“Meetings, bloody meetings”

(Above) very blurred photo of the painting A Lancashire Lass (reproduced on the cover of a Penguin paperback).

Friday morning I drove to work listening to the Today Programme (reports from the Labour Party Conference - an elderly refugee from Nazi Germany had been pushed and jostled by security staff for daring to disagree with the Foreign Secretary about the war in Iraq).

As I was quite early I stopped at a local supermarket intending to go into the café they have there. I parked my car and sat for a few minutes listening to the end of an item on the radio. A big new Land Rover drove into the next space (this was in an almost empty car park - it was ridiculous that the driver should have chosen the space next to me). The driver of the Land Rover reversed and went forward a couple of times so as to position his car exactly in the space, then threw open his car door. There was a loud thud as the door hit the side of my car. Immediately I got out and went round to see what had happened - I must have looked angry as the Land Rover driver (who was considerably bigger than me) began nervously trying to placate me.

“It’s okay mate, it’s okay mate” the driver said. “It just hit the handle.”

I looked at the chrome handle of my Alfa Romeo, but couldn’t see any damage. There was no sign of any damage on the car bodywork. The driver of the Land Rover looked extremely guilty. I noticed he was in the company’s uniform, so he must be one of the warehouse staff driving one of the company cars (he was not someone I recognised, although possibly he recognised me). I got back in my car without saying a word to him (there was nothing really I could say). He got back into the Land Rover and drove off without going into the supermarket.

In the office Frank Hunter (Sales Manager at the Stevenage Branch, and previously head of all the sales teams until the appointment of Mitch Holmes as Sales Director) was at my desk, sat in my chair, and made no effort to move so that I had to sit on the edge of the desk while he stretched back with his hands behind his head, asking me a rapid succession of questions about what I thought of the company. Frank Hunter had come in to Head Office to attend a Marketing Circle meeting. Marketing Circle meetings are designed to reassure Frank Hunter that he is “involved in the loop” and is not being pushed out of the company (whereas in fact being pushed out seems to be exactly what is happening to him).

The meeting was to be held in Sue Napier’s office on the floor below, and because I couldn’t sit at my desk, I went down there to wait the few minutes until the meeting started. Sue Napier’s office had been chosen, I assume, because it was “neutral” ground (there have been some loud clashes between Mitch Holmes and Frank Hunter in the past, an inevitable aspect of Mitch Holmes asserting his command over Frank’s sales teams). Although I have only been at the company a short time I have already sussed that Sue Napier is not someone to be trusted. You get the impression that she is continually looking for someone to step out of line, so that she can go upstairs to tell Managing Director Mark Bottoni about it. Trim figure, brown hair streaked with grey and worn in a short perm, powdered face set in a prissy disapproving look. Her clothes are very conservative - two almost identical trouser suits (one grey-pink, the other grey-mauve) and a succession of dark skirts worn with blouses. As well as her role of Quality Manager, she is also in charge of the Customer Complaints section (three malevolent individuals who exist in a miasma of poisonous gossip on the middle floor west). While we waited for the other attendees to arrive she asked me how I was settling in and what I thought of the company. I was noncommittal in my replies.

Next to arrive were Mitch Holmes (hearty, strapping, bursting with good health despite his silver-grey hair and beard) and Sarah Linton, supposedly his lover (I say supposedly, but there can be little doubt considering the way they relate to each other, even though there must be a thirty year age gap). Sarah Linton is in her late twenties, very good looking but not in a feminine way (she is peremptory to the point of bossiness). She always wears dark business suits with skirts, never trousers (presumably to show off her good legs). Her black hair is naturally curly, and frames a well-proportioned face with a clear complexion (no make up). Her voice is loud, but the accent is well modulated, with no regional inflection. For several weeks I kept wondering why she seemed so familiar, until one day she said “I’m a Lancashire lass by birth” and instantly the image came into my mind of the painting A Lancashire Lass by Lancelot Roberts in Manchester City Art Gallery.

“Meetings, bloody meetings” said Mitch Holmes affably as he sat down.

Last to arrive was Frank Hunter, taking off the jacket of his dark suit (revealing a label that said Cerruti).

“Right” said Mitch Holmes, “this is the second of our Marketing Circles.”

We each looked at the agenda, which listed items so vague as to be meaningless. To avoid being “confrontational” we were not sat round a table but had moved our chairs into an open space and, true to the title of the meeting, were in a circle. Frank Hunter was not sat upright but was in a sort of half-slump, his legs apart and stretching into the centre of the circle, as if he was putting on display his very smart suit, white shirt (thick cotton fabric that glistened with an expensive sheen) and tastefully decorative tie.

So although Mitch Holmes was leading the meeting, Frank Hunter physically dominated it. Opposite Frank sat Sarah Linton. They are supposed to dislike each other (obviously Sarah is loyal to Mitch Holmes) but there was a considerable amount of eye contact between the two, and Sarah often laughed at Frank’s (very poor) jokes. I began to wonder whether Frank Hunter was deliberately trying to flirt with Mitch Holmes’s mistress (is “mistress” the right word in this context? He definitely has an “official” wife he appears with at company functions).

About an hour into the meeting Frank Hunter became sexually excited - this was very obvious, even allowing for the flattering way in which the folds of his Cerruti suit peaked over his groin.
It was as a sixth person had intruded into the meeting. We went on for about ten minutes, Frank Hunter smiling and joking, Sarah Linton smirking, Mitch Holmes, Sue Napier and myself trying to ignore the situation. Sue Napier, sat next to Frank, once pointedly looked down at the upsurge of grey flannel cloth while she was talking, as if to quell Frank’s animal exuberance by the very force of her disapproval. More minutes passed and the primeval energy exuded by Frank Hunter created a tension in the room that was eventually broken by Sarah Linton bursting into snorting uncontrolled laughter. Frank Hunter, still smiling, simultaneously sat up and opened a folder of papers over his lap so that the offending sight was hidden to view.

Shortly afterwards Mitch Holmes gruffly and with little ceremony brought the meeting to a close.

No mention was made of further meetings (they are meant to be monthly) so possibly another link binding Frank Hunter to Head Office had been broken. I went with Mitch Holmes and Sarah Linton back into Mitch’s office to collect a file he wanted me to work on.

“Vulgarity” Mitch Holmes said briskly, in a tone of Yorkshire disgust. Sarah Linton said nothing. I said nothing.