by Bankes, Liz
‘Oh, I knew that,’ Arlo says. I think he’d been mentally working out how much money he has.
Chapter 10
‘This seems to all be in order,’ Gregory says as he looks through my form.
Does Cal want me to be more sexual? I can’t even say things during sex. The one time I tried I said, ‘Ooh, I like that,’ and I reminded myself of a camp man and Cal looked at me oddly so I’ve never done it again.
‘Is there anything you won’t do?’
Bondage? Wearing one of those weird masks?
‘Sorry?’ I say, trying to focus.
‘Well.’ Gregory smiles. He’s bald and in his thirties I think, with a pink, friendly face. ‘It’s just that some of the interns don’t fancy call-centre stuff or companies with questionable ethics and that,’ says Gregory.
‘Oh, no, anything is fine. I ticked “okay” for everything in that sexual.’
‘Um . . .’ He pauses for a moment and his face turns a shade pinker. ‘Cool, I . . .’
‘I ticked everything in that section! On the form,’ I say quickly.
I need to get a grip.
‘Cool,’ he says again. ‘Awesome. Okay.’ He gives me another smile and then clicks a few times on his mouse. A sheet of paper shoots out of the printer next to me. ‘So we’re allocating you this, starting Monday. If you’d like to cast your eyes over.’
WANT Lifestyle Solutions…
Job type: Customer Satisfaction Enabling Communications Operative.
‘WANT is a totally unique lifestyle management solutions provider that provides clients with the solutions before they even know they want them and addresses the needs they didn’t know they had,’ Gregory reads off the screen. ‘Want to give it a go?’
‘Sure.’ I nod. I don’t really know what any of that means. And I am not sure you can call something ‘totally unique’.
‘Awesome,’ says Gregory.
As he starts typing things from my form into his computer, I try to think of something other than Cal and Cleo and kinky sex.
‘Right, I’ve entered you.’
Not helping, Gregory.
He clicks on something and then presses Enter with a flourish. ‘All done!’ he says and looks at the printer. Nothing happens. He turns back to the screen, clicks and presses Enter again. He keeps doing it, getting more and more forceful, until he is slamming his hand down on the keyboard. Still nothing happens. He stops and stares at the screen.
‘I hate my job,’ he says.
‘Oh . . . Oh dear,’ I say.
He breathes out loudly, rests his forehead on his fist and scrunches up his face.
Should I say something? Or go over and hug him? Or just go?
He breathes out loudly again.
‘Um . . .’ I say.
The printer whirs into action and spits out another piece of paper.
‘There we go!’ He straightens up, grinning again. I take the piece of paper and put it in my bag.
‘Good luck for Monday,’ Gregory says, shaking my hand and nodding vigorously.
I start walking up the hill back out of town and decide to call my sister.
Poppy isn’t exactly the sensible older-sister type. She’s spent most of the last few years running off to different countries or getting involved in mad money-making schemes and then running out of money and calling up Mum and Dad to bail her out. But she’s had a lot of boyfriends.
‘ROSE!’
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Yeah,’ she says vaguely. ‘Great. I’m in this big house with all these people. We’re like looking after it for some guy or something?’
‘A squat?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one! So how’s things, sis? You liking . . . ’ Poppy has trouble remembering what happened yesterday, let alone anything about my life. ‘. . . Scotland?’
‘Oxford is great!’ I say brightly. As if to emphasise the point, at that moment I come out of a passageway into the courtyard that has the pillared dome of one of the library buildings rising up at the centre of it. Its stone walls glow an orangey gold in the evening sun and as I stand in its shadow, surrounded by ancient college buildings, I forget for a moment that I am on the phone.
‘Rose?’
‘Sorry! Yes, I was, um, just wondering if I could get your advice about boys?’
‘Totally. Ask me anything. I just broke up with this guy, actually. Shame – he was cool. Worked in sales.’
‘Selling what?’ I ask.
‘Drugs mostly.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘And like these little wooden pigs?’
‘Right. Normal,’ I say. I realise I am only a road away from the pub Cal works in. I could go in and say hi to him before going back to the house.
‘So why did you break up?’ I ask Poppy as I go under an archway into another cobbled courtyard.
‘I think he went to Asia to discover himself,’ she says airily. ‘Or Birmingham. What advice do you need? Have you had an argument with Steven?’
‘Cal.’
‘Really? Was he called Steven before?’
‘No, he was never called Steven.’
‘Weird.’
‘Have you ever been worried that a guy was looking around for something else? That you weren’t enough?’
She thinks for a moment.
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
‘Look, Ro-bum, any guy that is looking around for something else when he’s with you is a moron.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Not maybe – definitely. So stop worrying.’
‘Okay,’ I say. I don’t think Poppy’s ever worried in her life. When she was at primary school a group of girls started making fun of her because she’s always been a bit overweight, and she just laughed.
And when this girl called Bea was bullying me in Year Seven, Poppy sat on her at the bus stop.
‘And if he is cheating on you then punch him in the penis.’
‘Right. Will do.’
The pub is hidden away off a side street and I make my way down the little alleyway that leads to it.
