Time of My Life (11 page)

‘I know that. Believe me—’

‘You are a liar!’ he shouted, voice thick with rage. His face was bright red, the veins in his neck protruded. ‘My name is Steve Roberts and I work here.’

He put his briefcase down, pulled out his chair and sat down. His hands were shaking as he tried to open his briefcase. When he couldn’t do it he yelled so loudly we all jumped and he thumped his fist down on the desk. ‘Graham, open it!’ he shouted. Graham hopped to it and opened the brown battered briefcase that Steve had carried with him every day that I’d been here, and then he wisely took several strides backward, away from Steve. Steve calmed a little then placed his mug back down, the one that said
Steve likes his coffee black with one sugar,
but he banged it down so hard that the bottom chipped. He replaced his basketball and hoop and the photograph of his children. There was no packed lunch. His wife hadn’t planned on him coming in today. They were messily placed, not as he had them before. Nothing was like he had it before.

‘Where’s my computer?’ he said quietly.

Nobody answered.

‘Where’s my computer?’ he screamed.

‘I don’t know,’ Edna said, her voice trembling a little. ‘They came and they took it this morning.’

‘Took it? Who took it?’

Banging began on the door to the office as security tried to get in. The door wouldn’t budge, he had cleverly – though I think accidentally – placed one of the chairs below the door handle and it was firmly lodged. I could hear voices outside talking at top speed, trying to figure out what to do. They were worried, not so much about us I imagined but about the two heads of the company inside, and I was hoping Steve wasn’t going to find out any time soon either. The action at the door wasn’t doing anything to help Steve’s temper. The constant rattle of the chairs and desk at the door was like a slow simmer and we were all waiting for the big explosion. Steve was starting to panic.

‘Well then, get me your computer,’ he said.

‘What?’ Edna was taken aback.

‘Go into your office and get me your computer. Or better yet, how about I take your desk, how do you like that?’ he shouted. ‘Then I’ll be the boss around here and they won’t be able to get rid of me. Maybe I’ll fire you,’ he shouted. ‘Edna! You’re fucking fired! How do you like that?’

It was beyond disturbing watching a colleague fall apart like this. Edna just looked at him, gulped hard, didn’t know what to do. Her two bosses who held her life in their hands were hiding out in her office.

‘You can’t go in,’ she stuttered. ‘I locked it at lunchtime and I can’t find the key.’ She struggled saying it and we all knew, even Steve in his demented state knew, that it wasn’t true.

‘Why are you lying to me?’

‘I’m not, Steve,’ she said a little stronger. ‘You really can’t go in there.

‘But it’s my office,’ he shouted, moving closer to her. He shouted in her face and she blinked with each word. ‘It’s my office and you have to let me in. It will be the last thing you do before you pack up your things and leave!’ His demeanour was intimidating, there were six of us in there, two more in Edna’s office, and together we could have taken him down but he had us all captivated, frozen in our spots in fear of a man we thought we knew.

‘Steve, don’t go in there,’ Graham said.

Steve looked at him, confused. ‘Why, who’s in there?’

‘Just don’t, okay?’

‘Someone’s in there, aren’t they? Who is it?’

Graham shook his head.

‘Quentin, who is it?’

It was only then I’d noticed Quentin had risen from below the desk.

‘Tell them to come out,’ he said to Edna.

She was wringing her hands.

‘I can’t do that,’ she said, giving up, her confidence dying.

‘Quentin, open the door for me.’

Quentin looked at me; I didn’t know what to do.

‘Open the damn door,’ Steve screamed and Quentin scurried over. He opened the door slowly, didn’t look inside and immediately returned to his desk to be away from the action.

Steve moved a little closer to the office, peeked inside. Then he started laughing. But not happy laughter, it was demented, disturbing.

‘Get out,’ he said to the men inside.

‘Look, Mr …’ Michael O’Connor looked at Edna for help.

‘Roberts,’ she whispered, but not deliberately.

‘You don’t even know my name,’ Steve screeched and his face was bright red, his nose was covered in blood, the bloodstain on his shirt was spreading. ‘He doesn’t even know my name,’ he shouted to the rest of us. ‘Just yesterday you ruined my life and you don’t even know my bloody name,’ he yelled. ‘My name is Steve Roberts and I work here!’

‘We all need to calm down here, maybe open the door and tell everybody outside that we’re okay, then we can discuss what’s happened.’

‘Who’s he?’ Steve said, looking at Augusto.

‘This is … he doesn’t speak English, Mr Roberts.’

