A Midwinter Match

by Jane Lovering

  Zac was, of course, already in. His coat, hanging on the rickety coat-stand, looked dry. I’d come through the front door so hadn’t seen his car, but I bet you could have made an entire snowball fight from the amount that had settled on his roof and bonnet.

  He looked up when I came in. ‘Thank God. Miriam’s here and I daren’t give her any more coffee in case she rips down the blinds and uses them to build a scale model of her unhappiness.’

  I stopped, arrested in the act of taking off the spare layers of clothing that had bulked me and made me sweat my way through the blizzard. ‘What? What’s she doing here? It’s not even dawn yet.’

  ‘I didn’t listen to her, I just caffeinated her. Besides, she hates me.’ He slumped in a defeated way onto the corner of his desk. ‘Something to do with an early train so she’s got a full day to… I dunno, do whatever she does.’ His shoulders slumped a little bit more. ‘She talked at me a lot. And now she’s got possession of the coffee machine.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll see what she wants.’ I hung up my damp outerwear over the top of his coat. ‘Go and make coffee from the machine in Reception.’

  ‘Oh, is there one there?’ Zac jumped up. ‘I never knew that! Why did nobody tell me that?’

  ‘Because Karen guards it. She counts the spoons too, you know,’ I called after him as he dashed out of the door and headed off through the building. A small tickle of smugness teased at the back of my mind; Zac didn’t know everything. I still held some advantages. Then I wished I’d kept the second coffee machine secret, just to have a one-up on him, and hated myself a tiny bit for having that thought. If the competition between us was going to come down to things as petty as knowing where you could get coffee in an emergency or how to sweet-talk the café next door into letting us use a table for hours – well, maybe it wasn’t a job I wanted to keep, after all.

  Actually, I thought, as I took deep breaths and straightened my spine to go into the interview room, did I really want a job where they tried to use personal information against us? Where they tried to get us to ‘dig the dirt’ on one another, just to gain advantage? It was an uneasy realisation, that YouBack2Work may not ethically be a place I wanted to stay. But what choice did I have? The anxiety wouldn’t even let me contemplate the complexities of applying for another job, let alone learning new ropes with new people.

  Miriam seemed similarly unsettled. In deference, hopefully, to me, she hadn’t lit up, but a packet of cigarettes lay on the top of her voluminous bag, ready to be snatched up in a moment. She was circling, uneasy as a spooked horse, and, presumably, containing enough caffeine to jet-propel her through the ceiling.

  ‘Well, you took your time.’ She wandered around the desk, running a finger along its bevelled edge. ‘I’ve been waitin’ an hour.’

  ‘Miriam, we aren’t even open yet.’

  ‘Yeah, well, this is an emergency, in’t it?’ Her fingers twitched around an imaginary cigarette. ‘They reckons I can be a postwoman. Me! Walkin’ the streets at stupid o’clock in the snow! What does they take me for!’

  I had to bite my lip to refrain from pointing out that she’d already done that in order to come to our office before the shops were even open, but I managed to restrain myself, although I internally squeaked.

  ‘It’s not bad earnings though.’ I tried to sound rational. ‘And they need loads of people this close to Christmas, to make sure there’s no backlog.’

  Miriam looked, for want of a better word, shaken. ‘They tried to make me do it last year, but I got swollen ankles before the interview,’ she said. ‘Can’t walk up and down with swollen ankles.’

  Zac’s words about my being too soft on my clients whispered into my ear. Miriam didn’t want counselling. I’d listened to her talk about the laziness of her daughters and the loudness of her grandchildren and the intransigence of the local council offices already. She didn’t want opinions or solutions. I wasn’t sure what she did want. ‘Well, you could give it a try,’ I said, feeling a little bit hopeless. If Miriam got into work – well, that wouldn’t just be a feather in my cap, it would pretty much be an entire aviary roosting on my head. ‘You might enjoy it.’

  She sucked in air. ‘No,’ she said, without a shred of doubt. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘It would get you out of the house. Away from the computer games and arguments.’

