Chapter Five
Oops, they’d done it again. Ajax and Esme, issuers of impromptu announcements, had put out a call for team members to work on Chroma.
It was heavy on promises of excitement and on exclamation marks, and when I put in a call to Dawson and Rachel, the EKArts website team, they confessed Ajax had called them and insisted on having a username and password for the CMS.
‘You gave a complete stranger access to our website?’ I said loudly, standing outside a French patisserie as I took the call. I stared at the display in the window and wondered if eating an entire croquembouche would make me feel better.
‘Esme cleared it,’ said Rachel, who was clearly feeling Not So Brave from the tremble in her voice.
‘But how did he get publishing rights?’ I said. ‘You have to approve everything before publication.’
Dawson mumbled into the speakerphone that Ajax had insisted he clear it. ‘On pain of death,’ he said. Dawson was a frustrated medieval historian.
‘Did he really say pain of death?’ I asked.
‘More like, publish it, or you’re out,’ he said. ‘I still said no. Then a nice Scottish man came on the line and persuaded me to do it.’
I closed my eyes. There was a silence, followed by a whoomp-whoomp sound I couldn’t identify.
‘What’s that noise?’ I said, frowning.
Rachel again. ‘He’s eating marshmallows.’
Dawson only ate marshmallows when he was very, very stressed.
This was too much. I was going to set some boundaries, whether Esme wanted me to or not. I looked up a location on Maps and descended into the underground at a fast clip. I needed to look someone in the eye and get my point across.
Resilience Needs was based, surprisingly, in a mid-19th century building in Clerkenwell, a former workshop. The cheery security guard told me that ‘Mr Banks has gone to the gym, but Mr MacLeod is available.’
‘He’ll do fine,’ I said, removing my black leather gloves finger by finger.
I was directed up a concrete staircase, through a metal door into a room of bare bricks and white light; an open-plan office, smaller than EKArts, with barely a single interior wall in sight.
Framed prints advertised Good Vibes Only; Healthy Mind, Healthy Body; Only Begin.
A cheery sign in mock-Victorian print pointed to a Refuelling Station which contained, from a quick glance, a variety of fruits, vegetables, protein bars and juices of many colours.
Glancing to my left, I saw a young man in a suit who was trotting towards me.
In one hand he was squeezing a grip trainer; yes, he was actually exercising on the move. ‘Elizabeth?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Carl, Olly’s EA. He can see you straight away, if you’ll follow me.’
I felt eyes on me as I strode across the open-plan office with my iciest expression on my face. Like me, Olly had his own glass-walled office; he appeared to be reading a document on his screen, sitting perfectly upright, jacket and scarf shed, shirt sleeves rolled up.
Very broad shoulders indeed.
Carl ushered me into the room without saying a word, and sped away, swapping the grip trainer to the other hand.
‘Hey, Elizabeth,’ Olly said, without looking at me.
‘Hey, Oliver,’ I said grimly.
He looked up and blinked; I saw him take in every detail of my appearance. Sniper gaze. ‘Grab a seat. Nice march through the office, by the way.’
‘Like Dante descending into the circles of hell,’ I said, in as light a tone as possible. ‘In the middle of my life, I have found myself in a dark forest.’
‘I mean, great,’ he said.
‘By the way,’ I said, giving him a chilly smile, ‘no wonder you hoovered up all of our pastries. Such an impressive array of healthy, healthy snacks.’
‘Do I sense an air of criticism?’ he said, his lips quirking up. ‘We get gym memberships as part of our employment package. One of the cornerstones of Ajax’s staff policy is his focus on wellness. Anyway, we need the protein. Otherwise we’d all be weak from working out so much.’
Completely involuntarily, my eyes flicked to his forearms, resting on the desk.
God, they were big. Big and corded with muscle.
Never mind the action which had to be going on under that shirt.
Looking at him made me feel about as healthy as a Victorian consumptive booked on a last-ditch trip to Switzerland to see the mountains before I died.
Oliver cleared his throat. ‘Something specific you wanted?’ he said gently.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I heard about the website announcement. Phoning my team and threatening them?’
‘I threatened nobody,’ he said, and I realised his soft, cultivated Scottish accent could also sound flinty and cold.
‘Ajax did. You need to rein him in.’
He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘Do I, though?’ he said. ‘I thought I’d let the puppy get his zoomies out of his system. Your puppy, too.’
