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It was a bad day when Mac appeared.

Mac was the supervisor of everyone on the floor, and he only came down for one of two reasons, to tell us that we had not met the performance statistics for the month, or he was here to retire someone.

It was an in-joke that when they spoke about retiring an employee, what it really meant was they were being fired.

We knew the performance statistics for our section were spot on, so someone was getting fired. 

All eyes followed him from the moment he stepped out of the elevator, and then as he walked slowly across the floor, sometimes stopping just to see the expression on that person’s face before moving on.

Today, he stopped twice until he reached my station.  Then he stopped and looked at me

My first thought.  I’d done nothing wrong.  I’d been there the longest and knew how to do the work blindfolded, so why?

“Clear your station, collect your stuff, and follow me.”

Had he not said ‘collect your stuff’, I would not be worried.  Now I was, trying to think of what it was that had caused my demise.  The only thing I could think of was the anonymous suggestion I’d dropped in the box, one that would improve production and make life easier for us.

It only took a few minutes to stow the materials and take the machine out of service for the night.  Another team would come later to check or repair it for the next day, if required.  Machine downtime was practically non-existent.

Five minutes after he arrived, we were crossing the floor back to the elevator lobby.  From there, we would ascent three floors to the administration level where HR was and where the paperwork would be waiting.

It was pointless asking him why.  He would only say they never confided in him; he was simply doing what he was told.  Nor would he say anything more. He was literally a man of few words.

The elevator doors closed, and the old car slowly crawled up the shaft.  It was the original elevator from the early 1900s and a relic from the past, much like everything in the factory.

The owner did not like change, nor did he like the new trend in furniture making, stuff that came out of cardboard boxes.  Stuff, he raged at one staff meeting that would fall over in a breeze.

They would never make that stuff, not even over his dead body.

Well, perhaps everything was relative.  The old man had died, and the son was looking to sell, never interested in furniture, making or selling it.  Nobody would be making or selling anything over his dead body.

The elevator made it, and the doors creaked open.

We marched up the corridor to the office at the end, the one that said ‘Production Manager’ and below that, practically faded away, George Bendon, the man who held that position 65 years ago.

He opened the door and motioned for me to pass.  He was obviously not waiting around to hear the news.  Would he miss me, I doubt it.

A man was looking out the window with his back to me, and the form looked familiar.  When the door closed, he turned around.

The boss’s son, William.  His second, perhaps third, visit to the factory.

We were friends once when his father all but adopted me when my parents died.  He grew up and shunned all ties with people not in his class, I grew up resenting everyone and everything to do with his world.

“James.”

“Mr. Reynolds.”

“You can call me William.  I’ve got over being a ponce.”  He smiled wanly.  “I’ve managed to burn more bridges than you’ve crossed, I dare say, James.”

He sat, I sat.  The office hadn’t been used in a while, and there was a thin film of dust on the desk.  It smelled musty from lack of use or more because the whole place had been around for about 120 years.  It had always belonged to a Renolds.

“Am I being discharged?”  Might as well get to the point.

“Is that what you think?”

“Why else would you send the hangman?”

“Is that what you lot call Mac.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Of course, you do.  I bet that was you’re doing.”

Guilty.

“I said to my father a long time ago that giving you a university education was a mistake.  He said, and I’ll remember this to my dying day James, said, “he’ll make far better use of it, even if he doesn’t, than you ever will and do.  The bastard was right, of course.  I spent my time chasing girls rather than learning anything useful.  I thought the old man would live forever.  Nearly did.

“So, when a suggestion turned up in the box, the first in 31 years, by the way, it was easy to guess who wrote it.  Perfect English and technically sound.  No one else in this place could, not even if I included what is laughingly known as management.”

I should have guessed.  People knew how to do their bit, but not much else.  They were never interested in teaching multi-tasking.  The old man believes that if a man stuck to the one task, he would be perfect every time.

It didn’t help when that one man went missing, or worse, died.

“You always were the one to make a long speech about nothing.  It’s why you were the perfect politician.”

He spent 15 years in parliament, but a change in government saw him tossed out in the last election. Now he was looking for something to do.

“Still got the flair for being direct, James.”

I shook my head.  He’d grown fat and lazy and never really had to work a day in his life.

“Life’s too short to spend it waffling William.”

“Direct.  OK.  My sister wants to keep this place afloat.  I want to sell it and head for the hills.  She’s more annoying than you are.” He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and put it on the table.  “A return first class to Singapore, and a week’s stay in a posh hotel.  There’s spending money, enough to buy some practical clothes.  I would like you to go to the Furniture Manufacturers Symposium or whatever it is and float your idea.  If they think it’ll work, we’ll give it a go.  Myself, I don’t think you’ll get anyone to agree, it’s all stuff in cardboard boxes these days, but there is a hotel chain that likes our stuff and a contract worth tens of millions.  If we can halve our costs.  Up for the challenge?”

“Not being discharged.”

“No.  But if this doesn’t work, it might be the end.”

“Challenge accepted.” At least no one could say I didn’t try.

It was not the first time I’d been out of the country, but it was the first time to be so far from home.

It was hot, really hot, and it was the humidity that hit the hardest.  It was fine inside the hotel, and it was a lot more upmarket than I was used to staying in.

That’s why I looked a little lost looking for the breakfast room.