‘Hey, sis?’ says Poppy.
‘Yeah?’ I put my head in the door. He’s not this side of the bar.
‘I love you,’ she says.
Or the other side. Maybe he’s on the outside bar tonight.
‘What do you want?’ I say.
‘Can I borrow some money?’
Gabi has joined the conversation.
Rosie: So what do you guys think? I’m going mad! Was in my Bright Sparx interview and the induction man, Gregory, was telling me all the details about the scheme and I didn’t listen to anything he said. All I could think about was whether he wants me to be more sexual.
Mia: I don’t think you need to worry.
Gabi: Why would the induction man want you to be sexual??
Mia: He might like watching that spanking lesbian stuff as a fantasy, but that doesn’t mean he wants you to do it.
Gabi: What job are you doing??
Nish: Yeah, with you all he wants is to do what you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to go out and buy a load of whips and chains. I mean, unless you want to, obvs.
Gabi: I’m so confused.
Mia: Rosie found an ‘interesting’ video in Cal’s internet history.
Gabi: Oh! That happened to me once.
Rosie: Really?
Gabi: Yeah. Max was upset because he thought it meant that I wanted him to be like that in real life. I told him that if he was like a male porn star in real life then I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing.
Mia: I don’t think any of us would.
Gabi: Do you remember when we made our own?
Mia: Just to be clear – she means her and Max. Not her and me. And yes, I remember – you sent it to me!!
Gabi: Accidental!
Mia: It arrived when I was having tea with my parents. My stepdad glimpsed it over my shoulder and choked on a Jammy Dodger.
Nish: Guys – g
ross and hilaire, but focus. We are helping Rosie. Are you feeling reassured, Rosie?
Rosie: I am
Nish: Hmm. What else is it?
Rosie: Nothing!
Nish: What else?
Rosie: It’s just that with Cleo in the house I feel like even more of a boring loser. I think he’ll look at her and see all the things I’m not.
Nish: Don’t talk like that. Cal loves you for all the things you are. You’re just feeling insecure and focusing on her as a result.
Mia: But it is totally normal to be jealous sometimes.
Gabi: You could put something horrible in her tea?
Nish: Oh yeah – defs normal. We’ve all been there.
Rosie: Including you??
Nish: Yeah I’ve been jealous. I was jealous this summer. I dealt with it.
Rosie: How?
Nish: Kept it in. Haven’t mentioned anything about the fact that after four years of a relationship she’s off to hang out with slutty French artist girls. Easy.
Mia: Easy. Perhaps not healthy though?
Gabi: Hide some fish behind her radiator?
Chapter 11
Gabi messages me in the morning as I’m walking to work to check I knew she was joking and that I do know I have nothing to worry about. I reply saying, But I’ve already bought the fish for the radiator . . .
I wish I’d told them about Cal’s midnight wandering. Or that when I texted him from outside the pub asking where he was he replied that he was at work. But then they might start thinking I do have something to worry about.
When I arrive at WANT Lifestyle Solutions, there is a commotion going on outside. A woman holding a box is being led away by security. And someone has graffitied the sign so it reads, WANK Lifestyle Solutions. Then I notice that the woman is also holding a can of spray paint. As I pass her she breaks one arm free from the security guard and points at me.
‘They’re all bastards – get out now!’
‘Come on, Lorna,’ says one of the guards. ‘Don’t make a scene.’
If I wasn’t worried about starting work before, I am now. I Googled them and still couldn’t work out what they actually do or what a ‘Customer Satisfaction Enabling Communications Operative’ is.
I stand in the lobby clutching the bag with my lunch in. When I woke up this morning the bed was empty and my heart sank, but when I went downstairs I found that Cal had got up before me to make me a packed lunch for my first day. He’s put all my favourite things in – a salmon and cream cheese bagel, sweet and salty popcorn and a cookie. And on the way here I realised there was a note inside – a cartoon of a bagel holding a heart.
I sent a picture to the girls and they all replied saying VOM.
Even halfway through my induction I’m none the wiser about the job as I have to fill out a form titled Contemporary Client Household Priorities for Optimum Lifestyle Satisfaction – And How We Can Help.
It’s only when I get taken into the main office and I see the rows of desks with people on the phone that it all makes sense.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, is that Mrs Carson?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Hi, I’m Rosie. I’m just calling to talk to you about that accident you had.’
‘I haven’t had an accident.’
‘Oh . . .’ I start flicking through the script. ‘Well, that’s good.’ I can’t find the next bit. Then the whole script slides off the table and into the bin. The headset lead won’t stretch far enough for me to get it. I think I have to ask them about pipes next? Or is it PPI?
‘Never mind accidents. I’d like to ask you about pipes.’
‘How did you get my number?’
I remember this bit in the script. It just says to distract them.
‘Lovely weather today!’
‘Eh?’
‘Are you doing anything nice?’
‘I want you to take me off your list. And never call me again.’
The slam of her hanging up makes me jump. I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this job.
The other people working there seem to be able to keep people on the phone about ten times longer than me. And when they get hung up on they shrug, maybe chat for a while and then start on the next one.
