Supersonic

by Anouschka Zagorski

  From: Krakowski, Chloe

  To: Granger, Georgina

  Re: Re: Project ABF

  Dear Georgina,

  Thank you for your email.

  I recorded time on this matter because I was asked by Tracey Taylor on that day to review, comment and mark up a security deed. I assumed you or the matter partner knew about this and I was asked to assist because of lack of capacity. Was that not the case?

  Kind regards

  Chloé

  From: Granger, Georgina

  To: Taylor, Tracey

  Cc: Krakowski, Chloe

  Re: FW: Project ABF

  Hi Tracey,

  My name is Georgina Granger and I am in charge of sending out weekly invoices for Project ABF. We have 3.2 hours of Chloé’s time recorded on this matter. I think this must have been mistakenly charged to Project ABF. The file partner, Dave Miller, asked me to confirm this with you.

  Many thanks

  Georgina

  From: Taylor, Tracey

  To: Granger, Georgina

  Cc: Krakowski, Chloe

  Re: Re: FW: Project ABF

  Thanks Georgina, I will speak to Dave.

  Tracey

  Gotcha, I thought. She hadn’t thought this through, even when I had asked about the matter number. My little victorious moment was short-lived. I should’ve known - we weren’t in court anymore, where justice and the law protected me. I was back in her territory where she had all the power. Tracey’s revenge came two hours later.

  From: Taylor, Tracey

  To: Krakowski, Chloe

  Cc: Struther, Henry

  Re: Major client standard documentation

  Chloé,

  Please can you prepare a standard form real estate finance credit agreement for use with UK or non-UK borrowers and/or guarantors, UK or non-UK real estate, with options for fixed or floating interest rate and including all recent developments under English law and recent changes to the LMA standard documentation and addressing the issues that have resulted from the banking crisis. The deadline for the first draft is opening of business on Monday. If you require any further information or you think that you require additional time to complete the task, please let me know today. Please use the client marketing file number and let me know how many hours you spent in total when you send me the draft.

  Kind regards

  Tracey

  That would be a mammoth task! I knew I would have to collect, and review, material on all legal and Loan Market Association developments that had happened while I was away from the office - and the market - over the last six months. I should be able to do this research but there were over thirty emails containing know-how from that period alone. I replied to Tracey, saying that considering the volume of know-how to be reviewed and taking into account the chargeable work I had been given to do, I estimated that I would need five to seven business days to complete a meaningful first draft. She replied in turn, granting me three more days.

  Meanwhile, I submitted the acquisition finance memo a few minutes before 6 p.m. The entire afternoon she kept sending me emails with further nagging, cross-examination like, questions on the CP report I had sent at the beginning of the week. It was quite obvious what she was doing. I sent her my polite and concise answers, careful not to step into any trap, always asking innocently which assignment was taking precedence and, of course, always copying in Henry. With each email from her I was getting more wary. I knew these were her tactics - if they couldn’t fire me they would wear me down until I would be ready to leave voluntarily.

  By the end of the working day on Friday, I felt physically and mentally exhausted. I had been going into work every day like I was going into psychological warfare. Dealing with those emails from Tracey, working as the trainee’s assistant, encountering administrative hurdles, facing the cold atmosphere in the office - all of that showed me clearly that I was regarded as the enemy number one. In their eyes I should’ve accepted the dismissal and taken any settlement they had offered. They didn’t care what consequences that would have had for me and for my family. Now I still wanted to keep my job but I was not going to swallow it all. In compliance with ‘The Rules’ I prepared an email to Michael and Henry.

  From: Krakowski, Chloe

  To: Stone, Michael; Struther, Henry

  Re: Weekly summary

  Dear Michael and Henry,

  Please see below for a summary of my activities this week so far.

  1. Conditions precedent/Plastic Group transaction for HS -- 31.4 hours

  2. Project ABF security agreement for TT -- 3.2 hours

  3. 2009 transaction closing report for TT (non-chargeable) -- 4.3 hours

  4. Acquisition Finance client bulletin for TT (non-chargeable) -- 7.7 hours

  5. Standard form real estate finance agreement for TT (non-chargeable) -- 2.2 hours

  6. Administration (Monday: going through 1100 plus emails) -- 2.1 hours

  7. Preparing draft agreement on objectives -- 2.6 hours

  Please find attached the draft agreement on objectives as requested.

  For the avoidance of any doubt, I take the liberty to summarise the rules you informed me of in our meeting on Monday morning.

  1. Any work I accept needs to be cleared with Henry. All partners will be notified.

  2. Any delegation of work is to be cleared with Henry.

  3. To the extent I do any German law work I need to clear, in advance, with Henry and a German Partner who the supervising partner will be.

  4. There will be a monthly review and analysis of what I have done. If necessary, the review will happen more often.

  5. Any marketing activity or participation in training has to be cleared with Henry beforehand and Henry will decide upon it.

