A Midwinter Match

by Jane Lovering

  And then my subconscious cut in. ‘No,’ I heard myself say. ‘No, thank you.’

  My mouth had gone dry now. Where the hell had that come from? It was as though my brain was empty of anything apart from a coalescing knowledge that it had been the right thing to say.

  Michael blinked once or twice, then frowned. ‘Oh. Oh, I understood that… oh. Well. In that case, Zac, we are able to offer the position to you.’

  Here came my heart again, beating so hard that I felt sick.

  ‘No,’ I heard Zac say, with a lot more assuredness in his voice than mine had held. ‘Thank you, but, no.’

  We dared to look at one another now. He looked composed whereas I just wanted to giggle hysterically.

  The three on the other side of the desk were consulting now, their heads pushed close together and a frantic amount of whispering, pointing at bits of paper and hand waving was going on. Zac gave me a small smile and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Apparently,’ Michael said, after a moment and some throat clearing, ‘we can offer you both the job. On a job-share basis, naturally, which will entail a degree of negotiation regarding salary.’

  My subconscious opened my mouth and began to speak. ‘You don’t understand,’ it said. ‘I can’t continue to work for a company that employs methods like the ones you’ve used on us. Getting us to try to outdo one another. Trying to get us to gain information on each other to give us the upper hand. It’s unethical and isn’t behaviour that I want to be associated with, whether it gets me the job or not. So I’m handing in my notice.’

  I was torn between being impressed with myself for actually laying my reasons on the line so cogently and wanting to strangle my subconscious. These were all thoughts that had been in the back of my brain for a while, but thoughts that I’d sat on, hard, in the interests of, oh, the usual bill paying, living and the rest.

  Beside me, in his chair, Zac nodded. ‘And that’s how I feel as well,’ he said. ‘I’m handing in my notice too.’

  Michael looked shocked and his coffee cup rattled back into its saucer. ‘Both of you? I mean, who’s going to take over the counselling role?’

  Zac and I looked at one another, grinned, and then turned back to the now clearly panicked people behind the desk.

  ‘Not us,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure you can recruit someone.’ Zac stood up. ‘But for now, we need to go and clear our desks. Will you want us to work out our notice? Or finish at the end of today?’

  Michael came out from behind the protective mahogany. ‘I… err… I, well, the legal team, of course, I will confer, but… well, yes. Probably best if we call it a day now.’ His voice was shaky. ‘I, err…’ He walked us to the door, opened it and, when we stood outside, he pulled it closed behind him so that our view of Beehive woman and Grey Man twittering together over paperwork was cut off. ‘I have to tell you,’ Michael said, quickly and in a half-whisper, ‘that I’m taking early retirement. None of this was my doing.’

  Zac patted Michael’s arm. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But, you two – you will be all right? From here on in?’

  I gave Michael a smile that I could feel didn’t extend beyond the immediate area of my lips. ‘We’ll think of something. Going forward,’ I couldn’t resist adding.

  I got an equally stiff smile in return and he fumbled behind him for the door handle. ‘Good. Well, ah. Good.’ Then, with an almost balletic pirouette, he turned and went back into the office, leaving Zac and I on the polished boards of the landing, staring at one another.

  ‘That was great.’ Zac put his arm around me and guided me to the top of the staircase. ‘I’d got something similar prepared, just in case, but yours was better.’

  ‘Was it?’ I sounded shaky. Only that arm tucked casually around my shoulders was stopping me from slithering down the mirror-finish of the stairs like a sack of liquid.

  ‘Oh yes. I didn’t have the word “unethical” to hand, for a start.’

  ‘I don’t know where it came from.’ At the bottom of the stairs, I turned to him, the panic was beginning to build now. ‘I was angry at the way they behaved and I just…’ I tailed off. ‘What the hell do we do now?’

  Priya was standing outside our office door, two mugs in her hands. ‘Well?’ she asked, shoving the mugs in our direction as we walked towards her. ‘Well?’

  Zac told her what had happened while I sipped at my coffee. I didn’t feel as though I had any words left to give and, although the hot drink helped, there was a confusion starting behind those walls in my head that spoke of tears to come.

