Thief of Mind

by Ben Thomas

  I froze as I heard a loud knocking at the door. This was my default reaction to the door being knocked unexpectedly. I would freeze and ignore it, hoping the person would go away. It was safer that way. I couldn’t control what would or could happen if I opened the door in unexpected circumstances.

  BANG BANG, went the door, louder this time. I stealthily made my way upstairs, as quietly as I could so my potential invader couldn’t hear that I was in the house.

  BANG BANG.

  Charity knockers aren’t usually this persistent and the postman couldn’t be arsed to wait this long, they would have long ago filled out a ‘Sorry I missed you’ card, telling me to pick up my parcel up from the sorting office. I made my way into my bedroom and tentatively twitched the curtains to one side to see an agitated Rory, with a cardboard box under one arm, staring back up at me.

  What was Rory doing here? He had clearly seen me so I rushed downstairs to answer the door. Was he checking up on me? I didn’t think it was policy to check that someone wasn’t skiving after one day. I opened the door.

  “Oh hello, Toby. Sorry to bother you. Last thing you probably need is me banging on the door, what with your migraine.” Good, he believed the migraine excuse. “I was about to leave but I thought I’d give it one more go. Thought you might have been finishing up on the throne, what with your dodgy belly, you know.”

  Crap, I thought. “No, no, my belly’s fine, it was much better last night really. It’s the migraine that’s been the problem. I was just resting, you know; trying to sleep it off.”

  “Oh.” Rory rubbed his chin and his look convinced me he was unconvinced, “I didn’t want to disturb you, please accept my apologies. Are you feeling any better then?”

  “Erm, yes, I think so. I should be okay for tomorrow. Is that why you’re here, Rory? To see if I’m okay to return to work?”

  “Goodness no. I’m not in the habit of checking up on my team. I take them at their word, even Steve. Like I said this morning, I can’t remember the last time you were off, Toby, so I knew you must have been struggling, that’s why I really didn’t want to disturb you. No…there’s something I really need to talk through with you. Do you mind if I come in?”

  Rory took a seat in my lounge as I retreated to the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea. My mind was going into overdrive. Surely Julie hadn’t spoken to him about my odd behaviour on Friday meaning he now needed to have it out with me? No, that would be ridiculous. Rory wouldn’t see it as any of his business, would he? Plus, I hadn’t done anything wrong. Acting a bit strange outside of work wasn’t an offence, was it?

  I took out the fresh milk from the fridge and glanced over at Rory before pouring it into the mugs. The words were attacking me as I made the drinks. I went automatically into blocking mode. As before, I wanted to tip the milk out and start again but Rory could see me in the kitchen from his seat in the lounge and I could sense him staring at me. I didn’t want to give him any more evidence of my weirdness, so I forced myself to resist the compulsions and made the drinks. Now I wasn’t worrying about Julie, I was worrying that I’d been thinking the words when I’d made the drinks and hadn’t been able to cancel them out. I desperately wanted to remake the drinks but Rory kept looking.

  I walked into the lounge. Rory sat with the box he’d brought with him perched awkwardly on his knee.

  “Oh, thank you Toby.” He fumbled the box onto the floor by his feet as I handed him what looked to me like a perfect cup of tea.

  We both sat there for a moment. I took a sip from my tea, and it tasted proper, the way tea should, which made a change. He put his tea down, fiddled with his tie, picked his tea back up and then caught me staring at him.

  “Sorry, Toby, it’s been a heck of a day. I’ve been in meetings all day long. Look, I may as well get straight to the point…As you know, erm, redundancies…well…the announcements were actually made today. I hoped there was still a chance our team would avoid the cull, but that wasn’t to be. We have had to lose four people and I’m very sorry to say that…ahem…you are one of the four.” Rory paused and looked at me, waiting to see how I would react to the bombshell. I didn’t say anything and I didn’t display any emotion because, oddly enough, I didn’t feel any. Rory continued, “I tried fighting for you, Toby. You’ve been here for a while now and you’re loyal and I know how much you love your job.” I was loyal, but to be honest I couldn’t say I loved my job, not like Rory clearly did and even Julie to an extent. “I’m just sorry to have to tell you this. They will pay you three months and you’ll get a lump sum of £12,000. You’ll be on gardening leave with immediate effect. I know it sounds impersonal, but I had to clear your desk and drawers. I’ve got your personal effects here.” Rory pointed to the cardboard box at his feet. “Is there anything that you’d like to ask me?”

  It hadn’t really sunk in, “How come they decided on me? Have I done anything wrong?”

  “Gosh, no, of course not. They’ve had their people in, observing all the departments for a while. They don’t really give a specific reason why.”

  “They must have said something.”

  “I don’t know, Toby. They did point out that you have been with us, ahem, them,” Rory corrected himself, “a long while, and they don’t think you’ve made any progress. They don’t feel you’ve pushed yourself and got ahead, and they cited Julie in comparison. I told them how highly I rated you and how big a contribution you make to the team and I pointed out your ratings from your appraisals, which are excellent, but it made no difference. They said that because of your appraisals you are being paid too much for the job you do and they could bring in a junior to do your job on a much lower salary. At the end of the day they don’t look at the person, they look at the numbers. That’s the culture we live with. It’s all about profit, and people like you who are loyal, who just want to do a good job and aren’t concerned with getting ahead, are discriminated against.”

