Chapter Ashleigh Fitch and Remy Hughes 2002 Aged 40 #5
The call centre operated two shifts, meaning customers could get help or at least vent into a willing ear from eight in the morning until ten at night.
She wasn’t sure who occupied her seat when she was off but had arrived one morning eight weeks ago to find a large, wonky penis scrawled on the privacy board.
The cleaner had tried to remove it with a soft cloth and detergent but had only succeeding in smudging the balls a little.
Despite no doubt tackling the tackle with the very best of intentions, the smudging had somehow made it worse.
As if the neat, narrow lines of the phallus might have been ignored, but this distorted, faded, obvious and crude art demanded attention whenever she approached the desk.
‘I would like to apologise, Remy Hughes, for you having to look at that.’ Graham had visibly coloured.
‘Oh, no worries.’ She had smiled, deciding not to share that Midge had a fondness for similar artwork on any icy surface, a snow-covered window, anything steamed up, or if the kids left a pen within three feet of an envelope.
‘It can’t be that hard to find out who drew it, can it?
I mean, who was sitting at the desk, or who was sitting next to them? Don’t we have CCTV?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not that straightforward.’ Graham had pushed his glasses up on to his nose. ‘They were agency staff, temps, and I don’t think they’re coming back again. They drew a similar image on the bathroom wall and wrote something unsavoury about Melanie in marketing.’
‘What did they say about Melanie in marketing?’ She was curious. The girl was lovely and wore a short top that showed off the diamanté dangler in her naval, she laughed at whatever anyone said to her, whether with nerves or in genuine bemusement, it was hard to tell, but she was lovely nonetheless.
‘It wasn’t very nice.’ Graham blushed.
‘What was it?’ Her curiosity knew no bounds.
Graham had sighed and looked to his left and right, as if checking the coast was clear.
‘It said something like, Melanie the minx and her most marvellous melons.’
Remy guessed it was not something like but was in fact entirely accurate in his recollection. The banal, sexist, juvenile wording was obviously disappointing, and yet she was quietly impressed by the half-decent alliteration. It was conflicting.
‘Nothing amusing or clever about reducing a woman to the sum parts of her body.’
Remy had stared at the team leader for her section and given him a warm smile.
‘You’re absolutely right, Graham.’ It was a nice moment when his irritating flaws were diluted by his clear sense of indignance.
Her headset beeped to indicate a call was coming in and her computer screen automatically brightened.
She glanced at the timer in the corner of her screen.
It popped up automatically when a call was answered and ticked second by second in a grassy-green digital display.
The colour chosen presumably to remind her of nature, of life outside this vast square building where the grass grew while she toiled.
After three minutes, the green changed to a rather muddy orange and after seven minutes it became bright red, reminding her of failure, of blood, of emergency and the fact that Graham would see a red mist if she couldn’t keep her call times down.
Speedy!
Helpful!
Interested!
Timely!
This was one of Graham’s motivational initiatives that had been plastered all over the kitchenette areas and in the lifts.
She had roared her laughter, yet chose not to disclose the unfortunate mnemonic, delighting in seeing it every time she made a scalding cup of tea or waited for her floor.
It seemed someone else had chosen not to remain so tight-lipped, as the posters were removed as quickly as they had appeared.
It still made her chuckle to think of it.
‘Good morning. Thank you for calling Castle Care, you are through to Remy. How can I help you today?’
And just like that she was out of the blocks.
Ashleigh
‘Come on, parking fairy!’ Ashleigh banged the leather-covered steering wheel of her shiny Land Rover. ‘Just one measly space! Just one! Please!’
She hated that often the most stressful part of her day was finding somewhere to park her fat-bummed car.
Having driven up and down the streets at a snail’s pace, hoping, praying, and doing her best to manifest a spot, she spied a man wearing a red-and-blue striped beanie hat sitting in the driver’s seat of a shiny Mercedes.
Whether with the intention of moving or having just arrived, it was impossible to tell.
Either way, her heart lifted with joy at the prospect of getting this lucky.
‘Ooh, are you going?’ she mouthed, pointing at his car and then the road ahead.
He stared at her through the window and ignored her.
‘Are you going?’ She shouted this time, as if he might be able to hear over the hum of traffic, the beep of horns, the roar of engines and through the two sturdy panes of glass that separated them.
