‘She’s not dead, though,’ I say, finally.
‘Well, none of us know that really, lovey –’
‘Yeah, I think we do. She’s not dead, she’s just deliberately dragging it out. She wants us to do this. We’re not giving her what she wants. Not again. We carry on, and when she comes back, we force all the pain she’s given us back on her. Twenty times and much more if it makes us feel better. But that’s what we do.’
I storm off to bed, shaking, leaving them to finish the bottle on my sofa. I put my head under the covers, and tried to work out why I’d said all that. Because really, it made sense. Kill her off. Finish her. Let it go. Perhaps it’s just hearing my parents voice it, that they could cut her off. No, I really just don’t want to let her get away with it.
She can’t feel as present to them. She left me, not them. The wound’s not as fresh. Not like the way she lives with me, seeping through into my life, sticking angry fingers into her curls, jabbing and fuzzing them higher till the light glows through them.
‘It says here that your hair should always have volume and lift in it, so that’s what I’m doing. So shut up, flathead.’
And she closed the door to our mutual bedroom on me, pop static flaring out from her radio.
‘Will you both be quiet,’ our father howled, from the room he insisted on calling a study. He only communicated in cries of pain and frustration over this period; it was a long time before we got sentences addressed to our individual selves, by name. He would be in there by the time we came home from school, typing, typing, swearing, moaning. At the weekends he would leave in the morning, switching on the telly for us, come home in the evening with shopping bags full of tins. In the period after our mother left him, during which point Rona and I shuttled between our old flat in the city and this wobbly-walled semi, he was Writing. If we’d listened, perhaps we would have heard him tell a story of child and wife and work-thwarted ambitions; but we were thrawn, hurt teenagers, so we mocked him for it.
‘Mr Shakespeare, is that you?’
‘Watch out Rona, there’s Very Important Writing happening in here today.’
We were never closer, Rona and I, than when we were making our father feel small and bad about the breakdown of his marriage.
Back. Mum’s red face, a head below his, screaming.
‘You arsehole, you weak, ineffectual little man, stabbing away at that self-indulgent crap while I raise the fucking children you foisted on me.’
We’d sat at the top of the stairs, just out of sight, scared to breathe in case they heard us, and Rona had curled her thin pyjamed limbs into me.
Forward. Mum, slightly boozy over the cot, on the second night, when we’d pulled our three shellshocked selves together in the same place, whispering.
‘Fiona, I should take her. It should be me. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault. I let her think this was acceptable. She’s just copying what I did to you. Let me take the baby.’
No, I’d said. No. And I’d ushered her away from Beth’s room, let the shame sit on her. This is just how we communicate, in a lazy slick of unsaid resentments, and I think it’s suited us all, ever since, to live in our own guilt, stay mucky with it. Imagine we actually did it, declared her dead, drew a line under it and began to live again. The shock of such a psychologically healthy action could actually kill us.
The next day, I dropped in on them at breakfast: they’d promised to take Beth and Amy to the park. I held the girls in front of me, human shield against conversation.
‘Let me think about it, okay? Just give me some time.’
Body
Ask, and ye shall receive, right?
‘Thanks for coming in, Fiona. Have a seat.’
‘That’s okay. I wasn’t. I wasn’t too busy or anything. Thanks. Thanks.’
There’s something about his manner worrying me. He sighs.
‘As you might have heard, we lost the Jackson Group contract. The development won’t be going ahead. In fact, there won’t be any more contracts with them: they’ve decided to sever all ties with RDJ.’
Norman was still in hospital, a week afterwards. He probably wouldn’t be able to walk again. The enquiry had already ‘discovered’ that the site was certainly not suitable for the planned developments, meaning that the Jackson Group could whisk away from the investment. The office had been a silent terrible place where no-one met anyone else’s eye. It wasn’t just that we missed Norman’s forced, terrible jokes against the aircon whirr: we all had a sense that when blame came, it would lie with the surveying department. Probably even with Norman himself: in the last few days something almost imperceptible had shifted, and it was only Moira who could bring herself to mention his name. Without being told, the staff had somehow picked up who the pariah would be.
