work

I idly asked F12 on our journey into school this morning what he thought the publican in my novel (ha!) should be called. We had had a bit of a tense time getting out of the house – over which I’ll draw a veil – and some neutral territory was a must.
“I was thinking of Alan Tutt,” I said, “Something non-descript.”
“No,” F12 said dismissively, “Vasily. Vasily Hutz.”
“Vasily?!” I said, “He’s not Russian, he’s just an ordinary English bloke.”
“Ah, so you’re saying English people are just ordinary and you have to be Russian to be interesting, are you?”
Need I say I sighed.
“No, I’m saying that if you suddenly have a Russian chap running a pub in an English village, then people are going to snag on that detail and he’s going to become more important than he deserves to be.
“Why shouldn’t a pub man –?”
“Enough,” I said, “He’s not Russian. He's just there to wipe glasses and he’s called Alan and he’s got a surly son in the North.”
“Vasily wears a trilby and a checked jacket and brown loafers and beige trousers. He got fed up in the Homeland with cocaine being brought in over the borders in lead-lined coffins.”
This was me told. Alan faded into the background.
“And he’s got a double barrelled shot gun and is from a noble family and is going to become a Duke. And an Earl. And a Lord.”
Alan negotiated to move back in with his ex-wife and re-commit to the surly son.

I should have dumped it there and moved onto something uncontroversial like gay women vicars or the siting of industrial incineration but I found myself musing on my heroine and what she should do. She needs to be at home (don’t we all) but the practicalities of funding the Riley lifestyle had to be addressed. I asked F12 for suggestions.
“She makes flower barettes,” he said with absolute certainty.
“What? Hairslides?” I said, “how have YOU heard the word barettes?”
“I just have.”
“Too much MI High,” I said, referring to a presumed crap TV programme.
“No. Not MI High at all, I just have, OK.”
“Alright, so she needs to make a lot of …. barettes …. to earn her money,” I was worried that she would be bent double over her desk and not be able to do all the things she needed to do, like be a heroine, like not actually work at all, just earn enough to warrant occasional trips to the pub to be served by Vasily. Alan. Vasily.
I had wanted the work to be a vague detail. Again, don’t we all.
“How long do people have to work each day?” he asked, “12 hours?”
“Hmm, a bit steep,” I said, “more like 7?”
“We’ll say 12,” the task-master said, deaf to my Union Rep. “So that’s 12 times by 7 makes 84. Now, if she makes one every 3 seconds …”
“Steady on,” I said, “Give her a break, one every 3 seconds! It’ll kill her. No way. One every five minutes, max.”
“SShh,” he said, irritably, “I’m Working It OUT!! She can make one every 3 minutes then. But she’s very organised,” he added, clearly displeased with the downturn in productivity, his fingers twitching like a turf accountant’s. “OK, so she can make 240 a day, that’s 1,680 a week and sell them for £5 each, that’s … that’s …
“£5!” I squeaked, “she’ll be lucky to make 19p and that’s pushing it and there’s profit and time spent buying all the stuff, and she’ll have to post it out and do her accounts and advertise .…” I was quite impressed with my business acumen here but he greeted it with a
“SSHHH! I’m counting, she can buy rhinestones for £10. That’s £8,400 a week. Less the £10. Cool. That’s good. Why don’t you do that?”

Why indeed. It was a relief to get to school.
On the way home, my heroine tossed aside, I thought, hmmm, barettes; cool. And if I could just up that productivity, haggle on the rhinestones …