Free The Players And The Game by Julian Symons Page A

never lost her cool. ‘Look, sweetie pie, you’ve got to calm down. And it just so happens I’ve got a calmer with me.’
    At first Sally refused the joint, because she had only tried them a couple of times and was not at all sure that she liked the effect, but in the end she accepted it, and it was blissful. They sat in their cubicles talking, taking puffs, getting up to pass it over. Then Pam called, ‘Hey, Sally. Come and look.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘In here.’ Sally went in. ‘Look. Filthy.’ There was certainly a line of dirt round the wash basin. ‘And no lav paper.’
    ‘So there isn’t. Perhaps someone’s pinched it.’
    ‘Disgraceful.’
    ‘It is disgraceful.’
    ‘I’ll tell you what it is, they don’t look after the loos properly any more. Let’s look in the others.’
    In two compartments out of seven there was no lavatory paper. In one the lavatory bowl was choked with it. ‘Disgraceful and disgusting,’ Pam said. ‘You have to do something about something, do something about that.’
    ‘How d’you mean?’
    ‘You’re the old man’s daughter, you’ve got influence. You’ve always said.’
    ‘I do have influence. Dad listens to me.’
    ‘You ought to talk to him.’
    ‘I’ll talk to him.’
    Pam tore half a roll of paper, stuffed it down a lavatory. Make it good. And sweetie pie–’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You talk to your old man about that flat. We’d have fun, I tell you, real humming fun.’
    When Sally got back to the office she rang her father at once. He was out of the room, and she spoke to his secretary. Five minutes later he rang back. He was not pleased, asking what all this nonsense was about dirty lavatories. She still felt as if she were treading on clouds, but they had cleared a little. She spoke carefully, hearing her own words.
    ‘It isn’t nonsense. They’re awful. In three of them there’s no paper.’
    ‘Then go and tell the head of your department.’
    ‘All the girls think it’s awful. They don’t like to say anything.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘I don’t believe – don’t believe they’re ever cleaned now.’ She closed her eyes. She could have fallen asleep easily. She murmured, ‘Thought I should tell you.’
    Her father said in a slightly mollified tone, ‘I’ll have it looked into. But I don’t want you running to me with tales out of school, you understand.’
    He spoke to his efficient secretary. After lunch he found on his desk a complete report on the lavatory situation. In ten toilets there was no paper, and four of them were not working for one reason or another. The general cleanliness of the washrooms left something to be desired. It was suspected that a little mild vandalism had been going on, in the form of stealing toilet rolls or stuffing them down lavatories. Cleaning had been done daily until three months ago, when it had been changed to every other day. The change had been made on instructions from the Personnel Department. Lowson spoke to Paul Vane.
    ‘Paul, did you give instructions for lavatory cleaning to be cut down?’
    ‘What’s that?’ Not surprisingly, he sounded startled. Then he said, ‘That’s right.’
    ‘What was the idea?’
    ‘We had a memo round about cutting expenses. I put this up as a possible cut, and it was accepted.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem to be working out too well. There’ve been complaints about the state of women’s washrooms, and in some cases they seem to be justified.’
    ‘They ought to have come to me.’
    ‘I just happened to hear about them.’
    ‘If Personnel has the responsibility for looking after wash-rooms, then complaints should be made through heads of departments. And they should speak to me, not go behind my back. Has Brian Hartford got anything to do with this?’
    To his astonishment Lowson heard a note of hysteria in the Personnel Director’s voice. ‘Brian? Of course not. What made you think that?’
    ‘I just thought he might have done, that’s all.’
    ‘There’s no question of