The man in the black suit jacket, pink shirt and grey suit trousers stood to his full if not somewhat slouched height in front of the half empty table in the Trustee’s board room. Out of habit the middle and forefinger of his right hand ran up and down the ring finger of his left hand as he spoke, playing with a phantom ring and telling anyone who was looking of his recent divorce. Familiar stifled yawns and furtive glances to the old Grandfather clock on the opposite wall told him all he needed to know about the committee’s interest in his company’s product.
        A grey haired man in a checked shirt off set with a red spotted tie and floral patterned v-neck jumper wrinkled his nose and coughed quietly into a closed fist. When he spoke he did so with a gentle Scottish accent much faded by his years in London.
        “Thank you Crawford Burns,” he said. “You’ve definitely sold me to the SHE database…system…thing…”
        “Well SHE are committed to Health and Safety beyond nothing else Malcolm.”
        “Indeed, I’m sure they…er...that is you…are.”
        Crawford Burns, already knowing the answer asked the next question none the less.
        “Any comments or queries?” he said, to a show of blank expressions. A sea of eye lids fluttered like butterflies, fighting to be kept open, and the silence hung like an all too familiar blanket across the room before a tiny hand appeared in the air.
        “Yes?” said Crawford, gratitude spreading through him.
        “What does SHE stand for?” asked a tiny voice that was attached to the tiny hand. Both belonged to a withered old lady who must have been in her mid 80s, she pushed a heavy framed pair of spectacles up her long thin nose and looked up at Crawford from behind a furrowed brow.
        “Safe Healthy Environment,” he said, the gratitude all but gone. His eyes scanned the other vacant faces for a moment longer, the sound of the Grandfather clock ticking ominously in the background, accompanied by the vacant stares from the former directors, who peered down from their ornate portraits that lined the walls.
        “Well with no further questions I think we’ll call it a day there, thank you Crawford Burns.”
        There was a polite smattering of perhaps rather ill placed applause and then one by one the Museum’s health and safety committee clambered wearily to their feet and wandered out of the room. Malcolm shook Crawford by the hand and followed the others out, chatting amicably with another colleague from the Coins and Medal’s department, all thoughts of SHE databases forgotten for another month.
        Crawford sighed and packed away his laptop, not sure whether to leave the projector screen in tact or not. No-one else had bothered to put it away, what if they assumed he would do it? On the other hand there may well be a technician on the way and his interference might not be appreciated. He decided to leave it and exited the room after the other committee members, leaving the door open and the lights on. If he had known the building better then he would have turned left instead of right once in the ante room and so wouldn’t have ended up wandering round corners and up winding staircases seemingly at random trying to find his way out. Pretty soon he was so lost that he knew that he would never be able to find his way back should he try to. Too proud to ask directions in the offices that he passed he wandered on, eventually so desperate he started opening doors at random, interrupting a meeting, another meeting and a cleaner having a Kit-Kat in the corner of a meeting room she was supposed to be cleaning. ‘ I’m most terribly sorry,’ he said to each room in turn, before ducking his head back out of the door and scampering off down the corridor toward a large door at the end, this one- he said to himself- would be the last one before he’d turn on his heel and attempt to retrace his steps.
        Meanwhile, on the other side of the door the Director of the British Museum could be found scrabbling around on the carpet frantically picking up beads from the pearl necklace of the wife of the Ethiopian Ambassador he’d been about to show round the Museum. Moments before he had accidentally ripped it from around her neck where it had happily sat for several years whilst flailing his arms about trying to be understood. Like all Englishman of a certain age he believed that the way to be understood by a visitor from another country was to talk at a loud volume whilst making over-the-top expressions with his hands. Little did he know that Mr. Azerbubo’s wife was in fact from Tooting, South-West London and had only been to Ethiopia a handful of times, rarely stepping foot out of the hotel when she did. Her and her Diplomatic husband had met when she had swept the floors and emptied the bins at the Embassy.
       “He was the one doing the sweeping that night,” she had been known to say. “Swept me right of my feet he did.”
