GB1
This is not about the Gordon Brown who has just become Prime Minister. This is about another Gordon Brown. And the Miss Knightley is not the film star Keira Knightley. It is another Miss Knightley.
Gordon is starting an important new job.
He’s thinking a good deal about it, even while he eats his wheaties, although he normally likes to read the packet and learn a little about vitamins, or investigate the possibility of collecting a few box tops for a garden flower seed offer, or think about playing a football computer game, should he be lucky enough to find a CD-ROM on the front of the new box, though these things can bung up your computer.
It is no good in a new job, Gordon thinks, lying low while finding out how things are done. If you do that, your colleagues will assume that you are meek, and disregard you. Gordon actually is meek, so it is extra important that he pretends otherwise from the get-go, and he knows it.
“What the hell are you talking about?”, he has been practising saying to himself in the mirror by the hallway door, and he intends to say this at the earliest possible opportunity in the new office. “Sir, if you continue to spout such arrant poppycock, I shall recommend you for an electroencephalographic investigation, and possibly for summary dismissal.” That is a good one, too.
Gordon’s missus has made him for his lunch a soft tortilla wrap with cold beef sausages, cucumber, tomato, and her home-designed mustard mayonnaise. Gordon enjoys no food except what his missus makes. She never makes him risotto, because that is his least favourite dish. It is not a bad value thing to have at home, being mostly rice, but he hates to see it in a restaurant, because it is such a con. Risotto is pretty awkward to take to work, anyway. You have to have a fork or spoon, and bring the dish or pot home dirty, or clean if you can find somewhere to wash it. Complicated. No, better to have the wrap or sandwich in a bit of clinging film, crumple it afterwards and drop-kick it into the wastepaper basket, just write it off entirely, only being sure to avoid the Australian woman who says
“You’ve put glad-wrap on your apple?”
Apparently, most people become managers not because they want to, but because they cannot stand the thought of being mismanaged by some particular other sod.
On Saturday Gordon went round to see his neighbour and pal Gardner Godkin. It’s murky round there, because Gardner abhors light from anything other than the sun, and he lives in a basement. Hoping to talk about his own new job, Gordon said
“Got much work on, Gardner?”
“I’m up to my neck in it” said Gardner, drawing his forefinger across his throat and then gesturing to his desk where there were half a dozen photos of people Gordon didn’t recognise. “This lot”, said Gardner, holding up a photo of a family of five, “want doing as a family group, but individually, if that makes sense. Have to get Dad at the office, mum at the shops, and the youngsters at school or Brownies, without tipping anyone off. Very awkward. Multiple sub-contractors. Severe pain in the proverbial, Gordon. And the rest, the individual jobs, all domestic stuff, ordinary people, very uninteresting to me. Funny thing, Gordon, perhaps a kind of compensatory interest. I dreamt someone wanted to pay me to murder Mrs Godkin.”
“Murder?” whispered Gordon.
“My own missus, yes”, said Gardner
“Did you catch who it was was asking you?”
“Yes indeed. A Miss Knightley, the films actress.”
“Extraordinary, extraordinary. But why?, I wonder.”
“Isn’t it quite obvious, Gordon? She wishes to marry me herself.”
“But would you want to marry her?”
“Well, in the event of the unfortunate demise of Mrs Godkin, and in the absence of any better offer, I believe I would.”
“I imagine she earns a pretty penny. Perhaps you could give up work.”
“This was a dream, Gordon. Don’t forget that.” And later on Gordon dreamt of Gardner murdering Mrs Brown, but there was no pleasure in it, and no Miss Knightley.
While Gordon is eating his wheaties, Miss Knightley is asleep, dreaming of pirates, mercenaries, ancient warriors, fancy dresses, and every kind of romantic nonsense. Her sleep is fitful because her diet is poor. For her breakfast she has toast made from the cheapest sliced white loaf available, and spread with margarine. She prefers a multi-grain loaf that costs ten times as much, and honey from local bees, but she can no longer afford it, especially as she eats nearly a whole loaf at each mealtime and sometimes in-between meals, because she has donated her films millions to psychical research. She needs to make a new film, but she is holding out for a script with less bow and arrow-, sword-, or gunplay, and more psychical content. She believes in premonitory dreams, so either they are not working, and she is having memory dreams of the films she made earlier, or she is foreseeing that she will be making the same kinds of films again in the future. Oh! she hopes not. She wishes they would hurry up with the research and come to some firm conclusions soon.
While Gordon was at Gardner’s on Saturday, June Brown and Alma Godkin, their wives, were having Swedish meatballs together in the furniture shop café.
“Delicious! Gordon won’t eat these. ‘What’s wrong with British meatballs, woman?’ he says.”
“Really? Gardner eats anything. He don’t notice what he’s having at all. He’s only interested in his work and his watching-films. I know why that is. It’s very easy to see what’s the same in all the films. He makes out he’s interested in, say, legends of King Arthur, or women’s football, then goes to get a load of books about it from the library, pretends to read them, then goes ‘Alma, I’m pursuing my interest in Arthuriana by seeing a feature drama about the subject. I don’t suppose it would interest you at all,’ which is true, to be fair.