Chapter 18
18
A week later
The building that Google maps had directed Helen to was a celebration of modern design. Asymmetrical and glass-fronted, it was a world away from the Victorian frontage of the health centre with its red brick and gabled roof. A little like herself, she thought, as she stood by the entrance, watching sleek young people hurrying past. She felt out of time and out of place, a relic from another age, and heart beating, hands sweaty, she couldn’t decide if she should go in or turn and run.
The indecision was a natural result of a week in which she had seized every opportunity that had presented itself, to talk herself out of a job she hadn’t even been offered. Chastising herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, muttering as she schlepped around the supermarket, sitting on her balcony, sipping wine and playing on repeat, excuse after excuse as to why she wouldn’t get the job, why she couldn’t do it and why she was a fool to have even considered it in the first place.
Christian’s email had been to blame. Phrases he had used like ‘crisis response,’ ‘community engagement,’ ‘field activities,’ had been to blame. She’d read through with a rising sense of dismay. The ‘crisis responses’ she had experience of, were black socks mixed in with a white wash. And field activities? Football? Cricket? She didn’t even know what the term meant. She was (as she kept reminding herself), an under-qualified, middle-aged woman whose CV could probably be summarised with one sentence: Good at matching socks, keeping the milk stocked, catching spiders.
It might have helped to talk to someone other than herself about it, but not knowing what she would have said, or what exactly the opportunity was, she had chosen not to. ‘Just go and have a chat,’ Dr Ross had said. ‘He’s very nice.’ So, here she was.
Craning her neck, she looked up. Caro, she was thinking, would have spent her entire career in buildings like this. Smiling at the thought, Helen opened her phone and took a photograph. She’d be seeing both Caro and Kay at dinner tonight and whatever the outcome of this ‘chat’ there would be a lot to talk about. Guess Where I am? she typed. Feels like we’re swapping places! As she sent the picture to Caro, Helen ran the words again, swapping places. Once upon a time they had been equal. Then Caro’s world had expanded, and her world had shrunk, and it was nothing more complicated than that. And, for heaven’s sake, it was just a chat. She could do that, if there was one thing she could do, it was chat.
But one step inside, and she lost her nerve all over again. The space she had entered was not a place of work so much as a lifestyle. Stretching out in front of her a vast and open-plan ground floor had been designed to mimic a town square. Along each side neat eating places sold fresh juices, and raw sushi, poke bowls and grain bowls. Tables and chairs had been set in front of the restaurants and a huge domed ceiling rose above. Trees in Titanic-sized pots grew in obedient shapes and people walked past, with heads tall and clothes that fitted extremely well. The scene was a fantasy, a dream realised of what a world full of health-conscious, wealthy people might look like. Her mouth turned up in a rueful smile. No Tupperware boxes of lemon drizzle here then.
At the far end of the square, security gates marked the boundary of make-believe and business. Behind the gates, she could see the swirl of the rising storeys, the glass balconies that delineated every floor. It was a dazzling building, clean, modern, and impressive. Everything, she thought as she looked down at her Marks and Spencer blouse and her comfortable shoes, that she wasn’t.
She gave her name to the uniformed man, guarding what looked more like a wooden island than a desk, took a seat on a blue sofa and concentrated on counting how many people were choosing poke bowls over sushi. A short time later a young man came hurtling through the security gates, he had plenty of hair, a rope bracelet on his wrist and his arm was raised in the kind of greeting you might give evacuated children retuning home after war.
‘Helen!’ he called. ‘I’m Christian!’
She didn’t yell back. Opting for a more reserved style, she smiled politely and went to stand and as she did, she yelped with surprise. The sofa was lower than her knees had anticipated. It was only by throwing a hand out to claw the cushion, that she managed to haul herself upright. ‘And there was I thinking I’d get beamed up.’ She joked.
‘Sorry?’ Christian’s face was a blank.
‘ Star Trek ?’ she said, digging herself in further. ‘It’s so modern!’ And she did an embarrassed little turn to indicate that she meant the building, and not him. Stop talking, Helen. Just. Stop. Talking.
‘Ah.’ Christian titled his head to the gates. ‘Would you like to follow me?’
‘Of course!’ Head bowed, she gathered her bag and her jacket. Great start, Helen. Great bloody start.
Trotting to keep up, Helen followed as Christian led her through the offices of Stronger Together.
‘This is our collaborative area,’ he said as they passed an area filled with high tables, spaced in front of a whiteboard.
Good height for tapas, she almost quipped, and remembering her last joke, settled on, ‘Very nice.’
‘Our tech space.’
She turned to see a closed office, with individual desks and screens.
‘It’s booked through an app.’
‘I see.’
‘The hydration station.’ Christian had stopped next to a strip of kitchen. White gloss cupboards, under a granite bench, a sink with two taps. Two taps?
’Would you like some water?’ he said.
‘Yes please.’
‘Fizzy or still?’ He picked up a glass and turned to the taps.
‘Still is fine.’
‘Mint or lemon?’
Helen blinked, glancing across at two huge glass dispensers on the bench, one topped with lemon wedges, one with sprigs of mint. ‘Plain is fine,’ she said. ‘Plain, still water.’ She was thinking of the tea-stained sink in the kitchen at the health centre. The white crust of limescale around the lip of the kettle. Clutching her glass, she followed on. Past a ‘creative breakout space’ which, with its stack of board games, box of Lego (Lego!) and chess set, looked to Helen more like a sixth-form common room. At least they put their toys away here. Past a ‘game-zone’ with a screen and handsets and past the ‘quiet zone’ with cocoon- like pods and noticeably softer lighting. And she couldn’t help it. ‘So, where’s the naughty step?’ she quipped, not noticing that Christian had stopped. Not noticing and walking right into him. ‘Oh gosh!’ She stepped back. ‘Sorry.’
Christian winced. She’d trodden on his toe.
‘This is my office,’ he said, his smile noticeably less bright than the one he had greeted her with.