|Well, I have just about recovered from the election job. Although I have only managed about 12 hours sleep since Friday morning.
I was the first one at our polling station, a little before 6 a.m. No celebrity spots. We had a very low turnout (less than thirty percent) and most of the voters were over 50. There were no complaints and no fuck-ups that I know about. At 9 p.m. we packed up quickly and the two presiding officers (brother and sister curiously) drove me to the count with the ballot boxes.
The scene was chaotic, much madder than I have experienced before. I rushed into the hall and showed my ticket of entry to the first person I saw who looked remotely receptive. As it happened this was the CEO (Chief Executive) who was acting as *returning officer* that night. This was a curious coincidence of course, but it also gave me a slant on the event that would get more vivid as the evening wore on.
It made me wonder what the hell the CEO (who is on about £150,000pa) was doing in a gig like this. I had the immediate idea that she had probably declined any pay (about £300 I think) and was there in the thick of it to demonstrate her involvement. Maybe I'm mad.
She walked me over to the officer running my bank of desks, who turned out to be my department head. They were talking but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Then the CEO turns to me and says: "Oh I'm sorry, I thought you were late!" Most of the other counting staff are in situ. I am not the only counting assistant coming late from the stations, but we got there so fast I must have been one of the first. I say nothing to her of course. I don't care that much what people think and I am tired of explanations.
My boss takes me to the table and brings me a bottle of Highland Spring. My mouth is dry. I am probably smelling bad because the last shower I had was on Wednesday morning and I have been in the same clothes (unwashed when I put them on) for 16 hours. There is a hiatus. I sipped my water and considered the scene.
Because I am a great reader of Hunter S. Thompson, I feel I have an insight into what's happening. Without Hunter I might be lost...
There are roughly 400 people in the hall and everyone looks spaced in one way or another. Even at this stage we all have red eye (and there are another 8 hours to go). Most of the candidates, especially the Tories, look like freaks to me. The more I look at these people the further away I feel from them, the people who vote for them, and the whole political process in fact. I should point out that I voted by post this year (I had no choice as a poll clerk) and I felt I could do nothing but spoil the ballot paper as a protest. I wrote "PRICK" next to the name of every candidate. Luckily I did not come across my own ballot paper, otherwise I might have gone strange.
I am mesmerised by the grooming of some (most) of the tories and their wives. I have no idea how you make yourself look like that - especially the hair. It's like watching an American soap. In fact, one of the blues looks very much like Larry Hagman - only neater. I had to resist the temptation to point out the similarity to the Abbey National bank teller sitting next to me. Larry had the self-assured, sardonic look, even with his red eye, of an aristocratic serial rapist from an eighteenth century novel.
There are a lot of Tories here tonight, mainly because they are going to win the borough for the first time in 17 years. That's fine by me, because like most of the other people *who voted* I am sick of the Lib Dems. They have been in power for too long. On the basis that any change is good I am glad to see them go. I would have much preferred the Greens to get in. I would have voted for them, with greater fervour if I had seen before what I saw later this night, but they did not field a candidate for my ward.
There is no escaping the party people even when the counting starts. It might be worse in fact, because now they hover over you, scrutinising your actions. The young Tory supporter in front of me is leaning on the wooden partition so heavily he knocks it on to the table twice. The second time I smile, nod and give him the thumbs up sign, as if to say, 'nice one you arsehole.' I learnt this idiom from a public school boy many years ago. I thought the tyro would understand.
He is clearly new to all this. Some of the others are keeping him up to speed with what we are doing. We sort the ballots into block votes (all three votes for the same party) mixed or single votes and spoilt or possibly spoilt papers.
At this point the observers are more focused on the papers in our hands than we are. They are keeping their own tallies. They need to know. They need to know as soon as it is possible to know. They need to know before then. Just get an idea, a hint. Why they have this need to know the result before it is announced is something I cannot understand. They are making superhuman efforts. I try to tally the block votes so quickly that they cannot follow me. I hold my hand over the papers when I unfold them. It keeps me amused.
