THE ADMINISTRATOR OF CHAIRS

Pugh looked around the Soho bar with a developing sense of disappointment; it appeared, cleverly, cunningly, like a normal place, a blithe place. People would have come here to listen to the latest, approved, beat combos, with their jolly music and cheerful, inspiring, jingoistic lyrics. But, Pugh knew from being at the sharp end of the edicts and regulations that stabilised this great country, conventional pastimes were increasingly under attack from subversives.
Pugh eyes eventually settled on the bar owner, a Mr D A O’Neil, who seemed to have obtained the knack of being able to scuttle around whilst standing still. An irritating habit, which Pugh duly noted, was born of obvious nervousness and complete guilt. Pugh took a step closer to his quarry and regarded him dryly, with the detachment that officialdom had groomed into him as a necessary asset to perform his duties and convey Parliamentary Acts. He mentally sent out a stream of tsk tsks to the two policemen, located by the café entrance; AK47’s held tightly to their gold braid incrusted chests, medals for gallantry and confirmed kills glistening with national pride.
‘It’s me here and now,’ Pugh began, addressing the bar owner, whilst walking towards him, ‘or the knowledge reclamation boys when you get charged back at the station.’
‘I know my rights’, O’Neil spluttered, with the conviction of a condemned man.
Pugh stood facing him.
‘You’d do well to forget about all that sort of talk and debilitating liberal opinion; this isn’t France you know. Think about it, your full confession, here and now, emailed ahead of us would save me the paperwork and you, well, if you don’t have a dental plan, a lot of money.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘If I only got a shilling for every time I’ve heard that from the lips of the culpable.’
Wallace, Pugh’s advance track trainee, came out from a doorway behind the bar, his black trench coat, unfolding into leathery wings as he hurried towards his mentor.
Pugh stepped away from the red faced O’Neil.
He was pleased to see a very hard-set smile welded to Wallace’s face and a discernable metallic sparkle that glinted from his eyes. Pugh knew he could take this man and turn him into a fully functioning, dispassionate metronome. But only if things had been different and not so obviously under review.
Wallace saluted his superior, arm out stretched, fingers pointing somewhere over Pugh’s left shoulder.
‘Hail to a green and pleasant land’, he stomped out with the right volume of vim and vigour, as was taught in every school classroom in the land.
Pugh returned the salute and the greeting, making sure he was staring into Wallace’s eyes to assure him that he was sincere in his absolute devotion and dedication to all things Imperial and just. Pugh was after the extra brownie points.
‘I’ve located the cache, sir, much as we suspected.’
‘Good work, Wallace.’
Then Pugh turned and addressed the two police officers, ‘Manacle that man.’
The club owner flinched; his eyes darted toward the fire exit at the end of the bar. Maybe, he thought there was a chance. Then there was an arm around his throat, restricting the airflow through his windpipe and pulling his head back.
He was forced to the beer stained floor and he could hear the clinking of the chains and then felt them tighten round his ankles and then his wrists. A metal collar was snapped around his neck and the chains were fed through its loops before being padlocked tightly together. The two policemen made a show of dusting themselves down. One snorted some phlegm, gurgled it in his throat and expelled it on to the barman’s upturned face.
‘Nice shot,’ commented the other policeman. ‘But they say, you know, that this works better.’
He propelled his steel capped, black boot into the barman’s ribs. The resulting scream rebounded off the walls, drowning out the voices of contestants in a reality television show that was being broadcast in the background that nobody had taken any notice of.
The reality was it was not this reality.
‘Hold it.’ Pugh ordered. ‘You know full well that that kind of behaviour is not approved of outside the interview rooms.’
‘Yes, sir,’ they replied together, as one unified whole.
Pugh smiled, ‘It’s an easy mistake to make boys, don’t punish yourselves too hard for it. This gets to us all.’
He turned and addressed Wallace. ‘Lead on MacDuff.’
There was a poorly lit corridor accessed from a door leading off the bar. Mid way down was an office, opposite there was a staff toilet and at the end of the corridor there was a fire exit. Wallace stopped in front of the toilet door. A multi-coloured but crudely drawn ‘Staff Only’ sign was hanging by a single, rusty staple.
‘Not the most original hiding place,‘ noted Wallace.
He pushed the door open.
