The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 11
By Diana the Valkyrie
The Accountant's tale


Moira:

So there's me on me hands and knees, crawling under beds and spraying Dettol
on what I'm pretty sure isn't a dead mouse. Or so I was trying to convince
myself, because it is so utterly uncool to ralph on the job, know what I mean?
And why, you're prolly asking, because I know I was asking myself the same
thing, am I making like a scrubber? Guilt. Of course. Wonderful stuff, guilt.
Make someone feel guilty, and they're yours. And Fiona made me feel guilty.
I'm sure she didn't mean to - but she did.

I remember the conversation. "Hey, it's not really my fault, Fee. I'm only
doing my job. We just don't have the dosh, OK? Tight budgets" And she didn't
argue, she just stood there, arms folded, looking at me. "Fee, they cut the
budget, we can't pay for more than one cleaner, they count as admin staff, and
we're economising on admin staff." It was like being stared at by a basilisk.
"Look, I know that dirt breeds germs and germs kill patients, but honestly
Fee, there is nothing in the kitty." And then she stared at me for a few
minutes more, and said, "Then I'll get down on my knees."

For a moment, I thought she was going to pray. But when I saw her with the
bucket and brush, I understood. And she's a senior ward sister, twenty, thirty
years on the job. Honestly, I'd have felt a lot better if she'd shouted and
ranted at me. So of course the other nurses followed her example, and once
again, the Powers That Be were protected from the consequences of their
idiotic decision by the sacrifice of the nurses. Sacrifice? Well, what do you
call it when you work twelve hours, then put in two more hours as a cleaner?

And she saw me looking at her, and she stopped scrubbing for a moment, and
looked up at me. And the guilt washed over me like a bucketful of shit. So I
took off my jacket, and spent the next two hours ruining a perfectly good pair
of tights, not to mention what it did to the skirt. But after that, I brought
an old pair of jeans in to the hospital, and changed into that before I went
a-scrubbing-O. I felt like I was chipping at the Augean Stables, but at least
I didn't feel so bloody guilty.

And then Fee decided she couldn't take it any more, and she chucked it in.
Well, you can imagine how morale went downhill after that. A lot of us were
sticking with it because she was, basically. It wasn't that she was some sort
of angel from heaven, the Lady with the Lamp. No. The thing was, nothing ever
threw her. Nothing made her give up. When a patient went through that final
door that everyone has to go through one day, she would be the one who would
still be fighting for their life, still trying long after everyone else had
given up. Sometimes, the other nurses had to physically drag her away from the
bed.

For Fee, failure was not a possibility, not an option. And in this business,
that's deadly, because you *are* going to fail, you *cannot* win them all.

Fee was a warrior. Her starched uniform and apron was her armour, pills and
hypodermics were her weapons, and she fought the unceasing battle against
disease and death, despite the sure and certain knowledge that eventually,
every single battle has to end in a loss. All she could ever do, is postpone
the appointment with the Grim Reaper. But that was her war, and she was good
at it. Good as a soldier, brilliant as a general.

I mean, I was fighting every which way I could to get the cleaning staff
reclassified out of admin, and I kept telling myself that there was a chance,
if I only kicked harder, maybe I try one more time, maybe they'll see sense
this time. But when she gave up, I though, what the hell. That's it.

Fiona gave up. Senior Ward Sister Fiona quit.

It was like the spirit of hope had departed.

Sure, I still did the two hours cleaning each day, but that was just to make
myself feel better about the situation. No-one thought we were actually making
a difference. No-one thought we could win. They beat Fee, that means they won.

And then our genius management decided that, since we had all those volunteer
cleaners, we could economise by cutting the cleaning staff some more.

I don't know about the nurses, but I felt like I'd just had a milk bottle
rammed up my arse. So. If we work like squirrels to compensate for the morons
upstairs and their mismanagement, the reward is to wind up in a worse situation 
than before.

You can imagine, I was reading the Telegraph every day, looking for a new job.
And you know what? I discovered that domestic cleaners get paid more than
accountants in this hospital. And I was tempted, sorely tempted, because if I
was going to wear out my knees, I might as well make a few extra bob in doing
it.

And it was at that point that Fee pounced on me, just as I was leaving for the
evening. "Moira, come and have a cup of coffee, I'll pay. I have something to
talk to you about."

She told me what she was doing now. It sounded like a fairy tale. Rescuing
babies? And she explained it, with passion. "Moira, it's a nightmare. There's
millions of babies, hungry, diseased, unloved. Crying. And no-one to pick them
up and comfort them." "But it's not like that here, Fee, that's only in poor
countries, a long way away." "So?" "Well, how it is our problem?"

"Moira, just sit still for a moment, and quiet. And listen. Listen carefully.
Listen hard. Listen to them crying."

I listened. I couldn't hear anything. Then I thought of some of the pictures
I'd seen, we've all seen them, and you turn the page quickly, because they're
horrible, how can people be like that? I remembered the pictures, the silent
grainy black-and-white pictures. And then, thinking about those pictures, I
almost heard the cry. It was thin, barely any sound at all, like the mewing of
a small kitten, and I couldn't quite hear it. It was the cry of a baby who's
been crying for a long time, and who knows that crying isn't going to get
what's needed, the cry of despair. And how did I know that, me who's never had
to look after a baby? I just knew, that's all.

