You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (12 page)

‘But compared,’ Connie went on blithely, ‘with all the really vicious stuff you’re apt to find in everyday life, such as love and marriage and families and personal finance, they’re really no bother to anybody. The most a Barrington Fly-trap can do to you is rip your body into atoms and freeze your consciousness forever at the exact moment of death. If you really want something to lose sleep over, imagine living with a couple of teenage daughters. Which is why,’ she added, standing up, ‘I never got married. I may be exceptionally brave, but I’m not stupid.’

She left. Benny still had an inch of his drink left. Cassie stayed where she was.

‘The thing with Connie is,’ Benny said after a medium-length silence, ‘she’s absolutely brilliant at what she does. If they’d made her a partner like they should’ve back in the 1970’s the firm wouldn’t have got into the mess it’s in now. But sometimes she has trouble remembering we aren’t all as Sherman-tanklike as she is.’ He sighed. ‘She can walk through walls without even breaking a fingernail. The rest of us have to use the door.’

Cassie smiled. ‘I’d sort of worked that out for myself,’ she said. ‘And you know, I think she’s right. I don’t think it’s a wizards’ feud or a magical war or anything like that; or else I’d be on a plane to Nova Scotia right now, and the hell with the lot of you. Actually, I don’t think it’s really anything - well, anything to do with work, if you follow me. It’s just, somehow it’s got mixed up with the work side of my life, and it’s easier to spot in that context, because it makes a more obvious mess. Does that make any kind of sense to you?’

Benny finished his drink. ‘Cassie,’ he said, ‘I’ve been working for JWW ever since I left the mines of my ancestors. Nothing whatsoever makes any sense to me any more. I find that strangely comforting. Cheerio.’

Cassie went home. Uneventful journey; seven messages on the answering machine when she got in, all of them from her mother. She made herself cheese on toast and tried to get to grips with the Hollingshead file. In the silence of her lonely room, by the pale orange glow of the electric fire, it was all perfectly straightforward: a mundane, everyday little sale-and-purchase, the sort of thing that she could explain with her eyes shut and a kipper in each ear. Which dragged her back, reluctantly, to context. And she didn’t want to think about that any more, thanks all the same.

Instead, she reflected for a moment on the complete and utter bog she’d made of her assessment interview. She thought it over; so what? If they wanted to sack her, they could do that any time they liked. As for squandered opportunities to impress and sneak a toe onto the fast track to promotion; she found it perfectly easy not to get the least bit worked up about that. Screw the lot of them, she thought happily.

To drown out the noise of her own thoughts, Cassie switched on the telly. That was a good move on her part, since it reminded her that although her life was in many respects sad and dreary it wasn’t such a hopeless mess that she wanted to escape from it for an hour by watching an Australian soap opera. With a faint smile, she picked up the remote, drew a bead on one of the actors on the screen like Kirk aiming his phaser, and thumbed the off-button.

No result. Frowning, she tried again, but the intolerably young, bronzed, angst-riddled Strines were still there. She tried standby and mute, but they weren’t working either. Batteries, she growled lo herself; she got up, crossed to the table on which the set rested, and jabbed at the off switch with her left index finger.

This time, something did happen. She cracked a nail. The loathsome Aussies didn’t seem to care (fair enough; they had troubles enough of their own). So, Cassie thought: batteries flat und switch jammed. Not worth having it fixed; have to get a new one. Expense, ruin, aggravation. She reached round the back and turned the power off at the mains.

Still nothing. The beautiful golden young people on the screen gabbled on. The hell with this, Cassie thought, and she pulled the plug out of the wall.

Oh, she thought.

The young woman was called Holly, apparently, and the young man’s name was Ross. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they were talking about a pair of mutual friends of theirs, Chelsea and Josh. According to Ross, Josh was having trouble expressing his true feelings, while Chelsea still couldn’t make up her mind whether she loved Josh or Zack, although since Zack was now seeing Pixie, who’d broken up with Vince—

At this point, Cassie snatched up a small but chunky brass travelling clock and threw it at the screen. It bounced off.

