Wilfrid Moore’s Eventful Day

Published in the Pankhearst Single’s Club series. (previously available on Amazon).

On a cloudy morning in October Wilfrid Moore, of 72 Ambridge Road, turned into a Jellybaby. It was the most peculiar thing that had happened to him since the time he’d realised he’d been using denture cream as toothpaste for almost an entire month.

He had woken up at his usual time, listened to his usual breakfast radio show, and read his usual paper; but when the time came for brushing his usual teeth, Wilfrid looked in the mirror and saw a Jellybaby looking back at him. His hair was made of jelly, his nose was made of jelly, and even the mole on the left side of his jaw was made of jelly. It was remarkable. He waved his jelly hand in front of the mirror, to see if it would wave back in sync. He had to make absolutely sure it wasn’t a hoax played on him. He’d seen the late-night television exposés, he knew all about trick mirrors and other such deceptions. He’d been enlightened him on the subject of dangerous youths finding their jollies from the playful torture of the elderly. Wilfrid remembered one particularly frightful case of an old woman (whose name was respectfully redacted) suffering dreadfully at the hands of a burglar intent on replacing her teapots with bowling balls.

He contorted his face, made extremely stretchy with all the added gelatine, into faces he’d never tried to make before. He lowered his jaw, widened his eyes until his jelly eyelids snapped back into place, wiggled his eyebrows, and puffed out his cheeks like balloons.

The Jellybaby pulled the same faces back at him. This was no deviant prank: Wilfrid Moore had most definitely become a Jellybaby.

How could he possibly leave the house, or go to work, visit his brother, or show his reddened face in the local supermarket? Someone was sure to see his jellied appearance when he popped out to buy a pint of milk.

“At least I’m a red one,” he sighed.

As he gazed at his new reflection, Wilfrid could not conceive how such a thing could happen. He’d never met a Jellybaby before – he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten one. But as he descended the stairs, the question slipped from his jellied brain and disappeared entirely. Jelly brains aren’t very good at staying on track, you should know. He went into the kitchen and leaned upon the countertop, his limbs sagging into an upside-down U under his weight.

His wife, Edna Moore of 72 Ambridge Road, turned around with two cups of freshly-brewed tea, to the shocking sight of her husband, turned into a Jellybaby. She trembled a bit, and let out a small squeak, but thankfully she didn’t spill any tea.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Wilfrid asked, anticipating her reaction. She would hate it, he could tell. Their marriage hadn’t been a bumpy one; indeed it had had no real tribulations at all, so Wilfrid was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to jump this hurdle.

How could his Edna, his lovely Edna, ever want to be with a Jellybaby?

Pre-emptively dejected, Wilfrid rested his jelly head in his jelly hands. Edna, meanwhile, inspected his face, narrowing her eyes on each new element to his features. The transformation had taken thirty, maybe even forty, years off Wilfrid’s appearance. He had no wrinkles; none at all. His face was…Well, it was as fresh as a baby’s. His jellied skin was smooth, almost soft, covered in a thin layer of icing sugar. It stuck to her fingertips. The jelly hair on top of his head looked bulky and thick, a stark comparison to the receding hairline Wilfrid had been sporting only yesterday. His nose looked a lot cuter in jelly form, and the ugly mole on the left side of his jaw even looked…sweet. In fact, his entire body looked different – but only slightly. His physique looked firmer; the slight bulge over his waistline had dissipated. He’d even done his belt up two notches tighter! His chest no longer sagged, and his shoulder were ever so slightly broader. All in all she considered this new look to be an improvement. Edna had always had a crush on Wilfrid; ever since the day they’d met her stomach would flip when he walked into the room. But, right then, it was tumbling like a clumsy hamster inside a wheelie cage.

“Awful isn’t the word I’d use,” Edna answered, adding, “and you’ll never have to shave again.”

“You always know what to say.” Wilfrid beamed, his jelly cheeks turning an even deeper shade of red.

“Think of all the money we’ll save on shaving foam!”

“Body wash, too, I suspect.”

“Our water bills will be cut in half.”

“That’ll be a nice addition to our anniversary fund,” Wilfrid said, reaching out to place his jelly hand on top of Edna’s fleshy one. It was warm and he stroked the pale skin with his stub. Whenever he mentioned the fund, which he had started in the run-up to their thirtieth wedding anniversary, Edna’s ears wiggled in excited anticipation. Wilfrid loved to make her ears wiggle, almost as much as Edna loved to talk of their plans for a month-long travelling extravaganza. They’d never really holidayed, and certainly not abroad. Times weren’t profitable for Wilfrid, and Edna had always been too shy to hold down a job for long. She was a quiet woman, who said no more than needed to be said. Secretarial work, with all the added gossiping and phone calls, proved to be unsuitable for her entirely. She spent her days baking, or cooking big batches of lasagne that she would cut up and freeze. She’d perfected many hobbies over her lifetime, like kite-building and soap-carving; but researching holiday locations was her favourite pastime. They had always been happy, though, on their weekend trips to York or Cornwall. They’d even once been to see the Stonehenge.

