“Really, Luc,” replied Alex with a tone of admonishment. “This isn’t a time to be celebrating. We’re losing our jobs.”
“I didn’t mean in a celebrating way,” I tried to explain. “Pour one out is—”
Explaining idioms to Alex never went well for me, so it was actually kind of a relief when Rhys Jones Bowen appeared on-screen. He was wearing a T-shirt with a photorealistic picture of a much-more-shredded-than-the-real-Rhys-Jones-Bowen chest and abs printed on it. “Hello,” he said cheerily. “What did I miss?”
“Luc was asking about bear hunting and celebrating us all losing our jobs,” Alex informed him, pouting indignantly.
“I was doing neither of those things,” I said, then, to forestall an argument, followed up with, “Technical issues?”
For a moment the assembled CRAPPers tried to figure out whoI was sayingtechnical issuesto, but Rhys eventually concluded I meant him and, over a slightly laggy connection, said, “Oh. No actually, everything worked like a dream this time. But you see, the thing is, I was eating a chocolate mousse. Then as I leaned over to adjust my camera to a more flattering angle, I spilled the blooming thing all down my front.”
That explained maybe half of the current situation, but I needn’t have worried because nobody at CRAPP ever stopped a good anecdote before it had gone on way, way too long.
“And,” he continued, “I didn’t think it would be very professional to come to a meeting with chocolate mousse all down my front, so I went to get changed, but the thing is, it’s the day before wash day so I spent ages trying to find something and wouldn’t you know it the best I could do was this.” He indicated the fake-naked-chest T-shirt. “And I’ll be honest, I was a bit concerned itmightcreate something of the wrong impression—”
“You think?” I said.
“I did think. But then I remembered that time you showed us all your hedgehog underpants and I decided, ‘Well, it can’t be much worse than that,’ so here I am.”
I guess the advantage of CRAPP closing in a year was that it put a strict time limit on how long I was going to have to live with my hedgehog boxers being a regular element of workplace banter.
“Barbara was just explaining,” I tried in a vain effort to distract people from the topic of my underwear, “the things that CRAPP will be able to do to support us through redundancy.”
Rhys Jones Bowen looked shocked. “Redundancy?”
“Youdoremember that we’re losing our funding at the end of the year?” I reminded him.
“I know wemight,” replied Rhys Jones Bowen. “But I’m buggered if I’m letting this place shut down without a fight.”
That had…genuinely not occurred to me.
“We might be able to find alternative sources of income,” observed Dr. Fairclough, “but the most probable outcome is that they will not be sufficient to compensate for the loss of the trust, and thus our operations will in all likelihood become untenable.”
“Well then, let’s keep the trust,” said Rhys, as if it was the easiest, most obvious thing in the world. “My mum always says, ‘You’re not beat until they’re shoving sawdust up your bum,’ and that’s how I’ve always lived my life and how I always will.”
In so many ways, he was making sense. In so many ways, he was saying what I’d not quite let myself want to hear. In other ways he was talking about sawdust in bums. “Until they’re doingwhat?”
“Shoving sawdust up your bum,” Rhys Jones Bowen repeated. “I think it means, you know, until you’re dead.”
“Do they shove sawdust up dead people’s bums?” I asked, even though I was certain I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“I think it’s an embalming thing,” Rhys told me with the airy confidence that had allowed him to bring a different date to every company event I’d ever seen him at. “You know, they pickle you and stuff sawdust up your bum.”
It was fucked up that I was going to miss this. “Ireallydon’t think that’s how embalming works.”
Rhys Jones Bowen folded his arms in the manner of a man about to die on a very silly hill. “I didn’t realise you were such an expert in the field, Luc.”
“I’m not claiming expertise. I just don’t feel sawdust-up-the-bum is generally a part of funeral preparation.”
“We’ve got a mummy in the Lancaster house,” Alex piped up. “Uncle Pongo brought him back from a dig somewhere, just before that nasty business with the shotgun.He’sfull of sawdust.”
“Uncle Pongo?” asked Rhys Jones Bowen.
“The mummy.”
“Yes”—I joined Rhys on the silly hill, with roughly similar prospects of survival—“but did it go up his bum?”
Alex wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. “Couldn’t say for sure. But”—he raised a finger—“interesting story about Uncle Pongo and the shotgun.”
