Z: 20 A Day

Twenty-a-Day

Start. Shut Down. OK. The computer screen flickered from blue to black,
another electric nightfall. Greg took a long last draw on his
cigarette. He really needed to cut down, or, better still, give them
up. Twenty coffin nails a day, the doctor had said at his last checkup:
strange criticism from a man who calmed his nerves through the neck of
a bottle.

Greg pressed the butt into the bottom of the overflowing ashtray, the
evidence of another long day. He didn't need to look at his watch to
know that he was late again; another dinner waiting to be reheated in
the microwave, another empty evening of TV chatter and Elizabeth's
silence. His daily routine of first in to the office and last out was
wearing both of them down, but now more than ever he had to be there,
visible, on guard.

He rose from the desk, placed a file of papers into his case, and took
his jacket from the small recess in the wall behind him. For a moment
he considered removing the file again, returning its unpleasant
contents to the desk, to be dealt with tomorrow. But he knew that the
burden would leave the office with him, whether or not the file
remained. He closed the case, took a long breath, and headed for the
door.

He walked down the 10th floor corridor, passing the offices of the
other divisional heads, glancing right and left for signs of
occupation. His rivals had all departed, plans and plots on hold until
tomorrow. At the end of the corridor the receptionists desks and
waiting area were deserted, but he was not alone. The faces of seven
former chairmen of the company smiled down from the walls in plump
condescension as he made his way to the elevator.

As he waited for the flashing numbers to reach the top of the panel he
realised that it had been three years since his move up to the top
floor. In the good old days he had occupied a glass fronted office on
the same open-plan floor as the rest of the I.T. division. From there
he could see and be seen by his line managers, and, more importantly,
by his staff. As head of the division it was impossible to be one of
the boys, but he had enjoyed the physical closeness to the everyday
activity of his domain. Each morning he had made a point of joining the
queue at the coffee machine, catching a little banter, sometimes
telling a joke, before returning to his goldfish bowl.

Now these were human touches he could no longer afford. The top floor
was the political front line, no place for casual conversation. He
needed to be there, to know what alliances were being formed, who was
getting ready to wield the knife, either on him or his people. Two
years ago he had appointed a personal assistant, ostensibly to handle
his research. Her real function was to act as a second set of eyes and
ears, picking up the rumour and the gossip from sources which he could
not approach directly: the other P.A.s, the secretaries, the
disaffected middle managers of his own and other divisions.

The elevator doors opened and closed, and he rode smoothly down to the
main entrance. Today , he thought, had been anything but smooth. A
second round of redundancies had been announced at the divisional
managers meeting that morning. In the first round he had lost a dozen
people. This time he had to lose twenty. The board had taken the easy
decision, numbers. He would have to make the hard choices, putting the
names and faces to the bare figures. Twenty jobs, people, families,
lives. The file in his case contained a list of possible candidates.
Tonight he would review them, weighing up where the cutbacks would do
least damage. Then tomorrow he would meet with the management
consultants hired by the board. The official reason for their
involvement was to develop new ways for the company to operate with
fewer staff. In reality they were there as insurance, ready to be
blamed if the changes failed to raise profit levels.

The elevator doors slid open again, and Greg walked swiftly to the
exit, calling a friendly good night to the security guard by the main
door. The night was cold, and frost was already beginning to form on
the roofs and windscreens of the few cars remaining in the car park.
Thanks to Janice Church, the new Human Resources manager, he no longer
had a reserved space. She had branded them elitist , which Greg thought
was an ironic statement for a Roedean girl to make. There had been
three car thefts from the company car park in the past month, and Greg
considered that Janices' time would be better spent organising some
security around the place. Perhaps he would drop the idea in the ear of
one of the staff representatives on the health and safety committee.
That would get the ball rolling, and give Janice a little grief at the
same time.

He was still smiling to himself at the idea when he heard the car
engine revving harshly behind him. Someone else having a bad day, Greg
thought, taking out their frustrations in grinding gears and smoking
rubber. He heard the car screech away, and turned to watch it roar past
him. The oncoming headlights blinded him, but in the second before they
hit, he saw clearly that tomorrows worries would never come. The front
bumper caught him just below the knee, and hurled him onto the bonnet
and windscreen of the car. There was an instant of searing pain in his
leg, before the second impact threw him up and sideways, his body
cracking like so many dry twigs. He landed on his side, facing the dim
red glow of the receding tail lights. He saw his own breath rise like
mist from the ground, heard the low drone of the engine fading in the
distance. And as the darkness of a long night folded round him, only
one thought remained: someone else would have to choose the other
nineteen.