“There is one thing, though…” Edna paused. Unsure of whether to broach the subject or not, she placed the teacups down and went over to a kitchen cupboard, reaching for an object which she obscured from Wilfrid’s view. With her arms behind her back she returned, looking apprehensive.

“Well,” Edna paused, her lips twisted in a pained manner. “You haven’t got any fingers,” she said after due consideration, then placed a straw in his tea.

Leaving the house without brushing his teeth, indeed, leaving the house without any real teeth at all, Wilfrid made his way to work.

“You just need to make it through the day,” Edna encouraged him, “without anyone noticing your…foible. That’s all.”

She had very cleverly fashioned his briefcase into a messenger bag using some twine she’d dug out from the garden shed, as Wilfrid now found himself without the opposable thumbs required to use the handle.

She really was good to him.

Two anniversaries ago, they’d decided to go try out the rowing lake in their local park. As he attempted to step off from the safe and solid pavement into the wooden boat, he’d stumbled backwards and broken his collarbone. He was most put out. He’d even remembered to pack sandwiches in a wicker basket so they could have a picnic. Adamant not to let it ruin the day, Wilfrid refused to be taken to hospital. Edna had then taken off her stockings (there and then! In January!) to use as a sling. She was a wonderful woman, was Edna Moore, née Baxter, of 72 Ambridge Road.

Well, she wouldn’t need to worry about him breaking bones anymore, Wilfrid thought, rather pleased with himself as he flexed his newly-boneless arms.

Wilfrid tottered down the streets unsteadily; having jelly for feet doesn’t make the morning commute easy, you should know. His movements were slow and uncertain; he would wobble here and there and worry that he would fall over. The new jelly body would take some getting used to, and so far he’d only clocked one hour and twelve minutes of conscious jelly-movement. He tried to tut at this nuisance, but found that his tongue couldn’t produce the resonance needed for it a truly satisfactory noise. So he sighed instead. With his head bowed, he watched one red stump overtake the other, then the other, then the other, until he started to feel sick and raised his head quickly. Very clearly, these red legs belonged to him. But they didn’t feel like his legs yet. It was as if he was just trying them on for size. He kept stepping in puddles, try as he might to avoid them, so the icing sugar that dusted his red-jelly-skin clotted and fell off in lumps. He grimaced as he walked, the added frustration turning his elastic-y features into a Jim Carrey character. Luckily, Edna had done her best to fasten his scarf in such a way that minimal skin was showing, which made him feel a touch less self-conscious. He hoped that if anyone did happen to notice his abnormal form, they would be too British to say anything. Nevertheless, he avoided prolonged eye contact and made sure the sleeves of his coat were pulled over his fingerless hands.

Wilfrid’s office building was a ten-storey concrete slab just like any other of the prison-like structures on Port-of-Hello-o Road. The only way to differentiate between them was by the company logos on the front doors. Wilfrid passed Murphy’s & Murphy’s, Griffiths & Son’s, Wright & Co., Watts & Webb, before reaching his employer, Bodged Office Ltd.

It was only today that Wilfrid noticed how dark and dull the building truly was, especially when comparing it to the new redness of his skin. His dark brown suit mixed in with the other dark suits that were walking in through the rotating doors and spiralling off into various subdivisions. Upon reaching the wide grey doors to his own sector (after an elevator ride to the seventh floor and a left turn at the fish tank housing four – oh, dear, now only three – Chinese Fighting Fish) Wilfrid pushed on the metal handle (grateful both that it was a handle instead of a knob, and that his new skin didn’t seem to conduct the electric shocks his old fingers used to) and quickly ducked his head. It was his morning custom to avoid the inspection of Irene at the front desk, the office’s most famed gossip, and today, of all days, was definitely not a time for Irene’s careful and beady eyes. Any unwanted attention on him could lead to his bosses noticing his ailment; and who would want a Jellybaby in their employment? He concentrated on treading carefully. When she spotted his new jelly appearance the shocking news would be sent round in a memo nanoseconds before he’d even stepped into the elevator. She was a born tabloid journalist, stuck in the body of a second-rate secretary.

“Morning Wilf!” She called.

Wilfrid Moore detested being called Wilf; it made him feel like a pet with owners too lazy to breathe out the last syllable of his name. He tried to appease her with a nod of his head, half-obscured by the woolly scarf. But it was too late; Irene was staring at him. She’d noticed, all right. If Wilfrid had a beating heart, it would have stopped in fear.

“Have you done something different with your hair?”

Wilfrid smiled bashfully in response, which mollified her until she laid eyes on her next victim. He started to tiptoe over to his desk, wary not to draw any undue attention to himself, but unfortunately had briefly forgotten that he no longer had toes. He nearly tripped forward, wheeling his arms back to right himself, then had to bring them back down as he overcorrected. His scarf caught his once-forelimb, exposing his face, and he twisted frantically as he re-righted himself to correct it. The flurry of movement was most undignified, not to mention dangerous. Had he exposed himself?