“It’s like a miniature city in this place, isn’t it?”

I turned to see a woman perhaps my age, dressed for summer, with that summery air about her.

“You look lost,” she added.

“Breakfast room.  I mean, who has a room entirely devoted to one meal.  And how many different types of food could there be?”

She smiled.  “Far too many, I assure you.  Whatever happened to toast and marmalade, rice bubbles with milk and sugar, and a decent cup of Twining’s English breakfast tea?”

She just described my perfect breakfast, the one introduced to me by Williams’ father.

“Too many indeed.”

“Then follow me.  I went exploring last night when I arrived.  They wouldn’t let my elephant come too, so I had to walk.  Dammed inconvenient of them, but I guess I’m going to have to move with the times.”

I gave her the ocne up and down. Eccentric? Yes.  Quite mad?  Perhaps she may have been out in the sun too long.  She was definitely English, and I suspect good fun.  Far too jolly for me. And, although I had no idea why it crossed my mind, she was out of my league.

“I’m sure you have better things to do?”

She looked around.  “No.  I have to eat; you have to eat.” She shrugged.  “This way.”

I followed her into a large room that obviously doubled as a restaurant for the rest of the day.  There were three in the hotel.  Three.

We gave our room numbers to the man in an immaculate white suit at the door, and a waitress magically summoned us to a table, believing we were together. 

She did not abandon me, and for some odd reason, the idea of eating alone was not something I wanted to do.

“Let’s explore the food choices.  Be prepared to have your taste buds tested.”

It was a pleasant half hour, and despite the huge range of breakfast items that might be worth trying another day, we both ended up with rice bubbles with milk and sugar, toast and marmalade and Twining’s English Breakfast tea, no sugar or milk.

She told me her name was Josephine Benoit.  She didn’t say why she was in Singapore, so I thought she was just passing through on the way to another adventure.  With or without elephants.

I gave her my name and said I was an engineer without adding it was relayed to furniture manufacturers.  It sounded lame.  It was probably the first time I felt ashamed of what I did.

Other than that, It was an interesting conversation about everything and nothing, and when we parted outside the entrance, I thought it would be the last time I’d see her.

The convention centre was huge, and there were furniture manufacturers from all over the world, but the biggest exhibits were those who created the self-assembled furniture in a box.

What I disliked about it was the disposability factor.  It was not made to last, and the wood was not wood, just some manufactured board with a veneer coating. And if it was cracked or not assembled correctly, a simple glass of water could ruin it in a matter of days. 

Our furniture was made from real timber, not that there was a lot of it left in the world because a lot of the older trees had been cut down and nearly all the rest were protected in national parks.  It’s why sourcing raw materials was getting harder, why house frames were made out of metal, and why wood chips were in such large demand rather than the effort of cutting planks.

After the boxed furniture came the plastic innovators.  Plastic furniture had come a long way from those awful basic chairs in the beginning, the sort that almost gave Mr Reynolds a heart attack, not only because they were horrendous, it was the reality that people preferred cheap over quality.

I guess somewhere along the line, we failed to realise that while people were earning more, their disposable income was going into holidays and cars and the house itself with very little left for everything else.  It’s why boxed furniture was so well regarded.  It was cheap and expedient.

Reynolds was part of a world that no longer existed.  People liked the idea of beautiful furniture, the sort we made, they just couldn’t afford it.

And the thing was, those same people would spend the same, if not more, on leather-based suites, which was probably the only reason why we were still in business.  Our leather lounge range was the best in the world.  But economic times were hard, sales were down, and recovery of any sort was a long way off.

So, finding people in similar situations, but having their factories in lower-income countries making their furniture a lot less expensive, I spoke to those I thought might be interested.  The idea I had was to get the components made by these overseas factories, using real wood, and assembling the pieces ourselves back home.  It would take a considerable slice off the end price without compromising the quality.

The problem. The overseas manufacturers wanted to do it all, turning it into upmarket box furniture, or charging a fee for piecework and a premium for sourcing real timber.  On top of the shipping, we would be no better off.  And the quality, while reasonably good, was way below our standard.

What I saw on display looked good from a distance but close up, I could see it was built to a price.  Looking good and being good were two entirely different things.

“You look lost.”

A female voice, and when I turned, I saw it was Josephine.

I resisted the urge to ask, ‘What are you doing here’   and instead said, “What a pleasant surprise to see you here.”

“There’s only so much you can do with an elephant.  Thought I come and look at the latest and greatest furniture.  Someone said there was an exhibition, and I had nothing to do for a few hours.  This is hardly where I’d expect to see an engineer.  Shouldn’t you be building bridges or skyscrapers?”

“I did consider building a car that runs on water.”

“Well, aren’t you the dark horse in the race?  I’ll deduce from that you have an interest in furniture?”

“I help make it.  Good stuff, not this rubbish.”

“Those are fighting words, James.  People here would take issue with that description of their wares.”

“Are you one of them?”  I guessed I’d better see which side of the fence she sat on before I burned a bridge.

“Me?  No, I agree with you, but we have to move with the times.”

“Do we?”

She shrugged.  “Let’s go to the bar. You can ply me with Singapore Slings, and I’ll tell you about my adventures.  You look like you need a distraction.”

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©  Charles Heath  2024

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