Writing for Fun
December 2017
Mistletoe - Anne Wilson
I want to take you back. To an office in 1969. To the days when there were barely electric typewriters, let alone word processers. Or e-mails or power point presentations and nobody scanned documents onto their computers in order to achieve a ‘paperless filing system.’ The sort of office where tea ladies plied their trade from urns on trollies during morning and afternoon breaks, striding Amazon-like from floor to floor and privy to much of the office gossip ahead of the staff themselves.
Elm, Oak, Ash and Birch was the office of which I speak. Purveyor of stationery products, its mighty foundations provided work for those of the working population of Nether Codswallop – a sleepy backwater in the Home Counties – its presence an attractive option for those who didn’t wish to commute to the City of London.
In a revolutionary gesture, young Mr. Oak (son of the Managing Director) had instigated the installation of a new-fangled Rank Xerox photocopier which was his pride and joy and the envy of all who surveyed it. Fighting his father tooth and nail, he had compromised in not purchasing it outright, in case the premise failed in the near future and the Gestetner duplicator came back into fashion but negotiated it on a lease agreement, which came with terms and conditions including full maintenance and repair work.
A machine of enormous proportions, it had been housed in a special room in the basement amongst the archived files and its existence ensured a certain amount of staff traffic from the working floors above to the bowels of the building where it was housed.
I would be a liar, though, if I told you that those times were totally innocent. On some occasions, the journey to the basement was not undertaken due to devotion to duty, but with less altruistic motives.
It was the month of December in Nether Codswallop and the snow was deep and crisp and even outside. Had it been a Sunday, church bells would have chimed in the distance heralding the advent of Christmas but it wasn’t and they didn’t. It was a working day and the staff were on tenterhooks awaiting the annual office party later that week. For some, the anticipation was too great and Mr. Ash, one of the partners and a man blessed with an unprepossessing ever-expanding girth, found the suspense almost unbearable. He had to act. His emotions regarding the buxom filing clerk, Debbie, were somewhat similar to a child who ogles a present under a Christmas tree but knows he is forbidden to tamper with it until the big day. He could wait no longer, however and venturing forth from his own office, he stuck his head round the door of the main one. With as much plausibility as he could muster, he called her over.
‘Debbie, my dear,’ he said blushing slightly at his own subterfuge. ‘I was wondering if I might see you for a moment.’
She followed him obediently and was surprised to find that, instead of heading back into his own office, he was descending the stairs of the basement. She was nothing if not pragmatic and followed him into the room that housed the big photocopier, slightly surprised to find he shut the door behind him.
‘I thought it would be easier to talk down here,’ he told her, leaning languidly against the photocopier.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, her voice slowing down to a drawl and echoing the cynicism she felt.
He cleared this throat.
‘I want to discuss your salary review,’ he spluttered.
‘What, in here?’ she responded disbelievingly.
‘It’s nice and private,’ he said unconvincingly, loosening his tie.
‘The bleedin’ photocopier’s in ‘ere,’ she countered with some logic. ‘There are people in and out the whole time.’
He forbore from arguing that devouring her in his own office in full view of the rest of the staff was even more of a risk. ‘I’m thinking of you,’ he said, his eyes watering as they alighted on her ample bosom. ‘After all, you don’t want anyone to know I’m giving you preferential treatment. If the others saw you going into my office they might suspect something.’ He paused. ‘Why don’t we ask Father Christmas for a little bit of help to start our negotiations?’ he suggested, warming to his task and producing a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket. ‘It is the season of good will, after all.’ Raising it high above him, he moved towards her, his body moving uncomfortably close to hers and his lips puckered unappetisingly, like an ageing Cupid.
She backed away.
‘Ere,’ she said. ‘What do you think you’re doing. Get off, you dirty old sod!’
He felt crushed initially, but quickly recovered his equilibrium.
‘My dear,’ he said in soothing tones. ‘I think you’re being very foolish. Think of your career.’
‘I’m a bleedin’ filing clerk,’ she objected, not unreasonably. ‘Women don’t ‘ave careers. They marry, ‘ave children, do the housework and cook. Dad says that’s all they’re fit for.’
‘Nonsense’, he reassured her. ‘There might even be an opening in the typing pool for you if you play your cards right. Think of that.’
She thought about it. It was, indeed, very tempting. There was the prospect of Luncheon Vouchers valued at 6 shillings a day instead of the three to which she was entitled in her less exalted position. Instead of being at the beck and call of the other girls, she would be one of them, interacting and gossiping with them, even if it was under the watchful eye of Miss Smith, who kept them all under control. Mostly, there was the status that came with it. How proud she would be to say to people that she was the first girl in her family to have worked in a typing pool.
She appraised the corpulent figure of Mr. Ash. His stomach protruded over his trousers and he was not a pretty sight but then neither was her father and her mother was stuck with him for life. A little kiss, that’s all it was. A small sacrifice for so big an opportunity.
She shut her eyes in repulsion and hoped against hope that her suitor would view the gesture as one of ecstatic anticipation. He advanced again – mistletoe held aloft above his head – but instead of the peck on the cheek she was expecting, she found she received rather more than she had bargained for. As their lips collided like two Exocet missiles, he reached for the upper part of her anatomy he craved for but which had lain hitherto unwrapped under his metaphorical Christmas tree. She slapped his face and he instantly touched his cheek as if to deaden the pain of the sting.
‘You can stick your mistletoe,’ she said, wrenching it from him and throwing it on the floor, where it lay, as discarded and rejected as its owner.
She adjusted her top and straightened her hair. With as much dignity as she could muster, she made towards the door, turning the handle forcibly and spinning round to face him.
‘One day someone will report you,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘You and men like you, who think you can treat women ‘ow you like and get away with it.’
‘My dear,’ he said knowingly, purring with self-satisfaction. ‘That will never happen. Not in a million years.’