Breathlessly, he scanned the room: Not a soul had noticed. No one had even looked up. Even Irene was preoccupied; deep in conversation with Pamela from accounting about her neighbour’s cat’s awful habit of leaving dead mice on her doormat. Wilfrid breathed a sigh of relief, carefully re-fixed his scarf, and stared at the carpet as if they were painted with arrows directing him to his seat as he walked at a pace he deemed inconspicuous.

His shoulders felt weightless with relief when he briefly looked up and saw that the desk opposite his was unoccupied. Perhaps its owner – a young man, named Stephen, who owned the worst collection of ties that Wilfrid had ever seen – wasn’t working today. Yesterday Stephen had worn a yellow tie with pictures of multi-coloured butterflies on it. Every Christmas he wore a tie in the image of Rudolph’s face; if you pressed his nose an awful mechanical beeping occurred to the tune of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’.

Wilfrid counted himself lucky not to be seeing any more offensive ties today; not to mention he would be free from sitting opposite a pair of watchful eyes. Seeing Irene was bad enough, but Stephen was a different type of office nuisance: he asked questions. Wilfrid knew, in his jelly heart of hearts, that Stephen would notice his skin and his sudden lack of fingers and ask questions. It would be more than Wilfrid could take. Without removing his scarf, just as a precaution, he stuck a pencil to his club-like arm with sellotape in order to press the keys and logged in to the computer. His jelly skin lifted into a smile at his own ingenuity.

“Don’t forget to check your e-mails, Wilf – ” Wilfrid winced as he saw Stephen walking towards his desk, wearing a white tie embroidered with orange pumpkins. Stephen paused. He averted his jelly eyes as the young man’s stare grew ever-more intense. He’d noticed, Wilfrid knew it. Would Stephen say something? Or maybe he wait until Wilfrid was out of earshot and gossip about him then? Would he realize Wilfrid had turned into a Jellybaby, or, worse yet, spread rumours about Wilfrid’s alleged skin disease or his addiction to chemical facial peels to the other workers? Stephen was always bunking off work to stand by the kettle and take an extraordinarily long time to make tea. It was more than enough time to concoct and spread a vile rumour.

It wasn’t unheard of for inter-office politics at Bodged Office Ltd. to ruin colleague relations over something trivial. Nobody cared whether it was true or not, as long as it distracted them from work. Wilfrid had witnessed, with his once-human eyes, a truly vicious situation unfurl. He was helpless to watch as Jean, the data analyst who always wore polka dot skirts, became silently cast out for the relatively minor (although certainly smelly) infraction of bringing in lunches using tuna in various ways. Admittedly, Wilfrid too hated the way the smell lingered through the entire floor, but he hated even more the sad way Jean then took to eating her lunch outside. Even when it was raining, she would bring an umbrella and park herself on one of the metal benches, holding a soggy tuna salad sandwich. Wilfrid had brought her down a big mug of tea, once, and she’d thanked him graciously. Then she shot the sentiment to hell by calling him Wilf.

“Say, you look a bit sunburnt!” Stephen remarked, “You haven’t been on holiday this weekend, have you?”

Wilfrid smiled bashfully, avoiding a direct answer to the question. Jellybabies aren’t good at thinking on their feet and, frankly, Wilfrid had never been particularly good at it in his human form either. Perhaps it was better to say nothing. That way, he wouldn’t give Stephen any facts to work with in his rumour-spreading spree. “I heard that too,” they would all gossip, “I heard him talking to Stephen! Said he felt ‘under the weather’!”

“Such a shame,” the chorus would reply, “who knew men could get addicted to plastic surgery? He looks like a doll.”

“It’ll be all the new chemicals to his face,” they’d say, “It makes all the difference. Poor guy.”

Wilfrid’s mouth twisted into a shape not unlike Fusilli pasta at the thought.

“What do you think of the tie?” Stephen interrupted Wilfrid’s thoughts as he held the fabric between his dextrous—and separate— fingers. A shot of jealousy fired through Wilfrid. He imagined yanking off the tie and throwing it into the black bin that sat in the corner of the room. It would lie there amongst the banana skins and the plastic cups that no one ever bothered to recycle, and Stephen would stare open-mouthed, wide-eyed and utterly flabbergasted. Of course, Wilfrid would never do that. The most he could do was summon the courage to narrow his eyes or re-shape his mouth into a frown, and he didn’t even do that.

“It’s very seasonal,” he managed.

Stephen beamed.

They sat in silence, with only the tap-tapping of keys to be heard. Wilfrid’s tapping was noticeably slower than Stephen’s due to the wobbling pencils, but he made progress and was pleased with himself for thinking of the idea in the first place. It was the cleverest thing he’d thought of since he created a food-chute leading from the window to the compost bin in the garden.

“Wilf,” Stephen started, “have you read the email that was sent round?” He sounded worried.

Wilfrid furrowed his jelly eyebrows. “No?”

“There’s a big meeting after lunch,” the young man summarised, “the whole company. Everyone’s got to go.”