Once the block votes are counted we have another breather. There is intense hubbub in the hall now. Speculation, strategy, tactics, gossip, chit-chat, greetings, theory, whispering, planning, orders, comment, comparison, excitement, desperation, complaints, bad jokes, fatalism, flash photography, expensive mobiles and mathematics.
Then, Goddess help me, it happens. It's not a big thing. I don't want you to get the wrong impression, but it might change my life for the next few months. However, it may change my life forever - in a small way. Things might be very slightly different, almost imperceptibly, forever, now - irrespective of what I say later.
It depends on your point of view I suppose. For example: I got up the next morning and set about my life as per normal. I sorted out a large pile of paperwork, tidied up my room, worked on this web site and watched the Bernt Capra film Mindwalk, which I enjoyed immensely. Things seemed normal.
But in the early hours of Friday morning after the block votes had been counted I looked across to the next bank of tables, to the next line of party observers and saw what I think may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. It made perfect sense at the time. Everything about her was overwhelming - everything, that is, that you tell from a person at a range of 15 yards. She was, for me, the new definition of beauty. She was wearing a green rosette. That's as much as I can say, I suppose. I can't describe her any further than the rosette. I couldn't make any mental notes at the time because I find it impossible to think that clinically. Even now I cannot think of any metaphors, similes, or specific qualities, shapes, symmetries, colours, or patterns that can help me (or you) with the situation.
I'm not sure what it means. I have had about two or three of these moments in my life before. In every instance I have not had the courage to even talk to the woman, and this is no exception.
I accept now how powerless I am in these situations. However, I should have known instantly that this was the beginning of a terminal decline in the history of the event. I should have known at that moment that later I would come to reflect on my own failure and my contempt and frustration with the people around me in the hall would grow as the morning wore on.
I spent some time with my table leader tallying the mixed votes. She read the ballots whilst I made marks on the specially designed sheets. The conversation went like this (for about an hour):
Table Leader: "Elengorn."
Me: "Elengorn."
Table Leader: "Knight."
Me: "Knight."
Table Leader: "No third."
Me: "No third."
Table Leader: "Knight."
Me: "Knight."
Table Leader: "No second."
Me: "No second."
Table Leader: "No third."
Me: "No third."
I hope you get the idea.
After a while I couldn't take any more. The Table Leader cut me loose and I went to the toilet before I lost control my bowels. There were two cops in the gents who laughed when I entered. They both looked stoned. The toilet was the worst I have seen in the last 25 years. Maybe I have been lucky.
Back in the hall I chatted to some colleagues. The asked me questions, probably very simple questions, which I could not answer. They found this very funny. I went back to my table and idly scanned the crowd for the green rosette woman. I would find her in the crowd, watch her closely, then get distracted and lose her. This happened about 6 or 7 times. Each time this happened - progressively with more conviction - I came to the conclusion that she had probably left the hall. The results of the wards were being announced now and there were the usual celebrations. Over the next few hours the crowd began to thin out.
We had to stay even though our work was done. We were all punch drunk and getting increasingly furious at this situation. By 4 a.m. no one knew what they were doing, me least of all. There was dislocation in everything we said and did. I had long since lost sight of the green rosette goddess. I was swearing continuously. If the CEO was going to take the microphone again to thank us for our work I had already braced myself to shout abuse at her. Then news came round that we could leave but no one seemed sure that it was true. No one seemed to care.
I grabbed my jacket and rucksack and walked over to my Department Head - the guy who was running the whole bank of desks. He seemed surprised at my question and said: "Yes, sure, you can go." I let the others know and walked out as quickly as possible.
I walked home quickly in the pre-dawn glow. When I got home I switched on the TV and started drinking my Pedro Ximenez Special Edition 1984 Lagavulin - an expensive way I have of dealing with my problems, which seem quite numerous judging by the amount I get through. I could barely think of the green goddess. The emotion I felt when I looked at her had already slipped away. It's as if I had to pay too heavy a price to have seen her. I slept sporadically on Friday and Saturday, frequently woken by nightmares.
Chris.
.......
Copyright Chris Light 2002