  ‘Wow.’ Priya looked at me through wide eyes. ‘That was brave, Ruby.’

  ‘It was stupid,’ I said fiercely. ‘They didn’t give me any thinking time.’

  ‘No, no, it was amazing,’ Zac insisted, opening the office door.

  Priya and I filed in after him and I looked around the cluttered chaotic room. I’d never thought how much I would miss this space, the smell of hot radiator, wood polish and history. This was the last time I’d be in here. The last time I’d…

  I had to stop this. I was spiralling and I needed to stop. I needed to think.

  ‘I don’t know what to do now.’ I could hear the rising note of panic in my voice. I tried really hard to stop it, but if simply not wanting to panic was enough to stop panic, then nobody would ever have panic attacks. My breathing was getting faster. I was overwhelmed by that feeling that there isn’t enough air getting into my lungs, and that I might be sick and suffocate as a result. I needed to get out of there into space and run from this huge black cloud that tumbled behind me and wanted to steal my oxygen and press me to the earth with its weight and…

  ‘Ruby.’ Zac’s voice was firm and startled me into looking up at him. ‘We need to talk.’

  Priya was looking at me, concern on her face. ‘Do you need to take those tablets from your bag?’ she asked. ‘I’ll get you some water.’

  ‘I’m… It will be okay, Pri.’ Zac’s words had jumped me out of the immediate pit of despair and restarted sensible breathing. ‘I’ll talk to Zac now and take them later if I need to.’

  She hovered, dithering about at the door. ‘I don’t want either of you to leave,’ she said, finally. ‘It’s not fair. I’ve just got you both trained to turn on the coffee machine first thing and give me all the gossip. I don’t want to have to start again with new people!’ Then she hustled out into the corridor and I heard the sound of a stifled sob and nose blowing begin before she closed the door to her own office.

  ‘You okay?’ Zac came and hugged me.

  ‘I think so.’ The words were wobbly but I meant them.

  ‘Good. Because we need to talk. This is important. It’s what I wanted to talk about last night, before, well, before things got away from us.’

  I had a momentary flash of how far things had got away, and my body heated up all the way from my toes to my forehead. ‘All right,’ I said, turning slightly so he couldn’t see the way my face was reddening. From the feel of it, I was glowing like a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere.

  He squeezed slightly, then let me go and walked over to his own desk. I perched on the edge of mine and he hooked a hip up onto his, so we sat like a couple of budgies in an aviary. ‘I’ve got another job,’ he said.

  ‘Already? Wow.’ I wanted to say ‘bully for you,’ but I knew it would sound sarcastic, as maybe it would be intended to.

  He jiggled a leg and gave me one of his broad grins. ‘Yeah. Even if they’d offered me this job first, I wasn’t going to take it. Mum’s place – well, they need a counsellor for the patients coming in with early memory loss. They’re starting up an outreach unit – I mean, still private, still a little bit elite, but we can work on that; work on bringing it down into the public sector and making it more generally available. The job will entail working with those who are starting to get confused and frightened, thinking up coping strategies, trying to make the whole process a little easier for them.’ He
flashed me a look, it was suddenly full of pride, more intelligence than he usually let me see. ‘It’s what I trained in, you see. When it was obvious Mum was… well, I wanted to help her.’

  ‘So you’d be able to see more of her?’

  ‘That’s the idea. Plus discounted rates and a much better salary.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And I want you to come with me. When I talked to their Board, I put forward a case for counselling for the relatives of those with Early Onset Dementia at first, moving on to perhaps helping those who have to… well, who find that they can’t care for their relatives at home any more.’

  I felt myself blinking rapidly. Was he suggesting what I thought he was suggesting?

  ‘I thought of the way you work with the clients here, how, for you, it’s more about getting to the bottom of their feelings than about jemmying them into the first job that comes along. How you actually care about them being happy. And it just seemed…’ he trailed off and stared at me. ‘Are you all right?’