Pugh’s nose wrinkled on contact with the air in the confined space. He inspected the bowel out of professional pride and noted, with a mild depression, the stains and browning of neglect and the obvious lack of a basic, after use, cleaning discipline. The toilet roll holder was empty too and Pugh tutted.
Wallace, feeding off of Pugh’s body language and unmistakable expression, voiced his concern, ‘The Department of Sanitation and Living Standards would have a field day here. This would go way beyond a suspended sentence too don’t you think?’
‘Yes. Yes it would, ‘ Pugh replied, briefly lost in a moment of nostalgia for his time as a young Executive Officer, at the beginning of his Civil Service Career. He had started work in the Home Visits section (HV3) of the Sanitation and Living Standards Dept., smashing down doors and ensuring that the public health was, under the remit of her Britannic Majesty’s Government, never compromised or sullied.
There were terrorists then too.
Pugh’s attention was brought back to the matter in hand when Wallace reached behind the dusty toilet system and pushed a panel with the faintest trace of an outline. Pugh was expecting a click, although dreamed of a whisper. However, he had to make do with the silence of steel moving over well-oiled steel.
He suddenly found the need to concentrate and he focused on Wallace. The man was looking pretty pleased with himself. Pugh knew everything would be tickerty-boo or, the even the more, nefarious, seldom used, hunky dory. Pugh blinked his eyes, once; controlled, in an effort to clear his mind of these extraneous estimations.
At which point he became aware of Wallace’s grinning face inches from his own. ‘Well, sir, there’s all the evidence we need. A damning find, Class ‘A’ stuff to boot. And if I’m not wrong, it carries the full mandatory sentence. It’s a good pinch for us sir without a doubt. This could be the one that leads us……’
Pugh had let him babble on, it gave him the necessary time for composure and equanimity. He let his eyes drift over to the secret compartment mid way through Wallace’s utterings and take in the view. He wasn’t surprised by what he saw, he had, he knew, seen much worse and on, occasion, complete examples erect in all their horrific glory. He sighed, but ignored Wallace’s sudden look of spurious concern. He was bothered by semantics again. And a reminder that Wallace’s personal file looked just ‘too bloody good’.
Time, Pugh realized to go back ‘on message’. But, he inwardly surmised, it was time to go on the offensive, the best defence and that entire kibosh suddenly appealed to him.
‘Frankly, ‘ Wallace said, putting the icing on his personal cake, ‘this could be the one that leads us straight to the ring leaders.’
He stopped and looked at Pugh and then back at the contents of the concealed compartment.
‘Go on,’ Pugh coerced, ‘if you want to.’
An inch away, Wallace halted his fingertips. He looked into the stained toilet bowel and then at Pugh.
‘Is this how you started out? Corrupting others.’
‘Yes, Wallace. As a matter of fact it is.’
‘You know that’s why I’m here don’t you.’
‘I was getting the impression that you were a little too top draw to be just a trainee.’
‘It gets to everyone, even respected officials like your good self. You know that’s why we have to check everyone, test them; see where their metal is.’
‘I understand that all, Wallace. But you and your lot can’t expect a job like this to be done without a little of the dirt sticking.’
‘That’s not an argument we subscribe too, Pugh. That’s just your lamentable excuse for not staying true to the cause. The United Kingdom needs true believers in these dark days, not those who trawl though the depths of their own depravity and excuse themselves because they think it’s how the job should be done.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I have to cuff you.’
‘I’m sure you do, Wallace.’
As Wallace unclipped the plastic binding strap from his belt, Pugh grabbed his still out stretched hand and pushed it into the compartment.
Wallace stared at him. His mouth opened, there was an oblique effort to form a vowel but all that came out was a rush of air. Pugh withdrew the stiletto knife from Wallace’s ribs slowly, feeling it glide out from between the inert muscle and skin.
Pugh’s mouth smiled and his eyes watered under the strain of the emotional input he was feeling.
Wallace’s eyelids dropped down over his eyes, the final thing he saw was the velvet cover in the concealed compartment. It was covered in a deep red fabric that was held in place on the wooden frame by polished brass studs. It may have only been the seat, not the back or the legs but it was what their mission had been all about. The rest of the illegal chair was likely to be hidden in the houses of friends and associates. Names they would shortly have.
Wallace slumped over the toilet.
