Newham Writers Workshop Anthology 1999

		DAVE CHAMBERS I have been writing longer pieces lately, or at least starting them. Here is chapter two of the latest unfinished. An out-of-work computer programmer gets a job hunting the dreaded millennium-bug and, hopefully, has some fun along the way to finding it. He is assisted by the manager, the eccentric Mr. Rivers, his colleagues Alan and Debbie, and his immediate boss, the lovely Lesley. BUGBUSTERS - CHAPTER TWO I THOUGHT ABOUT what she said and concluded that sometimes it pays to be stupid, but now I have to think up some reasonably clever questions. All I can think is - What am I doing here? What am I supposed to be doing here? And - What are you doing after work Lesley? None of which I even dreamt of actually asking. Well the last one, but only in dreams; someone like her must have, well, she must have, mustn’t she? I shook my head and looked at the pile of documents again, picked one from the top and placed it on the growing pile; it had no mark on it and was therefore safe. Lesley was doing things much quicker so I picked up two papers to look at. "Don’t do that," she said. I flinched even although she spoke normally, no shout or anything. "We really want to keep the order of these papers within their respective piles." She indicated the sorted pile which was beginning to mount up, mainly through her efforts. "It is relevant to the order in which some of the later work was done, and besides, we really do not want to miss any; these pointers to the trouble are VERY important." She emphasised the very but I felt informed rather than told off; I could get to like working here. "Sorry!" I said. "Won’t do that again." I smiled and got that lovely smile in return. "Why is the order so important; can’t we just check the date on the document?" "What date?" She asked. "Ah!" I said, then a closer look revealed a faded date stamp. "Yes, I see, you can’t guarantee to be able to read them all, so keep them in order." That drew another of those smiles. I know I’m just a trainee, but she made me feel like the new kid on the block. She looked at her watch and stood up. "I have to get back upstairs to the office; can you carry on with these and I’ll come down again later?" She took a blank sheet of paper and folded it lengthwise and placed it on top of the dodgy date pile. "Any diagram, or anything else you are unsure of, just place a folded sheet like this next to it in the pile sideways and we can look at it later." "Yes, sure, OK," I said, too brightly, trying to hide my disappointment and my anxiety at the same time. "Don’t worry." She smiled again. "Take your time and make sure that what you do is correct, even if it’s not very much today, and ask at the first stage of any doubt. See you after lunch. Lunch is one to two, don’t suppose Old Man Rivers mentioned that. There’s a sandwich shop across the road and tea and coffee on the ground floor." She turned to walk away, paused and said again, "Sorry, but I have some stuff to do upstairs, you’ll be all right?" "Yes," I said. "Yes, I’ll be OK; I’ll save the difficult ones for you." She gave that smile again and walked away toward the metal staircase. I watched until she was completely out of sight before moving to pick up another diagram. I peered hard at the date stamp and got 3 and MA and 56, so it was the third, thirteenth or twenty-third of March or May. I see why she wanted them kept in order. That was not one of the date dependent ones, so I reached out to place it on the ‘clean’ pile but changed my mind, instead I went through the algorithm as before, but it was quite complex so I drew it on a blank sheet and put it in my pocket to look at later. Daft really; there were thousands of these, and it could be any program, anything at all. OK, I picked that one and, if I get nowhere with it, I’ll pick another one. It was about ten past one when I emerged into sunlight, well onto the ground floor where at least there were windows through which the sun might shine. "Coffee over there," he said, nodding towards a door in the corner of the room. "I’m Alan," he went on while placing one of the two cups he was holding onto the desk next to him and extending his hand. "Saw you on the Rivers’ tour this morning; must be fairly fit, you managed to keep up well." "Billy," I said and took the proffered hand. "Quite a, em, quite a fellow your Mr. Rivers." "Fellow?" He laughed. "Yes, quite a fellow, quite a anything really, but he’s OK. Here, come and meet Debbie." He picked up the cup and I followed him past one of the screens to where four desks were huddled together almost in a clinch. Debbie, presumably, was sitting at one of them writing on a small pad. "Hey Debbie, say hello to Billy, he’s just started today." "Hello to Billy," she said without looking up. "Debs." She looked up at him, clearly annoyed about something, then at me and smiled. "Hello Billy, welcome to Expo." She stood up and we shook hands, "What brings you here then?" "It’s a job, and I didn’t have one." I felt a bit lame with that answer. "The chance to work in the basement with the wonderful Lesley." Alan laughed. "Lucky, isn’t he?" "We all know what you think." Then she eyed me up and down and said, "You’re not married are you?" It’s