by Daniel Hurst
His periods of lucidity are becoming increasingly more mixed in with periods of confusion, which makes the course of action I took necessary, if not easy. But with my father in the nursing home, his safety is assured.
So are the costly bills that now need to be met every month from that same home.
Fortunately, today’s spot on the calendar has a number fifteen on it, which means that my employers owe me money, and it’s never been more needed.
As I make my way across the car park into the office to start a new day, I take out my mobile phone and open my personal banking app to make another quick check on my balance. I’ve already looked at it several times this morning since I woke up to see if the money has gone in, but thus far, it hasn’t shown up yet. It will do at some point today though, it’s just a matter of when because the payroll system that my employers use is archaic, to say the least, and it can sometimes be unpredictable as to when the money will actually land in each employee’s account during the fifteenth of the month.
‘Thank you,’ I say to my colleague Tom as he holds the door open for me as I enter the office behind him, but I don’t make any effort to engage in small talk with him as we make our way up the short flight of stairs that lead to the open-plan office where we will spend our day. I’m too busy entering my personal pin code to access my banking app and check my balance again.
I’m about halfway up the stairs and only six steps from the top when I see that my wage has now gone into my account. That would normally be a cue for me to feel happy and begin to start taking action on all the things I planned to spend my wage on over the next month. But not today. Instead of those familiar feelings of excitement, satisfaction and relief, I only feel one thing now.
Anger.
That’s because I have been paid exactly the same as I did last month.
That means the pay rise that Michael promised me has not been implemented.
Tom says something to me as we reach the top of the stairs, and he holds open another door for me to walk through, but I completely miss it because I’m too busy thinking about what I am going to say to Michael when I see him.
I look immediately towards his desk as I enter the office, but he is not sitting in his seat, and a further check of the area fails to locate him either. It’s not like him to be in late, but maybe he has purposely come up with something to keep him away today because he knows that I will be looking for him, and he wants to leave me to stew. But that is not going to happen. If he is not here, then I will just have to go and speak to somebody else about this problem.
Katherine, the HR manager.
My insurance policy.
I knock on her office door, hoping that she is on the other side, and it’s a relief to hear her calling out.
‘Morning, Katherine. Sorry to bother you first thing on a Monday morning, but have you got a minute?’ I ask as I enter her office.
‘Sure,’ the friendly HR manager says, and I take a seat opposite her at her desk while noticing the half-eaten bacon sandwich sitting beside her keyboard, which looks good and smells even better.
‘Is everything okay?’ Katherine asks me as she pushes the bacon roll to one side to be consumed later, and I let out a sigh before having to break it to her that everything is not.
‘It seems that my agreed pay increase has not been added into my wage this month. Do you have any idea why that might be?’
I’m expecting a look of confusion on Katherine’s face because, like me, she knows full well that Michael agreed to that increase and that it was due to take effect from this month onwards. But instead of looking confused, my colleague appears sheepish.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought this had already been explained to you. Michael told me he was going to give you the news, but I’m guessing he mustn’t have got around to it.’
‘What news?’
‘Unfortunately, we have had to freeze all agreed pay increases in the short term. This is due to results that are going to be shown in the upcoming financial reports for the profitability of the bank this year.’
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘I realise this must be terribly disappointing after what you had been promised, but I’m afraid it’s out of my hands, and indeed Michael’s.’
I almost scoff at that last part because there is nothing here that is out of that man’s hands and certainly not when it comes to anything that might affect me.
‘Who else has been affected by this?’ I ask, interested to know if my pay rise is the only one that has been put on hold indefinitely.
‘I’m not able to disclose any details regarding other employees. I’m sure you understand.’
‘I just want to know if I’m the only one to whom this has happened.’
Katherine looks uncomfortable now, and I bet she wishes she could just go back to eating her bacon sandwich in peace but not until I get some better answers.
‘I’m really sorry, but I can’t talk about other employees’ remuneration.’
‘Where is Michael? I need to speak to him. Is he in today?’ I ask, getting up from the chair with my heart hammering in my chest.
‘He is, but I believe he is in a meeting at the moment,’ Katherine replies as I head for the door, clearly on my way to do one thing and one thing only. ‘I think it’s an external meeting!’
I suspect Katherine hopes that telling me our boss is in a meeting with potential clients will be enough to stop me in my tracks and make me wait for him to be free later in the morning. But she is wrong. I don’t care whom Michael is in a meeting with and how valuable those clients could be to this bank.
Right now, I don’t care about anything other than telling him what I think about his latest example of controlling behaviour against me, and if we end up having a full-blown argument, so be it.
