The Seagull

 Joshua’s body and mind were on red alert. Sitting expectantly on a hard plastic chair in an airless corridor and staring at the print of a dull landscape, he was acutely aware that the next half hour could transform his future. Slightly to the left of the uninspiring print, was a door. Behind that door, he will have to prove to the formidable examiner that he was capable of leading the European Comparative Economic Strategy that had been the brain child of Dona Angel Merillo de Baranda.

Dona Angel had flown from Madrid to the European capital that very morning to conduct the final three interviews herself. She carried her reputation before her and what a reputation! A former Finance Minister, she had been recently elected as President of the European Central Bank. A Spanish Mrs Thatcher, she gave the impression of being a hard, opiniated and incredibly disciplined lady. She was an intimidating, impeccably dressed and coiffed lady. Even Berlusconi had not dared to make a pass at her. “Piccolo frigida la signora” he had muttered sotto voce to Sarkosy at the end of the Oslo summit.

 Known by the European leaders as The Terror Terrier, a sobriquet Dona Angel relished, she never left any stones unturned: a habit that had proved very embarrassing for several of her peers. Her entrance into the foyer of the European Commission was always met with a polite and deferential hush.

 Joshua listened to the muted voices behind the door. The French girl who had entered the lion’s den before him was poised to clinch the job. She oozed confidence and had an impressive c.v. He could hear her going hammer and tongs in there, and indeed as far as he could make out, she was the one doing most of the talking.

 “A long, rapid staccato of French verbal diarrhoea,” he thought to himself, mentally caricaturing Mademoiselle Olympe Dubois de la Roche on a loo straining as loads of words and phrases were coming out of her aristocratic ‘posterieur’.

 This image cheered him up no end. He uncrossed his legs and shuffled his weight on the chair. Suddenly the door opened and Mademoiselle Olympe Dubois came out triumphantly, her cheeks slightly flushed.

 “Go in there, and enjoy yourself,” she said loftily to Joshua who now felt his whole body shrinking by at least ten inches. He watched as she disappeared down the corridor, striding out like a model on the catwalk. All he could think of at that moment were a few extremely well chosen expletives.

 His thoughts were interrupted by Dona Angel’s PA, saying softly: “Joshua Wolfers? Dona Angel will see you now.”

 Joshua stepped into the room, aware of his wobbly knees and dry throat, and although his hands were sweaty, he shook hands with the Terror Terrier who characteristically hardly looked at him and did not smile either. She greeted Joshua formally with a “Good morning!” Looking down at the papers in front of her, she continued: “I see you speak my native language. You will have no objection if we conduct this interview in Spanish? I hope you don’t mind?”

 Joshua remembered that in a naive attempt to impress Dona Angel, he had put down on the job application form that he was fluent in French and Spanish. At the age of fourteen, his parents had sent him to Madrid on an exchange trip to a wealthy family who employed a Peruvian cook. Joshua had taken refuge in the kitchen where the cook took pity on the shy and awkward English teenager. Thanks to her, he learned to cook and came back to England able to recite by heart the ingredients for the paella and the tortilla con patatas fritas recipes. Unfortunately, that had remained pretty much the whole extent of his grasp of the Spanish language and Joshua doubted very much that Dona Angel would be overjoyed listening to the recipes of the two national dishes of her country at this precise moment.

 His French was equably wobbly; during one summer holiday, he had worked as a tour guide at the Cathedral of Chartres, where groups of keen American tourists had tortured him with extremely pointed and inquisitive questions to which he did not know any of the answers. This situation had given his imagination an unparalleled boost. He became very good at making up saints’ martyrdoms, especially the ones having their heads chopped off or being cut into small pieces in the highest corners of the stained glass windows. To recover from his efforts, he had spent his evenings in the aptly named Le Café de la Cathedrale where he had learned to order beer and sandwiches in halting French.

 As he waited for Dona Angel to fire her first question at him, Joshua pictured himself slowly climbing the steps of a scaffold, while Mademoiselle Olympe, standing nearby, shouted excitedly “Off with his head.”

