The Assistant

Neil imagined what a modern day Arthur Seaton would be up to.

Arthur Seaton stood aside to allow Candice Whitely through the door ahead of him. She wore a  business suit, but Arthur could still tell she had a good figure. She was wearing her hair down, not scraped back like it was in the boardroom yesterday. He grinned. It suited her a lot better. Get past the toffee-nosed accent and she was a decent bird, the kind of lass you could imagine on your arm down the local, loosening the stays a bit after a couple of drinks, laughing it up with your mates.

 He got them a drink each from the water cooler and they sat on the sofa in the ante-room, waiting for Lord Albert Salt and his ‘advisors’ –  Timothy Tate and Lawrence Lyle – to call them back in. Arthur turned on the charm as they made conversation. He had a plan: if she won, he’d be magnanimous in defeat and offer her a celebratory meal somewhere swanky. He could wangle it so the TV company paid. If he won, vice versa: consolatory drinks somewhere nice, see it where it led.

Either way, be magnanimous. He’d never heard the word before he went on ‘The Assistant’; it was something that fat cat Salt had said to him after the first task. Arthur had known from the off that the bastard hadn’t liked him much. For a man with millions in the bank and a Roller, he was almost convincing playing up the working class lad done good when cameras were on him. After the first week’s task, Salt admitted that Arthur had done well but counselled that a tad more magnanimity would go a long way. Arthur typed it into Google back at the candidates’ house that evening – the spelling was a pisser – and silently called Salt a few names when he read the definition.

Still, it was a useful word when it came to women. He was just punching Candice’s number into his moby – he could imagine his old man laughing at this: in his day, you’d have scribbled it on the back of a fag packet – when Salt’s secretary, sitting coolly behind a desk on the other side of the room, took the phone call informing her they were wanted in the boardroom.

“Arthur, I think you’d admit that you blagged your way through the early stages of the process. I felt like firing you several times. Still not sure why I didn’t.”

Because I make for good telly, Arthur thought. Highest bloody ratings you’ve ever had, mate, and it’s thanks to me. That first interview he’d done, with the Evening Post, he’d told it straight. Exactly why he’d gone on the show. Sunday night, round mam and dad’s, final of the last series on the box, he’d sneered at the tossers jockeying for the big money job in Salt’s organisation. What did they know about real life?  He’d fought to get on the show, fly the flag for the bloke on the street. “I’m out for a good time, all the rest is propaganda”, that’s what he’d told the reporter. Something he’d made up off the top of his head - and a day later it went viral. Emails, blogs, tweets. Someone had done a video on YouTube. He’d seen it on tee-shirts.

“The fact that I didn’t,” continued Salt, “proves you’re determined, I’ll give you that. You’ve got belligerent tenacity. And tenacity counts. But belligerence?  No.”

That’s big coming from you, pal.  You’ve got cash and you can throw out dictionary words, but you’re still a hard-nosed bastard. Me, I’m back to Nottingham every weekend and haven’t paid for a drink in months. I’m a bloody celebrity and it’s all because I’m here week after week and don’t take crap from you. And that’s why you haven’t fired me - because the press love it. Belligerence? Works every time.

“You proved yourself in week three. You showed initiative and real drive during the fruit and veg task. Maybe that’s down to your background; you know the market stall business. It doesn’t matter. The point is, you were Project Manager and your team won.”

Market stall? Cheeky sod! The old man drove a forklift; granddad worked down the pit. And me with an indoor job at the bookies. The bookies can get stuffed once I’m done here. Christ, I’m Prince of Radford as it is. They’ll be naming streets after me next.

“Though I am concerned about how your bulk prices were arranged and who your contacts were. I think every TV critic in Britain commented on how you gave the cameras the slip at critical points during the process.”

“Well,” Arthur replied, breaking his silence for the first time during the entrepreneur’s critique, “that’s to do with protecting my business interests from the competition. It was in the nature of a one-off arrangement done as a gentleman’s agreement. Two blokes, one handshake, done deal.”

It had been more like a few tenners than a handshake, but what Salt and his buddies didn’t know wouldn’t harm them.
“And that, young Mr Seaton, is precisely your Achilles’ heel.”
Ach-thingy-ma-bob’s what? Bloody hell, that was another one for Google!
“Your roguish working class charm gets you only so far. A generation weaned on ‘Only Fools and Horses’ would find you appealing – up to a point. The chancer, the charmer, the smart mouth kid from the wrong side of the tracks who manages to get one up on the moneyed elite. I heard you skived off some weekends - probably boozing when you should be focusing on planning and projections. 

“So whatever you may have achieved over the last twelve weeks, you’ve let yourself down in equal measure. I’m looking for someone for my organisation who’s dynamic and dependable. Dependable means clean, sober, disciplined and trustworthy. You, Arthur, are none of these things.”

Salt leaned forward, hand balled into a fist except for a ramrod-straight index finger pointing in Arthur’s direction. With impeccably honed showmanship, he paused for a moment before delivering judgement: “Arthur, you’re f—”

“Fuck you, Al. I quit. I might be out for the birds and the beer, but that’s a bastard sight more honest than your bullshit. Trustworthy? Everyone in this three-ring circus has lied and blagged and bullshitted. They just used bigger words than I did. I’m what you see, Al. I’m what you bloody get.”

The sound of silence falling heavily behind him, Arthur walked out. His hands were in his pockets and the grin on his face said he’d won by his own rules. Salt’s secretary sat bolt upright behind her desk. Her look said she’d been listening over the intercom. She started to say something, but he winked, blew her a kiss and was out of the building before she could begin.

He climbed into the cab which took each week’s ‘loser’ away to who-knows-where.  Who wanted the job, anyway?  He’d be dining out in Nottingham for years on this. Local bloody hero.  Maybe they’d put up a statue to him, like Cloughy, for the pigeons to crap on. He searched his moby to check Candice’s number for later.  A good time.  All the rest is propaganda.

This was one of the winning entries in the Saturday Night and Sunday Morning short story contest, aimed at raising money for an Alan Sillitoe Statue. The next competition is for poetry so please enter or donate at the Sillitoe website

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