Avedissian lay in bed
and looked up at the chink of light
that appeared in the vee of the curtains. Another day was
dawning, another pointless, mindless day when he would
go out and try to persuade people to buy products that they
did not want and that he did not believe in anyway. What was the point of it all? he wondered, but he had wondered
that every morning for the past two years. His next thought was to consider how many gins he had downed the previous
evening, and then to feel depressed when he remembered.
He got up and padded to the bathroom.

The milk he poured over his cornflakes was a little sour
but he pretended not to notice until his palate threatened
action if he were to go on with the charade. He emptied the
contents of the plate into the bin and settled for coffee. Why
didn't he have a system, he asked himself, a system for
buying groceries? It wouldn't take much effort to compose a
shopping list; after all, he lived alone and his tastes were simple enough.

Apathy was the problem, he admitted, but how did you
escape from that? Didn't you have to care first? And what
had he got to care about? His career had gone, his wife had gone, so why should he care about mere details? If the milk
went sour he would buy more. If the bread ran out he
would buy more. The system was adequate. He donned his
overcoat, picked up his brief-case and left for the office.

The woman looked up from her desk as he entered and glanced at her watch before saying, 'Mr Firbush wants to
see you.'

'When?'

'Right away,’ she replied with some satisfaction.

Avedissian hesitated before knocking on the door but
knew that he was only delaying the inevitable. He rapped softly with one knuckle.

'Come.'

'You wanted to see me?'

'I did indeed,’ said Firbush. 'Come in. Sit down.’

Avedissian felt rankled at being spoken to like a schoolboy
but his face remained impassive. He sat down.

Firbush adjusted his metal-framed, blue-tinted glasses
and said, 'I want you to tell me why sales in your area have
dropped by fifteen per cent in the past two months.’

Avedissian shrugged his shoulders and admitted to
himself that the question was not entirely unexpected, but
coming from a little toad like Firbush it was hard to take. He
said, 'Maxim Health Products have introduced a new range.
They compete directly with ours.'

'So . . . what?'

‘
Their stuff is better.’

There was a deathly silence in the room before Firbush
snapped the pencil that he had been holding.

Avedissian realised that Firbush had broken it deliberately for effect and had probably seen it done in a film once. He
wondered if the man practised his interrogation techniques
in front of the mirror.

Firbush spoke in a hoarse whisper, 'Avedissian, don't you realise it is your job to convince the medical profession
otherwise?' His voice rose as he added, 'It's your sole
function in life!'

The thought appealed to Avedissian like horizontal sleet
but he controlled himself and said, 'Of course.’

‘
Then why don't you do it? You
are
a doctor, damn it, at
least, you were once, so why can't you do it? You must
know how.’

'As a doctor . . .’

'Ex-doctor!'

'As an ex-doctor, as you’ve so kindly pointed out, I find
it impossible to recommend something that I know to be
inferior.'

The calmness of Avedissian's reply seemed to annoy
Firbush even more than the answer. Firbush lost his temper
and his face went deathly pale behind the blue-tinted
glasses. He leaned over the desk and clenched his fingers
into tight fists. 'Now let me tell you something, Avedissian,’
he hissed. ‘The real trouble with you is that you think
you're too good for this job. You're just a toffee-nosed medic who doesn't want to soil his hands with a bit of
honest work!'

'I'd
question the honest.'

'You're not a doctor any more, Avedissian!' gloated
Firbush. ‘They took your name off that magic list and there
is no way that you're ever going to get back on. They don't
forget about murder after a couple of years!'

'It wasn't murder!' said Avedissian, more forcibly than he
had meant to and immediately regretting it, knowing that
he had swallowed the bait that Firbush had put out for him.

Firbush smelled blood. 'Oh yes it was,’ he said slowly. ‘
That's what the court called it. That's what it was.’

Avedissian had no defence to offer. He remained silent.

Firbush moved in for the kill. He said, 'You're all washed
up as a doctor and you're all washed up with this company.
You're sacked!' He waited for some kind of appeal but none
was forthcoming.

Avedissian shrugged and got up to go to the door. He was
about to open it when he heard Firbush mutter, 'Your wife
had the right idea, poor sod.’

The comment pushed him over the edge. He turned and
crossed the floor in three strides to grip Firbush by the
lapels.

Panic appeared on the smaller man's face as he realised
that he had gone too far. This had never been in the plan. Avedissian should have left with his tail between his legs
and he, Cyril Firbush, should have gone home to tell his
wife how he had been forced to sack a doctor . . . most
unfortunate, but someone in the company had to make the
tough decisions and, after all, he was the man at the top . . .
But now, as he was transported from executive leather, like
a missile leaving its silo, to be dragged across his own desk,
scattering papers with his trailing Oxfords, something had
gone desperately wrong.

Avedissian pinned Firbush to the wall like a butterfly.
'How dare you!' he hissed.

'She killed herself, didn't she?' squealed Firbush in a
desperate attempt to salvage dignity but the look on
Avedissian's face turned his bowels to water.

'Understand this! I did not murder that child. What I did
do was to end his suffering in a world where the law
dictated that he be allowed to go through hell for another
month or so. I was struck off for it but I do not regret it. As
for my wife . . .' Avedissian increased the tightness of his
grip. 'Linda took her own life after what the newspapers
and the poison pen letters and the myriads of sanctimonious
little farts like you did to us in the name of
...
Christian values.'

'Now see here . . .'

'What gives you so much pleasure in other people's pain,
Firbush?' demanded Avedissian.

'This is outrageous!'

'For two pins I'd . . .' Avedissian teetered on the brink of
violence but kept his balance. He pushed Firbush away from
him and sent him tumbling to the floor. Firbush scrambled
to his knees and clawed at the buttons on his intercom.
'Miss Carlisle . . . Miss Carlisle!'

Avedissian brushed past Firbush's secretary on the way out. 'Coffee for one,' he said.

It was after eleven in the evening before Avedissian got
home to the dreary flat that he had called home since
Linda's death. He had had so much to drink that he enc
ountered trouble with the lock and had to make three
attempts before the tumblers were satisfied. The door
swung back to let the musty cold of the hall engulf him and
surround him with loneliness. This was the moment he
dreaded most each day, the one when he would come home
and know that he was totally alone in the world.

Avedissian snapped into his counter-measure routine. He
switched on the lights, lit the electric fires, and turned on
the television to provide the distraction of noise. He paused
briefly to look at the screen and saw that a woman was
jumping up and down in requited greed on a quiz show.
The host was flashing his practised smile at the camera and
pretending to share in her joy.

'Shit,’ muttered Avedissian but he did not switch it off.
That would have meant silence, being alone with himself,
and that was to be avoided at all costs. After a moment of
contrived tension the woman decided to 'go for the big one'
and Avedissian decided to go to the kitchen.

A rectangular lump of Spam made a slow, constipated exit
from the tin after much coaxing with a table knife; it slid out
on to the plate in a trail of slime. The opener slipped from
the lid of a tin of beans for the third time and Avedissian
abandoned technology at two hundred and seventy degrees for brute strength and a knife. But, as the lid snapped back,
it caught his thumb and ripped the skin over the knuckle.
Blood began to flow.

Avedissian put his thumb in his mouth and kept it there
as he went to the bathroom to search, one-handedly,
through the cabinet above the basin for a plaster. He was
rinsing the wound and cursing his luck when the doorbell
rang.

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