  “Right, I see.” When did I ever say I wasn’t concerned with getting ahead? But still, I was feeling strangely relaxed and he wasn’t whispering anything to me for now. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but who else has lost their job?”

  “First of all, Toby, I just wanted to assure you that you are the first person I have told about you. I can tell you though who the others are, because they already know themselves, and they themselves have already told the rest of the team, so it’s public knowledge and they won’t mind me telling you. It’s Deborah and Bryan.”

  “Oh…how did they take the news?”

  “Well, they’re actually both rather pleased. They’ll get a good pay out and they’re both close to their retirement, so they are letting them both draw their pensions early. Deborah sees it as good timing because, as you know, she’s become a grandmother for the second time and she wants to help her Sarah with looking after the little ones. Bryan’s been ready to leave for the past twenty years and now he finally can. He reckons he’s going to get a job part time in B&Q.” Rory paused and fiddled with his tie again, “Of course the rest of the team will need to know about you, so Julie will announce it tomorrow.”

  “Right…fine…hold on, why is Julie going to tell them? What’s it got to do with her?”

  “Well, I did say there were four redundancies in our team and you’re looking at the fourth person. Julie has been promoted and is taking over from me.”

  “What?! That’s ridiculous!” Why get rid of Rory? He was a brilliant and inspiring boss. If ever he needed to be in work it was now, what with him being a father at 47, having waited so long. How old were the twins now? Three? Four? “Can’t you do something? Can’t you appeal it?” I said desperately.

  You caused this.

  “Hey, relax, Toby. I’m cool with it,” Rory responded stoically and somewhat cheerily.

  “But what about…you know, your family?”

  “Well, I’ll just
have to work something out.” It was okay for Deborah and Brian, they could retire with pensions. Rory was years off his pension. “Like you, I get a decent pay out which should tide me over. And then? Well, the world’s full of opportunities and this forces me to look for them. To be honest, I’m excited by the challenge. You should be too.”

  I wasn’t feeling particularly excited; I was feeling particularly agitated after his accusation. Could I really have caused this to happen to Rory? Was there really something I had or hadn’t thought that had caused this to happen?

  “Crickey, Toby. You seem more bothered about my redundancy than your own,” Rory said, perceptively. “Listen, Toby. You’ve got my number. If you want to chat, just call me. Right, I’d best be off.” Rory stood up from his chair and I walked him to the door. “Oh, by the way, what was with all the letters in your drawer?”

  WHAT?

  “What?”

  “When I was clearing out your desk there were loads of torn up letters in your drawer. Must say my heart skipped a beat when I found them, but I did a check on the system – well I had to – and everything that should have been sent was.”

  He’s read your letters. He knows you’re evil. He knows the lies you’ve spread. He knows how malicious you are.

  I was worried that this might happen. You see, whenever I write anything down I have to check and recheck and then check again what I’ve written. My main issue was that as soon as I had written something, he would tell me that I had not written down what I thought I had or what I had meant to. Instead he told me that I had written something ridiculously offensive, like on a letter to a client at work he would chide me, asking if I was sure I hadn’t written something offensive about the client or self-incriminating, like admitting I wet the bed – which I don’t by the way – and neither in reality do I write down such things. But his prompt of, ‘are you sure?’ and ‘what if you have?’ are enough to have me staring at my writing, checking every sentence and every word for anything offensive to others or self-incriminating. The number of times I’ve sealed envelopes only to open them again to re-read the enclosed letter and then repeated the process again and again and again. I would tear up the inoffensive letter and simply start again. I’d go down to the post room to retrieve letters I’d written and had put in the post tray four or five hours ago. Even though I had done an inordinate amount of checks he would still be tormenting me, telling me I needed to check one more time, and the process was only usually halted when the letters were physically dispatched and were no longer on the premises.

  “Erm, they’re just ones which I had made little mistakes on. I meant to put them in confidential waste but just hadn’t got around to it.”

  “Ever the perfectionist, eh? Well it’s a good job you did send corrected versions. When I saw them I thought my last act as manager would be to sack you. As it was, my last act was checking the system to make sure I didn’t have to.”

  “Sorry, Rory.” I felt stupid and ashamed, but more than anything I was fretful. What if I had written something scandalous in them and now Rory had read them, or someone else had seen them and read them? “Erm, did you notice my mistakes on them?”

  “Toby, there were too many letters to read. There were about twenty copies of the same letter to each client all signed by you. The ones I did look at appeared identical to the ones you actually sent out, which as usual for you, Toby, were perfect.”

  “What did you do with the letters?”

  “They’ve gone where you know they should have gone in the first place, the confidential waste. No need to have people asking questions. I don’t know, Toby. There’s being careful and then there’s filling up two drawers of your desk with reams of letters which don’t meet your high standard.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Surely it was okay? “Sorry, Rory. And thank you.”