‘My name is Steve,’ he shouted. ‘Lucy,’ he screamed and my heart went from a mile a minute to stopping. ‘Get over here. You speak languages, ask him who he is.’

I didn’t move. Quentin looked at me with concern and I knew that he knew.

‘He’s Augusto Fernández from the German office and he’s here to visit us today,’ I said, my voice cracking along the way.

‘Augusto … I’ve heard of you. You’re the guy who fired me,’ Steve said, getting worked up again. ‘You’re the fucker who fired me. Well, I know what to do with you.’

Steve rushed towards him and it looked as though he was going to punch him.

Michael O’Connor grabbed Steve to pull him back but Steve was quick, he punched him in the stomach and Michael went flying back into Edna’s office and landed on the ground. I heard the bang as his head hit the desk. I don’t think Steve noticed. He had stopped inches before Augusto’s face. We waited for a head butt, a punch, something awful to happen to his perfect sun-snogged Spanish face but it didn’t happen.

‘Please give me back my job,’ Steve said in a gentle voice that broke my heart. Blood had rolled down to his mouth and it spattered as he spoke. ‘Please.’

‘He can’t do that, Mr Roberts,’ Michael said from inside, clearly in pain.

‘Yes, he can, give me back my job, Augusto. Lucy, tell him I want my job back.’

I swallowed. ‘Em …’ I tried to think of words, I tried to think of all I’d learned but the knowledge just wasn’t there.

‘Lucy!’ he roared and he reached into his pocket. I thought he was going for a handkerchief. It would be normal for him to reach for that, blood was pouring from his head, covered his nose and was on his hand from where he’d wiped his mouth. I waited for the handkerchief to come out of his pocket but instead I saw a gun. Everybody screamed and dived to the ground, apart from me because it was pointed at me and I had frozen.

‘Tell him to give me my job back.’ He moved closer to me, all I could see was a black thing pointing at me. It was shaking in Steve’s trembling hand. I could see his finger on the trigger and he was trembling so hard I was afraid it would go off any minute. My legs were shaking; I could feel my knees about to go. ‘If he gives me my job back, I will let him go safely. Tell him.’

I couldn’t answer him. He rushed at me again, the gun only inches away from my face. ‘Tell him!’ he screamed.

‘For fuck’s sake put the gun down,’ I heard Graham yell, terror in his voice.

Then the others started shouting and it was too much, it was too much for me to bear. I was afraid it would be too much for Steve to take too, all those voices, all those terrified voices confusing our thoughts.

My lips were trembling, my eyes filling. ‘Please, Steve, don’t do this. Please don’t do this.’

He toughened up, ‘Don’t cry, Lucy, just do what you’re paid to do and tell the man I want my job back.’

My lips trembled so much I could barely make out the words. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I can’t, Steve.’

‘Just do it, Lucy,’ Graham said encouragingly. ‘Just say what he wants you to say.’

The banging on the door stopped and I felt lost. More lost than I’d ever been. I thought they’d left us. They’d left us on our own.

‘I can’t.’

‘Do it!’ Steve shouted. ‘Do it, Lucy!’ He waved the gun closer to my face.

‘Jesus, Steve, I can’t do it, okay? I can’t speak Spanish. Okay?’ I shouted back.

There was a silence, everyone looked at me in shock as if that revelation was more surprising than the brandished gun, then they remembered, and quickly returned their gaze to Steve.

Steve was looking at me as shocked as everybody else, then his eyes darkened again and the trembling in his hand stopped and his arm firmed up. ‘But they fired me.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, Steve. I’m really sorry.’

‘I didn’t deserve it.’

‘I know,’ I whispered.

In the middle of the thick silence, while Michael was slowly rolling onto his side to get to his feet and the others were cowering together, Quentin stood up. Steve whipped around with the gun to face him.

‘Jesus, Quentin, get down,’ Graham shouted.

But Quentin didn’t move. Instead he faced Mr Fernández, who was in a terrified state on the floor, and in a firm voice with what sounded like word-perfect Spanish he began to speak to him. Augusto rose to his feet and also remained cool and responded, his voice authoritative and believable even though none of us had a clue what he was saying. In the middle of this madness they carried out a conversation of complete calm. Suddenly there was the sound of a drill from outside. Movement, at last, and the door handle began to rattle. Steve looked at the door and it seemed that a little part of him gave up.

‘What did he say?’ he asked Quentin. His voice was quiet and we could barely hear him over the noise of the drill.

