Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
IAIN
No matter what he did, a pair of bright, hazel eyes and head of thick red curls had haunted Iain since Saturday. In the clarity of the sunshine bouncing off of Cardigan Bay’s waters, those eyes had been so vibrant he’d had to force himself to look away from the traps they’d been setting for him too many times to count.
His friends from his rugby club always taunted him about how he enjoyed walking the countryside with a bunch of retirees, but they never took up his offer to join. Most of them had partners and kids to spend their weekends with instead, anyway, so it was a surprise to see someone his own age come along. He’d been caught so off guard by the woman falling out of the minibus that he hadn’t thought to ask who she was until five minutes later, when he’d done his best in the cramped space of the only two seats conveniently left to give her room. A stranger.
Maisie Moss. Ms Vera’s vibrant granddaughter. She looked a little younger than him, maybe around thirty. His thirty-fifth birthday had been in November, so it wasn’t as though there was a huge difference between them.
Before they’d even said one word to each other, he’d been forced to put his hands on her. With only a blink to react, they’d gone without any thought at all to above her waist, all because his dopey dog couldn't resist one whiff of someone else’s food. She’d looked embarrassed, so he’d done the polite thing – the right thing – and brushed it all aside.
The showroom where he worked was so silent this Tuesday morning that Iain didn’t have anything else to do other than tap a pen to his desk and replay the three hours of conversation he’d had with Maisie at the weekend.
He’d tried to tell himself since that he wasn’t the least bit intrigued by her, but it was a lie.
What was a young woman in web-design doing moving from London, arguably the hub of all things business in England, to a seaside town in mid-Wales to live with her nain ? She’d said that she wanted a change of scenery, but something didn’t add up, and Iain suspected that it had everything to do with the thick purple cast on Ms Vera’s wrist. And what she’d been doing on the hike … well, that had puzzled him too. But she’d given up details for why she’d been there so easily, as if she’d never had anyone listen to her before; a definite duck out of water amongst the group.
Maisie might not have wanted to be there initially, her presence was obviously not her idea, but she asked enough questions that tested his local knowledge to say that she was at least a little intrigued. She asked questions about him, too, and it seemed like she actually wanted to know the answers. So he’d indulged her, just a little. Enough to satisfy her before she realised how pathetic his life was.
And she’d listened .
How sad was it that a complete stranger had made a knot inside of his chest ache to be released because she’d listened to him. For three hours. He’d memorised that enraptured look on her freckled face, the parting of her plump lips, when he’d told her the story of Sarn Gynfelyn.
Iain might have flirted a little on the hike too, though whether his attempts translated as flirting or not was anyone’s guess. Maisie looked so stressed at her first sight of the cliffs that he’d thought a little levity might take the edge off. His rusty skills weren’t expert at flirting – it’d been a long bloody time since he’d used them – but he knew how to throw out a line or two. Her full cheeks had turned pink on occasion just from when he’d looked at her alone. The default of his expression had always been an irritated stiffness he’d inherited from his father, so Iain was stumped by her reaction, to say the least.
Rain pelted down on the showroom’s glass windows for walls.
Two customers had come in today so far, both of them so indecisive about what it was they were looking for from a kitchen that Iain was stuck for how to help them. He could show them as many worktop samples, prefab units, and floor tiles as he liked, but if they didn’t know what aesthetic they wanted in the first place, then how was he supposed to narrow it down from the entire brick-thick catalogue of options?
In the end, they’d taken some photos but not made one single decision, so the hour had been a complete waste of Iain’s time. He didn’t even know why he worked in sales when he saw no future there. Plus, his face wasn’t exactly the open, friendly sort that was supposed to break record sales.
Mari, on the other hand – the twenty-something, glossy haired brunette who occupied the other desk across the showroom – knew how to make a sale. He wouldn’t be a prick and say it was because of her objectionably attractive looks and her welcoming smile; she was actually damn good at her job. Better than him, at least, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. She came into the showroom with a pep in her high-heeled step, whereas Iain would rather be anywhere else.
Why he hadn’t gotten fired already, he didn’t know.
The sound of Mari’s manicured nails clicking at her keyboard carried across the low tunes of the radio echoing in the showroom, bouncing off all the shiny new surfaces of bath tubs, toilets, and taps. Iain lifted his phone and drummed on the back of it. He was tempted to text Ms Vera to ask how Maisie was. If that was her first hike, which it looked like it likely was, then her body would probably be sore as hell, and the way that she’d landed in those stinging nettles wouldn’t have been pleasant for her either.
Would it be crossing an invisible line to ask? He didn’t know, but he’d do so in a separate chat outside the group one which amused him to no end. Every person from a younger generation should experience being in a group thread with thirteen pensioners at least once in their life. The use of emojis was – accidental or not – dirtier than his group text with his rugby mates.
He opened Ms Vera’s contact and hovered his thumb over the green ‘message’ button. Would it put the wrong ideas into Ms Vera’s mind if he texted to ask about her granddaughter? Probably.
He hadn’t been bullshitting Maisie when he’d said Vera had talked about her, always when he was around, Iain recalled. He’d figured that it was a ploy to get him – a terminally single man – intrigued about this unseen granddaughter, until he realised that a) the topics of gossip weren’t flattering to the granddaughter at all, and b) the granddaughter lived in London, too far away for Iain to consider showing any interest.
Except, now she was here.
He’d never expected to actually meet her, and Maisie Moss wasn’t how he’d pictured her at all. From the way Ms Vera spoke, he’d expected someone frail and meek. Someone who would have seen his gruffness as brutishness and ran a mile the other way. But who’d turned up was a larger, curvier woman with enough personality to fill every inch of her. Ted was right to have run to her (even if it was only to nab her breakfast) – none of those things about the real Maisie put Iain off at all. He was a grown arse man who could handle a grown arse woman, and he’d walked behind her on enough inclines that morning to get a good glimpse at her arse.
