Jed reaches towards me. I swerve out of his reach and scramble up the stairs. I hear him and Sonia going at it.
‘You’re the bitch here, Sonia.’
‘Screw you, Jed.’
‘Think you’ve got that the wrong way round because I hear that’s what you’re gagging for me to do to you….’
I shut my door ever so quietly back in my own aching solitude. I don’t need a do-gooder or mirror to tell me I’m the physical embodiment of the wreck of the century. I could lean against the wall and cry but what would be the point? Plus, there’s been enough water letting for one night. I’ve made a decision though. I get to action, shoving my gear into my rucksack.
A gentle tap-tap sounds against the door. ‘Rachel, can I come in, babe?’ His jumbled breathing is audible through the door. Poor Jed. Sounds like his latest gig has bombed.
Should I or shouldn’t I – let him in? He’d provide a shoulder to lean on but that won’t change what we both know – my time here is up. I open the door. For the first time I see how tired my friend looks, the drawn skin that pushes the bones on his face to the foreground.
‘Where you going to go?’ he asks, sounding as dejected, defeated, as I feel.
I shrug. Think about popping on a fake smile to ease the tension but the very life has been sucked out of me. ‘I’ll find somewhere. None of this is your fault. You’ve been the perfect bestie a person could ever want.’
My arms hug him tight. His hard breath stains the side of my neck as he hesitantly asks, ‘So what’s with filling the bath? The bucket of water by the bed?’
I haul back from him as if his skin is the hottest thing on this earth. We stare at each other, friend to friend. Eventually I pivot away and move across to the window. Tease my rope with two fingers as my gaze is captured by the dark new day outside.
I tell him what I’ve never confessed to anyone else. ‘I have a fear of fire. I know it’s crazy but wherever I live I have to be ready in case a fire breaks out. So I have to have a bucket of water next to me when I sleep and the bath filled up so I can refill my bucket if I need to.’
My words run on with the speed of a river flowing. ‘I have a fear of enclosed underground spaces.’ My fingers twist painfully into the rope. ‘I always need to know where the window is as a means of escape so that’s why I hang the rope.’
I say no more. I wait, chest and throat so tight, pulse racing like mad as I wait for him to tell me I’m nuts. That it’s all in my imagination. Or ask what happened to make me harbour these compulsions and fears.
But all he says is, ‘One of my exes had a fear of big toes. Insisted when we were in the sack I keep my socks on.’
I look over at him, eyes squinting. ‘You’re making that up.’
Jed puts his hands in the air. ‘As God is my witness. She saw my hairy big toes one day and raced from the room and threw up.’ There’s a twinkle in his eyes so I can’t be sure if he’s telling the truth or spinning a yarn. I suspect the latter: Jed’s way of trying to put me back together. I’m grateful he doesn’t dig deeper, wanting to know what turned me into such a mess. Just as well: I’d never have told him.
‘The others said you don’t have to go tonight,’ Jed informs me. Not Sonia though, I bet. Probably waiting downstairs with a pitchfork to see me on my way. His voice lightens. ‘We’ll sort this all out tomorrow. Sleep tight.’
After he’s gone, his footsteps padding away into the waking morning, I sit on the bed until I sense the shifting of the energy of the house back to its usual vibe, the others all retreated to their rooms. For the last time, in this room, I do my daily ritual of going to the window. Open up. Haul the rope back and place it in my bag. There will be no tomorrow for me and Jed. Not in this house anyway.
I use my toes to go downstairs. Open and close the front door. Walk away, bag on my back, empty bucket in my hand and I’m soon swallowed by the city’s anonymous nocturnal shade. And walk, and walk. Where I’m going I don’t know. I’ve run out of places to hide.
Fifteen
I hesitate before pressing the security system to get into the building the next morning. The plaque on the wall doesn’t look like a memorial today but a faded tombstone of a mass grave. I nod respectfully at The 22 and then avert my gaze as quickly as possible. The lock on the door pops and I go inside.
