I frowned at the bushes. Deelie must have thought she was the last runner and no one would see her. I inched my way forward, feeling like I was about to be caught. As I got nearer to where she disappeared I saw a water bottle roll uncertainly towards a neighbouring bush. I picked it up.
‘Bloody ridiculous,’ I heard her say. ‘Oh shit, hi.’ She looked up from the grass when I handed her the bottle. She was sitting down, cross-legged and the belt was tangled in her lap.
‘Do you need a hand?’ I asked.
‘No, thanks.’ She smiled stiffly. ‘Er... don’t mind me.’
‘Okay.’ I averted my eyes and went back to the path, trying to make sense of the scene. When I reached the tree, the couple had lost interest and moved on. I glanced back but Deelie was still out of sight. Well, at least that took my mind off my aching limbs, I realised. Feeling was coming back; the perspiration on my skin was turning cold.
I followed the route back to the first park and began a trot again. Embarrassment stung as I approached the turn towards the railings. Everyone would notice the last person coming in. I probably looked ready to collapse. But there were only two men outside the clubhouse, stretching earnestly.
‘Am I back at the right place?’ I asked breathlessly.
Both men nodded.
Slowly I went through my school routine again, delicately easing out startled muscles. I remembered something about too much stretching being just as dangerous as no stretching at all. Everything felt heavy and reluctant to move.
I straightened up with a final benign stretch and turned to see Deelie arriving back with a flushed face. The belt was reattached but she was holding onto it with one hand. She gave me a nervous, sideways glance and kept going towards the clubhouse where I knew they had snacks after the run. But I wasn’t going to follow her. It didn’t seem like new members welcome really meant new to running. The park exit was down a small hill, away from the clubhouse. I negotiated the slope gingerly. It seemed I wouldn’t have time for a running club after all.
Small bowls of fish and dumpling starters spread out over a chequered table cloth. Kitchen noises echoed from behind a counter, and outside, traffic trundled along a dirty street occasionally throwing shadows into the cafe.
‘Thank you,’ the waitress said, as she finished placing dips in the remaining gaps.
I looked across the table. ‘Better than the canteen?’ I asked.
‘Definitely,’ he replied. ‘Have one of these.’ He lifted across a prawn.
‘Thanks. I will. Would you like some of this?’ I chased a dumpling round a bowl with my chopsticks.
‘Would you like me to ask for a spoon?’ he said.
‘No, thank you. I have to practice.’
‘If only they had some web-like feature at the end.’ He moved his plate under the wobbling dumpling. ‘Some sort of prong or scooping mechanism.’
‘You’re so clever. You should suggest that to the waitress.’ I pushed the food on to his plate.
‘Thanks. You needn’t bother with the sauce.’ He tucked a napkin into his shirt, which was short-sleeved and had a wide collar. The material was the colour of stone with a natural wrinkle so even though it went with his combat trousers, he still looked scruffy. I had gone for jeans, knowing the restaurant was casual. My top was dark blue and sleeveless with a high collar. It was my first-date top. I tucked a napkin in too.
‘This is really good,’ he sounded surprised
‘A lot of Vietnamese people eat here, apparently.’ I looked around. There were couples and small groups, clicking chopsticks over low tables.
‘I’ve been to Vietnam. This is quite close to the real thing,’ he said.
‘Really? I’d love to see Vietnam.’
‘I was diving, off the Central Coast.’
‘The central coast?’
“Ah, it’s half way down the coast.’ He looked around the table. ‘Here’s Vietnam,’ he said with the tray of sauces. ‘Here’s Nha Trang.’ He aligned the jar of chilli. ‘It’s surrounded by inland mountains.’ He placed a napkin that was still folded in a peak. ‘And there’s an island off shore.’ He pushed over a saucer. ‘Which actually protects it from a lot of storms. And because of the mountains, all that area has these micro climates.’ He swirled his fingers. ‘Little pockets for diving or beach holidays, but drizzly bits of British weather too.’
‘Are there any sharks?’ I moved in a ladle.
‘Only little fish. And the occasional eel.’ He demonstrated with a chopstick. ‘Have you ever dived?’
‘No, but I’d love to. I was actually looking at some dive holidays for this year. The Red Sea has some packages-’ I stopped before I got to the bit where they were holidays for singles.
‘I could send you some information if you like,’ he offered.
Our main courses arrived. We put food on each other’s plate.
‘So, you’ve always had the travel bug, Columbus?’ I asked.
‘Ha,’ he laughed at the nickname. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do after I left school. So I went to Australia for a year and that was it... Got a job in a bank when I came home... I thought it would be the end of me.’
‘You’re not ambitious,’ I stated.
‘I’m ambitious to do something I like – you’d wonder why I stay in CouperDaye. Having money to travel is good,’ he conceded.
‘I don’t understand why people stay in a job they don’t like,’ I said it more to myself than to him.
‘I do like my job,’ he protested. ‘I like working in finance. It’s really challenging and it’s fast-paced.’
‘Oh no, I don’t mean –’ I held up a hand, seeing I sounded judgemental.
‘It’s the CouperDaye attitude that I have a problem with.’