       Just as Mr. Director clasped his chubby fingers round the last pearl, a none too impressed Ambassador and wife standing patiently over him, Crawford came crashing through the door, which in turn knocked the director on the backside sending him flailing forward where his face ended its short journey in the ample bosom of Mrs. Ambassador. A moment’s pause hung over the small party- in which Crawford was clever enough not to move a muscle- before the Ambassador’s wife let out a shrill cry that pierced the ear drums of anyone within a two mile square area of the Museum. The Director righted himself, placed his hands on Mrs. Ambassador’s shoulders, apologised profusely and tried in vain to calm her down. The Ambassador himself didn’t move, but rolled his eyes once or twice and checked his watch. He had lunch with his mistress in an hour and a half and he was hoping this would be over well before then.
        “I’m so very sorry Mr. Ambassador,” the Director said, clutching at Azerbubo’s hand, shaking it forcefully up and down before filling it with the handful of pearls from the broken necklace. “Let’s go back to my office and I’ll get Lydia to make us all a nice cup of tea. We can do the tour of the museum another time.”
        Apart from a solitary raised eyebrow Azerbubo’s face didn’t move a muscle.
        “Do you have anything stronger?” he said.
        “Er…well, I’ll have to see. Might have a drop of something somewhere. How about you and your lovely wife follow me down and we’ll see what we can find eh.”
        With that the director made to walk back down the corridor before he turned sharply on his heel, as if he’d forgotten something, nearly bumping into Mrs. Ambassador for the third time in as many minutes.
        “And who might you be young man?” he said, approaching Crawford, who hadn’t moved since he’d opened the door.
        “Crawford Burns sir,” said Crawford, who had been brought up to respect people he had just knocked off their feet.
        “And which department do you work in?”
        At that moment someone entered through the main door into the Directorate which was some ten or so yards behind the Director, his way out!
        “I er…I’m not actually a member of staff sir…” he said, eyeing the doorway enviously.
        “Not a member of staff? Well what on earth are you doing here…knocking into people on the othersides of doors?”
        “That was an accident sir, I was…well looking for a way out…”
        “You shouldn’t be here in the first place if you’re not a member of staff sonny, you wait here whilst I call security, we can’t have people just wandering around the museum as they see fit. Lydia! Lydia!” And with that the Director scuttled off down the corridor in search of his PA, without whom he would have trouble tying his shoe laces. Mr and Mrs Azerbubo looked at each other, then up at Crawford and all three seemed to have the same idea at the same time. After a moment’s pause they turned together and hurried in the direction of the door as quickly as they could.
        By the time the director ambled into the PA’s office he had clear forgotten what it was that he was there to do, he wandered over to Lydia’s desk and sat heavily on the edge, head in hand. Lydia, who was simultaneously trying to answer the phone and prevent a too high pile of papers from spilling over onto a neighbouring desk, caught his look as soon as he came in and knew straight away that he had forgotten something and was trying to remember what it was.
        “Tour over already sir?” she said, the phone cradle still in the crook of her neck.
        “What’s that?”
        “The tour sir. You were going to show the Ethiopian ambassador and his wife the Terracota army, you only left a few minutes ago.”
        “That’s right!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet again. “The Ambassador, I was going to give his wife a stiff drink. Where’s that bottle of Whisky Neil gave me the other week?”
        “Sir it’s 10.30, I promised your wife I wouldn’t let you drink before lunch time anymore.”
        “10.30, really? I could have sworn it was later. Certainly feels a lot later. Must be the weather I suppose, strange time of year this time of year, always tends to remind me of a later time of day. Wonder why that is? Right.” Pontificating over he clapped his hands together and turned to face Lydia, who was still on hold with the Home Office. “What else have we got on today?”
        “This evening is the party sir.”
        “The party?”
        “Yes sir, the party that you are throwing for all the staff in the great court, to say thank you for all their work over the First Emperor season.”
        “Ah yes, a party…how damned nice of me…never had any damn parties in the museum when I started. No damn parties at all. No such thing as a damn party in my day you know. Apart from Christmas of course…and the odd one on the Queen’s birthday and all that…indeed…right, what’s next?”
        “Well sir, you weren’t due back from the tour until 11.30 so you’re free for an hour.”