If there was one thing Wilfrid knew, it was that this definitely did not sound positive. There hadn’t been a message like this in years. In fact, the last time this had happened they were still sending inter-company memos on bits of paper. It was an amalgamation meeting, when Bodged Office Ltd. had come under the umbrella of a larger company, and representatives from Hutchins & Botch described the positive changes that “workforce realignment” and “rightsizing” would bring. Everyone had known that meant they would all probably be fired. And they were right. Wilfrid, inexplicably, had been the exception, along with a fellow named Hal.

Wilfrid only hoped that, like the last time, his job security wouldn’t be affected. He needed this job, where he could safely put aside a sum every month and save up for his and Edna’s anniversary holiday. At the thought of upsetting Edna with the news that their savings would have to be used for the bills, a lump of jelly dropped inside him, precisely where his stomach should have been.

For a while, Wilfrid sat and absent-mindedly watched the second hand go around and around and around the clock face until the room started to spin. He looked back at the black and white document filling up his computer screen. Facing him was the reason he was feeling less inclined to do his work than usual. The company attached credit card numbers to online poker profiles, and updated names and addresses to correspond with supermarket loyalty cards, an operation which was treated as if they were dealing with top-secret information. He was looking at a form, filled out expertly and efficiently by Wilfrid – apart from one rectangle. One white rectangle, left blank for his manager’s signature of approval. He couldn’t do any more work until he’d got the consent for the rest of the information. That meant a meeting, in person. Wilfrid wasn’t sure he was feeling quite up to the challenge, but when Stephen started miming making a cup of tea at Wilfrid suggestively, Wilfrid shook his head and jerked his red stub in the direction of the manager’s office.

“I’ve got to go and see the Big Guy,” Wilfrid said.

Stephen looked disappointed.

“Okay Wilf,” he said, “I’ll make it for myself.”

With the newly printed document warm and ready to sign, Wilfrid approached the office in the corner of the floor. Immediately after the merger under Hutchins & Botch, “efficiency experts” had changed the floor layout to an open-plan one, to encourage workers to work together and make everyone seem more approachable. For two months, Hal and Wilfrid sat quietly across the room from one another in the empty, newly renovated office, neither saying much apart from the occasional offer to make tea. Of course, the manager’s office remained walled-off.

Today’s visit to see Mr. Johnson was particularly unappealing, not only because Wilfrid was now a covert Jellybaby. Only the Saturday before, Wilfrid had bumped into Mr Johnson in a gallery in town. There was a temporary photography installation that Edna had wanted to see. Wilfrid desperately didn’t want to talk to his boss when he wasn’t being paid to do so, but before he could instruct Edna to not greet him, she waved politely and said:

“Mr Johnson! Fancy seeing you here.”

Mr Johnson looked horrified. He was with a very pretty blonde woman, who was very much not the brunette Mrs. Johnson. On several work-related extracurricular outings when Wilfrid saw Mrs Johnson, he found her to be very polite, also very unlike the blonde woman in the gallery, who refused to acknowledge Edna’s greeting, or even look her in the eye. Mr Johnson didn’t introduce her. The conversation was a swift one, and Mr Johnson had escorted this woman out of the gallery as soon as he’d said goodbye to the Moores of 72 Ambridge Road.

Wilfrid tried to knock on Mr Johnson’s wooden door, but his jelly arm wasn’t hard enough to create any sort of noise resembling a tap. Instead he made flumps, like a marshmallow falling to the ground. Eventually, the door opened and Mr. Johnson, twelve years younger than Wilfrid and half as qualified, looked at him quizzically.

“I thought I heard a strange noise,” he said, “come in, Wilbur.”

They’d worked together for six years.

“What can I do you for today?” he asked.

Making sure his sleeves were as low as they could be, Wilfrid quickly placed the paper on Mr Johnson’s desk. There was a picture of him and his wife standing in a garden with their children, looking very happy.

“I need you authorisation on this, Sir.”

“Sure thing.” Mr Johnson began to sign. Then his eyes flickered up towards Wilfrid and he stopped short of completing the action; that tiny action that would enable Wilfrid to leave and continue having as minimal human interaction with him as possible.

“Waldo, what’s with the scarf?” The blue and yellow woollen scarf – knitted by Edna last year – was wrapped around his neck. He dared not take it off; Mr Johnson and the other workers may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but it was harder to guess a man had turned into a Jellybaby if you could only see half of his face. Wilfrid could take that one to the bank.

“I’ve got a cold,” Wilfrid lied.

“It’s a million degrees in this building. Take it off, the air will do you good. Come on.”

“My wife made it for me.”

“So what? My kids painted me a picture, doesn’t mean I’m going to pin it up.”

Wilfrid felt a pang of pity for Mrs Johnson and the Johnson children.

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

“Suit yourself, Walter.”

Wilfrid’s jelly mouth scowled behind his fluffy scarf.

“Here you go,” Mr Johnson handed back the paper without looking Wilfrid in the eye, “don’t bother me again. I’m busy today. There’s a lot of stuff going on.”

“Noted, Sir.”

“And did you get the memo about the meeting? Don’t be late. You know I hate people who dilly-dally. Pass it on to the others.”