Leaden feet take me up the stairs. I notice their polish isn’t so bright today, the chrome bannister not as dazzling. But who am I to talk? After a rough night in my new temporary home, I know what I must look like. Shattered. Sore-eyed. Tousled. Clothes that need reacquainting with an iron. Hardly the picture of someone Michael would want to keep on in his company. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives me my marching orders.
I pray he doesn’t. I have to find out if that was Philip’s face on Keats’s computer. That’s what matters now. I’m prepared to grovel, eat dirt or dance in all my birthday-suit glory for the zombies on Pizza Tuesday if that’s what it takes.
The boss waits for me at his usual spot at his desk. The saliva dries inside my mouth, my tongue a beached whale that can’t move. The expression he sends my way is bored, blank. Immediately, the tiny atom of security I feel withers within. I grab a huge pull of air through my nose to settle my nerves.
With a flick of his wrist, Michael waves me to sit. When I’m in the chair, he begins. ‘Let’s make this short and sweet. What are we going to do about this situation? Because things aren’t quite working out the way I thought they would.’ His fingers steeple, adding to his air of deep contemplation. ‘We need to think of some solutions here. You and me together.’
Two of my fingers tap-tap-tap against the hard bone of my knee below the desk in the desperate hope there are pressure points there to calm me down. I clear my throat. Sure, I’m burnt out, frazzled, but I’m not buckling. I’m my dad’s daughter all the way. Whatever life has thrown at me, I’ve never buckled. I might have nearly crumpled the other day when I went to see Dad, but I didn’t. Just as I can’t afford to now.
I find my voice, which is steady. Strong. ‘Obviously I’m disappointed that you’re disappointed.’ Dad taught me that phrase years ago. ‘Everyone’s Happy’ is what he calls it. The other party thinks you’ve apologised, when you haven’t really and you haven’t admitted to doing anything, so saving face.
The heat of blood beneath my skin floods my face when I see the arched expression Michael throws at me. Ah! I think he knows all about the tricks of ‘Happy’ phrases.
He leans back in his seat as if I’m a sculpture in a gallery he’s trying to get a new perspective on. ‘Now, I like that. Business talk. Smart. That’s one of the reasons I took you on because I thought you were smart—’
I jump in when I know I should really let his words run their course. ‘But I was upfront at the interview that I’d never been a management consultant. You assured me that the skills from my previous employment would be useful to you.’
‘So, where are they?’ A muscle in his cheek furiously beats. ‘It’s not my job to bring you up to speed. I don’t have to tell Keats, Joan or the others how to do their jobs, and I shouldn’t have to tell you.’
He contorts his lips like a spot ready to rupture. ‘Let’s look at the facts here. You go sick when you’re hardly through the front door. The reports you write wouldn’t be worthy of an intern. Keats says that your work is slow, simplistic, and the end product only fit for the bin.’
My fingers stop tapping as they curl into a fist with deadly intent. Keats might be Mister No Speakee but he’s been loud and clear enough to do a thorough number on me. If he were here right now, I’d do him some very, very serious damage.
I go on the defensive. ‘Maybe I was hoping that Keats would support me in a more productive way.’ I raise my hands above desk level and deliberately wring them. Turn my voice into poor helpless girly-me tone. I know, not exactly twenty-first century womanhood but I’m using every weapon in my arsenal. ‘It hasn’t been the easiest thing being supervised by s
omeone who doesn’t talk to me.’ I add a pitying shake for good measure. ‘He’s so busy. Doesn’t have time for me. Just the other day—’
‘I get the picture.’ Michael’s pensive, the outside of his thumb circles his temple. ‘So, what are you planning to do about it?’ There’s a resigned softness to his voice.
And that’s what makes me realise what Michael is. A shapeshifter. I can’t be sure which Michael I’ll end up encountering. Caring, sharing Michael of the dimples fame with Sister Sledge’s We Are Family as his ringtone. Or broody moody Michael who thinks smiling is a sign of a terminal disease.
So I tread carefully, talk slowly, discarding the defenceless female act. ‘I accept there’s obvious room for improvement with my performance. There’ll be no more sickness. I’m trying my best to develop a teamwork ethic with my co-workers. This is not a situation I want an employer to find himself in where my work is concerned.’