Quentin, full of twitches, recited Augusto’s response. ‘He said that he is very sorry about the error which led to you losing your job. He is sure there was a mistake in the system and as soon as he is able he will make a phone call to head office to have you reinstated. He is very sorry for the distress this has caused you and your family and he will very quickly make plans to have you back in the job as quickly as possible. It is obvious from your actions today that you are a fine dedicated worker that he and the company should be extremely proud of.’

Steve’s chin lifted higher with pride. He nodded then. ‘Thank you.’ Swapping the gun to his other hand, he moved towards Augusto and reached out with his free bloodied hand. They shook hands. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘It’s an honour to work for your company.’

Augusto nodded, warily and wearily both at the same time.

Then the door handle fell off, the door burst open, the desk was thrown across the room and three men dived on Steve.

As soon as I had the opportunity that day I made my call.

He answered.

‘Okay,’ I said, my voice still trembling from the shock. ‘I’ll meet you again.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We had arranged to meet the following day in Starbucks at the end of my block. I couldn’t meet him on the day of the office incident, I would rather not have seen anybody or anything, apart from Mr Pan and my bed, that day, but word had reached my mother, via on-the-hour-every-hour news bulletins, and she was frantic with worry. Father was up the walls. Mum had sent a messenger into the court with word that her daughter’s office had been held at gunpoint and Father had demanded a recess in a controversial high-profile case. He had broken every speed limit for the first time in his life to make it home to Mum and they’d sat around the kitchen table together eating apple pie and drinking tea, crying and hugging and reminiscing on the little Lucy stories they loved to regale so much, bringing my soul to life as if I had been shot in the office that day.

Okay, I lied.

I’m not sure how Father felt about it – the underlying feeling was probably that I deserved it for landing such a lowly job with standard people – but I was in no mood to learn his thoughts on the matter. I’d refused to visit, insisting I was fine, but even I knew this time that I was lying and so Riley had landed on my doorstep unscheduled.

‘Your chariot awaits,’ he said as soon as I’d answered the door.

‘Riley, I’m fine,’ I said but it didn’t sound credible and I knew it.

‘You’re not fine,’ he said. ‘You look like crap.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Just get your things and come with me. We’re going to my place. Mum’s meeting us there.’

I groaned. ‘Please, I’ve had a rough day as it is.’

‘Don’t speak about her like that,’ he said, serious for a change, which made me feel bad. ‘She’s worried about you. It’s been on the news all day.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Wait here.’

I closed the door and tried to gather my things but I couldn’t think, my mind was numb, it wouldn’t work. In the end I gathered myself and grabbed my coat. When I stepped out into the corridor my neighbour whose name I’d forgotten was talking with Riley. He was leaning in towards her, oblivious to my presence, so I cleared my throat, a long loud, phlegmy sound that echoed in the corridor. That got his attention. He looked at me, annoyed by my interruption.

‘Hi, Lucy,’ she said.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘Not good,’ she said, deep frown lines appearing between her eyebrows.

‘Have you been in to see her?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Well, if you decide to, remember I’m here to … you know.’

She nodded her thanks.

‘Your neighbour seems nice,’ Riley said once we were in his car.

‘She’s not your type.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t have a type.’

‘Yes, you do. The blonde vacuous type.’

‘That’s not true,’ he said. ‘I go for brunettes too.’

We laughed.

‘Did she mention her baby to you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Are you trying to put me off her? Because if you are, telling me that she has a baby won’t work. I once dated a woman with two kids.’

‘Ha. So you are interested in her.’

‘Maybe a little.’

I found that weird. We sat in silence and I started thinking about Steve pointing a gun at my face. I didn’t want to know what Riley was thinking about.

‘Where’s her mother?’

‘In hospital. I don’t know which one and I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But it’s serious.’

‘Why hasn’t she seen her?’

‘Because she says she won’t leave her baby behind.’

‘Have you offered to babysit?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s nice of you.’

‘I’m not all bad.’

‘I don’t think any part of you is bad,’ he said, looking at me. I wouldn’t meet his eye so he looked back at the road. ‘Why doesn’t she bring the baby to the hospital with her? I don’t understand.’

I shrugged.

‘You do know, come on, tell me.’

‘I don’t.’ I looked out the window.

‘How old is the baby?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Lucy.’

‘I honestly don’t know. She puts it in a buggy.’

He looked at me. ‘It.’

‘Little boys and girls look the same to me. Until they’re ten I haven’t a clue what sex they are.’

Riley laughed. ‘Does her mother not approve of her being a single mother? Is that what it is?’

