Ethical Audit, Part 3
I worked all night on the ethics article, I really did. Only the coffee kept me going. By six that morning I was three-quarters finished, but hallucinating slightly, and looked an utter wreck. This was bad; I could just imagine Ondine’s face as she saw me sitting wild-haired and stinking at my desk as she came in to work.
Our office being our office, though, salvation was at hand. During one of the Editor’s previous phases of green-transport evangelism he’d had a small washroom and shower installed for the benefit of those of us who wished to cycle in. I’d laughed the idea down as preposterous at the time, but suddenly it seemed like a blissful convenience. I was half-way through a refreshing, warm shower, thinking of the poised, granite-hard prose I would be writing as my conclusion to the article, when the water gave out.
WHAT, I heard myself scream. The first thought that formed in my mind, as I ran out directly into the corridor with the veins standing out starkly on my temples, was that the Editor had probably put the office heating or water on some kind of timer device, the better to reduce our energy consumption. The second thought that formed into my mind was: I haven’t got a towel. Why didn’t I think of this? How am I going to get dry? Rather than running in the direction of the boiler cupboard, I hastily redirected myself to the kitchen, where there might at least be a tea-towel.
There wasn’t, of course. Struck by a sudden, caffeine-inspired brainwave, I pulled Fenella’s fur thing from the cupboard, towelled myself off roughly, and knotted it round my waist. I had – what, about 15 minutes before my colleagues began arriving to make myself presentable and finish the article. First, coffee! I picked up the now seriously depleted Nescafe tub. Finding out what had happened to the hot water could wait till later.
Suddenly I realised there was…what I can only describe as an appalling stench coming from the main office. I went in, and dripped my way across to the source of the smell. I have to say up till that time I had noticed something growing increasingly pungent in the room, but I’d assumed it was me after a night of feverish writing.
The source was however pretty obvious by now. It was Rupert’s parcel from Iceland, which I’d forgotten to open. What the hell had he put in there? Tearing it open, I found some carefully wrapped lumps of what looked like, well, meat. They stank dreadfully.
It may have been – I quickly checked – 6:55 in the morning, but I was straight on the phone. He answered, with a series of alarming-sounding sniffs and the typical noises of someone falling from a hotel bed drunkenly onto the carpet.
“What have you sent me, you utter fuckwit?” I said.
“Oh…I…you got your present then,” said Rupert. “It’s an Icelandic speciality food! Do you like it?”
“What is it?” I growled.
“Whalemeat.”
“It’s…it’s what?” I started absent-mindedly spooning coffee granules into my mouth. Perhaps if I ate enough, everything would start to make sense.
“It’s a delicacy!” said Rupert.
“Have you any idea what you’ve done?”
“They’ve eaten that stuff for hundreds of years here. Hey, it doesn’t come cheap, you know. That’s the last time I buy you anything.”
“I’m supposed to be looking at ethical accountability!” I practically wept into the phone, spraying coffee liberally around the office. “I can’t believe you’ve posted the flesh of an endangered marine mammal directly to my desk!”
“Aren’t whales fish, then?” said Rupert, doubtfully.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST CLUB A FUCKING SEAL AND BE DONE WITH IT?” I screamed (slightly muffled by coffee granules, so it came out as “THEAL”) into the phone, gesticulating with a piece of his present just for emphasis. At that second, I heard a slight gasp, and turned round to see the Editor, Ondine and Decline and Fall‘s main financial backer, standing in the doorway.
I reflected for a moment on how a man clad only in a dead animal skin, holding a large tub of Nescafe – most of the contents of which were running down his chin – in one arm and a lump of rotten whalemeat in the other, while screaming about clubbing seals, might look to a group of people about to discuss the ethical soundness of their organisation. Probably not too good, I thought.
“What’s that in your mouth?” said the Editor, looking pale as a crated veal calf.
“Nethcafe,” I semi-choked.
“And in your hand?”
“Whalemeath.” Ondine giggled slightly.
“And…and…is that a dead fox round your waist? Why are you….what, what about ethics?” finished the Editor, lamely.
“I think,” I said, “it’s thomewhere thouth of Thuffolk, ithn’t it?”