A Many Coated Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

yes.’ It is the man with the tears on his cheek, wishing to register vehement concurrence without being sure of its object. At a distance Ayesbury raises and lowers acoffee mug as a sign to Slaven. A solid, plastic mug best suited to withstand the holocaust. Marjorie takes her hand from Slaven’s arm.
    ‘I mustn’t take all your attention. But heavens, what ideas, and the time is right for them,’ she says with a departing squeeze. Slaven, watching her go, sees also that there is no one standing at the door, just the dark glass of the map screen reflecting the lights of the operations room.
    ‘Some of them took to it greatly. Very well done, but not quite what I expected.’ Ayesbury’s voice has a tinge of envy which adds to the sincerity. Slaven remembers those nights when he lay prone and his mind was prone also, to race unpleasantly. He would lie in the darkness looking towards the corridor light and hear Norman Proctor sighing with each breath, a sound of hopeless submission. How Slaven’s burns had tormented him when the drugs were wearing off in the night and also strange, new imperatives which took possession and began to plan the rest of his life.
    ‘Of course in Civil Defence it’s not so much the theory of things that matters,’ says Ayesbury. ‘Logistics, communications, accurate assessment, decision making and deployment of personnel, they’re really the concern when the crunch comes. What has happened and what can be done about it. Why isn’t a priority when the shit hits the fan.’
    ‘You’re a counter-puncher.’
    ‘Exactly. Good to get all the background settled beforehand though. There’s no doubt about that. Last time I had along a missionary from Bangladesh who talked of the floods there and the different attitudes to disaster according to religion. She went down very well too, very well.’
    ‘Of course I’m not talking about religion,’ says Slaven.
    ‘No?’ says Ayesbury.
     
    Slaven tells Kellie about it afterwards, not the Bangladesh business, but his own talk and its reception. The tall man’s tears, the cheers, Ayesbury’s envy and acknowledgement as a professional motivator. ‘That’s great,’ she says.
    ‘I moved them, Kellie.’
    ‘I wish I’d been there,’ she says. ‘Did you get a fee?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I think you should for other times. Everything needs to be on a business-like footing and then you can judge people’s real feelings. To pay for something is to acknowledge its value.’
    ‘But the two are distinct aren’t they. The money and the value. What you say may be true, but still the two things don’t equate.’
    ‘That’s a different point,’ says Kellie.
    They talk inside and the garden is hidden by walls and the night, but they know it so well that they see it still, the colours and shapes, perspectives and fragrances, those plants in health and those which Kellie has been ministering to with special care. Talk of the garden is never really an interruption in any conversation with Kellie and Slaven has become used to that. ‘I’m thinking of extending the west bed somewhat, with a plot for tulips and a site built up for japonicas at the back. The lovely dark variety especially, rosacea.’
    ‘Ah,’ says Slaven, as if his own teeth have been probed and a weakness found. Slaven likes plants. He admires both the garden and his wife’s ability as its creator, but there has been that one last spot looking westward from the patio from which a more primitive landscape could be seen. A strainer post at a distance on which his sheep can rub themselves, a grey trough amidst the clover and grass with a bright stain from the crack on its side, and further back three cabbage trees.
    ‘You like japonica,’ says Kellie.
    ‘So I do.’ Yet they might cost him his view of the strainer post and the leaking trough.
    ‘And next?’ says Kellie.
    ‘Next?’
    ‘What organisation are you going to approach?’
    ‘I’ve no idea, but I feel a need to keep