“Will do, Sir.”

“Oh and Winston,” Mr Johnson said, picking up his phone whilst pointing at Stephen, who had returned from the tea-room with a mug nearly half-empty, “tell your friend to get a decent sodding tie.”

At lunchtime Wilfrid went to the cafeteria. He always had a baked potato, and judged the filling on his mood that day. Usually he would be able to determine it before standing in the queue, but today he wasn’t sure what he wanted at all. It was most unusual. He hoped his jellied-innards weren’t going to ruin his routine. He’d skipped breakfast without even realising it, too engrossed in his reflection and with Edna’s wonderful cup of tea. Come to think of it, Wilfrid had been feeling a bit sick since he’d left the house, but had presumed it was just nerves, not the non-jelly beverage. It felt like his stomach was being tied up like a balloon animal, with jelly moving this way and that inside of him. Wishing that he had fingers so that he could cross them, he hoped the movement was due to hunger and not to a bad reaction to tea. He took a step forward in the queue and his stomach wobbled with him. As he paid closer attention to the way his jelly-body was feeling, he was quite sure that he did feel sick. He’d never even thought about his jellied organs not agreeing with his usual food. Would he now have to give up anything non-jelly?

…Would he now have to give up tea?

Now, Wilfrid was a man unmoved by many material things, but tea was certainly not one of them. He tried to tell his Jellybaby body that he would not, absolutely would not give up tea. Baked potatoes were as good as gone; pasta bakes were out of the proverbial window; sandwiches? He didn’t care about sandwiches! He cared about tea, for the love of all things good! He cared about tea!

He stood in line at the counter, dubiously inspecting the food in front of him and growing ever so slightly agitated. Nothing was appealing; Wilfrid would have gone so far as to say that, in fact, the food outright disgusted him. His appetite was repelled by everything in front of him. He should have guessed, really, that a Jellybaby’s internal workings wouldn’t be as sophisticated as a human’s. His stomach let out a hungry and distressed growl. Even his stomach knew that the dishes of food in front of Wilfrid would not be compatible with his gelatine guts.

Then he came to the dessert section.

His red eyes widened in delight as he saw they were serving pots of Hartley’s. The gelatine inside him practically growled as he eyed up the counter. There was lemon , strawberry , lime and even raspberry. What a choice! As his red stubs lingered over the pots of lemon jelly, his stomach growled again. It sounded disgruntled. Ignoring it, Wilfrid picked up the pot. The stomach growled, violently this time, making him drop the pot.

“Alright, alright!” Wilfrid whispered. Slowly, he reached out towards the lime jelly. The stomach made the same horrified noise. Wilfrid changed direction to the strawberry section and the stomach purred in approval. “Okay,” Wilfrid negotiated, “I’ll only feed you berry jelly, as long as you let me keep tea.”

He picked up three tubs and ignored the disapproving look on the cafeteria lady’s face. He took his usual seat at the very end of a long table at the back of the room. No one ever occupied this seat, largely because behind it were the toilets and beside it was the food bin, but Wilfrid liked to think it was also due to his long-standing seating arrangement. He’d been working at the company for much longer than anyone, apart from Hal. Hal had been working here since before even Wilfrid. No one knew what he did; he just appeared, sometimes bringing instructions but more often asking what he should be getting on with. No one ever knew, of course. Wilfrid tried to be helpful, occasionally offering to split his own workload with Hal, who always happily agreed.

As he sat down, his colleagues were making the usual small-talk about the weather – “wasn’t it windy this morning?” – And making general complaints about the food available – “even my wife can cook better than this!” – But Wilfrid kept his head down and hoovered up his jelly. It felt satisfying, in a way he’d never experienced before, like an air-bed would feel after being re-inflated. Then Peter, the IT consultant from the fifth floor, turned to him.

“Say, Wilf,” he said, a halfwit smile on his face, “you look different today. Have you been going to the gym?” He said it as if sharing a private joke with himself. Peter had a bit of a complex about his physique. Despite sitting at a desk for eight hours a day like everyone else, he didn’t eat carbohydrates and went to a spinning class every Thursday, a fact which he lorded over the heads of his co-workers at every opportunity. Wilfrid smiled his bashful smile, pleased that he had perfected the expression so quickly. Shaking his head, he tried to scrape the scraps of jelly still clinging to the side of the tubs, avoiding eye contact and hoping he would be free from any more questions. Peter had other plans.

“Wilf, have you heard about the meeting? Probably been too busy gossiping with Hal about the good old days, eh?”

“You’ve been here before the building itself!” The rest of the group tittered.

“I heard about the meeting,” Wilfrid responded, “I only know as much as anyone else.”

“You’ve worked here longer than anyone, Wilf – ”

“Except Hal,” Deborah, the second-floor’s resident photocopier, chipped in.

“That’s right. Except Hal, you’ve worked here longer than anyone.”

“And he has no idea what he’s doing anyway.”

“Who, Wilf?”

“No, Hal.”

