I happened to catch Rob’s eye and we nodded with the casual recognition of new acquaintances.
It was all so effortless, so natural. You’d think I’d been born to betray.
Chapter 7
Christy, May 2013
Not quite a month after the move to Lime Park, Christy was called to Laurie’s office for an unscheduled meeting. She arrived to find that her director hadn’t yet finished her previous meeting: Colette, the agency’s head of HR, was still sitting there, notes in front of her, mug of tea half full.
‘I know this isn’t the greatest timing,’ Laurie said, ‘you’ve just moved house and everything …’
Christy automatically glanced down at Laurie’s abdomen, careful to keep her expression affable. A committed fan of the structured dress, Laurie was today loosely draped in brushed cotton, her complicated neckline nothing more than a distraction, a red herring if Ellen was right.
That
was why Colette was present: just like last time, they were going to demand extra work of Christy for no additional pay. Her noble intentions having faded somewhat in recent weeks, she wondered if she should make a stand and negotiate an increase. Even with Joe’s promotion they needed every extra penny they could get.
‘It’s been confirmed that we have to cut staff by twenty per cent,’ Laurie said, and so confident had Christy been of the lines to come that there was a delay in understanding what was in fact being said here. And now Laurieappeared to be giving her the option of taking the money and running, no humiliating consultation period to endure.
‘It could be a blessing in disguise,’ she said in a hopeful tone.
‘In what way?’ Christy enquired.
‘I just meant it would give you time to sort out your new house.’ Laurie looked injured, which was rich given that she was the one dishing out the painful news. ‘There must still be masses to do. You can break the back of the decorating.’ These were statements, not suggestions, and made with an air of victory. She was necessarily forgetting what Christy had told her about having inherited a show home; number 40 Lime Park Road was no blank canvas, but a masterpiece that had come glazed and framed and tied with a bow.
Colette said nothing; she merely witnessed.
‘I have to think about this,’ Christy said. ‘It’s so out of the blue.’ But hadn’t she known in some God-fearing, subterranean sense that this was
exactly
what had been going to happen?
She’d sacrificed more than a baby to get herself a house on Lime Park Road.
Pausing only to collect her bag, she fled the building and dialled Joe’s number from the street. ‘I have to see you,’ she breathed. Approaching the entrance to the Tube station, she saw it was only a little after ten, the ticket hall still swarming with tardy commuters and early-bird tourists. Her disposal had been the first business of Laurie’s day. ‘Can you meet for a few minutes?’
‘Only if you’ve got time to come here,’ Joe said.
Relieved of her job and all of a sudden frighteningly, nonsensically, possessed of all the time in the world, she set off for the office where he’d worked since he was a trainee in his mid twenties. He’d been a late starter then, the oldest of the year’s intake, having worked two jobs to fund the conversion course, and yet now when she pictured him it was like watching a child set out on some careless sun-drenched adventure. He – they – had had no sense of the stormy skies ahead.
She corrected herself:
his
sky was still blue, he was a partner now. Then she reminded herself that married people – best friends and fellow adventurers – stood under the same sky, if necessary sharing an umbrella … and she abandoned the metaphor to the roar and clatter of the Underground.
In the lobby of JR’s riverside building near St Paul’s, she texted her arrival to Joe and sat on one of the rigid low-backed sofas set at modishly irregular angles under grand marble pillars, surrounded
It was all so effortless, so natural. You’d think I’d been born to betray.
Chapter 7
Christy, May 2013
Not quite a month after the move to Lime Park, Christy was called to Laurie’s office for an unscheduled meeting. She arrived to find that her director hadn’t yet finished her previous meeting: Colette, the agency’s head of HR, was still sitting there, notes in front of her, mug of tea half full.
‘I know this isn’t the greatest timing,’ Laurie said, ‘you’ve just moved house and everything …’
Christy automatically glanced down at Laurie’s abdomen, careful to keep her expression affable. A committed fan of the structured dress, Laurie was today loosely draped in brushed cotton, her complicated neckline nothing more than a distraction, a red herring if Ellen was right.
That
was why Colette was present: just like last time, they were going to demand extra work of Christy for no additional pay. Her noble intentions having faded somewhat in recent weeks, she wondered if she should make a stand and negotiate an increase. Even with Joe’s promotion they needed every extra penny they could get.
‘It’s been confirmed that we have to cut staff by twenty per cent,’ Laurie said, and so confident had Christy been of the lines to come that there was a delay in understanding what was in fact being said here. And now Laurieappeared to be giving her the option of taking the money and running, no humiliating consultation period to endure.
‘It could be a blessing in disguise,’ she said in a hopeful tone.
‘In what way?’ Christy enquired.
‘I just meant it would give you time to sort out your new house.’ Laurie looked injured, which was rich given that she was the one dishing out the painful news. ‘There must still be masses to do. You can break the back of the decorating.’ These were statements, not suggestions, and made with an air of victory. She was necessarily forgetting what Christy had told her about having inherited a show home; number 40 Lime Park Road was no blank canvas, but a masterpiece that had come glazed and framed and tied with a bow.
Colette said nothing; she merely witnessed.
‘I have to think about this,’ Christy said. ‘It’s so out of the blue.’ But hadn’t she known in some God-fearing, subterranean sense that this was
exactly
what had been going to happen?
She’d sacrificed more than a baby to get herself a house on Lime Park Road.
Pausing only to collect her bag, she fled the building and dialled Joe’s number from the street. ‘I have to see you,’ she breathed. Approaching the entrance to the Tube station, she saw it was only a little after ten, the ticket hall still swarming with tardy commuters and early-bird tourists. Her disposal had been the first business of Laurie’s day. ‘Can you meet for a few minutes?’
‘Only if you’ve got time to come here,’ Joe said.
Relieved of her job and all of a sudden frighteningly, nonsensically, possessed of all the time in the world, she set off for the office where he’d worked since he was a trainee in his mid twenties. He’d been a late starter then, the oldest of the year’s intake, having worked two jobs to fund the conversion course, and yet now when she pictured him it was like watching a child set out on some careless sun-drenched adventure. He – they – had had no sense of the stormy skies ahead.
She corrected herself:
his
sky was still blue, he was a partner now. Then she reminded herself that married people – best friends and fellow adventurers – stood under the same sky, if necessary sharing an umbrella … and she abandoned the metaphor to the roar and clatter of the Underground.
In the lobby of JR’s riverside building near St Paul’s, she texted her arrival to Joe and sat on one of the rigid low-backed sofas set at modishly irregular angles under grand marble pillars, surrounded
Similar Books
