Chapter 2
Jack Feathers pushed his chair away from the desk and shook his head in irritation.
So the rumours of job evaluations and the restructuring of departments in the council were true. That was all he needed right now – more worry. He had enough to be getting on with as it was, without this.
He wished he hadn’t read the email. He didn’t usually bother with missives from the council’s Chief Executive, because they didn’t often say a lot – thousands of words written about nothing in particular and most of them extolling the virtues of the Chief Exec herself, with the occasional crumb of praise thrown to her supporters.
He wasn’t bitter about it – far from it – but it would be nice for the people on the ground to receive some recognition for all the hard work they did. And he wasn’t referring to himself either, although he worked equally as hard as the next person.
Jack scooted his chair back to the desk and scanned the email again, trying to pick out the relevant points in amongst the overly officious language. He was tempted to mark it as unread. Though what difference that would make, was beyond him. Besides, the email promised to follow it up with a letter. Not only that, he suspected the topic would be the conversational subject of choice in the cafeteria for the next few days.
A glutton for punishment, he logged into his private emails, reread the latest one from Della and uttered a loud sigh. He perfectly understood why his sister wanted to sell the house they jointly owned and he was delighted she had found the love of her life, but he simply wasn’t in a position to purchase anywhere else. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
Della was lucky: property prices in Alaska were so much cheaper than those in the UK for a comparably sized house, and although Sweet Meadow wasn’t London, prices had still risen dramatically over the past five years or so. Ideally, he would love to buy her out, but he simply couldn’t afford it. He was already paying the full mortgage, which was only fair since he was the only one living there, and it was gobbling up a considerable portion of his wages as it was. There was no way he could increase his borrowing and still be able to eat!
He knew this had been coming for a while, but it was a shock to see her request in black and white.
Another email notification popped up on his screen, this time from reception, and Jack sighed. At least it wasn’t more doom and gloom he thought, as he quickly read it, noting that they had taken a phone call to request a litter pick in Sweet Meadow Park.
Not another one! This was getting to be a daily occurrence. As usual, the caller hadn’t left a name or a contact number, and Jack assumed it was the same person, although he couldn’t be sure. And if it wasn’t litter that was being complained about, it was the youths who hung around after dark. How was that his responsibility? Litter he could do something about – teenagers were outside his remit as the Council’s Parks and Highways Officer.
He had attempted to resolve the situation in the past by locking the park gates between the hours of eight p.m. and six a.m., but the number of complaints he had received from dog walkers and people who used the park as a cut through to get from the new housing estate to the railway station, had nearly broken his inbox. Besides, he couldn’t justify the expense.
‘There’s a tree down on Dunstone Road,’ Pete, his colleague, announced as he poked his head around Jack’s door. ‘It’s blocking both lanes and the pavement.’
‘Thanks, I’ll get a team onto it.’
Jack swiftly made out a job requisition request and pinged it off to one of the supervisors to action, then he got to his feet and went in search of breakfast.
Actually, it would be brunch, because he rarely had time to eat breakfast at home and neither could he be bothered to make himself sandwiches. Instead, he ate a substantial meal at around eleven o’clock, which usually consisted of a full English that would set him up for the rest of the day and give his body enough fuel to sustain him if he decided to go for a run after work.
‘What can I get you, my love?’ The council’s cafeteria was run by a jolly lady who clearly loved her job.
‘The usual, please, Sue.’
‘Toast or hash browns?’
‘Er, toast today, I think. And a coffee?’
‘Coming right up. Take a seat and I’ll bring it over.’
He paid and wandered over to a table overlooking the atrium and slid into a seat. That was another thing that galled him: the council didn’t have enough money to fund his department adequately, yet they’d had plenty of money to throw around when they’d designed and built these new council offices. The building was less than two years old, all steel and glass, with no expense spared when it came to making it look impressive, as the three-storey high atrium testified.
However, expense certainly had been spared when it came to the behind-the-scenes offices. Jack’s office was titchy and whoever had designed his workspace had evidently never worked in an office before. The angle of the desk was wrong, and the light from the window shone directly on his screen, meaning he had to keep the blinds drawn all day.