  “No harm done, Toby. Anyway, chin up lad. Remember, see this as an opportunity.” And with that Rory went on his way.

  10

  For the next few days I stayed in the house, spending a lot of time lying in bed and even more time feeling sorry for myself, checking things and blocking words. I had pretty much forgotten about the Julie situation as that anxiety had been superseded by the news about Rory’s redundancy. He kept on insisting that I had caused it and that I in turn, from now on, had to be extra-vigilant to save anything worse from happening to Rory. I couldn’t take the risk of being responsible for that.

  I hadn’t thought about my own situation. The letter from the company had arrived the next day explaining the terms of the redundancy, and although the package wouldn’t last long, it would cover me for a while. Like Rory said, the letter confirmed that gardening leave started straight away so I had no need to go back into work. I saw this as a relief. It was safer and easier for me to stay at home and even safer to stay in bed, only getting up to use the bathroom and eat…and check the gas was off, the taps were off, and the door was locked.

  By now it was Thursday. I was lying in bed watching television with the sound muted to avoid hearing any negative words. I wasn’t paying attention to the programme, but I had obviously vetted the subject matter to gain some assurance that it was safe. Nevertheless, there was no point taking the risk of hearing any negative words by having the sound on. My anxiety levels were at a tolerable level, which was good. However, I had come to understand how time drags when you’re not at work. I could see the logic behind the idea that work and routine was preferable for mental well-being. Yet, by imprisoning myself in my home I felt kind of liberated as I didn’t have any outside dangers or threats to deal with. The only company I had was him. He idly toyed with me, encouraging me to replay my conversation with Rory, urging me to check that I hadn’t said anything insulting to him. Then suddenly, having not thought about it in a few days, I would be prompted to revisit my failed night with Julie again and he would convince me that everyone at work – sorry, my former work –believed that I’d soiled myself at Julie’s.

  I was abruptly awoken from my reverie of recent re-runs by a knock on the door. Typically, I froze when I heard the first knock, but relief melted over me when the initial knock developed into a familiar rhythm:

  KNOCK KNOCK, pause, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, pause, KNOCK KNOCK, pause, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  Yes! It was the secret knock. Known only to a special select few…well, two really, Mum and Jess. They had previously complained that I hadn’t answered the door when they’d called around or that when I did it took an inordinate length of time and this had not played well with them. I had explained that I was usually busy (busy doing nothing) and didn’t want to be disturbed so often didn’t open the door unless I was expecting someone. I suggested they ring me when they wanted to call round, but Jess explained to me that she wasn’t going to begin booking appointments to see her brother, and who did I think I was? Fair point, well made. Mum said that sometimes she liked to spontaneously call in when she was on her way back from the gym. Jess described my compromise suggestion of the secret knock as ridiculous but it was an effective solution that had been working well for the last three years. It was always good to see Mum or Jess, especially today as my self-imposed isolation was getting monotonous. I bounded out of bed, hastily put my dressing gown on, flew down the stairs and tore open the door, to be greeted by…Jez!

  *

  I sat in my living room tapping the arm of my couch in irritation as I watched Jez blithely standing in my kitchen making us both cups of tea. He had taken advantage of my initial dumbfoundedness upon seeing him and invited himself into my house. Then he’d insisted that he make us a cup tea in my kitchen. I didn’t like people doing things in my kitchen. Worse than that, I had been betrayed, the secret knock had been exposed. Jez couldn’t have cracked the code of the secret knock himself, it was watertight; he must have had help. Jez pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and then picked up my mug and his and brought them into the li
ving room.

  “Here we go,” said Jez as he stood before me with the mugs. I reached up to take my ‘Smiley Face’ mug from his hand, but just as I did Jez moved my mug up to his mouth and took a mouthful of my tea from my mug…and I am certain that his eyes, with a look of, well I’ll call it deviousness, betrayed the fact that he knew what he was doing. “Everything okay, Toby?” Jez stood there, holding out the other mug with a smug smile on his face. “You did say white with no sugar, didn’t you?”

  “Erm, yeah. That’s fine…it’s just…well, I should have said but that’s my mug you’re drinking from.”

  “Yes, Toby, I know.” Incredulity laced Jez’s words. It was only me who should have been feeling incredulous. “Of course it’s your mug…we’re in your house. You don’t, erm, expect guests to bring their own mugs, do you?”

  I acted out a stilted laugh. “No, of course not. It’s just I prefer to drink out of that mug.”

  “Sorry, Toby. I didn’t realise. Here, let’s swap.”

  No, you can’t swap; he’s drunk from it. His germs will be on it. His saliva will be on it. Don’t drink from it. It needs washing. You need to drink from your mug or you’ll be damned.

  “Well, erm, you’ve drunk from it already, so I’ll just go and wash it first and make a fresh one.”

  “Really?” Jez was still standing with the other, tainted mug in an outstretched arm.

  “Honestly, it’s fine. You weren’t to know.” I stood up and held out my hand to regain my safe mug. It was a bit like a Mexican standoff. Admittedly not as dramatic, but in my eyes just as dangerous and tense. Jez laughed, though not genuinely. Still, it was a better attempt than my recent effort.