Ollie looks thoughtful. ‘That’s actually quite nice,’ he says, eventually.
‘Yeah. Thanks,’ I say.
‘Do you still have them?’
‘Nah. I don’t actually know where they went.’
‘Bet your mum still has them somewhere.’
‘Bet she doesn’t,’ I say, suddenly stiff and aware of myself. It’s been five years since I’ve heard from her. Seven since I’ve clapped eyes on her. As far as I know, she’s in Scotland with a man called Barry. As far as I’m concerned, she can stay there.
‘Oh,’ Ollie says, but he doesn’t ask anything more and I’m grateful for it.
‘What about you?’
‘Oh god, I almost don’t want to tell you,’ he says. ‘You’ll think I’m a psychopath.’
‘Well, you have to now. You can’t lead with that and not finish. Plus I told you my marble story.’
‘Ladybirds,’ he says.
‘What? Actual live ladybirds?’
‘Yep.’ He nods and shifts in his seat. Plays with his hands. ‘Under a glass, every summer. Until they got slow. Then I’d let them go. Felt bad.’
‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘You are a psychopath.’
‘I know,’ he says, pulling a face and looking guilty. ‘I’ve never told anyone that, and you can’t use it in your article. Hey, are you going to write about your marbles?’
‘Nah… like you said, on the face of it marbles seem sort of boring. It was more the meaning behind it that made it interesting, and it was probably only interesting to me.’
‘Nah, it’s sort of sweet, I guess,’ he says. ‘Anyway, I’m going back to my desk now. Good chat, Fran, good chat.’ He points at me, whilst simultaneously clicking his tongue and winking.
‘Actually, Ollie. How about we just tell them now? We don’t need to run it by anyone do we, and if we’re agreed…?’
‘I suppose,’ he says, and calls them over.
‘What are you two plotting?’ Lily says. ‘Don’t think we haven’t noticed your secret little meetings. You’re basically like work spouses these days, popping into meeting rooms and chatting on Slack.’
Ollie looks at me again but neither of us comment.
‘It’s all project stuff and is about as secret as your plans for internet fame,’ he says. ‘I.e, clear as day for everyone to see. In any case, and in somewhat related news, there’s something we wanted to run by you.’
‘We were wondering—’ I begin, but I’m cut off.
‘How’d you like to be in the next video?’ Ollie says. ‘I thought you two would be great to present it.’
‘What, really?’ Lexi beams, her South Wales accent coming through stronger with her excitement. She sounds like Joanna Page in Gavin and Stacey. She nudges Lily, who pushes her hair back off her face and adjusts her hairband. Ollie nods and beams. He fully beams. Crinkly eyes and that wide smile. He sits forward in the egg chair and rests his elbows on his knees as the pair of them thank him and gush and coo and swoon.
It’s happened again. He’s done it again. Picked up my idea and run with it as if it was his. Just like he did in the interview. Lapping up the credit, the centre of attention, whilst I sit there, feeling invisible, and take it. I close the lid of my laptop and get up out of the chair.
‘Right. Well, actually it was… Fine. I’ll just… see you later then, eh.’ I trail off. There’s no point in me even being there. There’s a cursory nod from Lily as I step between them, but only briefly, and then she’s back to mooning all over Ollie.
‘Catch you later, work wife,’ he calls, and delivers a thumbs-up. It’s all I can do not to flick him the V. ‘Good chat!’
Oh, piss off.
Back at my desk I ignore Mickey’s attempts to catch my eye. I sit with my head in my hands, stewing. I’m furious with myself, and with him, and at the way he tries to get to me and mostly, at the way I let him. I can’t even bring myself to glance over, and I can still hear the three of them, anyway, so I don’t even need to in order to know exactly what’s going on. Ollie’s still holding court whilst Lily and Lexi flap about, bouncing lines off each other, ad-libbing and joking and improvising like they’re at some sort of audition. Carlina scribbles on one of her heart-shaped Post-it notes and slides it over to me. Fag break. Now, it reads, and I don’t argue.
