Read Online The Secret Knowledge by Andrew Crumey - Free Book Online Page A

old man, spreads the sheet on the table and reads the rest of it, fearing further errors. But the date and venue of the public meeting are correctly given, the arguments in favour of a forty-hour working week appear in order. From the page, words come forward for inspection: industry, grievance, solidarity, participate; stepping out of context of neatly printed lines and standing to attention looking proud, obedient, doomed.
    “Discovered any more?” Joe Baxter asks after a while.
    “Not yet.”
    “When you’ve been in the trade as long as me you know how little it matters to anyone else, it’s only ourselves who notice.” Quinn keeps reading but Baxter, on his break, is in conversational mood. “We like to do a perfect job, that’s natural. Nothing worse than slack work, makes me irate when I see a badly set line in a newspaper, even books these days are in a poor state and not only because of the war. Young ones now have no self respect, not like when I started. Do your shift and draw your wage, that’s their way, and never mind the task in hand. It’s a sad business. I wouldn’t want to be your age now, John, not with the way the world’s going. Soon you’ll all be pushing buttons ten hours a day.”
    Quinn looks up. “Not on basic pay though.”
    Baxter laughs and raises his mug. “A toast to the revolution and home rule.”
    The door opens before they can discuss it further and Pierre Klauer briskly enters, cheerfully depositing his canvas bag on the table. Quinn moves his page clear of the intrusion.
    “I sold nearly all of mine today,” Pierre announces, opening the bag to show how few copies of Advance lie bent beside a bundle of greasy brown paper containing the remains of his dinner.
    “Well done young Frenchman,” Baxter declares, having grown paternally fond of Pierre in the short time they have been acquainted.
    “There’ll be more for you to sell tomorrow,” Quinn says with what both other men register as a scowl.
    “He’s vexed over a misprint,” Joe Baxter explains.
    “Only that? If I worried about every mistake I made in life then my hair would have turned white by now.”
    “It’s in a headline,” says Quinn. “It looks foolish.”
    Pierre removes his bag to see the page pushed beneath his gaze, his lips quivering as he reads. Eventually he says, “I find nothing wrong.”
    Quinn points. “Committee.”
    “I would never have known.”
    “You see, John?” says Baxter. “Let it pass. Angus has enough on his hands out there without getting the dictionary thrown at him.”
    Pierre agrees. “I can tell he’s in one of his black moods.” Angus was invalided back from Passchendaele and all who knew him agree he has never been the same since. Pierre remarks on the printed notice. “The meeting is so soon.”
    “It’s the only date I could get for the hall.”
    “No use advertising it here, there should be posters and leaflets.”
    “That’s too much to ask of Maclean.”
    “Then your meeting will be a failure, John. I should worry about that instead of a spelling mistake.”
    If this is meant as a provocation it fails. “I know how to run the campaign, Pierre.”
    “And I am trying to help.”
    “Then sell as many of these as you can tomorrow.”
    Pierre is immovable. “I cannot sell to men who gave me money today.”
    “It’s a petty sum.”
    “Not when doubled in a single week. I shall give copies gratis and ask my comrades to distribute them. Otherwise the meeting will be a waste of time.”
    John stares at the table, bridling at this challenge to his authority while doubting his ability to exert it. He says quietly, “Do you wish to help or do you prefer to be in charge?”
    “What?”
    “This is a great deal of work, Pierre, I’d happily give it to someone else.”
    Baxter gets up, puts his half-empty mug beside the sink, and goes back to the printing room.
    Pierre asks, “Who will speak at the meeting?”
    “I’ve contacted a few