Martin Misunderstood Read Online Free PDF Page A

(she had changed that
the first day). The view was better over there
because you could see out the window to the
factory floor. It gave you some sense of being
part of a group. At times, Martin had glanced up
and seen them all standing at their stations and
thought, 'Ah, my colleagues.' Now, he kept his
head down for fear of Unique misinterpreting his
glance and shouting, 'Don't even think about it,
fool. You ain't got the vocabulary to read this
book!'
    Unique was staring at him. 'I asked you a
question, Fool.'
    'What?' Martin asked, painfully aware that he
had become so accustomed to being addressed as
'Fool'. He was even beginning to think of it as a
proper noun.
    'I said, where is Sandy?'
    Martin glanced out the window. The stairs
leading up to the executive office were empty.
Usually, Sandy came down to use the bathroom
and check in with Unique before work started. It
was odd that she wasn't here, especially since last
night's episode of Dancing With the Stars had
been particularly competitive. Even the judges
had been shocked.
    Unique craned her neck, trying to see up the
stairs. 'Who's that?'
    Martin was thinking the same thing. He saw a
foot appear at the top of the stairs. It was clad in
a white tennis shoe. His gaze followed tan hose
up the calf to a below-the-knee beige skirt. Who
did that calf belong to? A beauty queen? A
salesperson from a pulp goods distributor? The
woman started to walk down the stairs, and he
was reminded of the beautiful passage from The Great Gatsby when we first meet Mrs Wilson . . .
' She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout,
but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as
some women can. '
    'Uh-oh,' Unique said. 'This ain't good.'
    ' Her face . . . contained no facet or gleam of
beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible
vitality about her as if the nerves of her body
were continually smoldering. '
    'What's wrong with you, Fool?'
    Martin became aware that his mouth was
hanging open.
    'That's the police.'
    Unique pronounced the word with two
syllables: po-lice. Martin glanced around the
room at the boxes stacked high to the ceiling as if
he could detect some theft. Southern had been
broken into once before. In 1996, just before the
Olympics, hooligans had busted the back door
and papered the entire factory floor. Martin had
been the first to discover the crime; he could still
remember the sense of abject violation he'd felt as
he'd picked 2300 from the machinery. Had it
happened again? Who had dared to target
Southern Toilet Supply this time? What
rapscallion had breached the sanctity of a small
American business that was owned by a multinational
conglomerate?
    On the stairs, he saw that there was a man
behind the woman, a gray-haired, square
shoulders kind of guy who probably wore
cologne and winked a lot to make his point.
Rounding up the end of the group was Norton
Shaw, whose face was scrunched up like a fist.
    'Uh-oh,' Unique repeated. 'Norton don't look
happy.'
    Martin was standing, his fists clenched. Who
had attacked this simple little business? What
had they done this time?
    The door opened. The woman stood there,
light pouring in all around her. Her blonde hair
had been permed too much, or perhaps the
winter weather had split the ends. There were
tiny splotches of dry skin on her face and what
looked like the last throes of a pimple in the
crevice of her right nostril. She was older than he
had first guessed, probably in her late forties,
which somehow made her more beautiful (even
as a boy, Martin had always been attracted to
older women). There was just something about
her – some kind of inner beauty, an air of
knowing – that commanded attention.
    She took in the office, the stacked boxes, the
potted succulents. Behind her, the man asked,
'Are you the twat?'
    Unique barked a laugh that made Martin's
eardrums hurt. 'That's him. That Fool over
there.' She pointed a long red fingernail his way.
    Norton Shaw gave Martin a wary glance
before turning around and