  I was blinking away as though I was trying to signal to ships at sea. ‘I… don’t… know.’ The words came out staccato, coupled with the blinks.

  ‘Okay. Take a couple of deep breaths and stand up. It will help.’

  I did, and it did, I stopped feeling stuck in ‘strobe mode’.

  ‘And there’s even accommodation with the job,’ Zac said gently. ‘One flat, or two, depending on how we decide to work things. Maybe start with two, and if we… well. We can think about that later. So that we are on site if we’re needed.’

  I flopped back onto the desk again. A job and a place to live? I began to feel like the closing credits in some of those wish-fulfilment fantasy-land films that Sophie watched on Channel Five at weekends. All pink-cheeked pretty girls winning their hard-working rugged man, often amid snow in the Rockies or Central Park. There was usually skating involved. ‘This is… I mean, I can’t get a handle on this.’

  ‘But would you? Could you? I realise that it’s the answer to my prayers, but for you it may be different. You don’t have to say yes. You can do whatever, we can still see one another.’ He sounded anxious, and, when I looked at him properly, the stress lines were back around his mouth and pulling between his eyes. He looked older and slightly scared, and with a loneliness coming down around him like fog.

  My mouth twitched. ‘I think it sounds brilliant,’ I said. ‘In fact, I think it sounds amazing. You’d be there for your mum, we’d be doing something really good for people. Yes. I think I’d love it.’ Love it? My thoughts bounced up and down like Xavier on aspartame. Come ON! This is practically your dream job! There was a tiny hint of waiting for the downside, but I recognised that as my anxiety refusing to let me believe in a future. Helping people. No ‘end goal results’ being judged. Just good, old-fashioned counselling.

  There was an instant brightness in his eyes now. ‘Plus,’ he said, the lift in his voice sounded like relief as well as humour, ‘and I can’t stress this too highly a salary that’s a distinct improvement on this place. Enough for us to save for somewhere of our own to buy.’

  ‘You think it could come to that? Us having our own place? Together?’ My heart started racing and I had flashbacks to half-used tins of paint. I refused to give them head room. This wasn’t Gareth. This was Zac and things were different now.

  ‘Well, we’re dynamite in bed, and that’s always a good start.’ He raised his eyebrows at me and I felt the laugh start somewhere in my chest.

  ‘Plus, I quite like you.’

  ‘And someone has to save you from Nettie’s spinach whirl whilst overindulging on your mother’s special trifle.’ He moved so fast that I wasn’t ready for the embrace and it knocked the wind out of me, leaving me breathless and gasping, but in a really good way this time. ‘So, to answer your question, yes, I think it could come to that.’

  ‘My family like you.’ I felt his body stop, the catch of his breath. ‘And you seem to like them. Apart from Eva’s boys of course, but we can always lock them in the shed when we go round.’

  Zac pushed me gently back a step so he could look into my face. ‘Ruby,’ he said slowly. ‘Dad died when I was seven. Mum got ill when I was fifteen. I’m an only child. I’ve never had much of a real family, so your batshit crazy nephews, manic running mother, trifle-obsessed father, your sister and the spaniels – it’s all like a little slice of heaven to me. A tiny bit of the normality I’ve never had.’

  It was a statement that didn’t need a reply. Instead, I stretched up and kissed him and for a while that was enough. Beyond this little space, the corridors began to fill with the slightly over-loud celebrations of the final day’s work before Christmas; the incongruity of ‘Silent Night’ being sung loudly and even more tunelessly than Sophie could manage, gift and card exchanges between offices, and trays of fruit cake and mince pies slowly migrating their way through the building.

  Zac and I stayed in our bubble for a while before we joined in.

  17

  Christmas Day was unlike any of the Christmases I’d known so far. Zac came over on Christmas Eve and we sat under Sophie’s over-decorated tree, illuminated only by the multicoloured string lights that hung in loops from its branches. We drank wine, cuddled and watched awful television before going to bed.

  Then, in the morning, we drove over to Leeds to see Debbie, across the wasteland of rapidly browning snow, through tribes of children playing with Christmas toys. The sun came up and stretched itself along the snow, melting random trackways through fields and making the approach to the big house look like a giant game of noughts and crosses.

