The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

environmental disaster. Dentists recommend that we change toothbrushes every three months. Four times a year. That means you’re going to get through about three hundred toothbrushes in your lifetime. Worse than that, it means that in the UK alone, we probably throw away about two hundred million toothbrushes every year. Good for the big corporations, of course – it means people have to keep buying new ones. But that’s old-style thinking, Max. You can’t put sales ahead of the environment any more. For the sake of humanity, we’ve all got to change our tune. The profit motive has to play second fiddle. It’s no use the band just playing on while the Titanic sinks. Somebody’s got to start rearranging the deck chairs.’

I nodded wisely, doing my best to keep up.

‘Now – Alan knew the solutions weren’t difficult to find. They were right on his doorstep, staring him in the face. He knew we were standing at a crossroads. There were two obvious roads to go down, both leading in the same direction, and the signposts were pretty clear.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled something out. I thought it was going to be a pen, but in fact it was a toothbrush. ‘Option number one,’ he said, ‘a wooden toothbrush. Beautiful, isn’t it? This is one of our leading models. Handmade by a company in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. Made from sustainable wood, of course – one hundred per cent European pine. No damage to the rainforests here. And when you’ve finished with it, you can throw it on the fire, or shred it and put it in the compost.’

I took the toothbrush, weighed it in my hand appraisingly and ran my finger along its elegant curves. It was a handsome object, there was no denying that.

‘What are the bristles made of?’ I asked.

‘Boar-hair,’ said Trevor. He noticed that I recoiled slightly. ‘Interesting reaction, Max. And by no means uncommon. What’s the problem, exactly? Much better than nylon. Very good for the environment, using boar hair.’

‘Unless you happen to be a boar,’ Lindsay pointed out.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘There’s just something a bit weird about putting pig’s hairs in your mouth when you’re cleaning your teeth. Something a bit … unclean?’

‘Lots of people would agree with you,’ said Trevor. ‘And you can’t expect them to change their attitudes overnight. If you’re going to preach to people, you’ve got to convert them first. It’s a gradual process. All roads lead to Rome, but it wasn’t built in a day. And so, for the more conservatively inclined, we have … this.’ He produced another toothbrush from the same pocket. It was pale red, almost transparent. ‘Good old-fashioned plastic handle. Good old-fashioned nylon bristles. But …’ He twisted the top of the toothbrush, and the head came away neatly. ‘… Completely detachable, you see? Throw away the head after you’ve used it, and the handle will still last you a lifetime. Minimal damage to the environment.’

‘And minimal profits,’ I said.

Trevor gave a pitying laugh and shook his head. ‘The thing is, Max, we don’t think that way at Guest. That’s short-term thinking. That’s thinking inside the box. We’re outside the box. In fact, we’re so far outside the box, that the box is actually in another room, and we’ve forgotten where that room is, and even if we could remember, we’ve given the keys back ages ago, and for all we know the locks might have been changed since then anyway. None of that matters, do you see?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m beginning to see.’

‘We’re not saying that profitability isn’t an issue,’ Lindsay put in. ‘Profitability is very much an issue. We have to stay ahead of the competition.’

‘Lindsay’s right. The fact is, we don’t have the field to ourselves.’

‘Really?’

‘You see, when you’re like Alan, and you have truly original ideas,’ said Trevor, ‘it’s inevitable that other people are going to have them as well. There are plenty of wooden toothbrushes on the market. Plenty of toothbrushes with detachable heads, too. But this, we think, is the killer. Nobody else has one of these.’

From his pocket he drew a third toothbrush. It was the most unusual one yet. Yes, it was wooden, but the head – which seemed to be detachable – featured an extraordinarily long, thin, synthetic brush which swivelled when you twisted it. It was a thing of beauty and wonder.

‘I can see you’re impressed,’ said Trevor, with a smile of satisfaction. ‘I shall leave you to contemplate that for a few minutes. Same again, for both of you?’

While Trevor was away at the bar, Lindsay and I seemed to reach an unspoken agreement that we would not talk about toothbrushes. Unfortunately, since we knew so little about each other, it was hard to think of anything else to talk about. A situation like this would normally have embarrassed me, but today I was feeling far too cheery to be discomfited by it. My thoughts, you see, were full of Poppy, who had made contact with me again that afternoon. My mobile phone had already been replaced – without having to change the number – and this meant that Poppy had been able to call me today with an invitation to dinner: dinner on Friday evening, at her mother’s house, no less, where I would have the chance to meet (among other people, I assumed) the famous Uncle Clive. All day the world had been seeming a better, friendlier, more hopeful place as a result – which was why I now found myself smiling at Lindsay with what looked (I hope) like genuine warmth. She was in her late thirties, I guessed, with platinum blonde hair cut into a Louise Brooks-style bob. By now she had taken off her businesslike grey pinstriped jacket to reveal a white sleeveless top which showed off her pale, slender arms. I wondered if Trevor had told her much about me: anything about our long-standing friendship; the many years we had been neighbours in Watford; what a fine, upstanding, reliable, sociable chap I was. That sort of thing.

‘Trevor tells me that you’ve been suffering from clinical depression,’ she said, draining the remains of her gin and tonic.

‘Oh, did he mention that? Well, yes – it’s true. I’ve been off work for a few months.’

‘That’s what I heard. I must say I was surprised. You don’t look to me like someone who’s very depressed.’

This was good news, at any rate. ‘I think I’m over the worst now. In fact I have to go into work on Friday, to see the Occupational Health Officer. They want to know if I’m going back, or if they can, you know … let me go.’

Lindsay took the slice of lemon out of her glass and bit into it. ‘And … ?’

‘And?’