Break Out The Bubbly

by Rick Adams

  ‘It was worth every effort,’ he said staring at me intently. ‘Now, tell me all about your journalism course.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Not even over a cup of cold coffee.

  He saw my expression.

  ‘I’m only joking,’ he said looking a little hurt, ‘I have procured the kettle from upstairs. Let me make you an instant mug.’

  I smiled.

  I liked his sense of humour.

  I was just so unused to it.

  David had been so serious all the time.

  And he was the one who’d got me enrolled on that stupid course.

  The kettle boiled.

  Soon, we were finishing our meal in the right way, with a swanky cup of coffee and the admittedly already weakened shackles of small talk with which we’d started the meal broken free from so that we could share ourselves more intimately.

  ‘I hate it,’ I said deciding finally to trust him entirely with my feelings on the matter, ‘all we’re ever taught is how to chase a story no matter what the expense or effort or hurt it causes.

  ‘We have to be willing to ask questions that will upset people by putting them on the spot or knocking them out of their daytime reverie, we have to look for the part, the only part in our conversations with folk that could be spun and flipped and turned into something newsworthy, whatever that is, and we have to be on the lookout, always, for the darkness in human nature, the shadow side of anyone we ever meet, then exploit it by turning it into a news item that will sell by scaring the people who’ll hear it. It’s horrible. I hate it intensely.’

  ‘Then why do you continue?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to work here for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Carol’s crazy, Matthew, and if she didn’t hate me before I had an affair with her ex-husband, then she must abhor the very sight of me now, as a daily reminder. Tabatha’s unhinged, I mean she’s verging on alcoholic and now she’s gone to work for the competition. She was the only one who could manage the Manager, you know, stand up to her, and now she’s not here it’s just Ginger and me, the senior employees who can’t stand the sight of each other more than we can of Carol.

  ‘Not to mention Sarah who’s gone to such lengths she’s been so unhappy, the junior and Saturday staff who are about as knowledgeable of the administration involved in running Sheila’s as I would be of standing alongside you in the operating theatre, and old Leafy Hollow and his sidekick Marvilyn opposite who are desperate to plunge their knives into us at the first available opportunity. I don’t know, I can’t stand it much longer.’

  There was silence.

  Then suddenly, the very definite sound of someone trying the lock on the front door of the property made us jump out of our seats, blow out the candles, and hide ourselves quickly away behind the lottery kiosk.

  We waited.

  The lock was turned again, and clicked.

  Either the thief was good at their trade, or they did have a key, which meant…

  ‘The table,’ whispered Matthew, ‘I’ve got to clear the table.’

  He did it effortlessly.

  I mean, within seconds he’d cleared the ornaments, the plates, the tablecloth, and somehow even retrieved the lottery machine to put back upon the top.

  He even fished for something in his pocket which glinted in the darkness and placed it on the kiosk, but when I asked him what he was doing he shushed me and hid us both down behind the counter.

  And so we waited.

  And listened.

  At first, I heard nothing, though I strained my ears to their limit.

  Then, imperceptibly, the noise of approaching footsteps sounded.

  They stopped.

  Aisle three, was it?

  Maybe four.

  They went down there.

  I could hear whoever it was fishing around in the frozen.

  What were they doing?

  As soon as the rummaging had started though, it stopped.

  And then they definitely started heading for aisle five.

  I ducked down further, but Matthew had the nerve to peak over the top.

  I tried to pull him down, but he resisted.

  Then he dropped back beside me.

  I was about to speak, but he held his fingers firm to my lips.

  And then the intruder was there, beside us, behind us, well in front, and this time amongst the drinks, for the chinking of bottles was evident, and a haul was certainly being plucked from the shelves.

  If we’d made our move now, then, we could have unearthed the culprit, but Matthew held me firm.

  For a moment, just a moment, I felt the thief deliberate (had they seen the lottery machine out of joint?) but then the patter of feet away from the drink aisle and on towards the front of the shop grew and faded, the front door opened, was locked, and Matthew and I were left in our hiding place, waiting I suppose to be sure that the coast was clear and our passage safe from the store.

  Matthew reached up to reclaim the object he had deposited on the work top.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked as the gleam on it lit up his features, his looks fathomless and delightful in the gloom.

  I didn’t hear his reply because I was suddenly transported into another dimension, by his passionate kiss.

  I responded automatically.

  Then willingly.

  In moments, we had embraced, entwined, and then intertwined, unified in tracing each other’s bodies with our hands, fingers, legs, feet, our breath raw as the deep sense we felt in each other’s desperate hold.

  I don’t know what it was like for Matthew, though it certainly felt like he was feeding on something deeper than just the carnal, an experience somehow, what, more profound, for that was how the experience felt for me.

  With David, there had been no chemistry.

  His kissing had been clammy, without skill.

  Matthew and I intersected perfectly.

  With David, I had felt his beer gut on my own belly.

  Matthew’s stomach was washboard hard.

  This physicality shouldn’t have mattered.