  ‘I can do that anyway. I goes up my friend’s. And she don’t expect me to walk for miles carryin’ a bloody great bag.’

  I couldn’t help it. My eyes travelled to her enormous and overladen handbag even though they tried not to. ‘Um,’ was all I said.

  Miriam, to my surprise, laughed. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ She looked younger when she laughed, it ironed out the tight skin and wrinkles of someone who exists on roll-ups and coffee. ‘Next year. Maybe next year. I just need your help this year, to keep them off my back.’

  ‘Miriam, that’s not what we’re here for,’ I said, with a feeling that I might as well be shouting into that overloaded bag. ‘We’re trying to get you back into work, not help you avoid it.’

  ‘I thought you was here to counsel us through the problems that holds us back from applyin’. That’s what he always said, anyway.’ She jerked her head towards the door and I supposed that the he in question was Zac. ‘Fuckin’ tosspot,’ she muttered. ‘Bloke like him with his fancy talk, he’s never known a minute of worryin’ about the bailiffs or kids. Charmed life, he’s got!’ She raised her voice, presumably so that Zac, wherever he was, would be under no illusions as to what she thought of him.

  I thought of his voice, weighted low with worry, during that overheard phone call. The way he’d never say anything other than ‘it’s complicated’ about his home situation. ‘Oh, I don’t know about…’

  ‘Right, so I wants counsellin’.’ Miriam stopped pacing like a caged animal and plonked herself down in the comfortable chair. ‘I can’t be expected to work until you’ve counselled me, right?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure it works like…’ I tried, feebly, but she’d already settled herself.

  ‘I’ve got four kids to four different blokes; one beat me, one raped me and one’s still in prison for what he did to a security guard,’ she began, with a tone that was half confessional and half daring me to say anything. ‘That’s the blokes, not the kids,’ she finished, with an admirable attempt at clarity. ‘Wouldn’t stand for crap like that from the kids.’

  It was less like one of my usual sessions and more like reading one of those true-life magazine stories. Miriam’s life had contained pretty much every form of abuse going, and when she got to the bit about the vodka, I had to stop her. ‘Okay, okay. Look, I’ve got another client coming in soon, so we’ll have to carry on next time.’

  Miriam sat back. There was a look in her eye, a look of challenge, as though she expected me to disbelieve her. ‘But you’ll shove a note on me file? You’re counsellin’ me, so I’m not able to work?’

  I thought back over some of what she’d told me. It was amazing that she was still walking and talking, never mind looking for employment, and her pulled-back face and gaunt appearance made a lot more sense now. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said. ‘But I probably won’t be able to see you again before Christmas.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ She began gathering up her bag and coat. ‘It’s not goin’ anywhere. And, y’know, actually it is quite good to talk about it, you’re onto somethin’ with this counsellin’ lark. I’ve never told anyone about that stuff with the bloke in the shed.’ She went to the door and then leaned back in to pat me on the cheek. ‘Don’t have nightmares, now.’

  Then she was gone. Leaving me feeling as though a hurricane had passed over the top of me, only for a tsunami to snatch me up and hurl me inland. I’d thought that I had problems, when all I had was an ex-boyfriend and a bit of debt? Miriam was a walking Reddit forum of problems, and it made me feel weak and a bit of a fraud.

  ‘Did Miriam tell you about her life?’ I asked Zac when
I went back into our office. He was half-hiding behind the coat rack.

  ‘Has she gone?’

  ‘Yes. But I think I just promised to excuse her from work searching until after Christmas.’

  ‘You got away lightly. She didn’t claim your firstborn or try to make you eat an apple that was suspiciously red and shiny?’

  ‘Her life…’ I said, and stopped as mental images crashed down on me. I caught my breath. ‘She told me about her life.’

  ‘Miriam tells everyone about her life.’ Zac pushed a mug of slightly cold coffee at me. ‘She likes to complain about her grandchildren to anyone she meets. I would not like to sit next to her on a bus.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I mean, her life growing up.’ I sipped at the coffee, its bitter smoothness was a good steadying influence. ‘Her parents and…’ More images. ‘That,’ I finished.

