Two: The Memo

Napier was a stranger to formal education. Prior to the incident which claimed the lives of his parents the family lived in Edinburgh on Tristan Da Cunha. He was accustomed, therefore, to a life of isolation. Upon their bereavement, he and Lara were shipped back to London, after a brief stay in St Helena, a bleak interval for Napier, apparently, which he refuses to discuss. It soon became obvious that these two dark children, still squinting into the remembered winds of southern latitudes, were not yet ready to adapt to city life. Aged nine (her)and ten (him), the orphans were removed to a progressive boarding school on the South Coast, where lessons and clothing were optional, but where at least they could let an offshore breeze dry the tears from beneath their dark, lost eyes.

One: Just After We Meet (continued)

I'm anxious not to appear anxious, and keen not to appear keen, so I leave it at that. He's told me nothing, but I can't dig further, it would be... unseemly. She's coming to meet us for lunch on Monday, just seventy hours hence, and I'm giddy right now, and somewhat nauseous but there is work to be done this afternoon, and then a weekend with La Strega, my ladyfriend, to negotiate.

Rather than involving ourselves in those tasks identified by management as time-critical and due for completion by the day's end Napier and I decide instead to work on The Memo. Napier unlocks the bottom drawer of the rosewood partner desk that he has recently appropriated from office storage, and which now occupies most of the cubicle. He removes a small, fireproof deed box therefrom, then places one hand on each side of the box and exhales thoroughly. He depresses the latch, the lid of the box pops up a quarter of an inch, and Napier, with infinite care, pulls out the linen-bound notebook within.

"Let us return to our great undertaking," he says, "alert to the wayward nature of truth."

One: Just After We Meet

Napier is tall, six foot four, maybe taller. He can see over the partitions in the office without standing. He just straightens his arms out on the armrests of his chair as if he's on the parallel bars and he can see as far as the coffee machine. They're talking about getting rid of the partitions and going open-plan. And we've talked about it. Napier's against it as it would rob him of a slight advantage; I'm against it because the permanent staff, the rest of the office, essentially, are vile thwarted creatures I like not to look upon.
Napier says that I should be less judgmental of my colleagues but this is a little hypocritical of him, as he variously describes our co-workers as "fatheads" and "drones" and is often quite sharp with the supervisors, particularly when they ask him to do anything. Just to give you an idea of what he can be like I shall report an exchange that took place on my first day here. The supervisor involved, whose name is Alison, is somewhat less grotesquely uneasy on the eye than the others, and might be considered pleasant, by the kind of person who would choose to employ such an essentially redundant word.
Alison (appearing at the entrance to our cubicle) : How's our new boy getting on?
Dickie : I'm settling in okay, I hope.
Alison : Good, good. Hasn't proved too much of a burden for you then, Napier?
Napier (lifting his gaze from a well-thumbed copy of L'Histoire d'O) : No, he's stayed out from under my feet. You might do well to follow his example, in fact.

Alison retreats, biting her bottom lip and nodding slowly.

He's not a difficult person to be around, generally, provided you don't say anything that raises his pulse, or do anything that distracts him from whatever he's reading. Last week it was Tropic of Cancer. Napier complained that it was a little story-heavy.

You could call it hauteur. I put it down to the fact that he sees the world from a slightly steeper angle than most of us. The only person with whom he is unreservedly warm is his sister. When she telephones, which she does every morning at eleven (they are orphans and have only each other), he bookmarks whatever filth he's got his nose in, tosses it into his in-tray and cradles the receiver with both hands, speaking to her in quiet, reassuring tones.

Her name is Lara. I've not met her but I imagine that she looks nothing like Julie Christie. Instead she is dark, her hair is soft and straight, where her brother's is coarse and unruly. Her eyes are the same rich shade, but are scintillatingly alive where his are flat, reflecting only disapproval. I dream of her at night; hot, disturbing dreams from which I awake in a tangle of loose bedding.

