44 Scotland Street: A road to freedom – The Scotsman

That evening, Stuart left the office at lunchtime. Working flexi-time, as he did, he was well in credit for that week and could take the afternoon off if he wished. A meeting had been pencilled in for three that afternoon, but since that involved only two others, one of whom was the insufferable Elaine, Stuart felt he could ask for it to be transferred to the following day.

Thats a pity, said Elaine, when he called her to put her off. I was looking forward to going over this mornings ordeal with you.

Stuart grimaced. It would not have been an ordeal for her, nor indeed for Faith; rather, it would have been what people called a shoo-in for both of them.

I withdrew my candidacy, he said tersely.

There was a shocked silence at the other end of the line. You? You withdrew?

Thats what I said. I thought it best. There are good reasons why one should not take that particular job.

Again there was a silence this time one of unease. Why do you say that, Stuart?

Stuart took a deep breath. Something of a poisoned chalice, he said quietly. But I cant talk about it freely over the phone.

Now Elaine sounded alarmed. What do you mean by that?

I mean that I dont fancy being in that seat when Look, I really cant talk about it.

Elaine was quiet for a few moments before continuing, By the way, what did you mean when you said something about long division? When you left the waiting room this morning, you said something about long division and

Oh, that was nothing, said Stuart. Just a little joke.

Well, I didnt think it was terribly funny. You know that were not meant to make jokes in the office. Jokes can be offensive.

Stuart felt his anger rise up within him. Oh, he said, Id forgotten. We have to be humourless.

I didnt say that. You really twist peoples words, you know, Stuart.

Well, anyway, I have to go now. Congratulations on getting the job. He knew that the results would not be known officially for ten days, but he was confident enough of his prediction.

Elaine gasped. How did you know that? I was told that nobody would be informed until She stopped herself. But it was too late, Stuarts suspicions had been confirmed.

I hear that they told you this morning. On the spot.

Youre not meant to know that.

Stuart smiled to himself. It was so predictable. Well, I do, but dont worry, I wont tell anybody. Ill let them keep up the faade of open competition. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine Elaines expression as she took his call. Smugness would have changed to disquiet and then returned to smugness once more.

He rang off and walked across the floor of his office to the window overlooking the harbour. The thought occurred to him that he could go to sea. People did that in the past they gave it all up and went to sea. But he could not do that; there was Bertie and little Ulysses and years of wage slavery ahead of him. Wage slavery it was not an expression he would have used of his own position, but now that he came to think of it, it was not all that inappropriate. Everyone or just about everyone was a wage slave, in a sense. They went to the office, put in the hours, often working with people they did not like (Elaine and Faith), sometimes with people who could not even do long division (Elaine) or who kept going on about Dunfermline and what people in Dunfermline thought about this, that or the next thing (Elaine) or who were fanatical about some issue (that man in the post room who listened in on his portable radio set to ground-to-air transmissions from Edinburgh Airport Control Tower), or who were sycophantic to those in authority over them (Faith, principally, but Elaine too when the opportunity arose).

He watched as a small boat nosed its way out to sea. Boats were a metaphor for freedom. Setting sail meant more than simply slipping away from the quayside; it meant putting the constraints of terra firma behind you; it meant turning your back on the security of the land for the uncertainties and risks of the sea. The sea was water theres an insight, thought Stuart and those who went upon it put themselves, composed largely of water, at the mercy of that medium that would dissolve us all. And the sea did that, as sailors in the past used to recognize; if they went overboard they would simply compose themselves and wait for an end that was ordained to be.

Existential freedom As a young man he had flirted briefly with philosophy, and had read, in a directionless and untutored way, various paperback books he had found in an Oxfam shop. He had stumbled across a book on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and had been taken by the whiff of freedom that emanated from its pages. Authenticity, it seemed, was everything: you had to make choices about your life, you had to live in the fullest way, to be authentic. That was real freedom, the author suggested, and M. Sartre, sitting in his Left Bank caf with what was her name again? Simone de Beauvoir that was echt authenticity. They were no wage slaves, Jean-Paul and Simone; they did not have to clock into their caf at nine in the morning and stay there, being appropriately authentic, until five oclock.

He moved away from the window. I shall never be authentic, he said to himself, as long as I work in this place, with these people, doing the sort of thing they want me to do. Im fed up with inventing inauthentic figures; Im fed up pretending that things are better than they are and expecting the public to believe it all. Ive finished with that now. No longer. No more.

He went downstairs to the floor on which the office of the Supreme Head of Personnel was located. He went to her assistants door and knocked.

Do you have an appointment to see me? asked the assistant.

Stuart laughed. To see you? Are you seriously suggesting that people need to make an appointment to see you to make an appointment to see her?

Yes, said the assistant. I am.

In that case, said Stuart. Please note down this message to yourself, to pass on, in due course, to her. Pollock, S, Department of Creative Statistics: resignation, with immediate effect, coupled with a request to be allowed not to work one months notice, as per contract, and to take the notice period as accumulated leave in lieu. He paused. Did you get that?

Yes, said the assistant. I did.

Good, said Stuart, and he left by the door that, although unmarked, was in his mind labelled Freedom; the door we all long to find, and sometimes never locate, but sometimes do.

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44 Scotland Street: A road to freedom - The Scotsman