Funeral Music by Morag Joss

lost his usual reserve and had just let events run away. He drained the glass and refilled it. It was a sort of hidden Mediterranean streak he had, this occasional tendency to cast caution to the winds. Nothing wrong with being spontaneous now and then, was there? Sometimes it was best just to pitch in and reveal your hand. It was an impulse to which he had often succumbed where his secretaries were concerned. Well, not so much his hand as other parts of his anatomy, ha-ha, but it usually went down well enough. Oops, did he really mean ‘down’? He had to admit it, he was a bit of a devil.
    Halfway down the bottle he thought he might one day be able to go outdoors again, and around the time he was finishing it off he felt able to go over the conversation with Matthew Sawyer once more in his mind, trawling every word and nuance for a shrimp’s worth of hope that he had not, with each syllable, shown himself to be a world-class, award-winning, twenty-two-carat, pompous fool. He was disappointed.
    ‘Ah, well now, if you’re the director, you’re just the fellow I need. I’d like a word,’ he had said, in the chap-to-chap tone that usually worked when he was extracting a favour from one of his junior teachers. The Sawyer guy had looked a bit surprised. Not as surprised as he would be when Derek got the job and introduced himself as the new boss, ha! But he had not got the job quite in the bag yet, and he had felt it wise to acknowledge that he had rather turned up out of the blue.
    ‘Is this a good moment?’ He had slipped easily into his habitual talking-people-round voice. ‘May I have just a minute or two of your time? I’d love to know’ – he remembered dropping the volume confidentially at this point – ‘how things are going, generally. Running a museum, not easy, I’m sure. I’m in education myself,’ he added, lest Sawyer think he was just some weirdo off the street, ‘so I know.’
    Sawyer had smiled wanly. ‘Oh, indeed, yes. Difficult times, all round. Although I’m an architectural historian actually, by background. So, you’re bringing a party. Education is a large part of my remit, of course. Terribly keen on school visits. Have you contacted one of my education officers?’
    It had been Derek’s turn to smile. ‘Perhaps I haven’t been clear. I’m not bringing a party. Of course my head of history might – she’s quite an energetic girl – but so much depends on our parents. We’re talking south Bristol here.’
    He had sighed the sigh of the misunderstood and undervalued education professional, Blunketted, bloodied, bowed but unbeaten. ‘No, you see, my interest is more, well, strategic, in a sense. I’m interested in the general policy direction. Staff structures. Management style. Resources. Get me? How’s the funding? Got a lottery bid in?’
    The effect of this had seemed to ruffle the guy a little. Good.
    ‘May I know your particular reason for asking?’ Sawyer had asked, rather haughtily.
    The pompous little creep was actually talking down to him, coming over all ‘I’m an architectural historian and who the hell are you?’ It was in his voice and Derek could see it in the supercilious lift of his upper lip. He had felt a surge of rage. The guy was only running a bloody museum, for God’s sake. Who the hell cared, in the end, what happened to a few bloody artefacts? Of course they were important, but they were a damn sight less important than
schools
, which had real
people
in them, people like the hopeless sods that he had been trying thanklessly for ten years to do something for. His school was a damn sight more important than any bloody heap of relics, and running it was a bloody demanding job, a proper job, a job and a half, these days. But he must not say that. He
would
not say that. He had to keep his temper, but he would put this architectural snotty historian bastard in his place. Yes, he would keep his temper. He had even smiled.
    ‘Look, I’m quite happy to