‘I’m just going to come out and say it,’ she says, as we’re standing smoking in the alley by the side of the Viral Hive building. She takes a really long drag of her cigarette and I watch the paper burn down, glowing orange and crackling as it does. She holds her breath for what feels like ages, and then expels smoke out through her nostrils like a dragon. ‘The sexual tension between you two is, as always, off the fucking scale.’
‘Carlina, let’s not,’ I sigh.
‘No. Let’s,’ she retorts. ‘I saw you nudging at each other’s chairs with your feet, involved in some deep looking chat. Honestly, I think you need to bang it out.’
‘Never ever gonna happen,’ I say, grimly. ‘Even if we are work spouses.’
‘Weird,’ she says. ‘Lexi said that about you recently.’
‘Not weird. She just said it to us.’
‘So with that in mind, it’s sort of funny you’ve had a spat. Why are you so cross with him anyway?’
‘He does this thing where he behaves all nice, and so we get on, and then just when I’m beginning to think he’s alright, out of nowhere he just palms off my ideas as his own. And people just buy into it because he’s… Ollie.’
‘Oh, he’s… Ollie,’ she mimics, and fans at her face. ‘What do you mean he palms off your ideas?’
‘Keep this to yourself, but the whole idea for the videos we’re doing was mine. And Lexi and Lily presenting the next one was also my idea, but he jumps in there first, every time, to be some sort of… postman of good news.’
Carlina laughs as she inhales and it turns into a splutter and a cough. ‘Fran, what the fuck is a postman of good news?’
‘You know?’ I say, laughing a little, because even in the midst of my anger I can see when I’m being ridiculous. ‘The bearer of all things good. A delivery boy of glad tidings.’
‘Shit analogy,’ she says. ‘But I see where you’re going with it.’
‘I don’t know what to do. It’s really beginning to piss me off.’
‘Have you told him?’
‘Nah. He’d just deny it.’
‘Undoubtedly. But you can’t lie to yourself so it would at the very least make him think.’
‘What’s the point, Carlina? I don’t think it’d even touch his radar.’
‘I think you’re wrong. For the reasons I’ve said before. It bugs you because deep down you know there’s all this weird, pent up stuff, and I think he winds you up on purpose because he knows it, too, but he doesn’t know how to deal with it.’
‘It’s so not like that. And neither of us are available.’
‘Right, because people are always faithful.’ She rolls her eyes and shakes her head as I open my mouth to argue. ‘I’m not talking about you at all, but my point is, since when did having a partner stop people from fucking around? Chemistry’s a powerful thing. It draws you in, and you can’t get enough. How long have you been with Lucas? You must remember what that’s like.’
‘Eighteen months,’ I say, and my mind drifts back to what things were like when we first met. To when we were introduced at the leaving party of a mutual friend who was emigrating to Canada and to swapping numbers when she drunkenly suggested it would be a good idea, in the way that mutual friends sometimes do. He left it a week before calling and took me out for dinner a few days after that. The first time we had sex was at the flat I was living in at the time, and although it got a lot better, it wasn’t fiery or particularly passionate, but I put it down to nerves. He stayed over. We took our clothes off underneath the duvet. The whole thing was a little bit fumbly and as I recall, over pretty quickly. The sex has improved but I can’t deny it’s been feeling a little bit pe
rfunctory of late. Which is why I tried to be tantalising with the offer of a Regatta day blow job and was pleasantly surprised by the mirror suggestion.
‘We’re not even friends, really. Just colleagues, which is why what Lexi said is daft.’
‘So? People hate-fuck all the time. I should know. There has to be a reason I keep falling back on my ex-boyfriend’s dick.’ She looks wistful for a moment, and then annoyed about it. ‘Anyway, what do you mean you’re not even friends?’
‘He said it. A few weeks ago. Told me men and women can’t be friends because sex gets in the way.’
Carlina cackles. ‘Alright, Nora Ephron,’ she howls, and then looks serious again. ‘But what did I tell you?’ She slaps the side of her hand down on to her palm over and over, punctuating her words. ‘He said that because there’s a thing. I’m telling you. He said that because he thinks about you when he’s having a wank and he feels weird about it. So he’s putting that on you.’
