Never Stop on the Motorway
(from
Twelve Red Herrings
)
Diana had been hoping to get away by five o’clock, so she could be at the farm in time for dinner. She tried not to show her true feelings when at 4.37 p.m. her deputy,
Phil Haskins, gave her a complex twelve-page document that needed her sign-off before it could be sent out to the client. Haskins reminded her that they had lost two similar contracts that
week.
It was always the same on a Friday. The phones would go quiet in the middle of the afternoon. Then, just as she thought she could slip away, some paperwork would land on her desk. One glance at
this document and Diana knew there would be no chance of leaving before six.
The demands of being a single parent as well as a director of a small but thriving City firm meant there were few moments left in any day to relax. So when it came to the one weekend in four
that her children James and Caroline spent with her ex-husband, Diana would try to leave the office a little earlier than usual to avoid getting caught up in the weekend traffic.
She read through the first page of the contract slowly and made a couple of changes, aware that any mistake made in haste on a Friday night could be regretted in the weeks to come. She glanced
at the clock on her desk as she signed the final page of the document. It was just flicking over to 5.51 p.m.
Diana gathered up her bag and walked purposefully towards the door, dropping the document on Phil’s desk without bothering to wish him a good weekend. She suspected that the paperwork had
been on his desk since nine o’clock that morning, but that holding onto it until late afternoon was his only means of revenge now that she had been made head of department. Once she was
safely in the lift, she pressed the button for the basement car park, working out that the delay would probably add an extra hour to her journey.
She stepped out of the lift, walked over to her Audi estate car, unlocked the door and threw her bag onto the back seat. When she drove up onto the street, the stream of twilight traffic was
just about keeping pace with the pinstriped people on the pavements who, like worker ants, were hurrying towards the nearest hole in the ground.
She flicked on the radio for the six o’clock news. The chimes of Big Ben rang out, before spokesmen from each of the three main political parties gave their views on the European election
results. John Major was refusing to comment on his future. The Conservative Party’s explanation for its poor showing was that only thirty-six per cent of the country had bothered to go to the
polls. Diana felt guilty – she was among the sixty-four per cent who had failed to vote.
The newscaster moved on to say that the situation in Bosnia was still desperate, and that the UN was threatening dire action if the Serbs – and their leader, Radovan Karadzik –
didn’t come to an agreement with the other warring parties. Diana’s mind began to drift – such a threat was hardly news any longer. She thought that if she turned on the radio in
a year’s time they would probably be repeating the story word for word.
As her car crawled round Russell Square, she began to think about the weekend ahead. It had been over a year since John had told her that he had met another woman and wanted a divorce. She still
wondered why, after seven years of marriage, she hadn’t been more shocked – or at least angry – at his betrayal. Since her appointment as a company director, she had to admit they
had spent less and less time together. And perhaps she had become numbed by the fact that a third of the married couples in Britain were now divorced or separated. Her parents had been unable to
hide their disappointment, but then they had been married for forty-two years.
The divorce had been friendly enough, as John, who earned less than she did – one of their problems, perhaps – had given in to most of her demands. She had kept the flat in
(from
Twelve Red Herrings
)
Diana had been hoping to get away by five o’clock, so she could be at the farm in time for dinner. She tried not to show her true feelings when at 4.37 p.m. her deputy,
Phil Haskins, gave her a complex twelve-page document that needed her sign-off before it could be sent out to the client. Haskins reminded her that they had lost two similar contracts that
week.
It was always the same on a Friday. The phones would go quiet in the middle of the afternoon. Then, just as she thought she could slip away, some paperwork would land on her desk. One glance at
this document and Diana knew there would be no chance of leaving before six.
The demands of being a single parent as well as a director of a small but thriving City firm meant there were few moments left in any day to relax. So when it came to the one weekend in four
that her children James and Caroline spent with her ex-husband, Diana would try to leave the office a little earlier than usual to avoid getting caught up in the weekend traffic.
She read through the first page of the contract slowly and made a couple of changes, aware that any mistake made in haste on a Friday night could be regretted in the weeks to come. She glanced
at the clock on her desk as she signed the final page of the document. It was just flicking over to 5.51 p.m.
Diana gathered up her bag and walked purposefully towards the door, dropping the document on Phil’s desk without bothering to wish him a good weekend. She suspected that the paperwork had
been on his desk since nine o’clock that morning, but that holding onto it until late afternoon was his only means of revenge now that she had been made head of department. Once she was
safely in the lift, she pressed the button for the basement car park, working out that the delay would probably add an extra hour to her journey.
She stepped out of the lift, walked over to her Audi estate car, unlocked the door and threw her bag onto the back seat. When she drove up onto the street, the stream of twilight traffic was
just about keeping pace with the pinstriped people on the pavements who, like worker ants, were hurrying towards the nearest hole in the ground.
She flicked on the radio for the six o’clock news. The chimes of Big Ben rang out, before spokesmen from each of the three main political parties gave their views on the European election
results. John Major was refusing to comment on his future. The Conservative Party’s explanation for its poor showing was that only thirty-six per cent of the country had bothered to go to the
polls. Diana felt guilty – she was among the sixty-four per cent who had failed to vote.
The newscaster moved on to say that the situation in Bosnia was still desperate, and that the UN was threatening dire action if the Serbs – and their leader, Radovan Karadzik –
didn’t come to an agreement with the other warring parties. Diana’s mind began to drift – such a threat was hardly news any longer. She thought that if she turned on the radio in
a year’s time they would probably be repeating the story word for word.
As her car crawled round Russell Square, she began to think about the weekend ahead. It had been over a year since John had told her that he had met another woman and wanted a divorce. She still
wondered why, after seven years of marriage, she hadn’t been more shocked – or at least angry – at his betrayal. Since her appointment as a company director, she had to admit they
had spent less and less time together. And perhaps she had become numbed by the fact that a third of the married couples in Britain were now divorced or separated. Her parents had been unable to
hide their disappointment, but then they had been married for forty-two years.
The divorce had been friendly enough, as John, who earned less than she did – one of their problems, perhaps – had given in to most of her demands. She had kept the flat in
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