Napier announces that we are to be introduced, this sister and I. We are inspecting a large, iced birthday cake that has been returned at some expense to the customer services department of the retail group for whom we currently, temporarily work.

"Customer reports flecks on cake which look like greenfly. Jesus, it's green icing. Check she's not on the database, send her a letter of reassurance and some vouchers."

Napier, for all his studied idleness, is decisive when required to be. The cake has been pushed around the office for a couple of days, like a giant chequer, with no-one having a notion of what to do with it.

"Do you think she'll like me?" I ask.
"Impossible to say," replies Napier. "I don't actually dislike you, and she's a more generous spirit than I. You don't smell or anything like that. You are a trifle common, but at least you're not inbred, like so many of them here."
"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

Synopsis

Napier is an orphan, a runaway and a great thinker. Dickie is a year out of college and is trying to escape the smothering influence of his family, and a girlfriend he doesn’t love but can’t bring himself to leave. Because there’s nothing else to do, and despite being ill-qualified for such a project, they’re attempting to formulate a universal theory of human relations, to be expounded in a world-changing document which they call The Memo. This is Napier’s great passion, for Dickie it’s a way to pass the time at work, while he works out what he’s going to do for the rest of his life.

Dickie relates the events of a long weekend in their lives, in London, early one summer in the 1990’s.

Leaving work on a Friday afternoon they go drinking and rescue a young woman, Ondine, who is being attacked by a dog. Ondine, who works at the Home Office, inadvertently leads her rescuers to believe, wrongly, that the government has somehow found out about The Memo, and will attempt to suppress it should they attempt to publish.

Dickie, who to this point has felt somewhat ambivalent towards The Memo becomes sold on its importance, and persuades Napier that they need to retrieve the papers from the office where they are temping before they are stolen and destroyed. They are therefore obliged to go into work on a Saturday morning. Disguising The Memo amongst a bundle of men’s magazines that they find in the post room they escape to Dickie’s childhood home, where Napier, who has few memories of normal family life, is immediately captivated by the same mundaneness that appals Dickie. Napier vetoes Dickie’s home as a repository for The Memo, as he is unwilling to put this domestic idyll at risk of a ransacking by unseen agents of the state. Dickie eventually agrees, and they stay the night. They leave for the home of Napier’s sister in the morning after Dickie has had to explain away the bundle of pornography to his disappointed mother.

Dickie meets Napier’s sister, Lara, about whom he has long fantasised. Whilst disappointed that she is not the outstanding beauty he had imagined Dickie feels himself drawn to her calm nature. When they tell her their story Lara is sceptical, and gently mocking, but nevertheless agrees to help them. She is looking after a neighbour’s cats and conceals The Memo in the neighbour’s bedroom.

Napier and Dickie meet again at work on Monday morning. There is a curious distance between them. They have lunch with Lara as agreed and Dickie senses that perhaps Lara has spoken warmly about him to her brother, which has piqued Napier into a jealous reserve. Lara embraces Dickie warmly as they part. Napier and Dickie pass the afternoon in silence.

As they prepare to leave work Lara calls and explains that her neighbour’s flat has been burgled, but that the memo has remained undisturbed. The two young men decide that this is a warning of some kind from the government. Hoping to confirm this and also to find a new hiding place for The Memo they contact Ondine, the young woman that they helped on Friday evening. They meet at the Brown Derby, Friday night’s drinking hole and having secured her reassurances that she will not relay any of what she is about to hear to her employers they tell her their story to Ondine. Amused, she asks to see the memo, notes that its content is philosophically, rather than politically subversive, reveals to them that the burglary was probably just that, and that the other assumptions they’ve made about the events of the previous 72 hours are based on a misunderstanding of what she told them.

Crushed, more than relieved, Napier and Dickie walk Ondine home again. Dickie tells Napier that he’s thinking about getting a full time job, something clerical. They part. As Dickie walks away he turns to see Napier being attacked by a familiar-looking dog.