by Rosie Blake
‘So you’re firing me,’ Matt said, palms out flat, his voice weary. ‘Is that it?’
Joe cleared his throat, tried to get back on track. He wished Paul had taken this meeting. He lived for this sort of stuff. He shifted on one foot, started listing reasons on his fingers: ‘Consistently late into the office, often unable to be present at meetings, a shortfall on the figures, ineffective team management…’
Matt listened, his cheeks reddening as the list went on.
Joe stopped, looked at him. ‘It’s a warning, mate.’
‘We’re not mates.’
Joe cleared his throat again. He deserved that.
‘Look, we just need you to sort things out and get back on top. We want to see you producing again, bring in some business.’
Matt’s eyes were dull as he looked at Joe. ‘God, I got you wrong. I thought…’ He paused, then straightened, chin out. ‘You’re one cold bastard, you know that?’ Joe didn’t flinch as Matt continued: ‘All you and the rich twats upstairs want is profit, profit, profit.’
‘You used to want that too.’
‘And I still do.’ Matt threw up both his hands; Joe took a step back. ‘So I’ve been spending a few more hours at home. We’ve got our first kid, Joe. You know how long we tried for a baby. God.’ He stopped, raking a hand through his hair. ‘I practically fucking cried on you in the bar that night, telling you what we’d been through. It’s been hard, but it’s getting easier; she’s sleeping through now, almost. I want to help Suzie, she can’t do it on her own, Joe.’
Joe held up a hand. ‘I know, and I’m sorry, but —’
‘You’re not bloody sorry.’
Something inside Joe snapped. He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to be doing this. It made his voice harsher as he tried to justify himself. ‘We’re under pressure, Matt, you know that, you know what’s happening here at the moment. You lost us that merger with Anderson Corporate, the Kline Brothers got in before us. We were too slow. We need to be better. So take this as your first formal warning.’ He paused, before adding, ‘You’re lucky.’
‘Lucky? Oh yes, how decent of you, mate, thank you so much,’ Matt said, his voice flaring up. ‘Just a first formal warning. You know they’ll find an excuse to fire me. You know that.’
Joe looked away, not wanting to hear it, knowing as he did that Karen would want him to report back, knowing how these things worked. Matt had a target on his back. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, his voice smaller, his confidence ebbing.
Matt glared at him, ‘Well, if that’s all, I’d better take my ineffective arse back to my useless team and start work.’
Joe looked back at the windows.
‘You’d better hope you never need to be cut some slack,’ Matt said, turning to leave. He walked across the room, Joe following his reflection in the glass. He paused at the door before turning back. ‘You know there’s more to life than this job, mate.’
Joe shrugged once, didn’t answer, brushing at his sleeve again as he watched Matt leave, the strip of light disappearing as the door shut behind him.
The sun had risen fully now, its rays on the office building opposite dazzling Joe for a second. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking for new emails, an update on their latest deal. He looked at the screen. A missed call from his mother. She was probably on one of her early-morning walks and wanted to tell him about the sunrise. He sighed. He hadn’t got the energy for that now. With a small spark of guilt, he put the phone back in his pocket. He’d ring her back later.
Chapter 4
Louisa threw the phone in frustration. It landed amongst the two huge bundles of rejected clothes.
‘Stop staring,’ she said to the cage in the corner of the room. ‘You know I can’t take you with me. It’s a bird flu thing.’
The parrot gave her a withering look down its beak and moved deliberately along its perch, one careful foot over the other. ‘YOU’RE FIRED,’ it called out before turning to face the corner.
‘Fine, be like that,’ Louisa said, holding up a mustard-yellow cardigan and throwing it onto the left-hand pile. A large ginger cat stretched out in front of the log fire paused in cleaning its paws. ‘God, not you too? Will you both stop! I’m feeling guilty enough already and I don’t need you adding to it.’
Her suitcase was open, towels, swimsuits, books and clothes in an enormous haphazard heap inside. It had taken her an hour to find her passport and she was now impossibly rushed, the clock in the kitchen utterly useless as it had run out of batteries about a year before and was giving her a heart attack every time she thought it really was 11.05 a.m. She knew she was muttering again, but since the previous night in the pub and bloody Roz being all high and mighty, she hadn’t been able to stop. She’d been telling Lady CaCa all about it, but now the bird had got the hump on seeing a suitcase.
‘Can you please turn back around, I want to finish the story,’ she said to the cage. ‘I’ll let you out for a few minutes.’ At this, Roddy the ginger cat looked up, fur instantly raised, yellow eyes wary. ‘Oh hush, Roddy, don’t be silly.’
The promise had worked and the parrot had turned back round and moved down the perch towards the door of the cage, waiting with an imperious expression on her face as Louisa reached up to open it. ‘LOVELY JUBBLY, LOVELY JUBBLY.’
