Chapter 5
There was no footpath along the road, but it was straight and quiet enough in places that I’d hopefully get a heads up if a car or a lorry came careening through.
Was it Cahr-lins-rest or Care-lin-srest? It felt rude to ask. What if everyone thought I was just another ignorant southerner come to buy property out from under the noses of locals? It was probably better to keep my mouth shut. Don’t bother anyone. Just—
“Morning!”
I came up from my thoughts so fast I swear it gave me the bends. A grey moustached man in an anorak was stood on a stile. He smiled and waved. A group of similarly anoraked people smiled behind him. A hill rose above them, like a great green wave coming to crash down on us all.
“I said, morning!”
I froze, mouth gulping air.
“Thought the countryside was supposed to be friendly,” one of the man’s companions muttered.
The man laughed. I walked away, taking the left road to the village, flustered but determined not to look back.
The man had a point. I was a countryside person now.
I should probably make the effort to be more friendly.
Did that mean waving to every hiker, dogwalker and weekender I saw?
I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel comfortable doing that.
Hello! Morning! It felt so weird. But that’s what I was here for—to do better, to become better—so I had to try. Fake it till I make it!
Then keep faking it and faking it and faking it and—
No, this time will be different.
In the past, I know I’ve come across as a bit of a cold fish. I’d say I’m guarded, but some mistake it for snobbishness, I think. What happened my first day at the office is a prime example.
I don’t come from office workers. My dad was a postman, my mother a nurse.
Everything I knew about working a desk job I’d learned from TV and films. When I got the job, I bought myself a whole wardrobe based on those assumptions.
I imagined a confident modern career woman, thought about what she’d wear, and bought that: a white blouse and some waxed black trousers, the closest I could get to leather without having cloying dead animal hide on top of my skin all day.
It was an outfit that was soft and hard at once. Do no harm, take no shit.
As I was walked around the office, I made sure to smile and shake hands with everyone, trying my best to memorise the dozens of names.
Then I was shown to my desk. It was on the edge of a bank of other desks, sticking out into one of the main walkways through the office.
There was no computer. Just a branded notebook and a desk phone.
When I pointed this out, I was given an iPad to look over the company website and ‘familiarize myself with their brand’.
That’s okay, I thought. They’re probably too busy to onboard you just now.
I looked around at my new colleagues, wondering if I should ask what they were working on and if I could help.
Bounce some ideas. Make a round of tea. Everyone had their heads down, focused on their screens, headphones firmly set in place.
I noticed that everyone wore hoodies and t-shirts, not the blouses and tailored trousers I’d been led to expect.
The desk to my left had one of those weighted, standing desk add-ons; the kind that could be placed on top of a normal desk instead of replacing it with an actual and expensive standing desk with motorised pistons and extending legs.
It belonged to a taciturn man called Alan who was big into body-building and unseasoned, microwaved chicken.
The standing desk’s sprung crossbeams shook under the weight of design books, a treasure trove of dirty mugs, and the force of his typing.
I half-expected a note to be taped to the edge saying KEEP OUT or NO GIRLS ALLOWED.
The phone on my desk rang. I’d looked around at the rest of the team. No one looked up. I reached for the phone and hesitated. I wondered why someone would be calling me already. I looked at the others again. No reaction. I picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Who’s this?” A voice, clipped, terse.
“Uh, hi, I’m Tamsin. I’m the new email writer.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
“This used to be Issy’s phone.”
I looked around the bank of desks. There was a white-blonde woman on my right. She had her headphones on, eyes glued to her screen. The mug on her desk said ISOLDE’S PATIENCE. I think the person who’d shown me around had called her Issy.
“Maybe they moved the desks around? I don’t know. It’s literally my first day.”
“Can you get Issy to call me?”
“Um, yeah?”
And the voice hung up. I looked at Issy.
Her eyes were still on her screen. I tried to lean into her field of vision without disturbing anyone else.
I waved at her. She glanced at me, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face, then looked back at the screen.
A few seconds later she licked her lips and took off her headphones.
“What do you need?” Her tone had that forced friendliness to it like you get at the end of the night at a bar.
“Sorry, are you Issy?”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
“Yep, and I’m chasing a deadline.”
