Read Online PopCo by Scarlett Thomas - Free Book Online

say. A long time ago, my father worked at a factory making buttons. When the firm was on the verge of going bust they would read out a list, virtually every week, of people being laid off. He was on the list somewhere around week four.
    ‘Maybe they want volunteers to give out the tracksuits,’ Dan says.
    We laugh quietly. Then Dan’s name is called, and we abruptly stop. It’s rather unsettling hearing such a familiar name being read out in a hall like this. It must be the context. Even if Mac was only calling a register, it would still feel somehow wrong. And – oh, no – then my name too. My stomach feels a bit electric-shockish as the last couple of names are read out. I vaguely note that my name was almost last, which is unusual – my surname being Butler usually means I am somewhere near the top of any register or list.
    ‘We’ve got to what …?’ I say to Dan. ‘Stay behind?’
    He shrugs. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
    We are definitely going to be sacked. My head feels hot, and one of my toes starts to itch uncontrollably. I never really got into trouble at school and have never been in trouble before at work. What have I done? I feel sick. Is this something to do with meeting Mac earlier? What did I say wrong?
    Someone comes in – is it Georges’s assistant? It looks a bit like her – and whispers a couple of things to Mac. He looks down at his piece of paper and then back up to her and nods a few times. They laugh, briefly. Then Mac does that thing he did earlier, and rapidly switches his face back to business-as-usual. He walks back over to his microphone stand.
    ‘OK, slight change of plan,’ he says. ‘Those people on the list are to come back here after dinner this evening, please. We are running slightly over time, so if everyone could leave via the main door, and take a tracksuit each from the boxes which have been placed there … Thanks.’
    Georges’s assistant, I think it definitely is her, now comes to the microphone, as Mac gathers up notes and prepares to leave. ‘Thank you, Steve,’ she says, waving one arm at him like a magician’s assistant. Everyone claps. ‘Right, yes, please do help yourselves to tracksuits from the boxes. I trust that you all have trainers but if anyone is in dire need, there are a few pairs which have been put in the changing rooms in the Sports Hall. Please get changed and make your way over to the Sports Hall for, let’s say …’ she looks at her watch. ‘Ten past four. OK. Thank you.’
    There are no clocks in this room. Dan nudges someone on the way out and asks them the time. It’s apparently almost four o’clock.‘Ten bloody minutes,’ the person groans before becoming lost, like everyone else, in the many-armed monster that is all the PopCo creative staff grabbing slithery plastic-wrapped packages from the cardboard boxes outside.
    My arm doesn’t feel entirely comfortable, stretched above my head like this.
    ‘And over. Feel the stretch,’ says one of the Games Team, a girl wearing a faded pink sweatshirt. She’s leading the warm-up. ‘And the other side. That’s great.’
    The last time I did any proper sport was when I played cricket with my grandfather, two or even three years ago. Since then I’ve had one disastrous game of tennis with Dan (he was way too good for me and I barely got to hit the ball, and when I did hit it I invariably got it wrong, leading with my elbow like you do in cricket) and two goes on a skiing arcade game we had for a while at work. So this feels odd, standing out here in this grassy field, stretching and bending and so on. We are in a group of about ten or so, and there are other similar groups dotted all over the sports field. I don’t know anyone in this group apart from Dan. In the next group along I can see the dark guy from lunch and his companion, concentrating on what their Games Team person is saying. The next group beyond that seems to be full of people laughing and I feel a momentary longing to be