‘Why don’t you leave then?’
‘Because I like to take a break from work every few years. And I don’t want to job-hop in between.’
‘Oh. That’s a really good idea.’
‘How do you find CouperDaye?’ His chopsticks played over the salad bowl again.
‘I’m enjoying the work. And I think there’re a lot of good opportunities.’
‘Ah the brain washing has started to take effect,’ he said, cheekily.
‘Why?’ I didn’t try to hide a little irritation. ‘Because I think I can do well?’
‘Look, just be careful you don’t get sucked into their mindset. It’s like CouperDaye wants to give you your opinion – I don’t know why they have to be so paranoid – I guess they want to keep control. But it’s like, if you challenge anything, then automatically you have a bad attitude.’ He laughed. ‘Eventually people just give up trying and leave or become bitter.’ He guided a small piece of squid into his mouth and swallowed. ‘Don’t you notice that in R&D?’
‘I suppose,’ I said, realising I hadn’t challenged anything yet. ‘But, I think I’m pretty good at thinking for myself.’
‘Good. Stay that way... I hate talking about work,’ he quipped. ‘Let’s make a rule, no work talk.’
‘No work talk.’
‘Why did you leave Ireland?’
‘Itchy feet. I wanted the experience of living somewhere else... A relationship ended over it. He wanted to stay. I wanted to go.’
‘You are determined.’
Yes,’ I admitted. ‘But I think it was the best thing because we weren’t right together. Anyway, London is a fresh start.’
We finished our main courses and I gave in to the dessert menu. I asked for two spoons, coaxing him to have some.
‘There’s a Vietnamese near where I live too,’ he said after a moment of silence. ‘Actually does great deserts. Which is pretty unusual for a Vietnamese restaurant. I could take you there some time, if you like.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hmm, you know, I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.’
He flinched. ‘Oh, sure, me neither.’
‘It’s just that I need to put work first.’
‘You’re a
career woman,’ he teased.
‘It’s not just that. I’m new to London and I think it’s healthier not to get too involved with one person. I mean... I really want to make friends. You know, I’ve been here six months and haven’t seen a musical yet.’
‘I definitely think you should make other friends for that.’ He helped himself to ice-cream.
‘Right? Also after the break up, I don’t feel as if I’m ready for something serious yet.’
‘Whoa. Who said anything about something serious?’
Now it was my turn to flinch. ‘Oh... no... I mean... I’m just trying to explain. I really do enjoy spending time with you,’ I finished miserably.
We said no to coffees. The waitress dismantled Vietnam and brought us the bill.
Sam was stubborn, I thought, as I waited for the IT Support guy to set up a teleconference between me and the METX Exchange. Our first Monday morning meeting as a merged group with programmers and business analysts all in the one role hadn’t gone so well. Everyone had cleared out in silence leaving me to set up my conference. Well, maybe Sam’s protest was right. Analysing market data and anticipating client needs was not his area of interest or expertise. And with no allowance in project schedules for our learning curve, how were we to deliver quality work? But then, Sam was stubborn. He’d probably be kicking up no matter what.
Gary, my Networks contact, came in as the IT Support guy passed him out the door.
‘Hi.’ We smiled at each other.
‘Am I late?’ he asked, pulling a chair closer.
‘No. You’re just in time.’ I held up the phone-pad now connected to the large flat-screen T.V.
‘You got a time line?’ Gary asked, settling with a notebook in front of him.
‘Well, for the whole project? Around six weeks to two months. But we need the lease lines finalised in about four at the latest.’ It was the advice Cameron had given.
‘Can the Exchange provide the infrastructure for that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I felt caught off guard. ‘Hopefully we can confirm that today.’
‘Okay. You’ll have to raise its priority in order for us to get it moving from our side too, yeah.’ His head bobbed when he spoke. ‘Any information like volume of data or peak times?’
‘Let’s ask about that now,’ I said, making notes as he spoke. We sat back and waited for the phone to ring.
‘So how long you been with CouperDaye?’ I asked him.
‘About seven years. I was in the army before. Comms.’
‘How’s this compare then?’
‘Different,’ Gary said. ‘You think keeping comms up to save lives is important until you’re keeping comms up so people can make money.’
I barked a small laugh at the nonchalance of his tone. But I was reminded of the warning I had received on Saturday night.
The phone rang and I pressed the button to put us on speaker. A man’s voice crackled through saying they hadn’t been able to setup a video call to give us the presentation but could make this an introductory call instead.
‘Cowboys,’ Gary wrote on my notepad.
Chapter Three
Escaped dust filled my bedsit, billowing over an unsteady lamp and up to a bookshelf that was empty except for a group of huddled porcelain figures. The couch was pushed against a wall and in its place cardboard boxes covered the floor. Only an overnight bag sat open, along with my clothes for the morning. The scene reminded me of when I moved into the basement flat, two weeks after arriving in London. It was small and bare but I had been relieved to be out of the poky hotel room. Now I was moving again into an apartment that I actually owned. The exchange had gone smoothly though I didn’t dare let out my breath until the keys were in my hand. Everyone at work kept remarking on how calm I seemed about moving house considering I was working on METX at the same time. But packing hadn’t been difficult; I only had what I came to London with, plus a few extra work clothes. I had a methodical way of doing things that meant a lot of situations that were generally considered stressful were actually therapeutic for me. My mind would empty of METX concerns in the evening while I considered what to keep and what to throw out and how best to sort stuff into boxes. Now I felt like I was beginning my next phase of London life.