‘Something like that,’ I said and concentrated on the world passing by and not on the gun I kept seeing in my face.

Riley lived two kilometres from the city centre in Ringsend, an inner suburb in Dublin, where he occupied a penthouse that overlooked Boland’s Mills on Grand Canal Dock.

‘Lucy,’ my mum said, with eyes big and worried, as soon as I walked in the door. I kept my arms behind my back as she squeezed me tight.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, I wasn’t even in the office,’ I said out of nowhere. ‘I had to run an errand and missed all the fun.’

‘Really?’ she asked, her face filling with relief.

Riley was staring at me, which was making me uncomfortable; he’d been acting very strangely the past few days, less like the brother I knew and loved and more like a person who knew I was lying.

‘Anyway, I brought you this.’ I removed my hands from behind my back and gave her a doormat that I’d swiped from outside the door of Riley’s neighbour. It said
Hi, I’m Mat
and looked good as new.

Mum laughed. ‘Oh Lucy, you’re so funny, thank you so much.’

‘Lucy,’ Riley said angrily.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, Riley, it was no trouble at all. It wasn’t expensive.’ I patted him on the back and moved into the rest of the apartment. ‘Is Ray here?’ Ray was Riley’s flatmate and was a doctor; they were never at home at the same time as they both worked opposite hours. Whenever he was home Mum flirted unashamedly with him, though she did ask me once before if Ray was Riley’s boyfriend. It was wishful thinking on her part for a trendy homosexual son who would never replace her with another woman.

‘He’s working,’ Riley explained.

‘Honestly, do you two never get to spend any quality time together?’ I asked, trying not to laugh, and Riley actually looked like he wanted to do a double-leg takedown and send me to the ground just like he did when we were younger. I quickly changed the subject, ‘What’s the smell?’

‘Pakistani food,’ mum said giddily. ‘We didn’t know what you wanted so we ordered half the menu.’ Mum got excited about being in her handsome bachelor son’s apartment where she got to do exotic things like eat Pakistani food, watch
Top Gear
and operate a remote-control fire that changed colour. It was a long way to a Pakistani restaurant from their house and Father wouldn’t be remotely interested in making the journey with her or watching anything other than CNN. We opened a bottle of wine and sat down at a glass table, by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the river. Everything was reflective and shiny, shimmering in the moonlight.

‘So,’ Mum said and I could tell from her tone that she meant a serious probing conversation was about to begin.

‘How are the wedding-vow renewal plans going?’ I asked first.

‘Oh …’ She forgot what she was going to ask me and perked up. ‘There’s so much I have to talk to you about. I’m trying to choose a venue.’ And I listened to her for the next twenty minutes talking about things that I never knew a person ever needed to consider when it came to four walls and a ceiling because the alternatives of no ceiling and/or three walls or less were apparently too overwhelmingly enticing.

‘How many people are going?’ I asked when I heard some of the venues she was thinking of.

‘So far there’s four hundred and twenty.’

‘What?’ I almost choked on my wine.

‘Oh, it’s mostly your father’s colleagues,’ she said. ‘Given his position it’s difficult to invite some and not others. People get very offended.’ And feeling as if she’d spoken out of turn, she corrected herself. ‘And rightly so.’

‘So don’t invite any of them,’ I said.

‘Oh, Lucy,’ she smiled at me, ‘I can’t do that.’

My phone started ringing, and Don Lockwood’s name flashed on the screen. Before I had a chance to control my facial muscles, I took on the characteristics of a giddy child.

Mum raised her eyebrows at Riley.

‘Excuse me, I’ll just take this outside.’

I stepped out onto the balcony. It was a wraparound so I moved away from their eyeline and earshot.

‘Hello?’

‘So, did you get fired today?’

‘Not quite. Not yet anyway. But it turned out the guy didn’t know who Tom was. Thanks for the tip all the same.’

He laughed lightly. ‘Same thing happened in Spain. Tom’s a mystery. Don’t worry. It could have been worse. You could have been in the office where that poor guy went ballistic.’

I paused. I immediately thought it was a trap but then my better judgement overrode it – how on earth could he have known, he didn’t even know my real name, couldn’t possibly have known that I even worked there.

‘Hello?’ he asked, worried. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

‘Oh, good. I thought I’d said something wrong.’

‘No, you didn’t, it’s just that … well, that was my office.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes. Unfortunately.’

‘Jesus. Are you okay?’

‘Better than he is, anyway.’

‘Did you see the guy?’