  Debbie had no idea it was Christmas, although she was delighted with the new dressing gown and the perfume Zac had bought her. She kissed his cheek. ‘You’re very kind, Simon. Will Zac be along later? After school?’ We assured her that he would, if he could tear himself away from his computer games, and left her happy, eating a generous and beautifully presented dinner.

  Afterwards, Zac introduced me to some of the team who managed the premises and we talked about working terms and conditions and pay in a very un-Christmassy discussion.

  Then we went back to my place, feeling lighter and happier than I had in months. Sitting beneath the tree when we got back, I sprang up. ‘I’ve got a present for you,’ I said, finally remembering. ‘Here.’

  I’d put it under the tree the day before, hoping that he’d take it in the right spirit. I almost chickened out and dashed to the late-opening Tesco’s to look for something more… more what? More appropriate? More neutral? But then I decided to stop overthinking things and just give him what I’d bought. The look on his face when he opened it made me glad I had.

  ‘Oh, Ruby.’

  ‘I thought it was about time that you had one that fitted.’

  He held the fisherman’s sweater up against himself. It was cable knit, quite plain, but thick and, when he shrugged it on over his head, it fitted him like a dream. It actually made him look rugged and like one of those Rockies-dwelling lumberjacks from Sophie’s films.

  ‘I don’t want to upset… I mean, it’s not meant to replace the ones Debbie knits, I don’t want to do that, but…’ I tailed off. ‘I just want you to wear something that fits,’ I finished, slightly feebly.

  ‘I know.’ He wrapped his arms around me and pressed me in for a long kiss. ‘I know, sweetheart. And thank you. Thank you for understanding, but most of all, thank you for not wanting me to go out looking like I got dressed when I was nine.’

  ‘I didn’t…’

  He laughed. ‘I know you didn’t, Ruby. Don’t worry. It’s just dawning on me how great it is to have someone who cares about things like that. How I look, how comfortable I am. I mean, I wear Mum’s jumpers, yes, but I can feel close to her in other ways. It doesn’t have to be with my sleeves halfway to my elbows and unable to move my armpits.’

  He hugged me again. Red and blue fairy lights twinkled in his hair.

  I opened my presents from my family. My mother had given me anoth
er cookery book, and Eva, in an uncharacteristic burst of generosity, had bought me a beautiful silk camisole. ‘I’ll call them later,’ I said. ‘To say thank you. And to see how much interfamily warfare has resulted from me buying the boys musical instruments for Christmas. What?’ Zac had raised his eyebrows at me. ‘They asked for them!’

  ‘I’ve got something for you, too.’ Zac pulled a tiny box from his pocket. ‘I’m sorry, but I had to ask Priya what you might like. I half suspected she’d say something huge and impractical just to see if I’d go along with it, something like “a stag with golden antlers” or something, but she was surprisingly restrained.’ He handed me the box. ‘I hope you like it.’

  It was a little bottle of really quite expensive perfume. One I wore, occasionally, and was making a small bottle of duty-free last for as long as possible.

  ‘That’s lovely, Zac, thank you.’

  I was about to discard the wrapping paper when he stopped me. ‘There’s a bit more to it,’ he said, peeling a folded piece of card from the inside of the wrapper. ‘Here.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I unfolded the card. There was an address written on it. A house name and a rural Suffolk location. I frowned at it. It meant nothing to me.

  Zac flicked the card as it lay loosely between my fingers. ‘That, beautiful Ruby,’ he said, ‘is where your ex-partner is now living. And very nicely too, if my research is anything to go by. He certainly intends to marry into money.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stared at it. I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with this information. Was it meant to help me move on from Gareth? I’d done that a while ago.

  Zac laughed. ‘Ruby. You pass this information on to your bank. There’s absolutely no reason why you should be carrying all the financial weight of the break-up, you’ve nothing to feel guilty about. He could have refused to sign the mortgage agreement. Everything you were doing to the house, it was to make it nice for both of you to live in.’