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Great Writing - Home > Short S. > Little by little part two
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Shorts
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| Little by little part two | |
| By MikeMorris | ||||||||||||||||||
| 19 September 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||
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I am posting no comments o nobody can misinterpret them! But Frankie wasn't here and the manager was. Waiting for Eric. And Eric had no six-gun. The journey down the corridor to the office had never been briefer. "Come in!" The answer to Eric's knock rattled the frosted glass in the old green door. Eric was hardly in the office when, “Shut that blasted door,” made him so nervous he could hardly close it. His “Yes ,Mr. Knowles”, was mumbled with his back to the manager. Then silence. Knowles ignored Eric and continued reading a document on the desk. Eric’s mind raced. Dare he fake a heart attack? He seemed to remember Edward G. Robinson pulling that once. Or had Edward G. been the doctor they called? Too late; Mr. Knowles eyes were rising to meet his. Eric braced himself. “Do you know, Roper,” began the manager,” What I have just been reading?” “Papers, sir?” “Papers? Papers? Any fool can see that! What sort of papers, do you think?” “Important ones, sir?” By now Knowles was half risen from his swivel chair and had his hands on the desk. In spite of everything, Eric noticed that a button was missing from Mr. Knowles’ right shirt sleeve. Had it just come off? Or had it come off in the wash and Mrs. Knowles hadn’t noticed it. Funny that; Eric never thought of buttons coming off the manager’s sleeves. Other people yes, but not the manager. Did he have darned socks too? “Important ones, he says,” roared Knowles as if speaking to a third party. “Important ones! Give me strength.” He slumped back down in his chair. “These papers spell the end.” His voice was quieter now, almost sorrowful. “They spell the end for you, they spell the end for me, they spell the end for all of us. They even spell,” and here he looked a bit like Dirk Bogarde in A Tale of Two Cities, “The end for The King’s Picture Drome” “Oh, heck,” said Eric. ”I’m sorry to hear that. Is there nowt we can do?” “Do? Do? Don’t you think you have done enough?” Eric, seeing Mr. Knowles had slid down the mountain of his wrath, tried a light, tentative probing shot of his own. “Yes, well, I thought we might get round to that. But I can explain, or at least let you know how things came to this.” And he indicated the water stained walls and sodden carpet. “You see, what happened was…” Knowles raised his hand, his right hand and Eric could see once again where the button was missing. “What happened was that you and your so called friends ruined this cinema. You set off the fire alarm, that in turn activated the sprinkler system and hundreds, possibly thousands of gallons of water, rust coloured filthy water cascaded from the ceiling into every part of the building. And then the Fire Brigade came and added their contribution. And the insurance won’t pay because an employee,” and he almost spat the word at Eric,” I repeat, an employee, was involved. And there was no real fire.” “Yes, but like I said to that chap from the insurance,” pleaded Eric, “Frank was only testing the system. He thought them sprinkler valves were rusted up. He didn’t think they’d work, so he set fire to a bit of paper and held it under one of them. If they hadn’t worked I’d have told you and you could have had ‘em checked. The intention was good, anyroad.” “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” quoted Knowles. “By heck,” thought Eric. “He’s remembered that from Sunday school. He must be chapel.” “These “ important” papers as you call them,” continued the manager,” Are telling us that Palmerston Holdings, who own the lease on the building, have decided not to proceed with repairs to the King’s but to cut their losses, completely gut the building and turn it into one of those,” and here a look of distaste crossed his face, ”Bingo Halls.” “What about me, Mr. Knowles, will I get into trouble?” “No proceedings are to be taken, apparently. Probably not worth their while. What could they do? Sue you? Count yourself lucky, young man. And now, get out of my sight. Tell the rest that I’ll speak to them all at 1 O’clock.” Eric turned to go but just as he was closing the door, he popped his head round it. “Well?” said Knowles. “I were just thinking, if it’s going to be a Bingo Hall, they’ll need callers, won’t they? Could you put in a word for me? For old times sake?”
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