  6. You need to monitor my busyness. I am to fill out and submit my time sheets daily. I am to submit weekly summary report to Henry about my activities.

  7. If I am allowed to undertake a marketing activity, I am to provide a short summary afterwards to Henry.

  8. If I feel I am treated unfairly, I may report it to Henry or Michael.

  Please kindly let me know who in Henry’s absence is to take his role in this respect. Unless you inform me otherwise, I shall report to Michael during that period.

  In the meantime and as for rule number 8: I am still waiting for the allocation of the parking space and on the crediting of my 19 days’ holiday entitlement for this year. Furthermore, my profile has not been re-entered on the P&W homepage. I attach the relevant correspondence below for your convenience. Please would you kindly arrange for this situation to be remedied and for those conditions of my employment to be reinstated.

  Many thanks and kind regards

  Chloé

  I pressed the send button just before I left the office. Once outside the building, I enjoyed the ten-minute walk to the car park where, at short notice, I had been able to rent a space once I discovered that P&W was not going to re-allocate me a parking space in the underground garage of the office building.

  After I had given the girls a bath, I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of red wine. I heard the key in the door.

  “Hi.” Jacob walked in slowly, blackberry in his hand, briefcase in the other. He placed the briefcase on the kitchen counter, threw his coat on a chair and took a glass out of the cupboard. I watched him silently.

  “This is shit, Chloé. You should have taken what they offered you. This is really shit. Three partners were in my office today asking me why I have no control over my wife. They told me that all of this might affect my position soon as well.” He ran his hand through his hair and looked at me for the first time. “This is getting too much.”

  “I’m sorry. That is awful. Believe me, what they
are doing to me all day is worse. It’s psychological warfare. Not just work but things like cancelling my holiday entitlement and not giving me my parking space back.”

  “They have the right to do that. You’ve been away for several months - they can deduct that from your holiday entitlement for this year. As for the parking, it’s not in your contract.”

  “Whose side are you on? I know about the holiday but Peter Weaver thinks the parking has become part of the contract and that we should sue.”

  “Are you crazy? Do you want to get me fired as well? It’s unbelievable. I’m start to think they are right about you. Anyway, I’ve got work to do.” He shook his head and left the kitchen. That night he slept in the guest room and the night after - and after that, he moved his personal belongings in there.

  * * *

  A few weeks later I woke up in the morning with my head on fire. I stumbled into the bathroom, took a thermometer and two aspirin out of the medical cabinet and continued to the kitchen, the thermometer stuck under my left armpit while I made coffee. When it beeped I checked it - 39.5 degrees. Not good. I swallowed the aspirin, went back to the bathroom and took a shower. There was no way I would call in sick. They wouldn’t believe me anyway. I got myself ready, woke up the girls and helped them get dressed. When we left for school, Jacob was still asleep in the guest room.

  By the time I got to the office I knew this was not just a fever. I felt dizzy, I was sweating, coughing badly - actually the same symptoms Antonio had shown the previous weekend when Jacob had brought him over from Jasmin’s house. I called Jacob on his mobile.

  “Have you heard any news about Antonio?”

  “Ah, yes, actually. Jasmin called. The doctor suspects it may be swine flu.”

  “What? I told you it was irresponsible bringing him into our house and in the vicinity of the girls! Now I’m really sick - he might have passed it on to me!”

  “Well, that is the risk we took,” he replied coolly.

  “We? You mean you! Without asking me! Thanks a lot!” I put the phone down with a bang, then rang Jerome’s number.

  “Jerome, I have got to go to the doctor. I’m very sick and I may be contagious with swine flu - probably got it this weekend from Jacob’s son.”

  “Oh dear! OK, I understand. I will divert your phone to mine - what shall I say if somebody asks?”

  “I am sick but I am working from home.”

  “Understood. Get well soon - I hope it’s not the swine flu!”

  “Thanks.” I hung up, packed some files in a briefcase and left.

  * * *

  The doctor was worried and prescribed strict quarantine at home until he had the results back from the lab. So I settled on my sofa, laptop on the coffee table, blackberry beside it, files all over the floor, tissue boxes and tea mugs around them. I felt the energy draining out of me with every passing hour. It was hard to keep the girls at a distance - Marie even saying “I don’t care if I get sick, I want a good night kiss from Mummy!” Jana stayed late every evening to give the girls their bath and put them to bed.

  “So? Where is your husband?” she asked on the third night.

  “Good question. He hasn’t called, he comes in late, he leaves without a word. It’s as if he doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh, Chloé, I didn’t want to say anything then, but I need to tell you now. I have heard him a few times screaming at the girls. Even on your wedding day.” She looked at me with sadness.

  I nodded. “I’m not surprised about that now. He has said pretty nasty things to them in my presence since.” I felt the tears in my eyes again. I was so tired of fighting. “I will not allow it anymore.”