  But it did.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ he whispered in my ear.

  I pulled back.

  Not angrily, it was just a different dimension to consider.

  (Should I have been able to deliberate in genuine throes?)

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asked.

  And so my defenses came down.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said rearranging my skirts.

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No, Matthew,’ I sighed, ‘of course not.’

  We stood looking at each other awkwardly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t have kissed you. I just thought…’

  ‘One step at a time,’ I reassured him. ‘It was a lovely dinner.’

  He looked crestfallen. ‘I’ve ruined it.’

  ‘No,’ I said cradling his chin in my hand, ‘you haven’t, not at all.’

  He misread the signal and tried to kiss me again.

  I pulled back.

  ‘What is it, Emily?’

  ‘I’m not in a good place,’ I said, ‘maybe it’s too soon.’

  ‘You have a boyfriend.’

  ‘No, dummy,’ I laughed, ‘I’ve just broken up with one.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘What is that?’ I asked, moving over to the flashing object.

  ‘It’s a bracelet. Emily.’

  It was beautiful, studded with diamonds.

  ‘Why did you put that on the counter?’

  ‘If I tell you, will you kiss me again?’

  I frowned at him.

  ‘Fine. Your choice.’

  ‘That’s called blackmail.’

  ‘Not when you want what I want too.’

  He flashed me that smile, that wretched, blasted smile that made me want to go straight upstairs with him.

  ‘Why did
you put that bracelet on the counter?’

  ‘The CCTV isn’t working,’ he moped.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because it’s an inside job. The thief will have turned it off.’

  ‘So it’s not Tabatha.’

  ‘Who said it was her?’

  ‘Carol seems pretty sure.’

  ‘Carol’s mad.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘That’s what this baby is programmed to discover. Look.’

  He held it up to me.

  I couldn’t see anything but the gleam of pearls.

  ‘There’s a camera in here, a tiny one, but it’s there and it’s just filmed our fall girl swiping the champers.’

  ‘Who would put a camera in a bracelet?’

  He looked steadily at me. ‘My father.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because when I gave it to my mother for a present, he was paranoid someone might steal it from her. So he installed a camera, there, and we have the identity of our thief accordingly.’

  ‘Well come on then, let’s have a look.’

  We went into the office.

  I checked the monitors.

  Matthew was right.

  The CCTV had been switched off.

  He fiddled with the bracelet.

  He drew out something tiny, absolutely minuscule, then attached it to a memory stick he’d drawn from his other pocket.

  I had no idea what he was doing but it worked, for when he inserted the device in the computer’s port, an image of the shelves as seen from the lottery kiosk came quickly into view.

  Then somebody moved towards it.

  They were hooded.

  They made for the office.

  They returned.

  Unhooded.

  Cocky.

  Confident.

  Only the back of their head visible when they took the first bottle of champagne.

  Then the next two.

  And then they turned round.

  I gasped loudly.

  It was Carol.

  Chapter 6

  BETRAYAL

  30th December

  When I woke up the next morning, I was numb with shock.

  But not about Carol.

  No, for some stupid reason the first thing I thought about was the bloody New Year’s Eve party she was forcing me to organize.

  And after her criminality.

  She was nuts, she’d truly lost it.

  I got up, showered, pulled on my horrific store uniform, and slammed the door to my bedsit behind me so the wretched place knew exactly what I thought of it.

  Soon I was at work.

  Unfortunately, the first person I saw was Ginger.

  ‘You’re late,’ she said sweeping past me towards the office, ‘make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

  I baulked. ‘Since when do you tell me what to do?’

  She pointed at her new badge.

  Tabatha’s badge.

  ‘She promoted you!?’ I exploded. ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘Come, come now, jealousy will get you nowhere.’

  ‘I’m not jealous,’ I fumed, ‘you’re not even qualified.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware you needed a pointless supplement to be considered. Oh that’s right, you don’t.’

  ‘You haven’t got the experience.’

  ‘If you mean,’ she said slowly, ‘the sort of experience that encourages you to loathe the customers, hate the people you work with, and detest yourself as a result, then no, I haven’t. But if you’re friendly, a good team player, and respect yourself, then yes, I have that kind of experience in spades.’

  I choked on my own scorn. ‘You’re about as amiable as a scorpion’s tail,’ I said heading for the office to have it out with Carol.

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t trouble her,’ Ginger called after me, ‘her head’s a bit sore. Seems she was out on the town last night. Either that, or she found Tabatha’s secret stockpile in the filing cabinet.’

  I shushed her away with my waving arm and kept on charging up the shop towards the office.

  How dare Carol promote that minx over me?

  How could she, after all the work I’d put in to the store over the years, covering for colleagues when we were short-staffed, opening and closing the store which always involved extra time setting the tills up at the start of the day and cashing-up at the end, the hours I’d spent in overtime, for regular money, poring over performance charts, achievement graphs, stock reports, monthly takings, not to mention being the glue that kept the wholly disparate, jagged and fragmented staff together functioning from one day to the next when we all would have reached apocalyptic Armageddon otherwise?