along time since I’d been looked at quite like that and it gave me the uncomfortable feeling of that unerring ‘woman thing’, of knowing about you at first glance. "Ah um, er, well no, actually." Alan laughed and gave me a conspiratorial sidelong look which spurred me to ask, "Is the wonderful Lesley married then?" "Well!" Alan began "You’ll have to ask her that yourself, Billy," Debbie interrupted. "Alan, why don’t you take Billy and show him where the tea and coffee are, since it’s his first day, and I can finish this letter to Mum." "She who must be obeyed." Alan stood up. "Come on Billy, it’s not complicated but people seem not to know unless it’s their own kettle." I followed him thinking that they must be married, only because of the reference to the Rumpole TV programme. It was a small kitchen style place with a microwave, a toaster, two kettles and a coffee machine. There were a number of cups and mugs around as well as a sheaf of plastic cups. "Machine coffee’s fine," I said. "Rare here too," Alan replied as he snapped the switch on one of the kettles and reached for a coffee jar. Our kitchen-sink gossip started as expected, Alan and Debbie had been married for three years. Just a bit longer than I’d been out of work. That’s when he told me of the dark rumours about Expo’s finances being in trouble, definitely not what I wanted to hear. "Don’t tell me I’ve started with the wrong firm again," I said. "Just my luck eh?" "What you? The protégé of the lovely Lesley?" There was a hint of antagonism in his voice, so I began to think I might be in the wrong place, but he went on: "We, that is Debbie and I, were both up for promotion but we were beaten to it by this double first Ph.D. from Cambridge." He poured the water into my cup. "Don’t get me wrong; she is a real whizzo at electronics is our Lesley, and it was her who found that we had to go through the legacy stuff for date bugs." He took a sip from his cup. "But it’s the uncertainty of what we find that’s causing a bit of worry about whether the firm can stand it." "What have I walked into?" I answered my own question inside by thinking about Daniel in the lions’ den, but the lions appeared to be reasonably pleasant as Alan went on. "It’s difficult not to like her; she really is good to look at, for us males around here anyway, and she is very good at her job, but she has been the messenger with the bad news and, to be quite frank, you’re bearing something of the same message, so you might find a few people a bit cool in your company, not least Debbie." We were still standing in the kitchen and the time had gone to nearly two, so the kettle went on again for a cuppa to take back to the desk. I had put in ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in the right places and was wondering what I had let myself in for. I took the coffee with me and carried it carefully down the metal staircase but it was difficult to get going while the conversation was turning over in my mind. One point that was easy to remember, and good news, was that the lovely Lesley was not only not married, but, rumour had it that she lived alone. Of course, the source of this particular bit of information had to remain completely anonymous. Some of the documents did get inspected, and I was careful about the inspection and placing them in their correct places, but things were decidedly dull, until around half past four, when she once again lit up the basement with her presence. Try as I might I could not find the words to brooch the subject of the lunch-time conversation, or ask about after work companionship or more. Just before five, she laid aside the unfinished pile of papers indicating that it was about time to go. She was very precise in the way she placed each particular pile of papers, ensuring that a note was left on each so we could not mistake them in the morning. "OK," she said, "does that look all right?" "Yes, we’ll have no problems which is which tomorrow." "We do have to be careful," she went on. "Some of these are a bit sensitive so they mustn’t be left out, but they are all right down here; we’ll lock the door when we leave. Got everything?" She stood up. I picked up my little document case and said, "Yes, I didn’t need any of this stuff they gave us on that bughunting course; this is a different planet." She looked up quickly, her brow slightly furrowed. "It’s not exactly dates in a spreadsheet program on the company’s PC, is it?" I answered the unasked question. We went upstairs and she swung the big metal door to, closed the handle and spun a combination lock. "Oh yes," she said to my look of astonishment, "when I said sensitive, I really meant a bit secret, but it should be safe in there, shouldn’t it?" I still stood looking at the door so she went on, "No need to worry, there is ventilation and it’s not a time-lock so you’ve no worries on that count, and of course you’re not carrying out any of our secrets to give to the enemy, whoever they are." "No," I said. "No, I’ve only ever seen a door like that in the movies, and well, there’s no money down there, is there?" "No," she laughed. "It’s not as bad as it sounds. See you in the morning, goodnight Billy." "Goodnight," I spluttered as she went for the stairs, going back