Worksâ mythology. One Hundred and Seventeen might have been One Million and Seventeen for all it mattered.
But work itself was divided into thousands of specialised separate activities. All were protected by demarcation.
You must have done something, his mother smiled.
What Richard Parry had done was to pull miles of carbon paper from green - lined computer print - outs used by The Works accounts department.
This paper was to be salvaged as a waste product. The carbon paper had to be incinerated.
Thereâs miles of it, he told his mother. Weâre as black as this. Like coalminers, because of it. Miles and miles of carbon paper that we have to squash into something called the incinerator.
And no water for washing. Or drinking when youâre parched. Thereâs no tap anywhere. My throatâs raw.
The carbon paper gang worked in a breezeblock garage. Maintenance might have once been done on Works vehicles there. Yet no one in the gang of six labourers remembered the premises ever being used.
Two of Parryâs colleagues were, like him, starting their careers that day. The first was the same age. Parry recognised him from primary school. The second, he learned, was called Bran, a mute young giant.
Blocks of print - outs were delivered from the computer department, located next door to accounts, three miles distant.
This occurred at ten every morning and at one in the afternoon. Otherwise, there were no visitors for the team. The carbon paper shift was supposed to commence at 7am.
Parry gradually realised they were in a part of The Works best described as abandoned.
Welcome to Hell, said Daf who had spoken to him first. Smoke?
There were three cavernous sheds. Each was divided into a honeycomb of workshops. Once devoted to vehicle repair, these were constructed on an area of subsiding tarmacadam, bigger than a football pitch.
Each shed was fifty yards long. They held vats of waste oil, carboys of acid in straw paliasses, and inspection pits. Some of these were flooded with filthy rainwater.
The work benches bristled with frozen vices, seized lathes and grease guns, oxy acetylene lances and spraypaint cartridges and nozzles. All were sheathed in rust.
Watch out for them, mumbled Daf. He had nodded towards a corner where glass bottles were stored.
The vitriols, he explained. Watch them vitriols.
Parry had never heard the word used before.
Daf saw he was looking puzzled, and explained.
Watch this, then, he said. If it teaches you something.
He wrapped a rag around his hand and took one of the vials. Then he unscrewed its milled glass stopper. It held an oily brown liquid. On to a heap of swarf in the corner Daf poured a thin stream. The mixture started to smoulder.
See! he said triumphantly. No one told me about this stuff. No one. Had to work it out for myself.
Yeah, myself. He looked toward Parry but his gaze was wide.
But I say, Daf continued, I say, that could burn straight through you. Could burn right through a man. If he didnât know, like. If he didnât know.
He cleared his throat, as if the liquid was releasing fumes.
Aqua Fortis, they call it. Aqua âs water. Just water. But water of death, I call it.
Parry looked at the smoke. Why? he asked. Why are they here? These ⦠vitriols ?
Daf shrugged. It was as if years ago, a full shift had departed for lunch and not returned. Some of their sodden magazines still lay on the benches. Hung on a wall, Parry noted a cap, an overcoat felted in green mould.
In another of the workshops, there were the torn remnants of glossy photographs. Parry stared, but could make no sense. Who were those people?
Girls? Possibly. But hardly men. Rather, monstrous, inarticulate shapes. He doubted they could be human.
Parry thought of an angling journal he had once seen. These had displayed conger eels, fanged, muscular. Immense torsos, wrenched from ancient wrecks. Now, when he touched one of the pages, it crumbled to dust.
There was no
But work itself was divided into thousands of specialised separate activities. All were protected by demarcation.
You must have done something, his mother smiled.
What Richard Parry had done was to pull miles of carbon paper from green - lined computer print - outs used by The Works accounts department.
This paper was to be salvaged as a waste product. The carbon paper had to be incinerated.
Thereâs miles of it, he told his mother. Weâre as black as this. Like coalminers, because of it. Miles and miles of carbon paper that we have to squash into something called the incinerator.
And no water for washing. Or drinking when youâre parched. Thereâs no tap anywhere. My throatâs raw.
The carbon paper gang worked in a breezeblock garage. Maintenance might have once been done on Works vehicles there. Yet no one in the gang of six labourers remembered the premises ever being used.
Two of Parryâs colleagues were, like him, starting their careers that day. The first was the same age. Parry recognised him from primary school. The second, he learned, was called Bran, a mute young giant.
Blocks of print - outs were delivered from the computer department, located next door to accounts, three miles distant.
This occurred at ten every morning and at one in the afternoon. Otherwise, there were no visitors for the team. The carbon paper shift was supposed to commence at 7am.
Parry gradually realised they were in a part of The Works best described as abandoned.
Welcome to Hell, said Daf who had spoken to him first. Smoke?
There were three cavernous sheds. Each was divided into a honeycomb of workshops. Once devoted to vehicle repair, these were constructed on an area of subsiding tarmacadam, bigger than a football pitch.
Each shed was fifty yards long. They held vats of waste oil, carboys of acid in straw paliasses, and inspection pits. Some of these were flooded with filthy rainwater.
The work benches bristled with frozen vices, seized lathes and grease guns, oxy acetylene lances and spraypaint cartridges and nozzles. All were sheathed in rust.
Watch out for them, mumbled Daf. He had nodded towards a corner where glass bottles were stored.
The vitriols, he explained. Watch them vitriols.
Parry had never heard the word used before.
Daf saw he was looking puzzled, and explained.
Watch this, then, he said. If it teaches you something.
He wrapped a rag around his hand and took one of the vials. Then he unscrewed its milled glass stopper. It held an oily brown liquid. On to a heap of swarf in the corner Daf poured a thin stream. The mixture started to smoulder.
See! he said triumphantly. No one told me about this stuff. No one. Had to work it out for myself.
Yeah, myself. He looked toward Parry but his gaze was wide.
But I say, Daf continued, I say, that could burn straight through you. Could burn right through a man. If he didnât know, like. If he didnât know.
He cleared his throat, as if the liquid was releasing fumes.
Aqua Fortis, they call it. Aqua âs water. Just water. But water of death, I call it.
Parry looked at the smoke. Why? he asked. Why are they here? These ⦠vitriols ?
Daf shrugged. It was as if years ago, a full shift had departed for lunch and not returned. Some of their sodden magazines still lay on the benches. Hung on a wall, Parry noted a cap, an overcoat felted in green mould.
In another of the workshops, there were the torn remnants of glossy photographs. Parry stared, but could make no sense. Who were those people?
Girls? Possibly. But hardly men. Rather, monstrous, inarticulate shapes. He doubted they could be human.
Parry thought of an angling journal he had once seen. These had displayed conger eels, fanged, muscular. Immense torsos, wrenched from ancient wrecks. Now, when he touched one of the pages, it crumbled to dust.
There was no
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