“That’s right. You’re the longest-standing employee here who has any sort of clue, however miniscule, of how the company works.”

“Longer than I’d ever want to work here.”

“Though Wilf doesn’t seem to have a clue about much, either. Isn’t that right, Wilf?”

“I’m none the wiser than you,” he said, hoping they would stop reminding him of his extremely long history within the company.

“But the boss comes to you for advice, right?”

“He did, once,” Wilfrid said, “when he needed help with his computer.”

“I thought he asked you about how managers made the strategy-plans for their teams?”

“No, he just wanted a hand when his computer had frozen.”

“So, it wasn’t you who changed the whole way the seventh floor worked, and almost created a divide between the two teams it split into?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.”

“Someone should apologise for the drawings in the ladies’ toilets then, Wilf!”

They all burst into laughter, their cackles making Wilfrid’s jelly ears heat up. Silently, he resumed picking at his jelly, but the others refused to relinquish their grip. They still looked at him when speaking, asked general questions to the group and wiggled their eyebrows suggestively at him for an answer. Wilfrid fell into the rhythm of the conversation; nodding where expected, shaking his head where appropriate, and muttering in agreement when the moment called for it, and generally pretending not to notice that they were making fun of him. (It should be noted that in the duration of this conversation, Wilfrid had returned to the dessert section no less than three times to replenish his jelly supply under the watchful eyes of Peter and the scowl of the cafeteria lady.)

After lunch, Wilfrid and his colleagues took the elevator up to the tenth floor for the meeting. He avoided his own gaze in the wall-to-wall mirrors inside the elevator. As the elevator ascended, his insides felt as if they were sliding down inside him toward his feet. His face felt like it was being drained of its colour, and as he looked in the mirror it looked the same way, too. The jelly was dripping down inside his head like it was ice-cream melting down a cone.

Thankfully no one seemed to notice, all were caught voicing their theories about the meeting. Some thought they would introduce new management, or a change in the promotion structure. Wilfrid couldn’t help but laugh when one young woman thought the meeting would be about the vending machine’s sudden depletion of KitKat Chunkies. It sounded different, more like a chew-toy with a broken squeaker than his usual laugh.

As they stepped out of the elevator Wilfrid lingered in the corridor behind them, eager to be by himself and see if he could even out the spread of jelly within him. It seemed to have pooled around the middle, giving Wilfrid back the chubby middle that Edna was so pleased to see gone.

When the corridor was empty, he had a remarkably silly idea. He put his mouth against his jelly-red stub of a hand, and blew. The jelly sunk down further. He tried again, but sucked this time – and the jelly slurped back into his head like it was being pulled by a magnet. He heard the elevator door opening with another batch of colleagues, and walked behind them into the conference room. Nearly all the seats had been taken, and just as he spotted a free one in the middle row near the end, Peter swooped into it.

“Do you want any gum?” Peter asked.

Wilfrid shook his head.

“That was probably a hint, Wilf!” Deborah said.

“It’s Wilfrid,” he whispered, no louder than a decibel, to her back.

The meeting took place in the large, carpeted room on the top floor. It was rarely used save for the Christmas party and for national business conferences. On Sundays they rented it to the local Women’s Institute, giving them a place to knit and make jam. It was peach usually, Edna’s favourite. Wilfrid had spoken to the women making it and after paying a sum in advance, there was a jar waiting for him on his desk every Monday morning. He and Edna had even been invited to their Christmas Fayre last year. Groups of WI women from all over England had come. Most of them had brought their husbands, which meant that Wilfrid wasn’t the only one spending the entire evening sampling the various cheeses from the buffet. He’d met a nice chap called David, who came all the way from Northumberland to be there. They’d bonded over their mutual appreciation of Red Leicester Cheese and still e-mailed each other occasionally when they’d come across a recipe the other should try. Just last month he’d received a message urging Wilfrid to make a put Red Leicester over a pork pie and heat it in the oven. (He did; it was rather scrumptious.)

A jab in the ribs from Peter the IT consultant alerted Wilfrid to the row of chairs lined up against the back wall. There was a microphone in a stand placed in front of them, just waiting to be the messenger of whatever news the meeting would convey.

The meeting didn’t start positively at all. Mr Grey, the Public Figurehead sat down, picked at his fingernails, and avoided eye contact with everything but his reflection in the window. He was a toad-like man, with multiple warts on his fingers and wide, buggy eyes. The expression on his face never changed; he permanently looked as if he was watching someone take the last roast potato at Christmas dinner. He coughed and rolled his eyes whenever the Executive Director, James Harbour, stumbled over his speech. Mr Harbour already suffered from a naturally nervous disposition, and carried himself like a donkey pulling a load twice its weight. Wilfrid had spoken to him at a work Christmas party once, though they were both a tad tipsy at the time. Wilfrid vaguely remembered talking about Mr Grey, which het James up into one of the most impressive rants on nepotism and incompetence Wilfrid had ever seen. James must have felt embarrassed by his drunken display because whenever Wilfrid raised his hand to wave, James looked down and avoided eye contact.