12
MICHAEL
I love an external meeting to start the week. It’s a chance to flex my muscles and show what I can do by impressing potential new clients with my business acumen, my confidence and, of course, my sharp suit. Today’s meeting began only ten minutes ago, but I can tell I have already given a good first impression, and now it’s only a matter of time until the men on the other side of this table agree to deposit their sizeable savings with us. All I have to do is get them to sign on the dotted line on the piece of paper currently sitting on the table between us, but there’s no rush. This meeting was scheduled to last an hour, and there is still fifty minutes left, which gives us plenty of time to talk about money as well as the more mundane things they might be interested in like family, golf, and where they are planning on vacationing this year.
But just before we get to all of that, the door to the meeting room flies open, and Imogen bursts in, her face flustered and her breathing heavy.
‘Sorry, we’re in a meeting,’ I say as I wave a hand in her direction before turning back to the two men and preparing to continue my conversation. But somehow, I have a feeling Imogen isn’t going to accept that, and I know that’s the case because I know why she is here. She has obviously realised that she isn’t getting the pay rise I promised her after all. I imagine it was quite the shock when she checked her balance, and on a Monday morning as well, as if things couldn’t get any worse.
‘I need to speak to you. Now.’
I look back over at the angry woman in the doorway and wince slightly, but it’s not out of embarrassment for myself. It’s embarrassment for her. She is looking very rude in front of two people we should be trying to impress.
‘Again, I’m sorry, but I am in a meeting. It will have to wait, I’m afraid.’
I turn back to the two men and smile, making it clear that it is they who have my full attention and not my inconsiderate colleague still intruding on our private meeting. I’m not sure if they know who Imogen is, but I doubt they will forget her after today if she continues to give this little performance. Perhaps her professionalism will get the better of her, and she will be able to bite her tongue and keep h
er frustration at bay until my meeting is over. Or maybe there is not a single thing in the world that could keep her from giving me a piece of her mind now.
The next few seconds will reveal all.
‘I said I need to speak to you. Now!’
Imogen’s raised voice cuts through the quiet meeting room and makes one of my client’s visibly startled. It’s rude, it’s aggressive, and it’s certainly not the kind of behaviour that should ever be allowed to fly in the workplace, but it’s done now, and it’s clear that I have little choice but to interrupt my meeting to speak with my disgruntled co-worker.
‘I’m terribly sorry about this. Could you excuse me for just one moment?’ I say as I stand up from my seat, and the two men opposite me accept my apology and allow me to leave.
For a second, it feels like Imogen isn’t going to move from the doorway to allow me out, but she cedes her ground at the last second and steps back outside the room, where I am glad to close the door behind us so we can have this conversation in private.
No sooner are we alone than Imogen is jabbing her finger in the air and speaking to me in aggressive tones.
‘What the hell are you playing at? You promised me that pay rise!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘What do you mean what am I talking about? The pay rise we discussed a fortnight ago. The one that you agreed to in the presence of HR!’
‘Oh, that one,’ I say, clicking my fingers as if it had really slipped my mind.
‘Yes, that one! We shook on it in front of Katherine! We agreed!’
‘I understand that, but it was only a verbal agreement, and things have changed within the business since then. All pay rises have been temporarily frozen due to circumstances that are out of my control.’
‘Bullshit they’re out of your control!’
‘Keep your voice down, and watch your language,’ I snarl at Imogen, and now it’s my turn to get aggressive with her. She might think we’re in private, but people are going to hear us if she keeps raising her voice at me, and that will do more harm to her than it will do to me.
‘I need that money. I’ve just put my father into a home, and I need to pay the fees!’
‘You shouldn’t have committed to any long-term financial positions until you had the money in your account. That’s just good common sense. You should know that, having worked in a place like this as long as you have.’
I’m being purposely patronizing, and I enjoy the scowl on Imogen’s face when I have finished speaking, even more so than I usually do.
‘You can’t get away with this. You can’t keep messing with me like this.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, isn’t it?’ I say as I take a step towards my intolerable colleague. ‘I can keep getting away with this. I’ve been getting away with it, and I will continue to do so because there is nothing you can do about it.’
I drink in the sight of every single fleck of communication in Imogen’s body language: the anger, the shock, the powerlessness, the desperation. As much as she hates what I am saying, she knows it is true. There is nothing she can do. Ever.
‘Go ahead, push me. Force me into releasing the evidence I have on you,’ I tell her, stepping even closer to her and warming into my role as the villain, even though it was her immoral act that set this whole thing in motion. ‘You know I’d love to see you crash and burn. In fact, I go to bed dreaming about it every night. The sight of you being hauled out of here in handcuffs. The thought of me getting to dismiss you without any further compensation. And the thought of your husband leaving you when he realises you are capable of doing things he never thought possible.’