  Zac frowned at me. ‘Oh no, she’s never talked about that. She’s always been a bit private about that kind of thing. You got her to open up? That’s actually pretty amazing, Ruby.’

  ‘It was horrible,’ I said softly. ‘It just made me remember what goes on in some people’s lives. People who look sorted and confident on the outside. Well, some of them are just hiding a lot of really awful crap.’

  He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, steadily, a pile of forms in his hands. The pile shook, very slightly.

  ‘I mean, yes, I hear a lot of bad life stories in this job.’ I sipped again. Zac was still watching me, and there was a hollowness, an expectancy in the air. ‘But Miriam goes above and beyond anything I’ve heard before.’

  I waited for him to speak. He opened his mouth a couple of times and tapped at the papers, as though words were building up inside him and he was just trying to put them into a kind of order that would make sense. I could feel myself tensing. There was something, something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to, and his uncertainty was there, in every line of his body, every crease in his informal jacket and T-shirt combination. So when he said, ‘It’s not what’s happened to you, it’s how you deal with it,’ in a low voice that was only just audible over the computer fans and the background noise of phones ringing and people talking, it was an anticlimax.

  ‘I think Miriam still being alive is pretty surprising, never mind dealing with it.’

  We made eye contact. His eyes were surprisingly dark, given that the overhead lighting in here was of ‘operating theatre’ intensity. Very brown, no back-hints of green or flecks of amber. Dark and shadowed. I realised how infrequently we looked one another in the eye; how we slid past each other even though we worked so closely and we’d spent time outside the office together, and I wondered why. Were we trying not to show our true selves to one another?

  Then I remembered. He was the competition. Neither one of us could afford to show any chinks in the armour.

  But I was pretty sure now that there were chinks. And I was slowly coming to realise that I’d started to look at Zac as a whole human being, not just the opposition. As a man, with thoughts and feelings and opinions, not as some cartoon baddie with an outsize moustache and an unlikely propensity for throwing mothers out into the snow. Someone with a life that held things he didn’t want to talk about. And that thought disturbed me.

  ‘Ruby!’ Sophie’s yell up the stairs made me jump and I scattered papers out of the file across my duvet. ‘You’d better come down!’

  ‘What?’ I leaned over the bannisters, which she’d hung with a selection of baubles that meant grabbing hold of the rail was like being assaulted by ping-pong balls. ‘What’s up?’

  Sophie was standing at the front door talking to a man in a uniform. At first I thought it was the police, and immediately felt guilty, but a quick audit of my life to date didn’t turn up anything that might get me arrested on my own doorstep. Was it too much to hope that Gareth had died a horrible death and they were letting me know? Yep, Gareth hadn’t even admitted my existence to his workmates or new girlfriend, I’m sure, so nobody would bother to tell me of his demise. Unless they thought I’d caused it, of course.

  But the uniformed man turned out to be a bus driver.

  ‘Look, here’s all our company stuff, I’ll get on to the insurance lot in the morning,’ he said, as we froze, inspecting the damage his bus had done to my car, trying to avoid a cat on the icy road. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  Sorry. Right.

  I stared at what had previously been the front end of my Skoda. It was now more like the side of my Skoda, having taken a swipe left more decisive than a woman seeing her old maths teacher on Tinder. The bus, currently full of people who were all staring at me out of their comfortably steamed-up windows, was completely undamaged.

  ‘Do you think you can still drive it, Ruby?’ Sophie hugged my arm.

  ‘Only around very very tight bends.’ I crouched, but the car didn’t look any better from lower down. ‘Oh bugger.’

  The bus drove away, all the faces swivelling to watch my continuing misery.

  How was I going to get to work? Priya couldn’t give me a lift, she lived on the other side of town. Nobody drove in past our awkwardly placed suburb and it was too far to walk. I could get the bus, but I’d still have to walk from the bus stop and taxis were too expensive for daily use. The car probably wasn’t worth fixing anyway, and the insurance payout, when it eventually arrived, would most likely only be enough for an old banger, if I could find one.

  Oh, bugger.