Pugh took Wallace’s hand and cut off the index finger. He sympathetically wrapped it in a monogrammed handkerchief and dropped it into his tweed jacket pocket. He slid his stiletto knife back into its black ankle scabbard. He preferred a blade to any other weapon; it possessed, for him, an intimacy, a proximity that would not be compromised by any form of detachment.
Like, say, a kiss.
Pugh got to his feet. He was well aware that the main supporting strut of a lie was not to prepare or work out in advance the words and actions of the duplicity but to fly it all by the seat of the pants. Doing so would make it look more realistic, more real, more like established truth.
The stuff that every child learns but every adult denies.
He left the toilet but not before flushing it. Pugh went and pushed the fire exit door at the end of the corridor open.
He took a deep breath and headed back towards the bar.
‘Terrorists, ‘ he shouted, nearly hysterical with the alarm, ‘Terrorists.’
He entered the bar and pointed back towards the way he had come. The two policemen were already moving towards him, machine guns switched to fully automatic. One of them shouted in his face: ‘Are you alright sir?’
Pugh nodded his head and did his best to look too frightened to speak.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get them, sir.’
‘They got Wallace, ‘ he said. And, not lying, ‘He didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Fuckers.’
The policeman moved to catch up with his other half, least they be separated and perish without the sustenance of each other’s psychological disorder.
The bar owner was still on the floor. Pugh changed his demeanour and walked over to him.
He crouched down beside him. ‘Why, oh why, do you do it? Eh? It only leads to one place in the end.’ He pointed at himself. ‘Me. And now the charges for you are the illegal possession of a non-government approved chair, terrorism and murder. That’s a guest spot on the six o’clock public executions, without a doubt. After, naturally, your obligatory, trail without jury, which your relatives will have to pay for. Nobody in his or her right mind wants to be seen defending a terrorist these days. What would the neighbours think or stone? Eh? You’re not much of a smiler are you? ’
Machine gun fire acted as make shift grammar. Pugh stood up and walked over to the bar. He poured himself a glass of Imperial Empire gin and downed it in one. Its alcoholic content was minuscule and barely discernable, as it should be.
Shortly, the policemen came back and reported the highlight of their day.
‘The ringleaders got away, sir. But there were some more in the ally the fire exit leads out to. Abut six or seven in total, sleeping rough and drinking, an obvious covert squad. We didn’t take any chances with them.’
‘Well done.’ Pugh said. “I’ll see to it that you get a special mention in my report for outstanding bravery.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
They re-shouldered their weapons and scooped up the bar owner in one fluid, well drilled, movement. Pugh watched them leave through the bottom of another glass, distorted and surreal.
After the ambulance had picked up Wallace, Pugh left too. The offending chair seat safely wrapped up in an evidence bag and in his possession. It lay on the passenger seat next to him as he drove through the neat and ordered streets of South London.
Near his sub office in South Norwood, Pugh stopped at a set of traffic lights. To his left there were row apon row of state approved chairs set out before a corrections screen on a public green just off to his right. A broadcast was due and people were already filling the robust and utilitarian seats. He was drawn to the chairs. Rough, wooden pieces of furniture, screwed together and barely finished off; splinters were common. It was for the good of the country and a good old British two fingers up to the shamelessness that had swamped the rest of the European mainland.
‘These were rough times.‘ He found himself saying, mimicking the political stance of the country and the opening of every broadcast. ‘Imported luxury, the licentiousness of the outside world will not corrupt our faith in national pride. We will fight them on the Internet, in print and on our television screens. In our houses and homes, on the streets and we will never surrender our Britishness, our way of life. ’
The lights changed to green and he gunned his lonely car towards his office.
He dropped the seat off at the cases desk. It was given a number and that was the last he would see of it. There was a public burning on the fifth of November of every year and Pugh wondered if he would catch sight of it then. There was that little chant for the occasion, it travelled through his thoughts and, while it lasted, it was his only reflection.
‘Please do remember the fifth of November, light up the sky with non standard furniture.’
Pugh sat down at his desk, there were a few faces around, busy like him. He acknowledged them and there were a few hellos in reply and one or two blank looks as well. News about Wallace would have reached them. Pugh’s handling of that day’s terrorists would have exonerated him from any further investigation. Everybody was subjected to an internal probe from time to time, if his superiors had more on him he wouldn’t be sitting at his desk right now.