The buzzer rang and Louisa swore, dropping her hand before she had touched the cage. The parrot gave an angry caw.
‘Oh bugger. Hold on, darling.’
Lady CaCa padded back to her spot, furiously spinning round to stare at the corner once more. ‘YOU’RE FIRED, SHITHEAD.’
Louisa rolled her eyes; she really was the most diva-like parrot. She wavered as she stood next to the intercom. She couldn’t see the high street from any of the windows. It wasn’t long until the cab was due, though, so she pressed the button tentatively.
‘Reg? If that’s you, you’re early,’ she said.
A voice she didn’t recognise responded. ‘No, it’s Clara, you don’t know me but, um… well, it’s Clara.’
Louisa released the button and turned to look at the cat, who had returned to cleaning his paws. ‘Who’s Clara?’ she asked. He didn’t look up.
Louisa shrugged and turned back to press the button. ‘Come up,’ she said, looking round at the flat, which was littered with her entire wardrobe.
She heard footsteps on the narrow staircase as she went to open the flaking door. A young blonde girl appeared, dressed in jeans, a soft woollen jumper and a purple knitted hat. Impossibly smooth skin, bright blue eyes already lit with a smile, her face vaguely familiar. Louisa frowned.
‘Thank you. I’m so sorry just to burst in,’ the girl said, reaching the top step. ‘God, I am so unfit,’ she laughed, holding her sides. ‘One flight of steps and I need to sit down.’ There was something about her that made Louisa feel a warm glow. She found herself smiling straight back at her.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said, closing the door. ‘But, um, who are you exactly?’
The girl straightened up, her cheeks flushed from the cold outside. ‘I’m Clara, I’m staying in the pub; I was there last night.’
‘Oh God.’ Louisa threw her hands in the air. ‘What a night. Carrot cake?’ she offered.
‘Ooh yes please. I was looking for a café or something just now. I haven’t had any breakfast.’
‘You’ll be hard pushed to find a café,’ Louisa said, picking up a fuchsia sarong and throwing it in the direction of the suitcase. ‘It’s on the counter. I made it yesterday, it’s Lady CaCa’s favourite.’ She nodded her head at the cage. ‘Cut yourself a slice – actually, cut me one too, do you mind? I’m right in the middle of packing – my flight, you know…’
‘Oh, of course, of course.’ Clara crossed the room, picking her way round the piles of things, jumping as the parrot called out ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’
Louisa waved a hand as she scrabbled in the back of the wardrobe. ‘Sorry about that, and the mess. I’d love to sa
y it’s because I’m packing, but actually it often looks like this.’ She pulled out a pair of bronze flip-flops and grinned. ‘Hurrah! I knew they were here somewhere,’ she said, holding them aloft.
Clara looked at the succulent orange sponge and picked up a knife. ‘So you are really going? Where are you off to?’
Louisa, bent over a drawer under a divan bed, didn’t look up. ‘Madrid,’ she called out.
Clara moved a slice of carrot cake onto a plate. ‘How romantic,’ she sighed, picturing winding cobbled streets, bright flamenco dancers at every turn, large jugs of sangria, people laughing in sunlit squares.
Louisa was lost behind the bed, both feet poking out of the end. ‘It’s seventeen degrees right now, can you imagine? EIGHTEEN DEGREES IN NOVEMBER,’ she shouted, making the cat sit up and look around for the noise. Her head appeared suddenly, suspended above the duvet, her body lost behind the bed. ‘I can’t remember what eighteen degrees feels like; the summer seems forever ago and anyway, that was mostly rain. I want sun, sun on my face, on my arms, neck, back, I want my feet to burn on sand and I want to step into the sea and say, “Oh what a relief, it’s cool” because it’s just so HOT.’ She dived down again, her head disappearing, ‘Don’t mean to DEPRESS, but I’m sure you understand.’
Clara had moved across to a bar stool, perching herself on top of it. ‘Hmm, I’ve never been used to too much heat. In Denmark it’s currently about three degrees.’
‘THREE?’ Louisa’s head appeared over the duvet, curly hair wild. ‘Good God, how does anyone get anything done?’ She looked horrified. ‘Surely you should all just hibernate like bears.’
‘Well, actually’ – Clara smiled, thinking of winters at home: the months of slow-cooked stews, steaming cups of gløgg and roaring fires – ‘they sort of do.’
As she pulled off her purple hat so that her hair fell around her shoulders, her smile faded a fraction. There would be no more winters like those of her childhood, with all of them sitting round their large oak table, bowls of steaming meatballs ready to be eaten. She blinked, not wanting to keep going over the same old thoughts.
In the corner, Lady CaCa was looking down her beak at Clara as she ate her cake, flapping her wings aggressively at the bars of the cage every time she glanced over.
