#17: secretary

I can’t remember quite when it was that I set myself a writing challenge. I googled a randomly generated list of twenty words with the intention of writing one piece, factual or fiction, any genre, inspired by each one. This was what google delivered:

last, donkey, spiffy, lumber, taboo, root, heat, carriage, needless, wasteful, way, ruin, comb, purpose, square, books, secretary, lake, absurd, one

As you can see, I didn’t think to specify nouns only, so there are words such as last, needless, wasteful, absurd, and others such as spiffy which are colloquial to say the least! But, I’d set myself a challenge so there was no point in quibbling! To begin with I struggled – ‘last’, ironically was first and it absolutely flummoxed me, but I began to think around it – dismissed a shoe-maker’s last and wrote about a group of student friends, celebrating the last night of their course. I told it from the point of view of one of them who was reflecting on this, and watched as his friends gradually departed from the final party together, some going on to a club, some going back to their digs, some coming together romantically in the last hours of their shared life, some just drifting away, until the narrator was indeed the last to leave. I slightly cheated with ‘needless’ and ‘wasteful’ and included them in the same story about a hectic event a couple of caterers were working. Maybe I should go back and write two separate pieces!

The end is in sight, and I have just finished #17 – ‘secretary’ which foxed me for quite a while until I remembered my mum had been a secretary along with her best friend at a science lab in Cambridge. My dad worked there as a scientific analyst and… and you can guess the rest!

Here is an excerpt:

Elsden was feeling jaunty as he went up the stairs two at a time – he wasn’t in a hurry he was always brisk and full of energy. His only times of stillness were on the river bank, waiting for a bite, or when he’d been in foreign parts, armed not for game shooting, but for war.
Dr Gilbert Adair, what a fine man the old scientist was, such a kindly and humorous fellow, a real absent-minded professor – except in his work where he was renowned and respected far and wide.
Elsden knocked briskly on the office door and entered. Three heads lifted and looked at him, maybe surprised that he hadn’t waited for his knock to be answered. He in turn was surprised, he had expected the elderly and irritable old trout, Miss Bathurst, to be presiding. Instead there was a new arrangement in the room, three small typewriter desks, with three young ladies, attractive young ladies at first glance.
“Good afternoon!” he exclaimed, trying to sound polite and not too cheeky. A teacher who’d liked him had once written on his end of term report, ‘an intelligent boy when he keeps his cheek in check. He should go far.’
“Good afternoon, can I help you?” the young lady who seemed older than the other two, and had brown hair in a tight perm, addressed him sharply,
“Good afternoon – I work in the low temp and I have some papers for Dr Adair from Dr Partridge.”
“Put them on the mail table, thank you.”
He was dismissed. He glanced at the other two young ladies; they looked similar to each other and he wondered if they might be sisters. They both had dark hair and lively expressions and seemed to be amused by him in a dismissive sort of way. He wished them all a good afternoon and left their domain, shutting the door gently.

Gilbert Smithson Adair: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.1981.0001

My featured image is of violets, because before dad properly knew mum he would buy violets from a funny old flower seller, a little bunch tied with a wisp of grass. He would pop his head round  the office door and the violets would land on mum’s typewriter!