‘What’s the matter with him?’ K muttered to himself carelessly, watching his superior march away with his brittle walk. He felt surprisingly well; the meeting had gone alright, he had averted catastrophe, and was over the first hurdle of introductions in this confusing yet alluring place.

‘Oh, you’ll get used to Tollswhip.’ A voice sounded next to him. Travis was there again, closing the door silently.

‘We all do in the end – you learn to keep on his good side, and avoid him when he’s in one of his moods.’

‘He has a good side, does he?’ K mused, ‘Well, I appreciate the advice. Say, Travis.’ He looked up at the kindly young servant, ‘That child in there, I suppose it’s obvious, but that was… His Lordship?’

‘My Lord may be rather young but we owe him our fealty Mr. K...’ Travis began, looking perplexed.

‘Gosh, so he is! Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?’ K murmured to himself.

He looked around the hallway – there was no one around besides Travis and him but a couple of cleaning staff down at the other end of the hall. Leaning in towards Travis, he asked if he knew where he was supposed to go now.

‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t know.’

‘Good, that’s good. Well, perhaps you can tell me a bit more about this place while we wait, since I’ve nowhere else to be for the time being, apparently. Unless of course you have your duties to be getting on with.’

‘No, no, I’m just stationed here to look after yo-’ Travis stopped short, as if he’d given himself away.

‘Splendid!’ the young lawyer said, clapping his hands together. He’d had such a long journey on his own, it was joy to have someone friendly to talk to at last. He told Travis as much, who nodded and smiled politely.

Now they were standing face to face, K couldn’t help noticing that Travis looked a lot younger than he’d first surmised, yet he appeared to be going grey prematurely. In his manner, too, there was a unique mixture of elderly condescension and youthful naivety. Listening to K talk about his life outside the estate, the footman’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help asking the most naive questions, yet on all matters relating to the estate he spoke with supreme assurance and a knowing twinkle in his eye.

‘And so,’ K went on, ‘the Lady Avonhurst is...’

‘His Lordship’s mother,’ the lad chimed in, ‘exactly. The wife of our late Lord Postlethwaite II. Still a young woman, and very beautiful they say… I’ve never looked upon her face.’ He was quite merry now, letting slip much in his confidences to K, who lapped it up with interest, if not gauging the significance of it all.

Meanwhile the two servants who were cleaning had advanced so far on their route while the young men were chatting, that they were practically upon them, sweeping the carpet out from under their feet.

‘I say, watch it!’ Travis cried indignantly, as one of the two thwacked his leg with a broom. K took in this clash with amused interest, as the cleaner looked Travis over, debating within himself who stood in seniority over the other.

‘No one’s supposed to be in this hall; we’re cleaning the wing, no one told us.’ He came out with eventually, in a haughty tone.

Travis opened his mouth to respond with a piece of his mind, when they were interrupted by a new arrival.

‘Joseph K?’ A whiny, slightly hoarse, female voice called.

‘That’s me!’ K replied happily, stepping between Travis and the cleaner towards the woman who’d arrived. Her puffy, made-up face put one in mind of a goldfish, with long, tangled locks of black hair framing it unflatteringly.

‘Oh there you are. Nice to meetcha, I’m Enid.’ She stuck out a boney, wrinkled hand, weighed down with bangles and bracelets. K shook it warmly, a little lost for words.

‘Well come on, dontcha want to see your office? Tollswhip sent me, the bloody man made me walk up all them stairs – I hope you’re feeling fit. You’ll need to be if you plan on stickin’ round here.’

‘So you’re the new lawyer, huh?’ she asked, as they made their way down the main stairs of this foremost complex of rooms in the estate. ‘I’m working on your team; you’ll get to meet the rest of ‘em now, if they haven’t gone to lunch.’

‘You’re all lawyers too?’

‘Hah, nah, we’re just clerks you know. To tell you the truth, the last lawyer died – bet they didn’t tell you that when you applied, hah!’ She gave a single, grunt of humour.

