The King of the Cogs Read online

  “For example,” I said finally in exasperation. The professor didn’t look as if he was going to reach any conclusion any time soon. “Is Hank really an android?”

  The professor looked distracted by this, as if I was derailing his presumed train of thought. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said, and went back to whatever he was trying to remember. He suddenly sat back upright. “Just don’t mention the ginger snaps. He seems a little sensitive about that.” I nodded my head dumbly.

  “Okay I mumbled.” just as the professor sat bolt upright once again.

  1965.” he said as if struggling to remember all the facts. I found myself drawing my chair closer to the table in anticipation. “Picture the scene, Luke. The whole country was still suffering from the economic effects of the Second World War. The land fit for heroes had yet to materialise. Positively overdue in fact. There were still food shortages. Technology was at best rudimentary. Everything was dull, dark and grey. Even The Beatles had stopped touring.” I nodded as I pictured it. I had been a kid at the time, but as Jon had said, perhaps the past was in black and white.

  The government had concerns that the general doom and gloom was affecting morale and therefore productivity throughout the country. So they called us in.”

  I waited for the next bit but nothing seemed to be forthcoming, so I pressed on. “So what did you do to solve the situation?” I asked, and he smiled almost as if in triumph.

  “We invented call centres.” He said proudly, and smiled broadly.

  “But call centres are awful.” I stammered. “Nobody wants to work in one. Certainly nobody wants to phone one. Every single employee, employer and customer despises them and all that they stand for.” I had expected him to be annoyed at this of course, but he simply smiled.

  “They are.” He said decisively. “Which was exactly our plan. Call centres are of course sinkholes of despair and gloom. By creating them we concentrated the depression actually in the call centres themselves so that the rest of the country could get on with the business of being happy.”

  I was astounded. I’d never heard so much nonsense in all my life. “Did it work?” I half laughed.

  “Absolutely.” He smiled. “Productivity rose by 22 and a half percent I seem to recollect. Morale was restored.” he paused as if weighing up his options. “Sadly the Beatles never toured again. Still, you can’t have everything, I suppose.”

  “So from the office we run call centres?” I asked. I was vaguely disappointed at this news, but at least I had an answer. Or I thought I did. The professor chuckled across the table.

  “No, no!” he exclaimed. “Not at all! It was just an example Luke, just an example.” He probably saw by the expression on my face that I was beginning to consider that I was back to where I started. He leaned across the desk and held me by the elbow then patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Luke. At the centre of our modern business we sell cloud based solutions to governments and companies around the world, but all will be revealed in time. Come on, break is over!” and with that he was at the counter paying for the tea, for which Mabel looked eternally grateful. I however was simply in a greater state of confusion than I was before. I have an inherent distrust of any company that has the word, “solutions” in front of it, unless the two words preceding it are “contact and lenses”. It just seems a bullshit wankery way of saying absolutely nothing at all; like white noise. I didn’t say this to the professor of course.

  We made our way back to the car and headed back to the base. I was now in a state of even more confusion as to what to actually call the place where I now lived and worked. Was it a call centre? The professor must have noted my confusion because as we made our way through the static charged entrance again he looked at me almost in sympathy.

  “This must have been a long week, Luke.” he said, “I have nothing planned for you this afternoon so you may as well take the rest of the day off.” I must admit I felt a little deflated as I was looking forward to maybe learning a little more about what the professor actually did. But an afternoon off is an afternoon off, and so as we drove up to the car park the professor made a small detour and let me out at the entrance to the building. Thanking him profusely I exited the car and as I made my way behind it I saw him wind down the window on his side and poke his head through it.

  “The pub sign, Luke!” he almost yelled. “Five “ands” and all grammatically correct, you see!” I shook my head. I had no idea whatsoever what he was on about.

  “Sorry?” I managed and he smiled.

  “The problem with the spacing on the Gym and Splint is that the word “and” is irregularly spaced.” I nodded. Up close it certainly looked that way.

  “Well then.” he said triumphantly, “The space between the words Gym and and and and and Splint are far too wide.” He gave a very wide wink, popped his head back inside the window and roared off in the direction of the car park. I just stood there on the drive, my head reeling as the sound of three car horn beeps faded into the distance.

  “And and and and and…” I think I muttered.

  I decided to spend the afternoon in bed.

  Chapter Four

  “It's All Make Believe....Isn't It?”

  (Marilyn Monroe)

  Les looked out of the barbershop window as the old white haired guy and the other man walked across the green in the direction of the cafe. Sally was just putting the finishing touches to the customer in her chair, and there was only one man waiting.

  “That mad old bugger has been in for a haircut every day this week I’m sure.” he whispered to Sally in a theatrical fashion: loud enough for everyone else in the shop to hear, but not loud enough for anyone to comment on the fact that they had heard.

  (There is an art of doing his of course, though usually it requires a fence to be between person A and person B.)

  Sally stepped away from the customer she was just finishing and looked through the window as the two men strode across the green.