  ‘You can borrow my spare bike,’ Cav said, kicking at the jutting tyre. ‘If you want.’

  I looked at the snow-laden roads. ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘Course. Safer than this thing, anyhow.’ He kicked again and the bumper fell off. ‘Quicker than the bus too.’ He made ‘weaving’ motions with his hands. ‘And I know you can ride a bike.’

  I’d gone out for a ‘Sunday jaunt’ with Cav, when I’d first moved in. What I had envisaged as a leisurely cycle out into the countryside, with possibly a pub lunch thrown in, had turned into something like the ‘Tour de Yorkshire’. Cav had got so far ahead of me that I’d had to keep phoning him to find out where he was, and we’d found the steepest range of hills outside of the Alps, every one of which only, apparently, went up. Another couple of climbs and I swore we’d be in orbit.

  ‘Thanks, Cav.’ There were no other options, but I’d need to leave early, to miss the traffic. Probably literally, as the roads were slippery and I didn’t fancy cannoning off every commuter vehicle all the way in.

  ‘No prob.’ He picked up the bumper, completely unashamed. ‘You might get to like it. Honestly, bike over car, every time.’

  That’s what I’m afraid of, I thought, looking at the tiny frame and skinny wheels of the bike he’d just pulled into the drive. Because Ed and Sophie had been home first, the driveway had been full and I’d had to park on the road. Hence the bus-car interface problem. I wondered if I could sue the cat.

  ‘You’ll have to wear proper gear.’ Cav seriously handed me his helmet. ‘And change when you get to work.’

  ‘I am not wearing lycra,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Nah. I mean the fluorescent stuff.’

  Oh Lord. I was going to have to arrive at the office looking like Mr Bean. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  I slowly cycled in to work the next morning, so early that even the roadworks hadn’t started, looking like a fourteen-year-old off to do her paper round. The oversized helmet tightly strapped to my head was pulling all the skin of my chin into folds so that I could feel them ripple when I went over cobbles. I was wearing enough fluorescent gear that I was probably visible from space, and a set of lights strapped around my body, which gave me the appearance of one carrying an arsenal of halogen-powered weaponry.

  And, because I drew the line at bicycle clips, I’d had to wear leggings.

  I caught sight of myself in shop windows as I cycled past, down the pedestrianised streets because there was nobody to stop me, apart from pigeon
s, who took half-hearted flights to shoulder level and then settled back behind me. The enormous amount of clothing on my top half, teamed with the necessary streamlining below the waist, made me look like a half-inflated balloon that’s had all the air pushed into the top. The helmet forced my cheeks and chin forwards, so that I bore an astonishing resemblance to the Human Cannonball, and I was pink and sweaty from the effort of propelling myself over the ridges of snow. The bike skittered and slid and only the fact that I was going at walking pace stopped me from several nasty accidents.

  ‘Are buses really that bad?’ I asked myself as I cycled past one, idling its engine while people boarded into the brightly lit relative warmth. Okay, it meant a bit of a hike at both ends, and money I couldn’t really afford, but it would be better than this undignified progress surely. Plus, I wasn’t going to be able to sit down for a week. Cav, apparently, didn’t believe in saddles, and just tacked a bit of razor wire down the middle of the frame. That’s what it felt like, anyway.

  I swung sharply left into the Minster yard and wobbled over the picturesque but not comfortable cobbled surface, past the brooding hulk of building replete with austere snow in its crannies. It seemed disapproving of my arrival, too early, too brightly lit, and I was sure it turned to watch my legging-clad bottom wobble its way into the YouBack2Work car park with a raise of its Gothic arches.

  I had to get off in the car park and push the bike. The overnight snowfall hadn’t been disturbed by the arrival of cars and it lay too deep to easily pedal through. There was only one car in there.

  Zac’s Discovery was parked in its usual spot. There were no tyre tracks blemishing the smooth metres of snow around it, nor footprints leading to the side door. He’d been here all night. Or, at least, I reasoned to myself, his car had. He may have got a lift, or gone back to Leeds by train, not wanting to brave the blizzards or risk not being able to get through today.