Page 31

‘Morning!’ she said, beaming at the receptionist, Clare, who smiled back uncertainly.

She showed her pass and walked confidently to the lift, pressing the button and waiting for it to reach her.

Then, stepping in, making brief eye contact with the other passengers, she pressed button four and was whisked upwards.

She’d reminded herself on the way there that for the past eight years or more, this was what she’d wanted.

She’d just lost her sense of direction. The key was to embrace it, fully.

She’d printed out her latest five-year plan and with any luck, she’d still be on track despite the blip.

And the flat wasn’t important, not really.

Tonight, she’d tell Pascal her plans. Maybe they’d see each other again, who knew?

She suppressed the slightly nauseous feeling that rose up in her when she thought about it, but quickly focused her thoughts on today’s work.

Once she got her feet back under the desk, her eyes on the files she had to work on, those thoughts would recede and she’d be back in her old groove. It was fine. It would be fine.

‘Hi,’ she said, walking past various desks. ‘Hi, how are you? Great. Good to hear.’ She would hold her head high, ignore any curious looks or comments, and soon her outburst too would be written over like obsolete code and forgotten.

She drew out her chair and sank into it, feeling rather edgy, and fired up her computer. There were twenty new emails from this morning alone. Good. She’d have something to get her teeth into.

It took her a good hour to familiarise herself with where everything was up to, but she was soon on the phone, reintroducing herself to clients, informing them that she was back from her travels.

At least she had been somewhere, she reflected, so she didn’t have to lie about what it had been like.

Most people sounded downright jealous, then the conversation would turn to facts and figures and arrangements and customer surveys, and they’d get bogged down in the numbing numbers they threw around all day.

She ignored a call from the notaire who’d sent her the original letter, and another from her mother, concentrating solely on work.

And when Maurice dropped by in the afternoon to check that she’d read up on the client they were meeting, she was able to fire off some relevant data that had him nodding in admiration.

‘Good show!’ he told her. ‘Sure we’ll snag ourselves a new client. ’

Perhaps, at some point down the road, she’d find a way to stop him perching on the end of her desk, she thought after he’d left.

He couldn’t surely get much rest from draping one of his buttocks onto the laminated surface, and there was something proprietorial about it that she didn’t like.

Yes, he was her line manager. No, that didn’t mean he could put his bottom wherever he pleased.

She resolved to think of a tactful way to prevent it happening again. Perhaps it was time to move the cactus?

By the end of the day, she was feeling more like her old self than she had in weeks – even before the incident, she’d been tired and run-down and not firing on all cylinders. Now, batteries recharged, she felt truly on top of her game. Good.

She thought about the café, briefly. It seemed distant, almost like a dream, from this perspective. She let the thought flit away and returned her concentration to the report she was reading.

Five-thirty came and the office thinned out. Half an hour until the meeting where she’d prove herself more than worthy; make them realise how good it was that she was back.

It was when she was exiting the bathroom, after restyling her hair and topping up her make-up in readiness for the meeting, that it happened. Her phone buzzed in her bag and she drew it out to check the screen.

Amber

Home! Call me?

Becky stepped back into the cubicle – personal calls weren’t forbidden at work, and this was after her allotted hours, but still it seemed unprofessional to be making them on the first day back. ‘Hi, you!’ she said as her friend answered. ‘I’m so glad you’ve been discharged.’

‘Me too.’

‘So what are you doing? Lying on the sofa waiting for your mum to feed you grapes?’

Amber let out a rather hollow laugh. ‘In bed,’ she said. ‘It’s weird, I couldn’t wait to leave, but now I’m home without people monitoring me, I feel a bit… strange, I guess.’

‘That’s understandable. But they must be pretty confident you’re OK to have let you out?’

‘I guess.’ There was a silence. ‘It’s crazy, you know, being back in my bedroom. I swear Mum’s going to tell me to go to bed at nine and stop me having my phone overnight, like I’m fifteen again.’

Becky laughed. ‘She’s just being protective.’

Amber’s voice wobbled. ‘Becky,’ she said, ‘I realise this probably sounds pathetic and you were back at work today so probably don’t fancy a train ride, but could you come see me? I feel… it just feels so odd. I…’

‘Oh, Amber.’

‘Yeah, I know. I hate feeling like this. But can you? The train’s quite quick out to Hatfield, if you go from King’s Cross? I really need to see you.’