  “I did the old guys hair on Monday.” she said, and returned to putting the finishing touches to her customer. “Never seen the other guy though.”

  “Quite dishy.” said Les dreamily, twirling his comb in his hand as he spoke like some kind of hirsute baton. “That mad old guy is a bit weird though. Hardly has any hair cut at all. “He continued to peer after the two men. “Just as well, I suppose. He’d be bald by tomorrow at this rate.” Turning his back on the two rapidly disappearing figures he dismissed them from his mind and returned his attention to the shop. Les had done his preparation for the day, of course. Every morning before starting he looked at the weather report for the day. He did this for the UK, Portugal and Spain. Les found Portugal to be the most popular holiday destination of the three these days and therefore worth knowing. Not everyone holidayed there of course, but it was a good starting point. Beyond that he would improvise, as usual.

  “Next!” shouted Les at the one-man queue and the man approached the chair. Les assumed his usual posture when calling for his next customer: almost if he were assessing the scale of the job, and the cut to come. Les reckoned this one to be mid-forties. Looked more like a reconstruction than a haircut to him. The man sat in the chair and Les caught his eye in the mirror as he covered him up with a gown. “What’s it to be?” Les received several vague instructions that most men above a certain age (usually once the ages between 27 to 30 were safely just a memory) gave to the person cutting their hair and nodded in acknowledgement. There was a pause as Les tried to catch the man's eye in the mirror, and as he managed to achieve this he waved the comb extravagantly and leaned forward slightly. In a loud voice that carried across the entire empty shop he pronounced brightly, “Twenty-five years in show business.” Slight pause. “Who would have thought it?” The man in the chair wriggled uneasily and smiled. Obviously he was a regular, and had very possibly heard this before. Les settled down to cutting hair whilst at the same time describing his questionably illustrious acting career in microsco
pic detail.

  Les considered it a way to pass the time. He had the usual hairdressing triple whammies of where are you going on your holidays, is it your day off, and isn’t the weather awful under his belt of course, but this was something beyond this. He was fairly certain that not many hairdressers (he refused to consider himself a “barber”) could entertain and regale their customers with stories from their acting career. It was a unique string to his bow, and he intended to play it as much as he possibly could.

  In addition, of course he found it interesting. He paused, scissors in mid snip, remembering when he first caught the acting bug. “Les Sanderson! Come out of that clothes cupboard right now!” his mum had called as he had emerged at the age of five dressed in some old jumper and scarf that he couldn't walk in without tripping over. His mum saw a child in a long jumper. To him he was a pirate, or a secret agent or a king. He really had got the acting bug that early. In fact, (and his scissors paused over his customer’s head mid-snip as he thought of this) he had known he was and always would be an actor even before he had realised he was gay.

  “How odd!” he said out loud, and the customer in his chair squirmed a little, trying to catch Les’s eye in the mirror whilst counting his ears at the same time. Les came back to himself and to his customer’s visible relief began to cut his hair again. The customer hadn’t taken the bait with the twenty-five years of acting line and so it was the weather, holidays in the Algarve and what the guy was doing with his day off. Gardening, it appeared. “Dull, dull, dull.” thought Les and finished the cut as soon as he could. A minimal tip sent Les into even more of a flat spin and so it came to nearly lunch hour and not a single customer who needed a haircut. It was like this some days, he thought. All or nothing. At this precise moment in time it was definitely nothing. “I think I’ll take an early lunch.” he sighed, looking out of the window and up and down the square outside. There were a few people about, but not many. None seemed to be heading in the direction of the hairdresser’s shop however. Sally simply nodded and Les decided to pop along the square to Mr Hinnerty’s to get a sandwich.

  Stepping out of the shop he made his way along the square to the general store. There was a certain art to getting in and out of Mr Hinnerty’s shop in less than forty-five minutes. The first rule was never to ask a question that could in any way be related back to a tall story of any kind, and the second rule was at all times to remain focused on what you wanted. It was very easy for Mr Hinnerty to distract you, most people found. Les simply approached it as if it were some form of acting challenge or test. Primarily, he pretended to be simple. For Les this gave one benefit: quick service. From Mr Hinnerty’s perspective this made him extremely wary of getting a haircut, and he would only ever let Sally cut his hair. He thought it was a bit much allowing a man who clearly had a few marbles loose to cut people's hair. There was however, a compromise of kinds: on most days Les took sandwiches to work with him. Sadly, this was not one of them. His act worked however, and he left the general store within a time period that would have amazed any other customer that frequented the store, carrying a freshly wrapped chicken sandwich in a neatly folded brown paper bag. Just to be extra careful and provide extra customer service, Hinnerty had written “sandwich” in large friendly letters on the front of the bag,

  He hurried back to the hairdresser’s shop. He had brought his scrapbook of press clippings with him today and he had a new one to add. He had decided very early on in his career that he would keep every newspaper clipping he could find, whether they were good or bad. His rationale was that once he made the big time (he thought of it in his mind now as “making it big”) then the reviews that were less than perfect would be the source of many an amusing anecdote once he was a major player in the field of UK entertainment. He compared this to the Hollywood producer who once famously remarked that a then unknown Fred Astaire couldn’t sing, couldn’t act, was going bald and could maybe dance a little. Les stroked his own full head of hair. He liked to keep it short - you could never tell when you may be required to wear a wig for a part - and although his dancing skills were by his own admission limited, his acting skills were, as far as he was concerned anyway, considerable. Not that the cuttings in his scrapbook would seem to agree though. The vast majority of his reviews were terrible. Still, good to his word he kept them anyway. One day when he was lunching at the Ivy he would be able to dine out on them. He hoped.