Everyone else is older than me and there don’t seem to be any other temps. I think that other people on the scheme must have said they wouldn’t do call-centre work in their interview.
When I’ve been hung up on six more times and been told to ‘fester in hell’, I am thinking that they might have had the right idea.
The woman next to me is called Bruiser. Well, that’s what she tells me to call her. When I overhear her making a call I find out her real name is Patience. I think Bruiser suits her more. She looks a bit like a bulldog and has this menacing expression when she’s making a call, while she is increasingly blunt and rude to the person on the other end of line. But her tactics seem to work. On the leaderboard by our desks she has way more hits than anyone else.
Everyone has their own column with a picture of their face at the bottom. Bruiser’s looks like a picture of a murderer from the paper. As I’m only temporary, I have a generic photo. Only they’d run out of women, so mine is a picture of a man with a big cheesy grin that says ‘Ian’ at the bottom. I asked Clint, the Operatives Supervisor who is younger than most of the people he is supervising, why they didn’t just get Temp printed on the bottom and he said that it would be too impersonal. Ian has no hits at the moment.
Also on our desk is a woman called Deborah, who is tiny and mousey and mutters rude comments about other people in the office when they go past. Then there’s Georgie and Tina, who are the same shade of bright orange and spend most of the day chatting and then picking up the phone if Clint is around. Well, Georgie chats and Tina just repeats the last word of whatever Georgie’s said and nods. Completing our table is Ron, a man in his fifties who doesn’t say much but sighs when Clint walks past and says, ‘Keep working hard, ladies.’
Chapter 12
Walking back through town (and checking around every two seconds that no one from the call centre is around) I phone Nish and tell her how awful it was, which she finds hilarious.
I hang up and music starts in my earphones again. I’m just about to call Cal to see if I will catch him before he goes out for his shift at the pub, when the music cuts out again and my phone starts ringing. It’s Dad – the third time he’s called since I got here.
In a weird way it made me feel more homesick to talk to him. So I kept the conversations as short as possible by inventing urgent things I had to go and do. (Being an awful liar the best I could come up with was ‘I have to go and do some dusting’.) That reminded him that I hadn’t sent him a picture of my room yet, so I said I would soon. Obviously by soon I meant never, because any picture of Cal’s room would very clearly be Cal’s room, unless my dad would believe that I would decorate my room with empty crisp packets and a poster of a girl in a bikini.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Hey, babes.’
Dad tries to be modern with his terms of affection. It doesn’t seem to bother my sister (not much does) and I don’t really have the heart to tell him I think it’s weird. Like when he joined Twitter and kept tweeting me and I didn’t tell him it was annoying, but just quietly blocked him.
‘How was your first day in the hustle and bustle? The cut and thrust?’
I give quite a different account of my day to Dad than I did to Nish. I know he wants to hear that things are going well. It’s probably something to do with him being a politician and always having to make out like everything is great. He asks me if I made lots of sales, so I say ‘not lots’ rather than saying ‘none’ and he says, ‘Awesome – yeah, playing the long game.’
At least he’s back to saying ‘awesome’ rather than ‘amazeballs’. I think Mum had a word with him.
He’s asking about the house just as I come out into that courtyard with the beautiful library building
in it. I stop and look up at the window, but not because of the scenery this time. Because Cleo is sitting at one of the windows.
I peer in, trying to see what she’s doing, while trying to answer my dad’s questions.
Maybe I could ask Cleo if I could take a picture of her room and send that to Dad instead?
Would she find that weird, seeing as we’ve barely said two words to each other since I moved in? But then again she did go for a snog on the first day I met her, so she wouldn’t be able to say I was forward.
She’s reading. Which is hardly surprising, seeing as she’s in a library. I don’t know what I was expecting to catch her doing really. Then she looks up, straight at me.
I give a sort of yelp and Dad asks if I’m okay. How do I make it clear I wasn’t just standing at the window staring at her? Especially as that is exactly what I was doing. I could pretend I was admiring the book she’s reading?
I grin at her and then mime reading a book and then mime looking happy.
Which makes it look like first I was standing at the window staring at her and then now I am congratulating her on being able to read.
She raises her eyebrow at me and then does a sarcastic happy face. Then she picks up her phone and starts texting. I walk round to the front of the library as quickly as possible. When did miming ever turn out well? Dad’s talking about Mum’s military operation for redecorating the house so all I have to do is interested noises. Then I hear a burst of monkey noise, which I recognise immediately as Cal’s text message tone. I look up towards the steps leading down from the entrance. Cal has just walked out of the library door.
Was he in there with her?
I tell Dad I have to go. He says he’ll ‘Facebook event’ me to arrange my birthday meal and, instead of telling him to call me like a normal person, I tell him that would be nice. Music pumps into my earphones again and I go to turn it off before I call out to Cal so I don’t accidentally shout really loudly. He’s coming down the steps now and I’m walking parallel to him along the cobbles. Then a mad voice in my head tells me not to call out. It tells me to hide so I can see where he’s going.
What’s wrong with me? He has work tonight. That’s where he’s going.