‘He was getting on though – I mean, really old. Started forgettin’ things, losing stuff… I’ve only been here a year and I could tell things’d been running alright without him for a long time. He wasn’t doing any work, can you imagine? Well, he popped his clogs, but Tollswhip wouldn’t fork out for a replacement. Then the master gone and died and we got into all this legal business. It’s all very well for our team to handle a few contracts now and then, but this was beyond me I can tell you! Tollswhip went and sent for a proper replacement at that point, so here you are.’

Joseph listened attentively, realising that the matter was complex, but not as bad as he’d feared.

‘Could anyone explain the work itself to me?’ he asked.

‘Well, you can ask ‘em and we’ll see, ‘cause I haven’t a clue myself, but I can’t speak for the others. There’s Abigail and Gerald. Now Gerald, at least, knows more than he lets on, or else he’s really good at winding us up. You’ll find out, though. This way.’ She cut in front of him and thrust open a door with full force.

They passed through into a long, low-ceilinged room divided lengthways by a row of desks. Windows, on the right wall illumined the space – dust motes hung heavy in the air, and sitting, writing amid piles of dry-discoloured paperwork, were a man and woman. They didn’t look up at their visitor till Enid gave the word: ‘It’s alright, it’s the new lawyer’, at which the busily scratching pens were cast aside in relief. First to greet K was Gerald, who beamed a bright white smile, his bloodshot eyes crinkling merrily in his dark face, bald pate shining. ‘P-p-pleased, to meet you, Joseph.’ He grinned, shaking the young man’s hand. Next Abigail leapt up beside him, clasping the other. Thin and leathery, she might have been his grandmother, but preserved a girlish gaiety. She gazed at their new young colleague through huge, wire-framed glasses, as if drinking in the sight.

Standing, chatting to these people about his journey, his schooling and what he made of the estate so far, K suddenly realised just how tired he was.

‘Thanks again, Abigail, but I’m afraid I’ll have to cut you short,’ he interrupted, at last, ‘I haven’t had a moment’s rest since I arrived. Could anyone tell me the way to my room?’

At that very instant, however, they were interrupted by some commotion going on outside, in the grounds. The sound of shouting came echoing through the office windows, and all three clerks rushed over to see what the fuss was about. K joined them out of curiosity, though he could make little sense of what he saw.

Far below, on the lawns of the estate, a ragged pair (a man and a woman, shabbily dressed) were running full-pelt away from a uniformed officer, who was calling after them angrily.

‘Paperless, at it again!’ Enid muttered, and kissed her teeth.

‘Gosh, look at them run! I do hope they get away.’ Abigail said, clapping her hands to her face in dismay.

‘Well, they’re putting security through their paces, anyway. I wonder what they’ve done...’ Gerald mused, looking concerned, too.

‘Who cares?’ Enid said, dismissively. ‘We’d be better off if we were rid of ‘em all, I say. Nothing but trouble makers, they are.’

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

K couldn’t understand the import of what they were saying, nor what their offence was, to be pursued so tenaciously – the officer followed them until all three were out of sight, and the clerks returned to their desks – but the incident made him uneasy. Even with all the unusual things he’d seen so far, it stuck in his mind.

He felt all the more inclined to go and rest, rather than try getting down to work, and all his colleagues seemed understanding, perhaps even envious. Their own work-load towered in stacks of papers all over their desks, which seemed to require careful sorting and filing, yet none of them wanted to take a break, for fear of falling behind.

In the end, Enid escorted him away again, grumbling all the while.

‘First he wants to see the office, then he wants to go to his room – I ain’t got much choice in the matter, someone’s gotta show him!’

K did his best to sound apologetic and deeply grateful to her as they once again traversed the labyrinthine building towards the living quarters. He gleaned, from various questions, that officials were quartered in a different area to the lower, house staff, and still further from the higher ministers and estate managers; all of whom were settled on the bottom two floors of the estate, while the nobility (what was left of them) occupied the upper floors. It all sounded very orderly and straight-forward.

Fortunately for him, Joseph had his own room with an ‘en suite’. The quarters really weren’t bad, though they were sparsely furnished and undecorated. Whitewashed walls, a low, wooden bunk with a soft mattress, and a single chair at a half-desk were all the adornments the bedroom had, but he was told there was gas to feed a stove and boil a kettle, and window shutters kept out most of the cold. In the soft, evening light he was capable of calling it “cosy”, and stood in some satisfaction for a few minutes, gazing out of the window into the grounds of the estate, where deer grazed and birds sang in the cool mist of twilight.

