Chapter Forty-Three
The luxury cattery delivered Pebble back to my flat two hours after I’d got home.
My second load of washing was in, and I was drinking my third cup of tea, dressed in comfy leggings and an enormous fisherman’s knit jumper I’d bought in a local charity shop the winter before.
I’d opened a window to let the traffic fumes in, or ‘air the room’.
London was still cold, but there was a certain brightness to the air which indicated spring might be on its way, eventually.
I’d got used to Venice’s Renaissance colour and light, but there was something about the familiarity of London’s pale sunshine that caught happily at my heart.
Carefully delivered in a sustainable cardboard cat carrier, which, the courier perkily told me, I could re-purpose as a cat enrichment activity, Pebble looked out at me, almost definitely furious and completely oblivious to the three-figure sum I’d paid out for her care during the Venice trip, solely because she’d scared our neighbour so much with her disappearing antics a few weeks before.
I made a mental note not to tell Dad that I’d paid so much for her care: I could just imagine the words but she’s just a cat writ large across his features.
I let Pebble out and she disappeared under my bed while I made my fourth cup of tea and called Natasha, Dad’s Account Manager, to assure her that I could pay Dad’s increasing service charge.
I even managed not to click my tongue when she told me the amount, or to enquire whether they were putting gold leaf in the desserts, or even to snarkily slip in something like still doesn’t include any utilities then?
Natasha liked talking and was in the process of using eighty-five words when ten would do.
Just as I thought my sanity was finally slipping from me, Pebble reappeared and climbed into my lap, where she proceeded to ‘make biscuits’, kneading me lovingly with her paws and purring.
My angry little cat had somehow decided to demonstrate her (grudging) love for me.
I listened to Natasha’s voice, as Pebble kneaded, my slow blink echoing hers in a declaration of love. When I finally managed to hang up the phone, I leaned forward and kissed Pebble on the head.
She glared at me, leapt off my lap, and skittered under the bed.
‘I’m going to get a dog in my next life,’ I called to her.
I lay down on the sofa, watching the play of light on the ceiling as my breathing steadied.
I was home, and relieved to be home, but a sense of homesickness still had its claws in me.
Perhaps because I was homesick for a person, rather than a place.
The next day, 8am, and I was walking into The Hexagon, curly hair just about in check, wearing a denim jumpsuit (not black!) and white and yellow Adidas sneakers, coffee in hand and gliding like I’d never had a professional worry in my life. Whatever choppy waters were waiting for me, I was ready.
Katrina was at Sasha’s desk, cheery and organised but also clearly a little nervous. I smiled warmly at her and saw her relax. ‘Thanks so much for holding the fort,’ I said. ‘Do we need to have a catch-up?’
‘That would be good,’ she said. ‘I’ve mainly sent holding messages for enquiries when Becky and Jana couldn’t deal with them.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Let’s speak at eleven.’
She left and I turned on my computer, watching email after email download, one per second. I’d answered a load the day before, sitting on the sofa, but of course they had freshly replenished themselves overnight.
I opened the top email (usually not my policy, I always start at the bottom normally) but this one was from Esme and was titled, mysteriously, ‘Conversation’, so I went to it first.
Sweet Lizzy,
We need to converse about your role with us, going forward.
In all honesty, you did a less than stellar job promoting Chroma to the VIPs.
Of course, your five percent is anyone else’s one hundred percent, you are my first class high achieving warrior, Lizzy.
And yet. I have noticed a certain cynicism in you of late.
I understand why you are cynical, I really do.
A woman doesn’t achieve all that you have in this stormy warry world without growing a thick skin.
But Chroma does not need cynicism: it is anti-cynicism.
Ajax and I intend to start work on it again soon, and with open hearts.
Lizzy, you have always been my warrior. Can I co-opt you to fight on the side of Good, of Chroma?
Let’s chat when you get the chance.
E xx
I stared at the words on the screen, my mind blank with the kind of anger that is so all-encompassing it clearly comes from feelings that have been long buried.
‘What the actual…’ I muttered to myself.
There were at least fifteen things wrong with this email, but the main issue was the sheer injustice of it.