  He flicked through the scrapbook now, his latest review put off to one side ready to be sellotaped in. He munched distractedly at his chicken sandwich as he scanned the reviews page by page. Unlike the reviews, the chicken sandwich was very good he thought. The beginning of the scrapbook was probably about twenty-five years old now, and some of the earlier cuttings were definitely showing their age. School plays mostly. He moved forward a few pages, scanning the words as he did so. He was fairly well insulated from most, if not all of the scathing comments therein.

  “Les Sanderson was unfortunately disappointing.”

  “More wood in his performance than there is in the New Forest”

  “Sanderson must learn that lurking is not acting. One’s eye is rarely drawn to him; if it is then it is purely out of curiosity.”

  “This man is depriving a village of an idiot. Can’t act for toffee. Awful.”

  And so on. Les did not feel anything about them really. He knew he was good. What did a drama critic know anyway? If you knew it, do it, if you can’t do it, teach it, was his motto. They were all arseholes. He was just awaiting discovery. He looked around the small store room that doubled up as the canteen. Fame couldn’t come soon enough as far as he was concerned. At least then he would be able to drink decent coffee. He unfolded a tea towel from the radiator and gave a few mugs a wipe, placing them back on the tiny table once he was done.

  He didn’t feel like putting the new cutting into the scrapbook right then. It was as equally scathing, but he had a thick skin. Sometimes, like now, less so. Les closed the book and sat staring at the water boiler. He could see into the shop from where he was and could see that it was still quiet, Sally busying herself with brushing up whilst she had the chance. Les had the feeling that it was going to be one of those quiet days, then also began to wonder if the old guy would be back again in the morning for yet another haircut. He placed his scrapbook back into his rucksack, carefully folding the as yet unattached new cutting inside the pages.

  He considered his acting career so far. School plays, amateur dramatics. He was a fully-fledged member of the local amateur dramatics club, and though they rarely let him take centre stage as such he was always there for rehearsals, performances, meetings. He just had this unshakeable faith that one day he would be a famous actor, and nothing that anyone else could say or criticise his acting abilities for, ever swayed him from this idea. He had spent several fortunes over the years on coaching, lessons, and courses and had completed them all. He did know however that there was something missing in his acting skills. Something at the core of his dramatic personality just didn’t fit, and it rubbed at him endlessly, like a pair of badly fitted shoes. He had of course tried everything to fix this issue: method acting, various workshops and courses; the lot. He had spent many a lonely night sitting up into the small hours trying to find his motivation, and so on and so forth. He felt that he was getting it right. He knew he was missing something, however. He just didn’t know what it actually was.

  He sighed deeply and peered around the doorway into the shop. It was still empty but he noticed an older guy walking across the green and heading straight for the shop. He knew he was coming in because of the way he was walking: looking to see if the shop had any customers waiting; not committing himself. Once he saw that the hairdressers was indeed empty his pace increased exponentially His lunch was over so he went back into the shop.

  “Do you want to take your lunch?” he asked Sally, and she put the broom down. The floor was spotless as it was.

  “I’ll go and get a sandwich
myself.” she said brightly, “Yours looked lovely.” and went into the back of the shop to get her handbag. Les smiled distantly. He could not remember eating the sandwich at all, never mind if it was tasty or not.

  He stood patiently waiting as the man from the green reached the shop and entered. To the customer’s slight surprise Les ignored him completely and as the man removed his jacket and stood waiting, Les failed to acknowledge him at all, instead standing motionless. He stared across the green to the pub, watching the pub sign swaying in the slight breeze. He wasn’t sure what it was but there was something elusively strange about that sign. It was something to do with the lettering, he thought, but could not get any closer to figuring out what it was any more than that. He shook himself and studiously not paying any attention to the customer shouted, “Next!” The customer looked around, making a bit of a show of checking that he was the only person in the shop, and seeing that yes, he definitely was he took a seat. Les covered him up, and catching his eye in the mirror decided not to ask for instruction with regards to the type of cut the customer wanted. Short back and sides was almost certainly exactly what the man was about to say. How many times did he hear that a day? He sighed deeply and managed to catch the customer’s eye in the large mirror.

  “Twenty-five years in show business!” He suddenly exclaimed, and beneath the cover the customer jumped as Les continued. “Who would have thought it?”

  “ANYONE”

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