        “Free for an hour? Me, free for an hour?! Lydia my dear I am the Director of the British Museum, there is no such thing as being free for an hour if you are Director of The British Museum.” And with that he was off, into his office with the door slamming shut behind him. Within a few seconds a well known red light on Lydia’s phone bleeped twice at her. She placed the Home office on hold and switched the line.
        “Yes Director?”
        “Lydia love, send in Neil’s bottle of whisky will you.”

 When Lydia returned from bringing The Director his bottle of whisky, a move which she knew to be against the direct orders of both his wife and his GP, but one which she knew would keep him quiet for an hour or two, Felicia was sat in her seat.
        “Why do you let that big oaf boss you round so much Lyds?” she said between mouthfuls of Hulla Hoops.
        “Felicia, why are you sat in my seat again?”
        “Because you get the best sun at this time of day. You know I like to get my rays in after 10. Gotta look good for the party this eve. Never know who I might meet…”
        “Shouldn’t you be working? Nigel’s got a meeting at 11 you need to prepare papers for hasn’t he?”
        “He knows not to ask me to do anything like that. If he wants his bloody cookies and coffee he’ll bloody well have to get them himself.”
        As if to emphasise her point she swung her chubby legs up onto the edge of Lydia’s desk and shifted her heavy frame, causing the chair to creak ominously, her five inch heels nearly stabbing Lydia in the thigh.
        “Can you please move now,” Lydia said, trying her best not to use her pleading tone. “I’ve got work to do.”
        “In a minute.”
        “Now please Felicia.”
        “IN A MINUTE!”
        “Alright alright. Just let me get the number for the home office and I’ll call them from your desk.”
        “Phone don’t work.”
        “The phone doesn’t work? And why is that?”
        “Dunno. Broke a while ago.”
        “Oh. I thought it had been quiet of late. How are you booking Nigel’s meetings?”
        “Dunno.”
        “Right. And tell me again Felicia, how long have you been working at the museum?”
        “This is my thirteenth year…”
        “…lucky for us…”
        “…I’ve seen three deputy directors come and go in my time and I’ve been PA to all of them. Nigel’s the worst though, never bloody lets things go. I said to him, I said ‘Nigel, if you don’t like the way that I PA for you then you know what you can do…’”
        “And what can he do?”
        “Gardening leave.”
        “Oh yes, gardening leave, the last bastion of the lazy PA.”
        “Oy! I ain’t lazy. I just think why the bloody ‘ell should I bother when I know that they’ll have to pay me 20 grand if they want to get rid of me. Just makes sense to me.”
        Lydia, having heard this argument plenty of times before, sat at the spare desk and was back on hold with the Home Office within seconds.
        Some minutes later the red light flashed on her phone once more. As Felicia had wandered off to the kitchen for a very early lunch she procured her desk back and answered the intercom.
        “Yes sir,” she said.
        “Lydia, is that you?”
        “…yes sir…”
        “…Lydia. Did I ask you to call the Home Office about Lupeen?”
        “Yes sir. I’m on hold now.”
        “Well don’t worry about it. We don’t want her to stay in the country after all. Turns out she’s been stealing from us. Damn wife found a hundred pounds in used notes when she was routing through her stuff earlier. Packing her off to Singapore this arvo. Is it lunch time yet?”
        “No sir. You’ve got a meeting with the new Keeper of Greek and Roman in an hour.”
        “Really? Oh dash it all, can you get on the blower and see if she can make it now, I’m damn well famished.”
        “Yes sir.”
        “Oh and Lydia you couldn’t pop into the Great Court and get me one of those rolls I like could you.”
        “…yes sir.”
        With no sign of Felicia and no-one else about Lydia was forced to leave the office unmanned as she made her way back down the corridor and toward the Great Court, the whole time muttering gently to herself and wondering where her life had gone wrong. If she moved to the city, so her boyfriend Martin was constantly telling her, she could clear double her salary by PAing for an Investment Banker or two. ‘Sell out,’ he was known to say. ‘No harm in making a bit of money doll. If you really want you can go and work in a museum or an art gallery again once you’ve popped out a couple of kids.’ Martin had no idea how close he himself was to being ‘popped out’.