With a sigh he puffed out his cheeks, cross with himself. He was only thirty-four, but he was beginning to sound like someone twice his age. He was turning into a right grumpy old man!
‘Here you go, love; a full English and a coffee.’ Sue placed the laden plate down on the table, along with some cutlery and a large mug of coffee, and leant in close. ‘I’ve put you an extra slice of bacon and another sausage,’ she whispered, giving him a wink.
Jack smiled and shook his head at her. ‘Be careful you don’t get into trouble,’ he warned. Sue was forever giving him extra portions, and he wondered whether he looked as though he needed fattening up. He wasn’t a hunk by any stretch of the imagination, leaning more towards skinny rather than buffed. It was a result of all the exercise he did. It didn’t do to carry too much weight when he was running upwards of twenty kilometres several times a week. He used to run marathons, and although he no longer did (too many hamstring injuries to run that kind of mileage anymore), he liked to keep his hand in, so to speak.
Picking up his cutlery, he was about to tuck in when chattering from the floor below caught his attention and he cringed. He would recognise that voice anywhere. Placing his knife and fork on the edge of the plate, he shuffled back in his seat, and risked leaning forward to peep over the balustrade, hoping he wouldn’t be spotted. The last thing he needed today was for his ex-girlfriend to see him.
He was right, it was her. Chantelle, along with some of her cronies, was walking through the concourse, but thankfully she didn’t look up. Since he’d broken up with her a few weeks ago, he had changed his habits somewhat. It used to be that he’d have a proper breakfast – because she insisted they ate together – and he’d eat lunch at lunchtime, which she had also expected to have with him. If it had been up to Chantelle, they would have spent every minute of every day together: except when she was “putting her face on”. For some reason, she had never let him see her without makeup, and when she had a shower or a bath before bed (with the door securely locked) she would reapply it again before she emerged from the bathroom. He had never been able to work out why. Chantelle was a pretty woman: as far as he was concerned she didn’t need to wear makeup at all. Anyway, he had loved her regardless of how curly and long her lashes were, or how flawless her skin.
Loved.Past tense, and not strictly accurate.
On looking back, Jack realised he had never truly loved her, although he had cared for her. Which was a shame, and depressing, and he did feel very sorry for her, because she had clearly loved him, possibly more than was good for either of them.
Chantelle had pursued him with a doggedness that rivalled a wolf after a deer (he liked nature programmes), persistently and without any let up. Which surprised him, as he wasn’t good-looking, or popular, or sociable. Jack did not consider himself a good catch.
For some reason, Chantelle did.
At first, he was flattered – what man wouldn’t have been? – and he’d fallen in with her plans and suggestions, gradually letting her into his life, deeper and deeper until she’d become so entrenched that she had assumed they would get married. When she’d discovered he had no intention of asking her, despite her many and varied hints, she had asked him.
Her reaction to his stuttered and embarrassed refusal hadn’t been pretty.
Which was why he was so baffled as to her continued attempts for them to get back together. It was almost as though she refused to believe he didn’t love her.
He liked her immensely (or he had done until she had become so incredibly intense) and he’d found her witty and good fun to be with. But that wasn’t enough of a reason to spend the rest of his life with her. Call him old-fashioned, but he wanted what his sister had. Della was head-over-heels in love with Scott. It shone out of her like light through an uncurtained window, and she was positively radiant with happiness. Jack envied her enormously.
He waited for Chantelle to move out of sight before he picked his cutlery up once more. He’d better get his brunch inside him, otherwise he would be seriously late back from his break. Anyway, Sue wouldn’t forgive him if he failed to polish it all off, and he didn’t want to get on her wrong side, not when there were surreptitious extra sausages and slices of bacon in the offing.
But as he munched his way through more calories than he cared to count, his thoughts returned to the email from his sister and his heart sank. He knew he was going to have to put his home on the market and find somewhere else to live. Sharpish.