Helen packed up her empty takeaway boxes to carry them back to the kitchen. She was still reeling from what she’d learned at therapy.
16
1:50 p.m
Helen rushed into Martin’s office, clutching the printout of their conversation. She ignored the fact that he seemed incredibly pale. He was even sweating slightly and covering his mouth with his fist as though he’d just belched. There was a lingering odour in the room.
She slapped the paper down on his desk. “We have a problem.”
She watched Martin take in the bad news with a groan. “How?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I came back from lunch, and it was pinned on the fucking noticeboard.”
“Has anyone seen it? Didn’t you lock your computer before lunch?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know. I always lock my computer, but things have been a bit busy.” She straightened her back and allowed one hand to worry at her hair. “Maybe it slipped my mind.” Had the prospect of therapy made her forget?
“Well fucking done, Helen,” Martin said.
She reeled, rocking back on her heels. She’d never heard him take that tone before. It was snide, unpleasant, downright cruel.
“Okay, well, I’m sorry. I messed up. But we both said those things. Now we need to make it right.”
He reluctantly nodded his head. “We should have an emergency meeting.” He leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is literally the last thing I needed today.”
“Yeah, what’s going on? You look like death warmed up,” she said. In truth, she didn’t particularly care about how Martin was feeling at that point, but she did want to know if it would impede their ability to deliver the work they needed to do on time and, most of all, whether he’d be capable of helping her deal with this latest mess.
“I feel it,” he said. “Think I ate a dodgy prawn. If it was any other day, I’d be at home on the porcelain throne by now. But this is the Monday that keeps on giving.” He dragged both hands over his face and let out a long, low sigh.
Helen noticed the spider crawling along the windowsill behind him. She frowned. Then she noticed the state of the weather outside. The rain was getting worse.
17
2:05 p.m
Sue didn’t want to see Martin when he walked out of his office, but then he clapped his hands together and stood close to their cluster of desks. It was unavoidable. She spun her chair around to face him, noticing how pale and sickly he appeared. She wouldn’t be surprised if he puked on the floor. It was repulsive.
“Right guys,” he said. “It’s come to my attention that… Well, that there’s something we need to… We need to discuss as a team. We need to clear the air.” He glanced nervously at Helen.
At least Helen had the courtesy to seem embarrassed. Sue clocked the way she kept pulling at the sleeve of her blazer and fidgeting from one leg to the other. Her face was flushed, the redness just visible through layers of thick foundation.
Helen held up the printout. “I think you might have seen this, and we owe you an explanation. And an apology. We’re in this together, and we need to work it out together. So let’s get into a room and talk.”
“I’m not going in his office with the spider there,” Sue said. “I’m never going in that office again.”
“Okay, we’ll use the meeting room then,” Martin said.
Sue nodded.
“Are you guys ready now?” Martin asked. He dabbed sweat from his brow, using a handkerchief.
Krish put his pen down on the desk and stood first. Sue and Penny followed suit, silently. They all walked together down the hall, past the kitchen, to a small meeting room they hadn’t bothered to use since the redundancies. Walking in brought with it a sense of déjà vu. Memories of people she used to lunch with and gossip with. She sat down, rubbing her sore knee, wishing those people were here with her now, tired of not understanding a job she never asked for. She’d had some bad days on the job—like the time she found out Derek was ill during her lunchbreak and Helen hadn’t let her take the afternoon off or the day the redundancies were announced, but she’d never felt quite as demoralised as today.
Helen placed the printout in the middle of the table. Sue averted her gaze to Penny, the butt of the worst insults. Sue didn’t understand Penny. The girl was sour. Twenty-something girls should be fun. Penny said nothing, revealed nothing with her expression, only stared at the door as though hoping to get out soon.
“First of all, I want to apologise for any offense caused by this,” Martin said. “Helen and I need to be in close communication to keep things running smoothly, and occasionally we blow off steam. Obviously that went too far today and we both know that. This was a conversation that was never supposed to be public, not that it’s an excuse.” He paused to covertly burp into his fist. “But we also need to get to the bottom of who went onto Helen’s computer and printed this out, because that’s a serious breach of privacy.”
Sue scoffed. “Well I never! You’re the ones insulting us, and we’re the ones who are going to get into trouble? Quite the apology!”
“For once I agree with Sue,” Krish said. “None of us printed this.”
“Then who did?” Helen asked.
Sue and Krish turned to Penny at the same time. Sue gave the girl a little nod to encourage her.
Penny gently cleared her throat before speaking. “I… I thought I saw Keith—”
“Kevin,” Martin corrected.
“Right. Kevin. I thought I saw him come into the office to fix Helen’s computer.”
Helen frowned. “I didn’t ask him to. I haven’t had any problems with it.”
Martin squirmed from one side of his hip to the other. His knuckles went white as he grasped the arm of his chair. “Tell you what, I’ll go and make a call, see if we can straighten this out. Back in two ticks.” He rushed out of the room.
Sue knew he wasn’t just going to make a call. She smiled to herself. Served him right. Smug bastard.
18
2:12 p.m
Helen glanced at the faces around the table. Three angry faces. Even Krish seemed annoyed, and he hadn’t even been mentioned in the conversation.
“How has the scheduling been going?” she asked.
“I’m almost done,” Penny said.
“Same,” Sue added.
That made a change. Sue usually ended up in a tangle that she or Penny had to fix. It meant most tasks took double the length they were supposed to. But HR had dumped Sue in their team, and they had to make the best of it.
“Great, maybe we can go home early.” She smiled and glanced out of the window. “We would’ve popped out for some treats, but the rain doesn’t seem to want to end. Forecast got it wrong again.” She laughed nervously, but no one even cracked a smile.
Even therapy was better than this excruciating silence. Since arriving back, she’d been trying not to dwell on what her therapist had said to her. It seemed so strange, thinking about how just over an hour ago she’d been sitting in a sea-blue room, listening to lies. Dr Torres claimed she had PTSD. But it was stupid. She didn’t have PTSD. She was afraid of the dark, that was all. Who could blame her after what she’d been through? She swallowed nervously.