Read Online The Husband's Story by Norman Collins - Free Book Online Page A

opened, and an important, bank-managerial sort of person emerged. He was smiling all over, and still saying goodbye to someone in the room even after he was outside in the corridor along with the rest of them. The width of the smile seemed ominous.
    The birdman had already hopped down off his perch and was giving himself a final peck before going in. As the door closed behind him, they were joined by the three-thirty appointment. This one was tall, with a long, sad-looking face and lips pursed together as though he were sucking something.
    Stan wondered where, short of a television series, they could have found them. And apparently it had been like that all day. From ten o’clock onwards a steady stream of candidates had been passing through at the rate of four an hour. That meant, he reckoned, that there were anything up to a couple of dozen, all putting in for the job that had practically been promised to him. He straightened his new blue tie, and waited.
    But not for long. At the butts inside the interview room it had only taken them ten minutes to bring down the birdman. He came fluttering out, clearly winged. And a bit ruffled. He was already reaching for his pocket-comb as he departed.
    â€˜Mr Stanley Pitts.’
    As the senior Personnel Officer’s secretary said his name she gave him one of her best professional smiles. It made the fourteenth of them that she had already handed out that day. But it was her job, and she was good at it; the last smile of the day was always every bit as cordial and welcoming as the first. Stan squared his shoulders, gave another tug at his tie and followed.
    After the half-gloom of the corridor, the room seemed unnaturally bright. And the chair that they had set aside for him – it was a hardback like the others outside – had been placed so that it exactly faced the window. Stan felt himself screwing up his eyes as he sat there.
    It was all a bit more formal, too, than last time. That was because it was such a senior post that was being advertised, he supposed. The members of the board had their names clearly printed out on white cards in front of them – Mr Rawlings, Mr Hunter-Smith, Mr Miller and, at the end of the table, at a right angle to the others, Dr Aynsworth. They all had identical little memo pads and yellow, stationery-issue pencils. Mr Hunter-Smith, because he was chairman, had Stan’s file open in front of him. He also had the water carafe.
    â€˜Ah, Mr Pitts,’ he began, ‘I believe we’ve met before, haven’t we? You were once thinking of branching out into the Staff Pensions side, I seem to remember.’
    It was not a good beginning. Mr Hunter-Smith had wrong-footed him before the game had even got started. Stan wanted the board to recognize him for what he was, a career man in Filing; one of the single-purpose, dedicated kind. And now he had been made to sound more like a common adventurer. But there was nothing that he could do about it. Mr Hunter-Smith was too preoccupied. He had licked his fingertip and was flicking through the pages of the personal file like a bank clerk counting Treasury notes. Then, happy at his discovery, he looked up again.
    â€˜And before that it was Catering Stores. That was back in ‘59, I see.’
    The others turned and looked at Mr Hunter-Smith admiringly. His powers of memory were a legend that ran right through the whole Service. Mr Miller caught Stan’s eye and winked at him. That was when Stan began to feel better again.
    And the rest of the interview didn’t seem to be turning out badly at all. There wasn’t much point in asking him questions about the Filing job because they knew that he would know all the answers. Even Mr Rawlings, who was Establishment, couldn’t find anything to go onabout. Apart for a few days off during the last ‘flu epidemic and an odd tonsillitis or two, Stan’s record was constant and unblemished as far back as you cared to go. No