There was an hour to go before he could officially leave the office. He spent the time skimming through that day’s terrorist integration transcripts. They made good reading. He found a juicy one, were the integrators had gone to town on their subject. He read it all, all twenty-two pages. It began as it meant to go on:
‘Oh, dear God not my fucking balls. AHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Jesus, Jesus. Turn the fucking current off you. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!. No stop this. Oh God please stop this. You,,,,you fucks. AAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. No. No. No. My eye, my…….‘
And so on.
Pugh was too engrossed to notice that the integrators were not asking any questions.
The home time klaxon sounded throughout the building. Pugh locked his paperwork away and marched out with everyone else. Outside the building the traffic was heavy but the sea of identical, utilitarian, cars was a welcome sight to him as he stood outside the office. He thought the columns of unpainted bodywork were all melding together and appeared as mercury running through the city’s streets, draining away. It was the only illustrative contemplation he allowed himself, knowing how dangerous any more would be.
With no personal car at his disposal, he turned into the flow of people on the street and progressed for his home on foot. The stiletto rubbed against his leg and massaged his mind.
Pugh’s identity card slid towards him and the door to the block of flats he lived in admitted him, although the cctv cameras carried on recording regardless.
In for me, in for me.
The catalogue was carelessly open on Pugh’s lounge bench, highly visible from his apartment’s front door. He checked the corridor before carefully closing the front door behind him.
Pugh affected a jaunty step as he slipped into his compact kitchenette, filled a kettle with water and set it on the deluxe wood-burning stove. A few attempts with a standard box of Empire matches and the soft young wood caught. Back in the lounge, Pugh retrieved the finger from his jacket pocket, unwrapped it and carefully placed it on the catalogues opened pages.
A personal bookmark.
He came back from the bathroom, changed into his dressing gown and made a weak cup of tea with sterilised, seventy percent water, milk. Sipping from a roughly made and poorly finished (but uniquely British) cup, he made his way back into the lounge. He sat down next to the catalogue and noted that his make shift bookmark was holding up very well. He drained his cup with a sense of satisfaction and achievement. But he also knew his new bookmark was wasted where it was, like the others had been before it.
Pugh put his cup down and instantly forgot about it. He moved the finger out of the pages and picked up the catalogue. The catalogue was reassuringly heavy in his hands and he derived a sense of satisfaction from that. As if weight was gravitas.
He had seen dozens of crudely photocopied examples of this catalogue in his time, shoddily bound on inferior paper and dog-eared to pieces. But always hidden away by the suspects, in places where the poor bastards had thought it would be safe, undisclosed. Sometimes pages were hidden, but vaginal and rectal probes found them out. That had always been a part of the search that he had taken part in, with a sense of national pride.
Everyone page or catalogue he had seen had been incinerated because that was the law.
He flicked to his favourite pages, the chairs. He read out their names quietly, almost hushed.
‘Barkaby, Extorp, Jennylund, Tullsta, Klacbo (new colour), Fridene, Pello, Kungsvik, Malung.’
Pugh stopped, breathless.
He put the catalogue down and picked up the finger. Holding like a syringe he applied pressure and slowly popped the bone out of its wrapper. Back in his kitchenette he binned the flesh and cleaned the bone under a slow running cold tap of brunette coloured water. Satisfied with its cleanliness, Pugh licked the bone and held it up to the restricted voltage of a single light bulb.
He smiled, an emotion that was more inside of him than out; least his mask slip.
Pugh’s bedroom was very Spartan, devoid of any furniture that was associated with its function. He was quick to lock the door behind him and turn the handle to reassure him that it was locked. He was looking forward to an undisturbed sleep.
The chair was in the middle of the room and he had no hesitation in sitting down on it. The backbone of it caressed his own and its arms, bleached white and smooth supported his own. He reached down and picked up a tube of glue that was almost empty. A drop squeezed out onto the end of the finger bone that Pugh was holding.
With a sigh, he stuck it into place on the hand of the chair.
It was almost complete now and that hand was done now, Pugh just needed to complete the left one.
Pugh sat back and the partially straightened rib cage accepted the broad expanse of his back. He was very proud of his accomplishment, in the face of adversity and office politics. He believe that carefully concealed beneath the cover of his job he was rebelling. He was a dissident, a subversive. He gripped the arms, the tight white bones, comfortable in his fight against the oppressors.
Just above his head an opened mouthed skull had other thoughts, lost and frozen in the regime, and screamed into the silence and the void.
Or was it just hysteria?