‘Sausage,’ I said, staring across the river at Boland’s Mills.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I nicknamed him Sausage. He was the softest man in the building and he pointed a gun right at my head.’

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Are you okay, did he hurt you?’

‘I’m fine.’ But I wasn’t fine and he knew it but I couldn’t see him and I didn’t know him so it didn’t matter and I kept talking. ‘It was only a water pistol, you know, we found out afterwards when they’d … got him down on the ground. It was his son’s. He’d taken it that morning and told his wife he was going to get his job back. Jesus, a fucking water pistol made me question my whole life.’

‘Of course it would. I mean, you didn’t know, did you?’ he said gently. ‘And had he pulled the trigger you could have had very frizzy hair.’

I laughed, threw my head back and laughed.

‘Oh God. There was me hoping I’d get fired, and he gave up his life to get his job back.’

‘I wouldn’t say his life, it was hardly a deadly weapon, though I haven’t seen you with frizzy hair. I haven’t seen you at all. Have you got hair?’

I laughed. ‘Brown hair.’

‘Hmm, another piece of the puzzle.’

‘So tell me about your day, Don.’

‘I can’t beat yours, that’s for sure. Let me take you for a drink, I bet you could do with one,’ he said gently. ‘Then I can tell you all about my day face to face.’

I was quiet.

‘We’ll meet somewhere crowded, somewhere familiar, you choose where, bring ten friends with you if you want, ten men, big men with muscles. I’m not into big men by the way, or any men, I’d rather you not bring them at all but if I said that first you’d think I was planning to kidnap you. Which I’m not.’ He sighed. ‘Smooth, aren’t I?’

I smiled. ‘Thank you, but I can’t. My brother and my mother are holding me hostage.’

‘You’ve had a day of it. Another time then. This weekend? You’ll see there’s more to me than just a beautiful left ear.’

I started laughing. ‘Don, you sound like a really nice guy—’

‘Uh-oh.’

‘But frankly, I’m a mess.’

‘Of course you are, anyone would be after the day you’ve had.’

‘No, not just because of today, I mean generally, I’m a mess.’ I rubbed my face tiredly, realising contrary to my own popular opinion that I genuinely was a mess. ‘I spend more time telling a wrong number things I don’t even tell my family.’

He laughed lightly and it felt like his breath whistled down the phone to my ear. I shuddered. I felt as though he was standing right beside me.

‘That’s got to be a good sign, hasn’t it?’ He livened up. ‘Come on, if it turns out I’m a big fat ugly thing that you never want to see again then you can leave and I’ll never bother you again. Or if it turns out that you’re a big fat ugly thing, you’ll have nothing to worry about because I’ll never want to see you again. Or maybe you’re looking for a big fat ugly thing and in that case there’s no point in meeting me because I’m not.’

‘I can’t, Don, I’m sorry.’

‘I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me and I don’t even know your name.’

‘I told you, it’s Gertrude.’

‘Gertrude,’ he said, a little defeated. ‘Right, well, just remember you called me first.’

‘It was a wrong number,’ I laughed.

‘Okay then,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll leave you alone. I’m glad you’re okay.’

‘Thanks, Don. Goodbye.’

We ended the call and I leaned on the rail and looked out as the reflection from all the apartments’ lights shimmered in the black water. My phone beeped.

–
A parting gift.

I scrolled down.

A pair of beautiful blue eyes stared back at me. I studied them until I almost imagined them blink.

When I went back in to Mum and Riley they were kind enough not to ask any questions about the phone call but while Riley went to get the car keys to drop me home, Mum took a moment and I sensed a special chat.

‘Lucy, I didn’t get the opportunity to talk with you after you left lunch last week.’

‘I know, I’m sorry I left so hastily,’ I said. ‘The food was lovely, I just remembered I had to meet somebody.’

She frowned. ‘Really? Because I felt that it was because I signed the documents for the appointment with your life.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ I interrupted. ‘It really wasn’t. I can’t remember what it was but it was, you know, important. I’d stupidly double-booked, you know how forgetful I am sometimes.’

‘Oh. I was sure you were angry with me.’ She studied me. ‘It’s okay if you tell me you were angry at me.’

What was she talking about? Silchesters didn’t reveal such things.

‘Of course not. You were just looking out for me.’

‘Yes,’ she said relieved. ‘I was. But I didn’t know what to do for a very long time. I didn’t sign the paperwork for weeks, I thought if there was something wrong you could maybe come to me and talk about it. Even though I know Edith is so good at helping you with things that maybe you don’t want to tell your mummy.’ She smiled shyly and cleared her throat.