Peter and Deborah heckled James the entire time he spoke, and encouraged others to do the same. Wilfrid crossed his jelly arms and kept his head low, trying to ignore repeated nudges from Peter. Two of James’ note cards fell the floor through his sweating fingers and the rest of the room laughed in mockery.

“It is with great regret,” he started for the fifth time.

“Get on with it! Sack us all you useless git!” Peter yelled.

“It is with great regret, and a heavy heart that I say—”

“Oh here it comes!” Deborah bellowed.

It went on like this for a while, with Wilfrid coming to pity James, who had taken to gripping his handkerchief in his hand when he wasn’t using it to wipe his brow. After a long and awkward moment when Mr Grey’s phone rang two times in a row, he told the James to cut to the chase as he itched his black toupee. What remained of his own, un-purchased hair was a dark grey, and it looked as though he’d placed a fur-ball on top of his head.

The company was downsizing to half its current workforce.

“We could not be more sorry,” James said, finally.

There was a rumble of discontent at the news.

“They can’t do this to us!” Stephen loosened his dreadful tie.

“What does this mean, eh Wilf?”

Wilfrid didn’t know what they expected him to do. He was just glad James had been honest, rather than using a word like “decruitment,” or “downaging.” Peter the IT consultant had his mouth gaped open like a guppy, but Wilfrid didn’t feel any sympathy. In fact, the news felt altogether agreeable to his new jellied life.

“You said it yourself, Petey,” Wilfrid jibed, “I don’t have much of a clue when it comes to the inner-workings of the company.”

There was an even louder rumble from his colleagues when Wilfrid happily stuck his jelly arm in the air at the mention of voluntary redundancy. He couldn’t bear the thought of spending one more minute in this awful place with these awful people. The only thing that could have kept him working there was the salary, which was paying for his and Edna’s special trip. But James, the increasingly sweaty executive Director, had told the roaring crowd that they would be entitled to a full year’s pay check over a series of months. Wilfrid’s jelly brain told his jelly arm to stick itself up as high as it would jelly-well go.

“Wilf, what are you doing?”

Wilfrid Moore turned to Peter, his jelly eyes full of a grumbling disquiet.

“My name,” he said, “is Wilfrid. Not Wilf. Wilfrid.” His chest puffed out like an army general rallying his troops. “It’s like Wilf, but longer. It has two syllables, two!”

And, with that, he edged his way out of the busy room to the sound of whispers and sarcastic applause.

Wilfrid marched himself straight to his manager’s office and flumped his stub against the door. He pushed it open before Mr Johnson could make it look as if he was actually doing work for once. He was sitting, reclined, throwing scrunched-up paper balls into a plastic bin.

“What in hell’s fire do you think you’re doing, Wyatt?”

“It’s Wilfrid!” He approached Mr Johnson’s oak desk, a much more solidly structured appliance than the plastic desks Wilfrid used, with confidence. “I’ve just come from the meeting. It’s a shame that you weren’t there, sir. Peter made me realise something very interesting.”

“Is he the little sod that works in IT?”

“The one and only.”

“He did something… interesting?”

“As unbelievable as it sounds, he did. He reminded me of my long history at the company. During my many, many, years of experience, I’ve come to know a few things around here. Especially when I fixed your computer last year. Do you remember?”

Mr Johnson’s eyes narrowed as he tried to predict where this conversation was going.

“Where is this conversation going?” He asked.

“I seem to recall the documents that your computer was frozen on,” Wilfrid continued, “they seemed very important, Sir, very important indeed.”

“I don’t recall.”

“Don’t you? Let me jog your memory. They were the company’s expenses reports from the last two months and, as I recall, it was coming up to a meeting with Mr Harbour and Mr Grey. I helped you save the documents, but that’s not all I did.”

“Woolsey-”

“Wilfrid.”

“Wilfrid. What are you insinuating?”

“Those reports were shoddy and disorganised, Mr Johnson. You and I both know that. You were estimating figures; none of the numbers you’d typed onto the spreadsheet matched the printed receipts that were on your fine oak desk.”

“It’s mahogany.”

“It’s certainly not. But nevermind that, I corrected the numbers, and noticed one other thing. The expenses far exceed anything the company could hope to receive to balance it out—”

“I’m aware the company is in trouble, Wally, we both know what the meeting was about—”

“But I know where the money’s been going!” Wilfrid cried.

For a moment, there was dead silence. The thought of Edna was all that kept Wilfrid standing in the room. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr Johnson: I’m going to tell you where the money’s been going, or I will tell Mr. Grey and Mr. Harbour where it went.”

Mr Johnson levelled his gaze at Wilfrid. The move was his secret weapon: he could always stare down a colleague’s bluff. It’s what hadd carried him all the way to this corner office when he had, in fact, absolutely no idea what went on at Bodged Offices Ltd. The problem was, though, his aged employee’s bizarrely fresh and reddish skin kept throwing off his concentration. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.

“Well, go on.”

“You’re overpaying for your office supplies.”

“…what?”

