Fruit Flies
FRUIT FLIES
There are fruit flies everywhere. They dance in front of Shirin and her colleagues, travel close to their ears, their noses, their mouths, their eyes. Joanie says they like the moisture. An email was sent round by the facilities team detailing the fly problem. The staff are blamed for eating food at their desks and are told that Tupperware will be put on everyone’s desks over the next few days and all food must be stored within these boxes. The cleaners have been briefed to throw away any food they see left overnight that is not in the aforementioned Tupperware.
When Shirin went to make her morning coffee, she saw that the flies had made their way into the coffee machine and were festering within the ground coffee. Rather than say anything, she went down to the café, where she paid ￡2.80 for an Americano instead. Now she has returned to the kitchen and sees one of the catering staff emptying out the coffee machine, throwing all the coffee into the bin.
“It’s gross, isn’t it?” she says.
He shakes his head, the picture of disappointment. She does not know his name, but sometimes sees him and they make small talk. He is passionate about the coffee machine, about filling it up. He tells her occasionally about the different kinds of coffee, or the mechanics of the machine. He is bald-headed, with kind brown eyes. “I think there’s mice,” he says. “Dead mice somewhere in this building.”
Shirin frowns and cringes simultaneously. She has lived among mice in two flats before and their presence both times was the reason for her departure. It is their speed, their thin dirty tails, the way they can move through the smallest of spaces. If they were slow, less agile, she would begrudge them less.
“Do you think?” she says. “That’s even worse.”
He shrugs. “The flies are here for a reason.”
She gives him a closed-lipped smile as she walks back to her desk, swatting flies away from her eyes in the process.
In the afternoon all Hoffman employees are called into their main event space. It is one of the rooms in which they sometimes have author parties, with spectacular gray views of London. At the front of the room is a podium with two large screens. Chairs are placed in multiple rows for the audience, and people are also sitting on the floor to the sides or leaning against the walls to watch the presentation. All the highlights for the year—the big books that they want everyone to be talking about—are pitched by various editors and publishers.
Twenty minutes into the presentation the CEO, David Hoffman, saunters onto the stage. David is a middle-aged white man with a square face and thin, defined lips, and he is wearing his signature thick black circular glasses. He frequently wears chinos and cardigans and dresses like a middle-class dad—today is no exception. He speaks with a confident lisp as he says he has a very special announcement to make. He says, “Next slide please,” and that is when a headshot of Rob Grayson appears, large on the two screens either side of him. Shirin is so taken aback by the image that her body jolts and she looks round, like it must be a mistake. People around her appear mildly confused but do not match the abject horror on her face. Rob is looking dead into the camera, with a steely expression.
There are low murmurs around the room. David doesn’t say anything for at least a minute, letting the speculation mount. Shirin’s throat is dry and she shifts in her seat, crossing her legs, one over the other. She thought the room was a touch too warm when she initially entered, and now it is stifling. She has the urge to pretend none of this is happening; she wants to shut her eyes, put her hands over her ears, and just pretend. That is the reason why she avoids Mariam’s gaze next to her and keeps her eyes down on her chunky loafers.
“I, like many of you, couldn’t avoid the outcry surrounding Rob Grayson’s memoir being published—and then his deal being canceled. It bothered me that the sole reason his publishers pulled the book was because of bullying and endless tirades by people who hadn’t even read it. Objectivity is so important in our business. Our goal should simply be to publish great books. Does it matter really, then, who it is that we are publishing? Or maybe that’s the point: it does matter. And we want to publish everyone, to embrace freedom of speech for all . Diverse, inclusive publishing also means publishing people whose opinions you may not agree with. That is the true definition of diversity.
“Rob Grayson is an inspiration. I met with him and I heard from him how he climbed up the social ladder—from being a working-class kid in Hull to being an internationally renowned comedian.
“So, if you’ve not already gathered, Hoffman will be publishing Rob Grayson’s memoir, Free to Speak, this September. It’s not the same book as the one that was first signed up. It’s better. It’s a book calling for action. It will make you think about everything we see online, and it explores how cancel culture is very real and harmful to our society. We plan to make this the book absolutely everyone will be talking about.”
Shirin’s mouth is dry and her body feels like it is failing her. Her mind, however, is wondering: How? It’s a nonfiction title and no one in her team has mentioned it in any of their meetings. It is impossible.
“Of course none of this would be possible without the work of Lilian Rees and Florence Ainsworth, who very speedily whipped the material into shape. So I’d like to give them a big thank-you. And I’m very excited to announce that Rob will be coming in next week to speak about his book and sign some limited-edition bound excerpts,” David says.
Everyone around her begins to clap. Shirin raises her hands to mimic them, but she cannot put her hands together. Every element of her life is like a domino, and one by one they are falling down around her, leaving nothing upright. She keeps working hard to put them back up. But, unlike the other times in which she’s felt herself crumbling, it is anger that prevails now.
She looks at David, Florence, Lilian, and at the headshot of Rob. She is seething. Shirin was not able to take time off to see her grandmother before she passed away. When she tries to sleep she can hear Maman Bozorg’s voice saying it would make her year if Shirin were to visit. Instead of another wave of sadness passing over her now, she is determined and strangely relieved that she has finally fallen out of love with her job. She has accepted it. She will never be respected in this job, or treated as an equal to her peers. So now she will do her maman bozorg proud and stand up for what she believes in. She will stand up for herself.
Rob Grayson destroyed so much ten years ago. She thinks more and more of what Kian said—that back then, Rob’s treatment of Shirin wasn’t taken seriously. She can see it clearly for what it is now, that she was abused; that’s why she struggles to move on from it. Scars were left by him, and he got away with it. Well, she won’t let him do it again. She won’t let him succeed without a fight.