir,” he said.

He was wearing a black jacket of shiny alpaca; together with the centre parting and the high collar, it gave an impression that he had somehow slipped back three decades. He might have been the model for one of the illustrations to the textbooks on office methods that I studied before the war; as I followed him into the Computer Room I felt the familiar depression take hold of me. He was Middridge’s subordinate; and through him Middridge would somehow draw me into his mess, would somehow pass the can on to me.

“I’m in a hurry,” I said. “But fire ahead, old man. Get it off your chest.” I always found myself using this outdatedly breezy idiom with Hillington.

“It’s serious, sir. I’ve thought about it very deeply. I’m going to resign.”

“We all feel like that sometimes,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not going to be sworn at,” he said. “But it was worse than swearing. Much worse.”

“How much worse?”

He didn’t seem to hear my question. “The computer will do exactly what you tell it to do, Mr. Lampton. No more, no less.”

“I know,” I said gently.

“There’s always teething troubles, Mr. Lampton. I didn’t de­sign the machine, after all. There’s things that should have been done initially and haven’t been done . . . It’s no good Mr.

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