The Watchers on the Shore Read Free Page B

faithfully?'
    Henry takes it very calmly. 'Who is it?'
    'A woman in Greenford.'I pass him the letter.
    'This one's worse than that woman who wanted to swap her seventeen-inch for a twenty-one because she thought she wasn't getting all the picture. You'd better drop her a line. I've too much on to mess about with her.'
    'You could always send Walt,'I say with a grin.
    'Walt!'Henry's eyebrows go up in disgust.'You can't send him for a box of screws. D'you know he brought six sets in last week that could have been seen to on the spot? And why? Because he couldn't do 'em himself. He's supposed to be a skilled man but I'm doing his work for him. All he's good for is fetching and carrying. Summat'll have to be done about him, that's all. I can't go on like this for ever.'
    'It beats me how he got set on in the first place.'
    'Because I didn't interview him, that's how. I'd have seen through him in two minutes, but he told the Old Man a tale and he swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.'
    'Where's Walt now?'
    'Out with the van, picking some more stuff up for me to repair.'
    Olive comes through the door from the, washroom at the far end of the shop. Another of Mr Van Huyten's appointments, she's a thin, mousy girl, quiet and a bit vague, but not bad at her work as long as you keep telling her what to do. She hovers about at the end of the counter till I call out to her:
    'Will you have a bit of a dust round, Olive love, if you've nothing else to do.'
    She takes a yellow duster from under the counter and wanders off among the TV sets and radiograms.
    'I wonder if Mr Van Huyten's coming in today,'Henry says. 'I really ought to have a word with him about Walt.'
    'I want to see him as well,'I say, 'Though as far as coming in's concerned I wish he'd keep clear altogether, because he's sure to poke his finger into something whenever you see him. The trouble is, we run the place but he won't stop interfering and let go. All we need him for is to sign the cheques ... Here's a perfect example.'
    I nourish a letter I've just opened at Henry.
    'The electricity bill. He wouldn't let me see to it. No, leave it with him, he said. Now it isn't paid and they're threatening to cut the supply off.'
    'He knows he's past it physically but he won't admit he's losing his grip mentally as well. Ah, well, I suppose it comes to all of us if we live long enough.'He stirs himself. 'I suppose I'd better get some work done.'
    'Here you are, Henry; take these.'I hand him four letters asking for service. 'A bit of rescue work for you to do.'
    Henry ambles away down the shop to the workroom and I carry on with the post. It's mostly bills, invoices and circulars, apart from the customers' letters, but one envelope is addressed to me personally. When I open it I'm surprised to see that it's from Albert Conroy, a bloke I haven't seen in years, who was making plans to emigrate the last I heard of him.
    'Dear Vic, I hope this reaches you care of the shop as I don't know your home address. How are married life and the pop-record fans treating you? Any family yet?
    'The reason I'm writing is because I was wondering if you'd ever given any thought to the possibility of coming back into engineering. I moved down here eighteen months ago to a job with a small structural firm called Joyce and Walstock and now I'm the chief draughtsman (no less!), first of all boss of myself and now in charge of two more draughtsmen, one of them Jimmy Slade, your old pal from Whittaker's, who I persuaded to come down twelve months ago.
    'As I say, this is a smallish firm yet, but it changed hands just before I joined it and the new management is set on building the business up. We shall be needing some more men and there's a nice little opening for a bright lad like yourself, if you fancy it. Money, conditions and prospects are all good and there's room for a bloke to use his initiative.
    'For all I know you're happy doing what you're doing but I thought I'd write on the off-chance you fancied a