I looked up at Fiona. "I heard."

She nodded. "Millions," she said, "Moira, I want you to come for a job
interview." "What can I do, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not even
much good as a cleaner." "We need an accountant, Moira."

Blimey! That's the first time anyone had said that to me. To most people,
accountants are like stains on the carpet. You don't want them, but you know
you're going to get them. When they're really bad, you cover them up with a
rug so people can't see them. At the hospital, my job was basically all about
making it more difficult for people to do their jobs, by making sure that they
didn't have the equipment and staff that they needed. Huh. That wasn't my job
description, but that's what I was actually doing.

So, next day, I put on my best pinstripe skirt, and a tailored jacket, the
"accountants uniform" that you wear for interviews, and I presented myself at
Pretty Flamingo HQ. I didn't really have any solid expectations, but I knew
they were an oil company, so I was really surprised at how small they seemed
to be. I arrived, but no-one seemed to be expecting me. Eventually I found
someone called Sally, she said she was S&M, and I kept a straight face because
I knew that stood for Sales and Marketing, and I told her I'd come for the
accountant job. She grinned, and said "Then you need to come talk to the
boss." And she took me to an office.

The boss turned out to be female, sitting on the floor, and playing with a
couple of babies. I gave Sally a puzzled look, as in, "Is this the right
office?", but she shooed me in. "Wendy, this is Moira, she's come about the
accountant job, can you interview her?" Wendy stood up. What I'd assumed was a
white-and-gold dress was a sort of tunic, a skirt and a cape, it looked very
smart, and terrifically impressive. I realised who she was when standing up
didn't stop when she was on her feet, it continued until her feet were six
inches from the ground, and she hovered there, looking down at me. This was
the one called "The Weapon", she can fly.

"Have a chair," she said. Which was just as well, because my knees were
sending urgent "Cannot Stand" messages to my brain. So I sat down, and pulled
my knees together in the approved manner, and waited for the interview to
start.

"So, you're an accountant?" she said. I recited my formal qualifications, and
experience in the hospital job. "OK," she said, "explain to me what money is."

Yow. I dug back into my memory; we covered this sort of thing in the first
year at uni. "M0 is notes and coin, M1 is that plus current accounts, I can't
remember what M2 is, it hardly ever gets used. M3 is M1 plus the deposit
accounts and suchlike, I can't remember M4, and M5 is M3 plus things like
gilts."

She looked at me, poker-faced. I guess I got it right. I mean, you can't
expect me to be absolutely accurate about this, accountants don't need this
sort of definition at their fingertips.

"So what's the purpose of money, what's the point of it?" she asked.

Ah, now we're getting subtle. There isn't just one purpose, I explained. "It's
a medium of exchange, better than barter, and it's a unit of account, so you
can price things. It's a store of value, so you can accumulate purchasing
power, and it's a way you can agree on loans."

Her expression didn't change. The babies were playing together on the floor,
which was slightly distracting. I wondered what sort of organisation has a
boss who brings her babies in to work each day. I suppose a baby rescue
organisation. I wondered if I'd missed out some important function from my
list.

"So how come a piece of paper is money?" she asked. Woo hoo, now we're getting
into the history of finance. I explained about how, rather than heave chunks
of gold around to pay for things, people just had a receipt for the gold,
stored safely somewhere, and they used those receipts for trade. And so a
banknote was equivalent to a piece of gold, and how our modern system of
monetary policies developed from that. Fortunately, I've read a book about how
all this happened, so I was able to reel it off quite impressively. I had the
feeling that this interview was going really well.

And then she shook her head and frowned, and my heart sank.

"No," she said. "It just doesn't make any sense. Do you like babies?"

That one came out of nowhere, and before I had my brain in gear, my mouth
opened and swallowed my foot. "Not really. I've never had one, and one of my
friends has one, and it just seems to cry and make a mess all day." I could
have bitten off my tongue when I heard what I just said. I mean, it's true.
But maybe I should have lied. What, would my nose get longer?

So at that point, I had the feeling that I'd soon be back at the hospital,
scrubbing floors. Oh well. Maybe I just wasn't cut out for this.

Then some middle-aged guy came bustling into the office, sat at the desk, and
generally acted like he owned the place. Wendy jumped at him as he sat down,
and I turned my head away tactfully for a couple of minutes. Then she was back
on the floor with the babies, and the guy spoke. "Hi, Moira, I'm Duncan. Fiona
told me about you."

I gave him a nice smile, wondering what this was all about. "You've come about
the accounts job, right?" "Uh, yes. She just interviewed me." "She did? Wendy?
What have you been up to?" Wendy replied, "I was asking her about money, but I
still can't make sense of it."

Duncan guffawed. I don't think I ever heard anyone guffaw before. Laugh yes,
guffaw never. "No-one's ever been able to explain to Wendy about money. Maybe
you could have a go one day." Then he briskly took me through my
qualifications, explained about the job, and asked me when I could start.
Which left me a bit banjaxed. "Huh?" I asked, nodding at Wendy on the floor
"but I just failed the interview." "That wasn't an interview, she doesn't see
the point of money, she was trying to learn from you. When can you start?" he
repeated, "Fiona recommended you for honesty, that's good enough for me, when
can you start?"

And that was how I came to be in charge of finance at Pretty Flamingo.