Tomorrow is Another Life

Nick Thripp

Description

Tomorrow is Another Life is a thrilling, satirical adventure story, which takes you into an African wonderland called Mutabe where nothing makes sense and the truth reinvents itself daily, if not more often. Leon, a 30 year old Mutabese refrigeration engineer, was brought to the UK as a baby by his aid worker parents. He's just been left by partner. He's broke. He's lost his job, he's lost his furniture and he's about to lose his flat. A knock on the door heralds an unexpected visitor; the immaculately dressed Mr Bankole. Bankole tells Leon that his adoptive parents were British agents who kidnapped him, and that he is, in fact, the grandson of Chief Onagaku, leader of the Tribal Lands, and first president of Mutabe after independence from the British. Now Mutabe is suffering under the yoke of the despotic Oblanga. The people are primed to revolt and free themselves. All they need is a figurehead. All they need is Leon.Bankole asks Leon to accompany him back to Mutabe without delay. Bankole doesn't know it, but there could be a problem. Leon is gay and homosexuality is a capital offence in Mutabe.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure fiction
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800469280
• Langue: English

Extrait

About the Author




Nick Thripp has an English degree from Cambridge University and an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London.

Also by the author:

The Code



Copyright © 2021 Nick Thripp

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


Matador
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Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
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Email: [e-mail]
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Twitter: @matadorbooks


ISBN 978 1800469 280

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For my nephew, James,
for his constant support
and encouragement
of my writing.


Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Acknowledgements:


