Branch Office

Branch Office by Chris Green

Cathy and Sharon started work in the same branch office of a building society in a small provincial town in the south of England the same month, March 1973. Both were twenty-three years old, had grown up locally and gone to the same schools. Yet they were like chalk and cheese.

Cathy was English rose, prim and proper and came across as standoffish. Men tended to be put off by her airs and graces. Although she was in a customer-facing role and was desperate to be liked, she was unlikely to get asked out by young male executives coming in to arrange their finances. Nor did her conservative social circles allow her to let her hair down. Perhaps she was saving her passion for a future lover, but her aloofness meant there might not be a future lover. Men tended to look for easier conquests, like Sharon for instance.

Sharon was not subtle with her flirting but found this was what most men liked. They knew if they invited her out, they would not be kept waiting long. As Sharon saw it, everyone was a winner. Job done. Nor did she fall prey to the fitness bug that was going around. Running and stretching were never going to do it for her. Nor were team sports. Exercise was pants. What was the point in all that needless activity? Sharon enjoyed being wined and dined, both parts equally, and liked to finish her meal with a slice or two of something sweet. But despite her chunky physique, she had more than her share of admirers. Even Robin Soft, the branch manager who batted for the other side, was not averse to a peak at her stocking tops. Several times he asked her to work late. Her profligate behaviour however did little to endear her to her girly peer group, who, not always behind her back, christened her with a lexicon of spiteful names. Men just saw her as an easy lay.

Cathy tried her best to keep in shape and maintain an athletic figure with tennis and twice-weekly trips to the recreation centre to do a class in something called aerobics, even if her regime suffered periodic setbacks due to an equally determined sweet tooth. The nights in between that were spent at home waiting for promised phone calls that didn’t come helped her make her way through the boxes of chocolates she had bought for herself to console her after the occasions she had been stood up.

Let’s move ahead ten years. Frankie is saying relax, don’t do it. Princess Diana is selling shoulder pads, and youngsters in bands no longer need to learn musical instruments. We find Cathy with two point four children, a boring inattentive husband who holds forth about table tennis, and a small dog called Poppy. Sharon has a council flat on the wrong side of town, three children, and three absent fathers. Cathy works part-time at the local branch of the local building society. Sharon does her best to avoid getting a job but sometimes does a few hours at the private bar upstairs at The Nine Bells to help make ends meet.

Let’s say a word about Cathy’s boring inattentive husband who talks a lot about table tennis. Is there more to Eddie Straight than meets the eye? Are the table tennis tournaments Eddie allegedly attends a cover for clandestine criminal activity? Cathy begins to suspect they might be. So many things about his behaviour don’t add up, but she has been so slow in picking up on them and forgiving of his shortcomings that they have passed her by. Things that you wouldn’t think would fit easily into the day-to-day lives of a young family with two point four children and a small dog. But then she has been so busy looking after the two point four children and the small dog almost single-handedly and working at the local branch of the local building society, that it has been difficult to take stock. Because of this, things that shouldn’t seem right in a quiet cul-de-sac in a sleepy suburban town in the south of England have passed her by.

Mrs Rumbelow, for instance, at number twenty-three wonders why Eddie needs to wear a gun when he goes off to work at the weights and measures office, and Cathy has no answer. She hadn’t realised that Eddie owned a gun. But why does he have so many different phones, each with different notification sounds and why does he need to go into the spare room to have conversations on them? And what’s the story with the bus-loads of frightened dark-skinned people that sometimes stop by in the middle of the night to pick up keys from Eddie?

And what do we know about Sharon’s absent fathers? Where are they in 1983? Clint’s father, Roy, is apparently in Ontario, Canada, awaiting trial over a string of currency violations. Molly’s father is either in Glasgow or Bangkok depending on whether it is Vince or Lee. No one knows where Dean’s dad, Dan, is. He disappeared soon after Dean was born and has not been seen or heard of since. One after another, over a period of six or seven years, all three, or four of Sharon’s children’s fathers packed their bags and left. Sharon wasn’t dealt winning cards at happy families. Not only are Cathy and Sharon’s lives in turmoil, but Robin Soft has contracted AIDS.

Fast forward another decade. It is now 1993. A new means of communication called the Internet is being launched. Opinion is mixed as to whether this so-called information superhighway will catch on. Fit-in-your-pocket phones that you carry around with you are starting to hit the market. There has been an economic downturn and the word on everyone’s lips is recession. Unemployment has reached dizzying new heights. Cathy is fortunate to have a job. Many would like to be in her position. But now Robin Soft is with his maker, Cathy is now working long hours at the building society to pay off the mountain of debts her deceitful husband Eddie left her with when he was sentenced. Sharon meanwhile is in and out of rehab and her children are in and out of care.

‘However you dress it up, or however much of it is true, a story about the small team at a branch office of a building society in a small provincial town in the south of England could easily outstay its welcome,’ Patti says.

Patti is often right about these things. She has an innate understanding of literary elements, so if she says the story should stay short then it should stay short, so I’m thinking maybe it would be a good idea to skip Cathy and Sharon’s progress through 2003 and 2013 and start to wind things up, except perhaps to briefly mention that the monthly repayments on the twenty-five-year mortgage I took out on my three bedroomed house at a branch office of a building society in 1973 were £34.60. The equivalent repayment on a twenty-five-year mortgage on a similar house in a small provincial town in the south of England in 2023 would be £1300. That’s one hell of a hike.

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