“That’s it. You let Irene order the office supplies, who gets them from her sister who owns a scrapbooking company. You pay twenty pence per sheet of paper! And it’s the same place you buy your ink, staples, pens, paperclips and all kinds of stationary from. I don’t even know why you bother to use them at all. We’re a web-based company.”

“Irene said they were very good,” Mr Johnson squeaked.

“If you switched to a different manufacturer you could save enough to keep on more staff.”

Mr Johnson turned nearly as red as Wilfrid. “What’s your angle here? Is this your way of making sure you keep your job?”

“Actually, no, Sir,” Wilfrid said, “I’ve volunteered myself for redundancy.”

“But—”

“I’m not finished. I’ve volunteered myself for redundancy, but I want a bigger package. It’ll be in return for my help in this situation, of course; I’m no thief.”

“You realise that with this kind of eye for detail you could have a job here for the rest of your life?”

“I don’t want to work here for the rest of my life. I want three years’ salary.”

“You could have another thirty year’s salaries if you stayed on. You could be my assistant.”

“I would rather be eaten alive by cockroaches, Sir.”

“Why should I give this to you? If I don’t, would you stay?”

“I was hoping you’d understand that my discretion on your gross inaccuracies, and my helpfulness in saving the jobs of many skilled and enthusiastic workers, would be reason enough to reward my hard work at the company. So, three year’s salary is what I’m asking for.”

“That’s it?”

“Well,” Wilfrid said, calculating the minimum retirement age in his head, “perhaps we could make it four. And then I want the premium pension plan.”

“Shake on it.”

“I’d rather have it in writing.”

Under Wilfrid’s watchful eye, Mr Johnson noted Wilfrid’s increased pay packet. It was officially approved because of Wilfrid’s history with the company, and with the direct signature of his superior no one refused it. Mr Johnson typed it up very slowly, all the while trying to persuade Wilfrid to keep his job. He offered Wilfrid a promotion, even a desk made of real wood, but it was no use: Wilfrid had made up his mind.

So, at the end of one cloudy morning in October, Wilfrid Moore of 72 Ambridge Road returned home jobless, toothless, and fingerless. (But with the promise of a sizeable cash sum to be wired into his account within the next 6-8 working days.) He stopped in a travel agency on his way home and picked up brochures for all the countries Edna had mentioned she’d like to see. With the way things had turned out for the Moores, their travelling extravaganza wouldn’t be limited to a month. They had enough money, now, to sell their own house and move somewhere new. They could start an adventure of their own, just Edna and Wilfrid the Jellybaby.

It hadn’t taken Wilfrid long to empty his desk, and the cardboard box they’d given him was only half-full by the end of it. Though, he did come across a jar full of peach jam from the women at the WI, and wondered if jam could, too, be digested by his jelly stomach. Hidden underneath various scraps of paper he found a spare tie which he had been keeping in the top drawer, after he’d had a bad experience spilling tea down himself. Thankfully Wilfrid always waited until his tea was room-temperature before drinking it, so it didn’t burn, but the embarrassment had taught him a lesson. From that point on he’d kept a tie in his drawer and a spare shirt in his briefcase. In fact, it was the only thing inside his briefcase. He’d only bought it because back in the eighties it was the kind of thing that working men did. Edna had found a lovely leather one and wrapped it up for his birthday; at first he carried it, empty, to and from work every day. But after the Great Tea-Spilling-incident of Ninety-Two, it was always home to a spare white shirt. It went perfectly with the tie, which was blue, plain blue, which he put on Stephen’s desk in the quiet hope he might actually wear it.

Edna had been quiet when he had finished telling her his news. She’d spent the day changing various parts of their home; she’d replaced all the doorknobs with door handles, and all the lights powered by cords to light-switches. They’d both have to get used to Wilfrid not having any fingers. She always had been a practical woman, and Wilfrid had always tried to be a practical man for her. He would always remember the day when, as they were sitting in a café not far from the local library, he turned to her and suggested they get an engagement ring to make their engagement official. She’d coughed slightly to avoid choking on a bite of her cheese and tomato sandwich.

“Yes,” she’d replied, “I suppose we should.”

That was how he’d proposed. They picked up the ring that afternoon.

“Well,” she breathed, “it’s certainly been an eventful day, hasn’t it?”

“Our holiday’s all paid for,” Wilfrid said, “we have enough to extend it. I was thinking we could even move out there.”

“I think we’ll have to go somewhere cooler, though,” Edna said, fingering the brochures lying on the kitchen table, “otherwise you’ll melt, and I don’t think there’s a jelly-mould made for human proportions.” She picked up one for Norway and looked inside. “I suppose I could make one, though, just in case. We may need it for the summers ahead of us.”

Wilfrid smiled a red-jelly smile and pulled Edna into a tight hug. He was much squishier now, and she enjoyed the bouncy feel of his new embrace. She pushed her face into his chest. He smelt like strawberries.

“I went to the supermarket today, too,” she said, pulling away and heading towards the pantry. He followed obediently and his eyes lit up as she opened the door and revealed a pantry full, full to the very brim, of teabags and jelly.

She really was good to him.