Free Paid Servant by E. R. Braithwaite

money put by and Jim can always find work in his trade. He’s a good man.”
    They didn’t need me here, not really. For a little while I was useful as a listening ear, or perhaps a needful catalyst to help them resolve the main part of their problem, but now they’d get on fine without me. I stood up and she brought me my bag and umbrella.
    â€œI’m sure you both will work this out satisfactorily, Mrs Bentham,” I said, “but if there’s anything else I can do, well … ”
    â€œOh, don’t worry about it,” she replied. “I’ve made up my mind. But that Jim Bentham. So he knows how to make children, does he? Well all right. As of tonight that Mr Man has work to do, right here.”
    And the rich laughter came burbling out of her in sweet musical waves, rolling back upon her to highlight the richness and beauty of her face and figure and the spirit of love and kindness which shone through them.
    As I let myself out of the street door, I thought of Jim Bentham, probably on his way back from the chemist, and the task awaiting him. I laughed to myself. I wondered whoever coined the phrase ‘a labour of love’.
    As I rode home on the bus I wondered how it would have worked out if I had insisted that the Benthams come to my office if they wanted to see me. Would they have come? And if they had, would they have felt free to speak as they did in their own home? Evidently Mrs Bentham had wanted to talk to someone about her reason for maintaining that the child was not really her husband’s. Would she have done so in his presence in the rather formal atmosphere of my office? Could I establish the kind of atmosphere in my office conducive to easy, uninhibited and co-operative discussions?
    The only way for me to avoid many of these night visits was to begin at source. I must so conduct myself at interviews in my office that the right atmosphere would be created and inevitably the word would get around, because at the office everything began with an interview. That’s where I, too, would have to begin. I’d watched the way some interviews had been transacted, and most of them left a great deal to be desired.
    In my mind I tried to review the whole sequence of interviewing which I had witnessed on several occasions, and there was very little about any part of it which could be called commendable. Most persons visiting the Area Office needed help of one sort or another, and invariably appeared looking somewhat fearful or anxious. The physical arrangements of the waiting room did nothing to relieve their anxiety. Its shape, colour and furnishings made it a striking example of the complete lack of imagination characteristic of bureaucratic planning. Pale grey walls unrelieved except by two dreary posters illustrating the increase in road deaths; hard wooden forms ranged alongside the walls and painted the same dark, unhappy brown still to be seen in the waiting-rooms of some rural railway stations; the floor was uncovered, smooth, cold concrete. In this unsalubrious atmosphere the clients waited until they were called to one of the several interview rooms.
    Each of these was smaller than the waiting-room, and different in that there were no posters, and instead of forms, the furniture consisted of a table and three chairs. One of these chairs, invariably the most comfortable one, was reserved on one side of the desk for the interviewer. In one corner of each interview room was a little group of rather battered toys, probably intended to attract and maintain the interest of children who accompanied their parents. I have no doubt that this last was often successful, for I often observed small children carefully examining those toys, as if anxious to discover what it was that kept the dirty, battered little monstrosities from falling apart.
    I have often wondered why it is that although women occupy most of the senior positions in these Welfare offices they have not