Vince, meanwhile, was sort of still interested in Christy, which was a bit of a problem since Christy had just been dumped by Lee because he thought she still fancied Zack, whereas in fact she’d just had a brief but torrid fling with Shane, who was on the rebound from Tabby—

The toaster had no more effect than the small brass clock; likewise the cast-iron Le Creuset omelette pan her mother had given her the Christmas before last. Screaming at the set didn’t help matters either, which was hardly surprising. Cohere, Cassie ordered herself. Get a grip.

She went back into the kitchen. There, at least, the authentic voice of the Southern Hemisphere was muffled to the extent that she couldn’t hear the words. But she was damned if she was going to spend the rest of her life hiding in the kitchen from her own TV set. Think, she told herself. She thought.

Compared to being stuck in a probability well, it wasn’t too bad after all. She screwed up two little bits of paper towel into plugs and jammed them into her ears; but they itched, so she had to take them out again.

All right, then. When all else fails, try unconditional surrender. She went back into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and paid attention.

‘And another thing,’ Ross was saying (they were on the beach now, carrying surfboards under their arms), ‘I’m really worried about Cassie.’

‘Me, too,’ Holly replied. ‘Her and Colin. Like, when are those two going to get their act together?’

‘It’s always the same with them,’ Ross said. Behind him, a motor boat skimmed a water-skier across the limpid blue backdrop of the bay. ‘Every time they come close to getting it all out there in the open, something goes wrong and they’re back to square one. I think they’re like so afraid to commit.’

(At this point, Cassie had another go with the omelette pan. The handle snapped off.)

‘I mean, it’s obvious they’re crazy about each other,’ Holly whined. ‘It’s like they’re physically incapable of coming to terms with how they feel. Which is so lame,’ she added, as the water-skier wheeled round for another pass. ‘They orta pull themselves together and just go for it. I mean, how long’ve they been an item for?’

‘Practically for ever,’ Ross said. ‘That’s the really dumb part of it. They just keep going round and round and round in circles.’

So much, Cassie decided, for unconditional surrender. After a frustratingly long search, she found Connie Schwartz-Alberich’s home number in the phone-book drawer.

‘Connie?’

‘Cassie.’

‘Help.’

Short pause. ‘Cassie, you aren’t stuck again, are you?’

‘Maybe,’ Cassie replied. ‘I’m not sure. Look, do you think you could possibly come round?’

‘At this time of night?’

‘Please?’

‘And it’s really awkward getting to Chessington from here, you’ve got to—’

‘Please.’

Sigh. ‘All right,’ Connie said. ‘But it’ll take me a while to get there. Look, it’s not just a spider in the bath or anything like that, is it? Because—’

Cassie explained what was happening.

‘Oh. I’ll be right over.’

Cassie put the phone down and glanced at the TV. The Australians had gone, and a woman with an unfortunate dress sense was doing the weather. Cassie thumbed the remote at her, and the screen went blank.

So she rang Connie.

‘I think the programme just sort of finished,’ Cassie offered by way of explanation, ‘and it switched off perfectly happily after that.’

‘Did it really.’ She could tell that Connie wasn’t easy in her mind about something. ‘Well, don’t touch it again tonight, whatever you do. Also, I’d put a towel or a pillowcase over it for now. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t always mean that it can’t see you.’

Which was about as reassuring as waking up and finding the head of a racehorse on the pillow next to you. Cassie draped the TV with a duvet cover, a sheet and two dressing gowns, made herself a strong cup of tea, then went to bed.

Several hours lying on her back in the dark convinced Cassie that the Sandman had got a better offer somewhere else, so she switched on the light and reached for her book: Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis, an old favourite, warmly recommended to her by a fellow insomniac and hitherto infallible. For once, however, it failed; twelve pages and she was still wide awake. With a primeval-sounding grunt she shoved it back on the bedside table and got up. As she pushed open the bedroom door, she noticed something that shouldn’t have been there: her two dressing gowns, neatly hung up on the hook.

In the living room the TV was alive again, burbling away to itself like a drunk on a park bench; the duvet cover, she noted, was lying on the sofa, folded with more precision than she ever managed. She frowned. This wasn’t just weird and inexplicable, it was bullying, and she wasn’t having it. ‘Stop it,’ she said, in a loud, clear voice. It took no notice.