‘I think I understand the principle, but what are you even talking about?’
‘Sorry. I bought my niece and nephew a puppy. He careers round and round the garden to get his energy out. Hang on, I’ve got a video from when they came over last weekend—’
‘I don’t care about puppies, Oliver,’ I said, trying to ignore the vision of domestic bliss his words had conjured up.
He put his phone back down on the table.
‘What would you prefer to do?’ he said. ‘Pull them into the office and give them a good dressing down? You and I know they wouldn’t give a damn.
’ He gave an expansive what gives? gesture.
‘So they’ve sent out some kooky internal comms. They’re not stupid enough to make everything public without our guidance.
Let them brandish Chroma, their new little toy, in front of the kids.
Who have all signed confidentiality agreements on the day they joined us – ours have, at least.’
‘Mine have, too.’ I narrowed my eyes at him. This day was turning out to be one hundred percent more irritating than I had thought. And it was still only Monday.
Oliver’s phone made the sound of a clown’s nose squeaking (surprisingly whimsical), and he glanced at it. ‘I’ve got to go in a minute. Meeting.’ He looked at me again and frowned. ‘Just chill out, Lizzy.’ He put a hand up. ‘Everyone else calls you Lizzy so I’m going to as well. Unless we fight.’
I shook my head in exasperation at his cheeriness.
‘I don’t understand why you’re getting so stressed about this. Also’– he smiled – ‘although it’s great that you like quoting Dante, I think you might be overstating things.’
‘Great,’ I enthused sarcastically. ‘Thanks so much for correcting my course. Please feel free to nominate yourself for most patronising man of the year.’
He got up, snapping his computer to sleep with a combination of keys. ‘Lizzy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to say this, but you’re kind of being a dick.’
‘You’re the dick!’ I snapped, outraged. I leaned forward. ‘Rein Ajax in.’
‘I have a meeting. This company doesn’t run itself. Come back and talk to me when you’re ready to be polite.’
‘As opposed to calling someone a dick when they don’t agree with you?’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll just give HR a call about that one. Your company or mine?’
We stood, glaring at each other. His gaze was blank and cool, and for a moment I glimpsed exactly why Ajax had hired him. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Are you absolutely sure I can’t show you a puppy video?’ he said.
The mounting hysteria of the day overwhelmed me.
A choked giggle burst out of my mouth. I slapped my hand over my lips, but there was no stopping the laughter, especially when he started laughing, too.
I laughed until I couldn’t breathe, spurred on by the suddenly hilarious sight of Olly’s wide-eyed colleagues staring in at us.
I only stopped laughing when my phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out to see a message from a consultant about a meeting we’d been due to have.
‘Oh,’ gasped Olly. ‘I really do have to go to a meeting now.’
‘Puppies,’ I said, a smile spreading across my face again. I frowned as I looked at my phone again. ‘I really need to hop on a call with this person.’ I checked my watch, trying to calculate how long it would take to get back to EKArts.
‘So hop on a call with them.’ Olly swung his jacket on. ‘There’s a hot-desking area just past the snacks. Make yourself at home.’
He walked past me without another glance and I suppressed the childish urge to prod him in the arm as he passed. The idea of fighting with a colleague – never mind physically prodding them – was so out of character, I started to wonder if I was having some kind of nervous episode.
Olly directed Carl to help me and I walked back across the office with him, feeling slightly mollified, and managing to slip a snack pack of almonds off the Refuelling Station as we passed it.
‘May I get you a juice or smoothie, Lizzy?’ said Carl, who had mercifully relinquished his grip trainer. He ushered me to a small circular table by a window, which had various sockets and an adjustable chair.
‘Thank you, yes,’ I said, gazing at the menu he handed me. Each smoothie seemed to contain more fruits and seeds than a health food shop and a farmer’s market combined. I hadn’t even heard of some of them.
I looked up at Carl’s expectant face.
‘Can I just have a purple one?’ I said.
Not even a flicker crossed his face. ‘Certainly.’ He smiled and nodded, which reminded me of Ajax. ‘Healthy body, healthy mind.’
‘I prefer healthy disrespect for authority,’ I said.
Poor Carl looked puzzled. ‘I’ll get you that drink straight away,’ he said.
I glanced up to see Olly, about to disappear down the staircase, smiling and shaking his head. As he disappeared, my phone vibrated with a message from him.
Don’t toy with the children, Lizzy. They can’t handle it.