Enid prattled on all the while, until he thanked her for her help and mentioned that he felt like having a lie-down after the vigorous journey and an exhausting afternoon. At last she left him alone, and he sank wearily onto the bunk, with just enough presence of mind to remove his sturdy walking boots before he drifted off to sleep.

…

Joseph slept, but the building about him was all in motion; soon they rang the bell for dinner, and he received a passing rap on the door, rousing him from his slumbers. The light was going, but he felt he’d closed his eyes mere moments ago; now it was time to rise and dine with his fellow residents of the estate.

There was no sign of his bag – no chance of changing for dinner, but he removed his overcoat and laid it on the bed as a blanket; then, passing into the en suite, which was little more than a loo, a wash basin and a mirror, made his toilet, combed his fingers through his hair, and headed out onto the landing. Leaving his room, he nearly tripped over his bag, which had to have been placed there while he was napping – and noticed various officials and staff drifting casually to dinner.

K thought it best to follow the crowd, travelling down and down; deeper and deeper into the depths of the building; yet the deeper he descended, the more lights came on to brighten the way, until he arrived at a vast dining hall, dazzlingly lit by a number of chandeliers – cast iron contraptions, nothing fancy, but they hung impressively, even ominously, like great ship’s anchors, above the diners. The room felt very much like the hold of a ship, and K would not have been surprised to feel the floor beneath him tilt and sway. The serving staff who raced around along tables seemed to give a sense of motion to the room itself, and staggered on their feet like sailors in a storm, weighed down by trays of food and tureens of soup. K watched their deft dance with a sense of dizziness, and fancied he ought to tuck in without delay.

Taking a seat at the nearest table, he stopped to ponder just how large the hall was, and how many people it seated; the diners at the far end were hardly recognisable, but he fancied he saw Tollswhip, in full evening dress, sitting at a high table with some cronies.

‘Normally, you’d have a job finding a friend, or even a familiar face in this place. This is a place where you could lose yourself,’ he thought, as he surveyed the mass of strangers around him.

Presently, his mind returned to dinner (as it invariably did) and he lifted the lid of a bowl in front of him – it was brimming with some delicious vegetable soup. K tucked his napkin onto his knees and set about ladling some into his bowl. The moment he’d drawn the spoon to his lips, however, he felt a tap on the shoulder.

‘Mind if I join you?’ It was none other than Macarius.

‘Macarius! What are you doing here? Please,’ he drew the chair next to him, not a little confused.

‘I mean,’ he went on, checking himself, ‘I didn’t know you lived in the estate, or that you worked here.’ Macarius chuckled as he snatched a loaf of bread from the table.

‘Oh, technically speaking, I don’t work here,’ he lowered his voice, fingers nervously tearing apart the bread, ‘I do some odd jobs “off the books”, if you take my meaning, and they like me down here in the kitchens. Say, could you pour me a glass?’

Joseph noticed the bottle of wine that stood on the table, and obliged.

‘It’s not easy to come by a job on the estate – officially, I mean.’ The elder went on, through mouthfuls of bread and soup. ‘Partly because there’s a waiting list, and the fact that most jobs are passed down patrilinearly – meaning most of the workers here were born inside and simply took on the family occupation.’ He drained his glass of wine with startling speed, and Joseph refilled it, intrigued.

‘Born inside? You mean they spend their whole lives on the estate?’

‘Precisely. Why, don’t sound so surprised! Outsiders like yourself are really the exception. That said, you’re at a great advantage to the jobless insiders. Many of them don’t have papers, like myself (though I’m a special case if I do say so); so they’re known as ‘paperless’. They’ve no rights as such, and they spend their time drifting around, snapping up work wherever the can find it, sometimes for a whole lifetime. It’s worse still when they have families, because the kids grow up dreaming of finding formal employment, and they long for nothing else. Why, most of them are fine workers – they could do alright for themselves outside the estate, maybe – but none of them will leave. And I can tell you, it doesn’t half anger the hired staff here – because often the paperless work harder, beating them at their own game. Things can get ugly when that happens.’