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head and finishing up my own cigarette. ‘That absolutely does not happen. I will say something about him half inching my ideas, though.’
I’m hyped when we get back to our desks but instead of sitting down at mine, I head straight over to Ollie’s. He’s back now, chatting and writing something, and browsing Twitter.
‘Can I have a quick word?’ I ask.
‘Sure,’ he says. But he doesn’t get up and I’m not doing this here, so at the risk of becoming the subject of gossip, fuelled by Lexi, I say, ‘meeting room?’ and nod at one of them. Inside, I stand by the sofa and wait until the door is completely closed before I say anything.
‘Can of Coke?’ Ollie says, cheekily, but I shake my head and he shrugs and gets one for himself anyway.
‘Can you do me a favour and not do that?’ I say. It’s a shit opener. He won’t know what I’m talking about.
‘What? Get a drink?’ he says. ‘But I’m thirsty, Fran.’
‘No. Have your drink. Obviously not your drink. But can you not take my ideas and pretend they’re your own?’
‘What?’
He looks bewildered and it’s infuriating.
‘Earlier, you said I. You said, “I thought it would be a good idea”. But, it wasn’t you. It was me, and I hate it when you do that. So please can you not.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he shrugs, and it makes me seethe. ‘But I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes, you do, Ollie. You did it at the interview, and I let it slide, because, well, interview conditions and all that. But that back there was such a liberty.’
I’m pointing at the egg chair now, the scene of the crime. He shrugs again and his eyes dart around and I remember what Carlina mentioned about not being able to lie to yourself. He’s fronting, and he knows it, and so do I. ‘Stop being obtuse. I said Lily and Lexi would be good to present, not you, and you hijacked it. And at our interview, you hijacked it—’
‘No. We both came up with this idea, Frances,’ he says, and his voice is slightly raised now, and I know mine will match it with what I say next.
‘I came up with the bulk of it. You just sat there. Like today, you just sat there and then had the brass neck to take all the credit. It was shitty, Ollie. Shitty and mediocre.’
He doesn’t like this one bit, and his eyes cloud over.
‘You got up and huffed off,’ he sneers. ‘I had to sort out all the finer details. Where were you then? Outside puffing on a fag with Carlina.’
‘Oh, fuck off, Ollie,’ I shout, and in this second I know I’ve lost this argument. I’ve resorted to swearing at him, all reason out the window, but he’s wound me up and a reaction is what he’s been waiting for, so a reaction is what he’s going to get. ‘You were sitting there in that chair like some puffed up monarch. There was literally no point in me being there. You just can’t help it, can you? You’ve always got to be the centre of someone’s attention and it’s pathetic. Grow the fuck up.’
Ollie cracks open his drink, and smirks at something behind me. I turn to look and everyone in the studio is watching. Every single person has turned their attention to my howling at him like some sort of hysterical banshee. They’ve even turned off the music. Guess these meeting rooms aren’t as soundproof as I’ve been led to believe.
‘You can be a very hostile person, Fran,’ he says, calmly. ‘You’d find life nicer if you chilled out a bit. We’re meant to be a team. There’s no “I” in “team”, homegirl. Are you on the blob or what?’
Right, that does it.
‘Don’t even go there,’ I hiss. ‘Do not even start with that thinly veiled misogyny,’ and I push past him out of the room.
Some people pretend, pointlessly, that they weren’t gawping at everything that just unfolded, explosively, in the middle of the studio. Most people don’t even try to hide it, and I can feel a lot of eyes on me as I stalk back to my desk.
‘Fuck me running, I kept thinking you were going to drop everything and full on snog,’ Carlina says.
‘Don’t. Just, don’t. Please?’ I say, slumping down in my chair and cradling my head in my hands, and I hope she doesn’t notice the wobble in my voice or my shiny, shimmering eyes.
* * *
To: Fran Tatlin
From: Ollie Taylor
Hi Fran,
Just a quick one to clear the air, really. Are you sick today or working from home? Joe mentioned you wouldn’t be in.