Fine, Cassie thought. Stifling a yawn (probably the unabridged Amis working its way through her bloodstream) she sat down on the sofa, tucked the duvet cover round her, and looked at the screen. Open University, by the look of it; where else were you likely to find two grown men and a sensible-looking woman sitting round a table discussing thematic resonances in Shakespeare at one in the morning? Serendipitous, nonetheless. If these three didn’t fast-track her to Nod Central, nothing would.

Seemed to be working. Her eyelids drooped, her train of thought stopped in a tunnel just outside Birmingham, the edges of the world smudged. It was just comfortably snug under the duvet cover. She relaxed into the languid warmth.

One of the talking-head people was reciting poetry, no doubt to illustrate some point he was making - Ay me! For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.

Right, she muttered to herself, tell me about it. Been there, endured that, and they’ll have to build an annexe to the Hayward Gallery to house my T-shirt collection when I die und bequeath it to the nation. Star-crossed lovers; the talking head was banging on about star-crossed lovers. Star-crossed, don’t know they’re bloody born. If they’d had to deal with what I’ve had to put up with all these years, over and over and over again; you think star-crossed is such a big deal, you should try —

Cassie sat up. The TV had switched itself off. The brass travelling clock (which had picked itself up off the floor and somehow got back onto the mantelpiece) told her it was a quarter to three.

Go on, then, she asked herself. What should I try?

No answer. Insufficient data; please try again.

Damn, she thought. It would’ve been perfectly simple to dismiss it as having been one of those dreams where you wake up convinced you’ve got the next Xanadu or a sensational new theory that’ll revolutionise particle physics as we know it or the best recipe ever for scrambled egg, knowing all the while that it’s an illusion, an undigested belch of subconscious waste. I had a dream, and suddenly I remembered all my previous lives in one go—

Not that kind of dream, though, because she hadn’t been asleep; she had the folded-up duvet cover as proof. No, not any more, because she’d unfolded it, silly cow; but there were two dressing gowns hanging on the back of her bedroom door that she’d last seen draped over the screen. Even Lord Hutton couldn’t turn a blind eye to evidence as compelling as that.

Just to be sure, she got up and checked. They were still there. Next she went to the kitchen. In the bin was her Le Creuset omelette pan (one careless owner, unwanted gift) with the handle snapped off.

The course of true love never did run smooth. Cassie ate a couple of Ritz crackers and a small pink yoghurt. It seemed a great deal of trouble to go to - telekinesis, strong effective magic, quite a lot of difficult technical stuff which she could appreciate, being in the trade herself - just to remind her of that. A bit like buying the last surviving Concorde and retrofitting it with huge smoke canisters just so you could skywrite A stitch in time saves nine over the Manchester rush hour. Besides, she wasn’t at all sure about true love. Rather, she’d come to the conclusion that it was a bit like God or Santa Claus; something you take on trust when you’re young, until you eventually get to figure out why they want you to believe in something so innately improbable. You had to have something like true love, or else there’d be chaos: the fabric of society in tatters, the apocalypse of the film and music industry, a total lack of anything for the retail sector to hype in February. It was, therefore, a necessary myth, something you subscribe to but know deep down is a fallacy and a sham, like parliamentary democracy. Accordingly, it never runs smooth because it doesn’t actually run at all. Fact.

Fat chance of getting to sleep with all that churning round inside her head. She looked round for something to do. Well, there was the ironing; but the ironing is always with us, and Cassie held to the view that doing it only encourages it. Or there was the Hollingshead & Farren file, which she’d thrown aside earlier as too easy-peasy for words. Nevertheless, she still had to draft a couple of covering letters, forms for registering the transfer at St Peter’s House, routine guff like that. If she did it now, she wouldn’t have to do it later, at the office; she could go and chat to Connie, or stare out of the window. What fun.

True love, indeed. Whatever next? The tooth fairy?

Cassie duly fell asleep at 5.25 a.m. in the middle of filling in Form G37. She woke up at 7.35 with a cricked neck, in plenty of time to burn her tongue on her morning coffee, miss her usual train and arrive at the office twenty minutes late - with Mr Tanner’s mum on reception.