‘Can’t they apply for papers?’ Joseph asked, naively.

‘Aha,’ Macarius gave a humourless laugh, ‘therein lies the problem. You can get them by marrying into the staff, or else you join the waiting list for processing. Head of processing is a man named Wurtring – a nasty piece of work, and rotten to the core. He answers to no one but Tollswhip.’

‘Pah! Tollswhip – why am I not surprised?’ K spat.

‘It’s not what you think.’ Macarius reproached him. ‘Tollswhip may be harsh, but he’s a stickler for the rules, and about as straight as they come. If he even smelt a hint of corruption from Wurtring’s end of things he’d crack down in a second. The problem is, Wurtring knows exactly how to play Tollswhip – who’s very up himself as you seem to have noticed,’ Macarius’ nose wrinkled with humour as he said this; his cheeks were now flushed with wine, but he went on drinking to no noticeable ill-effect.

‘Plus, everyone round here is afraid of Tollswhip, so none of us are brave enough to confront him, certainly none of the paperless, who’d be thrown out by their heels if they so much as took a step towards the management.’

‘But surely someone can talk to Tollswhip?’

‘You may try, young man, but he’s a man in his own little world. As practical and officious as he may seem he’s got his head up in the clouds dreaming of titles and nobility.’

‘What, seriously?’

‘Oh yes, mark my words. If ever there was one who dreamed the impossible – of crossing between worlds; going upstairs – it was Tollswhip. He’s a romantic at heart, that’s why he’s so bad-tempered. Being top of his profession and class, he’s never been closer to the goal, and never further away. You can imagine how that would drive a fellow mad, can’t you? Yes, the man’s problem is that he’s insufferably bourgeois.’

Joseph perhaps only partly understood what Macarius was talking about; he wasn’t quite ready to take a sympathetic view of Tollswhip just yet. Instead, he was struck by how eloquent and well-educated Macarius seemed, now he had managed to engage him in a lengthy conversation. Prompted by the wine, and the happy arrival of the main course, he felt emboldened to ask the elder about himself and his own background.

‘Why, why, that’s a… long story. Not something for tonight. It’s your first evening on the estate, isn’t it? This should be a cause for celebration, and light-hearted chat.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid I must admit, I’m not all that good at being light-hearted.’

‘No? Why’s that?’ Macarius leaned in to listen better. Round about them the noise in the hall was rising as the diners consumed the wine and good food – there were songs being sung, loud narrations and outbursts of laughter. Joseph answered in a lowered voice, which drew the old man in under the clamour of the hall.

‘I suppose I haven’t spent enough time outside of a classroom – my mother was a teacher, you see, and my father a lawyer (like I am now), and unsuccessful. He was always encouraging me to work hard, to forget about play, and my real interests, and he sent me off to university at the soonest possible opportunity.

‘I suppose I became quite serious, even melancholy, so that when the occasion finally arose (as it seldom did) to go out and play, I was far too clumsy and self-conscious to do it properly. Yes, if I wanted to entertain myself in my school days I had to retreat into my imagination. I had such an imagination, you know!

‘All too soon came the time when I was no longer a boy, but a young man already, and it was high time (my father said) that I were off taking my studies to practice the law. I had a good head for rules, some skill in writing and rhetoric, so it seemed the natural course for me. Yet I never quite abandoned those daydreams, and I confess, at university this almost cost me my degree. Still, I managed a passable grade, and by some miracle I was accepted for a post up here.’

The plates were being cleared away, and the lights lowered, until the hall was lit only by candle-light. Most of the diners had finished, and many had left by the time Joseph finished his story. Macarius sat hunched beside him, gazing at one of the flickering candles, smiling and nodding during this narration. He looked up at K.

‘I tell you, you’re lucky to have a story that’s as open-ended as that, really! Now go on, I’ve kept you up too late, it’s a big day for you tomorrow.’

Joseph laughed and rose to his feet.

‘That’s kind of you to say so; I hope we’ll run into each other again soon. Where are you staying?’

‘Oh don’t you worry about that, young man. Old Macarius goes where he wills.’ He winked confidentially.

‘Good-bye then!’