Trouble on the Heath: A Comedy of Russian Gangsters, Town Planners and a Dog Called Nigel

Chapter Two

Trevor Williams woke up in a panic.

It was a work-day, and he always woke in a panic when he had to go to work. For fifteen years he had been toiling in the Planning Department of Camden Council, and for fifteen years he had dreaded work-days.

Trevor wondered if anyone in the outside world could even guess at the horror of working in the Planning Department.

Suddenly he made his mind up. He would refuse to go in to work today. He would phone in sick. He got these migraines. Everybody knew about them. He had one today. He couldn’t possibly work.

Trevor got to the bathroom and stared at his face in the bathroom mirror. He had been a young man when he’d started working in the Planning Department. Now he was old before his time. His face was lined. His eyes were dull and lifeless. Even his hair looked depressed.

He owed it to himself not to go into work today. He would go fishing instead.

Feeling much better, he shaved and made himself some breakfast: a little toast, a pot of coffee, even a boiled egg.

Then he washed up, put on his coat, grabbed his briefcase and ran for the bus. He jumped onto it just as the doors were closing, and slumped into an empty seat. He sighed a weary sigh.

More and more often he found that the only way to get himself out of bed was to pretend that he was going to phone in sick and go fishing instead.

Ah! He could feel the rod in his hand, and hear the quiet wash of the river against its banks. There was the splash now and again as fish jumped into the world above for an instant, before falling back into their watery fish-world. Just as Trevor had, for a moment, leapt from the drab world of reality into the world of his day-dreams and gone fishing.

Fish were wonderful, peaceable creatures. They minded their own business, and didn’t glare at you, or write angry letters.

Fish didn’t ring you up and scream abuse at you. Fish didn’t threaten to take you to court or tell you that you were a Nazi working for a Nazi organisation. Nor had Trevor ever heard of fish ganging up on someone going about his normal duties, catching him outside the supermarket and pouring cold custard over his jacket. It had happened to him.

Fish didn’t write angry letters about the block of flats being built outside their sitting-room window. Fish didn’t accuse you of being racist because there was no letter-box outside their front door and they had to walk two hundred yards down the road to post a letter. Fish didn’t harass you by ringing you every hour – on the hour – to demand to know why you hadn’t replaced the trees that had been cut down by accident two years before.

And sometimes you caught fish.

That never happened with members of the public. They always caught you.

If you granted a planning application to build a really nice house with lots of rooms and a swimming pool, objectors would line up chanting in the road. They’d have their photos taken by the local newspaper, and spread rumours about the damage to the environment the house would cause. They’d claim it would upset the water table and destroy the local wild life. They’d storm the Council offices and spray green paint all over the computers. It had happened once.

On the other hand, if you refused an application to build a really nice house with lots of rooms and a swimming pool, the applicants would threaten to take you to court. They’d bring in high-powered lawyers. They would say that you weren’t up to your job and that you were acting illegally. They’d phone you up and say they were going to take this matter “higher” and suggest that your job might be at risk.

There was no pleasing the General Public.

Look at that case with that supermarket a few years ago! The Council refused permission to build yet another supermarket which nobody needed. So the supermarket took the Council to court. The Council won. Then the supermarket took them to court again, and the Council won again. This went on for several years. Eventually the Council ran out of money, so they gave permission to build the supermarket.

Instead of being grateful, the supermarket then sued the Council for loss of earnings. They won, and the Council had been nearly bankrupted.

The Council, and particularly the Planning Department, just could not win.

The daily harassment, routine abuse and endless round of complaints and objections and protests would grind anybody down.

Trevor climbed the stairs to the Planning Department with a sinking heart. He opened the door and there were all the staff looking at him. Cynthia, who did the filing, was holding a cake.

“Happy Birthday, Trevor!” they all shouted.