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

Chapter Four

Trevor Williams sat at his desk and buried his face in his hands. It was all too much.

“They’re planning yet another protest demonstration. This time it’s outside numbers 26 and 27 Highgrove Park,” he murmured.

“How do they have time for it?” asked Cynthia, who looked after the filing. “Don’t they have jobs?”

“Not proper ones,” groaned Trevor. “They’re all writers and academics and bankers. I suppose they’ve got nothing better to do.”

“It’s shocking,” said Cynthia. “Here we are trying to do the best for people, and all they do is moan. Moan, moan, moan.”

“It’s the way they hate us that gets me down,” said Trevor. “It’s the constant hostility, the way they look at you when they know you’re from the Council. That little glint that jumps into their eyes when you say what your job is, and they reply: ‘Oh! The Planning Department, eh?’

“What does ‘eh?’ mean? I’ll tell you what ‘eh?’ means, Cynthia. ‘Eh?’ means: ‘We’re going to make your life a misery!’ ‘Eh?’ means: ‘We have complete freedom to be nasty to you.’ ‘Eh?’ means: ‘Society has given us permission to be rude to your face.’ ‘Eh?’ means: ‘Society empowers us to swear at you, to yell at you, to bad-mouth you and generally torment you and make your lives not worth living! Because we pay your wages! You are our servants! Our slaves! To do what we tell you!’ That’s what ‘Eh?’ means, Cynthia!”

Then Trevor Williams put his head in his hands again and started to sob. Cynthia put her arm around him and whispered something into his ear. Pretty soon, Trevor Williams put his arm around Cynthia, and pretty soon they were kissing. A little bit later they were hard at work.

It was lucky the rest of the office had all gone home.

“Happy birthday,” whispered Cynthia.

Some time later, Trevor and Cynthia were sitting in a pub in Camden Town. Trevor had a pint of bitter in front of him and Cynthia a small glass of white wine.

“I often can’t get out of bed in the morning,” Trevor confided to Cynthia.

“That must be terrible,” she replied soothingly.

“I sometimes think that God has laid his curse upon me!” Being on his third pint Trevor was in confessional mode.

“You shouldn’t say such things!” exclaimed Cynthia. “Besides, you got that promotion only last week.”

“Yes! ‘He’ really wants me to suffer! Head of Camden Planning! I ask you! The worst job in the world!”

Trevor heaved such a deep sigh it seemed to have started in his trousers. “They’ll blame me for everything. They’ll blame me for planning permissions granted. They’ll blame me for planning permissions refused. No one ever says, ‘Well granted!’ or ‘Well rejected!’ They just complain, complain, complain!”

“But your decisions affect everybody! You save the environment! You look after conservation areas! It’s important work, Trevor!” said Cynthia.

But Trevor didn’t seem to have heard her. “God is punishing me for something, but I don’t know for what!” He looked up at the ceiling of the pub, and cried, “What have I done wrong, God?”

As he did so, he noticed bits of chewing gum and silver paper stuck to the ceiling.

That’s my life, he thought. A lot of people have worked terribly hard to produce something pointless and ugly.

“And you’ve got a lovely home,” said Cynthia. “It’s really nice.”

“It’s not a ‘home’, it’s a flat,” replied Trevor.

“Well, a flat can be a home, can’t it?” Cynthia sounded uncertain.

“A ‘home’ is a house with a garden and children running around it and the smell of hot bread coming from the kitchen,” said Trevor.

“Well… you could have that if you wanted,” Cynthia murmured softly. But Trevor was still staring at the ceiling.

“I wonder how they get those egg-cups made out of silver paper to stay up?” he muttered, and he didn’t even notice as Cynthia reached out her hand for his.