Sixteen
Sir John has vaguely indicated that we should start work “after lunch” the next day, but nothing more precise than that. Around noon, I wander into the kitchen for some sandwiches (Mrs Jenkins has very kindly extended her full board service to me) and then attempt to navigate the main house with my brick of a laptop to track Sir John down.
Padding into the silent hall, I’m overawed by how big the place is. I wander through, feet silenced by the thick, fraying carpets. The place has definitely seen better days, but Mrs Jenkins does keep it spotless. I sing out “Sir John” occasionally as I search from room to room, like it’s a Hide and Seek Senior Citizens Special. I hear a faint sound from a door on the first floor and wander towards it. “Sir John?” I call tentatively, pushing open the door and hoping against hope that I’m not about to walk in on him changing. It’s the library (of course, he has a library), and I deduce that Sir John has nodded off because a small TV in the corner is blaring out Home and Away . As I walk in, there’s a loud snort from the armchair in the corner as he wakes up.
“What IS this?” shouts an agitated Sir John. “WHAT IS IT?!” he bellows, as if the Australian teenagers on screen had invaded the library and were getting sand on his Dickens. Thus ensues a vacillating cacophony of bellowing about “their funny accents” and then switching, often in the same breath, to “Where’s the dibber?”
“WHERE is that blasted dibber?”
I conclude he means the remote control and gesture to the side table by the chair. Blissfully, both antipodean drama and Sir John’s bellowing fall silent.
I attempt a cheery, collegial tone. “Hello, Sir John. I think you suggested getting started this afternoon?”
He mutters and gestures towards the other armchair. I sit down and open my laptop, which causes a snide “I prefer paper and pen – call me old-fashioned,” which I dutifully ignore. I try to look purposefully out of the window, in a thoughtful sort of way, while my laptop limps to attention.
“First things first,” I say when it finally, grudgingly, agrees to open Word, in what I hope is my brightest but most businesslike tone, “Would you mind if I log into your WiFi first? What’s the password?”
“My WHAT?” Sir John thunders. He looks at me with horror.
My bright and businesslike exterior falters slightly, “Your password…”
He continues to stare with a mixture of horror, confusion and disgust as if I’d just asked permission to fellate a Mariachi Band on top of his Georgian dining table.
By now, my voice has dwindled to a whisper, “You know, WiFi so that I can connect to the internet. For research and emails and stuff.”
“Oh. The INTERNET,” Sir John says, as if it is my fault for using niche terms, “You won’t find any of that nonsense here. I don’t want lots of beeps and bops and hips and hops and what have you, and a bunch of overpaid Californians peering into my house through the computer machine. No. We don’t have the internet here,” he says triumphantly.
I gulp.
Noticing my distress, Sir John delightedly warms to his theme. “No, none of that. I believe there was one of those internet cafes on the high street. But then,” he adds gleefully, “I think it became a small wine bar.”
“But Sir John, I need the internet to do research for our work,” I reason.
“Nonsense,” he replies, heaving himself out of his armchair and walking over to a side table with eight huge stacks of paper on it. “That’s all sorted. Each of these piles contains the most pertinent documents from the various ministerial posts I occupied. Obviously, these were just the junior minister posts. For my time as Secretary of State, there’s the same again and then some. We still need to lay that out, but this is enough to get you going. No. Everything you’ll need is here.” He pats one of the towering stacks of yellowing paper and beams at my anguish.
It’s going to be a long day.