I was being blamed for the chaos of the investors’ meeting, when Esme and Ajax had just left their precious project high and dry?
Their defenceless baby Chroma in the hands of a ‘cynical’ warrior?
Also vom, it sounded as though she had joined a cult.
It was definitely the most cringey email I’d ever received at work, and I felt something give in me. Something that had been in the process of breaking for weeks, possibly months.
I was still shaking my head when there was a gentle tap on the door: Katrina popped her head round nervously. ‘Ellie in HR would like to see you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I told her you were free, should I have checked with you before I said that?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll pop up now.’ Any excuse to get away from this email, I thought to myself.
As an experience in itself, I always liked visiting Ellie, our HR manager, unless some shit was going down.
She had a lovely office, complete with a range of teas and coffees, a grey linen-covered button-backed sofa and a box of tissues on the nearby coffee table, just like a therapist. It was also one of the offices with smoked glass, so people couldn’t be seen weeping or shouting.
When I knocked on the door, she opened it just a crack, then stepped out and shut it behind her. ‘There’s someone here who wants to apologise to you,’ she said. ‘It’s Sasha.’
I felt my heart fall in my chest. Realised that, in that split second, I had hoped it would be Olly. That I was looking for him everywhere.
‘Are you okay to speak to her?’ said Ellie. ‘There’s no obligation to.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said.
She nodded, and turned back, holding the door open for me.
Sasha was sitting in the middle of the grey sofa, and she was crying.
‘Right,’ I said, looking at her, aware that Ellie was watching my reaction.
She looked like the Sasha I remembered: gone were the stilettos, thick make-up and smooth hair (it was good to see her fresh-skinned face), as were the figure-hugging dresses and manicured nails.
‘Sasha asked if she could speak to you,’ Ellie said, looking intensely uncomfortable, ‘if you’re okay with that, Lizzy? I’m going to stay in the room, of course.’
I nodded. ‘Hey, Sasha,’ I said, as she went into a fresh volley of sobs. ‘How are you?’ I took a step towards her, and found myself folding my arms across my chest, not wanting to sit next to her. Whatever warmth had been between us was totally gone.
She shook her head, catching her breath. ‘I’m so sorry, Lizzy. I know I let you down. I know I betrayed your trust. I wanted to— to— apologise, in person. I wanted you to know that I can’t believe what I did.’
The silence hung in the air a moment too long.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the apology.’
‘I’ve told Ellie everything,’ she said, her breath juddering. ‘It’s in writing. I violated the confidentiality agreement. I gave the pictures to Jack.’
I nodded, not knowing what to do, what to say.
‘He dumped me.’ She was crying again, so bitterly I could hardly bear to look at her poor face. ‘He said I was just a stupid little girl.’
I flashed back to Venice, nearly three years before. Me and Jack on the edge of the lagoon, arguing about me taking a call from home. ‘You think you’re all grown up,’ he’d said, ‘but at the end of the day you’re just Daddy’s little girl, aren’t you?’
That’s when it had hit me: he wasn’t just a bit wicked. He was plain nasty.
‘He said that to me, too,’ I said, glancing at Ellie, who looked back sympathetically. ‘You’d think the dumbass would get some new lines.’
‘He said it to you?’ Sasha looked astonished.
‘Yes.’
Ellie cleared her throat, and we looked at her. ‘Thank you, Lizzy. Obviously, in light of what Sasha has admitted to, we will be going through a formal disciplinary procedure.’
I nodded, and Sasha did, too. She was starting to calm down, shocked out of the onslaught of pure emotion. She took another tissue and started to dab at her face. ‘Would you ever work with me again?’ she said, plaintively. ‘I really did appreciate all of your guidance. You are amazing, Lizzy.’
I tried for a smile; I think I got halfway there. ‘Let’s just see what happens,’ I said. ‘But thank you for speaking to me, and for telling the truth. It’s the right thing to do.’
She caught her breath. ‘I can’t believe I was so unprofessional,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have let everything get so personal.’
That, I had sympathy with. ‘Business always gets personal, whether we want it to or not,’ I said. ‘Because we’re people. Not machines. But I take your point.’