Louisa hopped up onto another bar stool, wearing a large hat with enormous sunflowers stitched into the side. ‘Oh, ignore her.’ She waved a hand at the cage. ‘She gets jealous when someone else is here taking my attention, and also carrot cake is her favourite.’ She cut the edge off her slice and delivered it on the flat of the knife into the cage. The parrot looked at it furiously, spinning back around to face the wall. Louisa sighed. ‘I fear her strop will last till I leave – she knows I’m packing.’
‘What will happen to her?’ Clara asked, putting another piece of carrot cake in her mouth. ‘This is amazing, by the way,’ she mumbled.
Louisa nodded. ‘I know. I’m an exceptional baker, always have been, it’s one of my skills. That and tarot-card reading. Oh, and glass-blowing. I’ve never tried kite-surfing but I always feel I’d excel there too. What are your skills, Clara?’
Clara looked startled for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose… well, I…’
‘Come on, come on, everyone has skills. They just don’t like to shout about them because of modesty, which is silly. I am absolutely useless at some things and regularly remind people of them – like the time I tried to learn the violin: just horrendous, like someone was dying in the flat every night. And jigsaw puzzles, ugh, I get so cross, I cut all the little arms off the pieces so they fit – just so infuriating. But I do make an excellent lemon drizzle.’ She had thrown her arms wide, the sunflowers moving every time she turned her head.
‘So what will happen? To your animals?’ Clara repeated, diverting attention away from her skills – or lack of them.
Louisa waved a hand. ‘One of the things I need to do before I go is drop my keys in to Gavin. He’ll look in on them; he did it once before when I went to Thailand for a shaking retreat.’
‘I see,’ Clara said, too thrown off course to ask what a shaking retreat entailed. She brushed a crumb from her top lip.
Louisa paused, wiping the corner of her own mouth slowly. ‘So how can I help?’ She leapt up, the hat falling off. ‘I’ve got about two seconds to do a hundred things, so you’ll have to help and we’ll talk as we work.’
Clara slid off her stool. ‘Of course. What can I do?’
Louisa pointed to a roll of bin liners on the countertop. ‘Perishables. Throw out all perishables in the fridge. Last time I forgot and was nearly killed on my return by a Brussels pâté that was so off it had legs.’
Clara’s nose wrinkled as she reached for the roll.
‘Sooooo…’ Louisa returned to the pile of clothes on the bed, throwing some over her shoulder, holding up others and gradually reducing the enormous pile, ‘what can I do for you?’
Clara had opened the fridge and was staring at the contents: mostly bottles of pink champagne, mussels and olives. There was a slab of smoked salmon but it seemed desperately sad to just throw it away. She picked up half a lemon and chucked it in the bag. ‘Well, I was wondering… I heard you were off, last night in the pub. I was there, you see, staying there —’
‘Yes, you said.’ Louisa paused, holding up a striped swimming costume. ‘Goodness, what a palaver that was. Roz of course propping up the bar, typical stirring. I just needed to rage and she makes me so furious… I didn’t know Gavin rented rooms: how wonderful, he is enterprising…’
Clara’s mouth was still open from where she’d been cut off.
‘Sorry, sorry, you were saying…’ Louisa waved her on, squeezing the swimming costume into the side pocket of the now bulging suitcase.
‘Well, I just wondered whether perhaps you’d consider letting me house-sit for you, look after your animals… but it sounds like you’ve already made plans, of course you have…’ Clara trailed away.
‘Come and help me sit on it,’ Louisa called.
‘Sorry?’
‘The suitcase. Come on, the taxi is bound to appear at any second and I don’t want him seeing my smalls. Although if it’s Reg, he’s actually already seen… Sorry, do carry on.’
Clara stepped across the room to the bed, lowering herself down next to Louisa, who was already perched on the suitcase, wearing the sunflower hat again. On the bedside table was a silver photo frame: Louisa and the most jaw-dropping man. Broody grey eyes, dark brown hair, emerging stubble on a tanned face. Louisa had her arm around his waist, head on his shoulder. He must have been more than twenty years younger than her, closer to Clara’s age. Clara almost forgot what she had been saying.
‘That was it, really. The house-sitting and, well, I did wonder, about the shop. I’ve run a business before and I thought, to return the favour… I can’t pay rent, you see, but I could work for free. It seems a shame to close just before Christmas.’
Louisa scoffed. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get one customer a day.’
‘At least let me try. From what I saw from the outside, it’s a wonderful shop.’
‘It used to be a wonderful shop,’ she said. ‘It was a lovely place.’ She fell silent, lost somewhere in the past as they sat side by side.
‘I was going to move on, but I like it here. I just… feel it, do you know what I mean?’ Clara said, one hand moving to her stomach. ‘That feeling inside, that it’s right.’
Louisa raised an eyebrow. ‘And people say I’m eccentric.’