Michael mulls this over. Then he sighs deeply and pushes some papers across the desk. ‘You need to look at these online courses and videos. They should help you get a handle on what we do here. Obviously, you’ll be watching these in your own time and you’ll be expected to do it in the systems room after work has finished. You need to pull your socks up, Rachel. Is that understood?’
In my own time? In the systems room? ‘Are you suggesting that I work late in the…?’ I can’t hold back the catch that yanks the words to the back of my mouth. I cough. Try again. ‘In the basement on my own?’ In the late evening. Not a soul in sight. No window. With only the humming walls and the desolate blue lights for company. Good grief, I can’t do that. Not even for Philip? I slam my nightmarish reservations to the darkest corner of my mind.
Michael’s on his feet, so I stand unsteadily too. He checks his watch as if he’s on the clock, which I suppose he is. ‘I usually work late too, so I’ll be here when you’re skilling yourself up on the courses I’ve selected. I know this is short notice so I want you to start at the beginning of next week.’
I hope he doesn’t hear my punched air of relief.
I leave. Allow myself a tiny smile. I haven’t been sent packing. I psych myself up with the confidence I need to get another day over in the basement. To figure out how I’m going to get access to Keats’s computer.
I shut Michael’s door, the handle hot in my hand for a mini-second before I let go. I’m stopped by the sight of Joanie lurking in the doorway of her office. Correction: lurking. That word’s unfair to her because her features are painted with grave concern and consternation as she worries her bottom lip, fingers stapled tight to the edge of the door. She doesn’t speak but pulls the door back, inviting me in. She leans past me, quietly setting the door shut. Of course, initially I only have eyes for her solitary window.
Her urgent rapid-fire voice pulls me back to her. ‘I’d have to have no ears not to have heard Michael’s raised voice.’
The last thing I need is for the boss to think I’m bitching behind his back, creating another opportunity for him to possibly show me the door. Though I do tell her, ‘It was nothing. Really. We’re on the same page now.’
Joanie considers me for a second or two, blinking heavily as she gathers the right words to say next. Satisfied she has them, she nods more to herself than me. ‘Park yourself in a chair while I get us some tea. And choccie fingers.’
She doesn’t give me a chance to refuse.
Joanie’s back less than five minutes later, steam wafting like charmed snakes from the cups she carefully places on her desk. Tea and sympathy: the classic English solution to solving your problems. If it were that easy, the National Health Service would have stockpiles of the stuff.
‘Stress,’ Joanie says with conviction. ‘That’s what Michael’s under, poor man. He negotiated hard and long to get this new project you’re all working on downstairs.‘
To tell her or not to tell her? Do I really want the slings and arrows of my problems littering her personal space? Besides, other than offering me obliging sounds of sympathy and a well-meaning reassuring pat on the knee, she doesn’t have the power to change what’s going on in the down-under world buried two flights beneath our feet. Still… suddenly there’s an urgency compelling me to offload on her. Maybe it’s because she’s the only other woman working here. I don’t really know.
‘Keats has been trashing me to Michael. Telling him my work isn’t up to scratch.’
‘The masked bandit of Barrington Corporation,’ Joanie scoffs with drawn-out disdain followed up with a twist of her compressed mouth and shake of her head. ‘I thought it was a stick-up the first time I clapped eyes on him.’ Her arms shoot in the air, a Mary Pickford silent-screen expression of mock-horror distorting her face. ‘Don’t shoot me, mister. I’ll hand over my handbag and jewellery.’
My belly rocks with a laugh. What a lovely surprise; the last thing I expected after the draining tension with Michael was a chuckle or two. I really do appreciate her trying to scrub away some of my strain, replacing it with a good old-fashioned giggle.
‘You don’t like him?’ I state the obvious.
Joanie arches a single brow, which says it all. She gives me the verbal version anyway. ‘Come on, Rach, this isn’t The Phantom of the Opera part bloody two now, is it? The guy gives me the creepy jeepies. I know you young people are into this fashion, that fashion,’ she leans dramatically forward, ‘though I can’t see that clothing he’s rigged out in gracing New York fashion week.’ With a knowing look, she shifts back. ‘Call me old-fashioned but I like to see the faces of the people I’m working with. The only reason he’s here is because Michael says that he’s the real deal. And that’s what Michael’s interested in, dealmakers.’