‘I’ve got—’ Becky began. But then, ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course I can. Hang in there.’

She slipped the phone back in her pocket and went to find Maurice.

In one of the glass-fronted meeting rooms, an IT guy was fiddling with some wires.

Maurice was standing and watching him as if about to offer some sage advice, when in reality he barely knew how to send emails by himself.

There were a few other junior team members there, sitting upright at the oval table, thrilled, no doubt, to be included. And Stevie, tapping away on a laptop.

See, there were more than enough of them to man the fort.

Maurice asking her was just a courtesy, and a lovely one.

But he’d understand, she told herself. She let herself in and his face broke into a smile on seeing her.

‘Rebecca!’ he said. ‘I wonder if you could brief the team on the latest figures, I know you’ve been looking over them this afternoon. ’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ve put them all in an email so everyone can…’

‘Still, nice to have it come from the horse’s mouth, so to speak?’

‘OK. Look, may I have a quick word first?’ she said, jerking her head so that he understood he had to come a little closer, retreat to a private corner so they wouldn’t be overheard.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked once he’d made it to her side. ‘Client problems?’

‘Oh no. Not at all. More… well, my problem. It’s a friend of mine, my best friend, Amber.

Did I mention she was in hospital? Anyway, she’s been discharged and she’s feeling a bit vulnerable.

I thought – given the short notice and that you clearly don’t need me to join – it would be a good idea to go and see her. ’

Her smile slowly faded as she looked at Maurice’s confused expression. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Are you the primary carer for this friend?’

‘Well, no.’

‘And I take it she’s being looked after.’

‘She’s at her mum’s, but…’

‘Well, then!’ he said, breaking into a smile. ‘She’s fine. I’m sure. Perhaps if it were family… but it seems she’s being well cared for. Shall we?’

‘No!’ Becky said, a little too loudly. The juniors’ heads swivelled in their direction then quickly returned to their respective screens. ‘No, Maurice. I’m sorry. I do have to go. She is my family.’

‘You said she was a friend?’ Maurice’s brows knit together in a fluffy frown.

‘She’s more than that! She’s my person. A sister.’

Maurice’s forehead creased further. ‘I’m sorry, Rebecca.

I understand that you’ve been having some…

emotional difficulties. And we’re all thrilled you’re back.

But you must realise that this isn’t the kind of job that ends neatly at 5p.m. We all have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Besides, the client will be here in a moment so… ’

‘No, Maurice. I’m not staying.’

‘I’m afraid I insist.’

‘No!’ she said, no longer caring if it was loud. ‘Maurice, you buy my time from me. My expertise. But you don’t own me! I’m a free agent. And I’m going to see my friend. Because she needs me, and I’ve let her down too many times. She never, ever asks.’

‘I really must?—’

‘And it means something, you know. That she’s actually asking? If I don’t go now, it’ll just be another let-down. Another time I’ve not been there for her. I can’t do it to her.’

Maurice’s face was turning a deeper shade of red with every syllable.

‘You realise this could be construed as gross misconduct,’ he said, his mouth forming a sneer. The true snake coming out from under its fleshy, more personable, stone.

‘Well then, consider me grossly misconducting myself,’ she said. ‘Look, if the last weeks have taught me anything, it’s that outside this little microcosm of a firm, there is actually life. The world doesn’t revolve around Barringtons!’

Maurice just about managed a contemptuous snort.

‘This place isn’t everything,’ she said, feeling tears come. ‘And if working here means I have to be someone I don’t want to be… Someone who throws laptops, or has twitchy eyelids, or doesn’t have time to visit an elderly aunt, or ends up being a crap friend, then maybe it’s just not worth it.’

She got to the door, then turned and looked at the enormous fish tank installed to apparently ‘calm the atmosphere’.

Inside it, the poor tropical fish swam confusedly around an artificial environment, emitting calming vibes to the workers who were also moving around a confined artificial environment.

She was tempted for a moment to make a grand, Jerry Maguire-like gesture.

But in the end, she decided against it. She’d never liked fish much anyway.

Instead, she turned, eyes burning, and strode towards the lift. Pressing the button, she waited an inordinately long time for the lift to come, continually glancing over her shoulder, wondering whether someone might come racing after her to persuade her to stay.

But nobody did.