“But Imeantboth.”
“Well”—Alex turned his attention back to the camera, his expression a mix of betrayed and suspicious—“that seems wilfully obtuse.”
Less late than I’d been expecting, Rhys Jones Bowen logged on, interrupting the discussion of my wilful obtuseness. “Sorry I’m a bit delayed. The cat was interfering with the wireless. Anyway, what have folks been up to?”
“Telling jokes on company time,” replied Barbara Clench.
“Really, Barbara?” Rhys Jones Bowen stroked his beard in confusion. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“She means me,” I clarified.
“But,” added Alex, “he hadn’t got around to the joke bit yet because he was just telling us about this terrible explosion at a cheese factory. There was only Brie left.”
Rhys Jones Bowen shook his head solemnly. “Shocking, that is, really shocking. And you know the worst thing about it?”
“I suppose it depends on what the other cheeses were,” mused Alex. “Be criminal if they lost a supply of Stilton.”
That didn’t seem to be the direction Rhys Jones Bowen was going. “Theworstthing is that the bosses will have known about it. There’ll have been people on the factory floor telling them for years. ‘That’s an accident waiting to happen,’ they’ll have been saying. ‘It’s not right to make people work in these conditions.’ They’d have pursued industrial action, I’d imagine, except of course the cheese industry is famously anti-union.”
“So we’re all on the same page,” I tried, forlornly, “this whole situation is fictional.”
Rhys Jones Bowen gazed out of the screen knowingly. “I’m sure that’s what theytoldyou, Luc. That’s what they always say when these kinds of issues come up. ‘Oh, you’re just scaremongering. We’ve had professional risk assessments done, and there’s nothing to worry about.’ But it’s not them who have to pick up the pieces, is it? It’s not the CFO who has to tell little Timmy that Mummy isn’t coming home from work today because she was killed by a catastrophic buildup of pressure in the curdling vats.”
Too late, I made a token attempt at damage control. “Should we—”
“Not that they care,” Rhys was continuing. “You know why the Brie survived, don’t you? Because that’s what they serve at their shareholders’ meetings. So ofcoursethat would be safe. It’s the regular cheese for the working people they’ll have been cutting corners on.”
Alex stiffened, which looked particularly formal since he was still, several months in, wearing full historical costume. “Steady on, this is sounding dangerously like pinko talk.”
“How about”—Barbara Clench called us quietly back to order—“we set aside the controversial cheese tragedy and focus on C.R.A.P.P. business.”
“Fuck, God, yesplease,” I blurted in desperate support. “I want to kick off the New Year by giving you a quick recap on where things stand with CRAPPstonbury.”
“Over budget already?” asked Barbara Clench. With how our relationship had evolved over the years, I couldn’t quite tell if that was playful banter or a serious complaint. Possibly it was both.
“Hey, the field was free,” I told her, and got an approving nod in return. “And I managed to keep the toilets under a grand.”
Barbara Clench looked unconvinced. “I still feel they should have been cheaper.”
“Maybe,” I conceded, “but look at it this way. If we’re going to skimp onanything, it probably shouldn’t be the thing that stops the whole event being awash with human faeces.”
Even Barbara Clench couldn’t quite find an argument for rolling the dice on that one. “Fair point. What about catering?”
“I’ve reached out to some local businesses, so that might actually not cost us anything. Plus”—I nodded towards Rhys Jones Bowen—“is Bronwyn still doing the pop-up?”
“She is,” Rhys confirmed. “She’s got very into street food lately, and she thinks that’ll go down well with a festival crowd.” He paused for a moment, then waved a finger in the universal gesture of just-remembered-something. “Oh, but there might be a bit of a problem with the choir.”
The Skenfrith Male Voice Choir had become something of a fixture at CRAPP events since their debut at the Beetle Drive five years ago. I’d originally not planned to book them for CRAPPstonbury on the grounds that Saint would probably think they were too conventional, but I’d come to the conclusion that if I built the whole event to please Saint, it would completely bomb, we’d make no money, and we’d all lose our jobs anyway.
So Skenfrith were in. Or at least they should have been.
“What’s the issue?” I asked.
Rhys Jones Bowen looked grave. “Politics.”
“What sort of politics?”
“Well,” Rhys began. And it was not a goodwell. It was the kindofwellthat inevitably came before a long, detailed story about a large number of people you’d never met and couldn’t keep track of. “You know how Uncle Alan used to be managing director?”