to her office on the first floor. "Don’t wait, she’ll be working late as usual." I looked around to see Alan walking towards me with a box in his hand. "And she’s locked it already? Hrrmph, I’ll have word with James; he knows the combo and I expect there’s other stuff still to be put away." "Oh, I didn’t!" "It’s OK." He shook his head, "It happens enough times not to be unusual." He started to walk towards the front of the office and I followed. "The Lovely Lesley is a car person, BMW 5s, Debbie and I are train people, just about complete if you’re a bus person?" "Yes I am," I said, "good guess." "Couldn’t stand the traffic," he said. "That’s probably why most of the car people work late. See you in the morning. Goodnight." I left saying ‘Goodnight’ to Alan and about half a dozen others and walked towards the bus stop. He was right about the traffic, the bus seemed to take ages, but I didn’t mind as my thoughts were wondering around that door and what I was really doing there. They must place great trust in me if those papers are as sensitive, or secret, as Lesley implied. I mean they must have taken up both of my references but they would just have said fairly standard stuff, so it can’t be that secret, can it? Enough of that, what about Lesley? I could get to like Lesley, like to see more of her, in both senses. My dreams were interrupted as the bus reached my stop and on a self-congratulatory impulse decided to have a pint in the Eagle on the way home. Haven’t been in there for ages, but the old landlord was still behind the bar and only recognised me when I mentioned my old school mate, Jimmy Evans. We reminisced for a few minutes then he went to serve someone else. I sat at the bar, sipping my pint, when the landlord came back and told me that a friend was sitting at a table at the back. "No," he said, "not Jimmy, a friend of his who knows you, was just asking about you." He was a big guy, and I’d never seen him before. I introduced myself but he must have misheard what I said because he then said, "You’re a friend of Billy, are you? Perhaps we have a mutual friend then." He’d had one too many but I still wouldn’t cross him; he had that look about him of someone you didn’t play around with. "Have a look at this." He produced a photo and handed it to me. "D’you who that is?" I looked casually and said no and was about to hand it back, when I looked again. It was a picture of a crowded street taken from some upstairs window, I could see that, but only a few people were in focus and there one face apparently looking up. "She was active around here a while ago," he said. "Active?" "Well, you know, member of the communist party, that sort of stuff." "You’re pissed!" I blurted out and handed the photo to him, that’s when I noticed it, on the back of the photo: 3682 William Steven Howard PV. He took the photo and said, "Watch it, matey." "No offence, mate," I answered in kind, then retreated to the bar, finished my drink and left in a bit of a hurry. The photo was quite old, as old as the reference to the communist party, but the young woman in it was my mother; she could only have been about twenty or twenty-one then. What’s she been up to lately? He must know we are related, or did he really not hear when I said I was Billy? I don’t know what special branch look like, but I imagine they look like him. By the time I got home I decided that since my name was on the back of the photo it was me who had done something lately. I put a large potato in the oven and switched on the radio. It was just then I remembered the program I had copied so I got it out and had a look at it. As I looked, I thought about the odd number of sheets that were very simple, all numbered, and that this appeared to be a composite of those. I had noticed a few sets like that, if that is what they were. If I’ve drawn this right, eleven inputs each of two comparators and it looks like if eleven of the twenty two are the same - the result is a one, otherwise it is a zero. It took a while to bake that potato. It took even longer for me to figure that, given some other checking before it gets this far, this program could verify that eleven points on a graph are in a straight line. It’s the only practical use I can see for this program right now, but what practical use the program actually is? Well it’s my first day and I enjoy a challenge, and now I have more than one. I’ve got to figure out what’s happening with the line checks. I’ve got to figure it out while not letting anyone know I’m doing it, or should I talk to Nan first, to see what the communists have to do with it? That’s daft. I’ll think about this, before I make a mistake. They’ll tell me about the programs when they’re ready, or will they? The other challenge, Lesley, ‘the Lovely Lesley.’ I could ask her about the programs, she did say you have to know or you have to ask, but do I ask about these programs again? She’s ducked the answer twice today so either she isn’t sure, I don’t believe that, or she’s not telling. Then I could ask that other question, but I don’t want to ask until I know what the answer is. No, I have to figure out how to ask. As I fell asleep thinking of the Lovely Lesley another question planted itself in my mind: what the hell is PV.