Sorry I asked if you were on the blob. It was crass and I know it upset you. Sorry, too, that you feel like I nicked your idea. I’ll work on that. We cool?
Thanks,
Ollie
* * *
To: Ollie Taylor
From: Fran Tatlin
Hi Ollie, yes I’m working from home today. Couldn’t really face coming in after yesterday. Maxine had a bit of a word about taking the day and coming in fresh on Monday. Bit awks. Hopefully it will all be forgotten next week. Thanks for your apology. I owe you one too. It was unprofessional and rude of me to talk to you like that. Consider the air cleared. We’re cool.
Have a nice time at the pub later.
Best wishes
Fran
Chapter Ten
October
A couple of weeks ago a company-wide email landed in our inboxes about Halloween and Carlina punched the air and the office was abuzz with costume planning for the rest of the day. Apparently it’s a thing. A theme is provided and everyone interprets it however they like. There’s desk trick or treating. Not much work gets done, and everyone goes out on the lash in the evening. This year’s theme is Squad Goals and within mere moments Carlina had decided which spooky group the four of us were doing, and no one argued. We looked at each other and there was an unspoken agreement between us. So, on a Saturday afternoon, Carlina, Mickey and I trawled charity shops for glitzy partywear from the nineteen-eighties. Sinjin assured us he was covered.
Now the day is here and I’ve been up getting ready for ages. Suze is chatting to me in the bathroom as I do my hair and she’s sceptical.
‘I mean, it’s not a scary costume, per se, or even particularly spooky,’ she says. ‘Are you sure people are going to get it?’
‘Yeah. I know. But as a group it’s a total win.’
‘Basically you’ve curled your hair to within an inch of its life and have donned a tacky ballgown.’
‘Pretty much.’ I unwind a lock of hair from around Suze’s curling tongs and spray on some hairspray. Then I flick it and a perfect curl bounces like a slinky spring.
‘Whose idea was the Witches of Eastwick anyway?’
‘Carlina’s,’ I say. I don’t mention that she definitely came up with that idea off the back of Ollie’s throwaway comment that one time in The Whippet back in the summer. I don’t think she knows I remember. ‘You can be Cher,’ I said, when she told us that’s what we were doing, and she beamed.
‘What sort of work has a Halloween dress-up day, anyway?’ Suze asks.
‘A fun one,�
� I say, catching her reflection in the mirror as I apply some eyeliner. ‘Don’t be a hater. Do you reckon these curls will stay in all day?’
‘No. But you can take the tongs into work with you if you promise not to lose them.’
‘Tidy,’ I say, unplugging them and winding the flex around the handle.
‘So was it a themed thing, or can you dress up as whatever you like? Because, like I said, you’re playing fast and loose with a spooky theme.’
‘Why? They’re witches. Witches are Halloweeny. It works well; the three of us hang out and talk about men a lot. The only stipulation was that it’s a team effort.’
‘Tell me that little skinny dude you sit with is going as Jack Nicholson!’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s hideous. Which also makes it wonderful. We’re bound to win.’
‘What’s the prize?’
‘Oh, just the glory, I think. You should come to the pub later.’
‘Do I have to dress up?’
‘Only if you like.’
Suze hasn’t been to the pub with us yet. I tend to go when she’s flying, as a pint and some mac and cheese bites definitely beats dinner for one at home, and Lucas only joins us occasionally. The McLelland account usually keeps him busy with his colleagues until late on a Friday evening, when he’ll text me and we’ll meet at the station before heading back to Battersea. I don’t think he’ll be up for the pub tonight, and I also don’t think he’d be caught dead at a Halloween dress-up night, but I ask all the same.
‘I might catch you later then,’ Suze muses from the sofa, a cup of tea and a plate of buttery crumpets on the coffee table, as I put my jacket on over my dress. I don’t hate the look, truthfully. My leather biker jacket over the dress’ gold lamé sweetheart neckline isn’t terrible at all, and even though I am overdressed for a tube commute into town, it beats more conventional costumes. Hopefully I just look like I went out thirty years ago and only just came home. I bury my nose in my Kindle for the journey and aside from the odd glance, manage to remain happily anonymous.
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