Chapter 1
Leon, head in hands, rocked slowly back and forward on an IKEA chair in his white melamine kitchen. The photographs surrounding him had been turned towards the wall or laid face down. A pile of linguine with chicken and green pepper sauce lay untouched in front of him. Periodically, his rhythmic rocking motion was wracked by a seismic shudder as a memory scudded across his brain.
Ode to Joy rang out causing him to start. He really must change that ringtone. His adoptive mother’s picture flashed up on the screen. He loved her dearly, but not now, oh God, not now.
‘Hello Marianne.’ They had always insisted he call them by their forenames. ‘How’s things? …I’m fine… no, really I am… actually I’ve got a plate of pasta in front of me right now…no, out of a packet…yes, I know…yes, sugar and salt… work? Terrible.’
He wrinkled his nose and pushed his plate aside. He’d already told Marianne they could be in for big redundancies, now she was fretting about it too.
‘Another job?……I don’t know, wherever I can find one… isn’t much call for refrigeration design engineers round here……Clive? No, I’ve not heard from him. His things are still in the hall. Said he’d pick them up. Probably when I’m at work…I will…love you too.’
He carried his plate to the sink. He’d rather not have been reminded of the latest of many fixed-cost reduction exercises at work. Although he’d survived the last two, he had a bad feeling about this one. His premonition hadn’t changed after that afternoon’s interrogation by Alan, one of the consultants, from which he had emerged trembling, beads of sweat dew-dropping his brow and dark damp patches staining the armpits of his shirt.
He slid the congealed mass into the recycling bin and put the kettle on. A half-empty packet of cigarettes lay on the sideboard. Until last week he hadn’t smoked for over four years. Giving up had been a torture made endurable only by Clive’s anti-smoking vehemence. Taking them up again had been easy. The first had tasted disgusting and made his head spin. After that…he reached out. His body had assumed control. His hands opened the packet, pulled out a long white stem and lit it. He inhaled. Taste still slightly unpleasant. He drew in another lungful. Ah, so calming, so reassuring.
Slumping onto his grey fabric two-seater sofa, his thoughts were back at the St George’s Club in Antigua, on whose sparkling silver sands he had met Clive, skinny and white, pontificating about the dangers of skin cancer to an uninterested and bronzed group of sun worshippers. Typical Clive. Always opinionated. Never wrong, at least in his own eyes. What a bastard! Turning the TV on, he flicked through the channels hoping for something funny, or at least mildly interesting. Nothing but cooking programmes. He groaned. To him ready-made meals were a lifeline and the microwave a fifth limb. He switched the set off. Sighing, he picked up Martin Chuzzlewit, a present from Clive. ‘You need to develop your mind,’ he’d been told as the neatly wrapped gift was pushed across the kitchen table one evening. No doubt developing his mind was what Clive was doing at this very moment with that muscular Australian swimming coach he’d met at the health club. Sod fucking Clive. He threw the book on the floor. He hated Dickens. And he hated Clive. Ode to Joy blared out again and his heart missed a beat. Could it?…no, it was his mother again.
*
‘Well matey, at least you know you’re safe, you lucky bastard.’ Sam prodded Leon’s shoulder gently. ‘Getting rid of you would ruin their diversity statistics.’ Fiddling with a loosely knotted bright red tie, Sam surveyed the rapidly filling auditorium. ‘Loads of Pakistanis, some Filipinos, a few Chinese. No genuine blacks, er, I mean, Afro-Caribbeans, apart from you. You know man, this consultation process is a farce. We know what they’re going to do. They know what they’re going to do. They’re going to chop forty per cent, like they said they would.’
‘Right-sizing. What the hell is that? More consultant-speak,’ Leon said, and Sam nodded.
Tiny Withers, the bald, six-foot-eight CEO, stalked in, flanked by two sleek and glossy consultants, like seals in their shiny grey suits. He was followed by the rotund figure of Sheila Barnett, the HR Director, more walrus than seal and weighed down by a bulging briefcase.
‘So that’s where all the pies went,’ Sam said, and a few people laughed. Leon, uncomfortable at hearing her ridiculed for her appearance, looked away.
‘Tiny’s wearing that tie again,’ Sam added in a hushed whisper. ‘Never lets you forget he went to Harrow.’
Withers cleared his throat as the last few stragglers shuffled into the auditorium and pushed along the crowded rows looking for empty seats.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. You’ll remember the business case I outlined in January.’
A low murmur grew, spread across the hall, and subsided.
‘Let me run through a summary of it again, just in case anyone is in any doubt.’ A succession of charts flicked rapidly across the screen: competitor advances, reductions in revenues, increases in raw material prices, vanishing profits and then, miraculously, after a reduction by forty percent in fixed costs, ker-ching! A promised land of market share growth and fattening profits.
‘Crap,’ whispered Sam. ‘The Chinese are skinning us because their products are better and cheaper. Redundancies will make fuck-all difference.’
‘Any questions?’ Withers glared at the audience. His thick black eyebrows, like two fat caterpillars squaring up to each other, quivered menacingly in the harsh lights directed at the podium. He cleared his throat, preparing to continue.
Leon put his hand up. ‘Excuse me, Dr Withers.’
Withers stared into the crowded auditorium, trying to locate the owner of the voice. ‘Yes?’
‘What makes you think cutting costs will make us competitive? The Chinese cost base will always be much lower than ours. Wouldn’t it be better to invest more in new technology, grab the top end of the market and generate higher margins?’
Withers’ expression was incredulous. ‘You can’t just magic new technologies out of thin air. They need substantial investment and time. If we don’t cut costs now, we won’t be in business long enough to develop any. Any more questions?’
The room remained silent.
‘Let’s talk about the future then,’ Withers said, outlining in a monotone revised vision and mission statements, which sounded like Japanese technical instructions translated badly into English. He flashed up the new strategy chart. Apart from no mention of Business Development, previously a core activity, and little of Technology, it was indistinguishable from its predecessor. Leon’s stomach cramped. He was in Business Development.
‘Let’s talk about the reductions.’ Withers wiped his glistening forehead with a silk handkerchief. ‘We’ve decided—’
Sheila Barnett’s cough stopped him, and he shot her a malevolent look.
‘What I meant to say is that we propose to make some significant changes, which will be consulted fully with employees and their elected representatives.’ He drew breath and cleared his throat. ‘I don’t believe in trimming. If I snip a bit off a bush, what happens? It grows even more vigorously than before.’
‘Obviously what he did to his eyebrows.’ Sam sniggered, fingering the knot of his tie.
‘We will therefore disengage from some areas completely,’ Withers continued. ‘Let’s start with Technology.’ He ran through swingeing reductions in which whole technologies were abandoned and entire departments removed. Several peopl