Bernice had still not resolved the situation with either Dave or Chris when Martin called her into his office the following week, though she had at least got over her stupid and quite unnecessary spat with Becky. In the meantime she had attended Cristina's leaving do, a rather melancholy occasion despite the fact that Cristina announced that she had found a job in a local company importing luxury soaps and beauty products - through a contact of Trevor's, surprisingly, who truly proved himself clever on this occasion. On the way to her meeting with Martin she passed James, who was wearing a black tie along with his usual super-sharp suit.
"A funeral?" she asked with spontaneous sympathy.
"I beg your pardon?," said Slide, "oh yes: my aunt."
"I'm sorry," she said, feeling slightly guilty that she was still annoyed with him.
"Don't be," he added. "You know what they say: don't get sad, get even..." and with this curious remark he passed down the corridor.
From Martin's expression she could see that he had something unpleasant to do. He was holding wads of computer printout. She noticed that various figures had been ringed.
"Bernice," he said, "this has got to stop." He indicated the sheets of paper. "What the hell is David up to?" he asked quite angry.
"How do you mean?" she replied, not quite sure what in particular he was referring to.
"These calls to South America: in the last month Mowley has run up bills of more than £1200. It's outrageous."
Yes, that was a bit steep, thought Bernice.
"He's working on a story," she said simply.
"Hell of a story," said Martin sarcastically.
Hope so, thought Bernice. Luckily Martin did not ask for details.
"Anyway, it's got to stop, OK? We can't have journalists running up bills like this as things get worse."
"I'll have a word with him," she said.
"Right, thanks. Now, there was something else I needed to talk to you about," began Martin slowly.
Uh-oh, thought Bernice, there's more.
"Now," Martin said, his eyes starting to avoid hers, "as you know things are getting increasingly tough here" - quite where 'here' was he never said - "and I been asked to look at ways to slim the operation down. I'm afraid we've got to lose someone on the magazine...."
"What, another person?" she cried, "after not replacing Pete now you want to take someone else? Bloody hell. Why don't we just close the magazine and be done with it?" she asked furiously.
"Now come on, Bernice," said Martin, "let's be adult about this. This is not something I'm happy about either" - and he meant it: staff equalled power. The more staff you had, the higher your ranking as a manager. To lose staff was to be diminished - "but I'm not being given any choice on this one. Everyone's having to make sacrifices - take my new shared secretary." Puh-lease take her, he added mentally.
"Well, that's as may be," she said, "but that's cold comfort when you've got to get a magazine out with less staff."
She was right, of course. But so was he in the sense that this was business: things had to be done sometimes regardless of whether they were right or not. If they were needed: that was enough.
Bernice could see that Martin was not to be moved, and understood enough of how Wright's worked to know that he had not been asked but told to do this just as he was telling her. She decided that she would at least try to make some good come out of it.
"There's George Benington," she said very levelly.
"Good," said Martin, glad that he would not have to argue this one anymore. "Let's just look at his file," he said going to a filing cabinet and drawing out the personnel file on George.
"Aaah," he said at one point. "Problem here: he's been with the company 22 years; three months' notice. Hmm."
"So?" asked Bernice not seeing what the problem was, and not particularly caring.
"Well, that works out to 25 months' salary as redundancy payment. I don't think I'll get that past Charles - his budget for that is very limited. We'll have to choose someone else."
"What?" she cried again, "but this is outrageous, you can't go getting rid of people on the basis of who cheapest."
"Look, Bernice," he said, "I'm sure you know the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance: the former is not paying monies you should, the latter is acting so that you don't owe the monies in the first place. It's the same here: we have got to optimise our choices. Now let's look at who else we've got." He started going through his personnel files for The Business. Bernice said nothing, appalled.
"I presume that it would be easier to lose someone lower down. One sub - can't really lose him, can we?" - Terence? she thought, shocked at the thought of losing him - "but two reporters. Ah, our Mr Mowley and Chris Templeton. Mowley has ten years here at Wright's, so redundancy's a bit expensive there too. What about dismissing him instead?" he asked abstractly, "are you having problems with him - these phone calls, for example?"
"No!" she said, not wanting to take part in this. She might have problems with Dave, but she certainly wasn't going to dump him.
"Well, that leaves Chris, then," said Martin, "no problem losing him - he's only been with the company a few months, notice period of one month - yes, he'd be cheap - what about him?"
Was this some kind of nightmare? Bernice wondered. "No!", she said again, horrified.
"Look, Bernice, I know this is very difficult for you - it is for me, too - but as I've already explained, we have no choice. I don't want to force a decision on you, so I'll let you have a think about it. As far as I can see, it looks like either Mowley or Templeton. Perhaps you could let me know in a couple of days, OK?"
She left dumbfounded. Perhaps Mr Slide was not the only one attending a funeral.
Normally she would have gone straight to the union, but the memory of her last encounter with Ron Feltham soon put paid to that thought. With things going badly with Chris on a personal level too she wondered where she could turn to. Perhaps she could speak to Kate, who in any case was a kind of number two in the office.
When she got back to the office, it was Kate who asked to have a word with her. They went up to the coffee lounge. Bernice wondered what was the matter - she hoped that Kate was feeling OK.
"Bernice," Kate began, "you know that I'm not one to bring this sort of thing up lightly - I prefer just giving people a hard time myself, rather than landing them in it - especially given the circumstances - but something has got to be done about Chris."
What? thought Bernice, is everyone against me today?
"What's the problem?" she said tiredly.
"His copy is coming in so late - and when it does arrive it needs so much work done to it," said Kate.
"Perhaps he's just having a bad month," she said - because of me, she felt like adding.
"No, Bernice, it's always like this...."
"But I thought...." But what did Bernice think? That what appeared in the magazine was mostly Chris's work, rather than Kate's or Terence's, at least as far as style was concerned?
"How bad is it?" she asked finally.
"Bernice, if you want my honest opinion, Chris is simply not cut out to be a journalist. I've handled lots of lousy copy: you know whether the person producing it is just lazy or unlucky or even just a beginner. But you also know when journalism and all that that means is not in their bones. It's not in Chris's. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Bernice, really sorry. I know that it's a difficult situation...." Kate hated doing this to her friend, but her sense of duty to the magazine and to her own high standards made it necessary.
"No, you're right to do so," said Bernice sadly. "I must do some thinking, OK?" Some hard thinking about even harder decisions.