My eyes flit between Imogen’s intense eyes and her red lips, which I know are just desperate to give me some kind of comeback, but they aren’t capable of it because she has nothing left to say. I still find her attractive even when she is angry, and I guess that’s where so much of my hatred of her now comes from. I’m used to having any woman I want, whether I pay for them or not. But not Imogen. She is the one woman who has always been out of my grasp, and that eats me up inside. At least I have a way of making myself feel better about it.
‘If you don’t mind, I have a meeting to get back to. A meeting you just very rudely interrupted. It’s behaviour like that which will go into consideration the next time you try to ask me for a pay rise. And good job on roping in HR for our meeting earlier. You really thought having a witness would work? You should know me better than that by now.’
With that parting shot, I smile at my defeated colleague before turning and marching back into my meeting, the interruption already forgotten about and my mind already back on the business at hand. If I can snare these two men as new customers, then that will make me look very good indeed in the eyes of my manager over in the head office in New York, and it’s things like that that can result in a pay rise for myself. That would be sweet, wouldn’t it? Me getting a pay rise so soon after Imogen was denied one? I know I gave her the line about pay rises being frozen across the board, and it was true because the instruction came from New York when I contacted them about Imogen’s raise, but that doesn’t relate to me. Not at my level. The boss gets whatever the boss wants, and I fully intend to keep getting it.
As I take my seat and make another apology to my prospective clients across the table, I wonder how the rest of Imogen’s morning is going to go. She’ll want to continue screaming and shouting and protesting about how unfair this all is, but she won’t be able to. She can’t let anybody know why I am treating her this way for fear of her life being unravelled by the evidence I hold on her. That means there is simply nothing else she can do but go back to her desk, turn on her PC, and start working. That’s all she can do, and it’s all she will do, until retirement of course, which is at least twenty years away and will only commence when I say it can commence and might be ruined anyway because I have a feeling that I’ll just release the evidence I have on her before she can put her feet up in old age.
Poor Imogen. She really is trapped between a rock and a hard place.
And the more she tries to free herself, the more she gets herself stuck.
13
When you have had a day as bad as I have had, all you want to do is go home, get into bed and shut out the world by hiding under the duvet. That’s exactly what I was planning on doing as I made my way down the stairs in my office in the direction of the front door after completing a miserable ten hours in this place where Michael torments me daily. But no sooner had I stepped out into the car park than I saw my husband waiting for me in his car, and I noticed the smart shirt and trouser combo he was wearing as soon as he climbed out of his vehicle to walk towards me.
He surprised me at work because he wanted to take me out for a meal. It was a meal to celebrate my pay rise, and his idea was for the pair of us to toast to the future and talk about all the things we could spend the money on, besides my father’s expensive care of course. The right thing to do would have been to tell him there and then that my pay rise had not materialised like I had expected it to and that a celebration was not just premature but entirely invalid. But I hadn’t done that, and that is why we are now sitting opposite each other in a fancy tapas restaurant in town, waiting for the immaculately dressed waiters to bring us our selection of dishes.
There are a combination of reasons as to why I haven’t told my partner the truth yet about what has happened with my pay rise. Firstly, I didn’t want to disappoint him when he was standing in front of me in the car park with a nice shirt on and a big silly grin on his face. Then I didn’t want to make him feel sad or angry or cheated, or any of the other emotions that I have been battling with today since I found out what Michael had done to me. But I suppose the overriding reason why I haven’t told Evan about my lack of a pay increase yet is because of the shame I feel. It’s the shame that comes with knowing that all of this is happening because of something bad I did that has nothing to do with him. Poor Evan is no
w being punished alongside me because he is going to have financial difficulties simply by being married to me.
I have no idea where we are going to find the extra money to keep paying my father’s nursing home fees now that Michael has swiped away a big chunk of the money I had been planning to put towards it. My dad’s house will go on the market, but I need to clear it out first, and that’s a huge job that I don’t have time for right now. I also have no idea how I can possibly expect to keep this a secret from Evan for very long because it won’t take much for him to realise that we don’t have as much money as we were supposed to have. I’m just fortunate that my wages go into my personal account and not the joint one because, otherwise, he would already know that something was wrong by now. But he doesn’t, which is why he is sitting there looking all handsome and picking up the bottle of red wine again to pour me another glass.
I’ll have to tell him soon. I’ll have to make up an excuse in a few days when the dust has settled, and I’m not feeling quite so emotional about it all. But for now, I am playing along with it, not just to keep the secret but because this has the chance to be a nice evening between the pair of us, and I want to make the most of it.
Who knows when we will be able to come out for a meal like this again now that I’m not actually as financially well off as I thought? We’ve already had to tighten the purse strings, but after tonight, things like romantic meals out will be a thing of the past for us.
I pick up the freshly poured glass of wine and take a sip before I can entertain any more stressful thoughts about the next time my father’s nursing home fees are due, on top of our mortgage, our cars, and any other things that will require urgent payment but haven’t cropped up yet.