  The next morning before Jacob left the house he came and stood in the doorway to the sitting room where I was lying on my sofa. “Antonio doesn’t have the swine flu after all.”

  “Great.”

  “How are you?”

  “Since when do you care? Jacob, I can’t go on anymore. I feel drained. I feel I have nothing left. I have been so sick and you haven’t even called me. I feel you may have even been with someone else. I am so unhappy, so deeply, deeply unhappy.” I started crying.

  He didn’t move.

  I wiped my tears away. “I really think I’d be rather reasonably happy on my own, than so desperately unhappy like this.”

  He waited.

  “Jacob, I can’t go on anymore. I think - I think it’s better we separate.”

  He shifted his position. “I think that’s a good decision,” he replied calmly, attempted a smile and turned to leave. Twenty seconds later I heard the front door close.

  “Isabella, it’s over.” I had called Isabella as soon as I had stopped sobbing.

  “Oh no, Chloé. I know things with Jacob have been going from bad to worse, since you had to go back to work. It’s all her fault, that stupid bitch!”

  “Of course it’s not her fault. Yes, I’m going through absolute hell but this is between Jacob and me. I feel embarrassed because we only got married last year! I wanted it to work. I thought he loved me the way I was and I tried so hard to become the wife he wanted me to be. I have failed.”

  “I am so sorry, darling. I really don’t understand how he can let you go just like that. He is crazy! You are his wife!”

  “It’s become all too much for him. This is not what he bargained for. I just feel so sad and hopeless. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just don’t know anything anymore.”

  “How are the girls taking the situation at home?”

  “That’s the other thing. I don’t know. They actually seem fine. I’ll tell them he is staying with his brother - which I assume is true, but who knows. At least they won’t notice at Christmas, as they’ll be with Jean in Paris.”

  “What - you are going to be alone this Christmas?”

  “Yes, and I actually want to be. If the girls can’t be with me, I don’t want to see anybody. We’ll have a little celebration before they leave and then they will be back for New Year’s Eve. I promised them a girly party with their friends Paulina and Louisa.”

  “That’s sweet. I do have some good news for you though if you are interested.”

  “What is it?”

  “I went back to the Grill Royal the other day and bumped into your friend Giles again. He reminded me of his offer. I told him I’d let you know.”

  “Oh - thanks. It’s good to know. Work is hell and now I’m separated. So maybe it is time to start considering this.” I sniffed and suppressed a tear. I had cried enough. I needed to be stronger than ever now, in order to find the best way out of my misery.

  * * *

  The months went on. Christmas had come and gone. Jacob had moved out and tried his best to ignore me in the office. It turned out that he did have a new girlfriend, as I had suspected, but I locked my pain away and concentrated on having a positive attitude to work. Shortly into the New Year of 2010, Henry became so busy with several large transactions and he realised that I could be of actual use to him and actually take work off of him, instead of being downgraded to assisting the trainee. I diligently took on every assignment and put in late hours and weekends again, running up nearly 300 billable hours every month. Winter was over, spring came and I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, this could work out, in the long run. Tracey left me alone and the monthly review meetings were short. By June I felt I had proven myself to be trustworthy again. Henry and I worked well as a team and there were moments when he seemed to forget that I was supposedly the enemy. So I thought - until the next monthly review meeting came along.

  I knew something was different because Krystle Cann attended the meeting in addition to Michael and Henry. I was on high alert when I sat down opposite them.

  “So, Chloé. How have things developed since the last meeting you had with Henry?”
Krystle Cann began probingly.

  “Fine. We have been very busy. We had a successful closing last week.”

  “Right. We will get to that. I want to focus on three topics. Let’s deal with your marketing activity and your progress in fulfilling your business plan. We need to see more activity. Henry expects to be approached regularly with requests for specific client marketing initiatives. I note from the target list you have sent us that no significant progress has been made.”

  “Well, I’ve been caught up in billable work but I have contacted most of them, for the purpose of setting up meetings at next week’s aircraft finance conference, where they will all be.”

  “Yes. I see that here, as well as in paragraphs 2 and 3 of the business plan or your agreement on objectives as you call it. However, meetings should be set up anyway. Waiting for the conference is not necessary to re-establish contact.”

  “Okay.” The less said the better. The HR lady didn’t know my business.

  “So we will make a note of this. Next topic. Taking responsibility within the team.”

  “Yes?”

  “Apparently you left in the middle of a closing,” Michael said sternly.

  I stared at him incredulously. “What? When?”

  “It was the Dutchbank closing,” Henry clarified. “You and Joanna were collecting CPs in the evening. I had to go to a meeting and when I came back you had your coat on.”

  “Uh, not quite - you, Joanna and I went through the CP list together; all that was missing was for us to send out our legal opinion which Joanna was about to do; I asked you if that was fine because my nanny had to leave. You said yes, I left and was online again twenty minutes later when I logged on at home.”

  “There was still work to be done and the matter was not yet closed,” Henry insisted.