All the many meticulous surveys Norman had completed, to the letter, always to the letter, the teeth-grinding irritation of his checks and double-checks. Anya’s conspiracy theories about Jackson Group came right into focus there, in my boss’s office.
Ian is frayed at the edges, one hand gripping his desk to make sure it was still there.
‘The thing is, Fiona, that relationship meant a great deal to this company, and especially this branch. An awful lot. Our finances have not been, ah, excellent. Not for some time. There was a lot resting on this project, and I admit it was a big risk to take. We took that risk, and it hasn’t paid off. And now we’re going to have to look at ways of economising, ah.’
‘Starting with my job,’ I finished for him.
He sighed again.
‘I’m sorry Fiona. I really, really am. This has come from above me – this “credit crunch” thing they’re all talking about–’
He did quote fingers, not trusting the idiom to carry.
‘We’ll try and give you at least a few months’ salary, just to get you back on your feet. It’s just, your position is the most – expendable. Elaine can do a few extra hours to manage my calendar, and I think we’ll be putting the databasing project on hold for a few months, at least. It’s not a priority any more. And there are people who’ve been here longer.’
‘Is this just because of the circumstances?’
Another pause, another sigh.
‘I have always been very happy with your work, Fiona. Very happy. I’ll be giving you a satisfactory reference, certainly, and let there be no doubt that the only reason we’re having to let any staff go at all is because of our current financial situation. But I’d be lying if I said that your, ah, two years here have been entirely without incident. There have been complaints, about your loyalty to the company, and about your use of computers.’
‘Elaine,’ I say. Clenched jaw. No point hiding what I feel, I think. No point, now. At the same time, I’ve realised, they have not found me out.
‘And your efficiency. Look, I know you’re a clever girl. I’m well aware that you’ve just been doing this job because you need the money, because you need to support your daughter. I know that organising my meetings, basic data entry and making sure Norman gets his tea in the mornings – I know you’ve always felt like this was a temporary stop, that it’s not the sort of work you thought you’d end up doing. But management doesn’t see it like that. Those employees to whom this company has meant a career, has become their life. They don’t necessarily see it like that.’
‘I’ve always worked hard here,’ I say. One of those comforting little lies you tell people and yourself, sometimes.
‘Fiona. You were seen taking cups of tea – cups of tea made with company teabags – to those idiots who chained themselves to the railings last month. Those idiots who had, not half an hour before, committed criminal damage on my car. Those idiots whose actions contributed to RDJ Construction not only getting some very unwelcome publicity, but also losing one of the biggest contracts in our history. You made them tea, Fiona!’
Company teabags. Oh, he suspects. He does. But he can’t prove it was me. Everyone at that meeting had access to t
hose minutes, and he doesn’t know for definite that they were leaked to the protesters. I decide to keep bluffing it out, keep angry and innocent. Keep my reference and my redundancy pay.
‘Look, I know Elaine’s always had a problem with me, but to be quite honest she’s not –’
‘It was Norman who showed me the footage,’ Ian says. ‘The police wanted the CCTV tapes of the day of the protest, and I’d asked Norman to go over them for me. Tea. Cups of tea. On a tray.’
Norman, his checks and double-checks. The petty little jobsworth soul of him. I thought of the denouncement that would probably come to him, his prone body, and he’d be unable to deny it, build a defence as two big companies hung him out to dry. I don’t know if that makes it better, to be me just now.
‘It was a cold day,’ I said, helpless.
XXX
‘Can we take you out for a wee drink, hen?’
Moira, her hand smoothing the back of my shirt, perhaps not even aware it was there.
‘Just me and Graeme. Maybe Elaine? Maybe big George? After work on your last day? We can pop down the road to the pub, get a wee bit of food? Just thought you’d maybe like a wee send off.’
‘Och no, Moira. I wouldn’t want to put anyone out.’
‘Ah, go on,’ she says. She smiles and her features dissolve in it. ‘We’ll miss you here. You’ve been a good girl, and it’s a shame, so it is. Go on. You deserve it. We’ll put a kitty together. God knows we could do with a wee bit fun, eh?’