The door phone buzzed and I stretched over my handbag to answer it.
‘Columbus,’ the voice said at the other end. I laughed and buzzed him in.
‘Glad you texted,’ he said coming through the door.
‘Me too. I’m enjoying our… what are we calling it?’
‘An arrangement,’ he reminded me and we kissed.
‘Would you like anything to drink?’ I asked. ‘I have juice, still. Don’t mean to ply you with alcohol every time.’
‘No, I’m okay thanks. See you’re all packed.’ He looked around. ‘Whoa, how do we... get to the bed?’
‘Follow me.’ I crawled over the boxes and landed safely with a bounce.
‘Are they solid?’ he asked, poking the nearest box with his foot.
‘Some are. Some aren’t.’
‘It’s like that game show from the Eighties,’ he said, feeling his way.
‘If you step on the wrong box you’ll disappear,’ I added.
He made it across the cardboard vortex and we fell over on the mattress. Things got serious as we took off each other’s clothes.
My eyes opened a moment before my alarm clock clicked and a siren filled the room. I banged it quiet and forced myself upright. METX went live in Asia through the night but as usual I was expected to be in for European start-up.
‘We broke the rules.’ He surfaced as I was about to leave. ‘No sleepovers, remember?’ He constantly made fun of our rules, drunkenly put together one night after a work party where we discovered, when everyone else had left, that we still fancied each other, even if a relationship wasn’t on the cards. The only part I could remember was back at mine, trying to find a notepad to write down the rules, in between kissing. ‘God, you’re a nerd,’ he had said.
‘It’s early. Go back to sleep.’ I picked up my keys. ‘The movers will be here later but you can just close the door when you’re leaving.’
‘Good luck with the rollout.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Hey.’ He caught my hand at the bedroom door, fingers lacing briefly with mine. ‘Thanks for the wham-bam, Ma’am.’
‘Any time, sugar.’ I leaned over with a kiss.
I logged in even before sitting down. Everything looked clean. I checked the Asian indices. All as expected. There were still twenty minutes to go before the European market opened. The wall clocks showed the time in our main locations: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. I got a coffee and flicked through the spec for my next project. I smiled. It was for an Asian Exchange this time. High profile again. Plenty of development work.
‘Ahoy, ahoy,’ Boris popped his head over my cube.
‘So far so good.’
‘European market about to open. Nervous?’
‘No.’
‘Hoooh...! There it is. 8 a.m. Any second now...’
We both watched the screen for the European trading. For a moment I forgot to breath, but then the prices trickled down in columns of orders and trades and relief washed over me. I smiled at Boris and resumed reading the spec.
‘Hey, there we go. METX is on the map.’ He tapped the top of my cube to say goodbye.
As the morning went on people came over to check on my feed and say well done. METX was an international metals exchange. It ran nearly twenty-four hours a day and handled about a million trades a day. It was the kind of feed that other department managers would check on its first morning, and upper management would include in speeches. I felt a twinge of guilt. This success was going to be used as proof the merge could work, but in reality I knew of other projects, more complicated, that had now been cut down. Programmers were reluctant to do anything with complicated analysis and the business analysts were only taking on simple de
velopment feeds. Looking further at the AsiaCap requirements, I realised the analysis side would be tricky this time. I took a break from reading and leaned back in my chair wondering when the training would come.
‘Fuck!’ Boris shouted from his cube. Heads popped up like meerkats and like a cub mother I immediately checked my feed.
‘Shit,’ I whispered as I blinked at my screens and saw what Boris was swearing about. My feed was updating prices with a visible delay. My fingers became moist as I scanned the log file looking for clues to the problem. My testing showed no performance issues. The only difference now was the code was on a live server rather than in my test environment.
Number of packets being processed: 70,829
Number of packets missing: 10
My stomach lurched at the number of missing packets. That meant we could be missing some orders or trades.
‘Orla – what the fuck?’ Boris leaned over my cube.
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered at the screen.
‘Felix is going to have your arse. What is it? A network issue? A software issue? Did the Exchange say there might be any performance issues this morning?’
‘No.’
‘You did follow test procedure, didn’t you?’
‘Yes of course, Boris,’ I snapped.
‘Okay, fine. First thing to do is check your log files. The old log files will tell you what you need to know.’
‘We’re missing packets.’ I pointed at the screen.
Boris leaned in. ‘There’s the answer,’ he laughed with relief. ‘Get Gary on the line. Tell him his network is dropping packets of our data,’ he insisted with a pointed finger.
I got straight on to Networks giving them the details and asking for an analysis of the network route. Then I shot an email to the Exchange asking them to check their line. Perhaps there was a delay on their side.
Complaints from the trading floor began to pop up on my screen.
The I.T. Girl Page 3