“Uh, someone called asking for you.” I pointed at the phone, as if that might clear things up. “Sorry, I didn’t get their name.”
“Probably Mel.”
“They wanted you to give them a call.”
“Okay.” She moved to put her headphones back on.
I looked at the phone then back at Issy.
“It seemed pretty urgent.”
Issy looked at me for a moment.
“Yeah, I’ll give her a call in a second.” Friendliness even more forced now. She put her headphones back on and got back to work. I pretended to look busy on the iPad for the rest of the day.
By the time it came to six o’clock all I wanted to do was go home and recuperate. I’d done nothing, but I felt exhausted. I hurried down the stairs toward the foyer. Before I could leave, Issy tapped my shoulder.
“Some of us are heading out for a drink. Want to come with?”
I couldn’t read her expression. She had that cool impassive look that could be boredom or disinterest or nerves. I was so tired I couldn’t figure out which. That’s when I made my fatal mistake.
“Sorry, I’ve got a thing.”
Her eyebrows raised and she huffed a little out of her nose.
“Oh, sure. A ‘thing’.”
Standoffish. Snobbish. A cold fish.
“No, I really—” God, what was I doing? “Next time, yeah?”
“Sure,” she said and left through the door without looking at me. I already knew there wouldn’t be a next time.
I saw my outfit reflected in the glass doors as she left. The shirt was wrinkled in several places, and the waistband of the trousers had slid down my hips a little so they sagged around the crotch. It looked like I had deflated. The overhead lighting caught my hangdog expression perfectly.
I’d like to think if Issy and the others had ever stuck around, waited for me to warm up a little, they’d find me worth the wait.
But very few did. Stick around, I mean. Not at the office.
Not anywhere in the city, really. I tried the usual antidotes: going to bars, signing up to gym classes, joining a book club.
But none of it worked. There seemed to be this need to be instantly knowable, constantly reachable, but always at a polite distance.
Everything was organised through convoluted apps and always-on instant messaging that left me feeling both dizzy and violated.
That’s why it was so important now to be different here, where life was slower, more intimate. This was my chance at a fresh start. A friendlier, warmer, more open me. I would not make the same mistake again.
I followed the river toward Carlinsrest, until eventually I reached the bridge into the village.
It was an ancient-looking thing, made with rounded stones dotted with lichen and moss.
A less-ancient-but-still-visibly-old sign had been fastened to one of its pillars, reading BODACHS brIG.
Coming over the other side was an elderly gentleman, wearing a tan sweater vest and a flat cap tucked between what looked like two antlers atop his head.
I squinted. As he got closer, I saw the antlers were two tufts of wiry white hair.
He was pushing a wheelchair bearing an equally ancient lady, wrapped up in an old wax jacket, two sizes too big for her, hood up, head back, mouth open and snoring.
Next to the two of them trotted a lively collie, tongue flapping out the side of its mouth.
Perfect. Here was my chance. Time to be a countryside person.
I put on my best most happy-normal-person smile.
“Morning!”
The old man shuffled past with barely a glance in my direction. Not even the dog paid me any attention.
I felt the smile turn to a rictus on my face. Had I got it the wrong way round? Was it only tourists that said hello to strangers on rural roads?
The old man shunted the woman’s wheelchair over a cobblestone and a folded bit-of-something fluttered out of his pocket.
A dying pink butterfly. No. Two fifty-pound notes.
They scuttled across the floor, caught on some breeze, and came to a rest at my feet.
I caught them with my boot before they could get blown off the bridge and into the river.
I looked up and down the road. There was no one else to notice. I briefly considered my rapidly disappearing savings and the price of replacing my broken windscreen. Then I quietly gathered the notes off the floor, dusted them against my sleeve, and jogged after the old man.
“Excuse me,” I said. “You dropped this.”
The old man looked at me, looked at the notes, then took them slowly out of my hands with a curt nod. Then he turned, farted—a low, singular parp—and went on his way.
I blinked in surprise. I didn’t know why I had even bothered.
My reflection gazed up at me from the river below, expression veiled in shadow.
Well, what did you expect? A fucking parade for not being a thief?
Okay. Maybe the next interaction would be the one. Then I would be better.