Features gone entirely now, just the smile. It’s the first time I’ve seen her do that faceless smile since the accident. Even the news last week that Norman had come round, had gone through the first round of surgery successfully, would be able to have visitors, hadn’t shaken the fat grey silence hanging over Moira’s desk.
‘I’ll lay a wee bit of a guilt trip on Ian, eh. Get him to pay for it.’
There’s a bit of me that’s looking forward to walking right out of RDJ Construction, wiping my feet, climbing the hill and never having to come back. That’s not the bit of me that nods at Moira, says, okay, and gets on the phone to beg yet another favour from my mum. A good girl. No, Moira, I’m not. But out of everyone in that office, it’s important to me that she thinks that.
Red velvet seats and framed adverts for cheap wine. Everyone buys me drinks. We sit round a table where conversation needs to be jump-started every ten minutes, Elaine and big George and Graeme and Moira and me. Ian had stopped off ‘just for twenty minutes’ to put £50 behind the bar and kiss my cheek drily, awkwardly, wish me luck. He stayed, though, talking work and avoiding my eye, burying himself in conversations about the local council and the motorway works, about taxes rising, and big George saying I know, I know, you’re right there man.
Elaine. Why is Elaine here? Because it’s correct, I suppose, the company represented correctly at every work social gathering. Elaine talks mostly to Moira, sometimes to me. Sometimes she talks to the table, and when she talks to the table she is mostly addressing Graeme, and her voice is lacquered.
‘So, what do you think you’re going to do now, Fiona?’
Elaine has no problems with me any more. There is patronage in her voice. I am no longer a problem in the work place, a discredit to the company. I’ve become a formality, and Elaine understands formalities.
‘Well, I don’t know Elaine. Think of all the possibilities, eh! Four months’ salary and the whole world spread out in front of me. Certainly no need to go back to the old nine-to-five right off – it’s not as though I’ve got any ties, now, is it? I think the first thing I’ll do is buy myself a really nice handbag. Maybe get my nails done. Where do you go? Who does yours?’
Her face shuts down. She understands that something isn’t correct here.
I am bright. I fizz with the drink in me, talking too loudly and laughing hard, brittle at everyone’s jokes. I am made of exclamation marks. I’m dazzling.
I’m playing Rona, shellac-glossed. I am too good for these people, that job, this bar.
‘Anyway,’ Elaine’s saying. ‘Anyway. I’m going to have to get going. Moira, you wanting to share a taxi? George? Any takers?’
She’s done her duty, has Elaine. She doesn’t have to stay here any longer.
‘Aw, come on!’ I’m shouting. ‘It’s my leaving night! Who’s up for staying out? Graeme? Ian, you going to stay out and see me off?’
‘I think I’ll go with Elaine, hen,’ Moira’s saying. ‘It’s just making me. You know. Norman would have loved this, all his colleagues out tonight.’
Norman would have hated this, I think. Too much frivolity. Too much me.
She hugs me again, kisses my cheek.
‘Bye love. Thanks for everything, eh.’
‘I’ll just get these girls home, I think, Fiona,’ Ian says, a hand on the small of Elaine’s back to usher her away from the table, the shameful sight of me.
She leans in to him with surprising familiarity. I wait until Moira and big George are out of earshot at the door.
‘Are you two sleeping together, then?’ I say, cheerily. ‘Gosh! Just think of the blackmail opportunities there! If only I’d known, eh?’
‘What?’ Elaine turns round on me. ‘You watch your –’
‘Just leave her, Elaine. Just.’ Ian holds onto his dignity. ‘Fiona, I know you’re upset but that’s a very wild accusation. I suggest you go home and get some sleep.’
‘Right, Graeme,’ I’m saying, volume up as we watch their backs leaving, their stupid boring coats, their self-righteousness. ‘Right Graeme. Looks like it’s just you and me, kiddo.’
Graeme just looks at me with his stupid face, giggling.
‘I can’t believe you said that to Ian and Elaine! Did I laugh? Shit, you don’t think I’ll get into trouble for it? Hah! They totally are, aren’t they! Can’t believe you said that, eh!’