 Suddenly, the sound of a mighty crash by the window made Dona Angel and Joshua jump out of their skins. Both looked round towards the window and caught a glimpse of the lifeless body of a seagull sliding slowly down the glass pane. The unfortunate bird had hit the window in full flight and had broken its neck, killing itself outright.

 But this was only the prelude to the next part of the drama. They stared in amazement and shock as a dozen or so birds were now flying in tight circles, right in front of their window, furiously fluttering their silver wings, and shrieking angrily as if to accuse the pair of them of being the perpetrators of a heinous crime.

 A wailing, throaty sound coming from Dona Angel made Joshua turn his head in her direction. Her body had suddenly sagged into her chair and had bent double on itself. She had hidden her face down on her knees. Joshua began to realise that she was sobbing uncontrollably. As far as he could make out, she kept repeating “Mama mía! Que horror! No otra vez! Que pesadilla!”

 Joshua sat still for a little while biting his lip. He had definitely not prepared himself for this twist in the proceedings, and was at a total loss on what to do next. He looked about him in vain; the P.A. had slipped out of the room and he did not know where to go to find her. He tried two discreet coughs, but it did not rouse the sobbing Dona Angel from her distressed state. Then, in an attempt to be useful, he stood up, and taking his handkerchief out of his pocket, he pushed it gently into Dona Angel’s hand. She lifted her tearful eyes briefly and said “Muchas gracias!” before burying her head again. He went back to sit on his chair and waited wondering what to do next.

 “What’s the matter with the woman?” Joshua asked himself. “This is quite ridiculous. Who would have thought that a blasted suicidal seagull would render this woman a sobbing wreck? Something pretty awful must have taken place in her past for her to be in such a state.”

 After a while, as Dona Angel was still hiccupping in her hands, Joshua thought he would try something else. He stood up and walked round to her side of the table. He placed his hand tentatively on her shoulder and started to stroke it gently. He showed the same absent-minded fondness to Lucy, his parents’ Labrador, when it sat by him while he read the papers.

 “Now, now, it was only a seagull,” he ventured. “They are so common in the city; you must not worry about them. One more or one less won’t make a huge difference. There was definitely something very wrong with it anyway. It was probably blind. It didn’t suffer. It must have died instantly.” Those were the only soothing comments that came into his head.

 As Joshua was rambling on, he was trying to remember how to say “seagull” in Spanish. But as it did not feature in any recipes, he gave up after a while. He felt inadequate and ill at ease, but kept stroking Dona Angel’s shoulder. After what felt like a long time, he glanced sideways at his watch. “Half an hour has gone already! The interview should be finishing by now!” He thought alarmed.

 Dona Angel must have read his mind. She raised her head and said wiping her eyes with Joshua’s handkerchief: “Gracias por su amistad. I think we shall make a good team. You have shown me you have compassion and now you deserve an explanation for all this.” She made a gesture with one hand towards her swollen face.

 “My brother drowned at sea. He was only fifteen. His dead body was found a few days later on a beach. It had been attacked by seagulls. They went for his eyes, you know. They always do apparently. My beautiful, gentle brother! They are horrible, cruel birds; I shall never forgive them for what they did to him. I hate seagulls, I hate them!” she repeated.

 More composed, she added: “My secretary will send you a formal letter with a contract next week. I need a few minutes to myself now before the next interview. I am sorry about this unfortunate incident. Good bye.” With these words, she got up and disappeared swiftly through a side door, leaving Joshua to gather his files and his thoughts.

 He felt exhilarated! “I think she meant I have got the job! I have got the job!” He repeated to himself. “Thanks to a blind, foolish seagull! I can’t believe it! This must be a first! I didn’t even have to say a single word!”

 Going out into the corridor, he said to the young German man who sat there waiting: “She’ll only be a few minutes. She has gone to powder her nose. She is a sweetie, not at all what I was expecting. Just tell her you love seagulls and you’ll be fine. Cheers mate!”

 --