Whatever . He couldn’t think too much about how if he saw her again, then it wouldn’t be a bad thing. He guessed that if she was going to stay with the group then he’d be seeing her a fair bit more. Though he was in no fit state to entertain dating a woman, even in his mind. Especially that. It was a car crash in there, and like for most of his life, Iain put fixing the wreckage aside. If things hadn’t gone arse about face without warning almost two years ago, he’d be married now. He’d be happy. He wouldn’t be eighteen months into a new life having abandoned the old.
His thumb still hovered over the ‘message’ icon in Ms Vera’s contact, his brows pulling further together with each second of the ticking clock on his desk.
The elders had glanced back at them enough for him to sense trouble – the meddling kind. But the incident with the nettles had been unfortunate, and Maisie’s brand-new boots— idiotic —had caused her to hobble the last half an hour up to Constitution Hill and back to Aberystwyth’s promenade, scratching at everywhere the nettles had stung her.
“Fuck it,” Iain muttered whilst Take That’s popular tunes lowly filled the showroom.
It was just friendly consideration. That was all.
Iain H
Pnawn da? * , Vera, hope you’re having a nice day. Wondered how Maisie is fairing after the walk? Sorry it didn’t end well for her.
There. It was done.
He’d said what he’d wanted to, and now he could put his phone down and continue staring out of windows at the sheets of rain and vehicles coming in and out of the industrial estate.
“Iain?”
The sound of his manager’s voice made his stomach tense.
“Could you come into my office for a moment?”
Iain caught Mari’s eye across the showroom, finding himself being given a small smile of encouragement. He wouldn’t be standoffish with her – she was a kind young woman who put up with his grumpiness every day – so he gave her the most shallow twitch of a companionable smile that she might not have interpreted from under his beard anyway.
Being called into the boss’ office wasn’t that uncommon for either of them. Gareth was a decent guy, liked to have check-ins with his employees every other week. Iain always said that things were fine by default. It was easier than the truth which was that he was bored out of his little brain of this mundane life. But this time, as he stood and flattened down his mandatory tie and shirt tucked into navy trousers, he didn’t feel like he was going to be asked if he’d touched any grass recently.
He stood himself in the doorway of Gareth’s office in the back of the showroom, the hole where his boss managed problems that were above Iain’s pay grade to care about. “Is something wrong?”
“Take a seat.” Without looking up, his boss gestured across his desk.
Iain curled down into the plastic chair, hands linked between his thighs.
Elbows dropping on the desk, Gareth dragged his hand over his blonde bristles of a beard. There was maybe ten years between them, Iain didn’t really know, but only one of them here had a house above the Afon Ystwyth ? * overlooking the marina. Only one of them actually shared any passion for the various wood cabinets and ceramic sinks out there.
“I don’t want to have to say this,” Gareth began, “but we’ve got a problem.”
The dread that people normally felt when their boss said ‘we’ve got a problem’ didn’t swell in Iain’s gut like maybe it should’ve. “Okay.”
“Your performance last year was … not what we would hope for.”
Ah. Here it was: the day that he’d been waiting for.
“I like you,” Gareth continued, “and I like to think that I’m a good boss, but if your sales don’t improve then we’re going to have to look at alternative arrangements.”
It wasn’t the hardest code to decipher to say that he would be let go.
This was the first job Iain had taken when he’d moved to Aber. He hadn’t cared what it was; he’d just needed something to hold down the mortgage he’d taken out to live here when his world had collapsed. It was safe to say that his passions didn’t lie with kitchens and bathrooms. Aside from rugby and hiking, Iain didn’t think that he had any. None he could make a living from if he walked away from this job. He couldn’t just go when he had nothing else to walk away to, years of savings sunk into a wedding that never happened, and mortgage repayments to make on his one-bed terraced house. Then there was Ted as well to think about feeding, too.
What was he, a farm boy with no qualifications or real talents, supposed to do?
“So I’m … not being fired?” he clarified, just in case he’d misunderstood.
“Correct.”
The man was an idiot. Gareth looked at him with a self-satisfied slant in his lips as though he was the saving grace that Iain needed. In truth, he should’ve been fired months ago.
Iain pulled himself together with a forced push at enthusiasm. “What would you like me to do?”
“First” — Gareth rolled his chair back and pulled a freshly printed sheet of paper from the tray of the printer, the wet ink permeating the air — “these are your sales and billed consultations per quarter from last year. These are Mari’s and my own. And this is the target that I want you to reach.”
Fucking hell. Iain followed the blunt tip of Gareth’s finger across the sheet of tables and charts. His numbers weren’t so bad – not so terrible as he’d thought – looking at them next to Mari and Gareth’s. But there was a definite dip below his name. The new target, though, was optimistic at best. Gareth wanted him on par with Mari. Bubbly Mari who could sell wool to a shepherd. It was doable, he supposed, if he actually smiled more and received a personality transplant. But there was little in his dull world that could make him actually care.
“I know that you were going through a few things when you joined us,” Gareth said in a coddling tone that was almost insulting, “which is why I’ve been lenient. But it’s been eighteen months. I can’t let things slide much longer, so I’m going to give you eight weeks to make this turnaround.”
Iain knew that he should just suck it up. He was thirty-five and acting like a child doing the bare minimum on their homework. This job might not be ideal, but it kept food on his table and a roof over his head.
Still, he had to get out of this rut.
* ? Good afternoon
* ? River Ystwyth