There’s an approximation of a smile, and the weight of alcohol swimming behind his eyes. Doesn’t matter. I’ve made my decision for the evening. Mortal fucked, we used to say at school, meaning drunk, that crazy drunk where you’ve no responsibilities. I am getting mortal fucked tonight.
Last orders comes and goes. I ask him a couple of times how he’s feeling, and he shrugs, says the bruises are healing, says he doesn’t want to talk about it. We talk instead about films we’ve seen, lurch out of the pub with our arms round each other like a cartoon of drunks. We stand there for a bit and there’s that long moment that seems to go on forever, his head and his smile hovering over mine. The bit before it happens, where men look down on you.
He puts a hand on my cheek. I stroke a finger down his neck and he shivers, and I wonder who touches Graeme, really, with his acne scars and his mumbling. Who lays hands on the single people? Why shouldn’t we have touch too, if we can, take pleasure in this closeness? I think of the cold-bodied quick hugs I’ve had from friends and parents, a perfunctory rub of arms through jumpers or coats as greeting.
‘We need this,’ I’m maybe whispering, and he nods and kisses me.
Who touches the ugly people, the shy people? Who touches the ill people, the disabled, the ones who don’t win? I think of Anya, imagine her performing this sort of service with the professionalism of a nurse. Graeme’s cold hand flutters around my waistband, timidly reaching down.
‘God, you’ve got the most gorgeous arse,’ he says, heavy boozy breath. ‘I’ve always thought that.’
Something in me freezes there, turns off, just for a second. Cover it, cover it.
‘Want to share a taxi, then?’ I’m saying, gesturing to the empty road.
He’s laughing. He’s holding me with a revolving grip, like it’s a dance, like we’re at school, and I turn under his arm too hard, and we stumble, and we begin to sing.
Step we gaily, on we go. Heel for heel and toe for toe.
Old songs.
Arm in arm and row on row, all for Mairi’s wedding! Graeme’s rented flat in a new-build block, just on the edge of the drag. He sha
res with other boys. Tiny hallway clogged with nothing but bin bags, air full of the crackle of electrical static. The noise of computer game guns and male competition coming from behind a door.
‘Zat you, Gayboy?’ someone’s shouting.
Graeme opens a door for me and ushers me in.
‘I’ll just be a second,’ he whispers.
He bends in for another kiss and misses my mouth before leaving me in the dark.
From next door, deep voices muttering. I put the light on and look at the very featurelessness of what must be Graeme’s room. Hard blue carpet, the same sort of thing we have in the office. Cream walls. No posters. Piles of clothes on the floor, double bed shoved in one corner, telly in the other and a tiny strip of floor space between that and the mirrored fitted wardrobe taking up one wall. I sit on the bed, on its plasticky-feeling sheets, rumpled. There is nothing to say about this room at all. There are no books, no CDs, nothing. Through the wall come grunts and cheers, and someone shouts Get in there, my son! Go on yourself, Gayboy!
The boys. Always with the boys.
Graeme’s feet coming back down the hall. Too late to run for it. Not that I was going to run for it. The light is too bright, dead, so I fumble for an anglepoise, check myself out in shade in the mirror, all the gravity of the drink in me.
Graeme, it seems, has had a very different idea about how this evening is going to go. He comes towards me all eager clumsy hands and muttered gasps into my neck.
‘You’re so sexy,’ he’s saying, and I’m thinking yeah, actually. Yes, I am. I am sexy. For tonight, anyway. Not like Graeme, who isn’t sexy at all. Graeme with his wet boozy mouth. I’m leading.
‘Hey, hey,’ he’s saying. ‘Take it easy, eh? We’ve got all night.’
I push him down on the bed and rub my hand over his crotch, thin Topman smarts left over from work. I probably say things like I know what you want. You bad, bad man, maybe. I straddle him, conscious of the weight of me pressing his legs apart and down. Crushing him, feeling him get hard underneath me. Gripping his wrists in my hand and doing violence with my mouth on his, just because I can. Because this is the sort of thing he likes, this bland man I’ve shared an office with for two years.
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