  I felt betrayed.

  And I could feel the tears, angry ones, forming in my eyes even as I barged open the door of the office (it stuck, of course) ready to expend unbridled wrath against my traitorous Manager.

  Only she wasn’t alone.

  Leafy Hollow of all people was sitting next to, well on top of her virtually.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?’ he snarled at me.

  For a moment, I was flummoxed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said regaining myself, ‘this is my shop. Yours, is over the road.’

  ‘This is Carol’s shop,’ he growled. ‘She’s the Manager.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Carol sniffed.

  She was crying again.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snapped.

  ‘Like I said, your shop is across the street.’

  ‘As is yours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you spend enough time in there gathering information to bring back here. You gave me the idea actually, to blatantly check out the opposition. Only Marvilyn does a good job in return, keeps us on top you know, very nicely.’

  ‘I’ve never seen her in here.’

  ‘That’s because she’s a good spy. She goes undetected, unlike you alerting everyone with your heavy tread.’

  He laughed then, a real cackle, horrible it was too.

  ‘Carol,’ I protested, ‘did you hear what he said?’

  ‘Just listen to the man.’

  ‘What? No, I will not.’

  ‘Leafy Hollow,’ he smirked at me.

  I stared daggers at my boss.

  ‘That’s a nickname.’

  ‘Rather unfair, don’t you think? What, is it because I’m empty inside? It is,’ he sneered when I looked at the floor, ‘and the greenery of my persona, what, that covers the void beneath.’ He looked straight at me. ‘You couldn’t possibly have made that up.’

  ‘Carol.’

  ‘Just listen to him,’ she cried through her moaning.

  ‘Why? What possible reason would I have for offering my attention to someone who makes such objectionable, personal inferences?’

  ‘Because he can prove that it’s Tabatha who’s been stealing the champagne.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ I shot back.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s you.’

  Her weeping stopped on the instant.

  So did Adrian’s scorn.

  And suddenly I felt very alone.

  Why hadn’t I waited?

  Or brought Matthew with me to show her the proof?

  Or the police?

  Instead of challenging her here, now, with him behind her.

  Take out my trump card and fling it in her face, in the very office from which she’d launched the whole store way back in the day, so that its hard edge bit deep into the obvious fragility of her emotions.

  The silence continued.

  For a moment, I actually feared for my safety.

  ‘Now that’s impossible,’ said Leafy Hollow at last.

  ‘Of course it is,’ swiped Carol. ‘The girl’s deluded. Always has been.’

  ‘Please,’ I said looking desperately at him, ‘Adrian.’

  ‘Oh, it’s Adrian now,’ she sneered, ‘she’s very good at that, you know, cos
ying up to people to get what she wants, especially when she’s after their husbands!’

  Oh my God, she was going to lose it again.

  But Leafy Hollow skillfully steered matters away from my affair.

  ‘How do you know it’s her?’ he asked.

  His look panicked me.

  He knew.

  Somehow the bastard knew that I’d been in the store last night.

  I swallowed.

  ‘Why is it impossible,’ I asked weakly, ‘why can’t it be her?’

  ‘Because flutes are going missing from my shop.’

  That surprised me.

  ‘I didn’t know you sold instruments,’ I said innocently.

  ‘Champagne flutes,’ Carol hissed at me, ‘for drinking. And three at a time, right when the bottles go walkabout.’

  I stared desperately at the ceiling, this time trying not to laugh.

  ‘So the thief,’ I began, ‘steals three bottles of champagne from us here, heads over to his, takes three champagne flutes from there, and then what, sets up shop in the attic for a soiree with their friends?’

  They both glared at me.

  I thought of the box I had bumped into up there, the sound of glass chinking.

  ‘So that’s what it was,’ I said without thinking, then looked dumbly at the floor.

  ‘What was?’ pressed Leafy Hollow.

  I remained silent.

  ‘Tell us,’ seethed Carol, ‘or by God you’ll be out of a job.’

  ‘I already am,’ I hit back at her, ‘you just gave it to Ginger.’

  She studied me, then burst into laughter. ‘You,’ she guffawed at my evident dismay, ‘my Assistant Manager. What on earth makes you think I’d ever promote you, Tranter?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know, longevity of service perhaps. Or maybe because I keep this place running whilst everyone else is bitching and backbiting and blaming each other for the misery and squalid atmosphere in which we work.’

  ‘You’re fucking my husband!’ she screamed at me suddenly, ‘why the hell would I reward you for ramming a knife in my….!?’

  ‘CAROL!!’ yelled Sleepy Hollow as she flung her hand to her mouth, ‘for God’s sake, that’s enough.’

  She whimpered.

  He gathered himself.

  ‘Emily,’ he said impatiently, ‘what do you know about this whole affair?’

  He reddened accordingly.

  ‘I just told you.’

  ‘No, I mean the attic. You’ve been up there. Why?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t let me through your office on to the ledge.’