I draw the tea to my lips, pondering what she tells me. If I’m honest I suppose that Michael had been upfront about his number one priority being to grow his business, join the guys and gals in the big league. Nevertheless, I still don’t understand why Keats just didn’t have a quiet word in my ear instead of blabbing badness to the boss. Exercise the right to use his mouth. He doesn’t speak, my inner self pointedly reminds me. He’s an automated message through your computer.
Joan says with a satisfied gleam, ‘If that’s all that’s troubling you, I wouldn’t worry about…’ She must see a big giveaway written on my face that screams I’ve got more troubles at my door. ‘What else is going on down there?’
My lips rub together, sealing the words I’m desperate to share with someone else. To tell her about Philip. What I think I saw. Come on, Rachel, is this woman really going to understand that someone has recently died who you think – know? – died ten years ago? Inner me is right. Joanie would think I’ve gone crackers. Plus, there may be nothing to know if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick about whose face I saw.
So, I drain the last of the tea and get to my feet. ‘Thanks, Joanie. Taking some time out for a cuppa and chat has really put me back to rights.’
With a heartfelt smile, I turn, but her voice stops me. I look back and notice that she hasn’t touched her drink, a cold muddy skin slick on the top.
‘If you ever have any problems, you come to me. Right?’
I nod. Close the door. Philip’s face visits me for the first time today, leaving me trembling on my journey down the stairs. His face is strained. Anxious. Not his usual flip a finger to the conventions of the world self. A secretive drop of CBD oil helps banish him, for now, from my anguished mind.
Sixteen
I hear Keats’s fingertips on his keyboard. Acutely feel his presence next to me. I want it to be me sitting in his chair. Rifling through his files until I find the funeral programme. I could simply ask, I suppose. Humbly doff my cap to him and fling myself on his better nature. But he doesn’t have a better nature. He tried to get you fired by bad mouthing you to Michael. The gormless little twit.
Perhaps he resents me getting a job here in the first place and gatecrashing his boy-only buddy club. Gets some kind of sexual kick out of frightening wo
men by locking them in basements. I’ve noticed how he runs the show down here. He gets a constant stream of messages from the zombies, which he replies to immediately, unlike his responses to me.
Occasionally, a zombie will cross the floor and whisper something in his ear and get a nod or shake of the head in reply. Or he scribbles something on a notepad and hands it over. There’s no doubt that Michael must be right about Keats being brilliant, it’s difficult to see any other reason why he’s allowed to rule the roost down here. I don’t know about eccentric though. I prefer the word evil.
The only way I’m going to get at his computer is when he’s not there. I was annoyed with Michael earlier but now could kiss him on his forehead; he’s given me the space to do it, going through his online courses late in the basement. Starting next Monday. Alone.
My cheer drops away when I catch the screen of the zombie in front of me, slightly to the left. My neck stretches as I peer harder. Is he playing a computer game, like the zombie sitting next to him? Although I can’t understand why either of them would be doing that since Keats seems to be so red-hot on preserving a hardworking environment. My mouth twists; probably he only applies that standard to me.
What the hell? My gaze zeros closer to the zombie’s computer screen. I see more clearly what he’s watching. My heart thunders in shock. This is no computer game. A battered and bruised woman is sitting on a stool in a darkened room filled with shadows, tears tracking miserably down her cheeks. She looks scared witless.
There are two other people cloaked in anonymity because their backs are to the camera. The sound’s turned off, but that pitiful shape of her mouth tells me she’s pleading. Begging. The figures cloaked in the dark inch closer and closer, almost circling her in a menacing dance. Her mouth opens wide in a silent scream. Without warning, a hand flashes out, lashing the woman across the cheek, sending her flying onto the barren floor. I feel the power of the slap tear through me. The screams exploding from her lips booming horribly in my ear.
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