‘For the love of Jesus, Are you Leaving?’ she roared, and knocked on her window with her knuckles.
The man wound down his window and shook his head, before looking down at his phone. ‘Beanie-wearing dickhead!’ she yelled.
This was what London had reduced her to, hating and abusing a stranger who was doing no more than going about his business, and yet was on the receiving end of her sharp tongue as her adrenaline surged, her muscles bunched and her irritation flared, all because she could not park her massive car.
She hated how ugly she had sounded, acted.
It was, she knew, a result of how stressed she was about the business.
It wasn’t that they were against the wall, nothing like that, but still it was a worry, this drought.
Gallow and Fitch was her thing, how she measured her success, and she could not imagine a life without it.
With her phone resting under her chin, she punched a call to Guy, as she did at sporadic points throughout her day; he was a big part of her routine.
In a traffic jam, bored at lunch, waiting for clients to show up to a viewing, she called Guy.
Wanting to share something funny or irritating, she called Guy.
Theirs was an easy and comfortable friendship.
It was much to her relief that any fleeting embarrassment over his admission of love had been just that, fleeting, and they had thankfully put it behind them the minute they returned to London.
She started speaking the moment he answered.
‘Can’t park the bloody car!’
‘Good morning to you too.’
‘We’ve got Mr Whatshisname coming in about the Hartington house,’ she reminded.
‘I’m well aware. Clara has the coffee machine primed and we even have croissants.’
‘Don’t you start with sodding croissants.’ She shook her head and stopped her car, eyeing a space that she knew was at least two feet too short, but that didn’t stop her staring at it, wishing that the cars either side had only shifted up and down a bit.
‘Am I to assume that you didn’t get out of bed on the sunny side of the street this morning?’
‘I just need to park the car! There’s not a single space!’ she boomed.
‘Well, thank goodness you called me, as I can make that happen from here in the office. Just a second while I grab my magic wand.’
‘Why is it always when I’m in a hurry!’ she whined.
‘There’s never a parking space. Difference is, when you’re not in a hurry you care a little bit less.’
‘You might be right.’ This was what her friend did, offered the voice of reason, calmed her with his logic.
It was mollifying and maddening in equal measure.
She didn’t know how his wife, Ada, put up with it.
Ada, who had snared the former self-proclaimed lifelong bachelor and was about to give birth to their first child.
Ada who didn’t work outside the home, liked pretty things, and cooked from scratch for the husband she adored.
It was strange for Ashleigh that Guy’s wife was not one of her friends, not one of their gang or someone who had been introduced, a friend of a friend of a friend.
She was instead an unknown who Guy had fallen for hard and fast. Ashleigh would have to admit to feeling the tiniest bit of trepidation when he’d announced he was getting married, not wanting their relationship to change.
‘Doesn’t she get bored, Gigi?’ she’d asked Guy when he’d announced that his wife-to-be would more than likely be staying at home to look after the house, the kid they planned for, and the Dachshund called Ben they doted on.
The Dachshund called Ben with his own wardrobe that included a tiny Sherlock Holmes coat, deerstalker, and pipe. Nuff said.
‘No, or tired.’ He’d let this hang, and she’d felt the weight of exhaustion on her bones, having spent the day rushing from appointment to appointment in heels more appropriate for sitting; her head throbbed, and she needed a shower.
‘Huh!’ She’d given a wry laugh, wishing for a brief moment that she could be more Ada.
‘And while we’re on the subject . . .’
What subject? She had been a little confused by his segue.
‘Ada would prefer it if you didn’t call me Gigi. She doesn’t like the name, not for me, because, because . . .’ He sounded nervous and very much like he was reciting practised lines.
‘Because what?’ she prompted, wondering what else Ada didn’t like.
‘She says it’s exclusionary, of a time and place when she wasn’t there.’
‘But she wasn’t there!’ Ashleigh had pointed out the obvious, wondering what Archie would make of this.
‘Exactly.’
‘But it’s your school nickname, long before uni, before me.’
‘Ash.’ The way he said her name sounded very much like the old Guy, like Gigi, who was sweet and funny and not so stressed he tied himself in knots trying to please his rather demanding wife. ‘Please.’